‘It is certainly possible. The water is pretty near the top so if a body was held under the water it would displace it all over the floor.’
‘But wouldn’t it be everywhere?’ Morag asked.
‘It would if he struggled.’
‘He was quite a big chap,’ Morag pointed out. ‘It would have taken a lot to overpower him.’
‘It would if he was conscious and able to struggle.’
Douglas shivered. ‘Ugh! That sounds horrible. Holding an unconscious man under the water.’
‘That would be someone making no mistake about killing him then,’ Wallace ventured.
‘Aye, and that means that the scud on the head that he had could be more significant. He could have been knocked out and then drowned, before the murderer had a good skulk around.’
‘So you are not thinking it was a case of a botched robbery,’ Morag asked.
‘No, I think we need to have a good look about for something that might have been used to knock him out. I am betting that we won’t find it inside the cottage. You lads go and have a look outside. See if you can find anything that could have been used. It might have blood on it.’
When the twins had left Morag set about photographing the room as Torquil stood up, thinking.
‘I am going to switch that pump off, Morag,’ he said after a few moments.
‘Why, is the noise bothering you?’
‘No, it is just that if Dr Dent had been drowned in that tank, which I rather think he was, then there may well be blood cells floating about in it. And there might be some in the bath as well, since the pump is keeping up a flow. I may be grabbing at straws, but maybe Ralph could tell us if there are more in the tank than the bath.’
‘What do you think the murderer was looking for among his books and papers?’
‘I don’t know, Morag. But I am guessing that we won’t find very much, even after we have been through all of this. Which may take a long time, considering that a lot of it will probably be scientific jargon.’
‘Why don’t you think we’ll find much?’
‘Because I am more concerned about what isn’t here.’
‘I don’t get you?’
‘He is a scientist, yet there is no computer. There is a router on the desk, but where is his PC, or his laptop? I reckon that is what the murderer was looking for.’
There was a tap on the door and Wallace put his head round.
‘Do you want to have a look here, Torquil? Douglas has just fished a stone gnome out of that pond.’
‘A gnome?’
‘Aye, a garden gnome, one of those that looks as if he’s fishing. When we were crossing what was once the lawn we found the gnome’s fishing net. Then we saw its face and hands peeking up through the water lilies.’ He winced. ‘I bet the murderer grabbed that then threw the fishing net aside. After it was done he lobbed it in the pond. There looks to be blood on the little devil’s hands.’
‘And a broken fishing net. Just like Dr Dent’s,’ said Torquil. ‘There’s irony.’
After six paracetamol Fergie had finally managed to gain some ease from the stabbing pains in his head that had felt as if someone had stirred up a hornet’s nest. In its place he had been left with a bee in his bonnet. And this simply would not go.
The old bugger made a right mug of us, he thought to himself, as he drove towards Half Moon Cove. I’ll get him to come on the show if I have to kidnap him to do it.
He grinned. Chrissie would not be pleased if she knew what was in his mind. Still, if I bring off this coup, I’m sure she will be … grateful.
He parked the Mercedes off the track among sand dunes so that it would not be spotted from the house, then he made his way around the tall perimeter fence.
Sod the front gate and that blooming intercom of his. He will hardly be able to turn me away when I have shown such initiative.
He scaled the fence and made his way across the undulating sand dunes towards the house. To his surprise he found the back door standing ajar.
‘Anyone home?’ he called out, as he pushed open the door and let himself in. ‘Hello!’
But there was no answer.
He walked through a large clinically clean kitchen, then a hall, to enter a huge studio that looked outwards towards the sea. Lace curtains were draped across the large bay windows. In one of them a long telescope was set up and aimed seawards at a height that could be readily used from the high stool that stood behind it.
He wrinkled his nose at the all pervading smell of stale cigarettes.
‘You like your whisky,’ he said aloud, spying a side table with a half-empty bottle of Glen Corlan and an empty glass beside it.
Then his gaze took in the benches and tables of driftwood sculptures, many of them covered in dust, and dozens of packets and boxes.
You look like you are a busy bee sending stuff all over the place, even if you’re not so busy sculpting these days. Hello, what’s this for?
He crossed to the back of the studio where a large chest freezer hummed away like some weird futuristic sarcophagus.
I guess you have to be well-stocked up if you choose to live like a recluse.
Curiosity overcame him and he lifted the lid and looked inside.
His eyes gaped and a cry of alarm started to rise in his throat. But it died on his lips the moment a heavy piece of timber smashed into the back of his skull. His hairpiece flew off and hit the wall and was instantly spattered with blood.
NINE
Cora had not been keen on meeting Wee Hughie at the Bonnie Prince Charlie, but she reconciled it in her mind as being good investigative journalism experience.
Just as long as he doesn’t suggest anything creepy, she thought as she walked along Harbour Street towards the bar.
I just don’t know why he seemed so keen on meeting me? He’s not my type with all those big muscles. Why should he think I would go for that?
She was still puzzling the question when she entered the lunchtime throng. A shrill whistle immediately rang out and she looked round, as did all of the other customers.
‘Cora! Over here! I have got us a table,’ Wee Hughie called, as he stood to tower over a group of men who had clearly just disembarked from one of the yachts in the harbour.
Cora suppressed the impulse to turn tail. Instead she brazened the looks of amusement and disdain as she sidled through the crowd towards him. It was clear that some people remembered her last visit to the Bonnie Prince Charlie, when she and Calum had been asked to leave.
Come on, Cora, she chided herself. You want to be a journalist, don’t you? Just get used to being a pariah like Calum. And with that resolve she reached Wee Hughie and forced a smile.
‘This is so good of you to come,’ he said enthusiastically, his cheeks looking quite rosy.
‘It’s – er – good of you to ask me.’
He crinkled his nose in a manner than made her picture a goofy boxer dog. ‘I just thought it would be – you know – nice.’
She let him relieve her of her jacket then sat while he went off to the bar to order drinks.
The large plasma screen TV was louder than she would have liked, considering the proximity of the table that Wee Hughie had obtained for them.
‘I’ve got us a menu,’ Wee Hughie said, a few moments later as he handed her a lemonade and lime. ‘Do you like that soft drink stuff?’ he asked, with a nod at her drink before taking a hefty swig of his pint of Heather Ale. He smacked his lips and licked the foam off his upper lip. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing, Cora. We don’t get anything like this in Dundee.’