‘And he’d have hated anyone knowing. Even more than he hates having it. He’s not as strong as he used to be, and he has to take all these pills every day. Of course, he works twice as hard to prove himself. But he’s struggling, Ben, I can tell. He’s been getting fainting attacks. I read that some of these defibrillation implants can malfunction sometimes, or that all kinds of complications can happen, even a year after the operation. When he told me he needed to go to Scotland I begged him to stay, but he wouldn’t listen. What if something happened to him there? Why else wouldn’t he have called me again in two whole days?’

‘We don’t know that, Mirella,’ Ben said, lowering his voice to sound more reassuring.

‘I already called the hospital, in case he might have been taken there. It’s in a town called Fort William. The only patient there with the surname McCulloch was his nephew Ewan. But that doesn’t mean nothing has happened. The town is miles from where Ewan lives. It’s a remote place, deep in the hills. Archibald could be out there somewhere, with nobody to help if he got into trouble. He could have fainted again, or had a bad attack, and nobody might even know about it until—’ Mirella’s voice had reached a peak of anxiety and now broke apart into a sob.

Ben was quiet for a long time. Then he said, ‘Tell me the name of the place.’

She read it out for him, struggling with the strange foreign spelling. Ben noted it down and was instantly putting together his plan.

‘Here’s what we’re going to do, Mirella. I’ll get there as quickly as I can. You need to stay by the phone and call me immediately if you hear from him. Okay?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I need as much information from you as possible to help me find him,’ Ben said. ‘For example, did he rent a car at the airport?’ Knowing what kind of vehicle Boonzie was using would be a useful asset. The registration number, even better. There were ways of bluffing that kind of knowledge out of rental companies.

‘He went by train.’

Ben considered the kind of remote local stations the area would have, not a car rental outlet for miles around. ‘Then how’s he travelling?’

‘I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t worry about it. What about other contacts there? Does he know anyone else in the village, did he mention any names to you? A friend of Ewan’s, perhaps? Or maybe he booked a place to stay, like a hotel or guesthouse?’

‘He never mentioned anything about that to me.’

Ben said nothing. He’d have little to go on when he got there. But that wasn’t anything new to him.