CHAPTER 1

The big man in the shabby brown suit and equally shabby soft cap pushed through the swing doors of the Police Station, strode up to the counter and brought his massive fist down on it with a force that would have driven rivets. "Shop!"

The two occupants, the Desk Sergeant and a young policewoman, started visibly at the crash and their heads jerked up in unison. The girl's open, friendly countenance momentarily froze as she took in the massive figure standing at the other side of the Station counter. Six feet four if an inch, and built like the proverbial outside facility of brick construction. His shoulders and chest were in proportion to his height - maybe even more than in proportion - with arms that seemed impossibly long and hands like Number 10 shovels. The suit was old and scuffed and of such an outrageous size that it might have been a tarpaulin tied around a larger-than-life statue. And the head supported the image of a statue, a statue hewn from solid granite by a team of Easter Island masons. The face caught and held her attention. Brown and lined, forbidding and expressionless, it had the hard look of a granite crag. She shivered involuntarily; it was the sort of face that Zombie moviemakers scoured the world for - not the sort to have loom over you on a dark night.

She watched apprehensively as the Desk Sergeant rose from his chair and advanced slowly towards the counter. He laid his hands well apart on the surface and scrutinised the visitor expressionlessly for a long moment before he spoke. "Well, well, well, would you just look who's here? Let me see now, I know the face and the name's on the very tip of my tongue." Sergeant Macleod shifted his stance to lean one elbow on the counter and hold the other hand up in a gesture normally reserved for stopping oncoming traffic. "No, don't tell me, it will come to me. Let me see, now, it was quite a while ago, I'm sure of that. Oh it must have been 'way back in ...."

He stepped back smartly to avoid an arm that came towards him with the lazy power of a Kodiak Grizzly. Sergeant Macleod winked at the puzzled policewoman who was still wondering how she was supposed to behave if the Sergeant tried to make an arrest. "Och, I remember it now. Isn't it funny how it sometimes needs a person to make a familiar gesture before you recognize him? This, my dear, is our friend and colleague Sergeant Murdo Murdoch, just back from a long, long holiday at some unpronounceable place on the West Coast. I'll just give you one wee bit of advice about him - don't ever let him hug you unless you are within very easy crawling distance of the infirmary."

She continued to stare wordlessly until the giant suddenly gave a deep rumble of a laugh and his face rearranged itself as if a mountain landside had sloughed off a Satanic cliff and revealed a sunlit glen. The hard cragginess softened, the deep-set eyes twinkled and his voice had the softness of the North West coast of Scotland. "Don't you be believing a word he's telling you, lassie. It's chust that he's an Edinburgh man himself and a wee bit jealous that he hasn't had the benefit of the glorious cultural heritage that we Highland folk enjoy." He turned back to his old friend, a thin-as-a-rake six-foot-two stick-insect of a man. "I come back here after a wee holiday in God's country, reluctantly but with my batteries of missionary zeal recharged, to bring some much-needed culture and discipline to you poor displaced Sassenachs, and what do I find? A long telegraph pole with lugs like insulator supports, defaming my character in front of a bonnie young lassie." He shook his massive head lugubriously as if in sorrow at finding that a wayward child who should have known better had done a bit of back-sliding.

Bob Macleod chuckled and turned to the policewoman. "Come on over here, Jean, and meet one of the pillars of the Force, Murdo Murdoch. Murdo this is Jean Campbell - from down Ullapool way."

The young woman had arrived from Police College only a week before and was finding the move from the disciplined College to the friendly and easy-going Inverness Police Station a bit difficult to adjust to. She held out a slim hand. "Pleased to meet you, Sergeant."

He pulled off his cap to reveal a high-domed bald head whose lighter shade of brown attested to the fact that the bunnet was seldom off when he was out of doors "Och, lassie, unless some bigwig is about you just call me Murdo like everybody else around here does." His huge paw enveloped her hand and she tensed involuntarily, then relaxed when he shook her hand as if it was delicate porcelain. "Anyway, we folk from the West Coast must stick together in case we get contaminated by all them Sassenachs."

Despite herself, the young woman found herself warming to this middle-aged, balding giant, and gave a quick chuckle of kindred spirit. "Och yes, I'm thinking that these city folks are so backward that they'll still be believing that culture is something found in theatres and museums. They won't be understanding that culture can be two folk meeting by chance in the hills, or a dozen having a ceilidh in a wee crofting hoosie with an earthen floor."

Murdo's shook his head regretfully. "Isn't that chust the honest truth, though? Ignorant, they are, chust plain ignorant." He gave a theatrical sigh. "Och but they're lucky to have the likes of us to eddicate them, though to be sure they're a puir lot of craiturs to be teaching."

The Desk Sergeant chuckled at the old game. "G'way with you, you pair of teuchters. If it wasn't for us cultivated folk from the Capital City you lot would still be living in three foot high houses with divot roofs."

Murdo and the girl looked at each other in feigned surprise. "Och, there you go, lassie, chust as you were saying, he's confusing culture with enchineering now."

"Cut it out, Murdo, you'll be having her at it next." He looked at his old friend's mahogany coloured face, trying to decide whether it was more sunburned than it was before he left. "You look well enough so I suppose you had a good holiday."

"Och grand, chust grand." He held up a huge right hand, palm outwards. "See them calluses? Frae my auld salmon rod. It's fishing nearly every day I've been doing. I've had the kind of holiday you puir craiturs have to die and go to Heaven to experience. I caught three salmon and saw two shinty matches - we won both of them! What more could a man ask for than to come home from a grand match and sit down to a meal of salmon he's caught himself? Och, it makes me feel quite guilty to see you poor envious folks before me." He looked expansively from one to the other. "But what about yourselves? Did anything exciting happen in my absence?" His tone and grin said quite clearly, 'Come my children, tell me what little triumphs and pleasures have come your disadvantaged ways during my absence'.

They were all suddenly silent and grim, and his eyes darted quickly from one to the other. "Oh oh! From those black looks I'd be saying that our new Superintendent has arrived and is making a nuisance of himself." He sighed theatrically. "Go on then, tell me the worst of it."

Bob Maclean shook his head sorrowfully. "It's worse than that, Murdo - it's Superintendent West-Samuel from Glasgow."

"Oh no! Not greetin' faced George West-Samuel. Hell and damnation, what have I ever done to deserve that weasel faced wee booger making my life a misery until I retire?" The big man groaned and shook his head in despair. "Has he arrived yet or have we chust been notified that the most humourless bastard since William the Conqueror is to descend on us?"

"He started a week last Monday, two weeks ago - but it seems a lot longer."

"Aye, well, it will doing that, right enough." He banged his great hands together, as if some movement and sound would get them past the moment. "Och, och, into each life a little rain must fall - and we must just bear up even though it's going to be a permanent monsoon from now on." He gave a grin that lacked some of its earlier exuberance. "At least that must be the worst news you've got for me." Again they were silent, lost in their depression at being saddled with a Superintendent that nobody deserved. "Och well, if there's nothing else I suppose I'd better get to work and leave you to your misery." He raised the counter flap, squeezed his bulk through the gap and ambled through another door and into the CID office.

"Morning, Murdo, good holiday?" The smartly dressed young Sergeant looked up from the desk whose polished surface was marred by just the one large folder. Simon Markum had only recently transferred from Uniform to CID and was determined to make the right impression. He was one of the new breed of Policemen, a Degree in Law and a career plan that saw his time as Constable and Sergeant as nothing more than a short apprenticeship to prepare him for higher office. Nonetheless, he was a willing, cheerful young fellow whose youthful enthusiasm had so far insulated him from the bitterness that was usually the lot of men who fought the twin devils of ambition and impatience.

"I had that, young Simon. And not a crook did I see all month." He threw his cap and coat on top of the coat rack without making any attempt to get them on the pegs, and by way of explanation, he added. "You'll be understanding, of course, that the criminal practices haven't spread yet to the folk of the West Coast."

"Get on with you, Murdo." The young man grinned. "I've read last year's statistics. There's just as much crime out there per capita as there is here."

"Isn't that chust the truth, though! Them tourists are chust the very devils for committing the crimes among the honest country folk."

"Tourists, my foot! You Highlanders are poachers and illicit whisky distillers to a man."

"Och, young Simon, I'm speaking about crime. What harm does a wee bit of poaching or distilling do as long as you keep it in moderation? It's only the folks from the South that's needing the laws, them being so greedy that they want tae make businesses out of chentlemen's sports."

The young man laughed. "Oh well, maybe you're right there, Murdo," adding with slight reproof in his voice, "but a Policeman's job is to enforce the Law, not judge it."

"Och, isn't that chust the very truth of it, young Simon - Hitler's Nazis said chust the same thing when they were charged with war crimes." The big Sergeant's voice was gently chiding but his expression was serious. He had a deep seated belief that a Policeman's job carried more responsibility than the mere sweeping up of society's labelled detritus, and tried to instil a sense of humanitarian judgement into the young police men and women.

"You know very well I didn't mean that, Murdo. I just meant that for a law to be respected it has to be a universal one; it can't just be made up by the individual policeman on the spur of the moment. Besides, it was you yourself who tracked down and arrested that bloke last year for running an illicit distillery."

"Och well, a simple highland laddie like myself can't be arguing with an educated man like yourself - besides that stuff he was making was chust the very devil, not worthy to be called whisky at all, at all. Now, chust you be going and getting the kettle on so that I can have a wee drappie tea - and a puir thing it is compared with even the kind of Usquebaugh we've just been talking about."

"It's already on and boiled," the young man grinned as he nodded towards the kettle sitting on the windowsill. "Never let it be said that I don't know how to look after my elders and betters." He got up and dropped the folder on Murdo's desk. "Last month's case file. I draw your attention to the intriguing case of the Naughty Knickers and how I solved it in an awesome demonstration of my legal and police training."

Murdo dropped a teabag into his mug, poured in some hot water, deftly extracted the bag by a protruding corner and dropped it into the wastepaper bucket. Then he laid the mug on his battered desk, carefully leaned his old wooden armchair back against the radiator and lifted his huge feet onto the desk. "Naughty Knickers, is it? That will have been Colin McWhir at the bottle again, I'm thinking. The puir man will have fallen off that wagon he's been on this last couple of years."

