Deathly Wind

prologue

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 just 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-Manlicher 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.

He smiled contentedly as he looked up at the bright blue sky. It was the sort of day that made one feel good to be alive, he reflected. Especially when a commission like this one had been so easy and so pleasurable.

Five minutes later he had dragged the parents’ bodies up onto the machair and was just returning for the youngsters when he heard the motor of a boat approaching from the other side of one of the small islands. He hesitated for a moment then ducked down and made his way back to his sniper’s position in the tall grass of the machair.

PC Ewan McPhee had set off on his round of the West Uist waters early that day and he was hungry. He came round the small island in the West Uist Police Seaspray catamaran and slowed down to coast towards the beach. He intended to snatch a break and have a cup of tea from his flask.

But then he saw the bodies and the blood soaking into the sand.

He cruised into the shallows, cut the engine and jumped over the side, running towards them. And, as he squatted beside them, he felt an overwhelming wave of nausea come over him. He doubled up and began retching.

He never heard the soft footfalls coming towards him from the machair, and he never felt the blow that sent him flying face down beside the dead bodies.