Twenty-Five
I glanced quickly around the office, but the three of us were the only ones there. Wood panelling lined the room, reflecting the light of the two yellow lamps to cast away all the shadows. There was a second closed door on the other side of the floor, no doubt ready to spit gun-toting criminals at us at any second. Glass cases on pedestals lined the wall across from the desk, seated in front of a large, slightly open picture window. I didn’t know enough about history or anthropology to guess where or when the objects inside were from. There was a tarnished metal shield, a chipped vase with black paintings swirled across it, and a gold and silver necklace, a teardrop pendant dangling in the air.
Thomas Holden himself sat in a high-backed, black leather chair which seemed ready to swallow him up. His shoulders were stooped, his neck drawn down almost like a turtle. His silver hair was slicked neatly back, and the wrinkles on his face were shallow, barely noticeable. The light caught his brown eyes as he cocked his head to regard us, turning nearly black. The pinstripe suit he wore probably cost more than my entire yearly salary.
“Can I help you?” he repeated, and I realized Fletcher and I had just been staring at him as we caught our breath. His voice was dry, like paper rubbing together, and it sent a shiver down my spine.
“Where are Finn Wair and Haruto Sato?” I asked, cutting right to the chase. I rose to my full height and strode to the centre of the room, trying to look commanding and not like I’d almost just drowned in the firth.
Holden smiled, but his thin lips made the expression look reptilian.
“Who?” he asked, and I wanted to punch him in his smug face. I still had my gun in hand, but I didn’t point it at Holden just yet.
Instead, I returned the chilly smile. “I am well past the mood for games, Mr Holden. Where are they?”
Instead of answering, Holden took the top off the crystal decanter on his desk and reached under his desk. I tensed, but he simply pulled out three matching glasses and set them in front of him. “You two look like you’re frozen to the bone. Please, sit. Have a drink while we discuss this like civilized people.”
“Your goons stay outside,” I said.
Holden smiled again, and it reminded me of an oil slick on water. “Of course.” He pressed a button on his desktop and spoke into the radio built in there. “Stand by, everyone. I’m going to have a little chat with our guests.” He released the button and arched an eyebrow in my direction. “Now, you do the same.”
I unclipped the radio from my belt and brought it to my mouth. “North Squad, South Squad. This is MacBain. I’m with Holden now. Hold your positions but do not engage. Over.”
Two “Yes, sirs” crackled through the speaker, and Holden nodded, satisfied, as I put the radio away. Fletcher and I holstered our guns, and I sat down carefully as if I expected the chair to try to bite me. I was loath to admit that the leather was soft and supple, luxuriously comfortable, especially when compared to my own desk chair with its broken lumbar support.
“Wonderful,” Holden said. “But I do believe you have me at a disadvantage as you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
I doubted that was true since he’d been keeping tabs on the entire investigation, but we needed to play his game for a little bit until we could get what we came for. “I’m DCI Callum MacBain. This is DI Tara Fletcher.”
“May I see your badges?”
I held mine up for inspection but pulled it back when he reached to take it for a closer look. The leather holder was damp from the rain, but the plastic cover had protected the actual ID.
“We know about your big enterprise,” I said as I put the badge away. Holden began to pour scotch from the decanter, the amber liquid catching on the light. “Snatching up artefacts to sell to the highest bidder. We know that you’ve been watching Haruto Sato so you can snatch up his manuscript once he’s done restoring it. We know that you abducted Finn to blackmail his father into stealing the deed to the Castle of Old Wick. And we know that you’ve already got the Viking cache you were after. You don’t need Finn anymore. Hand him over.”
“My, you have been busy.” Holden slid two of the glasses across the desk to Fletcher and me, but I pushed it aside without looking at it. “Do you have the deed with you?”
“No. We don’t.” I wondered if we should have brought it along. It would have given us leverage, but if we gave it over, we’d be letting Holden profit off of the kidnapping, and the thought of that was absolutely abhorrent to me.
Holden took a sip of his drink. “A shame. Then I have no real reason to hand the boy over, do I? And Mr Sato is gainfully employed in my services now. I think I might keep him. He’ll be so useful to my operation.”
“We’ve got your estate surrounded. We’ll take them by force, if we have to,” I threatened.
But Holden laughed, tipping his head back and banging one fist against his desk. “There are seven of you. My force is three times that. You have no cards to play.”
My blood began to boil. Everything about this man got under my skin. He was so cock-sure of himself, as if he thought that he could slow time if he snapped his fingers. This was a man who had always gotten what he wanted and who’d never had to try very hard to get it, either. I could see it in the way he curled his fingers around
