When Distilled From Rage

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Aileen pulled the first ledger closer. Her wristwatch told her it was a few more hours until dawn.

Pluto’s minion, Ricky had set her up in a loft with no power outlet, not even for a bulb. She worked by torchlight.

The torch flickered. Oh no. Did she have batteries?

Aileen flipped the page and—

Boom. Boom.

Something pierced through the silence.

Gunshots.

Her legs crumpled, crashing her to the ground. Her arms covered her head.

Were they close?

Her body vibrated, thoughts looping into each other to flash images she didn’t want to come true.

‘You’re safe. You’re safe,’ she whispered to herself.

But was she safe? What if the shooter got closer? What if—

Her heart throbbed towards a heart attack.

Fear kicked her into action. She hunched over and crossed to the loft’s window, squinting to pick out any silhouettes. Nothing.

Silence filled her ears. Dust particles slowed as they floated under the moonlight.

Who was out there?

Aileen turned, pressing her back to the wall. Had she dreamt it? No way.

Focus.

She glanced at the desk which commanded the loft, its surface topped with dust-coated leather ledgers, and receipts hanging out of drawers.

Up here, with the full moon’s spotlight pouring in from two massive windows, she might be safe. Or illuminated like a ballerina on the stage.

And Pluto was down there with Ricky. She had to wake them up.

Aileen scrambled out of the door and down the corridor. The staircase walls closed in on her.

She stumbled, just one false move from breaking her neck. Her feet landed on the second floor and she managed to steady herself. ‘Shots fired! Get up! There’s a shooter! Call the police!’

Crap. She’d forgotten to call the police.

Her fingers shivered as she hit 999. Callan would be pissed.

The moment someone answered, she gabbled down the phone, breath rattling in her throat as she continued down the stairs.

Somehow the operator understood and asked her to stay on the line. Units were on their way.

This far out? She’d be lucky if they even found the McCloughan property.

Her feet hit the first landing. ‘Pluto, Ricky! Wake up!’

She heard no sound except her feet thundering over the floorboards. Had they gone out to investigate?

She descended the last flight to get to the living room. ‘Pluto?’

Moonlight pooled on the carpet like grey puddles of water. The unshuttered windows revealed the stillness of the night outside.

Where was the shooter? Who got shot?

Aileen ran into the throne room and to the circle of revolvers on the wall.

She stammered to a halt. Even if she climbed, she couldn’t reach them. All that armed glory for naught. She couldn’t shoot either, could she?

Thoughts fogged her mind, evaporating her survival instinct. She had to keep herself safe. Especially now that she’d run down here like an eejit.

She scanned the landscape outside, hoping to glimpse the shooter before they broke in.

Why were they here? Who’d be out there in the night?

She dived underneath the long sofa by the fireplace, pulled her legs in, and wrapped her arms around them. A stupid move, in retrospect. Her arms would quickly go numb in this position. What would she do with a limp limb?

Her breath panted as if she was wearing a microphone, so loud she was convinced that the shooter would make her out like a—

Her nose twitched. Ignore the carpet’s bristles. They stank, reeked of wet cloth not dried for days.

She held her breath but couldn’t, couldn’t—

Crash. The front door cracked against the wall.

Her heart banged against her ribs in fear.

Footsteps barged inside, loud as a horse’s hooves.

Aileen bit down on her lip, hoping to stop the trembling. Useless.

The barrel of a revolver dangled in her field of vision.

She yelped.

A giant hand grabbed her arm and tugged. ‘Ye wee bastard!’

Shit. Aileen jabbed at the man’s torso, then kicked him.

He didn’t move.

Her whole body quaked, as if an earthquake shook the world.

‘Who are you?’

She gulped oxygen into her lungs, which burned with the effort. ‘No…’ Her voice grated against her vocal cords, a ghost speaking. ‘No—’

‘Who—’ A gust of breath blazed across her neck. ‘Are you?’

‘Don’t hurt me! Please.’ Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry…

‘Jack, you’re scaring the poor girl.’

She froze. Jack?

‘What’s she doing in my father’s house? Call the bloody police!’

Jack tightened his grip on her arm until she shut her eyes and squirmed with pain.

‘You’ll do no such thing! Let her go!’ Heavy footsteps pounded into the room. Pluto. ‘Let her go. Now.’

Jack McCloughan’s grip on her loosened, and her feet hit the floor. He stuck close, the intensity of his rage scalding her back. ‘Who is she, father?’ Spittle landed on her shoulder like missiles meant to detonate.

‘None of your business.’

‘Someone fired shots in our backyard and it’s none of my business that a stranger is in your house?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Father—’

Aileen cleared her throat. ‘I’m Aileen Mackinnon.’

