Кит Мори - Flotsam and Jetsam

‘Och! And they are just special constables,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Sometimes I think Torquil goes a bit easy on them because of that.’

But in a way he was pleased to have been given the other task. After all, he knew that despite his size he had a squeamish side and the memory of finding Dr Dent’s body face down in the bog-pool had kept coming back to him.

‘That cheeky streak of nonsense called me Sherlock Holmes! They think they are so much smarter than me. Well, I’ll show them. I’m going to solve some of these burglaries and then I’ll make them laugh on the other side of their faces.’

He opened up the throttle and peddled hard to give the moped more power to get up the hill.

‘We’ll start with old Mrs Rogerson at Aberstyle Farm. She sounded upset at the theft of her grandfather’s tobacco tin collection.’

He took the road that skirted Kyleshiffin moor and breathed deeply, enjoying the salty, peaty air. Then he swerved when he saw the dark haze rising from bushes at the side of the road.

‘Blasted midges!’ he cursed.

He did not notice the glint of sun on the lenses of a pair of binoculars that were trained on him.

Annie McConville always amazed Torquil. Although she was in her late seventies she seemed to thrive on hard work and was always on the go. Her animal sanctuary was famous throughout the islands and she was regarded as something of a local celebrity.

She was scuttling about with a wheelbarrow of straw, busily cleaning out the cat cages in the outhouses while Torquil followed her. Crusoe was tagging along behind him on his lead, while Zimba her German shepherd and Sheila her West Highland terrier lay on the floor wagging their tails.

‘So how many strays have you actually had recently, Annie?’

Annie turned and straightened. ‘Too many by far. Six dogs and three cats. I can’t understand it. We’ve never really had a problem on the island before.’ She scowled. ‘No matter what that scunner Rab McNeish may say.’

‘Oh, what does Rab say?’

‘You know very well, Inspector McKinnon. The man is not right in the head. He has a thing about germs. He has been spreading malicious rumours about me and my dogs. He thinks that whenever a dog fouls any patch of ground it is me and one of my animals that is at fault.’

Torquil nodded. ‘I was aware that he had mentioned some such thing.’

Annie waved a brush under his nose and Torquil stepped back adroitly.

‘Well, he will not do it again. I told him myself this morning at the station.’

‘You were at the station this morning?’

‘Goodness me! Do those folk that you work with not tell you anything? I was in telling Ewan McPhee an important piece of information. I am surprised that he hasn’t told you.’

‘Well, we – er – have a rather important investigation on at the moment, Annie.’

‘Oh, and what sort of investigation is more important than the welfare of these waifs and strays?’

‘I am not at liberty to say just at this moment, Annie. But what was this information?’

‘It was about sawing bones. None of the stray dogs likes it.’

‘I don’t follow you.’

Annie tut-tutted. ‘Well, look, the easiest thing is for me to show you. Come through to the kitchen.’

And she led the way to another outhouse which had been tiled inside so that it was clinically clean. She went and scrubbed her hands, then opened a fridge freezer and took out a couple of marrow bones. She deposited them on a wooden chopping board on a strong bench.

‘We’ll just leave the door open. They’ll all hear well enough.’

And producing a long saw she started sawing one of the bones.

Almost immediately a chorus of howls and yelps rang out from the cages in the lower outhouses.

‘They don’t like it, you see,’ Annie said. ‘What do you make of that, Inspector McKinnon?’

‘Not a lot, Annie,’ Torquil replied. ‘Zimba and Sheila are barking away as well. Maybe it is just something that dogs don’t like.’

‘Och, will you not listen properly? Zimba and Sheila are telling the others to hold their wheesht. They are the seniors, you see. All the others are howling in distress. They don’t like it. Listen now, I’ll do it again.’

And as if on cue the yelping and howling started up again as soon as the rasping of metal on bone rang out.

This time Torquil noticed that Crusoe was also whimpering. Not only that, but he was shaking, as if with fear.

‘Goodness, Annie, you are right. Just look at Crusoe here.’ He knelt down and stroked the dog’s head.

‘Poor thing,’ she said, kneeling as well. And at her touch, her almost mystical touch with animals, Crusoe calmed down. He looked at her with his ears tucked back and licked her outstretched hand.

‘It is clear to me, Inspector. All of these poor animals have been scared. Mistreated they have been.’

‘I will find out who did this, Annie,’ Torquil vowed. ‘It is sounding as if it is one person who is at the bottom of it. Whoever it was tried to murder Crusoe here.’

And he recounted about how he had found Crusoe at St Ninian’s Cave, lashed to a piece of timber.

‘Could he have been thrown from a boat, do you think?’ Annie asked.

‘I have no idea, actually. It could have been from a boat or he could have been tossed in somewhere along that coast and drifted.’

Annie bit her lip as she thought. ‘You might do worse than have a word with Guthrie Lovat. He must know more than anyone about the way flotsam and jetsam drift on to the beaches round here.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘If he will let you in to see him that is.’

‘I don’t think I have ever actually talked to him,’ Torquil mused.

‘Aye, well, he keeps himself to himself. And he’s not an animal lover, that I can tell you.’

‘Really?’

‘Aye, really. Years ago before he had made his money and bought that strip of beach at Half Moon Cove, I used to walk the dogs there. They used to love to have a run over the sands. But that Guthrie Lovat saw us one time and started pelting the dogs with stones. I gave him a good ticking off.’

Torquil stood up. ‘Thank you for that, Annie. I’ll certainly consider it. It’s probably time that I got to know our famous beachcombing artist.’

Wallace and Douglas drove up the old dirt track towards Dr Dent’s cottage. Wallace drew their battered pick-up truck to a halt just before the wooden gates beyond which Dr Dent’s aged Land Rover was parked.

‘It’s a bit weird calling at the house of a dead man,’ Wallace remarked.

‘Especially when it looks like he was murdered,’ Douglas agreed.

They let themselves through the wooden gate and crunched up the gravel drive.

‘Dr Dent doesn’t seem to have been one for gardening then,’ Douglas said, pointing to the overgrown garden with knee high grass and weeds.

Wallace shrugged. ‘Why would he be? It isn’t as if he owned the place. Morag says it was rented on his behalf by the University of the Highlands.’

‘You can hardly see that pond for all the grass,’ Douglas replied with a nod towards a fish pond with several large goldfish visible under a surface carpet of water lily leaves.

The front door was locked and the windows were all closed.

‘Let’s check the back,’ Douglas suggested, leading the way.

It only took a few moments to do a circuit of the cottage.

‘It seems secure enough,’ Douglas pointed out as he shielded his eyes and peered through a front window. ‘But it’s a bit of a mess inside.’

‘I see what you mean,’ his brother agreed, as he joined him at the sill and looked in.