Flotsam and Jetsam

EIGHT

Ewan made a huge pot of tea and distributed mugs to the team as they sat around the rest room listening to Torquil’s news.

‘Ralph McLelland is still conducting tests, but it is conclusive enough already to know that there has been foul play.’

Morag stared at him in disbelief. ‘So it is definitely murder? No mistake?’

‘Foul play, Morag,’ said Torquil as he absently stroked Crusoe who was lying contentedly at his feet. ‘It looks like murder, but that is not absolutely certain. What is certain is that he didn’t die on Kyleshiffin moor. His body was dumped there.’

‘Aye, I see what you mean,’ said Wallace. ‘Why would someone move the body if he hadn’t been murdered?’

‘But where was he killed?’ Douglas asked. ‘And why was he moved?’

‘That’s what we need to find out,’ said Torquil. ‘But so far we know next to nothing about him, apart from the fact that he was an entomologist here studying midges.’

‘He was a drinker,’ said Ewan. ‘He ruined that TV show, Flotsam & Jetsam, and he spent time in the cell.’ He patted Morag’s shoulder. ‘And if it is murder, then it lets all of us off the hook.’

‘Maybe, Ewan,’ Torquil replied. ‘But he would have been safe while we held him. Someone may have been waiting for him to be discharged.’

Ewan beetled his brows. ‘Och, but we didn’t know that. Surely the Press won’t keep up that tack?’

‘By the Press, did you mean Calum Steele?’ Wallace asked. ‘That wee toad has shown that he’d do anything for a story.’

‘So are you going to tell him, boss?’ Douglas asked.

‘I haven’t thought about that yet,’ Torquil replied. He bit his lower lip. ‘The first person I need to talk to is our esteemed Superintendent Lumsden. I tried to ring him last night after I found out from Ralph, but his wife said that he was out and she had no way of getting a message to him. She was all hush-hush about it. She said she was expecting him this morning at nine.’

Morag shook her head. ‘That man is not right in the head, I am thinking. He wants to know all that is happening, but he makes himself unavailable when something important comes up. It’s almost as if he knows how to make matters difficult for us.’

‘For me, you mean, Morag,’ Torquil corrected with a wry grin. ‘It occurred to me as well, but then I thought that’s just me being paranoid. How could he know anything about this? No, I’ll ring him in a minute and then we’ll go through the backlog of cases that need looking at, decide what can be held and divvy out the tasks to get this investigation on the road.’

He got up and headed towards his office. ‘I’ll get this over with now. Ewan, you get the case book and Morag can start going through it while I fill Superintendent Lumsden in.’

Cora was amazed at the speed with which Calum seemed to recover.

‘I told you, it was something I ate,’ he explained, as he tucked into a cold mutton pie. ‘I just needed to pump up the stomach contents and I knew I’d be fine.’

‘But why are you filling it up with that disgusting thing? Don’t you feel sick?’

‘Not now,’ Calum returned, wiping a trickle of cold grease from his chin then taking a hefty gulp of tea. ‘Cora, you have a lot to learn about journalism, but stick with me and I’ll teach you all you need to know. You may not think it, but I know exactly how to handle my stomach and what is good for it. Now, as for you and all that veggie stuff, do you really—?’

His mobile phone went off and he promptly answered it. ‘Hello, yes, Calum Steele speaking.’

Cora watched as his eyes turned into big round orbs to mirror the shape of his spectacles. ‘Sandy! Great to hear from you. Of course, one o’clock would be terrific. Excellent, I’ll see you there.’ He went silent for a moment, nodded his head, and then winked at her. ‘Wee Hughie asked that?’

He made a thumbs-up sign at her. ‘Oh I’ll pass that message on to her, but I can’t give out her phone – ethics, you know. But between us, I think she’d be delighted to see him. Tell him she’ll be there.’

Cora’s eyes went wild and she clenched her fists at him.

‘OK, Sandy. I’ll see you here at one o’clock and I’ll pass that message on to Cora.’

He snapped his phone shut and tossed it on to the desk before taking another mouthful of pie. ‘See, it’s all working out smoothly, Cora. Sandy King is going to come here for an interview with me at one.’

