Flotsam and Jetsam

NINE

Cora had not been keen on meeting Wee Hughie at the Bonnie Prince Charlie, but she reconciled it in her mind as being good investigative journalism experience.

Just as long as he doesn’t suggest anything creepy, she thought as she walked along Harbour Street towards the bar.

I just don’t know why he seemed so keen on meeting me? He’s not my type with all those big muscles. Why should he think I would go for that?

She was still puzzling the question when she entered the lunchtime throng. A shrill whistle immediately rang out and she looked round, as did all of the other customers.

‘Cora! Over here! I have got us a table,’ Wee Hughie called, as he stood to tower over a group of men who had clearly just disembarked from one of the yachts in the harbour.

Cora suppressed the impulse to turn tail. Instead she brazened the looks of amusement and disdain as she sidled through the crowd towards him. It was clear that some people remembered her last visit to the Bonnie Prince Charlie, when she and Calum had been asked to leave.

Come on, Cora, she chided herself. You want to be a journalist, don’t you? Just get used to being a pariah like Calum. And with that resolve she reached Wee Hughie and forced a smile.

‘This is so good of you to come,’ he said enthusiastically, his cheeks looking quite rosy.

‘It’s – er – good of you to ask me.’

He crinkled his nose in a manner than made her picture a goofy boxer dog. ‘I just thought it would be – you know – nice.’

She let him relieve her of her jacket then sat while he went off to the bar to order drinks.

The large plasma screen TV was louder than she would have liked, considering the proximity of the table that Wee Hughie had obtained for them.

‘I’ve got us a menu,’ Wee Hughie said, a few moments later as he handed her a lemonade and lime. ‘Do you like that soft drink stuff?’ he asked, with a nod at her drink before taking a hefty swig of his pint of Heather Ale. He smacked his lips and licked the foam off his upper lip. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing, Cora. We don’t get anything like this in Dundee.’

‘I’m afraid that I don’t drink much alcohol, Mr – er—’

‘Hughie! Just call me Hughie.’

Cora smiled. ‘I like to be in control, you see. Alcohol does things to the mind.’

Wee Hughie winked at her and took another swig of beer. ‘I’ll drink to that any day.’ Then seeing what he perceived to be disapproval on her face he added rapidly, ‘But see, I hardly ever drink myself. It’s only if I’m on a bit of a holiday like this.’ He clapped his hands. ‘So, what would you like to eat? A steak? The fisherman’s pie? I hear that the seafood platter is good.’

Cora pursed her lips apologetically as she continued to scan the menu. ‘I don’t think there’s much here for me – er – Hughie. You see, I’m vegetarian.’

‘Really?’ he asked, his eyes opening so wide that his eyebrows rose a full inch. Then he smiled and leaned forward on his elbows. ‘You know, I’ve fancied being a veggie. Why don’t you choose what you want and I’ll have the same?’

Cora feigned delight and then looked over the menu again to see what was the most unappetizting meal available in the meagre list of vegetarian options. ‘Well how about macaroni and cheese?’

Wee Hughie excused himself and went to place their order at the bar. When he returned Cora asked him, ‘So what can I do for you?’

‘Oh, a lot, Cora,’ he replied, with the slightest of leers.

Cora suppressed the urge to throw his beer into his lap. Ignoring his innuendo, she went on, ‘What brings you to West Uist?’

‘A sporting holiday. My boss, Dan Farquarson, loves his fishing and hunting.’

‘And what about your friend, Mr King, was it?’

‘He’s a business friend of my boss, Cora. Nothing to do with me. But I have to say that the boy is good fun. He’s a famous footballer, you know.’

Cora shook her head with a smile. ‘I didn’t know that. But he looks like a chap who likes a bit of fun.’

And she cringed as she said it lest Wee Hughie take this as an innuendo directed at him. In truth, she found the big man anything but fun. She quickly tried to deflect any response. ‘Do you think—?’

To her surprise he shushed her.

‘Sorry Cora, it’s the News. I am sort of expecting something. The boss told me to keep an eye on it for him.’

Cora nodded, sat back and listened to Kirstie Macroon’s dulcet voice reading the headlines from an auto-cue with professional ease.

‘We bring you the very latest news from West Uist.’

Cora’s ears pricked up and she sat forward again.

‘Inspector Torquil McKinnon of the West Uist Division of the Hebridean Constabulary has informed us this morning that there have been serious doubts cast over the sudden death of Dr Digby Dent, the noted entomologist who had been working on the island.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Cora muttered.

