Deathly Wind

chapter fifteen

The West Uist Volunteer Fire Brigade was scrambled upon receiving Megan’s emergency call. They arrived within ten minutes in their 1995 Convoy van, which had been specially converted into a Light Fire Appliance. With its four-man team, lightweight pump and four fire extinguishers, it was doubtful that they would be able to deal with the inferno that was Gordon MacDonald’s croft.

Torquil had been alerted as a matter of course and arrived moments after them on his Royal Enfield Bullet.

Alistair McKinley and Vincent Gilfillan had heard the crackling flames and had joined Megan Munro by the croft and all three had attempted to douse the flames with buckets of water from the nearby duck pond. It had been clear, however, that their efforts were in vain.

‘Just thank the lord that there was nobody inside,’ said Alistair.

‘That we cannot be sure about, Alistair,’ Torquil said, as they stood back to let Leading Fireman Fraser Mackintosh and his volunteers do the best that they could.

Vincent Gilfillan put a hand on Torquil’s arm. ‘You can’t think that anyone is in there!’

Torquil bit his lip, his brow furrowed with anxiety. ‘I doubt it, but one thing is clear – this is a case of arson. There is no way that the fire could have spread to the wind towers.’

Megan clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘My God! Nial! Where is he?’ She began to scream. And then she was running towards the cottage.

Vincent and Torquil both stopped her and drew her back. Fraser Mackintosh came over. ‘It is no use, Torquil. All we can do is contain it. It will have to burn itself out.’ He pointed at the wind towers. ‘At least those towers are metal and won’t burn. The wood platforms we can probably put out, but it looks as if any equipment on them will have been destroyed.’

Vincent took Megan back to her cottage and the others watched and waited until the fire burned itself down and the roof collapsed. Fortunately, rain began to fall and helped to dowse the fire.

But even so, it was not until the first light of morning that they were able to enter the smouldering building. And it was then that they found the badly charred body of a man.

Doctor Ralph McLelland was doing an early morning call on Agnes Calanish’s latest arrival, after her husband Guthrie, the local postmaster had called him at five o’clock.

‘We’re right sorry, Dr McLelland,’ said Guthrie, ‘it is just that he seemed too young to be having the croup. We were worried that he might need to be admitted to the hospital.’

Ralph McLelland wound up his stethoscope and replaced it in his black Gladstone bag. ‘No, there’s no need,’ he said, with a well-practised smile of reassurance. ‘He’s still getting rid of some of the secretions. His chest is as clear as a whistle. He’ll be just fine where he is.’

The local doctor was well used to night visits, although the islanders by and large did their utmost to deal with problems until a respectable hour. For Guthrie Calanish who had to be up at four every morning to get down to the harbour for the early morning ferry, five o’clock seemed perfectly respectable.

‘There might not be any post for some time, Dr McLelland,’ said Guthrie. ‘The ferries have been cancelled until further notice by order of the police. I was down at the harbour this morning just on the off chance, but nothing is doing.’

‘It is all these deaths, isn’t it, Doctor?’ Agnes suggested, as she redressed the latest addition to the household on a changing mat.

‘I am afraid so, Agnes. But the police will be making good headway.’

‘Do you think so, Dr McLelland?’ Guthrie asked. ‘I heard from Wattie Dowel, the chandler, that they’re pretty much in the dark. Could you—’

Ralph’s mobile phone went off just then, which under normal circumstances would have caused him some alarm, since there was a good chance that it indicated another call and a receding opportunity to take breakfast before morning surgery. But he was well used to Guthrie Calanish’s attempts to get gossip out of him, so he raised his hand for quiet as he answered the call.

He was not expecting it to be a call for him in his capacity as the police surgeon. His eyes widened as Torquil told him that they had found another body on the Wee Kingdom. He replied curtly, ‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’

‘Something urgent?’ Guthrie enquired, a tad too curiously for Ralph’s liking.

He forced a smile. ‘Just another call. A doctor’s life is rarely dull, you know.’

