Deathly Wind

chapter nine

Morag was looking bleary-eyed next morning after spending half the night looking after her youngest daughter Ailsa, who was subject to the croup. Sitting on the other side of Torquil’s desk she read his summary of Ewan’s notebook, which he had divided into three brief sections, respectively dealing with his feelings about Katrina Tulloch, his suspicions about something he suspected Kenneth McKinley of being up to, but which he hadn’t been altogether clear about, and things that he was planning to discuss with Torquil and others.

‘He seemed to have lost his heart to Katrina,’ Morag said with a sigh. ‘She’s a bonnie girl, but—’ She shook her head and stopped in mid sentence.

‘But what, Morag?’ Torquil queried. ‘Is this something to do with your famous woman’s intuition?’

Morag yawned as she thought. ‘I don’t suppose it is fair of me to say it, but she’s a bonnie girl and she knows it. There’s something … sensual about her. I think she would not be a one-man woman.’

‘But I understand that she’s been upset since he disappeared. Lachlan told me about Gordon MacDonald’s wake.’

‘Oh yes. Just as we all have been upset. And she’s been spotted wandering around the coast roads and the skerries. The Drummonds have seen her van parked overlooking St Ninian’s Bay and Calum Steele says she burst into tears when he saw her in the Bonnie Prince Charlie the other lunchtime.’

Torquil nodded and pushed the latest edition of the West Uist Chronicle across the desk for her to see. ‘Speaking of our esteemed journalist, I think he’s well and truly peeved.’

Morag read the headline: THE LAIRD, THE CAMERA AND THE LOCH

There followed a piece of Calum’s most purple prose describing his encounter with the Laird of Dunshiffin, the dead dog, the Glaswegian bodyguards and the hurling of his digital camera into Loch Hynish. Morag smiled as she read it.

‘So he’s considering a claim for damages,’ she mused, as she read that Calum had been forced to buy a very expensive substitute so that the Chronicle photographer would still be able to illustrate the articles in the paper. ‘He’s not planning to make friends with the new laird then?’

Torquil frowned. ‘And he’s in danger of losing credibility as well. Look at the next page. He’s written a piece about Kenneth McKinley.’

Morag turned the page to find a photograph of a golden eagle in flight, with an insert photograph of Kenneth McKinley above a headline reading: DID A GOLDEN EAGLE MARK CROFTER OUT AS PREY?

Morag stared at the article with wide eyed disbelief, and then slowly read it out loud:

‘While walking her dog at the foot of the Corlins yesterday, Miss Annie McConville, the well-known local proprietor of the Kyleshiffin Dog Sanctuary, discovered the body of Mr Kenneth McKinley of Sea’s Edge Croft. It seems that Kenneth had been climbing and somehow tragically lost his footing.

But upon his face were the unmistakable marks of a bird’s talons.

‘No doubt at all, he was struck down by one of the eagles,’ Miss McConville told our chief reporter.

Miss McConville told us that she had discovered the body minutes before the arrival of our local Inspector Torquil McKinnon. Miss McConville reports that she pointed out the talon marks to the inspector, who was perplexed. A post-mortem examination is awaited at the time of writing.

Kenneth McKinley was the only son of …

Morag slapped the pages together. ‘That’s typical of the wee ferret. He’s wheedled gossip out of Annie McConville and speculated like crazy.’

‘Aye, just like he usually does. But I think he’s done it half on purpose. He knows that the golden eagles have caused mixed feelings on the island. There are the superstitious brigade and the bird lovers.’

‘And the bird lovers are all up in arms about the proposed windmills,’ agreed Morag. ‘Calum will be loving all this.’

Torquil sipped his tea. ‘Well, let’s get back to Ewan’s notebook. What do you make of the next section. What do you think he suspected Kenneth McKinley of? It is not clear from his notes.’

Morag looked at the notes then picked up Ewan’s actual notebook. ‘May I?’

Torquil nodded and watched her expression as she skimmed through it.