‘I heard that. And what was that about me? Me and that ape, Wee Hughie? What did you mean I’d be delighted to see him.’

‘Apparently he’s smitten. Couldn’t stop talking about you last night. He’s asked that you meet him at one o’clock in the Commercial Hotel for a lunchtime drink.’

‘Oh Calum!’

‘What? Our plan worked, didn’t it?’ He winked. ‘Just like I thought it would. Now, look, I’m going to follow up on Sandy King and why he is here, and you are going to have lunch and find out as much as you can about what this hoodlum and his boss are doing on West Uist.’

‘But wouldn’t it be better if I did the Sandy King investigation?’ Cora asked pleadingly.

Calum winked at her over the rim of his mug. ‘Ah, the trouble is, Wee Hughie doesn’t fancy me.’

‘Well, Superintendent Lumsden was a delight, as usual,’ Torquil said as he returned to the rest room after his phone conversation with his superior officer.

‘He wasn’t pleased, was he?’ Morag asked, rhetorically.

‘A bit less than usual,’ Torquil returned. ‘He wants to be kept in the loop and he wants results yesterday.’ He clapped his hands. ‘So come on, folks, let’s get started. First of all, let’s have a run down on what we have on the book.’

Morag quickly ran through the cases, giving a thumbnail description of each and what stage each case was at. She and Ewan added about their respective chats with Annie McConville.

‘So really,’ she said at last, ‘the way I see it, we have seven burglaries of assorted antiques, family knick-knacks, a couple of computer thefts, then there was the break-in at the Chronicle. And, of course, there is this dog and cat business.’

At the mention of this Crusoe momentarily lifted his head and wagged his tail a few times before lying down again and closing his eyes.

‘He’s just showing that he’s on the ball,’ Torquil grinned. ‘But although this murder investigation must take priority, we can’t let these other things slip.’ He turned to the big constable.

‘Ewan, you can do a bit of following up on the burglaries to show that we’ve made a start and are taking home crime seriously.’

‘Aye that’s it, Torquil. Give the big lad a bit of air. He fairly likes gadding about the island on his mum’s old Nippy moped,’ Wallace teased.

‘I’ll give you gadding about, Wallace Drummond,’ Ewan retorted.

‘Do you want us to look into this cat and dog affair then, boss?’ Douglas asked.

Torquil considered for a moment then shook his head. ‘No, I think that Crusoe and I will take a closer look at that when we have the time. It feels personal ever since he came to live with us.’

‘So it’s the Chronicle case then?’

Again Torquil shook his head. ‘No, I started that and I’ll keep it under my wing, too. But we’ll let him stew a little bit, I think.’ Then he grinned. ‘It will be good for him. Besides, I have another idea to teach the wee man a lesson.’ He clapped his hands and stood up abruptly. ‘In fact, no time like the present. I’ll just pop through to my office for a couple of minutes, and then we’ll pool all the information we have about Dr Dent’s murder. Ewan, get the whiteboard ready, will you?’

Ewan wheeled the whiteboard that they used for major cases to the end of the room while the twins moved the table tennis table that they used for occasional recreation against the wall. Morag got out fresh ink markers and laid out paper and pencils for note making. By the time they had the room ready for the meeting Torquil had come back rubbing his hands with glee. Crusoe trotted loyally at his heels.

‘You look pleased, boss,’ said Douglas.

‘Fairly. Let’s just say that phase one has gone smoothly. Now let’s get cracking.’

Torquil picked up a marker and went to the whiteboard. In the middle he wrote DR DIGBY DENT and surrounded it with a circle. Then he added underneath: MURDERED, HEAD INJURY, DROWNED.

And underneath that BODY BEEN MOVED.

‘OK, brainstorming time. What do we know?’

‘He was the midge man,’ said Morag.

‘He was rude,’ added Ewan.

‘He got drunk on that TV show,’ Douglas volunteered.

Wallace glanced at Morag, and then said, ‘He was arrested and held here until he sobered up.’