Agnes smiled up at him. ‘Oh no one could ever accuse you of being dull, Dr McLelland.’

Guthrie gave her a withering look and showed Ralph McLelland to the door. He watched the doctor hurry up the path with shoulders hunched to protect his neck from the rain, then he nodded thoughtfully and reached for the telephone.

The rain stopped at about five o’clock. Morag and the Drummond twins had arrived in the branch Ford Escort before Dr Ralph McLelland. Once Leading Fireman Fraser Mackintosh had satisfied himself that the site was safe from further fire, and he and Torquil had checked to make sure that there was no possibility that the charred body showed any signs of life, they had withdrawn to preserve the crime site. For that was what Torquil had deemed it to be, especially after Fraser Mackintosh had informed him that he believed there to be strong evidence of arson caused by some incendiary device.

‘The place was petrol bombed, Piper,’ he had said. ‘The cottage and the wind towers.’ And he had pointed out the shattered fragments of milk bottles and the empty blackened petrol can that lay in a corner of the burned-out sitting-room.

Both Torquil and Morag Driscoll were CID and forensic scene of crime qualified, having both been seconded for training a few years previously. It was the chief constable’s view that the Hebridean Constabulary should be totally self-sufficient and able to deal with all situations, without recourse to the mainland force. Accordingly, together with their ever-willing special constables they had cordoned off the crime site with posts and tape barriers and then donned protective white coverall suits, as dictated by the Serious Crimes Procedure, while they awaited the arrival of Dr Ralph McLelland, the GP-cum-police surgeon.

‘My God, I can guess what you’ve got for me. I caught the characteristic smell half a mile off,’ said Ralph McLelland as he closed the door of his car and came over to them with his Gladstone bag in one hand and his forensic case in the other.

‘It is nasty, Ralph,’ said Torquil. ‘There is a badly burned – unrecognizable – body, in the ruins of the cottage.’

He waited while Ralph opened his forensic case and from it drew out a white coverall suit. ‘An accident?’ Ralph asked suspiciously, as he climbed into his suit and zipped up.

Torquil shook his head. ‘No, it is suspicious all right.’

‘It is a sight that you would be better seeing without having had breakfast,’ Wallace Drummond said.

‘I nearly lost mine,’ Douglas, his brother, confessed.

Ralph nodded sanguinely and picked up his case. Then he followed Torquil and Morag along the designated access path into the ruins to view the body.

It was a grisly sight. The blackened, shrivelled body lay sprawled on the floor near the hearth in what had once been the sitting-room of Gordon MacDonald’s croft. Ralph sucked air between his lips with a pained expression and stood looking about him for somewhere to lay his bag down. Finding a spot he put the forensic case down and placed his Gladstone bag on top. He knelt down, opened the bag and drew out his stethoscope and an ophthalmoscope. Torquil and Morag watched him admiringly as he painstakingly examined the body as best he could without disturbing its position. An absolute stickler for routine and precision in all matters medical and forensic, he checked to ensure that the body was truly dead, and that there was no activity in the heart or nervous system.

‘Dead as a piece of coal,’ he announced, coiling his stethoscope and replacing it and his ophthalmoscope in his Gladstone bag, his bag for the living. Then he reached for his forensic case, which contained the instruments he used for examining the dead.

‘Can you tell us how long, Doctor?’ Torquil asked, his tone moving to the official.

The inspector was rewarded with a look of scorn. ‘You are kidding me, Inspector!’ Ralph replied, with a touch of sarcasm. ‘A body found badly burned in a burned-out ruin of a house! The normal post-mortem changes mean nothing.’

‘Not even the body’s position?’ Torquil persisted.

Ralph allowed a grim smile. ‘Ah, you noticed,’ he said. ‘The fact that he was not curled up is suggestive that the individual was dead before the fire started.’

Morag grimaced. ‘Another murder?’

Torquil looked at her with a troubled frown on his forehead. ‘It looks like it. But we have a more immediate question to ask.’

‘Aye’, said Wallace Drummond. ‘Who the hell is he?’