‘Inspector McKinnon was unable to go into details but informed us that the police are treating the death as a case of suspected murder. We shall be bringing you more news as and when it becomes available to us.’

Cora felt her mouth suddenly go dry. She took a sip of her drink then turned to Wee Hughie.

‘Listen, I’m afraid that I am going to have to cut and run. You see—’

Then she noticed how pale he had suddenly gone.

‘Oh – er – of course,’ he replied. ‘I think I had better be getting back as well.

‘Is anything wrong, Hughie?’

‘Wrong? No, nothing’s wrong, hen. I just – er – remembered something I need to pick up for the boss.’ He glanced at his watch then raised his pint and drained it quickly. ‘I’ll settle up and then I’ll shoot off. Maybe we could do this another time?’ he asked with a smile.

‘Yes, maybe,’ Cora replied.

His forced smile had failed to convince her.

Calum had turned on the TV in the Chronicle offices while he waited for Sandy King to arrive for the agreed interview. He stood staring in disbelief as Kirstie Macroon read out the headlines. His mouth gaped wider and wider.

‘… We shall be bringing you more news as and when it becomes available to us.’

‘Unbelievable!’ he howled at the TV. ‘Torquil McKinnon, you rotten swine!’ He stood staring at the mug in his hand for a moment and then dashed it against the wall where it shattered into a myriad of pieces and stained the wall, over an already aged and dried stain from a previous act of long-forgotten petulance.

‘You traitor!’ he yelled.

He only dimly heard the footsteps on the stairs behind him.

‘I hope you are not talking about me?’

Calum spun round to find Sandy King standing at the top of the stairs. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

Sandy King raised an eyebrow. ‘You seemed keener than that to get me here, Mr Steele. Is this a bad time?’

Calum recovered himself and leapt forward. ‘Not at all! Not at all! And please, call me Calum. It’s just that I’ve – er – had a spot of bad news.’ He sucked air through his teeth and held his hands out, palms upward as if seeking understanding from the divine.

‘I have been betrayed, Sandy.’

‘Are you talking about the News? I caught the tail end of it as I was coming up. It was about Dr Dent, wasn’t it? They think he’s been murdered.’

Calum nodded and grimaced as if he was in pain. ‘Aye, that’s what’s bothering me. He should have told me, not gone behind my back to Scottish TV.’

‘Who?’

‘Torquil McKinnon, the local inspector. He’s supposed to be my friend and there he’s gone and stabbed me in the back. There is no such thing as honour these days.’

Sandy King sat down on the settee and crossed his legs. ‘I am not so sure, pal. I think it is still about. In fact, for some people, honour is the guiding principle in their life.’

Leaving Morag and the twins to complete the further investigation of Dr Dent’s cottage, Torquil had put Crusoe in the side pannier of the Bullet then set off for home.

He found Lachlan and Kenneth Canfield coming along the road from the golf course.

‘We were chased away today,’ Lachlan said cheerfully as Torquil coasted to a halt beside them.

‘Midges?’ Torquil asked.

Kenneth Canfield laughed. ‘And not even Lachlan’s evil-smelling pipe could keep them off us.’

Lachlan ruffled the fur on Crusoe’s head. ‘You wouldn’t have liked the golf course today, boy. Those midges would have invaded your fur and made mincemeat out of you.’ He put his unlit pipe in his mouth and addressed his nephew. ‘What are you doing home at this time of the day, anyway?’

‘I came to have a word with you both actually. About Dr Dent.’

‘Ah, the midge man,’ said Kenneth. ‘I was so sorry to hear about his accident.’

‘It was no accident,’ Torquil said bluntly.

‘No accident?’ Lachlan repeated.

‘I believe it was murder, Uncle. We have started a murder investigation. Which is why I wanted to have a word with the Reverend Canfield. I understand that you knew him from the University of the Highlands?’

Kenneth sighed. ‘I wondered when you would get around to me, Inspector.’

‘Shall we go into the manse and talk in comfort?’ Lachlan suggested. ‘It will soon be time for lunch.’

Five minutes later they were all seated in the spacious sitting-room. Crusoe was as usual curled up at Torquil’s feet.

‘How long had you known Dr Dent?’ Torquil asked.

‘About seven years. He was already in post when I became the university chaplain.’

‘Did you like the man?’

‘That’s a direct question, Inspector. I suppose it deserves a direct answer. No! I did not like him and I did not respect him.’

‘And the reason being?’

Canfield licked his lips and his eyes unconsciously fell on the whisky decanter.

