people who wanted to throw Donald Murray out of their Church. He closed his eyes and recalled the horror of that night in Eriskay when two men from Edinburgh had faced them with guns and the promise of death. And Donald had arrived like an avenging angel to take the life of one of them and save all the others. A man motivated by the threat to the lives of his daughter and granddaughter, his progeny, the only reason, perhaps, that God had put him on this earth.
If you believed in God, that is.
‘I don’t
Fin nodded. ‘No.’ Then frowned. ‘But why wouldn’t you?’
‘Because I’m afraid I might do him more harm than good, Mr Macleod.’ Fin had long since given up trying to get Gunn to call him by his first name. While still in the force Fin had been a Detective Inspector, superior in rank, and George was nothing if not a stickler for protocol. Even though Fin had long since quit the police.
‘Why would telling the truth do him any harm?’
‘Because after these bloody gangsters snatched Donna and the baby from Crobost, and went south looking for you and the others, all Donald Murray had to do was lift a phone and call the police. But he was so hell-bent on dealing with it himself. If he had just called us, things might have turned out differently.’
‘Aye.’ Fin nodded gravely. ‘We’d all have been dead. A couple of unarmed island policemen would have been no match for two armed thugs from the mainland, George. You know that.’
Gunn shrugged reluctant acquiescence. ‘Maybe.’
‘Why else would the Crown have dropped the manslaughter charges?’
‘Because they knew they wouldn’t get a conviction in a court of law, Mr Macleod.’ He scratched his head. ‘But a court of the Free Church of Scotland. . that’s another matter altogether.’
Fin sighed and nodded acknowledgement, and was swamped by concern for a friend he felt powerless to help.
Gunn watched him for a moment, then turned back to the plane in the valley below. ‘I don’t know how we get that thing out of there. But I suppose they’ll want it back in Stornoway for examination. There might be a hangar at the airport that we could use to store it. Or maybe the old Clansman mill in town. I think that’s still empty. But then, we’d never get it through the streets. No, the airport would be best.’
He turned, looking for Fin’s approval. But Fin was barely listening. He said, ‘George, is there any chance I might be able to attend the post-mortem?’
‘Not a hope in hell, sir. No offence. You were a good cop, Mr Macleod. And I’ve no doubt you would bring some useful experience to the PM. But you’re not a police officer any more, just a material witness to the discovery of the plane. You and John Angus Macaskill.’ He shuffled awkwardly. ‘I had a call before we left. There’s an inquiry team on its way. And if I let you anywhere near that autopsy room, the chances are I’d be the next one on the table being cut open to establish cause of death.’ His smile was touched by embarrassment before fading. ‘How come Whistler Macaskill didn’t come with you to report the find?’
Fin hesitated. He remembered how strangely Whistler had reacted to the discovery of the plane. By the time Fin had climbed back up to the beehives Whistler and all his stuff had gone. And on the long walk back to retrieve his Suzuki, Fin had caught not a single sight of him. He glanced awkwardly at Gunn and shrugged. ‘I guess he thought it wouldn’t be necessary.’
Gunn gave him a long, hard look. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me, Mr Macleod?’
‘Nothing, George.’
Gunn sighed. ‘Well, I don’t have time to go looking for him myself right now. But when you see him, you can tell him to present himself at the police station in Stornoway first chance he gets. I’ll need a statement.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was less than an hour later that Fin turned off the road and drove up the pebble track to park at the door of Whistler’s blackhouse, even though all his instincts told him that Whistler would not be here. Tall grasses growing all around it bowed in the wind. He stepped down from the Suzuki and looked out over the sands. From this elevated position he could see across the bay beyond the vast expanse of beach to the islands of Tolm and Triassamol, which were almost lost in the oblique evening light.
The door to the house stood ajar, a door of unpainted weathered wood, grey and grainy. The latch and lock were rust-red, brown-staining the wood in streaks below them. Fin was certain that even if a key existed for the lock it would not turn in it. No one locked their doors on the island, and anyway, who would steal from a man with nothing?
Fin placed the flat of his hand on the door and pushed it into the gloom. It creaked loudly in the silence within, and as he stepped inside, the thickness of the walls immediately diminished the howling of the wind on the hill outside.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ The voice came from beyond the veiled sunlight that slanted in from the west through one of the tiny windows at the back of the house. It was shrill and demanding, but with a hint of alarm in it. Fin stepped to one side so that he had a view deeper into the house, and saw Anna Bheag, perched on the edge of an armchair by the ashes of a dead fire. Her hands were pressed flat on each arm, and she was tensed, ready to move in an instant, like a cat. But an ill-fed cat, skinny and mean, with eyes blazing resentment. The pink side of her head caught the light from the window and glowed in the gloom like neon.
‘Fin Macleod. I’m a friend of your father’s.’
‘My father doesn’t have friends.’ She spat the words back at him.
‘He used to.’
She was still on her guard and tipped her head to one side, squinting at him through the dust that hung in motes in the still light from the windows. ‘You’re that creepy guy that was watching us from the window at Suaineabhal day before yesterday.’
Fin smiled. ‘I’m that guy, yes. But it’s the first time anyone’s called me creepy.’
‘What were you looking at, then?’
‘You.’
She seemed surprised by his directness. ‘Why?’
‘I wanted to see what the daughter of my old friend looked like.’
‘I told you, the fucker doesn’t have any friends.’
Fin took a couple of cautious steps further into the house and saw her tense. ‘I was at school with him.’
‘I never heard him talk about you.’
‘I’ve been away from the island for a long time.’
‘Why would you come back to a shit-hole like this?’
Fin shrugged and wondered why himself. ‘Because it’s home. And because I have a son here I didn’t know I had for nearly eighteen years.’
For the first time he saw curiosity in her eyes. ‘Here in Uig?’
‘No, in Ness. He’s just left for university.’
‘He must have been at the Nicolson, then. Maybe I know him.’
‘Maybe you do. Fionnlagh Macinnes.’
And now she relaxed a little. ‘You’re Fionnlagh’s dad?’
Fin nodded.
‘All the girls had a crush on Fionnlagh.’
And Fin remembered Marsaili saying the same thing about him. ‘You, too?’
The appearance of something like a smile brought a little light to her face and she offered a noncommittal, ‘Maybe.’ Then it clouded again. ‘You said your name was Macleod.’
‘It’s a long story, Anna. He and I thought he was someone else’s boy for most of his life.’
‘So where were you all these years?’
‘On the mainland. Glasgow, then Edinburgh.’
‘Married?’
He nodded.
