The rain had gone but the wind still blew and the air was full of the smell of salt. The castle door stood open. The forensic van stood outside. There was no proper fencing around the acreage belonging to the castle, only a crumbling dry-stone wall. But there were police on duty at the entrance to the drive leading up to the castle, and for the moment they were keeping the press at bay.
Hamish struggled into the coverall blue plastic suit which was now regulation for policemen visiting a possible crime scene. He walked in and stood in the hall. He wondered if they had looked in the cellars yet. He could hear them moving about upstairs. He went into the kitchen. There was a rack inside the door holding keys. Putting on a pair of latex gloves, he selected one marked CELLAR and then searched around the hall until he saw the cellar door.
He unlocked the door and groped around at the top of the stairs until he found a light switch. He went down into the cellar. Down here, he could hear the boom, boom, boom of the waves.
There were a few racks of wine in dusty bottles. In the centre of the cellar was a wooden table which held a bottle and two glasses, one clean and one dirty. He sniffed at them and then sniffed the air. There was a faint smell of vomit. He looked down at the stone floor. It was clean.
He turned and looked back at the stairs; they looked clean as well. He walked around the wine racks. Several large trunks were piled against the wall. He turned and climbed up the stairs, searching the rooms until he found the chief forensic officer, Bruce Murray.
“Look, Bruce,” said Hamish. “I’ve been down in the cellar. I swear it’s been cleaned recently, and there’s a faint smell of vomit. Now, there are some old trunks there, and I don’t want to get into trouble for compromising a crime scene. Would you mind taking your team down there and opening up those trunks?”
“Why?”
“There might be a body in one of them.”
“You’ve been looking at too many horror movies.”
“Okay. If I find anything and get a rocket, I’ll say you refused to search.”
“Oh, all
He followed Hamish down to the cellar. The first trunk was empty, the second held fusty old clothes, a third, children’s toys and books, and the fourth old accounts and letters. The fifth at the bottom, a huge old steamer trunk, was pulled out, Bruce grumbling all the time. Hamish undid the old leather straps and threw back the lid.
“Will ye look at that,” marvelled Bruce. “You’re psychic.”
“That’ was the dead body of Irena, doubled up and crushed into the trunk. Her blonde hair was matted with blood. Hamish took out his phone. “Can’t get a signal down here,” he said. “I’ll go upstairs.”
“I’ll wait for the pathologist and then get the boys down here,” said Bruce. “Do you know Dr. Forsythe is leaving the force?”
“Why?”
“She wants to retire. Besides, she says that a forensic pathologist here only earns a third of what they do in England. Don’t know where we’ll find another. Probably need to get someone all the way from Aberdeen.”
Hamish went upstairs. He felt numb. He phoned Jimmy, not wanting to hear Blair’s bullying voice. Then he walked outside the castle and stood waiting. He suddenly craved a cigarette. He had stopped smoking some time ago, but occasionally the longing would come back.
Was there a serial killer on the loose? Had some maniac come to the Highlands?
He discounted any Russian connection. Whoever had phoned Mrs. Gentle had been someone she knew. She had happily gone out to meet whoever called her. Perhaps Irena had just got in the way. But wait a bit – Irena had been killed
¦
The gale blew the sound of approaching sirens. Jimmy arrived with Detective Constable Andy MacNab. In the following car came more detectives, a vanload of police after them.
“Where’s Blair?” asked Hamish.
“In the hospital with alcohol poisoning. How that man can keep on going is beyond me. So what have we got?”
Hamish told him briefly about finding the body. “The press are going to have a field day,” said Jimmy when Hamish had finished. “Here comes Dr. Forsythe. I’ll hae a look at the body when she’s finished. How do you feel?”
“I don’t know,” said Hamish. “Stunned, I guess.” Dr. Forsythe got out of her car. “Where’s the body?”
“Down in the cellar. I’ll take you there,” said Hamish. “Did she have any scratches on her face?”
“Too much blood,” said Hamish. “Why?”
“Despite being in the water, Mrs. Gentle had fragments of skin under her fingernails. I’m working on the DNA.”
“Do you think Irena killed her and then struck herself on the head with a hammer in a fit of remorse?”
“Don’t be cheeky, Hamish. I only meant that there’s hope the person who killed her might be on the DNA database.”
“Here’s the cellar,” said Hamish. “You’ll find Bruce down there.”
“Sober, I hope.”
“For the moment.”
¦
Hamish went back and joined Jimmy. “What’s odd,” he said, “is that on a table in the cellar is a bottle with two glasses. Almost as if someone had lured Irena down there, given her a drugged drink, and then bashed her head in.”
“What? On the morning of her wedding? Mrs. Gentle said she went out for a walk.”
“Have you checked the phone records?”
“Yes. That phone call to Mrs. Gentle came from a call box in Lochdubh. Any strangers in Lochdubh?”
“I suppose there are visitors up at the Tommel Castle Hotel.”
“Her family are due to arrive today,” said Jimmy. “What a mess. You’d best get down to Lochdubh and ask around. Put a sign on that phone box and some police tape around it until the forensic people see if they can get anything off the receiver. Then check who’s staying at the hotel.”
“Can’t I wait for the pathologist’s report? You’re not Blair.”
“Well, just till then.”
¦
They waited a long time while the sky grew darker and sheets of rain began to sweep across the landscape.
At last Dr. Forsythe came up from the cellar. “She was struck a heavy blow to the head with a blunt object. I’ll have a better idea of what sort of object when I get the body back to the lab. I can’t tell the time of death until then, either, but from the state of the corpse it does look as if she was killed on the day of her wedding.”
“But the only person in the castle then was Mrs. Gentle,” exclaimed Hamish. “Could a wee woman like that have had the strength to get that body in the trunk?”
“I’ll need to check the toxicology. There were traces of vomit in her mouth. Whoever put the body in the trunk then jumped up and down on it to cram it in. Her ribs are broken. At the moment, mind you, that’s just a guess.”
“Off you go, Hamish,” said Jimmy.
Hamish turned to go and then stopped, poised on one foot like a heron.
“What now?” asked Jimmy.
“Can you let me know what Mrs. Gentle’s background is?” asked Hamish. “I mean, her maiden name, who she was married to, all that?”
“Look, I’ll drop in on you later.”
¦
As Hamish hung a sign on the phone box saying it was not to be used, he noticed that the light inside the old-fashioned red box had been smashed. He put police tape around it. When he started, there hadn’t been a soul on the waterfront, but when he finished he found that a small crowd had gathered. Archie Maclean, the fisherman, was there. “We’re right sorry to hear about your poor fiancee,” he said.
