The Lewis Man

dad’s still got a great sense of humour, that’s all.’

As he sat down he saw the grateful look in Tormod’s eyes, as if the old man knew that for Fin to have recounted the truth would have been a humiliation. There was no knowing what he thought, or felt, or how aware he was of anything around him. He was lost in a fog somewhere in his own mind. Perhaps there were times when the fog cleared a little, but there would also be times, Fin knew, when it would come down like a summer haar and obscure all light and reason.

The Solas daycare centre was to be found on the northeastern outskirts of Stornoway in Westview Terrace, a modern, single-storey building angled around car parks front and back. It stood next door to the council-run Dun Eisdean residential care home for the elderly, surrounded by trees and neatly manicured lawns. Beyond, lay white- speckled peat bog shimmering briefly in the last sun of the afternoon before the rains would come. In the slanting yellow light they looked like fields of gold, stretching away to Aird and Broadbay. From the south-west, dark clouds rolled in on the edge of a stiffening wind, bruised and ominous and pregnant with rain.

Marsaili parked around the back, opposite a row of residential caravans brought in to augment already overstretched facilities, and the first fat drops of rain began falling as she and Fin hurried towards the entrance with Tormod between them. As they reached it, the door swung out and a dark-haired man in a black quilted anorak held it open for them. It wasn’t until they were in out of the rain that Fin realized who it was.

‘George Gunn!’

Gunn seemed just as surprised to see Fin. He took a moment to collect himself, then nodded politely. ‘Mr Macleod.’ They shook hands. ‘I didn’t realize you were on the island, sir.’ He glanced acknowledgement in Marsaili’s direction. ‘Mrs Macinnes.’

‘It’s Macdonald now. I took back my maiden name.’

‘And it’s not “sir” any more either, George. Just plain Fin. I handed in my jotters.’

Gunn raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that, Mr Macleod.’

An elderly lady with a faded blue rinse through silvered hair came to take Tormod by the arm and lead him gently away. ‘Hello Tormod. Didn’t expect you today. Come away in and we’ll make you a cup of tea.’

Gunn watched them go then turned back to Marsaili. ‘Actually, Miss Macdonald, it was your father I wanted to talk to.’

Marsaili’s eyes opened in surprise. ‘What on earth would you want to talk to my dad for? Not that you’ll get any sense out of him.’

Gunn nodded solemnly. ‘So I understand. I’ve been up at Eoropaidh to see your mother. But since you’re here it would help if you could confirm a few things for me, too.’

Fin put a hand on Gunn’s forearm. ‘George, what’s all this about?’

Gunn carefully moved his arm away from Fin’s hand. ‘If I could just ask for your patience, sir …’ And Fin knew that this was no routine inquiry.

‘What kind of things?’ Marsaili said.

‘Family things.’

‘Such as?’

‘Do you have any uncles, Miss Macdonald? Or cousins? Any relatives, close or otherwise, outside of your immediate family?’

Marsaili frowned. ‘I think my mother has some distant relatives somewhere in the south of England.’

‘On your father’s side.’

‘Oh.’ Marsaili’s confusion deepened. ‘Not that I know of. My dad was an only child. No brothers or sisters.’

‘Cousins?’

‘I don’t think so. He came from the village of Seilebost, on Harris. But as far as I know he’s the only surviving member of his family. He took us once to see the croft he was brought up on. Derelict now, of course. And Seilebost School where he went as a child. A wonderful little school sitting right out there on the machair with the most incredible views over the sands of Luskentyre. But there was never any talk of relatives.’

‘Come on, George, what’s going on?’ Fin was having trouble complying with Gunn’s request for patience.

Gunn flicked him a glance and seemed oddly embarrassed, running his hand back through the dark hair that formed the widow’s peak on his forehead. He hesitated a moment before reaching a decision. ‘A few days ago, Mr Macleod, we recovered a body from the peat bog out at Siader on the west coast. It was the perfectly preserved corpse of a young man in his late teens. He’d died violently.’ He paused. ‘At first it was assumed that the body could be hundreds of years old, perhaps from the time of the Norse occupation. Or even older, as far back as the Stone Age. But an Elvis Presley tattoo on his right forearm kind of blew a hole in that theory.’

Fin nodded. ‘It would.’

‘Well, anyway, sir, the pathologist has established that this young man was probably murdered in the late 1950s. Which means that his killer might just still be alive.’

Marsaili was shaking her head in consternation. ‘But what’s any of this got to do with my dad?’

Gunn sucked in a long breath through clenched teeth. ‘Well, the thing is, Miss Macdonald, there was no clothing or anything else that might help us identify the dead man. When we first found the body the police surgeon drew off some fluid and took tissue samples to send for analysis.’

‘And they checked the DNA against the database?’ Fin said.

Gunn flushed slightly and nodded. ‘You’ll remember,’ he said, ‘last year, when most of the men in Crobost gave samples to rule them out as suspects in the Angel Macritchie murder …’

‘Those should have been destroyed by now,’ Fin said.

‘The donor has to request that, Mr Macleod. A form signed. It seems Mr Macdonald didn’t do that. It should have been explained to him, but apparently it wasn’t, or he didn’t understand.’ He looked at Marsaili. ‘Anyway, the database came up with a familial match. Whoever that young man in the bog is, he was related to your father.’

NINE

The rain is hammering against the window. It’s making some din! When you were out on the moor you never heard it, of course. You heard nothing above the wind. But you felt it all right. Stinging your face when a force ten drove it at you. Horizontal sometimes. I loved that feeling. Out there in the wild, just me and that great big sky, and the rain burning my face.

But they keep me cooped up inside these days. Not to be trusted outdoors, bad Mary says.

Like now, sitting here in this big empty lounge, chairs drawn up. Everyone looking at me. I don’t know what they expect. Have they come to take me home? I recognize Marsaili, of course. And the young man with the fair curly hair looks familiar. The name’ll come to me. It usually does.

But the other gille. I don’t know him at all, with his round red face and his shiny black hair.

Marsaili leans towards me and says, ‘Dad, what happened to your folks? Did you have any uncles or cousins that you never told us about?’

I don’t know what she means. They’re all dead. Surely everyone knows that?

Fin! That’s it. The young man with the curls. I remember him now. Used to come round the farm winching my wee Marsaili before either of them was even old enough to count. I wonder how his folks are. I liked his old man. He was a good, solid sort.

I never knew my dad. Only heard tell of him. He was a sailor, of course. Any man worth his salt was a sailor back then. The day my mum gathered us in the front room to break the news was a pretty black one. It wasn’t that long before Christmas, and she’d put in some effort to make the house seem festive. All we cared about were the presents we would get. Not that we expected much. It was just the surprise of it.

There was snow in the street. There hadn’t been much of it, and it had turned to slush pretty quickly. But there was that grey-green gloom in the air that comes with snow, and there wasn’t much light came down between the tenements anyway.

She was a lovely woman, my mum, from what I remember of her. Which isn’t much. Just the softness of her