Castle Killings: A DCI Keane Scottish Crime Thriller (Deadly Highlands Book 4)

by Oliver Davies

  “Don’t be obtuse. Just because he isn’t starving himself doesn’t mean he wouldn’t like to see you again. There’s a difference between getting what you’d really like and making do with what’s available. Appetite’s a funny thing that way.” Maybe the analogy would be close enough to the mark to make sense to him, considering the number of desserts he’d abandoned half-eaten lately. I finished composing my email and sent it off while he thought about it.

  A light tap at the open door announced the timely arrival of Anton Karlsson at that point, and I rose, relieved, to greet him. The sooner we could forget all about Lars Nielsen and get back to work, the better.

  Ten

  The afternoon’s interviews proved to be even less productive than the morning’s had been. Anton Karlsson had been perfectly frank about the little incident that Sandy Morris had told us about, and I was convinced that he didn’t hold any grudges. On the contrary, Karlsson had made a point of insisting that Kaj Visser had dealt with the situation in the best possible manner.

  “I was feeling ill that day, very delicate. And I’d almost blacked out, earlier, when working on one of the turbine platforms. Then, on the boat, the sea was heaving, nauseatingly, and I found I could not breathe. Hyperventilating, yes, panicked? I should not have grabbed onto Kaj like that. It was most unprofessional.”

  “Had you been drinking the night before?”

  “Yes,” Karlsson admitted readily. “Too much. Not good before work, ey? I learned a useful lesson that day. Everyone was very good about it too.” I expected they’d probably all had their ‘off days’ at one time or another. No need to drag management into something like that unless it started to look like a dangerous habit.

  “From what we’ve heard so far, it doesn’t look like anyone he worked with had any motive to want to kill Kaj Visser,” I said as Shay and I drove back to the station.

  “No, or even pick a fight with him. Of course, that doesn’t rule them all out. Maybe one of them discovered he’d been seeing their wife or girlfriend behind their back? That’s always been enough of a motive for a lot of people.”

  That was all too true. More than half of the female murder victims in the UK were killed by their partners, or ex-partners, but it wasn’t uncommon, when infidelity was involved, for their lovers to be targeted instead.

  “Given Visser’s lifestyle, that sort of jealousy is certainly high on the list of possible motives at the moment,” I agreed. The way he’d died certainly indicated a great deal of very personal anger directed against him.

  As for other possible motives, I still wanted to know where Visser had been getting the extra money from. If he had been involved in some form of illegal activity or was being paid off to keep his mouth shut about something, then we needed to find out about it. The murderers, whoever they were, might well have expected their crime to be passed over as an accidental death. Several hours of being battered against the rocks after a drunken fall would have been enough to make the antemortem injuries escape the attention of anyone less conscientious than the pathologist in question had been.

  Visser’s family were accounted for. They’d all been in the Netherlands when he died, and Shay hadn’t found any indication of fallings out there. No tempting inheritances either. I couldn’t help feeling relieved that I wouldn’t have to see any of them.

  Tomorrow afternoon, we’d need to fit in a visit to Visser's flat. Munro’s people had already checked the place over, but they might have missed something. Once we’d got that out of the way, arrangements could be made for his personal possessions to be packed up and returned to his family. His body had already been released and flown back to the Netherlands. We had all the documented evidence we needed from the pathologist’s report and the lab results, so there had been no reason to delay that.

  Philips and Caitlin had been right behind us on the short drive back up to the station, so I sent Shay on to our offices with them whilst I went to see about signing Visser’s laptop out of evidence.

  “No luck with local rental car agencies,” Mills told me when I stopped to check on how he and Collins had been getting on. “I’ve added in copies of the driving licence scans for the vehicles they had out last Friday, but none of them looks like a match for any of the people seen leaving Harpers with Visser.”

  “And The Camps Bar?” I asked. “Did any of the staff remember seeing Visser there on the night he died?”

