Brutal Revenge (3 page)

There were
other islands in both the inner and outer
Hebrides
in the same sorrowful situation as Stack. Each
in itself a tragedy of modern times, suffering now because
they had long ago been left behind by the
inexorable
march of progress.

But Stack
differed now from those other islands in one significant respect. It had not
been forsaken by God. He had blessed the island with a great and wonderful
gift, a
gift that was surely meant to be
used to secure a future for
its inhabitants.
This was something many of the islanders came firmly to believe. And it
was this belief which led eventually to the momentous decision that was taken.

FOUR

The meeting was
called on a Saturday night and all the
islanders,
except the children and a few old folk who were
housebound, went along.
It took place in the church hall,
which was
really nothing more than a huge corrugated
iron shed with backless wooden benches inside and a sad-
looking
excuse for a pulpit.

There was a hushed,
almost reverent silence, when
Alastair
MacDonald, Ruari's father, stood up. He was
one of six of the island's most respected family heads who
were
sitting on the bench at the front of the hall behind the pulpit.

He
removed his fraying cloth cap and coughed to clear
his throat.

Having got the
attention of all those present, he step
ped
forward and stood next to the pulpit, a stout red-
cheeked man with short clipped hair.

He
welcomed every
one
by saying, “I've no need to tell you why you're here.
You all know well enough what we've got to be discussing
tonight. I intend to start things rolling myself
by stating
that I, as father of the lad who found the actual wreck,
fully support the view held by Ross
Mor.” He turned and
gestured with his hand towards the
man who
was sitting on one end of the bench behind him.
“I know many more of you
do as well, but there might be
some among
you who do not agree. Well, you can put
your views to him in just a
minute.

“But first of all I would like to thank God publicly here
tonight for
what he has sent us. With the money we are
sure
to be getting for the treasure we need not worry about
our financial
well-being for years to come. Aye, it is a blessed thought.”

Everyone in the
hall agreed with him and there was a lot of smiling and nodding of heads before
he raised his hands and they became silent.

“But it must be
remembered that this wealth is for the island,” he went on. “To be used for the
good of all of us
. Old and
young alike
will benefit if we are able to use this money wisely to bring prosperity to the
island once again.”

MacDonald returned to his place on the bench and
Ross Mor came forward. Mor was in his late fifties
and was one of a family line that stretched way back to
before the island's earliest records were kept. He was a
big man,
well over six feet, with powerful shoulders and an ape-like stance that was
curiously threatening. An
enormous dark bushy
beard completely covered his
mouth
when it wasn't open and he had brows to match
that were like thick fluffy shades over his narrow eyes. His
weather-beaten skin was also dark, besides being heavily
lined, and this was because at one time the
Celtic blood of
his family had been mixed with the Nordic.

He hadn’t yet
recovered from his wife's death five months earlier and so
was still a pitiful sight, somber and haggard,
his eyes devoid of life and heavily bloodshot
.

There was only
one bright spot now - Anna, his daughter. But she was twenty already, ripe to
become a
bride, and he knew that sooner or
later she too would
have to desert him.

Anna had been
very much on his mind when the idea
concerning
the treasure had come to him. He was in Mac
Donald's boat at the time, pulling up the rope which
Ruari had
tied to a sack-full of coins. Perhaps if he hadn't
been thinking about his daughter he would have dis
missed the
crazy notion out of hand; cursed himself for having contemplated such an
outrageous stunt.

But the fact
was he
had
been thinking about her,
wondering how he could possibly make life less of a struggle for her than it
had been for her mother.

Anna was
sitting in the second row from the front wearing the long summer dress her
mother had
made for her. She was not a
pretty girl by any means. Her
nose was too long and her mouth too small;
it was clear there was more of her father in her than her mother.

But her body
compensated for her less-than-perfect looks.
She
had large round breasts and small firm buttocks
and therefore attracted
the attention of the few red-blooded males around her age on the island.

Mor smiled at
her and when she smiled back his confi
dence
grew. He turned to his audience and said, “I'm
thankful you are all prepared to listen to me. Most of you
already know what I'm going to say and I hope
you've
given it some thought already.”

A woman
shouted, “Is it true that you want us to keep the treasure a secret and no
report it to the Receiver?”

He grinned.
There were no secrets on Stack. News always spread like wildfire.

“Aye, that's
true,” he said.

“But would that
no be illegal?”

“Aye, it
would,” he replied. “But as I see it we've got to look out for
ourselves if we don't want to be evacuated to the
main
land in years to come. The
government will not
help us, as we
all know from bitter experience. So it’s up
to us, all of us here tonight, to see that there is a future for
our young ones here on Stack.”

“What exactly are you getting at Ross?” This time it
was Angus Campbell, a rugged looking crofter in
the
front row who was sandwiched between his two heavyweight sons.

