“Aye,” Ewan agreed emphatically. “It would be a terrible pity to come and go without a wee look if you’ve no been before.” He chauffeured us across to the site, and we all popped in at the cafe which was thankfully quiet just then, before wandering off to the main group of stones, munching on our chosen baguettes. Ewan watched us with proprietary pride as we walked around admiring the spectacular monument. For the moment, at least, we had the place all to ourselves.
As we headed down a gap-toothed avenue of towering monoliths towards the central circle, I couldn’t resist reaching out to touch one of them, gazing upwards at the ancient memorial to man’s lunatic aspirations. Five thousand years ago, give or take a bit, a group of Neolithic people had worked together to build this place. Why, nobody was sure, but the most popular theory was that it had been an astronomical observatory. When we reached the centre, Shay shoved his glasses up onto his forehead and twirled about smiling as he took it all in.
“This was quite a step in early, collaborative engineering, wasn’t it? And now mankind has visited the moon. Makes you think, doesn’t it?” It did. We’d come a long way since these stones were put up, in some ways at least. “Your da says he’s very confident we’ll be on Mars soon, if we don’t self-destruct before then. One day we might even reach for the stars.” He frowned. “We’ll probably keep messing things up everywhere we go, though, unless we manage to fix ourselves first.” He solemnly extended a palm to lay against the central monolith before leaning in.
“But maybe we will,” he decided, squinting upwards. “I hope so. This one’s almost five metres high and probably weighs about seven tons. It looks bigger like this.” Brightening again mercurially, he turned and grinned at me, “This place is amazing! I’m just going to snap a few pics for your da at the other main groups while we’re here. You’ll grab some shots of these?”
Why not? It wouldn’t take him long. The place had certainly cheered him up. This had been a good idea. Ewan came up beside me as Shay sprinted off.
“Bloody hell! He can certainly move, can’t he? I wouldn’t want to have to chase that one on foot.” Ewan popped the last bite of his baguette into his mouth and chewed happily as he folded the wrapping and pocketed it. There were waste paper bins back at the car park. We watched Shay fly off to the south-east, towards where the other two main groups of stones stood, just over a kilometre away.
“Neither would I,” I told him. “He can move faster than that when he wants. He’s not even straining himself at that pace.” Ewan looked suitably impressed to hear it.
“He’s a very striking looking fellow, your cousin, if you don’t mind me saying so, Sir.”
I sighed. “He got those eyes from his mam,” I told him. “I know they’re unusual, but he doesn’t like it when people make a big deal of how he looks.”
“The glasses? And the hair?” He thought about that for a minute. “Aye, I guess a body would get a bit sick of it quickly enough. Has he not thought of using contacts?”
“He can’t stand them,” I told him. “They irritate his eyes too much, and he worries they might cause permanent damage.” I didn’t know if it was an allergy or a psychosomatic response, but the pain, swelling and itching were all very real.
“That’s a shame,” Ewan sympathised. “Still, swings and roundabouts. Looking like that, I don’t suppose he has any trouble getting a date whenever he wants.” No, he hadn’t thought that through properly at all.
“Angus MacLeod’s Gracie?” I asked him. “Would I be right in guessing that’s a one-way crush going on there?”
“Aye, well, she’ll get over it soon enough,” our allotted guide admitted, squirming slightly. “But I’d rather not encourage the idea meantime.”
“Mmm,” I sympathised. “Makes you a bit uncomfortable, does she?”
I left him thinking about that and went off to snap some photos. I got a few very nice shots too. Shay came haring back to join us again soon enough, looking flushed and relaxed. Another group of people had arrived and were heading our way, so he popped his glasses back on as we headed for the car.
“Get some decent shots?” he asked, breathing easily, “I got some nice ones.”
“Yeah, da should be pleased. Any updates?”
“Just one. No British passport either. You’d think that Aaron Whitaker guy would have mentioned it, if he’d sounded like a foreigner, but I suppose there are a lot of people here who don’t have, or want, a passport.”
He didn’t need to mention the compass tattoo. We were both thinking the same thing. If our man was a seaman, he’d certainly have a passport. So either he wasn’t one, or he was a foreigner who was very good at accents… unless Aaron Whitaker had neglected to tell us something important.
Nine
The Kværnen, the Nielsen family’s seventy-five-foot luxury motor yacht, was moored on the south side of the southernmost dock in Stornoway’s eighty berth marina. She looked exactly like what she was, a sleek and very expensive trophy toy of the kind the obscenely wealthy like to play one-upmanship with. Shay clearly loathed her on sight, although he seemed to find her name amusing for some reason.
“You might as well just tell me what it means,” I prompted him as we walked along the harbourfront towards her dock, after Ewan had dropped us off. “Seeing as how you find it so funny.”
“Well, to be fair, I think Herre Nielsen Senior probably just wanted to make it clear that he’d earned himself his new toy when he named the boat. He did spend most of his adult life putting in sixty to eighty-hour weeks at the office, busily turning a large, inherited fortune into an enormous