The air pulsed for a beat. ‘What?’

‘Ai-Aileen Mac—’

‘A Mac… How dare you? How dare you allow a Mackinnon on our land?’

‘It’s my house and I’ll do as I please.’

‘Are you joking?’

‘Jack, Pluto, please.’ A woman hustled over, holding her hands up. Her dressing gown camouflaged with the upholstery of the chairs in the room.

When Jack opened his mouth, she shook her head, her cornrows bobbing around her small face. ‘The poor girl’s afraid. We are humans and can afford courtesy towards people who need our help. Besides, the police are here. I think she called them?’

Aileen nodded, her ears registering the wail of sirens. The cacophony echoed louder until tyres splattered mud and headlights splayed across the windows.

The woman answered their knock and ushered them in. ‘We’re grateful you could come.’

‘Aileen Mackinnon?’

Aileen raised her arm for a handshake and realised it shivered like a twig in a storm. She tucked it against her side. ‘That’s me.’ She said.

‘Are you alright, ma’am?’

‘I believe she’s in shock,’ the woman said.

The police officer pulled out his phone. ‘I’ll get the paramedics.’

‘I… I don’t need…’ But neither of them paid her any heed.

Jack introduced everyone to the officers.

‘She needs a whisky,’ said Pluto.

‘Ma’am, why don’t you sit down?’

Aileen bit her lip. Get a grip, she said to herself. Tell them.

‘Shots. I heard two of them right before I called. They were gunshots, I’m sure. I think I saw the flash of a spark as well. Somewhere in the peatlands. I thought it was near, yet far… from here. And I decided to run down to warn Pluto and Ricky.’

‘Ricky?’

Aileen bobbed her head. ‘Aye, Ricky. But no one answered me.’

As she focused, careful to include all the details, her trembling stopped. Yet the paramedics insisted on checking her and draped a blanket over her shoulders.

She wasn’t a mouse, dammit.

And she certainly didn’t want to be wearing a blanket when she had to face the man who’d stalk in here soon. He won’t blow a gasket, he’ll blow her up.

Her worries came to fruition when a dark grey SUV barrelled in through the main gates towards the car park, spewing mud and water. Only one man she knew drove like the hounds of hell were nipping at his back wheels at 3 a.m. Equipped with a new car and sturdy wheels for roads like these, her man was incorrigible.

Detective Inspector Callan Cameron slammed the truck’s door so hard it rattled. His gaze scorched a path towards her despite the distance and the window separating them.

Oops. If she were dramatic, Aileen would say his footsteps thundered towards them and the grey in his eyes swirled like storm clouds in the dark sky. But she wasn’t dramatic…

‘Detective—’

One glare at the police constable shut him off. And then the fire singed her.

‘McCloughan.’ He nodded, his short-cropped hair giving him a militaristic look. His chiselled jaw muscles twitched, not helping her cause. She loved her man to bits but—

‘I’d like to have a word with Ms Mackinnon in private. Excuse us.’

He stepped in front of her and held out his hand.

She set hers in his on autopilot. Her hand shook again.

‘Hell,’ he said, and pulled her up.

The next thing Aileen knew she was out of the McCloughan’s house, with bricks digging into her back and a growling man pressed to her front.

‘What the hell?’

Callan yearned to rip into something. In the thirty minutes it took him to drive here, his heart had lodged itself in his throat. How many times had she made him worry so? He had to lock her up and chain her to her inn. Not humanitarian thoughts. ‘I told you not to do this.’

Aileen lifted her chin, informing him she was up for an argument. ‘How could I have known something like this would happen?’ She was shaking like a leaf but she’d argue. Stubborn eejit.

‘You drive down here, alone, in the middle of the damn night. What did you think would have happened?’

‘I called the police—’

‘And weren’t you lucky your phone had service? Or I’d be investigating your murder right now. Ever thought of that, Aileen?’

‘I’m fine. See?’ She tugged at his right hand and placed it on her chest. ‘Feel that? I’m alive.’

‘Oh, I don’t need to feel your heartbeat to know that. You ratting out stupidity is enough.’

Aileen narrowed her eyes. ‘I’m going to chalk that up to stress.’ Her soft lips pressed against his. ‘Don’t you dare insult me next time. In case you forgot, you’re not the boss of me.’ Then she ducked under his arm and strutted inside.

How many times would she put herself in trouble and get away like this? It didn’t matter. He’d save her every time. Not that she needed saving…

Callan ran a hand through his hair. This night shift was getting to him. Not only had he seen not the sunlit world in a while, the shift was so silent that even Lieutenant General Warren didn’t call to complain about his neighbour’s cat.

