Deathly Wind

chapter thirteen

Guilt had been a constant companion to Katrina for several days, but never more so than now, as she lay half-naked next to Nial Urquart in the long grass of the machair.

‘I love you; you know that, don’t you, Katrina?’ Nial murmured, his lips playing over her throat.

‘Nial, I – I—’ Abruptly she sat up and began reaching for her discarded jeans and knickers. ‘I think this was a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened.’

He caught her wrist and pulled her back down. ‘It was inevitable, Katrina!’

It’s just that I feel so bad, so guilty about—’

‘About Megan? She’s my problem.’

Katrina bit her lip. ‘I meant about Ewan.’

‘Ah yes, of course. But even so, I think we were bound to end up as lovers. There’s chemistry between us.’

And despite herself she had to agree. She had felt it for some time as well, but had done her best to suppress the feelings.

‘How did you manage to find me?’ she asked, as his roaming hands began to work their way under her clothes again.

‘I suppose I knew that you’d be checking out the coast again.’

‘You were lucky then. I had been busy and had to get specimens off on the ferry.’

He chuckled softly as she straddled him. ‘Right now I feel I’m the luckiest man alive.’

Alistair McKinley whistled Shep, his collie, and patted the rear seat of his old jeep. Beside him was his large leather hunting bag full of shotgun cartridges and his old 12-bore shotgun. He started the engine and set off.

As he turned out of his drive he saw Megan Munro waiting for him, arms akimbo. He stopped alongside her, immediately aware of two things. Firstly, she had been crying, and secondly, she was in a belligerent mood.

‘Alistair McKinley, where are you off to with that shotgun?’

‘Megan, lassie, I know that you’ve had a bad time of it, what with Rhona and … your man, yesterday, but’ – he sighed with a hint of exasperation – ‘I’m not feeling that great myself. And where I go with my shotgun, for which I have a licence, is entirely my own business.’

‘It’s my business as well, if you are planning to kill hedgehogs. I’ll stop you.’

Alistair McKinley grunted. ‘Don’t even think of messing with me, lassie. I’ve lost my boy and today I’m in a killing mood. I’m going to do what I need to do to ease my own pain.’ He gunned the engine and engaged first gear. ‘Now get out of my way.’

Megan stood staring after him, her temper seething.

‘So much pain, so much hurt,’ she mused. ‘I’ve got pain of my own, you stupid old man. And I know how I’m going to deal with it.’

‘Shop! Anyone home?’ Calum Steele slapped his hand on the counter of the Kyleshiffin police station.

Wallace Drummond came through, a mug of tea in his hand. At sight of the tubby editor in his yellow anorak, he shook his head as if in disbelief. ‘Dear me, you have a nerve, Calum Steele! Behaving like a hooligan after all that you have been doing.’

The smile that had been on Calum’s face was quickly replaced by a look of injured pride, and then by one of puzzlement, and finally by one of pure irritation. ‘What are you babbling about, you teuchter? I hope you are not referring to my article,’ – the smile momentarily resurfaced – ‘or my television appearance?’

‘I thought it was an interview over the telephone that you gave, not an appearance,’ said Wallace. ‘But I should be warning you, Inspector McKinnon is not pleased.’

‘So it’s Inspector McKinnon today, is it?’ Calum returned sarcastically. ‘Well, is Inspector McKinnon in to have a word with me?’

‘I’m here, Calum,’ said Torquil, coming out of the recreation-room at the sound of the Chronicle editor’s voice. ‘And I’m glad to see you.’

Calum beamed and looked disdainfully at Wallace.

‘Because I was meaning to give you a right royal telling off!’ exclaimed Torquil. ‘Just what on earth did you think you were doing with that piece of drivel about killer eagles? And printing that photograph was just downright irresponsible.’

‘Ir – irresponsible?’ Calum repeated. ‘Me? I’m the most responsible reporter on the island.’

‘Calum, you are the only reporter on West Uist,’ replied Torquil.

‘Aye, reporter, editor, photographer and printer. I am the media on West Uist.’

‘You are a windbag!’ Wallace interjected.

Calum looked thunderstruck and raised his hands beseechingly to Torquil. ‘Did you hear that? I am–’

‘You are a nuisance at the moment, Calum,’ said Torquil. ‘And why did you go and spread this gossip to Scottish TV?’

‘I am a newsman, Piper. The public have a right to know about what’s happening on the island. Even the folk in Dundee and Glasgow have a right to know what’s happening in the real world.’

