Flotsam and Jetsam (8 page)

When Calum had insisted that she go home at two o’clock
she had gone with some reluctance, promising to return by seven at the start of the new day. Calum had bartered for eight, which he thought would give him an extra hour to recover from the very large whisky that he had mentally promised himself once he had completed and printed the special issue, then mobilized his paper boys.

As it happened, it was three large whiskies, so he was in a deep sleep when Cora mounted the stairs in a state of great excitement at eight in the morning with a copy of the
Chronicle
bought from Staig’s.

‘My first ever proper published story!’ she cried, mounting the stairs three at a time. ‘Oh thank you, Calum! Thank you!’

‘Wh-What!’ Calum stammered, blinking and fumbling to find his wire-framed spectacles which had fallen astray when he had slumped back on his camp-bed. He held up his hands to stop her further advance, as if she was a bounding puppy about to hurtle herself at him. ‘Look, Cora lassie, you are making a habit of this.’

Cora giggled. ‘Of what? Seeing you in bed?’

Calum squirmed with embarrassment. ‘Ah – er – don’t be cheeky, lassie. I’ll have you know that I—’

‘I was just kidding, Calum.’ She replied. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell Great-aunt Bella.’

‘Tell what to Miss Melville?’ he asked quickly, his eyes wide open in alarm behind his spectacles.

‘That you like to drink whisky so early in the morning.’

Calum looked at her in shock. ‘What are you talking about, lassie? I never drink too early. I drink a bit late sometimes. What is late to a journalist may seem early to someone else.’ He wagged his finger in admonishment. ‘If you want to be a good journalist, you have a lot to learn. I insist on accuracy from my staff, Cora.’

He stood up and hiccupped. ‘So, how about a cup of tea and then I will treat you to a really good greasy breakfast at the Friar Tuck Café?’

Cora grimaced. ‘That’s kind of you, Calum, but I am a bit of a vegetarian, actually. And I never eat anything greasy, not even chips.’ Then she gave him one of her sudden smiles. ‘But I’ll put the kettle on for a cup of tea.’

And before he could take in what he considered her admission of food heresy, she disappeared into the kitchenette.

‘That was a great article you wrote, boss,’ she called out. ‘That Dr Digby Dent will have a horrible headache when he wakes up. I expect he will feel such a fool.’

‘Aye, it is always best to avoid a hangover,’ Calum replied with a yawn, as he massaged his own aching temples.

His mobile phone went off and he answered it automatically.

When Cora came in a few moments later with a couple of mugs of steaming tea she found him listening to a voice on the other end, his jaw hanging open and his eyes staring into space.

‘Up on the moor, you say? Aye, I will go straight away. And so who are—?’

He frowned then looked in consternation at the phone.

‘Tea!’ Cora said, handing the mug to him.

He shook his head and reached for his yellow anorak. ‘No time, Cora. Grab those helmets, we have work to do. You were almost right about Dr Dent and his head. He would have a headache – if he was still alive to feel it. He’s been found up on the moor with his head bashed in.’

Cora’s face went ashen and she dropped the mug of tea at his feet.

He was about to mumble something about his good carpet when she pitched forward in a dead faint on to his camp-bed.

The chain of communication had clicked into action straight away. Ewan had called Morag on his mobile, then she had contacted Torquil and set the ball rolling.

Torquil had been the first on the scene, zooming up the hill from Harbour Street on his Bullet, with Crusoe peering out of one pannier and his pipes from the other. He had been intending to go to St Ninian’s Cave to try out a new piece that he had been working out in his head ever since Lorna had rung that morning.

He was only a few moments ahead of Dr Ralph McLelland in the Kyleshiffin ambulance. It was not a purpose-built vehicle, but an ancient converted camper-van which had been donated by a former laird of Kyleshiffin. They had both been briefed by a pasty–faced Ewan McPhee, who looked wretched and cold, with vomit stains down his T-shirt and numerous blotches about his head and neck.

‘I didn’t mean to do it, Torquil!’ Ewan said. ‘How was I to know that he was lying there in the heather? I … I….’

Torquil patted his shoulder. ‘Of course you didn’t know that, Ewan. Now just calm down. Here,’ he said, handing him Crusoe’s lead, ‘you look after the dog while we have a proper look.’

