A Small Death in the Great Glen

by A. D. Scott

  “Father Morrison? The minister?”

  “Well, he’s a priest, same thing really. Yep, the hoodie crow is gone, left town, so no need to be scared anymore.”

  Annie turned her green eyes on Rob and, staring at him, hesitated a second or two, then burst out, “He’s not the hoodie crow! And anyhow, there is no hoodie crow. It’s only wee bairns believe thon kind o’ stuff. The bad man who picked up Jamie lives at number sixty-four down your street.” It was his turn to stare. “I never saw him properly, I just saw a big man lift up his arms”—she spread her arms wide—“and he had on a great big coat wi’ a kind o’ cape thing like thon detective. …”

  “Sherlock Holmes,” Rob said automatically.

  “Aye. An’ I told Wee Jean it was a hoodie crow to scare her ’cos she’s a wee clype an’ my dad would thrash me if he knew we were ringing doorbells.”

  She stopped. Her whole skinny body went rigid with fury, her fists tight with anger at herself for saying as much as she had.

  “An’ if you say I told you, I’ll say I didn’t and that you’re the one who’s lying.”

  Rob stood in complete shock, watching her run off so no one could see her tears. He knew without any doubt whatsoever that he believed her completely. He also knew that she had said all she was going to say. Ever.

  They were invited to the Ross house. I won’t be a minute, Dad; I’ll let Bill know about supper, she told him. Grandad walked on with the girls. She went in, not bothering to take off her coat. The house was cold. Bill was slumped by the unlit fire, an eiderdown around him, a glass of whisky at his feet, snoring. This is it, Joanne told herself. Bill’s outburst this morning is a godsend, she repeated to herself. Everything is as clear and as crisp as the glass ice on the puddles. And as fractured.

  He couldn’t even strike a match, she observed. Fire all laid, ready to go, and he couldn’t even manage that. She stood across the sitting room, with the sofa between them for safety.

  “Bill.”

  He came to and glared at her as she stood, feet together, arms folded as though she was about to dance the hornpipe. It took a while for her words to penetrate. The gap across the room and between husband and wife was wide and deep.

  “I’ve had enough,” she started. But she’d said this before so he took no heed.

  “I want you out of this house,” she continued. “And if you don’t leave, I will, and I’ll take the girls.”

  He looked up. It didn’t bother him where the girls went, but Joanne giving him orders, that surprised him.

  “I don’t care what anyone thinks anymore. I will not put up with your drinking and your lying and all your shenanigans and I will not be your punching bag.”

  He was out of his nest of fabric and feathers and across the room with the speed of a viper strike. His hand came up. She dodged to the other side of the sofa, standing her ground.

  “Bill. One thousand pounds.”

  That stopped him.

  “I know all about it, you borrowed one thousand pounds. I have no idea how you are going to pay it back but if you touch me, even the once, I will set your pals the Gordons from Glasgow onto you.” None of this made any sense but it didn’t matter; what mattered was that he had been found out and that she knew, and that she knew Jimmy Gordon.

  He didn’t move. Only his eyes in the unshaven face showed the struggle to comprehend how he had lost the advantage.

  Joanne waited and as she watched she noticed a tiny patch of gray hairs on the left cheek. No longer the charming soldier boy, she noted, it’s time to grow up.

  “I could give hundreds of reasons why I can’t live with you, but what’s the point? You always justify everything to yourself. I don’t love you and I don’t even like you and I know that’s not a good enough reason to leave your husband but I will not be beaten and I know you think it’s your right to hit me but I won’t put up with it ever again and if you ever try to hurt me or anything else, well, I have friends and, thanks to you, I have met other people who are not nice and they …” She stopped. “Well, maybe two of them are not so bad but …” What on earth am I saying, she thought, stick to the point.

  “Bill. I want you out of this house. I will not live with you anymore.” She backed out the door just as he made a move toward her. She saw the raised fist, she saw the fury, and in that second she knew that this was it. It was over. Then she fled.

