Ethan had modified the cottage somewhat since acquiring it, insulating it against the bitter Scottish weather and improving its fuel-oil efficiency while stockpiling stores of water and tinned food. He discovered that beyond the reach of the rest of the world came a peace that he had not felt for many years, perhaps since his childhood, and that peace was far preferable to the rush and bustle of a major city, the crime, the expensive of living and the hassle of enduring those around him. Ethan had always been something of a loner, and now instead of fighting that feeling he was embracing it like never before and wishing he had done so decades ago.
Ethan strode to the front of the cottage and glanced briefly at the very top corner of the door, where he had placed a tiny pebble between the door and the jam, an indicator and a warning in case anybody had attempted to enter the property while he had been away. The pebble was still in place as he unlocked the door and walked in.
The cottage had only a small lounge, an equally tiny kitchen and a downstairs bathroom, the water for which was gravity fed from a tank in the attic. Two bedrooms upstairs, and an en suite in the main room completed the property and provided Ethan with everything that he needed and nothing that he didn’t. Warm, compact and filled with a library of books stacked on every available shelf and in mountainous piles in corners of the rooms. Fiction, non-fiction, photography books, National Geographic magazines, New Scientist: everything and anything that fascinated Ethan.
Adorning the walls were small number of photographs, mostly of Ethan’s parents and his sister Natalie. Only one other stood in one corner of the room, an image of Ethan standing with an attractive, olive skinned woman with a bright smile and a mercenary glitter in her eyes. Ethan glanced at the picture of Nicola Lopez as he shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto the nearest couch, then he made his way into the kitchen.
Living in the silence of the open wilderness had attuned Ethan’s ear to any new sound with remarkable rapidity, and thus Ethan’s hand froze in motion just before he switched the kettle on as a distant but unfamiliar noise reached out to him. Ethan stared into the middle distance and closed his eyes as he let his ears focus on the noise: a faint crunching and a vague hum that ebbed and flowed with each blustering of the wind outside. A vehicle, probably a mile away and upwind, the tires crunching against the crumbling gravel of the old track that led to the cottage. The wind was funnelled down the valley outside from the west, giving advance warning of any approaching vehicle.
Ethan turned and without hurrying he walked back into the living room and reached up to the old beams that lined the ceiling. There had been eight when Ethan arrived at the property, supporting the upstairs bedroom floor. The cottage itself was over two hundred years old and built the old way. Now, there were ten beams, two extra ones installed by Ethan himself to look as much as a part of the building as the rest but each hollowed out, hinged and containing a variety of weapons. Ethan reached inside and pulled down a 9mm pistol in its case along with two magazines, each with fifteen rounds. Within ten seconds the pistol was out of its case, the magazine installed and Ethan was moving toward the rear of the house.
As he opened the back door and slipped outside he could clearly hear the vehicle approaching the cottage. Nobody knew where he lived and nobody had any business coming out here.
VIII
Ethan crept around the side of the cottage as the vehicle pulled up outside and he heard the engine switch off. He crouched against the cold stone wall and listened as the door opened, then shut with a clunk. Clean, crisp, a new vehicle — not one of the old farmer’s jeeps that rattled around the hillsides in search of lost sheep. Footsteps, not heavy, cautious and hesitant as they approached the front door. The sound of a knock, not generally the actions of an insane assassin bearing down upon him.
Ethan peeked around the corner of the cottage and saw a woman standing at his front door, her hood up but wisps of blonde hair twisted this way and that by the blustering wind. Jeans, hiking boots, a bag over her shoulder.
To his surprise she seemed to notice she was being watched and turned to look straight at him. Ethan stepped out as he recognised the face and for a moment he didn’t know what to say. Words finally reached him as though of their own accord.
‘I wasn’t ready for that.’
Lucy Morgan raised an eyebrow as she stared at Ethan and then at the gun in his hand.
‘My God, do you people walk around with weapons all the time?’
Ethan tucked the pistol into the small of his back and managed an apologetic smile. ‘You learn to be cautious,’ he said by way of an explanation as he walked towards her. ‘What on earth are you doing all the way out here, and how did you find me?’
‘I had some help from a mutual friend,’ Lucy Morgan replied. ‘She told me to send you her best regards.’
An image of what passed for Nicola Lopez’s best regards flashed briefly through Ethan’s mind, an image of his burning motorcycle and aching jaw when he had left Chicago, and he could not help the wry smile that curled from one corner of his lips.
‘I’ll bet she did. But even Nicola didn’t know I was out here.’
‘Well, it only took her three days to track you down for me, so I guess she knows you better than you think.’
Ethan felt an odd sensation of melancholy flashed through him as he realized that Lucy was probably right. Not many people had gotten as close to Ethan as Lopez had, and they had worked together for many years before circumstances came between them. Lopez had saved his life on more than one occasion and he had returned the favour more times than either of them cared to remember. But that was the past.
‘You’d better come in,’ Ethan said as he gestured for Lucy to follow him around to the rear of the cottage.
During the course of his investigations for the DIA, Ethan had come into contact with a number of civilians with whom he had kept in touch sporadically over the years. Lucy Morgan was one of those people. A brilliant palaeontologist and researcher, Lucy had made her name discovering the remains of some of mankind’s oldest ancestors on the blistering plains of Africa’s Rift Valley. Ethan’s own natural interest in such things had meant that from time to time they corresponded, but since Ethan’s change of career he had not maintained contact and so now he found himself quite concerned as to why Lucy would have travelled halfway round the world to see him.
Ethan busied himself making coffee for them both and lighting the fire, thick logs spitting orange flame as warmth spilled from the hearth and filled the cottage with heat, light and a comforting scent of wood smoke.
‘You’ve really managed to find a forgotten corner of the world out here,’ Lucy said as Ethan handed her a chipped mug of steaming coffee.
‘I found myself gripped by the need to be forgotten,’ Ethan shrugged as he sat down opposite her in his favourite rocking chair, a big soft one in which he had spent many happy hours reading.
‘Was life really that bad?’
‘It wasn’t bad, I just needed a change. Why are you here, Lucy?’
Ethan watched as Lucy Morgan reached down for the bag she had bought with her, and then lifted out a plastic cylinder which contained a bone. Ethan recognised the bone immediately as the one that he had liberated from the remains Lucy had excavated in Israel. With the DIA in control of the remains which had been spirited away to some top secret hiding place, the bone that Ethan had liberated had for him been the ideal gift for Lucy when she had been rescued from Israel.