Monster: Tale Loch Ness Read Free

consumed by interrogation, the second by an interminable wait for the procurator fiscal's ruling concerning the nature of Rolf Kreibel's disappearance. The crown's chief prosecutory official in Inverness, the procurator was charged with determining cause of death and, in criminal cases, bringing indictment under the jurisdiction of the lord advocate. As such, he held their immediate futures in his hands.
    Reddington and Foster arrived in Foyers in the late mornlng. Two police vans were already at the site. MacKintosh was there with several uniformed constables.
    "Gentlemen," MacKintosh said perfunctorily as Reddington and Foster climbed from the Rover, "the procurator has ruled the disappearance an accident."
    Foster and Reddington strained to pick up the words. MacKintosh, an expatriate from the Glasgow Lowlands, had a very heavy brogue and mountainous illiterate style.
    Reddington looked up at the sky, which was heavy with clouds and moisture. "Then I suppose we can go?"
    "Sure as the Word is good," MacKintosh said. "But we'd like you to look at something first. For identification purposes. A villager was fishing this morning and found a diving helmet along the shore. He called us. We assumed the helmet belonged to Kreibel. We'd like you to take a look."
    MacKintosh motioned to one of the uniformed officers, who brought over a helmet covered with dirt and a grayish-blue film.
    "That's Kreibel's," Foster said. He reached into the Rover and took out one of the other helmets, handing it to MacKintosh. "We each had an identical one."
    "Do you agree, Mr. Reddington?" MacKintosh asked.
    Reddington did not reply.
    "Mr. Reddington?"
    Reddington's eyes shifted. "Yes," he said, running his fingers across the helmet's torch.
    "Good," MacKintosh declared. "Gentlemen, I'm sorry this had to happen. But I'm right pleased we were able to expedite things quickly. You have my number if you need speak to me, and we have yours in case there are further questions or in the event the body is recovered."
    Reddington and Foster thanked MacKintosh, who offered a few quick words about the dangers of Loch Ness and a peculiar philosophical statement about life and death in the Highlands.
    "Let's head back to Aberdeen," Foster suggested sheepishly after the police officers had disappeared.
    Reddington walked to the shoreline and kneeled. Sniffing the edges of his fingers, he remained trancelike until Foster had moved to his side.
    "What the hell's the matter with you?" Foster asked.
    Reddington held out his hand, extending his fingers. "Smell that?
    Foster sniffed the substance. "Christ!" he said, astonished.
    "Yeah," Reddington declared. "The quake must have opened a fissure."
    Foster changed thoughts to words. "There's oil down there? Under Loch Ness?"
    And Bob Reddington, senior drilling supervisor, Geminii Petroleum International, just stared.

Chapter I
    The music and words had been filtering through his thoughts ever since he had stepped off British Airways Flight 7425 in Aberdeen. You take the high road and I'll take the Iow road and I'll be in Scotland afore ye. . . . A strange sense of Scottish earthiness or some bizarre notion of history, he guessed, rather than his heritage or an overromantic persona had created a bridge to barely familiar melodies. Oh, sure, Peter Robert Bruce, he'd been told, was a Scottish name, but his father had died when he was three, and if he professed any roots, it would have been to his mother's Irish ancestry. No, there was something about this country that culled emotions, something unaffected by two days of orientation at Geminii Petroleum's Aberdeen complex and by the long hours spent analyzing drilling and geophysical reports. Nor did this something relinquish its hold during the quick flight to Inverness or along the route into the city in a stretch Mercedes limousine to the rented home on a domineering hill. No, it was there, and goddamn, he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
    "I hope you like Travis