I let him down again, he thought. I wasn’t there for him, just like I haven’t been there for him ever since his mother died. I crept into a bottle and he grew up himself. He did all sorts of little jobs for folk on the island and I just let him do it. I didn’t take near enough interest in him and I guess he resented me for it.
He dissolved in tears for the umpteenth time and sat with his head in his hands. It was only when the sobbing subsided and he looked up and surveyed the wrecked sitting room of his cottage that any semblance of forward action presented itself to him.
Someone’s going to pay for this. I’m not having Jamie dying for nothing. He had a future that has just been rubbed out.
He got up and went through to Jamie’s room.
It’s a midden, right enough. I’ll need to tidy it up soon, once the hurting reduces.
He picked up a discarded t-shirt, one of Jamie’s favourite’s, and held it to his nose. It smelled of Jamie and triggered another bout of sobbing as he buried his face in it.
Out of the corner of his eye he spied the pile of American comics beside the bed, next to a couple of ring binder files with his work for his Highers. What did McKinnon say he thought had happened? They had been celebrating and had been drinking peatreek and lemonade or stuff.
He limped over to the comics and knelt by the bed. Underneath it he saw the rucksack and pulled it out. It clinked as he did so.
What have we got here, Jamie. More of this peatreek?
But it wasn’t. It was an assortment of stuff, a bottle of lemonade, a new wristwatch, umpteen chocolate bars, some brand new unread paperbacks, packets of cigarettes and a couple of pouches of hand-rolling tobacco. Lastly, a box of condoms.
You were up to your old tricks, weren’t you, Jamie? Pinching things. And it looks like you were hoping to start some new tricks. Sex, is that what you were doing up at the pillbox with those two girls? Where did you get the peatreek that McKinnon said you had drunk?
He hefted the bottle in his hand and cursed as anger welled up inside him.
I’m going to find who you got it from and then I’m going to pour poison down their bloody throat.
As he stood up he noticed the diary on the shelf under the bedside table. He picked it up and ran his hand over the cover before opening it to read his son’s characteristic handwriting. He knew that Jamie had always kept a diary, but he had never thought to look inside. It would have been like spying on his thoughts. But now he wanted to know what he had been thinking. What he had been doing these last few years while he had been growing up, sharing the same house, but not really sharing anything important. And now it was too late.
His grip on the diary tightened and his eyes widened as he read.
The latest West Uist Chronicle email issue arrived in a multitude of inboxes all over the island.
The headline suddenly appeared: VICKY’S TRAINER FOUND
Bridget McDonald read the email as she sat by her daughter’s bedside. It had been a relief when the haemodialysis treatment was completed and the blood tests showed that Catriona’s life was no longer considered in danger, although the consultant nephrologist had told them that she would have to stay under observation for a few days to monitor her kidney function.
‘They have found one of Vicky’s trainers,’ she told Catriona. ‘Hopefully she’ll have been sleeping it off somewhere and they’ll find her soon.’
Catriona immediately burst into tears. ‘Please God, don’t let them find her dead!’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Wallace and Douglas knew a number of folk who regularly drank peatreek and went seeking them out in order to find out who they were supplied by. They both anticipated that it would be a harder task than it actually proved to be, because everyone was aware of the tragedy that had befallen the three teenagers and were keen to help.
As Torquil had instructed they confiscated and labelled the bottles and emphasised to everyone that it could be dangerous to drink any that they had secreted away, especially unopened ones.
Only one of the imbibers, a crofter over on the Wee Kingdom had his own illicit still, which he used exclusively for his own consumption. The others were supplied by one of four still owners, all of whom kept them hidden on uninhabited islets that made up the West Uist archipelago. Like their customers, all of them cooperated and agreed to lead the Drummonds to them.
Boarding The Seaspray, the West Uist Police catamaran, which was always moored in the Kyleshiffin harbour in readiness for a daily round of the coast, they took the distillers, most of them actually part time fishermen like themselves, to inspect their stills. They recorded how many bottles they had stored and confiscated them before putting up official police tapes around the sites.
All took their treatment in good part, though some had parting pleas.
‘You’ll make sure I don’t get into trouble, won’t you lads?’ said Tosh MacNeill. ‘It could affect my business badly.’
‘Whatever happens, don’t let my dad know about this, will you, Douglas? He’d have my teeth for cufflinks.’
And while no-one actually offered a bribe, many future pints of Heather Ale were promised in the Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Much as they would have liked to help out pals neither Wallace nor Douglas felt able to make any rash promise. For all they knew some of the cargo of bottles they had on The Seaspray could be lethal.
After quickly researching on the internet about the basics of whisky production Penny had phoned the Abhainn Dhonn distillery and talked to Hamish McNab, who had just come back from the search. He sounded tired.
‘Of course you can come across. We want to do whatever is needed to find young Vicky and get justice for poor Jamie Mackintosh.’
Penny set up her sat nav and drove across to the west of the island. The heavens opened on the way and she had to put her windscreen wipers on full and drive relatively slowly. Sheep were sheltering in nooks and crannies along the roadside and in the lashing rain it was hard to differentiate them from occasional boulders. And then, typical of the weather on the island, the rain abruptly stopped.
She smelled the distillery before she saw it. There was a definite tang, which seemed to be a melange of peat smoke, roasted barley and seaweed.
Cresting a hill she spotted it about a hundred yards inland from the sea, a converted farm steading consisting of a two-storied house with attached conservatory, a cluster of whitewashed outhouses and a small wind turbine. Smoke and steam billowed out of two stacks. Barley fields stretched out on either side of the road which led over a small bridge into a cobbled yard, which had been extended into a small car park.
On the whitewashed wall a large brown sign with black writing read:
ABHAINN DHONN DISTILLERY.
(Brown River)
Penny got out of her car and cast an eye at the babbling river that flowed under the bridge. She noted that it was clear, but had a definite russet brown appearance.
A door in the whitewashed building opened and two men came out. One was tall with ginger hair and a beard, dressed in a tweed sports jacket, corduroy trousers and well-polished brogues. The other was of average height and slighter build, with a high receding hairline. He was dressed in overalls, a large white apron and white wellingtons.