Death of a Village (16 page)

‘About a mile on,’ he said at last, rolling up the maps. ‘We’ll start our descent there. It’s low tide and there should be a bit of a beach. No point in ending up
with nothing but the sea below us.’

They walked on in single file, Elspeth’s small sturdy figure leading the way. Her legs were strong and tanned and she carried her rucksack with ease. She was wearing shorts and a
red-and-white-checked gingham shirt. At last Hamish called a halt. ‘I think this is the spot.’

Charlie Jefferson was walking along the waterfront when he met Mrs Wellington. ‘You look well,’ said the minister’s wife. ‘The rest of the village seems
to have one monumental hangover. I hope you are bearing up.’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ he said sadly. ‘At least it wasn’t murder.’

A look crossed her face, and his eyes sharpened, ‘That’s odd,’ he said.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I said at least it wasn’t murder, and you got a funny look on your face.’

‘No one likes the subject of murder,’ said Mrs Wellington, and she hurried off.

He stood watching her. Then Angela came towards him with Lugs on a leash.

‘Where’s Hamish?’ asked Mr Jefferson.

‘He’s gone out for the day somewhere,’ said Angela. ‘I’m looking after Lugs.’

‘Where’s he gone?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Angela, and Mr Jefferson guessed she was lying. She said goodbye to him and walked on.

His curiosity sharpened, Mr Jefferson went into the general store. He walked quickly behind a rack of groceries and stood there. If there was any gossip, someone would tell Mr Patel. Then he
heard a man’s voice saying, ‘That detective fellow was really drunk, and do you know what he was saying?’

‘I left early,’ came Mr Patel’s reply.

‘He was after saying that poor auld Mrs Docherty was frightened to death.’

‘Never!’

‘I saw Macbeth heading off with that reporter lassie. Maybe he’ll find something.’

Mr Jefferson hurried up to the counter. He recognized Mungo Patterson, a forestry worker.

‘What was that you were saying about Annie being frightened to death?’ he demanded.

‘I neffer said a word,’ lied Mungo. ‘I was chust saying that the prices these days would frighten a man to death.’

Mr Jefferson clicked his false teeth in disgust and walked out. He would drive over to Stoyre. He was sure Hamish was there.

Hamish and Elspeth stood on a beach of shingle and watched, mesmerized, the huge Atlantic waves rearing up and crashing at their feet. ‘Let’s look around,’
shouted Hamish above the roar. ‘I think we might have come down at the wrong place. Can’t see any caves.’

‘There’s a cleft in the rock over there,’ said Elspeth. ‘Might lead somewhere.’

‘We’d better hurry. The tide has turned.’

They left the beach and clambered over the seaweed-slippery rocks. ‘Even if it leads somewhere,’ shouted Hamish, ‘it won’t help us. Can’t get a boat in
there.’

Elspeth entered the cleft in the rock with Hamish after her. They found themselves in a large cave. They both took out torches and flashed them around. ‘Nothing,’ said Hamish.
‘We’d better climb back up and try further along.’

‘Wait!’ said Elspeth. ‘It goes further back. It might lead somewhere.’

She set off and Hamish reluctantly followed. ‘It goes round the corner here at the end,’ she shouted back. They walked on down a natural passage hollowed out over the centuries by
the pounding of the waves.

‘I think we’d better turn back,’ said Hamish. ‘We’ll be caught by the tide if we wait much longer.’

‘Just a bit further.’

They turned another bend and heard the sound of the waves growing louder. The passage suddenly opened out into another cave, and in front of the open mouth of the cave, the waves rolled up a
narrow beach.

‘Someone’s been here.’ Elspeth stooped down and picked up a Coke can.

‘Could be the place,’ said Hamish. ‘When the tide’s up, you could ride a boat in here. Tricky, but it could be done.’

He walked to the mouth of the cave and looked out. ‘There are outcrops of rock on either side of the cave. Forms a sort of natural harbour. That’s why the waves aren’t so
fierce here.’

‘Hamish!’ called Elspeth. ‘Come here and look.’

He went back into the cave to join her. She was holding up a bunch of seaweed. ‘It’s plastic,’ she said triumphantly, ‘and it was covering that.’

His eyes followed her pointing finger. Revealed was a mooring post painted black.

‘This is new,’ said Hamish, his eyes gleaming. ‘We’d better get out of here and get back up that cliff and decide what to do.’

