Flotsam and Jetsam (16 page)

‘Ah, Officer,’ said Chrissie. ‘We’ve got a problem. I am Chrissie Ferguson from
Flotsam & Jetsam
and this is Geordie Innes, our producer.’

‘It’s a pleasure, Miss – er—’ Ewan began, his cheeks starting to glow in the presence of the famous hostess of the TV show.

‘We’ve lost Fergie Ferguson!’ Geordie Innes stated bluntly. ‘You need to find him.’

‘You’ve lost him. A missing person, you say?’

Chrissie stared at him as if she thought he was simple-witted. ‘My husband Fergie Ferguson. He’s famous. Everybody knows him, so he shouldn’t be hard to find on a wee island like this.’

‘Have you looked for him?’

‘Of course we’ve looked for him,’ replied Geordie tartly. ‘And we can’t find him, which is why we’ve come to you.’ He glanced irritably at his watch. ‘We have a show in a few hours.’

‘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.

‘Thank you for your support as usual, Superintendent Lumsden,’ he said wryly as he snapped the phone shut.

The lights were on in the mortuary and Dr Ralph McLelland’s battered old Bentley was parked in front of it as Torquil rode the Bullet into the cottage hospital car-park. He pressed the intercom button and spoke into it.

‘Come away in, Torquil,’ Ralph’s vaguely distorted voice called back. ‘I am in the lab.’

Torquil found him sitting by his microscope.

‘Is it about the water samples, Ralph?’

‘You were right; there is blood in the pond, the water tank and the bath water. That makes it look as if he was drowned some time ago in the tank, then the water there and in the bath must have circulated for quite some time. And it looks as if the murder weapon was tossed into the pond.’

‘Any idea how long he had been dead?’

‘No. But that wasn’t actually what I wanted to see you about: it was about that girl who drowned last year, Heather McQueen. You remember the other day that I said I had a bad feeling about all this?’

‘Aye, I do. But I don’t follow you.’

‘It was about Dr Dent’s body not being in the right place.
Then when Morag Driscoll told me that you wanted to know if there was anything odd about Heather McQueen’s
post-mortem
, it suddenly struck me.’ He pointed to the microscope. ‘I looked out the tissue specimens I took at her post-mortem and the water samples that I collected from her lungs.’

‘She was drowned in Loch Hynish. Surely that’s all that there was to it.’

‘Oh she was drowned all right. But Loch Hynish is a
freshwater
loch.’

‘You have me worried now, Ralph. What is it?’

‘She had sea water in her lungs. I didn’t do the test at the time, it didn’t seem necessary. But now that I have it is clear – she drowned in the sea.’

‘Are you serious? That means we have two bodies that were drowned.’

Ralph nodded and clicked his tongue. ‘And for some reason, maybe for different reasons, both bodies were moved.’

Torquil thumped the bench so that the microscope shook.

‘Damn it! And that makes it likely that we have two murders here, not just the one!’

Morag found it hard not to walk around with a smile on her face the next morning. Ewan noticed it straight away, but was polite enough to wait until he had made her a mug of tea before asking her.

‘Did you have a good evening, Sergeant Morag?’

‘It was bliss, Ewan. Sandy is so … nice!’

‘Are you seeing him again?’

‘Uh huh. Tonight. We have—’

The door banged open and the Drummond twins came in. They were not so reticent.

‘You look flushed, Morag Driscoll. You must have had a good time with that football lad,’ said Douglas.

‘You just remember that you have wee ones at home. Not too much gallivanting at nights now,’ added Wallace.

‘I … I … don’t know what you—’

‘Yes you do,’ interrupted Wallace with a wink.

And before she could reply to this the door opened again and Torquil bounced in with Crusoe at his heels. He had his Cromwell helmet in one hand and a dossier of notes in the
other. ‘I’ll be needing to get an extra helmet soon,’ he said, grinning at the dog.

