Flotsam and Jetsam (17 page)

‘Why didn’t you tell me this?’ she moaned. She was about to phone Torquil then thought better of it.

‘Damn! I wish one of the others was here.’ She glanced at her watch and considered calling Ewan or the twins and bringing them back to look after the station. Then she made her decision. She locked up, grabbed the station’s Escort car keys and let herself out of the back door.

Calum and Cora had arrived at the luxury rented cottage on Calum’s old yellow Lambretta. Calum had grinned all the way there at the warm feeling that having Cora’s arms about his middle had given him.

You are a fool, Calum Steele; part of his mind had castigated himself. But she’s a bonny lassie and she’s lovely, another part protested.

And just to make him grin even more, from time to time he felt the grip tighten and he felt her face pressing against his back.

Be professional, Calum you numbskull! Later, you can ask her out.

He felt himself bristle when he turned off the engine and Wee Hughie appeared at the door. He came across the gravel to meet them, smiling broadly at Cora and ignoring him.

‘I’m glad that you rang us, Cora,’ Wee Hughie said. ‘I wasn’t sure what we were planning to do today. There’s been a bit of a problem here.’

‘What sort of problem?’ Calum interjected, as he pulled off his helmet.

‘A bit of a bust up between the boss and McNab. The bloke doesn’t seem to know which side his bread is buttered.’

‘What do you mean? Has Bruce McNab been dismissed?’

‘He sacked us, more like,’ returned Wee Hughie with a grin. ‘The boss is fair annoyed. People don’t talk to him like that.’

Cora smiled at Wee Hughie and Calum noticed how the big man melted. He could understand exactly how he felt, but it peeved him nonetheless.

‘Could we come in and talk to Mr Farquarson?’ Cora asked.

Wee Hughie laughed. ‘And here was me thinking that you had come to talk to me! Of course you can. And then maybe later you and I could—’

‘Actually, I think that Cora is going to be busy all day after we finish here,’ Calum said quickly.

Wee Hughie glared at him. ‘You’d better follow me then.’

And they followed him into the cottage and found Dan Farquarson busily texting someone on a Blackberry.

‘Dan,’ said Calum, ingratiatingly. ‘Thanks for letting us have a few minutes.’ He looked about the room. ‘Er – where’s Sandy?’

‘I thought you wanted to speak to me, not Sandy,’ Dan Farquarson asked without looking up from his Blackberry.

‘Oh aye, it’s you, Dan. For a feature in the
Chronicle
.’

‘No feature!’

‘Sorry?’ Calum returned.

‘I said, no feature. You can ask a few questions, but here are the rules first.’ He pressed the send button on his phone then flicked it closed and looked up. ‘You are the editor of the local rag, right? I am a Dundee businessman. I am here with my associate and with my good friend Sandy King. Those are facts. The first rule is you don’t leap to any conclusions. We are here on a hunting holiday, not on any kind of business trip.’

‘Of course, Dan,’ Calum began. ‘I wasn’t suggesting that—’

Dan Farquarson smiled; a smile without any warmth whatsoever. ‘Of course you weren’t. You have already had an interview with Sandy King. The second rule is that there must be no adverse publicity. Nothing! Understand?’

Calum nodded emphatically. ‘Totally understand, Dan. I just wanted—’

‘You just wanted to stick your nose in and make some sort of
connection, didn’t you? You and your girlie here.’ He nodded at Wee Hughie. ‘Show him what we do to nosy-parkers, Hughie.’

Wee Hughie stared at his boss and then at Calum. Then at Cora. With a shrug he stood up and took a pace towards Calum.

‘Just you sit down, Hughie!’ said Cora, shooting to her feet. ‘What do you think you are doing listening to a windbag like that? He’s just a big bully and he’s using you, can’t you see that?’

‘Sit down, girlie!’ Dan Farquarson snapped.

‘Oh shut up, fatso,’ Cora returned. ‘We are not frightened of you. We are journalists. Calum Steele is the finest local paper editor in Scotland and he’s not frightened of you and your big bank roll, wherever it came from.’ She looked at Calum for support. ‘You’re not scared of the likes of him, are you, Calum?’

