twinkling, nutmeg of a man, a tiny figure with skin like well worn
leather, sharp features and sparse, wispy, flyaway hair. Looking at
him Skinner's daughter was struck by his resemblance to a character in
the Star Wars series ... a character depicted by a puppet.
"Did it strike you as odd that I offered you a drink," he asked her
father, in vibrant Irish tones, 'here of all places, where it's a
problem to so many?"
The big detective grinned. "Now that you mention it, I suppose it
did."
"Nothing odd about it at all. My friends who live here don't do so on
the basis that they keep off the drink. Some of them just can't, poor
souls, or they wouldn't be here in the first place."
"How many people do you have here?" Alex asked him.
"Up to twenty-five, my dear. God knows there's a need for more places,
but we have to strike a balance with the feelings of our neighbours."
The hostel was situated in a residential suburb on the western side of
the Clyde coast town, on a hillside looking across the Firth to Dunoon.
"They're good folks in the main," Brother Aidan went on, 'but if we
tried to expand this place, one or two of them might object. And I'd
understand why, too. My friends here are all good people too, at
heart, but some of them can get a bit obstreperous from time to
time."
"What's the mix among the, um, residents?" asked Skinner.
The little priest scratched his chin. "The mix? They're just men, all
of them, people who would like to live in normal society, in a normal
home, but with problems that make it difficult, nay, impossible, for
them to do that. With some it's mental illness. With a few, it's
personality disorders.
With others, it's just the drink. With one or two, like your poor
brother Michael, it's both."
He rocked back in his chair, and took a long look at his visitors, his
sharp gaze finally coming to rest on Bob. "So he's dead, then, my old
friend."
"I'm afraid so."
"He was here the longest, you know. I came myself thirty-two years
ago, and Michael joined us a couple of years after that."
"How was he, all that time?"
"Sure, and how do I answer that? Sad, I suppose; yes, whatever else he
was, he was always sad. At first, when he came here from the hospital,
he was very disturbed. He was medicated, but there was still a great
anger in him."
"What did he have to be angry about?" Skinner blurted out, before he
could stop himself.
"A great deal," Brother Aidan replied, 'but it was all directed at
himself. In those early years, I had a fear that it might drive him to
take his life. But gradually, that anger faded, until only the sadness
remained. He became, I'd have to say, a nice man, quiet, but popular
within our community here. Eventually, if my friends here can be said
to have a leader among them, that's what he became. He had been thrust
out of his own family, but he had the good fortune to find another
here. He was a great asset to us as well. He had all sorts of skills
with his hands, from his army days; just about all of the maintenance
around here, he did."
The priest held up a hand. "You mustn't take that as criticism, my
son. I understand why your father did what he did. It hurt him very
deeply, but as he saw it, he had no choice. Truth be told, that's how
I saw it too."
"You met my father?"
"Of course. He came to inspect Oak Lodge while Michael was still in
the hospital. He was a substantial man, right enough, with an air
about him that I saw in you the moment you walked through the door." He
smiled at Alex. "And in you too, my dear, if I may say so. Michael
would have been very proud of his niece, had he known of you." Brother
Aidan sighed. "But he never did, of course; he never once asked me
about his family. I think he knew that he wouldn't have been able to
bear having a running commentary on their lives."
"You told him when my parents died, though?"
"Of course. When he learned about your poor mother, I thought he
really would end himself. He locked himself away and cried for a whole
day. Eventually I had to have his door broken in. When I told him
about your father, though, I have to say that his reaction was very
strange. He was every bit as broken-hearted, but there was something
else too. He was afraid for the security of his life here. He was
convinced that you would wind up his trust and cut off his money."
"God, I'd never have done that."
"I knew you wouldn't, and eventually I was able to persuade Michael of
that. Still and all, though, his view of life did change after your
father's death. There was always that edge of fear in him."
"Fear?"
"Yes, my son; he always had a fear of you. Michael told me about the
terrible things he did to you, when you were a child. He told me what
he did to your mother, and about what happened after that. I am not
condemning you here, because I know what you saw. You were no more
than a boy defending his mother; the most natural thing in the world.
