Deathly Wind (8 page)

‘Is it a threat of defamation now, then?’ asked Wallace.

‘That’s an offence too, Calum Steele,’ Douglas said. ‘And you’ve got crumbs on your anorak now. You want to watch all those calories you know.’

Calum flushed. ‘You pair of malnourished, long-limbed Neanderthals, I’ll give you calories – where they hurt!’

The twins looked at each other and nodded their heads. ‘Oh he’s good with words, isn’t he? No wonder he’s the editor of the local rag.’

‘A rag! You two should learn to read and then you’d know if it was a rag or not!’ But then as they both burst into laugher, and even Torquil grinned he shook his head resignedly. ‘One day I’ll sort the pair of you out.’

And then he said to Torquil, ‘I saw Ralph McLelland, Piper. He told me about Kenneth McKinley. That’s a sad accident, so it is.’

‘Aye, I don’t know what old Alistair will do without him,’ Torquil returned.

‘I’m going to go over and see him. Do a proper obituary.’ He pulled out a small camera from his anorak. ‘I thought I’d take a few pictures of the Wee Kingdom while I’m up there. Give it a bit of colour and link it up with the piece I’m doing about the wind farm.’

‘Aye, there’s some sort of wind tower being put up on Gordon MacDonald’s croft now,’ Torquil informed him. ‘We saw it from the sea.’

‘This new laird could change the whole nature of the island if he gets his way,’ Calum said. ‘I’m going to see if I can get an interview with him. It would be a good thing to introduce the folk of the island to the new laird with a photo-feature. What do you think, boys?’

‘I’m wondering if you’ve got a licence for that digital camera, Calum Steele?’ Douglas Drummond said with a twinkle in his eye.

Jock McArdle was at that moment standing on the shore of Loch Hynish tossing sticks as far as he could into the loch in the direction of the crannog with its ancient ruined tower. His two Rottweilers, Dallas and Tulsa launched themselves in and swam powerfully to retrieve them, depositing them on the pebble shore with much barking as they pleaded for more.

McArdle was a dog lover. He especially loved big powerful animals like these. He appreciated their strong muscles, their loyalty and the verve with which they attacked life. They were both bitches; mother and daughter. Dallas was the youngest and seemed capable of swimming forever. Tulsa had been just the same when she was young, and even now amazed McArdle by being able to keep up with her daughter. Especially on this late afternoon, after she had seemed so off colour in the morning and had vomited up her morning meal. He had thought she was coming down with a bug.

‘Fetch, girls! Fetch!’ he yelled, lobbing a large stick as far as he could.

The dogs charged in together and after a couple of lolloping splashes were soon out of their depth and were swimming in pursuit of the stick. The laird of Dunshiffin watched the progress of the big black and tan heads, yelling encouragement to them both. He delighted in the fact that they were both revelling in the competition. They reached the stick together and turned, each with an end in their mouth as they started to swim for shore.

Then the younger Dallas growled and managed to wrench the stick from her mother.

‘G’wan, Tulsa, don’t let her get away with that!’ McArdle shouted.

Dallas edged away and Tulsa seemed to put on a spurt as well. Then she gave a strange yelping bark and stopped. Dallas swam on, growling and working the stick into her mouth, her powerful teeth biting into the wood.

Tulsa’s head momentarily disappeared beneath the surface of the loch.

‘Tulsa!’ McArdle cried, as Dallas reached the shallows and bounded out of the water with the stick.

Tulsa’s head resurfaced again and McArdle began to heave a sigh of relief. Then her head started to sink again, but she spluttered and started to swim on weakly. Dallas, confused, stood in the water and barked continuously.

‘Come on, you stupid bitch!’ the laird screeched. ‘Come on!’

Once again the head started to sink and McArdle finally realized that his beloved dog was in real danger of drowning. He peeled off his jacket and tugged off his shoes, then went racing into the water, launching himself into a dive. As a youngster in Govan he had learned to swim competently. Now with a powerful crawl he swam as he had never done before, intent on saving one of the few living creatures that he actually felt anything for.

Ahead of him he saw the dog’s head spluttering as it attempted to swim on. And then he was on her. He grabbed her thick studded collar and immediately turned onto his back and began hauling her back towards the shore. A part of his mind reflected upon those life-saving classes that he had taken as a youngster, but never expected to use. And certainly not on saving a dog.

Tulsa was a dead weight by the time he reached the shore, and he himself was in a state of near panic.

‘Shut the hell up!’ he cried at Dallas, who was barking and running around in the shallow water in a frenzy.