Morag coughed. ‘Yes, well, I had been meaning to have a word with you about that, Torquil McKinnon. It is not legal to be riding about on that motor cycle with a dog in your pannier.’

Torquil stared at her for a moment, then noticed the amused, knowing looks on the faces of the others. He grinned, then asked, ‘Did you have a good evening, Morag?’

And then even before she could reply, he suddenly turned serious and waved the dossier in the air. ‘Come on, everybody into the rest room. There have been more developments. Ralph called me in last night to the mortuary. We have two murders on our hands now.’

To their amazement he told them of Ralph’s findings about Heather McQueen.

‘So, Morag, we really do need as much information about her as possible.’

‘I had it as my first task today already,’ she replied.

‘And, Ewan, I want you to go over and have a word with Rab McNeish.’

‘Why is that, Torquil? Is that so-called burglary of his relevant to these deaths?’

‘What so-called burglary, Ewan?’ Torquil asked.

‘Oh, didn’t I report it? Well it was weird actually. He came in to complain, like he always did. Then he said he had been sort of robbed, or something like that. Then Annie McConville came in and gave him what-for about his complaint about her. He got flustered then said he didn’t want to make a report and left.’

‘And so you didn’t record it as a burglary after all?’

‘Well, no. He retracted the whole thing.’

Torquil stood frowning. ‘Maybe all the more reason to have
a word, then.’

‘And – er – what am I asking him about? I mean, is it just about this burglary?’ He scratched his head. ‘Because I am confused, sir. If it isn’t about that, then why am I going?’

‘Because he’s an undertaker, Ewan,’ Torquil replied, adding the name to the board and adding a circle to it. He drew a line between his circle and that of Heather McQueen. ‘He did her funeral.’

He tapped the end of the marker on the board as he looked at the notes he had made in the dossier that lay before him ‘And then there was another little puzzle that adds to this whole mystery.’ He wrote the word flowers under Heather McQueen’s circled name. ‘Lachlan found that someone had put flowers on her grave the other day. I asked the Reverend Canfield about it and he thinks they were put there by Digby Dent.’

The bell rang out to alert them that someone had just entered the office. Ewan excused himself and went through to see.

It was a very agitated-looking Chrissie Ferguson and an equally anxious looking Geordie Innes.

‘He hasn’t come home all night,’ Chrissie blurted out. ‘Something’s wrong!’ she cried. ‘You need to do something!’

‘We had to cancel the show at the last minute, last night,’ Geordie Innes said. ‘Do you have any idea what that does to a show’s ratings?’

‘Bugger the ratings, Geordie!’ exclaimed Chrissie in exasperation. ‘Something is wrong, very wrong. This isn’t just one of Fergie’s benders. He always contacts me, even when he’s ratted. Something is not right, I tell you. He had a bee in his bonnet about that old beachcomber refusing to come on the show after that Dent fiasco.’

Ewan calmly took all their details and their phone numbers and promised that they would start looking for him straight
away and check with them about any progress later that morning.

Torquil was just about tying matters up when he returned to the rest room. Ewan gave him a quick report about Fergie Ferguson.

‘She said he had a bee in his bonnet about Guthrie Lovat not coming on their show.’

Torquil tapped the name
Flotsam & Jetsam
on the board and the names of the presenters underneath. ‘That is interesting. And he was peeved at Dr Dent, wasn’t he? And now his wife says that Guthrie Lovat refused to come on their show after Dr Dent’s death.’

‘I remember that they were sort of gloating in anticipation on the night of the show when Dr Dent came on drunk. It sounds as if old Guthrie must have cried off.’

‘What do you want us to do, Torquil?’ Wallace asked.

‘I want you to go to St Ninian’s Cave and scour the beach. Crusoe was washed up on the beach. It is just an idea, but have a look to see what else washes up there. Maybe have a look at some other beaches about there.’

He looked at everyone. ‘OK, are things clear? Let’s reconvene at lunchtime.’