‘Well you may have shot the gun this time, Calum. We are treating the death of that young man as highly suspicious.’

The telephone rang three times and then stopped as someone answered it in the recreation-room.

Calum’s face registered instantaneous excitement. ‘Suspicious, did you say? Are you talking about suspicion of death caused by an eagle attack – or something else? Come on, Piper. Give me a piece of—’

‘Calum, it’s a good piece of my mind that you are getting now. You need—’

Morag popped her head round the corner. ‘Sorry, boss, it’s Superintendent Lumsden on the line. He says he wants to talk to you straight away.’ She grimaced helplessly. ‘Like right now!’

Torquil gave a sigh of irritation. ‘OK Morag. Could you take over with Calum here.’

Morag nodded and moved aside to let Torquil pass. Then advancing to the desk, she asked, ‘Right then, Calum, where were you with Torquil.’

‘The inspector was ticking him off, Sergeant Driscoll,’ Wallace volunteered.

‘Away with you,’ returned Calum. He leaned conspiratorially on the counter. ‘Actually, he was just telling me that you lot suspect murder. Tell me more, Sergeant Morag!’

Torquil took the call in his office. As soon as he lifted the receiver Superintendent Lumsden snapped; ‘I’ve just come off the phone with your new laird.’

‘You mean the new landowner, Superintendent,’ Torquil interrupted.

‘Don’t mince words with me, McKinnon! The thing is, he’s upset. Not only has one of his employees been involved in a fatal accident, but his dog has been poisoned.’

‘I was aware that he suspects his dog was poisoned, sir.’

‘This is his second dog. He’s feeling angry and thinks there may be a conspiracy against him.’

‘There certainly seems to be bad feeling against him on West Uist. He has hardly endeared himself to the residents of the Wee Kingdom. He has started erecting wind towers before the situation has been clarified.’

‘He’s also fuming about the newspaper and the piece on the news.’

‘I was just having a word with Calum Steele when you telephoned, sir. I understood that you wanted me to telephone you after the meeting.’

‘Well, what was the result?’

‘I think it was almost certainly murder, Superintendent Lumsden. I will fax the report through to you shortly. I think under the circumstances we will have to seal the island off.’

‘Of course. Any suspects.’

‘Too early to say, Superintendent.’

‘Any leads?’

‘A few. They’ll all be in my report.’

There was a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line, and a wince of pain. Torquil imagined the big policeman in his crisp uniform, with his foot bandaged. He felt little sympathy for his superior officer.

‘OK, get on with it. Let me have that report as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I’ll call the laird and tell him that there is now a murder inquiry going on.’

‘Of course, Superintendent. Shall—?’

But before he could finish, there was a click and he once more found himself staring at the dead receiver.

Morag tapped on the door. ‘I gave Calum the official line. We have no information to divulge and we are making inquiries. And I told him to behave.’

Torquil gave a half smile. ‘And we can be sure that he won’t! Ah well, let’s get on with this thing. First of all, we have to seal the island off.’

‘I took the liberty of getting on with that. No more ferries until further notice.’

Torquil smiled. ‘What would I do without you, Morag?’

She returned his smile. ‘The same as I’d do without you, boss. Just don’t think of going! I hate to think what would happen if it was me who had to speak to Superintendent Lumsden.’

After Katrina had left, Nial continued his round of the coast, stopping every now and then to get out of his car and check out the nesting birds on the machair dunes and the cliffs. He mechanically jotted his recordings in a small notebook which he would later transcribe onto his laptop. The truth was that his mind was not fully on the job. Even spotting one of the eagles wing its way towards its high eyrie in the Corlins did not fill him with his usual enthusiasm. Instead, he was preoccupied by the women in his life.

Until a few days ago he had thought that he was madly in love with Megan. Then she had almost gone potty over those dead hedgehogs, and done a Lady Macbeth thing. It had spooked him, he had to admit, and it was then that he had become aware of the emotional door standing ajar. And shining through that opening was Katrina and his feelings for her. He grinned and felt a deep inner warmth as he thought of how rapidly those feelings had heated up until they had reached boiling point, for both of them, culminating in the passionate love-making that they had just enjoyed in the long grass of the machair.

Except that Katrina had emotional baggage. That policeman, Ewan McPhee. She felt guilty about him and She would have to work on that.

He was feeling torn between the two women. Megan or Katrina? He felt bad about his betrayal of Megan, but seeing her freaking out had altered his image of her. That was a weakness on his part, he felt. Yet he couldn’t help it and part of his mind rationalized it by thinking that she had pushed him towards Katrina.

