Кит Мори - Deadly Still

In memory of my grandfather, an experienced head maltman at several Speyside distilleries, who taught me how to spin a yarn. Also in memory of my mother, who was born in a distillery cottage and who was convinced that she had whisky in her blood. Consequently, she never had a desire to take a dram.

Uisge beatha

Chan uisge beatha ach uisge bais

Translation:

Whisky (the water of life)

It is not the water of life but the water of death

The killer looked down at the body with a critical eye. Something wasn’t quite right about the way it would look to someone discovering it. The position of the legs would look too contrived.

I can’t risk that. It needs to look natural, as if there had been a sudden seizure and the body slumped forward and fell flat on its face. That would be in keeping, for everyone knows how much the bastard drinks at nights. I’ll reposition them afterwards.

The killer lifted the head by the hair and the torso by the collar until it was raised as far as the spine would allow. Then, placing a foot on the back of the neck and stamping down hard at the same time as letting go with the hands, the head was forcibly driven onto the bare wooden floor. A sickening thud ensued and a crunch as the nasal bones shattered. A pool of blood immediately started to form around the head.

Gingerly lifting the whisky glass in a gloved hand and holding it above and to the side of the body the slayer threw it at a slight angle so that it smashed and splashed its contents forwards. For added effect the empty whisky bottle was rolled across the floor, sloshing liquid as it went until it stopped against the skirting board.

Good, a masterful touch there. It looks as if the glass fell forward out of one hand and the bottle out of the other. A waste of good whisky, they’ll say! OK, maybe not good whisky, but that’s for them to find out.

At least I didn’t spit in your face, like you deserved, but I’m not going to risk leaving any of my DNA around this place. Not when I was so careful to wear gloves as always in this pigsty. Not that there will be a need for anyone to even look for such ephemera when the cause of death is so obvious, you drunken sot.

If you were still alive you’d realise it was all your own fault. If you hadn’t been such a greedy bastard and forced my hand you’d still be leading your dirty little life and you’d be able to keep your murky secrets to yourself. Lucky for your legacy, if there was such a thing, I’m here to clear your crap up for you.

The killer picked up the phone and carefully checked that there were no photos in the phone library before tossing it onto the kitchen table beside the bottles of insulin and the used syringe.

It all went according to my plan, even though you thought you were in charge. The drink did the trick and then a huge insulin dose made sure, so all I had to do was slip the tube up your nostril and down into the stomach and pour the contents of a whole bottle into it via the feeding bag.

I expected that there would be some vomiting, a gag reflex I suppose, but that little bit of gubbins on your clothes makes it look even better. That fit you had was spectacular, especially with all that frothy spittle. Another nice touch that they’ll put down to a seizure while pissed out of your head.

Beautiful! Untraceable! Just bad whisky, they’ll think. If they think at all!

And now with that smashed nose there is no trace of where I shoved the tube. So it’s goodbye then, you fucking toad. I’m glad I had the pleasure of snuffing your miserable life out.

The killer put the nasogastric tube and the feeding bag in the plastic rubbish bag along with the laptop and the other potentially incriminating things that had been carefully stowed there.

Taking out the mobile phone the killer sent a quick one-word text before spending a few minutes minutely removing all possible traces from the other room. Then, after one last look around to check that no traces had been left, opened the door and slipped out into the night.

Sergeant Morag Driscoll’s first thought on waking had been to roll over and enjoy the fact that her schoolteacher sister, who taught at Oban High School on the mainland, had kindly taken Morag’s three children along with her own on holiday to Majorca. Instead, guilt kicked in and she threw herself out of bed, had a cup of tea and a dry cracker and then went for a jog in the early morning mist.

Morag was a thirty-something single mother of three, whose husband had died from a heart attack when he was only thirty-five and she was just twenty-six. From that day she vowed that she would always be there for her children. She watched her diet and she kept as fit as possible.

As she made herself pick up her pace on the track parallel with the coast she reflected on how good her life was. Her kids were doing well at school, she couldn’t have been happier in her work and her relationship with Sandy King, the Scottish international footballer, was growing deeper and more meaningful with every day. The only problem was that his football career was demanding and they had to grasp whatever time together that they could, especially during the playing season.

Bloody game , she thought to herself with a smile. Why couldn’t I fall in love with a fisherman or a farmer, or at least a local amateur footballer?

She selected one of the many sheep tracks through the heather and made for the headland trail towards the old Second World War pillbox atop Harpoon Hill, which overlooked the shingle beach of Whaler’s Bay some fifty feet below. Although there had never been a whaling station on West Uist, back at the turn of the twentieth-century a Norwegian, Karl Herlofsen and his family ran a whaling station at Bun Abhainn Eadarra on the Isle of Harris. A fleet of catcher vessels worked out of there and harpooned whales at sea and took them to places like Village Bay on St Kilda, Rockall and the Flannan Isles and Whaler’s Bay on West Uist. There the whales were secured before being towed back for processing at the Bun Abhainn Eadarra station.

During World War II, because Whaler’s Bay was a reasonably protected anchorage, a series of anti-tank concrete blocks had been installed along its length and, since Harpoon Hill above it was a natural vantage point, a pillbox was built on top.

The ground was muddy in patches where it never completely dried out and she knew from bitter experience to beware the many rabbit excavated holes that awaited a careless walker or runner, especially in the mist or fog that concealed so much.

The track zigzagged upwards towards Harpoon Hill. Morag was pacing herself going up the incline and when she was about fifty metres away she heard someone groaning. It sounded to be coming from the pillbox. She distinctly heard a young female voice cursing loudly. Then the screaming started.

Morag stopped to catch her breath and look up at the pillbox to assess the situation. Someone was definitely screaming. It sounded like a young woman’s, high-pitched and prolonged, as if in abject terror.

What the devil , she thought. Surely it couldn’t be real, not out here this early on such a foggy morning. It must be youngsters playing around, trying to startle the runner they’d been watching coming up the hill. She half expected them to come running out any minute once they recognised her.