Romanno bridge

by Andrew Greig

A motorcyclist with a stolen ring walks into Rothiemurchus Forest until he finds a quiet place to die. A woman with an eventful past has signed the Official Secrets Act and gone to Dumfries to forget a man and keep out of trouble. In comfortable Crieff, a retired historian publishes an obscure article on the survival of the Stone of Destiny, then has his throat cut. A man with a long blade in a tan holster under his suit, a fondness for bird-watching, and memories of his short-lived Punk band Anger Management, has taken a commission to retrieve an object so valuable and mythic it might not exist. A rugby-playing half-Maori named Leo Nagotoa stands in the sleet by Romanno Bridge in the Scottish Borders, trying to thumb a lift when his Destiny slithers up alongside him. The hunt for the crowning stone of the Dalriadic kings, the Stone of Scone - it is worth enough to make life cheap for some and dear to others - has begun.