The young man's face fell. "Dash it, Murdo, it took me a week to track him down, and you do it without even looking at the report."

"Experience, lad, chust experience. Old Colin has fondled more frilly knickers in shops and on clothes lines than you've had hot dinners." He shook his head sorrowfully. "It's a waste of time charging him, lad, he's not quite right in the head and all that happens is that it costs the ratepayer a fortune in psychiatric investigations - and then all they do is come to the conclusion that he's not quite right in the head. Chust give him a good dressing down and make him take the knickers back and apologise." He grinned cheerfully. "I know, I know, it's not what Law School tells you to do. But funnily enough you'll find that nine times out of ten the wifies don't want him charged, I suppose they see he's no danger to them and that he's not some vandal trying to scare them. Besides, lad, if you charge him you'll be called the knicker nicker nicker!"

The young man's suddenly red face told him he'd hit the nail on the head, and he laughed uproariously. "Don't let it worry you, we've all been doing it at some time or another. The lads will even have been taking the bets on you doing it - the boogers did in my day, I can be telling you that from my ferry own experience."

"Ah, that explains why all the uniformed lads gave me a cheer when I came back from charging him." He laughed ruefully in enlightenment. "Oh well, I've got to go now and investigate the theft of a car roof rack, complete with luggage." He paused at the door. "Nearly forgot, Murdo, Inspector Charles wants to see you."

"Any idea what for?"

"No, but I hear some pairs of longjohns have been stolen from the hospital laundry. It will need a BIG man to arrest someone who steals longjohns." The young sergeant left laughing.

Murdo pulled the folder onto his lap and quickly scanned through it. There was nothing of much interest so he skated it back onto Simon's immaculate desk, drained his cup and lumbered to his feet. Along the corridor, he knocked on the Inspector's room door and pushed it open. "You wanted to see me, Sir?"

Inspector Nigel Charles, known to all and sundry as Charlie, gestured towards a chair without looking up. "Ah yes, take a seat whilst I finish this." He continued to read through a letter the typist had just brought him, signed his name and put the page in the out-tray. Then he raised his head with the air of a man who has finished one important task and turned his attention to another. "Right, Murdo, have a good holiday?"

"Yes thank you, Sir." In a politely noncommittal tone.

"Good. Well, I've got a job for you that's right up your street. I want you to go up to Inkrock and look into a mysterious death. A young man of nineteen was found dead in a pub car park a week last Saturday. He and another youth had had a minor punch-up a couple of hours earlier and the story is that just one blow was struck - a punch to the jaw of the deceased man. The post mortem report says that the blow probably knocked him out but didn't do any serious damage. Nonetheless, he died a couple of minutes later for no discernable reason. The conclusion is that the blow triggered off some sort of weakness and his heart just stopped beating."

"And is the foul play being suspected, Sir?"

"Not according to the Inkrock report, they have it down as death by misadventure."

"So what would be needing investigating, Sir?"

"Superintendent West-Samuel is starting a general tighten-up throughout the Region and wants to make sure that the yokels up there haven't missed something."

Murdo ran a massive hand around the back of his bull-like neck. "Och well, Sir, if it's looking into police procedures that's needed rather than investigating a crime, it's Sergeant Markum that's the verry man to send. He's a grand expert on law and procedures."

The Inspector laughed and asked with what might have been a trace of malice in his voice, "What's up, Murdo? Usually a solo investigation in some back-of-beyond place is just right up your street. Why are you trying to get out of this one?"

"Oh well, from what you've said about the case, it seems more of an administrative thing than a criminal investigation. That would be good experience for Markum." He shrugged. "But I would rather be staying around home this week. We've been away a month and the garden is chust a terrible jungle."

"Sorry, but that's the way it is. If it's any consolation, I agree with you. I'd have chosen Markum myself but the Superintendent particularly named you. He said you'd understand the thinking of the locals better than a city man would."

Murdo knew when he was beaten so he sighed theatrically to show his opinion without actual insubordination. "I see, I see. And when will you be wanting me to go, and how long would you be thinking it will take, Sir?"

"Right away, the sooner the better. I don't suppose it will need you to stay more than one night but, knowing you," He gave a short bark of supercilious laughter, "I suppose you'll find something to keep you away from the office for weeks."

Murdo ignored the innuendo that he always made cases far more complicated than they ever had any right to be. "Ah hem, and does Inkrock know I'm coming?"

"No - and don't you be forewarning them. It's up to you whether you start off by calling at the Station first or by doing some preliminary investigations."

"Humph, I don't have much choice, half the force up there know me so I can't very well go snooping around on their patch without telling them first." He brightened slightly. "Now if you was to send Sergeant Markum I doubt that anybody would know him."

"Sorry, my orders are that it's you who is going." Charlie didn't sound all that sorry as he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a thin folder. "Here, this is all we've got on the case."

Murdo returned to his office and automatically switched on the kettle before sitting down to read through the meagre reports. Half way through, the kettle clicked off and he got up to make himself a cup of tea. Then he finished reading, drained his cup and reached for the telephone to call home. He always kept a small suitcase packed and ready in the car for occasions like this but he had to warn Mary that he might be away for a few days. She was a District Nurse and unlikely to be at home, but years ago they had installed a telephone answering machine for just such occasions. Having left a brief message telling her where he was going and promising to telephone during the evening, he walked through to the main office and called to the Duty Sergeant. "Bob, I'm chust away up the road to Inkrock. I don't know when I'll be back but you can reach me either at the Station or the Plough Inn."

"Okay, Murdo." He glanced at the young policewoman." Okay for some, isn't it? Just back off holiday and he's away for another jaunt. Why did I never transfer to CID?"

Murdo grinned. "You know chust as well as I do that you could never be a CID man, you chust haven't got the dress sense to be able to pick your own clothes!"

"My God, coming from you, that's a ..." The words faded away as the door swung shut.

Murdo threw his coat on the passenger seat but kept on the cap as he crammed himself into the aging Ford Granada, one of the few cars available that could accept his gigantic frame, and headed over the old bridge and onto the Dingwall road. The new road over the Kessock Bridge would have been much quicker but he was in no great hurry and felt the need for a quiet drive away from the traffic.

As he left the town and settled down to driving, the bitterness he'd felt in the Inspector's office came flooding back to him. He'd thought it had disappeared during the holiday among friends and relatives who knew and understood him, but the mere mention of Inspector Charles' name had brought it all back. Dammit, it wasn't that he was a particularly ambitious man but the thought of being passed over for Inspector in favour of Charlie Charles was a bitter pill.

Their careers had been quite similar; Murdo had started in Glasgow before transferring to Inverness fifteen years ago. Charles was an Edinburgh man who had started his career in Edinburgh before transferring North two years after Murdo. Both had then spent a couple of years in Uniform before transferring to the CID and had worked in the same close-knit department ever since.

Although they'd worked in parallel for years and had always got on well enough together, they were too different in personality to ever be friends. Charlie was a 'public' man, knowing everybody who was anybody and being on innumerable small-time committees. He was a social animal who made a point of mixing with his superiors both on and off duty. The result had been that he'd been the natural choice for handling the class of crime where local in-town knowledge was valuable. His record in this usually petty and naive class of crime was outstandingly good.

Murdo was just the opposite, a friendly but intensely private man who preferred the off-duty company of his family and close friends to that of useful acquaintances. He'd been brought up as the fifth of eight children on a small West-highland croft and had inherited the highlander’s conviction that all men are equal. His people had never known the slavery of serfdom, clans being extended families and the Chief being looked on as the head of that family, not as a master. He'd always been big for his age and his mother, a small, kindly woman, had instilled in him the belief that the duty of the strong was to protect the weak. He'd grown up believing that it was wrong and cowardly to fight smaller boys, though his father had taken the more pragmatic view that it was alright if he finished fights so long as he didn't start them. Gradually he'd come to realise that it was as cowardly for the weak to use their weakness as an excuse, as it was for the strong to use their strength for their own ends. Slowly his interest in the practical application of justice had grown and had led him into the police force.

His parents' views had followed him all his life, and had grown to include many aspects of conduct beyond the merely physical. He treated the public with gentle courtesy, knowing that the average law-abiding citizen felt helpless and awed when confronted by the majestic power of the Police. His subordinates, too, he treated gently, believing that they should be led from the front rather than driven from behind. If one of them made a mistake or failed in some way, he took much of the guilt on his own broad shoulders, feeling that he had lacked foresight in developing the young man or woman in their career. He patiently corrected them and trained them until he was proud of them and they were proud of themselves.

With his superiors he was less forgiving. His view was that rank was an honour that brought harsh responsibilities in its train. He utterly despised those who won advancement by telling their superiors what they wanted to hear, especially since in doing so they denied these same superiors the information they needed to fight crime more effectively.

When Inspector Graham had retired a couple of months ago they'd all known that the succession lay between Murdo and Charlie. Had known, too, that Charlie's sycophantic and social efforts over the years had brought him to the attention of all the senior policemen in the region, to the members of the Police Committee, and to influential civilians. Past experience had told Murdo that these things would count heavily in Charlie's favour when it came to deciding who would get the promotion. Yet he couldn't quite bring himself to believe that the senior members of the Force would succumb to such self-seeking activities. To be sure, Charlie had solved many more crimes than he had himself, but they had all been the sorts of small-time affairs that could be solved by the simple application of standard police procedures. The cases that came Murdo's way were invariably the obscure ones that needed real detective work. He'd built up a reputation as a plodder who would painstakingly reason his way through complex cases with a kind of 'Miss Marples' country logic - but coupled with the West Highland view that manana was synonymous with frantic haste and that patience was the greatest of all virtues.

He brooded on as he passed through Dingwall and headed towards Evanton. He knew, as did everybody else who knew the details of the work, that although Charlie had solved more cases, and a greater proportion of cases, than he had himself, there was no comparison in their abilities. Had their positions been reversed, Murdo would have solved at least as many cases as Charlie had - and probably been bored to tears in the process - whilst Charlie would have been totally lost. For the thousandth time since the decision had been announced the words of Robbie Burns' poem 'To a Louse' ran through his mind. 'Oh wad some Power the giftie gie us to see oursel's as ithers see us'. He tried to see the situation through the eyes of a the then-Superintendent, but he just couldn't believe that anyone with the good of the Force at heart could ever choose a boot-licking blether like Charlie over himself.

