Shay made a small, amused sound, and her gaze swung to him. She took a long, assessing look.
“Goodness!” she exclaimed, smiling appreciatively, “And here I was, thinking what a handsome young devil Inspector Keane is!” She’d already seen my photo, if she’d looked at the files, but Shay’s was far from complete. The Ids had reluctantly green-lighted a carefully edited version of it for Anderson to use that did not include an identifying photo. “But you’ve just made my day, if you don’t mind me saying so, Mr Keane.”
“Shay, please.” He grinned, showing off his flawless teeth. No threat here. I think he’d taken to her as quickly as I had. As if to confirm that, he lifted a hand and moved his glasses up onto his forehead. “And, as a civilian, I’m afraid I don’t do any ma’aming at all, Inspector.”
“I just bet you don’t.” She snorted with delight. I hoped she’d taken my early morning email to heart. “I gather you’re quite the useful all-rounder for a civilian specialist… SOCO training and experience, technical wizard, research, linguistics, the whole shebang. You Keane boys make a talented and formidable pair. Crafty of James to arrange for you to be sent over with your cousin instead of lending me half a dozen of his own people instead.”
Perfect. I heard Ewan shift slightly behind us, soaking it all in. It would be all over the building within minutes once we were done in here.
“Inspector McKinnon is nothing if not crafty,” Shay assured her feelingly. “I suppose it goes with the territory.”
“You’re probably right.” She turned her attention back to me. “I wasn’t kidding about being glad to see you here, Conall. My area has one of the lowest crime rates in the UK, which is why we usually get outside help when something like this case comes up. I’d much rather have just the two of you borrowing an office than a horde of outsiders taking over half my station and upsetting everyone… but of course, if you need to call anyone else in, I’ll understand perfectly. Whatever it takes, right?”
I nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. Let’s just see how far we can get before we start thinking about reinforcements, shall we?” We shared a mutually approving look.
“Now, as I requested yesterday, Caldonian MacBrayne has managed to shuffle things around a bit, and the Price’s ferry will dock here for thirty minutes at eleven, so you can speak with the captain yourself and have a look around.” Good news. I really needed to see it all for myself. “And Constable MacLeod here will be at your full disposal while you’re here,” she added. “Feel free to make full use of his colleagues too, if you need them. As for my local CID team, Anderson seemed to think I wouldn’t need to pull any of them off their current cases?” No, I certainly didn’t want to borrow any of her detectives.
“That won’t be necessary,” I assured her. “I can call for my own people if I need them. You know how it is.”
She did. As in sports, a team that were used to working together performed best. Besides, we didn’t want her own team spending any real time with us if we could avoid it. If any of them were worth their salaries, they’d soon figure out that Shay was no run of the mill ‘specialist.’
“Well then.” She stood up again, and so did we. More handshakes all round. “Ewan will show you the office we’ve reserved for your use and the rest of the facilities. You don’t mind bunking in with the constabulary boys and girls, do you, Conall?”
“Not at all. It’s what I’m used to.” She smiled, and I smiled back. Shay donned his glasses again, and Ewan moved to open the door for us as soon as we turned round. The three of us trooped back downstairs, and he showed us our office.
It was small but adequate, with two desks, a filing cabinet and a lovely view of a neighbouring wall. Well, we could admire the scenery while we were out and about. We’d both be glued to our screens when we were in here, anyway. He also pointed out the break room, the toilet facilities, and the ‘bullpen’ office down the hall where he could be found when we wanted him.
After that little tour, we went to get our bags from the car, and he escorted us to our hotel. Ewan had been right, it was very conveniently close by. There, we discovered that the departmental budget had stretched to booking us a shared twin room, which seemed a bit parsimonious of them. Shay booked the adjoining ‘superior’ double for himself while we were still at the reception desk, and I made a mental note to make sure to cover half the cost after. It was worth it just to have our own bathrooms.
After we’d both freshened up, we grabbed our laptop bags again and headed back down to where Ewan was waiting to take us to see Vanessa Price. He was a chatty, friendly lad. He seemed to spend a lot of his working hours collaborating on Search and Rescue missions and performing routine community policing duties. All the thefts and drug busts and major things like that were usually handed over to the detectives. It wasn’t the sort of place where suspicious deaths occurred with any frequency, although one local lad had been stabbed to death a few years back. Just awful! That had been their first such incident in forty years. Oh, and a nice lady from Harris had been killed during a holiday in Glasgow, but that kind of thing happened a lot over there, didn’t it? A dangerous place, from what he’d heard. The mainlanders were welcome to keep it. No offence, Sir.
Shay rattled something off in Scots Gaelic that made Ewan laugh and then blink,