  She tried to run down the street but kept slipping. She walked as fast as she could but kept slowing, slowing to laugh and grin and talk to the rapidly closing day. The air was charged with the smell of newly lit coal, the smoke hanging low; the sky was darkening from pink to red to crimson to purple, the evening star a guiding light on her walk toward the unknown.

  “I did it. I did it.” She laughed at herself. “You sound just like the girls—I did it, I did it.” Good job no one is around, she thought, when she realized she was shouting.

  When she reached the corner of the street where the solid unadorned unimaginative council house where her parents-in-law and her girls waited was, she had to stop for a moment. In the dim between streetlights, she felt a not unfamiliar tightening band of panic. Bending over to get her breath, she watched miniature clouds of condensation form and re-form. The warm vapor had a blue tinge. She filled her lungs with cold air and blew toward the light, watching the essence of herself form, then evaporate, another breath, form and evaporate. I feel so light I could fly, she thought, laughing; probably all this oxygen going to my head.

  “Mum, who lives in number sixty-four?”

  Rob stood in the kitchen doorway, still in his damp ski jacket, watching as his mother made tea.

  “That’s the Youngs’ house. Of course Michael Young died in the war, his wife died when she was only forty or so, and they only had the one child, Deirdre, so the house went to her. But she died five years ago. Never had any children, such a tragedy, I know she so wanted to be a mother. Now of course it belongs to her husband, widower I should say. …”

  “Yes, Mum. And who is her widower?”

  “I thought you knew, they’ve lived there long enough—”

  “Mum!”

  “Inspector Tompson, of course. What? What did I say?”

  The next thing she heard was a motorbike roaring down the street.

  “Everyone thinks I’m mental accusing a priest—but a policeman?”

  The pain was a throbbing pulse in his jaw and a tight band around the forehead. He shouldn’t have gone out last night. Nor drank on an empty stomach. McAllister felt worn down and weary and defeated and past caring.

  “I hear you, Rob, but really. Tompson? I don’t see it. You will need a cast-iron case and you yourself said the girl won’t talk. Even if you credit her story, Joanne says her daughter has a wild imagination. The same child who swore it was a hoodie crow, then she let us think it was the priest who took the boy, and now she’s accusing Inspector Tompson? No. Beyond belief.”

  “It was her wee sister who kept changing her story, seeing a hoodie crow everywhere. Annie, the eldest, only said they saw a hoodie crow to scare her sister so they wouldn’t get into trouble for ringing doorbells. Look, I know children, I’m nearer to Annie in age than I am to you. … The girl blames herself for what happed to Jamie. … She is terrified of her father but she did see a man, in a big coat, a greatcoat, pick Jamie up, on the doorstep of number sixty-four.” Rob started to pace. “I know that house, it’s round a bend in the road and about a hundred yards away from ours, it’s very like the house next door, rhododendron bushes, stained-glass doors, and the light would be behind him, making a silhouette. Maybe it wasn’t Tompson, but it was his house.” He was shouting now. “I believe her even if you don’t.”

  “Aye, that’s as may be. But with your known antipathy to Tompson, who do you think will listen to you?” Defeat overwhelmed McAllister. “We’ll never get Morrison, he’s gone. There’s no proof of anything other than some distasteful pictures. Nothing more.”

  Rob could
n’t take any more.

  “Will you stop being so maudlin, for heaven’s sake? I saw those pictures. They are not nothing. They made me feel sick, dirty, unclean. Those boys were used. Those photos were worn, the edges curled, they had been pawed over by some very weird persons. Look, McAllister, I know I haven’t seen the things you saw in the war but I know this sort of thing can ruin lives.

  “And also, there’s something going on in that house next door. I went in there, I was in the hallway and someone came to the front door, they had a key, and no, I’ve no idea who it was, but I bet they were not meant to be there.

  “So go on, sit there, tell yourself you were right, that thon bee in your bunnet about it being the priest is the only possibility. But puzzle this out.

  “Why was a greatcoat burning in the Reaburn when Morrison was long gone? Here’s a button off it to show you I’m not imagining things.” Rob ferreted in the depths of his inside pocket, found it, and with it found the key.

  “I found this too, it fell out of the remains of the coat.”

