by Josh Lanyon
Lewis was a place where religion mattered so much that ordinary people in congregations still fell out and had schisms and formed new churches over matters of theology and religious politics.
Just a few years before, the largest Church of Scotland congregation in the islands had split because the mainland church was willing to accept “practicing homosexuals” as ministers. The anti-gay dissenters had been welcomed into the Free Church—Calum’s parents’ church. His parents were kind and compassionate people, but the concept of homosexuality touching their own lives would be incredible and devastating for them. In a strange way, they were innocents.
Lewis had more than its share of alcohol abuse and illegal drugs and underage sex and unplanned pregnancies. They’d been around for a long time. But even in a community with such a close personal relationship with religion, you could be easily forgiven for those sins. You could even decide not to bother with the church at all.
But you couldn’t be gay.
There was no overt unpleasantness or open homophobia, but that was the unspoken rule everyone understood. If you came from Lewis and you weren’t straight, if you were other, no one should know. It was never talked about. There had been a gay pride march the previous year—the first ever—mainly outsiders and LGBTQ allies. But as many people in his parents’ church alone prayed to stop it, as turned up to march.
“You’re at the British Museum now,” Calum’s mother was saying. “You’ve done so well! Our Calum could have gone to London too. He got offered this big fancy job in the Met, but he wanted to come home instead. To be with his mam,” she teased.
“Who can blame him?” Adam said. Calum could only see the back of his head. His beautifully cut, sun-streaked hair brushed his collar.
Ishbel regarded Adam with huge affection. “You’re looking lovely, a’ ghràidh. Are you married yet?”
“Not yet,” Adam said. He sounded indulgent.
“The girls in London must be blind.” She twinkled at him roguishly.
Calum looked down at his desk, moved papers aimlessly on the surface. In fact, he thought, if Adam had actually announced he was gay, his mother would probably have managed to accept it, after a period of adjustment. But that was because Adam was from “away,” and these things went on away, with other people. Just not here.
“Donnie and I loved your book. We were very proud. I kept telling everyone, ‘He sat at that table and ate my scones!’”
Adam laughed. “I’d have sent you a complimentary copy if I’d known.”
But the way Calum had ended things had left no room for trailing friendships.
“Shall we look at the piece?” Calum asked. It had sounded too abrupt, like a headmaster calling an Assembly to order and crushing the fun.
Adam gave him a cool look, as if he’d just remembered he was there. “By all means.”
It took a couple of minutes for Calum and Adam to glove up, and for Calum to extract the wrapped object from the evidence bag, then the chess piece itself from its paper layers. Finally, he handed it to Adam.
Adam lifted the piece to the light, frowning as he turned it round and round, scrutinizing it. It seemed to take an age.
Say it’s a fake, Calum urged desperately in his head. Please, let it be a bloody fake.
When Adam lowered the piece, they were all hanging on his reaction. Even Angus, who seemed to have retreated into his own world since he’d seen off Julia, watched him as if he held all the answers.
“Right,” Adam said, “I imagine you all know we have seventy-eight chessmen from the hoard of artifacts found by a local man on Uig Beach in 1831. Enough for four incomplete chess sets. And we suspect the missing pieces are out there somewhere, in private collections. There are four missing warders—now called rooks or castles—a missing knight, and forty-five missing pawns.” He held up the piece and looked at it again almost regretfully. “What isn’t missing, is a queen.”
Every tense muscle in Calum’s body relaxed.
That was the exact reason he’d known to resist Angus’s evangelical faith in the chess piece. If it had been a knight or a pawn, then yes, it could just possibly have come from the lost part of the hoard.
But not a queen.
“Right,” Calum said. “So now it’s confirmed, hopefully to everyone’s satisfaction…” He looked at Angus, then at Adam. “It’s not an original piece.”
Adam’s glance flipped up to meet Calum’s. Dark lashes and brows set off clear grey irises that looked lighter than ever in his tanned face.
