Benefit of the Doubt

Les Cowan

Description

It was a warning. Back off. Stop helping the addicts. Stop undercutting demand. He had believed they would be protected. But they took her - the girl in the raspberry beret - and by the time they were done he was broken. So David Hidalgo flees Spain for his native Edinburgh. Now he must work out how to live again and lead others when his faith has been ripped away and all that's left is doubt. In Edinburgh David finds friendship, disturbing and unlooked for romance, and respite from the pain. That is, until a young girl is abducted and it becomes clear that it's not so easy to leave the past, or danger, behind. David knows he must set aside his doubts and act. But what will the cost be this time?

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Lion Hudson
• Date de parution: 23 juin 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781782642527
• Langue: English

Extrait

Benefit of the Doubt






Text copyright © 2017 Les Cowan This edition copyright © 2017 Lion Hudson
The right of Les Cowan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published by Lion Fiction an imprint of Lion Hudson IP Ltd Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road Oxford OX2 8DR, England www.lionhudson.com/fiction
ISBN 978 1 78264 251 0 e-ISBN 978 1 78264 252 7
First edition 2017
Acknowledgments Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Cover images: Fedora © blackwaterimages/iStockphoto.com; Figure © PeteSherrard/iStockphoto.com; Edinburgh © Arcangel Images Ltd
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library






For Fiona




Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1: Bruntsfield
Chapter 2: La Movida Madrileña
Chapter 3: Buccleuch
Chapter 4: Vallecas
Chapter 5: Hacienda
Chapter 6: Plaza Del Ángel
Chapter 7: Morningside
Chapter 8: Radio Dynamis
Chapter 9: Muirhouse
Chapter 10: Southside
Chapter 11: Drylaw
Chapter 12: Holyrood Park
Chapter 13: Little France
Chapter 14: Pennywell Gardens
Chapter 15: Marchmont
Chapter 16: South Clerk Street
Chapter 17: Edinburgh
Chapter 18: Madrid
Chapter 19: Torrejón de Ardoz
Chapter 20: Warehouse 66
Chapter 21: Southside and Muirhouse
Chapter 22: Policía Nacional
Chapter 23: Parador de Toledo
Chapter 24: Conferencia
Chapter 25: Out and In
Chapter 26: Valdepeñas
Chapter 27: Calatrava la Nueva
Chapter 28: The City of God
Chapter 29: Scotland




Acknowledgments
G rateful thanks are due to those who have helped in one way or another in the evolution of David Hidalgo and Benefit of the Doubt .
Firstly, to those who took the time to read and comment on excerpts, early drafts, or entire texts and who provided crucial encouragement: principally Fiona Cowan, Angus Mackay, Gillian Morrison, Mija Regoord, Jan Gordon, Dot Hanson, Janet Burgon, Ron Ferguson, Andrew Greig, and Morag MacInnes.
Secondly Tony Collins, Jess Tinker, and the team at Lion who were willing to take a chance on something a bit different. Also Julie Frederick for her zealous editing and amazing attention to detail.
Thirdly special extra thanks to Morag MacInnes for her inspiring writing groups in Kirkwall and Stromness, which unfailingly gave me energy to keep going.
Finally, thanks to the many wonderful friends we have made in Madrid, Galicia, and elsewhere in Spain over the years, for their kindness and generosity in sharing their culture with us.




Prologue
A n ordinary day – phone calls, messages, oficina de correos with the post, last-minute copying for Sunday. Tidy up and it’s time to go. Then Marisol from the rehab programme turns up and wants to talk. She’s fallen out with her boyfriend who doesn’t approve. He wants her to drop out and move with him to Malaga. She needs an older sister to help her say no.
Finally, bus stop in the dying light. It’s late and the streets are deserted. First a push – “ perdona Señora ” – then two dark-suited men she doesn’t recognize – one on either side. A black 4x4. She can hardly cry out before she’s shoved in the back, a fat strip of sticking plaster on her mouth and arms wrenched behind her. A searing blow on the head puts the lights out.
A routine appointment for a busy pastor, taking calls about his work. Then the last caller he expected. A sound like the cracking of dry twigs. A frantic drive to the hospital. “I’m so sorry,” the doctor says. “Can you come this way?”
That’s when the nightmare began.





