“Best guess?” Shay shrugged. “Dual nationality. It’s not as simple or easy to falsify international travel documents as it used to be, with the new electronic systems up and running in so many countries now. It can still be done, though.” I had no doubt my cousin could certainly manage the records hack and information substitution without any trouble.
Our four students trooped off the boat and dutifully presented their passports for Shay to photograph as I held them up in turn. Our Swede and our Spaniard, an Italian girl and a French lad. Well, he could have a bit of fun talking to a mixed bunch like that. I walked a little further off to read through Jordan’s employee file. Shay had been right. The father was an American citizen, and our man was travelling on a U.S. passport. I wasn’t paying much attention as my cousin jabbered away happily with each of them in turn. They all seemed to be enjoying the little linguistic gymnastics demonstration, anyway. Doubtless, he was amusing.
Brian Jordan was thirty-seven and had gone straight to sea after leaving school, following in his father’s footsteps and steadily working his way up from lowly deckhand to third engineer, or second assistant engineer, as some ships preferred to title the position. He’d been working for Nielsen International, on various ships, for the past nine years. I looked up as I heard Mads Nielsen call something down in Danish. He was leaning on the rail, staring fixedly at my cousin, a fascinated expression on his face. Shay glanced up and said something back before coming over to join me. I handed him the folder, and he scanned through it as we walked away.
“Anything useful from any of the kids?” I asked him.
“Not really. The girls hadn’t so much as said good morning to Mr Jordan, but the lads had chatted with him a few times. Apparently, he used to sneak up on deck in the middle of the night to get some air, once Herre Nielsen was safely asleep. They all know some basic English, and he knew quite a bit of Spanish. They mentioned the American dad too. Apparently, ‘Brian’ was full of interesting travel yarns. They both said he seemed like a nice guy. Just goes to show, doesn’t it? I don’t think Damien Price would agree.”
No, nor did I. Shay handed me the folder back and picked up the pace a bit.
“What about Mads Nielsen?” I asked. “Did they have anything interesting to say about him?”
“Not really. He’s not the sort to pay any attention to someone like Brian Jordan. I’m pretty sure he’s screwing the lot of them, but it’s all consensual if he is. They weren’t pressured into it or anything.” He was clearly amused. “I got the impression they’re having the time of their lives. That ‘selection process’ must be pretty interesting!”
Just because Shay rarely felt inclined to engage in such activities himself, that didn’t mean he wasn’t the most open-minded and least judgmental person I knew. He was certainly a lot more comfortable with da’s endless tomcatting around than I was. His point of view was that none of us had a choice about which annoying biological system we were stuck with, and he certainly didn’t expect the rest of us to reduce the distractions that those could cause to the extent that he managed to.
Any form of abuse, of course, was another matter entirely. I knew how much unpaid time my cousin spent on human trafficking cases, a weakness of his that the Ids were only too happy to exploit. To paraphrase John Stuart Mill in Shay’s preferred type of terminology- “Malware riddled destructive intelligences need nothing more to compass their ends, than that uninfected intelligences should look on and do nothing.” Yeah, that sounded like his style of putting things alright.
We headed up Church street and back into the station, and I unlocked our door again. Our little office was still just as we’d left it; no leaks or fires or any other equally improbable disasters. Shay shucked his jacket off and slid into his chair, and I dropped my new paperwork into the scanner’s feed tray before waking my own laptop up.
“Our CCTV photo has gone out to the airport, and all three ferry ports, and nobody fitting the description given out yesterday has boarded any public craft leaving Lewis or Harris,” I told him as I read through the updates added to the case file while we’d been out. “The boat charter outfits have all been alerted too.” So unless Brian Jordan had managed to get off on a private boat, he was still here. “All the hotels, guest houses and letting agencies have been sent the photo too. No reported sightings from any of them yet.”
“Which just leaves all the private homes and a few hundred privately owned boats to worry about,” Shay said, glancing up. “If Mr Jordan does have an accomplice here, he could be holed up anywhere. There’s no way of knowing where or when he might pop up again.”
“The Port Authorities are checking in with all departing vessels.” I dropped the new paperwork into the case file. “And at least we have a copy of his passport now. I’ll see about getting that sent out to every port and airport in Scotland, for starters.”
“Might as well make it the whole of Britain. We’d kick ourselves if we found out in a week or two that he’d gone out through Newcastle or somewhere. Send me the scan, and I’ll add it into the ‘Most Wanted’ list if you like.”
“Seriously? No thanks! If you want it for something else, it’s in the shared folder. I know you’re in a hurry to wrap this one up, but try to restrain yourself, will you? That’s not how things are supposed to work. I’m sending it
