Page 100 of The High Island

It was an important question and Erling acknowledged this with a nod.

‘I’ve checked everywhere I could think Ivor might have suggested,’ Hugh said. ‘As I’m sure Harald and family have too.’

‘Maybe they found him,’DSGowan said. ‘And disposed of him. Together with the pregnant Rachael.’

It was the scenario currently playing out in Erling’s head, and hearing it voiced by Gowan further reinforced it. By the look Hugh now wore, it was a thought he’d also had.

After they swabbed him for his DNA, they let him leave. Whatever happened now, Hugh Mowat was a broken man, who had a post-mortem to face, then a funeral.

Plus he had to deal with the knowledge that his brother had raped his niece.

Erling thought back to Ivor’s funeral at the cathedral. The faces of the pall-bearers, the barely suppressed anger. Not at the death of their patriarch in his nineties, but for the legacy he had left behind.

Eilidh’s funeral would be something different altogether. A young girl on the cusp of life. A life ended, he suspected, by the rapaciousness within her family.

‘Who’s next?’DSGowan was saying. ‘Harald Mowat?’

‘Harald it is,’ Erling agreed. ‘There’s anAPBout on him. Now I need to speak to my second-in-command, who has had the difficult job of talking to Eilidh Mowat’s mother.’

His voice, he knew, had a tone that suggested he was now aware of Jo and Gowan’s story.

Gowan, flushed with the success of the interview and his place in it, didn’t bat an eyelid.

Erling, taking note of this, confirmed now to himself thatDSGowan was a good detective, but rather less of a man than he’d hoped.

Instructing Gowan to check back with the team, he made for his office, where he immediately took a call fromPCTulloch. Erling listened as the story told by Eilidh’s mum regarding her daughter unfolded.

‘And her mother thinks Ragnar Mowat may have been the one who picked up Eilidh from the ferry?’ he asked.

Ivan explained about the friendship between Eilidh and Helen, Ragnar’s sister. ‘Her mother suspects it was Ragnar who helped the girls get into the club. He works there some nights.’

Listening to confirmation of what Hugh had already alleged, Erling said, ‘TellDSGreen I’d like her to head for the ferry as soon as she’s finished talking to Eilidh’s mother. Has the father, Jason, put in an appearance yet?’

When Ivan confirmed that he hadn’t, Erling added, ‘You be the one to talk to him. I needDSGreen here to interview Eilidh’s cousin Helen about last night.’

It was going to be a long day, Erling thought, as he rang off, but hopefully a productive one. And it had taken the death of a teenage girl to open the floodgates.

49

Ethan’s call was unexpected and Jo’s initial response was to question whether she was composed enough to answer after her traumatic chat with Eilidh’s grieving mother.

Now, slipping into the car beside Ivan, she found herself staring blankly at the phone until it stopped ringing.

‘Are you okay?’ Ivan said in a concerned voice.

‘No,’ she said honestly. ‘Although I will be in a minute or two.’

When she eventually turned to face him, he asked who the missed call had been from. ‘Was it the boss?’ he checked. ‘Because I’ve just spoken to him and he told me to wait for Eilidh’s father, and that he wanted you to get the ferry back to Houton. He’d like you there when he interviews Eilidh’s cousin Helen about last night.’

When she didn’t immediately respond, he added, ‘Are you okay to do that?’

‘Of course.’ Jo mustered herself. ‘I assume someone will collect me at Houton?’

Ivan nodded, a sympathetic look on his face. ‘Better you don’tmeet the father anyway. I suspect he’ll blame everyone apart from himself.’

‘You know him?’

‘By reputation only,’ Ivan said with a frown.