‘By the Press, did you mean Calum Steele?’ Wallace asked. ‘That wee toad has shown that he’d do anything for a story.’
‘So are you going to tell him, boss?’ Douglas asked.
‘I haven’t thought about that yet,’ Torquil replied. He bit his lower lip. ‘The first person I need to talk to is our esteemed Superintendent Lumsden. I tried to ring him last night after I found out from Ralph, but his wife said that he was out and she had no way of getting a message to him. She was all hush-hush about it. She said she was expecting him this morning at nine.’
Morag shook her head. ‘That man is not right in the head, I am thinking. He wants to know all that is happening, but he makes himself unavailable when something important comes up. It’s almost as if he knows how to make matters difficult for us.’
‘For me, you mean, Morag,’ Torquil corrected with a wry grin. ‘It occurred to me as well, but then I thought that’s just me being paranoid. How could he know anything about this? No, I’ll ring him in a minute and then we’ll go through the backlog of cases that need looking at, decide what can be held and divvy out the tasks to get this investigation on the road.’
He got up and headed towards his office. ‘I’ll get this over with now. Ewan, you get the case book and Morag can start going through it while I fill Superintendent Lumsden in.’
Cora was amazed at the speed with which Calum seemed to recover.
‘I told you, it was something I ate,’ he explained, as he tucked into a cold mutton pie. ‘I just needed to pump up the stomach contents and I knew I’d be fine.’
‘But why are you filling it up with that disgusting thing? Don’t you feel sick?’
‘Not now,’ Calum returned, wiping a trickle of cold grease from his chin then taking a hefty gulp of tea. ‘Cora, you have a lot to learn about journalism, but stick with me and I’ll teach you all you need to know. You may not think it, but I know exactly how to handle my stomach and what is good for it. Now, as for you and all that veggie stuff, do you really—?’
His mobile phone went off and he promptly answered it. ‘Hello, yes, Calum Steele speaking.’
Cora watched as his eyes turned into big round orbs to mirror the shape of his spectacles. ‘Sandy! Great to hear from you. Of course, one o’clock would be terrific. Excellent, I’ll see you there.’ He went silent for a moment, nodded his head, and then winked at her. ‘Wee Hughie asked that?’
He made a thumbs-up sign at her. ‘Oh I’ll pass that message on to her, but I can’t give out her phone – ethics, you know. But between us, I think she’d be delighted to see him. Tell him she’ll be there.’
Cora’s eyes went wild and she clenched her fists at him.
‘OK, Sandy. I’ll see you here at one o’clock and I’ll pass that message on to Cora.’
He snapped his phone shut and tossed it on to the desk before taking another mouthful of pie. ‘See, it’s all working out smoothly, Cora. Sandy King is going to come here for an interview with me at one.’
‘I heard that. And what was that about me? Me and that ape, Wee Hughie? What did you mean I’d be delighted to see him.’
‘Apparently he’s smitten. Couldn’t stop talking about you last night. He’s asked that you meet him at one o’clock in the Commercial Hotel for a lunchtime drink.’
‘Oh Calum!’
‘What? Our plan worked, didn’t it?’ He winked. ‘Just like I thought it would. Now, look, I’m going to follow up on Sandy King and why he is here, and you are going to have lunch and find out as much as you can about what this hoodlum and his boss are doing on West Uist.’
‘But wouldn’t it be better if I did the Sandy King investigation?’ Cora asked pleadingly.
Calum winked at her over the rim of his mug. ‘Ah, the trouble is, Wee Hughie doesn’t fancy me.’
‘Well, Superintendent Lumsden was a delight, as usual,’ Torquil said as he returned to the rest room after his phone conversation with his superior officer.
‘He wasn’t pleased, was he?’ Morag asked, rhetorically.
‘A bit less than usual,’ Torquil returned. ‘He wants to be kept in the loop and he wants results yesterday.’ He clapped his hands. ‘So come on, folks, let’s get started. First of all, let’s have a run down on what we have on the book.’
Morag quickly ran through the cases, giving a thumbnail description of each and what stage each case was at. She and Ewan added about their respective chats with Annie McConville.
‘So really,’ she said at last, ‘the way I see it, we have seven burglaries of assorted antiques, family knick-knacks, a couple of computer thefts, then there was the break-in at the Chronicle. And, of course, there is this dog and cat business.’
At the mention of this Crusoe momentarily lifted his head and wagged his tail a few times before lying down again and closing his eyes.
‘He’s just showing that he’s on the ball,’ Torquil grinned. ‘But although this murder investigation must take priority, we can’t let these other things slip.’ He turned to the big constable.
‘Ewan, you can do a bit of following up on the burglaries to show that we’ve made a start and are taking home crime seriously.’
‘Aye that’s it, Torquil. Give the big lad a bit of air. He fairly likes gadding about the island on his mum’s old Nippy moped,’ Wallace teased.
‘I’ll give you gadding about, Wallace Drummond,’ Ewan retorted.
‘Do you want us to look into this cat and dog affair then, boss?’ Douglas asked.
Torquil considered for a moment then shook his head. ‘No, I think that Crusoe and I will take a closer look at that when we have the time. It feels personal ever since he came to live with us.’
‘So it’s the Chronicle case then?’
Again Torquil shook his head. ‘No, I started that and I’ll keep it under my wing, too. But we’ll let him stew a little bit, I think.’ Then he grinned. ‘It will be good for him. Besides, I have another idea to teach the wee man a lesson.’ He clapped his hands and stood up abruptly. ‘In fact, no time like the present. I’ll just pop through to my office for a couple of minutes, and then we’ll pool all the information we have about Dr Dent’s murder. Ewan, get the whiteboard ready, will you?’
Ewan wheeled the whiteboard that they used for major cases to the end of the room while the twins moved the table tennis table that they used for occasional recreation against the wall. Morag got out fresh ink markers and laid out paper and pencils for note making. By the time they had the room ready for the meeting Torquil had come back rubbing his hands with glee. Crusoe trotted loyally at his heels.
‘You look pleased, boss,’ said Douglas.
‘Fairly. Let’s just say that phase one has gone smoothly. Now let’s get cracking.’
Torquil picked up a marker and went to the whiteboard. In the middle he wrote DR DIGBY DENT and surrounded it with a circle. Then he added underneath: MURDERED, HEAD INJURY, DROWNED.
And underneath that BODY BEEN MOVED.
‘OK, brainstorming time. What do we know?’
‘He was the midge man,’ said Morag.
‘He was rude,’ added Ewan.
‘He got drunk on that TV show,’ Douglas volunteered.
Wallace glanced at Morag, and then said, ‘He was arrested and held here until he sobered up.’
‘I found him up on the moor,’ Ewan said mournfully, his face going pale at the thought. ‘My hammer was just inches from his head and I thought I had killed him.’