The Tent in the Woods: Unravelling the Mysterious Death of Nigel Rannoch

Scottish Murders returns with an intriguing fictional case told by former Scottish police officers Bob and Rory from the podcast Code 21.

The episode explores the mysterious death of Nigel Rannoch, whose skeletal remains were discovered in a tent in the Scottish Highlands, three years after he disappeared. Initially deemed a suicide, the investigation reveals numerous inconsistencies, including missing items and unexplained evidence. The officers recount their experiences, highlighting the challenges of rural policing and the procedural flaws that can occur. They discuss the emotional impact of such cases and the camaraderie that helps officers cope with the job's demands. The narrative offers a unique blend of procedural insight and personal reflection, questioning the assumptions made during investigations and the human stories behind them.

As the story unfolds, listeners are invited to ponder the unanswered questions surrounding Nigel's death and the missing "Piglet" toy, which adds layers of intrigue to this compelling tale.

SOURCES:
Please see our website for all source material and photos at scottishmurders.com/episodes/bob-rory

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CREDITS:
Scottish Murders is a production of Cluarantonn
Hosted by Dawn Young
Guests: Bob and Rory from Code21 podcast
Production Company Name by Granny Robertson

MUSIC:
ES_Battle of Aonach Mor - Deskant - epidemicsound

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hello everyone, I'm back at last. I ended up taking
a much longer break than I thought I would as
put it, and I started a new business last year
and we just needed to focus on that a bit
more for a while. In case you don't already know
and might be interested, our new business is to help
anyone who wants to start a podcast get started. There's
so much more to podcasting than just pressing record, which

(00:49):
I found out myself when I began looking into starting
Scottish Murders. I just wanted one person to tell me
what I needed, what equipment, which hosting platform, how best
to record, how to edit, and the list goes on
and on. I never did find that one person to
help me, and I just wanted to be that person
for someone else who wanted to start a podcast but

(01:09):
was maybe overwhelmed by either the amount of information out
there or just didn't know where to start. If anyone
listening would love to start a podcast or just know
more about podcasting, then I'd love to be that person
for you. You can ask me anything. So that's what
I've been up to and why I haven't been able
to release episodes of Scottish Murders until now. Although for

(01:30):
April the episodes will be slightly different. For example, for
this episode, I spoke to the hosts of the podcast
Code to One, who call themselves Bob and Rory, and
today they're going to be telling us a fictional case,
the death of a Nigel Ranach. They're going to describe
the events leading up to Nigel's disappearance, the investigation after

(01:51):
his body was found, and how a flawed investigation into
Nigel's death had serious repercussions for all involved. Just to reiterate,
this is a fictional story and any similarities between this
case and one I may have covered in the past
is purely coincidental. The tagline former Scottish police officers Bob

(02:11):
and Rory have on their podcast Code to One, where
you'll find lots of fictional Scottish cases covered, is this
is the truth according to Bob and Rory, and no
one's going to believe them anyway. So now I've set
the scene, let's get into today's episode. So welcome to
the podcast, Bob and Rory.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Hello, thank you very much. Hell, you're right, Bobby there,
I'm good. I'm here. We're not actually in the same room,
which is a blessing.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, it's nice for me too. I'm in another country.
I'm in a strange foreign land.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yes, I think the three of us are Scottish and
I'm the only one that's in Scotland all right at
the moment. Anyway, we were saying earlier, we're in the
company a great this in terms of podcasts with Don.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Are we are humbled?

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, professional, I think is the word we can use.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
I like, I love your podcast. Stop putting it down.
I love it. And anyway, you kind of mentioned that
you're going to be on the TV.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
That's thanks to you. I'm going to be on the
Telly kind of yeah, kind of, but it's weird. Rory's
face is no, it's going to be awkward. I'm going
to be in the Telly. But I think they're using
my real name.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
So that's a night to go to the pub for everyone.
Don't don't sit and watch the Telly that night. Don't scary.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
That's like me and you get arrested.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
But that's our chat, with our annual chat.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
That's the night. Yeah, the real names come out. That's
not ry but cy. That's yeah, it's good bit. Anyway, Wait,
we're not going about that too much, right enough, But yeah,
it's it's nice to be in a professional podcast with
someone who knows what they're doing.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
I'm like, Bob, Yeah, I feel our podcast kind of
works because it's two yeah, well at least one, and.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Was always just to kind of have it like like
we used to be at work, you know, the two
cops in a car and give you an insight into
our what was going on in our heads, not a lot,
as you can imagine, and just the sort of stuff
we were dealing with, and we were in a unique
position and we were never really offered. We dealt them
awful lot in the place, you know, Bob, with these

(04:21):
fatal road accents and mountain rescues and drownings and everything
else that went with it, including what we're going to
talk about today. And there was never really any counseling
back in the day. But what we did was talk
to each other normally when we're driving away or to something.
And what we tried to do with our Silly Weee
podcast was just reproduced that which is and when we

(04:41):
did it, there's an extensive amount of black humor. There's
an extensive amount of swearing for which we apologize but
that's how we were in the car, that's how we
got through things, and it's all about talking. And we
just tried. We deliberately didn't try to do entering professional
achieved that it was I think when we spoke earlier,
it was generally just an iPhone, other phones are available

(05:04):
in the car, just recording us at the times.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
It makes it really authentic.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, I think it helped us as much as anything else.
And we continue to do it and it's a laugh,
it's just a hobby.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
There's a degree I think of kind of self counseling
in there, because I think for both of us when
back in the days when we were working there was
therapy and talking to each other in the car. You know,
we were going through some some interesting times. And if
I'm going to throw in a thought, yeah, I mean
we never plan our podcast and then the finest traditions,
we've not done it here really clearly.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Well, I have, I have, don't want to else. Bail
is it starts see if he starts talking about the
TA again.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
I was just I was going to say, I think
in previous chats, both myself and Rory struggle to watch
anything to do with the police on Telly because the
public have a perception of the risk of danger involved
in the police, which actually isn't true. Incidently, the most
dangerous job out there is farming. Police is statistically quite safe.

(06:07):
But the reason I mention it is, for me, the
interesting stuff that went on and the police was the banter.
It was the stuff that went in the background, the
shift dynamics, usually who was having an affair with health.
One of the things I like about what we talk
about is we talk about the stuff we would have
talked about in the car as cops. Well, you know,

(06:29):
we stopped in a labor and we're eating jelly babies,
and I think part of the fun of that is, yeah,
just as different from the normal take on the police.
So yeah, and I enjoy it. Let's say it's quite
therapeut it.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
It is good and we get away with it. But
how much longer are we going to get away with it?
Who knows? All?

