by Morris West
‘Yes, I remember now. Some messages were sent.’
‘And later, during the search for Lachie, other messages were sent?’
‘Yes. I heard one of them.’
‘Now here’s the curious thing. Those last messages were logged. The first ones weren’t. What does that suggest to you?’
‘Nothing, Inspector.’
‘Please.’
‘I’ll spell it for you. Murder is alleged against person or persons unknown. I am obliged to give you all facts in my possession. Nothing would be more dangerous or unjust than for me to indulge in hypotheses or interpretations. I won’t do it. And I mean won’t.’
‘You’re a very faithful friend.’
‘I am also a friend of the law, and you, Inspector, are its servant. Now, if there is nothing else, I would like to go.’
‘No, there’s nothing else. The transcript should be typed tomorrow morning. Perhaps you’ll drop in and sign it then. We have your address at the lodge. Thank you, sir.’
‘You can buy me that drink soon, Duggie!’
‘Don’t be too hard on the Inspector here, laddie. He’s had a rough passage.’
‘Haven’t we all? Where’s Ruarri now?’
‘Over at his house, so far as I know.’
‘I might drop over and see him later. Objections, Inspector?’
‘Not at all, my dear chap. A kindness, in fact. We put him through the wringer yesterday. Quite a lad! I like him.’
‘Good day, Inspector!’
In spite of my show of irritation, I was not too unhappy with the interview. I had told no lies. I had established a position as a meticulous, if somewhat tetchy, witness. I had made it clear that I was unwilling to be drawn on points of speculation or hearsay; that I was a friend of the suspect and would be until he was proven something more. Of course, Rawlings hadn’t been too convinced by the comedy; he was too seasoned a fox for that. But so long as we relied on the record and due process, I wouldn’t be too much annoyed.
Ruarri…? He didn’t need me. He didn’t need anybody. The bastard was a genius in his own right. He could lie like a Miinchausen and give every word the lustre of truth. He could cheat his women and have them mourning over him for a lifetime. He could have the noose round his neck and the next instant conjure it round somebody else’s. He would get away with murder, and in his old age – if he lived that long – they would canonize him as a captain of industry. Everybody had been out to get him, Customs and Excise, the Special Branch, Interpol, the Navy and the Air Force, and he was home, scot-free, cocking a snook at them all. Bollison had delivered his guns for him. Bollison had sent the final telegram to Maeve, and Bollison would be paid well enough to keep his mouth shut in the unlikely event that anything went wrong. Then I saw the irony: I was the one man in the world who could really bring him down if I set my mind to it. Why hadn’t I done it five minutes ago? Why didn’t I turn back and do it now? The truth, when I came to face it, was fascinating in its very ugliness. I wanted him exactly where I had him now, held in the hollow of my hand, impotent as I had once been, so that he could never again stand up and challenge me on level ground. I was the giant now, and he, the dwarf. I could take him any time I wanted, just by closing my fist. Whether I could live with myself afterwards was another question. I didn’t have to answer it just yet.
I telephoned Kathleen. She was out; I left a message that I would call again as soon as I got back to the lodge. Then I drove to the hospital to see Alastair Morrison. I had decided to tell him most of what had happened, leaving out only the darker aspects of the whole affair. He would have heard most of it, anyway, in one version or another. The word of Lachie’s death would be all over the island, and the police investigation would be raising rumours everywhere.
I didn’t have to tell him anything. I didn’t have to soothe, encourage, protect, or strengthen him any more. He was up and about. He was ten years younger. Very soon he would be fishing again…Ruarri had been to see him! Had he indeed?