  “No, but they did say that if he’d gone in after half-past eleven, they could easily have missed him. The place was heaving by then, and they said they’d served a lot of people who might fit the descriptions we had of the group he left Harpers with.”

  So they may or may not have called in there. A couple of the people I’d interviewed today had seen Visser at Harpers too, but none of them had gone on to Camps. Still, Wick was a small town. Maybe, when we got started on working through the girls Visser had dated or hooked up with, one of them might recall seeing him that night. Mills and Collins also had come back with a short list of regulars who had been at Harpers last Friday. With a bit of luck, some of them might have caught Visser’s companions in the background of a selfie or group photo.

  Collins reported that he was still working on compiling the holiday rental bookings but should be able to finish his work on that within the hour, now that Mills was helping him. You never knew, beforehand, which parts of an investigation were going to turn out to be a complete waste of time and which weren’t. The rule was ‘check everything’, and we always did, as far as it was possible to do so.

  Caitlin and Philips still had their own transcriptions to occupy themselves with, so I went on through to the inner office to hand the laptop over to Shay.

  “Just make sure you don’t leave any traces of what you’re doing with it anywhere,” I warned him once he’d taken possession of it. “You’re not supposed to look at anything I haven’t found reason enough to request to see, remember?” Munro hadn’t been joking with that ‘by the book’ warning earlier, and whatever he’d said about not wanting updates, he did have access to the case files. I doubted he’d be able to resist the temptation to keep his eye on our progress.

  “When have I ever?” he sniffed as he unsealed the bag. The laptop had already been checked for fingerprints and DNA samples, but Shay reluctantly pulled on a pair of gloves, anyway. If anyone but Visser had used that keyboard, they’d been too careful to leave any evidence behind, and my cousin didn’t want to leave his own marks all over it either. “Honestly, Con, fixing the dates any files were last accessed is one of the easiest things I do.” He found a spare socket and plugged the adapter in. “I’ll just copy the whole lot onto a secured drive, and then you can sign it back in for now. Just fill out a request form with the names of the girls we already know about and the date range you want checked for any message activity. I’ll run an officially sanctioned search on those for you to explain what it was wanted for.”

  That would do nicely. When asked, both of Visser’s regular crewmates had been able to recall the names of the two girls that Visser had formed short-lived relationships with. It would be interesting to see what those two had to say about Kaj. If either of them had spent time at Visser’s flat, they could have seen things, heard conversations, or met odd visitors that nobody else we’d talked to knew anything about.

  By half-past six, I decided it was high time we cleared out for the day. Shay and I could still get a lot more work done during the evening, but the others had already put in a long day, and it wasn’t as if I currently had anything urgent for them to do. There was no point in overworking them without good reason. I’d have plenty more for them to do tomorrow. My cousin had safely copied everything he wanted from Visser’s laptop by then, so I made sure it was signed back into evidence storage before we left.

  The nearby Co-op really was only a short hop away, and it didn’t take us long to pick up what we wanted. Driving up from Inverness had allowed Shay to bring along an extra bag just for his ‘kitchen
essentials,’ which included his good knife set, various spices, his smallest blender and a collection of the dried supplements that he added to his endless smoothies. I left him unpacking and organising in the kitchen while I went to check out our accommodation properly. We’d barely looked at the place that morning, only stopping in for long enough to drop off our bags before heading for the station.

  Our bedrooms were both small doubles, not much to choose between them, so I put Shay’s bag in the one furthest away from the adjoining house. The living room was a decent size and comfortably furnished, and everything seemed clean. Much nicer than being stuck in a pokey hotel room.

  “Do you want the bathroom before I shower?” I stuck my head back into the kitchen to ask.

  “No, go ahead. I’ll get your chicken breasts chopped and seasoned and prep the veg whilst you’re in there.”

  By the time I was out and dressed, my cousin was settled in the living room with his laptop set up on the dining table and a half-finished tea at his elbow.

  “Any good?” he asked without looking up.

  “The water pressure’s a bit low, but the temperature control’s fine. It’s all yours as soon as you’re ready.”