Crusoe was snapping right and left at invisible midges.

‘Aye, the midges are bad this morning,’ Ewan said, as he took the lead and led them over towards the tussock of heather and gorse where the body lay.

He explained that upon recovering from his initial shock he had hauled it out of the bog to see if he could try resuscitation, but it had been all too clear that the man had been beyond such
help. Even so, he had placed him in the recovery position.

‘Strange that the midges don’t seem to land on him,’ Ewan remarked. ‘They just home in on us.’

Dr McLelland knelt beside the body, ignoring the fact that brackish peat water had soaked into his corduroy trousers. ‘It is because they only feed off the living. They are attracted to the carbon dioxide that animals breathe out.’

‘I didn’t know that, Doctor McLelland,’ Ewan said.

‘Nor did I until the other day; Doctor Dent here told me himself.’

Torquil said nothing, but watched as the doctor opened his bag and pulled out his stethoscope and an ophthalmoscope. He knew from experience that he would perform his examination strictly to the letter, leaving nothing to chance and risking no error in his analysis.

The doctor was one of Torquil’s oldest friends. Along with Calum Steele, the three of them had thought themselves to be like the Three Musketeers when they were attending the Kyleshiffin School under Miss Bella Melville’s watchful eye. Then they had grown up and gone their separate ways: Torquil to study law and become a police officer; Calum to throw himself into journalism; Ralph to study medicine. After graduating from Glasgow University Ralph had fully intended becoming a pathologist and had studied forensic medicine and medical jurisprudence, until his uncle had suddenly died. Family loyalty had then overcome personal academic ambition and he returned to West Uist to take over the old boy’s medical practice, as well as his post as honorary police surgeon to the West Uist Division of the Hebridean Constabulary. On several occasions in the past his forensic skills had come in very handy.  

‘So can you give an estimate on how long he has been dead?’ Torquil asked, as he looked over Ralph’s shoulder. 

‘Hard to be precise,’ he replied pensively. ‘What with the chance of accelerated rigor mortis if he had been in this cold peat water for any time, it could be as little as two hours or as long as twenty-four.’

‘You … you mean that I didn’t kill him with the hammer?’ Ewan blurted out.

‘No, you definitely did not. He has been dead for a good while,’ Ralph replied. ‘I don’t think that your hammer even touched him. It just happened to land in the bog beside him. It looks as if he fell and bashed his head on this jagged rock here.’ He pointed to a blood-soaked rock that was protruding from the pool. ‘As I say, he could have been here for a whole day.’

‘Except that he was in police custody last night,’ Torquil said. ‘You must have heard about the rumpus he created on the
Flotsam & Jetsam
TV show that they were filming?’

Ralph looked round and shook his head. ‘I was out on an emergency case all evening. The devil’s own job I had in stabilizing the patient.’

‘Well, we didn’t release him until ten-thirty,’ Ewan volunteered. ‘Morag reckoned he had sobered up enough by then.’

Ralph bent over the dead man’s lips and sniffed. He clicked his tongue. ‘I’ll need to check his alcohol level when I do the post-mortem. Assuming you want a post-mortem, Torquil?’

‘Are you able to say how he died?’ Torquil asked. ‘Not meaning to be facetious, Ralph.’

‘I would guess that he’d gone for a walk up here on the moor, still inebriated, and tripped and bashed his head. Could have been the head injury that killed him, or he could have drowned in the bog.’ He pushed himself to his feet and gave a thin, humourless smile. ‘But that is not my brief, is it? It is only my initial opinion. I would need to do a post-mortem to
determine the cause of his death.’

They all turned at the sound of a click. Calum Steele and Cora Melville were standing a few paces behind them. Calum had a digital camera in one hand and his customary spiral notebook in the other. He was gripping his pen between his teeth.

‘Calum! What do you mean by sneaking up on us like that?’ Torquil snapped. He knew only too well that his friend was full of journalistic guile having fancied himself as an investigative reporter since his schooldays. Despite his portly frame, when he sensed that a story demanded it, he could move with the stealth of a cat. And when he was in his investigative journalist mode, loyalty and friendship came second best to the prospect of a scoop.

