A Double Death on the Black Isle

by A. D. Scott

  An excellent move, Mr. Fiscal, thought Calum, leaving everyone in court, reliving that morning with Allie Munro.

  Calum stood. “Mr. Munro, I am sorry you lost your son.”

  He paused, ostensibly to allow the witness to recover. Calum had been watching Allie Munro throughout his testimony. He had been waiting for some bend in the flow of the story, but he felt not a ripple.

  “Tell us about the night Fraser went out and didn’t return. Did you hear anything unusual that night?” Although Calum’s voice was soft, it had the knack of carrying to every corner of the room.

  “Not a thing.”

  “Are you a heavy sleeper?”

  “I am that. It’s hard work on a farm.”

  “Did you hear the other farmhands return?”

  “No, I never did.”

  “Dogs, did you hear dogs in the night?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Early that morning, was there anything different?”

  “No.”

  As Calum questioned the witness he sensed, no felt, something was bothering Mr. Alistair Munro—he was answering the questions with too much certainty. It could be the courtroom, it could be the sight of the men who had attacked his son, it could be he was telling everything he knew. Calum did not believe for one moment the man was lying, but there is something unsaid, he thought.

  What? Calum asked himself. I have no idea, he concluded. So he said, “I have no more questions.”

  Allie Munro’s face remained its clear, trustworthy self. But deep in his brain, as brief as lightning, visible only if you were looking into the hazelnut brown of his eyes, there was a flash of relief. And Calum was looking. It was a trick one of his professors had taught him. Watch them when they think it is all over, he had told Calum.

  Calum watched. Now he knew. He looked at Allie, holding his eye for a fraction of a second, then nodded, letting him know he knew. Then Calum sat down.

  Allie Munro waited. All in the room waited quietly, recovering from the testimony. The hush had an intensity to it; to lose one’s child was a fate no one should have to bear.

  “Thank you, Mr. Munro.” The sheriff looked at the clock. “Court will reconvene at two o’clock.”

  The shuffling and rustling of people and of papers was all that could be heard as the court dismantled until the next session.

  Joanne and Rob left together and stood outside on the pavement, waiting for Mrs. Ross.

  “I thought Calum Sinclair would have had more questions, didn’t you?” Joanne asked.

  “My father says you have to be part-actor, part-lawyer when it comes to appearing in court,” Rob replied, “and that last round was all about timing. See, the jury was so overwhelmed by Allie Munro’s story, it was the wrong time to ask too much.”

  “What a thing to have happen, to find your child like that. . . .”

  “Joanne,” said a woman’s voice.

  Joanne turned. “Hello, Mum.” She stepped forward and took her mother-in-law’s arm. “Are you all right? You’re not looking too good.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Ross,” Rob said. “Why don’t you wait here with Joanne for a minute. I’ll borrow a car and give you a lift home.”

  “That’s right good of you,” Mrs. Ross said. “I’m fine. Really. It was just hearing all that about finding Fraser.”

  “I know,” Joanne said. “Tell you what, I’m coming home with you, and I am making the tea. Won’t be as good as yours, but you’re letting someone look after you for once.”

  The poor soul, Joanne thought. She really must be feeling unwell, I’ve never known her to take up an offer of kindness on first asking.

  Rob thought the afternoon session was another triumph for the procurator fiscal’s side.

  The fiscal, although a cautious man, felt that once he had a McPhee on the stand—it didn’t matter which brother—he could conclude his case confident the accused would do his job for him.

  Next to them, on an easel, standing close to the jury where all the court could see, was a large, simplified map of the area.

  Geordie McPhee was called.

  Good choice, thought Calum, he’s the most glaikit of the two.

  “Mr. McPhee, let’s go through this with the aid of the map,” the fiscal started.

  The accused looked around to see who Mr. McPhee was before he realized it was himself.

  “You and your brother had a fight with Fraser Munro here.” The fiscal was using a teacher’s pointer to touch the spot on the map where the hotel was clearly marked.

