They toiled on upwards, reaching a steep path which wound between two cliffs of rock. The noises of the village faded away, and all was silence except for the grating of their climbing boots on the rock and the panting of Jock, who was beginning to find the climb heavy going.
Hamish saw two threads of material caught in a gorse bush and pulled them off and put them in a cellophane packet.
After a long climb, they reached a sort of heathery plateau at the top.
Jock sat down suddenly and panted, “This is where they were.”
“Have a rest,” said Hamish. “I’ll look around for a wee bit.”
Jock leaned back in the heather and closed his eyes. Hamish trudged along, picking up various discarded bits and pieces: a crumpled cigarette packet, an empty Coke can, cigarette ends, chocolate biscuit wrappers and paper cups. He put the debris in a plastic bag as he went along, finally putting the bag down on a rock and weighting it down with a stone.
He shielded his eyes. A buzzard sailed lazily on a thermal. Then he heard the harsh cry of a hoodie crow and quickened his pace, heading towards the sound of the crow.
The plateau dipped down to a bleak expanse of scree.
There, lying face up in the heather on the scree with two crows pecking at his dead eyes, lay Jamie Gallagher.
Hamish slithered down towards the body, flapping his hands, feeling sick.
“Jock!” he called. “Here! Over here!”
Soon Jock’s burly figure appeared above him. “Oh, my God,” said Jock. He turned away, and Hamish heard the sound of retching.
Hamish struggled with his rucksack and took out a mobile phone. He tried to call police headquarters in Strathbane but could not get through, as often happened with cheap mobile phones in the wilds of the Highlands.
“Jock!” shouted Hamish. “I’ll stay here with the body. My phone won’t work. Get help. Call Strathbane!”
¦
Ailsa Kennedy stood on the waterfront and trained a pair of powerful binoculars on the mountain, which soared above the village. “I don’t know if I can go with you to Strathbane this evening,” she said impatiently to Holly. “Jock went up the mountain with that policeman from Lochdubh. You know his temper. If he comes back to an empty house and no tea, he’ll be fit to be tied.”
“You let him bully you,” said Holly.
Ailsa tossed her red hair. “Nobody bullies me. Wait a bit. He’s coming.” Then she lowered the glasses. “He’s as white as a sheet and looks in a right state.”
“What was he up there for?” asked Holly.
“To look for that scriptwriter.”
“Something bad must have happened,” said Holly. “Edie, Alice!” She hailed the two women. “Something’s happened to that scriptwriter. Jock went up to look for him, and he’s coming back looking frit.”
Edie and Alice hailed more people. The gossip spread up to Drim Castle, and when Jock came running into the village it was to find everyone waiting for him.
“He’s dead!” shouted Jock. “He’s got no eyes. He’s dead!”
Fiona turned away a little. Sheila heard her mutter, “Thank God.”
“He can’t be dead,” shouted Harry Frame. “And what’s this about no eyes?”
“Hamish says we’re to call the police,” panted Jock, running into the shop. Everyone who could get through the door crowded in after him.
Jock phoned Strathbane police and then sat down on a chair behind the counter. He fished out a bottle of whisky from under the counter and took a strong pull from it.
“What’s this about him having no eyes?” asked Harry, shouldering his way up to the counter.
Recovering from his shock and beginning to enjoy the drama, Jock gave them a gruesome picture of the dead body.
“He knew about this,” said Sheila to Fiona.
“Who? What?” demanded Fiona sharply.
“Hamish Macbeth, the policeman. I went to ask his help to suggest some bar Jamie might be found drunk in. He got very serious about it all and said he would set out for where we were filming yesterday right away. He knew something was probably wrong.”
Fiona turned white and fainted and had it not been for the press of people about her would have fallen to the floor of the shop.
¦
Up on the mountain, Hamish Macbeth peered at the dead body of Jamie. He hoped against hope that the man had died of alcohol poisoning. He eased down the springy heather which was pillowing the dead head and drew back with a little exclamation of dismay. The back of the head was crushed. He longed to turn the body over and inspect it thoroughly but knew he should not touch it.
He sat back on his heels and looked around. If Jamie had been struck down with some sort of blunt instrument, struck down from behind, why had he fallen on his back? Perhaps the killer had turned him over to make sure he was really dead.
The trouble with heather was that there would be no footprints. And who could have done it? Where had Angus Harris been the night before? Or Fiona? Or Patricia?
It was ironic it should be such a perfect day. Tourists travelled up as far as Sutherland to admire the scenery, but often the mountains were shrouded in mist and the villages drenched and grey in lashing rain. It was a day for holiday, for picnics, for lazing around, not for sitting on the top of the mountain with a dead man whose eyes had been pecked out by the crows.
Then he heard the distant wail of police sirens and the faraway clatter of a helicopter. The bane of his life, Detective Chief Inspector Blair of Strathbane, had been on holiday. With any luck he might still be away. But as a helicopter suddenly soared over the top of the mountain and began to descend onto the heathery plateau, Hamish saw Blair’s fat and unlovely features peering down.
The helicopter landed, and Blair, with his sidekicks, Detectives Harry Macnab and Jimmy Anderson, scuttled forward from the helicopter under the slowly revolving blades. Behind them came the pathologist, Mr. Sinclair, tall, thin and sour, as if years of viewing dead bodies had curdled his nature.
“Whit’s all this?” shouted Blair above the dying noise of the helicopter engine.
“The dead man is Jamie Gallagher, scriptwriter for a detective television series which is being shot here by Strathclyde Television,” said Hamish. He described finding the body.
“Sadistic murder,” said Blair. “Someone poked his eyes out.”
“Crows,” said Hamish. “Crows got at the body.”
“So it might not be murder?”
“The back of his head is crushed.”
“Oh, aye, and how did you find that out and him lying on his back?”
“I did not touch the body. I pressed down the heather his head’s lying on.”
Blair grunted. Another helicopter roared in to land and disgorged a forensic team.
A tent was being erected over the body. Blair, who had turned away, swung back. “You’d best get back tae your village duties, Macbeth. There’s enough o’ us experts here.”
“There’s a lot of suspects,” said Hamish sharply.
“Aye, well, list them when you’re typing up your report. I’ll send Jimmy Anderson along to see you later.”
Hamish went wearily off down the mountain just as another helicopter bearing Chief Superintendent Peter Daviot arrived on the scene. The cost of all these helicopters, thought Hamish. There would be cuts in everyone’s expenses for the rest of the year.
Daviot strode up to Blair and listened to his account. “ Where’s Macbeth?” he asked when Blair had finished.
“He’s got duties tae attend to and we don’t need him here.”
“Does he know of any suspects?”
