The Chessmen l-3

by Peter May

  ‘Anyway, I’m glad you’re back. I was going over to my mother’s. You can look after the baby now. And keep an eye on the washing. Take it in if it starts to rain.’ She was swallowed up by the open door, disappearing into the house. And Fin stood for a moment longer, watching the sheets flap in the wind, whipping and snapping and pulling at the rope. He could see clouds gathering already on the far horizon, and knew that it wouldn’t be long before he would have to take them in.

  IV

  He woke up in a panic, sweating. The dream was still horribly vivid in his mind. It was burned on his retinas as if he had been watching a movie and the images had remained even although the light was gone. He fought to remember exactly what had happened. It was fading already, but the sense of his betrayal and Marsaili’s hurt stayed with him like a stone in his heart. For a moment he thought it was Mairead she had found him with. Perhaps in the dream. But then he remembered, with a sickening sense of his own cruelty, the reality of what had actually happened nearly twenty years before. That day, in their shared student lodgings, when she had returned to find him in bed with the girl across the hall. Their bed. Snow falling on the wet-streaked tenements outside. The end, finally, of everything they might have been.

  He lay in the dark, breathing heavily, staring at the ceiling. The only light in the room came from the digital bedside clock. He could hear the slow, steady beat of Marsaili’s breath. She was still asleep.

  But something elusive remained, just out of reach. Something in his dream that he couldn’t quite recall. He had been in Mairead’s room, he knew. Had he actually kissed her in the dream? Is that what he had wanted, really? Is that what had triggered the awful memory of the fold-down bed in the student flat? Partly, perhaps. But there was something else. He closed his eyes and saw the photo album lying on the bed in Mairead’s hotel room, the whole gang of them standing on the Bridge to Nowhere grinning at the camera, and suddenly he knew what it was. He sat bolt upright and wondered why in God’s name it had never occurred to him before.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I

  Fin drew his Suzuki into the gravel parking area just above Garry Beach and turned off the engine. He sat listening to the tick of it as it cooled, looking out over the short stretch of machair towards the curve of the beach itself. It was the first time he had been back here since the day of the bike race. From where he was parked he could see the concrete span of the Bridge to Nowhere, and the road looping off around the line of the cliffs that pushed up out of the Minch.

  He gripped the steering wheel in front of him with both hands and leaned his head forward to rest on his forearms, eyes closed. He thought about the way that Whistler had behaved when they found the plane, the way he had looked at Mairead at the cemetery, the anger in his voice at the Cabarfeidh. And he thought about Mairead, and how she had played to the gallery with her singing at the church, and at the grave by breaking with convention. Her protestations of grief, when there was nothing in her demeanour to show it. How she had wanted Fin to make love to her while the sand was still, almost literally, being shovelled over her lover’s coffin. The twin demons of fear and confusion stalked his thoughts.

  He heard a car on the road and looked back towards Tolastadh, across a scrap of a loch choked by reeds and lilies, and saw Gunn’s car as it rounded the headland and began the gentle descent to the car park. It pulled in beside the jeep, and Gunn switched off the ignition. He glanced across towards Fin, but neither man acknowledged the other. Fin looked back towards the beach and gripped the wheel more tightly, before opening his hands to release it and reach for the door handle. He stepped down on to the chippings and slammed his door shut before opening the passenger door of Gunn’s vehicle and slipping into the seat beside him. He pulled it closed and wound down the window and both men sat in silence for some minutes.

  Finally Gunn said, ‘You never did come to the house, sir, for that taste of wild salmon.’

  ‘Don’t call me sir, George. You make me feel like I’m back in the force.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Macleod. Slip of the tongue.’

  ‘It’s Fin, George.’

  Gunn nodded. ‘She got some in last night. A nice bit of fish.’

  ‘Poached?’

  ‘Definitely not, Mr Macleod. She prefers it grilled.’ He grinned. ‘You could bring Marsaili.’

  Fin said, ‘She’d probably like that.’ There was more silence, then. Awkward now. Before finally Fin said, ‘Did you bring it?’

