‘My first ever proper published story!’ she cried, mounting the stairs three at a time. ‘Oh thank you, Calum! Thank you!’
‘Wh-What!’ Calum stammered, blinking and fumbling to find his wire-framed spectacles which had fallen astray when he had slumped back on his camp-bed. He held up his hands to stop her further advance, as if she was a bounding puppy about to hurtle herself at him. ‘Look, Cora lassie, you are making a habit of this.’
Cora giggled. ‘Of what? Seeing you in bed?’
Calum squirmed with embarrassment. ‘Ah – er – don’t be cheeky, lassie. I’ll have you know that I—’
‘I was just kidding, Calum.’ She replied. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell Great-aunt Bella.’
‘Tell what to Miss Melville?’ he asked quickly, his eyes wide open in alarm behind his spectacles.
‘That you like to drink whisky so early in the morning.’
Calum looked at her in shock. ‘What are you talking about, lassie? I never drink too early. I drink a bit late sometimes. What is late to a journalist may seem early to someone else.’ He wagged his finger in admonishment. ‘If you want to be a good journalist, you have a lot to learn. I insist on accuracy from my staff, Cora.’
He stood up and hiccupped. ‘So, how about a cup of tea and then I will treat you to a really good greasy breakfast at the Friar Tuck Café?’
Cora grimaced. ‘That’s kind of you, Calum, but I am a bit of a vegetarian, actually. And I never eat anything greasy, not even chips.’ Then she gave him one of her sudden smiles. ‘But I’ll put the kettle on for a cup of tea.’
And before he could take in what he considered her admission of food heresy, she disappeared into the kitchenette.
‘That was a great article you wrote, boss,’ she called out. ‘That Dr Digby Dent will have a horrible headache when he wakes up. I expect he will feel such a fool.’
‘Aye, it is always best to avoid a hangover,’ Calum replied with a yawn, as he massaged his own aching temples.
His mobile phone went off and he answered it automatically.
When Cora came in a few moments later with a couple of mugs of steaming tea she found him listening to a voice on the other end, his jaw hanging open and his eyes staring into space.
‘Up on the moor, you say? Aye, I will go straight away. And so who are—?’
He frowned then looked in consternation at the phone.
‘Tea!’ Cora said, handing the mug to him.
He shook his head and reached for his yellow anorak. ‘No time, Cora. Grab those helmets, we have work to do. You were almost right about Dr Dent and his head. He would have a headache – if he was still alive to feel it. He’s been found up on the moor with his head bashed in.’
Cora’s face went ashen and she dropped the mug of tea at his feet.
He was about to mumble something about his good carpet when she pitched forward in a dead faint on to his camp-bed.
The chain of communication had clicked into action straight away. Ewan had called Morag on his mobile, then she had contacted Torquil and set the ball rolling.
Torquil had been the first on the scene, zooming up the hill from Harbour Street on his Bullet, with Crusoe peering out of one pannier and his pipes from the other. He had been intending to go to St Ninian’s Cave to try out a new piece that he had been working out in his head ever since Lorna had rung that morning.
He was only a few moments ahead of Dr Ralph McLelland in the Kyleshiffin ambulance. It was not a purpose-built vehicle, but an ancient converted camper-van which had been donated by a former laird of Kyleshiffin. They had both been briefed by a pasty–faced Ewan McPhee, who looked wretched and cold, with vomit stains down his T-shirt and numerous blotches about his head and neck.
‘I didn’t mean to do it, Torquil!’ Ewan said. ‘How was I to know that he was lying there in the heather? I … I….’
Torquil patted his shoulder. ‘Of course you didn’t know that, Ewan. Now just calm down. Here,’ he said, handing him Crusoe’s lead, ‘you look after the dog while we have a proper look.’
Crusoe was snapping right and left at invisible midges.
‘Aye, the midges are bad this morning,’ Ewan said, as he took the lead and led them over towards the tussock of heather and gorse where the body lay.
He explained that upon recovering from his initial shock he had hauled it out of the bog to see if he could try resuscitation, but it had been all too clear that the man had been beyond such help. Even so, he had placed him in the recovery position.
‘Strange that the midges don’t seem to land on him,’ Ewan remarked. ‘They just home in on us.’
Dr McLelland knelt beside the body, ignoring the fact that brackish peat water had soaked into his corduroy trousers. ‘It is because they only feed off the living. They are attracted to the carbon dioxide that animals breathe out.’
‘I didn’t know that, Doctor McLelland,’ Ewan said.
‘Nor did I until the other day; Doctor Dent here told me himself.’
Torquil said nothing, but watched as the doctor opened his bag and pulled out his stethoscope and an ophthalmoscope. He knew from experience that he would perform his examination strictly to the letter, leaving nothing to chance and risking no error in his analysis.
The doctor was one of Torquil’s oldest friends. Along with Calum Steele, the three of them had thought themselves to be like the Three Musketeers when they were attending the Kyleshiffin School under Miss Bella Melville’s watchful eye. Then they had grown up and gone their separate ways: Torquil to study law and become a police officer; Calum to throw himself into journalism; Ralph to study medicine. After graduating from Glasgow University Ralph had fully intended becoming a pathologist and had studied forensic medicine and medical jurisprudence, until his uncle had suddenly died. Family loyalty had then overcome personal academic ambition and he returned to West Uist to take over the old boy’s medical practice, as well as his post as honorary police surgeon to the West Uist Division of the Hebridean Constabulary. On several occasions in the past his forensic skills had come in very handy.
‘So can you give an estimate on how long he has been dead?’ Torquil asked, as he looked over Ralph’s shoulder.
‘Hard to be precise,’ he replied pensively. ‘What with the chance of accelerated rigor mortis if he had been in this cold peat water for any time, it could be as little as two hours or as long as twenty-four.’
‘You … you mean that I didn’t kill him with the hammer?’ Ewan blurted out.
‘No, you definitely did not. He has been dead for a good while,’ Ralph replied. ‘I don’t think that your hammer even touched him. It just happened to land in the bog beside him. It looks as if he fell and bashed his head on this jagged rock here.’ He pointed to a blood-soaked rock that was protruding from the pool. ‘As I say, he could have been here for a whole day.’
‘Except that he was in police custody last night,’ Torquil said. ‘You must have heard about the rumpus he created on the Flotsam & Jetsam TV show that they were filming?’
Ralph looked round and shook his head. ‘I was out on an emergency case all evening. The devil’s own job I had in stabilizing the patient.’
‘Well, we didn’t release him until ten-thirty,’ Ewan volunteered. ‘Morag reckoned he had sobered up enough by then.’
Ralph bent over the dead man’s lips and sniffed. He clicked his tongue. ‘I’ll need to check his alcohol level when I do the post-mortem. Assuming you want a post-mortem, Torquil?’
‘Are you able to say how he died?’ Torquil asked. ‘Not meaning to be facetious, Ralph.’