by Alan Hunter
‘Would that really have been necessary?’
He was silent again.
‘What time do you say you arrived in Kyleness?’
‘I’m not sure of the precise time. It was something after 4 p.m.’
‘Did you meet any traffic between here and the junction?’
He shook his head. ‘Should I have done?’
‘Why didn’t you call at the hotel, where Fortuny was staying?’
‘Well, I thought I should talk to Anne first.’
‘You were so confident that you had beaten Earle to it.’
‘If you say so. But I wanted her viewpoint.’
‘It could also have been for a different reason. You could have known that Fortuny was out.’
This time Alex was silent for longer. His head inclined broodingly towards the breakers; his hands, thrust hard into the pockets, did give an impression that he was clutching concealed weapons.
‘Where did you park?’
‘Up there in a passing place. I could see the commotion going on here.’
‘You walked down and faded into the commotion.’
‘No. I walked down and asked what was going on.’
‘Who was present there?’
‘Well, there were the fishermen. Uncle Iain was just leaving. But after that all sorts of people arrived, including Earle and Anne. And then the police.’
‘Your Uncle Robert?’
‘I don’t remember seeing him. Aunt Ailsie was there and Cousin Beattie. Aunt Ailsie was very pale and Beattie was snivelling when they landed the body.’
‘How was Earle behaving?’
‘He looked thunderstruck. He was standing over there by himself. Anne was behaving like an idiot. She thought he had done it, no doubt about that.’
‘Where was your grandfather?’
‘He came back with Uncle. They were both of them looking pretty blue.’
‘Did your uncle give a hand with the body?’
‘I don’t think he touched it. But the police arrived as they were swinging it in.’
‘What else did you see?’
His shoulders hunched. ‘I was convinced that Earle had done it, too. I was watching him. The guilt seemed written in him. The police must have spotted it, without what he did afterwards. It was like watching a film that somehow was real. Nothing could change what was going to happen. There was the victim, there was the culprit, and the film just had to keep coming off the reel.’
‘Yet Earle didn’t kill him.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I know it, and so does the rest of Kylie.’
‘You’re guessing. If the family knows anything, it hasn’t been dropped in my hearing.’
‘Perhaps they have a reason for that.’
He picked up another rock splinter and sent it spinning into emptiness. I cursed the still-increasing darkness that was hiding his expressions from me.
‘I’ve admitted that I could have done it. I wouldn’t have needed to hide my car, either. And the family wouldn’t have split – that’s one of the advantages of being a Mackenzie. And if I had done it I could live with my guilt, I’ve found that out about myself. I might regret it but I could put it behind me and keep my face turned to the future. I hated Fortuny. Well, now he’s dead, and I can’t hate him any longer. But he had to die for that to happen, and I won’t be dishonest and say I’m not glad. And I don’t pity him, not as Fortuny, but just the man in him like myself: the man in his terror going over this cliff. For the rest he deserved all he got.’ He paused, a little breathless. ‘And if Earle did it, I hope he feels about it like I would. I hope he gets away with it and that it doesn’t hang on his conscience. Fortuny was rotten. He should take it to the grave with him, there shouldn’t be any grief left behind.’
‘Did you do it?’
He made an odd little gesture. ‘Does it matter whether I did it?’
‘It may come to a straight question of who is going to jail for twenty years.’
His pale face glimmered towards me. ‘I didn’t, but you can never be certain of that. The proof is negative. I might well have killed him and for a time I was hoping that someone else would. That will have to be good enough. You can put it to Sinclair. I don’t care how you wrap it up. I owe it to Earle to be the suspect if that’s what it takes to get him off.’
‘You couldn’t give me a little more? To help me convince him?’
He got up off the stones. ‘You can go to hell. When it comes to a straight question of twenty years I can look after myself as well as the next man.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
MY ANORAK HAD been scarcely adequate for the rigours of an evening in Kylie and I was happy to linger a little by the parlour fire when we got back to the Mackenzie house. James and his wife were the only others present. She sat placidly knitting a gorgeous sweater. He sat smoking a big, long-stemmed pipe of the sort you can buy in gift shops in Oslo. He looked up to give me a keen glance when I entered the parlour alone.