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Right, then, Okay, so we know all that about you
now in a podcast what it's all about, But can
you go into I can tell us a little bit
about what this episode is about, what we're going to
try and talk about in this episode.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Can I just start by saying it's fiction. It's absolutely
one hundred percent fiction.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
It's the truth according to Bob and Rory, and no
one believes us anyway, in the words that Jimmy has Yeah,
what this is about? This everything we talk about is
based loosely in the very commas on our experiences within
the police. Some are closer to reality than others. We

(07:26):
will not use real names. I don't think locations and
stuff like that. Wait, you know it's going to be difficult,
but we will speak about it. It's going to be
the case of Nigel Rannich who went missing in and Piglet.
It's it's a story that we call Where's Piglet? So yeah,
and that it's not as Piglet is. It is not

(07:48):
Christopher Robin, It's it's it's Nigel that's lost Piglet. And
I made a vow to Nigel, though he wasn't able
to hear me at the time, that I would reunite
them with Piglet. And it's a promise that I've not
fulfilled to this day. And it's a case that kind
of sits with me and Bob and one that we've

(08:10):
certainly talked about a lot over the the years since
it happened and coming out of the police all right, Bob, Yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
One we ponder and I guess kind of worry about.
And there's there's not many of those. Most of what
we talk about is quite lighthearted whenever too get anything
that seriously, which which I'm not going to try and
butter them up a bit here, but it's one of
the pleasures of working with Rory and God knows this
few enough for them. And one of the when you
go was it was that he it was quite it

(08:39):
was quite fun. I mean I mainly followed him around
out of a sense of morbid curiosity. But this is
one that has stuck with us and we we've talked
about it a lot over the years, and it's unusual
in the sense most of what we talk about is
lighthearted and fun. This one actually is quite serious. And
I guess we would kind of like your listeners to

(09:00):
be cast thoughts. They could maybe email you what they
think where is piglet And we would be interested to
know what's interesting.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Me and Bob get along well with each other, we
have done for years. We don't disagree about very much.
Our train of thoughts normally the same with each other,
you know, and that's good. We bounce off each other,
and we disagreed about this one for various reasons, and
to this day we have different opinions on it. I
always start this case by saying I believe that Nigel

(09:32):
Rana took his own life. Bob wouldn't start that story
that way, would you, Bob.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
I don't disagree. I just don't know. But if if
you're right with that, and I'm not saying you're wrong,
he might have, but I don't think he's alone.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yes, And my the retelling of this story for me
is about how it was not The inquiry into it
was not completed correctly, and that became personal for me
because Rory his name was in the bottom of that report,
and that's something you have to acknowledge and deal with
as a cop, you know, especially if you have questions

(10:08):
about it. Whereas Bob, I think was more of the
opinion that it could have been a more sinister outcome,
you know, or how Nigel met his end it was
more sinister. And the truth of the matter is we
don't know. But you've got two police officers, both of
whom were at the scene, both of whom were involved

(10:29):
in it, and both have different opinions. So you can
see how difficult it is, not just for the police,
but for any court or anything else that you know,
people will have different opinions on it. But what is
not what is beyond question, is that this case wasn't
inquired into properly. And I stand by that today, agreed, Bob.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
I think as well, so I saying we're sitting here
with you in between us over forty years service. Albeit
Rory didn't do very much in that.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Time, yoursel.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yeah, and also, there are very very few mysteries in
the police, you know, I think the public look at
it and you watch police documentaries and dramas and you
see the you know, in a scandy or type style,
this emotionally damaged cop going in and solving some horrific mystery.
It's almost never ever true, you know, even with murders
where the police go on TV and ask for assistance

(11:23):
and all that they probably know who it is. They're
just you know, wanting to dot every eye and cross
every tea before it goes to court and have the
evidence to back up what they already know. Quite off,
with murders, the police know who it is before it's
even happened. Yeah, but this one I think is genuinely
unusual because we don't know, no, it's it is a
real mystery.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
I was going to say the majority of murders I
dealt with, but that that's not true. The reality of
the police is when you're in uniformers are constable. You
don't deal with that many murders. You may maybe first
responding to have you a Certainly, when I was down
and nearer Glasgow in an urban environment, you were dealing
with the one punch fight, so you were dealing with
on gang type murders, you know, But an actual murder,

(12:05):
you know, the ones that make the media, was relatively rare.
And I say, was this a murder? I don't know.
I don't know. But my my take, I have a
kind of chip on my shoulder about suicidal death, which
I'm calling this, and that is, if you are unfortunate
enough to lose your life in a road accent that

(12:25):
someone responsible for that, the police spend an awful lot
of money proving another person caused that death. And likewise,
if someone through a homicide was to take your life,
well that's an extortion amount of money and a huge team.
The circus absolutely comes to time with them, and unrightly so.
But if it's it's a sport accident, if it's a
it's a drowning, if it's a suicide, it was just

(12:48):
me And okay, you know, Bob, you know, and and
I don't think people realize that as much. You know,
it's it's it's just me on my wage, maybe the
odd bit of overtime, and that's it. And you're you're
dealing with someone's remains, you're dealing with the scene, and
the minute you call it as a suicide, then it's
kind of over to you. It was my beat, so
I was reporting it as I did with this. You know,

(13:09):
the paper was there for it. You do this, you
report it as a suicide, and that's it. I'm talking
about the recovery of the remains back the mortuary. There's
no grim face, little mortician with a white jacket on
and a dark morgue that helps you out. It's you
and if you're lucky, a colleague like Bob, and it's
just the three of you, the two cops, or maybe

(13:29):
just two one cop and the body. And you know
that that involves removing the clothing, removing everything, you know,
from the point of getting the body viewed and identified
right through into actually putting generally putting a tag and
a toe and closing the fridge door. And the point
of telling all that is that I firmly believe that

(13:50):
behind most, if not all, suicides, there's a portion of blame,
and that was never looked into. If someone takes their
own life because of someone else's actions or words, we
just tend to speak that to one side and say, well,
he took his own knife or she took her own knife.
We don't then say well, why, you know, if someone

(14:10):
had topped them into it. And I know there was
recently a prosecution where on the media work with these
websites are talking young kids and it's taking their own life.
So that's great, that's a start. But you know, if
you're talking someone into putting a knife in their hand
or a noose around their neck, what's the difference between
holding that knife you know, that's extreme, you know, and
putting it into someone you know? So I think I

(14:32):
had too much time in my hands around suicidal death
up on Beat twenty eight where he used to work,
and these these thoughts come into your head, and that's
that's a lot of this story for me, you know,
was Nigel's death crully investigate?

