‘I have reason to believe that some sort of Satanic ceremony took place over there recently. Carried out by whoever murdered Helen.’
‘I know nothing about that, honestly. The baron is a lot of things, but he’s not a killer.’
‘What about the girls his grandfather murdered?’
‘They were poor people from goodness knows where; they could never be traced anyway.’
‘They were God’s children, who deserved to have been given a decent burial. And the police would have at least tried to trace them.’
Bill Minto gazed at his feet, utterly ashamed.
‘What else?’
‘After a few years the baron started making noises that he wanted more money from us. He got jealous of the success we had made of the Ardchreggan and started going on about how it was his birthright. Claimed we had ripped him off over the deal. Said we had cheated him, not paid him enough. We, well, Shona told him to get stuffed. But then he turned the whole business about his grandfather around. He held the only copy of the contract and he started blackmailing us with it. Said he wanted full hospitality at the Loch Dhonn once a week, or he’d go public about the whole dirty deal. Mutually Assured Destruction.’
‘Did you believe him?’
‘No. I thought his family pride would probably prove too great. But I knew he’d make life more and more difficult for us. To use the Glasgow parlance, he’s a complete bampot; an extremely vicious and unpleasant man. But a well-connected one. I figured one free meal a week was a fair bargain for peace of mind.’
‘A few days ago, I overheard you and your wife arguing. You wanted to go to the police about something, and she didn’t.’
‘Yes, and you clyped to DI Lang about it. He questioned us about it, you know. It was quite unpleasant, having to pretend we didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.’
‘Well, stop pretending now and tell me: what was the nature of you and your good lady’s dispute?’
Minto sighed. ‘Helen used to work for us. Just for a wee while, part-time. As a chambermaid.’
‘Yes, I know that.’
‘One day Shona dismissed her.’
‘I know that too. Why?’
‘She accused Shona of something . . . she was quite out of line.’ Minto’s voice quavered.
‘Well?’
Minto cleared his throat. ‘She accused Shona of making a pass at her. Shona denied it, of course – she’s not like that – and told her to clear off and never to come back. What you overheard was that I wanted us to be up front with the police, in case they heard a rumour and that put Shona in the frame. But Shona was having none of it.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
34
OUTSIDE, Leo surveyed the hotel’s grand, imposing exterior with a sigh before stowing his luggage in the boot of the waiting police car.
As he was being driven through the village, he saw Craig Hutton being led in handcuffs towards a police van. One officer was carrying his crossbow.
Leo’s driver, a surly constable, noticed his gaze in the rear-view mirror. ‘The DI says you’ve to make a statement about Hutton tomorrow, in Glasgow,’ he told him.
Leo admired this little piece of Eden for quite possibly the last time as it flashed by his window. Half a mile out he spied Eva, oblivious to his presence in the back of the car, as she foraged by a hedgerow. He felt a tightening in his solar plexus, a pining feeling, painful, but rather thrillingly so. A sensation he hadn’t felt in years. He still longed for a last burst of passion, a brief remembrance of what joy actually was before he died. Yet romance – that very process of meeting someone you admire greatly – tended to bring all his insecurities and a sense of unworthiness to the forefront of his mind. And then he remembered that this feeling he had for Eva had not been requited anyway, and he saw a bank of cloud fix itself above Ben Corrach like a pall, and suddenly he dreaded his lonely apartment and being left there to be consumed by his infatuation. Yes, tonight he would sup upon a bowl of cold misery. The snow came on, quite heavily, and he remembered that the killer of Helen Addison was still abroad.
The train barrelled through the dark pine forest, indifferent to the flurry of thick flakes, blue in the diminished light.
Leo surreptitiously sipped from his hip flask, musing upon the case with a dreary sense of dissatisfaction. He followed a thread of logic, trying to consider all the possible permutations which crowded his mind.