Twenty minutes later Torquil was sitting at his desk staring down at the cord and the strange knots that had been used to lash Crusoe to the timber. There was something about them that he couldn’t seem to fathom.

His mobile went off and Lachlan’s name flashed on the little screen.

‘Torquil, I am with Kenneth Canfield. He has remembered something and he wondered if he ought to tell you.’

‘Put him on, Lachlan.’

‘Inspector McKinnon, I am sorry, but this has been niggling me. I know that I should have told you before. It is about Dr Dent and me.’

‘I am listening.’

‘I went to see him that afternoon. The afternoon before he went on the
Flotsam & Jetsam
show. I had gone to confront him about Heather McQueen. Well, we drank whisky. A lot of whisky.’

‘That would account for him being so drunk on the TV show. And what about this discussion? What did you talk about?’

‘That’s just it, Inspector. I cannot remember anything about it.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing, until I woke up in my hotel, vomiting my insides out. I had the hell of a headache.’

‘Is that unusual for you?’

There was a guilty silence for a few moments. ‘I have a problem with whisky, Inspector, but I can usually hold a lot without any problem. I am so sorry that I didn’t tell you before. I just felt so guilty and a bit frightened.’

‘Thank you for this information, Reverend. You do realize that it makes you a suspect in his death?’

Again there was a pause. Then, ‘Yes.’

‘Right, I will need to talk to you in more detail later. Don’t even think of trying to leave the island. I have already taken measures to stop all ferries from Kyleshiffin.’

Torquil sat for a moment after pocketing his mobile. Then he got up and grabbed his helmet. ‘Come on, Crusoe, we’re going to go for a ride.’

Morag was deep in conversation on the front phone when he went through.

‘I am going off to Half Moon Cove,’ he said softly.

‘Why?’ Morag mouthed.

‘It is all to do with bees. Ewan said that Fergie Ferguson had a bee in his bonnet about Guthrie Lovat. Well I have a bee in my own bonnet that I can’t get rid of. Maybe it will lead me to a hive. See you later.’

Morag waved then shook her head once the door had closed behind him. She had no idea what he was talking about.

Cora had come to work early and found that Calum had once again spent the night on his camp-bed. But to her relief she found that on this occasion there was no odour of stale whisky on his breath. Instead, he seemed to have a sparkle in his eye.

‘I have been having a good think, Cora. I find that I think best in the
Chronicle
offices. Being close to all the stories that I have written over the years seems to energize me.’

Cora giggled. ‘It sounds a bit mystical to me.’

‘Aye, well, journalism is a bit like a mystical journey, Cora. There is nothing like it when you get a story between your teeth.’

She sat down beside him. ‘I think I’m starting to get that feeling, boss.’

‘Hey, let’s drop the boss bit, shall we? It’s just plain Calum.’

She beamed at him. ‘I think your sixth sense might be starting to rub off on me. I sort of think I might have the essence of a story.’

‘Excellent! Go on, lassie. Spring it on me.’

‘Well, I think I know – I mean I think that maybe – Sandy King is here with Dan Farquarson because Farquarson is trying to buy him. You know, nobble him. Get him to throw matches and that. I was reading up about match-fixing on the internet. It is big business. Wee Hughie is Farquarson’s muscle.’

Calum suddenly threw his arms about her and kissed her hard on the cheek. ‘That’s it! That’s it! You’ve got the sense.’

He released her and they both beamed at each other. Then their proximity dawned on them.

‘Oh!’ said Cora.

‘Ah!’ said Calum.

‘So … so what do we do now – er – Calum?’

‘About what, Cora?’

‘A-About Sandy King and Farquarson?’ She averted her eyes and looked down at her feet. ‘Or about us?’ she whispered.

Calum swallowed hard. ‘I think we need to have a drink, Cora.’

She nodded absently. ‘You would like a whisky? Shall I get it?’