Suddenly, tears welled up in her eyes and she bit her lip. ‘Oh my God! This bit makes me feel so guilty.’ She read: ‘“Morag has her hands full, ask Torquil”. He must mean that I was so preoccupied about Ailsa and her schoolwork. She’s missed so much school lately with this croup that she keeps getting. And Ewan didn’t feel he could burden me with his worries!’ And despite herself she sobbed anew.

In a trice Torquil was round the desk and slipping a comforting arm about her shoulder. ‘Now that is the last thing that you should be thinking, Morag. We don’t know whether any of this is of the slightest relevance. Ewan was a good police officer. If he thought it was something you ought to know about then he would have asked. We mustn’t get ahead of ourselves here.’

And pulling a tissue from the box on his desk she quickly controlled herself and resumed her customary visage of solid professionalism. She returned to the diary and flicked through the pages with barely a sniff or two.

Eventually she said, ‘I think he’s got two trains of thought going. On the one hand it seems a bit personal, like he thinks Kenneth was watching him and Katrina. There’s a hint there that he doesn’t like the way that he caught him looking at Katrina and him one evening when they were out having dinner at Fauld’s Hotel. And the other thing seems to be a suspicion that Kenneth was up to something. Look, there are times and dates when he’s noted down when he saw him. And there are a few words in capital letters that he’s boxed round – GUNS and BOND and FAIR FANCIES HIMSELF. I don’t think he liked young Kenneth McKinley much. Maybe he saw him as a rival?’

Torquil clicked his tongue pensively. ‘Aye, possibly. He was always a tad insecure, for all his great size. And with the word GUNS we come back to the missing rifle again, don’t we.’ He drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘And what did he mean by BOND?’

‘Beats me, Torquil.’

‘Ok then, what do you think about those things he wanted to ask me about?’

The first was simply the name KATRINA, followed by a question mark.

‘That’s easy, Torquil,’ said Morag with a smile. ‘You know he’s always looked up to you as a friend, an older brother even, as well as his senior officer. He wanted to know your opinion about what he should do.’ She shook her head and added wistfully, ‘And the big darling thought I was too busy.’

Torquil frowned. ‘Me, with my track record?’ He shook his head, dismissively. ‘What about FAMILY?’

‘Could he have meant Geordie Morrison and his family?’

‘That’s what I was thinking, too. I guess time will tell when they show up again. And that leaves the last word, WIND?’

‘I think everyone on the island has that word on their mind at the moment,’ said Morag. ‘What with windmills and wind-farms.’

‘Aye, and the more I think about it, the more I think it’s an ill wind that’s being blowing lately,’ Torquil mused.

Sister Lizzie Lamb was busy, which was not at all unusual for her. No matter how many patients she had under her care, she was always busy. She could have six extremely ill patients in the cottage hospital and cope admirably, or just the one and be run off her feet. But patient care never suffered, or was in any way compromised. She just liked people to know that a nursing life was a busy life.

And with Rhona McIvor as the only patient her business extended to getting all of her administrative chores done, as well as overseeing a good spring-clean of the sluice, the supplies room and then an inventory of the mortuary equipment.

When the new laird presented himself at the reception desk, Maggie Crouch, the hospital clerk, scuttled off and found Sister Lamb in the supplies room. After a few words of exasperation Lizzie left Giselle Anderson, her irreplaceable nursing assistant, to carry on with the spring-clean while she went to attend on the visitor.

‘Rhona McIvor has had a heart attack and still must not be over-tired,’ she said, leading the way into the side room where they had moved Rhona. ‘Doctor McLelland was quite precise in his instructions.’

‘Don’t you worry, Sister,’ returned Jock McArdle. ‘I just want to pay my respects – I’ll only be a couple of minutes.’

Sister Lamb was plump, forty-five, with an old-fashioned neatly starched uniform and an over-developed sense of the romantic.

‘You sent her all those beautiful flowers, didn’t you, Mr McArdle?’ She smiled knowingly. ‘She’s a lucky lady.’

