“Jordan’s still offline,” Shay informed me as he turned around. “I’ll keep an eye on his mum’s and sisters’ account for now. You never know, he might reach out to them sometime soon. I’ve shut nearly everything else down, though.”
He inspected me approvingly. I’d brought along one pair of black jeans and a nice, plaid wool shirt that he’d got me for Christmas a couple of years back. I loved that shirt, but I didn’t want to even try to guess what he might have paid for it. When it came to clothing, my cousin had great but very expensive taste. He thankfully refrained from commenting on the fact that I’d chosen to wear it tonight. I knew he knew I was half hoping Annie MacLeod might show up at McNeill’s. I might not have bothered shaving again otherwise. There had been an unmistakable little moment of mutual interest there earlier, and I wouldn’t mind a chance to meet up socially and get to know her better.
“Glad to hear it.” Why was he even messing around with his laptop now? There was no point in continuing to check on local webcam footage, or most of his other feelers. “Shouldn’t you be thinking about getting ready?”
“That’ll take all of five minutes. I’ve got plenty of time. Have you decided where you’re going to eat yet?”
“Yeah, I’m just going to pop in at the chippy. I haven’t had a nice bit of chip shop haddock for ages.” To each their own, he barely winced at the thought of it.
“Alright, then. Say hi to Ewan for me. Annie too, if she turns up.”
“Sure.” I doubted either of those two would be surprised that he hadn’t wanted to tag along. “Enjoy your little dinner date then.” He just snorted derisively.
“It should be interesting. More entertaining than sitting around here anyway, those students seem like a fun bunch.” No, Shay wasn’t in the least bit worried by Mads Nielsen. Reassured, I left him to get ready and went to get my jacket and head out.
My fish supper was ridiculously tasty, and I wandered along the front, munching happily until I reached the little public space between there and McNeill’s. It was a nice little spot with a few benches and trees. There were even some small palms flourishing against a wall, not the first ones I’d seen here, although I wouldn’t have thought they would have liked the winters much. I sat down to finish eating there and disposed of my wrappings in a handy litter bin before moving on. The temperature had dropped a bit, but it was still mild out and nowhere close to getting dark yet.
As I walked into McNeill’s, I was greeted by a wall of warm air and cheerful, lively chatter. The place wasn’t exactly packed yet, but it was busy enough. At least they’d had the sense not to light the fire, or it would have been like a sauna in there.
“Conall!” Trish Morrison waved at me from further along the padded wall bench to the left of the door. It looked like around a dozen of the Church Street team had claimed a couple of tables for themselves down there. I waved back and gestured towards the bar. I was still waiting to be served when Ewan came over a couple of minutes later.
“Glad you could make it, Conall! Erm, I should probably warn you, it’s sort of traditional here to ignore rank during off-duty hours.”
“Thank heavens for that! What are you having, Ewan?” One of the serving staff was already making a beeline for us. The regulars must get preferential treatment here.
“It’s Trish’s shout, actually.” He gestured vaguely at the group. “I’m just doing the legwork. Same again for us, please, Erica, and whatever Conall here’s having.”
“I’ll take a pint of Guinness, thanks,” I told her. I was glad I’d detoured slightly on my way to the chippy to pull some precautionary cash. There was a little handwritten sign behind the bar, warning people that card payments couldn’t be used.
“Not your cousin’s idea of a fun evening, I imagine,” Ewan commented while our bartender got started on loading up a couple of trays for us.
“Not really.” I remembered our little talk at Callanish and felt no need to expand on that subject any further. “He said to say hi to you and Annie, though.”
We carried our loaded trays over, and everyone shuffled around a bit to make space for me on Trish’s left. She made the introductions in a blur of names as I shucked my jacket and got settled. Her husband Jack, their eldest boy, Stephen, her senior DI, Ed, and the rest of the group. The only ones I’d exchanged more than passing greetings with were Ewan, Annie and Freddie, who was one of the sergeants who’d been on desk duty during our comings and goings.
