Deathly Wind – Keith Moray

They’re all recording data which the boffins back at the head office will work out later. We’ve done our work for now and are just off to bring the next lot over.’ ‘How many are you putting up?’ Torquil asked. ‘Ten more on this piece of land.’

He said, indicating the Wee Kingdom. ‘Then assuming everybody’s happy with the estimates they get, who knows. It may be that we’ll be putting up the real McCoys, the big turbines.’ He grinned. ‘Then it’ll be proper wind farm here we come. And for that we’ll have a whole gang of workers, not just gangers like me and the lad here.’ He turned and looked at the youth beside him, as if he had received a kick. The youth held up his watch and the driver pursed his lips.

‘Would you excuse us then, Inspector? We need to catch the ferry.’ Torquil nodded and waved them on. ‘Just watch your speed on these narrow roads,’ he instructed. ‘We’ll go easy, Inspector,’ returned the driver. He grinned as he nudged his companion. ‘And maybe your wee ticking off will do the lad a bit of good, eh? I keep telling him to give up these coffin nails of his.’

When they had gone Torquil started up the Bullet and made his way over the causeway towards the McKinley croft. As he rode past Wind’s Eye with its incongruous wind towers, he found himself mentally recoiling from them. These flimsy looking windmills were bad enough, but a wind farm with giant turbines would change the whole face of the island.

Rhona blinked myopically at Jock McArdle with ill-concealed disdain. ‘What, no flowers for me today?’ she asked coldly. ‘No flowers,’ he replied casually. ‘Just a message.’ His lips twisted into a smile that was curiously devoid of warmth. ‘See, I’m here as a sort of postman.’ He made a theatrical adjustment to the knot of his paisley pattern tie then reached into the inside breast pocket of his Harris Tweed jacket, and drew out a long envelope. ‘Maybe I’m a wee bit over-dressed for the part, but I thought I’d deliver it myself.

You’ll be interested to know that it is all entirely legitimate.’ ‘Do you think I am remotely interested in anything you have to tell me, Mr McArdle?’ His mouth again curved into his mirthless smile and he smirked. ‘And do you really think that I don’t know who you are, or what you used to do for a living — Rhona McIvor? I’ve got the memory of an elephant, so I have. But you don’t, it seems.’

He tossed his head back and laughed, a cold sinister laugh. ‘Have I changed all that much?’ A look approaching fear flashed across her face and she reached for her spectacles. When she put them on, McArdle quickly recognized that he had rattled her. And that she had recognized him.

The assassin edged closer, sliding forward on his belly through the sand of the machair, gradually steering a course between the thick tufts of coarse grass and clumps of yellow-blossomed gorse. It was slow going, but he was prepared to take as long as it needed to get in position in order to carry out the execution crisply and cleanly. It was an unexpectedly hot day with hardly a cloud in the cobalt blue sky. A day to soak up the sun, or so his targets might have imagined when they found the isolated strip of beach.

The parents were snoozing while the two youngsters frolicked in the shallows. Quite the little family group, he thought, with a sneer of contempt. He adjusted the silencer on the barrel of his Steyr-Mannlicher rifle and slid it through a clump of tall coarse grass, resting it on the bipod and squinting through the Leupold ‘scope to take a bead on the father. The youngsters were making a lot of contented noise, yet despite that, perhaps due to some sixth sense their mother suddenly shot up, her beautiful eyes wide with alarm.

She opened her mouth as if to cry out, but the assassin shifted his aim with unerring speed and squeezed the trigger. There was a dull popping noise, at variance with the effect of the bullet as it smashed into her throat, hurling her back against the sand to thrash wildly as her life began to ebb swiftly away.

The youngsters looked up, suddenly fearful and panicking. The father, awakened by the spray of blood across his face shot upright, his eyes sweeping round to fix the assassin. For one so big he moved surprisingly fast, instinctively trying to protect his family. But he was not fast enough. The assassin coolly aimed and fired, another popping noise belying the power of the bullet that bored its way between the eyes, exiting almost instantly from the occiput in a spray of blood and brain pulp.

Then the assassin was on his feet, the blood lust taking over. The youngsters were cowering, edging backwards from the bodies of their parents and the expanding pools of blood soaking into the sand. He had no compassion, no pity. He dispatched them both with a shot to the head.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 7efb351ebd24cb55
• File Extension: .pdf
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• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 255
• Language: English (en)

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• Total Words: 65,985
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