Speaker 3 (14:47):
You know, for me, I don't disagree with anything Rory
said there, but also I kind of want to chip
in because I feel that there's there's something within the
airline industry called planned continuity bias, which is where when
a pilot sort of makes let's say, the decision to
land and conditions start to deteriorate, Let's say it starts
to get foggy, a windy, they continue with the original

(15:09):
decision to land, and there's ways the aviation industry kind
of gets around that. I don't think there's anything equivalent
of that. And the police, once someone has made the
call that something is a suicide, it's really really hard
to go back from that. And I think the police
suffer from planned continuity bias with everything. You know, once
they've decided they have a suspect, they'll stick with that suspect.

(15:29):
They're not kind of open to new ideas, I think.
I mean, that's my taking it from investigations I've seen,
but I've only kind of sat on the fringes of
and only really been directly involved in a few murder investigations,
because my career is quite similar to ro Ruse from
that point of view.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, just to close that one, Bob. They don't know
how to say the word sorry. They don't know how
to say yeah, I'm talking with the police, So they
don't how to say the word sorry to families or
whatever and say we got this wrong, we got it wrong,
hands up. And all they do is say, oh, wasn't me,
it was you know, it was this DCI four years ago.
Well he's long retired. That there's no responsibility, there's no

(16:05):
that's anyway.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Why do you think they can't say sorry? What do
you think is behind that? What's the reasoning?

Speaker 3 (16:12):
I think it's ingrained in police culture. And you see it.
I mean you're going right back to things like Hell's
brand and all that sort of stuff. The police have
a culture that they hate to admit failure at a
kind of corporate or organizational level. They're quite happily pin
the blame on a cop, you know, uniformed cops or
CID Corps or whatever, people at the bottom. Yeah, they'll
absolutely pill the blame on that and say where a

(16:34):
great organization, Look what we've done with your disciplined or
sacked this person. But the police is an organization hate
to admit they're wrong because if they do that, they're
blaming a supervisor. And if they blame a supervisor, they're
blaming the decision.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
To promote them.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
So supervisors in the police, I feel, culturally get away
with a lot.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Do you remember when we joined Bob that they used
to say that we were both in and around the
Glasgow as new recruits to the police, and there was gangs.
There was significant families and crime families and significant organized
crime and the traditional Glasgow gangs. And I remember being
told that, yeah, they may have a gang, but we've

(17:15):
got the biggest gang of all and we will always win.
And there was eight thousand of us. Then there may
be twenty thirty in this family gang or whatever it
is or organized crime, but there's eight thousand of us
and we and we must always win.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah, we're the biggest gang and we don't need CORECT
So if one of us fails the other one, I'll
always get them. Yeah, and you back each other up.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
But you're saying it's like a you know, brotherhood is
sister rood and it's a gang, So why do they
then turn on each other sometimes. I know we're going
to get into that rory, but why did they do that?
If it's supposed to be.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
You know, a family to protect the gang. It's the
same as a gang. If one gang member decides to
go and speak to arrival, then they're osterracides, aren't they.
It's this you You if you speak out against the police,
then you are you're as well no longer being in
the police. I think, so you you which I know

(18:10):
this sounds way off topic, but it's not, and it
maybe we'll explain some of the decision making that that
I took towards the end of this particular case and
sat with for It took me three or four years
to realize that, no, this is not actually something that
is okay. And it's okay if you're you're dealing with

(18:30):
the lower end of crime or whatever, but this this
was Summer's life and to be frank, I had done
more investigation into the theft of a loan Moore outer shed,
but it seemed to me on reflection than why this
man had been laid alone for three years in the woods.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Do you think that there wasn't a start investigation in
this case, which we're going to talk about in a minute,
was because, like you, it was thought it was a
suicide and they didn't want to expend any all the
money on it an investigation.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
That would be an opinion that I hold alone. It's
my opinion. Now the question you're asking me is, and
I kind already alluded to it, with the expense of
a murdering a fatal road accent, is it cheaper to
call it a suicide? The answer to that is yes,
that's a fact. Is it cheaper, Yes, it is. It's
a lot cheaper. And it's a final answer. Was the

(19:23):
decision on this one? Was it a suicide? Was that
deemed early on? Yes? Was it deemed before a post mortem? Yes?
So that might answer a question it does?

Speaker 1 (19:34):
It does? All right then, so we've gone quite fast.
So let's go back a little bit. Tell us about
the background.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Okay, so did eight years down in Glasgow, same as Bob,
and then after eight years in certain parts of Scotland,
areas through tourism get very busy. The West Highlands is
one of them, various others, and they ask for help
from city cops who can go up and do us recordrement.
So in the year in nineteen ninety nine or two thousand,
the summer of I did such a sircumbment to the

(20:02):
Highlands of Scotland. Liked it so much I didn't go back,
and was lucky enough to be given a beat. A
seventy nine square miles the size of Greater Manchester, of
which I was the only resident uniformed response within. My
nearest assistance was probably twenty eight miles away, that being
Bob in a larger town, and I occupied a police house,

(20:24):
three bedroom police house with a police office attached to
an assel attached to that. In the winter I would
have a four x four and in the summer events
I got a slightly faster car to deal with their
road accidents. Predominantly my work involved community policing. I'm a
big fan of traditional Scottish community policing. Several villages of

(20:45):
which I was responsible, one of which is the locus
of this, and you would be the local police community
officer in schools, hotels, etc. It goes all the way
back to the oldie times where there's three people of
importance in the villa, the policeman, the minister and the
doctor and you were there providing a service. What I

(21:05):
loved about it was it was a service. You went
prosecuting people, you were serving the public, and your beat
was your beat. You took responsibility for it and everything
that happened within it. That doesn't mean itself was completely alone.
People like Bob who were road traffic would come and
assist me with the road traffic accidents, of which there
were many. My work was, as I said, many road

(21:27):
traffic accidents, a lot of recreational deaths that been drowning
on large locks, mountain rescues which turned the wrong way,
an awful lot of motorbike deaths because of where it
was in Scotland, and bizarrely, a phenomenal amount of suicidal deaths,
much more than would a normal uniform police officer would
have to deal with, just because of where it was

(21:49):
in terms of Scotland. There's various reasons for that. A
lot couldn't really work it out, but a lot of
people deemed the Highlands of Scotland as a play used
to be. You know, it's a place of outstanding beauty.
You know. In terms of that, I had even people
come from the other side of the world who trace
their roots back to the Highlands of Scotland in order

(22:11):
to take their own life. So it's a sort of
place people could get away, get away and just be away,
be their own, contemplate what's going on in their heads.
And sometimes too often, unfortunately that was the wrong type
of thought that ended that they ended their lives. So
this particular incident, when I was dealing with this one,
I was also running a similar one about three miles

(22:33):
up the road in terms of a suicidal death. So
it gives you an idea of what's going on, which
it'd happened the previous week and I hadn't finished the
paperwork of it. So that's it's a very rural beat
in the Scottish just picture of the Scottis Highlands and there.
If people of a certain age remember Hamish Macbeth, it
was not far from the truth.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
That was what I pictured in my head. When you
were like I've got this, I've got the sell one
cell and the police state, I was like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
That's yeah. It was brilliant. I loved it. I wish
that it still existed doesn't anymore. It was the best
part of my working life and I did that for
about eight nine ten years something like that.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
You always wanted to be a police officer as well,
didn't you?