“Actually,” Adam said. “I think it’s genuine. Which means there’s potentially a whole other chess set out there. And that could be well worth killing for.”
Chapter Four
No one spoke.
Then Adam said calmly, into the shocked silence, “Is it all right to ask where you found it?”
“It belongs…to Angus’s wife,” Calum managed. “It’s a…a family heirloom. And it was at the murder scene.”
Adam gave a thoughtful nod. “Something else you may want to know then. I’m not here by coincidence.”
Calum stared at him. “Not by…coincidence,” he repeated stupidly.
“I got an email at the museum with some images attached. Of this piece. The sender had read my book and wanted to discuss the value, with a view to putting it up for sale. Obviously, I thought it was highly unlikely to be genuine, but it intrigued me because the maker hadn’t attempted a copy—it’s…just a little different from the queen pieces we have. And…the red staining on the back. We’re pretty sure one half of each set was originally red, but all the pieces we have are white, because the paint’s worn off. That touch of red was…subtle for a copy.” It had pricked Calum’s instincts too, though he’d discounted it. “So…I came up to Lewis as the sender requested, and we scheduled a meeting for this afternoon. But they didn’t show.”
Because they were dead, Calum thought. But he couldn’t say it in front of Angus.
Whatever Tormod had been dabbling in, he’d needed money urgently. So when Chrissie showed him the family inheritance, why wouldn’t he try to hawk it off?
Adam pulled out his phone and scrolled through it before handing it across the desk to Calum.
The email was as he’d said. Two grainy shots of the queen piece were attached, taken in low light, but good enough to show important detail. And an email address that was all too familiar: [email protected].
God, had Tormod no instinct at all to cover his own tracks?
“He was trying to sell it,” Angus said at last. He sounded destroyed. “He was going to betray his mam.”
Ishbel grimaced and put a comforting hand on his arm.
“Angus…” Calum began, but what could he say? We don’t know that? When they really probably did?
But Angus took no time to wallow. “Do other people have to find out about the piece? It’s no one else’s business.”
Calum should call Martin right now and spew it all out. All about the new priceless chess piece and the possibility of a whole new chess set, maybe more than one. And Tormod’s desperation for money, which had brought disaster down on his own head.
But the SIO from Inverness wouldn’t wait to find out if the chess piece actually had anything to do with the killing. He or his bosses would most likely hold a press conference and announce the career-boosting details to the world. The piece, peripheral as it seemed to be to the murder, would be all the press and the authorities would be able to see. That, and the possibility of more out there. Chrissie and Angus, Seonag and Julia, and the bodach in Uig—they’d be overrun. As if they hadn’t enough grief to contend with.
When it came down to it, why would any killer—especially if, as seemed likely, the murder had to do with Tormod’s loan-shark debt—leave the chess piece behind?
Surely, only if they hadn’t known about it.
Calum had an explanation now for why the piece was at the crime scene. Tormod had shoved it into a Tesco carrier bag, ready
for his meeting with Adam.
So—if the piece wasn’t a factor in the murder, was it any of Calum’s business if Chrissie and Angus had it?
Angus’s fierce dark eyes bore into him, and it occurred to Calum that this was the reason police officers were removed from cases if there could be a conflict of interest.
But Calum was the only experienced SIO there. And he had to keep going before the trail went any colder. He had until Monday.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” he said, though he knew it to be a kind of surrender.
“Actually,” Adam said, “there are laws of treasure trove.” Calum glared at him in disbelief. Just what Angus needed to hear, to boost his faith in the authorities. “In Scotland that means if the piece was found relatively recently, it belongs to the Crown,” Adam went on regardless. “Now it’s out there, your family probably has to hand it over, Angus, because it’d be state property.”
Angus turned straight to Calum. “Come with me to see the bodach,” he urged. “I’ll call him. He’ll know what to do.”