‘He had a reputation as a philanderer. I had been involved in two cases of students who had been hurt by him. Emotionally bruised, both of them.’

‘Do you mean that he had relationships with them? I thought that was a sackable offence.’

‘Potentially, it can be. Although in these days….!’ He shrugged. ‘Yet in both cases the lassies did not want to make an issue of it.’

‘So you disliked him because of his morals?’

‘That and the fact that he was a maverick, academically speaking. Some of his research was regarded as questionable, although it has to be said that some folk thought he was brilliant.’

He glanced again at the decanter and this time Lachlan caught his look and acted upon it. He rose and poured two large drams then held the decanter up and eyed Torquil questioningly.

‘None for me thanks, Lachlan,’ Torquil said. Then, turmng again to Kenneth, ‘Is there anything else that you can tell me about Dr Dent that might help?’

Lachlan handed Kenneth his drink and then cleared his throat meaningfully. Kenneth understood his prompt.

‘There might be something. Heather McQueen, the post graduate student who was drowned last summer. Well, she was his student. He was supposed to be looking after her.’

‘Was he having an affair with her?’

Kenneth took a large gulp of whisky and then pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘I honestly don’t know. But I suspect he was. At the very least I think that he should have shown more remorse than he did.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She was his responsibility. He just didn’t seem to acknowledge anything about it. In my book that makes him seem a bit of a psychopath.’

Lachlan ran a finger round the rim of his glass. ‘I told Torquil about the grave, Kenneth.’

‘Did you put flowers on her grave?’ Torquil asked.

‘No.’

‘Any idea who did?’

‘I think it could have been Digby Dent. But I suppose we’ll never know now. It will remain a mystery.’

Torquil nodded and absently reached down and stroked Crusoe. He was rewarded by a lick on his hand.

Another mystery, he mused. Just like Crusoe here.

Torquil had barely sat down in his office after lunch when the phone went and Morag told him that there was a call on the line.

‘It’s Calum Steele and he sounds peeved,’ she said, unable to keep the mirth from her voice.

It was an understatement. ‘You are a traitor, Torquil McKinnon! How could you do that? You betrayed me – and to Kirstie Macroon. You know that I have feelings for her the same way that you do about Lorna.’

‘Calum!’

‘That makes me look a right fool. And I thought you were my friend.’

‘Calum, listen.’

‘That’s all I ever do is listen. That’s what journalism is all about.’

‘In that case have you ever heard the expression about glass houses and throwing stones?’

‘What are you on about?’

‘If you live in a glass house you shouldn’t throw stones.’

‘Are you going daft? I am talking about loyalty and you betrayed me. You went to the Scottish TV with a story when you should have come to me. I won’t forget this, Torquil.’

There was a click and Torquil found himself listening to the dialling tone.

‘Well, you are welcome, Calum,’ he said as he replaced the receiver. ‘For someone with skin so thick, you are remarkably sensitive.’

But Calum’s mention of Lorna’s name rankled him. He sat patting Crusoe for a few moments then picked up the phone and dialled Lorna’s mobile. She picked up after the third ring.

‘Hello, it’s the Scotch egg Carry-out here,’ he joked. ‘Any requests for lunch?’

Lorna laughed, then to his surprise said, ‘Torquil, gosh, this is not a good time. The boss is on the warpath. Got to go. I’ll ring you sometime. Don’t ring me.’

Once again the phone went dead and he found himself listening to the dialling tone. He sighed and replaced the receiver again. ‘No one loves me today,’ he grumbled.

The sound of Crusoe’s tail thumping the floor made him look down and feel better.

‘Well, let’s just hope that Lorna takes to you the way that you have taken to me, my lad. Now let’s get cracking. We have a murder case to crack.’

Ewan was just about to go through to the kitchen to make tea for the meeting when the station door opened and the bell tinkled. He looked round then gaped. It was Chrissie from the Flotsam & Jetsam TV show and a gaunt, young-looking chap with longish hair.

‘Ah, Officer,’ said Chrissie. ‘We’ve got a problem. I am Chrissie Ferguson from Flotsam & Jetsam and this is Geordie Innes, our producer.’

‘It’s a pleasure, Miss – er—’ Ewan began, his cheeks starting to glow in the presence of the famous hostess of the TV show.

‘We’ve lost Fergie Ferguson!’ Geordie Innes stated bluntly. ‘You need to find him.’

‘You’ve lost him. A missing person, you say?’

Chrissie stared at him as if she thought he was simple-witted. ‘My husband Fergie Ferguson. He’s famous. Everybody knows him, so he shouldn’t be hard to find on a wee island like this.’

