Conall cast a curious glance my way, but nobody else seemed to have noticed anything. I ate what I could of the rest of the pie mechanically and without enjoyment. Ephemeral art was still Art, and ‘very good’ wasn’t exquisite. There was no comparison. Pushing the plate aside unfinished got me another odd look from Conall, but I ignored that as I poured myself a second cup of tea and disciplined my mind to focus itself on the task at hand.
A private residence seemed most likely if they had taken Visser somewhere that night. It seemed highly unlikely that anyone would risk trying to get him out of a hotel again in that condition in the early hours, but we’d have to check those, anyway. Conall could get Mills and Collins to look into all the short term holiday rental bookings back at the station, too, once they’d got Camps Bar out of the way. Car rentals, too, while they were at it. If nothing else, negative results on those searches would confirm that someone involved with Visser that night had the long term use of a place here. Unless, of course, they’d got him into a car or van and driven straight out of town. Not as likely, given the time frame we had, but still possible.
Then there was the question of who had driven to the castle. Had one of the group remained covertly sober, or was it someone we didn’t know about? Someone who hadn’t been at Harpers at all? Conall had finished eating by then, too, although the others hadn’t. They’d all ordered more filling meals for themselves. He signalled our waiter that he was ready for his pre-ordered coffee and leaned over to see what I was adding to the ‘to do’ list we were sharing on our phones.
“I thought that I could use Collins to finish off the interviews tomorrow morning if you like,” he suggested. “You’ve got a hell of a lot of searches to get through.”
“Sure, that works for me. I’ll do it from the house, though, if you don’t mind. Which reminds me, we’d better stop somewhere to pick up some supplies before we go back there later. Even if everyone orders take out tonight or eats out, we’ll still need some breakfast stuff in.”
“There’s a Co-op near the station. That should do.” He knew I’d brought a couple of bottles of nice wine with me, so I didn’t need to go hunting for a decent selection anywhere. Philips set his knife and fork down, abandoning the last remains of his chicken salad, and looked across at us.
“Do we hand in receipts and expense forms individually?”
“No, just hand all your receipts for meals and petrol to me. It’s easier to deal with them all together. I can hand out per diems if anyone needs them in advance.”
Nobody did. I never put in for expenses myself. Anderson insisted I get my consulting fee for the days I worked with Conall, so it wasn’t like I was going to be out of pocket, even after making up the shortfall on the accommodation. People like me didn’t come cheap, and there was a limit to the number of hours I could shave off my real total without causing argument. My participation did cut investigation times down by a serious amount, so using me was cheaper than not using me, anyway. Plus, it made all the paperwork look nice and tidy if the accounting department had proof of my official involvement.
“This place was a good find,” Caitlin said happily as she finished emptying her plate. “That gammon was a lot better than some I’ve been served in much pricier restaurants and pubs.”
“The burgers are really good too,” Collins told her, with a semi-apologetic little smile at me. “I hope the smell didn’t bother you, Mr Keane.”
Conall grinned. “He doesn’t have any problem cooking meat himself. Just don’t ask him to taste it.”
“You’re a vegetarian?” Philips asked me, surprised to hear it. Maybe he thought we should all be weedy, pale, and protein deprived. A lot of people didn’t realise what a healthy option it really was if you knew what you were doing.
“He is,” Conall answered for me before adding a “Thank you” to the waiter as his coffee arrived. He pulled out his phone and checked the time as he lifted the steaming cup for a first mouthful. “Fifteen minutes before our next interviews are due to start.”
“What do you want us two to do after we’ve been to Camps Bar, Sir?” Mills asked.
“Head back to the station and get your notes written up. I’ll email you some search tasks to get started on after that.” The rest of the coffee disappeared. “We should be done with today’s interviews by about five, so we’ll see you back there after.” He pushed his chair back to go and settle the bill, and I diverted myself by staring out over the harbour in ‘Don’t Bother Me’ mode until he came back.
