Deadly Still

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Wallace and Douglas knew a number of folk who regularly drank peatreek and went seeking them out in order to find out who they were supplied by. They both anticipated that it would be a harder task than it actually proved to be, because everyone was aware of the tragedy that had befallen the three teenagers and were keen to help.

As Torquil had instructed they confiscated and labelled the bottles and emphasised to everyone that it could be dangerous to drink any that they had secreted away, especially unopened ones.

Only one of the imbibers, a crofter over on the Wee Kingdom had his own illicit still, which he used exclusively for his own consumption. The others were supplied by one of four still owners, all of whom kept them hidden on uninhabited islets that made up the West Uist archipelago. Like their customers, all of them cooperated and agreed to lead the Drummonds to them.

Boarding The Seaspray, the West Uist Police catamaran, which was always moored in the Kyleshiffin harbour in readiness for a daily round of the coast, they took the distillers, most of them actually part time fishermen like themselves, to inspect their stills. They recorded how many bottles they had stored and confiscated them before putting up official police tapes around the sites.

All took their treatment in good part, though some had parting pleas.

‘You’ll make sure I don’t get into trouble, won’t you lads?’ said Tosh MacNeill. ‘It could affect my business badly.’

‘Whatever happens, don’t let my dad know about this, will you, Douglas? He’d have my teeth for cufflinks.’

And while no-one actually offered a bribe, many future pints of Heather Ale were promised in the Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Much as they would have liked to help out pals neither Wallace nor Douglas felt able to make any rash promise. For all they knew some of the cargo of bottles they had on The Seaspray could be lethal.

After quickly researching on the internet about the basics of whisky production Penny had phoned the Abhainn Dhonn distillery and talked to Hamish McNab, who had just come back from the search. He sounded tired.

‘Of course you can come across. We want to do whatever is needed to find young Vicky and get justice for poor Jamie Mackintosh.’

Penny set up her sat nav and drove across to the west of the island. The heavens opened on the way and she had to put her windscreen wipers on full and drive relatively slowly. Sheep were sheltering in nooks and crannies along the roadside and in the lashing rain it was hard to differentiate them from occasional boulders. And then, typical of the weather on the island, the rain abruptly stopped.

She smelled the distillery before she saw it. There was a definite tang, which seemed to be a melange of peat smoke, roasted barley and seaweed.

Cresting a hill she spotted it about a hundred yards inland from the sea, a converted farm steading consisting of a two-storied house with attached conservatory, a cluster of whitewashed outhouses and a small wind turbine. Smoke and steam billowed out of two stacks. Barley fields stretched out on either side of the road which led over a small bridge into a cobbled yard, which had been extended into a small car park.

On the whitewashed wall a large brown sign with black writing read:

ABHAINN DHONN DISTILLERY.

(Brown River)

Penny got out of her car and cast an eye at the babbling river that flowed under the bridge. She noted that it was clear, but had a definite russet brown appearance.

A door in the whitewashed building opened and two men came out. One was tall with ginger hair and a beard, dressed in a tweed sports jacket, corduroy trousers and well-polished brogues. The other was of average height and slighter build, with a high receding hairline. He was dressed in overalls, a large white apron and white wellingtons.

‘DC Faversham, I am presuming,’ Hamish McNab said, striding forward to shake her hand. ‘Welcome to Abhainn Dhonn. I’m Hamish McNab and this is Keith Finlay, my head distiller.’

Penny shook both their hands, noting that Hamish McNab’s expression was deadpan whereas Keith Finlay had dimpled cheeks, as if he always smiled. ‘This is good of you to see me. I need a very quick lesson in making whisky and my inspector said that your distillery is the ideal place to go for information.’

Hamish waved a hand. ‘No problem at all. We’re all deeply concerned for Vicky Spiers and Catriona McDonald and utterly devastated at the death of young Jamie Mackintosh.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s not looking good though, is it? I received one of Calum Steele’s West Uist Chronicle emails that said you’ve found a trainer. Let’s hope that leads somewhere. But we must do what we can to help you, so just have a good sniff of the air. That will give you an idea of what goes into our whisky. Peat, malted barley and good clean sea air.’ He waved at the surrounding fields with their yellowing crop. ‘We grow as much of our own barley here as we can, although as we increase production we are having to buy in more. I’m trying to buy more land, which isn’t easy, so fingers crossed.’

‘Before today I didn’t know that whisky was made from barley,’ Penny confessed.