‘... I tell you, laddie, when he came through that door, it was like life itself striding in – although, God help me, this old heart of mine did a double somersault and I thought the fibrillations would start again. However, there he was, with an armful of books and a bottle of old brandy and a funny, boyish grin under that beard of his. We talked a long time, round and about – feeling for each other, you know? It was like blindman’s buff – touch and run and grope again in the dark. Then suddenly he called a halt to it. He looked me square in the eye. He took my hands in those great paws of his and said, “Morrison, let’s get it over. You’ve got a son you didn’t want. I’ve got a father I thought I didn’t need. I need him now because a lot of things have caught up with me, and I’m sick of standing alone like a rock in the middle of a bog. But you have to know what you’re getting, too – and I’m not a great bargain. I’ve got a bad conscience and a bad reputation and I’ve deserved a lot of it, but not all. Right now they’re even whispering murder about me, because I lost a man at sea….” I tell you, laddie, I wept to hear him; he was so blunt and honest about himself, so easy in his absolution of me. He’d like me to acknowledge him, he said. And that was the happiest word I’d heard in a lifetime. When I’m out of here I’m going to file adoption papers, which I find I can do, and he’ll join the name of Morrison to his own, which is a happy thought and a notable symbol of something good in both our lives. So what do you think of that, laddie? What do you think of it, eh?’
I did not dare to tell him what I thought. It would have sounded like a blasphemy and I would have had him dead on my hands. I lied to him instead. I lied eloquently and emotionally, swearing that it was the most wonderful news, that I was happy beyond words for them both, that Ruarri was out of his gaudy past and marching towards a glorious future, that God was good and everything turned out for the best if you prayed long enough and were blind enough to believe it.
Underneath it all I was sour with rage and contempt for Ruarri’s duplicity and his selfish manipulation of an old and ailing man. He didn’t want a father. He wanted a protector. He wanted a decent name to take the stain of roguery and murder off his own. He wasn’t content to be safe – if indeed he was; he wanted to be honoured as well, and borrow another man’s respect.
The words I said were sawdust in my mouth, but at least they made Morrison happy…Which, come to think of it, was just what Ruarri had done, though I was damned if I’d give him any credit for it.
Chapter 14
MY homecoming to the lodge was strange, but I find myself hard put to explain the strangeness. Suddenly everything was small: the houses like toy-town cottages, the fields like pocket handkerchiefs, the hills squat, the lochans muddy pools, the road a country track and the sheep like animals from a children’s crib. I was not large, you understand. I was just a middling man, looking through glass into a lilliputian landscape, set by some shopkeeper for the summer trade. I did not feel superior – this you must understand – only separate, different, faintly resentful, like a child who could not fly out the window with Peter Pan.
Even old Hannah was changed. There was no mystery about her any more, no gypsy wander-thing, no mist of tomorrow or of yesterday. She was just a little old lady, wrinkled like a prune, who clung to me, possessive and loquacious, because I was a man come back to a house too long without one.
‘You’re home! God be praised in all his wonders! I saw you swallowed by the black sea. But it wasn’t you, it was that poor Lachie – God save his silly soul! You’ll come in now and take a bath – I’ll draw it for you. And you’ll throw out your soiled things for the laundry and spruce yourself up for the dear young woman that wants you to call her. Ach! There’s a smell of sin on you! You’d better get rid of that before you go calling. Not that I’d ask who it was, but she might, and I hope you’ve got your lying well prepared. And what’s this with the police, running all over the island, asking questions as though we’re criminals? Don’t tell me! I don’t want to hear – no
t till you’re clean and rested and we can have a strupach together. And then don’t tell me what you don’t want talked about, because I’m a garrulous old woman who’d drop her false teeth in the soup if she had a good story to tell… Out of your pants now and into your bath. And if you’re worrying what I might see, I’ve seen it all and enjoyed it long before you knew what it was. Tea’ll be ready when you come down – and there’s scones ready and smiling for the oven!’
It was good to be home. Except it wasn’t home. It was a pleasant enough lodge on the Isle of Lewis, in Ross-shire, where I was resting my tired brain for a while. I lay in the hot bath, like a demigod on Olympus looking down on the provincial comedy and wondering how and why I had become involved in it all. I could be gone tomorrow and they would trot on their little rounds with never a thought of me. I could come back in ten years and it would still be the same: the heather blooming, the fish jumping, the peat smoke rising and a few more stones in the churchyard, to mark the cycles of the years….
