by Bill Knox
‘We’ll survive.’ Carrick considered him with a twinkle. ‘But what the devil happened to you? Don’t tell me he hit you on the way!’
Wills glared at him balefully through the undamaged eye. ‘It happened while you and Pettigrew were still out playing at captains,’ he said bitterly. ‘There was a wholesale brawl on the pier just after we got back – a bunch of locals and a couple of Rother’s people who’d come over from Camsha. The Old Man sent me with some hands to break it up.’
‘And?’ Carrick inspected the eye more closely. It was a magnificent bruising, going from black through purple to a yellowed brown at the edges.
‘Well, the moment we tried to stop them everybody started knocking hell out of us.’ Wills’s young face screwed up in a painful perplexity. ‘Webb, do you ever have the feeling you’re having a bad week, the kind of week you could have done without?’
‘Like this one right now,’ agreed Carrick with a grin of sympathy. ‘Duck quicker next time. But what about the Old Man? He said he’d be here.’
‘He was, till a police car arrived with a note for him. Then he went off in it.’ Wills fingered the swollen eye tenderly then itched the skin below. ‘There’s a CID conference being held at Portree about Gibby Halliday’s murder and they need him. But you know how that’ll shape. Our beloved captain will end up having an expense account dinner with the Chief Constable.’
‘On the Chief Constable, you mean,’ murmured Carrick. ‘Where’s Pettigrew?’
‘Ashore too. He came in with the Mallaig boat half an hour ago, moaned about it, then took off for the village.’ Wills looked puzzled. ‘One of the hands saw him there, talking with Maggie MacKenzie.’
‘Then heaven help Pettigrew,’ said Carrick dryly. ‘If Aunt Maggie gets him on the hook he won’t find it easy to wriggle off again.’
The second mate considered the possibility with a hopeful malice then grinned.
‘She’d fix him,’ he declared hopefully. ‘Poor old Pettigrew.’
Early evening crept on with the wind moderating and the sun still beating down on the bay. Along the pier, more truckloads of whisky arrived beside the coaster and were taken aboard amid a constant rumble of winch engines.
Most of the time Carrick stayed in his cabin. It was hot down there, but he stripped down to vest and undershorts, then lay on his bunk, smoking an occasional cigarette and trying to think. He had a growing, uneasy feeling that he now knew enough of what was happening to be able to put the pieces in some theoretical kind of order.
Peter Benson had vanished, leaving behind almost everything he owned. Then, while Dave Rother hinted at some mysterious deal just over the horizon, there was MacBean’s well-stoked hatred of the sharkmen, Fergie Lucas’ equal vendetta and the odd contrast of Graham’s refusal to be labelled. And so far two men had died. One by accident, another because he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
How much of it really went back to the dead girl, how much of it belonged somewhere else? Or maybe the whole feeling really came down to imagination and that thump on the head he’d taken.
At last, when the hands of his wristwatch were leaving six-thirty, he gave up and rose. Splashing water on his face from the cabin basin, he used a towel then glanced at the mirror. A tired-eyed face stared back at him, complete with a dark stubble of beard along the jaw-line. Grimacing, he reached for his razor.
Fifteen minutes later, feeling fresher and wearing an off-duty grey shirt and dark-brown slacks, Carrick went ashore. Things were quiet at the village end of the pier and he walked along a little, sniffing the peat-smoke in the air and watching the dozens of gulls parading endlessly along the rocks near the water.
An empty whisky truck clattered past on the road, heading in the direction of the distillery. Then, moments later, Sheila Francis’s little Austin saloon purred into sight and drew up beside him.
‘Been waiting long?’ she asked with a smile as he climbed in.
‘No, just arrived.’ He gave her a long, admiring look once he’d closed the door and settled back. Her hair was caught back by a ribbon the way it had been the first time they’d met. She wore a short blue linen button-up shirt dress, sleeveless, the open neck giving a glimpse of the swimming top below, the last few buttons left casually undone and showing her long, sun-tanned legs to firm perfection. ‘Where’s this place you’re taking me?’
