A Double Death on the Black Isle

by A. D. Scott

  This woman is so implanted in my mind I’m considering violence. The thought disturbed him.

  He threw his cigarette into the river, and set off on the walk home, on the long but scenic route. He was a great believer in walking to clear the head.

  On the Infirmary footbridge, he was buffeted by strong, icy gusts heading in from the North Sea. He strode along the footpath beside the river, passing the back gardens of the substantial houses lining this part of the riverbank. He headed up the steep steps that led to the upper part of the town. At the top of the escarpment, he stopped. There to the northeast, still in a mantle of snow, Ben Wyvis loomed big and squat over the Black Isle and the firths and the glens and the towns and the villages.

  The lochs, trapped in the long, narrow glen by bleak and beautiful mountains, ended in an equally grand manner on the west coast. They could not be seen, but their presence, their geography, made the town what it is. And the people what they are.

  What is it about this place, McAllister thought? At first you believe it is a quiet, respectable, innocuous community. Yet underneath, the currents run as deep as Loch Ness itself.

  It was noon and Rob had the office to himself. He was not pleased at the death of Sandy Skinner. It meant the death of his story. So much had surfaced on both east and west coasts about Sandy Skinner’s affairs, and together they all had the makings of a good piece of investigative journalism.

  Rob was also unhappy at the state of his relationship with McAllister. His anger, quite unjustified Rob thought, rankled. He had not even given him the chance to explain. A phone call from Aberdeen pressing him for a decision had come five minutes ago, triggering his discontent.

  “Can I have two weeks?” Rob had asked.

  “You’re no that special,” the voice on the end of the line had said. “But I like your cheek. I’ll give you one week.”

  Rob looked up and jumped when he saw McAllister looming in the doorway. Expecting the editor to continue the argument about his career, Rob was taken aback at the sight of his face.

  The Grim Reaper looks more cheerful, he thought, but for once he kept his flippant thoughts to himself.

  “I need you to take over the news stories,” McAllister said. “Joanne fell off her bike and cracked a rib. She won’t be in for a couple of days.” He was gone before Rob could ask any more.

  Rob started to lift the telephone to call his mother. But his mother probably knew no more than he did.

  Poor Joanne, he thought, for her yesterday started at four-thirty in the morning, then there was all the excitement in the newsroom. . . . He started to make a list of calls he should make to confirm some points on the Munro death.

  She had a drink last night, but probably a small one knowing her. . . .

  He next listed the calls to be made for an update on Sandy Skinner’s death.

  Then to fall off her bike.

  He rolled a piece of copy paper into his machine, typed one half-sentence, then stopped.

  But she was fine when I left her house.

  Now he was seriously worried.

  Fell off a bicycle, walked into a door, fell down the stairs—the oldest excuses in the book.

  He leaned back in his chair and sighed.

  Joanne, it’s simple. Take him to court, have him locked away.

  And to his twenty-one-year-old thinking, it was that simple.

  NINE

  Few on the Black Isle had telephones. Not everyone read newspapers. The radio broadcast little local content. Yet news of the two deaths would fly around the farms, the villages, the town, and the county as though borne in the wind.

  That May Day morning had been bright in old-gold sunshine, but a raw, blustery wind swept over Achnafern Farm, over the fields, through the woods, along the beaches, into every crack and crevice of the solid-built stone farmhouses and cottages, and through the narrow streets and lanes of the villages of the isle that isn’t an island. The Black Isle, a peninsula bound by two firths, was an island of the mind, the communities smaller islands, and the farms outcrops in a landscape that had a distinct geography of place and character.

  On the land, below the ridge of dark, black-green pine forest, fields made a plaid of winter wheat, bright green, contrasting with the enclosures of dark, fallow earth where the previous year’s crop, tatties, grew. On these bare fields a line of men made a slow, steady progress, gathering another seasonal crop, stones.

  The men worked as they lived, the demarcation line between them unnoticed—Travelers to one side of the tractor, farm hands to the other.