He manhandled Tulsa through the shallows, immediately conscious of her weight increasing dramatically as they arrived on solid ground. He pulled her onto the pebble beach and stared, unsure of what to do next.

Then Tulsa began to convulse.

Katrina Tulloch bit her lip and rose from the dead body. She removed the earpieces of her stethoscope from her ears and coiled the instrument in her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Mr McArdle, but she’s gone!’

McArdle stared at her through tears. He swallowed back a lump in his throat. ‘How the hell? She was only eight, for God’s sake?’

Katrina looked down at the Rottweiler’s corpse lying in its own excrement, aware of the howling of Dallas, the younger dog in the back of the nearby 4 x 4. She had been in the vicinity when the laird’s call had come through via her
automatic
redirect to her mobile.

‘She was a powerful animal,’ she said. ‘Looked healthy enough and no obvious signs of death. Had she shown any symptoms in the last day or two?’

‘She’d been off her food a bit. She puked up food this morning.’

‘Anything else. Cough, weeing more? Any diarrhoea?’

McArdle shivered slightly as he stood in his sodden clothing. ‘Aye, as a matter of fact she’s had a bit of diarrhoea lately and seemed thirstier than usual. Oh, and Jesmond, the butler, was complaining about her slobbering on his precious hall floor.’

Katrina bent down and pulled open the dog’s lower jaw. She sniffed, then rose looking puzzled.

‘What’s wrong?’ McArdle snapped.

‘I thought I smelled garlic. Dogs don’t usually like that.’

‘Tulsa would eat anything,’ McArdle replied dismissively. ‘But what killed her?’

‘I won’t be able to tell anything else without doing a
post-mortem
.’

The laird shook his head. ‘No! You are not cutting up my Tulsa.’

Katrina shook her head sympathetically. ‘I can understand that, but what about some blood tests? I can run a screen and might be able to come up with an answer.’ She pointed to his wet clothes as involuntarily he shivered again. ‘And I think you’d better get home and get into some dry clothes, Mr McArdle. You don’t want to go down with something
yourself
.’

‘I’ll be OK. I’ve phoned for my boys to come and bring me some clothes. Can you take the blood here and now?’

Katrina hesitated. ‘I suppose so; it’s just that it might be easier if I took her body back to my surgery. If you want I could arrange for her to be cremated.’

McArdle shuddered rather than shivered this time. ‘I’m taking her back to the castle. She didn’t know it for long, but she seemed to like it well enough. Besides, I know that Dallas there will be feeling it, so burying her in the grounds seems right.’

Katrina went back to her van and got out her venepuncture kit and a few specimen bottles. She bent down by Tulsa’s body. ‘Did she have any different food in the last few days?’

‘She always has the best, and whatever extra scraps the boys give her. Why, what are you thinking?’

‘Just wondering if she could have taken something bad into her system.’

He glared at her. ‘Do you mean poison?’

‘I meant food poisoning, actually. But I suppose we’d need to consider if she could have eaten anything else. You don’t have rat poison down at the castle, do you?’

He turned away as she sank the needle into a vessel and pulled back on the syringe, dark purple blood oozing back into the plastic cylinder.

‘Are you a wee bit squeamish, Mr McArdle,’ Katrina asked matter-of-factly.

McArdle’s reply was curt. ‘I’m squeamish about nothing! And I’m scared of nothing.’

‘I didn’t mean anything,’ she replied apologetically. ‘You’ve had a shock, what with having to pull her out and
everything
.’

‘Never mind that,’ he replied. ‘What you were just saying though? About poison. Could someone have poisoned my dog?’

‘I can’t say without the results.’

‘But it is possible?’

‘Yes. If she was convulsing, like you said.’

The noise of a fast car coming along the road was followed by a screech of brakes and a skidding of wheels on gravel as a black Porsche Boxter ground to a halt. Liam Sartori and Danny Reid jumped out.

‘You OK, boss?’ cried Liam, as they jogged down to the loch side.

‘God! Is that Tulsa?’ Danny Reid asked. ‘Crikes, I am sorry to see that, boss.’

‘And is this the vet?’ asked Liam Sartori, eyeing Katrina admiringly. ‘Do you need a hand, dear?’

‘I’d rather you didn’t call me “dear”,’ Katrina returned, frostily. ‘And yes, I am the vet – and no, I don’t need any help.’

Sartori held his hands up in mock defence. ‘No offence meant.’

