Blood in the Water: A DCI Keane Scottish Crime Thriller Read online

  The sky was a deep blue dome, with only a few puffs of white in sight up there today, but it was strange being able to see so far on land without first climbing up to a good height to do so. There was sparkling, open water in sight, in one direction or another, for most of our short journey across to the west side of Lewis. This whole area was studded with an incredible quantity of little landlocked lochs.

  We saw the island dressed up in its most welcoming guise, I knew. No doubt it all seemed a little more ominous and hostile once it donned its dark, winter storm wear.

  Ewan turned off onto one of the ubiquitous, single lane, minor roads that webbed the island about three miles before our destination, and I noticed the ‘passing places,’ spaced out at regular intervals as we headed down it. He reversed up once, to the one on the left that we’d just passed, to let a car by, and two other drivers pulled in on their side of the road, at different spots, to let us through. The system worked quite well, as long as everyone followed the proper etiquette.

  “What happens when an emergency vehicle comes along?” I asked.

  “Oh, well, everyone just gets out of the way sharpish, Sir,” Ewan MacLeod told me cheerfully. “You get pretty good at reversing quickly after a while, and you can always drive off to the side, as a last resort, and then call a pal to come and pull you out if you get stuck in a ditch.”

  Far from ideal, but they all seemed to take it as a normal part of daily life. There were plenty of little roads like this all over Britain and Ireland, but most of them weren’t this well organised in terms of well-spaced areas wide enough to pull in at. Try getting stuck behind someone towing a caravan for a few miles, or a loaded lorry from a local quarry, and you’ll soon see how annoying that can be!

  “That must be where Mr Price stopped to take his photos when he was here,” Shay said from the back as we swept down a gentle slope towards the buildings we’d seen in the photos. “That wide turf verge before the fence there, see?”

  As we drove by, I could see he was right. The angle and distance matched those in the shots. Ewan drove around to a small car park on the far side of the complex outside a split level building with white exterior walls and black trim.

  “That’s the office block.” He pointed to the lower section, “And Angus has a little shop in there as well. People sometimes book a tour of the place, so he always keeps enough stock back not to disappoint. They’re only allowed to buy a bottle a head, mind.”

  A tall, rangy man in his late fifties or early sixties, came out to greet us as we climbed out of the car. He could have been Ewan’s dad, or uncle, from the similarity in their appearances, despite what we’d been told about there being no shared blood there. Angus MacLeod’s hair was a little thinner, and more ash blond in colour, with the leaching of the years, but his blue eyes, although lighter than Ewan’s, still had a good bit of colour to them.

  “Well now, if it isn’t Ewan MacLeod himself! How are you, laddie? Looking as braw as ever I see.” Angus enveloped him in a bear hug and thumped him firmly on the back a couple of times. “Our Gracie will be sorry she missed you, boy. That girl’s set her cap at you and no mistake.” He grinned. “Anyone would think you were avoiding the poor child. She was awful disappointed when you couldn’t make my granddaughter’s christening last month.”

  “Aye, well,” Ewan disengaged himself and straightened his uniform, attempting to regain a modicum of dignity after that little onslaught. “We were called out, see. That pair of daft headed Londoners getting themselves lost, with the storm coming in and all.”

  “Oh, aye, so you said. Still, you could have come over after, to join us all for a bite of supper at least. I suppose you were too worn out by then, though, being such a delicate little thing and all.” I managed to control my face. Delicate little Ewan could probably fell an ox if he put some weight behind the punch. Angus relented, having had his bit of fun, and turned to me. “Inspector Keane, is it? Over from Inverness?” He came over to shake my hand. “And your cousin? That’s nice. It’s good to work with family when you can.” He shook Shay’s hand too, squinting a little as he looked down at him. “Keane. That’s an Irish name, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “It is,” I admitted, “but my father came over from Galway long before I was born.”

  “Aye, well, he wouldn’t be the first or the last Irishman to end up in Scotland, and vice versa. It’s an old tradition, really. Why, even your famed hero, Cú Chulainn, supposedly came over to Skye to be trained, according to the legend.”

