Кит Мори - Flotsam and Jetsam

‘We will walk over to the second hole then give you a wee test. If you can sit quietly each time I play a shot, then maybe I will be happy about you staying a bit longer with us at the manse.’

When they arrived at the tee Crusoe gave a soft bark and then as the Padre raised his finger to his lips and dropped the lead on the ground, he lay down and wagged his tail uncertainly.

Lachlan filled and lit his pipe. ‘Good boy,’ he nodded approvingly. ‘It is looking as if you have had some training in dog manners,’ he said with a grin. Then he pulled out his two wood and teed his ball up. ‘Now for the acid test. Quiet on the tee while I drive off.’

After a couple of his usual waggles he swung easily and the ball took off like a rocket and arced down the fairway into prime position for his second shot. The dog lay still and did not make a murmur.

‘Hmm, maybe you’ve had a bit of gundog training. I certainly have never seen you on the course before so it is not a golfer that has trained you. You are a bit of a curiosity, Crusoe, my wee friend.’ He picked up the bag and picked up the lead. ‘We will play the second and the third, then we will go to the church where I will say my prayers.’ He winked at the dog, who appeared to be listening to his every word as if understanding. ‘That will include a prayer for you. Then we will play the eighth and ninth and get back in time to fix breakfast for Torquil.’

A couple of rabbits suddenly darted out of a cluster of gorse bushes and ran zig-zagging towards a nearby bunker. Crusoe barked three times and strained at the leash.

‘Stay!’ Lachlan snapped.

To his surprise, the dog instantly sat down.

‘I am afraid that there would be no good chasing them, even if I let you off the lead. By the time you got to the bunker they would be down their burrows and I don’t want to risk you getting stuck down one of them.’

Crusoe gave another bark, causing a flurry of movement over on the Padre’s left. He grinned as half-a-dozen sheep broke into a run.

‘And even though you are a collie, you will have to remember that dogs are not allowed to chase the sheep on the golf course.’ He pointed the stem of his pipe at Crusoe. ‘These sheep are precious, you see. They nibble the fairway grass down and make the course playable. They are our greenkeepers.’

Crusoe wagged his tail and looked after the retreating sheep but showed no sign of wanting to give chase. Lachlan scratched his chin. Crusoe was proving himself to be quite an enigma. Although he was still little more than a puppy, yet he had been trained to keep still and not to chase sheep. It was something he would tell Torquil about.

Torquil had slept like a log until his mobile phone roused him at seven. He answered it in a semi-doze, but when he heard his girlfriend, Lorna Golspie’s voice he was instantly awake. Their conversation was typical of those still in the first flush of unbridled fresh love. At Lorna’s news that she would be coming home for five whole days in a week’s time his spirits had soared. Indeed, they soared so high that he rose, showered and prepared a breakfast of fried herrings in oatmeal before the Padre and Crusoe had returned.

‘Oh Mo chreach! Oh dear me!’ Lachlan exclaimed as they entered to the mouth-watering smell of the fish sizzling in the pan. ‘Now this is a sight, Crusoe. My nephew is up and cooking breakfast with a smile on his face, and it is not even a pipe practice morning for him.’

Crusoe gave a small bark and a big wag of his tail.

‘Lorna is coming home for five days next week,’ Torquil volunteered. ‘I don’t know how she has wangled it with Superintendent Lumsden. I am so chuffed I am going to the cave to compose a piece to welcome her home.’

Lachlan washed his hands then sat down and unfurled his napkin. ‘Ah, so it is an unscheduled pipe practice morning then! Will you be taking the dog? I have to say that I have been impressed with his patience so far. He sat and watched me play each shot and didn’t want to chase the ball. He even wagged his tail when I hit a good shot.’ He grinned. ‘He was not quite so impressed with my putting though.’

Torquil laughed. ‘Aye, it is curious that anyone could have been so cruel to him. I would like to get my hands on whoever cast him adrift like that.’

‘Well, if it is any help, I would say that someone had started to train him as a gundog.’ And he explained about the way that he lay down on the tee and about how he did not want to chase sheep. ‘It sounds like he could belong to a farmer, or a crofter somewhere.’

Torquil frowned as he ladled fish on to his uncle’s plate. ‘I kept the cord that he was tied up with. I will be examining it later. There was something very curious about the knots. I didn’t recognize them at all, and I have been messing about in boats all my life.’

Lachlan attacked his breakfast with gusto. ‘And speaking of curious things, we came on one as we left the church. We went out through the cemetery to the eighth tee. There were fresh flowers on the grave of that lassie, Heather McQueen.’

Torquil stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. ‘The girl who drowned in Loch Hynish last year?’ He suppressed a shiver at the thought. The loch was one of the island’s beauty spots with its crannog and ruined castle in the middle, yet it held sad memories for him. [2] 2 See The Gathering Murders

‘Aye. The curious thing is that whoever put those flowers there must have done so last evening or night. They definitely were not there when I showed Kenneth Canfield the grave yesterday.’

Ewan was due to take the catamaran Seaspray out for a round of the island’s coastline later in the morning. Since that meant that he was more time-limited than usual, he decided to borrow Nippy, his mother’s forty-year-old Norman Nippy 50cc moped, so that he could fit in a bit of hammer practice before he had to pick up the Seaspray from its harbour mooring. Borrowing Nippy was not something that he did lightly, for a 50cc moped was not the ideal vehicle for a self-conscious six foot four-inch hammer-throwing police constable. He was aware that he cut a slightly comedic figure and tried to ignore all of the winks, nudges and smirks as he went along.

Fortunately, there were not too many people on the road at seven in the morning, apart from the local shopkeepers and the market folk who were all up and about, setting up for the day’s trade. He rode along Habour Street nodding right and left to several of them.

Then the unexpected happened.

‘Hey! Look out, you silly billy!’ He cried as a canary yellow camper-van shot out of Weir Street and skidded for several feet as the driver slammed on his brakes. It stopped a yard over the halt line. Ewan had instinctively swerved and narrowly managed to swing round the front of the van just in time. He drew to a halt by the kerb, dismounted and switched off Nippy’s engine. Hoisting the machine easily on to its stand he walked back as the driver slowly wound down his window.

‘Ah! Sorry,’ the man blustered. ‘You are the – er – the hammer chappie, aren’t you?’

Ewan eyed the two men appraisingly. Unlike the last time he had met them they were both smiling, albeit nervously. They both seemed embarrassed and concerned that they had almost knocked him off his moped.

‘Aye, we are really sorry, Officer,’ said the stocky, surly-looking one with the ear-ring who was sitting in the passenger’s side. ‘We are just anxious to get off to a place called the Wee Kingdom. We heard that there are sea otters off the coast there.’

‘Eyes peeled!’ Ewan said emphatically, causing both men to stare back at him in confusion. The truth was that he had verbalized the words that Torquil was forever telling him.