Deathly Wind Read Online Free

to divulge. Lachlan remembered when she had taken her croft some twenty odd years before. Back then she had been a glamorous redheaded woman of the world. A freelance investigative journalist and a prize-winning cookery-book writer, she had come to the Wee Kingdom upon inheriting her holding, having made the decision to retire from the rat race forever. And that she had done, immersing herself in the crofting traditions and lifestyle of her forebears. ‘It’s a paradise, Padre,’ she had told him one Saturday morning many years ago when he called in on one of his pastoral visits to the residents of the Wee Kingdom. ‘No telephones, no deadlines, no editors breathing down your neck. You just have to put bread on the table and wool on the backs of the rich folk of Inverness.’ He remembered her peal of laughter, as she then set about shearing a sheep, a cigarette in an ebony holder clasped between her small pearly teeth. In her dungarees and Wellingtons she made an impressive, if incongruous, sight.
    The Padre had looked at her concernedly, but was relieved to see the pained expression quickly disappear. She was dressed in a smart trouser suit, her once tumbling Titian locks now iron grey, pulled back in a pony-tail that exposed her intellectual brow and the long neck that had attracted so many would-be suitors over the years. It was widely believed that she had had several lovers since she came to live on West Uist, yet neither she nor they ever broadcast the fact. Discretion seemed to be a guiding principle in Rhona’s life.
    ‘Aye, this angina is a bugger, Padre,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye as she produced her trade-mark ebony cigarette holder from her shoulder bag and slipped a fresh cigarette into it. Lighting it with a small silver petrol lighter she blew out a stream of blue smoke. ‘These things will be the death of me, I suppose.’ Then she sighed. ‘But we all have to go some day. Gordon was only a couple of years older than me, you know?’
    ‘You’ll go on forever, Rhona,’ said the Padre.
    ‘God, I hope not,’ she returned, picking up a couple of plates of sandwiches. ‘Look, you do the drinks and I’ll feed the hoards.’ Saying which she was off, a trail of smoke following in her wake.
    Lachlan turned and went over to the two McKinleys standing by the merrily burning peat fire. Father and son, they worked Sea’s Edge the most westerly croft on the Wee Kingdom. As he held the tray and muttered a few words about the funeral he let them help themselves. Unconsciously, he found himself appraising them.
    Alistair McKinley was a smallish wiry man in his middle fifties with the gnarled and wrinkled skin of a man used to the elements. He was bearded with short cropped hair and an almost perpetual scowl on his face. He helped himself to a whisky from the tray while his son Kenneth McKinley took a glass of beer. In contrast to his father he was tall and broad-shouldered , his eyes blue like his dead mother’s. His expression not as severe as his father’s scowl, yet there was about him a suggestion of unease, as if he was anxious to be off somewhere. Lachlan had seen that look so often among the young islanders as they began to hanker after some of the comforts, luxuries and attractions of civilized life. He wondered if the younger McKinley would soon announce to his father that he was going to cut loose.
    ‘Is the croft going well?’ the Padre asked Alistair.
    ‘Passable, Padre. Passable.’ The older crofter flashed a look at his son. ‘It would be better if we were more focused.’
    Kenneth McKinley shook his head slightly. He was twenty-two, but looked five years older. ‘Och, we’re doing fine, Father. We just need to ask—’
    ‘We need to be patient, Kenneth,’ Alistair said curtly. He sipped his whisky, and then turned back to Lachlan. ‘You best see to the others, Padre.’
    Lachlan nodded, quite unperturbed by the other’s curtness, since he was renowned for it throughout