Кит Мори - Flotsam and Jetsam

‘Ewan pulled his pencil from his pocket and opened up the day book. ‘When did you last see him?’

‘This morning.’

‘Just this morning? He’s not been gone very long then?’

‘No, but he could be drinking,’ Chrissie said. ‘He sometimes does this when he’s stressed. He goes on a bit of a bender.’

‘I can’t really help you then. We can’t do anything until he’s been missing for twenty-four hours.’

‘But he has a show in a few hours!’ Chrissie exclaimed.

‘He could be lying in a ditch drunk as a lord,’ said Geordie.

‘If he’s still not shown up by tomorrow, then come back and we’ll look into it.’

Chrissie opened her mouth as if to say something then shook her head, turned round and flounced out.

‘Have you tried all of the pubs?’ Ewan suggested to Geordie.

‘No, but if he doesn’t show up soon I’m probably going to find a corner of one and stay there myself. Without Fergie Ferguson we’re screwed!’

Torquil looked round as Ewan came in with the tray laden with tea and biscuits.

‘Any problem out there, Ewan?’

‘Fergie Ferguson may have gone on a bender. That was Chrissie and their producer. He’s gone off somewhere and they’re worried about the show later.’

‘They haven’t left it very long,’ said Morag. ‘As if we haven’t got enough on our hands already.’

‘That’s showbiz folk for you, though,’ said Wallace.

‘Demanding!’ agreed Douglas.

‘OK, folks; let’s see where we have got to. Ewan first: have you anything to add on those thefts?’

‘I’ve made reports, but I haven’t finished seeing everyone.’

‘OK, we’ll look at them separately later. Morag, did you find anything from the University of the Highlands?’

‘I talked to all sorts of folk, from the vice chancellor downwards. Jenny Protheroe, the head of the HR department told me that he had a reputation as a bit of a Lothario. She implied that he would have a go at anyone in a skirt, although she sounded peeved that he hadn’t had a go at her. She also mentioned Heather McQueen, the girl who drowned last year. She was a postgraduate student of his.’

Torquil frowned. ‘Yes, I talked with the Reverend Canfield, the chaplain at the university. He said that he thought Dent should have been more remorseful about her death. Acold fish, it seems.’

‘Aye, a cold fish that swam in other folk’s school of fish, it seems,’ said Wallace.

‘A bit of a shark,’ said Douglas.

Torquil picked up the marker and added the name Heather McQueen to the board and drew a circle round it. Then he drew a line between her circle and Dr Dent’s and added a question mark.

‘The FAI didn’t draw any conclusions about it,’ Morag said.

‘What do we know about her?’ Torquil queried.

‘Next to nothing,’ Morag said. ‘I’ll get on to it. Shall I give Dr McLelland a ring and ask him if he can remember anything strange about her post-mortem?’

‘Good idea,’ Torquil said with a nod. ‘You can ask him when you tell him about the other things we want him to check out. Now, about Dr Dent’s cottage. We found a water tank and we need to have the water checked for Dr Dent’s blood. We found signs of a burglary, although we think that was what the murderer wanted us to think. And it seems there is a missing computer.’ He made notes under Dr Dent’s name.

‘And we found the likely murder weapon.’

Ewan shuddered and pointed to the concrete gnome with bloody hands that stood, bagged up in polythene on the table tennis table. ‘Is that what was used?’

‘It looks like it,’ said Wallace.

‘We found it in a garden pond.’

‘All of which leaves the main question,’ Torquil went on. ‘Why was his body then dumped on the moor?’

Morag arrived at Arbuckle’s wine bar on Deuglie Street at ten past eight, having made sure that she was ten minutes late on purpose. She was as nervous as a sixteen year old meeting a boy on a first date. Her heart was pitter-pattering and she was sure that her cheeks were flushed.

Sandy King was sitting at a corner table sipping a glass of iced water. He sprang to his feet upon her entry and crossed the bar to meet her.

‘Morag, thanks for coming,’ he said, reaching down and giving her an air kiss. ‘A nice wee place you chose here. Good atmosphere and the food smells fabulous.’

‘It’s as discrete as you can get on our wee island,’ she returned, letting him pull out a chair for her.

‘I can see that,’ he replied with a grin. ‘I already gave Rosie, the barmaid, my autograph.’

‘You can’t expect to keep your identity secret even on West Uist. Not when you are Scotland’s best hope to rival Wayne Rooney.’

He averted his eyes with embarrassment. ‘I wouldn’t put myself in that class.’

‘We can all hope.’

‘Indeed. But my cover will be all blown tomorrow. I gave Calum Steele of the Chronicle an interview today. Odd wee chap isn’t he?’

‘Calum is a one-off.’

‘Aye you can say that again. He was a bit upset, actually. I came in when he was watching the news and he seemed put out over something to do with Dr Dent’s death.’

‘He felt my inspector should have told him and not the Scottish TV.’

‘Ah! So that was it. Still, enough of all that. This evening is about you and me.’

Morag’s cheeks started to burn and she looked down to see his hand reach out to touch hers.

And despite her nerves, she did not withdraw it.

Torquil had just come in from giving Crusoe an evening run. Lachlan was sitting on the floor in the hall working on the carburettor of the Excelsior Talisman motor cycle that they had both been slowly rebuilding for the past two years.

‘Ralph McLelland rang while you were out, Torquil. He has to go out on a house visit over at Fintry Farm, but he’d like to meet you at the mortuary in half an hour. He says it is important.’

Lachlan wiped a grease trail across his forehead with the back of his wrist then sat tapping the carburettor with an expanding spanner. ‘And just after he called, our old friend Superintendent Lumsden phoned to say that you are to call him straight away when you get in.’ He clenched the spanner so that his knuckles went white. ‘The man is so rude; I know what I’d like to do with this spanner.’

‘Uncle, that’s not a Christian thought.’

‘I have already asked forgiveness for it, but that man would try a saint. Maybe you had better get him on the blower.’

Torquil went through and called his superior officer up on his mobile. ‘Good evening, Superintendent Lumsden. You wanted me—’

‘Why haven’t I had a report through, McKinnon?’

‘I am still at a preliminary stage of—’

‘You know what I said, McKinnon. I want to be kept informed at every step. You think you can get away with anything over on that cursed island.’

‘It is not a cursed island, Superintendent.’

‘What progess have you made?’

‘Slow progress, but I think we have established that it was definitely murder. His head was bashed in with a concrete gnome.’

‘A gnome!’ The superintendent’s voice fairly blasted down the phone. ‘Are you serious?’

‘We found it covered in blood in Dr Dent’s garden pond.’

‘But he was found on the moor?’

‘I think the murderer moved his body.’

‘Good grief! This gets worse! Get me a report on my desk by noon tomorrow.’

‘Yes, Superintendent, but about Sergeant—’

The phone clicked and all he heard was the dialling tone.