Speaker 3 (23:11):
I did, yes, So it's quite like that if Hamish
Macbeth was an angry gorilla tourette.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
It was all going so well.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
It was, and then he kicks in, But yeah, it was.
I tried to make it sound ideal and it was.
But it's not until you're out the police that you
reflect and went, well, wait a minute, that level of
death isn't normal. It isn't normal, and that became my job,

(23:42):
my stacking shelves, whatever it happens to be. But you know,
and you always try to find your limit. I never could,
you know. So anyway, that that was kind of the
area I was dealing with, and this particular case was
another one. It didn't throw me, particularly when the call
came in. It was just another suicide on Beat twenty eight.
What did throw me was the word skeleton. I'd never

(24:03):
seen a skeleton before, and I haven't properly since, thankfully,
and don't really want to again. But that was so
from the offset from the Treble nine call. It was unique.
It was a Friday, it was a march. I'm not
going to just to give you the time of year
it was. I'm not going to tell you what year
it was. And I got a Treble nine call which

(24:24):
went via Glasgow and ultimately towards my own office, and
it was from two forestry workers who stated that they
were in the Highlands of Scotland and they were clearing
a firebreak using chainsaws. That's basically just to stop wildfires
jumping from one part of the forest another. They were

(24:45):
behind a particular hotel in the Highlands which was formed
part of my beat. It was a hotel that was
in the middle of a very famous walk from the
south to the north. It was a stop off point
for such a thing, and a hotel I would and frequently.
And they were less than a quarter of a mile
behind this hotel on a B class road and to

(25:08):
a country state Victorian country but like Skyfall, that type
of thing. They were there and they said that during
this process they had come across a tent and within
that tent was the remains of a human, skeletal remains
of a human. And I'm like, yeah, of course there
had Beat twenty eight. Of course there wasn't surprised. I'm like, yep,

(25:30):
let's go. So yeah, they put the lights on and go,
grab the yellow jacket and go and got up there
and met them. They were sat in the back of
their pickup truck having their lunch changed sort of so off,
and they pointed out to me. Now, they pointed out,
I'm going to show you a photo of the area,
not necessarily the scene, but I know this is a podcast,

(25:53):
but it's just to kind of get you an idea
that can you see that that Folt was taking from
the road. You can see it, and I'm not very
good at describing, you know, but you can see a
dense that woodland and the distance from from the road there,
and it was thick. And they pointed to me, can.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
I just chip in here, Rory, and pointed out, this
is this is fiction and that photo you've just showed is.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Clearly a rep I took off a forest of what
a forest would look at. It's a it's a representation. Yeah,
it's what a Caledonian Scottish forest looks like. Yeah, yeah,
it was a similar in my head that I could picture.
I went now yesterday, it's not far from here with
my camera which in gays piece anyway, you can see
how dense the Scottish, a typical Scottish woodland would be

(26:40):
very dense. So they pointed out, I can't see het.
I'm not sure yet, but I'm doing well right and
I can't see it. He's talking about that just there,
and I'm like, all right, okay, stay there, I says,
what way did you go in? So they showed me
and I walked in and as I got to the
tree line, just within the tree line sixty ten feet
within was a tent and that would have been facing

(27:04):
north I think north south, yeah, and the front it
was a two man green vango tent and it was
still erected, protected totally by the carnoty of trees above it.
It was very weathered, very soiled, lots of pine LEAs
needles all over it. The front had burst open, it
had been zipped a bit. It burst open, and there

(27:25):
was clearly a skeleton, half in half out of the tent.
It was still clothed. The bottom half of the skeleton
was still within a sleeping bag and the upper half
was out. There was fragments of cloth that was very
very warm. There was moss all over the place, but
it was very clearly a human skeleton and What struck
me straight away was that most, if not all, of

(27:47):
the bones seemed to be there, which was odd to
me because I thought, well, wildlife or whatever would have
taken something. So as I'm doing this, I'm videoing. It
was the days before police body cams or that, and
I was using an old Sony handheld camcorder, and I
was speaking. I'd made my radio go live. It was

(28:07):
all their way of radios, and I'd made it go live.
I was just giving a kind of running commentary as
to what I was seeing, and what I was seeing
was the tent and a lot of kit. I think
my actual words on that as I say it was
it was a two person tent, one skeleting within a
too much kit something like that. There was a kind

(28:30):
of vague words of what I was saying. Came out
quite satisfied that it was a human and that human
shouldn't have been there, and came back to the roadside
and called in my supervisors, and scenes of crime and
the scenes of crime officer came up from they were
probably thirty to forty minutes away, not an hour. So
I used that time to take a couple of statements

(28:51):
off the forestry workers, and I was joined by my
supervisor and by the scenes of crime guy, who I'm
not going to name, and then we made the decision
to return to the tent. Obviously my supervisors wouldn't. There
was two supervisors there and inspected a sergeant showed them
the video and the decision was to put the scenes
of crime guy in with myself. That we used tread

(29:13):
plates as we walked towards the scenes, so we basically
put plates down over the footprints we've already created, and
that's a way in and a way out, and the
only designated way in and out of what potentially would
be a crime scene, just in case. And we walked in.
Now I was videoing and the scenes of crime guy
was whirling away with these fancy cannon camera taking lots

(29:34):
of photographs. And we walked up to it and he
was taking photographs and he said to me, Rory, have
you been round the back yet, meaning the back of
the tent, And I said no, and he said, okay,
let's go round. And we went round. At the back
of the tent was still standing just it was still
zipped up just and after a bit of a struggle,
we managed to unzip it and look in. We were

(29:56):
were then both of us looking down through the tent
towards the head of the sne and at that point
realized there's a lot of stuff. There's a set of boots,
walking boots, leather, good quality boots. There's bags, there's hole dolls,
there's rucksacks, but more importantly there's two sleeping bags. Were
very clearly only one skeleton. I'm aware of this, and

