Flotsam and Jetsam (5 page)

He was surprised to hear Morag’s tap on the door a few moments later.

‘Sorry to bother you with this, Torquil,’ she said, slipping into his office and closing the door behind her. He could not help but notice the broad grin on her face. ‘This will amuse you,’ she whispered. ‘It is that Doctor Digby Dent and he’s seething.’ She put a hand to her mouth to suppress a laugh that threatened to erupt.

‘The entomologist? What’s the problem?’

‘Someone has broken his midge net.’ This time she could not contain a snigger.

Torquil raised his shoulders. ‘Why is that funny?’

‘He says it was done by a gang. And one of them was Sandy King.’ She took a deep breath and repeated emphatically, ‘
the
Sandy King!’

‘The footballer?’

Morag nodded enthusiastically. ‘Aye, himself! Now do you see why it’s so funny? You know his nickname, don’t you? He’s called The Net-breaker on account of his left foot.’

Torquil grinned. ‘You and your football, eh, Morag.’

His sergeant’s eyes widened. ‘Come on, Torquil. Sandy King isn’t just any footballer. He’s played in Europe and also for Motherwell and Hamilton Academicals. There’s talk of him maybe moving to play for The Picts. He’s a certainty for the next international.’

Torquil nodded, wary of getting Morag going on about football. ‘So what is he doing breaking our noted entomologist’s insect net here on West Uist?’

Morag shrugged. ‘Search me, but I thought maybe you should have a word with the midge man. Maybe say that we will investigate it. It would sound good coming from you.’ She looked at her nails, then said casually, ‘Then maybe send me to interview Sandy King.’  

Crusoe whimpered in his sleep then rolled over and started snoring gently. Torquil grinned at him, then at Morag. He got up and came round his desk.  

‘OK, so now I see the ulterior motive. Lead the way.’

Digby Dent was a handsome man with olive skin and dark hair. His only marring feature was a surly turn of his mouth. Standing in his waders and full protective clothing, with his insect visor hanging down his back he presented a slightly comedic figure holding the two halves of his broken insect net.

‘It was a deliberate act of vandalism,’ he said, without waiting for pleasantries. ‘That ruffian McNab and his cronies did this. One of them was some sort of footballer, I think. King, or something like that. Do you have any idea how much these things cost? The net is as thin as gossamer, it’s the finest
netting you can get, which is what I need to catch a swarm of insects.’

Torquil listened as he described the whole encounter while Morag took notes.

‘And you want us to investigate this?’ Torquil asked.

‘I do, and I want to press charges.’

Torquil looked doubtful. ‘It may just end up as your word against theirs. And you say that there were three of them?’

Dent looked taken aback. ‘But I don’t care how many of them there were. I am telling you how it was. I am an academic at the University of the Highlands. Damn it, Inspector McKinnon, you know me.’

Torquil forced a genial smile to his lips. ‘Aye, I know you, Doctor Dent,’ he replied affably. ‘And I am going to put Sergeant Driscoll here on to the case straight away. We shall see what her investigation turns up, shall we?’

Dr Dent looked unimpressed. ‘Justice! That’s all I want. Justice.’

Morag smiled at him. ‘We’ll see what we can do, Doctor Dent.’

After delivering the dog food and a new leash at the station, Ewan had retraced his way to the moor above Kyleshiffin. Ever vigilant, a maxim that Torquil, his inspector and friend, was forever drumming into him, he had noticed a near bald tyre on a canary-yellow camper-van that was parked just off the road out of town, just before the bend where the track leading up to the moor started.

Although he had lived on the island all his life he never tired of the smell of the moor, with its heather, moss and the
unmistakable fragrance of the peat. As he approached it he took a great gulp of air and broke into a jog.

He had a good idea of where his hammer had landed and he had been bitten by the midges. Fortunately, now that it was mid-morning there would be none around and so it would be safe to have a good poke about. He blinked as he saw a sparkle, like the glint of sun off glass in the heather in the direction that he was running. It disappeared as quickly as it had come and he jogged on.