  “No a fight really, more like pushing n’ that,” Geordie replied.

  “When you and your brother left the car park, where was Fraser Munro?”

  “In the middle, lying on the ground.”

  Calum tried his best not to groan.

  “Then, Mr. McPhee, when you walked home, on this road,” again he used the pointer, “you were not too far ahead of Fraser Munro and his friends.”

  “Aye, we could hear them behind us.”

  Calum scribed a note to himself that Fraser couldn’t be that badly injured if he set off home immediately after the fight. Remembering his own warning, he put a line through the word “fight,” and scribbled “scuffle.”

  “After the turnoff here,” the fiscal said, “you walked past the schoolhouse here,” again the gesture with the pointer, “and you set the dogs off.”

  “Aye, we did that.” Geordie smiled as he remembered him and his brother shouting and singing to annoy the schoolmaster, who had given them many a belting with the extra heavy tause when they were boys.

  “Now, Mr. McPhee, the Devil’s Den, where Fraser Munro was found, is here. Diagonally across this woodland.”

  Calum realized that the fiscal was now into a rhythm. With his map and his pointer and his “Mr. McPhee” this and “Mr. McPhee” that, he was making an impression on the listeners.

  The fiscal was not a man that anyone would notice in real life. He was the person whom witnesses would say was “ordinary.” Ordinary height, ordinary brown hair—even his wife would have to pause and think if asked his eye color. But a gown and wig transformed him into a creature of stature and authority, and his wits sharpened when he donned the costume of office.

  “Aye.” Again Geordie agreed. “That’s the Devil’s Den right enough.”

  “So you could have,” the fiscal said, with the emphasis clearly on the “could,” “quite easily cut through the woods here to the Devil’s Den?”

  Calum shot up with an objection, but not before the fatal reply.

  “No easy, but aye, we could have. . . .”

  The final bit of Geordie’s sentence was lost in the objections and the sheriff overruling the objections, so no one heard the faint, “But we didney.”

  Calum looked down at his papers—he daren’t look at the jury after that answer.

  “Let’s go back to the hotel car park.”

  Once again Calum recognized a clever move and knew this would be the last question. Returning to the fight would leave the scene vivid in the minds of the jury.

  “You said there was some pushing and shoving. Did you kick Fraser?”

  “Only on his legs.”

  “Did your brother kick him too?” the fiscal asked.

  “He wanted to get stuck into him, but thon farm boys stopped the fun.”

  “Did you kick him again? When he was on the ground?”

  “Only the once when his friends wisney looking,” the accused replied cheerfully.

  The procurator fiscal looked around in a careful, exaggerated turn of the head, his eyes sweeping the jury and said, “No more questions.”

  It was no surprise to Calum Sinclair, but some of the spectators and most of the jury thought it abrupt when the procurator fiscal turned to the sheriff and announced that he had no more witnesses to call.

  His case was simple and straightforward and hard to refute. The McPhee brothers hit Fraser Munro. Fraser Munro died.

  Better the fiscal leaves
it at that, Calum thought, than to allow the time gap to be examined too closely.

  And better to leave when the appearance of Allie Munro was fresh, and the disaster named Geordie McPhee was imprinted on the minds of every juror.

  No, Calum thought, me neither, no more questions, get Geordie off the witness stand as fast as possible.

  “I have no questions at this point,” Calum said.

  “In that case, we will have a fifteen-minute break,” the sheriff announced. “Then Mr. Sinclair, you will present your case.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  The girls were delighted with the idea of spending deadline night with their Aunty Chiara.

  “It’s good practice for me,” Chiara said when she offered to look after the children. “Tell you what, let them come over for the Tuesday night of the trial as well. You can have the night off to go gallivanting.”

  “Gallivanting on a Tuesday in the Highlands,” Joanne laughed. “What possibilities that conjures up!” But she loved the novelty of solitude and accepted the offer.

