by V M Knox
Clement watched as McAllister walked to the rear of his lorry, lifted a full sack of coal onto his shoulder and turned towards the rear garden. Moving through the house, Clement positioned himself next to the pipe that funnelled warmth into the shed, his ears straining. He heard the shed door open and the sound of shuffling feet. Why, if two full sacks of coal were already in the shed, was McAllister there at all?
Hearing the shed door close, Clement peered through the kitchen window. McAllister was returning to the front of the manse. Hurrying through the house, Clement stood by the front door and peered through the window. In each of McAllister’s hands were two dead chickens.
Chapter 17
Clement watched from the front window of the manse as the coal delivery lorry drove away, heading south towards Canisbay. He stared after it long after it disappeared from view, his mind on Ian McAllister. Everything about McAllister fitted with the profile Clement had created for the murderer. He began to think back. On the day Crawford was killed, McAllister had driven past him and Sarah while they stood in the graveyard. Therefore, it was likely that McAllister had seen Donald Crawford enter the barn. And McAllister had ready access to all homes where he delivered coal twice every week. Could the man have gone to the Frews’ house under some pretext of needing to use the telephone? No one other than the old ladies and the telephone operator would know. McAllister could also have timed the call for when Sarah was known to be doing deliveries.
The evidence was circumstantial. What Clement needed was proof.
Leaving the manse, Clement waited by the front gate. Up to his left he could see the coal delivery lorry parked outside the public house. A few seconds later McAllister jumped out. Clement watched as the man lifted a sack of coal from his lorry onto his shoulder then enter the building. Leaving the manse, Clement ran for the field opposite and hurried overland towards the rear door of The Bell.
Jean Buchanan was standing at the kitchen sink when Clement entered. She turned suddenly as he walked in, a long-bladed kitchen knife in her hand.
‘Everything alright, Mrs Buchanan?’
Jean nodded then reached for a cabbage and chopped the vegetable in half with one swift strike.
‘Is Sean here?’
Jean shook her head. ‘Left first thing this morning.’
‘Any reason?’
‘Work! And before you ask, he cycles into Thurso. It takes him a couple of hours. More when the weather’s bad.’ Jean scooped the sliced cabbage between her hands and dropped the vegetable into a saucepan of boiling water.
‘When is he due back?’
‘Tonight. He drives the bus from Thurso via Halkirk to Wick then returns through Castletown by the inland road.’
‘There’s another road to Thurso?’
The woman turned, her brown eyes fixed on him. ‘We may seem remote to you, but like other parts of the world, there usually is more than one road to your destination.’
‘Of course.’ He felt stupid. And from the expression on Jean’s face, she evidently thought him dull-witted. ‘What time do you expect him?’
‘Nine.’
‘Do you know when the funeral for Donald Crawford is to take place?’
‘There isn’t going to be one.’
‘Really? Do you know why?’
Jean reached for the knife again and started to gut some fish. ‘With the grieving widow gone, people just don’t see the need to farewell the dearly departed.’
Clement ignored the sarcasm. ‘What’s happened to Mr Crawford’s body?’
The woman met his gaze. ‘Inspector Stratton took it with him to the mortuary in Thurso.’
Clement felt such relief he almost smiled. No wonder Stratton had remained in Huna for so long and taken Aidan with him.
Jean placed the fish into a hot pan. ‘It’s not that people are unfeeling, but with Sarah absent, a roster has had to be arranged to open the shop and operate the exchange. To say nothing of food and postal deliveries. Life goes on, you know.’
Clement nodded. He understood the community’s frustrations, especially during the cold, inclement weather, but Jean’s total lack of sympathy for Sarah was about something else. And from her expression, he could see she hadn’t finished.
‘It’s unfair of Sarah to leave. People have enough to do with their own work without having to accommodate her.’ Jean threw the knife into the sink. ‘You should eat. I have enough for an extra plate.’