  “Actually, he was an Ulster boy, Mr MacLeod. The kingdoms of Connacht and Ulster were not exactly friends and allies in those old Celtic tales.”

  “Aye, aye, you’re right there,” he said. “Our ancestors were all as bad as each other, nothing better to do than raid their neighbours every other week. No wonder the Vikings settled in so well.” He shook his head, smiling at the thought, before remembering we were here on official business. “So, Inspector, Ewan tells me you wanted to have a word with me about this sad business on the ferry yesterday?”

  “That’s correct, Mr MacLeod. We’ve come across a photograph of a man we’d very much like to talk to.” I opened up the little folder I’d brought with me and showed him the print out of our CCTV shot of our suspect. He fished a pair of half-frame reading glasses out of his breast pocket to study it. Once he’d had a good look, I showed him the photo Damien Price had taken here. “That’s the same man, Sir. Is he one of your employees?”

  “No,” he frowned, “he isn’t. I’ve only got the three men working here full time. Some of our buyers send people to collect their orders for them, though. When was that taken?”

  “Last Friday,” Shay said. “By Mr Damien Price. I believe you had a meeting with him that day?”

  “The Oban fellow? Aye, I did. He seemed like a nice man, and he certainly knew his whiskies, but I think he already knew he’d be wasting his time coming here. We may not have been up and running for long, by the standards of most Scottish distilleries, but the bulk of what we produce has already been pre-ordered. The local businesses like to buy as much as they can from us, and there’s the online shop too. No call for any middlemen at all.”

  “Angus.” Ewan put a gentle hand on his arm. “Mr Price was the gentleman who was found dead on the ferry.”

  Angus’s pale blue eyes widened, and he mouthed something similar enough to Irish for me to catch the gist of it. An expression of shock and sorrow.

  “Can you tell us whose orders were picked up that day?” I asked. Angus gestured towards the low building with an inviting arm, still looking a little stunned.

  “If you’d like to come to the office, I can certainly find out for you.” He led us through the small shop, with its selection of bottles, glasses and whisky-related souvenirs all arranged attractively on display. His office was just down a short hallway from there. The room was more like an old fashioned little cottage parlour than any office I’d ever walked into. Angus and Ewan had to duck their heads under the exposed beams as they made their way past the comfortable old couch and armchairs placed around the unlit fireplace to where his ‘office’ area was set up on a great, long wooden table under the far windows. Ignoring the computer, Angus pulled a ledger from the bookcase tucked away in the corner and opened it up.

  “Some weeks we don’t have a single collection, and others we get a few, one after the other,” he explained as he flicked through to the latest entries. “It’s a small business, nothing like some of the big operations, but we do alright. Ah!” He must have reached our date. “Just the one collection last Friday. Herre Mads Nielsen sent a man over to collect his regular order. Twenty-four bottles of our ten-year single malt. Twelve each from the Rioja and Madeira casks. He’s a good customer, Herre Nielsen. Always orders and pays well in advance.”

  “Do you have an address for him?” I asked.

  Angus looked up, peering over his spectacle frames at me. “Oh, he doesn’t live here, Inspector. He just passes by on
his yacht a few times a year. Mads is a Danish gentleman, from a very wealthy family.”

  “Mass,” Shay said, pulling a face. He pulled his phone out and started tapping away rapidly. “You don’t pronounce the ‘D’ in Mads. I bet that gets a bit annoying for him.”

  “Is that so?” Angus’ face lightened a little. “Well, you learn something new every day. Not that any of us ever get to speak to the man, mind. He usually sends an email order and transfers the money over.”

  “According to the Port Authority, Kværnen is currently moored in Stornoway,” Shay told me, still flicking through his phone. “Due to sail on Saturday, although why they call it sailing is beyond me. It’s one of those boring, pointless motor yachts.”

  “Oh. That’ll be the family yacht then,” Angus told him helpfully. “His own boat must be laid up somewhere, getting refitted, I expect.” Then, by way of explanation, he added, “I looked him up when he first started buying from us. He’s quite the keen sailor. He’s done respectably well in a few races and regattas.”

