Untouchable (14 page)

Paulo was looking at the map. ‘There are a few farm buildings in the area. We might get lucky with some of those.’

‘We just have to hope she didn’t hitch a ride somewhere,’ said Amber.

‘I don’t think she’d leave her luggage,’ said Li.

Alex stood up. It was time to go. ‘OK, guys, keep in contact, usual protocols. If you have to go into a mobile blind spot, tell someone first so we know where you are. Let’s get her back before she gets herself killed.’

Scottish farmyards were so different from Argentinian ones, thought Paulo. His parents’ ranch was full of wide open spaces. This farm in Scotland was overlooked by brooding hills, as though somebody had taken a regular ranch and rumpled it up to fit into a much smaller space. On an Argentinian ranch everything was wooden – the fences, the buildings, the arch over the entrance. In Scotland the buildings had evolved out of a motley collection of scavenged materials – a stone croft with a patched roof, a big barn made of breeze blocks and corrugated iron. And then there was the mud. Apart from the rain the day before, it had been dry most of the time they had been in Scotland. So why were all the farmyards he’d seen wet and muddy?

A man in grimy blue overalls was pouring diesel into his tractor. Paulo parked the bike and walked up to him. He asked the question he had asked at many farmyards already.

‘I’m looking for a missing girl – five foot two, blonde hair. Have you seen anyone around the place?’

The man sucked in his bottom lip as though giving the question careful consideration. ‘No. But you’re welcome to look around for yourself.’

Paulo walked off towards the breeze-block hay barn.

Amber had gone in the opposite direction, across the moor. She took it slowly, looking from left to right across the wide open space. Already there were people about – early morning walkers mostly. She passed a burned area of heather, the branches twisted like black coral. The sound of a shot rang across the moor. Amber stopped and listened for the body falling but she must have been too far away to hear it. That was a hazard she hadn’t thought of. There were people out here shooting. What if the silly girl had wandered into the path of a bullet?

To Amber’s left the ground sloped away steeply. It made a sort of crescent shape, and down in the bowl was a small square ruined barn. Better check it. How much longer was it going to take to find her? Already it was ten o’clock. The morning was ticking away and they had work to do.

Amber turned the handlebars towards the slope. The bike began to run away with her. She braked hard. It was steeper than she thought. She turned away instead: overturning an ATV wasn’t smart. They were heavy and could break your neck. She sighed. More delays. She looked for another way round.

Alex met Li and Hex back at the Range Rover. They were at the top of the main street of Tongue and had searched the village without success. They climbed into the vehicle wearily.

Li buckled her seat belt. ‘We could try Glaickvullin.’

Alex started the engine and moved out into the traffic. ‘I suppose so. But it would take her ages to walk there – a good few hours. We might just have to report her to the police.’

‘Don’t they have to be missing for longer than a few hours?’ asked Hex.

On the dashboard Alex’s phone rang. Li looked at the display. ‘It’s a text from Paulo.’ She brought up the message, then glanced at Alex. ‘
Am stalking a rare bird with pink plumage. Will try to bring her out without scaring her
.’

Paulo was in another farm, in another barn. This at least smelled like home, a clean, heady smell, almost spicy. Newly made hay had been baled and stacked like a wall of giant building blocks. A steel ladder led to the top, nearly six metres up.

Paulo heard the movement again, like a rustle. He put his phone away and pattered up the ladder to the top.

A big pair of eyes looked back at him. He’d seen her from the ground: the fluorescent pink flashes on her Punkyfish leggings were a dead giveaway. Tiff looked forlorn, her eyes surrounded by dark shadows, hay falling out of her pale hair, her ponytail dishevelled.

Paulo took his time, as he had with the frightened pony. Tiff might still decide to run away. He sat down beside her. ‘How’s it going?’

Tiff sat up, pulling her knees into her chest. She looked at her feet. Paulo got the feeling it was easier than looking at him. Was she embarrassed?

‘You feeling a bit rough?’ said Paulo.

‘I needed to think,’ she said to her Puma sneakers. ‘Now you can take me back.’

She was embarrassed, thought Paulo, but she’s covering it up. He climbed down the ladder and held it for her. At least they’d found her safe and sound.

