Lewis 03 - The Chessmen

by Peter May

  ‘We have five water systems on the estate, Fin, rivers that feed in and out of the various lochs. There is salmon, sea trout and brown trout fishing throughout. In fact, we have more than a hundred lochs for brown trout fishing, though it’s not the brown trout that the poachers are after.’

  He moved his marker across a landscape broken by myriad patches of blue to circle a long body of water that arced from the south to the north, and from west to east. ‘Loch Langabhat. Old Norse for the long loch. It’s about eight miles long. The largest freshwater loch in the Hebrides.’ And there it was, in that single imparting of information, the condescending assumption that he was telling Fin something he wouldn’t know – although it was Fin who had grown up on the island, and not Jamie. ‘We share the fishing rights with another five estates. With proper management we’ve been increasing our average catch there year on year, doubling the take in the last five. These bloody poachers are going to wipe them out. Not just in Langabhat, but across all our water systems. And if they put us out of business, a lot of local people are going to lose their jobs.’

  He straightened up and regarded Fin with speculative brown eyes.

  ‘I’m relying on you, Fin, to find these people and put a stop to it. You’ll have whatever resources you need.’

  To Fin it seemed like a fairly straightforward police investigation. The poaching was not the work of outsiders. These were local people who knew their way around. Someone must know who they were. And it wasn’t just a matter of catching the fish. Others were smoking it. Someone was buying it. There was a supply line leading away from the island to destinations in Europe or further afield, and since freshness was an issue where fish was concerned, it would be leaving by plane rather than boat.

  ‘Well, I don’t see why we can’t wrap this up within a month or two, Mr Wooldridge.’

  ‘Jamie,’ Jamie corrected him.

  Fin nodded. ‘Jamie.’ He didn’t feel comfortable addressing him by his first name. Years in the force had conditioned him to refer to everyone, other than junior ranks, by their surname, or as ‘sir’ or ‘madam’.

  ‘Well, that’s good to hear, Fin. I hope you’re right.’

  The sound of a vehicle pulling up outside drew the attention of an already distracted Kenny, and he crossed to the window of Jamie’s study to look down into the yard below. There were a number of cars already parked outside Suaineabhal Lodge, customers in the bar downstairs, but the new arrival drew up opposite the lodge, at the gate to Kenny’s house. ‘That’s my daughter home from school,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’ And he hurried out.

  Jamie seemed annoyed by Kenny’s sudden departure, as if he felt that his estate manager ought to have asked permission to leave the room. He folded up the map and handed it to Fin. ‘Make yourself familiar with this. You’ll need to get to know every square inch.’ He rounded his desk and walked towards the door. ‘Folk think it should be easy enough to catch poachers on an island.’ He opened the door, but hesitated with his hand still on the handle. ‘But the truth is, Fin, this estate encompasses one of the biggest inaccessible areas of wilderness in Scotland. There are large tracts of it you simply can’t reach by road. It’s like stepping back in time. The only way to get around it is on foot, or by boat.’ He drew a breath. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. Then I’ll buy you a drink in the bar and you can meet some of our ghillies.’

  He disappeared off down the hall, and Fin found himself gravitating towards the window, drawn by curiosity, and Fionnlagh’s description of Anna Macaskill, hoping to catch sight of the girl with the tattoos and the face full of metal.

  The sky was overcast, and the light was beginning to go, but he saw her clearly enough standing beneath the trees on the far side of the path. The car which had delivered her to the gate was heading off, back along the narrow track to the main road, and Kenny was striding across the yard to speak to her.

  In spite of Fionnlagh’s vivid depiction of the girl, her appearance still came as a shock. Her neck and what was visible of her arms were covered in dark-blue tattoos. Impossible at this distance to tell what they were. Her hair was unnaturally black, and cropped as Fionnlagh had said, but dyed pink along one side, above an ear crusted with a dozen or more rings through the cartilage of the scapha. The opposite eyebrow was punctured by five or six studs, and several rings disfigured her lower lip. In addition she had a nose stud, and although Fin couldn’t see it, he imagined her tongue was probably also pierced.

