Chapter 54
Ending the conversation with his detective sergeant, Erling headed for the incident room. The awaited call came as he was about to enter.
Hand already on the door, he noted the name on the screen and, stepping back, answered.
‘DS McNab,’ he said. ‘You have news for me?’
‘I do, but I don’t think you’re going to like it,’ the familiar Glasgow voice told him.
‘Go on,’ Erling said, steeling himself.
‘The photo you sent, taken on Flotta? Our super recognizer cannot confirm that the male in the picture is Kris Mowat. Recognition software produced a similar result, although I’d trust the human being more.’
Erling absorbed this, aware that had the sighting been confirmed, then the likelihood of Kris being alive would have risen considerably.
‘Thanks for running the image for us,’ he said.
‘No word back on your DNA tests yet?’ McNab checked.
‘None,’ Erling confirmed. ‘And we’ve had a second suspicious death, a young female last night. She drowned in Kirkwall harbour. Likely drugs-related.’
A pregnant silence followed. ‘Is this in any way linked to a county-lines gang from Liverpool?’ McNab asked.
‘We believe so. There’s a turf war involving them and the Mowat family,’ Erling told him.
A further silence followed, then, ‘Any images available regarding this gang?’
Erling explained about the CCTV outside the club and the scene with the dead girl and a man with a Liverpool accent.
‘Send that through to me, pronto. If he’s known to us, we’ll get a match right away.’
Erling had been planning to do this through official channels, but taking McNab up on his offer would shorten the timespan considerably.
‘I’ll send the CCTV recording immediately. And any time you need a wee break from Glasgow . . .’ He tapered off, already imagining McNab’s face at the thought of such a thing.
The resulting ‘Harrumph’ established that it wasn’t an offer McNab was likely to take him up on any time soon.
Entering the incident room, he found a posse waiting to speak to him, led by DS Gowan. Having instructed Gowan to send the CCTV footage to McNab as promised, he was informed that the police dive boat was back at Houton with what they’d retrieved from the site at Cava.
‘It’s on its way here now, sir,’ Constable Alexander told him. ‘And the search team at the harbour have found the mobile belonging to Eilidh Mowat. It wasn’t underwater as thought. It had got caught on a fishing boat moored at the jetty. It’s currently being examined.’
‘Good. Any answer from Ragnar Mowat’s phone?’ Erling checked.
‘None, sir. It goes straight to voicemail.’
‘Right, let’s get a trace on it. I want Ragnar in here to answer to his activities last night.’ Erling halted there briefly before saying, ‘He may be trying to leave Orkney. Contact the ferries and the airport.’
Of course, there was always the possibility he’d simply headed to Hoy. He no doubt would have close family there who would conceal him, for a time at least.
At this thought, Erling gave PC Tulloch a call.
‘We want to talk to Ragnar Mowat about last night. It seems Ragnar was the one who let the girls into the club. Does anything lead you to believe he may be back on Hoy?’
‘Nothing so far, sir.’
‘Has Eilidh’s father appeared yet?’
‘Yes, minutes ago. I’m waiting outside the house until Liz Mowat, or her husband, signals me to come back in.’
‘You know anything about the man?’ Erling asked.
‘Nothing, except that he and his father, Hugh, don’t get on, sir. And DS Green had gauged he may be an abusive husband when she talked to Eilidh’s mum.’
‘Don’t hesitate if you suspect anything untoward is going on in there,’ Erling told him.
‘I don’t think he’s daft enough for that, sir, with a squad car in full view of the front window,’ Tulloch told him.
‘Okay, Constable, keep me informed. Oh, and something else. Have you heard the term kalfey?’
‘Kalfey,’ Tulloch repeated. ‘In what context, sir?’
‘Mackie came round long enough to mutter it three times to DS Green.’
Silence followed, then Ivan’s cautious voice said, ‘I think it’s the Norse name for Cava, sir. Some of the old folk still use it.’
And would recognize its meaning in Ivor’s notebook, Erling thought as he rang off, which put Ivor’s sons in the frame, and Harald was the first one to come to mind.
Somehow he couldn’t see Harald being the one to assault Mackie, so maybe Max or his grandson Ragnar had done that?
And since Ragnar was supposedly the only one currently in Orkney . . .
Harald certainly had the most to lose from Kris taking over the business.
A DNA test from him would confirm Kris’s parentage.
It would also establish that Harald had sexually abused his young niece.
A criminal offence, which he could yet be prosecuted for.
But would he be prepared to kill his own child?
Erling thought again about the body on the beach at Lyrawa. Maybe he already has and we’re soon to find this out. But if that was Kris, then where was Rachael and her unborn child? Was she dead too?
They’d already informed Aberdeen that they were anxious to speak to both Harald and Max Mowat with respect to the disappearance of Kris Mowat and his partner, Rachael Everett, but the word had come back that they couldn’t be located as yet, and had not been seen at their nightclub in the city.
There was no record of them flying to Aberdeen. Nor a booking on the various ferries to the mainland. Then again, the Mowats and extended family were not short on boats that could have carried both father and son over.
At this point in Erling’s deliberations, he was informed by DC Gunn that the dive team had arrived and were keen to speak to him.
The two frogmen, well known to Erling, explained that they had been alerted to the exact location of the drug stash through an anonymous caller, who they believed to be a professional diver.
‘It was a male voice. He said he’d got wind of the location while working on Flotta.’
‘When was this call?’ Erling asked.
‘Just prior to your order to look in the wider area. His coordinates, however, were spot on.’
‘The man’s voice. Was he local?’ Erling asked, thinking of Ethan.
‘No, we thought possibly a Scouser.’
‘Right, let’s take a look.’
The stash was a mix of drugs, packaged mainly as heroin, benzodiazepines and oxycodone, although in all likelihood they were all mixed with nitazenes, a group of lab-made opioids that posed a substantial risk of overdose, hospitalization and death.
And these had all been delivered for distribution here in Orkney.
This, he thought, had led to Eilidh’s death. She’d challenged a pusher and had paid the price. Helen had been adamant that Eilidh had not been a user, so with little to no resistance to such a potent mix, she had died.
Which meant that Eilidh wasn’t a drug casualty, but a murder victim.