  Gunn’s face darkened. ‘I could lose my job.’

  ‘I appreciate that, George.’

  ‘Do you? I wonder if you do, Mr Macleod. It seems you’re always calling in favours, and I’m not sure what I ever get in return.’

  Fin had no answer to that.

  ‘What do you want with the postmortem report anyway? I mean, what could it possibly tell you that we don’t already know?’

  ‘I won’t know that until I see it.’

  ‘I can’t give it to you, Mr Macleod. It would be more than my job’s worth.’ He clenched his jaw and looked out over the beach. ‘But I suppose. . if I left it lying on the back seat, and you were to look at it without my permission. . well, that might provide me with, what do they call it, plausible deniability?’ He flicked a glance at Fin. ‘I need some air.’

  He climbed out of the driver’s seat with a swish of quilted nylon, and Fin watched him pick his way across the machair in his black anorak towards the sand. The wind whipped his dark hair up into a cockscomb. Over his shoulder Fin saw a buff A4 envelope lying on the back seat. He reached behind him to get it, and drew out the photocopied postmortem report from inside.

  It took only a few minutes to flip through it. The passage he was looking for was in the preamble. Professor Wilson’s detailed description of the body. What he read sent a chill through him so profound that he shuddered quite involuntarily.

  By the time Gunn got back to his car, the report was in its envelope on the rear seat where he had left it. But it was clear from Fin’s expression that he had looked at it, and that something he had seen had caused the blood to drain from his face.

  ‘What did you find, Mr Macleod? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.’

  Fin swung his head around to meet Gunn’s eyes. ‘I think I just have, George.’ He pushed the door open to step out.

  ‘Wait a minute, Mr Macleod. I deserve to know.’

  Fin hesitated. ‘You do, George. And I promise, you’ll be the first. But not yet.’ He slammed the door shut, and as he climbed into his jeep he heard the unusual sound of Gunn swearing inside his car.

  II

  The sky over the sands of Traigh Uige was painted on. Great fat brushstrokes of pale grey and cream. The wind was brisk and cool and blew through the last of the coastal tormentil, shrivelling its yellow petals like the first breath of winter. Fin turned off the metalled road and up the track to the level stony area in front of the blackhouse. He didn’t have any real hope of finding Whistler here, but it was the obvious place to start.

  When he stepped out of the jeep he smelled peat smoke in the air, like toasted oat bread left a little too long under the grill. So perhaps he was at home after all. The front door was not fully closed, and Fin pushed it into the gloom.

  ‘Whistler, you there? Whistler? We have to talk.’

  Silence. He stepped inside, and caught his breath at the sight that greeted him. It was pandemonium. Furniture overturned, shards of broken crockery strewn across the floor among the wood shavings. Whistler’s line of chessmen had been breached, several lying tipped over on their backs. He took a further step in, and by the light that fell obliquely through the narrow window in the rear wall, he saw the big prostrate form of Whistler lying face down on the floor. There was blood oozing through his hair and pooling on the floorboards.

  ‘Jesus, Whistler!’ Fin crossed the room in three strides and knelt by his side to feel for a pulse in his neck. His lip was split and blood oozed from his mouth. Fin saw the bru
ising and blood on the knuckles of his big, outstretched hand. But he was still alive. The scrape of a footstep coming from behind startled Fin. He half-turned and a light flashed in his head. The pain of it shot through his body. And darkness followed in an instant.

  III

  Padraig Post had been delivering the mail in this part of the island for almost as long as anyone could remember, and no one even thought his nickname funny anymore. He always left his van on the metalled road, and walked up the track to Whistler’s place. Today he had a registered letter from the Sheriff Court that required a signature. Which is why he knocked and pushed the door open into the chaos beyond.

