Doctor Ralph McLelland arrived in the Kyleshiffin Cottage Hospital ambulance about quarter of an hour later. It was not a purpose-built ambulance, but was in fact a fairly ancient camper van that had been donated to the cottage hospital by Angus Macleod, the late laird of the Dunshiffin estate. Sergeant Morag Driscoll arrived moments after him in the official police Ford Escort.
Torquil led them to the body and explained his findings before the GP-cum-police surgeon went to work, assisted by Morag, who was forensically trained.
Ralph McLelland was one of Torquil’s oldest friends. He was the third generation of his family to minister to the local people of West Uist. He had trained at Glasgow University then embarked on a career in forensic medicine, having gained his diploma in medical jurisprudence as well as the first part of his membership of the Royal College of Pathologists. But then his father had fallen ill and he had felt the old strings of loyalty tug at him, so that he returned to the island to take over his father’s practice and look after him in the last six months of his life. He had been in single-handed practice for six years.
As for Morag Driscoll, she was a thirty-something single parent of three children. She too had for a time striven to break loose from her island background and had undergone CID training in Dundee before returning to West Uist, marriage and parenthood. Her husband’s early demise from a heart attack had given her a personal drive to keep healthy – which she managed in the main, except for a slight problem with her weight – so that she could provide for her ‘three bairns,’ as she called them.
Together, Morag and Ralph were a formidable team, forming as they did the unofficial forensic unit of the West Uist division of the Hebridean Constabulary. They knew unerringly what the other needed in terms of the examination of the body and the scene.
‘Is it a straightforward accident, do you think?’ Torquil asked, after the pair had spent about half an hour examining and photographing the body, the surrounding area, collecting bits and pieces and bagging them up in small polythene envelopes.
Ralph and Morag looked at each other. Ralph raised his eyebrows and Morag shook her head.
‘Well, it looks like it could have been an accident,’ said Ralph. ‘But I don’t like the look of that bullet you found.’
‘That’s my view as well, Piper,’ agreed Morag. ‘And where is the rifle?’
‘That’s what I thought,’ replied Torquil. ‘I took a walk up to that ledge and saw where he must have tumbled over. But there is no sign of a gun there. So either he didn’t have one with him,’ he paused and stroked his chin worriedly. ‘Or he had one – and someone for some reason has removed it from the scene.’
Death has a galvanizing effect upon people. An hour and a half later Torquil stood beside Alistair McKinley in the mortuary of the Kyleshiffin Cottage Hospital. He could empathize with the old crofter as he pulled back the sheet to expose the corpse of Kenneth McKinley, for he himself had personal experience of having to identify the dead body of a loved one. He remembered that it was like being hit with a sledge hammer, then having your insides twisted like an elastic band. He recalled the scream that threatened to erupt from the depths of his being, the instantaneous dryness of mouth and the overwhelming sense of disbelief.
Alistair McKinley’s normally ruddy complexion suddenly went pale, as if he had instantly haemorrhaged three pints of blood. And he teetered for a moment if on the point of fainting. But he didn’t. He immediately straightened up and swallowed hard, fighting down rising bile in his throat.
Then, ‘That is my son, Kenneth McKinley,’ the old man volunteered. ‘As you know well enough, Inspector McKinnon.’
‘I am truly sorry, Alistair. I am also afraid that—’
‘That bastard McArdle is going to pay for this!’
‘I’m sorry, Alistair,’ Torquil said quietly, with the intention of keeping Alistair McKinley calm. ‘What connection is there between them?’
‘This is his fault. The lad was as mad as a hatter after Gordon MacDonald’s funeral. He was disappointed that the – laird – told him he couldn’t have Gordon’s croft. He went off in a foul mood. When he was in one of those dark moods you couldn’t—’ His face creased into a woeful expression of pain – ‘you couldn’t argue with him. He was capable of doing anything.’ He shook his head. ‘Only this time he went and got himself killed.’
‘But what did you mean about Mr McArdle, Alistair? About him paying?’
Alistair McKinley held Torquil’s gaze for a moment, before shaking his head. ‘I meant … nothing, Inspector. It is not for me to say what will happen. But the good Lord may have designs on those with blood on their hands. That’s all I have to say.’
Suddenly, his weather-beaten face creased and tears appeared in his eyes as a sobbing noise forced itself from his throat. He wiped his eyes with a pincer-like movement of his right finger and thumb. ‘I should have stopped him. It’s my fault, Inspector.’
‘How so, Alistair?’
‘I was cross with him. We had an argument as well. I told him he needed more backbone. I said I was fed up with his fantasies. When he went off with his rifle I should have stopped him. I should have locked him in his room, the way I used to.’
‘So he had a rifle with him, did he? You are sure about that?’
‘Absolutely sure.’
Torquil did not think it an appropriate time to mention that the gun was missing.
The Padre was pulling into the Cottage Hospital car-park on his 1954 Ariel Red Hunter motor cycle on his way to visit Rhona McIvor when he saw his nephew come out of the back door of the little hospital with Alistair McKinley. The old crofter’s demeanour and posture told him that some tragedy had occurred. The fact that they were coming out of that particular door immediately rang alarm bells since the door only opened from the inside, and he knew full well that it meant they had come from the mortuary.
He crossed the car-park to meet them. After seeking Alistair McKinley’s permission, Torquil explained about the finding of Kenneth McKinley’s body at the foot of the cliff.
‘Do you need some company, Alistair?’ asked the Padre.
The crofter scowled. ‘If you are going to the Bonnie Prince Charlie, the answer is yes, but if you mean do I want God’s company, the answer is definitely no!’
Lachlan glanced at his watch as Torquil retreated, but not before he had given him a gesture that meant ‘look after him’.
The Padre sighed inwardly. He felt profoundly sad at the loss of a young islander. He put a comforting hand on Alistair McKinley’s shoulder. ‘No, it will just be me, Alistair. The Lord never pushes Himself on folk, but He’s there if you need Him later.’ He squeezed the shoulder. ‘Come on then, we’ll drink to your lad’s memory. Just the one drink, though. The whisky bottle can be a false comfort at a time like this.’
Alistair McKinley said nothing but allowed himself to be steered down Harbour Street to the Bonnie Prince Charlie Tavern. The aroma of freshly cooked seafood assailed their nostrils as they entered the bar, behind which the doughty landlady Mollie McFadden and her bar staff were busy pulling pints of Heather Ale and engaging in healthy banter with the clientele.
‘And what can I be doing for you gentlemen?’ Mollie asked, as she finished serving another customer and greeted them with a smile. She blinked myopically behind a pair of large bifocal spectacles perched on the end of her nose. She was a woman of almost sixty years with a well-developed right arm that had pumped a veritable sea of beer over the years.
‘A drink in memory of my boy, Kenneth,’ Alistair McKinley said; then raising his voice above the background of chatter, ‘And a drink for anyone who will drink with me.’