was barely in the door of the Suzuki when he heard the scrape of a shoe on gravel behind him. He turned, startled, to stagger back against the jeep under a hail of blows, fists hammering into his chest and his face, screams in his ears, hot breath on his skin. He had the fleeting impression of being under attack by a flock of demented birds, his vision filled with flailing arms, his ears with shrill shrieks of anger. Now feet kicked at his legs, well-aimed painful blows to his shins. It almost came as a surprise to realize it was all the fury of one small girl.
He fought to stop fists like pistons punching him in rapid succession. He saw her father in her eyes, in her anger, in the temper he had never been able to control himself. And after what felt like an eternity, he managed to grab and hold both her wrists, turning her around, pinning her arms across her chest and pulling her back hard against him to stop the assault.
‘Stop it! Stop!’ he shouted at her.
But she continued to struggle and he almost lost her again. ‘You killed my dad! You killed him!’
‘For Christ’s sake, Anna, I didn’t kill your dad. Would the police have let me go if I’d killed him?’ He felt the effect of his words almost immediately, as the struggling began to subside. ‘I loved that man.’
Her body went limp, and the uncontrollable sobbing that racked it shook him to the core, bringing tears to his own eyes. He had never before given voice to his feelings for Whistler. Had no reason to provide them with shape or form. Whistler was just his friend, the boy and man who had twice saved his life. Connected by history, and all the hours they had shared as teenagers, the hopes and the dreams, the fights and the friendship. Whistler had been unpredictable, bad-tempered, sometimes cruel. But he had always been there when Fin needed him, a commitment he had made that day so many years before at the
He let go of her wrists and turned her to face him. Her black cropped hair with its slash of pink, the rings and studs that punctuated her face, seemed like a grotesque caricature in grief. Black eye make-up ran down her cheeks. Her purple-painted lips trembled like a child’s. Her nose ran and she could barely breathe for sobbing.
‘I. . I never told him,’ she said.
Fin frowned. ‘Told him what?’
‘That I loved him.’
He closed his eyes and felt the tears hot on his skin, and put his arms around her, enveloping her, drawing her close.
‘And now it’s too late.’ Her voice came muffled from his chest. ‘For everything.’
Fin took her by the shoulders then and made her take a step back, forcing her to look at him. ‘Anna, listen to me.’
‘What?’ she glared at him defiantly, as if he were trying to force her to listen to something she wouldn’t want to hear.
‘Men don’t often talk to one another about love.’ He drew a deep, trembling breath. ‘But we did, your dad and me. The other day, outside the Sheriff Court. And I told him what you told me at the house.’ In spite of everything, he smiled through his tears. ‘Of course, I left out the profanity. Though he wouldn’t have minded that. Just don’t think he died not knowing that his wee girl loved him.’ It took him a moment or two to control his voice again. ‘And I know the only regret he’d have right now, is that he never had the chance to tell you the same.’
She stood staring back at him with her father’s eyes, her face a mess, her breathing still irregular, and he could feel her pain and confusion.
‘Let me take you home.’
She raised an arm in sudden anger and broke his grip on her. ‘No,’ she shouted. ‘Just stay away from me. You, Kenny, everyone. I hate you. I hate you all.’ And she turned and ran away down Church Street, giving free vent to her tears as she ran. She was gone from view and hearing in seconds.
Fin stood for a long time, leaning back against the jeep before turning wearily and climbing up into the driver’s seat. There he sat for even longer until finally he succumbed to his own grief. For Whistler and his little lost girl.
III
The drive down to Uig passed in a painful blur. Great fat raindrops spat on his windscreen like tears spilled for the dead. They fell from a sky so dark and so low, bumping and scraping across each rise of the land, that Fin felt he could almost reach up and touch it. The mountains of the southwest were lost in the mist of its all-enveloping cloud.
Fin’s thoughts were focused and fixated on just one man. The only man capable of inflicting enough damage on Whistler to kill him.
Minto’s Land Rover sat on the compacted hard core outside his cottage. The rain blew horizontally across the acres of sand that stretched across the bay towards Baile na Cille, flattening the tall grasses that grew like reeds around the house.
If Fin had stopped for one moment to consider his actions, he might have paused to rethink, but he was blinded by the pall of red mist which had descended on him. He pushed open the cottage door with such force that it smashed against the wall of the interior hallway, its handle gouging a deep hole in the plaster. ‘Minto!’ He heard his own voice roar back at him from the house. He barged into the sitting room and felt the faintest residue of heat from the embers of an almost dead peat fire. There was no one there. The door to the kitchen was half open. He blundered into it, but it was empty. Then he spun around at the sound of a creaking floorboard behind him.
Minto stood in a singlet and boxer shorts, a shotgun raised and supported by his left arm, and held fast against his left shoulder by his left hand. It was shaking slightly, but pointed directly at Fin. His right arm was strapped across his chest.
‘What the fuck do you want?’
He glared at Fin with a mixture of anger and confusion. But Fin couldn’t tear his gaze away from the sling that held Minto’s arm tight to his chest. He raised his eyes to meet Minto’s. He had forgotten that Whistler had dislocated the man’s shoulder during their encounter at Tathabhal. ‘Someone murdered Whistler Macaskill.’
‘I know. The bastard beat me to it.’ Minto kept the barrel of his shotgun trained on Fin. He managed a half- smile and a snort of contempt. ‘You thought it was me?’
Fin shook his head. Not even Minto could take on Whistler with one arm. But if it wasn’t Minto, then the only other possibility led him into the realms of the unthinkable.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I
There were only a handful of cars in the parking area at the Cabarfeidh. As he turned his jeep nose-first into a slot in front of the main entrance, Fin cast a glance over the other vehicles. There was no sign of Mairead’s rental car. He hurried into the lobby and crossed to reception. The girl behind the desk gave him a practised smile, but in spite of the Americanized greeting, there was no disguising her Stornoway accent. ‘Good morning. How may I help you?’ He saw her eyes flicker towards his bandaged head.
‘Is Mairead Morrison in or out?’
The girl looked surprised. ‘Miss Morrison checked out this morning, sir. Lewis Car Rental just picked up her car. She took a taxi to the airport.’
Fin glanced at his watch. ‘What time’s her flight?’
‘The Glasgow flight leaves at 12.20.’
It was 11.45.
Fin reached the airport in just over ten minutes. As he drove up the road from Oliver’s Brae towards the roundabout, he could see the small, prop-engined aircraft sitting out on the tarmac, the luggage trailer being towed out to the hold.