But your brother's last memory of you was of you beating him
unconscious, telling him all the time in a quiet voice that you were
going to kill him. He came to realise that among his many sins,
possibly the greatest was to have put such hatred in the heart of one
so young. He couldn't believe that it could ever leave you, and when
the years went by without a visit from you, or cards on his birthday or
at Christmas, his sadness and his guilt went all the deeper."
Bob Skinner stared out of the window of the old priest's office. "I'm
carrying my own guilt now, Brother. Michael's dead, and I wish that at
the very least I'd written to him, or called him, if only to wipe away
his memory of that hatred, and to cleanse him of his guilt. It came to
me, when I looked at him in the mortuary, that in my life as a police
officer I've dealt with many people who were a hell of a lot worse
human beings than my brother ever was, and yet I've shown most of them
more mercy than I ever showed him." He winced, as if his pain was
physical.
"I can make the age-old excuse, of course; in not contacting him I was
obeying my father's order. I worshipped my dad ... as did Michael in
his own very different way. It would have been a betrayal for me to
have gone against him; for me, the ultimate disloyalty. But now, I'll
go through my life believing that if I had reached out to him, maybe he
wouldn't have wound up in that fucking river."
Brother Aidan nodded. "You may do so," he conceded. "But even if you
had reached out, as you put it, I doubt very much whether Michael would
have given up his life here. Your father put him here because he had a
personality disorder and he was alcoholic. A Christmas card from you
might have been nice, but it wouldn't have changed that. Be hard on
yourself if you like .. . wearing a hair shirt on occasion is good for
any man .. . but don't be too hard. Bury him where he belongs, beside
his parents,
then try to move on."
Alex reached across and took his hand. "Yes, Dad, please."
Skinner let out a low growling sound. "Mmmm. Time will tell if I can;
my life seems to be full of guilt and anger just now. Maybe the best
thing I could do is take over Michael's bed here."
"You don't qualify," said Brother Aidan, brusquely. "There's a queue
from here to Glasgow of people who need help, before we get round to
those who just feel sorry for themselves."
Reproved, the policeman smiled. "True."
"You mentioned a river," the little priest continued. "You've never
told me how Michael died. Was that it?"
"Part of it, at least. Tell me, Brother, did Michael leave here
often?"
"He'd go down the shops like everyone else, but if you mean did he take
a trip somewhere, that happened only rarely. In fact, two weeks ago
was the first time he ever went away for any length of time without me.
Michael and I used to go on holiday together," he explained. "I have a
nephew in a village near Cork, and we would visit him every year or
two."
"So what happened two weeks ago? Where did he go?"
"Glasgow, I was told."
"On his own?"
"Oh no. He couldn't have done that. Not that there'd have been
anything to stop him, mind, other than himself. My friends here are
all free men; they can come and go any time they please. But many,
Michael among them, choose to remain.
"What happened was this. A few months ago, your brother had a letter,
out of the blue. He said it was from a man called Skipper, someone
he'd known a long time ago, when he was young. Skipper said that he'd
been abroad for many years, and that he'd only just come back to
Scotland. He'd asked around about Michael and had been told by a
friend of a friend back in Mother well that he'd gone to live in Oak
Lodge."
"Did my uncle write back to him?" asked Alex.
"There was no return address, my dear. However a couple of weeks
later, there was a telephone call for Michael, from the man. I didn't
think he was going to take it at first. Apart from once when my nephew
called from Ireland and he said a quick hello, he hadn't spoken on the
telephone for thirty years. But he plucked up his courage and he did.
The outcome was that Skipper came to visit him, shortly afterwards.
They had a chat, then they went out for a drink together."
"Did this guy have another name?" Skinner asked.
"That's the only one I know. I don't know whether it's a surname,
nickname or whatever. In any event, he came another couple of times,
and eventually, it was arranged between them that Michael would go to
stay with him for a couple of weeks."