He sighed heavily. Well, they had done it, and he'd just have to learn to live with it - or move to some other Force, or leave the Police altogether. The only thing that mattered now was whether this trip to Inkrock was a genuine job or just a ploy of Charlie's to keep him in a backwater until the dust of the new Superintendent’s arrival had settled. And where did Superintendent West-Samuel fit into the scheme of things? He'd known George West-Samuel when they were both constables in Glasgow, and knew him to be an intelligent and committed policeman. He didn't like him - he'd never met anyone who did - but he respected him. Had West-Samuel really picked him for this job, or had Charlie wanted to keep Murdo and his old colleague as far apart as possible? Well, he'd make it his business to find out what was going on although, he sighed again at the thought, he knew very well that the devious politics of both Charlie and George were well beyond his understanding. However, he also knew that if Charlie had been taking the Superintendent's name in vain and was found out he'd find out just how hard a man Westie was! It was oft said by those who knew him that Westie was an evil bastard - but an exceedingly competent evil bastard!

A substantial lunch in a small hotel delayed him for an hour and a half but he still pulled into the car park behind the Plough Inn at Inkrock by four o'clock. He thought he might as well stay where the crime, if indeed it was a crime, had been committed. He'd never been to the Plough before so he had as good a chance of going unrecognised there as anywhere else.

By the time he'd booked in and had a wash it was half past four and he decided to give the Police Station a miss until morning. He didn't like getting involved in any clandestine checking-up but he salved his conscience with the thought that he'd be just a nuisance if he turned up at this time of night. They wouldn't be able to tell him much before the shift changed so he might as well wait until the morning. Besides, he thought virtuously, if he met any old friends they'd feel obliged to invite him home with them, and it was short notice for that. Having made up his mind, he went downstairs to try to get a dram or two to fortify himself until dinner time.

The owner was a garrulous man who took Murdo through to the bar without complaint. At first Murdo had difficulty catching what he was saying, but once the bar door was shut he started speaking normally and Murdo realised that he'd been trying to avoid attracting the attention of his wife. He poured two drams and pushed one towards Murdo. "Have the first one on the house." He raised his own glass, said a quick 'Slainte Mhath' and tossed it back. Murdo nodded, "Slainte Mhor" and tossed back his as well and ordered another couple. Whilst he was waiting, he looked around and observed, "A fine place you have here. Is it your own or the Brewery's?"

"Aye, our own, me and the wife, like."

Murdo picked up his refilled glass and looked around him. "A credit to you both. I'd say by your accent that you were an Aberdonian or thereabout."

"Aye, came up here to manage this place about fifteen years ago. When the owner died we bought it off his missus and have been here ever since. Used to be a good going business too, but with the drinking and driving laws getting tighter, and the non-alcoholic lagers and the like catching on, it's getting to be a bit of a deid loss." He shrugged fatalistically. "Not so much trouble with drunks now but it's afa' deid like - mair like a social club than a pub. An afa' lot of the drinking is done at hame noo, or in fancy lounge bars with plastic beams and poofs for barmen."

"Och, isn't that chust the truth of it. The Scottish pub has gone downhill right enough. Do you have the ceilidhs and things like that, now?"

"Och aye, we have something of that kind every Saturday night, we have to bring in the crowds." He frowned darkly. "I'm not so sure they're such a good thing either."

"Oh, why would you be saying that?"

"Well, we had one a week last Saturday week and a local laddie was found dead in the car park out the back. Him and his mate had a bit of a fight - nothing much but he had some kind of weakness and it kil't him. Nothing tae do wi' us but you'd be surprised how the word has got around tae the tourists and they avoid this place as if it was a death trap frequented by villains," he gave a dry chuckle, "or maybe they've just seen my wife!"

Murdo pushed forward his glass. "Will you be joining me in another." He waited whilst the man slopped a good measure into each glass and took the money. "I'd have thought they'd have been rushing here in droves to see where the murder took place."

"'Twisna' murder! Young Jamie didn't mean to kill his mate. He didna ken that Sammy had a weak heart." His accent was getting stronger as the whisky softened his tongue. "Puir bugger. He was a guid lad was Sammy. I've kent his mither an father for years. Jockie often used tae come in here for a dram of an evening. Havna' seen him since the accident. I'm telt they niver leave the hoose noo unless they havta."

"Och, och, it's a bad business when the young ones are taken before they've seen a bit of life." Murdo shook his head with genuine sadness; he'd seen too many young corpses in car and motorbike accidents for his liking.

The publican stood leaning against the bar, shaking his head, for a long time before answering. "A bad business right enough. Dammit, I saw the lads gang oot an' thocht naething aboot it. Ye dinna see much o' that kind a' thing nooadays - the fecht roon the back o' the pub, I mean - but it used tae be sae common I thocht naething aboot it." He shook his head again, his eyes sightlessly on his empty glass. "I should have stopped them, or at least gone oot tae see what was happenin'."

"Och, och, you mustn’t blame yourself. A publican can't be the keeper of his customers."

"Aye, I ken that, but I wish I'd seen what really went on oot there."

Murdo's instincts caught a whiff of something that was more than just an 'If only ...' of life, and he asked casually. "Is there any doubt, then, that it was chust a damnable accident?"

Another shrug and a shake of the head. "Damned if I know, but have you ever heard of a healthy young lad o' nineteen deeing frae wan punch on the jaw frae a wee laddie that could hardly ca' the skin aff his porridge?" Then he added darkly. "Ony sort o' mischief could go on in that bit o' the car park an' naebody wad see."

"And are you thinking that maybe something did go on?"

"No, no, of coorse not - but it's a damn funny business a' the same." His melancholy garrulousness had worn off and he was apparently finding that his publican's blethering had taken him further than he'd intended. "Will you be wanting another? If no I'd better be getting on."

There was clearly nothing more to be learned from the publican so Murdo declined another drink, ordered a meal for six o'clock and went back to his room to shower and change. Later, he ate alone, the only occupant of the small dining room. Then he took a stroll along the sea front, 'phoned Mary, and turned in for an early night. It had been a funny sort of day and he was wondering whether it was just misadventure as the report had said. He smiled to himself, his spirits lifting at the thought. A proper investigation would be a better way to fill in a day or two than playing the spy on other policemen - and it would annoy Inspector Charles into the bargain.

Next morning he walked the short distance to the Inkrock police station, timing his arrival for just after eight o'clock. He'd been there half a dozen times before, and had met members of the Inkrock force on many other occasions. As a matter of courtesy, he entered by the front door and approached the civilian receptionist at the counter. "Hullo. I'm Sergeant Murdoch from Inverness. I'd like to see the Duty Inspector, please." He proffered his identification card.

"Right, I'll just check that he's free." She went into a small, glass-fronted office and picked up the telephone. A moment later she came back to the counter and pointed to a door leading off the foyer. "If you go through that door you'll find Inspector Pollock in the Duty Inspector's office. It's the third door on the left." She pressed a button under the counter and the door lock clicked audibly.

Murdo nodded his thanks and did as he was bid. As he approached the office door it was opened and a rotund, grey haired man came out smiling broadly and thrusting out a hand. "Well, Murdo, man. Long time no see. Come in, come in. How about a drink? Tea or coffee?" He ushered Murdo into a chair then returned to the door and bawled down the corridor, "Doreen! Two teas, please."

Sitting down at his desk, he looked Murdo over. "You're looking well, man. Now, what brings you to our humble dominion? Some more excitement like last time, I hope."

Murdo chuckled. "Och, that was a good bit of co-operation, that was. To this day, my wife still classes hangovers according to that farewell do! Man, it took me a week to get the holes in my face to line up with my eyes!"

"Aye, I remember. It took everybody who could still stand up to get you from the Black Maria to your bed. Still, it was well deserved, it's not every day that Inkrock sees a bunch of crooked stockbrokers arrested." He shook his head in wonder. "Silly buggers. Why do city folk always think you can hide in the countryside? Stood out like sore thumbs, they did." He shrugged off his bafflement. "Anyway, Murdo, what brings you up here without warning?"

"Well, Neil, this is the way of it. I arrived back from holiday yesterday morning and was sent up here to inquire about the mysterious death you had here a week last Saturday." He put slight emphasis on 'mysterious' and raised his shaggy eyebrows.

The Inspector rubbed his chin thoughtfully before answering. "Aye, we did have a youth die behind the Plough, but why is Inverness interested?"

"Why are they poking their nose in, you mean. That I can't tell you, for I don't know myself. My Inspector just said that our new Super had decided that I should come up and make sure that you country yokels had done things properly." He grinned and held up a hand. "His words, not mine. If it makes you feel any better, I was sent because a teuchter like me would better understand the yokel's mind."

The Inspector's indignation died. "Silly buggers." But he said it without rancour. Like all countrymen he knew that there were advantages to letting city dwellers believe that country folk were all a bit simple. "Och well, a second opinion wouldn't come amiss for it's a right puzzle. You'll have read the report?"

"I have, I have, but it doesn't say much."

The Inspector cleared his throat. "Well, Murdo, as far as we can make out, the lad, a Sammy Murchison, got involved in a fight at the Saturday night dance at the Plough and was found dead in the car park an hour or so later when the dance broke up." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "We're not exactly sure what happened but he and his mate Jamie Jamison fell out and Jamie took him out to the car park for a punch up. Sammy wouldn't fight so Jamie flattened him with a punch to the jaw and went back to the dance. Sammy was found lying where he'd fallen by a couple leaving the dance an hour or so later. The post-mortem said the only damage on him was a bruised jaw and that his heart had stopped a few minutes later. The report doesn't say why -but privately the Doctor says there must have been a weakness there."

"And are you believing it?"

"Well, I've no reason to disbelieve it - it's just that I've known Sammy's folks for years and I'd have said that Sammy was as tough a young bloke as you'd find anywhere. Still, if the post-mortem can't find anything I suppose it must be true enough." But his tone bespoke his doubt.

"You say he died within a few minutes of being hit but that his body wasn't found for another hour. How would that be happening?"

