Death of an Addict (12 page)

When he went into the kitchen, she was reading the newspapers. ‘We’ll be moving to the Grand after you cook us some breakfast,’ she said when she saw him. ‘That’s
our car outside. I think we should get into the part right away.’

‘Very well, darling.’

‘
What
did you call me?’

‘Chust getting into the act of being your husband,’ said Hamish.

‘Well, don’t unless there is anyone else around. There’s a suitcase of clothes arrived for you as well.’

‘I haff the verra good suit,’ said Hamish huffily.

‘Probably too conservative for the part you’re supposed to play.’

‘I’ll have a look.’

‘Breakfast first, if you please. I’ll have coffee and two poached eggs on toast.’

I find you attractive but I could really learn to dislike you, thought Hamish.

After he had cooked and they had eaten breakfast, he looked out of the front window of the bungalow. A gleaming gold Mercedes was parked outside.

‘Where did they get the car from?’ he asked.

‘Up from Glasgow. I don’t know where they got it from. We’d best go and get changed and get out of here.’

Hamish picked up the suitcase and went into his bedroom, slung it on the bed and opened it. There was an Armani suit, designer jeans, suede and leather jackets, silk underwear, shirts with the
name of a famous Jermyn Street shirt maker and a box containing gold cuff links, gold Rolex and wraparound sunglasses. There was also a camel-hair coat.

There was a wallet containing credit cards in the name of Hamish George, a passport and driving licence. It was odd, he thought, when one was at the very bottom of the police force rung, how one
would never dream that they could get all this stuff ready so quickly.

He wished he could wear his own clothes. But when he was finally dressed in the biscuit-coloured Armani suit, shirt, silk tie, gold cuff links and gold watch, he realized what a good idea it
was. He felt like an actor dressed for a part.

Carrying the coat over his arm, he went into the living room and sat down to wait for Olivia. At last her bedroom door opened and she came out. Hamish blinked at the transformation.

There was now something subtly common and coarse about Olivia. Her hair was piled on top of her head in an elaborate arrangement of curls and loops. She was wearing a power-dressing suit, large
shoulder pads, very short skirt and with the jacket worn over a white silk blouse decorated with many gold chains. She wore heavy eye make-up and had painted her mouth to look much fuller and
pouting. Her stiletto heels had platform soles.

She pirouetted in front of him. ‘Well, do I look like a drug dealer’s wife?’

‘I don’t know what one looks like,’ said Hamish, ‘but I should think she’d look like you.’

‘Right, let’s get all our stuff into the car. I have good news for you. They have given us a couple of bodyguards.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that will add to our image. It also gives us protection. They’ll be waiting for us at the hotel.’

Hamish found he was slightly irritated that they were not to be on their own. He was afraid that their ‘muscle’ might turn out to be two plainclothes who positively shouted out that
they were detectives.

Once their new belongings were loaded in – Olivia had said to leave their own stuff behind and someone would pick it up later – he drove the Mercedes towards the Grand Hotel.

He passed over one of his credit cards, startled at the price of the room, which seemed to him a horrendous amount. But then the Grand was a pretentious hotel.

It turned out that a suite had been booked for them. There was a sitting room with bar and television, a large bedroom with a double bed and en suite bathroom and then a small bedroom off it.
Olivia indicated the small bedroom. ‘That’s where you will be sleeping.’

‘Don’t you think the hotel staff will find it odd that a powerful man like me doesn’t sleep with his wife?’ asked Hamish.

She looked at him with a frown. ‘Damn, I suppose you’re right. Just keep to your own side of the bed.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And you’d better get used to calling me Olivia.’

The phone rang and Olivia jumped a little. So she had nerves after all. She answered it and said, ‘Come along.’

She turned to Hamish. ‘That’s our muscle. Let’s have a look at them.’

After a few moments, there was a knock at the door. Two huge men walked in. It was in that moment that Hamish realized that a lot of detectives, apart from the fresh-faced Sanders, actually
looked like hoods. All you had to do was change the clothes. Both men were wearing conservative suits, but one had a black shirt and no tie and the other a scarlet shirt, also no tie. They had the
stone-dead eyes of hardened criminals.

They sat down and surveyed each other. ‘You’re not from Glasgow,’ said Olivia.

