Кит Мори - Deadly Still

‘Of course I will, but listen, Lorna. I’m not sure about —’

‘Oh, there’s the boss coming in,’ she interrupted abruptly. ‘I’ll need to go. Just promise me you’ll think about it. Let’s talk when I get back at the end of the week. Love you.’

‘Aye and I —’

There was a click and the line went dead.

‘— love you, too,’ Torquil added wistfully before stowing the phone in a pocket of his jeans. He turned and whistled again to Crusoe. He opened the heavy oak door and stood aside to let him dash past him.

The length of the hall was home to an assortment of carburettor components, oil filters and gears which lay on spread-out oil-stained newspapers. They belonged to a classic Excelsior Talisman motorcycle that he and his uncle had been slowly ‘rebuilding’ over more years that they cared to remember. In the past they would tinker with them now and then, and talk of how fine it was going to be when they finally completed it and were able to take it out for its maiden trip. Other things had gradually diverted their interest, like golf in his uncle’s case and a certain female sergeant in Torquil’s, so that now the only real attention the components received was a weekly once-over with a feather duster and an occasional spot of oil so that the illusion of an on-going project was maintained. Even Crusoe had ceased to be intrigued by the engine smells and ignored them as he bounded round the corner.

The mouth-watering aroma of grilled bacon, black pudding and toast wafted through from the kitchen and Torquil hung up Crusoe’s lead on the ancient umbrella stand and followed the dog through.

His uncle, the Reverend Lachlan McKinnon, known throughout West Uist as the Padre, stood at the Aga stirring a pan of scrambled eggs with one hand while he read a golf magazine with the other.

‘Morning, laddie. I’ve got it all ready. A good breakfast is what you need before a hard day’s toil. Look at Crusoe, he’s straight into his.’

Torquil cast a glance at Crusoe who was noisily eating from his bowl in the corner of the kitchen. He smiled, then went over to the old enamel sink and washed his hands. ‘I must say that I haven’t much enthusiasm for work this morning, Uncle,’ he said as he sat down and unrolled his napkin.

There was an obvious resemblance between the two men. Both were tall and had the same slightly hawk-like features. Torquil had been the youngest ever inspector in the Hebridean Constabulary, before it was absorbed into the modern national Police Scotland and he became the Detective Inspector for West Uist and Bara. He was thirty, well-built with raven black hair. His uncle, whom he had lived with ever since his parents had drowned in a boating accident in the Minch when he was a youngster, was sixty-six years old, but looked at least ten years younger with the healthy, weather-beaten complexion of an islander and a mane of white hair that defied the rule of brush and comb. With his horn-rimmed spectacles and clerical collar there was never a doubt about his calling.

‘I can understand that, laddie,’ Lachlan replied as he ladled out scrambled egg on a plate along with bacon, black pudding and tomatoes and lay it in front of his nephew. ‘It’s no fun for you and Lorna being apart so much of the time like this, especially when you’ve a wedding to plan for.’

Torquil started to butter a slice of toast while his uncle poured tea. ‘Superintendent Lumsden is determined to make life difficult for us, just as he always has.’

Lachlan sat down and picked up his knife and fork in readiness to start on his breakfast. ‘So he’s not going to let her come back to the island permanently?’

Torquil gave a rueful laugh. ‘Only on days off.’

Superintendent Lumsden had originally sent Sergeant Lorna Golspie to the island to do an efficiency study on the way Torquil ran the West Uist Police Station. He had expected her to report on a mountain of inefficiency, but instead they had solved a murder case together and fallen in love.

‘He’s moved house from Benbecula so that he can be on the spot at the headquarters. Now he sits like a spider in that office of his in Stornoway, weaving his web, working out ways of catching me in it,’ Torquil said with a shrug.

Lachlan stirred his tea. ‘He needs to learn how to forgive and then forget.’

‘Easier said than done, Uncle. There has been bad blood between us ever since he was suspended from duty, pending investigation over that murder case I had been handling. I don’t know what was said to him, but after he was reinstated, he’s been even more of a stickler for the rulebook. He’s an ambitious man with his eye on climbing to the top of the force. He can’t really touch me now that I’m a DI, but if he can mess Lorna about and upset our plans then he’ll do so.’

He told the Padre about the conversation he had just had with his fiancée about wedding favours.

‘Ah, you have my sympathy there,’ Lachlan replied. ‘Wedding favours can always be tricky. Diplomacy and compromise, that’s my advice. How about a bottle of cologne or aftershave instead of alcohol? Maybe some perfume for the ladies? Maisie McIvor on Harbour Street has a line in all these fragrances, if it is local you are wanting.’

Torquil pursed his lips. ‘Aye, perhaps you are both right, although I know what some of the lads will think. But that’s another dilemma I’ve got.’

The Padre sipped some tea and nodded his head. ‘You mean that you haven’t decided who you are going to have as your best man?’

Torquil blew air through his lips. ‘Lorna had it easy. She’s asked Morag’s daughters to be her bridesmaids and Morag to be her matron of honour. My trouble is that I work with my friends and I see Calum Steele and Ralph McLelland almost every day. I wouldn’t say any of them were exactly fawning over me, but in one way or another they all seem to be trying to curry favour.’

‘An unenviable decision, my boy. Perhaps you should work out a handicap system to help you decide.’

His nephew almost choked on a mouthful of toast. ‘I might have known you’d bring it down to golf, Uncle.’

The Padre chuckled. ‘You may scoff, but the handicap is a perfect way of levelling things out according to ability. What other game allows a rank beginner to play against a professional and have a good chance of winning?’

‘I don’t see how it could help me.’

The Padre shrugged. ‘Work out their best man handicaps. Just like making a balance sheet. Bad points, like being a garrulous creature likely to bring out your most humiliating experiences in his speech, would build the handicap up.’

‘You’re thinking of Calum, our esteemed editor of the West Uist Chronicle ?’

‘It would be wrong of me to name folk,’ the Padre replied innocently. ‘Good points, like being punctual, would reduce the handicap. You get my meaning?’

Torquil laughed. ‘So are you golfing today?’

Lachlan McKinnon began clearing away the breakfast things. ‘I think it is highly likely, once the mist clears enough to see the ball after a well struck drive with my three wood. How about yourself?’

Torquil took a last mouthful of tea and glanced at his watch. ‘First, I’m going to the cave for a practice on the pipes to blow off a bit of steam, then I have to get down to the ferry to meet my new DC.’

‘Of course, I had forgotten you have a newbie starting. It will increase your detective force by one hundred per cent, won’t it?’

Torquil hummed. ‘It will, which will be a help to me, as we will have responsibility for both West Uist, Barra, Eriskey and Benbecula. It’ll be a challenge for her and no mistake.’

The Padre raised his eyebrows.

His nephew frowned. ‘Now don’t you jump on Lorna’s bandwagon, Uncle. I merely meant it could challenge her because she’s English. She’s transferring straight here from Leeds. Do you think you could look after Crusoe?’