Кит Мори - Deathly Wind

He was feeling torn between the two women. Megan or Katrina? He felt bad about his betrayal of Megan, but seeing her freaking out had altered his image of her. That was a weakness on his part, he felt. Yet he couldn’t help it and part of his mind rationalized it by thinking that she had pushed him towards Katrina.

He grinned as he put his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the distant stacks and skerries.

‘West Uist is a beautiful island, all right. And she’s a beautiful woman.’

He had made up his mind.

Danny Reid was perspiring profusely. He was stripped to the waist and a coating of moisture covered his torso as he started heaping soil onto the grave. He hated digging. He hated all manual work if the truth be known, but burying bodies was one thing he hated above all else. And it had been a heavy body.

He had patted the turned earth into a smooth mound and was just replacing the turf that he had cut on top of it when he heard Jock McArdle’s footsteps crunch on the gravel path behind him. He was carrying a decanter of whisky and two glasses.

‘That’s a good job you’ve done, Danny. And it is a good spot for them both. They hadn’t been here long, but Dallas and Tulsa both loved tearing about this old patch of lawn.’ He sighed and Danny Reid noted the tears in his boss’s eyes. ‘We’ll be able to see them from the snooker-room upstairs.’

Danny laid his shovel down and pulled on his T-shirt. ‘Liam was right upset about them.’ He nodded at the whisky glasses in his employer’s hand. ‘Are we going to have a toast to the girls, boss?’

McArdle held out the crystal whisky glasses for Danny to hold while he poured two liberal measures of malt. ‘Aye, but we’re also going to toast Liam. That was Superintendent Lumsden on the phone again. He tells me that Liam was definitely murdered. They’re starting an inquiry.’

Danny stared at Jock McArdle, his hand clenching the glass so that his knuckles went white. ‘The bastards! Who did it, boss?’

Jock McArdle ignored the question for a moment. He raised his glass. ‘To the girls! And to Liam! May we always look after our family.’

They both swilled their drinks back in one.

It has to be one of those bastards on the Wee Kingdom,’ McArdle replied. ‘And I am guessing there is no chance on earth that the local flatfeet will be able to find the buggers. We’re going to have to do it ourselves, Danny.’

‘How’s that, boss.’

McArdle smiled, ‘I’ve got an idea to flush them out.’ He hefted the cut crystal glass in his hand and nodded towards the ornamental fountain in the centre of the lawn. In unison they threw their glasses at the fountain.

Jesmond had been watching from an upstairs landing window. He winced as he saw the hundred-year-old crystal smashing on the fountain.

‘Peasants!’ he exclaimed. He reached for his mobile phone.

The Corlins were shrouded in swirling mist by the time that Alistair McKinley left his jeep at the foot of the cliffs, just at the spot where a few days ago they had found the broken body of his son. He pulled off his shoes and socks and wiggled his feet, flexing the well-developed toes that typified many of the outer islanders – especially those who were descended from the old cliff-scaling families of St Kilda’s. Alistair McKinley had been proud of his heritage and had tried to instil that pride into his son. He had taught him to hunt, to survive in the wild when the weather was at its worst, how to forage for food under rocks and in pools, and he had taught him how to climb.

And that was what had been eating away at him for days. How could Kenneth have fallen? He was as sure-footed as any of the old St Kildans who used to scale the sheer cliffs of Hirta, the larger of the isles in order, to snare the fulvers and take their eggs as they nested. Alistair felt sure that it had been an outside agent that had caused his fall and he intended to investigate for himself. His soul burned to find satisfaction.

‘If your spirit is there, Kenneth – come with me!’

He swung his hunting bag over his shoulder and then swung the shoulder sling of his shotgun bag over his neck and right shoulder so that the bag hung across his back and would not impede him as he climbed.

And he began to scale the almost sheer face, his fingers and toes finding holds and clinging long enough to hoist and pull himself up. Despite his age he climbed with the effortless ease of a monkey.

‘You were a good lad, Kenneth. You didn’t deserve to die so young,’ he whispered to himself, as he swiftly ascended towards the shelf of rock from which it was reported that he had fallen. ‘I know why you were coming here.’

He pulled himself up over the ledge and lay for a few moments waiting for his breathing to settle to normal. And as he lay there, his shrewd eyes pierced the swirling mists until he caught a glimpse of the eyrie some distance away.

‘You devil birds!’ he cursed under his breath, as he pulled off his shotgun bag and drew out his 12-bore. He reached into his hunting bag and drew out two cartridges. Breaking open the gun he slid them into place and snapped it shut.

‘Now we wait until you go hunting,’ he mused. ‘Take your time. I’m in no hurry. I’m a hunter, too. Just like my boy.’

There was the sound of a toe scuffing rock and Alistair spun round, his eyes wide with surprise.

‘You! What are you doing here?’ he challenged.

Vincent Gilfillan had been busy all morning. He had dealt with his own chores before going on to feed Rhona’s goats and then do some work on her weaving quota. He knew that he and the others would have to get together and work out what they were going to do about her croft. But of course, the complication was simply the new laird, Jock McArdle. The possibility that he would repossess her croft and rescind the right of transfer seemed highly likely.

‘Damn the man,’ he muttered to himself. ‘We should have been in contact with the Crofters Commission to find out exactly what rights we have.’ He shook his head sadly as he tidied up and left Rhona’s weaving shed. It was exactly the sort of thing that Rhona would have seen to. And she would have done if she hadn’t died so suddenly.

At the thought of her death, he pictured the new laird and he felt his anger seethe to boiling point. In his mind he saw him going into the cottage hospital with Inspector McKinnon and he thought back to what he had wished he had done. Part of him wished that he had not stopped Alistair McKinley from going out to challenge him. But then he thought of Rhona lying there, her face alabaster white.

He pushed open the door of her cottage, went through to the main room, lined with bookcases, antiques and numerous handmade mats covering the polished wood floor. He slumped down on the settee beside the holdall containing the things he had brought back from the hospital. The smell of her perfume and the odour of her cigarettes was all around him and he felt slightly heady. He gave a deep sigh of despair and leaned forward, sinking his head in his hands as he began to sob.

He was still sobbing when Inspector Torquil McKinnon found him there ten minutes later when he pushed open the door.

‘I thought I heard someone in here,’ Torquil said, coming in and pulling off his large leather gauntlets. ‘And I am glad to find that it is you, Vincent. We need to talk. But first, I have to tell you that we are investigating a murder.’

Vincent looked up and wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Whose murder, Inspector?’

‘One of Jock McArdle’s employees. The tall flashy-dressed one with attitude. It was his body that we found by the Wee Kingdom causeway.’