It took police and firemen two hours to extricate the Regional Forester’s dead body from the crushed Audi.
The area of road was dolled off and photographs taken. A recovery crane arrived. Temporary arc lighting was erected and illuminated the scene. A salvage team carefully negotiated the embankment, shackled the wreck and transported it to the usual police compound for examination. It was a well established procedure. Serious road accidents were commonplace in these parts.
A shaken Welshman had called Emergency Services. Some fifty metres behind the Audi that had recently overtaken his BMW, he had gasped at the sight of the big car swerving across the road, shattering the roadside fence, and brutally rotating as it plunged down the slope. It was fortunate that he had instinctively braked before pulling into the side of the road and thus had not encountered the litter of nails and staples at speed.
Police had immediately alerted all local stations to the accident. A fatality on a lonely stretch of road; the culprit – a carelessly stowed bag of sharp objects, the victim – the senior Commission officer in the region, known to the authorities and communities of Lochaber.
A local police inspector, accompanied by a policewoman, was swiftly in the sitting room of Munro’s bungalow at Salen, personally informing the lady of the house of her loss. News of the accident spread rapidly.
Euan Mackinnon picked up a jangling telephone. It was ten o’clock, the children already asleep. His “hello” was soft, almost whispered.
“You won’t have heard, Euan. There’s been a car crash. Munro. It’s bad.”
“How bad?”
“I’m not certain because they won’t say officially. Fergus, my lodger, the young diced hat, says Munro is dead. The police haven’t confirmed it yet, but better you know. Car went off the road outside Strontian.”
Mackinnon was silent.
“You still there, Euan?”
“One whisky. I was with him in the Argyll. Left him around half past six, poor man. It was starting to get dark. A bad time with light getting tricky, eh?”
“And clocks go forward on Sunday. Summer time starts. One extra hour of daylight in the evening.”
“I’ll need to phone our Salen office in the morning. Call me, Johnny, if you hear anything more from that lodger of yours. And thanks for letting me know.”
Mackinnon put the phone down.
“Who was that, dear?” his wife queried from the kitchen.
“Johnny Mac,” he approached the kitchen door, “Munro’s been in a car accident. It doesn’t look good.”
“That’s terrible,” his wife said. “Maybe you’ll take over the Lochaber region.” A pause. “Oh, I didn’t mean that…”
“Johnny Mac thinks Munro has been killed,” Mackinnon said. “He had a call from the young policeman lodging with them.”
“Oh no,” his wife’s hand rose to cover her mouth. “Oh, no, the poor man, I really didn’t mean…”