Blood in the Water: A DCI Keane Scottish Crime Thriller

by Oliver Davies

  Dishes delivered and glasses filled, they quietly made their exit again. Lars looked inquiringly at my cousin.

  “My son warned me that you were a vegetarian, Mr Keane. I do hope the selections I made for you are acceptable.”

  Shay stirred his pea soup experimentally, and a few tiny pieces of chopped ham bobbed up to the surface. He put his spoon down again with a sigh.

  “I’m afraid the kitchen staff seem to have made a mistake. Never mind, I find that I’ve lost my appetite, anyway. You have an interesting family, Mads, although I’m not sure I appreciate their sense of humour.”

  Elise just laughed lightly. “Oh come now, Mr Keane, I’m sure you occasionally make yourself taste a little meat, however unpalatable you may find it. Especially if doing so allows you to obtain something you want, like a password, for example? Isn’t that the sort of thing you people are trained to do?”

  There was a stunned, shocked silence before Mads hurled himself to his feet, knocking his chair back.

  “You loathsome little viper! How dare you insult our guest like that!”

  “Oh, do calm down, Mads,” his father said impatiently, “Her accusation may have been a little indelicately phrased, but if Elise swears that she noticed you log in briefly at a time we now know you were being held at gunpoint elsewhere, then I’m inclined to hear her out. Don’t be so naïve. The man’s obviously somebody’s agent. Who knows what information he may have stolen?”

  I’d frozen in my seat, staring at father and daughter in speechless fury. I knew that my entire face and neck had flushed crimson. Shay, on the other hand, just rose smoothly to his feet and dropped his redundant serviette on the table.

  “Naive? Actually, Mads happens to be a far better judge of character than either of you appear to be. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for thinking so little of him. Conall, please make our excuses. I’m sure Superintendent Anderson wouldn’t expect us to sit here and tolerate any more of this.”

  Gladly!

  “Thank you for your invitation, Herre Nielsen,” I managed to say, rather calmly, I thought, as I stood myself again. “I wish I could say that it has been a pleasure, but if this is your idea of gratitude, we want no more of it. Mads, you’re welcome to join us if you like. We can all get something to eat elsewhere and have a nice, civilised meal.”

  “I’d be delighted,” Mads assured me, glaring at his father. “Shay doesn’t give a damn about any of your secrets, Papa, and he’s certainly not anyone’s hired spy. The fact that he and his cousin risked their lives to save me, my guests, and your staff and property yesterday should have been enough to tell you what kind of men these two are.”

  Outside, Shay finally cracked, snickering delightedly. “Oh, do calm down before you pop a blood vessel Con. Sticks and stones, et cetera. Come on. We can stop in at the rental for some lunch. Mads can come and help me at the new house after, if you’ll lend him some old clothes. It’ll be a lot more fun than sitting through some stuffy meal with those two would have been.”

  Mads just smiled at him uncertainly, bemused and thoroughly bewitched, the poor devil.

  Shay, breaking all precedents, even let his new friend hang around for a few more days, and Mads seemed quite happy to be enlisted as a spare pair of hands as my cousin threw himself into making up the time he’d lost whilst we’d been away. Moving the van meant that they could stay over there perfectly comfortably, especially as Shay had made sure to fix up one of the bathrooms as a first priority. Well, whatever made Shay happy, however strange and unlike him, it all seemed. Was he doing this to make a point to the rest of the Nielsen clan or for his own enjoyment? Perhaps it was a little of both, mixed in with the unthinking generosity he tended to extend to anyone that he decided was worth befriending.

  The hamper containing the whisky, some very nice wine, white Alba truffles and other expensive delicacies arrived for Shay a week after Mads left, along with a long letter of apology from Herre Lars Nielsen. He’d apparently decided that whatever Shay had done, he’d done out of necessity and for an inarguably good reason. Maybe he’d even managed to do a little successful digging by then. With his resources, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  A couple of weeks after that, I heard from Trish. Cory Phelps had managed to kill himself in his cell by severing his own jugular vein with an improvised blade. Well, I can’t claim I was surprised, or particularly sorry to hear it. Shay took the news with a sniff and a shrug.

