by G R Jordan
‘Suspect on the beach, sir. I have asked for more units. It’s a single male, approximately thirty years old and has a green anorak on. He’s got a metal detector and a rucksack with him. Hunt is over at the edge of the beach watching him.’
Macleod nodded and ran over to the second officer who was lying down at the top of the hillock that led down to the beach. Getting down beside the man, Macleod took a pair of binoculars from him and studied the suspect on the beach carefully. The man’s hood had fallen down and a black-haired face looked weather beaten and tired but there was a smile on the man’s face. A metal detector showed a green light and was set aside as a small spade was taken from the rucksack and the sand was dug up in a frantic fashion.
‘Hope, get round the other side of him in case he makes a run for it, although he doesn’t look like a man in shape to make a run.’ Hope moved off and Macleod watched the man continue to dig. Behind him, he started to hear vehicles arriving and he told Constable Hunt to go and make sure no one disturbed the man’s actions with a cavalcade of noise from the road.
It took the man half an hour of digging before he was standing inside a hole up to his knees, digging harder than ever. Occasionally he would bring the metal detector into the hole and then give a nod as the light showed green again. Suddenly, the man bent over and pulled something up from the sand. Macleod got to his feet and motioned Hope to start moving in.
But the man did not see them and simply climbed out of the hole and walked towards the sea where he dipped the item into the water before shaking it dry. This seemed a futile effort given that the rain had not abated, and the man turned around almost walking into Macleod. Hope flanked him and the man looked bemused.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked in a worried voice.
‘DI Macleod, sir, and that is DS McGrath. What are you doing?’
‘Hunting.’ The man saw Macleod’s confused face. ‘I’m detecting, looking for the treasure. The papers said it was a Pirate Club that was causing all the murders so there must be treasure if there’s pirates. And I was right, look.’ The man held out a hand clutching a golden cross. ‘Amazing isn’t it?’
‘What’s your name, sir?’ asked Macleod.
‘David, David Hobart. I came over yesterday and thought I’d look here since your people were finished. And I was right. Look at that beauty. How much do you think it’s worth?’
‘Mr Hobart, I think we need a chat, but somewhere less wet. If you can accompany us and bring your gear with you. If you’ll give the cross to DS McGrath, she’ll look after it for you.’
‘Okay, but that’s mine, all right; I found it. You saw me find it, right? So, it’s mine.’
‘I did see you find it, sir, but as to who owns it, I think we’ll wait until investigations show us what it is. Now, hurry up. I’m soaked in this rain.’
Back at the Castlebay station, Macleod found a towel and dried himself down as best he could before joining David Hobert in the tight room that was serving as his office. In the corner, the man’s rucksack and metal detector sat, dripping water onto the floor. The man still wore his anorak. Hope was standing behind Macleod’s desk as there were only two seats. Macleod waved the seat at Hope and she leaned close to him to whisper, ‘Hardly, you’re the boss.’ He was only trying to be chivalrous.
‘Better out of that rain, Mr Hobart, I think,’ said Macleod and gratefully lifted a cup of coffee that was on his desk. After taking a gulp, Macleod continued, ‘Now from the top, sir, can you tell me exactly what you were doing in the middle of the night on the beach at Vatersay?’
‘Well, officer, it’s like this. I am a hunter of treasure. I spend most weekends when I’m not having to stop on at the Revenue, combing likely areas for things that are buried. I take that baby everywhere,’ said the man, looking over endearingly at his detector in the corner.
‘The Revenue?’ asked Macleod. ‘You’re a civil servant?’
‘Yes, have been for twenty years. You can check with them, been a model employee, or just about for that time. But I like to get out and about and have been detecting for the last ten years since my divorce. Gives me something to do and I get to see the world. And at odd times of the year. Take up here, for example; most people only come up in the summer months, or maybe spring, but here’s me in winter. Different place I suspect.’
‘And you came up here to do your detecting?’ said Hope. ‘Why here, specifically?’
