Battle Cry by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2011-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

BEACHER FOUND Liam Abercrombie in his tiny office at Memorial Hall, filling out what she supposed had to be an accident report. He was a slender man with hair nearly the color of his deeply tanned and weathered face. If Beacher hadn’t known he was the water bailiff, she’d have pegged him as a fisherman, perhaps a hunter’s guide.

She badged him, introduced herself and shook his callused hand. With evident reluctance, Abercrombie nodded toward the small room’s only vacant chair and waited while she sat.

“Before we start,” she said, “I need to ask that you hold anything I say in strictest confidence.”

“Oh, aye? And why is that?” he asked.

“I’m in the midst of an investigation, and it’s classified,” Beacher replied.

“Like national security, you mean?”

“Like that, exactly.”

“Och,” he said, rising a little taller in his swivel chair. “I’d best pay close attention, then. Some kind of Russian spy ship sneaking down through the canal, is it? A plot to make our sheep go bald, and all?”

Frowning, she said, “I’m not James Bond.”

“No, ma’am. You surely aren’t—although you may know, he was Scottish on his dad’s side.”

“What I’ve come to ask about is the MacTaggart drowning,” Beacher said.

The water bailiff sighed and shook his head. “Old Ronnie, eh? It figured that the loch would claim him someday, I suppose.”

“And why is that?”

“His poaching. Kept himself in drink with that.”

She raised an eyebrow and asked, “You were aware of his activities?”

“Of course,” Abercrombie said. “I’m the one who lifted him and fined him half a dozen times over the past six, seven years. Reckon I caught him once for every twenty-five or thirty trips he made.”

“So, a persistent violator, then.”

“Persistent and consistent,” Abercrombie said. “Old Ronnie had his steady list of customers, you know. In Foyers, Fort Augustus, up as far as Portclair on occasion. Restaurants and shops could always count on Ronnie for a decent shake.”

“And now he’s dead.”

“Aye, so he is. It happens, eh?”

“How often, would you say?” Beacher inquired.

“To Robbie? Just the once.”

Resisting the impulse to snap at him, she said, “Drownings, I mean. Within your bailiwick.”

“Not often, hereabouts,” he answered. “Ronnie is our first this year, in fact. Had two last year, but both of them fell out of the same boat. I ask you, ma’am, who takes a boat out, if they’s never learned to swim?”

“Could Ronnie swim?” she asked.

“Oh, aye. Part eel, I’d guess he was. Swum with the best of them.”

“So, then…what happened, do you think?”

“From what I saw, fishin’ him out, he’d banged his head,” Abercrombie said.

“How would that go?” she inquired.

“The loch can be a right bitch, if you’ll pardon me. Look smooth as glass one minute, then a wave comes up from nowhere and you’re rockin’ fit to topple. Some’ll tell you it’s the beastie. Ronnie could’ve lurched and hit his head, then fallen overboard.

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