Jean had turned away from him during her outburst to retrieve some plates from a cupboard above the sink and her offer of food had been delivered without even making eye contact.
‘Thank you, Mrs Buchanan. I’m afraid I don’t have my ration book on me.’
‘We’ll manage without it.’
He watched the thick capable wrists of the publican. She was a prodigious woman, he could see that, and, he surmised, not just physically. He’d never known a female publican. The woman’s self-assuredness made him believe she was completely self-sufficient. Men for Jean Buchanan were obsolete for all but one task. Perhaps that was what attracted Sean.
‘And after, you should get some rest. You can have a room upstairs.’
Clement thought for a moment. ‘Thank you. That is most kind. I must ask you please, not to mention that you have seen me.’
Jean held his gaze. ‘Suits me. You’re not the most popular person ever to come to Canisbay.’ Wiping her hands on her apron, she walked into the pantry and took a key from the small cupboard.
Robert Wallace’s description of him being a Wise Man from the South was, evidently, a commonly held opinion. Placing the key and the dinner on the table before him, she left him to finish the meal.
Ten minutes later, he washed the plate and cutlery, returning them to the cupboards from which he had seen Jean take them. Taking the key, he walked into the rear hallway to find Room Ten.
The room was on the first floor at the far end of the hall. He placed the key in the lock and opened the door. Another utilitarian room greeted him. But Jean had given him a room at the corner of the building which had an expansive view from its double aspect windows. The scene west was of snow-covered fields and several large barns where cattle were housed until the spring thaw. Clement wandered towards the other window and leant on the sill. In the centre of his field of vision was Canisbay Kirk, about five hundred yards distant to the north. Turning around, he sat on a chair in the corner of the room and removed his boots. Placing his muddy footwear under the bed and removing his webbing, he pulled back the bed covers and lay down.
He didn’t sleep. He hadn’t intend to. The bed was nothing more than a warm place to think. The image of Ian McAllister carrying dead chickens filled Clement’s thoughts. The hunched shoulders and firm grasp, a man used to carrying weight. Whichever way Clement thought about it, McAllister had opportunity and fitted the physical profile Clement had envisaged. But he had to be sure about the man’s guilt. He contemplated how to confront McAllister. Particularly from a position of weakness, given that the man, if it had been him in the Frew’s house, knew Clement had returned to the district. He closed his eyes, reliving the encounter. Could Sean have been right? Could the gunman have mistaken him for Sean? Clement swung his legs over the side of the bed and slipped his feet back into his boots. Even if McAllister had thought him Sean, Clement couldn’t think of a reason why McAllister would want to kill Sean. If there was one, it was surely personal. But still something nagged. Something didn’t fit. He had to be certain. And whilst remaining at The Bell had been a kind gesture, one loose word from Sean or the publican could spell Clement’s death. From now on, until either he or his adversary was dead, no one local could know his exact whereabouts.
Clement returned the room key to the cupboard in the kitchen and left by the rear door. Checking the yard first, he left The Bell and staying close to the fences and hedges, headed overland, making for the one place where he knew he held the advantage. Twenty minutes later, he
stood by the little window in the bell tower observing the scene below him.
Off to his left were the shops and houses of Huna. In front were the manse and the home of the Frew sisters. Further distant were the houses of Canisbay and The Bell. He stared at the smoke rising heavenward from The Bell’s two chimneys. Always rising. Unending. He glanced at the home of the Frew sisters and the manse. Both houses stood mute and still in the cold Scottish day. What was missing from the scene before him were people; the routine ebb and flow of daily life. The icy wind whistled around his head as his eyes scanned the fields. No farmers tilled the soil, no vehicles worked the land. Was the weather the sole reason people stayed indoors? Even the road below him was devoid of activity. And no reconnaissance fighters flew in the skies above Canisbay. He crossed the belfry and leaned on the window sill, staring out across Gills Bay, his eye on Tom Harris’s boat still tied up at the jetty. Something was going on around him. He sensed it even if he couldn’t see it.
