The Chessmen by Peter May

Author:Peter May
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: cookie429, Extratorrents, Kat
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2012-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the time it had taken Fin to drive down to Uig the day after his confrontation in the bar with Whistler, the wind had whipped itself up to a force-six or seven. But it was still unnaturally warm, and even stronger stratospheric winds had combed the incoming clouds thin across the sky in odd quiffs and streaks, like folds of gauze veiling the sun.

The tall reedy grass all around James Minto’s cottage, tucked away amongst the dunes overlooking Uig sands, moved in waves and eddies like water in the wind. There was a Land Rover parked in front of a dilapidated outbuilding that hadn’t seen paint for many a year. Fin turned his Suzuki off the metalled road and pulled up at the end of a sandy track that petered out at the front of the house. Beyond the dunes the mountains rose up in dark masses like waves of rock washing against the sky.

There was no sign of life behind either of the small windows set in thick whitewashed stone, and the sound of Fin’s knuckles rapping on the old wooden door had an empty ring to it. He was about to give up and drive on to Ardroil, when the door opened and the dishevelled figure of James Minto stood in his dressing gown blinking in the bright morning light. He squinted at Fin, one hand raised to shield his eyes.

‘Jesus Christ, mate! What kind of bloody time’s this to come calling? Don’t you know I work nights?’

Fin recalled the soft-voiced, flat-toned cockney accent from the first time they had met, and the latent threat that lay behind it. Minto was ex-special forces, brought in by the estate a couple of years before to deter poachers. Which he had done very successfully, by dubious means. He was feared and hated in almost equal measure by almost everyone in Uig. But no one man was equipped to deal with the poaching that was now taking place on an industrial scale, and Minto did not possess Fin’s skill as an investigator. He was a Rottweiler, not a hound.

Fin regarded him thoughtfully, unremorseful for dragging the man from his bed. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

Minto glared at him for a moment, before realization washed over him. ‘You’re that rozzer. Came calling a year or so ago to accuse me of murdering some poacher up in Ness.’

‘There were no accusations involved. We were simply eliminating you from our inquiry.’

‘Yeh, well that’s not how it seemed to me, mate.’

‘Anyway, that’s history. I’m no longer a . . . rozzer. I’m head of security on the Red River Estate. My name’s Fin Macleod. And effectively I’m now your boss.’

‘Oh, well, fuck me if I ain’t trembling in me slippers, Mr Macleod.’

Fin looked into the palest of green eyes in a lean, tanned face. Minto’s dark crew-cut hair was liberally peppered with silver now, but he was not a man to mess with. Trained to kill, and still fit and honed beneath a dressing gown that hung open to reveal only boxer shorts and a pair of flip-flops.

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