Ralph looked up at the special constable and shook his head. ‘That is going to be difficult, considering the fact that his features have been burned beyond recognition – except perhaps to someone very close to him. We may have to get hold of dental records.’

Torquil pointed to the blackened body piercings on the lips, ears and eyes. Then to the mouth, which seemed to have fixed into a charred look of agony. ‘What do you make of that?’

And, as Ralph looked, so he noticed for the first time the gold chain about the body’s neck, disappearing into the mouth.

‘It looks like a chain, possibly with a medallion,’ Ralph returned. ‘I will know better once I have done a full examination back at the mortuary. But first do you want to get the scene properly photographed and documented?’

And for the better part of an hour Morag, the Drummonds and Torquil set about recording the scene in notes, photographs and diagrams. While they did so Ralph drove back to Kyleshiffin and swapped his car for the Cottage Hospital Ambulance. On his way back he passed the familiar sight of Calum Steele on his Lambretta scooter. Despite Calum’s wave to stop, Ralph merely acknowledged him with a nod of his head and drove on. He knew all too well that the Chronicle editor had somehow scented out a story, and that he would be trying his damnedest to winkle out whatever information he could. But with a suspected murder on the cards Ralph knew it was best to leave that to the official force.

Torquil was busy in the ruins, but heard the tell-tale Lambretta engine approaching.

‘Shall I intercept the wee man himself?’ Douglas Drummond asked.

Torquil sighed. ‘No, but thank you for the offer, Douglas. It would be as well to make this official and I need to make sure that he doesn’t do his usual thing and expound his own theories to the public rather than the official line.’

‘Good luck, boss,’ Morag murmured, as she continued making a detailed diagram of the charred cottage ruin.

‘Latha math, Good morning, Inspector McKinnon,’ Calum greeted from the other side of the tape barrier. ‘Arson attack, is it? Is somebody dead?’

‘What makes you ask those questions, Calum?’

The newspaperman gestured to the burned-out ruins and the blackened wind towers. ‘A cottage can catch fire, but I cannot see how fire would jump all that distance to catch those towers. And this is Gordon MacDonald’s cottage, there was no one in here, was there? Those windmill riggers were using it I know, but they left the island on—’

‘So why do you ask about a death? How did you get wind of this, Calum?’

Calum tapped the side of his nose. ‘Let’s just say that as a journalist I have my sources. And I passed Dr McLelland on my way here, which rather implies that he was coming here on professional business. All that and the fact that he wouldn’t stop when he passed me, meant that he had information that he didn’t want to divulge.’ He grinned. ‘And you are all wearing those official white dungaree suits. So what’s up, Piper? Tell your old schoolmate Calum.’

Torquil shook his head good humouredly. ‘All right, Calum. This is the official statement, but don’t go passing it on with any of your journalistic embellishments.’

‘No, no, you can depend on me. I am a responsible journalist and there will be no poetic licence excuse from me. Just the facts.’

‘And the facts are that the West Uist division of the Hebridean Constabulary are investigating a house fire on the Wee Kingdom, and the discovery of a badly burned body in the burned-out ruins of the cottage.’

Calum had clicked on the Dictaphone in his top pocket and for effect also jotted notes in his spiral-bound notebook. His eyebrows rose and he asked quizzically, ‘Murder?’

‘The fire and the death are being treated as suspicious,’ Torquil replied.

Calum nodded sagely and wrote ‘suspicious’ in capital letters and underlined it emphatically. In his mind’s eye he already saw the headline he would use for the piece. And more immediately, how he was going to deliver it by phone to Kirstie Macroon, the pretty red-headed newsreader with pert breasts that he frequently fantasized about, and whose voice melted his insides. Then, realizing that his mind was straying, he cleared his throat.

‘The cause of death?’

‘We are awaiting the post-mortem report. And that will be some time, since we have yet to remove the remains from the major incident scene.’

Calum leaned over and craned his neck to try to get a better view. Screwing up his eyes he could see the Drummond twins and Morag Driscoll inside, but that was all. ‘And who is it?’