  “Mmm.” Shay was still looking things up. “The Nielsens own a multi-million cargo fleet. His old man is listed as one of Denmark’s top one hundred wealthiest men.”

  Interesting, but I didn’t see how any of that fitted in with our case, not yet anyway.

  “We’ll go and see him when we get back to town. If he employs our man, then that at least gives us a good, solid lead to follow.” I turned back to Angus MacLeod. “Were all three of your staff here that day? I’d like to speak with whoever dealt with the collection.”

  “Oh, aye.” Angus nodded. “They were all about on Friday, except for when they nipped off for lunch. I’ll take you through now.” He and Ewan repeated their ducking progress back to the door, and we followed them to the end of the hall where another door opened up into the much taller and larger, attached building. A big, utilitarian barn of a place with a plain concrete floor.

  “These are our mash tuns,” He patted one as he walked past it. “And the tanks there are the washbacks. You can see the pipes running through the wall there to the wash still. That and the spirit still are through there.” He pointed to a side door tucked away beyond the washbacks. “We roast the malted barley over peat fires and mill it on-site, over on the other side of the yard. Our barley’s all grown on the island now, although some of the local farmers took a bit of persuading to start rotating a barley crop in for us at first. We let them have the mash, once we’ve piped off the wash, so they’re all keen enough now. It’s good winter feed for the livestock.”

  “How good is your water?” I couldn’t help but ask. Angus’s face cracked into an enormous smile.

  “The best there is. Soft, clean mineral water with not a trace of artificial chemicals to be found in it. I’ll just round up the lads for you, Inspector. They must be through bottling up a cask. Feel free to look at the stills if you like.” He disappeared through the side door.

  “How much do you think those hold?” I asked Shay, eyeing the washbacks. He measured them with his eyes, calculating.

  “Over seven thousand litres each?” he hazarded. “But you’d have to ask Angus what that would reduce down to once it’s been double distilled and they’ve rejected the head and tail of the spirit. A fifth, maybe? I don’t think they’d ever fill them either.” He shrugged. Not a subject he’d ever been interested in enough to read up on.

  We wandered through the door into the still room. Two bulging swan-necked copper stills, their condenser pipes running high overhead, stood against the near wall. Red fittings for the wash still and blue for the spirit still.

  “Copper coil steam heated,” Shay said, “and they went for the stainless steel washbacks too, instead of larch. It’s all very modern. I like the fact that they’re sourcing everything locally, though.”

  Angus came back then, with his three ‘lads’ trailing after him. Two of them were close to Angus’ age, both in their fifties, and we soon found out that they’d been with him since he first started the business, nearly twenty years ago. Neither of those two had seen our man. Their younger co-worker, who had dealt with the collection, was in his mid-thirties, a Harris man, Aaron Whitaker. Yes, he’d put together the Nielsen order and crated it up for the courier earlier on Friday morning. I showed him our photos. Oh yes, that was definitely the man. No, he hadn’t noticed the tattoo or seen the driver. The guy had just handed him the order papers, and he’d fetched the crates for him to take out and load up.

  “Sorry, Inspector,” he apologised, a bit embarrassed, “but I was in a bit of a hurry at the time. I still had a lot of cleaning and flushing to get through on Friday, before I could knock off for the weekend, because everything had to be ready to start a new run going on Monday.”

  “Did he sign for the order?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, we always make sure they do that.” Aaron went off to find the papers for us, but that was another disappointment. The signature was an illegible scrawl. Shay snapped a shot of it, anyway. Well, at least we had one solid lead to follow now. I thanked Angus and his little team for their help, and we headed back to the car.

  “How about stopping at the Callanish Stones for a bite of lunch?” Shay asked. “There’s a café in the Visitor’s Centre, and we could have a quick look around while we’re eating.”

  “Alright.” I agreed. We’d have to eat sometime, and it would be a shame not to at least fit in a little visit while we were here.