‘Not far, but not many people know about it. I wouldn’t if Maggie MacKenzie hadn’t told me.’ She set the car moving and glanced at him oddly. ‘I didn’t expect you to turn up. With all that has been happening, I mean.’
‘Asking if I’m playing truant?’ He grinned at the thought, lit two cigarettes, and placed one between her lips. ‘Not particularly. Things are quiet for a change and there was nobody around to stop me. Have you seen Aunt Maggie today?’
‘This morning. She ferried me across the bay to one of the farms – I’ve an expectant mother over there.’ The Austin had left the village and was gathering speed along the narrow, climbing road. She drove in silence for a moment, then added suddenly, ‘I’d another patient when I got back to Portcoig, someone you know. It was Fergie Lucas.’ Carrick showed his surprise. ‘I thought he was out salvaging the Harvest Lass!’
‘No.’ Sheila shook her head. ‘He said he was having the day off, and I don’t blame him. He had a fairly nasty burn on his left arm from helping put out last night’s fire. It needed cleaning and dressing.’ Taking the car round a sharp right-hand bend, she frowned as she used the horn to scatter some newly clipped sheep wandering ahead. ‘I wanted him to make an appointment to have the burn dressing changed at the end of the week. But – well, he said something that puzzled me. That he might not be around by then.’
‘Meaning he’ll be stuck out at Moorach. Salvaging the Harvest Lass isn’t going to be easy.’
‘I suppose so.’ She shrugged wryly. ‘It’s just that – well, the moment he’d said it he looked as though he wished he hadn’t.’
Around another bend in the road they passed the Broomfire Distillery, a tight collection of modern buildings nestling in a fold between two hills. It was surrounded by a high chain-link fence, but the main gate was open and a truck was loading casks at the main warehouse block. Harry Graham’s staff were working overtime to meet his new schedule for the coaster.
Graham hadn’t mentioned that Fergie Lucas was still ashore. Carrick sighed. There was no reason why the distillery manager should have told him, but it might mean trouble later.
His eyes strayed to Sheila Francis again, noting the way the sun slanting through the windscreen was picking new highlights in her copper-red hair. He smiled to himself and pushed the rest from his mind.
Five miles out of Portcoig they turned off the road and began travelling down a bumping track which seemed to wind endlessly through a mixture of rock and heather and tall yellow broom.
Here and there the track was almost overgrown. The only sign of life along it was a surprised rabbit which flicked its ears and disappeared into the heather. Lurching and bouncing, the car travelled on then suddenly they were stopping a short distance from the edge of a cliff with the sea an expanse of blue below. To the left, the derelict remains of an old crofting cottage explained the track’s existence.
‘We’ve arrived,’ declared Sheila then laughed at his expression. ‘There’s a path leading down, idiot. Like to bring that basket from the back seat?’
He collected the basket and followed her out. They were some two hundred feet above the sea, but a narrow ledge of rock hidden by a tangle of bushes started them off on a scrambling route which led down to a tiny, sandy bay. When they reached it, the sand was warm and deep beneath their feet and quiet wavelets were rippling in only yards away.
‘Will it do?’ she asked, kicking off her shoes.
‘Aunt Maggie did you a major favour. People spend a lifetime looking for a spot like this.’ Setting down the basket near the foot of the cliff, Carrick stared up at the rocks above. Nothing
stirred. They might have been alone in the world.
He turned. The pastel dress was lying on the sand near the water’s edge and Sheila Francis had begun wading out. Her black two-piece swimsuit, minimal in coverage yet practical, moulded to the curves of her slim, bronzed body. Thigh deep in the rippling water, she looked back, laughed, then tightened the ribbon tying her hair before she took a few more steps out and launched into a lazy backstroke.
Carrick stripped down to his trunks and followed her into the cool, crystal-clear water. She circled slowly till he reached her, then pointed to a rock jutting from the sea about two hundred yards out from the bay.
‘Let’s go out there. Now …’
The backstroke’s easy rhythm suddenly changed and the water frothed as she set off in a pulsing, powerful beat. Grinning, Carrick took the challenge and started in pursuit. But the girl was faster than he’d expected. Halfway out she was still leading and he found he was having to positively churn along in his crawl-stroke. When he finally drew level there was less than twenty yards to go to the rock.