‘We have not identified the body yet, Calum.’

‘Any chance of a picture?’ Calum asked, hopefully.

‘Now you are pushing your luck, Calum. After that last stunt of yours down by the causeway?’

Calum was about to protest, but the noise of the West Uist ambulance crunching up the drive halted the words before he had formed them. ‘Ah the doctor, maybe I’ll—’

‘Maybe you will leave Dr McLelland to get on with his police surgeon duties, Calum. And that isn’t a request, by the way.’

Ralph McLelland got out of the ambulance and came towards them with a pile of plastic bags and a folded-up body bag. ‘Morning, Calum,’ he said as he passed. ‘I am sorry that I could not stop earlier, but I had urgent work to be doing. Excuse me.’ And he passed back along the designated access path. Once inside the burned ruin he carefully put plastic bags on the head, hands and feet of the body to ensure that no important pieces of evidence were lost, before he and a very green-looking Wallace Drummond lifted the body and placed it in a plastic body bag before gingerly moving it into the ambulance.

Torquil jotted down in his notebook, ‘Unidentified body of man, badly burned, removed from the crime scene at 06.25 hours. Doctor McLelland, police surgeon will perform post-mortem as soon as possible.’

Douglas Drummond was looking over his superior officer’s shoulder as he wrote. He prodded Torquil in the back. ‘Is that official jargon, meaning, after the doctor has had his breakfast?’

His brother joined them as Ralph McLelland drove off in the converted ambulance. He was still looking green about the gills. ‘Which is more than I can say for me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat anything again.’

Calum Steele grinned at them. ‘What’s that? Two strapping big hulks like you feeling a bit squeamish. What is the island coming to?’

And before they could retort, as they usually did, Calum had left them with a wave as he ran over to his Lambretta.

‘Is that what they mean about journalists following ambulances?’ Wallace asked.

Jesmond the Kyleshiffin Castle butler tapped on Jock McArdle’s door at seven o’clock and received a firm and colourful rebuke for disturbing his employer’s repose. Nevertheless, he persisted with a further knock, adding the words, ‘An emergency call from the local constabulary, sir.’

There was a rustling noise from the other side of the door, the tread of bare feet then the bedroom door was hauled open.

Jesmond held out the cordless phone. ‘Inspector McKinnon would like to talk to you, sir. He says it is urgent.’

Jock McArdle frowned and grabbed the phone. He snapped his name into the mouthpiece, then stood listening, his expression growing grimmer by the second. ‘I’m on my way!’

‘A problem, sir?’ Jesmond queried, as dexterously he caught the phone again.

‘You could say that! This could be the start of the next bloody war!’

And, as Jesmond caught the murderous look into his employer’s eyes before the door was slammed shut, he knew that if there was a war involving Jock McArdle, no prisoners would be taken!

The Padre had been roused from a fitful sleep by the telephone at his bedside. Groggily, he reached for the receiver and mechanically answered, ‘St Ninian’s Manse.’

He heard harsh breathing on the other end of the line.

‘Hello, St Ninian’s Manse,’ he repeated. ‘This is Lachlan McKinnon here. Can I help you?’

No one said anything. All he could hear was the harsh breathing. Then there was a rasping laugh and the line went dead.

‘Now who on earth could that be?’ he asked himself, reaching for his horn-rimmed spectacles in the dark so that he could see the luminous hands on the clock.

It was just after seven. He sighed, then threw back the blankets and got up. As he pulled on his dressing-gown and prepared to go over to his little praying stool he couldn’t but help feeling that the phone call held some significance.

Torquil led McArdle through to the mortuary suite and tapped on the outer door. Through the frosted glass panels they saw the dim green-gowned shape of Dr Ralph McLelland approach and unlock the door.

‘This way please, gentlemen,’ said Ralph, leading the way through a swing door to the white tiled mortuary where a plastic sheet covered a body.

