Footsteps in the Dark

by Josh Lanyon

  “It was on the floor by the…beside him,” Calum said. “Angus, did Tormod have any enemies or…?”

  He stopped as Angus reached across and touched a bag. But not the one that held the knife. The one with the lump of newspaper.

  Angus made a sound like a sob. “Obair an diabhail.” The work of the devil.

  Angus snatched back his hand and began to rub his palms compulsively up and down his thighs—horrible to watch his agitation and distress—rumpling up the thick dark-blue fabric of his boilersuit.

  “It’s not my secret,” he said. “It’s not my secret to tell. She should decide. But you have it. You have it. And my boy is dead.”

  “Angus…?”

  There was a noise, a clatter and bang beyond the thin, hollow, modern door into the kitchen, but Shep didn’t bark. Calum’s parents’ voices sounded clearly through the plywood.

  Calum closed his eyes against a rush of furious impatience, but it was his own fault. He’d gambled on his parents staying out longer for the funeral tea.

  He stood, but before he could intercept them, the lounge door opened and Calum’s black-clad mother and father spilled in, his mother speaking first as usual, bright and cheerful and overwhelming.

  “Mo chreach-sa a thàinig, a’ Chalum! What have you tramped into the kitchen? The dog’s licking all over the floor!” She was a good-looking woman still—though she allowed no personal vanity—with even features, big blue eyes, and short, wavy, brown hair. “Bha me a chreid gu robh… Aonghas!” Angus shrank in on himself, but Calum’s mother’s response to the surprise guest in her lounge was ingrained. She immediately behaved as if Angus had done them all an enormous honor by coming to sit in her lounge. “Calum, did you not get Aonghas a strupag?”

  The sheer horror in her tone at his huge hospitality failure made Calum want to snap to it, even then. Angus’s eyes fixed again on the safety of the banked fire.

  So Calum explained to his parents why Angus was there, in the shortest, most diplomatic terms possible. But it still sounded brutal. Literally, unbelievable.

  In a daze, Calum’s mother sank down onto the sofa beside the old man and embraced him, talking softly in Gaelic all the while. “The Lord tests us. How the Lord tests us.”

  Angus remained absolutely silent, still staring at the fire, so she bustled out into the kitchen to prepare tea, whether Angus wanted it or not.

  Calum’s father sat down with them then, shy and awkward in his stiff suit. He was tall, strong, and dark-haired like Calum, handsome, but his face and hands were lean and weathered. He was a Free Church elder, and he looked the part. Ascetic, like a saint or a martyr.

  “Tha me cho duilich, Aonghas,” he said to Angus, in his rich, deep voice. I’m so sorry.

  Angus, at last, looked at him. His face twisted. “I’ve known you since you were a boy, Donnie.” His voice shook. “Letting Tormod play with you, though you were older.”

  “Until he followed me onto the roof,” Calum’s father said with a sad smile, and Angus made a sound between amusement and a sob.

  The door was shouldered open, and Calum’s mother pushed through with a laden tray which she set down on the coffee table beside the evidence bags. She didn’t seem to register the gory knife, shining through clear plastic.

  “I trust you,” Angus said with sudden desperation. “And I trust Ishbel.” He looked at Calum then, frowning and intense, all fierce, grey brows like an angry eagle. “And I trust you, because you’re your daddy’s son as much as you’re a policeman.” He sniffed hard and rubbed a flat palm back and forth across his mouth. “Take it out of the bag.”

  Calum frowned, but he had no doubt which ‘it’ Angus meant. He rose to rummage in the desk for a fresh pair of forensic gloves, then extracted the lump of newspaper from its plastic covering. It was tied with a piece of fraying blue plastic string, and there were a lot of pages wrapped around whatever was inside—all from the Stornoway Gazette, Calum noted. He undid the string and loosened page after page of paper; whatever was in there had been protected, as if it was extremely fragile. So when the object at the centre finally rolled out into his hand, he was almost shocked by the extent of the anticlimax.