But when I went down to the lounge and found the tea-things laid out, and Hannah sitting with her hands folded in her apron waiting for me, everything grew back to size and I grew down again.
She fixed me with her bright, black eyes and stated categorically, ‘You know about Morrison and the Matheson boy?’
‘I know, Hannah.’
‘I’ve known for thirty years and more, and never a word has crossed my lips – for which I hope God will reward me one day.’
‘I saw the Morrison on the way home. He’s very happy.’
‘I hope he stays that way.’
‘So do I, Hannah.’
‘That Ruarri! There’s trouble in every wind that blows round him. Now it’s murder they’re talking about, and guns being smuggled, instead of whisky and silks like it was in the old days.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Everybody knows. Or they think they do. It’s a shame such talk should touch the Morrison.’
‘He won’t mind, Hannah. Now he has his son back.’
‘And is it his son? That’s what I keep asking myself – as I did the very day he was borned. There’s fairy children still, you know – and I know some of them! Changed in the cradle they were, by the Little People, and they’re mischiefs always till the day they die.’
‘Hannah, if that kind of talk got back to the Morrison …!’
‘And how could it, since I never say a word outside the house! So let’s talk about you instead. You should have gone away when I warned you.’
‘I didn’t. So that’s the end of it.’
‘Not the end, young laddie.’
‘So what is the end, Hannah?’
‘I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. I know the sea’s gone from it, because the sea’s satisfied for a while. I know there’s fire in it, but where, I don’t know. And I know there’s three in this house, and Matheson isn’t one of them.’
‘How do you know it, Hannah? I’d like to know. I wouldn’t tell.’
‘And how could you since I can’t tell myself? It just comes. That’s all. Sometimes when I’m lying in bed, sometimes when I’m saying my prayers, sometimes when I’m in the garden or in the kitchen.’
‘Does it frighten you?’
‘Having the sight does, but seeing doesn’t. It’s like knowing a bit of what God knows. And He’s not frightened now, is He?’
‘He ought to be sometimes, Hannah.’
‘Well, if He is, He doesn’t tell. And that’s a lot more virtue than we’ve got.’
‘I’m not laughing at you, Hannah.’
‘I know you’re not. You’ve little to laugh about, anyway.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Laddie, whatever I’ve seen, you’re in it: in the sea and in the fire as well.’
‘Was there anyone with me at the end?’
‘I wasn’t shown that, laddie. That’s the terrible tease. The good God gives you only half a gift and holds the rest till you’ve earned it. Which I haven’t done yet…Now tell me, will you be in or out tonight?’
‘I’ll be in, Hannah. We’ll have the company of Dr McNeil.’
‘I know. I’ve ordered the meal and I’ve set her room to rights – though there’ll be little use made of it, I know.’
‘Hannah, you have an evil mind.’
‘Evil, is it? And look who’s talking! With all the seven deadly sins writ large across your visage. Go telephone your woman and tell her you love her. I hope she’s easier to convince than I am!’
I couldn’t convince her, because I couldn’t find her. Her housekeeper told me with relish that the doctor was uncommon busy, and it was hard to know when she might be home. Yes, she’d tell the doctor about the dinner, but she couldn’t give any guarantees about it. I understood that, didn’t I? I understood. God love you, madam, and send you comfort and a sweeter temper before you die! …It was still only three-thirty so I decided to cut across and see Ruarri at his croft. For all the lies he’d told, and the sweet little surprises he’d pulled out of his hat, he owed me an explanation, though I’d be a fool to believe it, if I got it.
