He had not stopped once, except for the half-hour spent in Stornoway briefing George Gunn on what he had discovered. Gunn had listened in silence in the incident room. He had stood staring out over the roofs of the houses opposite, towards Lews Castle and the trees on the hill, the final sunshine of the day slanting down among the branches and lying in long pink strips across the slope. And he had said, ‘So the dead boy is Marsaili’s father’s brother.’
‘Donald Peter Gillies.’
‘Except that neither of them is really called Gillies. That’s just their homer names.’
Fin nodded acknowledgement.
‘And we have no idea where they came from, or what their real names might be.’
After leaving Stornoway, Fin had thought about that on the drive across the Barvas moor, and through all the villages of the west coast. Siader, Galson, Dell, Cross. A blur of churches, each one a different denomination. Of DAF 2s and 3s, whitehouses, blackhouses, modern harled bungalows, braced all along the coast for the next assault.
He had no idea what kind of record, if any, the Church might have kept of those poor children it had torn from homes on the mainland to transport to the islands. There was no guarantee that the local authorities would be any more forthcoming. It was all so long ago. And who had cared back then about the human detritus of failed families, or orphaned children without relatives to champion their rights? Fin’s overwhelming emotion was one of shame that such things should have been so recently perpetrated by his fellow countrymen.
The biggest problem in trying to identify who Donald John and Donald Peter Gilles actually were, was that no one had any idea where they came from. They would have arrived, anonymous passengers off the ferry at Lochboisdale, with cards around their necks and their past erased. And now, with Peter dead and his brother John lost in a fog of dementia, who was there to remember? Who was there to testify as to who they had really been? Those boys were lost for ever, and the likelihood was that neither he, nor the police, would ever know who had killed Peter, or why.
The lights of Ness sparkled all across the headland in the gloom, like a reflection of the stars emerging in the clear, settled sky above. The wind that had buffeted his car on the unprotected drive up through the Uists had died to an unnatural stillness. In his rearview mirror he could still see the clouds brooding in their habitual gathering place around the peaks of Harris, and away to the west on an ocean like glass, the reflected last light of the day was fading into night.
There were three cars parked on the gravel above Marsaili’s bungalow. Fionnlagh’s Mini, Marsaili’s old Astra and Donald Murray’s SUV.
Donald and Marsaili were sitting together at the kitchen table when Fin knocked and walked in. For a moment he felt a strangely unpleasant pang of jealousy. After all, it had been Donald Murray who had taken Marsaili’s virginity all those years before. But that had been in another life, when they had all been very different people.
Donald nodded. ‘Fin.’
Marsaili said quickly, almost as if she wanted Fin to know straight away that there was no cause for jealousy, ‘Donald came with a proposition about Fionnlagh and Donna.’
Fin turned to Donald. ‘Has Fionnlagh been to see you?’
‘He came this morning.’
‘And?’
Donald’s smile was wry, and laden with history. ‘He’s his father’s son.’ Fin couldn’t resist a smile.
Marsaili said, ‘They’ve moved in here permanently, the two of them. And the baby. They’re upstairs.’ She flicked an uncertain glance Donald’s way. ‘Donald has suggested that he and I share the cost and responsibility of the baby to let Fionnlagh and Donna finish their studies. Even if it means one, or both of them, leaving the island to go to university. I mean, we all know how important it is not to throw away the opportunities life offers when you are young. You spend the rest of your life regretting it.’
There was more than just a hint of bitterness in her voice. And Fin wondered if there was recrimination in it, too.
‘Sounds like a plan.’
Marsaili lowered her eyes to the table. ‘I’m just not sure I can afford it. Fionnlagh going to university, I mean. And the cost of the baby. I’ve been surviving on Artair’s life policy, and was hoping it would see me through university, if I get in. I guess I’ll have to postpone my degree and get a job in the meantime.’
‘That would be a shame,’ Fin said.
She shrugged. ‘Not much alternative.’
‘There could be.’
She turned inquisitive eyes on him. ‘Like what?’
‘Like you and I share the burden of your half.’ He smiled. ‘I am Eilidh’s grandfather, after all. Maybe we can’t stop our children making the same mistakes we did, but at least we can be around to pick up the pieces.’
Donald’s gaze alternated between them, discerning and interpreting everything that remained unspoken. He stood up then. ‘Well, I’ll leave you two to talk about it.’ He hesitated before offering Fin his hand. Then, at length, held it out and they shook. He left without another word.
The kitchen was oddly silent in the wake of his departure, burned out, almost unreal in the flickering glare of the overhead fluorescent. Somewhere deep in the house they could hear the thump, thump of Fionnlagh’s music.
Finally Marsaili said, ‘How can
Fin shrugged. ‘I have a bit put by. And it’s not my intention to remain unemployed for ever.’
More silence hung heavy between them. A silence born of regret. Of all their failures, individually and together.
Fin said, ‘How did your exams go?’
‘Don’t ask.’
He nodded. ‘I guess you weren’t exactly best prepared.’
‘No.’
He drew a deep breath. ‘Marsaili, I have some news for you. About your dad.’ Blue eyes fixed him in their gaze, filled with naked curiosity. ‘Why don’t we get out of here, get some fresh air. It’s a beautiful night out there, and there won’t be a soul on the beach.’
The night was filled with the whispering sound of the sea. It sighed, as if relieved by the removal of its obligation to maintain an angry demeanour. A three-quarters moon rose into the blackness above it and cast its light upon the water and the sand, a light that threw shadows and obscured truths in half-lit faces. The air was soft, and pregnant with the prospect of coming summer, a poetry in the night, carried in the shallow waves that burst like bubbling Hippocrene all along the beach.
Fin and Marsaili walked close enough to feel each other’s warmth, leaving tracks in virgin sand.
‘There was a time,’ Fin said, ‘when I would have held your hand when we walked along a beach like this.’
Marsaili turned a look of surprise towards him. ‘Can you read minds now?’
And Fin thought how completely natural it would have been, and how immediately embarrassing. He laughed. ‘Remember how I dropped that sack of crabs off the cliff on top of you girls sunbathing down here?’
‘I remember slapping you so hard I hurt my hand.’
Fin grinned ruefully. ‘I remember that, too. I also remember you were topless at the time.’
‘Damned peeping Tom!’
He smiled. ‘And I recall making love to you among the rocks back there, and skinny-dipping in the ocean afterwards to cool down.’ When she didn’t react he turned to look at her and saw a distant look in her eyes, thoughts transporting her to some far-off place and time.
They were almost at the boat shed now. It loomed out of the darkness like a portent of past and future pain, and he put his hand lightly on her shoulder to turn her back the way they had come. Already the sea was washing up over their footprints, erasing any history of their ever having passed this way. He left his arm around her shoulder and felt her lean in to him as he steered her a little further up the beach, away from the water.
They walked in silence for almost half its length until they stopped, by some mutual unspoken consent, and he turned her towards him. Her face was in shadow, and he put a finger under her chin to turn it up to the light. At first she wouldn’t meet his eye.