“I can’t spend that much time in a car, Angus,” Calum protested. “There’s an inquiry ongoing and—”
“If the chess piece has anything to do with this, the bodach will tell you things I don’t know. We can take the Englishman. An expert.” It sounded like an insult. “If Uilleam understands how close he is to losing that thing…maybe he can tell you something to help. He has a right to a say.”
The surprising truth of that struck Calum squarely. He sighed. “All right.” He looked at Adam, who gave a slow doubtful nod of acquiescence.
Angus sagged in his seat. All at once, he looked diminished, like a toy that had lost its stuffing. “That’s it, then. That’s all I can do.”
Calum eyed him with concern.
“I’ll get a car for you both,” he told his mother. “Angus should rest.”
“Angus is staying with us,” Ishbel said with her usual certainty. “And a’ Thighearna, a’ Chalum, we’re not going home in a police car. Can you imagine? We’ll get a taxi.”
“I’ve got a hire car,” Adam said, unfolding from his chair. “I can take you.”
“It’s really not…” Calum began.
“Oh, Adam,” Ishbel gushed. “That’s very kind of you. You’re such a good boy.”
Calum didn’t want to contemplate the thought of Adam, more or less alone under his mother’s relentless interrogation, but she and Adam were already gathering up Angus and heading for the office door.
It’s only twenty minutes, he told himself. And what was Adam going to say to her anyway?
So he led them out into reception without another word of protest, and it was as if he and Adam had never met before that day.
He’d seen Adam again, and the sky hadn’t fallen in.
It was going to be fine.
***
Willie John was waiting outside the interview room when Calum got there, clutching his notebook.
“Have you finished with her already?” Calum found he felt far more relieved than guilty. He wanted to be able to sink into the investigation like any cop—detached, unaffected, uninvolved. “Anything interesting?”
Willie John grimaced. “I’m afraid Miss Morrison will only talk to you, sir. Alone. She’s quite agitated.”
Calum blew out a long breath. So much for that.
He was sailing so close to the wind.
But he said, “Okay, Willie John. Can you set up for a briefing after this? Maybe in twenty minutes?”
When he entered the interview room, Julia was sitting with her elbows on the table, mug of tea untouched beside her, face hidden in the palms of her hands. She looked up, and Calum could see she’d been crying again. The sorrow he felt for her worried him anew.
“Jools, it’d be better…”
“I know.” She gave a watery sniff. “I wanted to talk to you because… I can’t stand… They’ll laugh.”
Calum sat down and opened his notebook. He sighed. “No one’s going to laugh.”
Julia nodded, clearly unconvinced. Neither of them spoke for a second.
“He wasn’t what anyone thought,” she burst out, then looked almost startled by her own words. But she pressed on, “He was so much more, Orly.”
Calum frowned. “Go on.”
“He wasn’t just some…small-minded middle-aged man who couldn’t see past the croft. He was… He wanted…” She swallowed.
Calum looked up from his notebook. “What?”
“More,” she said. “And this is where everyone’ll smirk and sneer. Because he could spend all his days obsessed with the things they’re obsessed with. Sheep and gossip and football and…church. But he couldn’t care about different things.”
“Different things?” Calum repeated as the light began to dawn. “You mean…Jennifer Aniston?”
Julia scowled. “So you’ve been into his computer. And now we get to it. It’s okay to fall in love with a celebrity if you’re a teenage girl, or a woman, but not if you’re a middle-aged man.”
Calum blinked. “No. That’s not…”
“When I came home, Uncle Tormod was the only one who listened to me. Who didn’t see me as just one more…exile who’d seen the light. Everyone else told me to ‘just get over it.’ But Uncle Tormod knew I needed time to accept. And he was fascinated by the business.”
“By…show business?”
Julia sniffed and nodded.
“So…” Calum went on carefully. “We’ve established you were close. Did he ever mention borrowing money for the croft?”
