Page 53 of Savage Warrior

Mrs Megson has made something called Cullen skink for lunch. It’s a sort of fish soup and is frankly delicious. We both polish off two bowls, complete with huge wedges of toast.

Feeling decidedly stuffed, I set my spoon aside. “I need the loo. Back in a minute.”

“I think I’ll go up,” ?tefan replies. “See you upstairs.”

I’m washing my hands when ?tefan bursts through the door into the ladies’ toilets. “What are you—?”

“They’re here. We need to go.”

“What? Who’s here?” I gape at him, confused.

“Who do you think?” He holds out his hand. “I’ve put our stuff in the car. We need to go out the back way, Bert’s unlocked the rear door, but we need to get a shift on.”

I take no more persuading. I grab his hand and run.

We emerge at the side of the pub and have to make our way around to the front where our vehicle is parked. I flatten myself against the stonework while ?tefan checks the coast is clear. He beckons me to make a run for it.

We scuttle at a crouch across the snow-blanketed car park and clamber into the front seats. I spot the dark-coloured van parked on the other side of the road.

“Is that theirs?” I ask.

“I think so.”

“Maybe we should…”

“Good thinking.” ?tefan slithers from the driver’s seat and jogs across the road. He has a knife in his hand.

I can’t start to imagine where he produced that from, but he drops to his haunches beside the front offside tyre and slashes it. He sprints around the van, letting down all four tyres, then returns to the Land Rover.

“I hope it was theirs,” I say as he backs the vehicle slowly through the snow, performing a three-point turn to exit the car park.

“Yeah, well.” He appears unrepentant. We slither along the icy, uncleared road, heading south.

“Did they see us, do you think?” I ask the question only after we’ve found the main road which has, mercifully, been swept and sanded recently. We’re making decent progress. Inverness is five miles behind us, and it doesn’t look as though we’re being followed.

“Not sure,” he replies. “I was on my way upstairs when I heard voices in the other bar. I thought we were the only ones there, so I checked and spotted those guys from the roadblock.”

“Had they been at the hotel all along?”

“No. I’m sure we’d have seen them. Just arrived would be my bet.”

I nod. “Lucky you spotted them.”

His answer is a non-committal grunt.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t believe in luck. Or coincidences. Out of all the backstreet hotels in Inverness, they wander into ours?”

“I know, but—”

“Someone tipped them off.”

“Who? No one knew we were there except Bert and his wife. And they wouldn’t know who we were anyway.”

“They could have worked it out. There wouldn’t be many couples travelling in this weather, one of them a female with a foreign accent. If word was out that we were in the area. And if there was money in it…”

“You think they were paid to betray us?”

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