‘I found him up on the moor,’ Ewan said mournfully, his face going pale at the thought. ‘My hammer was just inches from his head and I thought I had killed him.’

Torquil held up his hand. ‘OK, that’s enough now. Let me get this all down.’

He began making one line notes of all the suggestions so far under the name of Dr Dent, then to the left he wrote FLOTSAM & JETSAM and enclosed it in a square. Underneath it he wrote the names Fergie and Chrissie and circled each.

‘He was rude, as Ewan says. And he came in here to complain about Bruce McNab and his fishing and hunting clients.’

To the right of Dr Dent’s name he wrote FISHING PARTY, put it in a square, and then underneath drew four lines. Under the first he wrote Bruce McNab, circled it, under the second added Sandy King and circled it as well.

‘Who were the others, Morag?’

Morag checked her notes of the meeting she had. ‘Mr Dan Farquarson and Hugh Thompson. They called Thompson Wee Hughie, which is a bit of a misnomer, since he’s built like a proverbial.’

Torquil added the names and circled them, adding Morag’s details underneath. He looked over at her and noticed the blush that had crept into her cheeks. ‘Are you all right, Morag? You look flushed.’

‘Ah, that’s love, boss,’ said Douglas. ‘Tell him, Morag.’

‘Tell me what?’ Torquil asked.

‘I – er – I have been asked out for a drink by Sandy King. Is that a problem, do you think?’

Torquil stared at her for a moment then shrugged. ‘I don’t see any problem, except he is on this board.’

‘But he’s not a suspect, is he, Torquil?’ Wallace queried.

‘We haven’t got as far as making anyone a suspect, Wallace. But we just need to bear this in mind.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘Who knows? It might even be useful.’

He turned his attention to the board again. ‘It isn’t a lot to go on, is it? We’ll need to check things out with the University of the Highlands.’ And so saying he added U of H to the notes underneath the name of Dr Dent.

‘Which reminds me,’ he said after a moment, ‘the Reverend Kenneth Canfield is on the island at the moment. He’s one of Lachlan’s golfing chums. He is the chaplain at the university.’ He added his name and circled it. ‘I’ll have a word with Lachlan and see if he knows anything of interest.’

‘Did Dr Dent have any relatives?’ Morag asked.

‘Not that I know of. Ralph McLelland contacted his GP and as far as they know he was a man on his own. No parents, no siblings, no cousins.’

‘So where do we go from here, boss?’ Wallace asked.

‘We gather as much information as we can. So let’s divvy things up. First we need to find out all that we can about Dent. I think that will mean a bit of phoning about. Morag that’s your forte, isn’t it?’

Morag pouted. ‘How did I guess you were going to say that?’

‘You know me, I think,’ Torquil replied. ‘Just as Wallace and Douglas know what I’m going to ask them to do.’ He looked expectantly at them.

‘It will be the heavy job,’ Wallace replied.

‘Or the dirtiest job,’ Douglas added. ‘But go on, boss, tell us. We’re up for anything.’

‘It’s not dirty and shouldn’t be hard either,’ Torquil returned. ‘I need you lads to go and check out Dent’s cottage. We just need to know that the place is secure.’

‘We can do that,’ Wallace said. ‘But what about Sherlock Holmes over there?’ he said, grinning at Ewan. ‘Isn’t he going to be given something to test his mettle?’

‘I’ll test your mettle, you long drip of—’

‘Ewan! Don’t rise to the bait,’ Torquil said calmly. ‘You’ve got an important series of jobs to do.’

‘Name it Torquil. I am keen to get whoever did this thing.’

‘It isn’t the Dr Dent case, Ewan. As I said, I want you to go and make a start with these burglaries. Then once we’ve got things up and running and we know a bit more about Dr Dent then you can come on board with the murder investigation.’

Ewan’s expression showed his disappointment, but he straightened. ‘Of course, sir. Whatever you say.’

‘And what are you going to do, Torquil?’ Morag asked.

Torquil reached down and scratched Crusoe’s head. ‘I am going to make a start on this cat and dog business. I am going to see Annie McConville first, then I am going to see if I can catch up on Uncle Lachlan to see if I can get hold of the Reverend Kenneth Canfield.’

