A Double Death on the Black Isle

by A. D. Scott

“The real surprise of the day was Calum Sinclair. It was like he was starring in a film.”

  Jimmy had told Rob that the solicitor was good. Rob’s father had said Calum Sinclair was an up-and-coming man. The word around Ross and Cromarty was that he was one to watch. Today he had shown his abilities.

  Rob described how the fiscal tried to keep the hotel landlady to a straightforward account of the evening’s events—no simple task. Calum, however, went for the embroidered version.

  “Mrs. Forbes,” Calum had asked, “did you ever bar Fraser Munro from your inn?”

  “It was terrible, he was shouting and swearing . . .”

  “So you had no choice but to bar him?”

  “Aye. We couldney have that. We’re a respectable . . .”

  “I agree. I’ve visited your hostelry. So, tell me, how many times did you have to bar Fraser?”

  “Two times already this year . . . and it was only April. It was terrible. His poor mother . . .”

  “Did you have to ask him to leave at other times?”

  “Aye, before Christmas and at Hogmanay. He was also barred when he was home on leave a few years ago.”

  “Thank you. Would you say he was drunk when he left that evening?” Calum continued.

  “Aye, well away. And he bought a carry-out—a half-bottle of whisky.”

  “He had a half-bottle of whisky for the road home?”

  The procurator tried in a halfhearted way to object that no one knew if Fraser had consumed the drink, although he knew an empty half-bottle had been found near the body.

  “What Calum Sinclair did,” Rob told McAllister, “was he made it all seem real. He had the witnesses telling it in their own way, in their own voices. Calum showed the court that beyond doubt Fraser was as drunk as a stoat when he left the bar that night. Calum also made it clear Fraser Munro would make a saint lose their temper.”

  “Anything else?” McAllister asked.

  “No. Although I did end up feeling sorry for the prosecution. Try as he might, the fiscal couldn’t get anyone to say the McPhee boys hit Fraser Munro particularly hard, or with malice. The main impression was that the dead man deserved what was coming to him.”

  “That could also work against the defense.”

  “You mean the McPhee boys had good reason to double back and hit him again?” Rob thought it over. “Perhaps,” he conceded.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow will probably be about the finding of the body. The police, Mr. Munro, Mrs. Munro maybe, the medical reports . . . I hear Calum Sinclair is to make a thing of the initial medical opinion.”

  “When will the McPhee boys be on the stand?”

  “Never—if Sinclair has any sense,” Rob laughed. “They were a complete liability. Smiling, waving, behaving as though their release was a foregone conclusion.”

  “The jury won’t like that. Nor the sheriff.”

  “To be fair, it was probably a huge relief for them to be out of that prison and into some fresh air,” Rob conceded, “but they were way too cocky.”

  “When do you see the trial finishing?”

  “Maybe Wednesday if the medical stuff becomes complicated.”

  “Deadline day then,” McAllister said.

  “Don’t I know it!” Rob groaned.

  “From what you’ve told me,” McAllister said through a haze of cigarette smoke, “it looks like there is a story here for my friend on the Glasgow paper. So, write it up for the Gazette first, then another news story for down south, then a few days later a more thoughtful article for the Sundays. Write that the charges are flimsy, bringing up the subject of prejudice against tinkers. Mention a small, farming community shaken by double deaths on the same day. . . .”

  “I can mention Sandy Skinner’s death?” Rob asked to be sure.

  “The facts—two deaths on the same day, of men from the same farm . . . quite a coincidence.” McAllister caught Rob’s doubtful expression. “OK, Sandy only recently married into the estate, but we are in the newspaper business. Find a way to make the story fit the facts, or . . .”

  “Or, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

  “You’ve been listening to Don McLeod.” McAllister laughed.

  They finished the evening with McAllister’s famous cock-a-leekie soup—to which he added an un-Scottish dash of wine, and bacon rolls.