‘No, Scotland Yard. Drug squad,’ said one with a face like a hatchet. ‘I am DC Brompton and this is DC King.’

‘I’ll need your first names.’

‘Kevin and Barry.’

‘Right. Now I, as you have probably been briefed, am Chief Inspector Chater. You will from now on call me Mrs George. This is PC Hamish Macbeth, who is posing as my husband, Hamish George.
We’ll now go over everything again.’

As she outlined how Hamish had got them into all this, their new bodyguards listened stolidly. But occasionally one of them would flick a deadpan look in Hamish’s direction and Hamish
could sense each of them was silently damning him as some amateur Highland fool.

Olivia summed up. ‘So the meet is tonight at Lachie’s at nine o’clock. We’ll take it from there.’

Hamish was becoming increasingly worried. A lot of money had already been laid out on this operation. What if, so his anxious thoughts ran, Angus and Bob were nothing more than drug
takers
and would introduce him to some friend at Lachie’s posing as a drug baron so that they could pick up their fee?

Kevin spoke. ‘I don’t like the idea of Hamish posing as an associate of Jimmy White. In the underworld of drugs, gossip travels fast. You don’t want Jimmy saying he’s
never even heard of him. I would suggest, make Hamish the head of a new syndicate with ties to Turkey. If the money he’s offering seems to be big enough, then they might take the
bait.’

The three of them discussed this idea as if Hamish wasn’t there.

At last Hamish felt he ought to assert himself. ‘Why don’t you just let me play it by ear?’ he said.

‘Are you good at that?’ asked Barry doubtfully.

‘Och, yes,’ said Hamish with a confidence he did not feel.

‘I think that’s all we can do now,’ said Olivia briskly. ‘Lachie’s is quite close. We’ll leave here at ten to nine.’

After the bodyguards had left, Olivia dialled police headquarters on her mobile to ask if they had raided the Owens place yet and if anything had been found. She listened carefully and then rang
off. ‘They’re going through the Owens home and the church at the moment. We’ll need to wait a bit.’

Hamish took out one of his paperbacks and started to read. Olivia paced up and down.

‘I don’t know how you can be so calm!’ she burst out.

‘The way I see it,’ said Hamish, putting his book down, ‘is that if we can’t do anything right now, we may as well find ways to pass the time.’

‘I suppose,’ she said restlessly.

‘I tell you what,’ said Hamish. ‘We take that monster of a car out for a drive. It’s a grand day. May as well show you the scenery.’

Soon they were driving away from Strathbane. ‘I’ve never had a car like this afore,’ said Hamish. ‘Look at all these gadgets.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘I thought I might show you Lochdubh.’

‘You’ll be recognized.’

‘I’ve an idea.’ Hamish swung the car around. He drove back a little way into town and stopped outside a shop. He went in and emerged with a down-the-river hat, which after he
had got in the car, he put on. Then he took the wraparound sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on as well. ‘No one in Lochdubh will recognize me like this,’ he said.

He drove off again. ‘When we get to Lochdubh I’d like to take you for a walk about the place but that would be too risky.’

‘The scenery’s incredible,’ said Olivia. ‘So wild, so savage.’

‘Sometimes in winter it can be very bleak,’ said Hamish, ‘but the landscape is never the same. The changing light alters the perspective so that the mountains never look the
same.’

‘So much purple heather,’ murmured Olivia.

‘You’ll have the heather on the mountains at Loch Lomond.’

‘But not like this! Miles and miles of purple flowers. And that yellow gorse. So much colour.’

The big car cruised towards Lochdubh. ‘I must admit,’ said Hamish, ‘there are a lot of moments when I wish I had minded my own business. I wish right now I were going home,
back to the police station.’

Olivia looked at him curiously. ‘You really love it here, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I’m happy most of the time,’ said Hamish, ‘except when I land myself in things like this.’

Detective Chief Inspector Blair called in early at police headquarters. Superintendent Peter Daviot espied him and summoned him to his office. ‘I thought you
weren’t due back until Monday,’ said Daviot.

‘Oh, you know me,’ said Blair with a cheesy smile. ‘Can’t keep me away from the office.’

‘We have a big secret operation going on here,’ said Daviot, and told him about Hamish Macbeth posing as a drug baron.

Blair listened intently. From Daviot’s enthusiasm for what he privately thought was a daft scheme, he knew that any rubbishing of Hamish Macbeth would not go down well.