Julia’s large, damp eyes met his. “It wasn’t for the croft.”
Breakthrough, Calum thought with a rush of surprised relief.
“He wanted to see Hollywood,” Julia blurted. Calum gaped at her. She rushed on impatiently. “To be there, not…view everything through a screen. But there was no way he could afford it. He was barely keeping the bills paid.”
“You’re saying…Tormod borrowed the money for a trip to California?” Calum’s tone was pure incredulity.
“Yes!” Julia snapped. “God, Orly, you should understand what it’s like when the whole world is out there and you can’t reach it!” They stared at each other for fraught seconds.
“I came home because I wanted to,” Calum said.
Julia’s eyes searched his face. “Did you?” Her shoulders slumped. “Then at least you got to choose. Tormod was just expected to take over the croft, like his father and his father and… He wasn’t encouraged to think of anything but…here. And being browbeaten into finding a wife and having kids by that stubborn old man in Uig.”
“Your great-grandfather you mean?”
Julia’s mouth twisted. “Yes. He’s just…overwhelming. Like some sort of patriarch. We all try to please him. But the more time Tormod spent online, the more he realized how small and grey his own world was. And the clock was ticking, and he’d never done anything he wanted to do. So.” She grimaced. “When he was in Glasgow, he borrowed some money, and he went to a casino. He said he needed to double it at least.”
And Calum thought, Could it really be that pitiful? That…small?
“He lost it,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Why would he do something that stupid? He’d have no idea how casinos work.”
“Because he used to play poker,” Julia said. “He played with his friends when he was young, and he always won. Always. That’s why he was called—”
“Lucky,” Calum said on a breath. “Shit.” It was fucking farcical. And tragic. And human. “So the people he borrowed from…?”
“I don’t know who they are, but Tormod said they kept piling interest on it and sending him threats with more and more to pay back. Then he suddenly said he’d found a way to pay them and get his trip to LA and take me with him. He was so excited. I’d never seen him excited before.”
Nor did anyone, Calum thought.
“It was kind of beautiful.” Julia sounded wistful. “T
o see him come alive.”
***
Calum left the station and drove home not long after half past eight.
In Glasgow, the forty-eight-hour window would have meant an all-nighter probably, but here, they were following leads for a murder that just possibly may not even be a murder, with a murder weapon that may just possibly not be the murder weapon. A murderer may well have left DNA and prints all over Tormod’s house, and maybe they could match a perfect suspect on the PNC. But they didn’t know.
They didn’t know anything until they had conclusive forensics and a postmortem, and by the time that happened, Calum would have had to hand over the case to a new SIO.
But the closeness to the victim’s family that had worried him, had inevitably become protectiveness. He didn’t want anyone to laugh at Tormod either.
No nosy neighbor had seen anyone or anything suspicious at Tormod’s house in the time frame they were working with—between Tormod leaving Angus, and Chrissie’s arrival home. Chrissie was still under sedation in hospital.
So Calum set the small team the task of acquiring and checking incoming and outgoing ferry and plane passenger lists over the past couple of days, for anyone with a record that might incur police interest. He asked Willie John to check Tormod’s email account for messages sent to Adam’s address, and then he told him he was going to be following up a lead in Uig the next day.
Calum was still worrying compulsively at the nuances of the case as he turned the Subaru up the lane toward the New House. But the number of cars he found parked there told him, with a sinking certainty, what was going on inside.
Calum’s parents must have organized a Worship for Tormod in their house.
If Calum had anywhere to go, after the day he’d had, he’d have accelerated away. Instead he parked in the space that had been politely left for him, and trudged inside.
Normally, when someone died, the coffin was in their home when people came to pay their respects: to pray and sing psalms; to talk about the Bible and reminisce about the deceased. But Tormod was in the mortuary until his postmortem was done, and Chrissie was in hospital. So, it seemed Calum’s mother had inevitably taken over.