  When Rob had left, McAllister finished the bottle by himself with a well-worn copy of Travels with a Donkey for company. It was a story he had read many times, and just as many times he had promised himself to travel in Stevenson’s footsteps. He would never admit this, but he found Modestine to have much in common with some women of his acquaintance—past and present.

  At the end of the first day, Calum Sinclair was also reviewing the trial. He now knew the problem was not going to be just prejudice against tinkers, it would also be prejudice against the accused. And it was all of their own making.

  They were sublimely unconcerned by the day’s proceedings. They smiled at everyone. They waved at their mother. They called out, “John, how are you doing?” to one of the witnesses, a farmhand their own age, whom they had known since they were children.

  They smiled at the jury. They nodded agreement with the hypotheses put by the prosecution, interjecting an occasional, “aye,” or “no we didney.” The boys agreed with all he, Calum, asked in his cross-examination of witnesses. They said, “Thank you, Mr. Shand,” to the postman when he spoke up for them. By mid-afternoon, the sheriff gave them one final warning to be quiet or they would have to leave the courtroom.

  “The eejits,” Calum muttered, having caught the expression from Jimmy.

  The problem was, he had had no idea how to shut them up. He could see how frisky they were and felt for them. It was like a Highland terrier bitch he’d had as a child, who, when in heat, had been shut in the washhouse for a week. When she was released, she had gone crazy for a fortnight.

  “The daft galloots,” Jenny said when Calum had discussed it with her. “They’re sure that big brother Jimmy has fixed everything, that no harm can come to them when he’s around.”

  “That’s not all of it,” Calum told her. “They believe that with their mother, the famous Jenny McPhee there in court, it is even less likely anything can go wrong.”

  Jenny knew in some parts of the Highlands, she was not so much famous as infamous.

  “I feel like giving them a good shaking,” she said.

  Jimmy agreed. “It’ll be more than a shaking if I get hold of them.”

  “Can I quote you?” Calum asked Jimmy.

  “Mr. Sinclair, make it clear to them that if they don’t stop their carrying on, I will personally wipe the grins off their faces.”

  “That should do it,” Calum laughed. “I’ll let them know.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Morning, Joanne.”

  “Goodness! You made me jump. I don’t expect to see you in so early.”

  She looked up at McAllister to see if there was a problem, a reason for him to be in the office at twenty to nine in the morning.

  McAllister grinned. “And I of course expect you to be in a good half hour before anyone else,” he teased before perching himself on the edge of the reporters’ table. “No, I’m in early because of the trial. Don and I want to prepare two front pages for this week, in case we don’t get a verdict before deadline.”

  “I hope it finishes quickly too.”

  “Now you’re sounding like a newspaperman, sorry, woman.”

  She didn’t tell him she hadn’t given the Gazette deadline a thought; she was hoping the trial would end early for the sake of Mr. and Mrs. Munro.

  “I might pop in today if I can find the time. My mother-in-law would appreciate me supporting her cousin Agnes Munro.” And I want to keep on the right side of Granny Ross, Joanne didn’t tell him.

  “Of course. Pass on any typing to Betsy. Tell her I said so.”

  He’s noticed, Joanne thought, he knows B
etsy will do nothing to help editorial if it’s me that’s asking.

  “I was going to go myself,” McAllister continued. “Rob filled me in on the first day. It sounds like it might hot up. Second days of trials are often like that.”

  “Do you want me to write about it too?”

  “You don’t have to,” McAllister said, “but a contribution from you is always welcome. I like your style. It makes a good contrast to Rob’s writing.”

  Joanne fiddled with her pencil. She was childishly pleased at the compliment. “We’ll see what happens,” was all she could say.

  “Talk later then.”

  When McAllister left, Joanne went back to finishing a write-up on plans to renovate Bridge Street. She was trying to work out how to imply that “renovate,” in this case, meant “demolish.” She couldn’t concentrate. Blast that man, she was thinking, he always manages to make me feel sixteen and never been kissed.

  A noisy clatter echoed up the stairwell. Rob arrived.

