‘She was scheduled for an evening shift tonight, but I’m told she called in a few minutes ago to cry off. She’s come down with the flu.’

‘And I’m a monkey’s uncle.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘What do you think I’m going to do?’

Macleod sounded nervous. ‘There’s something else. I traced the car reg you gave me earlier. It belongs to a black 2018 Mercedes GLS sports utility vehicle that was rented just days ago from a car hire outlet at Inverness airport. The customer’s name is Hope, Ben Hope. Lives in France, runs some kind of training centre.’

Stuart smiled to himself. This was excellent news. He noted down the name. ‘Are you sure this is the man we’re looking for?’

‘Aye, perfectly sure. To be certain I ran a check on him through the police computer. No criminal record. But to say there’s a bit of a military record would be an understatement. I got my brother-in-law to look into it, like you asked. By the way, he wants to know if there’s any money in this for him.’

‘You can pay him out of your share. Just tell me what you found.’

‘Well,’ Macleod said nervously, ‘it wasn’t easy. Hope’s file is so cloaked in Ministry of Defence red tape, I don’t think even the bloody Prime Minister would have the security clearance to see all of it.’

‘Stop blethering and cut to the chase,’ Stuart said urgently.

Macleod replied, ‘All right, but you’re not going to like it.’

Chapter 37

Colonel Monty was a proud Englishman, patriot and royalist who, ashamed and appalled by the slur on Her Majesty’s forces that was the ex-military mafia calling themselves ‘the Dishonourables’, had devoted the entire two decades of his retirement to tracking them down and bringing them to justice. Or so the story went. The colonel had been widely derided for his obsession with a subject that many within the armed forces believed was pure hokum.

That was how Ben had first come to hear the mess-room chatter about Bartholomew Montgomery, years earlier when he’d still been with the regiment. Like everyone else he’d heard the rumours about the old fruitcake tilting at windmills like a modern-day Don Quixote; and like everyone else, he’d had no reason to take any of it seriously. The nickname ‘Mad Monty’ had stuck.

But now it looked as if the colonel might have been right on the money, the whole time.

Speaking to him, nothing about the elderly officer’s manner suggested to Ben that he was anything less than one hundred per cent mentally sharp and lucid. Ben laid out the facts for him, though he was careful not to say too much over the phone about his encounter that afternoon. It didn’t matter. Monty was perfectly astute enough to read between the lines.