Blood in the Water by Oliver Davies (book club reads .TXT) 📕

After she’d finished with her call, I went over to sit down in the same chair I’d occupied earlier. That pile of files in her In basket looked just as high as it had before lunch, but I could see that she’d been busy. The Out basket stack had risen quite a bit since then. McKinnon’s desk nearly always had a seemingly endless stream of reports flowing across it too. I didn’t envy either of them. Maybe, in another fifteen or twenty years, being chained to a desk for most of the time would seem like a more attractive prospect to me, but I’d resign before letting Anderson tie me down like that now. Well, I’d at least make him believe that I would.

“The Port Authority will send over the requested information on the Jeanie as soon as they’ve retrieved it. Arnold said it should only take a few minutes.” Trish was eyeing me curiously. “I suppose you already know which dates are going to show up, somehow.” It wasn’t quite a question, so I didn’t feel any need to respond to that comment. Instead, I voiced my most pressing concern.

“I’m not sure how we proceed once we have the warrant, Trish. I don’t know how things usually work in your area. What happens next? Do you contact the Ullapool people to deal with Butler when he arrives?” I wasn’t used to working in a place where you couldn’t drive wherever you needed to go. How was I supposed to get over there quickly?

“Yes, absolutely. We should just let them handle it.” She’d probably decided she’d rather not know exactly what Shay had been up to, anyway. He didn’t operate under the same rules and restrictions that we did, and most police officers were uncomfortable with the thought of what kind of covert snooping the government might be allowing behind our backs. “If Phelps or Jordan are on board, Ullapool can hold them for you until you get there. We can get you a lift over there without much delay if that happens. Let’s just see if it’s worth the trip first, shall we?” That made sense. “You said that your cousin has eyes on Jeanie?” So we’ll know if she changes course, or stops to drop anyone off before Ullapool?

“He has access to a live satellite feed, yes.” That, at least, was totally legitimate and disclosable. “I’ll let you know if there’s any change to report.”

“Yes, please do, Conall.” I left her to get on with her side of things, confident that she’d deal with everything that needed to be seen to before the Jeanie reached the mainland.

When I got back to our office Shay had sort of melted backwards into his chair, legs stretched out, fork in one hand and plate in the other.

“Anyone would think you got stoned on that stuff,” I told him, both amused and pleased as he smiled up at me beatifically. It must be really good pie. The better they were, the slower he ate them. I wasn’t a fan myself.

“S’got cinnamon in it,” he informed me happily, mumbling around his current mouthful. Well, he’d certainly deserved his little treat after that insane coding session he’d pulled off down at South Beach. I rarely got to see him produce such spectacular results out of thin air like that. I’d timed him too, under thirty minutes from start to finish.

I opened up my report, unsure of how to word the latest development. Best not to get too specific.

‘After Aaron Whitaker confirmed that he had been recruited by Cory Phelps. Mr Keane and I expanded our search on people known to be connected to Malcolm Locke and discovered that William Butler, an employee of Locke’s brother-in-law, Iain Shaw, was the registered owner of a motor cruiser, Jeanie. The Stornoway Port Authority was able to confirm that Jeanie had visited Stornoway on the following dates…’

Yeah, that would do it. I finished off the short addition and saved the file. Shay must have been keeping an eye on his screen the whole time because he sat up and gave me a nudge.

“She’s losing speed.”

I moved my chair over so I could read the information he had on display on the right side of his screen. Speed, position, distance from Stornoway, distance to Ullapool. The satellite feed on the left showed me that Jeanie had almost reached Priest Island by then, an uninhabited little nature reserve colonised by a healthy variety of seabirds. Our boat wasn’t merely losing speed by the looks of it, she was coming to a dead stop. Was it deliberate, or were they having engine trouble?

“Wait,” Shay advised as I reached for the phone. “Give it a few minutes to see if there’s any sign of activity.”

No unfocused blobs that might be people emerged to check on the twin engines mounted at the stern. He zoomed out. No other vessels on a course to intercept our boat anywhere nearby either. He switched back to the closest view we could get. We gave it a good five minutes, but there was still no sign of life on board.

“She’s drifting slightly. About fifteen feet a minute. I think we’d better get the coastguard to go and check her out, or she’ll be on the rocks in an hour.”

Trish came down herself to see what we were talking about when I called her. “You’re right,” she decided, “She’s acting like an unmanned vessel. I’ll call it in and get a Search and Rescue helicopter sent out to look. The RNLI can send a boat out from Lochinver if they’re needed. They’re only half our distance from there.” She made the call to the Stornoway Coastguard team from my desk phone.

“Could you two bring that laptop up to my office?” she asked after hanging up, “We can patch into their radio up there and listen in as well as observe.” Was that because her husband, Jack Morrison, was first