There’d be a few people to pay off at each end, but that wouldn’t eat into his profits much. On the surface, at least, it was certainly looking like a viable method so far. Yes, we were guessing, based on very little circumstantial evidence, but you’d be surprised how often we were right about things like this. I’d say that, right then, there was a 50/50 chance we were onto something here. And what would we do with ourselves if we didn’t spend the morning chasing up the possibility that we were right?
We couldn’t start searching over eight hundred square miles of land for our two suspects, even if we’d been certain they were still on Lewis and Harris. Shay had his biometric scanning software monitoring the feed from the few traffic cams and live webcams available, and all the local police, hotels, restaurants and bars were looking out for them. They couldn’t get off via the airport or the ferry ports either. On top of all that, there was a very good chance that they didn’t even know they were suspects, in the murder of Damien Price or any other crime. The very fact that they’d felt confident enough to leave their fingerprints all over the van they’d abandoned pretty much confirmed that. A surprised Angelo Barclay would eventually have been contacted about the vehicle, but would anyone have bothered to get a SOCO team in to process it before the rental agency sent someone over to drive it back to Portree?
Not likely.
I put my laptop down and went to get my Powerball. I’d neglected that yesterday, and it would give me something to do while I cogitated.
“How are the fingers?” Shay asked without looking round as I got it going, and it started to whine.
“Almost there now. We could even plan a climb next month if we feel like it.”
“Bit short notice for the gang to tag along but yeah, maybe.” He typed rapidly, and I watched a few lines of gobbledygook code scroll past.
“What are you doing now?”
“This? I’m just finishing putting together some careful feelers to send out to poke around in the Port Authority database here and the Harbour Office down in Tarbert. I want to get a record of all the arriving and departing private boats since Wednesday. I thought it would be worth checking to see if any of the owners connect up with our persons of interest.”
“How long will that take? We could just call them and ask for that information, you know?”
“A few hours maybe,” he admitted, “but if you call them, it will probably take them ages to get it together and send it over, anyway. And someone could carelessly miss a few off the list, so I’d still want to check for myself. Besides, we don’t know if they’re all squeaky clean over there. Someone could tip our guys off.” That seemed highly unlikely, but why risk it if we didn’t need to? “I’ve put together a list of relatives and known associates for Phelps, Jordan and Locke, but it could be awhile before my boat list comes in to check against that. I started on the phone checks and stuff earlier.” He went back to his typing while I finished my physio session.
If he did find a connection to a boat here, it could certainly speed things up a bit. If Phelps and Jordan had tucked themselves away on one of those and were keeping their heads down, our chances of finding them any time soon were not great. Yes, the Port people were ‘checking in’ with departing vessels, but they weren’t searching them for extra passengers, and I didn’t think any magistrate would sign a warrant allowing us to search every boat on Lewis and Harris. Not on a ‘maybe,’ and we couldn’t call in the manpower to perform a search like that, anyway. Anderson would blow a fuse if I tried to pull a stunt like that. Manpower was an ever more finite resource these days. I let my Powerball wind down again and went to put it away.
“It’s coming up to seven. They’ll start serving breakfast soon,” I warned my cousin as he kept typing. “You might want to start thinking about getting ready.”
“I’m going to wait ‘til after half-past and go along to The Crown Inn instead. ‘Breakfast included’ usually means ‘breakfast inedible’, and I’d rather not, thank you.” He must have read some off-putting reviews and checked out the best alternative options.
“Alright, we’ll go there then. Meet you there at eight? If we’re delaying breakfast, I’m going to have a bit of a walk around first, check out the view from Gallows Hill, and stretch my legs a bit.”
“Give me five minutes, and I’ll come with. I want to see that too.” The staccato tapping accelerated to his top speed. He wouldn’t say ‘five minutes’ if it was going to take him more than ten.
I checked the weather forecast. We were in for another nice day, by the looks of it, but it would be chilly out for a while yet. I went to fetch the light coat I’d brought along and put it on over my sweatshirt. Shay locked and secured his laptop and pulled yesterday’s trousers back on before grabbing a fresh top from his bag. Non-iron, like everything he’d brought along. This one was an oversized burgundy coloured Henley neck, and he pulled it on over his t-shirt before slipping his trainers on. Jacket, phone, glasses, and he was good to go.
It was slightly chilly out, and there was a brisk breeze blowing, but it was great walking weather. We headed down to the waterfront and turned north to reach the pedestrian bridge on Bayhead that would take us over to the castle grounds. Shay eyed the trees warily as we entered their
