Nothing more was said. The two shuffled past, taking care to walk round him. The two at the table followed suit, keeping their eyes averted from Black. They sloped out, into the night. Black returned to his high stool, and his drink, and finished his glass.
“Thanks for that,” breathed the manager. “The next one’s on the house.”
Black nodded. The barmaid fixed him another Glenfiddich, regarding him with a new appreciation.
The man sitting next to his side scrutinised him for several long seconds. Black turned, smiling.
“Looks like they didn’t have the energy after all.”
24
The dining room opened at 7am for breakfast, and Black got something light. He had little appetite. A coffee and buttered croissant. The day looked as if it would be a repeat performance of the day before. Grey, rolling clouds, the breeze bringing a touch of rain from the sea, the sunlight wan and dreary.
Black did not see either the manager or the barmaid, and was glad of it. The last thing he wanted was attention. He chided himself for getting involved the previous evening. He should have left it. He needed to be invisible. Damage done. He had to move on.
Black ate his breakfast, went back up to his room, packed his holdall. Time to go.
He walked the quarter mile to his car. On the way, he deposited the smashed laptop in a public waste bin.
He got to the car. Nothing seemed out of place. His flat would be under surveillance, of that he was sure. But there was nothing there to require him back. His next stop was Edinburgh. They would be expecting him, no doubt. But he had questions to ask, scores to settle. A certain legal firm was in the frame – Raeburn, Collins and Co.
Time to pay another visit. Though this time, a little less civilised.
25
The offices of Raeburn, Collins and Co. were closed for the evening. At least to the public. It was during the evening hours when the real work was carried out. No interruptions – zero client contact, which meant no meetings, appointments, phone calls. Things got done.
Most, if not all, of the partners had left. Those who remained were assistants, associates, paralegals. Working a ten-hour day. Maybe more. Crippling workloads with little thanks. Complain, and the door was shown. For every vacant position in a law office, fifty desperate solicitors were there to fill it. The law was a shrinking market. And as brutal as any other industry.
Donald Rutherford had left. Black had watched him leave the building at 6pm.
Black had arrived back in Edinburgh that afternoon, driving from Thurso, allowing only one stop in a roadside café on the outskirts of Aberdeen. He’d booked into a cheap hotel in Edinburgh’s Old Town, and decided against parking in the hotel car park. Instead he found a space in a side street five hundred yards from the hotel and walked. No point in advertising his presence, if he could help it.
A hundred yards diagonally opposite the lawyer’s offices was a quaint little coffee shop. The Blue Willow. All bright colours and trailing flowers from hanging baskets. He sat at the window with a newspaper, sipping a flat white, and watched. He’d been there for over two hours. The view was good. A clear visual on people entering, leaving. The place was busy. With twenty partners and another maybe fifty ancillary staff, it ought to be, he thought. He was virtually undetectable where he sat. Unless he had been followed, in which case they knew exactly where he was, and they would be watching him.
Black drank his coffee, considered his options. He had little choice in the matter. If they came for him, then fair enough. Unlikely in such a public place, though a drive-by shooting wouldn’t be far-fetched. A motorcyclist whizzing by, peppering the coffee shop window with bullets, uncaring who they hit, as long as they got Black.
Black had to bring it to them. Attack. Mobilise. If he stayed still, he was a dead man. Keep moving. Something the SAS had drummed into their recruits. A man compelled to move was a man who tended not to dwell on the harshness of his situation. Such was the philosophy of the Special Air Service. His enemies would assume that Black would target the firm. More specifically the individuals at their original meeting – Donald Rutherford, Max Lavelle, or the young lawyer, Pamela Thompson. They were the last people he’d spoken to before the incident at Fiona Jackson’s flat. It wasn’t rocket science to assume they would expect a visit from Black. Because now they knew he wasn’t the type of man to back down.
He wouldn’t have it any other way, he mused.
He watched. Time ticked on. Black had learned patience throughout his years in the army. Surveillance in extreme situations, sometimes lasting days, even weeks. Confined to one spot. Shitting in paper bags, then burying the bags. No sound. Body crawling with insects, skin itching under the heat, the sweat. Waiting for the enemy, exactly as he was doing now. The difference was, here in civilian street, Black was unsure who his enemy was. Shadows and smoke.
The door opened, a bell tinkling. Black looked up. A skinny young man entered clutching a laptop, no older than twenty-one, faded jeans, Motorhead T-shirt, a long unruly beard, which seemed to be the trend for young men. A tattoo running up the side of his neck. Another trend, which Black thought hideous. A student? Possibly. Black stayed alert, nerves stretched. The young man sat, opened his laptop, ordered a coffee.
He saw the unmistakable figure of Rutherford leave at 6pm. Striking blond hair; tanned skin. Escorted by two men. Both tall, lean, dressed in sharp close-fitting suits. Tough-looking. They walked by his side, no conversation. Rutherford wasn’t taking any chances. He noticed the slight creasing on one side of their jackets. Probably gun holsters, fitted over the shoulder and under the arm.
They walked twenty yards
