"What a show," he said, holding up Jack's little camera. "I caught the whole thing. Ka-boom!"
"Bloody maniac," Neil growled at Jed. "You could have warned me."
"And spoil the surprise?" Jed was laughing uncontrollably, hardly able to stand. "You should have seen the look on your face."
He grabbed up the helmet. "Come on, let's get out of here before Mutt and Jeff show up."
"Will that take us all?" Neil had to know.
"It's just a short trip, climb on."
Neil squeezed behind Tam on the pillion and Jed squeezed behind Neil and the three of them trundled for the trees at the south end of the big field, keeping under cover of the ridge. They were long gone by the time the helicopter arrived to hover out over the drop where the tanker had thundered over. A hundred feet below the cliff edge where Jack Lorne and Kate Delaney had sat watching the sun sparkle on the firth, the crushed and mangled tanker was well ablaze on the big red rocks that were exposed at low tide.
It would be late in the evening before they would recover the charred body of Wiggy Foley still trapped in the crumpled cab, and three more days to made a proper identification based mainly on the metal plate that held his false teeth.
By that time it was all over and done.
The boys on the bike caught up with Ed Kane just north of Arden where he had reached the bright yellow stock car in a clearing close to the by-pass road on which Ed had given his pursuit the fright of their lives. Neil got the toolbox out and helped Tam refit the bike, stripping away the Harley logos and replacing them with the originals. He used the electric drill to screw the panniers back on the sides. Ed lit a fire of pine branches and slung on the white reflector jacket and the gauntlets, and almost as an afterthought, he put the fake plates on the flames and watched them curl up and blacken. Tam hammered the chrome Harley trademark to a big Scots pine tree as a souvenir of the trip and it's still there to this day.
They called Jack Lorne just as he and Donny were on the fast downslope that would take them and their heavy cargo to the harbour at Oban where big Lars Hanssen was ready with the derrick and an hour after that, when the first teams arrived down on the rocks below the Creggan Cliffs, the Valkyrie was ploughing into a gentle headwind past Lismore Island and out towards the Atlantic for the run up and round the north of Scotland.
There was nothing more to do but wait.
The call came three weeks later, and plenty had happened in that time.
Angus Baxter cornered Jack and put him through it, and it was clear he knew Jack was somehow involved in all of this, but the policeman didn't quite understand how. He had worked out that of the bunch of good friends, three of them worked in the dairy and another two in Aitkenbar, and the sixth had worked the summer on the building site where the big tanks had vanished.
He knew it, but what could he do with it? All that was just circumstantial. With Kerrigan Deane at his side, Jack Lorne just blanked him, followed his own advice and kept the inspector off balance. Deane was able to give him an unbreakable alibi for the day the whisky went down the drain in Ferguson's old yard. His uncle backed him up for the rest. Jack's planning and foresight made it all unimpeachable.
Baxter had no muscle to push it. He had Ferguson and Cullen, and the carbonised body of Wiggy Foley, guns and whisky, and while he could not put his suspicions to rest, they had to remain just that forever more. His bosses were pleased that he'd solved the case, or most of it, and if there was any more whisky, it remained a mystery.
At the end of the day, he wrote up the report saying most of it must have gone down the drain at the golf course, and everybody was happy to let it lie.
Alistair Sproat was left with a big hole in his accounts and nothing to fill it with. His meeting with Kate Delaney taught him only that she was one very stubborn lady and if he thought he could buy her off, he had another think coming. Kerrigan Deane's legal action just inexorably ground him down and the development company pulled out of the deal which left him with an unprofitable distillery, no way to buy the new plant he wanted, and after paying all the redundancy, a mountain of backbreaking debt.
The big customs investigation into excise duties ripped through his books and records going back twenty years and he ended up facing a string of fraud charges that was the final straw. Nobody cried for him.
"Yack!" the big sailor's voice boomed in his ear. "I want my boat back."
"You've got your boat."
"Just the half. You've got the other half, and I want it back. You can't sail just half a boat, and I want to buy another as well, start my own line."
"I take it everything went well? They didn't blow you out of the water?"
"Everything is better than I even thought, myself. Tell you another thing, they will take twice as much next time round."
"I don't think there's going to be a next time," Jack said. "My heart couldn't take it."
"You wait and see. We do good business again, you and me."
"And what about my share?"
"You check the number you gave me. We split fifty-fifty, right? It's all there."
And when Jack Lorne checked the number of the Cayman account he had set up in the summer, what seemed like a lifetime ago, it was all there. One million, three hundred and fifty thousand. Untaxed, untaxable, untraceable.
Now he had the difficult job of telling the boys they wouldn't get their hands on a penny of it.
Levenford Gazette. November 18.
By Blair Bryden.
A full sized replica of King Robert Bruce's warship will be the centrepiece of an ambitious new heritage centre based in the Bruce Harbour at Aitkenbar Distillery.