(30:19):
I'm like, Okay, this isn't right. So that's the first
kind of red flag that there was. Mainly wasn't Bob
fixates on the shoes quite a lot. What I actually
saw when I walked in looked down was one set
of boots and a black shoe under partially under the skeleton.
And then as we opened it, to my right bottom

(30:41):
right hand side was a knife. And it was a
large kitchen knife that you would use to not slice, spread,
but stayed. There was a large, significant knife out the movies.
You know what it looks like. No, it's not a
camping knife. It's not something you're carrying to go camping.
Why would you carry that to go camping? Was My
initial thought was, this isn't a Swiss army knife. This

(31:01):
is a big knife and the scenes. A crime guy
seeing it photographed it said the word knife. I said,
concur He said I'm going to call it. I said, agreed,
and we walked out. That was basically the words that
was exchanged between us. Basically, we're both seeing the same thing.
Neither of us are happy. We'll call this when we say,

(31:23):
we'll call it, or call it suspicious, and we walk
backwards on our tread plates and go back to the roadside.
I didn't revisit the tent after that. Quite rightly, we
put police tape up. According to off, we got the
mobile police unit to come up from a nearby station,
and we requested the presence of the CID Criminal Investigation Department. Now,

(31:50):
they at that particular time were busy with some lunatic
who was putting needles and loaves of bread and our bea.
So senior officers were dealing with that, and I was
allocated a uniformed sergeant from a nearby town who used
to had previous CID experience, and two TDC's. TDC's are

(32:11):
trainee detective constables. When you join the police and you're
out with your probation, you can make a decision about
which department you might like to join. If you've got
half a brain, you'll join something like the community police department.
If you've got no brain, and you just want to
issue tickets to people who join the road traffic department, right.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
Bob, road warriors, heroes Jesus.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
But there's worse than the road traffic department. That is
the CID. They love to wear a leather jacket, pair
of jeans and chew gumman, get on there on the
telly and make themselves feel important. The rank is the
same as mine, constable or sergeant or whatever it is,
but because they wear leather jackets, it's makes themselves feel important. Anyway,
you can do it as a condment. You see to
these departments and see if you like it. So that's

(32:54):
what a trainee detective constable is. They do a six
months tocorment and a year's recordment and they can do that.
And that's who I got. And there were two young officers,
a male and a female. And I'm not saying they
were incomponent. They were not. They were just they weren't
fully trained detectives, is my point. And like me, I'm
assuming they had never seen a skeleton before and they

(33:16):
came up and they had a poke about it, and
eventually a senior officer came up later that evening, towards
about six o'clock at night. I first got this call
about one o'clock in the afternoon, and then a crime
scene manager was appointed from one of the bigger towns
in Scotland. He eventually made his way there and everything
was basically left alone for the night. It was secured.

(33:39):
The scene was secured, and the reason it was secured
was we needed a bones doctor, a professional to come
up and recover the remains properly, and we got somebody
from Glasgow University to do that the next day and
she had a team with her and they systematically recovered
every part of the human remains and dug down into

(34:00):
the soil and took soil samples, et cetera. Everything you
you would hope they would do. And that was it.
And during that time I crewed the mobile police office,
which would be normal for me, so I would collate statements,
make tea coffee, make sure everything's okay, make sure we're
just the practicalities of running, keeping the logbook, make sure
everything is as it should be. In terms of that.

(34:21):
But even at that stage, I'm saying day one, the
word suicide was getting bandied about. I wasn't sure why,
and then I later found out that they had identified
this particular individual and he had been a person who
had been missing for three years. Nigel Rannich was thirty
one years of age when he went missing from the

(34:42):
Edinburgh area of Scotland. He was from a good family,
well to do family. I would suggest he was a
professional man, university educated, worked in another part of Scotland.
His job had become two much for him in terms
of stress and he had been off on sick leave.

(35:03):
In terms of that, he had been diagnosed with depression.
He was described as sociable, very sociable. He was the
founder member of a Kayley band and played the flute
to Kayley Band for non Scottish people as a Scottish
dance band, so he was part of that. He was

(35:23):
a very keen hill walker and would frequently take himself
off into the hills and go walking. When he did so,
he used to do it with a childhood friend. He
frequently did it with a childhood friend. Both of them
it would be their passion to go into the Scottish
Islands and climb Scottich. Monroe's Bob watched a Scottish moan row.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
So a Scottish Monroe is basically a mountain over three
thousand feet and there's a list of them and a
book written by mister Monroe, which is why they're called
Monroe's and it's a big thing amongst hillwalking lunatics like myself.
Although I'm not a Monroe bagger, but basically Monroe bagging
is is trying to get all of them.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
How many is there?

Speaker 2 (36:03):
There's two hundred and eighty four?

Speaker 3 (36:05):
What two hundred and eighty four? There we go, and
historically I think there were a couple. There were a
couple appeared and disappeared as land serving became more accurate
and cert of debates over whether or not something qualified
as a mountain. But yeah, there we go. So there's lots,
and yeah, there's records for how fast they could be
done and all that sort of stuff, and lunatics going
try and scurry up and down them.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
Have you done any bo I've.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
Not kept track, but I've probably done about thirty or forty.
I'm not a Monroe bagger, but I like just going
out walking in the mountains myself, so I've been up
a fair number of them. Yeah, Rory's looked at one
out of a police car I think once probably was
having an ice cream.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
I've rested about thirty or forty of them of a
bloody monrose. It drives me nuts anyway. There's two hundred
and eighty four of these things. Our friend Nigel had
done half of them and it was his life ambition
to do all of them. So he was a serious
hell walker. It was his thing. And I said he
normally did it with the childhood friend and took himself away.