‘As I said on the beach, following the Pirate Club. It’s big news. Can I get into my bag and show you? I mean don’t shoot me or anything, I’m just getting the paper.’
Macleod saw Hope smile at the man as she clarified, ‘We rarely shoot anyone, Mr Hobart.’
It took a hunt of thirty seconds before the man joyfully pulled out a creased newspaper and brought it over to the table. Flopping it down before Macleod, he spun it around so Macleod could read it and opened at the inside pages. There was a large spread talking about the murders and giving photographs of various sites and of officers standing by crime scenes. Then there was a photograph of the Vatersay victim, Alasdair MacPhail, standing with a MOD medal, looking as proud as punch.
‘He’s why I’m up here. Brilliant singer, officer, just brilliant. I have some of his recordings and when I saw he had died I was actually a bit upset. Beside myself really because I felt like I knew the man. Never met him but music can do that to you, don’t you think?’
Macleod did not think so but smiled back. ‘If you say so, Mr Hobart, and it’s Inspector Macleod and that’s Sergeant McGrath.’
‘Oh, sorry. Important then. Well, you would be with these many deaths. Well, I saw the paper saying MacPhail had died and then I saw the front cover.’ The man flicked the paper back to the front and Macleod saw a picture of himself standing on Vatersay. An Admiral’s uniform had been super imposed on him and there was a map of Barra and Canna with large black crosses where the bodies had been found. A title read, ‘The Pirate Club’.
Shaking his head, Macleod tried not to fume. He glanced at the banner at the head of the paper and realised it was one of the crasser tabloids. He scanned the rest of the paper finding that news of the incidents ran for seven pages. There was a photograph of Mackintosh in her white coverall suit and for a moment, he caught himself thinking about her trip to Glasgow. But then a picture of Hope and Jona Nakamura on page four caught his eye. She was described as ‘the stunning new Sergeant’, and ‘her forensic beauty’. Hope looked down over his shoulder and he could feel her smile building. The only words accompanying himself were haggard and grizzly. It really was the stuff of the gutter.
‘Why Vatersay, Mr Hobart? Why not Canna?’
‘Well, Alasdair MacPhail was a clever bloke and I have no idea who that woman was on Canna. And then there seems to be more happening here so I reckoned it would be a better chance for the gold, or whatever treasure they were hiding.’
‘But why treasure?’ asked Hope. ‘Why not a feud?’
‘Pirate Club, Sergeant, says so right there,’ and the man pointed to the headline. ‘And then inside,’ he continued, sweeping the pages to page four where he pointed to the paragraph under Hope’s picture. ‘Macleod’s bracing first officer and her oriental colleague left the island having recovered no loot which focuses the investigation on the Isle of Barra where the loot is suspected to be hidden deep beneath the sand. With the attention of these stunning deckhands, the battle-weary Macleod faces a race to find the plunder before more bodies litter the beaches.’
‘And you came because of this?’ said Macleod, struggling to keep his temper in check.
‘Absolutely, Inspector, I reckon there’s more out there too. I mean the paper’s right, isn’t it? I found the cross. Stuff of legend—sort of thing you would find in a pirate haul.’
Macleod had to admit when painted in that light, it did indeed cast a romantic and teasing view. But people had died, and this was no fairy tale. ‘Have you ever seen the cross before, Mr Hobart.’
The ma
n shook his head. ‘Have no idea what it’s worth. But I found it; you wrote that down somewhere, didn’t you? I mean if it’s worth a lot, it’s mine.’
‘People other than I will establish ownership if the item is indeed a find. At the moment it is part of a murder investigation, Mr Hobart, so do not expect to see it very soon. We’ll be checking your details out in the morning so don’t leave the island and kindly keep off the crime scenes.’
The man was escorted out leaving his paper for Macleod, advising him that the journalists were onto something. Sitting back in his chair, Macleod pointed Hope to the now-free-one opposite and watched her collapse into it. She smiled, almost giggling to herself.
‘It’s all right for you,’ said Macleod, ‘Bracing, stunning. I get haggard, grizzly, battle weary.’