The conversation with Minto – assuming he was telling the truth, and Leo felt strongly that he had been – confirmed it had indeed been Kemp who had socked him on Innisdubh, to scare him off for reasons probably not connected with Helen’s murder. Had Kemp been the killer, and therefore wanted to be rid of the meddling Leo altogether, he could easily have dispatched him that day upon the island when he had him at his mercy. Unless he wanted to carry out the dire deed at a different juncture; after all, the Mintos might have blabbed to the police had he resorted to homicide. But then there was the issue of Kemp’s shoe size, far too large to be that of the killer. But what if he was in fact of a smaller size and had taken to wearing bigger footwear to throw the police off the scent? No, the idea was fanciful, and surely the killer would not have risked using such a fragile ploy.
It simply seemed improbable that Kemp was the murderer. Yet there was the outlying possibility that the killer had a confederate – such as Kemp – who was helping cover his tracks. Bill appeared to sincerely believe that the baron was innocent of Helen’s murder, but what if he was mistaken and the nobleman was performing some macabre tribute act to his long-dead grandfather? However, Leo’s visions, which had never misled him before, gave the impression of a solitary fulcrum of evil; this chimed with Lang’s assessment that the murder scene pointed to a perpetrator acting alone. Also, the baron’s stature was a bit too diminutive and his gouty fingers didn’t seem those of a powerful killer. And it seemed implausible that Kemp or the Baron of Caradyne could have gained access to Robbie’s mobile phone in order to send the text that was designed to set up Lex’s assassination at St Fillan’s.
The attack upon Leo with the Land Rover two nights ago was far more serious than the one by Kemp at Innisdubh. It had quite obviously been an attempt upon his life, and the driver of the vehicle had even got out, presumably to do Leo a fatal mischief. Yes, deduced Leo, the two attacks were by different individuals with different motivations. The Land Rover had been driven by the killer of Helen Addison, wishing to put paid to Leo’s interference.
Leo still didn’t believe that Robbie had sent the text message drawing Craig to St Fillan’s Kirk, but what if his theory about the real sender was only half right? He recalled the furtive manner in which Lex had been skulking around the lochside yesterday – what if he was indeed the murderer? However, Leo suddenly recalled something Lex had said the first time he had met him, referring to himself as a ‘southpaw’; whereas the coroner had established that the killer was right-handed. Leo doubted that Lex was pretending, that he had the guile to inject such a subterfuge into the conversation. And whether he was the culprit or not, what if the sender was merely a party who, mistakenly or not, was sincerely convinced of Lex’s guilt – George Rattray, for instance, who would have had easy access to Robbie’s phone – and simply wanted to give Craig the satisfaction of direct justice, rather than seeing the slayer of his beloved released from Barlinnie after a ten-stretch? And perhaps the sender used Robbie’s mobile in order to maintain anonymity. But that could have made Robbie an accessory to Lex’s murder, had it come off, and what just person would risk that? Perhaps the sender would have taken said risk, and had Robbie subsequently got into trouble with the police, then at that juncture he would have come forward and admitted to sending the text.
Leo sighed with exasperation. At Crianlarich, with his brain aching, he managed to get a signal on his phone and make a call. The line wasn’t clear and his mother had evidently not put her hearing aid in.
‘Th
at’s me on my way back, Mummy.’
‘What’s that, pet?’
‘I said that’s me on my way back.’
‘That’s you got the sack?’
‘No. That’s me on my way back. Back home. To Glasgow.’
The train had creaked back into motion and the signal was lost. Leo cast the phone onto the table with exasperation, and caught the eye of a blonde dream who had boarded at the station. She glowered, offended that one such as he should dare to contemplate her beauty. Leo flushed with unaccustomed embarrassment.
As the train neared its destination the snow turned to sleet, then ceased altogether. Exhaustion threatened to overcome Leo as he gazed at the high-rise panorama of the city, which was constructed from a million little lights. Fortunately, he procured a taxi right away. He burst through the front door of his cold flat, launched his luggage onto the floor, fell out of his clothes and dived into bed. He was asleep before the clock had chimed half past nine.