McArdle grinned affably, as he divined the real question that lay behind her remark. ‘Ah no, Sister! You think that we—’ He made a to-and-fro gesture with his hand. ‘Nah. Nothing like that.’

Sister Lamb turned the corner and stood outside Rhona’s room, her face betraying a slight disappointment that the romance she had speculated about was no such thing. She gave a little professional cough. ‘I wasn’t thinking anything, Mr McArdle. I was just looking out for Rhona, my patient. Mind what I said now, she’s not to be over-tired or overexcited.’

‘I’ll be two minutes with my friend, Sister. That’s all.’

Torquil had to wait at the end of the causeway over to the Wee Kingdom, as the large container lorry edged across. It had emblazoned on its sides a picture of a row of windmills linked by lightning bolts and the words NATURE’S OWN ENERGY underneath it. The driver, a large man with a pony-tail and heavily tattooed arms gave him a thumbs-up sign as he inched past. His companion, a younger man in a red baseball cap was smoking a cigarette. Almost languidly, he flicked the dog-end out of the cab window so that it bounced off the front wheel of the Bullet. Immediately Torquil’s hackles rose and he held up a hand for the driver to stop.

‘Dropping litter is just as illegal on West Uist as it is on the mainland,’ he said, turning off the Bullet’s engine and hauling it up on its central stand. He ground the cigarette end under the heel of his heavy buckled Ashman boot then bent down and picked it up. ‘I am Inspector McKinnon of the Hebridean Constabulary, and I am willing to overlook this – just this once!’ He held up his hand to the open window. ‘Take your litter home please and dispose of it appropriately.’

The youth glowered at him, but at a dig in the ribs from the driver he took the dog-end from Torquil and deposited it in the ashtray in the cab.

‘Sorry about the boy here, Inspector,’ said the driver, leaning towards the window. ‘He’s from the city and he doesn’t know how tae handle himself at times.’

‘I ken fine how to handle myself,’ the youth returned sourly.

Torquil eyed him dispassionately. ‘That’s OK then. But just don’t overstep the letter of the law while you’re visiting this island, or you’ll find that we enforce the law pretty strictly here.’ And then ignoring the youth he pointed to the two wind towers that had been erected on either side of the Wind’s Eye croft cottage. Both of them were surrounded by scaffolding with ladders leading up to wooden platforms near the top. One had a slowly revolving three-bladed propeller and the other had a series of spinning anemometers at various heights above the platform.

‘You didn’t waste a lot of time putting them up. But they’re a bit smaller than I imagined they would be. What are they, about forty or fifty feet tall.’

‘That’s right, Inspector. They’re our standard fifty-foot towers. They are just basic ones to gather information. We measure wind speeds and directions with the anemometer one and the propeller has no turbine, it is just to record likely operating patterns. They’re all recording data which the boffins back at the head office will work out later. We’ve done our work for now and are just off to bring the next lot over.’

‘How many are you putting up?’ Torquil asked.

‘Ten more on this piece of land.’ He said, indicating the Wee Kingdom. ‘Then assuming everybody’s happy with the estimates they get, who knows. It maybe that we’ll be putting up the real McCoys, the big turbines.’ He grinned. ‘Then it’ll be proper wind farm here we come. And for that we’ll have a whole gang of workers, not just gangers like me and the lad here.’

He turned and looked at the youth beside him, as if he had received a kick. The youth held up his watch and the driver pursed his lips. ‘Would you excuse us then, Inspector? We need to catch the ferry.’

Torquil nodded and waved them on. ‘Just watch your speed on these narrow West Uist roads,’ he instructed.

‘We’ll go easy, Inspector,’ returned the driver. He grinned as he nudged his companion. ‘And maybe your wee ticking off will do the lad a bit of good, eh? I keep telling him to give up these coffin nails of his.’

When they had gone Torquil started up the Bullet and made his way over the causeway towards the McKinley croft. As he rode past Wind’s Eye with its incongruous wind towers he found himself mentally recoiling from them. These flimsy looking windmills were bad enough, but a wind farm with giant turbines would change the whole face of the island.

