‘Oh my God,’ gasped Megan. ‘What is happening to this place? It is all falling apart. She leaned forward and put her hand on his. ‘But at least I have you to protect me now.’
Vincent shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Megan. It doesn’t feel right.’
‘It feels very right to me.’
‘What should we do, Megan?’
She wiped her mouth with a napkin. ‘We need time to talk and see where we’re going here. But I have a job to do first. Wait a minute.’
And she disappeared into her bedroom, coming back after a few minutes with a large holdall and a rucksack. ‘These are Nial’s,’ she said. ‘Will you help me load them in the car?’
‘I had better come too.’
‘No, I have to do this myself.’
He helped her pack up the car and watched her drive off into the swirling mist. Then he purposefully strode back to his croft. He had an important job of his own to do.
Alistair McKinley had watched the firemen battle to contain the fire, then withdrew and watched the police go about their business after they discovered the body. After they had taken it away Alistair went back to his croft and catnapped in his armchair before washing and breakfasting. Then as usual he went out and tended to his livestock and did some work on the loom. Half expecting a news report on the fire he went in for a cup of tea and turned on the old television in time to see Kirstie Macroon’s report. As he watched, he became more and more irate.
‘So much death!’ he whispered to himself. ‘And all down to him!’
Methodically clearing up his breakfast things he set about doing the other chores that he did not feel could wait, before going back to the outhouse that housed his loom. Pushing several boxes of wool aside he prised up the flagstone in the corner, reached into the hollow beneath and drew out the rifle wrapped in polythene. He unwrapped it, gave it the once over, then reached into the hollow again and drew out his father’s old hunting bag, which contained his spare ammunition.
‘Just one more job to finish,’ he mused. ‘And this is in your memory, Kenneth my lad.’
Five minutes later Alistair McKinley’s jeep disappeared into the mist, its red tail lights swiftly disappearing in the swirling yellow vapours.
Then a lone figure came round the side of the croft, heading swiftly across the ground towards the Morrison family croft. He sniffed the air as he went past it, heading up the rise towards Wind’s Eye croft. And he stood by the burned-out shell surrounded as it was by the plastic police tapes.
‘Just one bloody great mess!’ Geordie Morrison muttered to himself. ‘Someone’s going to pay for this. And I am going to see to that!’
Morag and Lachlan had arrived at the Seaspray catamaran berth just in time to see Nial Urquart’s motorboat disappear out of the harbour, heading northwards.
‘It’s a nippy little thing that she’s got there,’ said Morag, ‘but we’ll soon catch her.’
She donned a waterproof and life-jacket and started the Seaspray up while Lachlan untied the mooring ropes and then boarded beside her. ‘Aye, as long as she doesn’t disappear into the mists,’ he said, as he donned waterproofs and life-jacket, while Morag went through preparations to leave harbour. ‘Have you any idea where she may be headed?’
‘None at all. But what worries me most is why she feels she might need a gun at sea.’
As she expertly manoeuvred out of the harbour before accelerating northwards it looked as if Lachlan’s fears might be correct. Already the boat had disappeared into the misty waters.
Morag switched on the radar and moments later she had a blipping image on the screen in front of her. ‘We can’t see her, but she’s there right enough. And it looks as if she’s heading around the coast.’
‘Towards the Wee Kingdom, do you think?’ Lachlan asked.
‘Maybe,’ Morag replied. ‘Or possibly to Dunshiffin Castle.’
‘Wallace, I want you to go to the Wee Kingdom and make sure that Vincent Gilfillan, Alistair McKinley and Megan Munro don’t leave their crofts. We’ll want to take statements from them later. Douglas, I want you to find Nial Urquart and bring him back here.’
‘Are you going to question him, Piper?’ Douglas asked.
‘I am. But I’m going to go over things here first and get my thoughts in order. And I’d better give the superintendent a ring and put him in the picture.’
Once he was alone Torquil went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on for a cup of tea.
Then with his cup in his hand he went through to the Incident Room and stared at the whiteboard.
Jock McArdle! And now he wanted police protection! He grinned. There was only him available to give that protection now. But protection against whom?
The answer came when the station telephone rang.
‘Emergency!’ The rasping whispered voice had an unmistakable Glaswegian twang. ‘This is Jock McArdle at Dunshiffin Castle. I need help now! There’s a nutter here – with a gun!’
There was the deafening noise of a gun being discharged, then a strangled cry, then silence.
‘Bugger!’ cursed Torquil. He dashed out, stopping only to pick up his helmet and his gauntlets. Moments later he was hurtling along the mist-filled Harbour Street on the Bullet.
Like many native West Uist women Katrina had been used to handling boats since she was a youngster. She knew exactly where she was going and what she was doing. Her heart was racing and she felt more anxious than she thought possible.
She was unaware that she was being pursued.
It seemed to take an interminable time as she raced through the mist as fast as she dared go. And she was always conscious of getting too close to the coastline, with its innumerable stacks, skerries and hidden rocks. But at last she saw the Wee Kingdom loom out of the mists, and she steered a course parallel with it until she rounded the western tip, where three successive basalt stacks jutted out of the sea. On the top of the most westerly one, was the ruins of the old West Uist lighthouse and the derelict shell of the keeper’s cottage. She headed straight for it, slowed the boat and manoeuvred to a stop by the aged jetty. Quickly tying up, she unsheathed her rifle from its bag and gathered her medical bag and water bottle. As she turned to look at the bleak ruins of the lighthouse, she felt a shiver of fear run up and down her spine.
She mounted the steps to the ruin, which was nowadays no more than the bare husk of a tower. The door had long since gone and the inside was full of collapsed masonry and years of guano from the gulls that even now were circling it, protesting noisily at a human presence. Then she turned her attention to the derelict lighthouse-keeper’s cottage. She went along its frontage, trying to see through the wooden shutters that had been nailed in place years before. And then she was at the door, staring at the new looking padlock.
Another shiver ran up her spine as she tested her weight against the unyielding door. She listened with her ear at the door, but heard nothing.
Except the noise of an engine approaching through the mist.
Who the hell was this?
She had no time or inclination to find out. She dropped her bag and water bottle and taking careful aim with the Steyr-Mannlicher rifle, she fired point blank at the lock.
Morag and Lachlan heard a popping noise as they approached.
‘What was that?’ Lachlan asked.
‘It sounded like a muffled gunshot,’ said Morag.
‘You mean a shot from a gun with a silencer?’ Lachlan queried. ‘We’d best be careful here, Morag.’
And minutes later, having tied up beside the motorboat on the jetty they made their way warily to the open door of the old lighthouse-keeper’s cottage. Just inside the door a rifle was propped up against the wall, while inside they saw Katrina Tulloch sobbing her heart out and leaning over a body lying face down on the floor.