Shot Through The Heart (Supernature Book 1) (5 page)

The bar was reasonably busy. A large open fire was burning to his right, though it had been a fairly warm evening and was hardly needed. There were two settees in front of the fire with a large rug on the floor between them. One was filled with three young women, the other with three young men, all of them stunningly beautiful, even the boys. A dog lay on the rug, looking primitive - Mark thought its ginger fur and pointy ears put it at the opposite end of the dog spectrum from the labradoodle or other modern, highly-bred animals.

Mark finished his sandwich and then washed it down with the last of the pint. It had been lovely, with a malty taste and he was sorely tempted to get another. After a few seconds of internal debate, he decided he couldn't resist. He got up and headed to the bar - one of the girls caught his gaze as he waited for the barman.

"Keep well away from them," said a voice from behind him.

Mark turned around. Sitting on a stool, clutching a whisky and leaning against the bar, was a grizzled man - Mark wondered if he might be younger than he looked, but he appeared to be
old
.

"Who are they?" asked Mark.

"I call them the students," said the man.

"The nearest university or college is in Inverness," said Mark. "They can't commute from here, can they?"

The man laughed. "It's just a name I gave them," he said. He held out his hand. "John Rennie."

Mark shook his hand. "Mark Campbell," he said.

"Ooh," said John. "A Campbell. You'll not be popular in these parts."

Mark shrugged. "I'm not aware of having massacred anyone." He smiled. "Yet."

John laughed. "Don't worry, son," he said, "I'll no' judge you for it. Others might, but no' me."

The barman took Mark's order - he ordered a refill for John, which earned a raised glass.

"So, what do you do?" asked Mark.

"I'm a ghillie," said John.

Mark nodded. "Didn't know you still had them up here," he said.

"The Clearances didn't kill all of the old ways," said John. "Besides, there are plenty of hunting parties these days that need a guide out on the moors and glens." He finished his whisky and collected the fresh glass from the barman. "There are strange things afoot up here."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "Like what?" he asked.

"Relax, son," said John, "I'm just playing with you." He held Mark's gaze. "Or am I?"

Mark tried to laugh it off. "So, what's a ghillie do in this day and age?" he asked. "Aside from chasing spooks and vampires."

"Vampires?" asked John, his voice low and his eyebrow raised. "Who said anything about vampires?"

It was Mark's turn to smile. "I'm just playing with you," he said.

"Watch who you play with," said John. "It's not safe like your big cities up here." He added water to his second whisky from a tap set onto the bar top. "I'm basically a golf caddie but for shooting. I just take gun parties out, load rifles, tell the toffee-nosed idiots where to point them. Half the time, I'm tempted to tell them to point at themselves or each other."

Mark laughed.

The barman smoothly rolled his pint over the bar top. "Put them on the tab for room 106, please," said Mark. He looked at John. "Fancy a seat?"

John grinned. "Thought you'd never ask, son," he said.

They returned to Mark's table, six pairs of eyes following them. "So, tell me about these students, then," he said.

"I think they're Lady Ruthven's daughters," said John. "The pretty one over there is the eldest. I presume she'll be the next Lady Ruthven if such a thing is possible."

"What do you mean?" asked Mark.

"Ach, nothing much," said John.

"And those are their husbands, right?" asked Mark. He'd already decided that John was a Class A patter merchant, but he decided to play along, wondering if he might be able to find something useful among the noise.

John nodded. "That's right, son," he said. "Those are the three husbands."
 

"Is it their dog?" asked Mark.

John screwed his eyes up. "I don't recognise the beast," he said. He held up the whisky. "
Slainte
." He took a deep drink.

Mark hated the word - he hated most Gaelic words. It was a dead language - intellectually interesting but it was only worth studying to tell him about the past. To keep it alive seemed pathetic. To him, it was tartan shortbread tins and the sort of dewy-eyed sentimentality that too much whisky imparted. He wondered if Alex Salmond would try to revive it in a future Republic of Scotland.

"Cheers," said Mark, holding up his pint.

"You're clearly not from these parts," said John.

