The Ghost of Helen Addison

by Charles E. McGarry

  Anyway, she could hardly begin to communicate all of these facts to Leo, whom she now felt sorry for. Eva also felt a misplaced sense of shame. Misplaced because theirs had only been a dinner date and she had hardly led him on. But dates were patently rare for both of them these days, and she had used the mention of Ryan to fend off Leo’s advances, and having now rejected both of them she felt vaguely insincere.

  Life can be cruel at times by what must be left unsaid, and Leo, despite assuming that Eva and Ryan were indeed lovers, wished that he could soothe the discomfort that was written on her face. He didn’t consider her in the least unjust.

  Ryan, a man of considerable sensitivity, excused himself and left Eva and Leo together.

  ‘How are you, Eva?’

  ‘Scarred, but still here.’

  ‘I feel in some way responsible. Not having detected him before you were assaulted.’

  ‘My knight protector had retreated to Glasgow and let me down!’ she teased.

  Leo smiled, a little embarrassed. Helen’s ghost had used the same term, ‘knight protector’, to injure him only three nights ago; it was as though she had heard Eva, whom she had looked up to, once use it, and had stored it away for future use. Leo cringed inwardly as he recalled a vestigial hope he had fleetingly entertained in the shower that morning that perhaps his heroics on Innisdubh would draw a swooning Eva into his arms.

  ‘Sometimes even a gallant paladin must withdraw to heal his wounds and sharpen his blade,’ he joked.

  Leo considered momentarily that his banishment to Glasgow had actually proved key to cracking the case in that it had drawn the emboldened George to approach the city. If it wasn’t for Leo sensing the killer’s presence at the concert on the same night as Robbie was drinking in the same bar as DI Lang forty miles away, he may never have questioned Robbie’s alleged guilt quite so emphatically after the arrest. ‘Anyway, I felt dreadful when I heard you had been attacked,’ he went on. ‘I was very worried about you.’

  She patted his arm affectionately.

  ‘Eva, I realise that this is somewhat from left field, but I believe you have lost something precious recently. A certain item of jewellery.’

  ‘How on earth did you know that? Just this morning I noticed my jade brooch was missing. My late grandmother gave me it before she passed away. You may remember I wore it to dinner that evening. Afterwards, I saw that the silver mounting was a little tarnished, so I had brought it down to my workshop, meaning to give it a polish.’

  Leo wistfully recalled the thrill he had felt at how bonny she had looked in the hotel that night.

  ‘George stole it from you, doubtless dropping by your workshop with some convenient pretext at hand in case you were in. He will have utilised it in his Satanic litany, to lure you out that night. Anyway, the good news is that I have recovered it for you. What’s more, I enlisted a passing priest – such are the ways of Providence – to bless it, and hence remove the foul malediction of that man’s sorcery. Have a word with DI Lang – I’m sure he will restore it to your possession in good time.’

  ‘Thank you, Leo. It’s odd: I don’t actually remember leaving the house, or even the attack itself. The first thing I remember is sitting in George’s . . . in his house, with a glass of whisky being forced upon me. To think that Bill took me directly to the killer’s lair!’

  ‘Bill, like everyone else round here, was entirely taken in by George’s nice-guy act. Even I was fooled, if only a little.’

  ‘Do you know he once propositioned me?

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, he was the perfect gentleman, but looking back on it now it was kind of inappropriate. He must be twenty-odd years my senior and was more or less offering to take care of me, financially speaking, as though I was some feral dropout who needed taming. I told him no, of course.’ Eva noticed the thoughtful expression on Leo’s face. ‘A penny for them,’ she said.

  ‘It explains why he targeted you. Both you and Helen rejected him; for that you were to pay with your lives. And while disposing of you he would also deflect the blame onto poor Robbie.’

  ‘You mean to say that because I turned him down he meant to kill me? I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘Your refusals were merely the straws that broke the camel’s back. Eva, it would be unwise and frankly pointless to spend too much time speculating upon how a fellow like George Rattray became as twisted and violent as he did; that is a job for psychologists and theologians. Suffice to say it took years for his inadequacy to find its full expression as cruelty. My guess is that he brooded upon his hatred for women – his hatred for people – for so long that he gradually descended into depravity. Thought precedes action just as lightning precedes thunder, so if a wicked notion comes to one’s mind, better to do as the Buddhists and brush it aside or watch it float away of its own accord, rather than obsess upon it. Or better still, take it captive and make it obedient to Christ, as Paul recommended. From such bitter little seeds a terrible harvest is reaped. But we live in a historical moment in which one’s selfish appetites are exalted. Our concern for what is right, rather than what feels good, has been sacrificed upon the altar of individualism.’

  Eva didn’t happen to concur with Leo’s hell-in-a-handcart analysis of society – she more or less subscribed to the epigram, ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same’ – but now wasn’t the time for philosophical dispute, so she kept her counsel.

  They strolled together for a while, down the path that led towards the loch. At the Victorian folly where Leo had first met Helen, he bade Eva adieu, bowing magnificently and kissing her hand. As he watched her walk away he took a surreptitious swig from his hipflask. Yet somehow on this morning – on this glorious day – he wasn’t going to allow the familiar feelings of loneliness to overcome him. Suddenly, the phrase Eva had used about the knight protector withdrawing to Glasgow flashed into his mind. ‘Eureka!’ Leo exclaimed and he sat down upon a mossy stump and eagerly withdrew his chess computer. He once again addressed the endgame that had been so vexing him. The bottom-right three squares contained, left to right, white king, black bishop, white knight. Immediately above were black pawn, white pawn, black king, with Leo’s remaining white knight on king4. Instead of the direct attack he had been fixated upon, he withdrew this cavalier knight to bishop6. The chess engine walked into the trap, taking Leo’s other knight with its king. Leo now turned round his retreated knight, advancing it to knight4. The computer moved its bishop to rook7. Leo smiled as he played the killer move, his knight taking the black pawn. Checkmate.