Hamish nodded matter-of-factly. ‘If you are a city type then there is no reason why you should know. But the type of barley is important, too. You see there are several different varieties. We use two types, Bere and Concerto. They are both early maturing and they have a low moisture content so they are good for malting.’

‘And maybe just as important, we have the abhainn dhonn, which means the “brown river” on our doorstep,’ said Keith Finlay. ‘It comes down from the Corlins, through ancient peatbogs and over quartzite. We pump it into our holding tanks at the back of the distillery. There’s no finer base for uisge beatha than that, in my humble opinion.’

Hamish McNab glanced at his watch and then pointed to the door. ‘Come in and I’ll give you a brief overview. I have to be somewhere else very soon, so I’ll then leave you in Keith’s capable hands. He’s been in the whisky distilling business all his life, so he’ll be able to answer all your questions.’

They entered a spartanly furnished room with walls covered in framed pictures of the original farm steading and its apparent transition over the years from sepia tint photographs of a small croft, into a thriving steading and then gradually into a distillery.

Hamish pointed to an old photograph of a man in front of the building they were in, working a scythe blade on a wheel sharpening stone. ‘My family have lived here for four generations now. That’s my great grandfather Hector McNab working this croft back at the end of the nineteenth century. You can see his boat in the distance. Back then folk eked out a living on the land and the sea.’

One by one he picked out other pictures of men and women, through the generations. Gradually, as the photographs became newer and in colour Penny could see the family resemblance and in particular the ginger hair.

‘My father had built the place up and acquired other crofts so that we had a sizable farmstead. But when he died and I took it over I had plans, big plans, to diversify with a small distillery. It was not an easy matter, mind you. So many hoops to leap through, not to mention a very considerable investment. Over the years I have ploughed about two million pounds into this place, but its proving worth it these last few years.’

‘When did you start, Mr McNab?’

‘Eight years ago now. We’re starting to build a reputation and the orders are coming in from all over the world for the Abhainn Dhonn peated single malt whisky.’ He glanced at his watch again. ‘But I’ll need to go, so Keith will show you through the various processes now and answer any questions you have.’

‘Oh, there is just one question before you go,’ said Penny. ‘What experience of whisky distilling did you have?’

For the first time the ghost of a smile crossed his lips. ‘I maybe shouldn’t admit it, but the family had always operated a wee still, just for the family’s consumption. That was my forebears, mind you. No illicit whisky has ever been produced on this land as long as I have been in charge.’

Once he had gone Keith led Penny to the next long room in the centre of which stood a large round tub surmounted by a metal dome with various pipes attached. Beyond that, was another large vessel connected to the first by a large pipe.

‘The first thing you need to know, DC Faversham, is that whisky is essentially just distilled malted barley beer. The malting of the barley is done in the old barn. You see, barley is just starch, so we have to make it turn into sugar that we can ferment. We lay it all out and turn it and turn it, and then moisten it and heat it to really trick it into thinking it is spring. It then turns its starch into sugar.’

He pointed to the large tub. ‘This is the very first process, which we call mashing and this is the mash tun. We put the ground grain into the tun and mix it with hot water, which turns this into a sort of cereal tea, that we call the “wort”. See that big pipe? It’s called an underback. The wort goes through that into the collecting vessel, that is called the washback. Its gently heated and yeast is added to make it ferment.’

Penny had started to make notes. ‘Fascinating. And how long does that take?’

‘It is there for precisely seventy-two hours. That is our time at Abhainn Dhonn, but other distilleries might be as quick as forty-eight or as long as one hundred and twenty. This is now beer and it can go on to be distilled. And that takes place next door.’

As they walked past the mash tun and the collecting vessel, Penny asked: ‘How long have you worked here, Keith? I understand from my inspector that you used to work at the big distillery.’

At the door Keith turned with a knitted brow. ‘I’ve been with Hamish McNab for seven years. It’s a sore point with the Corlin-Macleods, because I was their head distiller. I don’t think they ever forgave me.’ His natural smile bounced back. ‘Put it this way, they scored me off their Christmas card list and I barely get a nod from either of them when I’m out and about.’

‘So Mr McNab wanted your expertise?’

Keith nodded. ‘Aye, he did. And they were understandably concerned that I might be giving away their secrets.’

Penny nodded. ‘Understandably.’

‘But the truth is that the Glen Corlin range of whiskies are well established and the water they use has an entirely different character. They make both peated and unpeated whisky, whereas we concentrate on peated. At least for now. Later, who knows.’

