The Interpretations

  Mike picked up the shoe and turned it over in his hands. ‘What does this tell us then?’

  ‘Well, it’s been in the water some time, but not too long.’

  ‘So he took off his shoes before he jumped, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No, no. If you hit the water feet first the impact can easily rip your shoes off. Particularly from that height.’

  ‘So he jumped and as he hit the water one of his shoes came off?’

  ‘Or maybe both of them. But we’ve only found the one so far.’

  Mike looked at the shoe again. Then he set it down carefully on the desk. ‘So, no more theories,’ he said.

  ‘No more theories,’ McCall repeated. Then he said, ‘I’m sorry, Mike. I’m really sorry.’

  2000

  15

  The car, which sat at the pavement only ten feet away from where Mike Delvan stood admiring it, was two weeks old. It was a bright red top-of-the-range Alfa Romeo 166. It was the only one of its type in the county and its on-the-road price was £33,345. Mike Delvan, leaning back against his garden gate, arms crossed, still found it difficult to believe that this car belonged to him.

  But it did. It was one of his possessions, just like the house behind him, number 3, Church Pastures.

  He looked round at the other houses, at the cars parked outside them: a Ford Mondeo; two Minis; three different models of VW; a Volvo estate; two Saabs; a pale blue Rover 75 that was only two years old but had been treated so badly it was already falling to bits. No doubt about it: the Alfa was the best car by far, by a very long way, in fact. And this meant one of two things: either he should sell the Alfa and buy a more modest car or he should get a bigger house.

  But he liked his house. There was nothing actually wrong with Church Pastures. It was quite a tasteful development of twenty-five two-storey detached houses. The houses themselves were unremarkable – square with pitched roofs and each with a small front porch. Some owners had added conservatories at the back. They were comfortable and functional houses rather than luxurious and they were perhaps beginning to reveal their age – although this was only fourteen years – in the one or two gutterings that had broken and had not yet been fixed and in the peeling paint on some of the garden fences and window frames. But at least they hadn’t been laid out in rows. Their positioning, the landscaping of the entire development, had been influenced by the fact that the land was not flat. At the lower edge, the back gardens of numbers 21 to 25 fell away quite sharply towards the Crask Burn. At the top, where the main drive gave on to the South Mossfield Road, the slope was quite gentle and led up to the ruins of the old East Kirk.

  For the land now occupied by Church Pastures had been church land for nearly a century and a half. From 1847 until 1983 it had been known as the Drumdyre Pasture and had been let to local farmers for grazing. The fees involved had been modest.

  In 1983 the church itself, the East Kirk, had closed its doors for the last time. Anything of any value in or on the church had been removed – the doors, the roof slates, those of the roofing timbers that weren’t rotten, the ancient copper piping and the lead flashings, even the pews. Some of the items were taken to the West Kirk, on the other side of the Firth of Duie, where they were used in the repair of its decaying fabric. But some things made their way to unlikelier places.

  The pulpit was removed intact. There had been some suggestion that it should find a home in Dalmore Museum but it never featured in any display. The museum’s curator, Arthur Findlayson, had stored it, as a temporary measure, at the back of his own garage. There was just enough space in this garage for the pulpit and Findlayson’s Ford Fiesta. But it was a tight squeeze. After a couple of years two of the planks at the front of the pulpit were cracked at exactly the level of the Fiesta’s front bumper.

  The pulpit, with its seven internal steps, sat there for eight years until the curator retired and then a further seven until 1998 when he suffered a stroke and died.

  Findlayson’s widow sold up and moved down to Dunkeld to live with her daughter. A publican called Andrew Bohespic bought the house.

  Bohespic’s father, Farquar Bohespic, had managed the Wade Inn in Dalmore for many years but decided, at the age of fifty-five, to quit the alcohol trade. He passed the business on to his son.

