Deadly Still

CHAPTER TWELVE

The mist was still thick as Torquil rode out to the Glen Corlin Distillery on the Bullet via the Strathshiffin Road layby, where the Kyleshiffin mobile library van was parked. He could barely see any of the search party as visibility was poor, but Morag told him that she was getting reports from each group by phone every half hour.

‘I’m really worried, boss. I’m losing searchers hand over fist as they all have work to do and everyone is getting tired. I’ve been keeping Lumsden informed, of course, but he’s threatening to come over and take charge personally. He says I’m making a pig’s ear of this and that it’s all your fault.’

Torquil rolled his eyes. ‘You’re not making a mess of it at all, Morag. The weather is against us. I guess he’s saying you’ve had a poor example over the years with me.’

‘That’s about it, boss.’

‘Well, you’d better not call me if he does come over. I can’t say it would be a joy to see the old fool.’

Morag made no comment. ‘Anyway, how are the Spiers taking it? Was it definitely Vicky’s trainer?’

Torquil shook his head. ‘Not well, as you’d imagine. And it is her trainer, right enough.’ He told her the details of his meeting with the couple.

‘I wish we could find her,’ said Morag. ‘I’m so worried that we’re just going to find a body. I hate to think of her dying of methanol poisoning somewhere out here, all alone.’

‘We must keep on, Morag. She has to be somewhere, alive or dead.’

Morag heaved a sigh. ‘Is there any more headway with the peatreek?’

‘Wallace phoned me a wee while back. They have tracked down the local stills and confiscated whisky. Naturally enough, we’ve got several worried men although none of them admits to having supplied Robbie. So the supplier may still be out there. Penny is over at Hamish McNab’s Abhainn Dhonn distillery and I’m on my way to Glen Corlin. We need to make sure that none of their foreshots could have found their way into these two bottles of peatreek. I’d better be on the way. Lots to do and time is marching on.’

The twin pagodas of the Glen Corlin distillery protruded eerily above the thick blanket of ground mist that shrouded the buildings as Torquil rode down the long drive on the Bullet, the headlight cutting a swathe through the mist.

The Glen Corlin pagodas were distinctive landmarks on West Uist. Each of them originally housed a Chinese-style Doig ventilator, but when the distillery stopped malting its own barley they became redundant and were kept for their aesthetic appeal and because they were symbolic of traditional whisky distilling. A picture of them adorned every bottle of Glen Corlin single malt whisky that left the distillery.

George Corlin-MacLeod welcomed Torquil into the luxury kitchen of the mansion.

‘It’s really my wife that deals with the distillery processes,’ he explained as he poured coffee for them both. ‘She doesn’t exactly do any of the distilling, of course, but her family have been in the business for generations and she knows exactly how each whisky is produced. Me, I’m just the marketing man.’ He smiled. ‘And as your uncle may have told you, I’m also a golfer.’

Torquil nodded non-committedly as he accepted his coffee and sat down at the island in the centre of the kitchen.

‘Is Esther around then?’

George shrugged as he stirred his coffee. ‘We don’t really keep tabs on each other, Inspector.’ He gave a thin, unconvincing laugh. ‘She has her distillery team well trained and the place works like clockwork.’

Torquil looked through the large window. ‘The car park is pretty quiet today.’

‘The weather isn’t great and the whisky tours from the islands tend to be Thursday through to Sunday. This is the quiet part of the week.’

A large Land Rover Defender pulled into the private drive and Esther Corlin-MacLeod jumped out and walked briskly towards the house.

‘Ah, it looks as if I’ll be able to ask her soon,’ Torquil said.

The sound of a door opening and closing was followed by leather boots walking across a parquet floor.

‘Esther, I have Inspector McKinnon in the kitchen,’ George called out.

There was a pause and then the footsteps sounded again and Esther Corlin-MacLeod walked into the room. She kissed her husband lightly on the cheek and then beamed at Torquil as if he was a long lost friend.

‘This is an unexpected pleasure, Inspector McKinnon. What brings you to our humble abode? Is George looking after you?’

She looks flushed, Torquil thought. As if she has something to hide. And there is definite strain of some sort between them.

He smiled. ‘Some technical information actually. You know about the three teenagers?’

Esther looked suddenly pained. ‘Oh, I’m heartbroken about it. They’d been drinking, hadn’t they?’

‘Yes, peatreek, we think. Either that or whisky tainted with methanol. So, I just need to make sure that methanol from foreshots, either from your distillery or from Hamish McNab’s, couldn’t have found its way into the bottle they were drinking from.’

Both Esther and George looked surprised.

‘Utterly impossible,’ replied Esther. ‘At least, impossible to have come from here. Who can say about McNab’s tinpot outfit.’

‘Why is it impossible?’

‘Because we recycle it entirely. I can show you if you want to follow me over to the distillery.’

