Summoning the Dead (DI Bob Valentine #3)
Tony Black
Prologue
November 1984
The farm road was pitted with potholes and loose scree washed down from the hills. Beyond the encroaching bramble bushes were the low-hanging branches of trees. At their thickest, the branches and the creeping bushes made a connection to their counterparts on the other side of the road, creating an arbour. Although the scrub was dense, it was not thick enough to provide shelter from the heavy rain that poured from the night sky.
The uneven road, no more than a track really, with its dents and declivities made for heavy going in the Transit van. Inside the vehicle, beyond the rain-battered windscreen and the furiously pumping wiper blades, the men cursed the job that had brought them out in such conditions.
‘I swear the weather’s better back home, and that’s saying something,’ said the driver, his mate next to him nodding in agreement.
‘Just go easy. I don’t want to return this van with a broken axel – it’s costing us an arm and a leg as it is.’
‘I’m doing my best. It’s pretty bloody choppy out.’
The needle on the rev counter danced as the Transit struggled, its wheels slipping in the mud.
‘I said watch it!’
‘I am. I am.’
The voices were rising, along with the tempers. The larger of the two men removed his hat and started to strangle it in his hands. As the van progressed, rounded the bend at the top of a small brae and drew to a halt outside a farmhouse the tension in the cab was palpable.
‘This it?’
‘Must be. I don’t see anywhere else.’
‘We should try the door.’
‘There’s no one in, I told you.’
‘We should try it anyway. You know what these places are like. The people are hillbillies – point a shotgun at you soon as look at you.’
The driver reached for the door handle. ‘Do what you like. I’m going to find what we came for.’
The rain was almost horizontal, backed by a strong westerly that threatened to take a man off his feet. The gable end of the farmhouse offered little shelter, the big man plastering himself to the sandstone and edging along slowly, so as not to be blown over by a freak gale.
The other man turned up the collar on his black reefer coat and faced the elements. He headed beyond the farmhouse, towards the outbuildings. When he reached the first of the small stone buildings he raised a hand to shield his eyes and shouted to his partner.
‘It’s here!’
He couldn’t hear the reply, drowned out by the wind and rain as it was.
The man moved off again, content that the other man knew where to find him, and negotiated the steps to the rear of the first outbuilding. As he peered over he leaned the toe of his boot on the rim of a large oil drum; it didn’t move. He crouched lower, still holding the wooden rail that skirted the steps, and pressed his weight against the drum.
‘What in Christ?’ he said, the words trailing before being taken by the wind.
His friend reappeared. ‘There’s nobody there.’
‘I told you.’
‘I wanted to check.’
‘Are you happy now?’
‘I am, yeah.’
The man in the reefer coat stood up again. ‘I don’t know how anyone can be happy out in this.’
‘I didn’t say I was ecstatic. I’d sooner be on my way home to the Dumbarton game at Pittodrie.’
‘Stuffing the ’Gers 2–1 at Ibrox not good enough for you?’
They smiled, the talk of their team winning thawing the tension. Aberdeen were on a winning streak; the gaffer had done wonders with the team. No one could really believe they had only recently been European champions. Would that ever sink in?
The pair had trailed their team around the country on an old trawler, chasing cod and odd jobs along the way. But the experience, initially so exciting to their ears, had worn thin as the odd jobs got even odder.
‘I can’t move it,’ said the man on the steps. ‘I can’t budge it an inch.’
The bigger man walked around the barrel, stalking it like a strong man facing a lifting challenge. He tested the steel with his toe, as his friend had earlier. It sounded solid.
‘What’s in it?’
‘I was told not to ask.’
‘Was that wise?’
‘I didn’t care. Look, they were paying cash, you had your share and now we have to dump it.’
The big man gripped the drum, put a shoulder lock on the rim and heaved. ‘Are you sure this is the right one?’
‘Of course it is. There’s the ICI badge and the cross painted in green, like he said.’
They wrestled with the barrel together, managed to tip it on its side. The ground shuddered a little as the heavy barrel splashed down in the mud.
‘It’s going nowhere. The bloody Transit won’t move with that in it, if we could get it in.’
‘I don’t suppose we’ll manage to get it on the boat either, not without a pulley and winch.’
‘We’d snap the cable – and sink the boat.’
‘That’s that then. Bollocks to it.’
‘We can’t leave it. We’ve been paid up.’
‘Have you got a better idea?’