  It was nothing fragile. Just a bog-standard piece from probably the most copied chess set in the world. A Lewis chessman; instantly recognizable. Even kids knew them, from Harry Potter.

  The piece was a queen in familiar pose, sitting on her throne, with her left arm across her lap and her hand supporting her right elbow, cheek resting in her right hand. The figures never ceased to impress Calum, not least because, despite their naive style, they were all their own individual characters, ready to live. The queen he held was leaning forward, as if watching a conflict or a show, her expression perplexed, verging on grumpy.

  Calum looked up at Angus.

  He could see white stubble on his anxious, devastated face, and his old, dark eyes looked reddened and rheumy. He appeared, truthfully, on the point of death himself.

  Calum looked down again.

  It was good quality, not plastic like some he’d seen; from the weight, probably from a museum-shop set. Maybe resin, he thought, to best mimic the original walrus tusk or whale tooth. Maybe five inches tall. Bigger than the originals he’d seen in the British Museum, or the National Museum in Edinburgh, or any of the six pieces kept at Museum nan Eilean—the Museum of the Islands—in Stornoway, but he knew they made replicas in different sizes for sale.

  He studied the piece in the palm of his hand, and unwanted memories gushed out like water through cracks in a flood wall.

  “Why is this important?” he asked.

  Angus looked stunned. “Because it’s a chess piece,” he said, as if it were obvious.

  Calum blinked, beginning to understand. An acid burn of pity churned in his gut. He had no idea how to be tactful about it, on top of everything.

  “Chrissie’s father passed it on to her earlier this year,” Angus added, as if that were irrefutable proof to back up what he was implying.

  “Chrissie’s father,” Calum repeated. This was getting away from him. A pointless waste of valuable time. Angus was about seventy, like Chrissie, so his father-in-law… “How old is Chrissie’s father?”

  “The bodach? He’s ninety-six.”

  Ninety-six.

  “So…this old…” Senile. “…man has a copy of the Lewis chess set, and he thinks this piece is original?”

  Angus, distressed as he was, clearly caught Calum’s tone. His expression slid to betrayal. But Calum didn’t have the time to indulge pretence. He had a deadline. Forty-eight hours. A wall for effective murder investigations.

  “Chrissie believes him?” he asked. “You believe him?” Then, “Did Tormod believe him?” God. Had he actually tried to sell it as genuine?

  Angus flinched as if Calum had spat on him.

  “Chrissie told Tormod about it when it was passed to her,” he said with dignity. “Though she’d known about it for long before that. She shouldn’t have told me, but she trusted me. And now, in these times, I’m trusting you.”

  Calum glanced again at the piece. The queen’s expression seemed somehow more impatient and imperious than he remembered any of the queens to look, and when he turned it, he could see the back of her carved throne was stained pale red, as if someone had painted it, then tried to rub the paint off.

  Most importantly and tellingly, though, it was a queen.

  Calum sighed and reached for a piece of newspaper, ready to wrap it again. There might be some forensic evidence on it, though he doubted it. But beyond that, could Chrissie’s father’s delusions, passed on to his credulous family, have any bearing on what happened to Tormod?

  “Is the bodach still in Uig?” Donnie asked. Calum had almost forgotten he was there, which tended to happen a lot around his father. “In Mealista?”

  Angus sighed. “He’s never moved all his life. Chrissie’s trying to make me move there now too, because he says we have to. Says his time is almost
up.” He made a harsh, surprised sound, as if he’d just prodded an open wound he’d forgotten was there.

  Calum studied the queen again, the quirky, ivory face; then the red staining her white, rippled hair and her intricate throne.

  “Did he or Chrissie try to paint it?” he asked. He wasn’t sure why, but his pulse had started to pick up again. Instinct.

  Stupid animal instinct, and those two things. Uig. Red.

  Angus frowned. He seemed on the verge of tears. “Why would they? They both treat it like it’s holy.”

  “Well…” Donnie put in, “the chessmen were found in Uig, and some are still missing. You should ask your friend, Calum.”

  Calum’s throat tightened, and he thought vainly, Please, no.