(37:05):
It would help with his depression. I believe that it
would take my way and he could gather his thoughts
and just disappear a bit. He wouldn't. He would. He
would tell his family when he was leaving, and you know,
he would reappear again. On this occasion, he left the
family home, he had left his workplace in another part Scotland,
come home. He'd been to a wedding the weekend before,

(37:28):
which described his very sociable and great form. Every we
loved them. Everything was going well, seemed to outwardly, and
then I think that let's call it the next weekend,
he decided to disappear to go for a walk. On
that occasion, he left his passport and his mobile phone
at home. He went into his vehicle and he drove
to the center of Edinburgh to a camping outlet shop

(37:51):
and he withdrew five hundred pounds from an ATM and
he purchased a sleeping pack, a new sleeping pack, so.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
Just the one. I was just what I was going
to ask that. I always wanted to know what he
actually bought. So that's all they bought was a sleeping bag.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
That's all they bought. Yeah, that's all. But all that
I know of anyway he bought with the five hundred
pounds was changed from that of which we recovered, I believe,
and he bought a new sleeping bag. And he disappeared
towards the Scottish Islands as far as we know, and
was never seen again for three years. There was a
campaign by his family to find them. Naturally, that was

(38:26):
led by the then Loading and Boarders Police in Edinburgh,
as you would expect, the family, the police. Whoever, somebody
must have had some sort of influence because his case
was highlighted on the program BBC documentary called Missing, chaired
by Sally Magnison, probably about a year six months to
year after him going missing, and that was about out

(38:47):
on national TV. And he was wearing a very distinctive jumper,
a hand knitted woolen jumper. You couldn't miss it if
you've seen it, really so it was thought that that
was a good picture for the flag, and the flyers
went out and as a result of the flyers and
the television program, there was a lead, if you like,

(39:07):
for what my better frace came in from the east
coast of Scotland from somebody in a campsite who said
they may have seen them. So for a short period
of time that was very focused in that area of
Scotland looking for him, which is miles and miles away
from I was certainly not made aware of this missing person.
I wasn't tasked given any task over that three year

(39:28):
period to go out and look for him. There was
no indication that it may be here. The next clue
as to where he might be was that his vehicle
was recovered in a town at the end of this walk,
so it starts in Glasgow and it ends in a
town in the west coast of Scotland. It's about Bob
helped me out. How long is that walk? Seventy four miles?

Speaker 3 (39:49):
No, it's ninety six point one miles from from where
it is in the south all the way up to
the top. And at this point you're probably about forty
five miles from from the top, so you're close to
his midpoint.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
Okay, I'm not going to talk about too much because
I know Bob is that particular walk. So so yeah,
his car was found at the top of that walk,
so ninety six miles away from the central belt. That
again was out with my beit area and force area
that then was northern in Starbley's area. So they then

(40:22):
led the search in terms of mountain rescue and doing
a physical search outwards from the car. If you find
a car in that town, he could be in any
one of Eddy Hills or any part of that town.
It's you know, it attracts people to that area for
that very reason, recreation and walking, so kneeling the haystack. Really,

(40:42):
to be honest, if he'd not been found in three years,
he's not obviously going to be found. So that was
probably your one. The car was eventually recovered, I believe
it was eventually sold the auction, given the family and
sold on the auction and three years past until I
got a Treble nine call one March, and I've already
told you what happened there. So that's basically him. That's

(41:06):
about all I knew. He had been a bit depressed
in the past. I subsequently found out they had actually
threatened to take his own life in the past to
his family. He was o reiterated, was a sociable man,
and he's described as being afraid of being alone. So
these things are pertinent. So we kind of moved on

(41:26):
and the machine kicks in and we do what we
have to do now. Once the bones doctor so we'll
take you back to the scene now. So once the
Bones Doctors finished her gruesome work and recovered poor Nigel
and his remains were taken to the nearest towns of mortuary.
It was then over to the CID to complete the investigation.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
So was that you out of it at this time? Then?

Speaker 2 (41:50):
No, I'm still crewing the mobile office. And you know,
I would always be there. It's my beat, It's an
incidant in my beat. I would never not be there.
Up and with the productions et cetera. Now, productions just
basically can be anything, anything at all, from the shoes
he's wearing to the tent itself, and they should be
systematically recovered because at this death that this this incident

(42:13):
came out as a suspicious death. That's the first words
that came out on the COT. It was my call sign,
can you attend a suspicious death? Now? It will remain
a suspicious death until you can prove otherwise. So to
that end, everything should be systematically recovered from the scene
because you don't know what's important at that stage. So

(42:34):
obviously I'm not involved in that the CID do it.
There was a lot of stuff we had to clear.
There was chainsaws getting used to cut trees down to
get in and about this so we could make sure
that we've seen photographs and recovered everything. And that seemed
from the outside as I'm sitting in my little camper
van police office thing thing and yep, this is going well.
Then the word suicide starts getting bandied about quite a lot,

(42:58):
and I'm like, okay, and it was said to me,
And if I'm asked who said it or I remember
it being said to me that it was suicide, I
remember asking the question why and overdose and I was
like okay, and they kind of wrap things up. They
recovered everything. I'm going to talk about the recovery in
a minute. They recovered everything, cleared the scene, took the

(43:22):
tape down, and off we went. So the recovery of productions,
there's a correct way to do it, and I've already
told you it's very systematical. There's a very large ledger
book that you write the productions in. It's before digital
and stuff. You're writing everything down. That's a pair of shoes,
if it's a pair of socks, you write it down.
You write this person's name as you know it, and

(43:42):
the incident, and you sign it and you give it
a unique reference number. You should do that for every
single item. And they can imagine that could take a
whole book, you know, in a scene like this, even
worse than the house. Can you imagine. It's just it's
a very laborious job. It's a sort of job is
given to a TDC trained detective constable. You know, get
on with it. You do the productions, and everything's bagged

(44:05):
and tag just like it is in the movies. You know,
it's giving a label the week self sealed bag and
it goes in there and you're right and away you go.
That's the correct way to do it. There's an incorrect
way of doing it, and I can describe that to
you as well. That would be just to gather everything together,
throw all in black carrier bags, check at the back
of a police fan and drive it to the News
police office. That would be wrong. You might record a

(44:26):
few pertinent items that would help, you know, some medication,
a wallet if there was any money. Of course you're
going to lodge that. The knife, you're going to lodge that,
but you're not going to spend maybe a full day
up there lodging everything.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
And what in this case which method was used?

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Then they did the CID method. And the CID method
would be through everything in the black bag and take
it to the News police office with the words it's
a suicide. Rory crack on it yours.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
So when you say that, it's starting mention in suicide
and it was an over so what was what made
them think that? Was the empty tablet boxes.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
It's very difficult to say it. And the reason I'm
saying it like this is to give you a kind
of insight into what I was privy to. So the
questions you're asking are the questions I am asking. Okay,
So so there, this is just exactly as it happened.
And it was like, right off, you go, sure, beat son,
crack on, I was myself my real name, and it's

(45:26):
a suicide writer as such. I'm like, right now, that's okay.
But I, as you just asked, I don't need to
prove to myself that it's a suicide. I need to
prove not only to myself but to a court of law.
You know. I need to prove to the court that
this is a suicidal, non suspicious death. And only then

(45:47):
once a procreative fiscal is happy, can the body be
released to the family for burial.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
Oh I didn't know that was the process. I thought
it was just your decision.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
No, no, absolutely not. We we worked for the procerator fiscal.
Someone one said is if you think of us as
a journalist and the PF as the editor, you know,
and you're reporting the story to him and he decides,
you know, so, so basically that's what you do. You
collate enough everance to say I think it's a suicide
and this is why, and do you agree, mister fiscal.
He says yes, and the body gets released for burial.