‘Have you seen young Alex?’
‘He went up to his room.’
He nodded and pointed to the decanter with his pipe. I helped myself. I was finding that in these latitudes Scotch was less of a luxury and more a way of life. I carried my glass to the hearth and stood basking in the comfortable warmth. Mrs Mackenzie’s needles clicked cheerfully and her husband drew unhurried puffs.
‘Is it cool outbye?’
‘It is.’
‘I heard you had a crack with Robbie.’
This didn’t surprise me. I imagined Robert Mackenzie’s first move would have been to phone the head of the clan.
‘Are you further forward?’
‘I found his daughter interesting.’
‘She’s a wilful lassie,’ Mrs Mackenzie said. ‘I doubt she’s been spoiled. With all the laddies to tease her you cannot wonder if her head has been turned.’
‘Robbie you can trust,’ James Mackenzie said. ‘Robbie was always a douce laddie. And Ailsie has a good heart, though sometimes her manner is a wee brisk.’ He puffed rapidly once or twice. ‘What had Alex to say?’
‘He accounted for his movements on Tuesday and Wednesday.’
‘He is a discreet lad.’
‘I think you may say that.’
‘Aye. In that he takes after Colin.’
‘But you would not think him Colin’s son,’ put in Mrs Mackenzie. ‘It is hard to ken who the lad favours. It will be from his mother’s side, I am thinking. There is not black eyes among the Mackenzies.’
‘There was Alistair Mackenzie,’ her husband said. ‘But you would not ken him, he was from Harris.’
‘They are no near kin, James.’
‘They are not far away. We have called them cousins since before the Union.’
Mrs Mackenzie seemed moved to dispute this and her husband seemed content with the change of subject, so I drank up briefly and said my goodnights and reluctantly withdrew from the comfortable fire. I was weary after my long day, but I still had some work that would not wait. In the silence of my room I unbuckled my briefcase, uncapped my pen and began to write. My notes were selective rather than detailed, or I would have been scribbling until the dawn. You will recall that they were required to stretch back to my initial sparring with Inspector Sinclair. They ranged through my interview with Earle, my second encounter with Sinclair, the conversation at dinner, and my visit to the hotel; and ended with what I found not the least troubling section, my exchange with Alex on the clifftop. I had covered much ground. What concerned me professionally was that I had failed to uncover a firm lead. I was extending the list of suspects almost to infinity without arriving at a prospect who would appeal to Sinclair. There was scarcely a Mackenzie who could be eliminated, nor any other member of the trawler’s crew. I might lay more definite suspicion at one or two doors, but none of it supported by evidential fact. I had my instincts, but they were irrelevant: no doubt Sinclair had plenty of his own. And of anything more substa
ntial I could detect no glimmer in all my scribblings.
It was while I was revolving this depressing conclusion that I heard a faint rustle at my door, and glancing up I saw that an envelope had been slipped underneath it. I rose quietly and moved swiftly but I was too late to catch the messenger. The envelope was addressed: ‘George’, and I recognized Anne’s flaring handwriting. I opened it. ‘Dear George [I read], I had to write this in the bathroom. Mother – oh dear!!! George, get Uncle Iain on his own. He saw what happened. Grandad rang him at the quay after Earle left. I know he went up to watch. They all know it wasn’t Earle – you must get them to talk to you!!! George I love Earle. If he still wants me I’ll have him. Please George. Anne.’