  “He only did a final-year thesis on the chessmen, Dad,” he managed. “Someone in Stornoway’d have a better idea. Or in Edinburgh. Or at the British Museum.”

  “But he’s at the British Museum,” Calum’s mother said. “And he wrote a whole book about the chessmen. It was in the Scotsman and the Gazette. I’ve got it on my Kindle! Your father and I both read it.”

  Calum hadn’t known about the job or that the book existed, far less that his parents had bought it. He felt ambushed. His chest was tight. His ribs had transmuted into iron bands.

  “I don’t have his contact details anymore,” he said firmly. And it was true. He didn’t have Adam’s number because he’d deleted it from his phone. He didn’t have his email address or his parents’ details because he’d wiped them. He’d removed Adam root and branch from his life. His father had asked him only once how Adam was, and Calum had said he was fine. Not because he knew, but because Adam had to be.

  “Hold on.” Ishbel stood and went into the kitchen, returning with her black handbag. “I’m sure I kept the number from when he was home with you from university.” She extracted her phone and began to peck at it with her forefinger as Calum stared at her, appalled by her innocent doggedness.

  He should be used to his parents’ close interest in his life, to his mother’s well-meaning bulldozer personality. But given that so many of his decisions had been made trying not to disappoint them, it felt stupidly like betrayal.

  “Can Calum ask his friend about it, Aonghas?” Donnie asked. “His friend’s an expert.”

  Angus rubbed his mouth again, visibly at war with himself, until finally, he nodded.

  “Right, then,” Calum’s mother said briskly and began to tap at the phone. “I’ll try him.”

  Calum fought to keep his panic below the surface. “He won’t still be on that number,” he said with desperate certainty.

  “Hello!” she said into the phone. “Adam?” Calum’s heart stopped. He heard someone say something faintly on the other end of the line. “Yes, it is! You have a good memory!” A few more words from the almost inaudible, tinny voice. Adam? That was Adam? “Oh, I’m fine! Still waiting for grandchildren!” Calum drew a sharp breath. “Listen, a’ ghràidh, I don’t want to keep you. Calum just needs a word.” Calum stared at the phone in his mother’s outstretched hand, then at her wide, encouraging eyes. “Siuthad!” she urged. Go on!

  And Calum had no option but to take the phone. He wasn’t going to display any of his stunned turmoil. He couldn’t, with his parents watching. He was a man talking to his old friend.

  “Adam!” he said. He tried for reassuringly hearty. “How are you?”

  There was a pointed silence. Then, “I’m fine,” Adam said, and with rote politeness but no interest, “And you?”

  Calum had forgotten the exact tone of Adam’s voice. He hadn’t realized that, until he heard the smooth, deep tones, the posh English vowels. The distance in it. Like a stranger.

  He cleared his throat. “Oh, I’m fine too. Look, I’m…sorry…to bother you.” Stumbling. “I’m a policeman now. It’s about a piece of evidence in a case. It’s… It involves your main expertise. Or what was your—”

  Adam cut in. “The chessmen.”

  Calum paused to gather himself. He sounded like a bumbling kid. His voice firmed. “It’s one item. I’ll send some photographs, if you could possibly take a look at them for us?”

  “No need,” Adam said. “I’m actually in Stornoway.”

  It felt like a whack in the solar plexus. A sucker punch from nowhere.

  “In town?” Calum breathed.

  “Yes,” Adam said with curt economy. “So I can examine it in person. If that’s what you want.”

  Calum couldn’t understand how quickly, how totally, everything had disintegrated; the ground cut out from under him, just like that. All he’d deliberately turned his back on and worked to deny. Returned to his life, without warning, or permission, or choice.

  “Yes,” he lied. “That’s what I want.”

  Chapter Three

  Calum showered with brisk efficiency, then donned his uniform.

  He’d had to get used to that too, as well as everything else, after years in plain clothes as a detective in Glasgow. But at least the day-to-day Police Scotland uniform didn’t demand a tie.

  A black zip-necked, short-sleeved T-shirt made of wicking, with his two Inspector’s pips on epaulettes on the shoulders. Plain black trousers. A black police microfleece to go on top. A traditional, stiff peaked cap with a checkered band and badge.