  So, at the age of thirty, Andrew Bohespic was the proud owner of the Wade Inn. And, following Findlayson’s death, he also possessed an attractive four-bedroomed house on the outskirts of Dalmore. However, he hadn’t inspected the garage too closely before purchasing the property and he discovered that he also owned a large wooden object. He hadn’t been inside a church more than three times in his life but even he could recognize a pulpit when he saw one.

  But what was it really? Was it an artifact of great historical importance or was it just a lump of old wood? It was certainly a nuisance because his Jaguar XJS and the pulpit could not occupy the garage together. There just wasn’t enough room.

  The solution was simple. One day he employed a couple of schoolboys to drag the pulpit out onto the garage forecourt and there they smashed it up for firewood.

  In only fourteen years the East Kirk had been transformed into a huge empty stone box with holes in the sides and no top to it. Ferns rooted themselves in between the stone slabs of the floor and in cracks in the walls. In the first year of its dereliction one stone fell from one of the walls; in the second year, two stones.

  The Drumdyre Pasture was sold to a property developer called Bishop who built twenty-five houses on the land and changed the name to Church Pastures. One of the results of this sale was that there was nowhere for the East Kirk cemetery to expand to. By 1982 it was very nearly full and when the church closed there were no more funerals at the East Kirk.

  Except one. In 1987 Tom Kingsmill had been missing for five years. His body was never recovered but he was officially declared dead. A funeral was held for him in the East Kirk cemetery.

  Mike placed his hand on the roof of the Alfa just above the front passenger door. Then he swept his hand gently along the shiny metal as if stroking an animal. His mobile phone trilled. He put his hand in his jacket pocket but not to retrieve the phone, just to switch it to message mode. Then he began walking along the driveway towards the exit onto the South Mossfield Road.

  Mike was now fifty years old. Over the past twenty years or so he’d put on about a stone in weight but he was still in good shape. He still went running but this was generally restricted to weekends. His hair was thinning and he’d taken to wearing hats. But he wore only one type: a dark blue forage cap with a curved peak. In fact he had half a dozen of these which he’d bought in the Army Surplus Store in Dalmore during its closing down sale. As he walked up the road he realized he’d left his cap in the Alfa. But he didn’t turn back.

  He was heading for the cemetery. A high brick wall separated the cemetery from Church Pastures. It would have been simple to place a gate in this wall so that the cemetery could be entered directly from the housing development. But the residents had not wanted this. Apart from the fact that it would have offered one more opportunity for criminals to gain access to the estate, why would anyone from Church Pastures want to visit the cemetery? None of the residents had any relatives buried there; few of them had any interest in the churchyard or the old East Kirk.

  Tom Kingsmill’s grave was only about fifty yards from Mike’s front door but to get there he walked up the drive to the South Mossfield Road, turned left, walked north for twenty or thirty yards and then turned in at the old church gates. From there he walked round the ruined church to the point where the land began to slope down towards the Crask Burn.

  He’d forgotten to get flowers. He could get some in Dalmore later and bring them round in the evening. But he was annoyed nevertheless. He lived only four or five minutes’ walk away from the grave of his best friend and his visits had been reduced to this: once a year on the anniversary of the first Bridge Race. And this year he’d forgotten about it altogeth
er. Or rather, he hadn’t forgotten, he’d just postponed his visit two or three times. Now it was the end of May and he was two months late. And he’d forgotten to bring flowers.

  He began to think about what had happened at the funeral which had taken place thirteen years earlier and, in particular, he thought about what lay inside the wooden box beneath his feet.

  To Mike’s surprise not only had the Reverend McFarren agreed to conduct the service – he had officially retired three years before – but he’d allowed Mike to place a small collection of objects inside the empty coffin. There were a couple of photographs, a hat, a running shoe and a book.

  The running shoe was not the one Tom had nearly lost in his first cross-country race. It was the one that had been found, new and water-logged, on the shore of the Duie Firth, the shoe that proved at last that Tom was dead.

  The book was on pheasant rearing and had belonged to Tom’s father, which was why, Mike supposed, that Tom valued it so highly. So, to this collection of five objects Mike had added a sixth: a tail feather from a cock pheasant.