Mr Jefferson’s old legs were getting tired. He decided to go along the cliffs a little further and then turn back while he still had any energy left. He marched on,
thinking, I’m doing this for you, Annie. Stay with me.

At last he felt too tired to go any further and sank down into the heather.

He lay on his back and looked up at the sky and at the wheeling birds. Maybe just a nap to recharge his batteries. He closed his eyes.

Then, abruptly, he opened them again. Nearby, there was a scraping sound. He might not have heard it had he been upright, but lying as he was, buried in the heather, he could hear the sound as
it travelled along the ground. He cautiously raised his head. Along the cliff top a man was crouched over something, scraping away. He was wearing a black anorak with the hood up, shielding his
face.

Mr Jefferson sank down in the heather, his heart beating hard. There was something sinister about that figure. He lay there, listening, until the scraping stopped. Then he heard footsteps
approaching him, passing him, and going on in the direction of the village. He waited ten minutes and eased himself up. Then he cautiously got to his feet and looked about. No one in sight.

He walked to where he had seen the man crouched down. A climbing rope had been tied round a rock, and Mr Jefferson saw that just where the rope vanished over the cliff edge, it had been scraped
and frayed until only a few strands were left.

Frightened, he looked this way and that. Whoever was down there – and it could be Macbeth and Elspeth – someone had planned that the rope would snap. He pulled at the rope until he
was past the frayed bit and began to wrap it securely round the rock.

Then he went to the cliff edge and lay on his stomach and tried to look down. But the edge jutted out, obscuring his view of what was directly below him.

He tried shouting but he knew helplessly that the tumult of waves, the wind, and the cries of sea birds were drowning his voice.

‘Something’s wrong,’ said Hamish. ‘That rope was a few feet longer.’

‘Hamish, I’m sure it’s all right. We’ll need to chance it.’

A huge wave swept over the shingle and crashed around her ankles. ‘Hurry!’ she screamed.

‘You go first,’ said Hamish. ‘I thought you had the professional climbing equipment, not chust one damn rope.’

‘It’s a good rope,’ shouted Elspeth. ‘And the cliff is only about thirty feet high.’

She seized the rope and began to climb. Hamish waited until she had disappeared over the top of the cliff and then grabbed the rope and lifted his feet just as a huge breaker swept under
him.

When he finally scrambled over the top of the cliff, it was to find Elspeth and Mr Jefferson sitting together in the heather.

‘This is no place for you,’ said Hamish angrily. ‘What brought you? How did you find us?’

Hurriedly, before Mr Jefferson could speak, Elspeth told Hamish about the frayed rope. Hamish bent down and examined it. ‘What did the man look like?’

‘I couldn’t see his face,’ said Mr Jefferson. ‘He was wearing a black anorak with the hood covering his head.’

‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Hamish, untying the rope. ‘We’ll walk back through the village and be damned to them. The damage is done. How did you manage to find
us?’ he asked again.

Mr Jefferson told him about hearing that Mrs Docherty had died of fright and how he had assumed they had gone north from the village and had walked until he had seen the man fraying the
rope.

They walked back slowly, letting the now exhausted Mr Jefferson stop and rest from time to time. When they entered the village, no one was about. No curtains twitched as they passed.

‘Meet up with us at the police station,’ said Hamish to Mr Jefferson.

‘Aren’t you going to phone Strathbane?’

‘That’s what I want to discuss with both of you.’

Once they were all in the kitchen of the police station, Hamish said, ‘It’s like this. If I phone Strathbane, they’ll send men out. They’ll find the
mooring in the cave but they won’t find anything else. Whoever the villains are, they’ll lie low until the police disappear again. And they’ve terrified the villagers into
silence.’

‘They’ve done something other than terrify them,’ said Elspeth. ‘They don’t seem in the least terrified. They’re all in the grip of some spiritual experience.
I wonder what it is. Do you think someone is trying to land a large consignment of drugs?’

Hamish sat quietly for a moment. ‘They’ve no need to frighten or manipulate a whole village into silence. There are plenty of secret landing places in the north of Scotland, and that
cave will take a very experienced boatman to pilot a boat in there.’

‘A wreck?’ said Mr Jefferson.

‘Now, there’s an idea,’ said Hamish slowly. ‘What’s the law on wrecks?’