I preserved that letter, which is why I can reproduce the punctuation with so much confidence. But it told me nothing I hadn’t guessed anyway, nor suggested a line that I didn’t intend to follow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I WAS TIRED and slept late. When I awoke the day was brilliant behind my curtain, and I could hear the whooping of gulls down at the quay and that distinctive northern sound, the chuckle of a curlew. I rose and drew the curtains. The view that morning was ethereal. Lit by morning sun it had a fairy-like texture that seemed to belong to some other world. The colours were so bold and vivid and the space and definition so lyrically clear that my southron soul would scarcely credit that I was yet in the island that contained London. This was different, a more precious existence, and I longed for an opportunity simply to expand in it. But I had other business. I hastened my toilet and dressed and went down, to find the breakfast table deserted except by James Mackenzie, who was deep in his paper.
He greeted me distantly. ‘You slept well, then.’
‘I had a long day yesterday.’
‘Aye, it’s a fair step to Kylie. And you busied yourself after that.’ He glanced over the paper. ‘What’s for today, then?’
‘Inspector Sinclair will be here later.’
James Mackenzie grunted.
‘I would like to have a word with Iain.’
‘You will find him at the boat.’
He rustled his paper and disappeared behind it: it was the Stornaway Gazette. I helped myself to porridge and pancakes and a large cup of tepid coffee. Before I got Iain on his own I would very much have liked to get Anne on her own, but I had a premonition that she intended to avoid this, which the presence of Verna would make only too easy. Verna was playing her role with zest. She was being the most sorrowing of widows and the most devoted of mothers. It was a role that included among its advantages the excuse to drop me like a hot brick. I had noted this with amusement on the previous evening but this morning my feelings were less charitable: I could bear to be snubbed by Verna, but not if it meant isolation from Anne. And it was as I feared. I found them in the parlour, preparing to take Helen for her airing; Anne resolutely refused to catch my eye and Verna refused to acknowledge my existence. They were busy: I had no excuse, nor would Anne have responded if I had found one; so I gave it up for the present and set out on my errand to the quay.
I went down by the path, and at once it was apparent that from the path one could not see the rocks below. The mass of red sandstone, standing out boldly, entirely concealed the scene of the tragedy. A heathery slope fell away at its foot and down this the path descended to the quay; on the seaward side the slope dropped precipitously to an apron of pebble beach. I paused where the path ran closest to the rock. A faint track connected it with the cleft I had discovered. The cleft represented, in fact, a useful short cut for anyone bound for the House of Reay. I went a few yards up the track: there was no chance of footprints, but I saw signs confirming recent use: freshly bruised heather-bush, and a dislodged pebble with one side weathered and one smooth. But who would be taking that way from the quay? The fishermen, apparently, preferred their cars. It was Iain Mackenzie who walked up from the quay, his house being but the short distance above. Did he also then walk up to the hotel . . . or did one of the inmates walk down to the quay? I recalled the sound of Beattie’s voice in conversation with someone, which had ceased with Robert Mackenzie’s clumsy rattling of the door. Could that have been Iain? Was something going on there into which Fortuny had accidentally blundered? Was it Fortuny’s silence that the killer had wanted, even more than his death? I stood pondering this. It was a considerable theory to base on the evidence of a humble track. And yet it fitted. I now knew for certain that Iain had been told that the fight was taking place. And before that he had been recalled to Kylie: the excuse of the worn worm-gear was too thin. Would it not have been to deal with a threat more serious than Fortuny’s attempts to carry off Anne? I returned to the path. It approached nearest to the edge at about the halfway point from the quay. I paced out forty yards through shin-deep heather before I got to where I could see the parapet and the rocks. It was possible, but why would a man make this detour through the spiteful heather – unless, as Robertson had suggested, it was because he knew that there was something to be seen?
The gulls began yelping; I turned towards the quay. Iain Mackenzie had appeared from a shed. He stood in the doorway, his eyes intent on me. He had something in his hand. It looked like a gun.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
‘HAVE YOU a licence for that?’
‘Aye.’ The chill grey eyes were regarding me coolly. He had remained by the shed watching me as I came down the path and along the quay. He was wearing dungarees and his hands were black with grease. The gun was an expensive double-barrelled twelve-bore and he held it cradled lightly in the crook of his arm.