"Ah well, only the two lads went out to the car park, and Jamison went straight back into the pub after the punch-up. He and his mates just thought that Sammy had pushed off home." He reached for the telephone and spoke briefly to the receptionist, then returned his attention to Murdo. "I've sent for a policewoman who was at the dance before the fight and took part in the questioning afterwards. You might as well get it from the horse's mouth." With that, the door opened but it was just the receptionist carrying two large mugs. As they waited for the policewoman to arrive, they drank their tea and chatted about old times.

Outside, the Duty Sergeant was trying to find WPC Murray who should have arrived for duty by this time. Three other policemen had arrived for the shift and they started joking about Murray, a well-known disorganised, harum-scarum young woman not noted for her punctuality.

Their banter was interrupted by the door banging open against the wall and a well-built young woman in her mid twenties coming crashing in like a miniature tornado. "Morning, everybody." She waved a pair of greasy hands in front of them. "That bloody old heap of a car of mine is going to get the bullet one of these days. It boiled coming up Brumley Brae this morning and I had to let it run back to the bottom to cadge some water from the Manse to fill it up. I don't think I was the flavour of the month when I knocked the Minister up at such an ungodly hour." Her ill-humour was evaporating and her freckled face split into a wide grin. "I suppose the old hypocrite thinks that every day but Sunday is for a long lie."

One of the men grinned back. "It's time you were pensioning off that auld bucket you mis-name as a car, it must be older than you are yourself - and, God knows, you're hardly a scone of yesterday's baking."

She stuck out her tongue at him, he was always telling her it was time she was trying to catch a man and get married before it was too late. "Sure it is - but so are you and I keep taking you out for a wee run as well."

"Well, you'd better get a move on, the Inspector wants you, and he's got a visitor with him."

"Oh damn and blast! This would happen when I'm late and in a mess." She held up her filthy hands in despair before dashing off to the washroom to clean up. Five minutes later she was knocking on the Inspector's door, and at the same time trying to tuck a dirty cuff out of sight up her jacket sleeve. The Inspector's voice bawled to 'come in' and she dashed in in her typical harum-scarum way. "Sorry I'm late, Sir, my car broke down."

"Okay, come in and sit down. This is Detective Sergeant Murdoch from Inverness, he has some questions for you about Sammy Murchison's death."

Murdo smiled sympathetically at her flushed face and dishevelled appearance. "I believe you were at the scene of death from well before the actual incident?"

She nodded. "That's right, Sergeant."

"Well, could you just tell me, in your own words, what happened that night."

She was silent for a moment, obviously marshalling her thoughts. "Well, it was the normal Saturday night dance at the Plough. I arrived a wee bit late, it would have been about eight fifteen, I had a job getting the car to start, and Sammy and Jamie - Sammy Murchison was the deceased and Jamie Jamison was the one who punched him - and all their pals were already there. I had a drink in the lounge bar before going into the dance. Sammy and Jamie were both dancing when I went in. I had a dance with Sammy at about ten o'clock but he was spending most of his time with a girl called Sally Duncan, and Jamie seemed to be with a Betty Winters. Later - it must have been coming on for eleven - I went through to the bar with someone I knew. When we went back to the dance ten or fifteen minutes later Sammy was nowhere in sight but Jamie was dancing with Betty, and Sally was dancing with somebody I'd never seen before. It was only after Sammy was found in the car park an hour later that I realised that something had happened."

"Uh uh, do we know exactly what took place in the car park?"

"Well, yes and no. We've got a lot of corroborated statements about what happened inside, but Jamie and Sammy were the only ones to go outside so we only have Jamie's story about that. When the duty car arrived I joined them to help with the questioning. It seems that Sammy and Jamie had been to the bar a couple of times and were in high spirits - not drunk or anything like that, just a bit merry, uninhibited like. Anyway, Sammy was standing with some of his mates when Jamie danced past with Betty, and Sammy caught the back of Jamie's shirt and pulled out the tail -they were all in shirt sleeves by that time. I don't suppose that would have sparked off anything if it hadn't been that the shirt tail had a noticeable brown stain on it. According to Jamie's statement, he'd gone to the toilet in the Plough and it was only after he'd finished that he noticed there was no paper in that cubicle, so he had to dress and nip into the next cubicle to finish off. That was how he got the stain."

The Sergeant nodded ponderously. "Aye, very understandable."

"Yes, well, Jamie was black affronted and flew right off the handle. Of course Sammy hadn't known about Jamie's difficulty and was sorry, but Jamie would have nothing for it but that the pair of them go outside. Sammy tried to talk him out of it but when he realised that Jamie was getting more and more embarrassed - and mad in proportion -he went out with him. Sammy talked the other lads out of going with them, he said they were just going to have a chat."

"Uh huh, and nobody else saw what happened out there?"

She shook her head. "Not as far as we were able to discover. According to Jamie they went out to the back bit of the car park, out of sight of the pub and away from the lights. Jamie was all for them having a fight but Sammy refused and said that if Jamie was dead set on hitting him he could just go ahead and do it, and he stuck his chin out. Jamie says he was so mad he took one good swing at it and Sammy went back against a car and slid to the ground. Jamie said something like 'That'll teach you a lesson, old pal' then went straight back inside. When Sammy didn't reappear he just thought he'd pushed off home on his own." She glanced from one man to the other. "I saw Jamie after he came back in and I must say he didn't look as if he'd just killed someone, accidentally or otherwise."

Murdo nodded understandingly. "I see, and are you believing all this?"

She shrugged. "Yes, I think so. Jamie stuck to his story back at the Station and nothing that anybody else said contradicted him in any way. It was just a terrible shame that Sammy had some sort of a weakness and it killed him."

"What did the autopsy say about that?"

"Not much really. The blow would have been enough to knock him out for a few minutes at most, but that's all. The bruising was consistent with Sammy having lived for just minutes after the blow was struck. There was no other sign of trauma - he didn't strike his head as he fell or anything like that. There was no asphyxiation either, the heart just stopped beating. There was no sign of any damage to the brain - no bruising or ruptured blood vessels - but the suggested cause of death was that some sort of malfunction of the brain had caused the heart to stop."

"Umph. Nothing else at all?"

She shook her head. "No - except for a swollen ankle and a small scratch under one arm. The swollen ankle was a result of him going over it during a game of football a couple of evenings before."

"And the scratch?"

"The Doctor didn't know. He suggested it might have been caused by leaning against a barbed wire fence."

"Umm." Murdoch pushed that around in his mind. "Umm, possible I suppose. But what would he have been doing leaning on a fence inside a field? Does he work on the land?"

"No, he works at the Atomic Plant." Then, out of curiosity, "Why would he have had to be inside?"

"You would only lean against a barbie fence at the post - in between the posts the wire would give enough to make you overbalance and really scratch yourself. But the wire is stapled to the inside of the posts so he would have had to be leaning against the inside - or maybe against a strainer post where the wire is wrapped round." He shrugged impatiently as if annoyed at himself for jumping to conclusions. "Did the Doctor say how long ago the scratch had been made?"

"No, I don't think so."

"What about strangers? Were there any outsiders at the dance or the pub that evening?"

She shook her head. "No, not really. It wasn't the sort of do where everybody knew everybody, but they were all part of the community for maybe ten miles around Inkrock so everybody was known by lots of other people."

There didn't seem to be much else to be learned from the young woman so Murdo raised a questioning eyebrow to the Inspector who took the hint and dismissed her to her duties.

When the door had closed behind her, Murdo asked, "What are you calling it? Misadventure or manslaughter?"

"As far as we can see it was just a tragic accident. Even if we had any inkling of suspicious circumstances - and we don't - the post-mortem doesn't leave us anything to go on. I think that everybody, including the Fiscal, will go for misadventure."

Murdo ran a hand around the back of his neck in mild embarrassment. "Och, but it does seem a wee bit unlikely, doesn't it? A fit young lad like that, playing football in the evenings and working in a place where they'd be getting regular medicals. I've never heard the like of it myself."

"No...oo, I must admit I haven't either. But what do you suggest?"

"Och, I'm thinking maybe you have the right of it, but my Superintendent will be wanting a report when I go back so I'd like to have a wee bit look around. If you wouldn't be offended, like."

The Inspector was obviously in two minds about the whole thing. He didn't like mysteries so if there was anything to be found out he wanted it done. However, he had an instinctive dislike of outsiders poking their noses into local affairs - and, if truth be told, he wasn't entirely sure that all the procedures had been carried out in accordance with the book. His reply was consequently lacking in enthusiasm. "No, no, we've nothing to hide. I take it that you want to look into all our procedures relating to the case?"

Murdo grimaced in horror at the thought. "I do not! If the Superintendent wants somebody to look at procedures he will chust have to be sending somebody else to do it. No, no, I'll be wanting to look around and get the feel of the case itself. I'm not for a minute thinking I'll be finding anything new but I'll be able to go back and tell the Super that I agree that it was chust an accident."

"Oh, yes, well, fine. Yes, feel free, and if you want anything from us you only have to ask." The Inspector's face lightened noticeably. A CID man turning up new evidence was one thing - after all, that was his job - but a CID man looking at procedures was altogether more sinister. "Where would you like to start?"

"Well, if you could chust be giving me a list of names and addresses of witnesses I'll have a wander round and have a look about. If I could pick up a copy of their statements later in the day it would be chust grand."

"No problem in that." He lifted his phone and spoke briefly into it. "It will just take a few minutes." Business over, he turned to pleasantries. "Came up last night, did you? Where are you staying?"

"The Plough. I thought I might as well be near the scene, and it seems comfortable enough."

"Aye, it is that, but they don't do much bed and breakfast nowadays. Harry says they don't really have enough rooms to make it worthwhile but I suspect that Big Bertha, his wife, has enough to do keeping Harry from drinking the profits without having to look after a lot of guests as well." He grinned. "Met Bertha yet, have you?"

Murdo shook his head. "No, but I noticed that mine host keeps his head well down when he's having a wee bit dram."

"Aye, and well he might. Big Bertha would make two of him, and she's a real hard nut. Comes of Aberdeen fisher folk and is the real brains behind the business. Formidable character but when you get to know her she's got a heart of gold - but don't you be telling her I said that!"

