‘Nobody’s disputing that. Just make yourself available. Give my sergeant your details.’
‘You’re not just going to let him walk out of here, are you?’ the sergeant said, pointing to the big man.
‘What do you suggest I do? Tie him up? He’s not going anywhere.’ Dunbar shook his head and indicated for Harry to follow him out of the room. ‘Let’s get to the house, Harry. We can see what the pathologist has to say.’
‘Okay. You know where it is?’
There was a female uniform standing outside the house. ‘Nope. But I’m sure she knows the way.’ Dunbar called her over. ‘You know the lodge where the victim is?’
‘Yes, sir. You drive a couple of miles –’
‘You know how to drive?’ Dunbar said, dangling the car keys in front of her face like it was the first prize.
She took the keys without much further ado. ‘Andrea Simpson,’ she said after Dunbar made the introductions. Harry got in the back, not in the mood to be looking out the front window of any vehicle just yet, even one that was on the ground.
‘You know the Wolf family well?’ he asked from the back seat.
‘I’ve only been stationed here for a year, sir, but I’ve met them a couple of times. Oliver Wolf was a really nice man. I was sorry when he passed away last Christmas.’
‘Christmas?’ Dunbar said. ‘I thought it was six months ago? Which would have made it this year.’
‘I think people generalised when they said six months. It was just before Christmas.’
Seven
The ‘wee lassie pathologist’ who had come over on the plane with Dunbar and Evans had a name. Dr Debbie Comb. She was just finishing up her initial exam when Harry and Dunbar entered the house on the hill.
Uniforms were there; one of them, standing outside, nodded to the two detectives when he saw his colleague getting out from the driver’s side.
The sun was beating down, glistening off the loch in the distance.
‘Not a bad place,’ Harry said. ‘If it weren’t for the dead bloke inside, I mean.’
‘Aye, this would be right up Cathy’s street. Somewhere for Scooby to nash about in and all the peace and quiet she could handle. There’s nothing like a night out in Sauchiehall Street to make the dream stronger.’
‘I hear you. Lothian Road in Edinburgh is for the youngsters nowadays.’
‘Christ, you’re hardly a pensioner, Harry.’
‘Anybody above thirty is old, according to Chance.’
‘God help him if he calls me an old bastard.’
Harry laughed. ‘He’s been well-warned.’
Inside, members of the forensics team were walking about. ‘He’s upstairs,’ one of them said through a mask on his face.
They went upstairs and were pointed in the right direction. Debbie Comb looked like she was barely out of school, but Harry supposed she had to be in her thirties at least. She had her blonde hair tucked into the hood of the paper suit.
‘Dr Comb, this is DCI Harry McNeil from Edinburgh,’ Dunbar said.
She smiled. ‘The big feardie from Edinburgh? Pleased to meet you.’ She held out a hand for Harry to shake.
‘Big feardie?’ he said.
Debbie laughed. ‘Jimmy said your arse would probably have eaten its way through the seat by the time you landed.’
‘Did he now?’ Harry said, looking at Dunbar.
‘Just making an observation, neighbour. Plus, this lassie exaggerates.’ He held a hand up to shield his mouth. ‘And she drinks.’
‘Bloody liar,’ she said, laughing. ‘Well, we do go out drinking on a Friday after work, but it’s not as if he and Robbie have to pour me into a taxi afterwards.’
‘Not that you can remember going home, ye wee besom,’ Dunbar chided.
‘And here I was the one saying that Jimmy wouldn’t be able to handle flying in that wee plane,’ Harry said, warming to the doctor.
‘Aye, he was hanging on for dear life. I’m sure he said a couple of prayers too.’
‘Stop talking nonsense, woman, and tell us what we have here,’ Dunbar said.
The smell of decay seemed to permeate every pore in the room. They became the serious professionals that they were again.
‘It’s a strange one this,’ Debbie said. ‘I’m assuming that the hammer used to smash the wall was the murder weapon. It appears to have dust from the drywall on it, as well as blood. And the blood is over the dust, so I’m assuming that somebody was using it to smash the wall and was then disturbed. But why would the victim sit down?’
Harry knew that nothing should come as a surprise at any crime scene. ‘You had them leave it in place, I see?’ Harry asked her, nodding to the hammer on the floor.
‘I knew you would want to see everything in place. Including the victim.’ She nodded to Clive Wolf, who was still sitting in the chair. ‘I know it’s important to preserve the scene.’
Harry nodded. He knew that under normal circumstances the body would have been removed by now, but on this island it was important to have everything catalogued first.
‘Crime scene have completed the photos and video, I assume?’ Dunbar said.
‘They have. They’re just waiting for you to go over the scene,’ Debbie said.
Harry surveyed the room. He had noted that the house looked to have been built a long time ago, maybe at the turn of the previous century, but the extension had been added around the time when Murdo Wolf went missing almost thirty-five years earlier.
‘I don’t think Clive would be sitting there and watching whoever it was take chunks out of the wall with a hammer. Then waiting for death,’ he said to Dunbar.
‘Makes sense.’
‘Maybe he talked Clive into sitting down.’
‘Or,’ Debbie said, ‘there was somebody else working with the killer. Snuck up behind Clive and let him have it.’
‘That would make sense too,’ Harry conceded.
‘I wonder why they wanted an extension built on here,’ he said to Dunbar.
‘That’s something we’re going to ask them later.’
The head of the forensics team came back into the room. A woman who was in her forties. Dunbar knew this but wouldn’t have been able to
