The Whisky Affair (Raymond Armstrong Series) (8 page)

He pulled up his jacket collar and left the pub to begin the descent down the old cobbled street of Haworth. He stayed on the left side, away from the graveyard as he started to think on the tragic news.

This was not expected of Gordon at all. He had gone on the bottle when he lost his wife, a few years back, but now he was recovering, was in great shape, playing golf and tennis and rarely drank. Really quite odd that he’d have a sudden heart attack.

He recalled that Gordon had seemed stressed about something when he’d visited. If only they’d talked about it…

For probably the first time in his life, he was not looking forward to going to Scotland – not, one bit.

After making arrangements for travel, Raymond packed a duffle, and headed for Bute.

He arrived on the Island after a drive that seemed much quicker than usual. He had been so lost in thought, the M6 motorway had just been a blur. His instincts told him there was something odd about Gordon’s sudden death. He wasn’t himself a few weeks ago – for some reason Raymond didn’t know. But he did know Gordon didn’t drink excessively anymore, period.

The trip was uneventful and upon arrival he went straight to the distillery and found Helen, the receptionist.

“Do you mind if I have a look in Gordon’s office? I don’t want to disturb Louisa at the moment.”

“Of course, none of us can believe it,” she said with tears in her eyes.

He nodded and made his way down the corridor to the office. Once inside, he sat at Gordon’s desk wondering where to start. He flipped open the laptop and thought about calling Louisa to see if she would have any idea of the password. He typed in Gordon’s name and birth year and on the second attempt – with a capital G on Gordon – he was in. Gordon never was computer savvy.

He shook his head.
Why do people make it so easy to log on to a computer yet they have all sorts of elaborate passwords for their bank accounts or other things of a personal nature?

Raymond knew Gordon rarely used a computer outside of work but decided it would be prudent to look through Gordon’s emails for the past month… He found nothing out of the ordinary. Next he looked at Gordon’s bookmarks. Many had to do with the whisky industry, along with several on how to improve your golf swing. The most recent were on Las Vegas golf courses, the Baronial Hotel and Casino and a web directory showing most of the top restaurants in downtown Vegas. Raymond’s first thought was that Gordon had been planning a trip for himself or with James, to go meet their distributor in Vegas.

He could find absolutely nothing, particularly in files accessed in the past month that could have driven Gordon to drink – no obvious reason he could find to indicate if or why Gordon might have been the least stressed out.

He stretched out his legs. Beneath his right foot the heavy waste basket toppled over. He picked it up to find an empty whisky bottle. “
Hmmm
… Bute 12-year-old,” he said aloud. It was the distillery’s flagship whisky that had taken the world by storm. What a Beaut! There was a single empty glass on the desk, an empty bottle in the bin. So, he
had
started drinking alone again?

He picked up the empty glass and was taking it to the sink by the display cabinet when he noticed there was just a speck of the whisky left in the bottom of the glass. He put the glass up to his nose, anticipating the typical aromas of Bute 12-year-old – freshly baked cake like his grandmother would make, and strawberry jam like he’d spread heavily over his bread, as a child. He could pick out the Bute single malt in any blind tasting.

He stopped dead in his tracks, smelling the small remains in the glass. He detected a peaty smoke aroma.
Couldn’t be
. He went back to the desk, picked up the empty bottle of 12-year-old, and smelled it again. A feint aroma of cake, and a hint of the jam… No trace of peat.

He went back to the cabinet and noticed a special distillery edition of the Big Bute. It had been opened, with maybe two or three servings poured from the bottle. He pulled the cork and gave it a nose, making sure to keep his nose a few inches away.
Whoa
, that was so peaty…

Interesting
.

He read the label on the bottle. This whisky was a special edition, named the Noble Bute. A highly peated malt that the distillery had only produced one time, to his knowledge. Maybe they’d produced a few thousand bottles that were allocated to their best markets around the world. He opened a spreadsheet and it confirmed Noble Bute was distilled on April 9th, 2005 in honor of the wedding of Camilla to Prince Charles, the Duke of Rothesay –
their
duke. Interesting that this fact from Anne’s little tour had meshed itself into this situation, in the here and now, and under these tragic circumstances.