The educational and tourist attraction is the end result of a remarkable chain of events which has turned around the fortunes of the town and given it great hope for the future.
Announcing the construction of the warship, Charter 1315 Chairman Kate Delaney said it would provide a historic link with the town's illustrious past and its promising future, provide new jobs in the tourist industry and give the town a centrepiece which will be the envy of the country.
Ms Delaney led the fight against the destruction of the historic harbour and the legal action against Aitkenbar Distillery owner Alistair Sproat is seen by many as the catalyst in the recent upheaval in Levenford.
Sproat, who is facing a number of serious allegations regarding customs declarations lost control of the family business earlier this year after a number of deals went spectacularly wrong and after an equally spectacular raid on the distillery in which more than 20,000 gallons of vintage Scotch whisky was stolen.
Police inquiries into alleged connections between the whisky theft and the accused are still continuing. Four arrests have been made.
After announcing major job losses in the summer, and his plan to site a new designer drinks premises in Glasgow, Alistair Sproat unloaded the failing Dunvegan Distillery in a management buy-out leveraged by offshore firm Gabriel and Company. In a remarkable turn around, the small island distillery altered its thrust to a new malt liqueur and cream-based drinks production which secured markets in the supermarket and off license sectors.
Levenford Dairy, facing closure to pave the way for the ill-fated mall development, joined the co-operative in the production of milk products for the various drinks and also in the bottling sector, which saved the jobs of more than forty local employees.
The mystery Gabriel and Company, based in the Cayman Islands, seems however, to have put down roots in Levenford, having appointed a number of local businessmen and former employees of Aitkenbar to its management team.
In October, the company stepped in when Aitkenbar faced receivership, and took over the production and storage facility, and for the first time in 200 years, malt whisky production in Levenford ceased. With the development of new plant, the premises have embarked on a radical 'designer' drink venture which has so far secured the jobs of the former employees who were threatened by the mall development.
Spokesperson Mrs Margery Burns, former PA to Alistair Sproat said: "We plan to convert the old malt whisky production section into an industrial museum and tourist facility which will operate in conjunction with the new heritage centre on the harbour.
"Gabriel & Company have relinquished any claim to the harbour and will match public donations to ensure its success."
The first production of the new designer drinks will begin next week to take advantage of the Christmas trade. Already markets have been secured in Norway and Sweden and once again, the international victualling and drinks chain Hammond Hall, has stepped in to support the company and concluded a deal for a massive order.
Ms Delaney, a local artist and teacher, whose works are on show in Kelvingrove Art Gallery in an exhibition sponsored by the Gabriel Foundation said: "The change of fortunes in Levenford are all due to the determination of some people to take huge risks and to show that with effort and imagination, they can take charge of their own destiny. Without them, this town would remain forever a backwater."
JUNE:
The sleek red car made its way down from High Overburn, flicking round the turns at ramming speed. The sun was still low in the sky, sending bright rays through the thick leaves, making promise of a scorching day ahead.
The car followed the same route down the hill that almost a year before, two stolen tankers had trundled in the dead of night, freewheeling down from the hiding place in the plantation. This time the open-topped tourer was using its power to negotiate the leafy bends.
It sped down to the dual carriageway, along the straight past the looming bulk of the castle rock and followed the new river road to the big wrought iron gate of the distillery. It paused at the gatehouse and the driver waved to Kerr Thomson, who, once badly bitten, could be trusted with anything. Somebody, somewhere, still had the prints, and well he knew it.
It waited there until a big new truck pulled out from the loading bay and exited on the other side of the security box, a twelve-wheeler flatbed with a silver container on its back. Along the side of the container, a bright red piece of graphic art showed a winged vision flying. It was done in the fast, flash brushstrokes that Kate Delaney had used on the heritage wall way back then.
Below it, in a red slash, the words could be read half a mile away.
The Angels Share.
The driver and passenger stopped to watch as the big truck eased out of the compound out, and then the car swung away to pull in at the front of the new glass building. The driver stepped out, showing long and shapely legs and a very expensive pair of stiletto heels.
She bent back into the car as the passenger shifted across to get behind the wheel.
"Pigeons or sailing today?" She pecked him quickly on the cheek, leaving a red smudge.
"Life is short," Sandy Bruce told her. "Probably both."
"Lazy old scoundrel," she said, and turned towards the tall glass door.
Margery Burns reached the big conference room at the end of the bright corridor, went in, closed the door behind her.
"Okay," Jack Lorne said. "Lets get down to business."
Margery sat two seats away from him and began to write quickly in the minute book. The rest of them waited to hear what he had to say.
"I've just had this idea," he began. He looked round at the faces of his friends.
"I think you might like it."
THE END
Chapter 27: Full Proof Joe Donnelly 488 487