Кит Мори - Flotsam and Jetsam

Bruce McNab frowned. ‘That’s havers, Calum, and you know it.’

‘So, how was your fishing this morning?’ Calum asked.

There was a moment of awkwardness as the group looked at each other.

‘We didn’t get the fishing today,’ said Dan Farquarson. ‘We had a bit of a mix up. We didn’t really meet up as we meant. So tomorrow we will make up for it. That’s what we are doing now, you see. Planning tomorrow.’

‘Do you like fishing, Cora?’ Wee Hughie asked, staring at her dreamily.

Cora shivered. ‘Ugh! I hate it. I am a strict vegetarian, you see. I couldn’t possibly kill a fish.’ She screwed up her face in distaste.

Wee Hughie looked bemused, but thought quickly. ‘Actually, I’m not so keen myself. I’m just here with my boss.’ He looked beseechingly at Dan Farquarson. ‘I haven’t had a bite at all, have I, boss?’

Dan Farquarson gave a humourless smile. ‘No, nothing at all. He’s useless, Cora. Completely useless.’

‘Well – er – I wondered,’ Calum said to Sandy, ‘how would you feel about giving me a wee interview? The West Uist Chronicle readers would love to know what you think of our island.’

Dan Farquarson cleared his throat and Sandy King darted him a quick glance. It was not missed by either Calum or Cora.

‘Look, Calum,’ Bruce said, ‘my clients are here for the fishing, not to be emblazoned across the front page of the Chronicle .’

‘No need to include us in anything,’ Dan Farquarson added. ‘Wee Hughie and me are just here for the fishing, like Bruce here says. As for Sandy—’

‘As for me, I can speak for myself,’ Sandy King said firmly. Then he said to Calum, ‘I’ll give you an interview all right, Calum. But not here and not now. Tomorrow I’ll call you. How’s that?’

Calum produced a card with the skill of a conjurer and handed it over. ‘Any time, Sandy. Day or night, the Chronicle , reporters are always on hand.’

‘Does that include you, Cora?’ Wee Hughie asked with the hint of a leer.

Cora opened her mouth as if to give an indignant reply, but Calum answered for her.

‘Oh, aye, that goes for all of the Chronicle staff!’

The lights were shining through the frosted glass of the Kyleshiffin Cottage Hospital mortuary as Torquil rode up. He dismounted and made his way through the outer doors, then pressed the intercom button and called his name.

Ralph McLelland’s voice sounded almost robotic through the speaker:

‘Come straight through, Torquil. I’m in the lab.’

A buzzer sounded as the lock was released and Torquil pushed the door open and was immediately struck by the coppery odour of blood mixed with that of strong disinfectant. He walked passed the closed post-mortem room door and tapped ‘Oh, aye, that goes for all of the Chronicle staff!’on the laboratory door at the end of the corridor before pushing it open.

Dr McLelland was dressed in blue surgical scrub clothes, sitting at a bench with a heap of notes on one side and several jars containing specimens of viscera on the other. In front of him was a microscope and various bottles of fixatives and stains.

‘OK Ralph, so what have you come up with?’

‘Questions, Torquil. Questions that don’t make sense.’

‘It’s a bit late for riddles, Ralph. Tell me more.’

Ralph took a deep breath and sat back in his chair. He pointed at a jar containing pinky-grey tissue. ‘This is Dr Dent’s lung tissue. I’ve been looking at it. There is water in the lungs.’

‘So he was drowned? That’s what you expected, isn’t it?’

‘Yes – and no. That is, I expected to find water in his lungs, but not the type that shows up under the microscope.’

‘The type of what, Ralph? The wrong type of water?’

‘Exactly. He was found face down in a bog pool, right? In which case there should be bog water in his lungs. It should be brackish and teeming with algae and micro-organisms, like the specimen of water that I took when I examined the body in situ. ’ He tapped the microscope. ‘But the water in his lungs is as clear as day. It is fresh water.’

‘You mean it is river water?’ Torquil asked with a puzzled look.

Ralph bit his lip. ‘I’m not sure, except that it isn’t the same as the water that he was found in.’

‘Are you absolutely sure of that?’

‘Pretty well sure. In order to be certain I would need to have a detailed chemical analysis done, which will take a few days as I’ll need to send the specimens over to the Forensic Department at Dundee. I’ll also be sending his blood off for toxicology as well, and, as you know, a detailed analysis can take a week or two.’ He scratched his chin. ‘But in the meanwhile there is another anomaly that makes Dr Dent’s death seem decidedly fishy.’ He stood up and signalled to the door. ‘We’ll need to have a look at the body.’

Torquil winced. ‘Is he still—’

‘Still open?’ Ralph divined with a wry smile. ‘No. I’ve done my work and sewn him up nicely so that any relatives can view the body. But it is his skin that I want to show you.’

Torquil followed him back to the post-mortem room. Although he had seen numerous dead bodies in his career, he still was not comfortable when he had to see post-mortems being carried out.

Ralph closed the door behind them then crossed to the raised marble slab in the middle of the room. He lifted the green sheet and pulled it back from the body to reveal the head and neck and the tell-tale T-shaped incision from shoulder to shoulder meeting above the sternum, then extending downwards. Ralph’s neat suturing had united the ends of all of the skin edges leaving only two knots protruding; one at the end of the right-shoulder incision and the other at the T-junction where the two incisions met.

Despite himself Torquil found himself focusing on the sutures and the knots for a moment, rather than looking at the face of the corpse.

‘You could have been a seamstress, Ralph,’ he remarked casually.

Ralph McLelland gave a short laugh. ‘Pah! A frustrated surgeon I am. I always like to do as neat a job as I can for the relatives. And that includes my vertical mattress stitch and my one-handed surgical knots.’

Torquil nodded absently as he looked at Dent’s face. It seemed so strange to think that just a short time before he had been full of life, lodging a complaint at the station.

‘See his skin?’ Ralph asked.

‘What am I looking for, Ralph?’

‘Midge bites. As you will see, there aren’t any.’

Torquil thought back to the finding of the body. ‘I remember Ewan remarked about that. There were no midges landing on him, whereas we were all being bitten to heck. You said that it was because Dr Dent was dead.’

‘That’s right. They are attracted to carbon dioxide given off by living, breathing creatures.’

‘Then I don’t see what you are getting at.’

‘I was being stupid, Torquil. It is true that they don’t bite, but they would have bitten him before he fell. I think the reason he doesn’t have any bites is because he didn’t die in that bog pool.’

‘But he did drown?’

‘Oh yes. He drowned all right, but not there.’

Torquil clicked his tongue. ‘It is not looking good, Ralph. I think you are right. It looks like murder, right enough.’ He shook his head. ‘I have a bad feeling about this. There’s something troubling me about what you’ve just shown me. Something that I just can’t put my finger on.’

Ralph laid the sheet back over the body and nodded. ‘That’s weird, Torquil. I have that same feeling myself.’

Despite Cora’s protests Calum had insisted on escorting her from the Commercial Hotel back to the Chronicle offices where he made up the camp-bed for her with fresh sheets and blankets.