Morag stopped to catch her breath and look up at the pillbox to assess the situation. Someone was definitely screaming. It sounded like a young woman’s, high-pitched and prolonged, as if in abject terror.
What the devil, she thought. Surely it couldn’t be real, not out here this early on such a foggy morning. It must be youngsters playing around, trying to startle the runner they’d been watching coming up the hill. She half expected them to come running out any minute once they recognised her.
The pillbox had been a place that bored or rebellious teenagers would hang out on occasions and drink themselves stupid with cider. Morag knew that from her own teenage years. I’ll give whoever sold them cider what for, she promised herself as she continued to jog upwards towards the pillbox.
Suddenly, the figure of a young woman — a purple-haired teenager dressed in a baggy pullover, jeans and wellies — staggered out of the pillbox. She looked drunk, very drunk. Alarmingly though, she was screaming hysterically and rubbing her eyes as she stumbled about. Morag recognised her. It was Catriona McDonald, the local councillor’s daughter.
‘Catriona!’ Morag called out, all too aware that she was breathing heavily after the uphill run. ‘It’s me, Sergeant Driscoll. Settle yourself. Don’t move any further, it’s really foggy and you’re near the edge of the cliff. I’m coming for you.’
The girl did not settle, but instead continued to scream. She lowered her hands from her eyes and held them out fully stretched as if trying to touch something.
‘Wh-who’s there?’ Catriona stammered. She was blinking rapidly and her face was contorted with fear. ‘I … I can’t see!’
Morag reached her and put a comforting hand on each upper arm. ‘It’s me, Catriona. Sergeant Morag Driscoll. I’ve got you. Have you been drinking in the pillbox? You’re cold and trembling — have you been in there all night? Is anyone in there with you?’
The girl was shaking frantically. Her screaming had stopped when Morag held her, only to be replaced by uncontrollable sobbing.
Goodness, she reeks of booze, Morag thought.
‘J-Jamie Mackintosh and V-Vicky Spiers. Bu-but, I canna wake Jamie.’
‘Have you just woken up, Catriona?’
The girl nodded as she continued to sob loudly.
‘So Jamie is inside? What about Vicky?’
With difficulty, Catriona replied, ‘He’s there. I-I felt him, but I can’t see… It’s just mist and sparks in my eyes.’
Morag bent down to look into the teenager’s eyes and felt real worry for her. She was staring straight at her, but there was no pupillary reaction. It was like looking at a doll’s eyes.
I am not liking this at all, Morag thought. I need to get help, but first I need to check on Jamie and Vicky. She gave Catriona’s arms a reassuring squeeze. ‘I have to check on the other two, Catriona. Just stay right here. OK?’
The girl nodded and continued to shiver and sob.
It was dark inside the pillbox and Morag saw that the teenagers had stuck cardboard over the viewing window slits. On the floor she found a LED camping lantern and switched it on. By its light she saw Jamie Mackintosh lying on his back, half covered in a blanket. There was frothy spittle on his lips that had solidified as it had trailed down his chin. Alarmingly, his eyes were wide open and in the light from the lantern the pupils seemed totally dilated.
There was no one else in the pillbox.
Training prevented panic and Morag searched for a pulse at his wrist and then at his neck. She couldn’t feel one and he was totally unresponsive as she shook him. She listened for breathing and cleared the spittle away before opening his mouth and making sure there was nothing obstructing his breathing.
‘Jamie! Jamie! Can you hear me?’ she asked, knowing already that he could not. Rushing outside she pulled out her phone from her runner’s pouch bag, only to find that it was dead. She suppressed the curse that rose to her lips. ‘Catriona, have you got a phone?’
‘No. V-Vicky has one. Jamie’s ran out last night. Oh Sergeant … I can’t see. What’s happened. I feel so, so…’ She suddenly bent down and vomited.
Pausing only long enough to make sure the youngster wasn’t going to faint Morag placed an arm about her shoulders. ‘Catriona, I have to see what I can do for Jamie. You’re freezing so I’m going to get you a blanket.’
She rushed back inside and picked up one of the blankets that the teenagers had brought with them and took it out to drape around Catriona, who had stopped retching and was on her hands and knees.
‘Catriona, listen to me. This is important. I have to see if I can revive Jamie. If you hear a vehicle call me straight away.’
Morag dashed back inside and began cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on the teenager, albeit with little hope of success.
God, please send someone to help, she silently prayed to herself as she began chest compressions. Her last CPR course had been only a month before and Doctor McLelland, the CPR instructor, had given them all tunes that they could use in their heads to get the right rhythm. Working on a plastic dummy humming the Bee Gee’s ‘Staying Alive’ or Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ had seemed vaguely amusing at the time. But now, with a teenager that she had known since he was a toddler, she disliked the idea intensely. He was a human being and she needed to do her utmost for him.
She counted thirty compressions and then with the back of her hand wiped the encrusted saliva from the teenager’s mouth before giving him two rescue breaths mouth to mouth. And then she started again.
She had been working solidly for ten minutes and felt her arms aching when Catriona screamed out her name. She stopped and listened. In the distance she distinctly heard the noise of a vehicle on the nearby road.
‘It has to be whisky, Lorna!’ Torquil McKinnon, the Detective Inspector of the West Uist Police said emphatically into his mobile phone as he crunched across the gravel drive leading up to the St Ninian’s manse and pushed open the front door of the porch. Wisps of mist followed and swirled about him. ‘Whisky is traditional at celebrations for the men on West Uist,’ he continued. ‘Uisge beatha! The Water of Life! A wee miniature of Glen Corlin would go down a treat with them. It’s one of the oldest malt whiskies in the Outer Hebrides.’
‘You’re not trying to pull rank on me, are you, Detective Inspector McKinnon?’ Lorna replied.
Torquil heard the humorous lilt in her voice and could just picture her sitting in her neat, crisp uniform in her open plan office in the Stornoway station, a cup of tea by her side and her desk in meticulous order. He could almost see her smile and he felt goosebumps all over, for he could never resist that smile, whether real or conjured up in his imagination.
Standing inside the porch he shook his head, as if she could see him. ‘Of course not, Sergeant Golspie!’ he replied jauntily. ‘When it comes to the wedding, our marriage and our life away from the force, we are totally equal partners. We always will be.’
‘And yet methinks the wedding favours seem to be one of our first bones of contention.’
‘Not at all. Look Lorna, if not Glen Corlin maybe we could give them a miniature of Hamish McNab’s Abhainn Dhonn? It’s not bad for such a young malt and after all it’s also distilled in West Uist. And as for the lassies, well everyone loves Kyleshiffin tablet, don’t they?’
‘Ha! You think so? Look Torquil, not everyone likes whisky. Artisan gin and rum are trendy these days and we could get that locally produced, too. In fact, I know exactly where we could get them. As for tablet and all that sugar for the “lassies” — do you not think that is a bit sexist? Maybe you’re being a bit too parochial here?’