  Annie even agreed to Aunt Chiara meeting them in the afternoon, at the school gates. Chiara was beautiful, foreign, exotic; to Annie she was a heroine from a book, a star from a film, she was someone whom Annie could boast about in the school playground. Best of all, she let Annie try on her dresses and jewelry.

  Wee Jean was happy because Chiara always gave them ice cream.

  “How was school today?” Chiara asked as they walked home.

  “Fine,” Annie replied, thinking why do grown-ups always ask that? School is school.

  They reached the river. Directly opposite, the castle filled the southern skyline.

  “That’s where they have the court for bad people,” Annie pointed to the reddish sandstone not particularly attractive Victorian construction. “Mum will be there for her job on the newspaper.”

  “Yes, she will,” Chiara agreed

  “Will they lock the bad men away?” Jean asked.

  “That depends,” Chiara answered.

  “First of all they have to be sure that they are the men who did it.”

  “Granny said they killt Aunty Agnes’s boy,” Wee Jean spoke, in an exact, unconscious imitation of her granny’s voice.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Chiara told them. “That’s why there is a trial, to find out what happened.”

  “Of course they did it,” Annie said. “Why else would they be in gaol?”

  Chiara thought, this conversation is tough. I wonder if this is what it is like being a parent? “Not everyone who is locked up is guilty.”

  “What’s ‘guilty’?” Wee Jean asked.

  “It means they did it,” her sister said with an air of “I know everything,” “and they will go to gaol.”

  And around the town and in the county and in the Highlands, the same conversation with the same attitudes had the accused guilty before being tried. After all, they wouldn’t be there if they hadn’t done something, went the reasoning. “And I heard . . .” went many a comment. “My cousin, uncle, friend, the farmer up the road, was telling me . . .” went many a conversation.

  Chiara was distressed at the thought of anyone being locked up in that nineteenth-century horror of a gaol. She had visited there once when her husband had been detained, only for two days and one night, and she had been shaken to the bone.

  “Annie, you are old enough to know that everything is not always as it seems.”

  Annie looked confused, but the sentence stayed with her. It was a sentence, uttered lightly, but a sentence she knew was important. She was a child who would think about it, consider the idea of it, just as she would ponder a difficult sentence in a book her granny thought was too old for her. Then she would store it away for a future she was certain would not be in this town of her birth.

  “Now, let me see.” Chiara stopped. She put on a little show for the girls. Pretending to look puzzled, she put her forefinger to her check, cocked her head, and said, “I don’t think we have anything for pudding. Should we go to the café for ice cream?” She laughed at the shrieks of agreement. “But you have to eat all your dinner . . . including the vegetables.”

  High above town, the court had resumed sitting.

  Joanne finished her article on plans for a golf course, then ran down the stairs to the administrative office and dumped a sheaf of typing on Betsy Buchanan’s desk.

  “Mr. McAllister said to give you the typing. I have to be in court.”

  She was out the door before Betsy could complete the protest that began, “But I . . .” Joanne was smiling as she hurried up the wynd.

  When Joanne arrived the afternoon session was about to resume and McAllister had joined Rob on the courtroom benches. She pushed her way in and sat next to Rob, faintly disappointed it was not McAllister she was squashed up against.

  When the witness was called for the defense, it took a moment or two for Rob to realize what was happening. “This is unusual,” he whispered.

  Joanne raised her eyebrows in question. Rob sat closer and they bent their heads together, touching. It could have seemed intimate to an outsider, but to Joanne, Rob was her pesky wee brother.

  “Calum is calling his own expert to question the postmortem findings,” he explained.

  Joanne nodded. Although she had no idea what this signified, in the company of McAllister she wanted to appear worldly.

  Calum was reading out a long list of qualifications of the consultant pathologist, one Dr. Mitchell of Edinburgh, whom Calum Sinclair had asked to appear for the defense.