And there he was again. Thinking about Anne. She wouldn’t know about Gordon… He’d call or email Anne later with the bad news.

He noticed a paper that disclosed a large chain of sushi restaurants in Japan had tried to buy the entire stock. To sell it all to one buyer would have been totally out of character for Gordon so Raymond was unsure whether the deal went through.

In fact, he and Gordon shared a secret that nobody would know – though Louisa might have guessed it by now. Gordon detested peaty malts and only nosed and tasted them at public events. He understood them and could detect which distillery had made them, however, any malt over 25 phenols per million, the measure used to define the modest amount of peat used in whisky, was a no-no for him personally.

Raymond sat back in Gordon’s leather armchair. His forehead became tense, and he felt a sharp pain developing in his head. This was a common occurrence in the past when he was totally pissed off on an assignment.
What am I missing here?

He composed himself, and tried to stay calm as he headed out of Gordon’s office to speak to the one person who might understand why he felt so unsettled by what he’d found.

Willy was in the distillery with shoulders slumped and expression grave. When he noticed Raymond standing in the doorway he shook his head sadly.

“Thought you were himself… I can’t believe Gordon has gone.” Willy’s expression was bleak, his shoulders slumped.

“I know. A sad day… Willy, could I buy you a coffee? I would like to quiz you on your special wedding edition whisky.”

“Aye, Noble Bute, the big peaty expression. Why do you ask about that expression at a time like this?”

“I think something is a tad strange about Gordon’s death. He hardly ever drank the last few years, except on business.”

“Aye, you are right there. I was surprised when they said he was drinking when he died. And alone, he was. Yes, I’ll take a wee break and see you down in the visitor’s lounge in five minutes. Cream and sugar for me.”

Raymond brought two coffees to a quiet table in the lounge. He knew he must stay calm around the people at the distillery. He must keep his suspicions about Gordon’s death – the possibility of his friend’s murder – to himself. Perhaps his curiosity was fuelled by a need to know why this happened now, when things had been going so well for his lifelong friend…and by Raymond’s disbelief that his friend was actually gone… Or was it the pervasive feeling of emptiness and loss that was driving Raymond to find another reason, beyond a heart attack?

People died every day…but not a best friend.

Was he making a mountain out of a mole hill? Or were his suspicions logical and worth investigating? Regardless, he had very little to go on and until he had more, keeping his thoughts secret was necessary.

Life must go on as normal and just maybe he was totally wrong and Gordon’s death was just what they said it was, and perhaps too, Gordon’s palette
had
changed overnight. Not likely. But was it possible Gordon, would be enjoying a good peaty malt, alone in his office, with his favourite whisky so close by…?
Not likely
.

Five minutes later, Willy appeared. Raymond swallowed down his sorrow that Willy also obviously felt. He wanted to let down his guard with this old employee, and raise his suspicions about Gordon’s death – to focus his thoughts on several possible crime scenarios but he remained composed as he watched Willy nod approvingly at the coffee he handed him. After Willy sat down, Raymond chatted with him about what the loss of Gordon would mean to the distillery.

“So remind me of the phenols per million in that special edition?” he finally asked Willy.

“Sixty-five. It was a bit of fun for me actually. You know Bute rarely offers a peaty whisky. We have a hint of the sea in all our whiskies and take the Oban and Bruichladdich comparisons with immense pride – that was what we were after. We are not a Lowland and are officially a Highland distillery by…oh, two miles,” he said sarcastically. “The Highland fault line runs through the middle of Rothesay. But most whisky experts put us and our neighbours on Arran under lowland. All island whiskies have a noticeably different character to whisky produced by our colleagues in the Lowlands with its softer, lighter whisky. We are still pushing the Scottish Whisky Association to make islands its own official region.”

“So, 65 phenols are very high. How smoky?”