Rhona blinked myopically at Jock McArdle with ill-concealed disdain. ‘What, no flowers for me today?’ she asked coldly.

‘No flowers,’ he replied casually. ‘Just a message.’ His lips twisted into a smile that was curiously devoid of warmth. ‘See, I’m here as a sort of postman.’ He made a theatrical adjustment to the knot of his paisley pattern tie then reached into the inside breast pocket of his Harris Tweed jacket, and drew out a long envelope. ‘Maybe I’m a wee bit over-dressed for the part, but I thought I’d deliver it myself. You’ll be interested to know that it is all entirely legitimate.’

‘Do you think I am remotely interested in anything you have to tell me, Mr McArdle?’

His mouth again curved into his mirthless smile and he smirked. ‘And do you really think that I don’t know who you are, or what you used to do for a living – Rhona McIvor? I’ve got the memory of an elephant, so I have. But you don’t, it seems.’ He tossed his head back and laughed, a cold sinister laugh. ‘Have I changed all that much.’

A look approaching fear flashed across her face and she reached for her spectacles. When she put them on McArdle quickly recognized that he had rattled her. And that she had recognized him. He grinned maliciously as he laid the envelope between a vase of flowers and a pile of cards on her bedside cabinet.

‘Enjoy your reading,’ he said, before turning and letting himself out. For a moment Rhona stared at the closed door with a look of horror, then she turned her attention to the waiting envelope. Her heart seemed to have sped up.

Torquil found Alistair McKinley in one of his out-houses, vigorously working his handloom. Working out his grief and frustration, Torquil guessed.

‘I’ve brought you a copy of the post-mortem report, Alistair,’ Torquil said, as he pulled off his gauntlets. It’s just a preliminary report, mind you, that we’ll be submitting to the Procurator Fiscal for the Fatal Accident Enquiry.’

The old crofter sighed and laid down his shuttle. He heaved himself out of his high chair and held out his hand for the letter, which he immediately stuffed in the front pocket of his dungarees. ‘I’ll read it later, although I am thinking that I already know what it will be saying.’

Torquil nodded grimly. ‘Death from catastrophic head injury, multiple internal contusions and ruptures, and multiple fractures.’

‘Aye! And I know well what it won’t say. It won’t say a thing about the culprits.’

‘Meaning what, Alistair?’

‘Meaning the man who caused him to go off like he did. And the devil bird that made him fall.’

‘You’ve read the Chronicle, then?’ Torquil asked, recalling Calum Steele’s reportage that he had read that morning.

The crofter nodded. ‘But I knew it anyway. I saw his bonnie face myself, remember? You were there when I identified his body. I recognized those scars as talon marks when I saw them.’ He swallowed hard and tears formed in the corners of his eyes. ‘But there will be justice coming.’

Before Torquil could follow up on the remark Alistair straightened up and gestured towards the door. It’s time for a cup of tea. Will you join me, Inspector?’

A few minutes later, as they waited for the kettle to boil, Torquil looked around the kitchen. It was surprisingly clean and functional. A row of basic cookery books were ranged along one half of the solitary shelf, the other half being home to a row of pots containing various herbs and condiments. Pans hung on the wall, crockery was stacked neatly in a dresser, and the old stove was in pristine condition.

‘You have the eye of a policeman, Torquil McKinnon,’ said Alistair. ‘You are wondering how two men managed to keep their kitchen so tidy. Well, it is respect for my late wife, God rest her soul.’

Torquil nodded politely and made no comment about his own home, the manse, which he shared with his uncle, the Reverend Lachlan McKinnon. Many of the nooks and crannies of the manse were filled with golf clubs, sets of bagpipes or bits and pieces of classic motorbike engines. Their home was not as neat as the McKinleys’.