He glanced at his watch. ‘Let’s aim to meet back here at lunch, and then we’ll see where we go next.’

Ewan made his way along Harbour Street on Nippy. The street was busy with both the market-stalls on the sea-wall side and the multi-coloured shops doing a brisk trade.

He was feeling a little peeved at being kept out of the murder investigation, especially since the Drummond twins had been given a job that he felt he, as the regular constable, should have been given.

‘Och! And they are just special constables,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Sometimes I think Torquil goes a bit easy on them because of that.’

But in a way he was pleased to have been given the other task. After all, he knew that despite his size he had a squeamish side and the memory of finding Dr Dent’s body face down in the bog-pool had kept coming back to him.

‘That cheeky streak of nonsense called me Sherlock Holmes! They think they are so much smarter than me. Well, I’ll show them. I’m going to solve some of these burglaries and then I’ll make them laugh on the other side of their faces.’

He opened up the throttle and peddled hard to give the moped more power to get up the hill.

‘We’ll start with old Mrs Rogerson at Aberstyle Farm. She sounded upset at the theft of her grandfather’s tobacco tin collection.’

He took the road that skirted Kyleshiffin moor and breathed deeply, enjoying the salty, peaty air. Then he swerved when he saw the dark haze rising from bushes at the side of the road.

‘Blasted midges!’ he cursed.

He did not notice the glint of sun on the lenses of a pair of binoculars that were trained on him.

Annie McConville always amazed Torquil. Although she was in her late seventies she seemed to thrive on hard work and was always on the go. Her animal sanctuary was famous throughout the islands and she was regarded as something of a local celebrity.

She was scuttling about with a wheelbarrow of straw, busily cleaning out the cat cages in the outhouses while Torquil followed her. Crusoe was tagging along behind him on his lead, while Zimba her German shepherd and Sheila her West Highland terrier lay on the floor wagging their tails.

‘So how many strays have you actually had recently, Annie?’

Annie turned and straightened. ‘Too many by far. Six dogs and three cats. I can’t understand it. We’ve never really had a problem on the island before.’ She scowled. ‘No matter what that scunner Rab McNeish may say.’

‘Oh, what does Rab say?’

‘You know very well, Inspector McKinnon. The man is not right in the head. He has a thing about germs. He has been spreading malicious rumours about me and my dogs. He thinks that whenever a dog fouls any patch of ground it is me and one of my animals that is at fault.’

Torquil nodded. ‘I was aware that he had mentioned some such thing.’

Annie waved a brush under his nose and Torquil stepped back adroitly.

‘Well, he will not do it again. I told him myself this morning at the station.’

‘You were at the station this morning?’

‘Goodness me! Do those folk that you work with not tell you anything? I was in telling Ewan McPhee an important piece of information. I am surprised that he hasn’t told you.’

‘Well, we – er – have a rather important investigation on at the moment, Annie.’

‘Oh, and what sort of investigation is more important than the welfare of these waifs and strays?’

‘I am not at liberty to say just at this moment, Annie. But what was this information?’

‘It was about sawing bones. None of the stray dogs likes it.’

‘I don’t follow you.’

Annie tut-tutted. ‘Well, look, the easiest thing is for me to show you. Come through to the kitchen.’

And she led the way to another outhouse which had been tiled inside so that it was clinically clean. She went and scrubbed her hands, then opened a fridge freezer and took out a couple of marrow bones. She deposited them on a wooden chopping board on a strong bench.

‘We’ll just leave the door open. They’ll all hear well enough.’

And producing a long saw she started sawing one of the bones.

Almost immediately a chorus of howls and yelps rang out from the cages in the lower outhouses.

‘They don’t like it, you see,’ Annie said. ‘What do you make of that, Inspector McKinnon?’

‘Not a lot, Annie,’ Torquil replied. ‘Zimba and Sheila are barking away as well. Maybe it is just something that dogs don’t like.’

‘Och, will you not listen properly? Zimba and Sheila are telling the others to hold their wheesht. They are the seniors, you see. All the others are howling in distress. They don’t like it. Listen now, I’ll do it again.’