Murdo grinned and shook his head, an inspired gossip himself when it suited him, he appreciated this as a congenial way to absorb background colour. They chatted for a few more minutes before the receptionist came in with a large envelope. Murdo took it, stood up, shook hands with the Inspector and left. His first stop was the newsagents where he bought a street map and an Ordinance Survey map of the area. Then he strolled down a winding street to the harbour and sought out a small cafe he remembered from a previous visit. The place was fairly busy with holidaymakers but he took his cup of tea to a table where he could sit with his back to the wall and look at the list in reasonable privacy. When he opened the envelope he found that it contained a list of the names and addresses of witnesses as requested, but that it also contained statements from the principal witnesses. He glanced quickly through them and then put them back in the envelope, drained his cup and left.

It was nearly eleven o'clock and the sun was shining from a clear blue sky. Too fine a day to be cooped up in an office or questioning witnesses in their homes. He strolled along the harbour wall, down the steps onto the beach, along the beach and then onto the path at the far end. It was hot work climbing the path to the top of the cliffs and he was grateful to come to a set of steps leading down to a seat set on a flat rock a little way down the cliff. It was surrounded by a safety barrier and was obviously popular, being sheltered from both sun and wind. It was deserted, the holidaymakers presumably heading for an early lunch, so he sat down and spent a peaceful hour reading through the statements. They didn't tell him much that was new but he felt the old familiar satisfaction of getting into a case.

He returned to the Plough for lunch and then went to his room to jot down some notes. Never a very organised worker, he tended to spend long, apparently aimless, periods mulling things over in his mind, and then doing something outwardly constructive to tie up a loose end that was beginning to disturb the pattern of his thoughts. His note keeping was invariably nothing more than a personal diary to remind himself of what he'd done and thought day by day. Sometimes it was useful in pinning down exact times when the case came to court, but more often it merely served to stop him from going over old ground, or as a trigger to rekindle a useful train of thought. Today he had nothing to write but a few bare facts.

The window in his room was small and deeply recessed in the thick walls so the sunshine streaming through was like a silver lance in the dark room. He looked longingly at the bed, sighed deeply, tucked his notebook in his inside jacket pocket and went downstairs and out through the back door to the car park. There was a handful of cars clustered close around the door but none in the back car park where the fight had taken place and the body had been found. The pub stood in the middle of the frontage of what had been a large, almost square, garden. Part of it at the back had been sold off many years before, leaving a large rectangle with its long side along the narrow road and a small square big enough to hold six cars tagged on at one rear corner. It was all tarred over and almost completely surrounded by a seven-foot wall with full-grown sycamore trees leaning over it. It was in the small, secluded square that the fight and death had occurred.

Murdo strolled casually around and confirmed that even a man of his height couldn't see even a window from where the body had been found. He stood for a long time, head bent and deep in thought. Any foul play by Jamison, or when Jamison was outside, would have been very risky. If Jamison was involved he would have needed at least one other person to keep a lookout and guard against being surprised by someone nosey about the fight or by an arriving motorist. After Jamison had gone back into the pub the situation would have been easier. At eleven pm it would have been quite dark, and the high walls would have ensured that the solitary light at the back door of the pub would have favoured any miscreant by leaving the square in black shadow whilst illuminating all approaches. And the parked cars would have provided ample cover for the miscreant to melt away if anyone else did arrive. He must remember to check how full the car park had been.

None of the people questioned had been in the car park, or had observed anyone there, for at least fifteen minutes either side of the time of death. He rubbed his hand around the back of his neck and made a mental note to check how definitively the time of death was known. The main point was that foul play would appear to have been possible so, despite the negative medical evidence pointing vaguely towards an accident, he would have to do some more checking. He stood sucking his cheek and mentally wrestling with the first stirrings of interest in the case and the need to get back home to sort out his garden. The warm sun and blue sky decided him, "Och, och, a day or two won't hurt, and anyway it will be so dry that the weeds will near be stopped growing."

He strolled back to the Police Station and went in to see whether they had the rest of the statements ready yet. They had, so he took the bulky envelope, murmured his thanks and left. Gradually he became aware that he had left the town centre behind him and was walking along a quiet, leafy street towards the cottage hospital. Och well, the town Medical Centre was there so he might as well call in to see whether the doctor who had carried out the post mortem was available for a chat.

At first the receptionist was unimpressed by his police identity card but when he said, "Och, that's alright, I'll chust be having a seat here until he can see me," and deposited his ample frame on a chair immediately across the corridor from her window, she decided that it would be better to palm him off onto the doctor than to have him sitting there watching her read a book. She closed the sliding glass panel and turned her back on him before picking up the telephone and talking into it briefly. Then she knocked sharply on the glass, beckoned him over and slid the partition open slightly. "Dr Winn will see you now. His office is along there and his name is on the door." Without waiting for a reply she shut the glass and turned away.

Dr Winn proved to be a rather harassed looking old man with a shiny bald head fringed with a horseshoe of pure white hair. He stood up behind his desk and reached over to shake hands. "Good afternoon, I'm Winn. Do sit down."

"Afternoon, Sir. I'm Detective Sergeant Murdoch of the Inverness CID and I'd like to talk to you about the death of Samuel Murchison."

"Ah yes, a tragic case. He was one of the first children I delivered into the world after I arrived here nearly twenty years ago and I've known him all his life. Not well, of course, they're a healthy family the Murchisons, but as far as I know I'm the only doctor he's ever seen - except that is, for the medical examinations he got at work."

"Your report said you could find no reason for his death. I'd be grateful if you could explain that in layman's terms."

Winn eyed the Sergeant impassively for a long moment before speaking. "I'll start at the beginning, at least it was the beginning as far as I was concerned. I was called to the Plough by the police shortly after eleven pm on the night of the tragedy. They said they had received a message to the effect that a youth had been found dead in the car park there. I went there immediately, arriving just as the police were starting to clear onlookers from around the body. I ascertained that he was indeed dead, and then waited about half an hour until the body could be removed. I followed the ambulance back here and had the body taken straight to the mortuary and started the post-mortem. On examining the outside of the body I found bruising on the left side of the jaw, consistent with his having been hit by what could best be described as a right cross." He made a fist with his right hand and threw a slow-motion punch. "I then found that his left ankle was swollen and that he had a small scratch under his right armpit." He raised his right arm and indicated with his left hand where the scratch had been, about a hand-span down from the armpit.

"Those were the only external marks I could find, so I examined them more carefully. The bruised jaw was consistent with having been caused by a fairly hard punch by a bare fist, and the development of the bruising was such as to pinpoint accurately that his heart had ceased operating within two minutes of the blow being struck."

Murdo butted in. "Excuse me, Sir, but how accurate? Can you tell me the minimum and maximum time that could have elapsed between the blow and death?"

"Pretty accurate. A bruise develops very rapidly at first as the blood diffuses through the damaged tissue. The time between the blow and death couldn't have been less than one and a half minutes, and it couldn't have been more than three minutes. There's no doubt about that, these limits would encompass variables like age, general health, temperature and so on."

"What about if he'd gone into a coma or something when the blow was struck, would that have made a difference?"

The old doctor shook his head. "Not enough to make the times fall outside those I've quoted. In fact, I did wonder about that and looked it up. Even one and a half minutes is a very long time to stay unconscious after a blow to the jaw like that, and there were absolutely no signs that he'd ever regained consciousness, so I wondered why he had stayed out for so long. However, times do vary and a situation like this where someone sticks his jaw out and invites someone else to hit it can result in very large accelerations of the cranium. You know, of course, Sergeant, that the knockout effect in a case like this is that the heavy brain lags behind when the skull is struck so that the skull crashes into it."

Murdo nodded. "Chust in very general terms, Sir. Did you find anything later to support the idea that he'd been struck sufficiently hard to cause unconsciousness for more than a minute?"

"Well, perhaps, but only very marginally. I examined the brain most carefully and found nothing but very local bruising, certainly nothing like a haemorrhage or anything like that."

Murdo sighed. "Och well, Sir, there's not much point in me questioning you about the detail, I wouldn't understand it anyway. What I would be grateful for is if you could tell me what you think went on between the blow being struck and the young man being dead."

"Ah yes, that's the question, isn't it? Of course I don't know, I can only guess. It's extremely unusual, people are really very robust creatures and normally a blow to the head hard enough to cause death would leave the outside a very gory mess indeed. The only exception to that occurs in the boxing ring where a heavy blow from a padded glove can cause internal damage without much to show for it on the outside. But in that case there is no doubting the cause of death when the brain is examined." He shrugged. "I'm sorry to seem so evasive, Sergeant, but I simply can't suggest anything other than that the slight damage to the brain caused some sort of chain reaction that led to it shutting down completely. The brain is a very complex organ that we know little about so all things are possible, but ..." His voice trailed off.

"Sir, if I could maybe put it another way. Is there anything that could have caused the death even if the blow hadn't been struck?" He waved a massive hand helplessly. "Fear, shock, poison ... I don't know."

Winn clicked his dentures for a moment before answering. "Nothing that I was able to find - but that's not to say that it's impossible, there are some very funny chemicals about these days." He clearly didn't like this turn of conversation.

"Sir, I'm trying to decide whether foul play could have been involved, so let me be blunt. Given a man, newly knocked unconscious from a blow, is there anything you can think of that could kill him without leaving any more sign than you've found?" The Sergeant's normal soft West Highland tones had given way to the harder jargon of the Police College. No longer did he speak individual words in his natural accent and grammar, but instead uttered complete accent-less phrases in the way that an actor or singer will regurgitate pieces of ready-forged text.

"Dammitall, Man, how would I know? If this was a spy drama I'd be willing to believe that the KGB or CIA could do something like that, but this is a young man who got punched on the jaw behind a pub in a small town in the north of Scotland. I don't know what killed him but I don't see any reason to suspect foul play. These things do sometimes happen, not often but they do happen." His face had grown quite red. "Dammit, Sergeant, can't you realise that for these things to get in the text books somebody has to die from some observed effect, and then a thorough post-mortem has to be carried out and find nothing!"

"Yes, I see that, Sir." Murdo's voice was softly conciliatory as he changed tack. "You said there was a swollen ankle and a scratch. Can you tell me anything about them?"

"The ankle was slightly sprained a couple of days before when he was playing football. The state of the swelling is consistent with that. As for the scratch, I'd say it was done the day he died but it's difficult to be more precise because the sweat and the rubbing of the shirt at the dance would have left it looking raw. Maybe he did it whilst scratching an itch. Maybe one of his dancing partners did it. Maybe he leant against a barbed wire fence." He shook his head wearily. "I don't know, it was just a tiny scratch."

