"It's no' whit I ever wanted, lass, it's whit had tae be. It's the only way I kent tae help Zachary."

"Bollocks."

"Zack's sufferin' inside, has been ever since that night he first drooned. I ken whit he's gone through. My ain childhood demons made me a bitter auld man on my best days an' a nae-guid drunk on my worst. A restless man cannae be a guid family man, Brandy, "cause he's aye seekin' pleasure frae somewhere else. That wis me, still is. I never wanted that for Zack."

"So you pushed him intae locatin' the creature?"

"Aye. "Twis the only way he could conquer his fear."

"An' get ye out o' prison, I suppose."

"Aye, that's true enough, but see, if anyone could locate Nessie, I kent Zachary could. After a', he did it back when he wis only nine years auld."

Brandy's eyes narrowed. "What are ye talkin' about? "Twas the salmon that led the monster topside when Zack was attacked. Purely an accident."

"That's "cause Zachary cannae remember, at least his mind willnae let him. Trust me, Brandy, that wisnae an accident. My laddie wis a clever sort, even back then. Figurin' Nessie fed in the deep, he rigged underwater microphones tae his fishing lines an' recorded the sounds o' the bottom-dwellin' schools. Took him months tae perfect it, but on the day o' his ninth birthday he wis ready, intent on impressin' me wi' his wee invention. "Course me, bein' the restless arsehole that I am, wis mair interested in dippin' my wicket than bein' wi' my son."

"So Zack set out with his Nessie lure alone in that rowboat? Gees, Angus. An' now he's Join' it all over again."

"Aye, but we cannae let him, can we? I need yer help lass, so come closer an' listen carefully, there's no' much time, an' an awfy lot tae be done."

Loch Ness

Locating oil and gas reserves buried beneath the bottom of the ocean, as well as leaks from crude oil pipelines, relies on a variety of technology designed to detect anomalous concentrations of dissolved gases and emulsions in water. When oil is present, its surface film can be measured using the intensity of its reflected light. The interface detector True had "borrowed" was an antenna-shaped device that used a small laser beam to detect oil along the surface, along with a second probe that measured the energy absorption of insoluble liquids in the water itself.

The device was now rigged to our port-side bow, its data sent through my laptop.

As we crept north along the western shoreline, the needle twitched, the levels increasing as we approached the Bona Narrows.

"Have ye got somethin', Zack?"

"It's just a trace. Let's follow the narrows downstream a bit and see what happens."