The offices of the Business Development Department of the Highland Regional Council took up two small, fluorescent-lit rooms on the third floor of an ugly Victorian building on Bridge Street in Inverness. There were two desks in each room, and in order to get behind them, it was necessary to squeeze past the bank of filing cabinets that lined the high, cream-coloured walls. This posed an almost insurmountable problem for the well-built figure of Maxwell Borthwick every time that he had to take a seat at his desk.

Hemmed in by these permanent reminders of just how boring his job was, Maxwell sat reading through a thick, acetate-covered business plan that had been placed on his desk that afternoon by the weasly faced director of business development, Cyril Bentwood.

“Could you have a quick glance at that for me, please, Maxwell?” he had asked, as he had taken his sheepskin car coat and ghastly porkpie hat from the chrome coat stand. “And I would appreciate your thoughts on it first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Of course, Cyril,” Maxwell had replied, sticking up a middle finger at his boss as he turned and left the room, his work finished for the day at five o’clock precisely.

Maxwell detested Cyril Bentwood at the best of times, but his sentiments towards him had become even more acidic now that the little Englishman had been given the opportunity to tighten his control over Maxwell’s geographical movements. And that had all come about due to the incident in Oban when that bastard from Seascape had hoisted his beloved BMW up onto those pallets.

It had taken a full six hours and a hefty £50 backhander before he had managed to persuade the obtuse forklift driver to bring the car down, and even though he had driven like the wind back up to Inverness, he had still missed out on a full day’s worth of work. Cyril, of course, had reveled in it all. “One has to be trustworthy as a civil servant, Maxwell,” he had said. “We are funded by taxpayers’ money, and, as such, it is our duty to honour our work commitment. I am disappointed that you do not feel ready to respect this. Of course, I shall overlook your unscheduled absence from the office on this occasion, but if there happens to be a reoccurrence, I’m afraid that I will be left with no alternative other than to recommend that you be moved to some lesser office in the Council.”

It had taken all Maxwell’s self-control to stop himself from reaching over the desk, picking up the man, and hanging him up on the coat stand alongside his car coat and porkpie hat. What the hell did he mean, a “lesser office in the Council”? What on earth did he think he was running? The bloody Bank of England?