Calum stood and drew himself up to his full five foot six inches and puffed out his chest. ‘Not a bit of it, Cora. And this little conversation has just confirmed all that we needed to know. Read the paper tomorrow, Farquarson, and sue me if you dare.’

‘Hughie!’ Farquarson screeched. ‘Don’t just stand there.’

But Wee Hughie just looked at his boss and despite himself he tossed back his head and roared with laughter. ‘She’s right. You are just a windbag. And you’ve even been sacked by your gillie today. Well, let me make it three. I’ve sacked you, too. You can find someone else to do your dirty work. I’m going off with my friends here. They can have all the information they want.’

The Dundee businessman huffed and puffed and then slumped down in his chair.

Wee Hughie walked outside with them.

‘Cora, you are fantastic!’ he said.

Cora started to tremble and Calum immediately put a protective arm about her shoulder before Wee Hughie could act. ‘Aye, you were. And I am proud of you, lass. Dead proud.’

Wee Hughie shrugged as he saw the loving look she bestowed on Calum.

‘Do you want me to follow you into town for a wee chat about Farquarson? I’ve been meaning to kick the old fart into touch for a while now. It’s not the sort of work my old mother would like to see me doing.’

The sound of a car crunching up the gravel made them all turn. The West Uist police force’s Ford Escort pulled up beside them and Morag Driscoll leaned out of the window.

‘I need to speak to Sandy King,’ she said, addressing all three of them.

‘He’s not here,’ Wee Hughie volunteered. ‘I’m not sure where he is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had gone to sort things out with Bruce McNab.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ muttered Morag. ‘Thanks,’ she called, shoving the car into reverse and speeding back up the gravel drive.

Bruce McNab sat in his kitchen staring out of the window with a bottle by his side and his shotgun cradled over his knees. He had been drinking since cock crow. It was not something he normally did, but his spirits had sunk pretty low over the past few days. Farquarson’s party had been an increasing irritation, what with them showing up as and when it suited them rather than as arranged. After his second drink he had phoned Farquarson and told him what he could do with his party!

But it had been the break-in that had really got to him. It had been made to look like a common burglary, but he knew better. Whoever had done it was looking for something – and they had found it. It had made him doubt his sanity for a while, since he was sure that he had hidden it away where no one could find it. It had been taken right enough, even though he had checked over his whole cottage at least six times, just in case he had moved it in a drunken haze one night.

He stared at the whisky glass in his hand, hesitating to drink it. Then he bent his head back and poured it down his throat, wincing as the liquid fire hit his stomach.

‘You are a fool, McNab,’ he growled at himself. ‘Just like you were last summer. And now some bastard is coming for you.’

Out in their kennels his two chocolate Labradors started to bark.

‘So you are about, are you? Well, come on, you bastard. If you want me, here I am!’

He ran a finger along the barrel of the gun and his face broke into a cynical sneer.

A trained hunter, he was normally aware of the slightest noise, but the whisky had dulled his senses. He hadn’t heard the step behind him; hadn’t even considered the possibility of someone getting into his house from the other side.

A hand shot over his shoulder and grabbed the shotgun.

‘What the—?’ he began, as he tried to turn.

He yelled as the butt of the shotgun fell with great force on his right shoulder.

‘Don’t get up on my account, Bruce,’ said Sandy King, walking round his chair into view. He was dressed in a black track suit and trainers. ‘You were expecting me, I see. How nice.’ He smiled as he broke the shotgun open and removed the cartridges. ‘Let’s just get rid of these. We wouldn’t want
anyone to get hurt, would we?’

Then the smile vanished as he pocketed the cartridges. ‘I think it is time that we had a chat, don’t you?’

Ewan had been relieved that he didn’t have to run the gauntlet of any more midges on the road along Sharkey’s Boot towards the row of crofts and outhouses where Rab McNeish lived and did the bulk of his carpentry and built his coffins.

He dismounted and stretched, then rubbed his neck where he seemed to have been bitten by hundreds of midges.