  “His choice, and it saves the government a lot of wasted money. Jordan will probably cost them over a million by the time he’s got any chance of being released.” It was pretty much the pragmatic reaction I’d been expecting. Much as Shay enjoyed fixing up broken old furniture and making it useful again, he’d never been the kind to store things that weren’t worth salvaging. Besides, we already knew that Phelps didn’t have any close family.

  There would be nobody like Vanessa Price, or her husband’s shattered parents, weeping at that man’s funeral.

  Epilogue

  Daniel Keane carefully placed the casserole dishes back in the oven before turning it off. They would keep nice and hot in there while the kids demolished their starters. The gleaming, rustic kitchen table was set for seven; crockery and cutlery set ready on the woven placemats, glassware glinting and bottles and bread baskets standing ready to be eagerly plundered.

  He smiled to himself. There was nothing like getting the gang together to put some life, and some appetite, into them all. Shay, especially, had seemed particularly exuberant all day and Conall always seemed more cheerfully relaxed when his cousin was in such a buoyant mood. Well, Daniel decided, he’d better go and call them all for dinner before Liam started chewing up the furniture. They’d been oddly quiet since he’d kicked them all out of the kitchen. Apart from the odd burst of amused laughter, Daniel hadn’t heard a peep from the sitting room for the last couple of hours.

  He soon discovered why. They’d talked his son into spinning one of his engrossing tales for them and were sitting spellbound as Conall narrated the events of five months ago, the murder case in the Outer Hebrides. Conall was editing on the fly, as usual, and it sounded like he’d just about finished. Leaning in the doorway, Daniel caught his son’s eye and gestured at him to wrap it up quickly before quietly withdrawing again to a brief, amused, flash of teeth from Shay.

  Sure enough, minutes later, he heard them all heading off to freshen up, and they were soon all crowding in to whisk dishes helpfully over to the table and settle down. For a wonder, they somehow managed not to trip each other up or drop anything in the process.

  “What about that Butler guy?” Liam asked, between mouthfuls of his smoked salmon and prawns. He clearly still had Conall’s story on his mind, despite his ravenous appetite, “Did you ever find out what had killed him? Daniel, this is amazing, by the way, as ever!” Liam had always loved the horseradish laden sauce and the spicy dressing that Daniel added to that particular dish.

  “Yeah, the toxicology report revealed a dangerous amount of cocaine in his blood.” Shay could be very matter of fact about that kind of thing. “I guess that Butler was feeling pretty groggy after he woke up, and they’d anticipated that. There were very small amounts of cocaine in the water bottles, not enough to make it taste too strange, especially with a really fuzzy mouth, but most of it was in the sugar. Butler must have made himself a good strong mug of coffee once he’d got the boat out of the harbour. I doubt he was in the best condition after his two days on sedatives, anyway. His blood pressure must have gone through the roof pretty quickly after he drank that coffee. Death from sudden cardiac arrest would have been pretty quick.” He chewed thoughtfully on a piece of halloumi. “I guess they wanted him to get the Jeanie out of Stornoway for them. Otherwise, they could have just killed him before they left in the RIB late on Thursday night.” A well-loaded forkful of salad followed the grilled cheese.

  “What a perfectly lovely subject to discuss at the dinner table.” Jen threw them both a
cutting look, “And after Daniel’s gone to all this trouble for us too.”

  “Oh, don’t mind me, Jen love, I’m used to it. Besides, that’s nothing compared to some of the things I’ve heard the boys talking about during a meal.”

  “What I’d like to know,” Marie put in teasingly, “is what Shay was still doing on that yacht in the middle of the night, anyway. Conall neglected to explain that bit.”

  Shay just eyed her archly.

  “I’m sure he thought you could add two and two together well enough all by yourself, Sweetie.” Conall had skipped over that a little, as it happened. He’d also neglected to mention that all four of the students had been elsewhere at the time. “Let’s just say I overindulged in the wine and needed a little nap after such a stimulating evening, shall we?”