‘Truce,’ he gasped hopefully. ‘I give up.’
She nodded, eyes sparkling, and they finished the distance together then clambered on to the rock. It was long, smoothed by time and the sea, and they explored it like children, finding a hermit crab in the pool near its base and some tiny fish trapped in another awaiting the tide’s release.
At last Sheila Francis sat down on a ledge and smiled contentedly as he joined her on the warm, grey rock.
‘Like my private island?’ she asked, droplets of water still clinging to her body. ‘You’re my first official visitor.’
‘That makes it even better.’ He flipped a pebble at the water below and watched it splash. ‘Any special rules out here?’
She shook her head and seemed to shiver slightly as he put his arm around her. Then, slowly, her face turned and her lips shaped to meet his own.
The sun was edging down towards the horizon when they finally started for the shore. Swimming unhurriedly, occasionally diving down to chase some small fish through the fat, dark green wrackweed below, they at last waded back to the soft sand of the bay.
There were towels in the basket, covering a coffee flask and some sandwiches. They dried themselves down, dressed again saying little, then Sheila Francis spread one of the towels as a picnic cloth and began to pour the coffee into paper cups.
Patting his pockets, Carrick swore mildly.
‘Cigarettes,’ he explained. ‘I left mine back at the car. Got any?’
She shook her head and he glanced ruefully at the climb up the cliff.
‘I’ll be right back,’ he promised and set off.
The upward climb was steep and he was breathing heavily when he reached the top. The Austin was where they’d left it and he collected his cigarettes and lighter from the front parcel shelf. Turning to go back, he saw something glinting bright over at the ruined cottage, noted several large gulls pecking and scraping at the fallen stonework nearby, and strolled over with a mild curiosity.
The gulls took to the air as he approached and circled overhead, keening indignantly. But the smile forming on his lips faded as he spotted a chromed metal tube half-hidden by a slab of masonry. Stooping, Carrick dragged the slab aside, saw the finned shape of an exhaust, then, suddenly tight-lipped, threw more of the rubble clear.
Front wheel smashed and handlebars twisted, the old motor-cycle lay with fuel from its tank a dark stain on the ground beneath. Remembering the gulls, he left it and crossed to where they’d been pecking.
When one of the gable walls of the cottage had collapsed it had fallen in a jumbled heap, long since a home for tall weeds. But there were no weeds growing where the gulls had gathered.
Carefully, grimly, he removed the top layer of masonry, then stopped, staring down at the result.
Peter Benson hadn’t got far when he’d left Camsha Island. There were cuts and scratches on his young, lifeless face, but they’d nothing to do with the way in which he’d died.
That came down to the shotgun blast which had torn away one side of his skull.
Feeling sick, Carrick glanced at the circling gulls and knew their purpose. He replaced the stones, took a deep breath, then headed back down the cliff to Sheila Francis.
Chapter Six
When they came back together from the beach Sheila Francis took one long, silent look at the ruined cottage, bit her lip slightly, then turned away.
‘There’s a farm with a telephone about two miles from here, near the road,’ she said quietly. ‘I know the people.’
Carrick nodded. Down on the beach, when he’d told her what he’d found, he’d seen the horror on her face. But only for a moment. Then her nursing background had swept into place like a protective professional shutter.
‘I’ll stay. Get hold of the police at Portree and try to raise Captain Shannon at the same time.’ He saw a protest forming and thumbed towards the setting sun. ‘At the earliest it’s going to be near enough dark before they get here. I’ll take a look around while there’s still some kind of light.’
She didn’t like it, but didn’t argue. Taking a deep breath, she glanced at the cottage again, nodded gravely, and went over to the car.
Left alone, Carrick stood for a moment, then began a methodical search of the ground around the tumble-down cottage, gradually working back towards it. Within minutes the hovering gulls had lost their fear and were settling again, pecking at the rubble, and he threw some pebbles to chase them off.
