‘I apologise. What do you do?’

‘Grow tomatoes,’ he replied, then changed the subject. ‘So I take it ye’re no one of the officers looking intae what happened to Ewan?’

‘I’m too close to it,’ she replied wistfully. ‘They wouldn’t have me on the case, knowing we were friends. Plus, I’m only a constable. DI Macleod and DS Coull are leading the investigation.’

‘That’d be who I need tae talk tae, then.’ He looked at her. ‘So you and Ewan must know each other pretty well?’

‘Once upon a time,’ she replied, a little evasively. ‘I’ve only just come back to this area after working away down in Glasgow for a few years.’

‘That’s where I’m from. Born and bred.’

She flashed a sad smile. ‘No kidding? I never would’ve guessed.’ Then the smile was gone again, like a ray of sunshine swallowed up behind fast-moving clouds. ‘This place is heaven to me. I can’t believe something like this could happen here. Especially not to someone like Ewan.’

‘Aye, well, it did.’

When they got to the police station, Grace led Boonzie inside and before long he was being shown into an interview room with the two officers in charge of the investigation, who introduced themselves as DI Fergus Macleod and DS Jim Coull. Boonzie thought that a Detective Inspector and a Detective Sergeant were a lot of horsepower to allocate to a simple assault and battery case, albeit a serious one. They invited him to sit, but Boonzie had done enough sitting on his journey to Scotland to last him a while, and remained standing. Grace hovered in the background, still out of uniform, while the detectives ran through their standard patter with Boonzie, designed to placate and reassure and instil trust, using phrases like ‘bring to justice’ and ‘leave no stone unturned’.

Boonzie cut to the chase with, ‘So do ye have any suspects yet?’

‘Not at this time, Mr McCulloch. It’s still very early days.’

‘Seems tae me ye’re looking at two related crimes,’ Boonzie said. ‘Ewan had reason tae believe that what happened tae his business partner Ross Campbell was nae accident. Now someone’s oot tae get him, too.’

‘We know about your nephew’s suspicions regarding Mr Campbell’s death,’ Coull said. ‘He was here two days ago, telling us the whole story. I should say it was quite a tale. Something about a salmon poacher working the loch at the time of the alleged incident. Also about some gold coins that were in Mr Campbell’s possession.’ Coull added the last part with a raised eyebrow and an expectant tone.