And as if on cue the yelping and howling started up again as soon as the rasping of metal on bone rang out.

This time Torquil noticed that Crusoe was also whimpering. Not only that, but he was shaking, as if with fear.

‘Goodness, Annie, you are right. Just look at Crusoe here.’ He knelt down and stroked the dog’s head.

‘Poor thing,’ she said, kneeling as well. And at her touch, her almost mystical touch with animals, Crusoe calmed down. He looked at her with his ears tucked back and licked her outstretched hand.

‘It is clear to me, Inspector. All of these poor animals have been scared. Mistreated they have been.’

‘I will find out who did this, Annie,’ Torquil vowed. ‘It is sounding as if it is one person who is at the bottom of it. Whoever it was tried to murder Crusoe here.’

And he recounted about how he had found Crusoe at St Ninian’s Cave, lashed to a piece of timber.

‘Could he have been thrown from a boat, do you think?’ Annie asked.

‘I have no idea, actually. It could have been from a boat or he could have been tossed in somewhere along that coast and drifted.’

Annie bit her lip as she thought. ‘You might do worse than have a word with Guthrie Lovat. He must know more than anyone about the way flotsam and jetsam drift on to the beaches round here.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘If he will let you in to see him that is.’

‘I don’t think I have ever actually talked to him,’ Torquil mused.

‘Aye, well, he keeps himself to himself. And he’s not an animal lover, that I can tell you.’

‘Really?’

‘Aye, really. Years ago before he had made his money and bought that strip of beach at Half Moon Cove, I used to walk the dogs there. They used to love to have a run over the sands. But that Guthrie Lovat saw us one time and started pelting the dogs with stones. I gave him a good ticking off.’

Torquil stood up. ‘Thank you for that, Annie. I’ll certainly consider it. It’s probably time that I got to know our famous beachcombing artist.’

Wallace and Douglas drove up the old dirt track towards Dr Dent’s cottage. Wallace drew their battered pick-up truck to a halt just before the wooden gates beyond which Dr Dent’s aged Land Rover was parked.

‘It’s a bit weird calling at the house of a dead man,’ Wallace remarked.

‘Especially when it looks like he was murdered,’ Douglas agreed.

They let themselves through the wooden gate and crunched up the gravel drive.

‘Dr Dent doesn’t seem to have been one for gardening then,’ Douglas said, pointing to the overgrown garden with knee high grass and weeds.

Wallace shrugged. ‘Why would he be? It isn’t as if he owned the place. Morag says it was rented on his behalf by the University of the Highlands.’

‘You can hardly see that pond for all the grass,’ Douglas replied with a nod towards a fish pond with several large goldfish visible under a surface carpet of water lily leaves.

The front door was locked and the windows were all closed.

‘Let’s check the back,’ Douglas suggested, leading the way.

It only took a few moments to do a circuit of the cottage.

‘It seems secure enough,’ Douglas pointed out as he shielded his eyes and peered through a front window. ‘But it’s a bit of a mess inside.’

‘I see what you mean,’ his brother agreed, as he joined him at the sill and looked in.

Through the glass they saw that the front room had been arranged as a sort of laboratory. There were various electronic gadgets and an assortment of glass apparatus stacked on a table, with a microscope and an array of chemical bottles and fixatives. It seemed untidy to say the least.

A bookcase against a back wall looked as if someone had pulled every book out of it and thrown them higgledy-piggledy on the settee.

‘Look at that great wet area over by that box thing.’

‘That’s not a box, Douglas,’ Wallace corrected. ‘It’s some sort of tank with pipes attached to it.’

The twins looked at each other.

‘Are you thinking what I am thinking, Wallace?’

Wallace swallowed hard and nodded. ‘I think so. I don’t know why he would have a tank of water in his front room, but he was a scientist. An odd one at that! But Dr Ralph McLelland said he was drowned, but not where he was found on the moor.’

‘We’d better let Torquil know pretty damned quick. He might just have been murdered in his own cottage.’