Collins had parked up on the other side of Harbour Quay, opposite the café, so we parted company with our two DCs there before walking back along to the VOW entrance. We’d all just got through the door when I saw the Operations Manager at the other end of the foyer, shaking hands with a couple of visitors that he must have been saying goodbye to. A tall, silver-haired, expensively tailored gentleman I would have known anywhere and someone I’d never met before but instantly recognised from press photos.
Aksel, the oldest of the four Nielsen offspring. My feet didn’t actually glue themselves to the floor, but I did come to a halt quickly enough to make Conall bump into my shoulder. I felt him stiffen as he too spotted Herre Lars and could imagine the reflexive clenching of his fist without even looking. Yeah, our last encounter with Nielsen Senior hadn’t exactly ended cordially.
Nine
Entering the foyer of the VOW offices after our lunch break that Friday, I’d been just behind my cousin, talking to Caitlin. Shay’s sudden halt caught me by surprise, and as my shoulder bumped into his, I saw what, or rather who, had arrested his attention. Herre Lars Nielsen looked around curiously at the sound of a conversation stopping in mid-sentence, and I hastily schooled my features to polite coolness.
I’d grown to genuinely like Mads Nielsen during his brief stay in Inverness last spring. The way he’d mucked in so willingly at the house had surprised me. Given his absurd lifestyle, I’d have thought Shay’s new buddy would have been more reluctant to get his hands dirty and break a sweat doing some honest work for a change. Instead, he’d come across as consistently good-natured, uncomplaining and delighted to be of use.
Alright, Mads would probably have happily waded through a sewer if it meant keeping Shay in his sights for another hour, but I don’t think he’d been putting on an act for my cousin’s benefit. There had been no hint of arrogance or any feeling of entitlement there at all. I certainly couldn’t claim to feel the same way about his father or his neurotic sister Elise. Shay may have been satisfied with a written apology from Herre Lars, but I certainly hadn’t been.
I turned to Caitlin and Philips as Lars Nielsen, with a little nod and a smile in our direction, politely allowed the Operations Manager to recover his attention and complete his farewells.
“Trouble?” Caitlin asked, glancing curiously across at the three men. She’d been looking right at me at the moment I’d spotted them standing there.
“Not at all. Just someone who’ll expect us to stop and say hello. You two go on without us. Please inform Mr Karlsson that we’re going to need another ten minutes and give him our apologies for the delay.”
Caitlin raised an eyebrow but wisely said nothing. The operations manager soon followed her and Philips into the bowels of the building, leaving us alone with the Nielsens.
“Inspector Keane!” Lars’ face broke into a broad and calculated smile as we all advanced across the floor towards each other. “And your dear cousin too! What a delightful surprise.”
“Herre Nielsen.” I shook the offered hand reluctantly. Shay’s were stuffed firmly into his pockets, and Lars decided not to push his luck and risk a snubbing there.
“Gentlemen, may I introduce my CFO and eldest son, Aksel?” he said proudly. “He has heard a great deal of good about you both.”
In appearance, the Chief Financial Officer of the Nielsens’ enormous commercial empire was a very diluted version of his younger brother. Not quite as tall and nowhere near as handsome, al
though you could see the family resemblance in his bones. His neatly cut hair was also blonde but lighter, pale wheat, not gold, and his blue eyes were less generously shaped. They also lacked the extraordinary depth and intensity of colour that made Mads’ own gaze so magnetic, although they did shine with a keen intelligence. He’d have to be clever, to have gained such a prominent position, no matter whose son he was. Lars was too shrewd to allow nepotism alone to overrule good business sense. Aksel would be forty-one or forty-two now. I knew that he was a good seven or eight years older than his brother. I also knew that he’d married at thirty and had three children of his own. The other sister, Isabella, had two, so the Nielsen dynasty was secured for another generation, whatever the two younger siblings chose to do.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Inspector,” Aksel assured me warmly as he shook my hand. “We are all most grateful for the assistance you offered last year.” His voice was a little deeper than his brother’s, but he spoke in the same cultured, slightly accented English that Mads and his father both deployed so effortlessly. Aksel waited patiently for Shay to look up and acknowledge his existence before addressing him. “My dear brother cannot speak highly enough of you, Mr Keane. You have my deepest thanks for what you did for him.”