‘Let’s see if we can learn anything here then,’ he said to himself, as he crunched over the gravel to the front door. He noted the repair work that had been done.

‘I think his door must have taken a kicking,’ he said. ‘And it looks as if he has mended it himself. It is a great skill he must have with the hammer.’ And he grinned to himself as he compared it to his skill with the Highland hammer.

He knocked on the door and stood waiting for a moment, fully expecting Rab McNeish to throw it open any moment. But there was no answer.

‘Strange, he knew I was on my way,’ he mused, as he knocked again.

Then he tried the door and found that it opened straight
away into a neat and ordered little hall, with closed doors to the right and left.

‘Mr McNeish? It’s me, PC Ewan McPhee. Hello.’

There was no reply. He tapped on each door before opening them and popping his head round.

‘What the dickens?’ he said, as he stopped and strained his ears. ‘Is that someone crying, I am hearing?’ Then he shook his head. ‘And now it sounds like an animal whining. More than one maybe.’ And following the sound he retraced his steps outside and went round the back of the cottages to a row of outhouses. By the timber stacked up against the walls and the sawdust that covered the ground outside it looked as if these were Rab McNeish’s workshops.

The noises were definitely getting louder.

He pushed open a door and stared in disbelief. There were about a dozen cages each with a cowering ill-kept dog whimpering and shivering away. They seemed like mongrels mostly and most of them were skinny with corrugated rib cages showing.

‘Goodness me! What’s going on here?’ he asked.

Then he saw the long bench with saws, various hunks of wood and something that looked like a cattle-prod lying on a bench.

The crying noise started again. A definite sobbing from behind the door. He took a step in and looked round.

Rab McNeish was curled up on the stone floor, almost in a foetal position, crying like a baby.

‘F-Forgive me!’ he moaned between sobs. ‘It’s the germs! The germs! They’re going to kill me. They’ll kill us all!’

Ewan felt a wave of nausea come over him. Rab McNeish was clearly in need of help that he couldn’t give him. He pulled out his mobile and called Dr Ralph McLelland.

Morag drove up to Bruce McNab’s cottage and quickly got out of the Escort. His dogs were barking furiously in their cages and she guessed that they had been barking away for some time, since by their eyes they seemed to be both distressed and angry. They were hurling themselves at the fronts of the cages in attempts to get out.

She didn’t wait, but went straight for the door that stood ajar.

And then she heard Sandy’s raised voice, cursing. And there was the sound of splashing water.

‘Police!’ she called, as she ran through the kitchen, noting the broken-open shotgun.

‘Bastard! Is this how you did it?’ she heard Sandy shout.

Along the hall she ran and burst into the bathroom.

Sandy King was staring wild eyed, as he pushed Bruce McNab’s bloodied face and head into the overflowing bath.

Morag stared in disbelief for a moment as she took in the scene. Bruce McNab was flailing about, but was being easily overpowered by Sandy. He held his head under the water and bubbles were streaming upwards.

‘Sandy, for God’s sake! You’ll kill him!’ she cried, dashing forward and grabbing his hands.  

Sandy stared at her and snarled angrily. ‘Back off!’ Then he swung an elbow at her viciously and caught her on the side of the head. She tumbled sidewards and struck her head on the sink.  

She slumped to the floor.

Torquil rode up the old track towards Half Moon Cove. The sand had been compacted by numerous tyre marks, leaving two continuous ruts with machair plants growing between.

‘Hello? What’s this?’ he wondered, as a set of tracks suddenly left the track and disappeared into sand dunes.

He stopped the Bullet and pulled up his goggles to see better. ‘Looks like a car went in but hasn’t come out again.’ He set off and turned into the dunes and found a Mercedes parked on its own. A fine patina of sand had already settled over the windscreen and bodywork.

‘Looks as if it has been here a while, Crusoe,’ he said to the dog in the pannier. ‘Registration FNJ 1. I am thinking that has to stand for
Flotsam and Jetsam.
So it looks as if Mr Fergie Ferguson has been paying a visit on old Guthrie.’

