Chapter 10 The Wild Girl Inspector Melrose’s First Case, Chapter 1
Flora was the name her mother had given her at birth, but her mother had died before the child reached five years, a wee scrap of a bairn, and in the village of Dun Akyn she was known only as the Wild Girl.
Her father was a fisherman, out at sea long hours at a time, and Flora learned quickly how to fend for herself.
She helped herself to eggs from those who kept chickens.
She begged a roll or two from the baker.
The kind folk in the village left bowls of soup out for her and their own children’s outgrown clothing.
She went to school when she felt like it but was most often seen running barefoot across the heather, or splashing in the tide pools, communing with the wild creatures from seals to roe deer.
It was whispered that Angus MacLeod was not her father at all, but that it was one of the fairy folk, or even a storm-kelpie.
Whatever was true in this regard, she stayed clear of the well-meaning village women who tried to take her in hand, made no friends amongst the village children and could seemingly vanish in the blink of an eye like the fairy folk.
Either way she was destined to come to a bad end.
This was what Detective Inspector James Melrose was told when he arrived on the Isle of Skye and journeyed to the remote village of Dun Akyn, perched on the shore south of the harbour town of Kyleakin.
He was a tall, slim young man, with the pale skin and ginger hair of the Celt.
He was currently attempting to grow a moustache to make him look older, but the result was a disappointing layer of sandy fuzz on his upper lip.
At the time he had just turned thirty, a young detective inspector, recently promoted from detective sergeant and with no experience at all of life in the wilder parts of Scotland.
He was born and raised in Glasgow, in the slums called the Gorbals.
His father worked in the shipyards, his mother in a laundry.
At least they had jobs, which was unusual at that time, and they had paid for their son to go to a better school than the one around the corner where the law of the bully and the schoolmaster’s strap reigned and the only aim was to turn out young thugs at the age of fourteen who might possibly be able to read and write.
Inspector Melrose had repaid his parents’ sacrifice well.
He had excelled at school and it had been suggested that he might go on to the University of Glasgow.
But that seemed like an idea too far above his station.
Instead he had joined the Glasgow Police, proudly worn the uniform until his superiors felt he was the right material to move across to the Criminal Investigation Department.
He had been attached to an older inspector from whom he learned the ropes.
Coming from the Gorbals himself he was not afraid to deal with the gangs.
Then one day the older inspector collapsed and died of a heart attack, and at the age of thirty James Melrose found himself promoted.
He didn’t adjust to the inspector rank easily .
. . all too aware of those early days in the two-up two-down house with no inside bathroom and the times when he’d come home with a bloody nose from fighting.
So when the superintendent told him that he was being sent out to the island of Skye to look into a perplexing case that might be a multiple murder he did not jump at the chance, especially since the case involved an aristocratic family who lived in a castle.
Melrose had little patience with aristocrats—those who spent their idle days shooting and fishing while poor sods like his father got up at dawn to work in the shipyards that these people owned.
But he was not given the option to refuse.
“We don’t have too many details,” his superintendent said. “The telephone line from the islands isn’t that great, and you know what these toffs are like. You are summoned and you go. I expect you’ll figure it out when you get there.”
“How long ago did this happen?” Melrose asked.
“Three days ago now. They expected you to be there immediately, so you’d better get moving.”
He had his marching orders, made his way up through the Highlands towards Mallaig, where he could board the ferry to the island of Skye.
As Melrose had grown up in the big city of Glasgow, the Highlands were as unfamiliar to him as they would have been to a Londoner.
His family had no money for fancy excursions, no summer holidays when he was a boy.
He had only been that far north once before, on a school trip to the site of the Battle of Culloden.
He had journeyed there in a coach with a group of rowdy boys and had needed to pay too much attention to missiles being launched at him, from spitballs to small rocks from peashooters, to pay much attention to the scenery.
All he remembered of it was feeling coach-sick and hoping he didn’t disgrace himself and vomit.
Now, as the train took him towards Fort William, he stared, almost in disbelief, at the scenery unfolding before him.
Mountains rose, one behind the other, their bare slopes covered in yellow-green grass dotted with great strands of brilliantly purple heather.
The only trees were along the sides of small streams that plunged through the valleys, or a couple of Scots pines behind a lonely white cottage, planted to block the worst of the wind.
Every now and then they passed above a loch—a thin strip of shining water, deep in a valley.
As he looked out at uninhabited land stretching as far as the eye could see he felt overawed, almost afraid.
This was hostile country, unforgiving, unwelcoming, and he was going in as the outsider.
He had been offered the use of a police vehicle, but he was glad now that he had refused as he boarded the second train, from Fort William to the ferry port of Mallaig, and saw the narrow road across the hillside snake down in a series of zigzags.
Again, having grown up in a crowded city, he had little experience in driving.
Luckily, at the turn of the century a train line had been built to Mallaig.
The train route was a feat of impressive engineering over spectacular scenery, starting at the high point of Fort William, with the magnificent Ben Nevis mountain rising up to one side, then passing one loch after another, flying over steep glens on amazing bridges as it wound down to the sea and the port.
Mallaig was one of the most prosperous herring fishing ports in Scotland, and Melrose saw, and smelled, this for himself the moment he stepped down from the train.
Kippering shacks lined the waterfront and the smell of their smoking wood chips mingled with the overpowering stench of fish.
