Chapter 17 #2
Deep breath, and Roberta stepped out from behind the brambles – rain patter-clicking off her shoulders and riot helmet as she picked her way up the path, keeping her eyes on the woodchip-and-gravel, high-stepping over a couple of fishing-line tripwires.
After all, just because the one Sergeant Moore set off yesterday made nothing more deadly than a noise, it didn’t mean Nairn hadn’t hooked one of them up to a bunch of shotgun shells wrapped in roofing nails . . .
Which was a comforting thought.
And something she really should have considered before leaving the safety of the bushes.
Could’ve sent McKinnon if there were going to be IEDs.
The wooden porch creaked beneath her wellington boots. Safe at last.
When she turned, there was Sergeant Moore and his halfwit sidekick, tiptoeing their way after her. Doing the same elaborate footwork to get past Nairn’s tripwires, like a cut-price Laurel and Hardy.
She snapped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves and tried the door handle . . . It turned, nice and easy. Not locked. A gentle push sent it swinging open with a warm sonorous groan.
Oh crap.
She stared in through the open door.
They were too late.
Dead animals still littered the shelves, but Albert Nairn had joined those hanging from the rafters. The rope around his neck went up and around one of the exposed beams, a kitchen chair lying on its side by his feet as he swayed in the draught from the open door.
Roberta shook her head. ‘You silly, silly sod.’
A voice behind her: ‘What?’ Then Sergeant Moore crept onto the porch and peered over her shoulder, into the cottage. ‘Oh . . .’
She stepped across the threshold, looking up into that slack face. Eyes part open, the tip of his pale tongue just visible between his lips.
‘Looks like he left a note.’ Moore picked up a sheet of yellowed paper from the kitchen table, reading out loud.
‘“To whom it may concern. I have decided to take my own life, rather than live like a caged animal in one of your gaols.” Spelled the old-fashioned way. “I hereby confess to the killing of Sir Reginald Bradbury-Scott. Sometimes it is necessary to cull members of the herd when they become old, ill, or a danger to others. I do not regret my actions.”’ Moore shook his head.
‘Well, I suppose that’s that, then. Case closed. ’
PC McKinnon squeezed in, peering over Moore’s shoulder and pointing at the suicide note. ‘Look, he’s quoted a bit of poetry, but it’s wrong:
“Ours is not to reason why,
Ours is but to do and die.”’
He shook his head. ‘Should be:
“Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.”’
A nod. ‘“The Charge of the Light Brigade”, Alfred Lord Tennyson, born 1809, died 1892.’ McKinnon shrugged as they stared at him. ‘Did it for my English higher.’
Moore put the note back on the table. ‘We’ll need a forensic graphographer to make sure it’s his handwriting. Maybe take fingerprints.’
‘Aye, well, I think we’re pretty sure it’s genuine.
Look.’ Roberta nodded at the mantelpiece.
The remains of a fire were cold and grey in the grate, but above it sat Albert Nairn’s very last tableau – a little gallows with a mouse-version of himself hanging from it.
Two other figures were gathered around it, looking up at the tiny dead body.
Another mouse in a high-vis jacket and a small weasel.
The weasel had the same jacket on, but its hair was stuck-on sticky-out badger fur, just like the mini-me he’d given her yesterday.
‘Wow.’ Moore whistled, low and slow. ‘He did say you weren’t a mouse.’
McKinnon’s bottom lip poked out, his face all kicked puppy-dog.
She gave him another thump. ‘What’s crawled up your bum?’
‘Why didn’t he make one of me?’
‘Because nobody cares and you’re a whinge.
Now go see if you can find a sheet or a blanket, or something.
We’ll have to cut him down and haul him back to the hotel.
Stick him in the fridge too.’ She puffed out a breath.
‘Rate we’re going, the damn thing’s going to be stuffed full of dead bodies by the time Inverness get here. ’
The expedition back to the hotel had turned into a rather sad-but-surreal dubstep concert – the wub-wonk, wub-wonk, wub-wonk .
. . of Roberta’s wellies joined by the patter-patter-patter .
. . of falling rain and repetitive squeal-creak-click, squeal-creak-click, squeal-creak-click .
. . from the buggy’s rusty wheels. About twice the size of a wheelbarrow, with big fat tyres, liberated from behind Nairn’s cottage by Sergeant Moore.
He laboured away, hauling the thing along the path, with its owner’s earthly remains slumped inside.
They’d wrapped him in a couple of itchy MOD-style blankets, in a dysentery-shade of khaki brown – like a miserable burrito – leaving the rope around his throat to keep whatever pathologist they got lumbered with happy.
PC McKinnon marched at the head of their column this time, Nairn’s rifle at parade rest over one shoulder, and the shotgun broken in the crook of his other arm. Very pleased with himself, like Mummy’s Little Soldier.
Stuck at the back, Roberta frowned at the wrapped body. ‘Does this not all seem a bit . . . convenient to you?’
Moore shrugged. ‘Not very convenient for Albert Nairn.’
Suppose not.
But still . . .
All those loose ends, neatly tied up. No need to investigate any further, officers, why not sit down and have a nice cup of tea instead? Forget aaaaaaaaall about it.
Moore stopped and she came within an inch of marching into the back of the cart. He was standing there, looking at her.
‘What?’
‘I said, at least we can stop cooping people up in their rooms now.’
‘Oh.’ She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a bit. ‘No.’
‘But Nairn’s dead. He killed Sir Reginald, so—’
‘Everyone stays cooped up till we’ve interviewed the lot of them. This doesn’t stop being a murder inquiry, just because the main suspect’s killed himself.’
‘But—’
‘No. Now get pulling.’
Moore rolled his eyes, turned, picked up the buggy’s handles and hauled it down the track again.
Wub-wonk, wub-wonk, wub-wonk . . .
Patter-patter, patter-patter, patter-patter, patter-patter . . .
Squeal-creak-click, squeal-creak-click, squeal-creak-click . . .
It had a beat, but you couldn’t dance to it.
Sergeant Moore tucked their khaki bundle onto the shelf under Sir Reginald’s. Even in death, the gamekeeper looked like a lower-class version of the toff above him. No crisp white sheet for Albert Nairn, just some manky old army blankets covered in dead animal hair.
Moore straightened up, rubbing the small of his back. ‘You sure we can’t just—’
‘Positive.’ She marched out of the fridge. ‘Get yourself into dry clothes and we’ll start on the second half of your list.’
Because one thing was certain – there was something rotten in the heart of Skirivour and she was going to find out what if it killed her.
Or everyone else.