"Ahem, could it have been used to administer a drug, Sir?"

"For God's sake, Sergeant, I don't know. I carried out all the normal tests and found no sign of any toxins. Alright?"

Murdo stood up. "Och, Sir, I'm sorry to be persisting like this but I have to be asking these questions before I can discount foul play."

"And have you, Sergeant? Discounted foul play, I mean." His tone was acerbic.

"Och well, I've a wee bitty more to do yet before I'll be knowing one way or another. As to that, Sir, I hope you won't take it amiss if I ask for the body to be taken to Glasgow for further tests."

The doctor waved his hand resignedly. "No, of course not, you go ahead and do that. The best thing, in fact. If you're looking for science fiction drugs you'll be better off with their science fiction machines down there." He was suddenly just a frail old man. "Oh I'm sorry, Sergeant, I've no right to take out my bad temper on you. It's just that I brought that boy into the world, gave him all his inoculations, treated his occasional complaints and watched him grow up. And now I've had to cut his young body up to try to find out how he came to die without a mark on him. Even for someone who's been a doctor for as long as I have, that's not a pleasant thing to contemplate."

"I know, Sir. It's always worse when it's the young ones." He said his goodbyes and nodded in reply to the doctor's dispirited wave. He ambled back towards the town centre, mulling over the doctors words as he went. Nothing much gained really, but at least he now knew that the doctor was frustrated at having failed to discover the cause of death. He had reacted strongly against the suggestion of foul play, but had been able to offer neither proof nor conviction to the contrary. A cup of coffee and a sticky bun at the cafe by the harbour brought no dazzling insight so he crossed the footbridge over the river and strolled along the path, past the ruined castle and out along the low cliff tops.

The warm sun and the still air made him weary so when he came on an old man sitting on a slab of rock with his legs dangling over the edge he stopped and looked out on the shining water. "Och, isn't this chust a grand day to be out?"

"Aye, it is that. Ower warm for walking aboot with a suit on, anyroads." He looked Murdo up and down with lively curiosity. "Holidaying?"

"Och, chust for a day or two, and I couldn't have picked a better time, it seems."

"Been grand since the middle of May. Sometimes not very hot, breezy like, but it's been a dryer summer than any I can remember." He chuckled. "You folk frae the south always think it rains all the time up here."

"Och, and not without reason! I've been up here a few times and the weather has always been chust the very devil." Murdo grinned in reply.

"Well, well, you can't expect it to be fine all the time."

"All the time is it? I remember spending three weeks here a couple of years ago and it rained every day. Mind you, it might have been the same rain all the time for all I know because it was always going horizontally in the wind! When I complained about it, a bloke who'd lived here for about thirty years said, 'Och, it's not always bad, I remember the summer of fifty eight, what a grand day that was' and I think that's about the truth of it!"

The old man chuckled mightily. "That's a good one, and I'll grant that the weather here is a bit variable, but we do get more than one fine day a summer, it's just that we don't often get more than one good one at the time. Anyway, we don't want the word about our good weather to get around too much - it's all that keeps us from getting trampled underfoot by armies of tourists."

Murdo lowered his massive frame onto the rock beside the old man. "I'd have thought that the tourism would have been your main industry here."

"Naw. Ach, there's a fair bit of bed and breakfast, like, but it's the Atomics that bring the money in."

"The Atomics? Oh, you'll be meaning the folk that work at the atomic plant out the road."

"Aye, biggest employer in the area."

Murdo looked at him with interest. "Are you in favour of it, then?" The old man gave a cackle of a laugh. "I am and I'm not. I worked there for twenty years before I retired so I'm all in favour of it as an industry." He scowled suddenly. "What I'm not so keen on is the way it's changed the area. Och, there was a lot of poverty and emigration before but now the incomers have all the best jobs and are the new ruling class. Worse still, their wives have half the teaching jobs in the area so our kids are losing the local culture and language. Even when the folk that come in are from just a wee bitty south of here they use English. I suppose with the wireless and telly and papers it's the only common language we've got."

"Aye, it's the same down the West Coast, hardly anything owned by the folk born and bred tae the area. It's all English, Dutch and Chermans that own the Estates, retired folk frae the cities have the good houses, and hippies have got the wee crofties."

The old man warmed to the discussion. "That's exactly it! They sell a wee semi-detached house in one of the cities and can buy a farm up here and live like gentry on the proceeds. They don't farm the land - most of them couldn't get a dockan tae grow in the climate up here - they just stroll about on it and chase off the local folk that have wandered on it all their lives." He spat down onto the sands below and gestured towards the cliffs away out to their right. "See that big house up there on the cliff? Murie House. A good example of what we've been saying. It was the Laird o' Murie's house for God knows how many generations, but that was all a long time ago. The Murie Estate was broken up and sold shortly after the First World War - the Laird and both his sons were killed on the Somme. The family kept it as their country house until the late fifties, then it was sold to a businessman from London, and then in the sixties it was sold again and became a small hotel. But it wasn't really big enough for that so it's changed hands a few times since, as a restaurant or bed-and-breakfast place mostly. Then, just about eighteen months ago, the present owner, Christopher Bloody Roberts, bought it and has lived there with his wife and son ever since. He's a self-made man and as bigoted a bastard as you're ever likely to meet. He's tried to revive the auld title of Laird." He sneered. "But nobody in the area, even the well-off ones from the South, will have anything to do with him. Owns damn near all that headland, and tries tae stop folk from going onto it." His face had a dark, hooded look. "Tries all the Nazi tricks tae scare folk off but we'll last the bastard oot. Just you see, he'll be another of thae thousand day wonders, three winters and he'll be away back to the city."

"Is he English?"

"Naw, from Edinburgh." It obviously annoyed him to have to admit that a fellow Scot could do such things. "At least, he came here from Edinburgh but he's probably originally from further south." His mood changed again and he suddenly grinned. "Ach well, it's too grand a day tae be worrying about bastards like that. If we do we'll just be letting them steal oor sunshine as well, eh?"

Murdo weighed up the little man and grinned as he said, "Och, you've got the right of it - but if you didn't have folk like that to take your interest you'd die of boredom up here."

"G'wa wi' ye! There may be a lot more on of a night in a city but you can only go tae one thing at a time, so you might as well be here where there often is only the one thing on at a time. Besides, we have our moments, you know."

"Oh, such as?"

"Och, you name it and there's a club for it somewhere in the area. Folk make a lot of their own entertainment, or have clubs that bring in outsiders to entertain us. Any sort of music - pop singers, international Country and Western singers, Shetland fiddlers, classical music - we get them all. And there's clubs for every damn't thing from scuba diving to country dancing. It's the Atomics that's behind most of it, of course. I suppose they miss the city things they were used to before they came up here, but most of the local folk take advantage of it."

"A lot of country places make their own entertainment and bring in bands and things like that, but surely excitement is a thing that happens seldom here."

"Now that's just where you're wrong. Only a week last Saturday we had a mysterious death in the car park behind the Plough Inn. A young lad o' nineteen was found dead after a Saturday night dance. Got in a fight with his mate and was found dead later in the night."

"An accident, was it?"

"Naw! That's what they're saying but I dinna believe a word o' it. Sammy Murchison was a normal, fit young lad. It would have taken a gie bit more than a punch on the jaw from a wee lad like Jamie Jamison tae kill him. Naw! There's bliddy crime everywhere these days, he was murdered, just you mark my words."

"Was he robbed or anything like that?"

"Naw. He wouldn't have had anything tae rob. He was in his shirt sleeves."

"So why would anybody want tae murder him? Was there some ill-feeling?"

The old man continued to stare out to sea. "Nothing I've heard of, Sammy was a grand lad, everybody liked him. Well brought-up, I've known his folk all my life. None better. Naw, Sammy wasn't at odds with anybody, but some bastard killed him for all that. The same sort of mindless bliddy hound that rapes and murders wee bairns for nae other reason than that they're twisted and ken that the law nowadays just pats them on the head and sympathises with them for having had a deprived childhood." He shook his head angrily. "Ach well, maybe the lad is well oot o' this vale o' tears."

There seemed to be nothing more to be learned from the old man so Murdo just murmured, "Ah well, maybe you're right at that, but there's a lot of enjoyment as well as tears in life, especially for a nineteen year old" then lapsed into silence. After a few minutes he heaved himself to his feet, "Well, it's been fine talking to you but I'd better be getting on if I'm to see the high cliffs along there."

The old man raised a hand in salute. "The path goes for about thirty miles along the coast but you'll find it blocked off when you reach Murie land. Never heed it though, you've every right tae be there."

Murdo walked head-down and deep in thought until, just after passing the small village of Sandbay, he came to a huge heap of builders rubble covering the path and filling the narrow space between the cliff edge and a high barbed wire fence. He had obviously reached Murie land, so he turned and started to retrace his steps. With an effort he pushed the case out of his mind, all he could do was talk to some of the principal characters and then go home. That diverted his thoughts to his own garden and what it would need doing to it to repair the ravages of the Summer's neglect. It was with something of a surprise that he found that his long, countryman's legs had brought him back to Inkrock at just after five o'clock so he went to the Plough for a shower and change to see to the needs of his outside, and then to the bar for a pint of shandy to deal with his insides.

Mine Host joined him in a drink, but favoured a large whiskey instead of a shandy. "Been out sightseeing, then?"

"Aye. Walked out past the castle to the headland."

"Hah! No wonder you're dry enough to drink that stuff. You must have walked a good ten miles." He tossed off his drink and turned to refill his glass. "Better you than me."

"Och, it was a fine day and I enjoyed the walk. It's put a bit of an edge on my appetite, though. Any chance of eating a bit earlier tonight?"

"Well, we don't start serving meals properly until seven but if a salad and a cold sweet would do you can have it in less than half an hour." He caught Murdo's doubtful look and grinned. "Dinna worry, I can see that you need a good plateful, you won't rise hungry."

Murdo smiled ruefully. "Well, I'm not much of a salad man as a rule, though my wife keeps trying to convert me, but right now a salad at six o'clock beats a steak at seven."

