Dr Fraser glanced at her watch. ‘He came out of surgery just over an hour ago and is in intensive care right now. So far he seems to be doing fine, under the circumstances, but we’ll have a better idea of his prognosis once he regains consciousness. Obviously it’s the brain injury I’m most concerned about. The coma might last hours, or it might last days, weeks, or longer.’

‘Or for ever.’

‘There is that possibility, which we need to be prepared for.’

‘What are his chances, fifty-fifty?’

‘I wouldn’t like to speculate, Mr McCulloch. Things could go in any number of ways and it’s far too soon to tell.’

‘I appreciate your honesty, Doctor,’ Boonzie growled.

‘In such cases the relatives are always notified. But it seems it’s not been possible to locate a next of kin.’

‘I’m his only family. Can I see him? Even for a moment?’

She hesitated. ‘You might find it upsetting to see him in his condition.’

If the good doctor only knew the slaughterhouse horrors that Boonzie had witnessed in his lifetime. ‘I can handle it,’ he replied.

‘Just for a moment, then. Come this way.’

Chapter 7

A couple of hours earlier, while Ewan McCulloch was still on the operating table, a phone conversation had taken place. It was a very private and secret call, but if anyone on the outside had been listening they’d quickly have worked out which of the callers was the subordinate, and which of them was clearly in charge.

‘What part of this do you not understand? Your instructions were to beat the truth out of him and then kill him. It’s not rocket science.’

‘We tried to get it out of him. He didn’t seem to know anything.’

‘So not only did you come back empty-handed, you also left him alive. Are you stupid?’

‘It wasn’t our fault. I told you, a car turned up before we could finish him off. We had to leg it before we were spotted.’

‘Yes, yes. I get the picture. Four tough guys, scared of some bloody old biddy on her own. What a bunch of pathetic cowards.’

‘What were we supposed to do, beat the shit out of her as well, in broad daylight? And what if someone else had turned up too?’

‘The road past Loch Ardaich isn’t exactly the M25. You could easily have handled it.’

‘Well, we were unlucky, that’s all. Credit where credit’s due, chief. We took care of the other moron for you, didn’t we? No problems there.’

‘Yes, you did. But now I’m wondering if you didn’t just get lucky with Campbell. Maybe I should have called Hacker back home from Korea to take care of the job. He doesn’t depend on luck.’

‘You had your reasons. Hacker works for you personally. You didn’t want to be too closely connected with it.’