Alex and the others were locking up the Range Rover as Paulo bumped down off the hillside onto the drive. As soon as he braked, Tiff climbed off.

‘You can all go to hell.’ She stalked into the hostel and slammed the front door.

Li looked at Paulo. ‘You must have had a pleasant journey.’

Alex let out his breath in along hiss. ‘We’ve wasted several hours running around after her when we could have been doing other things. Are there any volunteers for nanny duty?’

Paulo cut the engine. ‘I’ll take her for a walk to clear her head. She wasn’t too bad on the way back.’

Alex nodded. ‘Let’s make plans. Conference in the kitchen in ten minutes?’

In his room Hex set his palmtop recharging. It had been used a lot and he wanted to top up the batteries. Across the landing he could hear Tiff as she made a phone call in her room; he couldn’t distinguish actual words, but the complaining tone was clear. No doubt she was filling in some friend on the injustices of the morning. He went back out onto the landing just as Tiff came out of her room. She was wearing a purple hoodie and dragging her suitcase along the corridor. She saw him and straightened up.

‘I’m going. I’m too stressed. I’ve been telling my parents the things you’ve made me do and they’ve just told me they’ve booked me into a health spa. They’ve sent you a fax to confirm.’

Hex could hardly believe the troublemaking little minx had done anything so convenient. ‘You’re going right now?’

‘My parents’ PA is coming for me in a taxi. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.’

Hex was tempted to beg her to stay for one last day of overwhelming fun. Instead he picked up her case. ‘Better get this downstairs.’ Tiff followed him down.

Outside in the drive he heard the crunch of tyres on the gravel and saw Paulo looking through the spy hole in the front door.

‘It’s a taxi,’ said Paulo, and straightened up. The others relaxed visibly. Hex realized they must have been on the alert for trouble.

Tiff saw her audience. ‘I’m going,’ she said dramatically, ‘and there’s nothing you can do.’

Amber came out of the office. In her hands was a fax, which she read and then passed to Alex. Alex skimmed over the text and handed it to Paulo before opening the door. A woman in a cream-coloured suit was stepping out of the taxi and looking expectantly at the hostel.

‘Before we hand you over, I’ll just go and make sure this lady checks out,’ said Alex to Tiff. He strode across the drive, his hand outstretched in greeting.

Tiff watched him balefully. ‘You won’t take my word for anything, will you?’

Amber met Paulo’s eye. He gave her a long-suffering look.

Alex came back. ‘Yep. She checks out. Going somewhere nice, Tiff?’

Tiff took her case from Hex. ‘Nicer than this dump. Somewhere you creeps could never afford.’

She walked awkwardly out to the waiting taxi, her suitcase dragging a wake through the gravel.

Alex came back in and shut the door. His face broke out in a big grin and he punched his fist into the air in triumph. ‘Yes! Let’s get going.’

‘All clear,’ said Paulo.

Alex dropped to one knee in front of the door to the bothy and slipped a probe into the keyhole. He let his eyes zone out as he felt his way, gently flipping the tumblers of the lock.

It was stiff; it wasn’t coming as easily as he’d hoped. Alex could feel himself getting frustrated. He took a deep breath and slowed down. You couldn’t rush something like this. Think calm, he said to himself, and feel your way. You never know when it’s going to go.

He felt the satisfying click as the bolt inside the lock pulled back. He turned the handle and the door swung open.

Paulo dived in after Alex and closed the door. Inside, the bothy was like a small, sparsely furnished cottage, the kind you saw reconstructed in museums. A fireplace was dusted with ash. An oil lamp stood on the simple wooden table. Two rough benches stood by the fire. A washing line stretched across the room for drying wet clothes.

‘So what secrets is this place keeping?’ said Paulo.

‘Secrets that have to be locked away,’ said Alex. ‘Search everything.’

Paulo started with the fireplace. There was a pile of wood to the left-hand side. He lifted a few pieces.

The middle was hollow. There was something inside, wrapped in a blue plastic bag. Paulo pulled it out and unwrapped the plastic. Inside were lots of small Ziploc bags; hundreds of them, each about ten centimetres long. ‘Alex?’

