Isle of the Dead: A Chilling Scottish Detective Thriller

Contents ISLE OF THE DEADDEDICATIONONETWOTHREEFOURFIVESIXSEVENEIGHTNINETENELEVENTWELVETHIRTEENFOURTEENFIFTEENSIXTEENSEVENTEENEIGHTEENNINETEENTWENTYTWENTY-ONETWENTY-TWOTWENTY-THREETWENTY-FOURTWENTY-FIVETWENTY-SIXTWENTY-SEVENTWENTY-EIGHTTWENTY-NINETHIRTYTHIRTY-ONETHIRTY-TWOTHIRTY-THREETHIRTY-FOURTHIRTY-FIVETHIRTY-SIXDCI BONE RETURNS IN…JOIN MY DCI BONE READERS' CLUBACKNOWLEDGEMENTSCOPYRIGHT ISLE OF THE DEADA DCI Bone Scottish Crime Thriller (book 5)T G Reid DEDICATIONTo Kath Middleton – he elucidated humbly. ONEDCI Duncan Bone stopped swimming towards Loch Gillan’s tiny harbour wall and glanced up at the sky. Since he’d set off from the narrow lochside beach, clouds had rolled in, obscuring a full moon, and a cold northerly wind was whipping up the freezing spring water around him. He about-turned and headed back to the shore, the conditions too dangerous to continue.Clambering onto dry land, he snatched up his towel and cut through the trees to his cabin. By the time he reached the patio doors, the wind had picked up strength. He fumbled with numb hands to open the door, and a gust caught it. The handle wrenched from his grip, slamming against the wall; he rushed in and forced the door closed.“Bloody hell,” he muttered, dashing to the shower to warm himself up.Forty minutes later, with his core temperature back to normal and his microwaved meal consumed, he headed out to the village hotel for a pint and to find out what was going on with the weather.Bone entered the cosy and inviting lounge bar, and Gordon Urquhart, the hotel’s cheery manager, greeted him from beside the roaring fire at the rear of the room.“Evening, Duncan. I see you braved the storm.”“This wasn’t forecast, was it?” Bone asked.He approached the bar where a couple of life-worn locals were propped up on stools, one helping the other with a newspaper crossword spread out in front of them.“An unexpected late delight from Lapland,” the first said.“Evening, Clem, Gaz. I see it hasn’t put you off your pints,” Bone replied.The two old codgers nodded.“Nuclear holocaust wouldn’t deter those two from their Half And Halfs,” Gordon interrupted and shovelled another heap of coal into the smouldering embers.“The weather guy on the telly said we should expect significant snowfall over the next two to three days,” Gaz, the older and more frail-looking of the two friends, added.“Best place to be then.” Bone rolled his eyes.“Cheers.” Clem raised his glass of whisky and downed it in one.The manager returned to the pumps and poured Bone a pint of 80 Shilling.“I reckon you’ll be working from home tomorrow, Duncan,” Urquhart said and handed Bone his drink.“You think it’s going to be that bad?” Bone sipped at the frothy top.Urquhart shrugged. “Freak conditions at this time of year usually are.”“Cheers,” Clem repeated and gulped his beer“You take it easy, Clem. The last thing I want to be doing is hauling your drunken arse back to your house in a bloody snowstorm,” Urquhart warned. “You weren’t out swimming in that, were you, Duncan?”“When I set off it was idyllic, not a cloud or wisp of wind, but I had to abandon ship, sharpish.”“Idyllic is not a word I’d use,” Clem said. “Wearing my gonads for tonsils is not my idea of paradise.”“Hey, here’s one for you, Duncan,” Gaz piped up from his crossword. “An investigation hits cold ground with hard, painful consequences.” He glanced over at Bone.“My life?” Bone smiled.“Disnae fit. Five letters, first one P,” Gaz said, fiddling with his pencil in anticipation.Bone rubbed at the scar on his temple for a second.“It is my life, Gaz – Piles,” Bone said, finally.“Aye, right enough, cheers,” Gaz said and filled in the blanks with gusto.Just then, the door flew open and a wind-ravaged wreck of a man stumbled into the lounge bar.“I wondered who it was that was missing,” Urquhart said. “Good evening, Junior. Glad you could join us.”“Fuckin’ tornado oot there, thought ah wiz gonnae end up in fuckin’ Oz.”“Well, think of the hotel bar as your very own land of make-believe. Oh, wait, you usually do.” The manager smiled. He leaned over the counter. “What’s with the waders?” he asked, staring at Junior’s clobber. “If you’ve been out poaching again, you could at least try and make it less obvious.”“Don’t be stupit. I gave up poachin’ years ago. Learnt ma lesson the hard way there.” Junior shot Bone a guilty look. “I’ve run out of troosers, and these were all I had lyin’ aboot.”“You mean you’re in the scud under there?” Urquhart grimaced, and the patrons let out a collective moan.“Naw!” Junior baulked. “I’ve ma boxers oan.” He dropped one of the straps to reveal a pair of washed-out, greyish-blue baggy shorts, the worn fabric barely touching the sides of his pallid skeletal limbs, with the fly approaching a perilous state of openness.More collective groans.“And to think those legs win the annual fell race year on year.” Urquhart shook his head. “Okay, put those away or it’ll be bloody Narnia I’ll be sending you to.”Junior yanked up his rubbers.“How the hell do you win year after year, Junior?” Bone asked.Junior tapped his temple and winked. “Every wee nook and cranny of they hills is in here.”It was then Bone noticed the soaked, limp roll-up still clinging to Junior’s lower lip. “Do you want a light for that?” He pointed and smiled.“Ach, Jesus Christ. That’s where it went,” Junior growled and plucked the drowned tobacco paper from his chin and deposited it in his equally drenched Crombie pocket.“Anyhow, if you weren’t poaching, why are you so wet?”“I tripped on that bloody path of yours again and fell in the burn.”“Good job you’re wearing those waders then,” Urquhart cut in.“The hotel path not on the fell race route then, Junior?” Clem said with a cynical smile.“Fuck off,” Junior retorted.Gordon handed him a pint. “Behave, okay?” The bar manager gave him a long, hard stare.Junior shrugged and took a mouthful of beer.Bone retreated to an armchair by the fire. A gust of wind rattled the adjacent window and he peered out. Conditions outside had deteriorated significantly, and a blizzard was blowing sideways across the car park. He wiped the condensation from the pane and leaned in closer. He could just make out his old Saab