Flotsam and Jetsam (18 page)

‘But I’m getting ahead of myself. I found out where she was buried after I burgled the local newspaper office. Fancy that, eh? Me a common burglar! But I needed to look through the papers without anyone suspecting what I was doing. And when I went to lay flowers on her grave, low and behold, who did I find doing the same thing, but Bruce McNab.’

At the mention of his name Bruce McNab looked up. ‘I deserved everything you gave me, King,’ he said through puffed lips. ‘Except I didn’t do anything to your sister. I loved her, you know. I really loved her. We had an affair, a lovely, special affair. But she had to keep it all secret because of Digby bloody Dent. Why, I don’t know.

‘But that night we went out in the boat and got drunk. Doped up and drunk. I passed out and found her gone. I just assumed she had gone for a swim on her own and swam ashore somewhere.’

Morag gasped and covered her mouth. ‘But instead, she drowned.’

Bruce McNab choked back tears. ‘And the useless idiot that I am, I didn’t have the gumption to come forward. I just kept quiet.’

‘Why did you wait to put flowers on her grave after so long?’ Morag asked.

‘We had a run in with Dr Dent the other morning. I suppose it unsettled me, brought it all back and I felt guilty.’

‘But what I don’t understand, Sandy, is why you didn’t just have it out with Bruce McNab? Why all this?’ She pointed at Bruce McNab’s bruised and bloody face and the water-soaked bathroom.

‘I wanted him to suffer a bit. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t said anything. Especially when he had kept some of her things.’ And from a pocket of his track suit he drew out a locket and chain. ‘There’s a picture of my mum and Heather’s dad in here. My mum gave her that one birthday.’

Bruce McNab buried his face in his hands. ‘I loved her. I didn’t know who broke into my place and stole it, or why. Except that they had come looking for it. I thought you were coming to kill me.’

‘I didn’t know that would be here,’ Sandy said. ‘I was just looking for something of hers to confirm that you knew her. And the more time that we spent fishing and all that rot, when you didn’t seem bothered about anything, well, it just made me want to make you suffer. To understand what it must have been like for her.’

Morag stood up and looked Sandy straight in the eye. ‘Were you going to drown him, Sandy?’

He returned the look, his eyes registering nothing but sorrow. Then he shook his head. ‘No. I just had to make a
gesture for Heather.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Family honour, I suppose.’

Torquil slowly turned round and looked at the gun held steadily in Alec Anderson’s hands.

‘Are you responsible for these bodies?’ he asked.

‘Only one of them, although I have to admit that I put them both in there.’ He smiled. ‘Oh and I would appreciate it if you would put your hands up. I haven’t decided on the best way of disposing of you yet.’

Torquil raised his hands. ‘I think you should put that gun down and we can talk.’

‘We can talk well enough like this, Torquil McKinnon.’ He backed across the room, all the time keeping the Glock pointed at Torquil’s head. He picked up the bottle of Glen Corlan and uncorked it with his teeth, then poured a hefty shot. He took a swig and then returned to face Torquil.

‘How long has Guthrie Lovat been dead?’ Torquil asked.

Alec shrugged. ‘About ten months. The old fool had to go and have a stroke or a heart attack as we were unloading the
Sea Beastie.
Just dropped dead at my feet.’

‘And why didn’t you just call for help?’

Alec Anderson laughed. ‘Are you kidding me? We had been business partners for five years. How would I explain the load of heroin in the boat?’

Torquil’s eyes widened. ‘Heroin? On West Uist?’

‘Aye, heroin on West Uist!’ he repeated sarcastically. ‘You may not think it, Inspector, but this idyllic wee island of yours is a sort of
‘traffic island’
! How do you think old Guthrie became
so rich? From his driftwood sculptures? Away with you. We collect the goods from the buoys that they fling off the cargo boats as they go up and round to Scandinavia. It has been the perfect cover all these years.’

‘And so Guthrie Lovat died and I suppose you have been pretending that he’s still here.’

‘That’s right. I’ve even wired up a tape-recording on the intercom system to discourage visitors. Only Alec Anderson ever visits here to deliver his supplies and to collect his packages of artwork to send all over the world. Only it is heroin not driftwood.’ He smirked and took another swig of whisky. ‘And I’ve been chained to this for the last ten months until I worked out the old fool’s account number.’

‘What account?’

‘His numbered Swiss account. The wee place that our suppliers post money into. The old sod would never give me that, he just gave me my cut. But after he died I couldn’t get at it at all, until I found the account number. Only by then that Digby Dent bastard was bleeding me dry.’

‘He was blackmailing you? About Guthrie?’

‘He was. He had seen me drag his body up the beach from the jetty. I don’t think I did it too gently, actually. But he had also seen me that other time, when Guthrie was still alive and I moved a dead body.’

‘That will have been Heather McQueen.’

Alec Anderson smiled. ‘Right you are. Although we didn’t know who she was. She complicated things by drowning and getting washed up like any old piece of flotsam and jetsam on Half Moon Cove. Well, anyway, Dent had been skulking about in the early morning, checking on midge swarms or something, and he saw me do it. Then after the Fatal Accident Inquiry, he started putting the finger on us. Nothing too serious, but
enough to hurt. And then a month after Guthrie died he told me that he knew all about it. He even had photographs.’ He grinned. ‘The fool told me that he had them on his computer.’

‘You planned to kill him, then?’

‘He pissed me off! Then he implied the other morning that he was going to say something on the TV show –
Flotsam & Jetsam.
He demanded whisky, so I gave him a bottle loaded with a little heroin. I thought he wouldn’t make the show. But when he did and he seemed out of control, he had to go.’

‘And so you killed him?’

There was a crackling noise from a bench in the corner, then a tinny voice.

‘Alec, it’s me!’

Almost immediately there was a whirr and a taped voice spoke out:
‘No hawkers, sales folk or onion Johnnies, thank you.’

‘Piss off, Alec and let me in!’

Alec laughed and walked sideways to the bench. He pressed a button. ‘Come in, Agnes. We have company.’

‘Agnes is in on everything?’ Torquil asked.

‘Everything. She aspires to living somewhere hot, without having customers to serve. She distracted Digby Dent the other night and I bounced a gnome off his head.’

‘And did you both drown him in the tank?’

‘We did. And when she gets here we will have to decide how we are going to deal with one very nosy police inspector.’ He smiled. ‘After all, now that we have access to the account there is nothing to hold us to this god-forsaken wee island any more.’

The sound of the emporium van on the gravel outside was followed by the opening and closing of its door, then a few moments later Agnes Anderson came in. Her face was surprisingly unmoved by the spectacle of her husband aiming a gun at Torquil’s chest. There was annoyance rather than surprise.

‘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.’

Crusoe sat down and barked.

‘And who is this?’ Lorna asked, bending and stroking his ears. ‘He’s a bonny dog.’

‘He saved my life, Lorna.’

‘You’re joking. Tell me about it.’

‘Later,’ Torquil replied. ‘It’s a long shaggy tale.’ He kissed
her and she kissed him back.

Lachlan gazed ceilingwards and sighed. ‘Come on, Crusoe. They might be some time. Let’s go and see if we can scare up a rabbit or two on the golf course.’