Alex looked up from the narrow bunk at the other end of the room. ‘Interesting but not incriminating.’

Paulo peered into the hole again. ‘There’s another lot.’ He pulled out a green plastic bag. Inside were more Ziploc bags, this time yellow. ‘Hmm. Two colours of bag. Two products?’

‘Probably,’ said Alex.

Paulo rewrapped the bags and put them back. He moved on to the fireplace and poked the ashy remains with some tongs. It didn’t look like it was all wood ash. There were charred scraps of cardboard – cardboard that had been cut into small pieces. He swished away the ash at the back. Here was something. A few small lumps of royal blue plastic, as if something had melted.

‘Alex – they’ve been burning cardboard here. And something else.’

Cardboard, thought Alex. Why did burning cardboard ring a bell? It came to him. ‘Paulo, remember that gamekeeper at the lodge who made a fuss about the ketamine box? He said he was going to make a bonfire. What if he was going to come up here and burn it? What if this is where they get rid of the evidence?’

He squatted down beside Paulo to look.

Paulo scraped at the pieces of melted plastic but they were fused to the hearth. ‘They’ve been burning this too. They’ve cut up something. Maybe more packaging. Doesn’t look like it burns very well.’

Alex went back to searching the other end of the bothy. ‘That still isn’t very much. It’s not worth locking the place for.’

Paulo straightened up and looked further along the wall beyond the chimney. There was mortar dust on the floor. And shards of stone. As if something had scraped the wall. He looked carefully up the outside of the stone chimney. One of the stones looked loose.

He pulled it out and mortar dust sprinkled down. He’d have to be careful not to leave signs he’d been there. A nice footprint would certainly give the game away. He reached in with his fingers. And touched a wooden box. ‘Alex!’

Alex hurried over as Paulo brought out the box and laid it on the floor. It was about the size of a box of tissues. The top was scraped as if it was taken out and replaced frequently.

Paulo lifted the lid. Inside were pale rubber gloves and green surgical masks.

Then he saw Alex’s face change. ‘
Hombre
, are you OK?’

Alex nodded slowly. Suddenly he remembered what he had seen; the missing piece of his experience while he was drugged. His voice came out as a whisper. ‘This is what I saw. This is what’s been bothering me all this time. When I saw the men in here that night they were wearing masks and gloves. But you don’t need masks and gloves to gut deer.’

‘But,’ said Paulo, ‘you do need them if you’re pouring large quantities of dusty pills into bags. They must bring the pills up here in the carcasses then decant them into smaller packets for distribution.’

‘These must be covered in evidence,’ said Alex. ‘Dust from whatever drugs they’ve been decanting. We can bring the police up to search the place.’

There was a sharp rap on the door. Alex looked at Paulo, then jumped up and went to see who it was.

Several things flashed through Alex’s mind. Had they been caught? No. The gamekeepers wouldn’t knock. A knock was the sound of someone who believed he was on someone else’s patch, not someone who had found intruders. So Alex could behave like he was meant to be there. He heard the clop of wood on wood as Paulo put the lid on the box.

Alex pulled the door open.

Outside was a man with a silvered beard and a red Gore-Tex walker’s jacket. Around his neck was a pair of high-powered binoculars. He held out an Ordnance Survey map.

‘Sorry to disturb you. I wonder if you could show me where exactly I am . . . I’m not very good with a map.’

‘Let’s see if I can help,’ said Alex. He took the map and got his compass out of his pocket.

Meanwhile Paulo inspected the fireplace. There was a print from the toe of his boot where they had been investigating the ashy remains. He picked up a wire brush and brushed the ash neatly into a pile again. He could hear the walker chatting to Alex.

Then, suddenly, Paulo caught a smell of something. Like burning. It must be the ashes, he thought.

But Alex spotted a curl of yellow flame behind the man. ‘Better come away from the heather – the gamekeepers are burning it.’ He showed the man in. It wouldn’t hurt to wait in the bothy until the flames burned out, but they’d better get away soon if the gamekeepers were starting to work in the area.

Paulo stood up, and saw smoke boiling across the window, yellow curls of flame.

‘Well, thanks for that,’ the man was saying to Alex. ‘My brother used to like coming here, but I don’t know the area at all.’