Кит Мори - Deadly Still

The headline suddenly appeared: VICKY’S TRAINER FOUND

Bridget McDonald read the email as she sat by her daughter’s bedside. It had been a relief when the haemodialysis treatment was completed and the blood tests showed that Catriona’s life was no longer considered in danger, although the consultant nephrologist had told them that she would have to stay under observation for a few days to monitor her kidney function.

‘They have found one of Vicky’s trainers,’ she told Catriona. ‘Hopefully she’ll have been sleeping it off somewhere and they’ll find her soon.’

Catriona immediately burst into tears. ‘Please God, don’t let them find her dead!’

Wallace and Douglas knew a number of folk who regularly drank peatreek and went seeking them out in order to find out who they were supplied by. They both anticipated that it would be a harder task than it actually proved to be, because everyone was aware of the tragedy that had befallen the three teenagers and were keen to help.

As Torquil had instructed they confiscated and labelled the bottles and emphasised to everyone that it could be dangerous to drink any that they had secreted away, especially unopened ones.

Only one of the imbibers, a crofter over on the Wee Kingdom had his own illicit still, which he used exclusively for his own consumption. The others were supplied by one of four still owners, all of whom kept them hidden on uninhabited islets that made up the West Uist archipelago. Like their customers, all of them cooperated and agreed to lead the Drummonds to them.

Boarding The Seaspray , the West Uist Police catamaran, which was always moored in the Kyleshiffin harbour in readiness for a daily round of the coast, they took the distillers, most of them actually part time fishermen like themselves, to inspect their stills. They recorded how many bottles they had stored and confiscated them before putting up official police tapes around the sites.

All took their treatment in good part, though some had parting pleas.

‘You’ll make sure I don’t get into trouble, won’t you lads?’ said Tosh MacNeill. ‘It could affect my business badly.’

‘Whatever happens, don’t let my dad know about this, will you, Douglas? He’d have my teeth for cufflinks.’

And while no-one actually offered a bribe, many future pints of Heather Ale were promised in the Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Much as they would have liked to help out pals neither Wallace nor Douglas felt able to make any rash promise. For all they knew some of the cargo of bottles they had on The Seaspray could be lethal.

After quickly researching on the internet about the basics of whisky production Penny had phoned the Abhainn Dhonn distillery and talked to Hamish McNab, who had just come back from the search. He sounded tired.

‘Of course you can come across. We want to do whatever is needed to find young Vicky and get justice for poor Jamie Mackintosh.’

Penny set up her sat nav and drove across to the west of the island. The heavens opened on the way and she had to put her windscreen wipers on full and drive relatively slowly. Sheep were sheltering in nooks and crannies along the roadside and in the lashing rain it was hard to differentiate them from occasional boulders. And then, typical of the weather on the island, the rain abruptly stopped.

She smelled the distillery before she saw it. There was a definite tang, which seemed to be a melange of peat smoke, roasted barley and seaweed.

Cresting a hill she spotted it about a hundred yards inland from the sea, a converted farm steading consisting of a two-storied house with attached conservatory, a cluster of whitewashed outhouses and a small wind turbine. Smoke and steam billowed out of two stacks. Barley fields stretched out on either side of the road which led over a small bridge into a cobbled yard, which had been extended into a small car park.

On the whitewashed wall a large brown sign with black writing read:

ABHAINN DHONN DISTILLERY.

(Brown River)

Penny got out of her car and cast an eye at the babbling river that flowed under the bridge. She noted that it was clear, but had a definite russet brown appearance.

A door in the whitewashed building opened and two men came out. One was tall with ginger hair and a beard, dressed in a tweed sports jacket, corduroy trousers and well-polished brogues. The other was of average height and slighter build, with a high receding hairline. He was dressed in overalls, a large white apron and white wellingtons.

‘DC Faversham, I am presuming,’ Hamish McNab said, striding forward to shake her hand. ‘Welcome to Abhainn Dhonn. I’m Hamish McNab and this is Keith Finlay, my head distiller.’

Penny shook both their hands, noting that Hamish McNab’s expression was deadpan whereas Keith Finlay had dimpled cheeks, as if he always smiled. ‘This is good of you to see me. I need a very quick lesson in making whisky and my inspector said that your distillery is the ideal place to go for information.’

Hamish waved a hand. ‘No problem at all. We’re all deeply concerned for Vicky Spiers and Catriona McDonald and utterly devastated at the death of young Jamie Mackintosh.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s not looking good though, is it? I received one of Calum Steele’s West Uist Chronicle emails that said you’ve found a trainer. Let’s hope that leads somewhere. But we must do what we can to help you, so just have a good sniff of the air. That will give you an idea of what goes into our whisky. Peat, malted barley and good clean sea air.’ He waved at the surrounding fields with their yellowing crop. ‘We grow as much of our own barley here as we can, although as we increase production we are having to buy in more. I’m trying to buy more land, which isn’t easy, so fingers crossed.’

‘Before today I didn’t know that whisky was made from barley,’ Penny confessed.

Hamish nodded matter-of-factly. ‘If you are a city type then there is no reason why you should know. But the type of barley is important, too. You see there are several different varieties. We use two types, Bere and Concerto. They are both early maturing and they have a low moisture content so they are good for malting.’

‘And maybe just as important, we have the abhainn dhonn, which means the “brown river” on our doorstep,’ said Keith Finlay. ‘It comes down from the Corlins, through ancient peatbogs and over quartzite. We pump it into our holding tanks at the back of the distillery. There’s no finer base for uisge beatha than that, in my humble opinion.’

Hamish McNab glanced at his watch and then pointed to the door. ‘Come in and I’ll give you a brief overview. I have to be somewhere else very soon, so I’ll then leave you in Keith’s capable hands. He’s been in the whisky distilling business all his life, so he’ll be able to answer all your questions.’

They entered a spartanly furnished room with walls covered in framed pictures of the original farm steading and its apparent transition over the years from sepia tint photographs of a small croft, into a thriving steading and then gradually into a distillery.

Hamish pointed to an old photograph of a man in front of the building they were in, working a scythe blade on a wheel sharpening stone. ‘My family have lived here for four generations now. That’s my great grandfather Hector McNab working this croft back at the end of the nineteenth century. You can see his boat in the distance. Back then folk eked out a living on the land and the sea.’

One by one he picked out other pictures of men and women, through the generations. Gradually, as the photographs became newer and in colour Penny could see the family resemblance and in particular the ginger hair.