The Nickum by Doris Davidson Page A

The ’tecs from Aberdeen wouldn’t investigate a few traces of blood that had likely vanished by now, anyway. When suppertime came, he wasn’t able to eat anything. The youngest nurse, Nannie her name was, did her best to coax him to take a few spoonfuls, but had to report back to Matron that he was off his food.
    Jake Fowlie was puzzled. He had sworn to Jeemsie Cooper that he knew nothing about the blood on the track, but the two Aberdeen detectives who arrived on Monday morning did not believe him. They had questioned and questioned, twisting what he said until it sounded like he wasn’t telling the truth. Eventually, he had gone on the defensive, as if he were really guilty, which made things even worse.
    After they left, Emily told him that she had overhead the older one saying, ‘We’d best get reinforcements to comb the area. We can’t do anything till we find the body.’
    That had provided him with, at the very most, only a paper-thin veneer of hope. Jeemsie Cooper’s one-track mind had thought that blood on the track meant blood on the hands of the tenant of the first house he came to – in other words he’d put two and two together and made five – but thank the Lord, the two ’tecs had the sense to see further than that.
    ‘You ken, Emmy,’ Jake observed to his wife that night, ‘I hope they find a body, for then they’ll surely see I’d naething to dae wi’ it.’
    Because his temperature had remained high, Willie wasn’t allowed home on Wednesday, and the nurses, including Matron, were really anxious about this unexplained relapse. Willie himself was living through a vile nightmare in which he could picture dozens of policemen marching into the ward, placing him in handcuffs and carrying their prisoner out triumphantly. The cruel thing was, apart from a tiny untruth about how he had lost the egg money and hiding the fact that he’d lost nearly a pail of pig’s blood that his mother would have been delighted to get, he had done nothing wrong. Surely that wouldn’t count against him on the Day of Judgement that his Gramma McKay often spoke about? The angel that watched over the Gates of Heaven would surely make allowances for him being so young. They couldn’t not take him in … and send him to hell?
    Then further news filtered through the grapevine of the little community, which, spread out though it was, was actually quite tightly knit together. The first to hear was Jeemsie Cooper, whose chest swelled with pride. ‘I ken’t fine there was something,’ he crowed in the public bar of the Tufted Duck. ‘And it’s stained wi’ bleed. Nae jist a wee drappie, a spirk or twa, but like it was soaked in it. Aye that’s the murder weapon, right enough.’
    He was the centre of the group of men all keen to know more. This was the first real proof, wasn’t it? Nobody had really believed Jeemsie before. He liked making mountains out of molehills in his attempts to show how important he was to the force. It wasn’t an empty boast this time.
    The news was passed round, spreading like wildfire – or ‘Like the clap on the docks in Aiberdeen,’ as Frankie Berry, the barman, put it. In the gales of mirth that followed this, the local bobby graciously accepted all the drinks that were being laid out for him.
    As is generally the case, the person on whom the news would make most impression was the last to hear, and so it was with Jake Fowlie. It was the following morning that Jeemsie came up in person to tell him. ‘The fork o’ an aul’ bike,’ the policeman beamed. ‘I bet you’d never’ve thocht on that.’
    ‘No,’ Jake agreed, ‘that’s true enough.’
    ‘Jist covered wi’ bleed.’
    ‘So you’re sure that’s what it was used for?’
    ‘Dead sure. It’s been sent to the toon for examination, to be sure it’s human bleed, or else I’d have let you see for yoursel’.’
    ‘An’ it was close by the scene o’ the crime?’
    ‘Weel … no,’ Jeemsie said, a touch