Morag had been on the telephone non-stop since the others had gone off on their various tasks.

First she telephoned Ralph McLelland and ascertained what personal effects of Dr Dent’s he had in his possession. And, of course, she asked him for a resume of his findings, so that she could start organizing the case file.

Calling the University of the Highlands had resulted in her being directed to various people including the university chancellor, the head of the department of biological sciences and then to the HR department. All of them had been shocked to hear of Dr Dent’s death, but were even more shocked to discover that the police thought that his death was suspicious.

She talked with Jenny Protheroe, the HR director, who gave her as much information as they had on Dent. That merely amounted to a run through his curriculum vitae, which she agreed to scan and send over by email, and an acknowledgement that he was alone in the world with no known relatives.

‘I can’t say that I liked the man,’ Jenny confessed. ‘He had a reputation, you see.’

‘A reputation? What sort of reputation, Jenny? Any information could be relevant.’

There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘He was a Lothario.’

‘A Lothario? You mean he liked the ladies?’

‘And how! Staff, students, anyone in a skirt, if you know what I mean.’

Morag noted the tone of bitterness in her voice and wondered whether Jenny Protheroe, director of HR at the university had been targeted at some stage.

‘Was he in a relationship recently, do you know?’

‘Not that I know of. Women were wary of him ever since last year. One of his students, Heather McQueen drowned when she was doing post graduate work with him on West Uist.’

‘Ah, of course. A tragedy.’

‘There were rumours about an improper relationship.’

‘But nothing like that came out at the Fatal Accident Inquiry,’ Morag remarked.

‘Well, it wouldn’t, would it?’

Morag made careful notes of the conversation and then made a list of bullet points to tell Torquil.

She was just about to phone Ewan to ask him to collect Dr Dent’s effects from the mortuary when she opened her diary and she saw Sandy King’s card inside the cover. She felt her cheeks warm and she smiled.

Before she knew what she was doing she had dialled his number. The call was answered even before she had time to change her mind.

‘Sandy King here.’

‘Oh – er – it’s Morag Driscoll.’

‘Hi, Morag, I am glad you rang. When are you free?’

‘It’s not so easy to say, er – Mr King, you see—’

‘My name is Sandy.’ She noticed the amusement in his voice.

‘Sorry – Sandy! It’s the police training. The formality, I mean.’

‘I was kind of hoping that I could get behind that. Find the informal Morag.’

Morag’s hand went to her hair and she started twirling a strand. Goodness, what am I doing here, she thought? I’m like a wee girl. I should just pull the plug before this gets out of hand.

‘Maybe you can,’ she heard herself say. She hesitated and then added, ‘I have to tell you that I was married. I am a widow.’

‘So I believe.’

‘And I have three kids.’

‘I know. I found that out for myself.’

‘And you still—?’

‘I really want to meet up with you, Morag. So, when can we fix it?’

She paused for a moment, then: ‘Tonight at eight. I’ll get my sister to baby-sit. Meet me at Arbuckle’s; it’s a little wine bar-cum-restaurant just off Deuglie Street which you’ll find at the top of Harbour Street. We can get a glass of wine or a beer.’

‘A meal sounds good to me. Eight o’clock it is. I can’t wait. Bye, Morag.’

‘Bye – Sandy.’

Morag stared at her mobile in disbelief. Was it true? Was she really going on a date with Sandy King, The Net-breaker?

She pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

Then her phone went. It was Wallace Drummond with news that brought her back to earth with a crash.

Ewan had taken details from Alice Rogerson at Aberstyle Farm. She had discovered the burglary herself two mornings previously when she came in from helping her husband with the morning milking. It had been a professional job, clinically performed.

‘They must have known precisely when we were out of the house,’ she told him. ‘And they took my grandfather’s collection of tobacco tins, including one that he had when he was in the trenches on the Somme. That was what hurt most. It was sentimental, you see.’

And apart from that they had taken all of her jewellery and her husband’s Omega watch.

After that he had ridden across to Strathcombe, a hamlet of five crofts where three of them had been burgled the night before. And, as in the Rogerson case, they had been niftily done when the owners were all out tending to their crofts.