  “A great crop this year,” one said.

  “Aye,” came the reply, an upward twist of the head signaled agreement, and the word was spoken on the indrawn breath.

  Allie Munro, being the foreman, was not expected to join them, and the men on the farm had given up expecting Fraser Munro. Walking, bending, steadily gathering the stones, throwing the new crop into the bogie, matching their pace to the Ford-son Major tractor stuck in low, low gear, which hardly needed driving.

  To a farming community, that mysterious crop—the stones—was accepted as part of the agricultural cycle. Children might fantasize about giant earthworms burrowing deep, throwing up the stones to clear their dens. The educated could speculate on the soil’s deep layers on a stratum of rock from some distant, Precambrian period and the volcanic upheaval that created the Great Glen, or “fault line,” to give it the correct geological name. To most, the stones were just an inevitable part of the farming cycle.

  “When’s Fraser due back to the regiment?” one of the farmhands asked.

  The scare from the Suez Crisis was on everyone’s mind.

  “He’s done a ten-year stint. Been in Malaya an’ all. Maybe he’s had enough.” This was from Old Archie, being kind.

  “A hero such as him’ll be raring to go back,” one of the Traveler lads taunted.

  “The missus is happy to have her lad at home.” This came from Allie Munro’s neighbor as they were sitting in the lee of the tractor, eating their sandwiches, or “pieces,” drinking hot sweet tea from a thermos flask. The Travelers—“tinkers” to all but themselves—took their break separately and had a fire going on the banks of the burn.

  All the men had grown up on the same farm, as had their fathers and grandfathers for generations back. They were known collectively by their farm name, such as Mackenzie of Ardochter, McIntyre of Knockbain, Fraser of Kilmorack. The tilling of the fields, the clearing of the ditches, the naming of every nook and cranny, every woodland, every burn—that was their connection to the land.

  The Traveling people of Scotland—the same families turning up at the same time of year, on the same farms every year—had their own, deep connection with the land. Their names were ancient: Stuart, McPhee, Williamson, Macdonald, Macmillan. Their campsites, horse fairs, the best stretches of the rivers for pearl gathering—that was their blood heritage. These places, always picturesque, where their ancestors had gathered and traded for centuries, were sacred to the Traveling people. Their ancient culture of stories and singing and piping, their nomadic way of life, marked them as different, yet they were as much a part of Scotland as the glens and lochs and mountains.

  As for the lairds, most felt that their lineage made them more than just landowners; they were stewards of their inheritance.

  “There she goes!” A cry went up from the tinkers. Zigzagging across the plowed earth, a hare, her grey-brown, earth-colored coat making her hard to see, darted off. But not far, the lure of the nest kept her close.

  “Leave her be,” shouted Old Archie, “she’s got young.”

  This didn’t deter the tinkers. Hunting for hare was their birthright. The three of them made a wide circle around the doe, one lining up his catapult for a shot at the frantic beast. He missed. The spectators cheered the hare, now running in dizzy circles, desperate to distract danger from her leverets.

  Closer the men got, closing the gaps in the circle. With no young to distract her,
the hare would have been long gone. Another slingshot went wide. The farm boys laughed. Thumping the soil, they set up a distraction. This time the slingshot hit, the stunned doe stumbled and tumbled. Like a lightning strike, a tinker lad was on her. The scream, like a seagull, like a child, made no difference. A quick chop to the neck and she was gone.

  “Unsporting, that,” said Auld Archie as he screwed the top back on his thermos flask. “But that’s tinkers for you.”

  In the distance came the sound of a car driving too fast along the farm road. Archie shaded his eyes with one hand and squinted into the distance. “Thon’s the doctor’s car,” he said, sounding worried. A doctor, driving fast, was not good. The men waited, but the car disappeared in the small wood between them and the farmhouse. They turned back to work. A vague anxiety hovered over them. What was happening? Who might it be? A wife? A bairn? Farm accidents were all too common.