The meal he sat down to at six hardly qualified for the name of salad since the small amount of vegetables was swamped by a mountain of cold meats. A generous plateful of fresh fruit salad and ice cream, followed by a pot of coffee and a cheese board satisfied even the Sergeant's massive frame.

It was nearly seven when he left the Plough to drive the five or six miles to the Murchison's small house set a mile or so inland of the village of Sandbay. He was met at the door by a sad-faced couple and introduced himself. "Hullo, are you Mr and Mrs Murchison?" When they nodded dumbly he continued, "I'm Detective Sergeant Murdoch of the Inverness CID. If it's not inconvenient I'd like to ask you a few questions about the death of your son."

The little man nodded "You'd better come in then." He stood aside to let his wife lead Murdo into the living room. The bereaved couple had received visits and support from relatives, friends and neighbours and had grown almost used to talking about their loss but they still had about them an air of bewildered devastation. Murdo sat in the proffered armchair at one side of the empty fireplace and waited whilst Jockie Murchison sat down in the facing chair and Beth Murchison sat on the sofa, then he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to be troubling you at a time like this but we have to make enquiries to determine the cause and circumstances of death."

"That's all right, Sergeant. You just ask your questions and we'll do our best to answer them."

"Tell me what your son did on that last day, particularly anything that was unusual."

It was Beth who answered. "Well, it was all a bit unusual because he was working. He didn't normally work on Saturdays but there was something urgent on so a few of them were in at the Atomic Plant that day. He got up as usual for a working day at ten minutes to seven - Sammy was always a good riser and got up whenever his alarm clock went off. He had his usual breakfast of cereal and then toast and tea and left the house about ten past seven to walk the mile to the village to catch the bus to the Atomic Plant where he was an Instrument Mechanic. He finished work at five and arrived home just before six. Then we all had tea together and Sammy washed the dishes and Morag dried." Her eyes were swimming at the memory. "He was good like that, he'd often tell me to have a rest whilst he did the dishes." She took a deep breath to steady herself. "Then Sammy went for a shower and got changed. He was just ready when one of his friends arrived to give him a lift to the dance at about half past seven."

As he listened, the big Sergeant watched Morag, Sammy's thirteen-year-old sister, enter the room and sit quietly on the sofa by her mother. Saw her hand creep surreptitiously into her mother's, although whether to give or receive comfort he couldn't tell. "Who was it that called for him?"

"I don't know, he didn't get a chance to come in, Sammy heard the car and rushed out still tying his tie."

"Was that normal, somebody calling for your son but not coming in?"

She nodded. "Yes. Both the kitchen and living room windows look right down our road so we usually see visitors before they arrive. Rather than have them get out of the car to fetch him, Sammy would usually go out to meet them."

Mr Murchison chipped in. "If you're wondering whether Sammy ever brought his friends into the house, the answer is yes he did. His mates were always welcome here."

Murdo nodded before asking, "Um, did you notice anything at all different about Sammy that day, or at any time during the few days before? I mean, did he seem in his normal good health and spirits, or did he seem at all down?"

"He was just the same as usual, his health was fine, he was eating his meals and he was just ... normal." His mother answered. "Sammy was always a very even tempered lad and we'd have noticed if anything was different."

Murdo nodded. "Can you think of any reason, any reason at all, for Sammy to die like that? Was there anything at any time - even when he was a baby - to suggest that he might have had a health problem?"

"No, never." Beth shook her head decisively and her knuckles gripping Morag’s hand were white.

"What about your families, did anyone in your backgrounds ever die or be taken ill in any way that might suggest a hereditary problem?"

Again Beth shook her head. "No, we've gone through all the relatives we can think of and have asked around among the older members of both families but we didn't come up with anything."

"I see." Murdo braced himself. "I have to ask this question - can you think of any reason why foul play might have been involved?"

They both looked at him for a long time, and he saw bewilderment slowly give way to horror. "You mean, murder?" Beth asked in a shocked whisper.

Murdo nodded. "I know it's very unlikely but we have to face the fact that when somebody dies for no apparent reason there might be a clever hand behind it."

"No! Jamie and Sammy were the best of friends, I won't believe that that nice boy had anything to do with Sammy's death! It was just bad luck." In defending Jamie, Beth showed the first true animation since he'd arrived, and her husband's expression showed that he agreed with her. "Sergeant, I'm sure you mean well but young Jamie has suffered enough as it is, don't you be suspecting him of murder now."

"I wasn't, but Jamie wasn't actually there when Sammy died. According to the report, Jamie punched Sammy and then returned to the pub leaving Sammy lying unconscious. The autopsy shows that Sammy lived for a few minutes after that - long enough for Jamie to return to the pub and somebody else to come along... ." He left the inference hanging in the air.

Jockie cleared his throat. "But why would anyone want to harm our Sammy? Everybody liked him."

"I don't know - but can you think of any reason why anyone might have wished your son ill? It might not have been intended as murder, just a bit of revenge, or a warning, something like that could have gone wrong."

"No I can't. I don't believe our Sammy had an enemy in the world, and that's the truth." Jockie was quite unequivocal, and his wife nodded her agreement.

Murdo stood up. "Well, I've taken up enough of your time. But if you think of anything at all please let us know."

When he arrived back at the Plough he bought a pint of beer in the public bar and carried it up to his room to write up his notes whilst they were still fresh in his mind. He looked again at the police report and saw that there was no mention of Sammy getting a lift to the dance. A bit sloppy, that.

The next morning he visited the Police Station and was greeted slightly warily by Inspector Neil Pollock. "Well, well, Murdo, and how's it all going?"

"Och, just plodding along, you know how it is. I had a word with Murchison's parents last night and they were saying that young Sammy got a lift to the dance with a mate, but the report makes no mention of that. Would you be knowing who it was?"

The Inspector's face darkened at an outsider finding such an omission. "No I don't offhand but I'll find out. Just wait here a minute and I'll get Sergeant Gill, he was in charge of the questioning team."

Murdo smiled ruefully as the Inspector left the room, understanding his chagrin at having such an omission exposed. He returned a few minutes later with WPC Murray in tow. "Humph, Gill's off ill, tripped and put his hand through a glass-topped bedside table. He's been signed off for a week. Humph, drunk likely," he added darkly. "Anyway, you've met WPC Murray, haven't you? She'll fill you in."

Murdo waited for the slightly flustered Policewoman to sit down, and then smiled benignly. "Hullo again. I visited the Murchisons yesterday evening and they said that their son had been picked up and taken to the dance by a friend. Do you know who that friend was?"

"Not for certain, Sergeant, but it's likely to have been Allan McAllan from Tornaquirt Mains. If you like, I can make a 'phone call and find out for sure."

"Tell me first why you think it was him."

"Him and Sammy and Jamie have always been great friends. They were very close at school but Allan works on his father's farm to the south east of Sandbay so he wasn't quite so close to the other two after they went to work at the Atomic Plant. They were still great friends though and since he's the only one of them with a car he usually picked up Sammy when they were coming into town to meet up with Jamie."

Murdo switched his attention to the Inspector. "I think I'll be having a wee run out to see the lad. I don't suppose you could lend me Miss Murray to show me the way, could you?"

Eager to make amends for the slip-up, the Inspector readily agreed. "Surely, Murdo, surely. In fact, you might find her useful if you want to talk to some of the other witnesses. We're a bit slack just now so you can call on her as you like for the rest of the week."

"Thank you, Neil." He turned to the woman. "That doesn't upset any of your plans, does it?"

"No, Sergeant, I have nothing in particular on at work, and I'm free in the evenings too."

"Watch her, Murdo, she has ambitions to be a detective so she'll be picking your brains," grinned the Inspector.

"Och, only Inspectors and above have brains, we Sergeants only have big feet." Murdo chuckled in return.

They walked to the Station car park together and WPC Murray unlocked the door of a police Ford Escort. "Do you want to drive, Sergeant, or shall I?"

"No, no, I don't think there'd be enough room for me to drive this thing." She unlocked the passenger door and pushed the seat fully back for him. Even then it was a tight fit. Once they were clear of the town he turned to get a good look at her. "What's your name?"

"Carol, Sergeant."

"Do you mind if I use it?" She shook her head. "Good, mine's Murdo. Now, Carol, what do you make of Sammy Murchison's death?"

She hesitated, wondering whether this was a trick to get her to commit herself so that he could demonstrate his superior knowledge. He looked a nice enough man and had behaved in a gentlemanly way in the office but she knew that a lot of men changed their spots when they got a girl alone. She answered carefully. "Well, Sergeant - Murdo - nothing in the evidence contradicts the official line that Sammy had some sort of weakness that caused his death and that the blow to the jaw was the more-or-less innocent trigger that initiated the chain of events." She hesitated again and he waited patiently. "On the other hand, there's nothing to corroborate the two critical bits of evidence. Nobody can confirm that the punch-up took place as Jamie said it did, and the post-mortem showed not one shred of evidence to prove what actually caused the death."

"So, what would you do?"

She shrugged. "I would have the body examined by a real forensic expert - old Doctor Winn is a good doctor and a very nice man but his interests really lie with the living, not the dead. And I would keep looking. In the absence of real forensic evidence about the cause of death I think we should treat it as a death in suspicious circumstances and try to winkle out the truth by being persistent." She shrugged again and smiled, "But I'm only a WPC on general duties so what would I know?"

He nodded and smiled, she spoke her mind and he liked that trait in a person, deviousness was just too much trouble. "Good enough, Lass. Well, I've already arranged for a further post-mortem to be done by Doctor Sommers at Glasgow, and they don't come better than him. And I agree that we should do a bit of digging. We'll start with this McAllan character so tell me what you know about him."

"Nothing of much interest, really. He's nineteen or twenty years old and a farmer's son, not a very big place, about a hundred and fifty acres arable and maybe another couple of hundred hill. He's got three sisters, all older than himself. Two of them are married and the other is engaged. Allan and Sophie live at home with their parents. Allan works on the farm - his father's not so fit anymore, he'd be just in his mid fifties I guess but he's got a bit of a history of heart trouble. Sophie is a secretary in a solicitor's office in Inkrock and is engaged to an Englishman who works at the Atomic Plant - a chemist, I think. Allan is a cheery sort of guy, always laughing and joking. He was the joker of the trio - Sammy was sort of mature and serious, and Jamie could be a bit sulky and snappy." She paused in her quick-fire delivery and glanced at him, "That's about it I guess, I don't really know him all that well."

