She splashed through muddy puddles on the trail. Streams, burns as they called them in Scotland, criss-crossed the path, the water brown with peat. When she left Jura to go and stay with Tremayne he could make discreet enquiries about the cars she had photographed in the car park; he maybe knew some of them himself. It was, after all, a small community.
She rejoined the single-track tarmacked road and ran back down it until she was near the hotel, then walked along the beach. Her feet scrunched on the stones of the rocky shore as she slowly made her way back to the Mackinnon Arms, looking at the flotsam and jetsam that the sea had washed up: seaweed, wood, branches, the occasional plastic fish crate, bits of plastic rope, a dead seagull. The overwhelming presence of the ocean, its heavy smell in her nostrils, its salt taste on her lips.
She came to the path that ran below the road, a couple of hundred metres from the hotel, that connected it to two cottages. They were small, set close to each other, one single storey, the other with an upstairs, both like their parent hotel, in a shabby condition, paint peeling from the windows. They were made of whitewashed stone and the low slate roofs were covered in moss.
She followed the path to the hotel. Large and shabby, the Mackinnon Arms looked particularly mournful under the lead-grey skies. The sign flapped in the wind; the boar, its jaws clamped around the bone between its teeth, looked at her with porcine malice. She checked her watch. It was nearly 8 a.m. She walked past the two outhouses, into the paved court that backed onto the kitchen.
She looked at the kitchen door, which was open, the same kitchen door that she had walked through earlier that morning, the doorframe blocked by the metal chains of the fly screen. She swatted away some midges that were buzzing around her head. She guessed that the chains might keep flies out, but the midges would sail through them.
Sitting outside on an upturned beer crate, with a couple of buckets in front of him, was a man dressed in chef’s whites scrubbing mussels. He was overweight, with a pleasant, capable-looking face. He looked up at Hanlon and smiled. He seemed unaffected by the cloud of midges haloing his head.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘You’re staying here, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, how did you know?’
He threw his head back and laughed. ‘This is Jura, everyone knows everyone’s business.’
He was one of those people who was instantly likeable and knew it. Confident, comfortable in his skin, obviously easy-going. Fine by Hanlon – she wanted to get to know the hotel staff, to build up more of a picture of Big Jim, her target.
‘Yes. Those on the menu tonight?’ She indicated the mussels.
‘Aye,’ he said as he wiped a hand on a tea towel folded into his apron strings. ‘I’m Donald, the chef here.’ She guessed from his accent he wasn’t local.
‘So you’re the famous chef,’ Hanlon said. She dimly remembered him being praised on the hotel website.
Donald nodded.
‘Oh, aye… so famous I’m here, at the world-famous Mackinnon Arms.’ He laughed.
‘Where did you work before here?’ she asked, more to be polite than because she was remotely interested.
He reeled off the names of several places where he had cooked. Hanlon was a good judge of people. She noted to herself how his hands were working with lightning speed and how he would continually glance into the open door of the kitchen where he could see the pass to monitor how breakfast was going.
Hanlon asked what had brought him here to Jura. It seemed an oddly remote place for a good chef to choose. It was the kind of place you ended up in if you were running away from something, some professional disaster, a mass food poisoning, an almighty cock-up, or maybe a scandal. Maybe a broken heart.
Donald scratched his head.
‘I am from Fife originally, moved down south to work. I was doing eighteen hours a day in London, Head Chef at a rosetted place in Chelsea, split shifts but working through my break. I’d done twelve days without a day off and all for no extra money and I thought, fuck this.’ He paused. ‘Do you ever feel like that? About work, I mean?’
So I’m not the only good judge of character here, she thought, slightly alarmed by the relevance of his question.
‘Sure,’ she said, not volunteering any information.
‘So I walked out, came here.’
He laughed. ‘I’ve now ended up doing eighteen hours a day here on Jura, split shifts, working through my breaks for a lot less money… No, seriously, it’s a lot more relaxed, and by Christ I’m saving so much more money now I don’t have to pay London prices for things. I get my accommodation free. I’m in that cottage up there.’ He pointed at the cottages she had passed earlier. ‘I’ve got Kai living next door.’ That must be fun for you, thought Hanlon.
‘And what do you do?’ he asked.
She was going to make some kind of general remark about being a civil servant, but remembered that Harriet somehow knew what she did.
‘I’m in the police,’ she said.
He smiled at her. ‘I’m available for interview at any time you suggest.’ He looked at her hopefully, like a dog desperate to be taken for a walk. Hanlon shook her head.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said, but smiling, to show she hadn’t been offended by his making a pass at her.
Donald turned his mouth down in mock sadness. ‘I’d better get back inside,’ he said. ‘Fair bit to do today.’
She noticed that the mussels were done, their shells gleaming with a purple iridescence in the bucket.
Suddenly there was the sound of running footsteps crunching on
