A Small Death in the Great Glen

by A. D. Scott

  “I forgot, you’re not overfond of Kenny Macbeth.”

  An unknown grievance between him and Kenny Macbeth had lasted all of thirty-odd years. She looked at him fondly and smiled.

  “Thanks, Dad, that would be great. Where’s Annie? And Granny Ross?”

  “Mother’s finishing up in the kitchen, Annie’s stuck in yon corner with her book, but she’ll come home wi’ us.”

  Annie looked up as though she’d divined her name through all the noise and started pushing through the crowd. Granny Ross appeared, laden with empty baskets and the washing tub. A sleepy Jean raised her head briefly from Grandad’s shoulder to give her mother a kiss. Joanne turned back to the dancing. She had not gone three paces when a scream sliced through the music. The band played on. The shrieks didn’t stop. The music faltered. All eyes turned to the bewildered old man and the terrified child writhing in his arms.

  “The hoodie crow!”

  Struggling and shaking, Jean tried to hide in her grandfather’s coat collar, sobbing over and over, “Hoodie crow, it’s a hoodie crow.” Annie clutched Grandad’s arm, trembling, staring, defiant, transfixed. Granny Ross was lost for words. For once. The Reverend Duncan looked at his sobbing niece. He too was lost for words. At his side stood Father Morrison in a shiny midnight-black cassock and outdoor cape, the collar turned up high against the night. With a huge smile he walked toward an astonished Joanne, hand outstretched.

  “It’s very good to meet you, Mrs. Ross, I’ve heard so much about you.”

  FOURTEEN

  What can I do for you, Mr. McAllister, sir?”

  PC Grant seemed to take up all the front desk at the police station, leaving not enough room for anyone else either to sit beside him or squeeze behind.

  “Have we met?” McAllister was sure he’d have remembered an elephant masquerading as a policeman.

  “No, sir. But I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m friends wi’ Rob McLean.” He suddenly realized his gaffe. “Please don’t let on to Inspector Tompson, though.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. Is he in?”

  “Oh no, he never works a Sunday.”

  “Good. Who I really want is Detective Chief Inspector Westland.”

  “He’s no in neither.”

  “Constable … ?”

  “Grant. Willie Grant.”

  “Constable Grant, I need to see the DCI It is extremely important that I see him immediately. Urgent, in fact.” McAllister was still not sure he was getting through. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “I suppose I could phone his landlady.”

  McAllister waited.

  “Yes, uh-huh, could you go get him? Yes, it’s important. Aye, police business.”

  They both waited a good five minutes.

  “Yes, sir. No, sir, he didn’t say but he says it’s life or death. Aye. I’ll tell him.”

  PC Grant put down the phone and pronounced, “Fifteen minutes, sir, he’ll meet you here.”

  McAllister chose to wait outside—more room to pace. It was a ridiculously early hour for him to be out on a Sunday, but then, he had been up most of the night. DCI Westland appeared within ten minutes. They shook hands and went inside. McAllister mentally prepared himself to put his case. He in no way underestimated the task. He knew the accusation would be regarded as an impossibility. But he had to. …

  “Mr. McAllister?”

  “Sorry. I was trying to gather my thoughts.”

  “Right then.” He gestured to a chair and they sat. “Life or death. Which is it?”

  “A man’s life, a boy’s death.”

  “I don’t need to ask who the boy is—was.”

  For all that McAllister was concise and articulate, and for all his pride in his ability to be detached, unemotional, the drowning of the boy had raised the ghost of his own dead and overwhelmed him.

  “Have you looked at the possibility that the local priest, Father Morrison, might have had something to do with the boy’s disappearance?” The shock on the policeman’s face made McAllister charge on. “You’ve no doubt heard the story from the girls.” McAllister could see he had lost him. “About them seeing a hoodie crow pick up the boy and fly off with him?” No, that was not well put. “You know how in Glasgow there are rumors of some of the priests being involved in, well, interfering with boys and suchlike?”

  “I don’t know Glasgow, Mr. McAllister. And I would like to know how you got the idea that the boy was interfered with, as you put it.”