"Did they all see much of each other?"

"Yes a fair bit I think. They'd be together at some hop or other most Saturday nights, and they played football most Wednesdays in the summer and squash at least once a week in the winter. They visited each other's houses a lot too, Allan would visit and have meals with Sammy and Jamie when he was in town, and Sammy and Jamie would often go out to help Allan on the farm."

"I see, and would you think that they might have been capable of getting up to any mischief?"

She glanced at him quickly and then returned her gaze to the road and shook her head. "No, not really. Jamie might on his own, he's desperate to buy a car and would do most things for money, but the other two would have kept him in hand." ???????????????

They turned onto the farm track at the barely decipherable sign that proclaimed just 'Tornaquirt'. Murdo's head banged rhythmically against the roof as Carol tried to negotiate the pot holes. "My God, Lassie, it's easily seen that you're a town squeak and learned to drive on tarred roads. If there's a bluidy pot hole in this road you haven't hit I'd be surprised."

She chuckled at the sight of the massive man crouching and hanging on like grim death. "It's your own fault, Sergeant, if you weren't so heavy this car might have some suspension travel left."

They parked in the muck of the farm yard and got out, Carol lithely and Murdo like a slow-motion Jack-in-the-Box. He stretched mightily and pulled his jacket straight. "Ah, that's better. It's high time there was a policy of buying Range Rovers for the full-grown men in this Force."

They walked to the back door of the house and knocked loudly. A large, grey haired woman answered the door, wiping her hands on the wrap-around apron. "Och it's yourself, Carol. I suppose it'll be Harry you're wanting, he's up on the hill having a look at the sheep but he'll soon be down for his breakfast so you might as well come in and wait."

"No, Mrs McAllan, it's Allan that we'd like to see." She stood aside. "This is Detective Sergeant Murdoch from the Inverness CID. He'd like to talk to Allan about the night that Sammy Murchison died."

They shook hands and she invited them into the kitchen. "Alan's over at Upperton seeing about getting the combine for next week but he should be back soon. Will you have a cup of tea and a scone whilst you're waiting?"

"If that's your scones I smell baking, I certainly will," chuckled Murdo.

"Well, sit you down and I'll get the kettle boiled." She used her apron to push the kettle onto the middle of the Rayburn hotplate, then turned to look at them. "Has a date been set for the release of the body yet?"

Carol shook her head. "No, and I think it might be a while yet."

"Och it's a terrible shame. Poor Beth and Jockie won't start getting over it until they have him decently buried."

Before they could reply, the outside door banged open and a thin, balding man came into the kitchen. "Well then, Lass, it's been a while since you were last out here."

Carol introduced Murdo to Harry McAllan and they all settled around the kitchen table for a cup of tea and some freshly made scones. Talk was typical country gossip. The Sergeant, who travelled around a large area, regaled the farming folk with snippets of news of acquaintances spread far and wide, and the farmer and his wife added their own tid-bits that in turn would be disseminated to others. In the old days this role had been filled by the travelling tinkers, then later by the provision vans that took the shops to the customers. Now, sadly, the new-found freedom of the telephone and the car was left to fill the gap left by the demise of the vans. And they did it but poorly, perhaps bringing closer the inner circle of friends but always hopelessly inadequate for dealing with the wider circle of acquaintances. Murdo knew all this and mourned the passing of the old ways, but he did what he could to substitute for the loss and often reflected wryly that the isolated folk's thirst for news led them to a symbiotic relationship with the police. It was rare to get a deliberate or unambiguous tip-off but it was surprising how often the background picture provided by the gossip served to highlight anomalies of interest to the police.

Half an hour and two more rounds of tea slipped past before the sound of a vehicle was heard. Murdo sighed regretfully and made to get up. "Well, Mrs Allan, that was just grand. I wish we could get you to do the catering back at the Station." She knew full well he probably said that to all the women - thereby ensuring that he was never far from a cup of tea - but she also knew that her baking was good and she blushed a little with pleasure. "No need to get up, Sergeant. We've plenty to do so if you want to see Allan alone I'll just pour his tea and we'll leave you to it."

The young man who entered was of strapping build and burned as brown as a berry from a summer of working outdoors. He beamed at Carol, "What's this then, do you think I'll confess and give myself up if they send my favourite policewoman to get me?" He sat down and his mother pushed a mug of tea in front of him, saying, "You mind your manners, Lad, this is Detective Sergeant Murdoch and he's here to question you."

Allan looked at the Sergeant and grinned. "Oh, oh, what have I been doing now?"

"I'm looking into the circumstances surrounding the death of Samuel Murchison and would like to ask you some questions. I believe that you gave the deceased a lift to the dance?"

"Yeah, sure, it was a standing arrangement on Saturday nights. Sammy didn't have a car so I used to call in for him on the way into town." There was no tension in the voice and his face was open and friendly.

"Was there anything at all unusual about that night?"

The young man shrugged. "No, I don't think so. Mind you, after Sammy dying like that I don't remember anything about the evening up to the point of the fight."

"Sammy was his usual self?"

"Yes, I think so. He certainly didn't seem worried or anything like that if that's what you mean."

"What about during the dance, did anything unusual happen?"

Again he shook his head. "No, but what is all this? Was Sammy's death not an accident?"

"We're just investigating all possibilities, Sir. Can you think of any reason why the death might not have been accidental? Had Sammy any enemies, or had he been involved in anything that might have got him in bad with somebody?"

"Christ no! Ask Carol, she'll tell you that Sammy was one of the nicest, decentest, most helpful, most even tempered guys you could wish to meet. Everybody liked Sammy, and that's the truth."

Murdo continued the questioning for another ten minutes and then they took their leave. Carol slipped behind the wheel and as Murdo went to get in Mr McAllan came out of the byre and walked towards the car. His voice was low so that only Murdo could hear. "That was an awful business with young Sammy Murchison, Sergeant. Was it an accident or is foul play suspected?"

"As far as we know it was misadventure but we must investigate the circumstances fully, just to make sure."

"Aye, well, I would look real careful if I was you. I've heard that these lads were keeping some funny company." He muttered darkly.

"Sammy? What sort of company?"

"Not Sammy so much, but young Jamie has been a bit friendly with Josh Jaffery, and through him with the Laird o' Murie's son." His voice was tinged with sarcasm and disapproval.

"Is that so, is that so?" The sergeant waited for more but Harry had said his piece and there would be nothing more to be learned from him today.

They drove back to town in near silence. Carol tried to make some light-hearted conversation but after a couple of grunted replies she shrugged and concentrated on her driving.

As they walked from the car to the Station, Carol asked, "Will you be needing me any more, Sergeant?"

"Well, if you could spare the time this evening I'd like you to have a word with the two lassies who were at the dance with Sammy and Jamie. If necessary I'll have a go at them myself later but," he looked at her, "I think they might speak more freely to you than to me. I wouldn't try any hard questioning, just get them to chat about anything that might have a bearing on the case. Don't concentrate too much on the dance itself, try to get the background of themselves, Sammy, Jamie, their friends, any enmities, anything like that."

Her eyes shone at the prospect of detective work. "Okay, but they'll probably be together, they live in the same street and are well nigh inseparable."

"Och, that's okay, Lass. Chust get them to talk and keep your ears open - that's what detecting is all about. Whilst you're doing that I'll have a word with young Jamison. If you want to fill me in on what you find I'll be at the Plough from about eight o'clock onwards. Otherwise, I'll see you at the Station first thing in the morning. Okay?"

"Yes, fine. I'll try to see you at the Plough, then."

After lunch Murdo again took advantage of the fine weather to do his thinking on the move. He walked along the coastal path to Sandbay, soaking in the sunshine and relishing the light on-shore breeze. On arriving at the village he turned inland and took the poorly-maintained, single-track road that curved inland and then back north-west towards Inkrock. The land rose only a few hundred feet but it gave him an eagle's eye view of the flat coastal strip, the sparkling blue sea and the scattering of tiny islands.

He saw the Murchison's house about a quarter of a mile to his left, and then a flash of yellow caught his eye and he saw that someone was running along by the hedge stretching from the house to the road he was on. He reached the end of the hedge just as the figure dashed breathlessly out onto the road. "Och, it's young Morag Murchison. And where are you running to on such a hot day?" He smiled as he looked down at her from his great height.

She started with surprise and seemed shy but she answered readily enough. "I'm going to see my Grandad."

"Oh, and where does Grandad live?" She pointed towards a small, whitewashed croft house set on the side of a low hill just inland of where the road they were on curved round to the west. "Up there. I go along this road to the burn and then go up the track."

"Och well, you're going the same way as I am so if you're not in a hurry you can walk along with me and tell me your news." When she was silent he added. "Do you go up and see your Grandad a lot?"

"Yes, I like it up there. I have to get some eggs anyway." She fell silent again and walked along beside him. Suddenly, without taking her eyes from the road ahead, she said, "It wasn't an accident. Our Sammy was murdered."

His first thought was that she had listened to his questions about the possibility of murder and was just trying to rationalise a bewildering situation. He knew that Sammy and Morag had been very close, the six or seven years between them being enough to make Morag look up to her big brother, and for Sammy to indulge his little sister. "What makes you think that, Morag?"

"He went to Grandad's house to try to speak to him on the evening before he was killed - about nine o'clock it was. I was up the hill", she gestured to the low hill to their left, "and saw him at the house. I came along here to meet him and told him that Grandad had got a lift into Inkrock with Jack Tait. He said that he had wanted to talk to him about something but that he'd see him on Sunday -Grandad always comes back with us after church and stays for lunch and tea."

"Did he now? And did he say what he wanted to talk to Grandad about?" He kept his voice calm despite his rising interest.

"I asked him but he wouldn't tell me." There was disappointment and disapproval in her tone.

"Tell me exactly what he said. Can you remember?"

"Of course I can. I told him where Grandad was and when he'd be back. He said that it would just have to wait then. So I asked him what he wanted to see him about, and he said it was a police matter. I said he should go to the police station, but he said he wanted to ask Grandad's advice first."

"I see. And you've no idea what it might have been about?"

She shook her