‘Professionals are at work here,’ Ewan mused as he pedalled into action. ‘That strikes me that they are not local folk then. No one here on West Uist would have any idea about this burgling. I’ll get the others interviewed then get back and see if I can’t see some pattern that will lead me to the culprit.’

He glanced at his watch and decided the best route towards the next case, which was over on the west of the island.

‘Och it will be best to go past Sharkey’s Boot, I am thinking.’ Then he remembered that Rab McNeish lived on Sharkey’s Boot and he had been about to complain of a theft, until he had been scared away by Annie McConville.

‘Torquil is always going on to me about taking initiative. Well, maybe this is just the sort of thing he meant. Maybe Rab McNeish would like me to investigate his theft. He said it was at his house. Antiques!’

He patted the moped’s handlebars. ‘Come on, Nippy, let’s show that initiative. Sharkey’s Boot it is and McNeish’s half-complaint about burglary.’

He had only gone a quarter of a mile when his phone went and he had to stop to answer it.

It was Morag.

‘Ewan, we need you back right away.’

‘But Morag, I think—’

‘And on your way, stop at the mortuary and get a bag from Dr McLelland. He’s expecting you.’

‘But Morag, do you—?’

‘Be quick, Ewan, there’s a pet. Torquil wants me to meet him and the twins at Dr Dent’s cottage, so I need you to look after the station.’

Torquil tied Crusoe to the drain pipe then unlocked the front door with the key found among Dr Dent’s possessions. He patted the dog then stood and turned to the others.

‘Did Ralph say anything else when you phoned him?’ he asked Morag.

‘Just to take water specimens from this tank that the boys saw and any other possible places where he could have been drowned.’

‘In that case, don’t forget the garden pond there,’ suggested Wallace.

Torquil pushed the door open and gingerly stepped inside, carefully examining the floor for any signs of anything unusual.

‘There are scuff marks on the carpet,’ he pointed out. ‘Take care as you come in, folks, and walk round them. Morag you’d better photograph them.’

‘I have all the forensic gear with me, boss. I’ll start taking shots as soon as you say so.’

Torquil nodded and went into the front room that had indeed been decked out as a laboratory. In an umbrella stand were a series of sticks, canes and the broken gossamer insect net that he himself remembered Dr Dent complaining about.

‘Someone has been in here, right enough. They’ve been through his books,’ said Torquil. Then he pointed towards a desk that was littered with papers, journals and print-outs. ‘And it looks as if his paperwork has had a bit of a going through. The question is, was it before or after he was murdered?’

‘I don’t like the atmosphere in this room,’ Douglas said with a shiver. ‘It has an evil feel to it.’

‘And it sounds as if there is running water somewhere,’ added Wallace.

Torquil crossed to the tank and bent to take a closer look at it.

‘Well, this is the sound of running water. There’s a pump that is keeping water flowing. Look there is one pipe coming in and presumably one flowing out. What on earth can this be here for?’

‘Something to do with his midge studies?’ Morag suggested.

‘Maybe,’ Torquil replied and followed the pipes out of a far door that led into a hall.

‘Right enough,’ he said a moment later. ‘There is a pump here from the bath and back again. The bath is full. We’d better have specimens from both the bath and the tank, Morag. Make sure you label clearly which is which.’

‘What do you think, boss?’ Morag asked.

‘I think this is something to do with his midge studies, right enough. Possibly he needed to simulate flowing water, like a river or stream.’

‘Was he drowned here, do you think?’ Douglas asked warily.

Torquil knelt and looked at the pool of water on the floor round the bottom of the tank. He rubbed his chin.

‘It is certainly possible. The water is pretty near the top so if a body was held under the water it would displace it all over the floor.’

‘But wouldn’t it be everywhere?’ Morag asked.

‘It would if he struggled.’

‘He was quite a big chap,’ Morag pointed out. ‘It would have taken a lot to overpower him.’

‘It would if he was conscious and able to struggle.’

Douglas shivered. ‘Ugh! That sounds horrible. Holding an unconscious man under the water.’

