After adroitly fielding her questions he asked her about Robbie Ochterlonie’s writing and his writing cabin.
Millie laughed. ‘Don’t tell me that Norma still has the impression that Robbie is any kind of a writer? I’m heartbroken that he’s dead, but he certainly never did any writing in that cabin. Oh, he was always on his laptop pretending to write, but he was a fantasist, was our Robbie. He liked to drink that filthy peatreek, which was stupid for him and his diabetes. Me and Doreen McGuire were always telling him to be careful with it. But oh no, he’d go to his place at Lochiel’s Copse and drink himself stupid. Not only that, but he supplied some of the residents with the stuff, the idiot. If the owners had ever found out he’d have been out on his ear.’
‘Norma Ferguson seem to have had a soft spot for him?’
‘Aye, well, Robbie was probably not the right sort for her. He was secretive, as you may have gathered. I think he was a bit duplicitous, too.’
‘What makes you say that, Millie?’
The care assistant scrunched her nose up. ‘I don’t know exactly, it’s just that he would have times when he was always making secret phone calls, shutting himself away in his office to do it. Like he was having an affair.’
‘So he was a ladies’ man?’
‘Not exactly. Oh, Norma had a candle for him, but he was no oil painting and he didn’t really put himself about, if you know what I mean. Not publicly. I’m sure Doreen and me would have known if he had a relationship on the island.’
‘Could he have been having an affair with a married woman? Or could he have been gay?’
Millie shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t think he was gay. I just think he might have been having a relationship he wanted to keep secret.’
‘You’ve no evidence though, have you, Millie? Is it just a suspicion?’
‘Aye, it’s a hunch. But my hunches are usually good.’
Torquil hummed and leaned forward and made a few notes in his book, then said, ‘So where did he get his peatreek, Millie? Did he have a still somewhere? Was that why he buried himself away in Lochiel’s Copse?’
‘That I don’t know and I don’t really want to know. I don’t like drink and I don’t like what it does to people. All that’s been happening lately must surely get the message through to people. It’s all just poison.’
Her mouth had been getting tighter as she spoke until it was now just a disapproving line. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, Inspector. I’m going to miss him, but I can’t help feeling he brought things on his own head. Ask Doreen McGuire, she might know more.’
Five minutes later Torquil was looking across the desk at Doreen McGuire. While Millie was on the petite end of the spectrum, Doreen was large and curvaceous. Like Millie she was a stalwart of the church and of the Mother’s Union.
‘Millie tells me that she thinks Robbie might have been having a secret relationship. Could that be true?’
Doreen shrugged. ‘I think she could be right.’
‘Any reason to suppose that?’
‘Robbie used to joke a lot. Banter, flirtatious stuff, you know. Never with any of the youngsters, just with me and Millie. You probably know that Millie likes to pretend that she’s a prude, but she has a naughty side to her. She likes the banter, too. We think he just did it with us because we were safe, he would know that was as far as it went. But sometimes his banter changed. Less of the innuendo and flirty behaviour to more of the “guess what I’ve been up to” sort of talk. But he would never elaborate. It was conspiratorial chatter, but he’d end it with a look that said “wouldn’t you like to know?” I would say he’d been like that for the last three months or so.’
Torquil jotted some of the things she said verbatim into his notebook.
‘But why would that matter, Inspector? Robbie was entitled to his private life, wasn’t he?’
‘Of course he was, except if he was seeing someone who could have been supplying him with peatreek. Especially if it was poisonous peatreek.’
Doreen gasped. ‘And you think it could be the same stuff as the youngsters had been drinking?’
‘We have to consider all possibilities, Doreen. Millie said that Robbie drank himself silly with peatreek at his cabin and that he also supplied some of the residents with it.’
‘Oh dear, Millie and I often thought he’d get in trouble over that. I think he was just being nice to them. Giving them wee bottles so they could have a dram in their rooms when they wanted. And peatreek would just seem a bit naughty, so it would give them a bit excitement in their lives.’
‘I need to know which residents he supplied, Doreen. I need to make sure that they haven’t got dangerous peatreek in their possession that could make them ill.’
Doreen looked worried. ‘Could we do his with Norma present? I don’t want her to think we’ve by-passed her.’
‘Of course. And once we have their names I’ll need to confiscate any peatreek in their possession and have it analysed.’
‘Oh Lord, we don’t want any of our residents getting poisoned.’
‘Just one more thing before we get Norma. Do you know if Robbie had access to a still himself?’
Doreen shook her head.
‘Any idea who supplied him?’
‘Absolutely no idea.’
Doreen led Torquil over to a group of the Hydro’s residents, who she suspected may have accepted whisky from Robbie. The group was headed by eighty-six-year-old Stuart Robertson. A retired trawler captain and ex-publican, he was used to being in charge, and he essentially dominated his little coterie of fellow residents, enjoying the company of a favoured trio who never failed to be amused by his anecdotes and tales of derring-do upon the sea. Husband and wife, Murdoch and Agnes Shand, both also lively octogenarians and Norman Kirk a seventy-seven-year-old former gamekeeper from Islay all joined Stuart’s protests when Torquil confronted them in their corner of the snug, the room where they sat round what they called ‘the Captain’s Table’ playing interminable games of whist, brag or poker.
‘Will we get out bottles back after they’ve been tested, Inspector?’ Stuart asked. ‘We pay Robbie good money for that, you know.’
‘I’m afraid not. It’s to be confiscated,’ Torquil replied. ‘I’ll give you a receipt, but that’s all.’
‘Are we in trouble, Inspector McKinnon?’ Agnes asked. ‘We don’t have much of it, just a wee tot at night and maybe a teaspoon in a cup of tea when its chilly.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s a terrible thing that happened to those teenagers.’
‘Terrible,’ her husband agreed. ‘A waste of life.’
‘Maybe we’ll find out where Robbie got the stuff from,’ said Norman. ‘He was always one for keeping secrets, that was our Robbie.’
Stuart Robertson was used to having the last word. ‘Aye, he liked his secrets right enough. He was always saying, “a word to the wise”. Never a truer thing spoken.’
He began to laugh and the other three residents followed suit. They were still laughing as Norma came with a bag of bottles that she had retrieved from their rooms.
Millie McKendrick was passing behind her and heard the clinking of bottles. ‘I knew you lot would get into trouble over that drinking.’
Angus Mackintosh was feeling emotionally numb. His leg hurt like hell, despite the painkillers, and he was limping with the heavily bandaged leg.
He had made a vow with himself never to drink again. The realisation that his son had died in that miserable Second World War pillbox had sent his mind into overdrive. He had not been as low since his wife had died after having a subarachnoid haemorrhage three years before.