Кит Мори - Flotsam and Jetsam

‘Oh Christ!’ she moaned. ‘Now we have another one.’

‘Agnes wasn’t happy with me when I told her I had to get rid of that Ferguson clown,’ Alec Anderson explained.

He cocked his head to the side. ‘What do you think, my love? Is there room enough for three in that freezer?’

‘Alec, you’re a fool. We can’t just shoot him. How can we dump his body with a bullet in it?’

‘Is that what you are planning to do with the others? Dump them?’

‘Of course,’ Alec replied. ‘The freezer would keep them well preserved, so we were going to dump them in water somewhere. Somewhere away from here.’

‘You had practice there,’ Torquil replied. ‘A pity that you moved both of them to the wrong places. We have all the evidence we need.’

‘Like hell you do!’ Agnes said.

Torquil looked past them to the door. Then suddenly he called ‘Here, boy!’

There was a noise of running feet then a streak dashed from the door straight for the gap between Alec and Agnes Anderson.

Agnes immediately gasped and shied away and Alec stared down.

It was the slightest chance, but Torquil took it. He kicked at Alec’s wrist and the Glock discharged a burst and then went flying from his hand. Torquil instantly flew at Alec and grabbed him in a bear hug.

‘Agnes! Get the gun!’ cried Alec Anderson. ‘Shoot him.’

As Torquil and Alec went over and started grappling on the floor Agnes made a grab for the Glock.

But Crusoe was there before her. Sensing it was dangerous and that he must not let her have it, he sank his teeth into her hand. She screamed and tried to dislodge him, but he clung on.

Torquil brought his head down sharply on Alec Anderson’s face and nasal bones snapped in a torrent of blood. Then as the fight went out of the emporium owner he swiftly handcuffed him.

‘Leave, Crusoe,’ he said. And as the dog dutifully released the terrified Agnes, he handcuffed her to her husband. ‘Thank you for letting Crusoe in when you arrived, by the way,’ he said to her.

Standing and getting his breath back, he reached for his mobile and called Morag. Briefly he told her of his catch.

‘Can you give Ralph McLelland a call? I think we need his ambulance and his assistance. We had better deal with the casualties first, then we had better do the forensics.’ He reached over and closed the bench freezer. He sighed. ‘And I am afraid that I don’t relish telling Chrissie Ferguson the news that we have found her husband.’

Later that afternoon, the immediate problems and tasks had been tackled, including the arrest of Geordie Innes, who had been implicated by Craig Harrison and Tosh Mulroy as the boss of their antiques robbery gang. The young producer had an expensive drug habit that he had fed by arranging the theft of antiques that had been presented to the Flotsam & Jetsam show. A profitable business, they had been working the scam for two seasons.

Then had come the harrowing identification of Fergie Ferguson’s body by Chrissie Ferguson, and her subsequent sedation in the cottage hospital by Dr Ralph McLelland.

And it had been an unwelcome solution to the mystery of Crusoe being cast adrift to discover that Rab McNeish the local carpenter and undertaker, had been systematically abusing stray and stolen cats and dogs. Ralph was of the opinion that an animal phobia and a disease phobia sparked by his brother’s death from toxoplasmosis had resulted in a psychotic mental illness.

‘I knew there was something odd about those knots that I found on the cord he used to lash Crusoe to the timber,’ Torquil had confessed to Ralph. ‘They were just like those knots that you used after the post-mortem on Dr Dent.’

‘Surgical knots,’ Ralph had replied. ‘A lot of undertakers use them when they tidy up corpses.’

Torquil had just made up his report on all of the cases when Lorna called on her mobile.

‘I don’t know when Superintendent Lumsden will let me home,’ she said. ‘That big job that we were working on with the Customs folk came to nothing. He was expecting to make a big drugs bust. Heroin.’

‘Tell me more,’ Torquil urged.

‘He was sure that drug traffickers were using one of the Scandinavian shipping lanes that go past the Hebrides. We boarded one of them with the Royal Navy today, but found nothing. The boss is as angry as I’ve ever heard him.’

‘Perhaps if I tell him about the double murder here on West Uist he might cheer up.’

‘A double murder! Oh, Torquil, don’t make him any angrier.’

‘We solved them both!’ And he roughly ran through the various cases.

‘That might help. You know how he is about his crime figures. But I know he was hoping for great things from the drugs case.’

‘An MBE, you said. Well, it just happens that we have a heroin haul here. He was right, they have been using one of the shipping lanes, but they have been jettisoning the drugs near West Uist all this time.’ He laughed. ‘Tell the superintendent that he can have all the glory if he lets you have your leave.’

‘I think it would be better coming from you, darling.’ And they fell into their usual exchange of intimacies and endearments.

‘Maybe I will give the superintendent a ring now,’ Torquil said at last. ‘Hearing his dulcet tones will end what has been a less than perfect day.’

Torquil had never been so glad to make it to Friday night. The scandal and horror went like wildfire around all of the Western Isles, fuelled by Calum Steele in the West Uist Chronicle and his new girlfriend and assistant editor, Cora Melville.

After a meal of roast rabbit and home-made apple pie, washed down with half a bottle each of claret, he and Lachlan sat on opposite sides of the fireplace nursing a large dram of Glen Corlan. Crusoe lay curled up at Torquil’s feet.

‘I was surprised to learn that old Kenneth Canfield had an alcohol problem,’ Lachlan mused.

‘Aye, you can never tell by appearances, can you? I have learned that much these last few days. I would never have thought that Alec Anderson and Agnes could be such cold-blooded killers.’

‘A shock, right enough,’ Lachlan said, sipping his drink. ‘And what about Sandy King? Is Bruce McNab going to press charges?’

‘No. I think he’s accepted it all as a punishment. I don’t think he’ll ever get over the affair.’

‘And how is Morag?’

Torquil grinned. ‘In seventh heaven, I think. She and Sandy King seem to have something special going there, although it won’t be easy for them with him having to be with his team all week.’

‘I am pleased for them. Morag has not had an easy life. But what about that business chappie, the Dundee fellow? Was there anything in the match-fixing stuff? I saw Cora’s article about it.’

‘Nothing substantial.’

Crusoe suddenly sat up and pricked up his ears.

‘What about Rab McNeish? Will there be charges?’

‘I don’t know,’ Torquil replied, reaching down and stroking the dog. ‘That’s up to the Scottish SPCA, not us. All I can say is it was a grand day that I found Crusoe washed up on St Ninian’s Cove. He saved my life.’

‘And so now can I take it he’ll be staying with us?’

Torquil raised his glass and took a sip. ‘That depends on Lorna, I think.’

Crusoe sat up and started wagging his tail. Then he gave a short bark.

‘What depends on me?’ came Lorna’s voice from the hall.

‘Lorna!’ Torquil cried, jumping up and running to sweep her into his arms.

‘I thought I would surprise you. The boss let me have my time after all, now that he’s making his name for that drug clean-up. They’re tracing the suppliers all the way back to South America. He might get his MBE one day.’