‘Oh please, Lord, don’t let my hammer sink into the bog,’ he mused to himself. ‘It would be like losing my best friend.’

Then he saw the glint again, but this time he realized that there were actually two glints, like the reflection off a pair of binoculars.

‘Hello!’ he called out. ‘If there is anyone there, have you seen a hammer?’

His question had the desired effect, albeit not immediately. A head popped up from the heather. Then another rose beside it. Then two figures climbed to their feet as he jogged up to them.

‘What the heck do you think you are doing?’ demanded one of the men.

Ewan jogged to a stop in front of them. They were both wearing bobble hats, camouflage gear and green Wellington boots. He did not like the sullen look of the man who had just spoken. He was a swarthy, stocky man of about thirty with a gold ear-ring in one ear.

‘West Uist Police,’ Ewan said. ‘PC McPhee here.’

Both men seemed to stiffen slightly. Then they glanced shiftily at each other.

‘Police? What’s the problem, Officer?’ said the other man, a lean, unshaven fellow in his mid-twenties. ‘We’re just
bird-watching
.’

His companion was not so affable. ‘And do you realize that you’ve probably trodden on that nest. You’ve probably killed all three of those red-crested moorhammer chicks.’

‘I don’t think I trod on any nest,’ Ewan replied, maintaining his natural friendliness. ‘But as I asked, have either of you seen a hammer near here? A highland throwing hammer.’

The lean man smiled and reached down into the heather. ‘You must mean this. I thought it was an old cannon ball tied to a post.’

‘That’s my hammer, right enough,’ Ewan said taking it gratefully. ‘It’s a beauty and I wouldn’t like to be without it. I’ll let you get on with your bird-watching then.’ He turned to go then turned back. ‘Are you the owners of a yellow camper-van parked down the road?’

‘We are. We are here for the wildlife, and it is full of all our cameras and telescopes. There’s nothing wrong is there? I thought it was OK to park there,’ the lean one said.

Ewan shook his head. ‘It’s OK parked there, but the off side rear tyre is getting a bit bare. You should see to that straight away. It is illegal as it is.’

‘We’ll deal with it straight away,’ the surly, stocky chap assured him.

Ewan nodded then left, taking a slightly circuitous route to avoid the line of the nest. But, as he headed down the track, he started wondering. He was not entirely sure that they had been watching the moor itself. From where they were, they could have been watching something or someone down in Kyleshiffin.

And he was not sure that he had ever heard of a red-crested moorhammer. 

Calum had dashed up the stairs of the
Chronicle
offices upon finding that the front door had been forced open in their absence.

‘The beggars!’ he cried, as Cora darted up and joined him on the landing.

In every direction it was chaos. Piles of old newspapers had been cast everywhere. The camp-bed had been tipped over and the desk had been swept of everything except the heavy old Remington typewriter.

‘Who would do something like this?’ Cora asked.

‘The same folk who sent us on that wild goose chase to Largo Head,’ Calum replied sourly. ‘They dragged us away so that they could give the place the once over.’ He pulled out a handkerchief and gingerly pulled open the top drawer of a large grey filing cabinet. He grunted as he saw that his Glen Corlan whisky was still there, as was his old sporran in which he kept the petty cash. He stood looking round then shook his head. ‘No, nothing has been taken. It was just a bit of wanton damage.’

Cora patted him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Calum,’ she said in as cheery a voice as she could muster up. ‘I’ll have it ship-shape in no time.’ With which she bent down to start gathering the discarded newspapers.

But Calum grabbed her shoulder and stopped her. ‘Touch nothing, Cora!’ he ordered. ‘Whoever did this meant it as a serious message, believe me.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘When you’ve been a newsman as long as me you get an instinct for these things. We’ll need to get the police round. I’ll give my old mate Torquil McKinnon a bell in a minute.’

