There was a silence. ‘And what did hit him? A hammer or something?’ Brody asked.
‘No, not a hammer. That would have punched a round hole through the bone, and this is more irregular. From what I can see so far it looks like some sort of club.’
Like a Maglite, I thought. The steel case of Duncan’s torch was poking through the ashes near his body. It was the right size and shape, and was heavy enough to have caused the damage. But there was no point speculating until SOC arrived.
Fraser had his fists balled, his eyes drawn to the body despite himself. ‘He was a fit lad. He wouldn’t have given in without a fight.’
I spoke carefully. ‘Perhaps not, but…well, from how it looks he had his back turned when he was struck. The body’s lying face down, feet towards the door. So he was facing away from it, and pitched forward when he was hit from behind.’
‘Couldn’t he have been killed outside, and then brought into the van?’ Brody asked.
‘I don’t think so. For one thing, the table’s underneath him, which suggests he fell on to it. I can’t see anyone lifting his body on to it. And Duncan was hit here, on the side of his head,’ I said, tapping my own just above my ear. ‘For it to connect there the killer must have swung sideways rather than overhead like you’d normally expect.’
Fraser still didn’t get it. ‘Why does being hit on the side of his head mean he was killed inside the van?’
‘Because the ceiling wasn’t high enough for an overhead swing,’ Brody answered for me.
‘It’s only guesswork at this stage, but it fits,’ I said. ‘The killer was standing behind Duncan, between him and the door. That points to him being left-handed, because the impact wound is to the left-hand side of the skull.’
The rain squalled around us as they stared down at Duncan’s body, playing it out for themselves. I waited, wondering which one of them would say it first. Surprisingly, it was Fraser.
‘So he let them in? And then turned his back?’
‘That’s how it looks.’
‘What the hell was he thinking? Christ, I told him to be careful!’
I somehow doubted that. But if the police sergeant needed to revise his memory to ease any guilt he might be feeling, I wasn’t going to stop him. There was a more important point here, one I could see from Brody’s expression that he hadn’t missed, even if Fraser had.
Duncan hadn’t thought he was in any danger when he let his killer in.
Brody reached out and took the tape from Fraser.
‘Let’s get this over with.’
CHAPTER 18
THE POLICE TAPE snapped and twisted, strung out between the steel rods that Fraser had hammered into the ground. With only one hand, there was little I could do to help. Brody had held the rods in place while Fraser knocked them in with the lump hammer, positioning them every few yards to form a square perimeter round the van.
‘You want to take a turn?’ the sergeant panted, halfway through.
‘Sorry, you’ll have to do it. Arthritis,’ Brody told him, rubbing his back.
‘Aye, right,’ Fraser muttered, pounding the steel rod into the turf as though venting his anger and grief.
Which was perhaps what Brody had intended, I thought.
I stood nearby, hunched against the cold and damp as they ran the tape between the rods. It was only a symbolic barrier, but I still wished there was more I could do as they fought against the wind to secure the whipping ends of the tape.
Finally, it was done. The three of us stood, taking one last look at the camper van behind its flimsy barricade. Then, without a word, we headed back for the Range Rover.
Our priority now was to let the mainland know what had happened. While Wallace still wouldn’t be able to send any support until the storm eased, the murder of a police officer would escalate this to a whole new level. And until help arrived, it was more important than ever for us to maintain contact with the outside world. Particularly for Fraser, I thought, watching him trudge ahead of us on the track, his broad shoulders slumped. He looked the picture of abject defeat.
Beside me, Brody suddenly stopped walking. ‘Have you got any bags left?’
He was looking down at a tuft of wiry grass, rippling and bent in the wind. Something dark was snagged against it. I reached in my pocket for one of the freezer bags I’d brought from the hotel and passed it to him as Fraser came back.
‘What is it?’ he wanted to know.
Brody didn’t answer. Putting his hand into the bag as though it were a glove, he bent down and picked up the object that had been snared by the grass. Then, reversing the bag so it was inside, he held it up to show us.
It was a large, black plastic screw cap. A thin strap that would once have fastened it to a container stuck out from it, snapped clean after an inch or so.
Brody put his nose to the open top of the bag. ‘Petrol.’
He handed it to Fraser, who took a sniff himself. ‘You think the bastard dropped this last night?’
‘I’d say it’s a fair bet. Wasn’t here yesterday, or we’d have seen it.’
Fraser’s expression was furious as he tucked it into his coat pocket. ‘So somewhere on this godforsaken island there’s a petrol container with a broken strap but no lid.’
‘If it hasn’t been chucked off a cliff by now,’ Brody said.
The drive to Strachan’s house passed in subdued silence. When we turned up the long driveway leading to the house we saw that Grace’s Porsche Cayenne had gone, but Strachan’s Saab was parked outside.
I couldn’t see Strachan’s house being without its own generator, but despite the day’s gloom there were no lights in any of the windows. Rain dripped from Fraser’s fist as he banged the cast-iron door knocker. We could hear Strachan’s dog barking inside, but there was no other sign of life. Fraser gave the heavy door a thump, hard enough to rattle it on its hinges.
‘Come on, where the fuck are you?’ he snarled.
‘Probably off on one of his walkabouts,’ Brody said, standing back to look up at the house. ‘I suppose we could always just go down to the yacht ourselves. It’s an emergency.’
‘Aye, and what if it’s locked?’ Fraser asked. ‘We can’t just break in.’
‘People here don’t usually lock their doors. There’s no cause.’
There might be now, I thought. But I was against it for another reason.
‘If we get down there and find it’s locked we’ve wasted even more time,’ I said. ‘And does anyone know how to use a satellite radio anyway? Or a ship-to-shore, come to that?’
The silence that greeted the question told me neither of them did.
Fraser slammed his hand against the door. ‘Shit!’
‘Let’s go and find Kinross. We’ll use the ferry’s,’ Brody said.
Kinross lived by the harbour. When we reached the outskirts of the village, Brody told Fraser to take a shortcut down a narrow cobbled street that bypassed the main road. The ferry captain’s bungalow had a prefabricated look to it, and like most of the other houses on Runa it had new uPVC doors and windows.
But the rest of the building had a run-down, uncared-for look. The gate was missing from the bottom of the path, and the small garden was overgrown and strewn with rusting boat parts. A fibreglass dinghy lay overgrown with dune grass, its bottom holed and splintered. Brody had told me Kinross was a widower who lived alone with his son. It showed.
Brody and I left Fraser brooding in the car while we went up the path. The door bell chimed with a cheery electronic melody. No one answered. Brody rang it again, then hammered on the door for good measure.
The muted sounds of movement came from inside, then the door was opened. Kevin, Kinross’s teenage son, stood in the hallway, eyes briefly making contact before darting off again. The angry red mounds of acne scarred his face in a cruel topography.
‘Is your father in?’ Brody asked.
The teenager gave a shake of his head, not looking at us.
‘Know where he is?’
He shuffled uncomfortably, narrowing the gap in the doorway until only a thin strip the width of his face remained open.