‘Hang on,’ he said to her. ‘Oi, Kai!’
The bar manager came out of the kitchen with a plate of food in his hand. He nodded politely at Hanlon, his mouth obviously full. Hanlon studied him carefully too. He was looking tired and drawn today, distracted. As well he might, Hanlon thought. After that exhausting walk earlier in the day. She wondered if he had met Big Jim on the way home.
He swallowed down whatever he had been eating.
‘I heard about your run-in with Big Jim,’ he said. He smiled. ‘That man is guy raj.’
‘I’m sorry?’ said Hanlon.
‘Raj means crazy,’ explained Donald. ‘He is a fucking arsehole. Now, Kai, make yourself useful and go and get my friend here a drink…’
‘Sure.’ He looked at Hanlon. ‘What would you like?’
‘She’ll have a Beck’s,’ said Donald, decisively.
‘I’ll have a Beck’s,’ Hanlon agreed. It seemed simpler than saying no.
Kai disappeared back into the kitchen.
‘So how did your conversation with the Harts go?’
Donald grinned wolfishly.
‘It went very well. I’ve got my backing confirmed. I think the Hart brothers like the idea of owning a place here. I think poor auld Big Jim is toast. Kai’s told me that there’s been a slew of cancellations after that girl died. People might have accepted one death in a hotel, but two? It’s like the place is cursed.’
‘And that won’t affect you?’
‘Och no. We’ll close for a refurb. The Harts have committed to doing the place properly. Redo the rooms and kitchen. We’ll reopen in the autumn and get everything bedded in for the new year. It’ll be fine.’
Hanlon nodded. It was hardly a surprise that Big Jim had run the place into the ground.
‘Could I borrow your kayak tomorrow morning?’ she asked. She wanted to go out and have a look at the Corryvreckan, keeping a safe distance. The idea of asking Big Jim to take her in the hotel boat had long ago lost its appeal.
‘Aye, sure. It’s all in guid order. Come round about half nine and I’ll help you carry it down to the shore. It’s not heavy, but it’s awkward.’
Kai returned with the Beck’s.
‘Thank you, Kai,’ she said.
‘Nae bother.’ He grinned conspiratorially at her. ‘Donald been filling youse in on his plans for the future?’
She nodded.
‘Aye, weel, I’ll be staying on.’
‘Only if you play your cards right, Kai,’ said Donald.
‘I always play my cards right, as well you know, Donald,’ he said, then, nodding to them, ‘I’d best get back to the bar. Thanks fae the lunch.’
He disappeared back inside. Hanlon drank her Beck’s.
‘Why are you hiring him?’
‘Och, he’s OK. He’s a known quantity. He can work the bar,’ Donald said dismissively. ‘He’s too chavvy for the restaurant.’
‘So it’s all working out well for you, then?’
‘Yes,’ Donald said thoughtfully, ‘It’s all going to plan.’
That evening McCleod picked Hanlon up from the car park at half six for the exercise class and they were at the village hall near Craighouse about ten minutes later. McCleod parked the Volvo and Wemyss moved around impatiently in the back, prowling around in the restricted space, anxious to be let out. Hanlon guessed it was separation anxiety. The dog wasn’t the only one feeling worried. She had come to the conclusion that she would have to tell McCleod about what had been happening. All of it. Her run-in with Franca, the party at the hotel, Campbell’s involvement, what she knew about Kai, the whole nine yards. She suspected that McCleod was going to explode, she probably would if the positions were reversed, but she had to go to the police with what she knew, and McCleod was certainly that.
‘No, you’ll have to stay,’ McCleod said sternly. Wemyss looked at her sadly and lay down disconsolately on his towel.
Hanlon looked at the loving tenderness on McCleod’s face as she stroked her dog’s head. I’ll tell her later, she thought, after the class.
Inside the hall there were about a dozen people standing in a row behind grey rubber exercise mats. The class instructor – McCleod had mentioned he was ex-army and he looked it, very short hair, mid-thirties, ripped and covered in tattoos – greeted them and handed them their mats.
Hanlon was standing next to McCleod and a bald, overweight man wearing ill-advised Lycra. The instructor spoke, issuing instructions.
Hanlon glanced over at the other people in the class, who were all in the twenty-to-forty age range, except the bald guy. Apart from him and the instructor, they were all women.
McCleod took off her tracksuit top. Hanlon’s eyes widened. McCleod had a superb body. Her face might have looked thin, almost sunken (at times Hanlon thought that if she let her hair get greasy the DS would look rather like someone in a poster warning against heroin abuse). But in tight Lycra, black pedal pushers and a white top, her hair tied back in a ponytail, McCleod was not only formidably fit-looking but sexy. Voluptuously so.
It was like in a cheesy film when the gawky, unattractive girl removes her glasses/braces/unflattering hat and (‘My God… you’re beautiful…’) is revealed as stunningly lovely.
Hanlon laughed. McCleod looked at her, puzzled.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing really…’ She certainly wasn’t going to share that thought with the detective sergeant.
The instructor put the music on, heavy house and trance, which thundered through the small hall as they warmed up to the beat, star jumps, knee-to-opposite-elbow bounces, before a countdown to the exercises.
Hanlon had been doing this kind of thing more or less daily for twenty-five years. She loved the sensation of pushing her muscles until they shrieked in pain and she was a formidable