‘Were the Corlin-Macleods difficult to work for?’

This brought a hearty laugh. ‘Goodness me, no. The truth is that they were easier than Hamish McNab. He has a short temper and to speak frankly, he’s a bit of a potty-mouth. But he’s good to us, all four of us. He also hired Jerry McColl who worked for them. Between Hamish and the four we work the farm, do the malting, distilling, warehousing and supplying. That’s why I wanted to come here when Hamish offered me the chance, apart from the money, it is more of a challenge than the almost automatic whisky production at a larger distillery like Glen Corlin.’

He opened the door and led the way through to the still room in which were two huge copper stills, shaped like giant retorts, with copper tubes coming out of them and going into large cylinders. Another man of the same age and dressed in the same way was checking gauges and peering through a porthole window in one of the stills. The nearest one was larger than the other.

‘This is Jerry and he’s keeping a close watch on the process right now.’

He pointed to the larger of the two stills. ‘You see we distil twice, that’s why there are two stills. The first is called the wash still. The washback that we talked about next door goes into this and it’s heated by piped steam from a remote boiler, that goes through a pan in the bottom of the still. A still, you see, is just like a big kettle. The spout, that pipe that comes out and then angles downwards, is called the lyne arm. It then goes into the big condenser and then into the collecting receptacles. This takes about four hours and the resultant liquid is called low wine. It is about 25 per cent alcohol.’

Penny started making a diagram and jotting notes around it.

‘If this was a wee home still instead of a condenser it would go into what they call a worm. The tube would be curled round and round, so that it would cool down the spirit.’

‘Thank you, that’s useful to know.’

‘The second smaller still is called the spirit still. The low wine goes in here and is turned into whisky, with a strength of about 60 per cent. This is done slowly and carefully and takes about eight hours.’

‘This is the bit I’m most interested in,’ said Penny. ‘Mt chemistry is a bit rusty, but I understand that there are different alcohols and my inspector said to ask you about something called the foreshot.’

Keith absently reached up and smoothed down his thinning hair. ‘Aye, that is important. Basically, methanol evaporates at 65 degrees centigrade, so it comes off first. Ethanol, the good stuff that we want, comes off at 78 degrees. Then, when you’ve distilled out most of the alcohol towards the end of the run, you get the congeners and aromatics that add to the taste and give your whisky its uniqueness. The trouble is, too many of them and you’ll spoil it. For this reason we have cuts where we switch from the three parts. That is the skill of the stillman, like Jerry there, knowing when to make the cuts. The foreshot is a relatively quick one, but that’s got the methanol and the methyl aldehyde, the bad stuff. The middle cut we call the heart and the last cut is the feint.’

‘So the foreshot is the dangerous stuff? Its full of methanol?’

‘That’s right, but we take measures to separate them. See the pipes going from the condenser into those closed tanks? The foreshot is collected in the spirit safe. See those windows with hydrometers inside the chambers? They measure the density of the liquid and we can compare colour charts and work out the constituents. By law it has to be locked so that no one can taste the methanol. Then the flow is altered and the heart, the good stuff, collects in the spirit receivers and then the last part, the feint, collects in the spirit safe.’

‘What about someone with a makeshift still, how would they go about making the cuts?’

Keith laughed. ‘By luck. Some believe that you can use the spoon test. To do that you would pour some into a spoon and set it on fire. The theory was that a safe spirit burns with a blue flame, but a tainted one with methanol would burn with a yellow flame. I’ve also heard that if folk use an old car radiator as a condenser then the lead in the spirit would burn with a red flame. Apparently they used to say red makes you dead.’

Penny grimaced. ‘That doesn’t bear thinking about. Sort of like Russian roulette.’

Keith nodded. ‘That’s what we think, that those poor kids had badly stilled peatreek. Is that the case?’

Penny chewed the end of her pen and shrugged. ‘I’m afraid that I can’t answer that. It is under investigation.’

‘We’re all devastated, you know. Brock Spiers is a friend of mine. He worked at Glen Corlin distillery until he had an accident. He’s in a wheelchair and now Vicky is missing. It isn’t fair.’

‘No, it isn’t. But we’re doing what we can.’

‘Aye, two of our lads are helping on the search, as is Hamish.’

Penny tapped her notebook. ‘Then what do you do with the foreshot? Do you throw it away?’

Keith shook his head. ‘No, we re-use it. It goes back into the low wine receiver and gets distilled again.’