  “Aye,” Ewan agreed emphatically. “It would be a terrible pity to come and go without a wee look if you’ve no been before.” He chauffeured us across to the site, and we all popped in at the cafe which was thankfully quiet just then, before wandering off to the main group of stones, munching on our chosen baguettes. Ewan watched us with proprietary pride as we walked around admiring the spectacular monument. For the moment, at least, we had the place all to ourselves.

  As we headed down a gap-toothed avenue of towering monoliths towards the central circle, I couldn’t resist reaching out to touch one of them, gazing upwards at the ancient memorial to man’s lunatic aspirations. Five thousand years ago, give or take a bit, a group of Neolithic people had worked together to build this place. Why, nobody was sure, but the most popular theory was that it had been an astronomical observatory. When we reached the centre, Shay shoved his glasses up onto his forehead and twirled about smiling as he took it all in.

  “This was quite a step in early, collaborative engineering, wasn’t it? And now mankind has visited the moon. Makes you think, doesn’t it?” It did. We’d come a long way since these stones were put up, in some ways at least. “Your da says he’s very confident we’ll be on Mars soon, if we don’t self-destruct before then. One day we might even reach for the stars.” He frowned. “We’ll probably keep messing things up everywhere we go, though, unless we manage to fix ourselves first.” He solemnly extended a palm to lay against the central monolith before leaning in.

  “But maybe we will,” he decided, squinting upwards. “I hope so. This one’s almost five metres high and probably weighs about seven tons. It looks bigger like this.” Brightening again mercurially, he turned and grinned at me, “This place is amazing! I’m just going to snap a few pics for your da at the other main groups while we’re here. You’ll grab some shots of these?”

  Why not? It wouldn’t take him long. The place had certainly cheered him up. This had been a good idea. Ewan came up beside me as Shay sprinted off.

  “Bloody hell! He can certainly move, can’t he? I wouldn’t want to have to chase that one on foot.” Ewan popped the last bite of his baguette into his mouth and chewed happily as he folded the wrapping and pocketed it. There were waste paper bins back at the car park. We watched Shay fly off to the south-east, towards where the other two main groups of stones stood, just over a kilometre away.

  “Neither would I,” I told him. “He can move faster than that when he wants. He’s not even straining himself at that pace.” Ewan looked suitably impressed to hear it
.

  “He’s a very striking looking fellow, your cousin, if you don’t mind me saying so, Sir.”

  I sighed. “He got those eyes from his mam,” I told him. “I know they’re unusual, but he doesn’t like it when people make a big deal of how he looks.”

  “The glasses? And the hair?” He thought about that for a minute. “Aye, I guess a body would get a bit sick of it quickly enough. Has he not thought of using contacts?”

  “He can’t stand them,” I told him. “They irritate his eyes too much, and he worries they might cause permanent damage.” I didn’t know if it was an allergy or a psychosomatic response, but the pain, swelling and itching were all very real.

  “That’s a shame,” Ewan sympathised. “Still, swings and roundabouts. Looking like that, I don’t suppose he has any trouble getting a date whenever he wants.” No, he hadn’t thought that through properly at all.

  “Angus MacLeod’s Gracie?” I asked him. “Would I be right in guessing that’s a one-way crush going on there?”

  “Aye, well, she’ll get over it soon enough,” our allotted guide admitted, squirming slightly. “But I’d rather not encourage the idea meantime.”

  “Mmm,” I sympathised. “Makes you a bit uncomfortable, does she?”

  I left him thinking about that and went off to snap some photos. I got a few very nice shots too. Shay came haring back to join us again soon enough, looking flushed and relaxed. Another group of people had arrived and were heading our way, so he popped his glasses back on as we headed for the car.

  “Get some decent shots?” he asked, breathing easily, “I got some nice ones.”

  “Yeah, da should be pleased. Any updates?”

  “Just one. No British passport either. You’d think that Aaron Whitaker guy would have mentioned it, if he’d sounded like a foreigner, but I suppose there are a lot of people here who don’t have, or want, a passport.”

  He didn’t need to mention the compass tattoo. We were both thinking the same thing. If our man was a seaman, he’d certainly have a passport. So either he wasn’t one, or he was a foreigner who was very good at accents… unless Aaron Whitaker had neglected to tell us something important.