‘Ohdefinitely. I heard he keeps a mistress in Inverness and another in Plockton.’
‘Hmm...’ Roberta frowned out the window, watching the sagging trees whip past. ‘I know it’s a pretty place, but it always sounds like a venereal disease to me.Plockton.’ She put on her best doctor’s voice for, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs McGinty, but you’ve got a nasty dose of the Plocktons, we’re going to have to amputate your bits.’
The Land Rover rocked down and up again as it charged through a puddle deep enough to send water swooshing the bonnet, the windscreen wipers struggling to cope with the deluge of muddy water. Smearing the dirt about.
‘Think he had a fling with his PA, but she got married to some party bigwig and moved to Edinburgh.’ McKinnon turned the steering wheel, taking them around a hard right, leaning forward in his seat to peer through the filthy windscreen. ‘Then there’s the local ladies! He was— AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’ Eyes wide, death-grip on the steering wheel, both legs stiff out in front of him as he slammed on the brakes.
8
The ABS juddered, but the Land Rover didn’t stop – it kept on going, skidding across the slippery mud.
What the hell was McKinnon screaming about? Couldn’t see a bloody thing through all this filth.
Deep breath from the driver’s seat. ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’
The Land Rover finally came to a halt and McKinnon sat there, teeth clenched, breath coming out in hard little puffs, like he was at antenatal class.
Roberta thumped him one. ‘What the ferret-spudging hell is wrong with you?’
The windscreen wipers and rain finally managed to clear a couple of arcs through the muck...
Oh.
That lovely humpback bridge she’d tootled over in her MX-5 yesterday was gone. The only thing left was a stone pillar on the opposite bank of theverysteep ravine. And between here and there: a granite-coloured rush of water battered past, tearing at the banks, its surface flecked with angry white spray as it wheeched a couple of full-sized trees past like they were paper boats.
And the Land Rover had slithered to a halt about six inches from where the road came to a sudden stop.
She took her feet off the dashboard and stared. ‘Wow.’
McKinnon’s breathing slowed to a hissing rasp. ‘Don’t move.Pleasedon’t move.’
He put the car in reverse and eased them back a good ten feet, before hauling on the handbrake and half-climbing/half-falling out into the pouring rain to stand there, gawping at the chasm they’d nearly skidded into. ‘Ooh... Oh dear hairy...’ He folded in half, grabbed his knees, and hyperventilated for a bit.
Had to admit, he kinda had a point.
But when you were kidding on you were a detective chief inspector, there were certain standards to maintain. So, Roberta dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out her mobile phone. Checked the display: no bars.
Typical. Couldn’t be that easy, could it? Noooo...
She tucked the phone away and dug out her e-cigarette instead. About the size of a house-brick with a mouthpiece sticking out of one side. Flicked the switch and took a good long sook, holding the cherry-flavoured fog inside for a count of three before letting it loose in a Land-Rover-filling whoosh of steam. Humming Bach’s ‘Air on a G String’ for good measure. ‘Dum, da-dum, da, dum da-dum, da...’
McKinnon was still bent double, rain bouncing off the back of his stabproof vest. ‘We could’ve died.’
Another whoosh of cherry. ‘Dum, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, da-dada-da, da daaaa...’
‘We nearly died, we nearly died, we nearly died...’
She leaned across the car and waved at him through the open driver’s door. ‘Hoy, Soggypants – there another way off this estate?’
He turned and said something, but it was drowned out by a snarlingroarof thunder.
‘What?’
McKinnon staggered and slipped his way back to the car, raising his voice over the rushing river and thumping rain.‘The only other way is up the Hangman’s Ladder, over The Devil’s Razor, then Deadfall Pass through the mountains.’
Why did country bumpkins always have to ‘sexy’ up their backwater locations with melodramatic place names? They weren’t fooling anyone.
‘Right, we’ll try that, then.’
