Free Evil for Evil by Aline Templeton Page B

MacNee wasn’t close enough to see, but that presumably was another deer despatched. He’d seen for himself that they hadn’t time to suffer, but even so it looked kind of a brutal business. The one shot here was a pretty beast, kind of like Bambi’s mother with its spotted coat and big soft brown eyes. He liked his meat unrecognisable, in wee polystyrene trays with cling film over the top.
    At last he saw Drummond’s boat, with Fleming on board, come out from the little pier at Innellan and head off in a curve around the island. Big Marge hadn’t been exactly cheerful last night; she’d be worse today.
    It could be half an hour before they fetched him and MacNee didn’t fancy just sitting here contemplating her reaction to Drummond’s no doubt gleeful account of his disgrace. He might go and check out the bothy, if only to have something he could tell the boss he’d done.
    As he neared the cottage, a browsing doe looked up, but didn’t startle away. He’d never been this close to a fallow deer before, though he’d seen one or two red ones killed by cars – and a dead man, too, after a sudden encounter with one of them on a country road. They could do more damage than you might think.
    The bothy was built of rough stone, with a corrugated-iron roofwhich extended over a lean-to for the miniature tractor. The window glass had long gone and been replaced by slats roughly nailed in place. The front door, its wood scoured to bare timber by the elements and rotted along the bottom, stood open on a barn-like room, and when MacNee stuck his head inside, the musty smell of animal feed greeted him. There was none of the usual farm disorder, though; in the dim light he could see sacks arranged with military precision and racks and cupboards for tools.
    From the middle of the room rose a rough staircase with a solid modern door at the top. It had a lock, but when MacNee turned the handle it opened and he stepped into a loft running the full length of the building, with a small window at each end; these too had been boarded up. One of the slats had slipped and a ray of sunshine played on the dust motes stirred up by his entrance.
    The roof beams came low down and only a strip in the centre gave reasonable headroom, but at one end a thick mattress with a sleeping bag and blankets was tucked under the eaves, with a camping Gaz lamp beside it. There was a very basic lavatory and basin behind a partition and at the other end a table with a camping stove on it as well as a couple of plates, a mug, a frying pan, kettle and a few utensils. There was a shelf with tins too, MacNee noticed. Beans with pork sausages, ham, corned beef; a comfortable enough set-up, if you’d to be here overnight for some reason – sick animal, or something, MacNee supposed vaguely.
    And eggs. And butter. And a loaf of bread. MacNee frowned. You didn’t leave stuff like that for an emergency. Someone must be staying here.
    He didn’t know enough about deer to know if they needed babysitting. Or maybe one was ill now. He shrugged and went back downstairs.
    But as he did, it came to him that he wouldn’t really like to spend much time here. There was something uncomfortable about the atmosphere. Or maybe it was just the dim light and the draught of air coming through the window that was making him feel chilly.
     
    Steve Donaldson, lounging against a car in the Smugglers Inn car park, threw away his cigarette and straightened up, looking at his watch and scowling.
    ‘For God’s sake, that’s after five to twelve! When’s the silly cow going to open up?’
    He was a big, powerful man gone soft, with dark hair badly in need of trimming and a roll of fat round his thick neck. His fleshy mouth was permanently set in discontented lines and there were the marks of temper between his brows.
    Derek Sorley, a puny figure beside him, said, ‘Scared of the polis. She’s only got a licence from twelve. Anyway, what do you think about what I