‘Just answering a tip-off, Inspector McKinnon,’ Calum replied, immediately moving to a professional footing. ‘So, as I understand it, you have found Dr Digby Dent dead on the moor, seemingly having fallen and bashed his head, although there is a question as to whether he had been bludgeoned with a Highland hammer.’

Ralph scowled at Calum. ‘If you have been eavesdropping for long, Calum Steele, then you will have heard me say he was not hit by Ewan’s hammer.’

Calum shrugged as he handed the camera to his pale-faced assistant. He jotted a couple of words in his notebook. ‘OK, so then he may or may not have drowned after falling and bumping his head, but as I see it there is a crucial question that has yet to be answered.’

Torquil eyed his friend suspiciously. ‘And what question is that, Mr Steele?’

‘Upon what basis did the West Uist Police deem that is was safe to release him from custody? You see, from where I am standing it seems certain that if he had been kept in custody he
would still be alive right now.‘He drew a line under his last note. Some folk might use the N word for that. Negligence, I mean.’

He looked his best friend straight in the eye.

‘Would you care to make a statement to the Press, Inspector McKinnon?’

Wallace and Douglas had been out in their old fishing boat, earning their living by catching herrings, just as their father and his father had done before them. They were returning with a good catch and appropriately high spirits.

‘Look to starboard,’ Wallace called above the engine noise. ‘It looks like old Guthrie Lovat is out in his
Sea Beastie.’

‘Aye! We haven’t seen him about these waters for a while.’

Wallace gave a blast on the boat’s horn and they both waved.

The
Sea Beastie
had at one time been a common sight about the island until Guthrie had become famous. At least, that was how many of the locals described his change to become a recluse.

Guthrie Lovat stepped out of his cabin, his luxuriant beard catching the wind. He screwed up his eyes and, with a hand over them to shield them from the sun, he peered back at the Drummond twins. Then, recognizing them he waved back.

‘How is the beachombing going?’ Wallace called across.

‘Pretty fair,’ Guthrie called back. ‘But it could be better!’ He lifted his left arm and gestured to his wrist, as if pointing at his watch. ‘Can’t stop though. I need to get out to the Cruadalach Isles.’ He waved again then went back into his cabin. There was a roar and the
Sea Beastie
accelerated away.

The twins waved after him.

‘A man of few words, eh?’ Wallace remarked.

‘Aye, a surly bugger and no mistaking. Maybe he’s on a par with that Dr Dent fellow.’ Douglas grinned.

The brothers laughed, for they had found the whole
Flotsam & Jetsam
débâcle utterly hilarious.

Wallace adjusted their course and they headed in the direction of Kylshiffin harbour.

‘It is a funny thing, Wallace, but shouldn’t our esteemed PC Ewan McPhee be out and about in the
Seaspray
by now?’ Douglas remarked.

Wallace guffawed. ‘Aye, he should. But the big galoot might have slept in again.’

‘Or maybe he lost his hammer up on the moor again?’

‘I can just imagine him up there now, getting bitten to death by the midges.’

At this they dissolved into another fit of mirth.

Cora was not sure how she felt. She had never seen a dead body before and although she had not fainted up on the moor she had found the whole encounter most embarrassing. They had returned to the
Chronicle
offices where Calum had immediately set about preparing for yet another special edition.

‘This is what you wanted, isn’t it, Cora?’ he asked, as he tapped away on his laptop. ‘Real cutting-edge journalism. And what a follow up to last night’s story. The readers will love this.’

‘But aren’t you worried about upsetting Inspector McKinnon and the others?’

‘I am a responsible journalist, Cora. I am not in this for
popularity. It is my responsibility to present the facts to the reading public.’

‘But are you serious about saying there was police negligence?’

Calum heaved a sigh and swivelled round in his chair. ‘There is nothing personal in this, Cora. Torquil will understand that.’

‘But he looked sort of – well – uncomfortable.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘As if you were betraying him, sort of.’

‘Havers, lassie!’

‘And PC McPhee looked so upset.’

‘A man in police custody was set free and is found dead hours later, Cora. If they had kept him he would be alive now.’ He pushed his wire-frame spectacles further back on his nose. ‘Look, I want you to help. While I am writing this up and setting up the issue I want you to go and interview Sergeant Driscoll at the station. She was the duty sergeant last night. While you are there, you can also make enquiries about what progress they have made about the break-in at the offices here.’