“Mads is well, I hope?” Shay was perfectly composed again by then, although the entirely unexpected sight of Herre Lars, here of all places, had caught him completely off guard. Noting my surge of sudden anger at the sight of the man certainly hadn’t helped him much there.
“You could call him and ask,” Aksel suggested with a reproving little smile. “I know that there is nothing he’d like more than to hear from you.” He patted his stomach regretfully, and I noted a slight thickening around his waist. “I love my brother dearly, but his culinary experiments have been taking their toll on me lately, as you may have noticed. Apparently, I’m the only one in the family with a refined enough palate to be a suitable guinea pig for his extravagant creations. Of course, I’m not the one he’s hoping to please with them.”
“I’m sure all his friends are delighted to be able to enjoy the fruits of his labours,” Shay said pleasantly, effortlessly deflecting the not-so-subtle hint. “Your brother is an extremely good cook.” He turned his attention to Lars with an expressionless gaze that could not have been any cooler. “And what brings you here, Herre Nielsen? You’re not invested in this project yourself, are you?”
“No, Mr Keane, I’m not. A business acquaintance was kind enough to arrange a tour of the facilities for me. Most informative and useful. You are aware of Denmark’s plans for further, even larger developments, of course.”
“Well, you were the first country to build an offshore installation of this kind, after all. And then there are all those enormous profits yet to be made from exploiting that huge market in Germany and the rest of northern Europe.”
“Indeed.” Lars smiled, baring pleased and predatory teeth. “We are eager to play our part in helping our neighbours to reach their green energy targets. I see you are keeping yourself well informed, as ever.”
“Why wouldn’t I? We’re all stuck on the same planet, after all. It would be a shame if the short-sighted greed of a tiny, avaricious minority was allowed to make it entirely uninhabitable for the rest of us. Or perhaps you don’t see it that way? Still, it’s nice to see some of the major players finally committing to some healthier diversification, now that green energy has become profitable enough to attract their interest.” He returned Lars’ smile with an equally unpleasant one of his own. “So many latecomers are jumping on board these days. Of course, it might not be too long before the nuclear fusion boffins manage to overcome their last hurdles and make all of this wind power technology superfluous. There have been some very promising developments there lately.”
“One can only hope,” Lars replied unconcernedly. “But you will concede that it may be decades before we can hope to pull all of our power needs from such sources, even once they have become a viable option. Also, the cost of the power they can produce will certainly be a deciding factor. One has to be competitive, after all. Speaking of which, I must admit that we are all rather perplexed by the British government’s insistence on continuing to pour so much financing into such inadvisable and ruinously expensive projects as Hinkley C.”
“An absolute disgrace.” That was one subject my cousin could actually agree with Nielsen about. “They could have built another seven or eight wind farms like this one for the same amount.”
“Indeed. A shocking misuse of public funds.” Lars shook his head disapprovingly before fixing Shay with a considering, appreciative stare. “You are an admirably astute young man in many ways, Mr Keane. You do realise, I hope, that my family and I would welcome you with open arms, should you ever change your mind about working for us, even on an informal or part-time basis. You really should consider putting your rarefied talents to more extensive use than your current work allows. Elise would love to see what sort of cybersecurity improvements you might be able to propose, and I know that Mads has already embraced your suggestions for restructuring our charitable endeavours. I approve entirely. You could achieve so much more there too, to the enormous benefit of a great many people, if you wanted to.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased with the favourable reaction his work has been receiving in the press,” Shay countered cynically. “I’m sure you mean no offence, Herre Nielsen, but let me be perfectly frank. Mads asked me for advice, and, as a friend, I was happy to offer it, but my services are not for sale. I thought I’d already made that quite clear.” Which amounted to the most courteously worded, coldly furious Fuck Off I’d heard in a while.
