“I’m afraid that will be your headache to deal with, not mine Trish. That’s not what I was sent here for.” I felt the slight tension between us dissipate as she decided I meant it. “Besides, do I strike you as the kind of guy who’d ever wear feathers?”
That produced a genuinely amused smile.
“Lord, no, the images that conjures. So wrong! That cousin of yours, though?” She fanned at her face with both hands. “Maybe a long, snowy white cloak? Or wearing angel’s wings and not much else? Now there’s a calendar I’d hang on my wall!”
I couldn’t help grinning at the daft faces she was pulling as I closed the door behind me. An angelic incarnation of Shay, I decided, would have a ruddy great sword, or a spear, permanently attached to it and stalk around sneering at the harp players and leaving blood, or ichor stains all over their fluffy white clouds. I could just imagine its scathing critique of the whole shitshow going on down here too. Somehow, I don’t think that was quite the kind of image that Trish had in mind.
“What’s so funny?” Shay asked as I walked back into our office.
“Fancy posing for a wall calendar?” I dropped into my chair. “Trish Morrison thinks it’d be a smash hit.”
He snorted softly. “And her a happily married, respectable woman too, for shame. So, what’s the situation with Whitaker?” I brought him up to date. “It’s not worth bothering forensics with the bank notes just now,” Shay commented absently as he tapped away at his keyboard.
“They’ll get round to that later on, when the case is being prepared for court.” I agreed, “Meantime, they can stay safely locked away.” It wouldn’t hurt to find Whitaker’s prints on the outside of a few bundles, and if Cory Phelps had handled them too, it would help to tie things together better for a jury. I took a few good swallows from my water bottle. “How are you doing with Whitaker?”
“I got into his mobile and email accounts easily enough. Now I just need to wade through them for likely messages. I expect they used some kind of totally dumb code, as usual. I’ve got a few dates for local van rentals made by ‘Angelo Barclay,’ so I can cross-check those against the messages. I thought you could ask Angus for the dates his imported casks arrived and save me the bother.”
“I was just about to call him.” Shay just nodded, fingers flying, focused on his work. “How were the rentals paid for?”
“By card. They just used the licence to open a bank account in Barclay’s name too.” Easy enough to do once you’d arranged a few other papers as well.
Angus, when I reached him, was understandably distressed to hear my news. “We haven’t questioned or formally charged Aaron yet, Mr MacLeod,” I informed him, “but it’s not looking good.”
“No, I can see that. Oh, the stupid, greedy eejit! I can hardly credit he’d do such a thing. Why, the man sat down at the table with my family and me a dozen times. How could he break bread with us like that without even a hint of what he was up to behind my back?” Anger was already beginning to take the place of shock, I could hear that clearly. Nobody likes to be played for a fool, and Angus was old fashioned enough to take the traditions of hospitality seriously. For any employee to betray him was bad enough, but Aaron had also been a welcomed guest in his home. “What does this mean for my business, Inspector? Will I have to shut down? Am I in any kind of trouble myself?”
“Hardly,” I assured him, because telling him ‘not at this time’ would not be productive. I hoped that neither he nor the rest of his staff was involved, but it was too soon for me to assume any such thing. “If you don’t object though, Sir, we’d like to send a team over today to conduct a thorough search of the premises. And we’ll need you all to come and make official statements at some point too, after formal charges have been made.”
“Aye, aye, that sounds like a good idea. If he’s left anything here, then the sooner it’s away, the happier I’ll be. Lord, what a devil of a business this all is!” When I asked if he could send me the records of all his cask imports, he promised he’d email them over as soon as he could.
“Think Angus MacLeod was involved?” Shay asked when I put the phone down. He liked to know my opinions as we went along so he could keep track of how often I was right.
“I very much doubt it.” Apart from the fact that I didn’t think he was greedy enough, or an ‘eejit,’ the rewards on offer wouldn’t be enough to tempt a man in his position. He paid his staff fair and decent salaries, as well as healthy annual bonuses, but that was nothing compared to the money he himself must be making. Even the lowest-priced ten-year single malt from his distillery sold for eighty pounds a bottle. He wasn’t in the business of mass-producing the cheap stuff.
Ewan forwarded me the email with the cask purchase records from Angus MacLeod a few minutes later, and I bounced it over to Shay. He stopped what he was doing to check it.
“Wow! They’re not cheap, are they?” They weren’t. With shipping costs, Angus had paid out over eight thousand pounds for a dozen recently arrived 500-litre Oloroso casks. “So he’s bought six batches of twelve in the last