IV
GLASGOW
35
THERE was something faintly tragic about the service. Ash Wednesday is properly a solemn affair, but it was the paltry attendance that night (he had slept until midday, thus missing the morning edition) which subdued Leo. He gazed up at the high 1960s ceiling and wondered how long they would be able to keep the lights on, let alone keep the place heated. Leo had recently made a substantial private donation (under the pseudonym ‘The Braes of Glenlivet’) to pay for a repair to the roof, but such acts of discreet generosity could only sustain things so far. The numbers at Mass were so few that the priest invited everyone to leave their pews and gather round him as he blessed the ashes. This unorthodox little assembly at the altar rail brought some sort of consolation, some small catharsis of camaraderie, like the few survivors of a pestilence gathering anxiously to survey the future together.
‘Remember, man, you are dust, and unto dust you shall return,’ muttered the priest seventeen times as he blotted each forehead with a rudimentary cross. His manner was indescribably sad, and later he would inform the brethren that they were free to wash off the ashes afterwards. He explained that to do so was not an act of denial, and Leo, in his depleted condition, wondered if the others, like he – who usually endeavoured not to give a stuff about what folk thought of him, were secretly relieved not to have to wear this ancient badge and explain it to a society that was becoming more and more hostile to the faith it represented.
Often during Mass, Leo would feel compelled to examine his conscience, to hold all of the tawdry, venial little compromises he made with himself up to the light. There would follow a period of vexation; then he would relax as he remembered the Divine Grace at work, how the Blood of Christ had cleansed and forgiven the world of its sins, how the Cross had delivered mankind from his sinful state. And so, Leo would refrain from throwing himself into a holier life and snugly settle for his status quo. After all, had not Tolstoy driven himself half mad trying to attain perfection?
Yet this process always left Leo feeling faintly squalid and restless, for there is, indeed, no liar comparable with the man who lies to himself. It did all the more so today, such was his dejected state, as he repressed a dread that his usual hubris and self-stupefying drunkenness had impinged upon his efforts to unmask the killer of Helen Addison. Also, the experience that afternoon of making a statement to the police against Craig Hutton for the crossbow attack at St Fillan’s Kirk had sickened him, and he had started to doubt his previous conviction that it was indeed necessary to protect the headstrong young man from himself by so harsh a measure.
Part of Leo indeed longed for a purer existence, for the purging satisfaction of self-mortification, for a simple life lived closer to God. Other matters also weighed heavily upon Leo’s mind, more to do with the case than his conscience. All day, and to no avail, he had been searching over and over again for unseen permutations and possibilities related to the theories he had expatiated to himself on the train home. Now his thoughts turned to all the other characters he had met over the last week and he feverishly hypothesised upon ways they might fit into the frame. There was James Millar: why had he believed in his innocence so easily? And what about Bosco? Might the Grey Lady have fabricated his alibi for him? What if Robbie McKee was indeed guilty? Or what if the murderer wasn’t even a man, and instead Shona Minto acting in a fit of lesbian pique? Indeed, what if there was more than one antagonist after all, and Loch Dhonn was a veritable coven of wickedness in the grip of some Satanic cult (after all, northern Scotland seemed to abound with rumours of occult sects engaged in dark, abusive practices), and everyone from the Grey Lady to the Mintos had been conspiring to feed Leo a tissue of lies? Certainly, he believed that his visions had been impaired of late by some malign influence, so perhaps his regular senses too had been dulled by the same force?
No. He realised these speculations were a result of his being overwrought. There was no way Leo could have been so pitifully blind; he had to trust his instincts about people, and he intuitively knew, then as now, that these individuals were incapable of such an appalling crime.
36
THE next morning, which was dull and pregnant with rain, Leo walked all the way down to Dumbarton Road with the intention of going for an open-blade shave at Mehmet’s Turkish barbershop. At one point, on Hyndland Street, he stopped to whip off his trilby as a hearse crawled by. Leo had been deeply moved when, on the way to his father’s burial, an elderly gentleman had undertaken this simple, respectful act, and he had vowed to perform it himself thereafter whenever the occasion arose.