  He laid both on the table and left in despair, realizing that McAllister, his hero, was only human after all.

  Barely five minutes had passed when the doorbell rang again. McAllister didn’t move. It rang once more. A minute went by, then the visitor came down the hallway.

  “The door was open, so …”

  “Jimmy.” McAllister gestured to a chair.

  “I came to bring the bottle from Ma. She sez to say, ‘Aa the best,’” Jimmy explained, “but you’re no well so I’d best be going.”

  “For God’s sake, sit down and open that bottle, that’s one of the best single-malts I’ll see in a long time.”

  They sat, nursing their glasses until dusk began to add to the gloom of the atmosphere.

  “Jimmy, you didn’t come all the way from Ross-shire just to ask after my health. Spit it out, man.” McAllister was as direct as a heart attack.

  “It was thon photo you showed me,” Jimmy began. “I recognized one of those boys, and I started to remember more about those days—and I wish to Christ I hadn’t.”

  Silence.

  “I know this boy, a man now, he’s stopping hereabouts.” He took a sip. “He knew a lot more about the goings-on with your friend Father Morrison—Father Bain as we knew him. He, my friend, was one of the boys from that home I mentioned. And when he was a wee lad, there was an older boy who died there, but it was all hushed up.”

  “This is the same home where some of the boys from the boxing club were living?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Will he tell you what he knows?”

  “Aye, maybe, he hates them that much. He knows what went on. He knows Father Bain, Morrison, and he knew the other bastards, the ones who got away with it. Of course no one will ever listen to him, ’specially not now.” He paused. “See, there’s a wee bit o’ a problem—I can’t get to speak with him.”

  McAllister looked the question—why?

  “My record means I’m no allowed in. This manny, he’s in the gaol. But you can get in, you’re respectable.”

  After Jimmy had left him alone with the bottle of malt, McAllister knew he should phone for Westland. It was only six thirty, the landlady would pass on the message. He was certain he wouldn’t be calling the police station. He was uncertain whether he would be calling any policeman, even DCI Westland. And the phone was in the hall, and the hall was cold, and his face hurt, and he was bone weary. Tomorrow, I’ll think on it tomorrow he told himself. So he dragged himself off to bed, taking the bottle with him.

  With the midwinter solstice a week away, a red-streaked far-north twilight hovered before turning from positive to negative. In those slow moments, every bush, every tree, the buildings, the horizons, shimmered in static. Some nights, when the electricity was so noticeable that the hairs on the back of the neck tingled, when contact with metal gave off static shock, and when the dogs became restless, a splendid light show from the aurora borealis was certain.

  Rob wheeled his bike into the garage and as he shut the door, the antics of the rooks in the trees next door melted his frustration, restored his natural state of grace. Cawing, squabbling, scrambling for space on the bare branches of one especially large sycamore that, drooping from the weight of the rookery, looked like a dispirited mother bowed down from the constant squabbling of an overlarge, querulous family. What did you call them—a parliament of rooks? Was that what McAllister had said? McAllister; Rob still couldn’t believe he wouldn’t listen.

  Opening the door to the porch, about to shed the layers of motorbike gear, a smell, in a downdraft of acrid smoke, drifted over the lawn, then was gone. He sniffed. It was that same smell. Rob crept along the lawn, hugging the edge, hidden by rhododendron bushes. The Big House seemed its usual dark and empty self, but Rob sensed that whoever had relit the fire had not left. He looked upward toward the main bedroom, the one Morrison had made his studio. Later he could not recall what had made him certain someone was in there; there was no car around, there were no lights on, no noise, nothing.

  It’s not that I’m a coward, he told himself as he sneaked back to his own house, I’m not in the least scared. His mother and father were out for dinner, he was just being cautious, being a good citizen, remembering his promise to keep an eye on the house next door, that’s what he told himself as he picked up the phone.

  “Oh, hello, Mrs. McPherson, can I speak to Ann?”

  She arrived fifteen minutes later on her bicycle.