Chapter 1
Bruntsfield
D avid Hidalgo leaned forward in an attitude that could either have been prayer or desperation. He took off a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and dropped them on the desk, rubbed his eyes, and ran his hands through what was still a fairly full head of sandy hair. How on earth was he supposed to finish a sermon – now getting distinctly urgent – in a freezing cold flat, surrounded by boxes, not a clue where his books were, the constant rumble and hiss of Edinburgh buses outside the window and an equally constant stream of interruptions? Neighbours, his new landlady, market surveys, political canvassers (preserve us), even someone encouraging him to carry a post-mortem sperm donation card. Where did these people come from? For a second he felt the inner toddler whinge it’s not fair , then caught himself. Of course it wasn’t fair. Who said life was fair? Brutal and clichéd but direct and to the point. And only a cliché because countless generations repeated it to each other in the face of what definitely did seem unfair. Everything from a slightly overdone Sunday lunch to bereavement and ruin.
Indeed it was not fair. And the next point please.
He put his glasses back on, ripped the half-written page from the pad, crumpled it up, dropped it in the cornflakes box doing duty as a wastepaper bin, and wrote Sunday’s date yet again in small neat script at the top of the page – 19th February. AM. Luke 10:25–37: The Good Samaritan – then leaned back and tried to pull his thoughts back together again. So a sermon is basically biblical explanation and application – ok. But what had originally meant something to near-eastern farmers, fishermen, builders, and bored teenagers (presumably teenagers have been bored throughout history) in a minor province of the Roman Empire was still supposed to mean something to Edinburgh teachers, students, account managers, nurses, secretaries, and harassed mums with two squirmy kids under five all in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Then it was recommended to be actually interesting as well as informative and moral. Who would want to hear twenty minutes of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason on a Sunday morning? Or indeed at any time. So maybe a bit of humour as well – but surely not stand-up. Finally, something that actually might prove a bit of help on Monday morning as well in the face of dreary repetition, deadlines, slimy bosses, and sweaty colleagues. Probably pompous to call it wisdom but the aim was somewhere in that ballpark. Some little pearl that might make a difference to somebody’s chaotic universe. And this week we’re up to Luke 10. What on earth could be said about the Good Samaritan that hadn’t been trotted out a thousand times before? And probably there’d be those present who’d heard it a hundred times.
He dropped his pen again, got up, and went through to the tiny kitchen, blowing fog in the freezing air. He’d forgive an interruption now if it was somebody from Scottish Gas to turn the heating on. He filled the kettle, then a hot water bottle, and made a pot of Russian Caravan tea – a small though rather expensive treat from Whittard’s on Princes Street. He took a sip, breathing in the smell of bonfires on the Silk Road, and shuffled back through. So where were we?
The ancient, burned, chipped, battle-scarred antique that was more or less a desk had an A4 notepad on it, a couple of Bible translations, the one commentary he’d been able to find in the mess, and a single framed photo. It was the girl in the raspberry beret. His favourite – photo and girl. She was sitting at a table in the Plaza Mayor, a glass of Rioja or Ribera in front of her and a Zara bag propped up alongside. She was holding up a new silk scarf and looking as pleased as if she’d just been voted cutest in Madrid. Actually not an altogether unlikely event. A busking jazz quartet was frozen in the background, their double bass player the size of a prize fighter grinning at a tiny trumpeter whose cheeks looked like they were about to pop. They seemed to be playing just to each other, the mixed crowd of Madrileño natives and tourists milling around behind just a good excuse, not really part of the joke. Behind their heads the murals round the square were vague splashes of earth colours: orange, red ochre, and shades of beige. A line of dark rooftops was sharp against a firmament of solid blue. The girl in the raspberry beret was grinning as well and he knew the cameraman was grinning too. Himself. Everyone was grinning as if they’d put something in the water that day. Then another cliché came to mind: if I’d known then what I know now…
The harsh clanging of the doorbell broke into his thoughts but this time he welcomed it.
“Southside Seconds, mate. For…” the delivery man pulled a pink flimsy chit out of his top pocket and peered at the address. “Eh… Reverend David Hidalgo.” He looked up. “That you then?”
Together they hauled, slid, walked, and carried a sofa, two armchairs, bookcase, standard lamp, and wall unit up the stairs and into whichever room they were destined for. Then some individual boxes with pots and frying pans, Pyrex dishes, an old brass candlestick, a set of chipped wally dugs, picture frames, and a white china chamber pot.
“House clearance,” the driver said. “Never know what you’re gonna get. I can keep some o’ that if ye want. Somebody’s dead granny must’ve liked it ’n’ tha’ but that disnae mean you huvtae.”
“Right,” said David. “We’re not quite in the land of chamber pots yet.” So half of the last box box was sort