  “In a bit. I just want to set a couple more searches going first.”

  “What are you working on?” His fingers were playing the keyboard at top speed.

  “I’m just running some checks on the people Visser’s contacted in the last few months. There were quite a few numbers in his phone records that don’t cross-match with his workmates or family, and more contacts still to go through from his Messenger account too.”

  “How many altogether?”

  “Forty-seven, including the VOW lot, but I started on the first half last night. I’ve already dismissed some of them as irrelevant. Don’t worry. You’ll get the full list, along with why some of them can be ignored. Calling a taxi, ordering food, et cetera.”

  “Alright then. I’m going to pop next door and see how the others are settling in. Are you okay here?”

  “Yeah, all good.” He lifted one hand in a vague wave. “See if you can snag another big frying pan for me to use while you’re over there, will you?”

  “Will do.” I went out into our hallway and pulled back the bolt on the connecting door, closing it behind me and following the sound of voices past the kitchen to the other living room. I tapped lightly on the open door.

  “Hey, Conall. Good timing.” Caitlin grinned up at me from the couch she’d settled onto, her hair still damp from her own shower. “We were just looking up local take out options online. What do you fancy?”

  “Nothing for us, thanks. We’re sorting ourselves out tonight. So, how’s everything over here? Rooms okay?”

  “Better than a cheap hotel,” Darren told me from the opposite couch, where he’d been leaning over Mike’s laptop when I walked in. “All four rooms are good, and we’ve got two bathrooms. I think we’ll manage to scrape by.”

  “Yeah, it’s nice to have all this extra space,” Mike agreed. “It beats being stuck in one room all evening.”

  “I’m surprised the budget stretched to it, Sir,” Philips added pointedly as I picked an empty armchair and sat down.

  “No ‘Sirs’ off the clock, please, Simon. Actually, this place doesn’t work out any more expensive than booking single rooms in town for you all. Alright, you don’t get breakfast thrown in, but let’s face it, most budget hotel breakfasts are pretty awful.”

  “And your own flat?”

  “My cousin’s paying the extra for that.” They all looked a little surprised to hear it. “He’s a hired consultant, not a departmental employee,” I explained. “If he wants to splash out a little to make himself comfortable, that’s his business.”

  “Does the kitchen meet his approval?” Caitlin prodded enviously.

  “Yours is much bigger, but it’ll do. That reminds me, I’m supposed to check if you have a decent frying pan over here that we can borrow.”

  “Stir fry tonight?” An easy guess, given what she’d seen Shay with at the supermarket.

  “It’s a quick, easy option.” I was getting chicken and prawn, but I didn’t want to look or sound too smug about it. That would just be mean. “What are you in the mood for?”

  “I was leaning towards pizza, but I’ve gone off the idea now.”

  “A couple of the Chinese take-aways in town have good reviews,” Mike told her hopefully. “I could go for something like that. If we all order different dishes, we could get a nice selection to share around.”

  That idea seemed to please everybody, and I left them to sort out their order while I went to the kitchen to see what kind of pans were available. No wok, as expected, but I did manage to find a decent, second frying pan. I could hear our shower running when I dropped that off for Shay.

  Back with the others, I waited until Mike had finished typing their order in. “It says thirty minutes,” he told them once he’d placed it. “Christ! I’m bloody starving.”

  “Thinking about food can do that,” Mills agreed cheerfully. “So, what’s the plan for tomorrow, boss?”

  “Well, four of us need to go and finish off the last of the interviews down at VOW in the morning, but my cousin intends to work from here while we do that. I’ll team up with Mike and give you a task list to work through at the station Darren.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  “Alright then. We’ll meet up for lunch and plan out the afternoon’s activities after we’re done with the interviews.” None of them seemed to have any problem with those arrangements.

  “Who were those men we bumped into after lunch?” Caitlin asked curiously. “I couldn’t help noticing that you didn’t look too pleased to see them. Are they connected to our case?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, and I doubt it. That was Herre Lars Nielsen and his eldest son.”