"No, I'm Edinburgh born and bred," said Mark.

John nodded. "So, what brings you up here?" he asked.

"I'm writing a book," said Mark.

"A thriller?" asked John. "I'm a big fan of Michael Crichton and Dan Brown, that sort of thing. Quite like Ian Rankin."

"Non-fiction," said Mark. "It's about the Highland Clearances."

"Oh aye," said John, drinking more whisky.

Mark leaned forward. "I've got a pretty unique angle on it," he said. "At least, I think so. I'm approaching it from the perspective of being sympathetic to the landowners."

"You're
what
?" shouted John. A couple of the students looked over their way.

"Calm down," said Mark. "It's only a method of approaching the topic. Most of the books you read on the subject tend to attack the landowners for their greed and for destroying a culture and way of life, which is all good and valid." He took a gulp of his pint. "The way I see it, if I approach it from the opposite angle, it may yield a different story or angles."

"Be very careful, son," said John. "The people up here are like the hills, they have very long memories." He shook his head then took another sip. "So, tell me about it."

Mark relaxed into his topic. "The structure is that there were three waves to the Clearances," he said, taking another drink of his beer. "First, there were a lot of pre-Clearances activities, setting up the framework, trialling the process on a smaller scale. Then there were the two commonly recognised waves of Clearances. Looking at it that way gives a clear structure but also gives the possibility that they may have been driven from different objectives." He paused, thinking things through a bit. "I'm currently stuck with the first wave - it feels different to the second wave and to the prior activities somehow, but I'm just not getting the clarity. That's pretty much all that's stopping me from finishing the book."

"Maybe that's because you're approaching it all wrong," said John with a grin.

Mark took another drink. "Well,
I
think I've found something unique," he said.

"Let me know if you want to speak to my boss," said John. "William Sellar. He owns the land around this place. Miles and miles of the stuff."

Mark nodded. "That would be good," he said. "The more people I can speak to, the more I can prove my theory."

John pointed down at Mark's nearly empty glass. "Do you want a proper drink?" he asked.

"You mean whisky?" asked Mark.

"Of course," said John.

Mark thought about it long and hard. "No," he said, finally, "get me a fresh orange and lemonade."

John gave slight chuckle. "Nowhere else in the civilised world would orange juice be described as 'fresh orange'," he said. "You're not going to join me in a dram?"

Mark shook his head. "I get really drunk on whisky," he said, "and, besides, I made a promise to the wife not to drink too much."

John grinned. "I hope you keep your promise," he said.

Mark woke up, his head thudding.

The wind was rattling the windows.

The clock read 1.03.

While he'd avoided the whisky, the couple of pints were more than enough to disrupt his sleep. As he got older, the volume was just killing his bladder. He was glad he refused the hard stuff.
 

He went to the small bathroom and got a glass of water. He sat on the toilet and drunk the glass down, draining his bladder. He refilled the glass and headed back to bed, stumbling as he left the bathroom. He lay on the bed and let the room stabilise itself.

John had been a total fiend once he got going, putting his hand in his pocket an uneven number of times, but then the whisky wasn't cheap in that bar. Mark could have got really drunk but had managed to avoid it.

Realising his mind was fully switched on now, he knew he'd struggle to sleep.

He still had no idea where Kay was.

He had no idea how much work he'd have to do - it could be days, it could be weeks, it might even be months.

The meeting with Elizabeth nagged at him - she didn't look old enough to have daughters in their early 20s. She had been a horrendous flirt, though he'd tried to keep it professional.

Sarah's behaviour wasn't helping his mood. She'd been angry with him - he thought that he'd been considerate since Beth arrived. He could have been away from home a lot more, but instead he'd recruited Kay and stayed in Edinburgh, focusing on helping with Beth.
 

Not
helping
- that was the wrong attitude. Beth was his responsibility as much as Sarah's and he honestly felt that he'd done more than his fair share. Sarah even had her little meetings with Katie and the occasional girlie night out. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been allowed out to have a few pints with the boys, and Sarah didn't let him have whisky in the house. In fairness, it was all a result of the perfect storm, Mark getting absolutely hammered every time he touched whisky and her father dying of liver disease in his forties as a result of virulent alcoholism.