He reached into a voluminous pocket of his anorak and produced a small digital camera. ‘But before I do, I’ll just take a few pictures of the crime scene.’

‘For the police?’ Cora asked.

Calum shook his head. ‘No lass. For the
Chronicle
. I’ll write a piece straight away and it’ll go in the next edition. Always remember that the pen is mightier than the sword.’

Cora nodded appreciatively. ‘You are so right, Calum. You can humiliate them in print.’

The little newspaper editor shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe, but I bet they’ll just have a good laugh.’ He shook his head and his jaw muscles tightened. ‘Perhaps I didn’t mean that exactly, about the pen being mightier than the sword. It would be more satisfying to shove a pen up their noses when I get hold of them.’

Alec Anderson drove his mobile shop-cum-Royal Mail van into the parking bay at the front of his shop at the end of Harbour Street. Like the van, the shop-front was painted cream and blue
with a Royal Mail red canopy shading and sheltering the crates of fruit and vegetables, and the assortment of fishing rods, nets, beach balls, whirly-windmills and umbrellas that proclaimed that Anderson’s Emporium sold most of the things you would need on a West Uist holiday. To emphasize that, on one side of the door was a man-size figure of a kilted highlander licking an ice cream. This last accoutrement had been in the Anderson family’s possession, as had the shop, for three generations, although in recent years Alec had replaced the pipe the highlander had smoked for fifty years with a facsimile of the large ice creams that his emporium was famous for.

At his signature tune peep on the horn – a snatch of a hornpipe – a pretty auburn-haired woman popped out.

‘Hello, my wee darling Agnes,’ he called, jumping out of the van and hauling his mail bag after him.

‘Welcome home, love-bug,’ she replied, skipping to meet him and planting a big kiss on his cheek.

An elderly lady dressed in a cheesecloth dress with an
ill-fitting
panama hat, with a prodigiously large shoulder bag was just tying the leads of five dogs to a large ring in the wall. ‘Oh heavens! Don’t look, Zimba, Sheila and you young ones,’ she said, good-humouredly addressing a disdainful German shepherd, a zestful West Highland terrier and three boisterous collies. ‘The Andersons’ behaviour is enough to put me off my food, let alone you lot! Now, just you all keep your wheesht while I do my purchasing.’

She straightened and swung her shoulder bag into a more comfortable position, then she shook her head at the grinning couple who stood arm in arm regarding her with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment.

‘Och, we are sorry to offend you, Mrs McConville. ‘I haven’t seen Alec for a few hours and I just miss him when he isn’t here.’

‘As I do you, Agnes, my love.’

Annie McConville glanced heavenwards. ‘It is twenty years since I was widowed, but I cannot remember the lovey-dovey stuff lasting more than a few months, not how ever many years you two have been together. It isn’t natural, I am thinking.’

‘Seven years,’ Alec sighed. ‘And it is perfectly natural, Annie, I assure you. Natural for us at any rate. And we don’t mind showing our feelings.’

Annie gave a shudder then led the way into the shop. ‘Well, let me bring you down from your cloud and do business.’ She pointed to the shelf of pet food. ‘I will be needing three times my usual order of Shepherd’s Best for my hungry crowd. I have a dozen more at the moment and the number seems to be going up. It is criminal the way folk just abandon these poor creatures.’

Agnes went behind the counter and reached up for two double packs of dog food. She stacked them on the counter, then added another on top. ‘That is just what PC Ewan McPhee was saying a few minutes ago. He said that Torquil McKinnon brought a stray in this morning.’

Annie gave a plaintive sigh. ‘Oh deary me, that may be another wee doggie for my sanctuary I suppose.’

Agnes took Annie’s capacious shoulder bag and started loading it with the packs of Shepherd’s Best. ‘That’s going to be pretty heavy, I am afraid,’ she said. Then she smiled as Annie gave her the stern look of an independent woman. ‘But actually, Ewan gave me the impression that they plan to keep the dog. It sounds as if they have all taken to it at the police station.’