Checking the view of the district one more time, Clement squatted on the timber floor and removed all his weaponry, lining it up before him. Pulling his greatcoat around him and placing his hand on the butt of the assembled Welrod, he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to drift. Sometimes trying to empty the mind helped to crystallise facts. What was the old saying? Can’t see the wood for the trees. Too much information confused. Facts needed to be separated from suppositions. As his friend from East Sussex, Chief Inspector Morris of Lewes Police, had said, “the proof is in the detail”. Maybe so, but right now Clement felt swamped by information. If Arthur Morris was to be believed, it would be something so insignificant it would be overlooked.
‘Go back to what you know,’ Clement muttered. Fact; Donald Crawford would have known the caller, and most likely the recipient of the call. Perhaps more importantly, he had found nothing out of the ordinary in the caller placing the call. Clement paused. Was that true? Could it have been the reverse? Was the placed call so unusual that Crawford had listened to the conversation? Had Crawford overheard something? Or was it that the telephone number had aroused Crawford’s suspicion and the man had gone to the barn to inform the Y-station about it?
Clement blinked several times, his brain exploring possibilities. He felt like he was walking on quicksand. The facts were before him, he just couldn’t arrange them in the right order. He knew the murderer had an accomplice because of the telephone call and therefore, he knew that the murderer was close by but the accomplice wasn’t. Castletown and Dunnet; the Royal Air Force Base and the Radar Station. And Doctor MacGregor, whose grey car Clement had seen on the day Donald Crawford died. The Vet was based in Castletown and would, as a professional man, surely be known to Wing Commander Atcherley? Clement contemplated speaking again with the Wing Commander, but it was already after two o’clock. Night would fall before he could reach Castletown and return, and he didn’t relish crossing the bogs and negotiating the lochs in darkness.
He wrapped his arms around his body as the temperature fell. ‘Perhaps it is best.’ Within four hours it would be dark and bitterly cold in the bell tower. He closed his eyes, the return call from Nora Ballantyne still seven hours away.
Clement heard the hard, heavy click of the kirk’s main door opening. He replaced his pistol in his belt and knife in the strap around his calf. Then he crossed the belfry, descended the stairs and, rotating the door knob silently, opened the door to the nave. Staring through the crack, he saw Sarah Crawford sitting in one of the pews. She didn’t appear to be at prayer. Gently closing the door again, he hurried back up the stairs to the belfry and went straight to the land-side window and looked out. In the mid-afternoon light he saw a man walking down the road from Canisbay. He did not appear to be in any hurry but even without seeing the man’s face Clement knew who it was. Flip was trotting along beside his master. Clement waited, his eyes riveted on the fisherman as the man crossed the road. Within minutes Clement heard the heavy kirk door open.
Without waiting he hurried down the stairs again and re-opened the door to the nave just a crack. In the stillness of the kirk, he listened.
‘Sarah?’
‘Here.’
‘Are you alright? How’s the ankle?’
‘I’ll live. But I was cold last night. What’s happening?’
‘That visiting vicar knows you left Orkney.’
‘How?’
‘I told him.’
‘Why?’
‘I had to. I told him I was returning to St Margaret’s Hope. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. But I did say you were probably still on South Ronaldsay.’
‘Does he suspect?’
‘I don’t really know what he knows, but he is injured.’
‘How?’
‘Shot, apparently.’
The pair remained silent for a minute.
‘When will he be here?’
‘Later tonight.’
Sarah looked around the empty church. ‘I wish he’d never come. Do you have some food?’
Tom Harris emptied his pockets, passing the contents to Sarah. ‘Not much longer. And then we can be away from here in the wee hours.’
Clement watched Tom leave. A few minutes later Sarah also left, a walking stick in her hand. Clement ran up the stairs to the belfry and rushed to the land-side window. Sarah was limping through the graveyard, heading east. Tom was nowhere to be seen. Clement crossed the belfry to the seaward window and looked out. He could see the fisherman striding along the roadway making for his boat in Gills Bay.