  Fin could barely move, but was aware of the light that spilled across him as the door swung open. He shut his eyes against the pain and was blinded by the light in his head. When next he opened them, he was aware of someone kneeling beside him, a sack of Royal Mail discarded among the debris. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and a voice told him not to move. There was an ambulance on the way. It was a voice that thundered in his ears. He blinked away the blood running red in his eyes and saw Whistler lying not a foot away, his big whiskered face folded hard against the floor, bloodied lips parted, jaw slack. And the faces of the Norse warriors all around silently mocking.

  It was impossible now to tell how much time had passed. He was aware of moments that came and went like blinks of sunlight from a cloud-broken sky. The rumble of wheels beneath him, the sound of a siren. Light, dark, then light again. A blue light now. And then white lights overhead, passing like a succession of large balloons. He thought he saw Marsaili’s pale face, etched with concern, but couldn’t be certain it was not a dream.

  Until finally, emerging from darkness, the world seemed somehow solid again. The pain was still there, like a distant echo in the back of his mind, felt through gauze and cotton wool. He was in a bed. Tubular metal at the head and foot of it. Another beside him. Two opposite. All empty. Sunlight leaked from behind vertical blinds. The figure of a man leaned over him. A man in a white coat with a foreign accent. German perhaps. And he remembered, from nowhere, George Gunn once telling him that the hospital was full of foreign interns. God only knew what brought them here.

  He peered into Fin’s eyes, peeling back the lids, one after the other. ‘He is severely concussed,’ he said, and Fin wondered who he was speaking to. ‘I will want to keep him here under observation for another twenty-four hours.’ He straightened up and turned away from the bed. ‘After that. .’ Fin could see the shrug of his shoulders. ‘You can have a few moments with him now.’

  He moved out of Fin’s range of sight and Fin found he could not turn his head to follow. A shadow fell across him. And then another. He smelled aftershave, almost overpowering, worn like a whore wears too much perfume. That, and something of the demeanour of the man standing closest to his bed, told Fin immediately that he was a cop.

  ‘Detective Inspector Colm Mackay.’ The voice confirmed it. He half turned. ‘Detective Sergeant Frank Wilson.’ A pause. He moved closer, his voice a little lower. ‘As soon as you are fit, Mr Macleod, I’ll be arresting you on suspicion of the murder of John Angus Macaskill. In the meantime I’ll be leaving an officer at the door. Just in case you decide to take a walk.’

  And all that Fin could think, with a pain greater than the one that filled his head, was that Whistler was dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I

  Sunlight slanted in through the barred window high in the wall. Fin sat on his bunk, hands holding on to the edge of it as if he were afraid he might fall off. His head was bowed, and he stared at the concrete floor. On the far side of this tiny space, a white-painted arrow on the floor near the door pointed east. If he had believed in God, and were of that persuasion, he might have been tempted to kneel down and pray. A prayer for a dead friend. A moment passed, and a life lost. No way to bring it back. No way to rewind the clock and do it all differently. Whistler existed now only in his memory, and in the memory of others. And when they were gone there would be no trace of him left on this earth, except for his bones in it, and his wind turbines and his chessmen. And a daughter who was now an orphan.

  Fin’s head still felt as if gripped in a vice. A white bandage around his forehead kept the dressing in place at the back of it where they had stitched up the wound. But there was no pain. He was still too numb to feel it. Only when the numbness had gone would the full realization of all that had happened visit its pain upon him. And he wondered if he would be able to bear it.

  He closed his eyes. How many lost souls had passed through this place? Drunks and wife-beaters, frauds and fighters. But he was, he knew, one of very few ever likely to be charged with murder. For the moment he was just helping police with their inquiries. Not that he had been, or could be, of much help. He had no idea what had happened to Whistler, and they had not asked him yet. He had lost a day in the hospital, and now he had lost his freedom, locked up in a police cell, a victim of events beyond his control.

  He heard the scrape of a key in the lock, and the door swung open. George Gunn slipped in and shut the door quickly behind him. He was still wearing the quilted anorak he had worn yesterday morning. He turned and looked at Fin, and Fin could see the tension in his face. ‘I suppose the salmon’s all gone by now,’ Fin said.

