Питер Мэй - I'll Keep You Safe

‘The ferry gets in at one.’

‘I’ll be there.’

There was another long silence before her mother said, ‘He’s coming for you, you know. Not for Ruairidh.’

‘I never imagined for a minute he was.’ Niamh hung up and took a moment to collect herself before turning back to her guests. ‘Sorry,’ she said, barely in control. ‘I need to get showered and dressed. I have to go and pick my brother up off the ferry.’

‘Of course,’ Gunn said, and he took Braque’s elbow to steer her towards the door. ‘Don’t you worry, Mrs Macfarlane, we’ll see ourselves out, no bother.’

Gunn pulled in on a hardcore passing place on the edge of the old Bilascleiter settlement and he and Braque got out to feel the wind filling their mouths and tugging at their clothes and hair. They had a good view from here back towards the Macfarlane house, and the ruins beyond it. A green corrugated tin hut stood resolute against the gales that swept across the moor in all seasons. A blackened wooden door was bolted, but peering through net curtains, Gunn could see into a gloomy interior where an old settee was pushed up against the back wall.

A stainless-steel sink lay in what remained of an old blackhouse in front of it, abandoned to its fate, bog moss and grasses slowly claiming it. The footings of perhaps a dozen more old stone dwellings were still visible here, climbing the slope to the top of the hill.

‘What was this place?’ Braque asked.

Gunn shrugged. ‘A settlement of some sort. More than just shielings, I think.’ It didn’t occur to him to explain what a shieling was, and she didn’t ask.

She was just baffled that anyone would ever have chosen to settle here. ‘Looks like they didn’t stay long.’

‘Oh, they might have been here a century or more, I have no idea,’ Gunn said. ‘They’re hardy souls that hail from these parts.’

Braque didn’t doubt it.

Gunn removed a walking stick from the back seat of the 4×4 and used it for support as he walked up to the top of the hill. Braque picked her way carefully after him. While he was wearing a pair of stout wellies, she had only leather boots with Cuban block heels. And by the time she reached him she could feel peaty bog water seeping through to her feet. It was with dismay she accepted that the boots were probably ruined.

As she scrambled up the last few feet to stand beside him, she saw the coastline zigzagging off to the south, each successive headland reaching further out, it seemed, into the Minch. Gunn said, ‘I put out a few feelers when they told me you were coming. I got some feedback first thing this morning.’ He turned to look at her, and she saw his oiled black hair whipped up by the wind to stand on end. ‘You’ve heard of Lee Blunt?’

‘The fashion designer?’

‘The very one. A few years back he was using Ranish Tweed in his collections, and making a name for it all over the world. Then he had a very public fallout with Ruairidh. Fisticuffs, I believe, in a pub in London, though there were no charges ever brought.’ He paused. ‘Turns out he was here on the island just a few weeks back. Flew in on a private chartered jet.’ He took out a black notebook and flicked through it. ‘Tuesday the fifth of September to be exact. Stayed a couple of days, and hired a car to take him to the mill at Shawbost.’ He turned to look at her. ‘What do you know about Harris Tweed?’

She shrugged and admitted, ‘Not much.’

‘It has to be hand-woven by weavers in their own homes. The big mills spin the wool and supply the weavers with both the orders and the wool. When the weaving’s done, the cloth goes back to the mill to be finished. They repair any flaws then wash and dry it. They even shave it to make it nice and smooth. With very few exceptions the weavers work to order for the mills.’

‘So if you were going to place an order you would go to one of the mills?’

‘Indeed.’

‘But Ranish isn’t Harris Tweed.’

‘No. Because they use different types of fibres that don’t conform to the requirements that are defined for Harris Tweed by Act of Parliament. They have their own designs and patterns, take their own orders, and only use the mills for the finishing process.’

‘So what was Blunt doing at the mill?’

‘I’ve no idea. But here’s the interesting thing. Air traffic at the airport tell me that he’s due in again this afternoon. Another private charter. Him and a few others coming for the funeral, apparently.’

‘Why would he be coming for the funeral if he had fallen out with Ruairidh?’

‘A very good question, Ma’am. And that’s something you might want to ask him.’

The sound of a vehicle starting up carried to them on the wind and they looked down to see Niamh backing her Jeep away from the house, turning and then heading along the track towards them. As it passed their 4×4 at the foot of the hill, they saw Niamh glancing up towards them. A pale face behind reflections on the driver’s window. She must have wondered what they were doing there, standing among the ruins.

When the Jeep had gone, Gunn said, ‘In the meantime, maybe we should make a wee visit to the mill to find out just what Mr Blunt was doing there.’

The mill at Shawbost stood on the far side of a small stretch of slate-grey water just north of the village, a collection of blue and white sheds and a tall white chimney that reached up to prick the pewter of the sky. Beyond it, the brown and purple shimmer of autumn moorland undulated away into a changeable morning, off towards an ocean that broke along a shoreline somewhere unseen.

It was in the dyeing shed that they found the brand director of Harris Tweed Hebrides.

Two young men in dark blue overalls were hoisting steaming batches of freshly dyed wool from vast stainless-steel vats. Virgin Scottish Cheviot wool sat around in half-ton bales waiting to be transformed from peat-stained white to primary red or blue or yellow. From adjoining sheds came the deafening clatter of the machinery that dried, blended and spun the dyed wool into the yarn that would eventually go out to weavers in their sheds all over the island.

Margaret Ann Macleod was an attractive woman in her late thirties or early forties. She was tall and slim, and wore a long Harris Tweed jacket over jeans and boots. Straight red hair, cut in a fringe that fell into green eyes, tumbled over square shoulders. ‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t be at liberty to tell you,’ she said, when Gunn asked her about Lee Blunt’s visit earlier in the month.

They followed her through to the drying room, where the noise level grew louder and Gunn had to raise his voice. ‘This is a murder inquiry, Ms Macleod. You can either tell us here or at the police station.’

Which stopped her in her tracks. She turned her gaze in his direction and he felt momentarily discomfited. ‘We take customer confidentiality very seriously,’ she said.

‘I’m sure you do.’

Margaret Ann glanced at Braque and then back again. ‘He was choosing patterns to place an order. In fact, he was back again last week to finalize it.’

‘An order with Ranish?’

‘No, Detective Sergeant, with Harris Tweed Hebrides.’

Braque said, ‘But it was with Ranish that he had a relationship in the past.’

‘Yes it was.’

Gunn scratched his smoothly shaven chin thoughtfully. ‘So he’s switching from Ranish Tweed to Harris Tweed.’

‘So it would seem.’

‘That’s going to be a bit of a public slap in the face for Ranish, isn’t it?’

The merest smile played around Margaret Ann’s lips. ‘You might say that, Detective Sergeant, I couldn’t possibly comment.’

Outside, the wind had stiffened further, shredding the sky, allowing sunlight to sprinkle itself in fast-moving patches across the land. While further out at sea, bruised black rain clouds gathered ominously along the horizon. Braque and Gunn stood by their 4×4 and she said, ‘Interesting timing. Choosing Harris Tweed over Ranish just weeks before Ruairidh’s death. And then coming to the funeral. Sounds like he is celebrating the death rather than mourning it.’