‘Aye, I use it when I go drinking in Craighouse.’
‘Could I borrow it some time?’
‘Surely, whenever, just ask. I’ve got a kayak too, if you want that as well.’
‘A kayak?’ If it was hard to imagine Donald on a bike, it was even harder to picture him in that. Would he fit in? Or get wedged like a cork in a bottle?
‘Aye, a sea kayak, well, it’s my brother’s, to be precise, but, as I told you, he’s got a boat. He sees enough of the Atlantic these days for work. Anyway, it’s there, round the back.’
He scratched his stomach and belched gently.
‘Oh, and I’d eat out tomorrow if I were you,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I’m off and so’s the sous. Harriet’s cooking.’
‘Oh.’ That settled things immediately. And obviously not just for any possible lack of culinary expertise. Hanlon wasn’t going to eat anything that woman might have come near. She’d been drugged once, she didn’t want to risk a second occurrence. Or be poisoned.
‘Get the ferry to Port Askaig on Islay. You can eat at the hotel there, the food’s fine.’
‘Thanks for letting me know.’
She closed the door and walked slowly back to the hotel. Islay. She wondered if McCleod would be free to change their drink to a dinner date.
12
‘Two cautions and a suspended sentence for drug possession.’ Kai was the topic of discussion.
‘Intent to supply?’
McCleod nodded and sipped her coffee. It was Thursday night and they were in the lounge of the Jura Sound hotel, the one that Donald had recommended. Wemyss was not allowed in, a no-dog policy in the restaurant, and was sulking in the back of McCleod’s car. Hanlon had enjoyed her meal; she had been voraciously hungry and, more to the point, she was enjoying McCleod’s company. It was a rare thing for her to be able to relax with someone fully or to find somebody interesting. McCleod ticked both boxes. She was also, it turned out, a fitness nut, which gave them common ground and something to talk about. Hanlon’s troubles were not referred to.
But now, with the end of the evening in sight, Hanlon had brought up the subject of the barman.
‘So he’s never done jail time?’
McCleod shook her head. ‘He came very close to it, but no. The cautions were for violence – he broke some guy’s jaw in a fight and the other one was for something similar. Maybe drugs were involved too.’ She grinned. ‘But that happened in Paisley. They’re quite used to stuff like that there.’
Well, that was enough about Kai, thought Hanlon.
‘Tell me about Campbell,’ she asked. Most of the participants at the orgy had been at least fifty. How old was the DI, she wondered, thirty? Campbell would have been much sought after by the ladies there, she guessed. Maybe he had odd tastes.
McCleod looked at her in surprise.
‘Well, he’s no fae here, as Kai would put it, he’s a Glasgow boy. Did French and German at Edinburgh, joined the police under a graduate training scheme… He’s fine, a wee bit stuck-up, a bit up his own arse, but he’s OK.’
‘And his gran lives on Jura?’
‘Aye, that’s right. He more or less lives there when he can. He has a place on the mainland, I believe, in Dumbarton, just outside Glasgow. But he loves it out here. Murdo knows this place like the back of his hand, and he’s a keen sailor too. Fishes a lot. He knows the coast around here really well.’
McCleod finished her coffee. ‘He’s ambitious, but not crazily so. I don’t know why he asked to be transferred out here. I heard he could have had Edinburgh – that’s a plum posting. But no, he prefers it out here in the wilds. Who knows why? Maybe he’s close to his gran.’
‘What’s his gran like?’ Hanlon asked.
McCleod looked suitably mystified at the question. ‘I’ve got no idea. She’s a Wee Free, they’re ultra-religious, no singing in church except psalms, the Bible is the direct word of the Lord. You get the picture.’
Hanlon laughed, casually. ‘So not the kind of woman you’d bump into at an orgy?’
‘God, no. But she’d be too old for that anyway, or do they do orgies differently in London?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Hanlon said simply. ‘I’ve never been to one.’ She brought the conversation back to Campbell.
‘Does he have a girlfriend?’
McCleod laughed. ‘She’d have to join the queue. Murdo keeps quiet on that side of things, but I have heard stories. He’s very popular with the ladies.’
Probably more popular than you could imagine, thought Hanlon.
‘He likes to put it about, or so people say. Anyway, that’s enough about the DI, let’s talk about you. Tell me about yourself…’
Hanlon smiled. I’ll give you the edited version, she thought.
They paid the bill and walked back to McCleod’s old Volvo. Wemyss, in the back, greeted them frantically. McCleod opened the hatch and he ran around the car, leaping up at Hanlon while McCleod looked on like a proud parent whose child was doing something clever.
‘He really does like you!’ she said admiringly.
‘And he can really find people lost in the hills?’ Wemyss sniffed her ecstatically.
McCleod nodded. ‘Aye, he’s done it four or five times. Folk leave the hotels to go and climb up the Paps. From the road it looks no distance at all, but you just try it!’
I have, thought Hanlon, I ran up. But she held her tongue. McCleod continued, ‘Benn an Oir is a Corbett, that means it’s over seven hundred and sixty metres high. And it’s hard going. We’ve had to go out for broken ankles, a couple got lost on the other side of the island when the mist came down. People are just so unprepared, you wouldn’t believe it!’
She bent down and ruffled the dog’s fur.
‘But Wemyss found them, didn’t you, boy? He’s got a great nose.’
Wemyss nuzzled Hanlon’s hand and then leapt athletically into the back of the estate when McCleod pointed. She closed the hatch and the two women got