  Aside from being eminent in his profession, Dr. Mitchell was a prickly man. Small, immaculate, intolerant to having his authority questioned, he had a brusque manner that intimidated juries. But his certainty in his opinions was well founded—he knew the secrets of death.

  The train journey from Edinburgh had not improved his demeanor; there had been no kippers on the dining car breakfast menu. He was also determined to make the evening train home—to him the Highlands were as barbaric now as they had been in the time of Dr. Johnson’s celebrated journey.

  The preliminaries over, Calum Sinclair began the case for the defense.

  “You have read the finding of the postmortem conducted by . . .”

  “Of course, that is why I am here.”

  Not a good start Calum thought, but kept calm.

  “And you came to the Highlands to conduct your own examination of the deceased.”

  “I did.”

  “Dr. Mitchell, I would like to ask about the time of death.”

  “I agree with my colleague’s opinion, it was between three and six in the morning.”

  “About the cause of death . . . ?” Calum asked.

  “I agree with my colleague. Cerebral hemorrhage.”

  Calum paused. Dr. Mitchell looked at him. Dr. Mitchell saw the cogs in Calum’s brain freewheel. In normal circumstances, he would sit in the witness box and watch the council for either party stew and sweat, and he would relish the spectacle. But there was a train to catch.

  “Yes,” Dr. Mitchell elaborated, “cerebral hemorrhage caused by a blow to the head.” He paused. Always create a nice piece of drama was another of Dr. Mitchell’s maxims. “It is probable that the fatal blow was struck within an hour of the victim’s death.”

  “What?” Calum was stunned.

  The murmur that rattled the courtroom indicated that he was not the only one.

  “Could you repeat that, please?” the sheriff asked.

  “The bruising was along the hairline and it is probable that the fatal blow was struck approximately one hour before death.” The consultant pathologist was enjoying the commotion. “The bruising was along the hairline, so it was easy to miss. But it was this blow which caused a massive and rapid buildup of blood in the cavities of the skull, which in turn put pressure on the brain and caused death.”

  “You are sure?” the sheriff asked.

  “Of course I’m sure.” Dr. Mitchell was cross. He h
ad an hour to get to the station otherwise it meant staying the night in this outpost of civilization. “I came all the way up here from Edinburgh, I examined the body, I know what I saw.”

  So why didn’t you tell me, Calum was thinking, why only let me know now?

  “If you weren’t looking for it,” Dr. Mitchell continued, “it was not obvious. The blow was at the base of the skull with little bruising, caused by the proverbial blunt instrument. And yes, it could have been caused by a kick. As I have already stated the blow was certainly administered in the early hours of the morning, between four and five-thirty, and if I were asked an opinion . . .” this last part was said to Calum, who was standing staring at the pathologist, “I’d say the blow was struck nearer five-thirty than four. It is there in my report.”

  “Ah yes,” Calum said, “the addendum to the first report. The one I received from you this lunchtime.”

  “I had to be certain,” Dr. Mitchell said, and glared at Calum.

  Calum glared back.

  Dr. Mitchell was not one to give credit to others, particularly the local doctor, a lowly general practitioner, but he broke his own rule—two of his own rules; he gave evidence without being asked.

  “If you look at the detailed notes the local doctor made at the scene of the crime, you can see that he had the foresight to take the deceased’s temperature. The body was warm, the temperature had hardly dropped, hence my conclusion as to the time of death.”

  Not now, Calum told himself, don’t let the pompous old fart get to you. But why on earth didn’t he tell me this before? Why wasn’t it included in his report?

  The procurator fiscal was also furious. DS Wilkie had not provided him with a copy of the local doctor’s medical report, only his statement.

  “I see no mention of this in the post mortem report. Why is that?” Calum asked.

  “Because the man is a GP, not a qualified pathologist.”

  Leave it at that, Calum told himself. The man’s medical bombshell is more than we could have hoped for—even if he is an arrogant so-and-so.

  “Thank you, Dr. Mitchel.” Calum said and sat back down at his table.

  The procurator fiscal rose.