His employer looked at him with penetrating eyes. ‘Unless?’

‘It all depends on how badly you want to locate this man.’

‘I said it was an urgent matter. That’s what it is, Hacker. I want him found yesterday.’

‘In which case, it’s simply a matter of expanding our resources. Money and manpower, plus the usual ancillaries, such as equipment and transportation.’

‘Money’s not a problem,’ Hacker’s employer said, with a note of irritation. ‘As for the rest, that’s your department.’

Hacker nodded. ‘I have certain contacts, yes. I can make the necessary calls.’

‘How quickly can you get hold of these contacts?’

‘I can think of four men based in London who can make themselves available to us at a couple of days’ notice.’

‘No quicker than that?’

‘These are busy people,’ Hacker said. ‘And they’re expensive.’

‘Of course. Are these men part of your … organisation?’

‘It’s more of a brotherhood,’ Hacker said. ‘A fraternity of men with a shared background and set of values. There’s a whole network of us, but the four I have in mind are Bobby Banks, Kev O’Donnell, Liam Carter and Mitch Graham.’

‘Call them. I can have the jet pick them up as soon as they’re ready to travel.’

‘They’ll want to know exactly what the job entails. Therefore I need to know what your intentions are. Once we find McCulloch, what then?’

‘I would say that’s self-evident. He needs to be taken out of the game. And I don’t mean paid off to keep his mouth shut. I mean eliminated, properly and permanently, like the other two.’

‘But preferably with a little more expertise and neatness,’ Hacker said. ‘The Campbell business was clumsy, at best. To say nothing of the complete dog’s breakfast they made of “eliminating” McCulloch’s nephew.’

‘I accept that some mistakes have been made,’ his employer said, a little stiffly. ‘It can’t happen again.’

Hacker nodded again. ‘And if I’m in charge of this operation now, we do things my way. Agreed?’

They shook hands. Hacker left the room and got straight on the phone to the kinds of people he knew he could trust to come on board.

McCulloch had no idea what he’d got himself into. The fool was already as good as dead.

Chapter 25

The morning after her meeting with Ben Hope, Grace Kirk was at her desk in the police station in Fort William, staring at a pile of administrative work in front of her without really seeing it. She was having trouble devoting her undivided attention to a recent spate of farm machinery thefts in the area, and kept drifting off to think about more pressing matters.