The Blackhouse

A deep sigh. ‘I suppose Roger might know. He’s my flatmate.’

‘Then I suggest you ask him and get back to me.’

‘What on earth is all this about, Mr Macleod?’

Fin ignored the question. ‘Does the name John Sievewright mean anything to you?’

Adams did not even stop to think about it. ‘No, it does not. Are you going to tell me what this is about?’

‘In the early hours of May twenty-sixth this year, a thirty-three-year-old Edinburgh conveyancing lawyer called John Sievewright was found hanging from a tree in a street near the foot of Leith Walk. He had been strangled, stripped and disembowelled. As you know, just three days ago, one Angus John Macritchie suffered almost exactly the same fate right here on the Isle of Lewis.’

A tiny explosion of air escaped from the back of Adams’s throat. ‘And you want to know if I’m going around Scotland disembowelling people? Me? That’s laughable, Mr Macleod. Laughable.’

‘Do you see me laughing, Mr Adams?’

Adams gazed at Fin in studied disbelief. ‘I’ll ask Roger what we were doing that night. He’ll know. He’s better organized than I am. Is there anything else?’

‘Yes, I want you to tell me why Angel Macritchie beat you up.’

‘Angel? Is that what you call him? I imagine he’ll have flown off to Hell by now rather than Heaven.’ He frowned. ‘I’ve already made an official statement.’

‘Not to me you haven’t.’

‘Well, there’s not much point in investigating the assault now, since the perpetrator is beyond even your reach.’

‘Just tell me what happened.’ Fin controlled his impatience, but something in his tone clearly communicated itself to Adams, who sighed again, this time even more theatrically.

‘One of your local newspapers, The Hebridean, carried a story about how I was on the island to organize a demonstration to try to prevent the annual guga cull on An Sgeir. They kill two thousand birds a year, you know. Just slaughter them. Clambering about the cliffs strangling the poor little things while the adults are flying frantically overhead crying for their dead chicks. It’s brutal. Inhumane. It may be a tradition, but it just isn’t right in a civilized country in the twenty-first century.’

‘If we could skip the lecture and just stick to the facts …’

‘I suppose, like everyone else in this Godforsaken place, you’re in favour of it. You know, that’s one thing I hadn’t expected. Not a single person on the island has offered me one word of support. And I had hoped to rally local opposition to swell our numbers.’

‘People enjoy their taste of the guga. And it may seem barbaric to you, but the method they use to kill the birds is almost instantaneous.’

‘Sticks with nooses on the end, and clubs?’ Adams curled his lips in distaste.

‘They’re very effective.’

‘And you would know.’

‘Actually, I would. I’ve done it.’

Adams looked at him as if there were a foul taste in his mouth. ‘Then there’s no point even discussing it with you.’

‘Good. So could we get back to the assault, please?’

Adams’s mobile rang again. He answered. ‘Adams … Oh, it’s you.’ He lowered his voice to something like intimacy. ‘You’re in Ullapool? Good. What time does the ferry get in …? Okay I’ll meet you at the ferry terminal.’ He glanced self-consciously at Fin. ‘Look, I’ll call you back a little later. I’ve got the police here … Yes, again.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Alright. Ciao.’ He dropped the phone on the bed. ‘Sorry about that.’ But he wasn’t.

‘Is that your protesters arriving?’

‘Yes, if you must know. It’s not a secret.’

‘How many?’

‘There’ll be twelve of us. One for each member of the killing crew.’

‘What are you going to do? Lie down in front of the trawler?’

‘That’s very amusing, Mr Macleod.’ He curled his lips in mock amusement. ‘I know we can’t stop them. Not this year, anyway. But we can influence public opinion. There’ll be press and television on hand. We’ll get nationwide coverage. And if we can persuade the Scottish Executive to withdraw their licence, then it’ll become illegal. And people like you simply won’t be allowed to go out there and kill those poor birds.’

‘And you said all this in the piece in The Hebridean?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘That’ll have made you popular.’

‘My mistake was in allowing them to carry a photograph of me. It meant I lost my anonymity.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I went out to Ness on a recce. Apparently the trawler leaves from Stornoway, but the Crobost men go out to meet her in a small boat from the Port of Ness. I wanted to get some photographs of the area, for reference as much as anything else. I suppose I might have been a little indiscreet. I had lunch at the Cross Inn and someone recognized me from the piece in the paper. I’m not used to language like that, Mr Macleod.’

Fin restrained the urge to smile. ‘Did you talk to anyone up there?’

‘Well, I got lost a couple of times and had to ask the way. The last person I spoke to before I was attacked was at a small pottery just outside Crobost. A strange, hairy sort of man. I’m not sure he was entirely sober. I asked him where I could find the road to the harbour. And he told me. I went back out to my car, which was only about twenty yards away down the road. That’s when it happened.’

‘What, exactly?’

Adams shifted slightly on the bed and winced. Whether from the memory or from the pain, Fin could not tell. ‘A white van overtook me. A Transit van. Something like that. Funnily enough, I’d noticed it a couple of times earlier in the day. I suppose he must have been following me, awaiting his moment. Anyway, the van pulled over in front of me, and a large man whom I later identified as Angus Macritchie jumped out from the driver’s side. The odd thing was, I had the impression there were others in the van. But I never saw anybody else.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘Not a word. Not then, anyway. He just started punching me. I was so surprised I didn’t even have time to try to get out of the way. I think it was after the second punch that my knees just sort of gave way under me, and I went down like a house of cards. And then he started kicking me in the ribs and the stomach. I curled up to try to protect myself, and he got me a couple of times on my forearms.’ He pulled up his sleeves to show the bruising. ‘Nice people your bird killers.’

Fin knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of a beating from Angel Macritchie. It wasn’t something he would wish on anyone, even someone as naive as Chris Adams. ‘Macritchie wasn’t typical of the men of Crobost. And it might surprise you to know that he didn’t go out to the rock to kill birds. He was the cook.’

‘Oh, well, that’s a comfort to me, I’m sure.’ Adams’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

Fin ignored it. ‘What happened then?’

‘He bent down and whispered in my ear that if I didn’t pack up my bags and go he was going to stuff a whole guga down my throat. Then he got back into his van and drove off.’

‘And you got the number?’

‘Amazingly, I did. I don’t know how I had the presence of mind, but yes, I made certain I committed that number to memory.’

‘What about witnesses?’

‘Well, there were several houses around. How people can claim they didn’t see anything, I don’t know. I saw curtains twitching in the windows. And then there was the chap from the pottery. He came down and got me to my feet and took me into his house to give me a drink of water. He said he didn’t see a thing, but I don’t believe him. I insisted he call the police, and he did. But very reluctantly, I have to tell you.’

‘So if Macritchie threatened to stuff a guga down your throat, Mr Adams, why were you still here on Saturday night?’

‘Because I couldn’t get a booking on the ferry till Monday. Then, of course, someone with exquisitely good taste went and killed him, and now your people won’t let me leave.’

‘About which, I’m assuming, you have no complaints. Since you’re able to go ahead with your protest after