‘Have you looked for him?’

‘Of course we’ve looked for him,’ replied Geordie tartly. ‘And we can’t find him, which is why we’ve come to you.’ He glanced irritably at his watch. ‘We have a show in a few hours.’

‘Ewan pulled his pencil from his pocket and opened up the day book. ‘When did you last see him?’

‘This morning.’

‘Just this morning? He’s not been gone very long then?’

‘No, but he could be drinking,’ Chrissie said. ‘He sometimes does this when he’s stressed. He goes on a bit of a bender.’

‘I can’t really help you then. We can’t do anything until he’s been missing for twenty-four hours.’

‘But he has a show in a few hours!’ Chrissie exclaimed.

‘He could be lying in a ditch drunk as a lord,’ said Geordie.

‘If he’s still not shown up by tomorrow, then come back and we’ll look into it.’

Chrissie opened her mouth as if to say something then shook her head, turned round and flounced out.

‘Have you tried all of the pubs?’ Ewan suggested to Geordie.

‘No, but if he doesn’t show up soon I’m probably going to find a corner of one and stay there myself. Without Fergie Ferguson we’re screwed!’

Torquil looked round as Ewan came in with the tray laden with tea and biscuits.

‘Any problem out there, Ewan?’

‘Fergie Ferguson may have gone on a bender. That was Chrissie and their producer. He’s gone off somewhere and they’re worried about the show later.’

‘They haven’t left it very long,’ said Morag. ‘As if we haven’t got enough on our hands already.’

‘That’s showbiz folk for you, though,’ said Wallace.

‘Demanding!’ agreed Douglas.

‘OK, folks; let’s see where we have got to. Ewan first: have you anything to add on those thefts?’

‘I’ve made reports, but I haven’t finished seeing everyone.’

‘OK, we’ll look at them separately later. Morag, did you find anything from the University of the Highlands?’

‘I talked to all sorts of folk, from the vice chancellor downwards. Jenny Protheroe, the head of the HR department told me that he had a reputation as a bit of a Lothario. She implied that he would have a go at anyone in a skirt, although she sounded peeved that he hadn’t had a go at her. She also mentioned Heather McQueen, the girl who drowned last year. She was a postgraduate student of his.’

Torquil frowned. ‘Yes, I talked with the Reverend Canfield, the chaplain at the university. He said that he thought Dent should have been more remorseful about her death. Acold fish, it seems.’

‘Aye, a cold fish that swam in other folk’s school of fish, it seems,’ said Wallace.

‘A bit of a shark,’ said Douglas.

Torquil picked up the marker and added the name Heather McQueen to the board and drew a circle round it. Then he drew a line between her circle and Dr Dent’s and added a question mark.

‘The FAI didn’t draw any conclusions about it,’ Morag said.

‘What do we know about her?’ Torquil queried.

‘Next to nothing,’ Morag said. ‘I’ll get on to it. Shall I give Dr McLelland a ring and ask him if he can remember anything strange about her post-mortem?’

‘Good idea,’ Torquil said with a nod. ‘You can ask him when you tell him about the other things we want him to check out. Now, about Dr Dent’s cottage. We found a water tank and we need to have the water checked for Dr Dent’s blood. We found signs of a burglary, although we think that was what the murderer wanted us to think. And it seems there is a missing computer.’ He made notes under Dr Dent’s name.

‘And we found the likely murder weapon.’

Ewan shuddered and pointed to the concrete gnome with bloody hands that stood, bagged up in polythene on the table tennis table. ‘Is that what was used?’

‘It looks like it,’ said Wallace.

‘We found it in a garden pond.’

‘All of which leaves the main question,’ Torquil went on. ‘Why was his body then dumped on the moor?’

Morag arrived at Arbuckle’s wine bar on Deuglie Street at ten past eight, having made sure that she was ten minutes late on purpose. She was as nervous as a sixteen year old meeting a boy on a first date. Her heart was pitter-pattering and she was sure that her cheeks were flushed.

Sandy King was sitting at a corner table sipping a glass of iced water. He sprang to his feet upon her entry and crossed the bar to meet her.

‘Morag, thanks for coming,’ he said, reaching down and giving her an air kiss. ‘A nice wee place you chose here. Good atmosphere and the food smells fabulous.’

‘It’s as discrete as you can get on our wee island,’ she returned, letting him pull out a chair for her.

‘I can see that,’ he replied with a grin. ‘I already gave Rosie, the barmaid, my autograph.’

