Unfortunately, Ronnie was acquainted with him. It wasn’t that Maxwell Borthwick had ever done him any harm or injustice. It was just that he was one of those self-opinionated, thick-skinned, conniving individuals that Ronnie had done his best to avoid most of his life. He came from Inverness and spoke in a thin, whining accent, and Ronnie had always imagined him as the kind of young boy who either would have been dragged off into some teacher-free corner of the school playground to get beaten up quite regularly or, if he was ever lucky enough to be involved in a game with the other boys, would have been made to play the role of “the enemy.” That was probably the reason why he had gone into politics—to give back a little of what he had received, and to give himself the power that he knew he had so blatantly lacked in his earlier days.

Not that his chosen career had been as successful as he would have liked. When the new Scottish Parliament had been formed, he had put himself forward as a Scottish Socialist Party candidate for the Highlands and Islands. He wanted to see a Democratic Scotland—power to the people and not allegiance to the Crown. He wanted Scotland for the Scots and he wanted to rid the country of the parasitic presence of its landowners, no matter if they were English, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, or whatever, those who lived privileged existences, in many cases in absenteeism, off the struggling labours of those unfortunate enough to work for them or live as tenants on their vast estates. Absolute partition was the only way forward.

It was a simplistic manifesto, yet an emotive one, and during the run-up to the election, Maxwell’s words were seldom out of the local press, his high-pitched voice constantly heard on Moray Firth Radio, expounding his views with such nationalistic vehemence that it appeared that he was not going to be satisfied until he had seen every haw-haw–speaking toff living in Scotland lose his head on the guillotine. He wanted a new pecking order in his country, and he wanted to be at the top of it.

Maxwell felt that nothing could stop him from taking his seat in the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh, and he therefore adopted for himself an image that he thought reflected the importance of his new status. He bought his clothes from Austin Reed, joined a new golf club on the outskirts of Glasgow that was frequented by some of the hierarchy of Scottish politics (even though it was a good four-hour drive from his home in Inverness and he barely knew the difference between a driver and a putter). He made sure he was seen at all the events that would be featured in Caledonia magazine, and to transport himself from Inverness to his place of work in Edinburgh, he had purchased the second-hand BMW 525i.