  For a long time Mike was convinced that Tom was still alive. Even at the so-called funeral he’d held onto this belief. But it had slipped away over the years, revived occasionally when he devised a new theory which was duly trashed by McCall or Jim Fisher, Dundas or just . . . common sense. No, Tom was certainly dead and the tombstone proclaimed it:

  This memorial was placed here by the friends of

  Tom Kingsmill

  who was born in Dalmore on June 16th, 1950

  and who disappeared, presumed drowned,

  in the Duie Firth, on the evening of the

  28th of March, 1982.

  May the Lord bring peace to his soul.

  From the cemetery you could see the smooth brackened slopes of the Broad Hill; you could see the Duie Firth and the bridge from which Tom had jumped. From this angle it was seen almost end on and its towers, bright in the early morning sunshine, made it look like a skyscraper rather than a bridge. Mike turned towards the cemetery gates and made his way back to number 3, Church Pastures.

  Would Tom recognize him now? Physically, almost certainly, but there had been other, greater changes.

  Eighteen years ago, Mike would have described himself not only as unemployed but unemployable. He would have said this with some pride. Then Dundas had offered him a job at the WattWays Fish Processing Plant. ‘No favours,’ he’d said. ‘Nothing like that. No, I’m a man short now that Tom’s gone and I know you could do with a job.’

  ‘I haven’t worked for five years,’ Mike said.

  ‘I know that,’ Dundas countered. ‘It’s bloody hard work and you’ll no like it overmuch. Maybe you’ll no last a week, but I’m offerin’.’

  At the end of the first week Mike had very nearly quit. His back hurt, his fingers were raw and he had come to detest the smell of fish. But he’d stuck with it. Maybe just to prove Dundas wrong. But the pay was good even then – a hell of a lot better than unemployment benefit – so he’d stayed. And stayed.

  A couple of years later, he’d even bought a house.

  And this year, as Dundas’s deputy, he’d got the biggest bonus he’d ever earned – just under seven thousand pounds – and he’d been able to buy, or at least to start to buy, an Alfa Romeo 166.

  Which he was approaching now. He took the keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. He settled in to the dark leather upholstery which still smelled new and expensive. He turned on the ignition.

  The improvement in his personal situation, the fact that he was well-off and could afford a car like this, was all down to the bridge. That’s what Mike reckoned, anyway. The bridge had opened up the area, made transportation to and from the south so much easier. Business conditions had improved greatly. Even WattWays had done well, in spite of the mixed fortunes of the fishing industry.

  It was strange to think, now, how many people had been against the bridge twenty-odd years ago when it was being built. He could remember the protests, the banners, the people blocking the traffic. He could remember the Reverend McFarren, in his only television interview, ranting on about desecration and defilement. Now, at the start of a new century, a new millennium, McFarren’s efforts seemed . . . not exactly silly, just a bit quaint. Irrelevant, certainly.

  He put the car in gear and drew away from the kerb. He drove slowly up the drive and turned on to the South Mossfield Road. He passed the gates of the cemetery he’d visited only a few minutes before. Towards the junction with the bridge approach he could see that traffic on the bridge itself was light. As he prepared to turn on to the bridge approach he could see only one car to his right, heading in his direction. It was a white Mercedes, travelling fast. Though it was in the outside lane, as it should be, he decided to wait and let it pass.

  When it was a couple of hundred yards away he saw he was mistaken; it was in the middle lane. Then, with some alarm, he saw it veer into the inside lane. Then it was on the hard shoulder, then churning up turf and earth on the grass verge. And then Mike knew this car was going to hit him and he had no time to do anything about it.

  The Mercedes struck the right front wing of the Alfa, spinning it through 180 degrees and shoving it hard into the dry stone dyke that surrounded the adjacent field. The impact with the Alfa pushed the Mercedes up and the car became airborne. It vaulted the dry stone dyke and then nose-dived into the field. It cart-wheeled a few times, shedding metal and glass as it did so, left the field and finally came to rest, upside down, on the inside lane of the bridge approach once more, a hundred and fifty yards on from the junction and the smashed-up Alfa. By this time the driver of the Mercedes and his two passengers were all fully dead. Mike, in his reshaped Alfa, was nearly dead but not quite.

