Page 38 of Savage Reckoning

“Your father? I thought—”

“Oh, he’s dead now. He commissioned the yacht and named it after his wife, and my aunt. Ethan and Aaron’s mother.”

“I see.” Not your mother, then?

She airily waves away my puzzled expression. “It’s complicated. We had the same father, but our mothers were sisters.”

Cosy.

We round the corner, and she points out to sea. “There’s The Lydia.”

A beautiful ocean-going superyacht floats at anchor about a mile out. She must be thirty metres in length, and at around one million dollars a foot, I estimate the value of that particular floating beauty to be around a hundred million dollars.

And they say crime doesn’t pay. I can name plenty of Mafia dons who would argue differently.

“It’s this way.” Casey trots down a short flight of stone steps to an imposing door at the bottom. It could be straight from the set of a medieval period drama, thick, dark oak studded with iron. The handle is a solid metal ring dangling from a hinge.

In stark contrast to the archaic appearance of the portal, it’s locked with a digital keypad. Casey keys in the code then grabs the ring and twists it. There’s a grating sound, then the door swings inwards to reveal more steps leading down into darkness. She reaches in and flicks a light switch. The illumination from a single, unshaded lightbulb casts eerie shadows on the walls. The dimness is barely alleviated.

“I told Ethan it needed a hundred watts down here.” She gestures me forward. “Bottom of the steps then straight forward. Lights will come on as you go. You’ll hear them before you see them.”

“Are you not coming?”

She shudders. “I stay away from the wet work if I can. I’m more use with a keyboard than thumbscrews.”

“Thumbscrews? Your family stick to the traditional approach, then?” I slide past her and take the first two steps down.

“Maybe. To be honest, I prefer not to ask. I’ll be locking this door behind you.”

“Okay.” I descend to the bottom and wave back up at her. “Thanks for the guided tour.”

The door clangs shut behind me, blocking out the outside world. I take stock.

I’m in a narrow, dank corridor, more of a tunnel, really. The walls are stone, huge blocks which have stood the test of centuries. I’m no expert on English history, or Scottish, for that matter, but this place must be at least eight hundred years old. I imagine medieval labourers toiling with pulleys and ropes to drag those massive lumps of rock from wherever. Did they quarry them here, on the island, or somehow ship them from the mainland? How long would it have taken to build this castle? And why did they bother? What was here in ancient times that needed guarding?

I turn these questions over in my head as I make my way deeper into this subterranean world. Casey was right about the lighting. It’s obviously motion-activated, illuminating each section as I get to it. I reach the end of the tunnel and I could go left or right. My mind is made up by the faint voices drifting from the right. I follow the sound.

The voices become louder, more distinct. I recognise Jack’s tone, and, I think, Tony’s. I draw nearer and can pick out Aaron, too.

“Hey,” I call out.

A head pops out of a doorway about twenty paces ahead. It’s Tony. “Where the fuck have you been? We’ve been waiting for you.”

I quicken my steps to join them in a windowless, whitewashed room. I do a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, taking in the sloping floor which falls away to a drain at one end, and the crude workbench along one wall strewn with a selection of tools. A couple of hammers, chisels, six-inch nails, an electric drill, bolt cutters, and several screwdrivers. It doesn’t occur to me for one moment that anyone is considering doing a spot of carpentry down here.

There’s also a tap set into the wall with a hosepipe attached, and a couple of buckets, presumably for sluicing the place down as required. A coil of rope sits next to the buckets, and some hessian sacks.

In the centre, in pride of place, is a metal table. The legs look to be adjustable, and there are straps dangling from the corners and the middle.

I’m in the Savage kill room. All we need now is our star guest.

Right on cue, Jack and Tony leave the room, to return a few moments later dragging the semi-conscious body of the man I last saw when I bundled him, bound and gagged, into the car boot back in Inverness.

I give him a shit-eating grin. “Hey. How’ve you been?”

I’m not really expecting an answer at all, so the muttered string of expletives is something of a bonus. Shows he’s feeling chatty.

“That’s nice. We’re making friends, I see.” Aaron obviously gets the gist, too. He grabs the man by his hair and drags his head back, so he has to look at us. “We really should be on first-name terms.”

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