(46:17):
That's the goal. That's my goal at that point. But
I'm in trouble because all I know is that I've
got a man missing for three years. Okay, he may
have been sad or depressed in the past. Yes, there's
some medication, but I don't really know what that medication
is at this stage. I'm going to have to find out,
so that report has to be in kind of for

(46:37):
the next lawful day, you know. So I'm under time
pressure now at this point, a bit of a parent,
I could see it coming. It wasn't a shock to me.
I could see it, you know. I could see the
you know, from the point of the doctor being there
checking the bones. I could see it de escalating. I
could see it. De esclate. Okay, we'll have identified him.

(46:58):
They identified him by the way through his driving license
and the jumper he was wearing. He was identified very quickly,
you know. So that was fine, and the family were
informed and that was good, and yeah, okay, but then
it was a case of right right away, you're on
your own, which, like I said, Charlie, you're on your
own and you're like, where am I going with this?
And I returned to my own office and was able

(47:21):
to speak to an officer who I'm going to call Jackie.
She was a flow so it's a family lazean officer
and she worked for Loading and Borders Police and when
Nigel went missing, she sorry was allocated the family as
the family's officer, as a go between with the police
and keep them informed of what was happening. Now, she
is one of the stars of this story and as

(47:42):
far as I'm concerned, and that she obviously she'd been
working with the family for three years, so she was
able over the phone to give me a very detailed
antecedents of Nigel, of who he was, what he was,
everything I've told you. It's Kaylee Bandy's sociable, his depression,
his work. She was able to give me that, a
good paragraph on that, and then the history of him

(48:03):
going missing, and between us we sat and we wrote
a report that certainly indicated that this was a man
who had suicidal thoughts, who had in the past taken
himself away to be alone and contemplate life, and it
had clearly become too much for him. And we had
some medication. I was showing it. I can't remember off

(48:24):
the top of the head, but did a did the
old google thing and so, yeah, you take enough of
that that's going to kill you. So job done. There
was no suicide note. However, there was a file of fact.
I don't know if you're old enough to don't to
remember what a file of facts was.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Yes, I remember.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Long before phones and stuff, and there was an allegation
that there may have been a note within that. However,
it was too soiled and contaminated to even be read.
So basically, I had a man with depression gone missing
overdosed in medication. I was it that that's kind of
and that was accepted, and I put as a report

(49:05):
officer that that is the report that went to the court,
and based on that, his death was deemed as a suicide.
And I kind of packed up my bags and went
back to dealing with a hanging that was dealing with
just the road, you know, So you can understand, I'm
the only reason I'm saying that is to give you
an indication of it is. It's a job, you know,

(49:28):
And you know you're like, right, okay, I've maybe got
this to do with this family and this to do
with that family, and okay, get it done and away.
At that stage, my priority was to get the case in.
Was I thinking about what a scene when I walked
towards the tent. Not really, that didn't come till later.
I was just too busy, too busy for one person.

(49:49):
I would suggest that had I not been alone in
terms of reporting, or or feel the burden to do
it alone, then maybe it would have. You know, someone
could have pulled you back, like, well, wait a minute,
have you watched the video? You know, no, one never
watched it again. You know, I don't even know where
it is this day. You know. I just cracked on
and did what I always did and completed the report.
It was what I was good at, It was what

(50:10):
I was recognized for. It. It wasn't new to me.
It was just it was. It was the norm, and
that was it.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
But the postmartem wasn't done yet. How are you able
to make a decision on or put send your paperwork
to the prokery of fiscal And how am I able
to make a decision without having seen the postmartum results?

Speaker 2 (50:29):
Don You are right? And my retelling of the story
jumps about a bit within a week, okay a week
to ten days the post morton was due to take place,
and I was tasked by a senior officer from the
CID with going to that post mortem, which was to

(50:49):
take place in Glasgow, which is about hundred miles off
with my beat. My sergeant at the time said, no,
I need Rory to place his beat. Can someone such
as a TDC not go down and do this, because,
let's be honest, there's not going to be too much
involved in it. And there was an email exchange between

(51:09):
my sergeant and that senior officer and the CID, a
fictional email, of course, of which I would have been
fictionally cced into, and that basically said it quoted the
sergeant's name from the senior officer and said, listen, this
is a relatively uncomplicated, straightforward, non suspicious death. Just send

(51:29):
Rory down there and treat it as such. This is
pre postmortem, non suspicious death. So Rory jumps in his
car and goes to Glasgow. The sergeant's human because it's
having this beat, is now having to be covered by Bob,
who's frankly competent, and then gets to Glasgow and I'm

(51:52):
met by the pathologist and I hope you never have
to be in such a god awful place. But it's
a little bit like the Telly. There's screens. That was
before there was screens, I believe there's TV screens. Now
there's just windows that look into this absolute horror show.
And there's it's a busy place as Glasgow Mortuary and
it's not somewhere you want to hang about. So my
particular case was happening amongst other cases that were happening,

(52:15):
and the pathologist had a box of bones and he said,
is this it? Yeah, and he said, well he's dead.
I'm well, yeah, I hope so, you know, but that
that was kind of was There was no there was no,
there was no there was no indication there was any
if you think of of damage to bones from knife

(52:36):
marks or anything.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
Like that, That's what I was thinking, Yes.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Yeah, yeah, And then and then me and Nigel went
back up the road and that was it.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
So you took Nigel back with you.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yeah. The thing about human remains, when myself and Bob
burn the police, I always remember it is that you
are responsible for them as the police, that they are
not the families. So you know, you don't really kind
of let them out of line the site, you know,
you officially had them over to an undertaker or whatever,
but you'd be you you should be pretty much there
or thereabouts until such time as it's deemed not suspicious.

(53:06):
It's just like any form of evidence that can be contaminated,
it can be interfered with, you know, so you have
to have a line, a timeline, you know, and then
that has to be and Nigel was my responsibility.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
May I just interject and say when when Rory said
says he's coming back with the remains, he's not in
the passenger seat next to him going through the drive
through at KFC. They normally go in something called the
police shell, so it's basically an undertaker's vehicle and you
would follow it or something like that.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
He's not.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
He's not having a conversation and choosing what to put
on the radio on the road.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
No, I wasn't far away from Nigel, but we weren't
in the same beagle. So the reports in and I
got a phone call one evening pre post bottom from Jackie,
our Flow, our family's officer, and Jackie tells me about
the sighting on the East coast. She reminds me of

(54:03):
the sighting from the Missing program on the East Coast
from a campsite owner. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know
what you mean. And she said, I've got a question
for you, Roddy. Was he wearing gaiters? And I'm not
to my knowledge, Bob, help us out what's gears?