  A few minutes later, the local bobby’s car came at an equally fast pace. Now everyone was really anxious, even the tinker boys.

  “I’ll away and see if there’s anything up,” Auld Archie decided. “But you boys get back to it, the stanes’ll no clear themselves.”

  It was an hour before Archie returned with the news; Fraser Munro had breathed his last on the farm of his birth.

  When the Highland Gazette came out that week, it sold out. Every word was read, reread, and dissected. The bare bones of the two deaths were there, but no details. Accidents? Or worse? No one knew, but plenty had opinions.

  To the farming community, Sandy Skinner’s death was a shock, but he was not one of them. Fishing and farming communities seldom mixed. But he was married to Patricia Ord Mackenzie, and she and her family were almost royalty in the community. And the manner of his death was as spectacular as the Falls of Foyers themselves.

  Fraser Munro’s death was equally fascinating. Many a conversation started with the phrase, “I know it doesn’t do to speak ill o’ the dead, but . . .”

  The remark heard most often, in the post office, in the local shop, in the cottages and farm kitchens, and in the byres and pubs was “Two deaths on the same day, on the same farm—you’d hardly credit it, would you?”

  Every move the police made—every stone they examined, the ditch they cleared, the burn they dragged, every interview they conducted—was discussed and dissected. There were those close to the events who said little, those distant from the events who professed a knowledge they did not have. There were those who found gratification discussing other people’s sorrow, and those who felt nothing but sadness for Mr. and Mrs. Munro.

  At Achnafern farmhouse, the curtains were drawn, the mirrors covered, and Mrs. Munro felt herself a guest in her own house. She sat, unable to rise from the chair in the seldom-used sitting room. Neighbors came in and out in waves, bringing food, making tea. Murmured condolences, whispered lamentations, made as much impact on her as the distant sound of the sea rising and falling on the pebble shore.

  Allie Munro felt like a doorman. He would greet the callers, shake hands, usher them into the sitting room, sit around uncomfortably for ten minutes or so, accept the stilted phrases of condolence, then usher the visitors out. Often he would meet the next round on the doorstep.

  Allie Munro had not yet told his wife of Sandy Skinner’s death. By evening, he thought, may as well tell her, she’s numb. Another piece of bad news can’t make it any worse than losing her firstborn.

  She greeted the news of Patricia’s loss quietly.

  “An accident. Poor Patricia,” she said when her husband told her. An accident was in the great scheme of things, and could be accepted. Mrs. Munro spoke in slow, quiet bursts. It was taking every ounce of energy to find breath to ask, “Our Fraser . . . I was wondering . . . the police seemed to be thinking . . . surely they’re mistaken . . . it’s no possible . . . maybe . . . an accident . . . ?”

  Allie Munro was not one for words. Nor gestures. He had no idea how to comfort his wife. When emotions surfaced, he dealt with them by chopping firewood. When his wife had given birth, both times, he had chopped enough firewood to see them through the winter.

  The police had indicated there was something untowards about Fraser’s death. They were asking questions of everyone on the farm and many in the village. It annoyed Allie that some of the local gossips had let his wife know about it.

  “It’s their job, lass. The police have to look at everything, then put in a report to the procurator fiscal. No use thinking about it. All we can do is wait.”

  Allie Munro was good at that. He knew how to wait out the snow, and the rain. He would wait for the exact day to mow the hay, or harvest the barley, or lift the tatties.

  “It was good of the missus to come with Mr. Ord Mackenzie to offer their condolences. I didn’t expect that,” Mr. Munro said. He wanted to talk about anything other than the police.

  “Always had good manners, the missus,” his wife replied. “Good of Patricia to call over too—in spite of her own troubles.”

  Allie stood. “If you’re fine on your own, I’ll away out to check the fields.”

  “I’ll be glad of some time to myself.” Agnes Munro needed to wash up the visitors’ cups, to clean the kitchen, to wash anything that did or didn’t need washing.

