Beyond the Rage by Michael J. Malone Page A

he was in sight of the Scottish hills.
    ‘Famous for what?’ Alexis grinned. ‘Not talking?’
    ‘The beauty of our countryside, of course. As for talking, you’ve been in Glasgow for six years – how can you accuse us of not talking? We’re like the most verbose citizens in the country.’
    Kenny looked in the mirror. The small, blue Toyota was still there. He was just being paranoid. No one would be after them. And if they were, they would surely choose something more exciting than a Toyota Yaris.
    ‘It’s the hills, the colours, the light...’ She stopped as if running out of words. ‘Man, you guys are so lucky.’
    The road took them through the village of Balquhidder and past the MacGregor Murray Mausoleum. They caught a glimpse of its dark stone, crow-stepped gables and buttresses as the car passed the road-end. Alexis demanded to know what it was. ‘It’s too small for a church. Not enough windows for a house. What could it be?’
    Kenny worked through his memory of his last visit here. He was eleven. His dad was keen to give him lessons about the folk heroes of Scotland and it was never enough to read from a book, he had to bring him to the actual place. First, there had been the Wallace Monument in Stirling and then they came here.
    He remembered being curious about this building and his father being anxious to get to the church where Rob Roy himself was buried.
    ‘The local landowners built this in the early 1820s,’ Kenny said.
    ‘The wealthy build a tomb like this to honour their dead,’ said Alexis, ‘while the poor peasants probably lived ten to a room in a tiny hovel.’
    ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself.’
    ‘They had a good sense of the dramatic,’ Alexis said as she took in the narrow tree-lined avenue and the impressive doors.
    The road curved into the village proper and set back from the road on the left was the kirkyard and the ruins of the old church where Rob Roy MacGregor lay with his wife and two of his sons. Standing there with his father was a poignant moment for him now. Then, it was mostly boring, with Kenny suffering through his father’s enthusiasm. His dad explained it in terms of a cowboy and Indian movie. The costumes were different, swap the bow and arrow for a claymore, the locals were the poor, set-upon wild natives and the Duke of Montrose was the baddy.
    In the teenage parlance of modern times he might have said, Yeah, right, whatever . But nobody talked to Peter O’Neill like that. Not even his son.
    The road carried them through the village and then to the three-storey baronial style building that would be their home for the next two nights.
    ‘They put a hotel way out here?’ asked Alexis, clapping her hands as the gravel crunched under the car tyres.
    ‘An award-winning hotel,’ said Kenny, examining the view from his wing mirror. No blue Toyota. No more paranoia.
    ‘Do you bring all your lady friends here?’
    ‘Only the ones that deserve it,’ said Kenny, who ’d never passed through its doors before. He ’d researched the area while wondering how to investigate the truth behind his mother’s death. Running through the reels of his history, most of the events that came to him involved his father. He ’d remembered the time at Rob Roy’s grave, looked it up in the web and spotted an advert for the Moniack Mhor Hotel, which was perched next to a beautiful loch.
    He needed time out. So did Alexis. A phone call later and the weekend was booked.
    Their room was sumptuous. Designed for a lover’s retreat with silks and deep velour, the bed was a giant centrepiece to the room. Alexis touched everything in the room, giving off a series of oohs and aahs and wows.
    She stood before Kenny, stretched up and kissed him.
    ‘I hope you have plenty of energy.’
    ‘We’ll just need to wait and see,’ said Kenny with a grin.
    ‘Sit.’ Alexis put a hand on his shoulder and prompted him to sit on the bed. She kneeled before him and, working at his belt