With the teapot filled and the tray loaded, Alistair McKinley led the way through to the sitting-room. And in ways it mirrored the kitchen in its Spartan tidiness. The walls were painted a pale green and the brown carpet although clean had three or four frayed patches. There was little in the way of luxury in the room. No modern hi-fi system or computer, just an oldish television set, a box radio, two armchairs, a dining-table with three plain chairs around it, a few pictures and photographs on the mantelpiece. A bottle of whisky with two empty glasses beside it stood on one of those tall thin tables that looked as though it had once supported an aspidistra. Torquil noted the photograph of Kenneth McKinley propped against the bottle and imagined that the old crofter had been drinking a toast or two to his departed son the night before.

As Alistair poured tea, Torquil asked, ‘You told me earlier that Kenneth had gone out with a rifle. Are you absolutely sure about that?’

A thin smile floated across the crofter’s lips. ‘I wondered when you would get round to asking that. As you know from your records, we have licenses for all our guns.’ And picking up his cup he crossed the room to the bottom of the wooden staircase. ‘Come up and I’ll show you our gun cupboard. It’s all as it should be. We always keep the guns up here under lock and key.’

The gun cupboard was made of heavy oak and stood on an upstairs landing outside the bathroom. It was heavily padlocked and had been bolted to both the wall and the floor. ‘There you are,’ said Alistair, as he unlocked the padlock and opened the cupboard door. Inside, in wooden partitions, there were three guns: two shotguns – one 12-gauge and one 20-gauge – and a .22 Hornet rifle. The end partition was empty. At the top of the cupboard, above the partitions, was a locked metal cabinet that was also bolted to the back of the cupboard. ‘The guns are just as you have them recorded on our firearm certificates, which I assume you have checked out.’

Torquil nodded, and pulling out his notebook opened it at his last entry. ‘So it is the Steyr-Manlicher Scout that Kenneth took with him?’

‘It was. And so when can I have it back?’

‘That’s just it, Alistair. We haven’t found the gun!’

The crofter looked aghast. ‘You haven’t found it? That’s not possible.’

‘No sign of it at all. And that is serious. Were there any distinguishing features about the rifle?’

Alistair McKinley swallowed a mouthful of tea. ‘I can let you have a photograph of it.’ He went along the landing and opened a bedroom door. ‘This was Kenneth’s room,’ he said, almost forlornly, standing aside for Torquil to enter.

The posters on the wall attracted Torquil’s attention. They were recruitment posters for the marines: men in combat clothes charging through jungles, or wearing heavy camouflage gear stalking through woodland, guns at the ready. Then he noted the bookcase, neatly stacked with books about guns and weaponry, the SAS, and various manuals on hunting. On the bed was a scattered pile of clothing: dungarees, various camouflage jackets, rolls of thick socks. Beside the bed was a series of photographs of Alistair, Kenneth himself and his dead mother. Alistair leaned past him and picked up the framed photograph at the back.

‘He liked this one. He got me to take it one day when we were up in the Corlins.’

Torquil took it. It was a carefully posed photograph of Kenneth McKinley with a rifle aimed at some distant target. ‘It looks as though he’s modified his rifle a bit,’ he commented.

‘Aye, he made his own sound modifier.’

Torquil looked him straight in the eye. ‘Why did he need a silencer?’

Alistair shrugged the question away. If you are trying to take out half-a-dozen rabbits before they make it to their burrows then muffling the sound makes a good deal of sense.’

‘I know what might also help,’ Torquil said, as they made their way back along the landing. ‘A sample of the bullets he used.’

Alistair McKinley eyed him curiously then shrugged and unlocked the metal cabinet at the top of the gun cupboard. He opened a box and drew out a bullet. ‘There you are. Just standard .308 cartridges. And the other box has .22s.’

He reached into the cupboard and unlocked the partition with the 12-bore shotgun. ‘I might as well get this ready for tomorrow.’

‘For the hedgehog cull?’ Torquil asked.

Alistair McKinley nodded curtly. ‘Aye, and I tell you one thing, Inspector McKinnon, I’m in a killing mood, the now.’