Penny frowned. ‘But isn’t that dangerous?’

The head distiller shook his head. ‘The aromatic substances and all the volatile substances go through catalysed reactions with the copper and they are made safe. They ultimately help with the taste. They help to make it unique. It’s part of the magic of whisky making.’

The station had been quiet for about an hour, which had given Ewan the opportunity to catch up on his paperwork, tidy the rest room and fix the table tennis net. In essence he was finding work to do to stop himself from thinking about DI Penny Faversham.

She’s a bonny lassie, right enough, but why would she look at you, you silly fool, he chided himself. Just be polite, think before you speak and don’t say anything stupid.

But it wasn’t easy. Although he’d only known her a couple of days, difficult days with all that was happening, he looked forward to the odd moments when he could sit and drink tea with her or explain the systems in the station or the way things were organised in Scotland.

He was daydreaming again when the bell in the outside office rang and he heard the door open and close. He went through, a pencil in his mouth and a ream of paper for the printers in his hand.

‘Ah, Ewan, I was hoping to see Sergeant Driscoll,’ said Stan Wilkinson, with a nervous smile on his lips. He was wearing a waterproof poncho that dripped water onto the floor.

‘Still in your shorts, I see, Stan. I’m afraid she’s not in. She’s still managing the search.’

The postman’s face registered disappointment. ‘Are you on your own then?’

‘Aye, manning the fort as usual. I’m getting a bit stir crazy if the truth be told. All the others are out on cases.’

‘Cases? Is there a lot going on? Apart from the search, I mean.’

‘Police matters, Stan. I can’t say more than that.’

‘Oh, of course. Stupid of me. I was just hoping that the sergeant had finished with my phone.’

Ewan picked up the phone. ‘I’ll give her a bell and ask her now.’

Stan turned and read the notices on the pinboard while Ewan talked to Morag. He turned when he heard the constable put the phone back on the receiver.

‘Sorry, Stan. She says that while we are still investigating we need to keep it. But as soon as we can we’ll release it.’

Stan scratched his beard and nodded understandingly. ‘No problem. Let’s just hope the girl turns up soon.’

Charlie McDonald had been receiving reports about Catriona’s progress twice a day from his ex-wife Bridget. On each telephone conversation she castigated him for not being there, for never having been there for her.

He took her latest call.

‘I’ve always been a good dad to Catriona,’ he said. ‘That’s why I work so hard, to give her the life she deserves.’

‘Whatever, Charlie! At least she’s off that machine now and her vision seems to be slowly improving. She can’t make out features, but she can see outlines now.’

‘I’m going to find out where she got that gut-rot whisky,’ he said angrily. ‘And when I do —’

‘There you go again! The big man and the things you’re going to do.’

‘Bridget, listen —’

‘No, I’m tired of listening to your pompous threats. I’ll call tomorrow.’

‘Bridget!’

His mobile went dead as she rang off, leaving him staring at the small blank screen.

‘Well, at least Catriona is getting better,’ Helen Corlin-Macleod whispered behind him as she ran her hands over his bare chest and brushed the back of his neck with her lips. ‘Now where were we?’

Charlie laughed as he turned and leaned over her to kiss her. ‘We’re in your Land Rover Discovery, our love wagon as you like to think of it, when we were just rudely disturbed by my shrew of an ex-wife.’

‘We’d better be quick then, we both have things to do,’ she said as she circled his neck with her arms. ‘And we still have to decide what we’re going to do about our dirty little secret.’

The killer had been rattled when news of the girl’s trainer came out. A second bloody mistake that had escaped attention, which could prove extremely costly. If only there wasn’t so much to do, so many things to attend to.

Bloody Calum Steel and his rag. And that bitch that had given him all these ideas about social media and the whole bloody digital world.

He could be stopped, though. Him, his pathetic newspaper and his girlfriend.

No, wait. Perhaps it would be too soon, but if he crossed the line again and caused further inconvenience, then it would have to be bye-bye time. For him and his woman.

And that in itself would necessitate another killing.

The thought was cheering. Slightly intoxicating, if the truth be told.

But first, the girl. Another mistake would be fatal. The plods might just happen on a link and they had to be put off. The weather had been fortuitous in that it had concealed things so far, but winds would come, to clear the mist and fog. Everything needed to be done before that.

No, best to carry on with the plan. It’s my move this time. And it will have to be a good one. It’s obvious what needs to be done now.