He patted the back of her hand affectionately. ‘No whisky, Cora. We have a story to chase. We need a cup of tea and some brain food. A mutton pie would be good.’ He winked at her. ‘Keep it professional, that’s what I say. At least while we have a story to close down.’ He smiled at her. ‘And then we can talk about us.’

She brightened and gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘Afterwards it is, Calum.’

Ewan coaxed Nippy along the road towards Sharkey’s Boot. It was hot and muggy and the midges were out in great swarms
ready to ambush the unwary traveller. Considering the machine’s age, the speedometer needle never came within five miles of its maximum thirty miles per hour, which made him an ideal target for the swarms.

‘Blasted midges!’ he exclaimed, swiping at them with one hand and swerving about the road as a result. ‘I wonder if Dr Dent was getting closer to finding a solution for these wee nuisances?’

As he rode further into the huge haze of biting insects he scratched his neck, aware that already he had developed multiple tell-tale wounds. ‘I can see why somebody could get obsessed with the wee scunners. They must spread all kinds of disease.’

And, as he said it, he thought of Rab McNeish, who certainly seemed to have some sort of phobia about dogs. ‘Hmm! He sounded a bit subdued when I phoned him from the station. He didn’t even swear once, which isn’t like him. Still, we’ll soon see. And it will be interesting to hear if he has anything to add about this Heather McQueen case. All a bit of a mystery.’

He cleared the swarm and heaved a sigh of relief. He was tempted to stop for a moment to pull up his collar to protect his neck as best he could against further midge attacks, but he did not want Nippy to lose speed, especially as there was a slight rise to negotiate before the road dropped down to the peninsula-shaped spit of land whose shape had given its name to Sharkey’s Boot.

Towards the top of the rise he heard the noise of a vehicle coming in the other direction at speed. Then suddenly a canary yellow camper-van shot over the crest and zoomed towards him.

‘You fools!’ he yelled, as he swerved to avoid it.

He looked round immediately and saw it speeding off without stopping.

‘Huh! It is those bird-watching lads again. I will be having words with them if I catch hold of them again. I already told them about speeding on West Uist.’

Then he cursed as Nippy’s engine spluttered and threatened to stall. He began pedalling as hard as he could towards the crest of the rise.

Torquil opened up the throttle and let the Bullet have its head, conscious of Crusoe in the pannier.

‘Ha! You actually like that, don’t you, boy?’ he yelled into the wind and was answered by a bark of pleasure. ‘Now hold on, the road’s a bit like a chicane for half a mile.’

And so saying he entered the series of snake bends that characterized the stretch of road as he headed towards Half Moon Cove.

He slowed as he saw Alec Anderson’s mobile shop-cum Royal Mail van coming towards him.

He was about to wave as they approached one another but suddenly the haze of a midge cloud rose from the side of the road and, uncharacteristically, he faltered and the machine wobbled. It was all that he could do to maintain his balance.

The emporium van passed and once he had passed through the swarm he looked round at the retreating van. Then a couple of bars of a hornpipe rang out as the van horn was pumped.

Torquil grinned. ‘Those blasted midges, Crusoe. That would be an inglorious end for us, ending up under the wheels of Alec Anderson’s van.’

Crusoe barked, then whimpered and started biting at his fur.

‘Have you taken a few stray midges on board?’ Torquil asked. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll give the Bullet a burst on the next straight bit. That’ll soon get rid of them.’

And with that he let the machine fly, much to Crusoe’s pleasure and bark of obvious relief.

Morag put the phone down and felt the blood drain from her cheeks. She was not sure that she could believe what she had just heard.

‘It is not possible! I’d better tell Torquil.’

But before she did that she felt a hollow feeling expand within her and she felt the need, a desperate need, to talk to Sandy.

She phoned his mobile and waited. The phone was picked up after several rings and she heard his voice.

‘Sandy, thank goodness. Listen I—’

‘… in a moment you will be connected to the voice mail of—’

With a grunt of exasperation she pressed the cancel button.