‘I’d like you to get that shotgun off him, for a start,’ Hanlon said, ‘so he can’t do any damage to anyone with a firearm.’
‘He’s got three,’ the manageress said, ‘and a .22 rifle. They’re in a gun cabinet in his bedroom.’
‘Well, that’s just great, isn’t it?’ Hanlon’s voice was heavily sarcastic. ‘He’s heavily armed.’
‘Don’t snap at me,’ said Harriet irritably. ‘What should I do about it?’
‘OK, Harriet,’ Hanlon said angrily, ‘here’s what you can do. First, get in touch with the chief police officer of the area and let him know how dangerous he is and try to get him to revoke his licence, and right now maybe you could get the key to the cabinet and his car keys and chuck them both in the loch so he can’t get at either.’
‘I’m leaving next week,’ Harriet said, changing the subject. ‘I’ve had enough.’
That did surprise Hanlon. It certainly made her rethink her theory that Harriet was Big Jim’s accomplice. ‘Have you told him?’
‘Not yet…’ She shook her head. ‘I think he might kill himself, to be honest. He’s very depressed.’
Very depressed? He’s certainly very homicidal, thought Hanlon. She thought of Big Jim killing himself – well, she certainly wouldn’t mourn his passing if he did so.
‘He’s talked about shooting himself,’ she said.
‘Well, suggest counselling to him,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Alternatively you could get the guns away from him, like I suggested a minute ago. Anyway, Harriet, I’m leaving, as you can doubtless see. Here’s your key back.’
Harriet took it from her.
‘You paid for your room in advance, of course.’
Hanlon waited for Harriet to say that the money would be refunded in full. Instead, ‘There is some money outstanding on the room for food and drink.’
Hanlon stared at her in astonishment.
‘You’re seriously suggesting…’ Outrage struggled with disbelief. ‘You must be out of your mind, Harriet. I am not paying a penny. You can chase me through a civil court, and if you do I will leave an honest appraisal of my stay on Trip Advisor. I think it’ll go viral.’
She stormed upstairs and packed her bags; when she returned the office was empty. She left the key on the reception desk and walked out into the bright sunlight of the morning.
Hanlon returned to Donald’s cottage. She was still furious with Harriet for suggesting she pay after what she’d endured, and toyed with the idea of going back down to the hotel and screaming at her some more. The nerve of the woman!
Wondering if anyone was booked in to lunch that day, she turned around and glared at the run-down hotel. A cracked pane of glass in one of the upstairs windows had been replaced with a piece of cardboard. The place looked even shabbier in the sunshine. The Mackinnon Arms was becoming like the Mary Celeste, although a ghost hotel rather than a ghost ship. The boar on the sign leered at her.
Staff were dead (Eva), about to leave (Harriet), on notice (Donald), presumably looking for another job (Johanna) or engaged in criminal activities (Kai). The guests were walking out (the home counties scuba divers, her), or dead (Nose-stud). The owner was also either absent mentally, or prowling around half-cut and crazy. Talk about the ship of fools.
She walked along the road back to the cottage, went upstairs to the guest room and dropped her cases off. Downstairs, she pulled on a pair of walking boots and headed off into the hills. Buzzards wheeled over the summit of Ben Garrisdale in a cloudless sky. Still angry, she strode off along the road and then up the forestry track into the hills. Although it wasn’t all that warm, the exercise had her perspiring freely and her shirt stuck to her back as she climbed up the twisting steep track.
An hour or so later she was at the bothy where Kai was due to meet DI Murdo Campbell on Thursday.
She pulled on a pair of latex gloves – if they were using the place for drug storage it might well become a crime scene – found the key to the door, as he had said, by the water butt. She opened it and went in. She closed the door behind her and looked around. The bothy was just one large room with a table and four chairs, a single bed in the corner and, screened by a partition, an ancient, very deep porcelain sink. Despite the heat outside, the place was very cold and Hanlon felt her skin breaking out in goosebumps. On the wall was the mounted skull of a deer with small, twisted antlers. The tap above the sink dripped continually. The sound was magnified by the old marble by the plughole and it echoed eerily in the gloomy room. The dull brown stain from the peaty water looked like old blood on the cracked, off-white of the glazed surface of the basin.
The walls of the bothy were of course stones that had been mortared together. The mortar was rough and flaking. Hanlon went to the wall by the door, dug a chunk of the cement out with her fingers and, checking that the device was switched on, placed the voice-activated recorder in the gap between the stones. She stepped back and checked her handiwork.
The room was dark and the gaps between the rough stones were deep. Unless you walked right up close and stared intently at the gap between the stones, it was invisible.
Satisfied, she left the cottage, locked the door and replaced the key. In a few days’ time, that tiny machine would be holding the information that would hopefully send Big Jim to the prison cell he richly deserved. Him and Murdo Campbell. She had a particular visceral dislike of corrupt cops. Incontrovertible evidence, which, although inadmissible in court, would prod McCleod into action.
She walked home the slow way, down the path. As she neared the road she saw Big Jim’s Land Rover
