‘Careful, Willie,’ Morag said with mock sternness. ‘That is bordering on an admission of a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act!’
She glanced up at the cardboard sign beside the old shop clock with its ancient advertisement for a famous type of snuff. ‘I see it is a high Midge Index today. Good thing I am in the station all day.’
‘Oh, that is you, is it, Morag Driscoll?’ a familiar voice asked rhetorically from behind her. ‘You have saved me the trouble of going up to the police station.
Morag grimaced at Willie Staig who fully understood her expression and kept a poker face. Morag turned round and found herself looking into the scrutiny of her old teacher’s regard. She was a tall, silver-haired lady of about seventy, dressed in a tweed suit, swathed in a russet-coloured silk shawl. She had a handbag hanging from one arm and was pulling off one of her smart leather gloves as she regarded Morag.
‘Why, Miss Melville, and what can I do for you on this fine day?’
‘You can start by smiling, Morag Driscoll,’ Bella Melville returned. ‘I am sure you remember me telling you that many times when I was teaching you.’
Morag remembered only too well. Miss Melville had been the Kyleshiffin schoolteacher until her retirement and she had taught virtually half of West Uist’s population. Few ever had the temerity to argue with her and her opinions were well known and respected, if not always agreed with.
Morag forced a smile that she hoped was not too insipid for her old teacher’s liking.
‘That’s better, Morag. You always were a serious girl and I always tried to make you relax, but …’ Miss Melville shrugged her shoulders as if to indicate that she had been a hopeless case. The she smiled indulgently. ‘But I suppose that is why you have become such an excellent police sergeant. Now,’ she went on in her old no-nonsense manner, ‘I really have an important request.’ She frowned slightly. ‘No, not a request, but a demand. The police will have to do something.’
‘About what, Miss Melville?’
‘Not about anything, Morag. Something will have to be done for Annie McConville.’
Morag said nothing, but nodded encouragingly.
‘She is very upset about all these puppies and waifs.’
Morag frowned and was immediately rebuked.
‘Don’t beetle your brow like that, Morag. Don’t you remember me telling you? The wind might change and you’ll be left like it.’ She sighed. ‘I can see you are not following me. Well, that dog sanctuary of hers is just getting too much for her. She has had several abandoned puppies and a few strays to take in lately. And some cats. And they all seem to have been mistreated in some way or other. It simply is not good enough.’ She unclasped her bag and drew out a purse.
‘I – er – don’t quite see how this concerns the West Uist Police, Miss Melville,’ Morag said, with as expressionless a face as she could muster. ‘Shouldn’t you—’
‘I should do exactly what I am doing, Sergeant Driscoll. I am reporting the whole thing to the police. Now it is up to you to investigate and sort this out.’
‘But, but—’
Miss Melville looked at the bag under Morag’s arm and smiled. ‘Ah yes, your butter rolls. I expect Ewan McPhee and the Drummond boys will be waiting for their butteries.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘But you just watch them, my lass. As they say, Easy on the lips, heavy on the hips! She reached over and picked up a copy of the Chronicle and laid down the exact change. ‘There you go, Willie, and you just remember when you are writing your posters that i comes before e, except after c.’ With which she tapped the news poster at the door and walked elegantly away, conscious of her own prim and sylph-like figure.
Morag and Willie gave each other a supportive smile. Miss Melville had the ability to make all of her former pupils feel like ten year olds again.
And Morag had lost her appetite for a hot butter roll.
The Kyleshiffin police station was a converted bungalow off Kirk Wynd, which ran parallel to Harbour Street. The walls were pebble-dashed and the garden had been tarmacked over to create a parking area complete with a bike rack and poles for tying dog leashes. Above the door was a round blue police sign and by the door was a glass-fronted case containing all sorts of information about things lost and found, and about various initiatives that had been made by the Hebridean Constabulary.
Inside the station, PC Ewan McPhee, the six foot four, freckled, red-haired wrestling and hammer-throwing champion of the Western Isles, and the junior officer of the West Uist division of the Hebridean Constabulary was having a difficult morning. It had started badly at six when he had gone for his usual early morning run up to the moor above Kyleshiffin where he could practise his hammer-throwing technique. He had won the Western Isles heavy hammer championship for five years in a row, breaking his own record on each occasion. He had even contemplated converting to throw the Olympic hammer, which demanded learning a whole new method; since the heavy hammer was done from a standing throw, as opposed to the whirling of the Olympic. He had been trying that out for about half an hour when the inevitable had happened.
A heather moor is not ideally suited to the rapid turns of the feet needed to build up pace to hurl the Olympic hammer and his feet got snagged in the purple heather just as he prepared to launch it. He felt himself falling and failed to release the great weight. As he landed heavily it swung over his head and landed with a great sucking noise in one of the pot bogs just feet away.
‘Och, Ewan, you clumsy idiot!’ he chastised himself. ‘Never an Olympic thrower will you make.’
He sat up and was immediately aware that his hammer had disturbed a swarm of midges from the bog. Instantly, they were at him, biting him on all his exposed skin, which was mostly all over since he had stripped down to vest and shorts. Stopping only to pick up his track suit he beat a hasty retreat for the safety of Kyleshiffin police station. It was only when he was inside and enjoying the dubious comfort of a cold shower that he realized that he had left his precious hammer on the moor. He debated whether he would have time to go back for it before he forgot where the pot bog was that he had left it, but his mind was made up for him as he was in the process of dabbing himself dry and applying toothpaste to his numerous bites.
‘Come on, come on!’ a voice cried out from the hallway. Then a fist thudded a couple of times on the desk and Ewan pulled on his clothes and scuttled through to find one of his heart-sink regulars pacing back and forth on the other side of the desk.
It was Rab McNeish, the local carpenter and spare-time undertaker, a man who epitomized the word paradox. He was a tall, gaunt man with a stringy neck, yet he ate like a horse. At a funeral he was as silent as the grave itself, the perfect funeral director, yet with his carpenter’s hat on he could be a foul-mouthed, bad-tempered and self-opinionated boor. He was almost bald, but had an up-and-over and had grown a drooping moustache in an attempt to compensate, but instead it all just gave him an even sourer look. That was not helped by the fact that he was also one of life’s great complainers.
One of Rab McNeish’s greatest fears, which he often communicated to Ewan McPhee when he came complaining, was germs. This was understandable, since his younger brother had died ten years previously from toxoplasmosis.