“So you’re one of the Wonder Boys she can’t shut up about?” Jack Morrison asked, leaning around to have a good look at me. He grinned, amused as she thumped his arm. Jack was a well-weathered active looking type, and, as a couple, the Morrisons gave off the satisfied air of a pair who were both very happy and very comfortable with their chosen partners. “Christ, Trish, what the hell does the other one look like?”
“You really don’t want to know,” she assured him and sighed exaggeratedly. She raised her brimming glass of gin and tonic. “Slàinte mhath, Conall.”
I returned her salute with my Guinness. “Sláinte agatsa.”
Jack’s mouth twitched at the Irish response as I took a few good swallows, no doubt giving myself a fine frothy white moustache in the process. I hastily wiped that away while I tried to think of an innocuous conversation opener.
“That Sikorsky of yours is an impressive bird, Jack. Do you get up very often?”
“Often enough, aye. I’d say we fly nearly a hundred and fifty missions a year, and we do regular training exercises too. We’re not as busy as your boys in Inverness, but we overlap with them quite often on the west coast. It just depends on who’s free to respond faster. Do you have any search and rescue training yourself, Conall?”
“Some,” I admitted. “I’ve assisted on a few mountain rescues in the past. My cousin and I are both keen climbers ourselves.”
“Not bothered by heights at all then?” I just shook my head. My opening had backfired on me pretty quickly. Most people were happy to regale you with their own stories with very little nudging, but it looked like this lot were far more interested in hearing something fresh.
“I’d have thought that tumble you took a couple of months ago might have changed your mind about all that,” Trish put in.
“Not at all.” I shrugged dismissively. “I’ve had worse accidents than that one.”
“What happened?” Ewan wasn’t the only one staring at me curiously.
“It was nothing much. A suspect wanted to bowl me off a cliff, but I managed to avoid him and get myself down with only a few minor injuries.”
“He jumped off backwards and dislocated his shoulder, getting a handhold as he dropped,” Trish elaborated unhelpfully. “The guy went sailing over his head. Quite a few stitches and some broken bones, wasn’t it, Conall?” She was enjoying herself far too much, keeping the attention on me.
“Just a couple of fingers and toes and some scratches. Like I said, it was nothing much.” I hastily drank off the rest of my pint. Maybe a trip to the bar would be enough of a pause to get the subject changed. “Same again, everyone?”
Nobody demurred.
“Sounds like you’ve had quite an exciting year of it so far.” Annie MacLeod appeared at my side and deposited a tray of empties from our table onto the bar. She hadn’t dressed up or put any makeup on. Annie was wearing jeans and a nice, well-worn art print t-shirt. Her long dark hair was messily bound up in a scrunchie, loose strands escaping everywhere, and she couldn’t have looked or smelled better to me if she’d tried.
“More like a few exciting days and a lot of humdrum routine, actually.” I hoped I’d managed to match her friendly, casual tone. “Which is pretty much a good description of what the job usually entails for all of us.”
“I suppose so. Nobody’s ever deliberately tried to kill me yet, though.”
“I’m glad to hear it! Look, I’d really rather not talk about work if you don’t mind.”
“No, I think we all gathered that.
” She smiled up at me cheerfully. “I doubt you always drink that fast. Don’t worry. Even Trish can take a hint that obvious. So, change of subject, right? What do you think of Stornoway? And be honest, I can take it.”
“Honestly? It’s a lovely place to visit, but I’d go mad within a year if I had to live here.”
“Oh, you’re one of those, are you?” She laughed. “We’re not exactly trapped here nowadays, you know.”
“I know. It’s easy enough to get over to the mainland now... at certain, scheduled times of the day, and if the weather allows it. That’s not the same thing as being able to jump in your car whenever you feel like it and drive wherever you want.”
“True,” she admitted, “and it’s too small a pond for a lot of fish to be happy in. Quite a few of the people I was at school with left as soon as they could. They come back to visit regularly enough, but most of them have no intention of ever moving back here.”
