Free Stone Cold by Norman Moss Page B

of the street, on the left. You can’t miss it.” He sounded cautious.
    I had a beer and a sandwich for lunch and headed out to look around the village. There wasn’t much to see. Most of the houses were built of the local grey stone. There was only one main street, with a fish and chip shop, a pizza place and a few stores, and there was another pub two streets away. Green hills reared up at the end of it.
    He was quite right about Bridey’s house; I couldn’t miss it. It was far and away the biggest house around. It stood off the end of the main street, where the village was petering out into green fields, a three-floor gabled Victorian mansion, built with the same dour slate-coloured stones as most of the houses in Adimurcham, and surrounded by a fence with an iron gate that was padlocked. It had the unwelcoming look of a fortress. If it had a moat the drawbridge would have been up.
    I went back to the Highlander and wrote a letter to Bridey saying I would like to see him about improving his security arrangements, and enclosed my business card from Fitzwilliam Harvey
    Security. I took it back to the house and rang the bell at the gate. After a while an elderly man came out. He took the letter and said he would give it to Mr Bridey.
    Back at the Highlander, I had a whisky at the bar. I said to McFarlane, “I dropped a note in at Bridey’s house. Something I want to talk to him about.” I threw out the remark in a casual way, but just loud enough so that a handful of others around the bar could hear it. There was just a chance that someone might pick up on it, come out with a friendly suggestion, perhaps. But nobody did. In fact I think I detected an air of disapproval.
    Despite this I decided to have my dinner at the Highlander. Neither pizza nor fish and chips, the only dining alternatives, seemed attractive. I was eating an apple pie dessert and reading in the Ross-shire Herald about the rising cost of fertiliser when I saw a man come into the bar and speak to McFarlane. McFarlane nodded towards me and the man came over to my table. He was a thick set man wearing a heavy sweater and raincoat. From his bearing he could be an army sergeant, someone with limited but unassailable authority.
    He came over and said, “Do you mind if I have a word with you?” I indicated the chair opposite me.
    He sat down and said, “My name’s George Molloy.”
    “David Root.”
    “How are you finding Adimurcham?”
    “Quite a pleasant place,” I said warily.
    “I’ll come to the point, Mr Root. I understand you’ve been trying to get in touch with Duncan Bridey.”
    “Who told you that?” I asked. I wondered whether he was going to offer me a way in.
    “I picked it up locally. May I ask why you want to talk to him?”
    “It’s a personal matter. Or rather, a business matter, but it’s private.”
    “Would it be connected with a diamond that he had?”
    Boy, somebody’s following pretty damned close on my heels, I thought. “Picked it up locally” my ass.
    I said, “I can recommend the fish here. The fresh salmon is delicious.”
    “Mr Root, my employers are also interested in the diamond.”
    “On the other hand, to be honest, the white wine isn’t up to much.”
    “They’re very interested. We know Duncan Bridey used to own it.”
    “He doesn’t have it now, so if you break into his house you won’t find it.”
    “They don’t necessarily want it. They want to know where it comes from. As I think you do.”
    “Well why don’t you just drop by and ask him?”
    Molloy was not going to be put off. “Do you think it would be an idea if we joined forces? My employers are very generous. They pay me well, and they would pay you well.”
    “Thank you, I’m quite satisfied with my present employment,” I said.
    “I suggest you think again. We don’t really have to compete.” I met this sentence by looking him straight in the eye. “My employers are determined people. It would be much better if we worked