Кит Мори - Deadly Still

Only Kathleen Peterson was in the building. Torquil scrolled down the attachment on his phone as he talked to her.

‘I have a list of properties around the area of Harpoon Hill and the pillbox. I hadn’t realised it before, but it seems that the biggest property owners on the island are the Strathshiffin and Glen Corlin estates, Charlie McDonald, Hamish McNab and Beamish Solicitors. The list doesn’t say whether the Beamish properties are occupied or not, just that they are owned by Beamish Solicitors. I need to know if there are private arrangements in place and which of the Beamish properties are occupied.’

Kathleen looked flustered. ‘I’m not sure that I can divulge that information without Mr or Mrs Beamish’s permission.’

Torquil did not bat an eyelid. ‘I am conducting investigations into a murder and a suspected abduction. I suggest that you find this information for me now, this is urgent.’

Kathleen led the way through to her office and began working on her computer. After a few minutes she printed out a list of three properties. ‘These three are unoccupied and we have no record of tenants.’

‘Thank you for your cooperation. Now, where are Mr and Mrs Beamish?’

Kathleen shook her head. ‘I can’t tell you. Cameron Beamish is my boss and Hazie works for Helen. Hazie had to go off with a migraine after hearing the news and I have no idea where Helen is. She had nothing in her diary. Cameron is —’ She hesitated and then shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know where.’

After Torquil had gone she got her mobile phone out of her handbag and called Cameron. It went straight to answer. Kathleen hesitated about leaving a message but decided to risk it.

‘Take care. The police have just been looking for you and her!’

Penny had given Morag the census lists and she in turn had sent them through to Superintendent Lumsden, who was now ensconced in the library van overseeing the revised search. He had given her a lambasting for working with Torquil and for allowing him to notify the media about the change of emphasis of the search, but after venting he had then gone into professional mode and arranged for his officers to begin door to doors.

Morag then took a call from Torquil, updating her on the news about Archie Reid being the operator of another illicit still and about Torquil’s visit to the Old Hydro where he had found out about Doreen’s affair with Hamish McNab and about the memory stick Robbie Ochterlonie had given to Stuart Robertson. He told her to pass on the message to Penny that he needed her to go over and help the old man find it, as he had forgotten where he had put it. He also told her about his visit to Beamish Solicitors where he had obtained a list of their unoccupied properties from Kathleen Peterson in the absence of the two partners.

After Torquil rang off Morag went through to the rest room where Penny and Ewan were working by the whiteboard. She told Penny about the memory stick and that he wanted her to go over to find it in Stuart Robertson’s room at the Old Hydro.

‘Of course, I’ll go over pronto,’ Penny replied. ‘But I need to add this to the board. The boss got me to do some research on methanol,’ she said as she added notes to the whisky column. ‘Methanol really is lethal stuff, but there would have to be an awful lot of foreshot in a bottle to make it so dangerous. The amount of foreshot produced by a small still would also be pretty small, so it would not likely be enough. That coupled with the fact that normal alcohol reduces its effect, witnessed by the fact that Dr McLelland treated Catriona McDonald’s methanol overdose by giving her ethanol, suggests that the those bottles must have been deliberately poisoned with pure methanol. It really isn’t easy to get though.’

Morag whistled in surprise.

‘There have been lots of fatal cases, but not really that many in this country, except suicides when people have taken methylated spirits. That’s not what was in those bottles of peatreek. I found cases in India, Poland, Greece and Romania. Unscrupulous people added methanol to ordinary alcohol to bulk it out.’

Ewan had been looking at the whiteboard. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but I keep thinking about these trainers. And my murder shoes. Do you think it could be some sort of fetishist here?’

Penny took a sudden intake of breathe. ‘My God! It’s been in front of my eyes all this time and I hadn’t twigged it. Stan Wilkinson, he’s English, isn’t he?’

‘Aye. He’s a good fellow, always really helpful. Look, the boss called him the Good Samaritan, because he took Catriona to hospital and then Angus Mackintosh.’

Penny ran her fingers through her hair. ‘He’s grown a beard and he looks respectable, but I’m sure he’s the same chap. I think I saw him a couple of years ago in Leeds. He was a shoplifter. He was arrested for stealing shoes. It wasn’t my case, but I remember seeing the file, along with psychiatric reports. What did they say he had, some sort of thing called a paraphilia? He was a shoe fetishist!’

‘ Creideamh! ’ muttered Ewan. ‘He seemed incredibly taken with my murder shoes. Do you think he could have been the burglar?’

‘And it was his phone that was stolen with the other stuff,’ said Morag. ‘I sent the pictures I took at the pillbox from his phone, but maybe there were other things on the phone he didn’t want anyone to see.’

‘But it’s been taken now,’ said Penny.

‘No wait!’ exclaimed Ewan. ‘I downloaded the whole thing to the station computer just in case.’

All three rushed through to the terminal at the front desk and watched as Ewan accessed the downloaded library. It came up as files simply numbered one to 6. Ewan opened them one by one and they showed photograph after photograph of shoes, boots, slippers of all designs imaginable. Both male and female ones. Many were just of the shoes, but others were selfies of someone wearing them, some in flesh, others with stockings, fishnets or gaudy body paints.

‘I don’t believe it,’ gasped Ewan.

‘We can’t risk leaving this,’ said Penny. ‘Not with these cases under investigation. Do you know where he lives?’

‘Aye, he rents a cottage near the Wee Kingdom,’ Ewan replied.

‘Then let’s go,’ Penny said. ‘We’ll go in my Mini. You direct me.’

The Wee Kingdom was a small islet of the archipelago that formed West Uist. It was a roughly star shaped peninsula facing the Atlantic on the north-west coast. With steep sea cliffs, home to thousands of fulmars and gannets, and lush well fertilised soil it was home to five self-sufficient crofts. Stan Wilkinson had been captivated by it when he first started delivering mail to the crofters and sought out the closest, affordable property that he could to it. An enquiry at Beamish Solicitors resulted in him renting an old shepherd’s cottage half a mile up a twisting unmetalled road that branched off the main road before it crossed the causeway to the Wee Kingdom itself.

‘Do you ever get a chance to drive without having to have the windscreen wipers on?’ Penny asked as she turned off the main road at Ewan’s direction.

He laughed. ‘Oh, sometimes it doesn’t rain for a day or two a month.’ Then he winked at her. ‘Only kidding, Penny. We sometimes have great weather. You’ve just hit a bad patch.’

She smiled back and then concentrated on driving along the pot-holed road that soon gave way to a rutted track with large muddy puddles and long tufts of grass up the middle of it, testimony to its relatively infrequent use.

‘I was thinking,’ Ewan said after a while. ‘Maybe sometime we could, you know, maybe have a drink. If you’d like to, that is.’

Penny glanced at him and smiled as he lowered his gaze bashfully. ‘I was hoping you might ask that. In fact, at lunch yesterday I was about —’