  Liam chuckled. “I’ll buy that, as at least part of the story, anyway. Besides,” he told Marie smugly, “You missed something there. Conall said he went to the pub that night, right? So he’d have left at closing time, if not before. When have you ever known him to sleep in that late after such an early night?”

  “Maybe I was tired.” Conall narrowed his eyes at them both. “I think I like it better when you two are so busy sickeningly mooning over each other that you don’t have time to notice what the rest of us may or may not be doing. I don’t like this unhealthy interest you seem to be taking in other people’s sex lives lately. Surely you’re not that bored with each other already?”

  “Hmm, there’s a theory. Let’s see, shall we?”

  “Oh, come on! Not at the table!” Mair protested as Liam leaned over to give his girlfriend a theatrically enthusiastic kiss.

  “Nope, still not bored.” Liam grinned, straightening up again and returning his attention to his food whilst Marie just eyed them all smugly. Still, at least they both dropped the nosy teasing after that.

  The rest of the meal passed very pleasantly and was devoured with unflagging enthusiasm. When the Keanes mentioned their plans for a little diving break in the islands in May or June, Liam signed up for it enthusiastically, but none of the girls seemed interested.

  “You can make it a boys’ break and do all that energetic running around without us,” Jen told them. Mair and Marie seemed equally uninterested.

  “If I wanted that good a chance of a chilly, wet holiday, I might as well just go home for a few days,” Mair complained. “Maybe we girls should book ourselves something a little more tempting. What do you think, ladies?”

  After that, two entirely separate conversations continued all through the main course in a cheerful babble of anticipatory excitement.

  “We’ll see to the clearing up, Da,” Conall offered when dessert had also been demolished. “You’ve done more than your share already.” He’d noticed that his father had limited himself to a modest serving of wine and figured that meant he was planning to go out. Again!

  “Thanks, son.” Daniel checked his watch. “I should get moving anyway, or we’ll miss the start of the film.”

  “Cinema tonight, is it?” Shay asked, interestedly. “Let me know if it’s any good.”

  “Sure I will,” Daniel promised him. “Goodnight, kids, don’t wait up.”

  Liam grinned as the sound of Daniel’s car starting up reached them a few minutes later.

  “Lord! I doubt that man knows what a dry spell even is! Who’s the lucky lady tonight?”

  Conall just shrugged. “Who’s keeping track? Come on, shift yourself.”

  His cousin was already at the double sink, tap running. Shay preferred to wash, rinse and stack the old fashioned way, which he insisted was quicker, cleaner and more hygienic than fitting a dishwasher. Neither his uncle nor his cousin had any argument with that. None of them had ever used one and didn’t see any reason to change now.

  Back in the living room, glasses refreshed and coffees to hand, Liam and Marie started up an animated discussion with Shay on the subject of underwater explorations, pestering him for a detailed breakdown of the equipment the yacht had been carrying and how much all of that would cost to put together. They were the only two of the gang who’d been truly bitten by the archaeology bug, despite the fact that all of them had spent so much of their early childhood summers at one dig or another.

  Leaving them to it, the other three settled down to play a few competitive rounds of gin rummy, with drinking penalties for the losers at the end of each hand. After a while, Shay wandered over to watch, leaving Liam and Marie still talking animatedly on the window seat. He behaved himself and refrained from commenting or making disgusted little noises every time someone threw away the wrong card. Even if he’d wanted to play, they wouldn’t have let him. That memory of his gave him far too much of an edge when it came to card games.

  Mair declared she’d had enough after that and got up to move over to where Shay was leaning over the couch, quietly watching them all. The next time Conall looked around, both Mair and his cousin had discreetly disappeared, as everyone had assumed they soon would. Those two didn’t hook up very often, but the gang always knew if Shay was in the mood or not before he himself seemed to realise it. The way he chose to dress for the evening gave him away every single time.

  Liam and Marie went off a little later, and Conall and Jen finished their last round.

  “I think I’m going to head on up myself.” Conall told her, “How about you?”