‘What are we going to do with Tulsa, boss?’ Danny Reid asked. ‘Dallas sounds upset.’

‘We’ll take her back to the castle,’ McArdle replied sourly. ‘Or rather you boys will in the four by four. I’ve got an appointment in the town. Did you bring me fresh togs?’

Liam Sartori was returning from the Boxter with a holdall
of fresh clothes when the characteristic whine of a scooter was followed by the appearance round the bend of Calum Steele. The
West Uist Chronicle
editor-in-chief parked behind the Boxter and came jauntily down the slope to join them.

‘Hello, Katrina, what have you there? A drowned dog, is it?’

With the dexterity of a seasoned conjuror his digital camera had appeared in his hand and he had taken a couple of shots before he even reached a standstill beside the group. He nodded at Jock McArdle. ‘It’s not the usual attire for
swimming
, so I deduce that you went in and brought the beast out?’ He grinned and held out his hand. ‘You must be Mr McArdle, the new owner of Dunshiffin castle? I was meaning to make an appointment with you and see how you’re settling in. Get your comments on the wind farm and all.’

‘I don’t give interviews to the newspapers,’ McArdle replied emphatically, ignoring Calum’s outstretched hand.

Calum continued to grin good-humouredly. ‘Ah, but maybe you don’t know about the
Chronicle
. My paper is the epitome of responsible journalism. You ask anyone on West Uist. You see, it’s the best PR you could have on the island.’ He raised his camera and took a photograph of the new laird and his two employees. ‘How about a more smiling one this time? Then we could maybe go and have a chat and a drink—’

‘I don’t do photographs either.’

‘Och, as the new laird you are news, whether you like it or not,’ Calum persisted bullishly. ‘The public have a right and a desire to know all about you.’

Katrina had put her blood specimen containers away in her bag and now stood up. She felt uneasy at the hard expression that had come over McArdle’s face. ‘I’ll – er – be away now then, Mr McArdle. I should have the blood results in a couple of hours and I’ll be in touch if I find anything odd.’

Calum’s head swivelled quickly on his stocky neck. ‘Odd? Is there something odd about this dead dog?’

‘This dead dog, as you so politely put it, was my dearly beloved pet. If there is anything odd about her death then it is nobody’s business except mine and the vet’s here.’

Calum was not renowned for his sensitivity. He pointed the camera at the dead animal and snapped another picture. ‘You’re not thinking that it was poisoned, are you?’

‘Why did you ask that?’ McArdle snapped. ‘Why use the word poison?’

For the first time Calum discerned the hostility that Katrina had found almost palpable. ‘Well, I suppose I meant polluted rather than poisoned. Blue-green algae in Loch Hynish, that sort of thing. But I’m sure it isn’t. Everything is pure and fresh on West Uist.’ He smiled placatingly. ‘I am sure there is no reason to be concerned.’

‘But I am concerned about infringement on my privacy,’ McArdle returned drily. ‘Especially when I’m so recently bereaved.’ He nodded at his employees and immediately Calum found his right arm pinioned in a vice-like grip by Liam Sartori, while Danny Reid prised the camera from his hand.

Calum watched dumbfounded as the Glaswegian hurled the camera as far as he could into the waters of Loch Hynish.

‘What the hell did you do that for?’ he demanded. ‘That’s criminal! That was an expensive camera. I’ll have the law on you.’

‘I told you no interviews and no photographs,’ McArdle said coldly, through gritted teeth.

Katrina saw Calum’s face turn puce, just as she noted the belligerent and insolent grins on the faces of Reid and Sartori. And she was all too aware that the young Rottweiler was howling anew and throwing itself against the closed door of the 4 x4.

She caught Calum by the arm and pulled him away. ‘Come on, Calum. Leave it for now.’

Dr Ralph McLelland had gone out on his rounds after his
morning surgery and, as luck would have it, was just leaving the house of one of his elderly patients on the easternmost point of the island when Agnes Calanish, the wife of the local postmaster decided to go into labour. But it was her fifth child and she wasted no time about it. The baby was delivered, her episiotomy was stitched up and the baby attached to the breast by the time Helen McNab, the midwife arrived.

‘A fine busy man you have been here, Dr McLelland,’ cooed Helen, as she took over. ‘And such a shame about Kenneth McKinley.’

‘How ever will old Alistair manage the croft without him?’ agreed Agnes, as her newborn babe suckled away
contentedly
. ‘And what with all these windmills that they say are going up.’

‘Windmills?’ Ralph queried.

