Arsenic was a particularly nasty poison.
Calum Steele was leaning against the front desk recounting his experience on the shore of Loch Hynish to Morag when Torquil came in. So deep into his diatribe was the editor-in-chief of the West Uist Chronicle that he did not hear the Inspector come in.
‘Thugs! They’re just bloody thugs!’ Calum exclaimed, hammering his fist on the counter.
‘Who are thugs, Calum?’ Torquil asked, clapping his friend on the shoulder.
‘That new laird and his henchmen.’ And he recounted his meeting with them all over again, much to Morag’s chagrin. ‘One of them threw my digital camera into the loch. It was brand new. Chronicle property. I want to charge them with criminal damage.’
‘Are you sure about that, Calum. He’s a powerful man, I hear?’
Calum’s face went beetroot red. ‘The press will not be intimidated by a bunch of Glasgow bullyboys. I’m going to do an exposé on him.’
‘An exposé, Calum?’ Morag asked. ‘And what are you going to expose about him?’
‘His thuggery! His insensitivity. His intention to suppress the mouthpiece of the people – the Chronicle!’
‘Do you have a witness to all this, Calum?’ Torquil asked, trying hard to suppress a grin. The newspaperman was well known for losing his rag.
‘The vet, Katrina Tulloch. She saw it all. And she whisked me away just in time, or – or – I’d have shown them.’
‘In that case I’m glad that she did, Calum. It’s best to avoid physicality, as you well know.’
‘Huh. I’m not afraid of anyone. I’m from West Uist, born and bred, just like you. I’ll not be intimidated by Glasgow bullies.’
Torquil put an arm about Calum’s shoulders and gently moved him towards the door. ‘Calum, I’ll look into this, I promise. I’ll have a word with this new laird and get his side of the story.’
‘Aye, well, have a word with Katrina Tulloch, too. She’ll tell you exactly what happened.’
‘I’ll do that, Calum, don’t worry. I’m needing to have a word with her in any case.’
Calum nodded. ‘Well I’m off to write a piece on thuggery right now. Just tell that laird to start buying the Chronicle from now on. If he wants to take on the might of the fourth estate, he’s got a fight on his hands.’
Once he had gone Morag shook her head and frowned. ‘Let’s just hope Calum doesn’t go over the top. You know what he can be like when he gets a bee in his bonnet.’
‘Aye, he gets a sore head,’ replied Torquil with a grin. ‘And then we get a pain in the neck. He was like that when we were in Miss Melville’s class at school. But his heart is in the right place.’
Ralph McLelland was not happy. He had walked up to the police station with the manilla folder containing his report on the post-mortem, and accepted Morag’s offer of tea and biscuits in Torquil’s office.
‘There’s something wrong, Torquil,’ he said at last, as he dunked a shortbread in the tea.
‘About Kenneth McKinley’s cause of death?’ Torquil asked.
‘No, it’s clear enough that he died as a result of the injuries he sustained in the fall. He had multiple contusions and fractures of his skull, spine, pelvis and all four limbs. His rib cage was smashed to pieces and he had a ruptured liver and spleen and a torn right kidney. No, he died instantaneously, there is no doubt.’
‘Is it those marks on his face?’ Torquil asked. ‘Those scratches?’
‘Aye, partly that. There were three ugly gashes on his face.’
Morag swallowed a mouthful of Tea. ‘Do you think someone scratched him, Ralph?’
‘Something, I think. They were vicious raking wounds, like a claw of some sort.’
‘Or a talon,’ Torquil suggested. And he told them of his conversation with Annie McConville when she found his body.
‘Aye, well, that would fit right enough. But eagles don’t attack people do they?’
Morag interjected. ‘There have been reports about the Corlin eagles attacking animals. Megan Munro telephoned in a complaint about them. She said they’ve been killing hedgehogs in her sanctuary.’
Torquil eyed her with amusement. ‘And what does she want us to do about it? Arrest them?’
‘Och, you know what some of the folk say about eagles attacking small animals. It’s possible, I suppose.’ said Morag.
‘But not a man,’ returned Ralph, pushing his mug across the table and smiling benignly, in the expectation that it would be refilled.
Torquil blew out a puff of air between pursed lips. ‘What about if an eagle thought it was being attacked. If he’d been out there with a rifle, for example?’
Ralph and Morag considered the suggestion for a moment. ‘That would be possible, I think,’ said Ralph. ‘But I’m no expert on birds. Maybe you need to ask someone who knows.’
‘Nial Urquart might know,’ Morag suggested, pulling out her notebook and jotting a reminder to herself.
‘But he had no gun with him, did he?’ went on Torquil. ‘And I went back later and didn’t find anything either at the foot of the cliffs, or up on the ledge that he looks to have fallen from. There were a few scuffs, but no sign of anyone else being there.’ He shook his head and reached into his pocket. ‘But strangely, this morning when the twins and I were out checking the Cruadalach isles, I found this.’ He held out his hand to reveal the plastic bag with the empty cartridge. He laid it on the desk and opened his drawer, from which he took out another plastic bag containing a live bullet. ‘This was the .308 that we found beside his body. The question is, if they were from a rifle owned by Kenneth McKinley, what was he doing out there on the Cruadalach isles?’
‘Maybe we’d better be asking Alistair McKinley a few questions,’ Morag said. ‘But we’ll have to be easy with him. He’ll be in a pretty fragile shape.’
‘He said he felt guilty about letting Kenneth go off on his own,’ Torquil said. ‘And he told me that he had taken a rifle with him. The thing is – where is it now?’
Ralph McLelland clicked his tongue and drew the file towards him. He turned a page and tapped it with his middle finger. ‘I said there were a couple of things. One was the presence of those wounds. The other was the contents of his stomach. It was full of a strange goo, half digested of course. I had a look with the microscope and I’m pretty sure his last meal consisted of worms, slugs and a few snails. All raw!’
He waited as Morag curled up her nose and covered her mouth to indicate her revulsion at the idea. Then said, ‘Washed down with a few drams of whisky, judging by his blood alcohol level.’
‘All in all, not normal behaviour,’ said Torquil. He nodded at Morag. ‘You’re right, we need to ask Alistair a few questions. I’ll go over and see him first thing tomorrow morning.’
After Ralph left, Torquil spent the following half-hour writing up his report for Superintendent Lumsden. He duly faxed it through and was just preparing to head off to the Corlins for another look around near the eagle nest and the point where Kenneth McKinley had met his death, when the telephone rang and Morag informed him that the superintendent was on the line.
‘Good afternoon, Superintendent Lumsden, did you get my—’
‘What the hell is it with you, McKinnon? Do you have to be antagonistic?’
‘Antagonistic to whom, Superintendent?’
‘To your superiors!’
Torquil’s hackles rose immediately. ‘Are you suggesting that I have been antagonistic to a superior officer, Superintendent Lumsden?’