The old man sighed. "The truth be told, when you called to say you
wanted to see me, I thought you were going to tell me that Michael
wasn't going to be coming back. That's just what you did tell me, but
not in the way I expected."
"Sadly not. Brother Aidan, can you tell me what this man Skipper
looked like?"
The Jesuit ran his fingers through his sparse hair. "He'd have been
about Michael's age, I suppose. In height, he'd have been around the
same, but he was fairly thin; much more lightly built. He wore
spectacles with blue lenses; sunglasses I suppose they were."
"Hair?"
"Grey, like yours. A bit greyer, maybe. Does that ring any bells?"
"None. I'll maybe talk to a couple of people in Mother well, who might
have known my brother back in the old days. They'll probably be rogues
or policemen, but some of them will still be around."
"Why do you need to trace this man, Robert?" Brother Aidan asked.
"Because Michael's death may have been either suicide, or an accident,
or something else. There's considerable doubt about it." He told the
priest the rest of the story, explaining where and how he had been
found. As he spoke, the old man's mouth formed into a perfect O of
horror.
He crossed himself. "How terrible," he whispered. "My poor old
friend, that he should die like that. But tell me, how did the police
make the connection to you?"
"The only thing they found on his body was a photograph of my father.
Someone who knew me saw it, spotted the likeness between us, and came
to me."
"Ahh," Brother Aidan exclaimed. "That would be it. It was all he had
with him when they brought him here. And it was all he took with him
just over two weeks ago, when he went away with Skipper, for the last
time."
Twenty-Three.
"What do we know about this fire-raising thing?" asked Stevie
Steele.
"It's in our records, right enough," DS George Regan replied. "And so
is the girl's photograph, full face and profile, Strachan, Andrea. I
pulled it, and it pretty much matches the face on the video. Her
address is listed as If4, 43 Albany Terrace; I checked with the
probation service. She's still there."
"So what happened? What did she do? How come it means nothing to
me?"
"It wasn't in our division, Stevie. It happened down in Joppa, at the
back end of last October. They called it a church, but it was more of
a gospel hall, one of these Baptist hand-clapping, hallelujah places;
it was near the offices of the charity where she worked, and it got to
her then. The Strachan girl seems to be a bit of a Christian
fundamentalist; to her it was Sodom and Gomorrah all rolled into one
big party. Eventually, God talked to her, didn't he, and he told her
that he had chosen her to destroy it."
"Schizophrenic?" asked Alice Cowan.
"That's what they said afterwards. As far as she was concerned,
though, it was the Man Upstairs all the way, giving her His battle
orders. So, her with a chemistry degree and all, she made up what
would have been a pretty effective incendiary bomb, went to one of
their services, and tried to tape it under one of the pews at the
back."
Steele held up a hand. "Did it have a timer?"
"Aye, a wee alarm clock thing. It would have worked too."
"Why didn't it?"
"She might be a clever girl, but she's still not all that bright.
Somebody came into the church behind her as she was planting it, and
saw her. She ran for it, but they caught her just down the road, and
called the police."
"Court?"
"Nah. The fiscal was persuaded not to proceed on the basis that the
lass was clearly disturbed, and she hadn't done any damage. So she was
sectioned for six months under the Mental Health Act, and went into the
Royal Edinburgh. Her probation officer says that she's still going
back as an out-patient."
"Have you spoken to anyone there?" asked Maggie Rose.
Regan shook his head. "Not yet, ma'am. I thought I'd speak to you and
Inspector Steele before I did that."
"Just as well; we'll need to play it carefully there. The girl may
have been committed, but she's as entitled to medical confidentiality
as the rest of us."
"What else did the probation officer tell you?"
"That she'
s responding to her treatment; the medication's continuing
and there have been no signs of a relapse, so far. She's doing her
best to change, the woman said. She's wearing contacts now, and her
wardrobe's a lot less like a nun on a weekend pass."
"Has she got a job?"
"Aye she has, ma'am. The probation service found her a placement with
the Church of Scotland, in George Street. They had hoped she might
Thursday Legends Page 16