  16

  Three days later, when he was beginning to speak again, Mike asked about his car.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Alfa. Is it all right?’

  Jim Fisher shook his head. ‘Christ Almighty. Here’s me thinking you were, you know, vaguely intelligent. You damn near died and the first thing you ask about is your stupid car.’

  ‘Well, I’m asking,’ Mike said, slowly.

  ‘Your car’s in an even worse state than you. Which is saying something. With a bit of luck they’ll be able to mend you but they can’t mend your stupid car.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Jim Fisher was still tall and thin, still gangly, as if uncertain at times, as to where his limbs were and what they might be doing. He still had hair that fell over his face but it was a paler brown now, turning grey. One notable change from eighteen years ago was that he’d managed to lose his nickname of Weet. For a few years now he’d been Jim.

  He was sitting at Mike’s bedside in a small ward in the Dalmore Royal Infirmary. There were four beds in the ward but the other three were unoccupied. Mike would not remember it but he’d been in this ward before. He had visited the Reverend McFarren here after the minister had collapsed during Donald Gilfedder’s funeral. Mike had visited the minister the same evening, had sat where Jim Fisher was sitting right now.

  Mike’s condition was no longer critical but he was far from well. Just to set the record straight Jim listed his injuries:

  ‘Your right arm’s broken in two places; your right cheek is fractured; you’ve lost three teeth; you’ve got a few broken ribs – they haven’t quite finished counting how many yet – oh, and your right ankle’s broken, too. Everything that’s not broken is badly bruised. With me so far? Good. You’ve got more tubes sticking out of you than you could count in a week and the only thing you can do unaided right now is fart. But please wait till I’ve gone.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Mike said, quietly and slowly, ‘you’re here to comfort me, is that right?’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not exactly, no.’

  ‘OK then. Your car’s a complete write-off,’ Jim said. ‘Which means that you’ll get a brand new one.’ He smiled. ‘There, isn’t that bett
er?’

  ‘Well, it is, yes,’ Mike said.

  ‘And I didn’t bring you any grapes.’

  ‘Can’t stand them.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I didn’t bring any.’

  ‘I like peaches,’ Mike said.

  ‘Is that so?’

  Mike was lying on his back with the head of his bed slightly raised. It was the right side of his body, as identified in Jim’s list of injuries, that displayed the greater involvement with medical care. There were lots of bandages. His right arm, from the elbow down, was in plaster. The bandages covering his right eye and the right side of his head failed to conceal a purple bruise that had spread over the bridge of his nose to the socket of his left eye.

  ‘Tell me about the other car,’ he said.

  ‘Do you remember anything at all?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Not much. White, I think.’

  ‘A white Mercedes,’ Jim confirmed. ‘It was written off, too, along with the three guys inside.’

  ‘Three?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you mean, written off? Are they dead?’

  ‘All of them. But then the driver was plastered. I mean miraculous altogether. Three and a half times over the limit. You know the sort of thing: he was only driving because he couldn’t walk.’

  ‘But it was in the morning, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was. Seven fifty-one on the morning of the twenty-ninth.’

  ‘And what’s today, then?’

  ‘The first of June.’

  ‘First . . .’ Mike took some time to absorb this information. ‘Three days ago?’

  ‘Well, you can still do simple arithmetic,’ Jim said. ‘Albeit slowly.’

  ‘Well, thank you.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. So anyway, seems they were heading home from a really late party. The Merc was doing over ninety, they reckon, when it hit you. Spun you round and into the wall. Then it kind of took off. Cleared the wall, crash-landed in the field and then did a few somersaults until it was back on the road again. Smacked down on its roof. I saw it later myself. It was . . . well, pretty flat. None of the guys inside had a chance really.’