DARIAN SUSPECTED Sholto didn’t want him to hear the phone conversation with DS MacNeith so he went downstairs to the bathroom of The Northern Song for a pee he didn’t need. Darian was well used to hearing his boss being deferential toward police officers, rich people, the moderately wealthy, large people, angry people and people he thought unpredictable, a trait Sholto was no fan of. There was, however, an elite level of obsequiousness he could wallow in when someone presented a particular problem, and he preferred to do his wallowing without witnesses so he could later pretend he had maintained his polished dignity throughout. Darian gave it five minutes before wandering back upstairs.
They were busy in the restaurant on the ground floor, some passing trade in the morning but mostly preparing for the lunchtime rush. There were only two doors on the landing of the first floor as he made his way back up, the Yangs’ flat and the other with a nameplate for an entertainment agency, Highland Stars. No one had ever used the office, and if any money passed through the company based there Darian assumed it was part of a scam. On the second floor there were three doors, theirs closest to the top of the stairs, Challaid Data Services at the far end of the corridor and the empty office in between. He had thought he’d heard someone going into the data services office after he arrived that morning, but their door was, as always, firmly shut. Neither Darian nor Sholto had ever been inside.
As he stepped back into the office Sholto said to him, “I’ve managed to sweet-talk the dragon, although it was a struggle to keep my food down at the same time. She’s questioned Dent, he’s going to be charged by Bakers Moor for his fight last night but he gave her nothing at all on Freya so she can’t take it further. That’s on the record; off the record she thought he was as honest as a Challaid councilors’ manifesto, and she hinted with all the subtlety a Tyrannosaurus Rex can muster that we can keep our eyes on him if we want and she won’t object because, if he’s going to give anything away, now might be the time.”
“A Tyrannosaurus Rex is a dinosaur, not a dragon.”
“Aye, and they’d both bite your bloody head off given half a chance. Seeing as you’re so good at identifying unpleasant threats you can go and watch him. He’s out of the station so he’ll either be at home or at work.”
As he drove to MacLean Street to look for Dent’s car Darian realized Sholto had sent him on another full day’s work on this case despite knowing Vinny almost certainly couldn’t afford to pay them. That was typical of him, complaining about the unappreciated value of his hourly rate at the start but getting so wrapped up in a case that time became a worthless commodity. Darian had often wondered why Sholto had set up a private investigations company when he left the murky environs of Challaid Police and this was the answer—he grudgingly loved the work.
The car wasn’t on MacLean Street so Darian drove to MacAlpin Road and went into the multi-story car park across the street from the Sutherland Bank, circling until he spotted it. That meant Dent was in the tower, waiting for a call from the boss to say he was needed. Darian parked just close enough to watch the only door of the tower and bedded in.
Will Dent made four journeys in a company car throughout the day. The first was with Harold Sutherland, driving him to Bruaich Drive and the glass-fronted headquarters of Glendan, the massive construction company with whom the Sutherland Bank no doubt did a lot of business. Harold Sutherland was inside for forty-five minutes before he returned to the car and Dent drove him back to the bank. A little after midday Sutherland left again when Dent picked him up from the front of the building. Darian tried to follow but toward the end of MacUspaig Road he got snarled up in traffic when they turned off. He tried to catch them up, joining the daily chorus of cursing drivers, but couldn’t see them after looping the area and wasting petrol, so he went back to the tower to await their return.
The third journey of the day was the one that mattered. Dent went on his own, heading west through Cnocaid and up into Barton. He stopped at a Forsyth’s Supermarket and went inside. Darian waited in the car park for half an hour before Dent came out with seven or eight bags. He put them in the boot of the car and drove over to the edge of the loch.
They were on quiet roads now, and it took real effort to keep the Focus from looming big and ugly in Dent’s mirrors. When the driver turned onto Geug Place, a short, single-track cul-de-sac near Ruadh Rock, Darian had to let him go. He couldn’t follow and stay invisible, and this was an area where the very sight of a fourteen-year-old Focus might spook some nervy old biddy into calling the police. The few houses down the lane, a rich and tree-lined area with the mansions on one side enjoying an uninterrupted view of the loch, were all worth more millions than Darian would earn in six lifetimes. He drove around a bit and missed Dent leaving, so went back to the tower.
The last journey Dent took in a company car was driving his boss as close to home as he could. Harold Sutherland lived on Eilean Seud, the island in Loch Eriboll toward the west bank that was so teeming with money the mainland couldn’t contain it. Dent dropped his boss at the pier on Cruinn Road and Harold boarded the little ferry that would carry him and his equally wealthy neighbors across to their island. You could get four cars on the boat at a time, but Harold was on foot, perhaps a car waiting for him at the island pier. Normally anything with the whiff of the working class, like public transport, would send the mega-rich of Eilean Seud into paroxysms of anguish, but the ferry was a necessity they couldn’t ignore unless they were happy swimmers.
Someone once asked Magnus Duff, the young scion of the shipping family, on Twitter why his family had never lived on the island. He said it was because if they did the ghost of Morogh Duff would rise from his eighteenth-century grave in Heilam and smite them all down. When asked why the company founder would so object to the island, Magnus said it was because it was populated by people who thought being rich people made them good instead of believing that being good people would make them rich. That, to many, seemed a fine description of a community which repeatedly blocked a bridge being built to the island because it would have granted easy access to “ordinary” people. That meant the fire service had to keep a boat on Cruinn Road pier in case of an emergency on the island, and if there was a medical crisis the helicopter from King Robert VI Hospital in Cnocaid would have to zip up for them, all at the taxpayers’ expense, of course.
Having dropped off his boss Dent drove back to the tower, changed, switched to his own car and went home to Bakers Moor. Darian watched the flat for a short while and then tried to start the car to go back to the office. It took five attempts to find rasping life in the engine and Darian was reminded of his older brother Sorley’s entreaties that he buy a motorbike so he could get around the city at his own pace and with a helmet covering his face during dangerous jobs. When he did get back to Cage Street, Sholto had gone home so Darian quickly typed up a report, collected some food from downstairs and took it home to eat.