  “How come your new bike boots make such a noise?” Joanne stared at them.

  “I put tacks on the heels so I could slide them along when I’m driving. You get great sparks.”

  Joanne waved a pointed forefinger at him and, in her best Edinburgh schoolmarm accent, said, “So tell me, Robert, how old are you?”

  Rob was saved by the phone.

  “Hello. Oh. I see. Yes Betsy, I’ll tell her.” He turned to Joanne, “Betsy said your mother-in-law called, checking whether you’d be in court today and Betty told her yes, you would, because she has to do your typing.”

  “How dare that woman answer my calls for me!” Joanne ripped the sheet of copy paper from the typewriter, scrunched it up, threw it at the top hat, and missed. “She’s a cheeky bissom . . . I’ll get her back one day.”

  “So tell me, Joanne,” Rob was laughing and backing out the door as he said it, “how old are you?”

  He was down the stairs and on his way to the court and she still couldn’t think of a reply.

  “Budge up.” Joanne pushed into the bench beside Rob.

  Onlookers were jammed together, the trial being something of a spectator sport. Joanne saw her mother-in-law behind them and gave her a little wave and huge smile. Jimmy and Jenny McPhee were sitting on the opposite side of the aisle. Calum had instructed them to keep out of sight of the boys.

  Joanne looked around. The procurator fiscal she did not recognize. Calum Sinclair she did not know either, but was impressed by her first sighting of him. He looked solid, trustworthy, a mother’s favorite son—he would go down well with a jury. She noted the McPhee brothers looking suitably subdued, the jury suitably expectant.

  They were all commanded to rise by the clerk of the court. The sheriff entered, all in the court rose, the second day of the trial commenced.

  The first witness to be called was Detective Sergeant Wilkie, who gave his evidence in a stilted stylized bullying an inferior voice.

  They must train to be this boring, Rob thought, train to speak in that special courtroom voice. He had a theory that the police believed if the jury was sufficiently bored, they wouldn’t remember the evidence and find the defendant guilty by default.

  After the policeman, who only established what had been covered in the previous day’s session, came the doctor who had certified the death.

  His evidence was brief. All he established was that when he arrived, Fraser Munro was dead.

  Next, the findings of the postmortem were tabled. Fraser Munro had died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage.

  It didn’t take long for the prosecution to make clear in the minds of the jury that a knock on the head from a fall due to a push or a shove could induce a brain hemorrhage.

  “Bleeding on the brain,” the fiscal decided to call the condition.

  Good move, Calum thought, makes a nice clear image for the jury, most of whom would hardly recognize the word “hemorrhage” never mind spell it.

  The procurator fiscal asked the local pathologist to list the injuries. Unfortunately, the man described every tiny cut, graze, bruise, wound, without indicating if they were fresh or otherwise. There was a bruising to the thighs and ribs, a bruise on the neck, and gravel rash on the side of Fraser Munro’s head consistent, he told the jury, with a fall.

  “So,” the fiscal summarized, “Fraser died from bleeding on the brain, caused by a blow to the head. This blow could have been inflicted hours earlier. Fraser Munro collapsed, perhaps hours later, and Fraser died.”

  “Yes.” The pathologist sat waiting for Calum Sinclair’s questions.

  Calum took his time. He had noted his opponent’s frequent use of the victim’s name—“Fraser this”, “Fraser that.” Another good move, Calum thought, makes the jury feel like Fraser was someone they knew.

  And, Calum thought, I’m willing to bet he calls the boys, “McPhee this” and “McPhee that.” The McPhee name had not many positive connotations in the Highlands of Scotland.

  He looked at the pathologist. Before him sat a man who worked exclusively with the dead. His suit and tie had first seen life perhaps thirty years earlier. And, almost to the point of cliché, the man had a voice that had the life sucked out of it.

  “Do you have any questions?” the sheriff asked Calum, becoming impatient with what he saw as delaying tactics.

  “Sorry,” Calum said, “I was thinking over what has just been said and I’d like to repeat it—to be clear.”