  She wore a short black skirt over black leggings, and a charcoal-grey hoodie over a low-cut black T-shirt. A tan leather bag was slung high over her shoulder.

  Oddly, in spite of it all, she had a pretty face, and something about her black-lined eyes told Fin that she couldn’t be anyone other than Whistler’s daughter.

  But it was her stepfather who crossed below to greet her. Although larger than life in isolation, she shrank next to Kenny, who looked like a giant beside her, and Fin realized just how impossibly small she was. Hence the name that Fionnlagh had used for her – Anna Bheag. Wee Anna. He watched their body language. Anna appeared guarded, but not hostile. She didn’t move away from the big hand that laid itself tenderly on her cheek, a fleeting gesture of warmth and fondness that belied the image of gruff masculinity that Kenny liked to project. They stood talking for some moments, easily and without rancour, and it was clear to Fin that their relationship was not afflicted by the antagonism that characterized so many relationships between father and teenage daughter. There was something almost touching in the way they were together.

  And then he became aware of her eyes on him, and he could see a change not only in her expression, but in the way she held her whole body, turning in his direction, suddenly erect, hostile and provocative at the same time. She said something and Kenny turned, raising his eyes towards the window of Jamie’s study. Fin must have been as plain as day to them, standing there in the window, watching.

  She raised the middle finger of her right hand and thrust it in his direction. And even through the double-glazing he heard her shout, ‘Why don’t you take a picture? It’ll last longer!’ He felt shock, almost like a physical blow, and knew that the colour had risen on his cheeks.

  Kenny said something to her, but she turned without another word and marched away up the path to the door of the house. Kenny looked back towards Fin, eyebrows raised, a tiny smile of embarrassment on his lips, and the smallest shrug of his shoulders signalled an apology.

  III

  The bar was crowded, windows steaming up as the temperature outside began to fall. Half a dozen men were gathered around a pool table in an alcove, others had drawn in chairs at circular wooden tables. But most of them were standing, three or four deep along the bar, drinking pints, voices raised to make themselves heard above the hubbub. Somewhere in the background Fin could make out the distant thump, thump of music pumping through a sound system.

  Bodies parted, like the Red Sea making way for Moses, as Jamie cleaved a route to the bar followed by Fin and Kenny. As they reached it Kenny moved his mouth close to Fin’s ear and said in a low voice, ‘Sorry about the lassie. She’s at a difficult age.’ And for a moment Fin wondered how on earth he succeeded in managing the estate and bringing up a teenage daughter at the same time. Then he remembered that Anna was away from home five days a week at student accommodation in Stornoway. Just as he had been. So, really, it was more like a part-time job. But you would never have guessed from looking at him that Kenny was a man who’d had to deal with the tragic death of his wife, and was single-handedly bringing up another man’s daughter. His lover’s daughter. The only part of herself she had left him.

  Jamie ordered them pints without asking what they’d like, and the barman set up three glasses of fizzing amber that ran with condensation and foam on to a counter already shiny with beer. He lifted his own pint and raised it. ‘To success,’ he said. Fin and Kenny raised their glasses, too, and sipped silently on their beers. Then Jamie signalled to
a group of men across the room, and shouted, ‘Ewan. Peter. Come and meet Fin Macleod.’

  A number of heads turned in their direction, and Ewan and Peter started pushing their way towards the group.

  ‘Gamekeeper and water bailiff,’ Jamie said. ‘Good men, both.’

  Ewan was a man in his fifties, with a deeply creased face weathered brown by all the hours he spent outdoors. Peter was younger, but a monster of a man with a full beard, like horsehair bursting out of a mattress. They all shook hands.

  ‘Fin is our new head of security,’ Jamie said. ‘He’s going to catch our poachers.’ Both men cast sceptical looks in Fin’s direction but kept their counsel.

  Fin said, ‘It might be an idea if we didn’t advertise it, Mr Wooldridge. We don’t want to go showing our hand even before we’ve played a card.’

  Kenny laughed. ‘You can’t keep a secret here for five minutes, Fin. You should know that. The poachers probably knew all about you from the minute you set foot on the estate.’