  But Gunn didn’t smile. ‘For God’s sake, Mr Macleod! You know they want to charge you?’

  Fin lowered his head to look at the floor again and nodded.

  ‘He’s a twenty-four-carat bastard that DI Mackay. Knew him when I was at Inverness.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him, George.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Mr Macleod. I never thought for one minute that you did.’

  ‘Whistler was still alive when I got there. I felt a pulse.’

  Gunn nodded. ‘It looks like he crawled across the floor while you were unconscious. You can see the trail of blood where he dragged himself over it, almost as if he was trying to reach something. The pathologist said he died from an epidural haematoma, and that it wasn’t uncommon for there to be a brief period of lucidity after unconsciousness. But then followed by coma and death. He’d had a helluva crack on the skull, Mr Macleod.’

  ‘There’d been some kind of a fight, George.’

  ‘Well that much was obvious. But what were you doing there, Mr Macleod? What did you see in that postmortem report that made you go looking for Whistler Macaskill?’ When Fin failed to respond he blew his frustration through clenched teeth. ‘Well, let me tell you what I know. I know that I let you see the PM report on Roddy Mackenzie. I know that you saw something in it that you wouldn’t share with me. And I know that you went straight from Tolastadh to John Angus Macaskill’s croft at Uig. And the next thing the man’s found dead, and you lying there beside him with your skull cracked open.’ More silence. ‘For Christ’s sake! I’ve bent over backwards to help you, Mr Macleod. More than once. I think you owe me.’

  Fin drew a deep breath. Mairead, and now Gunn. ‘I do. But I can’t tell you, George. Not yet.’ He heard the other man’s sigh of exasperation.

  Gunn pulled the door open a fraction and craned his head to glance anxiously back along the corridor. He lowered his voice. ‘I shouldn’t be here. And I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.’ He glared at Fin. ‘I only hope that you’re not going to drop me in the shit.’

  Fin lifted his eyes to meet Gunn’s and raised one eyebrow. ‘I think you know me better than that, George.’

  ‘I hope so, Mr Macleod. I really hope I do.’

  He opened the door a little wider and squeezed back out into the corridor, pulling it shut behind him. Fin heard the key turning again in the lock.

  It was almost half an hour before he heard the rasp of hard leather on concrete and the rattle of a key in the lock once again. This time it was a uniformed sergeant who stood in the doorway regarding Fin with thoughtful curiosity. ‘The DI’s ready for you now, Mr Macleod.’

  Fin nodded and got slowly to his feet.r />
  There was a single window in the interview room, looking out on some kind of courtyard or car park. DI Mackay and DS Wilson stood behind a wooden table, two chairs behind them, a single chair on the opposite side of the table. The uniformed sergeant closed the door and positioned himself with his back to it, arms folded. Mackay waved Fin into the single seat opposite.

  The DI was a tall, thin-faced weasel of a man, the remains of his hair grown too long, gelled and scraped back over a narrow skull in an attempt to disguise its baldness. Fin always had an instant distrust of anyone with such a capacity for self-deception. He was clean-shaven, with the faintly purple raised skin of someone sensitive to the blade. His long neck was punctuated by an oversized Adam’s apple, and vanished into a collar a size too big. As he sat down, he used a long bony finger to press the record button on the digital recorder that sat in front of him on the table next to a beige folder.

  Detective Sergeant Wilson was an altogether smaller man, reduced by the rank of his superior officer to the role of observer. He was almost invisible. Neither Fin nor Mackay paid him any attention.

  Mackay spoke with a strong Invernesian accent as he voiced the date and time for the record along with the names of those present. He interlaced his skeletal fingers on the table in front of him. ‘Perhaps you would like to tell us, Mr Macleod, why you murdered John Angus Macaskill?’

  Fin returned Mackay’s stare until the Detective Inspector started to become uncomfortable. He would have known that Fin had attained the rank of detective inspector himself before leaving the force, and so there was an element of something like rivalry between them. Almost open hostility.