‘After I released him,’ Morag corrected. ‘It is my responsibility.’
‘Ours too,’ Wallace promptly put in. ‘We saw him and we agreed with you. He was sober enough to get home on his own.’
‘Absolutely,’ Douglas agreed. ‘Solidarity, that is what we have in West Uist. All for one and one for all, and all that.’
Morag gave them a weary smile. ‘I appreciate that, boys, but, as I said, it was my responsibility. I made the decision.’
Torquil shook his head. ‘As a matter of fact, Morag, as the officer in charge, the responsibility is all mine. Yet before we all start self-flagellating, let us be clear about the whole thing: was it your honest opinion that it was safe to let Dr Dent go home?’
‘With my hand on my heart, Torquil, I thought he was sober enough, yes.’
‘And you lads?’
The Drummonds looked at each other and curtly nodded. ‘Us too,’ Wallace declared for them.
‘In that case I would be quite happy to make a statement backing my officers.’
Morag’s jaw dropped. ‘You mean that you are going to talk to that wee gutter-snipe, Calum Steele?’
Torquil grinned. ‘I didn’t say that. I said that I would be happy to make a statement, but only to a responsible journalist. Calum Steel no longer fits that bill and from now on is persona non grata in this station.’
Ewan’s face lit up. ‘Is that official, boss? Can I show him the door if he sneaks in?’
‘If I am here I will talk to him, or rather, I’ll give him a talking to. If I’m not in, then it is official and he can be shown the door.’
Then he turned to the twins. ‘And the same thing goes for any other representatives of the West Uist Chronicle. If in doubt, refer them to me. Do you understand, lads?’
Wallace and Douglas looked crestfallen.
‘It’s understood, Torquil,’ said Wallace.
Douglas sighed and flicked his eyes ceilingwards. ‘Aye, like I said, solidarity.’
Calum was in his element. He had rung Scottish TV and eventually managed to get through to Kirstie Macroon. He had given her the outline story about Dr Digby Dent’s death and the finding of the body on the moor by the hammer-throwing PC Ewan McPhee. As he expected she just about bit his hand off for the story and so set up an impromptu telephone interview with him. It was something that he had done several times in the past. When the News programme went out they would show the stock photograph that they held of Calum, showing him posing in front of his Remington typewriter wearing a bow tie, braces and with his hair slicked down. Then they would play the interview with a little crackling in the background to illustrate both the remoteness of the affair and Scottish TV’s vigilance and diligence in bringing the news from places as remote as West Uist.
Calum found that these exposures always boosted sales of the Chronicle, both on West Uist and on the other islands the day after.
He was still glowing with pleasure at the thought of his scoop, but even more so at having actually been talking to Kirstie Macroon, when Cora slowly mounted the stairs and slumped down on the settee.
‘That was awful, Calum,’ she groaned. ‘I hated that job.’
‘Did she give you a good statement?’ Calum asked with a grin.
‘She gave me a flea in my ear, more like. I have never been so embarrassed in my life.’
‘Well, you’ll need to toughen up, Cora. A journalist has to have a tough hide.’
‘Don’t you ever – well – er – feel disloyal to your friends?’
Calum pursed his lips for a moment. Then he shrugged and began typing a few notes on his laptop.
‘Never thought about it, lassie. My job is to tell the news, not make friends. Oh, and to sell newspapers, of course!’
Cora stared at him in disbelief for a moment. But it was only for a moment. She began to wonder.
Rab McNeish had been busy preparing a body all night.
It had been an unusual undertaking, as the deceased had lived on the island of Benbecula all of his life, only announcing on his death bed that he wanted to be buried on his native West Uist. Accordingly, after all the red tape had been dealt with Rab had gone out on the evening ferry and returned on the special fuel ferry with the body in a temporary coffin in the back of his carpenter’s van.
He had gone straight to his chapel of rest and set about preparing the body in the embalming-room in readiness for the relatives to view him at noon.
‘And tired out, is what I am,’ he sighed, as he left the chapel and made his way back to his home, a sprawling croft with outhouses and work sheds on Sharkey’s Boot, the curiously shaped peninsula beyond the star-shaped Wee Kingdom on the west of the island.
‘A wee sleep and a bath to revive me and then I’ll be presentable for the relatives at noon.’
But as he drove along the leg of the Boot towards his croft he suddenly felt his heart skip a beat.
The front door was standing open and a panel had been kicked in. ‘My Lord!’ he breathed, braking hard.
He reached over the passenger’s seat and grasped a claw hammer.
‘Please Lord don’t let anyone have found me out!’
Wee Hughie had never known when to stop once he got going. The night before had been such a time, the result being that he had so much alcohol in him that if he had been left to his own devices, he would have slept around the clock.
‘Get up, Wee Hughie,’ Dan Farquarson said sharply, as he shook him awake. ‘It’s after eleven and we should have gone shooting or fishing with McNab and Sandy.’
Wee Hughie clutched his head and blinked his way back to painful consciousness. ‘Crivens! We must have had a skinful last night, boss. Look at me; I didn’t even manage to get undressed.’
‘Me neither,’ replied a crumpled looking Dan Farquarson. ‘And the Lord only knows where Sandy is. It looks as if he’s gone off without us.’
‘Gone shooting?’
Despite himself, Dan Farquarson laughed. ‘Sandy King has gone shooting! That’s a good one, Wee Hughie. Very droll.’
Wee Hughie rose to his feet, pleased to think that his boss had thought he had deliberately made a joke.
Dan Farquarson shook his head. ‘But this is all going wrong. I rented this luxury cottage here in the back of beyond and booked this hunting and shooting trip with the Hebrides’ very own Crocodile Dundee so that we could get Sandy away from the limelight long enough for us to have a good meeting.’ He slumped down on the edge of Wee Hughie’s newly vacated bed and thumped the bedside table. ‘But nothing is going to plan.’
Neither of them heard the footsteps in the hall.
‘And just what plans would those be, Mr Farquarson?’ asked Sandy King. He stood in the doorway, dressed in a black track suit and trainers. ‘I think it is time that we put our cards on the table, don’t you?’ IX
Early that evening Calum and Cora stationed themselves at a table in the lounge bar of the Bonnie Prince Charlie right in front of the big plasma TV screen. As news of Dr Digby Dent’s sudden death had already travelled round the island by old-fashioned bush telegraph the bar was full, as people had flocked in to have a drink while they listened to the news. Mollie McFadden and her staff were doing a roaring trade.