He switched off the engine and dismounted. ‘Come on then, Crusoe, we’ll take a look.’ He was about to set off when he noticed the footprints leading from the car. ‘Curious and curiouser. Let’s follow our TV man, since it looks as if he didn’t go up the main track.’

And sure enough, although the winds from the sea had almost covered the prints, there was enough for Torquil to see that he had taken a circuitous route around the high fenced enclosure.

‘Looks like he climbed over here, Crusoe. Which means I am going this way too.’ He held out a stern hand. ‘I want you to stay put. No noise. I won’t be long.’

Crusoe whimpered, wagged his tail a couple of times, then settled down on his haunches and laid his head on the ground.

Torquil grinned then started shinning over the fence. He landed on the other side beside a couple of indentations where Fergie Ferguson seemed to have landed. Then he followed the tracks across more dunes until they came to the back door of the beachcomber’s sprawling house.

He tried the door handle and it opened straight away.

‘Hello! It is Inspector McKinnon of the West Uist Police.’

There was no answer.

‘Mr Lovat? Mr Ferguson? Anyone at home?’

He made his way through a pristine clean kitchen, across a spartanly furnished hallway and into a long front room overlooking the sea. It was set out like a studio, with all sorts of driftwood, sculptures and piles of packets and boxes on benches.

‘Anyone at home?’

He noted the telescope set up in the bay window with a bottle of Glen Corlan whisky nearby it. He picked it up and noted the sticker from Anderson’s Emporium.

‘I am guessing that Alec Anderson is about the only person to visit here,’ he muttered.

Then he started to feel uneasy. There was a chill in the room, despite the sun. And a noise.

He turned, localizing the noise to a huge chest freezer that was humming by a back wall.

‘What’s this for? Don’t tell me old Guthrie is an ice-cream fanatic.’

He crossed to the freezer and idly lifted the lid.

The first thing he saw was what seemed like a bloody rat. Then he realized that it was a bloodstained hair-piece. But under it was a face with unseeing eyes staring up at him. Then he realized that he was looking at a dead body. Yet there were too many hands.

‘My God! Two bodies!’ he gasped.

‘That’s right, Inspector,’ a voice snapped behind him. And then he felt something cold and hard dig into his back. ‘This is a Glock semi-automatic. It’s just over your spine and it will cut you in half if you so much as move a muscle. There is room in this freezer for a third body.’

Dr Ralph McLelland had fortuitously been visiting a patient on the nearby Wee Kingdom. He answered Ewan’s distress call straight away and quickly took charge.

‘The poor chap is away with the fairies. I’ll need to admit him to the cottage hospital under the Mental Health Act and then I’ll need to get a psychiatrist over from the mainland. Meanwhile, you’ll have to get the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to come and take a look at these poor creatures. It looks as if he’s been systematically abusing them.’ He sucked air between his teeth. ‘It’s a bad business, Ewan. I reckon it will take time for them to come across, what with the restrictions on the ferries with the murder case. You might be as well just having a word with Annie McConville.’

‘Aye, it is a pity that she doesn’t like mobile phones. I could have given her a ring straight away.’

‘Well, why don’t you go and see her now? I will have to wait until Sister Lamb can get here to help me from the cottage hospital.’

Somewhat relieved to be able to leave the harrowing scene Ewan headed off on Nippy and was soon back on one of the side roads leading to Kyleshiffin.

As he turned on to the main road a familiar canary yellow camper-van came hurtling towards him. The driver peeped its horn at him and made to swerve round him, but Ewan held up his hand for it to stop.

Deliberately he dismounted, switched off the engine and set the moped on its stand.

‘What’s wrong, Constable?’ the swarthy driver asked, rolling down his window. The sun glinted off his ear-ring.

‘Step out of the van would you?’ Ewan asked. ‘Both of you.’

With a huff of impatience the driver opened the door and got out. ‘What’s this about? We haven’t got much time,’ he demanded.

‘I can see that. You two always seem to be in a hurry. Too much of a hurry. There have now been three occasions when I have been concerned abut the way that you handle this vehicle.’

‘We’re sorry, Officer,’ said the slimmer and younger of the two. ‘We’ll be more careful.’