Mark shut his eyes, lay back and listened to the window rattling in its case. He hadn't noticed the wind when he'd arrived. It was howling - he could almost make out words among the noise.
 

"Let me in."

Over and over.

He downed the second glass of water, trying to ignore the wind and the rattling. He'd complain to Harris in the morning.

"Let me in."

He got up and pulled the blinds open. It was an eery twilight outside, the full moon and the midsummer equinox combining to light up the garden at the back of the hotel.

The dog from the bar was standing on the lawn, looking up at him.

"Well, Mr Campbell," said Harris, "I'm afraid that I've had no complaints from the other residents."

"The windows were practically coming off their hinges," said Mark. "The wind was absolutely howling. Didn't you hear it?"

Harris smiled. "I don't stay at the hotel myself," he said. "I have a modest cottage in the village."

Mark yawned with exhaustion. His sleep had been fitful at best - a mixture of the booze, the rattling windows and his whirring mind. He looked around the deserted reception hall, feeling as if he could have joined John in the whisky and not felt any worse for it. "Are there any other guests staying here?" he asked.

Harris bristled. "There is a German couple," he said. "I could ask them, but their English is poor and my German is practically non-existent." He straightened up. "We have some tourists coming from Scandinavia in the next couple of days."

"Could I move room, then?" asked Mark.

"That's the only room available that meets your exacting requirements, I'm afraid," said Harris.

"I hardly think that having a desk in the room is
exacting
," said Mark, almost laughing. "What about Kay's room?"

Harris's mouth twitched. "I'm afraid that the room is pre-paid until the middle of next week," he said. "You can have it once it's free."

"She's paid for another week?" asked Mark.

"That is what I said," said Harris. "Of course, you're welcome to try other hotels in the area."

Mark thought through the implications of that - she had another week's accommodation booked. The rooms weren't exactly cheap, and he wasn't paying her much.

Could she have disappeared?

"I'll stick it out for another couple of nights," said Mark. "It might just have been the weather."

"Well, there is that," said Harris. "It's been rather close of late." He cleared his throat. "Breakfast is served out on the patio today. It's a glorious day."

Mark frowned, remembering the dog outside his window. It had haunted the few dreams he'd managed. "There was a dog standing outside last night," he said. "I think I saw it in the bar earlier."

Harris grinned. "Ah, yes," he said. "There has been a stray roaming the village the last couple of days. We usually let them into the bar. It doesn't really do much harm."

"Shouldn't you report it to the authorities?" asked Mark.

"As I said, it's not doing much harm," said Harris. "And besides, we don't really have the public services up here that you may be used to Edinburgh."

"Fine," said Mark.

As he walked to the garden, something about the dog nagged at him, but he couldn't quite grasp it. He decided to bring it up with Elizabeth that afternoon - after all, it had been with her daughters.

Mark spent the rest of the morning speaking to locals around the village, before seeking refuge in the tea room that he had noticed the previous evening, hoping to drown himself in cups of tea.

He'd spoken to a few of the other customers - none had seen Kay since Saturday. He stood at the counter, waiting to settle the bill. The elderly lady that ran the place hurried over, fussing about with a cleaning cloth. "Pot of tea, wasn't it?" she asked.

Mark nodded. "It was," he said.

"That'll be one pound fifty," she said.

Mark raised an eyebrow. "I could barely get a teabag for that in Edinburgh," he said. "I'm just wondering if you had someone come in here?" He got out his mobile and showed her Kay's photo from her Facebook page.

She put on the glasses that were hanging round her neck on a cord, but it didn't seem to stop her squinting. "Oh aye," she said. "I know her face. Used to come in most mornings and get a coffee."

"Was she ever with anyone?" asked Mark.

The scowl deepened. "I can't mind, son," she said. "If you're looking for her, I'd try the blacksmith and the paper shop, they're the only other shops in the village."