When I reached the croft I found Ruarri and three of his boys hand-sowing the newly made land. I leaned on the stone fence and watched them at this simple, biblical task and wondered how they or I could possibly be caught up in all the other madness. Ruarri saw me and waved, but he continued his work until the bag on his shoulder was empty. Then he came over to me, walking heavily and awkwardly in the soft sand. I don’t know why, but I had expected some kind of dramatic change in his appearance or his manners. There wasn’t. He was the same old Ruarri, full of piss and vinegar, with that same old grin spread over his face and the same come-all-ye greeting.
‘Welcome home, seannachie! You look ten years younger.’
‘That’s clean living and clean girls. Also I’ve stopped worrying about you!’
‘And when did you do that?’
‘This morning in Stornoway. I had a long, long chat with Chief Inspector Rawlings.’
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘Nothing he didn’t know already.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like that you’re a friend of mine and so is Maeve, and I’ve heard of Bollison but never met him, and the order of watches on board, and that there was an incident between you and Lachie at “The Admiral’s Spyglass”, and that messages were sent during my watch on the Helen II.’
‘And what didn’t you tell him, seannachie?’
‘What has passed between you and me on various private occasions.’
‘What point did he hammer the hardest with you?’
‘Why I left the ship at Tórshavn. Why didn’t I stay like a friend and support you in your hour of trial?’
‘And what did you answer to that?’
‘I told him you and I were rubbing each other the wrong way.’
‘About what?’
‘About yourself being Morrison’s son and my having to tell you, and you not liking me very much for it.’
‘That was clever, seannachie. What made you think of it?’
‘Because I was determined not to tell a single lie. If he’d pressed me about our relationships and our talks, I’d have had to invent things – and you’ve been doing enough invention for both of us.’
‘Do you think he’ll question you again?’
‘Very probably. I have to sign my deposition tomorrow morning. I’m sure Rawlings will be there for another little chat.’
‘What do you think he believes, seannachie?’
‘That you killed Lachie.’
‘He’ll be hard put to prove that…He hasn’t got enough even to file a charge, let alone make it stick in court.’
‘But I have, Ruarri.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Walk me down to the house, pour me a drink and I’ll tell you.’
We walked in silence down to the house and sat at the bar. While Ruarri wa
s pouring the drinks I lit a cigarette and pulled a clean ashtray towards me, a large shallow bowl of African ceramic. When I dropped the dead match in it, I saw, lying in the bottom of the bowl, the locket and chain which I had bought for Kathleen. Ruarri had his back to me, replacing the bottle on the shelf. I picked up the locket and shoved it into the pocket of my coat.
Ruarri turned round, perched himself on the stool and toasted me. ‘Slainte!’
‘And to you.’
‘Now what’s on your mind, seannachie?’
‘There’s quite a lot, so let’s take it slowly. On board the Helen you told me you weren’t sure whether you had killed Lachie or not. You couldn’t remember. Do you remember now?’
‘Yes. I didn’t kill him.’
‘What convinced you?’
‘Lack of evidence. I’m in the same position as Rawlings, you see.’
‘Also on the Helen I told you I believed you were innocent.’
‘Now?’
‘I still do. For a negative reason like yours. The moment I cease to believe it, the game is over. I can’t compound murder. I have to tell everything I know.’
‘Which is…?’
‘That you uttered in my presence a threat to Lachie’s life; that when I protested, you struck me and threatened me, too, with violence; that you told me a lie about a confrontation with Lachie which did not take place…And how do I know that? Because I sat in on a friendly poker party, and because you never had any intention of going to Ireland. Bollison was already on his way there and you were fishing innocently between the Faeroes and the Flannans. You see the way it shapes, don’t you? As of now, Rawlings can’t touch you because all he’s got is motive and opportunity. The moment I speak, he has motive, expressed intention, a display of violence, the beginning of a plot to murder. I think he’d take you in on that. Even if he didn’t win his case, he could hold you on remand for quite a while and leave you discredited for ever afterwards….’
‘I’m trembling, seannachie.’