‘And what would you like me to do, sir?’ he asked when Daviot had finished.

‘There’s nothing you can do at the moment,’ said Daviot. ‘May as well enjoy the few days off you have left.’

Blair went thoughtfully out of police headquarters. He walked to the nearest pub, head down like a charging bull. Once inside, he ordered a double whisky, downed it in one and ordered another.
He was in a flaming temper. That Hamish Macbeth should be getting all this glory was almost beyond bearing.

After another double whisky, he began to dream about a scenario in which the drug dealers were tipped off that Hamish was an undercover cop. The silly Highland loon would end up floating
face-downward in the docks. After yet another whisky, he began to wonder if he should tip someone off. That way he would be rid of Hamish Macbeth – permanently.

‘And this is Lochdubh,’ said Hamish proudly, stopping the car on the top of the hill.

‘They should have signs in the Highlands with phonetic spelling under the place names,’ said Olivia. ‘I mean do most people know it’s pronounced Lochdoo? And what does it
mean?’

‘Black loch,’ said Hamish. ‘Well, what do you think of the place?’

The village of Lochdubh was situated in a gentle curve along the loch below two towering mountains. The lines of eighteenth-century whitewashed cottages with their flower-filled gardens and
flapping washing on the lines basked in the sun. A light breeze rippled the surface of the loch. Across the loch lay an expanse of forestry and through the open car window Olivia could smell
pine.

‘It looks very pretty,’ she commented. ‘What’s that big building down by the harbour? A private house?’

‘It used to be a hotel,’ said Hamish. ‘It’s still up for sale.’

‘I’m surprised there are no takers. It’s a lovely site.’

‘I hope someone buys it soon,’ said Hamish. ‘It would be a pity if a grand building like that should fall into a ruin.’

He drove on, over the humpbacked bridge which spanned the River Anstey.

‘Could you envisage living in a place like this?’ he asked.

Olivia laughed. ‘In my dreams. In reality, I would probably die of boredom. Don’t you ever get bored?’

‘Not in Lochdubh,’ said Hamish.

‘So what do you do?’

‘I have a bit of a croft – there, you can just see it behind the police station. I’ll circle round by the harbour and then we’ll get out of here just in case I am
recognized.’

Olivia was to remember that afternoon as the calm before the storm as they drove slowly along country roads, stopping for lunch at a small pub, then driving on again until Hamish said
reluctantly, ‘Time to go back. The light is failing.’

‘Why aren’t you married?’ asked Olivia.

‘The right girl, the wrong time, the wrong place, that sort of thing. What about you?’

‘I’m married to my job.’

‘No yearning for romance, a home, children?’

‘No,’ she said curtly.

They drove the rest of the way towards Strathbane in silence. The companionship that had grown up between them on the drive had evaporated.

When they got back to the hotel room, Hamish asked, ‘Should we have dinner before we go?’

‘I feel too strung up to eat anything. Why don’t we just order a sandwich from room service?’

‘Anything in particular?’

‘Ham and salad.’

Hamish picked up the phone and ordered the sandwiches and a pot of coffee. Olivia had switched on the television and was watching the news.

Then her mobile phone rang, making them both jump. She listened intently. Then Olivia said, ‘That’s a much more sensible idea. I never liked Macbeth’s plan in the first place.
Too risky. I think they’ll go for this.’ She listened some more and then rang off.

‘The new plan is this,’ she said briskly. ‘We could be in trouble if they think you’re some new drug dealer muscling in on their territory. Before I tell you what it is,
they did not find any drugs at the Owens place. Now, here is what you are supposed to be. You have a shipment of heroin, prime stuff, all the way from the East and through Amsterdam. Originally out
of the Highlands, you nonetheless operate mostly from Istanbul. You mostly sell to France, Spain and Belgium, but now you want to expand and sell some here. But where do you land it? That’s
what you want to get out of them. Glasgow still has that load of drugs they seized. We can use that as bait. Once they take the bait and say they’ll buy, then they’ll tell us where and
when, and we’ll have them. Offer them four kilos of heroin to start with.’

‘And how much is that?’ asked Hamish. ‘I mean, it can be as much as a hundred pounds per gram on the streets, but a dealer is going to pay less for the raw stuff.’