“Good idea.” He grinned, noting my wetsuit sleeves. “I could do with a swim, too.” He disappeared again, and I went back down to wait for him. He wasn’t long. “Oven,” he reminded me, and I went to turn it off and take our little individual ceramic pots out.
Twenty minutes later, we were on the bank of Loch Duntelchaig, inflating our boards. Nobody else around either, which was an unexpected bonus. Once the boards were ready, we snapped our paddles together in unison.
“Across and back?” I asked, fastening the tether strap to my ankle. The loch was about a mile wide here, and the water was calm today. The wind would be behind us for the return trip too.
“Why not?” Shay snapped his fin into the fin box and got his board into the water, front end to the shore. He stepped nimbly aboard with enviable ease. The thing barely rocked. I contented myself with wading in before mounting my board and standing up. My cousin had got himself turned around by then, and we exchanged a competitive look before setting off.
I beat him across, barely, but he left me a good fifteen feet behind on the return trip. Pretty much what we’d both expected, given the conditions. Shay was a good seven kilos lighter than I was. We messed around with the boards for a bit longer, then we took a short breather before going for a good swim. Shay soon got bored and began to flash around and under me like a playful seal, entirely in his element, covering triple the distance I did with his messing about. He’d always loved the water.
By the time we’d both had enough, it was time to be getting back to the house anyway, so we finished deflating the boards and packed up. It was astonishing how far away in time my day at the office seemed after just an hour and a half in a beautiful, peaceful spot like this. Back at the house with the oven reheating, we both showered and dressed again.
“Fifteen minutes more,” Shay decided after checking the little pots and removing the lids to let the top layer of cheesy potato brown a little. He went off to check on his searches while I laid the table.
“How’s it going?” I asked when he came back. He leaned against the worktop and folded his arms.
“Not bad,” Shay noted. “I’ve started pulling in the available CCTV footage from around Uig and Tarbert, in case we get lucky there. We’ve got photos for the first seventy-odd passengers so far, but those were the easy ones. I found out that Damien Price was in the islands last week too. Doing a round of the distilleries and trying to sign a few new ones up. He didn’t have any luck on Lewis, though. There’s a little place down near Callanish he especially liked, according to his emails to his partner, but their stuff nearly always sells out by advance orders. They weren’t interested.” I put my beer down and used the oven mitts to move the pots onto plates.
“Which one’s yours, Shay?” I couldn’t tell.
“Well, they’re not colour coded, so how would I know? Stick your fork in one and have a sniff.” I did so, carefully moving some potato out of the way. “Yours,” Shay declared, claiming the other plate and setting it in his place before I’d even spotted a nice chunk of beef.
“No criminal records, either, for Damien or his wife,” Shay went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “They’re both squeaky clean, upstanding citizens. No dodgy friends, relatives or known criminal associates. I haven’t found any trace of potentially murderous rivals, business or personal, yet either. Wasn’t there a bottle of wine open? What’s your da done with it?” He rooted around in the cupboards until he found it. “Are you sticking to beer?”
I was. He opened another cupboard and plucked himself a glass, pouring himself a modest ration before recorking the bottle and putting it away again.
“What I’d like to know,” I said as he seated himself, “is how our man got on and off the ferry. They weren’t crew, and there’s a good chance they weren’t a listed passenger either, because disguise or no disguise, I think Vanessa Price would have looked at them twice when they disembarked if they had been.”
“Maybe there are more hiding places on those ships than anyone thought of checking.” Shay shrugged. “They could have still been on board when she sailed back to Skye for all we know. Especially if they had friends among the crew.” He had a point there. I doubted they’d dived off and swum for it. Too much risk of being spotted, for one thing, even if someone had been standing by with a boat to pick them up. Plus it was stupidly risky. Shay dug around in his pot and found a chunk of chestnut mushroom. He chewed happily. “That’s really good.”
So was mine, and I was pleased to find that I’d got some of the mushrooms too. Thank you, da!
“The man can certainly cook,” I agreed. I did alright in the kitchen, but they were both better cooks than I was, although Shay often didn’t even bother when he was on his own. He could deal with all his nutritional needs by snacking on some of his horrible ‘healthy’ things and slurping down high protein smoothies. When I looked at him now, it was hard to believe he was going to turn thirty this summer. He was positively bursting with youthful vitality. Catching me staring, he raised an