She shifted her glance from Annie’s bag to Alec’s mail bag. He had been standing listening to their exchange. ‘Whatever have you been doing this morning? That bag seems fuller than
when you went on your round. You are supposed to deliver the mail you know.’

Her husband laughed. ‘As the Kyleshiffin sub-postmaster my job is to collect the mail as well as deliver it, as you well know, my heather bunch. And this collection is almost entirely from Guthrie Lovat – which you will already have guessed. It is his weekly postbag of things to all parts of the world.’

‘Guthrie Lovat the beachcomber?’ Annie asked. ‘Sure, he must be about your best customer – or client, as I expect you call him these days.’

Alec grinned. ‘He is a good customer, right enough. We seem to send his work to just about every corner of the world.’

‘Aye he seems to be quite the famous artist these days,’ replied Annie. ‘Or what some folk call art, at any rate. But I remember him when he was just plain Guthrie Lovat, the beachcomber, scraping a living by selling all the flotsam and jetsam that got washed up on the West Uist beaches. Then he found that some of the tourists liked some of the bits and pieces he carved, or stuck together, and he started getting commissions. He’d never even been to art school, but somehow he built up a reputation and made a parcel of money. Enough to buy the strip of beach at Half Moon Cove.’

Alec laughed. ‘Aye, he’s a proper millionaire now. A regular Howard Hughes. I am guessing that me and Agnes are about the only folk he lets into the Crow’s Nest.’

He gave them both a knowing wink. ‘Except tomorrow he’s letting VIPs in to see him and his work.’

Agnes was leaning forward on the counter. ‘Go on then, tell us. What VIPs?’

‘He has agreed to let Fergie Ferguson and Chrissie from the TV show
Flotsam & Jetsam
in to interview him. And then he’s going on their show.’

‘You are kidding!’ Agnes exclaimed.

‘Gospel, so help me,’ Alec replied. He told them of his meeting at the gates of the Crow’s Nest.

‘So I gave him their card when I went in to pick up all this stuff and he even got me to phone them up. It must be a first. I don’t think he’s ever done an interview since Calum Steele did one in the
West Uist Chronicle
a few years ago.’

Annie clicked her tongue. ‘Aye and that was a hatchet job. Our Calum knows how to make enemies.’

‘Anyway, he seemed to like the idea. I guess he feels it could do his business a bit of good.’ He stopped and grinned. ‘From what he said he doesn’t think that they are
real
people.’

At which all three of them laughed.

‘Some people seem happy today. Is it a private joke?’ came Dr Dent’s voice. He had entered the shop unnoticed, despite the fact that he was still wearing his waders. He stood with his broken insect net in one hand and with his specimen collecting box hanging from one shoulder.

‘Good morning, Doctor Dent,’ said Alec. ‘I don’t suppose there is any harm in telling, since it will be on TV soon enough. Guthrie Lovat has agreed to let the
Flotsam & Jetsam
folk see him. He got me to phone Fergie Ferguson while I was delivering his mail. And I have to say that Fergie seemed right pleased.’

‘Interesting,’ returned Dr Dent. ‘I could do with seeing him myself. I’ve tried telephoning, but the last time I spoke to him he just said there was no way he would have me on his land.’ He shrugged. ‘The Lord only knows why.’

Annie McConville frowned. ‘Oh he is such a rude scunner. Always was.’

‘I have got a pretty good idea about the insect population of West Uist,’ went on Dr Dent, ‘but I have an idea that the Half Moon Cove area could be very different to the rest of the island.
You see, it’s like a funnel to the Atlantic Ocean, I believe that knowing more about the midge larval population around the beach and the sand dunes could be very interesting scientifically. That is why—’

‘Why don’t you make a plea on the
Flotsam & Jetsam
show tonight?’ Annie suggested. ‘I see that you are going to be on the programme already.’