He grinned as he put his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the distant stacks and skerries.

‘West Uist is a beautiful island, all right. And she’s a beautiful woman.’

He had made up his mind.

Danny Reid was perspiring profusely. He was stripped to the waist and a coating of moisture covered his torso as he started heaping soil onto the grave. He hated digging. He hated all manual work if the truth be known, but burying bodies was one thing he hated above all else. And it had been a heavy body.

He had patted the turned earth into a smooth mound and was just replacing the turf that he had cut on top of it when he heard Jock McArdle’s footsteps crunch on the gravel path behind him. He was carrying a decanter of whisky and two glasses.

‘That’s a good job you’ve done, Danny. And it is a good spot for them both. They hadn’t been here long, but Dallas and Tulsa both loved tearing about this old patch of lawn.’ He sighed and Danny Reid noted the tears in his boss’s eyes. ‘We’ll be able to see them from the snooker-room upstairs.’

Danny laid his shovel down and pulled on his T-shirt. ‘Liam was right upset about them.’ He nodded at the whisky glasses in his employer’s hand. ‘Are we going to have a toast to the girls, boss?’

McArdle held out the crystal whisky glasses for Danny to hold while he poured two liberal measures of malt. ‘Aye, but we’re also going to toast Liam. That was Superintendent Lumsden on the phone again. He tells me that Liam was definitely murdered. They’re starting an inquiry.’

Danny stared at Jock McArdle, his hand clenching the glass so that his knuckles went white. ‘The bastards! Who did it, boss?’

Jock McArdle ignored the question for a moment. He raised his glass. ‘To the girls! And to Liam! May we always look after our family.’

They both swilled their drinks back in one.

It has to be one of those bastards on the Wee Kingdom,’ McArdle replied. ‘And I am guessing there is no chance on earth that the local flatfeet will be able to find the buggers. We’re going to have to do it ourselves, Danny.’

‘How’s that, boss.’

McArdle smiled, ‘I’ve got an idea to flush them out.’ He hefted the cut crystal glass in his hand and nodded towards the ornamental fountain in the centre of the lawn. In unison they threw their glasses at the fountain.

Jesmond had been watching from an upstairs landing window. He winced as he saw the hundred-year-old crystal smashing on the fountain.

‘Peasants!’ he exclaimed. He reached for his mobile phone.

The Corlins were shrouded in swirling mist by the time that Alistair McKinley left his jeep at the foot of the cliffs, just at the spot where a few days ago they had found the broken body of his son. He pulled off his shoes and socks and wiggled his feet, flexing the well-developed toes that typified many of the outer islanders – especially those who were descended from the old cliff-scaling families of St Kilda’s. Alistair McKinley had been proud of his heritage and had tried to instil that pride into his son. He had taught him to hunt, to survive in the wild when the weather was at its worst, how to forage for food under rocks and in pools, and he had taught him how to climb.

And that was what had been eating away at him for days. How could Kenneth have fallen? He was as sure-footed as any of the old St Kildans who used to scale the sheer cliffs of Hirta, the larger of the isles in order, to snare the fulvers and take their eggs as they nested. Alistair felt sure that it had been an outside agent that had caused his fall and he intended to investigate for himself. His soul burned to find satisfaction.

‘If your spirit is there, Kenneth – come with me!’

He swung his hunting bag over his shoulder and then swung the shoulder sling of his shotgun bag over his neck and right shoulder so that the bag hung across his back and would not impede him as he climbed.

And he began to scale the almost sheer face, his fingers and toes finding holds and clinging long enough to hoist and pull himself up. Despite his age he climbed with the effortless ease of a monkey.

‘You were a good lad, Kenneth. You didn’t deserve to die so young,’ he whispered to himself, as he swiftly ascended towards the shelf of rock from which it was reported that he had fallen. ‘I know why you were coming here.’

He pulled himself up over the ledge and lay for a few moments waiting for his breathing to settle to normal. And as he lay there, his shrewd eyes pierced the swirling mists until he caught a glimpse of the eyrie some distance away.

‘You devil birds!’ he cursed under his breath, as he pulled off his shotgun bag and drew out his 12-bore. He reached into his hunting bag and drew out two cartridges. Breaking open the gun he slid them into place and snapped it shut.

‘Now we wait until you go hunting,’ he mused. ‘Take your time. I’m in no hurry. I’m a hunter, too. Just like my boy.’

There was the sound of a toe scuffing rock and Alistair spun round, his eyes wide with surprise.

‘You! What are you doing here?’ he challenged.