‘That would be very helpful,’ Torquil replied, standing and finishing his coffee. He decided he would explore why she referred to Abhainn Dhonn as McNab’s tinpot outfit. Clearly there was ill feeling between them.

Penny was first to arrive back at the station and was greeted by the aroma of cooking wafting through from the kitchen.

‘Hello, Ewan, something smells good,’ she called as she lifted the counter flap. ‘I’m starving. I’d better go and buy a sandwich from the baker.’

Ewan came out of the little kitchen with a wooden spoon in his hand. ‘You’re welcome to share some soup and oatcakes with me, Penny.’ Then eyeing her with concern, he said, ‘That is, if you’re not a vegetarian. It’s oxtail soup you see, but if you are vegetarian I could do you beans on toast.’

Penny laughed. ‘I should be vegetarian if I’m honest, especially as I’m a nature lover. I have a struggle with the moral issue about killing animals, but I do like meat. It’s not much of a compromise, but I avoid eating meat two days every week.’

‘Is today a meat day then?’ Ewan asked, hopefully.

‘It is.’

‘Good, I’ll have the oxtail whipped up in a jiffy.’

‘Add one slice of toast and some beans as well and I’m all yours.’

Ewan’s smile froze and colour rose in his cheeks. He shuffled from one foot to the other. ‘Aye, well, no bother — Penny.’

As he backed into the kitchen she screwed her eyes and punched the side of her head.

Shit! Me and my mouth. Do I tell him I didn’t mean anything or — do I just leave it at that?

She was about follow him to explain when the bell went and the door opened. She went back through to the counter as Wallace and Douglas came in, dressed in their fisherman’s waterproofs. Each was carrying a large fishing crate full of assorted bottles.

‘We’ve got a different catch today, Penny,’ Wallace said. ‘And we’ve another two in the van.’

‘Are these from the stills?’ Penny asked, lifting the flap for them to come through.

They put them through into the rest room and slid them under the table tennis table. ‘Aye, we confiscated bottles from four stills. We’ve got them all listed and labelled and the names of the distillers. You can have a look while we go and bring in the others.’

‘You haven’t tasted any of them, have you?’ Penny asked.

‘We’re not daft, Penny,’ Wallace replied.

‘Although Eggy MacOnachie might say differently,’ added his brother. ‘I have to confess though, we had a sniff. They all have a very different nose.’

‘A nose?’

‘Aye,’ said Douglas. ‘It’s fragrance or bouquet. These all vary as you’d expect, what with them being unregulated stills. That’s peatreek for you. Some are very peated, others quite seaweedy.’

Wallace raised his voice. ‘Is that you cooking, Ewan McPhee? You’ve got two starving men here, any chance of putting on more of whatever it is you’re cooking there?’

Ewan put his head round the door. He was still flushed. ‘I’ll open another tin of soup and another tin of beans. Penny and me were just about to —’

‘Oh, don’t let me and my ugly brother be gooseberries then,’ said Wallace with a grin. ‘We can go to the chip shop.’

‘We’ll just get the other crates and go,’ added Douglas, beaming suggestively at Penny.

‘Och, you scunner, don’t be silly. We were just having a bit of food together, as colleagues.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed Penny. ‘Just as colleagues, so please join us.’

As the twins went out for the crates Ewan smiled bashfully. ‘You’ll get used to that pair. They like a joke, you see.’

Penny nodded. ‘It happens in stations all over, Ewan. Women officers are used to it.’

‘Well, you won’t catch me making jokes like that,’ he said, returning to the kitchen.

Damn. That’s what I assumed, Penny thought, wistfully.

Torquil returned to the station to find Ewan, Penny and the Drummond twins eating and chatting in the rest room.

‘Would you like some food, boss?’ Ewan asked, rising from his chair.

‘I could pop out and get you a sandwich if you’d prefer,’ suggested Wallace.

‘Or I could go to the chippie,’ said Douglas. ‘It would be no bother, Piper.’

Torquil shook his head. ‘That’s kind of you all, but I need to get my reports down on paper before I forget something. I need to think.’

Wallace and Douglas told him about their confiscation of the peatreek supplies from the four illicit stills, along with their locations and the background on the owners.

‘We’ll need samples getting over to the forensic lab as soon as possible.’

‘Penny already asked us to get onto it, Piper,’ said Wallace. ‘We’re going to get them sorted and off on the next ferry.’

‘And I’ll liaise with Ian Gillesbie and tell him they are on their way, boss,’ added Penny.

‘Good work, folks,’ Torquil said as he retired to his office. He had just sat down when his mobile went off. It was Lorna calling from the Stornoway office.

‘Hi darling,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to be quick because Superintendent Lumsden is on the war path and he’s in a rush to catch the ferry over to West Uist. You need to know that he’s given an interview to Scottish TV and BBC Alba about him personally going to West Uist to take over the search for Vicky Spiers.’

