Profit without Honour/No Enemy but Time/To Kill the Potemkin/Tree of Gold [antikvár]

CHAPTER iThree men in a boat. Four if you counted the corpse."A bit further," Jackman ordered quietly from the stern, and the dark shadows that were Steevenson and Parsons hunched forward over their oars. There was no moon. Only the faint swirl of phosphorescence marked their passage as they slid silently out over the deep waters of Loch Linnhe.They had taken the rowing boat from the old wooden jetty near the laboratories of Highland Pharmaceuticals Limited, where Professor Highcroft had died. The shrouded body of the professor lay wedged across the thwarts, a dark mound sensed rather than seen as the men pulled on their oars to the accompaniment of just three sounds: the faint murmur of water beneath their bows, the dry squeal of the oars in their rowlocks, and the harsh, steady exhalation of the men's breath through the filters of their respirators.Yet the evening had begun innocently enough . . .The presentation ceremony at Highland Pharmaceuticals had been well into its stride as Bob Harris, the overweight editor of the weekly Gleninver Times, helped himself to another free Scotch and slipped a creased notebook out of his pocket.Harris was one of sixty visitors enjoying the company's hospitality in the staff canteen. Jostling at his shoulder were a number of local councillors and their wives, with perhaps twenty business colleagues from smaller concerns elsewhere in the valley. Among them all9