‘Dead as a piece of coal,’ he announced, coiling his stethoscope and replacing it and his ophthalmoscope in his Gladstone bag, his bag for the living. Then he reached for his forensic case, which contained the instruments he used for examining the dead.
‘Can you tell us how long, Doctor?’ Torquil asked, his tone moving to the official.
The inspector was rewarded with a look of scorn. ‘You are kidding me, Inspector!’ Ralph replied, with a touch of sarcasm. ‘A body found badly burned in a burned-out ruin of a house! The normal post-mortem changes mean nothing.’
‘Not even the body’s position?’ Torquil persisted.
Ralph allowed a grim smile. ‘Ah, you noticed,’ he said. ‘The fact that he was not curled up is suggestive that the individual was dead before the fire started.’
Morag grimaced. ‘Another murder?’
Torquil looked at her with a troubled frown on his forehead. ‘It looks like it. But we have a more immediate question to ask.’
‘Aye’, said Wallace Drummond. ‘Who the hell is he?’
Ralph looked up at the special constable and shook his head. ‘That is going to be difficult, considering the fact that his features have been burned beyond recognition – except perhaps to someone very close to him. We may have to get hold of dental records.’
Torquil pointed to the blackened body piercings on the lips, ears and eyes. Then to the mouth, which seemed to have fixed into a charred look of agony. ‘What do you make of that?’
And, as Ralph looked, so he noticed for the first time the gold chain about the body’s neck, disappearing into the mouth.
‘It looks like a chain, possibly with a medallion,’ Ralph returned. ‘I will know better once I have done a full examination back at the mortuary. But first do you want to get the scene properly photographed and documented?’
And for the better part of an hour Morag, the Drummonds and Torquil set about recording the scene in notes, photographs and diagrams. While they did so Ralph drove back to Kyleshiffin and swapped his car for the Cottage Hospital Ambulance. On his way back he passed the familiar sight of Calum Steele on his Lambretta scooter. Despite Calum’s wave to stop, Ralph merely acknowledged him with a nod of his head and drove on. He knew all too well that the Chronicle editor had somehow scented out a story, and that he would be trying his damnedest to winkle out whatever information he could. But with a suspected murder on the cards Ralph knew it was best to leave that to the official force.
Torquil was busy in the ruins, but heard the tell-tale Lambretta engine approaching.
‘Shall I intercept the wee man himself?’ Douglas Drummond asked.
Torquil sighed. ‘No, but thank you for the offer, Douglas. It would be as well to make this official and I need to make sure that he doesn’t do his usual thing and expound his own theories to the public rather than the official line.’
‘Good luck, boss,’ Morag murmured, as she continued making a detailed diagram of the charred cottage ruin.
‘Latha math, Good morning, Inspector McKinnon,’ Calum greeted from the other side of the tape barrier. ‘Arson attack, is it? Is somebody dead?’
‘What makes you ask those questions, Calum?’
The newspaperman gestured to the burned-out ruins and the blackened wind towers. ‘A cottage can catch fire, but I cannot see how fire would jump all that distance to catch those towers. And this is Gordon MacDonald’s cottage, there was no one in here, was there? Those windmill riggers were using it I know, but they left the island on—’
‘So why do you ask about a death? How did you get wind of this, Calum?’
Calum tapped the side of his nose. ‘Let’s just say that as a journalist I have my sources. And I passed Dr McLelland on my way here, which rather implies that he was coming here on professional business. All that and the fact that he wouldn’t stop when he passed me, meant that he had information that he didn’t want to divulge.’ He grinned. ‘And you are all wearing those official white dungaree suits. So what’s up, Piper? Tell your old schoolmate Calum.’
Torquil shook his head good humouredly. ‘All right, Calum. This is the official statement, but don’t go passing it on with any of your journalistic embellishments.’
‘No, no, you can depend on me. I am a responsible journalist and there will be no poetic licence excuse from me. Just the facts.’
‘And the facts are that the West Uist division of the Hebridean Constabulary are investigating a house fire on the Wee Kingdom, and the discovery of a badly burned body in the burned-out ruins of the cottage.’
Calum had clicked on the Dictaphone in his top pocket and for effect also jotted notes in his spiral-bound notebook. His eyebrows rose and he asked quizzically, ‘Murder?’
‘The fire and the death are being treated as suspicious,’ Torquil replied.
Calum nodded sagely and wrote ‘suspicious’ in capital letters and underlined it emphatically. In his mind’s eye he already saw the headline he would use for the piece. And more immediately, how he was going to deliver it by phone to Kirstie Macroon, the pretty red-headed newsreader with pert breasts that he frequently fantasized about, and whose voice melted his insides. Then, realizing that his mind was straying, he cleared his throat.
‘The cause of death?’
‘We are awaiting the post-mortem report. And that will be some time, since we have yet to remove the remains from the major incident scene.’
Calum leaned over and craned his neck to try to get a better view. Screwing up his eyes he could see the Drummond twins and Morag Driscoll inside, but that was all. ‘And who is it?’
‘We have not identified the body yet, Calum.’
‘Any chance of a picture?’ Calum asked, hopefully.
‘Now you are pushing your luck, Calum. After that last stunt of yours down by the causeway?’
Calum was about to protest, but the noise of the West Uist ambulance crunching up the drive halted the words before he had formed them. ‘Ah the doctor, maybe I’ll—’
‘Maybe you will leave Dr McLelland to get on with his police surgeon duties, Calum. And that isn’t a request, by the way.’
Ralph McLelland got out of the ambulance and came towards them with a pile of plastic bags and a folded-up body bag. ‘Morning, Calum,’ he said as he passed. ‘I am sorry that I could not stop earlier, but I had urgent work to be doing. Excuse me.’ And he passed back along the designated access path. Once inside the burned ruin he carefully put plastic bags on the head, hands and feet of the body to ensure that no important pieces of evidence were lost, before he and a very green-looking Wallace Drummond lifted the body and placed it in a plastic body bag before gingerly moving it into the ambulance.
Torquil jotted down in his notebook, ‘Unidentified body of man, badly burned, removed from the crime scene at 06.25 hours. Doctor McLelland, police surgeon will perform post-mortem as soon as possible.’
Douglas Drummond was looking over his superior officer’s shoulder as he wrote. He prodded Torquil in the back. ‘Is that official jargon, meaning, after the doctor has had his breakfast?’
His brother joined them as Ralph McLelland drove off in the converted ambulance. He was still looking green about the gills. ‘Which is more than I can say for me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat anything again.’