  “I hope this isn’t one of your stunts to get me out on a Sunday night—” He held his finger to his lips. “It’s just that my hair’s still damp,” she whispered as they huddled by his back door.

  A car passed along the road, stopping a few doors further up.

  “That’ll be Chief Inspector Westland.” She spoke softly; the noise of the rooks had settled but there was still the occasional scuffle and indignant caws as a fight for space on the branch broke out. Rob went out to meet him.

  “Sorry to get you out, sir. It may be nothing, but I think there’s someone in there”—Rob pointed to the house—“and I’m sure I smelt smoke.” He didn’t mention the previous time he had smelled a fire.

  “Can we get in?” Westland asked.

  “Ann and I can get in by the coal hole but you’re too fat … big,” Rob amended. “We can open the front door for you. But go through our garden. There’s gravel all round the house, so the burglar might hear you. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Westland had his police torch, Ann too. She also had her truncheon. Rob was most impressed.

  They met up in the hallway and stood at the foot of the stairs, the smell of burning now distinct; the sound of someone moving, opening cupboards, shifting furniture, echoed down the stairway.

  “Is the electric still on?” Westland wondered.

  “Aye, I think so,” Rob murmured.

  “Where’s the switch?” And in one movement Westland switched on the hall lights, yelled, “Police!” and charged up the stairs followed by Ann McPherson, truncheon at the ready.

  It was like a war cry from the clans at Culloden, Rob said later when he and Ann relived the whole episode, but the effect wasn’t quite as dramatic as it should have been as there was only one dusty forty-watt bulb for the whole of the hallway and stairs.

  Westland burst into the bedroom, Ann following, Rob not far behind.

  “Inspector Tompson!” Westland panted. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Tompson was shaken but in an instant remembered himself.

  “I could well ask you the same thing.”

  He had had a restless night. All the information, the suppositions and the infuriating realization that still there was no real information had sent his brain swirling, the thoughts as dark and as dreadful as water emptying out of a canal lock. McAllister now sat with his morning tea, trying to resist the temptation to add a slug of whisky. He wasn’t ready to go into the office for the Monday meeting. They coul
d manage without him. He fiddled with the button. He had scrubbed it with soap. It was a Military Police Service button. He picked it up, put it down, ran his thumb over the raised emblem. He fiddled with the worn metal tag attached to the key. The number on it had been scratched on by hand, probably with a screwdriver. He looked at the clock. Eight. He could call now. He got up, went into the hall, picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Highland Bus Station, can I help you?”

  “Sorry, wrong number.” He replaced the phone, went straight back to the kitchen, poured a dram into a second cup of tea, telling himself it was medicinal. He went back into the hall to make another call. Before he could pick up the receiver the phone shrilled deep into his hangover. He was regretting the dram already.

  “McAllister.”

  “When are you coming in? I’ve something to tell you.”

  “Rob, I’ve more important things to think about than the Gazette.”

  “No, it’s not that, it’s—” The shrill briiing of the doorbell gave him a start.

  “There’s the door. We’ll talk later.”

  He hung up. The shadow darkening the stained-glass door panels was large and ominous. He shuddered; “Someone stepping on my grave,” his mother used to say. He opened the door. Looming in the doorway like a specter at the feast was Constable Willie Grant.

  “Morning, Mr. McAllister, sir. DCI Westland asked, special like, that I bring the news in person. It’s Father Morrison. We’ve found him.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Westland had had enough of the Highlands. He couldn’t wait to be on the train home; home for Christmas, home to his family, his city, away from this town and this case. Years in the police had formed his view that no one wanted to know the truth—they only wanted a version of the truth that would fit their preconceptions. McAllister wanted a truth that would relieve him of the guilt of neglecting his brother, the boy’s parents wanted a truth showing accidents happen with no fault on anyone’s part, the town wanted a truth where no blame could be laid on a native Highlander, the Church didn’t want any truth that might reveal priests as mere mortal men with faults and failures and all that that implied, and the chief constable wanted his officers shown as valiant men—he was yet to notice the token women—going about their duties without fear or favor, a bright shining example to the populace of the Highlands and Islands and as good as any police force south of the Grampians.