Кит Мори - Deathly Wind

Kenneth McKinley was the only son of …

Morag slapped the pages together. ‘That’s typical of the wee ferret. He’s wheedled gossip out of Annie McConville and speculated like crazy.’

‘Aye, just like he usually does. But I think he’s done it half on purpose. He knows that the golden eagles have caused mixed feelings on the island. There are the superstitious brigade and the bird lovers.’

‘And the bird lovers are all up in arms about the proposed windmills,’ agreed Morag. ‘Calum will be loving all this.’

Torquil sipped his tea. ‘Well, let’s get back to Ewan’s notebook. What do you make of the next section. What do you think he suspected Kenneth McKinley of? It is not clear from his notes.’

Morag looked at the notes then picked up Ewan’s actual notebook. ‘May I?’

Torquil nodded and watched her expression as she skimmed through it.

Suddenly, tears welled up in her eyes and she bit her lip. ‘Oh my God! This bit makes me feel so guilty.’ She read: ‘“Morag has her hands full, ask Torquil”. He must mean that I was so preoccupied about Ailsa and her schoolwork. She’s missed so much school lately with this croup that she keeps getting. And Ewan didn’t feel he could burden me with his worries!’ And despite herself she sobbed anew.

In a trice Torquil was round the desk and slipping a comforting arm about her shoulder. ‘Now that is the last thing that you should be thinking, Morag. We don’t know whether any of this is of the slightest relevance. Ewan was a good police officer. If he thought it was something you ought to know about then he would have asked. We mustn’t get ahead of ourselves here.’

And pulling a tissue from the box on his desk she quickly controlled herself and resumed her customary visage of solid professionalism. She returned to the diary and flicked through the pages with barely a sniff or two.

Eventually she said, ‘I think he’s got two trains of thought going. On the one hand it seems a bit personal, like he thinks Kenneth was watching him and Katrina. There’s a hint there that he doesn’t like the way that he caught him looking at Katrina and him one evening when they were out having dinner at Fauld’s Hotel. And the other thing seems to be a suspicion that Kenneth was up to something. Look, there are times and dates when he’s noted down when he saw him. And there are a few words in capital letters that he’s boxed round – GUNS and BOND and FAIR FANCIES HIMSELF. I don’t think he liked young Kenneth McKinley much. Maybe he saw him as a rival?’

Torquil clicked his tongue pensively. ‘Aye, possibly. He was always a tad insecure, for all his great size. And with the word GUNS we come back to the missing rifle again, don’t we.’ He drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘And what did he mean by BOND?’

‘Beats me, Torquil.’

‘Ok then, what do you think about those things he wanted to ask me about?’

The first was simply the name KATRINA, followed by a question mark.

‘That’s easy, Torquil,’ said Morag with a smile. ‘You know he’s always looked up to you as a friend, an older brother even, as well as his senior officer. He wanted to know your opinion about what he should do.’ She shook her head and added wistfully, ‘And the big darling thought I was too busy.’

Torquil frowned. ‘Me, with my track record?’ He shook his head, dismissively. ‘What about FAMILY?’

‘Could he have meant Geordie Morrison and his family?’

‘That’s what I was thinking, too. I guess time will tell when they show up again. And that leaves the last word, WIND?’

‘I think everyone on the island has that word on their mind at the moment,’ said Morag. ‘What with windmills and wind-farms.’

‘Aye, and the more I think about it, the more I think it’s an ill wind that’s being blowing lately,’ Torquil mused.

Sister Lizzie Lamb was busy, which was not at all unusual for her. No matter how many patients she had under her care, she was always busy. She could have six extremely ill patients in the cottage hospital and cope admirably, or just the one and be run off her feet. But patient care never suffered, or was in any way compromised. She just liked people to know that a nursing life was a busy life.

And with Rhona McIvor as the only patient her business extended to getting all of her administrative chores done, as well as overseeing a good spring-clean of the sluice, the supplies room and then an inventory of the mortuary equipment.

When the new laird presented himself at the reception desk, Maggie Crouch, the hospital clerk, scuttled off and found Sister Lamb in the supplies room. After a few words of exasperation Lizzie left Giselle Anderson, her irreplaceable nursing assistant, to carry on with the spring-clean while she went to attend on the visitor.

‘Rhona McIvor has had a heart attack and still must not be over-tired,’ she said, leading the way into the side room where they had moved Rhona. ‘Doctor McLelland was quite precise in his instructions.’

‘Don’t you worry, Sister,’ returned Jock McArdle. ‘I just want to pay my respects – I’ll only be a couple of minutes.’

Sister Lamb was plump, forty-five, with an old-fashioned neatly starched uniform and an over-developed sense of the romantic.

‘You sent her all those beautiful flowers, didn’t you, Mr McArdle?’ She smiled knowingly. ‘She’s a lucky lady.’

McArdle grinned affably, as he divined the real question that lay behind her remark. ‘Ah no, Sister! You think that we—’ He made a to-and-fro gesture with his hand. ‘Nah. Nothing like that.’

Sister Lamb turned the corner and stood outside Rhona’s room, her face betraying a slight disappointment that the romance she had speculated about was no such thing. She gave a little professional cough. ‘I wasn’t thinking anything, Mr McArdle. I was just looking out for Rhona, my patient. Mind what I said now, she’s not to be over-tired or overexcited.’

‘I’ll be two minutes with my friend, Sister. That’s all.’

Torquil had to wait at the end of the causeway over to the Wee Kingdom, as the large container lorry edged across. It had emblazoned on its sides a picture of a row of windmills linked by lightning bolts and the words NATURE’S OWN ENERGY underneath it. The driver, a large man with a pony-tail and heavily tattooed arms gave him a thumbs-up sign as he inched past. His companion, a younger man in a red baseball cap was smoking a cigarette. Almost languidly, he flicked the dog-end out of the cab window so that it bounced off the front wheel of the Bullet. Immediately Torquil’s hackles rose and he held up a hand for the driver to stop.

‘Dropping litter is just as illegal on West Uist as it is on the mainland,’ he said, turning off the Bullet’s engine and hauling it up on its central stand. He ground the cigarette end under the heel of his heavy buckled Ashman boot then bent down and picked it up. ‘I am Inspector McKinnon of the Hebridean Constabulary, and I am willing to overlook this – just this once!’ He held up his hand to the open window. ‘Take your litter home please and dispose of it appropriately.’

The youth glowered at him, but at a dig in the ribs from the driver he took the dog-end from Torquil and deposited it in the ashtray in the cab.

‘Sorry about the boy here, Inspector,’ said the driver, leaning towards the window. ‘He’s from the city and he doesn’t know how tae handle himself at times.’

‘I ken fine how to handle myself,’ the youth returned sourly.

Torquil eyed him dispassionately. ‘That’s OK then. But just don’t overstep the letter of the law while you’re visiting this island, or you’ll find that we enforce the law pretty strictly here.’ And then ignoring the youth he pointed to the two wind towers that had been erected on either side of the Wind’s Eye croft cottage. Both of them were surrounded by scaffolding with ladders leading up to wooden platforms near the top. One had a slowly revolving three-bladed propeller and the other had a series of spinning anemometers at various heights above the platform.