  “Yeah,” she agreed, “I should probably give Ronnie a call first, though.” Her current boyfriend had already lasted for four months.

  “Sounds like that’s getting serious,” Conall said with a wistful little smile. “I hope he knows how lucky he is.” She pulled a face.

  “Actually, he doesn’t, which is why I need to break it off. He can’t say I didn’t warn him either. I was quite happy to keep it casual, but he had to insist on us becoming exclusive. Nobody should do that if they’re planning to cheat. I hate being lied to.”

  “I think we all do,” Conall told her, fists clenching reflexively in sympathetic outrage. “Are you sure he is cheating, though?”

  “Oh yes, his latest must be a bit thick, as well as being only twenty. She’s been plastering Facebook with photos of them together since last night.”

  “Good riddance then! Do you want me to come back when you’re done? You could vent a bit if you think it would make you feel better. Christ! I wish you’d said something earlier. You looked like you were having such a good time today… that must have been difficult.”

  “No, it wasn’t, and I was. I always have a great time with you guys. Besides, I refuse to waste my energy getting upset over something that’s actually a bit of a relief if I’m entirely honest with myself. I’d been having my doubts about him for a while now. At least now I know that I wasn’t just imagining things and sabotaging our chances. Will you stay while I make the call, though, please? I’ll handle it better with you watching me. Otherwise, I might just embarrass myself.”

  “Sure, whatever you need, Jen.” He sat down by her and held her hand throughout the whole, ugly conversation.

  Her Ronnie, or ex-Ronnie, soon showed his true colours. He sounded like a really spiteful little prick once he realised he couldn’t sweet-talk his way out of the mess he’d made. Conall gritted his teeth and just sat emanating supportiveness and admiration as forcefully as he could until the bastard finally hung up. Even then, he didn’t say anything, but merely pulled her into a platonic, supportive embrace. What could he say, after all? That she deserved better? She already knew that. After a few minutes, she sat up and patted his cheek, looking perfectly composed again.

  “Thanks, Conall, you’re such a rock. I expect you’re wondering what I ever saw in him, but he was always really nice, until just now. Would you mind not mentioning this to the others? I’ll let them know next week if that’s alright. I don’t want to spoil anybody’s last day tomorrow.”

  “Sure, whatever you like.” He walked her up to her room and bent to kiss her forehead tenderly. “Goodnight, Jen. Sl
eep well.”

  “You too.” He felt a twinge of guilt at the little flicker of selfish delight he felt, beneath his anger at the Ronnies of the world and his sympathy for poor Jen and her lousy luck with men. ‘She’s single again!’ that flicker signalled excitedly, and Conall stifled it ruthlessly as he headed for his own room.

  Unlike Jen, he wasn’t looking for anything permanent, and kids were totally out of the question. On that subject, he was entirely in agreement with his cousin. This was no kind of a world to drag an innocent little baby into, and they’d both made sure that neither of them ever could. A local anaesthetic and fifteen minutes later, the problem had been permanently dealt with, snip, snip. His bruised, swollen testicles hadn’t thanked him for it for a few days, but that seemed like a negligible price to pay for the peace of mind it had brought him. Imagine dying, knowing that you were leaving a helpless little son or daughter to face life without you. The very idea of it was unthinkable.

  He was still awake half an hour later when Jen lightly tapped on his door before slipping in.

  “Can’t sleep?” he asked and lifted up the covers invitingly so she could crawl in and curl up.

  There was no question of anything happening between them, not tonight, and the thought didn’t even enter his head. They could have been kids again, seeking a comforting presence in perfect innocence. Lovers came, and lovers went, but friendships as deep and true as the ones shared by the people beneath that roof tonight were forged to last a lifetime.

  Sleep found them both quickly and easily after that, and no noises from other parts of the well-insulated, rambling house managed to seep through the walls to disturb their peaceful, contented rest. Shay was a great respecter of everyone’s right to some privacy.

  A Message from the Author

  Thank you, dear reader, for reading this book from beginning to end. I greatly appreciate you coming along with me for this adventure.