“Well, now we’ve taken the time to exchange the expected pleasantries, I’m afraid we should really get back to work,” I interjected before things could deteriorate any further. “It’s not polite to keep people waiting.”
“Of course,” Lars agreed. “We heard about the killing here last week. That is why you are here, I presume?” He glanced at his watch, which looked like it had probably cost considerably more than the average-priced car. “And time stops for no man. We are due elsewhere ourselves very shortly. It’s a pity that we don’t have time for a more leisurely conversation. I don’t suppose you two would be free for dinner tonight?”
“I’m afraid not,” I said firmly. “We expect to be working late.”
“Ah? In that case, I shall wish you good hunting and adieu, Inspector, Mr Keane.”
I received another handshake from each of them, and Aksel directed a last, pointed look at Shay before he followed his father out.
“Dinner?” I grated once they’d gone. “Did he actually think we’d accept another invitation after last time?”
“I doubt it. He was just trying to wind you up.”
“He doesn’t need to try very hard to do that. At least Aksel seemed nice enough.”
“He seemed fond of his brother. Family is family, after all, but you don’t get to be the CFO of a multimillion business empire by being nice, Con, no matter whose son you are. He’s as ruthless as his father in his business dealings.”
“At least he doesn’t seem to let that leak over into his private life. That’s an improvement on Papa Nielsen, anyway.” We started walking back towards our borrowed interview room.
“Did you hear how he worded that insulting little pitch?” Shay asked. “Offering to increase Mads’s funding if I agreed to help spruce their security up. I think we amuse him. Anyone not trying to accumulate as much personal wealth as they can look like time-wasting fools to people like that.”
“Including Mads?” I asked as I opened the door.
“Including Mads. The difference being that he’s extremely useful to them. They couldn’t have asked for a better public face to promote their interests.” Shay shrugged his pack off and pulled his laptop out. “He makes one hell of an ambassador for the Nielsens. Dad’s too wealthy to be viewed entirely approvingly by the Danish public, but the goss
ip rags over there can’t get enough of Mads. He’s their complete, modern darling; sporting, cultured, philanthropic, and photogenic as hell.”
Mads’ endless succession of decorative escorts of both genders probably didn’t hurt Nielsen International’s public image either. Discrimination? Them? Never! Ranked year after year as one of the happiest countries in the world, Denmark had certainly been one of the most socially evolved about sexual tolerance for quite some time. They’d decriminalised homosexuality as far back as nineteen thirty-three and, later, been the first country in the world to legally recognise same-sex unions.
Shay frowned slightly as he sat down. “Aksel seemed a bit too keen on the idea of me calling his brother, don’t you think? They can’t possibly expect Mads to recruit me for them, can they?” I shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d automatically overlook the obvious explanation in favour of a more paranoid one.
“It’s been almost a year since you saw him. I think they’ve all realised by now that you’re not hopelessly smitten, Shay.” I pulled my phone out and hung my jacket on the back of my chair before sitting down. “It’s far more likely that Aksel was just trying to do his brother a favour. I got more of the impression that it’s Mads who might be pining a little.”
“Don’t be daft, Cuz.” He didn’t actually laugh, but a helpless snort of amusement at the idea managed to escape him. “You know what he’s like. Think of all those tempting morsels constantly trying to get his attention, begging to be sampled.”
“Mmm.” Karlsson would be along any moment now, and I wanted to get the promised email off to Collins and Mills before we got started.
“What?” Shay asked suspiciously. I paused my typing to look at him.
Castle Killings: A DCI Keane Scottish Crime Thriller (Deadly Highlands Book 4) Page 8
