After Torquil rang off Morag went through to the rest room where Penny and Ewan were working by the whiteboard. She told Penny about the memory stick and that he wanted her to go over to find it in Stuart Robertson’s room at the Old Hydro.
‘Of course, I’ll go over pronto,’ Penny replied. ‘But I need to add this to the board. The boss got me to do some research on methanol,’ she said as she added notes to the whisky column. ‘Methanol really is lethal stuff, but there would have to be an awful lot of foreshot in a bottle to make it so dangerous. The amount of foreshot produced by a small still would also be pretty small, so it would not likely be enough. That coupled with the fact that normal alcohol reduces its effect, witnessed by the fact that Dr McLelland treated Catriona McDonald’s methanol overdose by giving her ethanol, suggests that the those bottles must have been deliberately poisoned with pure methanol. It really isn’t easy to get though.’
Morag whistled in surprise.
‘There have been lots of fatal cases, but not really that many in this country, except suicides when people have taken methylated spirits. That’s not what was in those bottles of peatreek. I found cases in India, Poland, Greece and Romania. Unscrupulous people added methanol to ordinary alcohol to bulk it out.’
Ewan had been looking at the whiteboard. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but I keep thinking about these trainers. And my murder shoes. Do you think it could be some sort of fetishist here?’
Penny took a sudden intake of breathe. ‘My God! It’s been in front of my eyes all this time and I hadn’t twigged it. Stan Wilkinson, he’s English, isn’t he?’
‘Aye. He’s a good fellow, always really helpful. Look, the boss called him the Good Samaritan, because he took Catriona to hospital and then Angus Mackintosh.’
Penny ran her fingers through her hair. ‘He’s grown a beard and he looks respectable, but I’m sure he’s the same chap. I think I saw him a couple of years ago in Leeds. He was a shoplifter. He was arrested for stealing shoes. It wasn’t my case, but I remember seeing the file, along with psychiatric reports. What did they say he had, some sort of thing called a paraphilia? He was a shoe fetishist!’
‘Creideamh!’ muttered Ewan. ‘He seemed incredibly taken with my murder shoes. Do you think he could have been the burglar?’
‘And it was his phone that was stolen with the other stuff,’ said Morag. ‘I sent the pictures I took at the pillbox from his phone, but maybe there were other things on the phone he didn’t want anyone to see.’
‘But it’s been taken now,’ said Penny.
‘No wait!’ exclaimed Ewan. ‘I downloaded the whole thing to the station computer just in case.’
All three rushed through to the terminal at the front desk and watched as Ewan accessed the downloaded library. It came up as files simply numbered one to 6. Ewan opened them one by one and they showed photograph after photograph of shoes, boots, slippers of all designs imaginable. Both male and female ones. Many were just of the shoes, but others were selfies of someone wearing them, some in flesh, others with stockings, fishnets or gaudy body paints.
‘I don’t believe it,’ gasped Ewan.
‘We can’t risk leaving this,’ said Penny. ‘Not with these cases under investigation. Do you know where he lives?’
‘Aye, he rents a cottage near the Wee Kingdom,’ Ewan replied.
‘Then let’s go,’ Penny said. ‘We’ll go in my Mini. You direct me.’
The Wee Kingdom was a small islet of the archipelago that formed West Uist. It was a roughly star shaped peninsula facing the Atlantic on the north-west coast. With steep sea cliffs, home to thousands of fulmars and gannets, and lush well fertilised soil it was home to five self-sufficient crofts. Stan Wilkinson had been captivated by it when he first started delivering mail to the crofters and sought out the closest, affordable property that he could to it. An enquiry at Beamish Solicitors resulted in him renting an old shepherd’s cottage half a mile up a twisting unmetalled road that branched off the main road before it crossed the causeway to the Wee Kingdom itself.
‘Do you ever get a chance to drive without having to have the windscreen wipers on?’ Penny asked as she turned off the main road at Ewan’s direction.
He laughed. ‘Oh, sometimes it doesn’t rain for a day or two a month.’ Then he winked at her. ‘Only kidding, Penny. We sometimes have great weather. You’ve just hit a bad patch.’
She smiled back and then concentrated on driving along the pot-holed road that soon gave way to a rutted track with large muddy puddles and long tufts of grass up the middle of it, testimony to its relatively infrequent use.
‘I was thinking,’ Ewan said after a while. ‘Maybe sometime we could, you know, maybe have a drink. If you’d like to, that is.’
Penny glanced at him and smiled as he lowered his gaze bashfully. ‘I was hoping you might ask that. In fact, at lunch yesterday I was about —’
‘Look! There’s his van,’ Ewan said suddenly as they turned a corner and saw the cottage with the Royal Mail van parked outside.
Penny parked beside the van and they go out.
‘Well, at least we know he’s here,’ Penny said, nimbly leaping over a puddle and heading for the front door.
She knocked at the old wooden door with its equally old, flaking paint. After a few moments, when there was no reply, she tried the handle, only to find it locked.
‘Maybe he’s round the back,’ suggested Ewan, leading the way round the cottage.
He knocked on a kitchen window as he passed and then on the door. ‘Stan! It’s me, Constable Ewan McPhee,’ he called out. ‘I’m here with DC Faversham. We need to have a word with you.’
As he tried the handle they heard a clicking noise from the other side of the house, then a creaking as a door opened. Quickly, they retraced their steps and saw Stan Wilkinson trying to walk quietly towards his van, a rucksack in one hand.
‘Ah, Stan, there you are!’ Ewan called.
The postman spun round and stared at them with a guilty expression on his face. ‘Stay away from me. I’m going and you can’t stop me.’
Penny pointed at his feet. ‘What have you got on there, Mr Wilkinson?’
‘My murder shoes!’ Ewan exclaimed. ‘So you really did burgle the station.’
Stan raised one foot six inches. ‘I said stay back. These blades could be lethal and I don’t want to hurt either of you.’
‘Stand still!’ Penny commanded. ‘I know exactly who you are and I know that your name isn’t Stan Wilkinson.’
‘You don’t know me,’ he said, shaking his head vigorously and clutching the rucksack to his chest. He took a careful backward step.
‘You like footwear, don’t you, Mr Wilkinson?’ Penny said calmly. ‘I can’t remember your name but it will come to me. I do remember the case file and the shoes and boots. And we’ve seen the photographs on your phone.’
‘You can’t. I’ve got the —’
‘You’ve got the phone, yes, we know,’ Penny replied.
‘I downloaded the whole library in case Sergeant Driscoll’s pictures didn’t send,’ Ewan said.
‘So, Mr Wilkinson, I need you to come with us. I am arresting you on suspicion of burglary. You don’t have to say —’
‘I’m not going anywhere!’ Stan cried. ‘Stay back.’ He raised his foot again, as if ready to kick out. Then he turned round and started to run for his van.