‘We have reason to believe that this could be the body of a Daniel Reid, lately from Bearsden in Glasgow and currently residing at Kyleshiffin Castle.’ Torquil stated. ‘I am afraid that the body has been very badly burned, almost incinerated. Do you feel that you would be able to identify the body?’

McArdle’s face was pale and there was a noticeable patina of perspiration on his brow, but he nodded. ‘If it is Danny, I’ll know him.’

Torquil nodded to Ralph who slowly pulled back the sheet to reveal the head and neck of the corpse.

McArdle looked shocked, colour draining even more than before. He swallowed hard, his expression pained. ‘Yes. I am pretty sure that is my boy.’ Then he spotted the chain around the neck and the ends disappearing into the clenched mouth. ‘That’s his medallion, right enough! Where was he? How did it happen?’

While Ralph pulled the sheet back Torquil gestured for McArdle to follow him. ‘I think we should go up to the station and have a talk, Mr McArdle. There are a number of questions that you will want to ask and also a whole lot that I need to ask you.’

‘You’re bloody well right there! And I’m going to have someone’s head for this!’

Torquil eyed the new laird dispassionately. ‘As I said, we’ll have a talk. But just so long as you know, Mr McArdle, this is police business now. We will deal with this and there will be no head-taking of any sort on my island.’

Jock McArdle pulled out his car keys and stomped down the corridor. ‘We’ll see, Inspector. I’ll meet you at your station.’

Ralph McLelland came out of the mortuary suite, bundling up his green gown. He deposited it in the wicker basket outside and reached for his jacket which was hanging on the peg above. ‘I’m just away for a spot of breakfast, Torquil, and then I’ll get on with the post-mortem. Is that OK?’

Torquil nodded assent. ‘You must have a cast-iron stomach, Ralph.’

‘Aye,’ was the police surgeon’s only reply.

‘What do you mean, girlie?’ Jock McArdle demanded of Morag. ‘There are no ferries?’

Torquil heard the question as he came in the Kyleshiffin police station front door, in time to see Jock McArdle slam a fist down on the counter.

‘I have just told you, Mr McArdle,’ Morag returned, looking completely unflustered. ‘All ferries to and from the island have been cancelled until further notice. The island has been sealed off pending investigations.’

‘But I need to get some of my boys up here from Glasgow.’

Torquil intervened. ‘As my sergeant just told you, Mr McArdle, there will be no comings and goings until our investigations have been completed. And remember what I said at the hospital: this is a police matter, not a personal one.’

‘Whoever killed my boys made it personal.’

‘And we will find whoever did it,’ Torquil said, and lifting the counter flap he held it open. ‘We’ll continue this in my office, I think.’

Ralph McLelland had gone straight to Fingal’s Cave, the café on Harbour Street that boasted the fastest, biggest and cheapest breakfast in town. He was in a hurry and felt in need of a good fry-up before he began his forensic work. He was sitting down enjoying a mug of sweet tea when the tinkly bell at the back of the café door heralded another customer.

‘Ah, Dr McLelland,’ said Calum Steele, picking up a menu. ‘Mind if I join you?’

‘Ah, Calum,’ Ralph returned with a long suffering smile. ‘Of course not. Grab a seat.’

Morag glanced at her watch and rubbed her eyes. She could hardly believe that it was still only eight o’clock. So much had happened since she received the call from Torquil and there had been so much to do. Before Torquil had put a call through to Dunshiffin Castle they had taken a few minutes in the Incident Room to add a new box with the name Danny Reid, followed by a question mark. The other information that Morag had obtained from her questioning of Megan Munro had been added and they had agreed that they needed to follow up about Nial Urquart’s involvement in the animal rights movement, and about Jock McArdle’s interests in a company that supplied animals to laboratories involved in research. Now that Torquil was busy interviewing Jock McArdle, she switched on her computer and logged onto the internet.

After half an hour she had printed out several sheets of paper. Then rising she went through to make tea. A few minutes later, as she sat down to read the printed sheets, her eyes opened wider as she read through them.

‘Torquil will certainly be interested in these,’ she mused.