“I thought the population was growing?” The pub had been gradually filling up as more people drifted in but Erica, managed to get around to serving us at that point.
“Same again all round Annie?” she asked.
“Aye, thanks.” Annie turned back to me. “A lot of new people have moved here to settle too. It more than evens out. Not everyone’s delighted about it, but overall it’s a healthy thing. It’s good to introduce some new blood to the place. I sometimes get a bit sick of hanging out with the same people all the time myself, during the offseason.” She looked away shyly. “Especially the local lads, you know. A lot of them are awfully traditional types. They seem to think we girls ought to jump at the chance of settling down. You can imagine how awkward that can get in a place this size.”
“I can.” Annie was the type of girl a lot of young men might easily fall for. I doubted all of them took it well when she told them she didn’t want to get serious with anyone. “You must really love it here to put up with all the disadvantages.”
“I do.” Her smile broadened as she met my eyes again, “The pros outweigh the cons by a mile. We have a great community here.”
Erica had filled up our first tray, so I went over to distribute the drinks and gather up some more empties to deliver back to the bar. That seemed to be what most people were doing, which made sense if they wanted to keep the staff serving fresh drinks instead of wasting time collecting empty glasses. Annie took the second full tray away, and I fished out my wallet and paid up.
As I sat down again, I was pleased to see that everyone was listening to Ewan and Maggie MacLean, Annie’s friend, relating a funny story about trying to herd some farmer’s cranky old ram back into its pen with a couple of patrol cars and an unusually reluctant sheepdog. Neither of them had fancied chancing it on foot. Happy to have the group’s focus engaged elsewhere, I sipped at my second pint, feeling very glad I’d decided to come here tonight. I wasn’t harbouring any expectations, but I didn’t think that Annie and I had our signals crossed. The interest was definitely mutual.
The night’s singer was greeted with cheers and foot stamping as she settled herself behind her microphone and gave her guitar a last-minute tuning before plugging in the jack. I think she must have been a local, regular favourite. Her first, half-hour set was pretty good, although she wasn’t a patch on Liam as a guitarist. Then again, Liam might fall apart if he was asked to perform in public. He just enjoyed playing, for himself and for his friends.
This girl knew her crowd and what they liked. She gave them acoustic covers of old and new folk and rock favourites, and just about everyone in the pub cheerfully sang along with the obligatory choruses when she gestured encouragingly.
“We’re away, Conall.” Trish leaned over to tell me after the first set had finished. “You’ll call in to see me before you head off tomorrow?”
“Of course,” I assured her. “You’re working again?”
“Just for a few hours. I won’t go in early, and I won’t stay late. Saturday’s usually a good day for getting through some paperwork without constant interruptions. Enjoy your night.” Everyone chorused cheerful goodnights as her little family group edged their way out.
“There’ll be another set in half an hour or so,” Ewan leaned across the table to tell me.
Ed and Freddy had gathered up our empties and gone to the bar to get more drinks in. I think I understood the system now. The highest ranks got the first rounds in, and by the time it was the turn of the constables, the numbers would have thinned out enough to make it more affordable for them. Annie and Maggie got up to move around to the bench, and I slid along to make room for them.
“Oh, that’s better,” Maggie said, leaning back next to me with a sigh. “Those stools are alright for a bit, but my back was really beginning to bother me.”
A couple who’d been standing, using one of the scattered whisky barrels as a table, bent to ask Ewan if they could take the vacant stools, and he hastily assured them that, of course, they could.
We lost Ed, Freddy, and a couple of the others before the singer came back, by which time I’d just been presented with my fourth pint. My last, for tonight, I decided. I nipped off to the loo to make room for it and asked for a pint of water on the way back to our table for good measure. I drank that down, standing at the bar.
Annie smiled as I sat down again. The girls had moved up, so I didn’t need to squeeze past them, and Ewan had moved round to Maggie’s other side. Those two were looking very cosy together over there. Everyone else here probably already knew about that, but I hadn’t.
“I saw what you were up to at the bar,” Annie told me. “Trying to avoid morning regrets, are you?”