After twenty minutes all he’d succeeded in finding was a faint trace of tyre tracks where a vehicle had backed up close to the cottage. He threw another stone at a big, black-headed gull bolder than the rest, then crossed to the motor-cycle. From the bright metal showing around most of the damage, it had crashed on its side along a road surface. Some fresh grass and earth were jammed in parts of the front-wheel spokes near the hub.
Added to that terrible shotgun wound in Benson’s head, it was enough to paint a grim outline. Leaving the inevitable basics of where, why and when – where had Benson been killed, why had it happened, when had it happened?
He glanced thoughtfully towards the mound of masonry where the youngster lay buried. But that part was best left to the forensic men with their tweezers and their little plastic bags.
It had been a well-chosen hiding place. A long time might have passed before the body was discovered. A long, long time if he and Sheila hadn’t come this evening, if he hadn’t left his cigarettes behind …
Sitting on what had once been a windowsill, Carrick brought out the cigarettes, lit one, and ignored the squawking, hovering gulls.
Suppose Benson had been killed before that fire on the fishing boat. Then why had someone gone to so much trouble to frame the youngster, trouble which had escalated to include killing a harmless character like Gibby Halliday?
Someone? The same tendril of doubt he’d known earlier crept back as he remembered his own brief, hectic battle aboard the fishing boat. There might have been two men, a simple way of accounting for that otherwise uncanny blow which had struck him down.
Two men.
He found himself wondering if Dave Rother could kill in cold blood. Wondering and having a good idea of the answer.
Sheila had been gone almost an hour and, as he’d prophesied, it was grey dusk before headlamp beams lanced their way along the track towards him. Another minute and the little Austin braked to a halt near the cottage, two police cars pulling up behind it.
As men climbed out of the cars Sheila reached him first. ‘They asked me to wait at the road end and guide them in,’ she explained quickly. ‘Captain Shannon’s here too.’
Shannon was already coming over, side by side with a large, bald-headed man in a heavy tweed suit. The other policemen, mostly in uniform, were unloading equipment from the cars.
‘You’re sure it’s Benson, mister?’ asked Shannon as he reached them.
‘I’m sure, sir.’ Carrick
gestured towards the rubble. ‘He’s over there.’
‘That upsets a few elaborate theories,’ said Shannon caustically. He glanced at the man beside him. ‘Including yours, Inspector.’
The bald-headed man nodded wryly. ‘Detective Inspector Rankin, from County Headquarters,’ he introduced himself wearily. ‘All right, Captain. Let’s take a look.’
Rankin led the way, Shannon close behind. They vanished into the gloom of the ruin, a torch glinted, Carrick heard the sound of masonry being thrown aside, then after another minute the two men returned together.
‘Anything else to tell us, Chief Officer?’ asked Rankin bleakly.
‘Some tyre tracks lead up to the cottage, but they’re faint. That’s about all.’
Rankin shrugged and glanced up at the sky. ‘Like to bet it’s going to rain?’ he asked of no one in particular. ‘That’s my usual luck. Or if they’re killed indoors we’ve a heatwave.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll start my people working. Chief Officer, if you want to take Miss Francis back to Portcoig now that’s fine by me. But I’ll want you later.’
‘He’ll be aboard Marlin,’ said Shannon heavily.
‘Good.’ Giving a nod, the detective strode off towards the waiting group by the cars.
Sticking his hands deep in his pockets, Shannon grunted into his beard. ‘Well, you heard him, mister. I’ll stay and keep an eye on things here.’ He switched his attention to Sheila, frowning. ‘Once you’re home, young woman, stay there. And my advice is you keep anything you’ve seen or heard to yourself.’
Her mouth tightened.
‘I don’t gossip, Captain,’ she advised coldly. ‘And I don’t need orders – I’m not one of your crew.’
‘No, you’re not.’ Shannon considered her again and gave a fractional smile in the gloom. ‘Maybe we should both be thankful for that.’
He went off after Rankin before she could reply.
‘Damn him,’ said Sheila at last, still indignant. ‘That came down to “Get rid of her and make sure she keeps her mouth shut”.’