Page 50 of The High Island

She stopped herself from going down that path. He was coming tomorrow, not on the first ferry to Stromness, but a later one. God, what if Erling asked her to pick him up?

She should never have transferred here, she told herself. It was too close. She should have gone to Aberdeen or Glasgow. But her heart was in the north, despite everything that had happened. Besides, Scotland was a village. So, wherever you went, you would likely meet someone who knew either you or someone you were acquainted with.

At this point in her thoughts, she spotted the tall figure ofDIFlett striding towards the front door of the police station. The boxhe’d taken with him had already returned via a constable, and was safely locked back in the evidence room. Constable Rendall had given her a potted version of the stushie, as he’d called it, at the lawyer’s office. At least the blowing-his-whistle part of it. No doubt Erling would fill in the rest.

As soon as Erling joined her in his office, Jo gave him the good news.

‘We’ve located the hire car. It was parked on a small harbour in Stromness. Tucked out of sight and only noticed this morning when some holiday folk arrived.’

‘So Kris hid the car,’ Erling said. ‘Before he got on the passenger ferry.’

‘Assuming he planned to go into hiding on Hoy, that was a good idea,’ Jo said. ‘Anyone looking for him, including ourselves and the Mowats, would focus initially on locating the car here on mainland Orkney.’

Erling nodded at this, although it seemed to Jo that his head and thoughts were still on the morning’s event. ‘How did it go at the lawyer’s?’ she said. ‘PCRendall said he had to blow his whistle.’

‘Let’s just say the Mowat family did not like Ivor’s will,’ Erling said.

‘So Kris turned up?’ Jo responded in amazement.

‘No. Rachael did, together with a letter from Kris to say that she was to be his proxy at the reading of the will. So Eddie let it go ahead.’

Jo now listened as Erling relayed the full story, including the fact that Ivor had left everything to Kris.

‘And when did this letter from Kris surface?’ Jo said.

‘Rachael says she found it in his toilet bag when she went to get the items I requested for theDNAtesting.’

‘So he put it there before he disappeared?’ Jo checked.

‘Looks like it. Rachael believes the letter’s existence confirms Kris went into hiding to avoid the Mowat clan.’ He halted there briefly, noticeably perturbed. ‘She also admitted in the presence of Hugh Mowat to being pregnant with Kris’s child, which he didn’t look happy about.’

‘If Kris believed he was in danger from the Mowats, then heard he was also to be a father, that could have been the trigger for him going into hiding,’ Jo said.

‘My thoughts too,’ Erling agreed. ‘Also, a second sealed note revealed that Kris bequeathed everything he had to Rachael, should anything happen to him.’

Jo tried to assimilate this extraordinary sequence of events. ‘That must have confirmed Rachael’s belief that Kris feared for his life,’ she said.

‘Well, now she knows he didn’t disappear because of her, or the child,’ Erling said.

‘And what about the contents of the box Ivor left for Kris, which, incidentally, is safely back in the evidence room?’ Jo asked.

‘Before we examine its contents, I’d like to make sure Kris Mowat is who Ivor thought he was. Plus we have yet to establish whether Kris is currently alive or dead. And we’re unlikely to until we get the results of theDNAtest from Glasgow, hopefully early next week.’

‘As to establishing who Kris Mowat is exactly, we’ve already made some progress,’ Jo told him. ‘The team looking into Kris have reported that he paid for the flights here, the hired car and the hotel with the same credit card. Name of K. C. Mowat.’

‘Rachael told me at the lawyer’s that Kris was self-employed as aDJknown asKCM. Playing something called trance music,’ Erling said, a mystified expression on his face. ‘You know about trance music?’

‘I do,’ Jo confirmed with a smile.

Erling looked impressed. ‘Good. Get the team to check out whereKCM’s been appearing and when. Rachael also gave us the address of Kris’s flat in London where she says they were both living. Apparently Kris maintained his mother died when he was nine. He was brought up in care and never knew his father. A record of that should be somewhere in the care system.’

‘I’ll get the team onto it,’ Jo said. ‘What about Ivor’s personal effects? His mobile? Maybe a laptop? If we can take a look at his messages, searches, etc., we might identify how he first made contact with Kris.’

‘Everything would have gone to Hugh, as his eldest son,’ Erling said.

‘Is that why Ivor gave his two carers the box for Kris, in case he wasn’t around to give it himself?’ Jo said.

It was an uncomfortable thought for both of them.