GETTING TO Phil proved more difficult than expected. Having called Freya’s insurers and found they had no record of delivering the wrong car, and then her employers who said work parcels were never sent to her house, Vinny then phoned his colleague and had a brief conversation which he recounted to Darian in the car as they made their way north.
Vinny said, “He’s at Loch Chalum, behind Dùil Hill.”
“What the hell’s he doing there?”
“Fishing. It’s one of his things. He’s well into what he considers working-class pursuits. Fishing is one, playing darts is another. He’s in a darts team in some pub league. I’ve heard he’s pretty good.”
“A man who stands to inherit millions playing in a pub league in The Hill? Have you thought to warn him of the potential dangers of being around sharp objects in nasty hands given his wealth?”
Vinny chuckled. “He’s a cop going round pubs in Whisper Hill, doesn’t matter if you’re piss poor, that’s a dangerous game and he knows it. I think that’s part of what he enjoys. His family collects paintings and yachts and private jets so he does fishing and darts.”
The drive from Cnocaid to the closest road to the loch was a long one, with eighty percent of the time taken up by the first forty percent of road. From Cnocaid they had to go east through Bank into Bakers Moor and then north through Earmam and Whisper Hill. They left the city, through the narrow gap up to Heilam, going past the graveyard, the council estate and the old lighthouse. From there Vinny could put his foot down and drive with the sort of abandon that only a man who’s friends with every cop that might possibly pull him over could possess. They followed the road that looped round the back of Dùil Hill and saw Phil’s car parked at a passing place on their right.
Vinny looked at it and said with a sigh, “We’re going to have to plod it the rest of the way to the loch. You bring your hiking boots?”
“No. You?”
“I’m in my trainers. I don’t really do countryside, too many things that can bite you in ways I wouldn’t pay for.”
“You sound like Sholto, he’s terrified of dogs.”
“I was thinking more of midges, ticks and gamekeepers.”
A fifteen-minute walk uphill to the dip where the small loch was hidden from the world turned into a twenty-five-minute walk on account of their footwear, both of them hopping around to try and avoid the boggy parts of the moor, which was most of it. One twisted ankle and a near-record-breaking amount of swearing later, they crested the ridge and saw Phil, a five-minute walk away at the lochside. They stumbled down to find him sitting on a large rock, a plastic tub of worms to the side and a bottle of water in his hand, watching the float from his rod lie still on the calm surface. He knew the terrain and his well-scuffed wellies proved it.
Vinny stood next to him and said, “Why the hell can’t you just take up alcoholism as a hobby like everyone else in The Hill, least then we could meet you in a pub? Even camanachd, which tends to lead to the bottle anyway.”
Phil looked out at the loch, surrounded by hills and birdsong, no sign of Challaid or any other smear of modernity, and said, “Don’t tell me this isn’t beautiful.”
“It sure is beautiful, and I would have mildly enjoyed looking at a photo of it back in Challaid.”
“You need the exercise, a man your age and your size. Doesn’t take much to go from barrel-chested to barrel-bellied, you know. So what dark theory about my family have you brought to my bright hideaway?”
Vinny sat on the rock beside Phil and Darian stood in front of them both. This was going to be an awkward conversation so Vinny decided he might as well be sitting awkwardly for it.
He said, “We’ve been talking to some snoopers, one of them a very possible pervert, and found out that Freya was getting presents sent to the house before she went missing, including a car that a Sutherland and not many others could afford. Looks like someone sent it and she sent it right back. Freya wasn’t the sort to spit out a free lunch if she liked the food, so she really didn’t want whoever was throwing luxury motors at her.”
“I don’t know, Vinny. My family might be famous for having money but we’re not famous for throwing it around. Besides, as a theory, that the person who ki-kidnapped her sent her the gifts, it doesn’t add up. Who would risk sending presents like that?”
Darian said, “What about your uncle Harold?”
“What about him?”
“He met Freya; they talked, might he have gotten back in touch with her? Is he the sort to fall hard and make big romantic gestures?”
Phil shook his head as he thought about it and said, “He’s had a few girlfriends over the years that I know of, got engaged once but it didn’t pan out. They were all just playthings for him.”
“I thought your family was supposed to take a terribly religious view of these things, the high moral standards of a churchy family.”
“That’s what you’re supposed to think. The business comes first. Always does with that surname. I don’t know how romantic his gestures have ever been, but I do know it’s not the family way. The fact we have the money to spend if we wanted to is enough. You don’t have to actually go ahead with the grand gesture to get attention.”
“Is there a way of finding out what he’s been sending people?”
“Well, they’re obsessive about accounting for every single penny that goes in and out of the bank but he would never put it through the company accounts. It would be unforgivable for a personal item to intrude on profit. Anything like that would be at his house on Eilean Seud.”
Vinny tutted and said, “He’s one of that lot is he, wanting to float off into the North Atlantic instead of sharing the same land mass as us scum? Probably takes a helicopter to work.”
“He doesn’t. You’re not allowed anything as noisy as a helicopter on the island and you couldn’t land them anywhere near the bank for security reasons anyway. Listen, I want to help, and I can probably get you into his house, but I don’t think it’s a clever idea.”
Vinny said, “I laugh in the face of clever ideas. What have you got?”
“He’s having one of his parties at the house, he has them every month. He does it to try and improve the bank’s image among other rich people. You’d be amazed how many of them hate our family.”
“I wouldn’t. Rich people love their money and hate the people who control it, which is you lot.”
“Well, for a few hundred years we didn’t give two craps what people thought of us but now Uncle Harold has a penchant for PR. He’s good at it, nice and subtle. I remember him telling my mother that PR at its best persuades people to believe in you, to support what you’re doing and even want to be a part of it. At its worst PR is a loudmouthed half-wit screeching wildly at the converted. You have to be friendly and reach out. It wouldn’t be hard to get a couple of extra people in, it’s pretty much an open house, but you’ll be in a crowded place with a lot of security and he’s hardly going to have left something incriminating lying around.”
Darian looked at Vinny and said, “It might still be worth it, get a closer look at his life and lifestyle, see if there’s anything that can educate us about him.”
Vinny nodded thoughtfully. “True, but I can’t go. I’m a suspect and a serving police officer, so if I get spotted it botches the whole investigation.”
Phil said, “Same here, and it’s not like half the guests wouldn’t recognize me straightaway. Uncle Harold always invites me to these things and I always say no so it would raise an eyebrow through his scalp if I turned up now. You and your boss could go, dress up in a couple of fake names and make sure you’re not seen by anyone who might recognize you.”
Darian nodded slowly. Sholto would go through the roof and into the upper atmosphere but if it gave them a snapshot of Harold Sutherland at play it would be worth the horror.