  He refused to acknowledge his relief today that it suited him so well.

  Adam was going to meet him at the station, to take a look at the chess piece.

  Calum was tying his shoelaces when his phone rang. The name on the screen made him grimace.

  “Sir…” he began.

  “So were you going to mention we have a potential homicide? Or just wait for me to read it in the papers?”

  Chief Inspector Kenneth Martin was area commander for the islands, a Lewis man twenty-six years older than Calum, content with his role, and in full control of his brief. Though his brief hadn’t, until now, included murder.

  Calum launched into as concise an explanation as he could: how he’d found the body, that he’d had two grief-stricken parents there and his priority had to be containing the potential crime scene. How he’d tried to use his relationship with the father of the victim to get a picture of why the victim might possibly have been murdered. That he hadn’t been sure of time differences, so he’d just pressed on and taken charge on the spot, without calling his boss, on holiday in Seattle. But once officers in Stornoway entered the incident into the Police National Computer system, Calum had known it was just a matter of time.

  “Inverness called me,” Martin said. “Funnily enough they weren’t bothered about my beauty sleep. They wanted to know why no one called them.”

  “With respect, sir,” Calum said. “This is our patch. I know we have to call them in, but we needed to secure the scene. I have what could be the murder weapon bagged up.”

  He didn’t mention it was on his parents’ coffee table.

  Or the chess piece. He didn’t mention the chess piece either. He was withholding information that could be pertinent, that should already be entered into the PNC. But something silenced him. Angus’s stated trust perhaps. And his own conviction that the chess piece was a ludicrous red herring anyway.

  Then why not hand it straight in to the evidence locker? Why are you pursuing it?

  Martin sighed. “Well…I suppose you’ve put your past experience to good use. At least we’ll have a sealed crime scene when the Inverness murder team comes in.”

  Calum asked tightly. “When do they arrive?”

  “They intended to be helicoptered in on Sunday, but there’s some complication. So they’re taking the ferry on Monday morning with the pathologist. Tavistock entered his initial opinion that it was an unlawful killing. That’s what set the hares running.”

  “Sir, I’d like to keep going on this until the Inverness team arrives. You know about the forty-eight-hour rule in murder cases.”

  “Yes, Calum. I went to police college too.”

  “S
o the more information we can gather in that period…when it’s fresh…”

  The pause at the other end of the line sounded contemplative. “Well, I suppose it’d be no bad thing to show them what we can do.” Calum had heard more than one rant from Martin about the treatment of island officers as “maws from the sticks.”

  But something made Calum say, “I should declare an interest, sir. I know the victim’s family very well. It’s my village. It could be seen as improper.”

  Martin snorted. “Improper, is it? Everyone knows everyone’s family there, Calum. If we let that get in the way, we wouldn’t leave the station.”

  “Sir.”

  “But. It isn’t Glasgow. You’re not a SIO with a murder unit behind you anymore. We’re not set up for a high-powered investigation, so don’t try to run one. You can use CID, though, and commandeer the department. Just until the Inverness lot come. Then you have to let them take over.”

  It was more than Calum had expected. It gave him a Detective Sergeant and a few Detective Constables.

  When the call ended, Calum headed back into the lounge and fired up the iMac to send a fast email, ordering the team to set up an incident room and attempt an examination of any seized computer equipment.

  Behind him he could hear the rattle of crockery as his mother poured more tea, his father’s low, soothing voice talking to Angus.

  But as the email whooshed off into the ether, his eye fell on the threatening email he’d opened just before Angus came to get him. còthaseo@gmail.com.

  It had seemed wildly sinister then—a prod to unwanted memory. But that was before his past had arrived on his doorstep.

  It took him a couple of seconds to recognize that it wasn’t the same email. It was a new one. “For Calum 2.” His parents’ voices murmured on behind him. He opened it.

  I thought I knew the face of God. But John Gillies was right. There’s no forgiveness. No mercy or pity. Vengeance and destruction are the face of God.