Returning to the southern window, Clement watched Sarah until he couldn’t see the woman any longer. But he knew there was only one place where she could hide and was almost guaranteed not to be disturbed. He visualised the single bed in the annexe of the stone barn. No doubt, she had been there the previous night, while he had occupied the spare bunk on Tom’s boat. And Tom would know Sarah was unlikely to be disturbed by any wandering vicars in the dark. Clement didn’t like their deception but he felt one step ahead of them now that he’d overheard their conversation. He suspected that Sarah had come from St Margaret’s Hope on Karl Fraser’s boat and boarded Tom’s boat in Thurso, sometime after he, Clement, had left Tom, which explained why Tom’s boat had still been tied up there.
Clement leaned against the white washed wall and slid down it, squatting on the floor. For some time he stared at nothing. He felt betrayed by Tom Harris and Sarah Crawford. A sigh escaped his lips. Why would they have any loyalty to him, a man neither of them had even met until a few days ago? He closed his eyes. Who was the man they were waiting for? At least he didn’t have too long to find out and he didn’t need to move from the belfry. He went over in his mind what, if anything, he had learned from overhearing their conversation. Firstly, there was more to the relationship between Tom and Sarah than he had initially believed. But despite the enigmatic conversation, he did not believe either of them had been the killer in the Frews’ house. But it reinforced his opinions about the illusory calm of Canisbay and Huna.
Clement stayed by the southern window. Nothing could induce him to leave the bell tower now. From time to time he stood and stamped his stiff, numb limbs as the temperature plummeted. He checked his watch. Half past five. In the cold evening air, he heard a motor.
Chapter 18
Leaning from the window as far as he could, Clement could just make out the moving, pale shaft of light from the deflected headlights of a vehicle driving west. Its progress was slow in the poor light, but the sound was distinctive. He’d heard the oddly syncopated gears before. Running, Clement descended the circular stone steps as fast as he could, praying he was not mistaken. Opening the door to the nave a crack, he checked the kirk’s interior before rushing through the building towards the main door. Flinging it open, Clement ran through the graveyard and waited on the road for the bus to stop.
The door opened and Clement stepped aboard, first glancing along the seats. ‘No one on board, Sean?’
The Irishman shook his head. ‘As you see. I only had three from Wick. Two I left in Hastigrow. And as I only had old Farmer Nesbitt on board after that, I took him home to Brabster. It’s a village not far from here. What is it, Vicar?’
Clement took a deep breath. ‘I realise that I am making an assumption, Sean, but would it be fair to say that you know how to use a pistol?’
The man’s eyebrows raised, but it was the only reaction. ‘Aye. But I’ve always been better with my fists.’
‘I need your help, Sean.’
Sean switched off the headlights and engine.
Taking the front seat on the left, Clement rested his feet on the warm wheel arch. ‘Sean, there is something I feel obliged to tell you before you make any commitments.’
‘And what would that be?’
He told Sean about the Frew sisters. Clement suspected not much rattled Sean Mead, but learning how the Frew sisters had died had turned the Irishman pale. ‘And it is not impossible that I was mistaken for you.’
The man ran his hand over his chin before speaking. ‘Forgive me for asking the obvious but I suppose I would like to hear it confirmed, Vicar. Would I be right in thinking that your presence here in the north is more to do with secret war business than any religious matter?’
Clement nodded. ‘I cannot tell you any specifics, Sean. Were you aware that Sarah Crawford has returned to Canisbay?’
‘I wasn’t. But I’d like to know how it is you know that.’
Clement told Sean of the conversation he’d overheard in the kirk.
‘And you think Sarah is involved in some way?’
‘It would appear so.’
‘Who do you suspect?’
‘Ian McAllister.’
Clement watched Sean for any reaction, but the Irishman’s face had not shown much surprise.
‘Why him?’