‘Detective?’ The police constable, Officer Kirkpatrick, stepped forward out of the shadows.

Callan grunted.

She pulled out her notepad. ‘Mr McCloughan, the younger one, says he heard at least three gunshots coming from the peatlands. His wife confirmed that. The elder Mr McCloughan said he heard nothing, only the commotion in his living room. And then Mr Ricky, he… well, he didn’t say much.’

‘Did Aileen Mackinnon hear three gunshots?’

‘No, she heard two. That’s what she told the operator. Should we check it out?’

He’d have to speak to every person inside. ‘Get your partner to put them in separate rooms. I don’t want them communicating with each other. And tell him to get statements. We’ll go into the peatlands.’

Now that they had a case to solve with witnesses claiming to have heard gunshots at the peatlands, they could go investigate. But the bog was where devils hid, even in summer. Dark mist called it home, like the smoke from a witch’s cauldron.

He almost called off the search until dawn, but if there was something to find, they needed to locate it before the grey clouds shrouding the moon burst into rain.

‘Come on.’ His voice sounded distant to his own ears. But he put one foot in front of the other, heading for the dark and deadly mass of hell. ‘Better get this done with.’

They passed the big house, leaving the distillery on its other side. Behind it was a smaller cottage, with just one floor above and a lamp glowing behind a netted curtain.

Jack and Sarah McCloughan’s house.

Behind it, Callan’s torch highlighted a hedge, bobbing with some summer flowers he couldn’t name. In the night, they didn’t appear as jolly as they were meant to.

‘Here.’ They walked through a small gap in the hedge, and Callan’s wellies sunk into the peat.

Damn rain. The police constable’s wellies made a sucking sound. Something about it grated on Callan’s ears and an image flashed in his mind of a Second World War gas mask.

Sweat trickled down his back. Callan loosened the zip of his well-padded jacket. The smart dashboard in his car told him the temperature was in single digits. Why then was he sweating?

Mist glided over the peat, surrounding them like a cage.

Callan looked back to make sure he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t scared, but he was reassured by the silhouette behind him, draped in neon yellow.

His muscles turned to lead. He drew in a breath that burned his nostrils. Get a grip, Cameron.

‘Sir?’

He stopped. ‘Aye?’

‘Should we go in separate directions?’

And risk one of them landing in a ditch and hurting themselves with no mobile service? ‘No, let’s take a zigzag route and cover max territory.’

Stone markers demarcated the part of the bog that fell into McCloughan land. They stuck to the low fence, then swished to the right and continued straight.

One advantage of smartphone technology was the compass, which proved handy now that he’d learned to use it. Especially tonight when the clouds surrounded them and obscured their vision from all sides.

They walked to the other low fence and back again in a diagonal line. The mist puffed around them.

Callan checked over his shoulder to make sure his police constable hadn’t tripped or wandered off.

‘How large is their land?’ Officer Kirkpatrick said.

He didn’t know. ‘Don’t dally.’ Callan trudged ahead, focused on the ground and his compass, hoping his phone won’t die.

The night would lighten into dawn soon, one advantage of summer. And the shadows of trees, too giant to be real, would fade away. What sort of creep loomed over humans like that?

Another rivulet of sweat trickled down his back, and he could feel a giant soggy spot under his armpits. It was the late night exercise. It had to be the exercise.

Callan breathed through his teeth, suppressing the pictures of masked giants, screams, and—

‘Sir?’

He almost missed the squeak and gag. Almost walked away.

His torch caught the one spot where the mist wasn’t threatening to overpower his world. A boot.

He skirted his torch around before making his way to it.

His wellies were a blob of mud and his hands frozen bloated digits.

Cold sweat zinged a shiver through him.

Denim-clad legs emerged from the dark, attached to a torso covered with a blue overcoat and—

‘Ah, hell!’

There was a bloodstain where the man’s heart should be. And his face…

Callan breathed through the belly-souring sight.

The man’s skin had sunken into his bones, his lips tainted blue. The eyes stared into space. White hair flickered in the breeze, the only movement.

‘Call SOCO.’ They’d need a slew of scene of crime officers. Not only because the crime scene was a wide area, but also because the dead man was once important in Loch Fuar.

Callan felt his gut drop at the implication of what his mind registered.

Dr George Erwin. Dr George Erwin was dead, shot to death. And he’d taken with him the secret location of Blaine’s grave.

In that moment, the little optimism he had of ever finding Blaine splintered. Now his best friend was truly lost forever. Callan’s eyes prickled. Hard damn luck.

But the doctor had the worst of it.