  Fin was barely aware of the door opening, the rush of cooler air around their legs, but the sudden lull in the sound of voices from all around the bar immediately caught his attention. He turned to see Whistler standing in the doorway, and the noise around them fell away to silence, save for the continued pulsing beat of the sound system.

  Whistler looked like a wild man straight off the hills. His hair was blown and tangled by the wind. Another day’s growth on his face made him seem even more unkempt, patches of silver mirroring the streaks of it in his hair. His eyes were black, without pupils or highlight. He scanned the faces all turned in his direction, and Fin detected the merest trace of a smile in the set of his lips. There was no doubt he enjoyed being the centre of attention, and his appearance in the bar at Suaineabhal Lodge was a first.

  ‘What’s wrong? Seen a crowd?’ His voice bellowed out across the pub and everyone was suddenly self-conscious, but locked into a communal stare, and a silence that no one wanted to be the first to break. Whistler pushed his way to the bar. ‘Pint of lemonade.’ The barman seemed transfixed. His frightened rabbit’s eyes darted from Whistler to Jamie and back again. ‘Don’t worry about how I’ll pay for it.’ Whistler appeared to be trying to assuage his doubts. ‘My credit’s good here. The Wooldridges owe me a fortune.’

  ‘I think you have that wrong, John Angus.’ Jamie’s outward appearance of unruffled calm was betrayed by the faintest tremor in his voice.

  Whistler swung his head in Jamie’s direction. ‘Oh? And how’s that, Mister Wooldridge?’

  ‘You’re the one who owes us. More than ten years in back rent. So there’s a good chance I’ll be sending in the bailiffs to have you removed. From the croft, and the house. Unless you’ve come to settle up tonight.’

  ‘I’d be happy to, if you’d just cough up what you owe me.’

  Someone had turned off the music, and the silence was broken now only by the sound of the wind whistling around the door and windows.

  ‘We owe you nothing.’

  ‘Your father does.’

  ‘How so?’

  Whistler swung the rucksack off his back and thumped it down on the bar, unzipping it to reveal one of his carved chessmen inside. ‘A full set he commissioned me to do for the gala day. Job done. Come and get them any time you like.’

  Jamie returned his stare, unwavering. ‘You can show me a contract, I suppose.’

  And Fin saw doubt creep into Whistler’s eyes for the first time. ‘There was no contract. Your father trusted me, as I trust him.’

  ‘Well,’ Jamie smiled, knowing now that he had the upper hand, ‘we only have your word for that. And since my father is still in a nursing home following his stroke, that won’t be easily verified.’ He paused. ‘And I can assure you, there will be no money forthcoming until it is.’ He lifted his pint glass from the bar to take a sip, supremely confident now that he had prevailed in the exchange. ‘So if you don’t pay up within the next week, you can expect that visit from the bailiffs.’

  The glass never reached his lips. Whistler flew at him. A feral growl like the war cry of a wild animal issued from a mouth baring yellowed teeth. Jamie’s pint glass went flying, drenching several of the nearest bystanders, the sound of breaking glass accompanying the crash of the two men as they landed on the floor. The noise of the air being forcibly expelled from Jamie’s lungs was painful. Whistler’s full weight had come down on top of him. A big fist swung through the air and caught the young landowner high on the cheekbone. Another sank itself into his gut. Jamie gasped in pain, but didn’t have enough air in his lungs to cry out.

  Umpteen pairs of hands pulled Whistler away, Fin’s and Kenny’s among them. And in the confusion of thoughts flashing through his head, Fin remembered that it wasn’t the first time that he had helped drag Whistler off some helpless soul. But Whistler was not about to be subdued easily. He swung his arms wildly, breaking free of the hands that grasped him, turning, eyes blazing and filled with the highlights they had earlier lacked. His fist flew through the air again, catching Fin squarely on the jaw, sending him sprawling back through the crowd to hit the floor like a dead weight, lights flashing in his head.

