“Well now, if it isn’t Ewan MacLeod himself! How are you, laddie? Looking as braw as ever I see.” Angus enveloped him in a bear hug and thumped him firmly on the back a couple of times. “Our Gracie will be sorry she missed you, boy. That girl’s set her cap at you and no mistake.” He grinned. “Anyone would think you were avoiding the poor child. She was awful disappointed when you couldn’t make my granddaughter’s christening last month.”
“Aye, well,” Ewan disengaged himself and straightened his uniform, attempting to regain a modicum of dignity after that little onslaught. “We were called out, see. That pair of daft headed Londoners getting themselves lost, with the storm coming in and all.”
“Oh, aye, so you said. Still, you could have come over after, to join us all for a bite of supper at least. I suppose you were too worn out by then, though, being such a delicate little thing and all.” I managed to control my face. Delicate little Ewan could probably fell an ox if he put some weight behind the punch. Angus relented, having had his bit of fun, and turned to me. “Inspector Keane, is it? Over from Inverness?” He came over to shake my hand. “And your cousin? That’s nice. It’s good to work with family when you can.” He shook Shay’s hand too, squinting a little as he looked down at him. “Keane. That’s an Irish name, if I’m not mistaken.”
“It is,” I admitted, “but my father came over from Galway long before I was born.”
“Aye, well, he wouldn’t be the first or the last Irishman to end up in Scotland, and vice versa. It’s an old tradition, really. Why, even your famed hero, Cú Chulainn, supposedly came over to Skye to be trained, according to the legend.”
“Actually, he was an Ulster boy, Mr MacLeod. The kingdoms of Connacht and Ulster were not exactly friends and allies in those old Celtic tales.”
“Aye, aye, you’re right there,” he said. “Our ancestors were all as bad as each other, nothing better to do than raid their neighbours every other week. No wonder the Vikings settled in so well.” He shook his head, smiling at the thought, before remembering we were here on official business. “So, Inspector, Ewan tells me you wanted to have a word with me about this sad business on the ferry yesterday?”
“That’s correct, Mr MacLeod. We’ve come across a photograph of a man we’d very much like to talk to.” I opened up the little folder I’d brought with me and showed him the print out of our CCTV shot of our suspect. He fished a pair of half-frame reading glasses out of his breast pocket to study it. Once he’d had a good look, I showed him the photo Damien Price had taken here. “That’s the same man, Sir. Is he one of your employees?”
“No,” he frowned, “he isn’t. I’ve only got the three men working here full time. Some of our buyers send people to collect their orders for them, though. When was that taken?”
“Last Friday,” Shay said. “By Mr Damien Price. I believe you had a meeting with him that day?”
“The Oban fellow? Aye, I did. He seemed like a nice man, and he certainly knew his whiskies, but I think he already knew he’d be wasting his time coming here. We may not have been up and running for long, by the standards of most Scottish distilleries, but the bulk of what we produce has already been pre-ordered. The local businesses like to buy as much as they can from us, and there’s the online shop too. No call for any middlemen at all.”
“Angus.” Ewan put a gentle hand on his arm. “Mr Price was the gentleman who was found dead on the ferry.”
Angus’s pale blue eyes widened, and he mouthed something similar enough to Irish for me to catch the gist of it. An expression of shock and sorrow.
“Can you tell us whose orders were picked up that day?” I asked. Angus gestured towards the low building with an inviting arm, still looking a little stunned.
“If you’d like to come to the office, I can certainly find out for you.” He led us through the small shop, with its selection of bottles, glasses and whisky-related souvenirs all arranged attractively on display. His office was just down a short hallway from there. The room was more like an old fashioned little cottage parlour than any office I’d ever walked into. Angus and Ewan had to duck their heads under the exposed beams as they made their way past the comfortable old couch and armchairs placed around the unlit fireplace to where his ‘office’ area was set up on a great, long wooden table under the far windows. Ignoring the computer, Angus pulled a ledger from the bookcase tucked away in the corner and opened it up.
“Some weeks we don’t have a single collection, and others we get a few, one after the other,” he explained as he flicked through to the latest entries. “It’s a small business, nothing like some of the big operations, but we do alright. Ah!” He must have reached our date. “Just the one collection last Friday. Herre Mads Nielsen sent a man over to collect his regular order. Twenty-four bottles of our ten-year single malt. Twelve each from the Rioja and Madeira casks. He’s a good customer, Herre Nielsen. Always orders and pays well in advance.”
“Do you have an address for him?” I asked.
Angus looked up, peering over his