  McAllister heard the warning in his voice.

  “I know. You’re right. I don’t know. But I’m convinced you should look into this man.”

  As the words came out, he felt an immediate pang of regret. McAllister himself hated others telling him how to do the job. How he hated it when someone would say to him, newspaper in hand, What you should do is …

  “Are you saying that rumors, circulating around Glasgow, about priests of the church … are you saying the same thing is being talked of around here?”

  “No. No, that’s not being said around here—not to my knowledge. But I know, or at least suspect, that there is some truth in the stories. …”

  “Aye. Stories,” Westland repeated. “And tell me, Mr. McAllister, how have you made the leap from stories, unconfirmed rumors, in Glasgow, to here, in the Highlands, to Father Morrison, as far as I know a respectable cleric? And, what did you say, the children saw hoodie crows kill the boy? I’ve got that right, haven’t I? Hoodie crows?”

  McAllister walked out into Sunday in despair.

  As she cycled to the Monday-morning must-not-be-late-for meeting, she was steeling herself for the first real confrontation with McAllister. Every time Joanne remembered the night of her flight, which was often, she burned in shame. The fine drizzle of chill rain that penetrated every nook and cranny of her coat cooled her cheeks, but the memory of standing—no, swaying—on the doorstep of McAllister’s house made her cringe down to her damp boots.

  McAllister knows, was all she could think—he knows. And the blame was all hers, of that she was certain. I let this violence happen to me, was how she now saw it.

  Joanne was barely in the office door when the phone started.

  “Am I the only one who answers the blooming thing?” It was a rhetorical question.

  “Gazette.” She sat on the edge of the desk. “Chiara! How are—? Slow down—tell me again. … Never!”

  “What was that all about on Halloween night?” McAllister strode in and was looming over her.

  “That’s terrible!” Joanne, trying to concentrate, flapped her hand, shooing him away as though he was a swarm of midges.

  “I went by your house yesterday,” McAllister informed Joanne. “No one was in.”

  “Chiara, say that again.”

  “Do you mind getting off the phone to your female friends?”

  “I can’t believe it. It’s just so … Uh-huh, right, I know, unthinkable! That inspector is mad! Aye, I’ll be by as soon as I can.”

  She turned on McAllister. “That was Chiara Corelli and—”

  “Why was your wee girl so terrified of that priest?”

  “It was Halloween. She was exhausted.” Joanne was distracted, didn’t pick up that McAllister was serious.

  “You yourself said she saw a hoodie crow when the boy disappeared! She was terrified because he is what she saw!”

  “McAllister, what on earth are you talking about?”

  “He’s the hoodie crow!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s a priest!”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “McAllister, have you lost your mind? I told you, it’s all havers. Sure, they saw something, shadows most likely, but there is no hoodie crow.”

  He glared at her. “Your daughter said—no, she screamed—he’s the hoodie crow. She was pointing straight at the priest.”

  “She sees the hoodie crow everywhere, in the street, at the pictures, in her dreams … and, in case you hadn’t
noticed, it was Halloween—all the children were working themselves up to be frightened.”

  “You’re ignoring the obvious.”

  “Is this a private fight or can anyone join in?” Don appeared.

  “He’s off his head.” Joanne jumped off the table and out of reach of McAllister’s rage.

  Rob, not far behind Don, last as usual for the Monday meeting, joined in.

  “What’s going on?”

  “McAllister thinks Father Morrison is the hoodie crow and …” The logical connection to that, she couldn’t make. But the fierceness of McAllister had Joanne completely flustered. She had never seen the man emotional about anything.

  “That’s it? You’re taking bairns’ fancies seriously?” Don shook his head.

  “That’s daft.” Rob was laughing. “I’ve known Father Morrison for years.”

  “You know him?” McAllister practically pounced on Rob.

  “He’s our next-door neighbor. A nice man. Maybe a bit too fond of a drop, and he’s forever taking photographs, but harmless.”

