Кит Мори - Flotsam and Jetsam

For Lily

He had risen at three, well before the dawn came creeping. Time enough to prepare his porridge and drink his first dram of the day. The fact that he took it with hot water and a teaspoonful of Cascara Sagrada in the guise of a medicinal tonic for his bowels was his way of soothing his conscience and denying the fact that he had a drink problem.

With his tonic by his side he set about preparing his telescope to scan the horizon. The tide would have turned half an hour ago, making it a perfect time to see what fruits and treasures the sea had brought in.

‘I will take the Sea Beastie out later and check out the Cruadalach Isles. I am feeling in my bones that it will be a good day for beachcombing.’ He scratched his grizzled beard and glanced with a grin at the calendar on the nearby desk. ‘It should be today, at any rate.’

He sipped his drink then straddled the high stool in eager anticipation.

The darkness began to recede as the rising sun broke the horizon.

As usual the heaps of assorted seaweeds became visible. Then the rocks began peeping above the surf as the departing waters went out quickly. It was then that he saw it at the water’s edge, half in and half out of the water. It was long and light coloured. At first he thought it was just another piece of flotsam or jetsam. Timber from a crate or some sort of packaging. Then by the shape he thought it could be a dead seal.

‘Bloody hell! Why can’t they go and die on someone else’s beach!’ he grumbled, swinging his telescope round and peering through the eyepiece.

‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed, adjusting the focus. ‘That’s no dead seal, but it looks dead enough.’

Through the telescope he saw the naked body of a young woman lying face down, her long blonde hair ebbing too and fro in the puddle around her, the receding waters still playing over her buttocks and legs.

He straightened up and frowned as he pulled a ready-made roll-up from behind his ear and casually lit it with his old Zippo.

‘I suppose I had better make sure she is dead,’ he grunted to himself. ‘Bloody inconvenient, that’s what it is.’

He poured another dram, but omitted the Cascara Sagrada this time. He reconciled it with his conscience that this was not a normal occurrence so he would permit himself some leeway. He smoked and drank for a few minutes then stubbed the cigarette out and drained the glass.

‘Sorry, lassie,’ he said, rising and stretching his aching muscles. ‘One thing is sure: I can’t have you cluttering up my beach. You’ll have to go.’

He wheezed as he laughed. Then he felt a spasm of pain in his chest. It shot up into his neck and down the left arm.

‘And this bloody angina is inconvenient too!’ He groaned. ‘Oh not now! Not now!’

The pain tightened and he reached for his phone. ‘Must – get – help!’ he said through gritted teeth. He glanced back out of the window at the body and the effect of the receding surf. It was just as if a frilly white dress was being peeled off her to leave her naked body on the beach.

‘Damned – fool – of – a woman!’ he gasped. ‘Gah!’

Inspector Torquil McKinnon, ‘Piper’ to most people on West Uist, had been practising his pipes in St Ninian’s Cave. It was something he tried to do at least once a week. On those days, although not normally an early-riser, he would get up with the first light, have a frugal breakfast then ride down to the cave before he went in to the police station in Kyleshiffin. He found it an excellent way of problem-solving.

For ten minutes he ran through his repertoire of warm-up exercises, to get his finger movements right. He played a string of ever more complex movements – leumluaths, taorluaths, gracenotes and birls. Then he played a strathspey and reel, then a hornpipe before concentrating on the piobaireachd, the pibroch.

The great basalt columned St Ninian’s Cave had been used by generations of island pipers, including Torquil’s uncle, the Reverend Lachlan McKinnon. They had lived together in the old manse ever since Torquil’s parents had died in a boating accident when he was a youngster and Lachlan had been appointed as his guardian. He remembered the day when Lachlan had taken him and his pipes and introduced him to the cave’s special magic. The young Torquil had hoped that he would one day follow in his uncle’s footsteps and become a champion piper and winner of the Silver Quaich. Much to their mutual pleasure he duly did, just a year before, so that there now resided a Silver Quaich on each end of the mantelpiece in the manse’s sitting-room.

Nature had carved this sea cave beautifully, so that it seemed to hold a sound perfectly for a moment so that the piper was able to hear the correct pitch of his playing. It was a natural tape recorder for a musician.

Suddenly a sour note from a faulty fingering grated around the cave.

‘Och! It is all rubbish that you are playing, Torquil McKinnon. You are playing like a constipated crow today,’ he chided himself as he let the blow pipe drop from his lips then gave the bag a sharp chop so that it was instantly silenced as the reeds closed, rather that producing the amateurish moaning as the bag slowly deflated that bagpipe loathers likened to the death throws of a dying sheep. He shook his head and bit his lower lip.

‘Too much on my mind, that is the trouble.’

He was a tall twenty-nine year old man with coal-black hair, high cheekbones and a slightly hawk-like nose. He had been the youngest inspector in the whole of the Western Isles and to many a West Uist lass he had been considered a desirable and eligible male. That had changed relatively recently when he lost his heart to Sergeant Lorna Golspie. Things had been so good between them over the last few weeks until his superior officer had thrown a spanner in the works.

Torquil felt his temper begin to rise, but he suppressed it quickly. He stood for a moment and reverently bent his head, much as he would in his uncle’s church.

‘Tapadh leat ! Thank you!’ he said to the great columned chamber, itself like a church. The Padre himself had taught him to show respect to St Ninian and his cave for in a way it was the best teacher a piper could ever have.

With his pipes under his arm he left the cave and crunched up the kelp-covered shingle beach towards the lay-by above where he had parked his classic Royal Enfield Bullet 500.

‘Damn Superintendent Lumsden!’ he said to himself. ‘Why could you not just let us have some time together instead of seconding her to the Lewis station. As if they didn’t have enough—’

He stopped short when he heard the moan. It sounded like a dog whimpering.

He spun round and looked in the direction of the sea. The tide had turned some time ago and was going out, exposing heaps of seaweed-covered rocks and leaving countless pools.

Floating in one such pool was a piece of timber. To his horror he saw that a young three-coloured collie, little more than a puppy was lying sprawled on the timber, lashed to it with several loops of thick cord. Its fur was soaked and spiky and it looked exhausted. Its weary eyes were fixed on him and it raised its head and whimpered pitifully.

‘Creideamh! Faith!’ Torquil exclaimed, laying his bagpipes down on the shingle and sprinting over towards the pool where the timber-bound dog was bobbing up and down. ‘Who would do such a thing. They meant to drown you?’