Кит Мори - Deathly Wind

‘What is his background, Uncle?’

‘Bakery, I think. He calls himself an ice-cream and confectionary millionaire, but that’s a bit suspicious if you ask me. You know about the ice-cream wars in Glasgow back in the eighties? Well, he’s got a couple of heavies that he refers to as his boys with him.’

‘Sounds like I should check out his background.’

The Padre buttered an oatcake. It would do no harm to let him know that we have law here on West Uist.’

Torquil nodded. ‘Maybe I’ll take Ewan—’ He stopped, realizing that he had momentarily forgotten that he would never be able to take his friend Ewan McPhee, the big hammer-throwing champion, on official business again. He hit the side of his head with his fist and scowled. ‘Maybe I’ll take the Drummond lads with me.’

The Padre smiled sympathetically and nodded. ‘Aye, they are good lads and will not be intimidated by any number of Glasgow heavies.’ He sipped his tea then nodded reflectively. ‘So tell me, what were you planning to do if you left the force?’

Torquil leaned back and stretched his legs under the table. He nodded towards the open kitchen door where a half-stripped carburettor from one of their classic motor cycles could be seen leaking oil onto an old newspaper. The whole hallway was similarly littered with bike parts and repair equipment. ‘Mend motor cycles maybe,’ he said with a grin. ‘Or perhaps something to do with music and the pipes. Teaching maybe, or even set up a business.’

‘A piping business here on West Uist? You would starve, laddie! There’s only really you and I who play the pipes on the island.’

Torquil grinned. ‘The internet, uncle. Technology has changed the world. If you set up a decent website and do your homework you can soon have customers all over the world. And You’d be surprised how many people are now interested in piping. The Tartan Army showed me that. People love the Scottish football fans and their pipers.’

‘But you’ve put the idea on the back burner? You’re not going to leave the force? Morag really needs you right now.’

Torquil stood up and stretched. ‘Aye, I’m staying put for now. But later on, who knows.’

Nial Urquart stared transfixed at the blood on Megan’s hands and at the way her jaw trembled as she shifted her attention from them to him. But no words came, instead she screamed again, startling him into motion. He ran to her and gingerly put an arm about her shoulders, but she shrugged him off, her eyes wide with horror.

‘It is awful, Nial!’ she exclaimed. ‘The body! It has been—’

She did not finish, but suddenly bent double and vomited.

Nial patted her back, feeling uncertain how he could best comfort her. Then as she continued to retch he decided that action was the best course. ‘I’ll take a look, Megan,’ he said. He ran down the path and passed the outhouses, beyond which were the hedgehog runs and the tiny sheds filled with straw that were used to house Megan’s prickly waifs and strays.

The body was lying in between two of the runs, covered in blood and with deep lacerations from which the vital fluid had oozed. It looked as if it had literally dropped from the sky. And indeed, looking at its position between the runs, he assumed that must have been exactly what had happened.

He steeled himself and bent over the body of the dead hedgehog and pictured what had happened. He was sure that he had witnessed something similar the day before. The golden eagle swooping on the flock of fulmars, catching one, then dropping it and nonchalantly taking the next with barely a break in its flight. And now in his mind’s eye he saw the great bird swooping down from above, having spotted the hedgehog run. Grabbing one in its two-inch talons, rising a few feet, then dropping it and returning for the next unfortunate hedgehog that had not scurried to the safety of the small sheds, and flying off with it to the eyrie up in the Corlins. A natural killer, it wouldn’t have given a second’s thought to the exsanguinated hedgehog that it had left behind.

‘You’re a bit of a butterfingers, aren’t you!’ he mused with a grin.

He heard Megan behind him and instantly the grin on his face disappeared.

‘I … I thought it was still alive,’ she sobbed. ‘I picked it up—’ She looked down at her bloodstained hands, still held well away from her naked body. ‘They’re evil, Nial. They’re murderers. They enjoy killing.’

He was worried by the glazed stare in her eye. She was bordering on the hysterical. He stood to put himself between her and the sight of the dead hedgehog. ‘Come on, Megan, let’s get you into a bath then I’ll make you a good strong cup of chamomile tea.’

‘You’ll bury it, won’t you, Nial?’

He put an arm about her shoulder and shepherded her back to the cottage. ‘I’ll do it while you are having a bath,’ he assured her.

‘We have to get them, Nial. Kenneth McKinley was right. They’re vermin! Vermin!’

Vincent Gilfillan stood at the end of Rhona McIvor’s bed in the four-bedded unit of the Kyleshiffin cottage hospital. The fact that she was the only patient seemed oddly poignant, as if her health was particularly precarious. Tears threatened to form in the corners of his eyes as he looked down at the middle-aged woman who meant more to him than his own mother. This is all wrong, he thought. It shouldn’t be happening this way. Not to Rhona. Although she was twenty years older than him he loved her dearly.

He shuddered as he looked at the wavy green trace on the oscilloscope of the heart monitor, at the wires attached to her chest and the intravenous line that ran into the back of her heavily bandaged left wrist. There seemed to be flowers, fruit and Get-Well cards everywhere. He looked at his own modest collection of freesias and let out a disdainful puff of air through tight lips. It was enough to wake the dozing Rhona. She turned her head and saw him, her eyes momentarily opening wide in alarm. It was not the sort of reaction that he was used to from Rhona. She reached for her spectacles on the cabinet and put them on. Then, recognizing him, ‘Vincent,’ she said dreamily, almost with relief as if she had woken from a troubled sleep. She held out a hand to him. ‘You startled me.’

He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. ‘Rhona, I’m sorry,’ he mumbled apologetically. ‘I heard as soon as I came off the ferry. I should have been here.’

‘For why, Vincent?’ she said with a smile. She reached up and stroked his wiry black beard that had recently begun to display a peppering of silver hairs. ‘Would you have stopped this old ticker of mine from having a heart attack?’

He shrugged awkwardly, indicating a particularly large bouquet of red roses that dominated the display. ‘It looks like someone has sent the contents of Betty Hanson’s florist shop.’

Rhona pushed herself up against the bank of pillows and harrumphed. ‘They’re from the new laird, Mr fine and dandy Jock McArdle. A peace offering, I think. Did you hear what happened?’

Vincent sat down on the side of the bed and handed her his Get-Well card. ‘I saw Morag Driscoll, the sergeant, on Harbour Street. She told me about his plan to put up windmills on Gordon MacDonald’s croft.’

‘And I told him it would be over my dead body,’ Rhona said, with shake of her head as she opened the card and smiled at the picture of an old goat in bed. She perched it on the bedside cabinet alongside the others. ‘And then one of his toadies sniggered and I saw red. I was about to give him a good skelp on the side of his head – and then I ended up in here.’

Vincent’s jaw muscles tightened. ‘I think I’ll be having a word with this lad then. He sounds as if he needs teaching a lesson.’