cheque cards and papers were some way from the car, the papers meticulously torn up.
PC Kenny Crawford, a young constable on relief duty from Inverness, quickly gathered personal items from the scene of the crash and placed them in a holdall.
Mr Coutts told The Herald last night it seemed to him that the young policeman was keen to get off the hillside quickly. ”He didn’t even ask for my name, but just bundled everything up,” he said.
Mr Crawford has now talked freely about the incident for the first time.
The injured Mr McRae was taken first to Raigmore Hospital Inverness and later to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, where he died at 3am on Sunday.
However, it was only when a nurse washed his head on his arrival at Aberdeen that agunshot wound in his right temple was discovered and the police informed.
Officers from the Northern Constabulary revisited the scene of the crash, but by then it was impossible to conduct the level of rigorous, on-site investigation which might have produced crucial answers.
During the search PC Crawford found a Smith and Wesson .22 pistol beyond where the car was found. It had been fired twice.
Mr Crawford, who has now left the force and is living in Inverness, told The Herald that the gun was ”some yards” downstream but he believed it had been knocked from a ledge in the car when they had retrieved Mr McCrae’s body.
He also believes the gun had fallen into a small waterfall and the fast running burn had transported the weapon from the site