“
Very!
I asked the malting company to source the peat from the top north east corner of Scotland. It’s not like Islay or the heather-influenced peat on the Orkneys. This was in-your-face peat, smoke, bonfire, and night all in a bottle. What did Gordon think? Never saw him drink the stuff or make a comment. Louisa loved it to death and asked me to think about producing another batch.”

“Was Gordon here the night of his attack?”

“Probably, I had gone home at tea time. I started at 6:00 that morning and had all the work finished by tea time. Louisa was taking the company to a new level and Gordon always wanted to be hands on. Still, he would never stay late… But come to think about it,” he paused. “He came in late that afternoon. Yes, he was still here when I left that evening.”

“Is there any of the Millennium Edition single malt left?” he asked, getting to the main reason for his visit with Willy.

Willy laughed sarcastically. “We sold it all and could have doubled the price. The Japanese wanted all of it but we distributed fairly around the world. Our regular buyers took their allocations so we sold out.”

“Any in the building at all?”

Willy pondered on that for a moment. “One in all three offices, I believe. James’, Louisa’s, and Gordon’s. I have a half bottle salted away in warehouse three and I have some youngsters – a similar expression – maturing.”

“Could I have a taste with you?”

“Absolutely, I was going in there next anyway. I need to check their progress. We had a hot summer and a mild winter last year. They seem to be maturing faster than normal.”

They had walked through the yard and past the first two large warehouses when Raymond heard a series of loud thuds. He looked at Willy.

“That would be Lorne in the cooperage. We just had a new batch of casks arrive and quite a few need repair. New staves to be installed and plenty of rejuvenation with this batch.”

“Where do you get them?” asked Raymond.

“Italy, although they are originally from Croatia. Slavonian and Slovenian casks are all we use for our regular expressions.”

“Good job I know my new geography, Willy. I know Slovenia became its own country not that many years ago and I visited Yugoslavia quite a bit in the 80s and Slavonia is a region in Croatia.”

“Aye, you are good. They are the only types of casks we use – that directive came from Gordon and Louisa.”

“I hate to ask why, since I know it will be too technical but anyway...”

“I can make the explanation easy.” Willy sighed. “The grain is quite tight, the tannins medium, and not too soft. A sweet Muscat has quite a powerful taste, with all the exotic fruit influences developing in the original cask. We don’t want it to dominate the whisky flavours and always strive to have a perfect marriage of both liquids.”

Croatia, Raymond thought. Nasty times there. And it had been a shame, back then, when I was a regular on government business. It was such a beautiful country but so poor. The unrest and violence at that time had made him feel sick on more than one occasion. Thank goodness there was now peace there and tourists had returned in the millions, bringing a level of economic relief.

After a nasty assignment in Zagreb, his orders were to take a week off in Pula. His employer knew this would be a hard time for Raymond who had killed a person there, in the line of duty. For the first time. The rescue, had gone all wrong. The field operatives needed help, even from an analyst. They had some women and children to evacuate and they were on the helicopter. There were more to come, until a sniper opened fire. Raymond turned and fired back. Pure instinct and probably a lucky shot but the man’s death haunted him ever since.

Pula had been a good idea to get his mind moving in a different direction. The resort overlooked the Adriatic Sea with a view of Brioni Island and it was one of the best breaks he’d ever taken. While there he saw Roman ruins in the town of Pula that he swore outshone those in Rome.

The loud banging started back up again, startling Raymond from his thoughts.

They stopped at a door with a cooperage sign above it. Through the doorway, Raymond saw a young man and could not get over the size of the lad, named Lorne. He looked like a short, stocky rugby player as he manhandled a huge cask. He had all the staves in place using his entire body – arms and legs – keeping everything in position, while with hammer in his other hand he attached them to the barrel end.

“Sometime in the future, I would love to bring the club members to see you do this for a lesson. Teach us how to assemble one of those,” Raymond said, pointing at the huge cask.

“Now that will be funny,” replied Lorne who clearly preferred to get back to his task.