  He relit his little cheroot and ambled down towards the boatyard, drawn by sounds of human activity.

  53

  ON rounding the boatsheds Leo was presented with a remarkable sight. A minibus bearing the crest of Glasgow University and the initials GUARD was parked up. The far end of the jetty was swarming with activity. A dozen men, aged from eighteen to sixty, almost all of whom sported beards and woolly jerseys, were manoeuvring a small JCB digger onto a support vessel.

  At the waterside, the baron was shouting hysterically at his man Kemp, whose neck was a range of crimson hues following his unsuccessful bout with Bosco. The puce-faced baron saw Leo and glared at him; he was met with a satirical bow. Kemp noticed Leo’s arrival, too, but for once he didn’t shoot him an ironic grin.

  Another altercation was taking place. Bill Minto stood impassively with his arms folded watching the festivities, while his wife Shona lectured him in stern tones. Leo walked over to them, and his presence seemed noxious to Shona, who strode off huffily.

  ‘So, what’s going on, Bill?’ Leo asked, after they had exchanged congratulations for their respective nocturnal heroics.

  ‘Ach, I just decided to put a few things right,’ the hotelier replied.

  They took a few steps together, slowly walking a circle as Bill related his news. After Leo had confronted him the previous week, Bill had undergone something of a crisis of conscience. Following a couple
of days of rumination he resolved to tell the Grey Lady the truth about Innisdubh’s dark secrets, about the girls who were buried there. He did this without Shona’s knowledge, lest she try to dissuade him. The Grey Lady was most kind and understanding, and the pair decided to have the place properly surveyed. Bill would then approach the police with their findings and come clean about the whole cover-up. Serendipitously, this team of archaeologists happened to be excavating a Bronze Age burial cairn located on a strip of land owned by the Grey Lady down towards Kilmartin Glen. She therefore requested that they investigate the mausoleum and they were happy to help due to her generous cooperation with their dig. They were supposed to have gone over to Innisdubh yesterday, but the police had sealed the island after George’s demise. However, they agreed to allow access today under strict supervision.

  Bill changed tack, and began speaking about the occult temple he and his wife had discovered beneath Ardchreggan House several years ago. ‘The thing is, just before I bricked off the entrance to it I took one last look round. And I noticed that certain items we had discovered were no longer there – some robes and some books, maybe some other paraphernalia as well. I had forgotten all about it until just yesterday. And it occurred to me that it was probably George who swiped them. He must have known about and visited the temple when Ardchreggan House was lying derelict.’

  A man in a business suit called over, and Bill waved back in acknowledgement. The man walked off, leaving two police constables behind to keep the peace.

  ‘That’s the Edinburgh lawyer the Grey Lady and I hired. I think he’s cleared up any misunderstanding with his lairdship regarding ownership rights for these islands.’

  ‘Good for you, Bill,’ said Leo.

  ‘Those archaeologist bods have been using X-ray apparatus in the old mausoleum and they’ve detected six distinct voids beneath the floor. There was a Catholic priest here earlier. I had a word with him. He’s going to give them a decent funeral.’

  Leo was glad of this opportunity to part company with Bill on friendly terms, and they bade each other a warm farewell.

  Leo then ambled northwards, following the bank. He came across a male mallard strutting and quacking his way around his territory, his glossy bottle-green head and bright yellow beak gorgeously vivid. Leo smiled; something in the creature’s portentous demeanour put him in mind of himself.

  Once he had come abreast with Innisdubh he stopped and gazed up the loch towards Ben Corrach, which was gilded with the light of the late morning sun. Then he looked over to the isle and imagined that it looked a little less ugly today and somehow more at peace. And he thought about Helen Addison, and the evil that men do. And he wondered what it was like before the Fall, before cruelty was poured into people’s hearts. And for a moment he fancied that a little piece of Eden still prevailed, over there to the west, over the mountains, among the islands where the Gaels lived peacefully, softly speaking their strange, poetic language beneath sunsets so beautiful they could make you weep.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Three people deserve particular thanks. Martin Greig and Neil White of BackPage Press, for their early belief in the book and their invaluable help and support thereafter, and my cousin Madeleine Tait for her early edit which made the manuscript remotely publishable. Also thanks to her and George for loans of their holiday house, which inspired the setting of Loch Dhonn. To David Toner and Des Mulvey for being sounding boards for certain key plot points, and to Pete Burns for championing the book. Finally, thanks to everyone at Polygon for their sterling work, especially my editor Alison Rae who did a superb job.

  DEBUT: A crime writer’s journey from the bedroom to the bookshelf follows Charles E McGarry’s incredible 14-year journey to the publication of his first crime novel, The Ghost of Helen Addison. Listen for fascinating insights into the challenges he faced in finding a publisher, the creation of the novel itself and his writing clinics with crime legends Val McDermid and Chris Brookmyre

  COMING SOON . . .

  The second book in the Leo Moran Murder Mystery The Shadow of the Black Earl

  Devastated by a sudden bereavement, Leo Moran is invited to spend the summer at Biggnarbriggs Hall in southern Scotland, the stately residence of his friend Fordyce Greatorix. He is overjoyed when romance blossoms unexpectedly, but he finds himself haunted by visions after a local girl goes missing, an incident which has chilling echoes of a similar disappearance thirty years previously. As he investigates a host of curious and dubious characters, Leo finds that the very bedrock which surrounds Biggnarbriggs Hall is poisoned by an ancient malevolence that will have its terrible reckoning.

  For more details go to www.polygonbooks.co.uk