Blood Proof [antikvár]

PreludeThe first time Iáin Cameron heard the nőise, it hardly registered. Little more than an outside creak and a brief thud, it was a sound which could have been a gust of wind or a prowling fox.Iáin Cameron kept on reading his book, reached for his mug of coffee, and took another sip from the lukewarm liquid. The book was unexciting to the point of being boring. His eyes needed a rest, his body demanded somé exercise. A yawn stole up on him and he set down the coffee mug then glanced at his wrist-watch.It was midnight. He wasn't even half-way through his nine-hour shift as night-watchman at Broch Distillery. In five months in the distillery job - 'Drink Broch, the most exciting single mait whisky north of the Highland Line' - the most exciting thing that had happened to him was when two forestry workers with too much liquor had crashed their van one night and had hobbled in at two a.m., gashed, bruised, and seeking help.But it was a job, and there weren't too many around for a man in his late forties, particularly a man paid off from his last job merely for thumping the foreman at the end of a modest argument.Still, it could be worse. Iáin Cameron was single and lived on his own, and the job didn't involve much in the way of effort. His duties mainly involved a patrol around the distillery every hour or so, and the rest of the time he stayed in his little security office, read, drank coffee, sometimes listened to the radio, or just plain dozed. It would do until something better turnéd up. Maybe his cousin Willie, who earned big money as a labourer on the off-shore oil rigs, would be able to help as he'd been