She looked out of the window and saw the glow from Gordon MacDonald’s croft. The cottage was in flames and next to it, like a couple of beacons, the two wind towers were engulfed in flames.
chapter fifteen
The West Uist Volunteer Fire Brigade was scrambled upon receiving Megan’s emergency call. They arrived within ten minutes in their 1995 Convoy van, which had been specially converted into a Light Fire Appliance. With its four-man team, lightweight pump and four fire extinguishers, it was doubtful that they would be able to deal with the inferno that was Gordon MacDonald’s croft.
Torquil had been alerted as a matter of course and arrived moments after them on his Royal Enfield Bullet.
Alistair McKinley and Vincent Gilfillan had heard the crackling flames and had joined Megan Munro by the croft and all three had attempted to douse the flames with buckets of water from the nearby duck pond. It had been clear, however, that their efforts were in vain.
‘Just thank the lord that there was nobody inside,’ said Alistair.
‘That we cannot be sure about, Alistair,’ Torquil said, as they stood back to let Leading Fireman Fraser Mackintosh and his volunteers do the best that they could.
Vincent Gilfillan put a hand on Torquil’s arm. ‘You can’t think that anyone is in there!’
Torquil bit his lip, his brow furrowed with anxiety. ‘I doubt it, but one thing is clear – this is a case of arson. There is no way that the fire could have spread to the wind towers.’
Megan clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘My God! Nial! Where is he?’ She began to scream. And then she was running towards the cottage.
Vincent and Torquil both stopped her and drew her back. Fraser Mackintosh came over. ‘It is no use, Torquil. All we can do is contain it. It will have to burn itself out.’ He pointed at the wind towers. ‘At least those towers are metal and won’t burn. The wood platforms we can probably put out, but it looks as if any equipment on them will have been destroyed.’
Vincent took Megan back to her cottage and the others watched and waited until the fire burned itself down and the roof collapsed. Fortunately, rain began to fall and helped to dowse the fire.
But even so, it was not until the first light of morning that they were able to enter the smouldering building. And it was then that they found the badly charred body of a man.
Doctor Ralph McLelland was doing an early morning call on Agnes Calanish’s latest arrival, after her husband Guthrie, the local postmaster had called him at five o’clock.
‘We’re right sorry, Dr McLelland,’ said Guthrie, ‘it is just that he seemed too young to be having the croup. We were worried that he might need to be admitted to the hospital.’
Ralph McLelland wound up his stethoscope and replaced it in his black Gladstone bag. ‘No, there’s no need,’ he said, with a well-practised smile of reassurance. ‘He’s still getting rid of some of the secretions. His chest is as clear as a whistle. He’ll be just fine where he is.’
The local doctor was well used to night visits, although the islanders by and large did their utmost to deal with problems until a respectable hour. For Guthrie Calanish who had to be up at four every morning to get down to the harbour for the early morning ferry, five o’clock seemed perfectly respectable.
‘There might not be any post for some time, Dr McLelland,’ said Guthrie. ‘The ferries have been cancelled until further notice by order of the police. I was down at the harbour this morning just on the off chance, but nothing is doing.’
‘It is all these deaths, isn’t it, Doctor?’ Agnes suggested, as she redressed the latest addition to the household on a changing mat.
‘I am afraid so, Agnes. But the police will be making good headway.’
‘Do you think so, Dr McLelland?’ Guthrie asked. ‘I heard from Wattie Dowel, the chandler, that they’re pretty much in the dark. Could you—’
Ralph’s mobile phone went off just then, which under normal circumstances would have caused him some alarm, since there was a good chance that it indicated another call and a receding opportunity to take breakfast before morning surgery. But he was well used to Guthrie Calanish’s attempts to get gossip out of him, so he raised his hand for quiet as he answered the call.
He was not expecting it to be a call for him in his capacity as the police surgeon. His eyes widened as Torquil told him that they had found another body on the Wee Kingdom. He replied curtly, ‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’
‘Something urgent?’ Guthrie enquired, a tad too curiously for Ralph’s liking.
He forced a smile. ‘Just another call. A doctor’s life is rarely dull, you know.’
Agnes smiled up at him. ‘Oh no one could ever accuse you of being dull, Dr McLelland.’
Guthrie gave her a withering look and showed Ralph McLelland to the door. He watched the doctor hurry up the path with shoulders hunched to protect his neck from the rain, then he nodded thoughtfully and reached for the telephone.
The rain stopped at about five o’clock. Morag and the Drummond twins had arrived in the branch Ford Escort before Dr Ralph McLelland. Once Leading Fireman Fraser Mackintosh had satisfied himself that the site was safe from further fire, and he and Torquil had checked to make sure that there was no possibility that the charred body showed any signs of life, they had withdrawn to preserve the crime site. For that was what Torquil had deemed it to be, especially after Fraser Mackintosh had informed him that he believed there to be strong evidence of arson caused by some incendiary device.
‘The place was petrol bombed, Piper,’ he had said. ‘The cottage and the wind towers.’ And he had pointed out the shattered fragments of milk bottles and the empty blackened petrol can that lay in a corner of the burned-out sitting-room.
Both Torquil and Morag Driscoll were CID and forensic scene of crime qualified, having both been seconded for training a few years previously. It was the chief constable’s view that the Hebridean Constabulary should be totally self-sufficient and able to deal with all situations, without recourse to the mainland force. Accordingly, together with their ever-willing special constables they had cordoned off the crime site with posts and tape barriers and then donned protective white coverall suits, as dictated by the Serious Crimes Procedure, while they awaited the arrival of Dr Ralph McLelland, the GP-cum-police surgeon.
‘My God, I can guess what you’ve got for me. I caught the characteristic smell half a mile off,’ said Ralph McLelland as he closed the door of his car and came over to them with his Gladstone bag in one hand and his forensic case in the other.
‘It is nasty, Ralph,’ said Torquil. ‘There is a badly burned – unrecognizable – body, in the ruins of the cottage.’
He waited while Ralph opened his forensic case and from it drew out a white coverall suit. ‘An accident?’ Ralph asked suspiciously, as he climbed into his suit and zipped up.
Torquil shook his head. ‘No, it is suspicious all right.’
‘It is a sight that you would be better seeing without having had breakfast,’ Wallace Drummond said.
‘I nearly lost mine,’ Douglas, his brother, confessed.
Ralph nodded sanguinely and picked up his case. Then he followed Torquil and Morag along the designated access path into the ruins to view the body.
It was a grisly sight. The blackened, shrivelled body lay sprawled on the floor near the hearth in what had once been the sitting-room of Gordon MacDonald’s croft. Ralph sucked air between his lips with a pained expression and stood looking about him for somewhere to lay his bag down. Finding a spot he put the forensic case down and placed his Gladstone bag on top. He knelt down, opened the bag and drew out his stethoscope and an ophthalmoscope. Torquil and Morag watched him admiringly as he painstakingly examined the body as best he could without disturbing its position. An absolute stickler for routine and precision in all matters medical and forensic, he checked to ensure that the body was truly dead, and that there was no activity in the heart or nervous system.