Dent nodded, and then looked at Alec. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. But then I hadn’t heard this news about Guthrie Lovat. I will do just that. But perhaps if Alec here also had a quiet word in Mr Lovat’s ear, it would help to get me in through that barbed wire fence of his.’

Alec considered for a moment then nodded in agreement. ‘Anything I can do to help the progress of science.’ He pointed to Dr Dent’s insect net. ‘Have you had an accident with your midge net there?’

The entomologist told them of his encounter at the river and about reporting the incident to the police.

‘Why not let Calum Steele at the
West Uist Chronicle
know about it as well?’ Agnes suggested. ‘He is always on the lookout for news. That would be right up his street.’

‘Hmm, maybe,’ Dr Dent grunted. ‘Though he has a tendency to distort things, as I know through experience.’ He shrugged as if dismissing the matter. ‘Meanwhile I’ll need some of your finest fishing line to see if I can mend the net.’

Agnes nodded. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I have finished with Mrs McConville.’

‘Ah, you’ll be wanting money then,’ Annie said to her. Then she took a sharp intake of breath when Agnes told her the price. ‘Goodness, I’ll be needing a bank loan soon.’

‘Ha! Everything is so expensive these days, isn’t it?’ Dr Dent said. He turned to Alec and pointed to the post office counter
at the end of the shop. ‘So I think I had better draw some money out of my account while I am here. Anew insect net like that will be expensive to replace and I can’t be without something. I will need to send to the mainland for another.’

Alec nodded with his usual cheerfulness. ‘Let me just deal with my bag and then I’ll see to your money.’

‘Oh yes, and I’ll take a bottle of your best malt whisky, too,’ Dr Dent added. ‘I might need a bit of Dutch courage before this TV show.’

Morag pushed open the door of the Bonnie Prince Charlie Tavern on Harbour Street and weaved her way through the lunchtime crowd.

Mollie McFadden the doughty landlady of almost sixty years was pulling a pint with well-practised ease as she marshalled her staff as they bustled about with trays of tantalizing smelling seafood and pints of Heather Ale. She peered at Morag through her pebble-thick spectacles and gave her a broad smile as she recognized her.

‘Why Sergeant Driscoll, it is not often that we have the pleasure of your company at lunchtime.’ She placed the pint before a thirsty customer and collected his money with a smile.

‘And what can I be getting you, Morag? Are you here for the celebration? A birthday maybe? Or to meet a gentleman?’ Her eyes twinkled mischievioulsy and she raised a hand to push her spectacles back on her nose, revealing as she did so a
well-developed
forearm, a consequence of having pumped a veritable sea of the Bonnie Prince Charlie’s own Heather Ale over the years.

‘No such luck,’ Morag returned with a down-turned mouth. ‘Just police business.’

‘No trouble, I hope?’ Mollie asked, a trace of anxiety flashing behind her spectacles.

Morag shook her head with a grin. ‘Nothing like that. I am trying to track down a fishing party who were out with Bruce McNab this morning.’

Mollie’s face brightened. ‘Oh they are in the Prince’s Suite at this very minute. They wanted a bit of privacy you see. One of them is a chap who doesn’t believe in wallets. He’s a tubby wee Dundonian chap I think. Some sort of big business chappie. He just pulled out a roll of twenties and peeled the notes off like he was tossing a lettuce salad. They all came in dribs and drabs.’ She eyed Morag suspiciously. ‘There is nothing dodgy about them, is there? I wouldn’t like to see them sucking Bruce McNab into anything illegal.’

‘Don’t worry, Mollie, I am sure it will all be fine. I just need to have a chat with them.’ She pursed her lips and leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Did you notice if Sandy was one of them?’

‘Sandy who?’

‘Sandy King, the footballer!’

Mollie shrugged unconcernedly. ‘No idea. I don’t follow the football. I prefer my men to play a hardier game than that. Something like shinty.’ Her eyes seemed to grow misty behind the thick lenses. ‘Like Bruce McNab. Now he really was a shinty player to watch.’