  More than a few of the men there that night knew of the history between Fin and Whistler, of their almost unbreakable teenage bond. It made the fact that Whistler had struck him all the more remarkable. Voices which had arisen out of the earlier silence to bay for blood subsided once again. Feet shuffled backwards, and a space cleared around them. Kenny helped Jamie to his feet, and Whistler just stood there, breathing hard, glaring at Fin lying on the floor. ‘Never took you for a landlord’s lackey,’ he shouted, as if trying to find an excuse for what he’d done.

  Fin pulled himself up on to one elbow and put a hand to his face to check if his jaw was broken. It came away with blood on the fingers where his lip had cut itself on his teeth. Hands reached down to help him up. He stared back at Whistler, and the hush which had descended became one of anticipation. But Fin had no intention of getting involved in a brawl. His hurt went deeper than any external injury. He shook his head. ‘Never took you for anything but a friend.’

  Whistler’s remorse was apparent in moist eyes, and in the tightness of his lips, but it wrestled for ascendancy with the anger that still gripped him. ‘I’ve no quarrel with you.’

  ‘You just hit me!’

  ‘And you’ve taken sides against me with him.’ He turned and almost growled at Jamie, who flinched involuntarily.

  ‘I’ve taken sides with no one, Whistler. I’m on the side of the law. And you’re breaking it.’

  ‘Sometimes being on the side of the law’s being on the wrong side, Fin.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ But no sooner were the words out of his lips than he thought of Donald.

  Whistler snorted, like a horse impatient to be off at a canter. ‘Well, let’s see. It’s a full moon the morn’s night. A great night to be out and about at Loch Tathabhal. Fish’ll be biting, for sure. Maybe you’ll see me there, and maybe you won’t. But if you do . . . well, maybe then we’ll see who’s right and who’s wrong.’

  It was clear to every man there that Whistler was issuing a challenge. Catch me if you can. He turned and pushed his way roughly to the door and vanished out into the night.

  ‘Call the police, Kenny,’ Jamie said. He was white with anger, shaking and still trying to recover his breath.

  ‘No.’ Fin stopped Kenny in his tracks.

  ‘He assaulted both of us, in full view of every man here.’ Jamie could barely control his fury.

  ‘Men fight,’ Fin said. ‘That’s a matter between them. Not for the police. You told the man you were going to take away his home. His family home for generations. How did you think he would take it?’

  ‘He’s ten years behind on his rent!’

  ‘And what’s that to you? A few hundred pounds. You owe him for the chessmen.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘I’ve seen them. The full set. He didn’
t do that for fun. I suggest you check with your father.’

  Jamie took two steps towards him, lowering his voice, a threat in it now. ‘You get him, Macleod. You get him, or I’ll bring in people who can.’ Fin noticed how the friendly ‘Fin’ had been dropped now in favour of his surname.

  ‘Oh, I’ll deal with him,’ Fin said, green eyes fixed on Jamie’s. ‘But for his sake, not yours.’

  It was nearly twenty minutes later that Fin came out into the twilight. The wind had dropped, moonlight washing already across the hills, falling in silvered daubs through the leaves of the trees around the lodge. Stars were only just visible in a dark, azure sky, and the midges were biting, their season extended by the long, hot, dry spell. Clouds of the tiny flies, masked by the fading light, filled the night. Unseen but certainly felt.

  The hubbub in the bar fading behind him, Fin saw the shadows of two figures beneath the trees across the yard, and he realized with a shock that it was Whistler and Anna. He could hear their voices raised in anger, but not what they were saying. They hadn’t noticed him, and he stood still, watching from a distance, listening to their argument rising in pitch. Until suddenly she slapped her father with such force that he actually stepped back. The sound of it rang out across the night. Such a powerful strike from such a small person. Anna Bheag. Wee Anna. Dominating the big man who was her father. She turned immediately and hurried up the path towards the house, and Fin was sure he heard a sob catching in her throat.

  Both men stood without moving for what seemed like an age, Whistler still unaware of Fin’s presence, until Fin cleared his throat and the big man’s head snapped round. They stood for several moments more, staring at each other through the late evening gloom. Then Whistler turned abruptly and walked away into the night without a backward glance.