I CAN feel it, you know. It’s like pinpricks in my back.”
Darian looked across the office at Sholto and said, “What are you talking about?”
“When a rich person is angry with me and they’re hunting me down. There’s going to be hell to pay and I’m all out of cash.”
Vinny and Phil had gone to Cnocaid station to give details to DS MacNeith about the bra, Sholto having called already. They had known what would happen next. Simon Sutherland was arrested and taken to the station, leaving the house for the first time in a little over nine years. According to the text Vinny had sent it was the housekeeper, Miss Bles, who had put the fear of God into the arresting officers. Simon had been quiet while she had been extraordinarily loud when she found out why they were there. The police had taken the bra for tests to try and identify its owner.
Darian said, “Perhaps Harold Sutherland won’t come after us. It’s his nephew he’ll be most annoyed with.”
“Oh, Darian, no, that’s not how these people work, has no one told you that already? I’ll tell you how they operate. Behind closed doors he’ll be fuming with Phil, sure he will, because that was a family betrayal, or that’s how he’ll see it. But people like the Sutherlands, very old money, very big money, their greatest skill is protecting what they have. It’s probably genetic at this point, instinctive, like when the son of a great camanachd player turns out to be decent without trying. The last thing Harold Sutherland will do is allow anyone outside the family to think Phil is to blame. Protect the business, that’s what they do. Someone else is going to have to become the enemy, and I’m willing to bet his impressively expensive lawyers will paint a large target on my sweaty back. Just thinking about it…I hope he phones rather than comes round. I can at least sound like my rectum isn’t imploding underneath me but I can’t look the part if he’s in front of me.”
They sat and waited for the phone to ring, wondering whether they would hear from an excited cop or a fizzing lawyer first. Instead they heard footsteps on the wooden stairs, more than one person making his way up to the second floor. Sholto closed his eyes and prayed that it was two of the three men from the data services company along the corridor. Instead there was a single knock on the door, and then, having clearly decided that knocking was a courtesy they didn’t deserve, the door was flung open.
The expression on Harold Sutherland’s face was one that had probably never been seen in public before. This was a man who prided himself on being friendly and charming but was now in a rage so powerful that only the presence of the lawyer beside him was holding back violence. The lawyer was a tall, skinny man in his forties with the look of a referee at a boxing match who feared both fighters were wearing knuckle dusters under their gloves. It was all he could do to stop himself from physically restraining his client.
In a near-trembling voice Harold said, “How much would it cost to purchase the use of your inconsiderable talents for this case, then? Hmm? To have you conduct a proper investigation.”
Sholto chewed nervously on the question for a few seconds and said, “One billion pounds.”
“Excuse me?”
“I intend either to die an honest man or a billionaire, Mr. Sutherland. One billion pounds.”
“Good grief, the price of your virtue is going to cost you your business.”
Darian said, “We’re valuable men.”
Harold Sutherland looked back and forth between Darian and Sholto, the façade crumbling after his first, failed attempt, and said, “You bastards. You lying little bastards. You came to me for help and so I helped you, and in response you’ve tried to ruin the life of an innocent boy just so you can pretend you’ve cracked a case. Do you understand how long it’s going to take Simon to recover from this? Do you care? Years. They’ll question him and my lawyers, who are there now en masse, will destroy their scattergun of stupidity and lies and Simon will be home by the end of the day but the damage will have been done. You and that bloody police force. This isn’t just a bad day for Simon; this is years of his life you’ve ruined.”
Darian, assuming Sholto would be momentarily silenced by his phobia of the intimidatingly rich, said, “We certainly didn’t mean to do that. We’re trying to find Freya Dempsey, and I’m sure you can understand our urgency.”
Harold Sutherland took a couple of steps toward Darian’s desk, his teeth bared as if he was trying to decide which part of him to bite first. He said in a near hiss, “Don’t you dare try to pretend that I’m the uncaring one here. I and my family have gone out of our way to help you find this woman on the basis of a tenuous connection, while you have bulldozed your way into my nephew’s life and toppled over the contentment he’s spent a decade trying to build. He had to try to find a balance that made life livable for him, and you’ve shoulder-charged it because you don’t care about people, just the case in front of you.”
“That’s unfair. You don’t know us.”
“I know you’re friends with PC Reno. I know he was the prime suspect before you decided to concoct this nonsense against Simon. I know you’re going to suffer the heaviest blow I can throw at you, and I know I’m not going to stop swinging haymakers at you even after I’ve shut this place down and made you both unemployable in Challaid. I have a long memory and a long reach.”
Harold turned and marched out of the office and his lawyer, seeming to think that it had gone better than expected, nodded and went after him.
Sholto breathed out heavily and grabbed the edge of his desk, or at least the folders hanging over it, and said, “Chee whizz.”
Darian was looking out of the window, watching the young man walking uncertainly up toward the office. William Dent, presumably having dropped off his boss and ready to pick him up again. Harold still using his favorite driver. A loyal man, Phil had said. Harold and the lawyer emerged down below on Cage Street and walked quickly down to Dlùth Street, Dent alongside them now to show where he had parked.
Sholto said, “Oh, that was unpleasant, my guts are doing enough somersaults to win an Olympic bronze medal. Do we have any legal or semi-legal drugs that might help?”
“No. You can try downstairs. Mr. Yang will have some.”
“That better not be a crack at his cooking. Even at a time like this I won’t hear a word said against it.”
“I mean he has a cupboard full of that sort of stuff for the family.”
“Never mind, I’ll ride it out. Have to keep riding for the rest of my life if he was serious about coming after us. The rich, Darian, they’re nothing but trouble.”
It was hard to argue and better not to, so he said nothing. Instead they waited to hear how the questioning of Simon Sutherland had gone. If he was guilty they were off Harold’s hook.