“What I'm getting at is this,” Mor said. “If we tell
the Receiver
of God's precious gift to us it’ll become the property of the Crown and to be
sure we'll be lucky to get a fraction of its worth as our reward for finding
it. Plus, it could take years for all the legal matters to be settled. But if
we tell no one and then sell the gold ourselves we’ll all be wealthy. And we’ll
all have a future.”

A voice from
the back said, “But how would we go about it? We can’t just put it on eBay.”

The remark
sparked a nervous burst of laughter which seemed to ease the tension somewhat.

“We’ll sell it
gradually,” Mor said, after a few seconds. “Over a period of many months – to
dealers and collectors. We’ll make sure that nobody will ever know where it
came from.”

Mor gave them
time to talk it over amongst themselves and more people plucked up the courage
to lob questions at him. After a time it became clear that the majority were
rather struck on the idea of deceiving the
establishment
and were merely seeking an assurance from
Mor that it wouldn't lead them
all into trouble.

They no longer
had any loyalty to the mainland or the government. For too long they had been
ignored and Stack had been starved of investment. Their concerns had never been
taken seriously and their fears for the future had been dismissed out of hand
by arrogant politicians.

Finally, it was
put to the vote and every single person was in favour of Mor's plan.

Mor undertook, along with Alastair Mac
Donald, to take
charge of the operation. It was agreed that a meeting would be
held in the hall each week so that they could
report on
their progress.

Everyone was
also sworn to secrecy and made to pro
mise
that they would not let mention of it slip during
trips to the mainland or when the ferry from the
main
land called at the island.

As the meeting drew
to a close there remained only one question to be answered.

How the hell were they going to
carry out the plan?

“With the help of someone on
the mainland,” Mor said. “Someone you will all be familiar with.”

FIVE

Maclean's plan was diabolically simple.

They'd just go out to the island, load the treasure into a boat, and motor
away with it. There were no police officers based on the island and therefore
no one to stop them.

Stewart racked his brain for a suitable phrase that could be applied to
the task and came up with the brilliantly original saying, 'like taking candy
from a baby.'

Maclean said he couldn't see how it could fail to work. He was
convinced in fact that it would prove to be the easiest blag any of them had
ever pulled.

He revealed that the treasure was stored in a number of suitcases and crates
in a house on the island owned by a guy names Ross Mor.

“They took me to see it but I was blindfolded because they didn’t want
me to know the exact location,” he said. “But needless to say I’ve since found
out.”

“Just how much treasure is there and how heavy is it?” This from Stewart.

“Most of it is in the form of coins,” Maclean said. “There are
thousands of them, plus jewellery and other artifacts. So it’s not as bulky as
you might imagine. I counted three large suitcases and four wooden crates.”

“So how come you got involved?” Hodge asked him. “You said you hadn’t
been back to the island in years.”

“They approached me out of the blue eight weeks ago,” Maclean said.
“They knew about the antiques business and they needed someone in the know to
help them get rid of the treasure. I fit the bill perfectly. I’m one of them
and because of that they trust me. So they offered me a deal and I accepted.”

In the beginning Maclean had gone along with Mor's amateurish attempt to
cheat the Crown and for a time had actually intended distributing the treasure
on their behalf for a modest commission. He was to be given small amounts at a
time and had agreed that he would bring the cash to the island after each sale,
receiving his fee when it had all been sold.

But it quickly dawned on him that he didn’t have to settle for a measly
commission. The tight bastards were exploiting his expertise and expecting him
to do all the work.

And they assumed he would simply go along with it because he was an
islander himself. But they’d been wrong about that.

Although Maclean remembered most of the islanders from his early life
on Stack, he no longer regarded himself as one of them. In fact he still looked
on his departure at seventeen as the wisest move he had ever made. Not that
there had been much for him to stay for, since both his parents had died within
a few months of each other. His mother had succumbed to a debilitating cancer
and his father to a sudden heart attack.

Indeed, he was thankful now that he had not kept in touch with his old
friends and relatives on Stack. Had he done so they might eventually have come
to discover that his antiques business was merely a legitimate front for his
more lucrative, albeit illegitimate, activities. And
then they would never have taken him into their confidence.

 
Parker
was intrigued by the thought of stealing the treasure. But there was one thing
that worried him and he decided to raise it with Maclean.

“What about the islanders themselves,” he
said. “Can we expect them to put up a fight?”

Maclean chuckled. “I hardly think so. Most
of them are doddery old men and women. Those that are fit and able enough will
melt at the sight of a couple of sawn-offs.”

Parker leant forward and examined again the
map that Maclean had spread out on the table. It was a three foot square map,
courtesy of the Scottish Tourism Board. It showed Stack as a shapeless blob of
an island only seven miles long by three miles across.

It had a typical Hebridean landscape. There
were cliffs along one side, stretches of sand dunes, large areas of machair, a tiny
loch (or lochan) and a small village which had grown up around the tiny harbour
with its concrete pier. The highest point on the island was a hill that rose to
a mere 400 feet and there were very few trees according to the map.