‘Oh to hell with this lummox,’ said the other. ‘He can’t do anything. We weren’t breaking the law.’

‘I do not like your tone, my man,’ said Ewan.

‘No? Well you’ll just have to lump it, mate, because we’re too busy to stop and chew the cud with the likes of you. Come on Tosh, let’s get going.’

‘Just a minute now,’ said Ewan, grabbing hold of the man’s arm.

In a trice the man darted a hand inside his camouflage jacket and drew out a gun.

‘Christ, Craig, what are you playing at?’ exclaimed the lean one.

But Ewan had reacted instantly. He had grabbed them both around the neck at the same time bringing his knee up sharply
to dash the gun from the one called Craig’s hand. Then he bashed their heads together and held them until he felt them both slump into unconsciousness.

‘I will not tolerate disrespect to the law,’ Ewan said. ‘And firearms are just as illegal here as on the mainland.’

He nudged the firearm away with his foot then reached down and handcuffed the two men together.

‘Now let us see what you have inside this van of yours,’ he said, walking to the rear and opening the door. He looked inside and stood gaping for a moment.

The noise of an approaching vehicle made him turn and he looked round to see the Drummond twins approach in their truck.

‘Well, well, well, what have we here?’ Wallace asked, as he climbed out.

‘I have apprehended a couple of villains. It looks like they are the ones responsible for the spate of burglaries on the island.’

‘And it looks as if they might be out of it for a while,’ Douglas said with glee. ‘They didn’t know what they were doing when they picked on Ewan McPhee. Well done, big fellow.’

Ewan grinned proudly and bent down to retrieve the gun. ‘Aye, a right pair of scunners these two. I don’t know what Torquil will say when he hears that gun crime has come to West Uist.’

Morag felt water splashing on her face and hands on her shoulders.

The memory of Sandy King holding Bruce McNab’s head
under the water in the bath brought her back to sudden consciousness. She opened her eyes and saw Sandy King staring at her with wide open eyes.

She lashed out and caught him on the side of the head.

‘Morag! You’re OK! Thank the Lord.’

She clenched a fist to punch again, but stopped when she saw the concern on his face and she realized that the water had been splashed in her face to try and rouse her from unconsciousness, not an attempt to drown her.

‘Sandy, what have you done—?’

‘To McNab? Just taught him a lesson. He’ll be OK. Look.’

And she saw Bruce McNab was lying slumped against the bath. He was bleary-eyed and breathing heavily, but he was alive.

‘We had a fight,’ Sandy explained as she managed to sit up. ‘Or rather, he fought a bit as I dragged him to the bath. If you hadn’t come I might have taken it a bit further. But he deserves it, the useless piece of shit.’

‘Heather McQueen was your sister, wasn’t she?’ Morag asked.

Sandy stood up and swallowed hard, his eyes filling up with tears. ‘She was my half-sister. That’s why we had different names. There were just the two of us left after my mum died. We were like chalk and cheese. She was bright and liked lads, while I was sporty and a bit over-focused on being a football star. We had a huge row on the phone one time, what about God only knows, but from then we didn’t communicate, not even Christmas or birthday cards. Effectively we wrote each other out of our lives.

‘Then I was off at soccer camps and then playing for one club or another. I was playing in Munich when it happened and I never found out until a month after. How do you think that felt? I was loaded with guilt.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘How did you find out?’

‘I went right back to basics and traced her birth, then – I found your name.’

‘I studied everything about her death and just couldn’t believe it. She was a great swimmer. I thought there had to be some man involved in all this. That was what Heather was about. And it all pointed to that Dent character. I found out that he was still working here on West Uist. When Dan Farquarson started making advances to me, I guess you’ll find out about that, he wanted to get me in his pocket so that I could fix a match here or two. Well, it was the ideal opportunity to come here, so I persuaded him to arrange it.’

‘And so you came to West Uist, for what? To get even?’

‘To find out if he was responsible for her death. I was going to beat the hell out of him. And then I found out it wasn’t him. It was this specimen!’

Bruce McNab’s head had slumped on to his chest.