“Suit yourself. If we can’t find him, I can’t see us hanging around here for more than a few more days, anyway. If we haven’t found him soon, we might as well pack up and go back to Inverness. I can just as easily keep an eye on things from there.” I was rather hoping we’d manage to find him ourselves before it came to that, but I knew he was right.
“Our first van checked out clean, too,” I added, reading on. “Just a pair of contractors whose own van was at the garage for repairs.”
That was the last of the updates for now. Shay was busily working away at something, digging into Brian Jordan, I presumed, so once I’d added the promised scans to the shared folder and emailed Trish again, I set about adding my latest additions to my own, expanding report. We worked in companionable silence for a while until a tap at the door announced Ewan MacLeod.
“We’ve just had a call in from a patrol car down on Harris, Sir. They’ve spotted your second van parked up in Tarbert, no sign of the driver.”
“About fifty minutes’ drive from here,” Shay informed me, “but we can halve that if we do it the fast way. The A859’s a decent, two-lane road, right, Ewan?” Someone had got his local bearings properly. I wondered how detailed his internal map of the area was now.
“That it is, Mr Keane.”
Shay locked his laptop and sprang up.
“Right then, I’d better stock up a kit bag from the store.” He dived out.
“Thank you, Ewan.” I smiled up at our eager guide. “Do you have the address?” He did, scrawled down in his notebook. I copied it into the map app on my phone. “We can drive ourselves down there. No need for you to waste your time tagging along.”
He looked ready to protest that he didn’t mind at all but reluctantly handed over the car keys and took himself back to his own desk in the constabulary’s bullpen down the hall. Shay came back in with his SOCO bag and grabbed his jacket.
“We won’t get any samples onto the five o’clock flight, but the seven thirty-five shouldn’t be a problem. Ready?”
I was. I locked up again behind us, and we walked out and across to the little car park. It was twenty to four by then, but we hadn’t done too badly so far today, and I appreciated my cousin’s optimism. We weren’t even sure it was our van yet. Still, one good fingerprint from whoever had driven Brian Jordan on and off the ferry, and there was a good chance we might identify them within hours.
Ten
Shay
It was none of my business how other people chose to waste their time or spend their money, but I couldn’t understand why a guy like Mads Nielsen would choose to live like that. It wasn’t like he was intellectually challenged or anything. I mean, he could find something useful to occupy himself with, right? How did people like that not get suicidally bored? As for the Nielsen family's philanthropic works, I could think of a hundred better uses to put the misspent half of those funds to without even having to think about it. What a waste!
“You okay?” Conall asked as we sped towards Tarbert. “You haven’t got your ‘work in progress’ face on, and you’re awfully quiet.”
“Yeah, just thinking about how lucky I am, compared to most people.” He shot me an exaggeratedly disbelieving look, eyebrows shooting up above the sunglasses he’d put on to drive in. He never paid proper attention to which tense I was accurately using. “Don’t be an idiot,” I said, sniffing. “I didn’t say I’d always felt lucky, or always would. I’m talking about the life I have right now.”
“Oh.” He thought about that for a minute. “Alright then, I agree. We’re currently very lucky.” A couple of cars came into view down the road, so he flicked the lights and siren on for a bit until we’d left them behind again. “I’m sorry about the timing of all this,” he offered. “I know you’d much rather be getting on with things back home.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not your fault, and a deal’s a deal, Cuz. Besides, it’s a worthwhile case.” Chief Superintendent Anderson hadn’t worked to get me out of Edinburgh out of the goodness of his heart, and I was okay with that. At least like this, Conall’s talents weren’t being wasted on dumb little cases that his team could handle perfectly well without him.
We were passing the southern end of the Aline Community Woodland by then, lots of conifers lining the road, and yet more little lochs appearing every couple of minutes or less. There were some low hills in sight ahead now, even though the road itself was flat. It was a pity we weren’t based down in Harris. All the best beaches were down there, and they even had some decent high ground for hiking around. Clisham, the highest formation, was over two and a half thousand feet. Only a baby mountain, but I wouldn’t have minded taking a day to head up there for a look around. Maybe some other time if we ever came back here for a weekend break.
With Conall ignoring the speed limit and flicking the siren on whenever any other traffic came in sight, we made the trip down to Tarbert in just under half an hour. We drove right past the local police station on our way in. They were based in a nice, white-painted house opposite the little fire station. Conall glanced over at the generous, well-tended front garden, and I heard him sigh softly.
“Maybe it’s a local bylaw? Hebridean police stations must look attractive and inviting,” I suggested, as he took the next left past The Harris Inn, and we began the climb up Scott Road. “At least you get to live and work