  “The shipping magnate? The guy whose yacht got hijacked when you were in Stornoway last year?”

  “The same.”

  “And you don’t like him?” She’d seen enough of our reactions to figure that out easily enough.

  “No, I don’t, but you can’t just snub people like that. For one thing, if Herre Lars dropped a word in the right ears about being given the cold shoulder, I’d get an earful passed down through Chief Anderson about it. I was basically ordered to accept a lunch invitation from the man last year, so he could personally express his gratitude. Anything to make sure we don’t adversely affect any future trade agreements etc. etc. Nielsen’s got some very powerful political connections.”

  “From the way you said that, I’m guessing it didn’t go very well.”

  “It didn’t. He behaved offensively enough to give us a good reason to walk out on him.”

  “Oh.” She considered that for a moment. “So he’s an entitled, ungrateful prick? No wonder you don’t like him.” I could tell what she was thinking, what they were probably all thinking. Rich, powerful, older man doesn’t react well to being rebuffed. I wasn’t about to tell them what had really happened. Shay’s private life was none of their business.

  I stayed until I heard their food arriving, letting idle chatter about evening viewing plans and what everyone thought of Wick wash over me, contributing little to the general conversation as I reviewed our encounters with Lars. No, surely not? The man might be tolerant of Mads’ diverse tastes, but I didn’t think he shared them. It was the contents of my cousin’s brain he’d like to gain access to. Cybersecurity was a huge issue these days. Elise Nielsen and her team might be more than competent, but they just weren’t in the same league as Shay.

  When I did get up to leave, Caitlin followed me out into the hallway. “Is Shay alright?” she asked worriedly in a low voice. “That Nielsen guy didn’t upset him earlier, did he?”

  “Hardly.” I gave her a reassuring smile. “My cousin’s very good at dismissing people that manage to irritate him.”

  “Alright then, just as long as everything’s okay.” I
waited until she’d gone back to the others before ducking through the connecting door.

  “Nice timing!” Shay told me cheerfully as I walked into the kitchen. “This is just about ready to serve up. I put a couple of beers in the freezer for you earlier if you want to grab them.” The small table was already set, with his work night wine ration poured and waiting, so I retrieved my bottles and sat down to take a first, perfectly chilled swallow.

  “I did what you wanted, by the way,” he said casually as he brought our steaming plates over. “I called Mads and told him who we’d bumped into. I gave him a word-for-word account of what they said too.”

  “And?” I asked as he carefully deposited my plate.

  “Well, he wasn’t too pleased with either of them, but family, right? What can you do? It’s not his fault.” He picked up his wine glass. “At least we don’t need to worry about bumping into his father or brother again. They’ve already been out to see the wind farm, and he told me they’re heading down to Nigg to check out the turbine construction facilities in the morning. They’re flying straight back to Denmark after that.”

  It was like trying to get blood out of a stone, but he wasn’t doing it on purpose. I knew that Shay and Mads had kept in touch, exchanged a few innocuous emails, but the man was far too astute to risk permanently blowing his chances by making a nuisance of himself. He’d left it up to my cousin to make the next overture if he wanted to. Maybe Mads had even been a little too cautiously patient there. Shay had seemingly taken the apparent lack of interest at face value.

  “Was he happy to hear from you?” I prodded expectantly.

  “He was. You were right. He’d like to meet up again.”

  It was the mild surprise in his voice that did it. I favoured him with one of his own amused snorts.

  “So when’s he coming over?”

  “Who said he was?” He gave me a disapproving look. “I’ll have to think about it. You know I don’t usually do repeats, Con.” Mair didn’t count. It wasn’t like he’d cut one of the gang out of his life just because they’d got drunk and ended up in bed together one night. Credit where credit was due. Mair had handled that perfectly. Nothing had changed between them except for the fact that she’d become a safe, available option after that. No need to worry about her becoming over-attached or getting her feelings hurt. She knew what he was like. Shay sniffed. “I told him I was too busy just now, anyway.”