‘Do you think they might actually have something? I mean, that did look like a significant piece of antique gold.’
‘Who knows where the cross is from? That’s Miss Nakamura’s job to tell us. But they are searching for something and not afraid to kill for it. And let’s get them before we have any more deaths, or we’ll look like some sad show with the haggard Inspector and your bracing self with her stunning sidekick. Not an image we want.’
‘No, it’s not,’ said Hope suddenly. ‘Allinson won’t like it either.’
No, he will not, thought Macleod seeing Hope’s partner in his mind. Jane will just laugh at my description.
Chapter 13
Kirsten Stewart stood in front of the Newcastle tenement and fought to keep her frustration under control. Last night, her brother’s carer had rung to advise he had been edgy all day and that it would be good if she could swing by to see if Kirsten could calm him down. The change of scenery and people from Stornoway to Inverness had not been one that he had appreciated but she had hoped he would settle down after a few months. But little had changed and although she tried to hide it from her everyday work, it was starting to become a burden she carried everywhere.
Before her stood a three-story reddish brick building that housed many flats. It ran as one building along the entire street but was like a tower block tilted onto its side in that there was at least one family in each floor of each longitudinal section. The area was reasonably upmarket and Stewart wondered why the flats were so sought after. There was plenty of nightlife around but for her the city was crowded and noisy. Even in Inverness she had chosen to live on one of the many satellite villages surrounding it.
The address she held in her hand was for Alasdair MacPhail but the Newcastle constable who visited the apartment to announce the news of his demise had found the flat to be empty. Further records had found that he had been widowed three months previous. But there was little else to go on, so Stewart had dragged Ross from his bed at six o’clock that morning to find her connection to the case, wherever it lay in Newcastle.
Inside the tenement, Stewart found a stone staircase leading up to the top floor and the door of MacPhail’s flat. It was glass fronted, albeit frosted, and she stood looking in as best she could. But the glass meant that everything was blurry. A brown carpet inside warped into a confusion for its pattern but she saw enough to see that it was undisturbed, nothing sitting on top of it. Reaching for the letterbox, Kirsten found it stiff and it took two attempts to open it. Pushing back the black brush interior of the opening, she realised that there was nothing out of place, like the hallway had not been touched in recent times.
Footsteps behind her made her turn but it was Ross arriving from the floor below. ‘Neighbours say they haven’t seen anyone here for at least three months, not since his wife passed on. Apparently, he wasn’t seen much in there anyway.’
‘Do you think that this flat has been quiet these last months, Ross? I mean, just no one in here. The hallway is immaculate but there’s no post. If MacPhail was away there should be post.’
‘So, someone’s been in.’
‘Maybe, but what else do you do if going away, especially if it’s for a long time. I think we need to check the post office and see if there’s a re-direct on this.’
Ross nodded and they descended the stairs back to the car where Stewart googled the local post office number. Ten minutes later they were heading for an address on the opposite side of Newcastle and into a more salubrious area.
The house was a newly built two-storey, but it had pillars either side of a green door and looked like something from a show-house catalogue. There were pots with perfectly budding plants along the drive and hanging baskets were on the outside walls. The small garden had stunning colours and Stewart wondered where someone would get the time to produce all of this. As they walked up the drive, a woman emerged from the rear of the house holding a pair of garden clippers like they were a weapon.
‘Who are you?’ she snarled.
‘DCs Stewart and Ross, ma’am. We’d like to ask you about a Mr Alasdair MacPhail. Are you aware of the name?’
‘Aye,’ she replied, her Glasgow accent coming to the fore. ‘I know him, or knew him. Dead up at Barra.’
‘Did you know him well?’ asked Ross.
‘Well, for the last ten years I was keeping the smile on his face at night so I would say I knew him as well as anyone—probably better than that sour-faced cow they called his wife. Finally got her out of our life and he has to go and pop his clogs.’
‘Forgive me, Ma’am, but you don’t seem all that sad that he’s gone.’