Speaker 3 (54:17):
So, for those of you who are hillwalkers, if you're
walking through wet grass because they bought me, your trousers
get wet. It soaks down through your socks and then
your feet get wet, which is not good. So gaters
basically are kind of warpproof covers. They go over the
top of your pill walking boots and they usually come
up to just blow king a knee length. And they're
great because they stop your trousers getting wet, which stops

(54:38):
your socks getting wet. But better in Scotland, they stop
ticks climbing down, biting your angles and getting limes disease,
which is awful.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Yes, thanks for that, but so was he wearing said
leg warmers? No, it was my initial thought. No, But
I tell you what I'll do, Jackie, I'll go out
and check the production book. So the quick scan of
the production book. And I suppose at that point I'm
looking at the production book thinking, right, there's no gators.
There's not a lot in the production books, only one page. Oh, okay,

(55:10):
let's just ignore that, shall we, and just it doesn't
matter that. So, yeah, that was the first map, right, Okay?
Did the physically go and check for the gators?

Speaker 3 (55:20):
No?

Speaker 2 (55:20):
I didn't because I was aware of them or not.
What's the relevance. No, I should have because if he
if he was wearing them, he could have been in
the East coast. But anyway, I didn't. That was fine.
And then I'm going to say the same night I
might be wrong about but this is fiction, so it
doesn't matter about the timing. So I get another call
from her and we're discussing funeral arrangements after the PM

(55:41):
and once that the body's going to be released, whether
or not I was going to go, and I was
welcome to go, and et cetera. And she was telling
me that she'd spoken to the family and not to
contact them. They just want to be left alone to
deal with this, and absolutely she would be the point
of contact. Totally agree, not a problem. And then come
into the title of this story. Where's piglet? She said

(56:02):
to me, Rory, did he have a piglet with him?
Now that threw me a wee bit and I may
have swoorn sworn And I'm like, no, no, I don't
think he did. What on earth are you talking about, Jackie?
And she said, listen, she said he slept with this
toy piglet from Winnie the Pooh. Now we all know
piglet from Winnie the Pooh. Now as a child, he'd

(56:24):
been giving a small, cudly pink piglet and he slept
this even as a grown ass man. Now I've said before,
Bob's concurred. We we're both fathers, and we have daughters
and sons and they have cuddly toys and they are precious.
You know, my ten year old still has her well rabbit,
she calls a baby, and you know, and it's precious.

(56:45):
It goes everywhere. That's you know, where she is, where
she sleeps, rabbit sleeps. And I got this right. I
appreciate this as a man. And he said, he's however,
if he slept with this thing, and Jackie assured me
that he did. And she says, if you've got nudge,
you've got a piglet, And I said, well, I've never
seen a piglet, and I've scanned it the book and
i haven't seen it in the productions. She says, listen

(57:07):
to me a favor. Can you go and double check,
because really Mum wants to bury them with it. I said, hey,
of course, you know. We will bend over backwards here.
We will do whatever we can. We'll recover this thing.
It might not be in the best condition, but we'll
get it for you. We'll get it dry cleaned, and
we'll get it sent to the family. I'll bring it
myself if I have to. I'm on my way now.

(57:28):
During this conversation with the Flow, there was a question.
I may have said, what I've grown ass man sleep
my teddy bear, you know, And she had given an
indication that he may question his sexuality in terms of homosexuality,
and there is an element of relevance to the story.
There was an indication. I remember it. I remember it
being a subject, I remember it being a discussion. I

(57:50):
remember it being if he was that way inclined in
terms of homosexuality, of it being concealed because it's not
something to his traditional father in particular, would be more
comfortable with who was an older generation. And that was that.
That was that. There was no judgment. It was just
a formed part of the Piglet story. And I'm like, okay,
and I normally wouldn't repeat it, but as things moved

(58:13):
towards the end of this story, it may or may
not be relevant. So that was done, and I am
now on the hunt for Piglet and I've been the
hunt for him since.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
And that is the end of part one. But there's
so much more still to cover in this story. Here's
a teaser of what's still to come.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
And I said, this is the story. I want you
to go and look for this Piglet. It's not going
to be a nice job. There's a seating bag that
somebody's died in and been laid in for three years.
So we're going to get the suits on, the gloves on,
and they just let it.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Tell you straight away, you've got to be joking. You've
told me this is someone who's walking this long distance route. Well,
they didn't do it with all this stuff. And there's
literally like eight, nine, ten bags of big black bags
full of stuff. And I'm saying things like look, this
is wrong. Why have you got two sleeping bags here

(59:06):
when you're saying you've only got one person.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
I was getting progressively angrier that the CID had done this.
They've just cut corners with this.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
I know this is me trying to justify my own actions,
but at this stage I still I wasn't looking out
for a mystery here. I was just helping find Piglet.
But I did kind of look at them and think, well.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
That's okay, it's two sleep bags.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
That's two people's boots. You know, why have two pairs
of boots?

Speaker 2 (59:31):
Things become apparent to me. I find a toilet bag
with a load of medication on it, and and that
point my anger is probably up now on a level
with Bob's, because if you're telling me that this is
a suicidal death, and these are the two bits of
medicine that you've given me to prove this suicidal death,
and I open a black bag and there's a toilet

(59:51):
bag with a shoes my friends as shit, and a
medication in it that's not been listed on that What
the hell is this? We were just think, where's the knife?
They've listed a knife, but there's no what have they
done with it. I believe Bob then finds a noose.
It's not in the production book. The noose is one thing,
but the fact that it's not lodged and the medication
is making me angry, and I am convinced. You know,

(01:00:14):
I would blame money on the fact that this thing's
this cudly toy is going to be in here, because
if Nigel slept with them, where was he sleeping in
the bag? Losing the name. It's a bag, it's going
to be in it. Turns it out and there's no piglet.
But what did fall out was a condom. It was used,
there was still seeming within it, and it was still liquid.
This was an oh fuck moment.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
If the narrative was that this car is at the
north end of the way and he's walked south and
you're saying to me, Rory, we'll hang on. This guy's
very distinctive. He's been the TV documentary How's he not
being seen?

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
Join us next week for part two.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Scottish Murdoche is a production of Chlorine Tone