‘That was predictable,’ Torquil replied.

‘Anyway, he’s given me a stack of things to do before he leaves and I’m going to be roped up for a while. He’s given me a bit of a roasting for spending so much time on your case rather than on what he calls “proper policing”. But this is important and I thought the sooner you know about it the better.’

Torquil pulled a writing pad closer to him. ‘Shoot, Lorna. I’ll make notes.’

‘I talked with Dr Lamont. He’s done the post-mortem on Robbie Ochterlonie. He would have talked to you, but since he already had my number and I attended the Jamie Mackintosh post-mortem, he contacted me.’

‘Sounds perfectly reasonable.’

‘He said that Mr Ochterlonie had died from a head injury. There were two components to it apparently. One was a blunt facial injury, which fractured his nose and produced what he called a Le Fort type 2 fracture. He explained that it’s a severe facial fracture. The nasal bones splintered and the three facial bones on each side, the maxilla, the zygoma and the orbital rim were all fractured. Dr Lamont says that a fall from standing will tend to produce a type 1 Le Fort fracture, which they call a floating palate. It is a low velocity impact injury. It is not too severe, but a type 2 is called a floating maxilla. The whole of the middle of the face gets detached and pushed inwards. Effectively, the face is smashed in. It is usually associated with a high velocity impact, falling from a height or impact at speed. He reckons it was because Robbie Ochterlonie was a big man.’

‘OK, I’ve got that down.’

‘He also had a contrecoup injury to the brain. That means the back of the brain was all bruised.’

‘Does that mean he was hit on the back of the head?’ Torquil asked quickly.

‘No, it’s French, as in contre coup, meaning the other side. The brain effectively bounced from the trauma and hit the back of the cranium. It is consistent with a Le Fort fracture type 2.’

‘What caused the fall though? Was there any evidence of a heart attack, or a stroke?’

‘He thinks he had a fit. There were petechial haemorrhages inside his brain and on the surface of it. They are tiny bleeds, but all over the place. He can’t say whether the fit occurred causing him to fall, or if it happened at impact as he fell. He wants to gather all the biochemical findings and the toxicology before he can say conclusively, but he wanted us to know the position now. He’s made a note for Ian Gillesbie the Senior Scene Examiner to liaise with us.’

‘Any idea how long that’s going to be, Lorna?’

Lorna laughed. ‘How long is a piece of string? Sorry, but I’d better go. Superintendent Lumsden is here. I thought I’d brief you now in case I don’t get time. I thought maybe you could get Penny to catch Ian Gillesbie, since she worked with him at the scenes.’

‘Aye, you’re probably right, especially if Lumsden is coming over to take charge of the search.’

Hamish McNab was always careful to cover his tracks. He had done so all his life even though he liked to play with fire, but being careful had thus far prevented him from actually getting burned. He considered himself a past master in the art of using people to his advantage and prided himself on finding soft spots to exploit.

He liked the mist and fog, those wonderful meteorological conditions that gave one blanket cover to come and go. It was especially to his liking when he had things to do, to take care of. Like arranging one of his clandestine meetings. This one had been arranged quickly in response to her text.

After parking his SUV in the boathouse where her old Fiat was already parked out of possible sight, he walked round and let himself into the old fisherman’s cottage by the sea. It was one of the discrete properties around the island that he had acquired over the years.

She was waiting for him, drinking a bottle of lager. She had removed her work clothes and was sitting on the settee dressed in her undies. The full works, suspender belt, fishnet stockings, all the frilly stuff that turned him on. He knew that her soft spot was to act out her fantasies. Respectable care assistant and churchy-churchy lady to everyone she knew, but internally a wanton tigress. He was pleased with the way he had groomed her so that she would spy for him.

‘You took your time,’ she said, dangling her shoe by the toes of her crossed leg. ‘Like I told you in my text, Inspector McKinnon was around at the Hydro asking questions.’

‘Asking about what, Doreen?’ he asked, slumping down beside her and reaching out to stroke her fishnet covered knee. ‘About me?’

‘No, he never even mentioned you. He wanted to know if Robbie Ochterlonie had a secret still. And he wanted to know if he could have had a secret relationship with anyone.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said I didn’t know about a still.’

‘And a relationship?’

‘I said I thought it was likely.’

Hamish nodded as he continued to stroke her knee. ‘Good girl. Did he ask anything about Catriona McDonald?’

She lay the bottle on the side table and guided his hand higher up her thigh. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘Good, you’re a great little spy, so you are,’ he returned with a chuckle before kissing her bare shoulder and letting his hand be led by hers. ‘How are we for time?’

‘I have until five o’clock. I took care of arrangements.’

‘No rush then,’ he said, running a hand up her back to unclip her bra. Soon he would take her to bed. He liked to pay his debts off straight away, especially when the paying was such pleasure.