  “Your next-door neighbor, he lives on the street where the boy went missing, and you didn’t think to tell me!” McAllister was cold with anger. “Don’t you get it?”

  Rob had his mouth open to speak but didn’t have a hope of a chance to say anything.

  “The girls saw a hoodie crow take the boy.” McAllister pointed a finger at Rob’s face. “A priest, in a cassock, looks like a great big hoodie crow. And that is what they saw.”

  They were all three staring at the editor. Joanne was the first to move. She hadn’t had time to take off her hat nor scarf. She grabbed her coat and made for the door.

  “I’m away out. If you need me I’m at the Corelli house. And instead of shouting your unbelievable, your mad accusations about a good man, a priest, how about this? The procurator fiscal is accusing the Polish man—Karl—with sexually interfering with the boy.” She was shouting now. “Did you hear me, McAllister? Someone did something unspeakable to that boy. Now, that is unbelievable!”

  “There goes your theory, McAllister.” Rob pointed out, “Priests are celibate.”

  Don had to look away at that comment.

  “Tell me, Mrs. Ross, what exactly is so unbelievable?” McAllister knew he was pushing it but couldn’t stop himself. Joanne stood silhouetted in the doorway, desperate to be anywhere but here. Don and Rob, invisible onlookers, were also wishing they were elsewhere.

  “I … it’s unbelievable that anyone could do that, to a child, to a wee boy. …”

  “It’s not unbelievable in the real world,” McAllister retorted. “It’s not unbelievable that a priest—”

  “It’s unbelievable in my world.”

  “So you’re going to bury your head in the sand? Ignore the fact that perverts live amongst us? Pretend that children don’t get assaulted? Pretend that men don’t beat their wives, pretend that—”

  He stopped and stared at her in horror. She stared back. There was absolute silence—except for a phone ringing downstairs and footsteps clattering down to the print room and a distant bus straining up the steep brae and a flock of gulls swooping by the window.

  “How about a cup of tea before we start the meeting?” Don broke the spell.

  But Joanne had fled, so there was no one to make the tea.

  It was Elizabeth Macdonald who answered the door. Monday was her husband’s day off and she guarded his free time like a mother hen with a newly hatched chick.

  “Mr. McAllister.” Her surprise at seeing him turned to concern when he took off his hat. (“A face of thunder, now I know what that means,” she remarked after he had left.)

  “If you’d like to see the minister, he is at the end of the garden cleaning out the hens and I don’t think he’ll be in for a half hour or so. But you’re welcome to wait.”

  “Thank you, no. I’ll go to see him.” He set off down the path, leaving her with the thought that such a wounded soul might not notice the stench of fresh chicken manure.

  Duncan Macdonald closed the gate to the chicken run and walked to the middle of the lawn to converse with McAllister. His guest had refused all offers of tea or of waiting until the minister had cleaned himself up. This wouldn’t wait, he could see that, but he was astonished when McAllister told him of his mission.

  “Mr. McAllister, I know my nieces. They are a bit unsettled just now, what with their friend dying and everything. They are lovely children but with vivid imaginations. What happened at the Halloween party was understandable. In fact, a few other of the wee ones were scared too when Jean called out ‘hoodie crow,’ but it’s children, they don’t mean anything by it.” He talked in this vein for five minutes—and got nowhere.

  “Mr. McAllister, I know Father Morrison. We have worked together on some committees and suchlike. I know him. He is a good, hardworking, compassionate man.

  “Mr. McAllister, you can’t say that. It is wrong to make such absurd and unfounded accusations.

  “Very well, Mr. McAllister, I will take you at your word. I know you don’t spread rumors and I trust you to keep these allegations to yourself.

  “McAllister, if you ever need to talk to someone, I’m always here.”

  This offer Duncan Macdonald called out to the retreating back of John McAllister, who was fast disappearing into the drizzle that intermittently drifted in and out of the Monday morning in the first week of November, striding out on his mission, off to plead his case with anyone who would listen.