‘I’ve got my laptop in the car,’ said Elspeth. ‘I’ll get it and look up wrecks.’

She went out to her car and returned with her laptop and switched it on. ‘Let me see. Ah, here we are. Wrecks. It says here: “The Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 confers powers on the
Secretary of State with respect to any site in United Kingdom waters which is or may prove to be the site of a vessel lying wrecked on or in the sea bed which ought to be protected from
unauthorized interference on account of the historical, archaeological or artistic importance of the vessel or of any objects contained or formerly contained in it which may be lying in or near the
wreck.” There!’

‘So how would someone go about getting permission?’ asked Hamish.

‘From the Secretary of State, but it says here only to persons who appear to him “to be competent and properly equipped to carry out salvage operations in a manner appropriate to the
historical, archaeological or artistic importance.” Even if anyone gets permission, then anything they find must be reported to the receiver of wrecks, who must advertise that the wreck has
been found in order to inform potential claimants of the find.’

‘Well, that’s a start,’ said Hamish. ‘I’ll get on to the secretary of state’s office to see if anyone has applied for permission to salvage anything up here.
If not, I’ll get a list of wrecks and take it from there. Mr Jefferson, it was grand you came along at the right time but don’t go near Stoyre again. Promise?’

‘I promise,’ said Mr Jefferson, and crossed his fingers behind his back.

When Elspeth and Mr Jefferson had left, Hamish walked over to Angela’s to fetch Lugs. ‘Come in and sit down,’ said Angela after Lugs had exhausted himself by
barking and leaping around Hamish. ‘Lugs has been quite depressed. He hasn’t even bothered my cats. Coffee?’

‘That would be grand. I’ll just be taking it black,’ added Hamish quickly, noticing that one of the cats had its head in the milk jug.

‘So what’s going on?’ asked Angela. ‘Or are you dating that pretty reporter?’

‘No, I am not. Is she pretty?’

‘If you haven’t noticed, you’re the only one who hasn’t. Mary Bisset is telling everyone that the pair of you are an item.’

‘I only told her that to keep her away from me.’

‘So what were the pair of you doing?’

‘Nosing around Stoyre.’

‘Find anything?’ she asked, placing a mug of coffee in front of him. He removed a cat hair from the edge of the mug and wondered if Angela would notice if he didn’t drink
it.

‘Not a thing,’ said Hamish. Although he usually confided in Angela, he didn’t want anyone else from Lochdubh taking it into their heads to play detective. ‘Apart from
Harry Bain, is there anyone else in Lochdubh who once lived in Stoyre?’

‘There’s old Mr Gorrie out on the Drim road.’

‘I’ll be having a word with him.’

‘Why?’

‘Just curious about something.’

‘Like what?’

‘Dinnae nag me, Angela. I don’t feel like talking at the moment.’

Hamish drove out the following morning to see Mr Gorrie. He supposed Mr Gorrie was pretty old. But it was hard to tell in the Highlands, where whisky and the often ferocious
weather made people look older than they were.

Mr Gorrie answered the door. His face was seamed and cracked and criss-crossed with many wrinkles. But he still had a straight back, although his head had shrunk down on to his shoulders. He
smelled strongly of peat smoke and cigarette smoke.

‘Come in, Hamish,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while since you’ve called.’

Hamish felt guilty. He usually made a point of calling on all the old people on his beat who lived alone to make sure they were all right. Somehow he had forgotten about Mr Gorrie.

Hamish did not want to launch immediately into inquiries about Stoyre, so they chatted about the weather and the fall in sheep prices. At last Hamish said as casually as he could, ‘You
used to live in Stoyre, didn’t you?’

‘Aye, when my Jeannie was still alive, bless her. We had a bit cottage on the waterfront. But after two huge storms which had the waves battering right at our door, Jeannie said she
didn’t want to be near the sea any more, and I had retired from the fishing, so we got the cottage here. Poor Jeannie. She’s been dead this twenty years. There was a long while when all
I wanted to do was join her, but the good Lord wouldn’t be having it so here I am. I still drive but it’s getting to be a fair nuisance. Every time I’ve got to renew my licence I
have to send in a long doctor’s report to say I’m fit.’

‘Do you keep in touch with anyone in Stoyre?’

‘No, I’ve no family there and I only drive into Drim now to get groceries.’

‘When you lived in Stoyre, did you hear anything about a shipwreck near there?’