  Then Calum spoke, only looking for “yes” and “no” answers from the doctor.

  “Mr. Fraser Munro died from bleeding in the brain?”

  “Yes.”

  “The blow was perhaps inflicted hours earlier?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Munro collapsed perhaps hours later?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Munro could possibly have been hit again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps hours later?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, that is all.”

  Rob nudged Joanne in the ribs and hissed a triumphant, “Yes,” seconds after the last “yes” was heard clearly throughout the court.

  The minor victory for Calum Sinclair was mitigated by the next witness—Allie Munro.

  Not a big man, he looked solid. Not a handsome man, he looked dependable. Most of all, to the jury he looked like one of them. From years of working closely with the Ord Mackenzie family, Allie could moderate his Black Isle dialect and glottal stops, giving the impression of a man of substance. His suit—navy blue, bought off the rack from a high-street chain of tailor shops—was the same suit worn by three members of the jury.

  When he had finished his description of finding his son dead on the roadside, one of the female jurors hid tears, one man had to clear his throat, and all of them, men and women, were moved by his account. He was indeed one of them.

  “You went out when?” the procurator fiscal asked.

  “Half past six.”

  “That is when you usually start work?”

  “No, seven, but seeing it was May we were doing an early cut to make silage, and I wanted to go by the milking shed to talk to the man who’s in charge of the . . . the cows.” He stumbled over the word, he would naturally have said “coos,” but this was the Sheriff’s Court.

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I took the tractor out. I always have a wee look around the farm first thing.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I was driving along, and being high up, I could see into the ditch. I saw a jacket, and . . . and it was ma son.”

  “Just before the Devil’s Den?”

  “Aye. I thought he was drunk, then I thought he was hurt . . . so I got off the tractor and I . . . I touched him and . . .”

  The fiscal waited, no questions, allowing Allie to tell the story in his own time and words.

  “I kneeled down beside him,” Allie Munro continued, “and I touched his head and I held his hand and there was no much of
anything I could do because he was dead.

  “But I pulled him up a wee bit ’cause it wisney right him lying in a ditch, and I laid him on the grass. There were lots o’ them wee orchid flowers there,” the kind Agnes likes, he remembered but didn’t say, “and I put ma jacket over him.”

  Allie paused for a moment, thinking through the sequence. What next? Oh. Right. Our Alistair came up the road, but he didny touch his bother, nor come near him, he somehow just knew, and he turned and ran away. But no need to mention any of that, Allie decided.

  “Then I ran to the big house to use the office phone,” he continued. “I didny want Mother to know what had happened to Fraser, not just yet. All I could think was to call the doctor. He said he’d be right out, and told me to call the police. So I did. Then I ran back and waited wi’ ma son Fraser. . . .

  “Then they arrived, the doctor first, the police after, and a wee whiley later I took the tractor back an I went across the yard an told Auld Archie, who’d come looking for me, and he said he’d get everyone working, and then . . . then I talked wi’ Agnes. . . .” This was a part he never wanted to remember.

  It was the noise she made. It was a roar, a sound coming from deep inside of her, it coursed through her lungs and her heart and her bone marrow, dislodging some piece of her that would never be replaced.

  Standing in their kitchen, helpless, holding her, he had heard the echo of another roar. Not the same sound, but of the same source, a positive to this negative, a light to this blackness. That other roar he had heard ringing across the farmyard, twenty-nine years earlier. He was forking hay into the loft and his Agnes was giving birth to their firstborn. A roar, a cry, a mewling sound, and his sister Effie shouting across the morning, “It’s a boy!”

  He wouldn’t let Agnes see Fraser. “Not yet,” he had said. But she saw him later . . . when he was tidied up, much better than seeing his face and the blood and the sick all over him. Allie shook his head the way you would when you were working and fiercesome midges were biting and nothing could make them go away.

  The procurator fiscal looked at him, then at the jury, then back to Allie. “Thank you, Mr. Munro. No more questions.”