Guthrie Calanish, the postmaster himself came in with a tray of tea to celebrate his latest offspring. ‘Aye, the first of them is up now and they are busy setting up a second. I was over at the Wee Kingdom this morning. There are two men and they seem to be setting them up like dandelion clocks.’ He looked regretfully at the local GP. ‘Are you sure you’ll not stay for a cup, Doctor?’

‘No. I’ll be back in tomorrow. But I’m afraid I have work to complete after Kenneth McKinley’s death.’

‘Paperwork, eh,’ sighed Guthrie. ‘The bane of a doctor’s existence, I am thinking.’

Ralph McLelland smiled and left. He had work to do all right, but it was not nearly as pleasant as filling out a few papers.

Kenneth McKinley’s body was waiting for him in the refrigerator of the Kyleshiffin Cottage Hospital mortuary. He had promised to do the post-mortem before lunch, and then let Inspector Torquil McKinnon have a report first thing
afterwards
.

While Ralph McLelland was carrying out the post-mortem on Kenneth McKinley, Katrina Tulloch was back in her laboratory
working with reagents on the blood tests she had taken from Tulsa, the dead Rottweiler. When she was at veterinary school she had taken an intercalated BSc degree in toxicology and was well able to do the lab work herself.

The garlic smell had worried her, and her preliminary test had shown that she was right to be worried. She packaged up the specimens for later despatch and full analysis at the department of veterinary toxicology at the University of Glasgow, and put them in the fridge. Yet in her own mind she had enough information. She phoned the mobile number that Jock McArdle had given her.

She hadn’t felt at all comfortable about the way McArdle and his heavies had treated Calum Steele. The man was a bully, that was clear. Yet she felt sorry for anyone who lost their pet under such circumstances.

Arsenic was a particularly nasty poison.

Calum Steele was leaning against the front desk recounting his experience on the shore of Loch Hynish to Morag when Torquil came in. So deep into his diatribe was the editor-in-chief of the
West Uist Chronicle
that he did not hear the Inspector come in.

‘Thugs! They’re just bloody thugs!’ Calum exclaimed, hammering his fist on the counter.

‘Who are thugs, Calum?’ Torquil asked, clapping his friend on the shoulder.

‘That new laird and his henchmen.’ And he recounted his meeting with them all over again, much to Morag’s chagrin. ‘One of them threw my digital camera into the loch. It was brand new.
Chronicle
property. I want to charge them with criminal damage.’

‘Are you sure about that, Calum. He’s a powerful man, I hear?’

Calum’s face went beetroot red. ‘The press will not be intimidated by a bunch of Glasgow bullyboys. I’m going to do an exposé on him.’

‘An exposé, Calum?’ Morag asked. ‘And what are you going to expose about him?’

‘His thuggery! His insensitivity. His intention to suppress the mouthpiece of the people – the
Chronicle
!’

‘Do you have a witness to all this, Calum?’ Torquil asked, trying hard to suppress a grin. The newspaperman was well known for losing his rag.

‘The vet, Katrina Tulloch. She saw it all. And she whisked me away just in time, or – or – I’d have shown them.’

‘In that case I’m glad that she did, Calum. It’s best to avoid physicality, as you well know.’

‘Huh. I’m not afraid of anyone. I’m from West Uist, born and bred, just like you. I’ll not be intimidated by Glasgow bullies.’

Torquil put an arm about Calum’s shoulders and gently moved him towards the door. ‘Calum, I’ll look into this, I promise. I’ll have a word with this new laird and get his side of the story.’

‘Aye, well, have a word with Katrina Tulloch, too. She’ll tell you exactly what happened.’

‘I’ll do that, Calum, don’t worry. I’m needing to have a word with her in any case.’

Calum nodded. ‘Well I’m off to write a piece on thuggery right now. Just tell that laird to start buying the
Chronicle
from now on. If he wants to take on the might of the fourth estate, he’s got a fight on his hands.’

Once he had gone Morag shook her head and frowned. ‘Let’s just hope Calum doesn’t go over the top. You know what he can be like when he gets a bee in his bonnet.’

‘Aye, he gets a sore head,’ replied Torquil with a grin. ‘And then we get a pain in the neck. He was like that when we were in Miss Melville’s class at school. But his heart is in the right place.’

Ralph McLelland was not happy. He had walked up to the police station with the manilla folder containing his report on
the post-mortem, and accepted Morag’s offer of tea and biscuits in Torquil’s office.

‘There’s something wrong, Torquil,’ he said at last, as he dunked a shortbread in the tea.