Seagulls wheeled overhead and dived for scraps.
Their screaming cries were deafening. Several fishing boats were tied up at the quayside, one in the process of being unloaded, and the shouts of the men competed with the cries of the seagulls.
Trays of kippers waited, stacked on the platform for the train to take them south to the big cities and to England.
When Melrose saw the size of the car ferry he was even more grateful that he had not accepted the offer of a vehicle.
This car ferry was a flat-bottomed crate that didn’t look seaworthy, with space for only two cars at once.
He watched a driver trying to manoeuvre his delivery van on board while the swell of the sea lifted the ramp up and down.
To his relief he found that the passenger ferry to the island was a bigger craft, a proper steamer that looked seaworthy.
He paid his fare and walked on board, taking a seat at the prow.
Across a strait of shining silver water he saw the island, a low shoreline rising to a chain of slate-blue mountains in the distance.
It was a fine, blustery autumn day and whitecaps dotted the sea.
Remembering the way his stomach had reacted on that coach ride to Culloden as a boy he hoped he was not prone to seasickness.
It would be ironic since his father had spent his life building boats, although to Melrose’s knowledge his dad had never actually been on one.
Exactly on the hour the gangplank was raised, the engine sputtered to life and the boat moved away from the dock.
As it met the oncoming waves it rose and fell, sending fine spray over the side and making Melrose hastily move into the centre.
He held his breath, waiting for the seasickness to strike.
When it didn’t he looked around, rather surprised.
Two women with shopping baskets and local tweed shawls wrapped over their heads and shoulders sat across from him.
Facing them was a man with a suitcase and an older couple, all chatting easily as if this crossing on the wild seas was the most normal thing in the world.
Melrose heard the soft sounds of their speech, so different from the harsh Glasgow dialect.
It took him a while to realize they weren’t speaking English but Gaelic, and he found himself wondering if he’d be able to communicate once he got to Skye.
Surely all schoolchildren had to learn English, didn’t they?
Once away from shore the boat settled into a more gentle rhythm, rocking from side to side as it turned towards the island, as if it were a giant cradle.
Unbidden, the words of a song came to Melrose—a song learned by every school child in Scotland.
Speed bonny boat like a bird on the wing, onward the sailors cry.
Carry the lad who was born to be king over the sea to Skye.
“The Skye Boat Song,” telling of Bonnie Prince Charlie, escaping from the English after his failed attempt to gain the throne.
He’d been assisted by the local people, including one Flora MacDonald, and got away safely after risking the stormy sea crossing, remaining a romantic figure for all Scots.
Anyone that defied the English was treasured here in Scotland, where they were still seen as the invaders and conquerors after all those hundreds of years.
As Melrose hummed along to the rocking of the boat a strange feeling came over him.
His first time leaving the shores of his birth, being transported, like Bonnie Prince Charlie, over the sea to Skye.
It almost felt like a rite of passage, as if he were leaving the shackles of his past life behind him and somehow being reborn, free to be the person he wanted.
He shook aside this fanciful notion as the island came closer and those hazy mountains came into focus, barren and rocky foothills with sharper peaks rising up behind them.
An inhospitable place if ever he’d seen one!
As the boat approached the shore he saw that the lower ground was tree covered, softer and green, but showed no signs of human habitation, no smoke rising from crofters’ chimneys.
Still the boat headed towards the shore and then slipped into a little bay.
A few cottages nestled together near the ferry dock.
“Is this Portree?” he asked, having been told that was the name of the biggest town, where he’d find the police station.
“No, this is Armadale, mo ghaol,” one of the women said, standing now and ready to disembark.
“You need to stay on board while the boat goes all the way up the coast. You’ve a long trip before you.
Better go into the cabin and make yourself comfortable.
That’s what I would do. Get yourself a cup of tea. Have a little snooze.”
“Oh.” Melrose looked concerned. “Would it not be quicker to disembark here and take the road to Portree?”
This made the women laugh. “The road, as you call it, is little more than a track through the heather, with streams running across it, sheep every few yards, oh, and a couple of mountains in the way. I believe it would take you three hours or more, if you found anyone daft enough to drive you. The bus only goes on Tuesdays and Fridays.”
Since today was Wednesday Melrose resigned himself to his fate, went into the cabin where there were wooden benches and settled into a corner while the boat made its way around the coast of the island.
He had not realized how big Skye was. The coast, with its many inlets and promontories, seemed to stretch on forever.
They passed through a narrow point where the mainland came close with only a channel separating Skye from the bleak hillsides on the other side.
Why the devil didn’t they put the ferry here?
he wondered, but there were no villages in sight on either side.
Not even a lone cottage. A little further along, where the channel opened up again, there was a promontory jutting out from the mainland, and he saw another ferry, annoyed now to find it would also have been a short crossing.
As they came around to the north, leaving the mainland behind, the swell picked up, and soon he really did feel a little nauseous, making him go outside into the brisk wind.
Other islands appeared, off to their right, low-lying mounts of grey-green, heather covered and uninhabited, apart from the sheep that dotted the hillsides.
Skye itself became more stark and menacing as they pushed north.
Clouds moved in from the Atlantic, covering the most northerly of the peaks on the island, and the air held the promise of rain.
Melrose began to wonder whether this assignment was in fact a pat on the back for his promotion at such a young age, or a punishment for getting above himself. He decided on the latter.