Free Stone Cold by Norman Moss Page A

Sean Connery. Then he suddenly disappeared from the scene. I looked further and newspapers reported that he had returned to the village in Scotland where he was born, had married a local girl, and become a recluse.
    I took the Eurostar to London and went home to Egham. I organized a cleaning lady for my flat on regular visits whether I was here or not, and checked in with Jeremy. I briefed him on what I had found out in Villars, skipping over just how I found it out, and also about Nadia in Nice who wanted a bodyguard. “So I might have found a new client for you there,” I told him.
    “Well done,” he said. “I think we’ll probably pass it on to an agency in Paris rather than trying to send someone from here. Unless you’re interested in taking on the job.”
    “I assume you’re kidding,” I said. “But just in case you’re not, I don’t fancy being a professional bodyguard, and I don’t fancy being at the beck and call of that greedy Russian bitch.”
    “So where do we go from here?”
    “The last owner before Madame Bulganov was Duncan Bridey, the film star.” He nodded showing that he recognized the name. “Well, apparently he left the Hollywood high life and is holed up in a village called Adimurcham. It’s in the Scottish Highlands, about thirty miles west of God knows where.”
    “Send me a postcard.”
    I packed some hiking boots, a paperback book said to explain contemporary China, and the usual things, caught a plane to Edinburgh, rented a small car, and headed into the Highlands.

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    It was mountain scenery once again, but it was different. The peaks were not as high and it was a rare one that had snow on the top. The clouds were low and they seemed like mist, translucent, nestling up against the mountainsides like cotton wool. The slopes were gentler than in the Alps, and the banks of heather gave them a purplish colour. There was also a light rain falling, the raindrops drifting down. I remembered what someone had told me about Scotland: “If you can see the mountains across Loch Lomond, it means it’s going to rain. If you can’t see them, it means it is raining.”
    I enjoyed the driving. If you live around London, you have to go a long way to find an uncluttered landscape and empty roads, and I had them here.
    I arrived at Adimurcham in time for a late lunch and checked in at the hotel, the Highlander. It was listed as a hotel but it was really the local pub with three rooms upstairs, the bar serving also as the reception desk. I was the only person staying there. A man was sitting at the bar and two other men were sitting at one of the wooden tables with pints of beer, in what I supposed passed there for conversation. They were as niggardly with words as Scots are supposed to be with money.
    The landlord was chatty, however. “On holiday?” he asked me.
    “Mostly,” I said. “I want to do some walking in the hills. I’m cooped up in an office in my job.”
    He nodded sympathetically. “You’re from America?” I nodded but explained that I lived near London now. “We had an American couple here in the summer,” he said. “They were from Florida. Very nice people. Stayed for a few days, took a different walk every day. If you’re interested, we have a list of walks here.”
    I took a leaflet from a pile on the desk with maps showing the walks out of the village. They were in three categories: gentle; intermediate; challenging. He told me his name was Angus McFarlane and he had been to London once and would like to visit America some time.
    “Actually,” I said to him, “there is someone in the village I’d like to see while I’m here. A man named Duncan Bridey.” The man sitting at the bar was within hearing range and he looked up.
    McFarlane seemed to stiffen. “Are you a friend of his then?”
    “No. But I’d like to meet him.”
    “He doesn’t see many new people. He keeps to himself.”
    “Where does he live?”
    “The big house at the end