Кит Мори - Deadly Still

It was not long after he had gone that Penny came out of her office, only to be greeted by Ewan bearing a tray with mugs of his strong, near stewed tea. She suppressed a grimace and accepted it with a smile.

‘Did I hear the boss go out?’ she asked.

‘Aye, Penny. He’s gone for some air.’

Morag came through and took a mug. ‘He had that look on his face,’ she volunteered. ‘You’ll get to recognise it, Penny. It’s a pensive one, so I expect he’s gone to do what he does when he has a problem.’

‘What exactly is that?’

‘He’s gone to play his pipes,’ Morag replied.

Which is exactly what Torquil had done. He had ridden the Bullet out to St Ninian’s cave and crunched his way over the shingle to play in the cathedral-like cavern. He was troubled. More troubled than he had been for a long time, not just because of the pillbox tragedy, but because something was not right.

In the cave he began to play his pipes. He played a number of his favourite pieces, just as they came into his head. And as he played snatches of music, almost stream of consciousness fashion, he ran through the words of the songs in his mind.

Then he started to play Loch Lomond:

By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes

Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomon’

Where me and my true love were ever wont tae gae

On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomon’

And as he played, the lyrics running through his mind, he started to get a strange prickling feeling run up and down his spine.

Oh you tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road

An’ I’ll be in Scotland afore ye,

But me and my true love will never meet again

On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomon’

He suddenly let the blow pipe drop from his lips and he chopped the bag to silence the instrument. ‘That’s it. The high road and the low road. High and low!’

He left the cave, muttering his thanks to it for granting him enlightenment as he played and jogged across the shingle and seaweed to climb up onto the roadside and the layby where the Bullet was parked.

Stowing his pipes in the pannier he straddled the machine and pulled out his phone to make an urgent call to the station.

‘Morag, I’m coming in shortly, but I just need to go somewhere first. Get the twins to come in, I need the old team together. Let’s do what we do best.’

He hung up before she could question him further. Moments later he was opening up the throttle and accelerating along the headland road, the noise of the engine sending flocks of herring gulls seawards towards the safety of the familiar stacks and skerries.

‘Where’s Penny?’ Torquil asked Morag when he returned to the station.

‘She’s in her office, boss. The Drummonds are on their way in. What is it? I can see you’ve got that look on your face.’

‘I’ll tell you soon, Morag. Call me when the whole team is here.’

Penny came out of her office upon hearing his voice.

‘Ian Gillesbie sent through the reports, boss. I’ve printed them out and put them on your desk.’

‘Good, that’s just what I needed to hear. While I’m reading it gather all the information you have on the pillbox event and on Robbie Ochterlonie.’ Turning to Morag, he said, ‘When the twins arrive gather the team in the rest room. Ask Ewan to get the whiteboard ready and have different coloured marker pens and notepaper ready for everyone.’

Ten minutes later, after he had digested the reports and called Dr Ralph McLelland to ask for some medical advice, Torquil went through to the rest room where the others were waiting.

As usual, Ewan had made a big pot of tea and handed cups to everyone before they began.

Torquil took a drink of tea then went over to the whiteboard. ‘Well folks, things are pretty bad as you all know, but things have just gotten a whole lot more complicated. We’re going to have a brainstorming session. Penny, you take minutes and everyone else make notes as we go along.’

He tapped the whiteboard. ‘Right, so we have two incidents here. The first is the pillbox where the three teenagers were drinking peatreek and having a post-exam get-together. The teenagers were Jamie Mackintosh, Vicky Spiers and Catriona McDonald.’

On the left hand side of the board at the top Torquil wrote PILLBOX and drew a square around it. Underneath he drew three circles in a row, each with an arrow pointing to the pillbox square. Inside each he wrote the name of one of the teenagers. Under Jamie Mackintosh’s he put a cross and the letters RIP. Similarly, under Vicky Spiers’s name he wrote ‘missing,’ and under Catriona McDonald’s, ‘hospitalised, dialysis, visual problems.’

‘OK, what do we know about them?’

‘They were all doing their Highers,’ said Ewan.

‘Jamie’s dad, Angus Mackintosh is a carpenter. He was on a bender at the time,’ said Wallace.

‘Vicky Spiers’s parents are Jeannie and Brock Spiers. Brock is disabled after an accident at the Glen Corlin Distillery seven years ago. He’s wheelchair bound,’ said Morag.

‘Catriona McDonald’s parents are divorced,’ said Penny, reading from her file. ‘Charlie McDonald is a local councillor and her mother Bridget has her own internet business. They share custody of Vicky.’

Torquil added ‘Student-Highers’ under each teenager’s circle. Then he picked up a red pen and wrote each parent’s name and surrounded each with their own circle and drew arrows between them to show the relationships. He tapped Jamie’s circle with the end of his pen and asked, ‘OK, Jamie’s post-mortem, what do we have?’

Penny summarised. ‘Inhaled vomit and aspiration pneumonia. Brain and lungs showed evidence of asphyxiation. That is from little blood haemorrhages called petechiae — kidney disease called renal dysplasia. Effectively he only had one functioning kidney — high methanol level and other toxins — his blood tests showed he had metabolic acidosis.’

Below Jamie’s circle Torquil added these details as a series of bullet points. ‘And Catriona McDonald also had this metabolic acidosis, didn’t she? Ralph McLelland treated her for it.’

He added bullet points under her circle, underscoring the methanol poisoning under both teenagers’ entries.

‘And she had visual problems, also undoubtedly methanol caused,’ he added as he wrote. ‘Ralph said it was called optic neuritis.’

Swapping marker pens again, on the top right of the board he wrote ‘Lochiel’s Copse’ and drew a square around it. Lower down he wrote Robbie Ochterlonie’s name and circled it, adding underneath the cross sign.

‘What else?’ he prompted.

‘He was the manager of the Old Hydropathic Residential Home,’ said Ewan.

‘He was an ex-fisherman, like us,’ said Douglas.

‘And he liked his peatreek,’ added Wallace.

‘He was a type 1 diabetic, which means he had to take insulin,’ replied Penny. ‘And apparently he wanted to be a writer. He was always on his laptop, writing his novel or short stories. At least that’s what they thought and what he told them he was doing.’

Torquil added bullet points with the information under his circle. Then to Penny, he said, ‘First let’s put down the findings at the scene, amalgamated with any tests from forensics.’

Penny turned pages in the file to the appropriate entries. ‘Body discovered by Norma Ferguson on Monday morning. She had been concerned because he had not shown up for work so she went round to his cabin after breakfasts at the home had been served. Nor had either of the two teenagers, by the way. The body was lying face down in the sitting room. A whisky glass and a bottle were lying near the body and in the kitchen a couple of empty insulin bottles and a syringe were lying on the table along with his mobile phone. The bottle contained illicitly distilled whisky. It exactly matched the residue found in the bottle the teenagers had used.’