‘I’m not. Ally was okay, treated me well, enjoyed our fun and asked for nothing much in return except to look after his bairns. But they grew into big bairns and then a load of arrogant wee shits. Well rid of them, hated them. Especially the eldest, right bastard.’
Stewart was aware that the conversation was loud and there might be some neighbours listening in despite how spaced out the new estate was. ‘Should we go inside to discuss this?’ asked Stewart.
‘Why? Do you want a cup of tea because I am making nothing? I don’t care who knows. I’m better off without them. Cleared out when their mother died, bitching about getting what was due them. She never gave Ally anything from when she died but instead it went to the bairns. Well, they went on about taking what was theirs, something their mother had kept. I didn’t ask because she was part of a nasty firm. She might have been older now but in her day, she was up to no good. I can’t believe he married her.’
‘What sort of stuff was she in to?’ Ross asked.
‘They reckon she had goods stashed away. Ally said that to me once when I complained that he would still go and see her. And not socially either, I knew he was bedding us both. But he told me she had a load of cash somewhere, a big score from past days. Fairy tales, that was a problem with Ally, his damn fairy tales. But I’ve had it up to here with them. That’s what took him to Barra.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Stewart said holding up a hand. ‘He went to Barra looking for some sort of contraband from his wife’s previous scores. We know she was a thief but we don’t know what she stole.’
‘No, you don’t. Neither do I, as I didn’t want to have anything come back at me, but Ally said there was enough for us to clear off to the Bahamas for the rest of our existence. Now he’s dead chasing his dream. That’s why I didn’t ask, didn’t want that for myself. No, he was a good man on your arm but thick as they come sometimes. Still I got this house from him and that’ll do me until I go his way.’
‘What’s your name?’ asked Stewart.
‘Maureen Ghillies and I have told you nothing you couldn’t work out for yourselves so that’s all you’re getting. I don’t want dragged in. So be off with you; I got gardening to do.’
Ross glanced at Stewart looking for her call as for what to do now. Although they held the same rank, Ross had held it for longer and normally would take the senior role between the pair of them. But Stewart was pushing the leads they were following so Ross had acquiesced and now simply waited for a response. This left Stewart flapping a little, but she held her poise. If you stood silent but
purposeful, they usually reckoned you were sizing them out and not scrambling to know what the heck to do.
‘I’ll level with you, Mrs Ghillies,’ said Stewart. ‘We don’t have a lot of leads to chase and you have just indicated that Mr MacPhail’s children may be partaking in whatever is causing all these deaths so as much as you want to remain out of the loop and not get involved, if there are no other leads, then we have to pursue this one to the hilt. We’ll get a warrant and you’ll need to come downtown and help us with enquiries. Or you can give me the whole story. I’ll be satisfied and then you and I can never see each other again.’
Maureen looked at Stewart sharply and then nodded to her to follow her to the rear of the house. The back garden was another model of horticultural excellence and Stewart found herself being offered a seat at a cast-iron table.
‘I’m still making no tea,’ said the woman in a hushed tone. ‘What do you need to know?’
‘According to my records—and all I have is a number—Mr MacPhail had three children by his late wife.’
‘That’s correct, two girls and a boy. Andy’s the lad, twenty and fairly strong. Cheryl’s the older girl, a year younger than Andy and quite astute whereas Andy’s more violent. And then there’s Debbie, seventeen and a vixen with it. Not afraid to mess about with the boys’ emotions but also not afraid to hurt when she wants to. She kicked the face off a guy who tried to make her go where she didn’t want to. Like her mother and she’s got a brain up there too.’
‘Do you have any photographs?’ asked Ross.
Maureen nodded and then disappeared into the house before bringing back a newspaper. It was a local magazine, printed to have a small circulation and Stewart saw the price of £1.99 on its cover. The cover also had a splash photograph of Alasdair MacPhail, his wife, and three youths.
‘That’s from the local music society rag; there were quite a number produced, maybe two hundred so they can’t trace that picture to me. There’s a piece inside about Ally’s music. Debbie’s the one showing the cleavage; wee vixen like I said.’