‘Do you carry it on board with you?’
‘Ach, what for? You cannot eat Mother Carey’s chickens. But there are a deal of grouse up the braes, and all manner of wildfowl on the lochans.’
‘Why are you carrying the gun this morning?’
‘You just chance to find it in my hand. You ken the womenfolk cannot bear guns, and mother will not have it in the house. So I keep it down here, in the workshop, where I can give it a rub and a pull-through.’ He broke it to show it was empty, then skied it and squinted through each barrel. ‘Are you for shooting?’
I shrugged. ‘I see enough of it.’
‘Aye, that will be cutting targets with handguns. But I mean tramping the heather and the birchwoods, and bringing home a blackcock, or maybe a goose.’
‘I don’t have the opportunity.’
‘That’s a pity, man. Now and then you should take a gun for company. It is grand to be striding out alone among the hills as God made them. It is not the shooting, you ken. That’s just a wee flourish, bringing home something good for the pot. It is feeling you’re a man abune your micht in a great country where you belong. The beasts kill each other to live, and with a gun to hand you are lord among them.’ He held up the finger that lacked a joint. ‘There’s something I got from my love of a gun. Ach, I blew it off when I was a bairn and had more curiosity than respect.’
‘You keep the gun locked up?’
‘Do you think I’m daft? I have a safe place for it in the workshop. And talking of that, we will just step in. I have something there you’ll be wanting to see.’
I followed him into the workshop. It was quite large and was equipped with a lathe and a vertical drill. Along one side ran a heavy zinc-topped bench which was fitted below with a nest of drawers. Iain slid one open; it was lined with oily waste, and in it he placed the gun, after giving it a wipe. Then he picked up something from a box on the bench and dumped it weightily in my hands.
‘There’s your exhibit.’
It was the worm-gear, a hefty threaded cylinder of solid metal. It weighed most of a stone, and I was glad to rest it on the bench while I examined it. Sure enough, the thread was worn. I could see flattened areas in the spiral of steel. But whether the flattening amounted to a near mechanical failure I was not engineer enough to decide. I wiped my hands on a pull of waste.
‘Wouldn’t you have needed help to remove that gear?’
‘It would have been useful, there is no doubt, but I did not wish to keep the lads from their dram.’
‘Not your mechanic?’
‘Ach, he lacks experience, and I ken the machinery like the back of my hand. When it comes to the Kylie Rose I’m for doing a job by myself.’
‘You intend to maintain that you were here alone.’
‘Have you heard anything to contradict it?’
I shook my head. ‘But you could contradict it. And that might jog a few other memories.’
Slowly he took a key from his pocket and locked the drawer containing the gun. Then he wiped his hands on the dungarees and began casually peeling them off. ‘I was alone. No question of that.’
‘You were alone when Sambrooke went up the hill.’
‘Aye.’
‘Did you see him?’
‘I was down in the bilge.’
‘Yet I believe you heard that telephone ring.’ I pointed to the instrument, which was installed in a box just inside the door.
Iain went on calmly pulling off the dungarees. ‘If you look outside you will see the bell. We had one fitted that I could hear on the boat. You can hear that bell ring across on Ronsay.’
‘Then do you agree that there was a call.’
He paused. ‘Aye.’
‘From your father.’
‘You seem to ken it.’
‘Telling you what was afoot.’
‘If you ken so much you’ll ken that.’
‘And I think I know this,’ I said. ‘You left your job here and went up to watch. You went up that path and bore off to the right, and stood in the cleft to watch the fight.’
He rolled the dungarees and laid them on the bench. ‘You have not been wasting your time, then,’ he said smoothly. ‘It is not every person in Kylie who kens the cleft in the rocks yonder. Sinclair missed it, that’s sure, though he was led away by arresting Sambrooke. But man, you just take a stroll round the place and you read its secrets like a book.’
‘Then you were up there.’