A Carriage For Lochee by Malcolm Archibald

Author:Malcolm Archibald [Archibald, Malcolm]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Next Chapter

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Watters froze. “Whoever you are,” he said. “I advise you to lower your weapon at once. I am a police officer.”

“Turn around slowly!” The pressure eased slightly.

Watters turned around to see Fergus MacPhee holding a sawn-off shotgun, a poacher’s weapon, in his strong hands.

Watters relaxed slightly. “Fergus MacPhee! What the devil are you doing here? I thought you’d be long gone from the area by now!”

“Sergeant Watters!” MacPhee lowered his weapon and uncocked the hammers of his shotgun.

“Why have you remained here?” Watters repeated.

“Unfinished business,” MacPhee said.

“Has it to do with the murder of Tam Stewart?”

“Always the policeman, aren’t you?” MacPhee asked, with a faint smile on his long face. “What are you doing here?”

“Hunting down illicit whisky distillers,” Watters said. “And watching men I think were involved in the murder of Tam Stewart and the theft of Mr Cox’s coach.”

“You got the carriage back safely, Sergeant Watters,” MacPhee said.

“We did. And you got the handcuffs off, I see.”

MacPhee grinned, with his teeth white in the dark. “I did,” he said. “Are you heading off back to Dundee tonight?”

“Not tonight, Fergus,” Watters told MacPhee his plans.

MacPhee glanced up the hill. “Come with me, Sergeant. I’ll find you a better bed than a mattress of nettles.”

MacPhee’s caravan was a quarter of a mile away, with a cunning screen of interwoven branches shielding it from any casual passers-by. The horse, front legs hobbled, grazed fitfully, and Mrs MacPhee opened the caravan door to her husband’s triple knock.

“I’ve brought a guest,” MacPhee said.

“So I see,” Mrs MacPhee treated Watters to a curt nod. “The policeman who arrested you.” Her hooped jet earrings dangled nearly to her shoulders, and she wore the same long, thin-bladed knife at her waist.

“The policeman who allowed me to escape,” MacPhee amended.

“That too,” Mrs MacPhee peered into the dark with one hand on the hilt of her knife.

“He’s alone,” MacPhee said. “I’ve been following him half the night.”

“You’d better come in, Sergeant Watters,” Mrs MacPhee invited.

The caravan’s interior was clean, with a plethora of colourful crockery hanging on hooks, a gold-and-silver coloured crucifix on display and a double bed behind a pinned-back curtain. A hanging oil lamp provided cheerful light.

“Sergeant Watters is spending the night with us,” MacPhee said.

“And he’s welcome,” Mrs MacPhee said, surprisingly. You’ll have to bed on the floor, Sergeant, unless you wish to share with the dogs outside.”

“The floor looks much more inviting than the woods,” Watters said.

“Sergeant Watters was observing the whisky makers at MacBeth’s Castle,”

Mrs MacPhee watched him through narrowed eyes. “Was he indeed. And what did you learn there, Sergeant?”

Watters noted the name, MacBeth’s Castle. “I learned they have a large-scale operation with armed guards,” he said.

“They’re a nasty bunch,” Mrs MacBeth said.

“Did either of you hear anything about Gregor Vlasov?” Watters dropped the name in casually to gauge the reaction.

MacPhee glanced at his wife before replying. “Who?”

“We found a dead body near Auchterhouse,” Watters said. “He was a Russian fellow named Gregor Vlasov.”

“Oh, yes. I heard about the body, but I didn’t know the fellow was Russian,” MacPhee said.

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