Leo was the only customer at Mehmet’s, and he requested that the wireless, which was blasting throwaway chart music broadcast by a local commercial station, be turned down. The hot towels and pampering always revived Leo, and he would tip Mehmet generously, because he was an expert who took great pride in his work, utilising castor and grape-seed oils, menthol, eucalyptus balm, astringent, cologne and vast quantities of soft, warm lather. There were lovely little finishing touches: the napkin tucked into the rear of his collar, the wet shave of the nape of his neck, the face massage. Mehmet even used a taper, in the traditional manner, to burn off the excess hair around Leo’s ears. They discussed Atatürk, and Mehmet recommended Leo read the great man’s 1919–1927 discourses. But he could tell that all was not well with his customer. A good barber, just like a good barman, knows.
Someone else who knew was Leo’s masseur, who operated from a private bath club in Garnethill, the heart of the city’s Chinese community, even though Liu couldn’t speak English and had to communicate via a series of hand claps and gestures. The trestles groaned and Leo’s bare rump wobbled as Liu kneaded and pummelled with his hands, which were as strong as iron. The smell of embrocation mingled with steam from the next room, in which two elderly Chinese men played dominoes. Leo stared down at the hundred-year-old black and white floor tiles, listening to the sounds echoing up in the high ceiling. Liu could feel the tension within Leo’s frame, and his muscles seemed inert with the impurities of overindulgence – or at least more so than usual.
Someone else who knew was old Arnstein, whom Leo met at the Tchai-Ovna House of Tea, a charming little bohemian retreat stuffed with curios and bric-à-brac, for chess. Arnstein had opened aggressively with the Albin–Chatard Attack, and Leo, quite distracted, had walked into the trap.
‘Leo, your mind is not on this game. You have broken biscuits in your head today,’ said the elderly man with a kindly smile, his heavy Russian accent still intact after all these years.
It was true; Leo was more interested in fantasising that the teapot that sat between them contained something stronger than Jin Jun Mei. He made his excuses and headed off to Costcutter, instead of his usual Sainsbury’s, in order to stock up on whisky.
He found the experience of shopping among ordinary, decent people somehow cathartic. But, of course, as C.S. Lewis observed, there is no such thing as ordinary people, ‘mere mortals’.
37
&nbs
p; LEO took the bus home and trudged up Spring Gardens from the stop in the gathering darkness. The weather was turning foul, the orange glow of the streetlamps already on, the cobbles slick and filthy. August, soot-stained Victorian tenements towered gloomily above him and the sweet, thick perfume of coal smoke mixed with the damp air. He decided that it was a night for the fire. He walked up the little flight of steps that led to the close entrance. Leo’s red sandstone building was constructed over five levels and had been B-listed some time ago, after which point all its occupants were required to maintain their outer woodwork in black. The inside light with its ugly porcelain shade dimly lit the brown, cobwebby ceiling; this seemed morbidly depressing when viewed through the main door’s misted upper window. The handle looked greasy and he produced a handkerchief to wipe it clean before entering. The close was cheerless and shadowy tonight, the flickering stair light barely illuminating the heavy wooden banisters, the art nouveau wall tiles and stained-glass upper windows. He thought he could detect the smell of cat urine on one of the landings, where a fuse box hummed and fizzed menacingly. He would try to remember to telephone the factor about the flickering light and the piss, and the electricity board about the fuse box. He reached his own lonely little landing and stepped into the vestibule with its damson walls and two-tone floor tiles. He unlocked his front door, which had a splendid depiction of a Greek urn frosted into the glass. Before going inside he closed the hefty black storm doors and drew the ancient bolts, as though to doubly shut out the corruptive influence of the outside world from the rarefied atmosphere within.
Leo’s apartment was comfortable, secluded and filled with his beloved things. He loved his flat. It was his den, his inner sanctum, his own private Dalmatia. Whenever he closed that front door and turned the latch he was left in glorious solitude; no one could bother him or hurt him. He loved the fact that his rooms were located in an end attic of the tenement, which itself was on elevated ground, affording some of the best views of the River Kelvin and the West End, upon which he could gaze down unobserved.
The Ghost of Helen Addison Page 21