  “Do you have an appointment?” Angus McLean’s secretary asked the question knowing full well the answer. “Please take a seat, Mr. McAllister, I’ll see if he is available.” She also knew the answer to that but liked to observe the formalities. Or demonstrate her power, as Rob would have it.

  “I see.” He didn’t, but Angus McLean interjected this and other such platitudes throughout McAllister’s diatribe, growing more and more perplexed as he heard the wild conjectures from a man he had always regarded as the soul of reason.

  “I hear what you are saying, McAllister, but it’s very far-fetched.

  “Now, hold on, McAllister, you are on very dangerous ground there. You can’t make inferences like that, especially not on the word of two little girls.

  “McAllister, the best I can advise you, as a solicitor and as a friend, is to think very carefully on what you are saying.

  “No, McAllister, all I am saying is that you seem overwrought and perhaps you need to think through the conclusions you have come to. You have absolutely no proof of what you are saying.”

  “Aye, I hear you, but this needs a dram, if not a bottle, before I can get my head around your thinking.”

  Don stood in McAllister’s office watching him sitting in the chair, knee jiggling, hand flicking a pencil in a frantic rhythm on the desk, fever-dark eyes staring out into the two o’clock semidarkness of dank cloud. He looks as though he’s waiting for the executioner to appear, Don thought.

  “Go home, McAllister, you’re no use to us here. I’ll be by your house when we’ve finished up. You supply the bottle though; one o’ your single malts would go down a treat.”

  Seven o’clock but it could as well be midnight, for the town had shut down against the weather; Don and McAllister were in the sitting room, which could have been mistaken for a stockade made from books, deep in chairs on either side of a fire. A solitary standard lamp in one corner cast a jaundiced yellow light, the blazing fire the only other source of illumination. The bottle, but no water, sat on a side table and with glasses charged, McAllister told Don why he had come to thinking what he thought.

  “It was on Halloween, eight years, no, nine years now, that my wee brother Kenneth was found in the Clyde. …”

  Don was a good listener. He listened without saying a word. He listened between the lines. He listened until the story was completely done.

  “There was ten years between us—a lifetime at that age,” McAllister started. “I didn’t really notice my brother—
I was too busy being a wee big man. I started at Glasgow High School, where I won a scholarship when he was a baby. I was a cadet on the Herald when he went to primary school, and when he too went to the high school, like many another Glaswegian, I was in Spain with the International Brigade. Terrible times that was, but the best of times. When war broke out with Germany, I ended up writing propaganda for one of the ministries, as well as being back on the Herald.”

  Don knew he would never hear more than this, the bare bones of McAllister’s life. And he would never ask.

  “And all the while, I never noticed. I never knew that, to my brother, I was a hero. I was straight out of the Saturday-matinee films he loved, I was a character from the Biggles books he read, I was a bona fide Boy’s Own hero. There I was in the school uniform with thon stupid cap, which he loved, there I was a cadet, on not just any old newspaper, but on the Herald, then there I was with all the Glasgow heroes—the intellectuals, the Union men, the poets—in Spain. And him, though only a wee boy, he followed and fantasized over my every move. Aye, I was a right hero and I never knew.

  “So, the war was on, bombing at full tilt in Glasgow, especially around the Clyde shipyards. My father died in the Clydeside Blitz, 1941. It was a terrible time for all of us, and Kenneth, he was only ten. But still I never noticed my wee brother. I was living away from home, I was busy, I had my own friends, I had a woman in my life—I had endless excuses, but in truth, Kenneth McAllister was the boy who lived with my mother and who was mad keen on boxing, which I loathed.

  “Anyhow, when he was fourteen, the war was ending, he started coming to visit me, usually on a Saturday afternoon. I didn’t mind. We didn’t do much, just mooched around, occasionally went to the football, sometimes to a matinee, and it didn’t matter even when it was foreign films with subtitles, he just wanted company. He seemed a bit quiet. Not that I really took notice, as I didn’t know him. My mother asked me to talk to him. She thought he was too quiet. She said he was quite the chatterbox before. And, she said, he had stopped going to his boxing club—which was his passion, all he was really interested in, outside of books.