“Wait ‘til you’re past thirty and see how much you like feeling hungover then,” I retorted. “Besides, you’re only drinking half-pints of lager.”
“I am,” she agreed. “Trying to match the boys pint for pint is a terrible idea.”
Sensible girl! Even so, Annie was looking slightly flushed, as I was myself. It wasn’t just the drink. It was really warm in there with all the accumulated body heat. I’d unbuttoned my shirt ages ago, and now I shed that too. We were both pleasantly tipsy, which seemed like an ideal state to maintain for a while. The singer’s second set was even better than the first had been. Ewan, for one, had a cracking great set of bellows on him. I refrained from joining in. I was quite happy responding to the witty running commentary Annie was feeding into my ear.
The atmosphere in McNeill’s was great. It felt more like a big family gathering than a public bar. In a way, I supposed it was. Apart from myself and a couple of tourists, I imagined most of the people there were interconnected somehow. Annie waited until the set was over before heading off to the loo herself. She slipped me a folded piece of paper when she came back, before asking Maggie to pass her jacket over.
“Well, that’s me for the night,” she said brightly.
“So soon?” Maggie asked, surprised, casting a brief glance at me. “We were just about to get a last round in.”
“Aye, well, no, a nice hot drink and a bite of supper are what I fancy now. It’s been a good night.”
“Suit yourself,” Ewan said cheerfully. “Ready for another, Conall?” He frowned at my half-full glass, which I’d been nursing carefully for the past half hour or more.
“No, thanks. This will do me, Ewan. Goodnight, Annie. It was nice talking to you.” I stayed for another fifteen minutes after Annie had left, chatting with Ewan and Maggie and slowly finishing my pint and then I too was bid a cheerful goodnight.
The cool air outside was a welcome relief, and I kept my jacket over my arm as I read the note and checked my phone for directions. Annie’s place was a fifteen-minute walk away, ten if I speeded it up a bit. Supper, coffee and the chance of a quiet chat sounded great, and if she decided she’d like things to go further than that, I certainly wasn’t about to complain about it.
Twenty
Shay
I wasn’t too worried about the fact that our birds had flown. We a
lready had everything we needed to build our case against them, and Jordan and Phelps would turn up again sooner or later. Besides, it shortened our stay here, and that was just fine by me. I could get loads of work done on the attics in the new house over the weekend.
Nielsen’s unexpected dinner invitation would be a nice little distraction for our last evening here. Plus, Conall wouldn’t feel any need to head back early to check up on me if he knew I was out too. He could really relax and enjoy himself. Besides, I was rather looking forward to having a good look around the Kværnen. Whoever was on duty this evening, it would be interesting to see what sort of set up Daniels and Verity were working with. I bet the budget for fitting out Herre Nielsen Senior’s fancy yacht had been astronomical. They probably had some really cool stuff in there.
I hadn’t packed anything suitable for a fancy dinner, but the invitation had said ‘casual.’ Well, I had one pair of decent black trousers in my bag and one very nice shirt too. Of course, someone like Mads would realise how much money I was wearing, but that couldn’t be helped. I liked the feel of soft fabrics against my skin, and I liked nice clothes. To make up for it, I made sure everything I chose was ethically sourced and produced, and I made another fat donation to one of my charities whenever I bought myself anything nice. My entire wardrobe was less than half the size of Conall’s anyway. I had a pair of black ‘Ethletic’ pumps with me too. Those would do nicely.
Alejandro, Jules, Signe and Gioia were all lounging against the rail up on the rear deck as if they’d been waiting for me. They all looked very nice, dressed up for dinner, but I certainly wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. They waved cheerfully as I approached before coming down to meet me.
“Good. You are arrived. Now we go and eat.” Alejandro gestured at the four of them and slapped my shoulder, looking pleased.
“What? You’re all leaving?” That was an unexpected twist. I wasn’t too sure I felt at all comfortable with the whole idea now.
Blood in the Water: A DCI Keane Scottish Crime Thriller Page 18