‘That would be someone making no mistake about killing him then,’ Wallace ventured.

‘Aye, and that means that the scud on the head that he had could be more significant. He could have been knocked out and then drowned, before the murderer had a good skulk around.’

‘So you are not thinking it was a case of a botched robbery,’ Morag asked.

‘No, I think we need to have a good look about for something that might have been used to knock him out. I am betting that we won’t find it inside the cottage. You lads go and have a look outside. See if you can find anything that could have been used. It might have blood on it.’

When the twins had left Morag set about photographing the room as Torquil stood up, thinking.

‘I am going to switch that pump off, Morag,’ he said after a few moments.

‘Why, is the noise bothering you?’

‘No, it is just that if Dr Dent had been drowned in that tank, which I rather think he was, then there may well be blood cells floating about in it. And there might be some in the bath as well, since the pump is keeping up a flow. I may be grabbing at straws, but maybe Ralph could tell us if there are more in the tank than the bath.’

‘What do you think the murderer was looking for among his books and papers?’

‘I don’t know, Morag. But I am guessing that we won’t find very much, even after we have been through all of this. Which may take a long time, considering that a lot of it will probably be scientific jargon.’

‘Why don’t you think we’ll find much?’

‘Because I am more concerned about what isn’t here.’

‘I don’t get you?’

‘He is a scientist, yet there is no computer. There is a router on the desk, but where is his PC, or his laptop? I reckon that is what the murderer was looking for.’

There was a tap on the door and Wallace put his head round.

‘Do you want to have a look here, Torquil? Douglas has just fished a stone gnome out of that pond.’

‘A gnome?’

‘Aye, a garden gnome, one of those that looks as if he’s fishing. When we were crossing what was once the lawn we found the gnome’s fishing net. Then we saw its face and hands peeking up through the water lilies.’ He winced. ‘I bet the murderer grabbed that then threw the fishing net aside. After it was done he lobbed it in the pond. There looks to be blood on the little devil’s hands.’

‘And a broken fishing net. Just like Dr Dent’s,’ said Torquil. ‘There’s irony.’

After six paracetamol Fergie had finally managed to gain some ease from the stabbing pains in his head that had felt as if someone had stirred up a hornet’s nest. In its place he had been left with a bee in his bonnet. And this simply would not go.

The old bugger made a right mug of us, he thought to himself, as he drove towards Half Moon Cove. I’ll get him to come on the show if I have to kidnap him to do it.

He grinned. Chrissie would not be pleased if she knew what was in his mind. Still, if I bring off this coup, I’m sure she will be … grateful.

He parked the Mercedes off the track among sand dunes so that it would not be spotted from the house, then he made his way around the tall perimeter fence.

Sod the front gate and that blooming intercom of his. He will hardly be able to turn me away when I have shown such initiative.

He scaled the fence and made his way across the undulating sand dunes towards the house. To his surprise he found the back door standing ajar.

‘Anyone home?’ he called out, as he pushed open the door and let himself in. ‘Hello!’

But there was no answer.

He walked through a large clinically clean kitchen, then a hall, to enter a huge studio that looked outwards towards the sea. Lace curtains were draped across the large bay windows. In one of them a long telescope was set up and aimed seawards at a height that could be readily used from the high stool that stood behind it.

He wrinkled his nose at the all pervading smell of stale cigarettes.

‘You like your whisky,’ he said aloud, spying a side table with a half-empty bottle of Glen Corlan and an empty glass beside it.

Then his gaze took in the benches and tables of driftwood sculptures, many of them covered in dust, and dozens of packets and boxes.

You look like you are a busy bee sending stuff all over the place, even if you’re not so busy sculpting these days. Hello, what’s this for?

He crossed to the back of the studio where a large chest freezer hummed away like some weird futuristic sarcophagus.

I guess you have to be well-stocked up if you choose to live like a recluse.

Curiosity overcame him and he lifted the lid and looked inside.

His eyes gaped and a cry of alarm started to rise in his throat. But it died on his lips the moment a heavy piece of timber smashed into the back of his skull. His hairpiece flew off and hit the wall and was instantly spattered with blood.