Кит Мори - Deathly Wind

‘Good luck, boss,’ Morag murmured, as she continued making a detailed diagram of the charred cottage ruin.

‘ Latha math, Good morning, Inspector McKinnon,’ Calum greeted from the other side of the tape barrier. ‘Arson attack, is it? Is somebody dead?’

‘What makes you ask those questions, Calum?’

The newspaperman gestured to the burned-out ruins and the blackened wind towers. ‘A cottage can catch fire, but I cannot see how fire would jump all that distance to catch those towers. And this is Gordon MacDonald’s cottage, there was no one in here, was there? Those windmill riggers were using it I know, but they left the island on—’

‘So why do you ask about a death? How did you get wind of this, Calum?’

Calum tapped the side of his nose. ‘Let’s just say that as a journalist I have my sources. And I passed Dr McLelland on my way here, which rather implies that he was coming here on professional business. All that and the fact that he wouldn’t stop when he passed me, meant that he had information that he didn’t want to divulge.’ He grinned. ‘And you are all wearing those official white dungaree suits. So what’s up, Piper? Tell your old schoolmate Calum.’

Torquil shook his head good humouredly. ‘All right, Calum. This is the official statement, but don’t go passing it on with any of your journalistic embellishments.’

‘No, no, you can depend on me. I am a responsible journalist and there will be no poetic licence excuse from me. Just the facts.’

‘And the facts are that the West Uist division of the Hebridean Constabulary are investigating a house fire on the Wee Kingdom, and the discovery of a badly burned body in the burned-out ruins of the cottage.’

Calum had clicked on the Dictaphone in his top pocket and for effect also jotted notes in his spiral-bound notebook. His eyebrows rose and he asked quizzically, ‘Murder?’

‘The fire and the death are being treated as suspicious,’ Torquil replied.

Calum nodded sagely and wrote ‘suspicious’ in capital letters and underlined it emphatically. In his mind’s eye he already saw the headline he would use for the piece. And more immediately, how he was going to deliver it by phone to Kirstie Macroon, the pretty red-headed newsreader with pert breasts that he frequently fantasized about, and whose voice melted his insides. Then, realizing that his mind was straying, he cleared his throat.

‘The cause of death?’

‘We are awaiting the post-mortem report. And that will be some time, since we have yet to remove the remains from the major incident scene.’

Calum leaned over and craned his neck to try to get a better view. Screwing up his eyes he could see the Drummond twins and Morag Driscoll inside, but that was all. ‘And who is it?’

‘We have not identified the body yet, Calum.’

‘Any chance of a picture?’ Calum asked, hopefully.

‘Now you are pushing your luck, Calum. After that last stunt of yours down by the causeway?’

Calum was about to protest, but the noise of the West Uist ambulance crunching up the drive halted the words before he had formed them. ‘Ah the doctor, maybe I’ll—’

‘Maybe you will leave Dr McLelland to get on with his police surgeon duties, Calum. And that isn’t a request, by the way.’

Ralph McLelland got out of the ambulance and came towards them with a pile of plastic bags and a folded-up body bag. ‘Morning, Calum,’ he said as he passed. ‘I am sorry that I could not stop earlier, but I had urgent work to be doing. Excuse me.’ And he passed back along the designated access path. Once inside the burned ruin he carefully put plastic bags on the head, hands and feet of the body to ensure that no important pieces of evidence were lost, before he and a very green-looking Wallace Drummond lifted the body and placed it in a plastic body bag before gingerly moving it into the ambulance.

Torquil jotted down in his notebook, ‘Unidentified body of man, badly burned, removed from the crime scene at 06.25 hours. Doctor McLelland, police surgeon will perform post-mortem as soon as possible.’

Douglas Drummond was looking over his superior officer’s shoulder as he wrote. He prodded Torquil in the back. ‘Is that official jargon, meaning, after the doctor has had his breakfast?’

His brother joined them as Ralph McLelland drove off in the converted ambulance. He was still looking green about the gills. ‘Which is more than I can say for me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat anything again.’

Calum Steele grinned at them. ‘What’s that? Two strapping big hulks like you feeling a bit squeamish. What is the island coming to?’

And before they could retort, as they usually did, Calum had left them with a wave as he ran over to his Lambretta.

‘Is that what they mean about journalists following ambulances?’ Wallace asked.

Jesmond the Kyleshiffin Castle butler tapped on Jock McArdle’s door at seven o’clock and received a firm and colourful rebuke for disturbing his employer’s repose. Nevertheless, he persisted with a further knock, adding the words, ‘An emergency call from the local constabulary, sir.’

There was a rustling noise from the other side of the door, the tread of bare feet then the bedroom door was hauled open.

Jesmond held out the cordless phone. ‘Inspector McKinnon would like to talk to you, sir. He says it is urgent.’

Jock McArdle frowned and grabbed the phone. He snapped his name into the mouthpiece, then stood listening, his expression growing grimmer by the second. ‘I’m on my way!’

‘A problem, sir?’ Jesmond queried, as dexterously he caught the phone again.

‘You could say that! This could be the start of the next bloody war!’

And, as Jesmond caught the murderous look into his employer’s eyes before the door was slammed shut, he knew that if there was a war involving Jock McArdle, no prisoners would be taken!

The Padre had been roused from a fitful sleep by the telephone at his bedside. Groggily, he reached for the receiver and mechanically answered, ‘St Ninian’s Manse.’

He heard harsh breathing on the other end of the line.

‘Hello, St Ninian’s Manse,’ he repeated. ‘This is Lachlan McKinnon here. Can I help you?’

No one said anything. All he could hear was the harsh breathing. Then there was a rasping laugh and the line went dead.

‘Now who on earth could that be?’ he asked himself, reaching for his horn-rimmed spectacles in the dark so that he could see the luminous hands on the clock.

It was just after seven. He sighed, then threw back the blankets and got up. As he pulled on his dressing-gown and prepared to go over to his little praying stool he couldn’t but help feeling that the phone call held some significance.

Torquil led McArdle through to the mortuary suite and tapped on the outer door. Through the frosted glass panels they saw the dim green-gowned shape of Dr Ralph McLelland approach and unlock the door.

‘This way please, gentlemen,’ said Ralph, leading the way through a swing door to the white tiled mortuary where a plastic sheet covered a body.

‘We have reason to believe that this could be the body of a Daniel Reid, lately from Bearsden in Glasgow and currently residing at Kyleshiffin Castle.’ Torquil stated. ‘I am afraid that the body has been very badly burned, almost incinerated. Do you feel that you would be able to identify the body?’

McArdle’s face was pale and there was a noticeable patina of perspiration on his brow, but he nodded. ‘If it is Danny, I’ll know him.’

Torquil nodded to Ralph who slowly pulled back the sheet to reveal the head and neck of the corpse.

McArdle looked shocked, colour draining even more than before. He swallowed hard, his expression pained. ‘Yes. I am pretty sure that is my boy.’ Then he spotted the chain around the neck and the ends disappearing into the clenched mouth. ‘That’s his medallion, right enough! Where was he? How did it happen?’