Ewan stared at him, thinking, Isn’t expending manpower what the police are meant to do when somebody gets murdered? ‘Okay, but it must be possible to identify him one way or another. Then maybe you could find out what he knows. Maybe in exchange for turning a blind eye to what he gets up to. Like a plea deal.’

‘That’s not what a plea deal is,’ Coull said, like a real smart-arse.

‘Whatever you call it, then.’

Macleod pursed his lips and breathed heavily. ‘I see. You’ve got this all worked out, haven’t you, Mr McCulloch? Maybe you should be doing our jobs for us.’

‘There’s a thought,’ Ewan snapped back and instantly regretted it.

The interview didn’t get any more productive from that point. Twenty minutes later, Ewan left the police station wishing he’d never gone there. On the long drive homewards he was wondering angrily why the hell he’d agreed to let them hold onto one of the gold coins as ‘evidence’, if they had little to no intention of taking the murder claim seriously.

Oh, what the hell. Boonzie would soon be here to help set things straight.

But there was no phone message waiting for him when he got home. Ewan’s heart sank in dismay.

He spent the rest of the day trying to alleviate his frustration with mundane tasks like fixing the broken wall tile in the bathroom. That evening he immersed himself in the internet, typing in search keywords like GOLD COINS LOCH ARDAICH PINE FOREST and noting down whatever he could find on a pad. There wasn’t much. Then he began checking out numismatical websites, a strange and obscure corner of the web devoted to the study of old currency.

Researching the coin’s inscriptions and 1745 date mark online he was able to determine that what he had in front of him was what was known as a Louis d’or, a gold Louis, the eighteenth-century precursor to the later French Franc. Its value, from what he could glean, was something in the region of five thousand pounds. Holy crap.

French coins buried in Scotland? Ewan investigated the history behind that, too, and made more notes. Lastly he spent a while hunting for information about illegal salmon fishing in the vicinity. Again, he discovered a few details, though nothing specifically useful to him, and scribbled them down on his pad.

He looked at his watch. Getting late, and still no word from Boonzie. Ewan didn’t want to pester his uncle by trying to call again, but maybe he could send an email. Thinking Boonzie ought to know about the coins, he used his phone to take a photo of it, then attached the image to a brief message that just said, ‘Ross found this. It gets weirder. Hope you get here soon.’