‘You can’t expect to keep your identity secret even on West Uist. Not when you are Scotland’s best hope to rival Wayne Rooney.’

He averted his eyes with embarrassment. ‘I wouldn’t put myself in that class.’

‘We can all hope.’

‘Indeed. But my cover will be all blown tomorrow. I gave Calum Steele of the Chronicle an interview today. Odd wee chap isn’t he?’

‘Calum is a one-off.’

‘Aye you can say that again. He was a bit upset, actually. I came in when he was watching the news and he seemed put out over something to do with Dr Dent’s death.’

‘He felt my inspector should have told him and not the Scottish TV.’

‘Ah! So that was it. Still, enough of all that. This evening is about you and me.’

Morag’s cheeks started to burn and she looked down to see his hand reach out to touch hers.

And despite her nerves, she did not withdraw it.

Torquil had just come in from giving Crusoe an evening run. Lachlan was sitting on the floor in the hall working on the carburettor of the Excelsior Talisman motor cycle that they had both been slowly rebuilding for the past two years.

‘Ralph McLelland rang while you were out, Torquil. He has to go out on a house visit over at Fintry Farm, but he’d like to meet you at the mortuary in half an hour. He says it is important.’

Lachlan wiped a grease trail across his forehead with the back of his wrist then sat tapping the carburettor with an expanding spanner. ‘And just after he called, our old friend Superintendent Lumsden phoned to say that you are to call him straight away when you get in.’ He clenched the spanner so that his knuckles went white. ‘The man is so rude; I know what I’d like to do with this spanner.’

‘Uncle, that’s not a Christian thought.’

‘I have already asked forgiveness for it, but that man would try a saint. Maybe you had better get him on the blower.’

Torquil went through and called his superior officer up on his mobile. ‘Good evening, Superintendent Lumsden. You wanted me—’

‘Why haven’t I had a report through, McKinnon?’

‘I am still at a preliminary stage of—’

‘You know what I said, McKinnon. I want to be kept informed at every step. You think you can get away with anything over on that cursed island.’

‘It is not a cursed island, Superintendent.’

‘What progess have you made?’

‘Slow progress, but I think we have established that it was definitely murder. His head was bashed in with a concrete gnome.’

‘A gnome!’ The superintendent’s voice fairly blasted down the phone. ‘Are you serious?’

‘We found it covered in blood in Dr Dent’s garden pond.’

‘But he was found on the moor?’

‘I think the murderer moved his body.’

‘Good grief! This gets worse! Get me a report on my desk by noon tomorrow.’

‘Yes, Superintendent, but about Sergeant—’

The phone clicked and all he heard was the dialling tone.

‘Thank you for your support as usual, Superintendent Lumsden,’ he said wryly as he snapped the phone shut.

The lights were on in the mortuary and Dr Ralph McLelland’s battered old Bentley was parked in front of it as Torquil rode the Bullet into the cottage hospital car-park. He pressed the intercom button and spoke into it.

‘Come away in, Torquil,’ Ralph’s vaguely distorted voice called back. ‘I am in the lab.’

Torquil found him sitting by his microscope.

‘Is it about the water samples, Ralph?’

‘You were right; there is blood in the pond, the water tank and the bath water. That makes it look as if he was drowned some time ago in the tank, then the water there and in the bath must have circulated for quite some time. And it looks as if the murder weapon was tossed into the pond.’

‘Any idea how long he had been dead?’

‘No. But that wasn’t actually what I wanted to see you about: it was about that girl who drowned last year, Heather McQueen. You remember the other day that I said I had a bad feeling about all this?’

‘Aye, I do. But I don’t follow you.’

‘It was about Dr Dent’s body not being in the right place. Then when Morag Driscoll told me that you wanted to know if there was anything odd about Heather McQueen’s post-mortem, it suddenly struck me.’ He pointed to the microscope. ‘I looked out the tissue specimens I took at her post-mortem and the water samples that I collected from her lungs.’

‘She was drowned in Loch Hynish. Surely that’s all that there was to it.’

‘Oh she was drowned all right. But Loch Hynish is a freshwater loch.’

‘You have me worried now, Ralph. What is it?’

‘She had sea water in her lungs. I didn’t do the test at the time, it didn’t seem necessary. But now that I have it is clear – she drowned in the sea.’

‘Are you serious? That means we have two bodies that were drowned.’

Ralph nodded and clicked his tongue. ‘And for some reason, maybe for different reasons, both bodies were moved.’

Torquil thumped the bench so that the microscope shook.

‘Damn it! And that makes it likely that we have two murders here, not just the one!’