  It was too fresh for them to reminisce. Remembering him as a boy, remembering him before it had all gone sour—that would come. The slow erosion of the bad memories, to be replaced by the good ones—that would surely take place. But not yet.

  Allie Munro walked the farm boundaries, checking a gate, looking over the cattle, pulling a stalk of barley to rub between his fingers. Thoughts came and went, welcome and otherwise.

  He walked to the foot of a hill that gave him a view of the whole of Achnafern Estate created by the marriage of Miss Janet Ord and Mr. Iain Mackenzie.

  Mostly this was an arrangement that worked; couples married and grew to like each other. Although he would never put it into words, Allie felt there was little affection in the Ord Mackenzie household.

  Patricia could have suffered, but no, she’s grown into a fine lass, he thought. He was proud of the girl he and his wife had raised until she was sent off to boarding school, and now, with his help, she was one of the best farmers hereabouts.

  Not that I blame the missus was his next thought as he crossed the bridge over the burn. Mrs. Ord Mackenzie was right sick after the twins were born, he remembered, then the wee boy dying, and her being in hospital all that time with her nerves. When she came home, well after Patricia’s first birthday, the wee lass wouldn’t go near her, crying for Agnes, calling her “Ma,” refusing to go to her real mother. What a to-do that had been, he remembered.

  He moved on, following the burn, stopping to check the progress of the tatties. Golden Wonder potatoes were growing in this field—Allie’s favorite. The crop was healthy, no sign of blight. It reminded him of his favorite hymn,

  “We plow the fields and scatter,

  The good seed on the land. . . .”

  When Allie returned to the farmyard, he could see his wife in the kitchen window; the lights outlined her shape as she stood at the sink, staring into the distance, not moving. He grieved for her. It was then that he realized that in his walk around the estate, a whole hour nearly, he had not once grieved for his son who was now lying in the morgue.

  The local policeman met the two detectives from Dingwall at the village hotel.

  The landlord was the first to be interviewed. He gave his statement to the detective from the town reluctantly. In spite of being the landlord of a small hotel and bar, he did not like nor trust strangers.

  “Aye,” said the landlord, a man in his middle forties with about the same number of hairs on his head. “This is where Fraser drank.” He was polishing glasses as he spoke. What a stupid question, he thought, where else would Fraser drink?”

  “Was there any trouble the night Fraser died?” The detective asked, knowing there was no confirmation when Fraser had died. The early
hours of the morning was the best guess.

  “Not in here.”

  “That’s not what I’ve been told.”

  “There was a few words, maybe.”

  “Who was arguing?”

  “I never said arguing, a wee bit of a disagreement more like.”

  Detective Sergeant Wilkie too was middle-aged, and it showed in a face permanently set in a sour, disappointed frown. He had been posted here from Edinburgh, to what he thought of as the ends of the earth. His wife was from the Highlands and loved it. He hated it. He hated the people even more, and this was from a man who had been here eleven years.

  “Answer the question or I’ll have a word with the licensing board,” he told the landlord.

  The landlord shrugged, held up a glass, saw that it was shining-clear and started on another.

  “The disagreement, the argument, whatever you want to call it . . .” the detective continued.

  “I was busy, I didn’t notice.” I’m not here to do your job for you, the landlord was thinking, and whatever happened to Fraser Munro, it’s good riddance to bad rubbish.

  The landlord’s wife was less discrete. It helped that her questioner was a local man, promoted to detective constable. She had known him as a boy and always said he had done well for himself.

  “It’s yourself young Davey. Or should I say Detective Grant? I’m always saying you’ve done well for yourself.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Duncan. I need to ask you a few questions about the night Fraser died.”

  Knowing the woman well, the detective constable settled in for quite a session. The smell of stale beer and cigarettes made him long for one of each, but knew, with the detective sergeant there, his chances were nil.

  “This is a respectable house, you know,” Mrs. Duncan started. “We never have any problems. At least none we can’t handle ourselves.”