Lewis 03 - The Chessmen

by Peter May

  Kenny was breathing hard. He shook his head. ‘I was still at agricultural college that year. I spent my summers working for the estate as a watcher.’

  ‘You thought they were poachers?’

  ‘I had no idea. I was coming up the valley when I heard the plane. And then saw it coming in, far too low, before it disappeared from sight, and I thought it must have crashed. By the time I got over the shoulder of the hill and into the next valley, it was in the middle of the loch and sinking fast. But still in one piece. That’s when I saw Roddy and Whistler on the far shore.’

  ‘How in God’s name did you and Whistler keep that secret for all these years, Kenny?’

  ‘It’s what bound us, Fin. A bond stronger than marriage break-ups or custody battles.’

  ‘But in the end it was a bond you broke. They swore you to secrecy, Kenny.’ It came like a bullet out of the dark. An accusation of betrayal.

  Kenny retaliated. ‘They lied. They never told me there was a body in the plane.’

  Fin shook his head. ‘Whistler never knew. That was Roddy’s dark secret. Whistler didn’t know anything about it until he and I found the plane the other day. He was shocked, Kenny. Shocked to the core.’

  Kenny appeared agitated by this. But whatever thoughts were going through his mind, no words came to his lips.

  Fin said, ‘What happened the morning you went to see him, Kenny? What did you do? Threaten to shop him unless he dropped his claim on Anna?’

  A strange feral sound, like an animal in pain, issued from Kenny’s mouth. He closed his eyes then opened them wide, raising them to the darkness above, before lowering them once more to gaze back at Fin. ‘I love that girl with my life, Fin. I see her mother in her every time I look at her.’ Just as Fin saw only Whistler. ‘I thought if I threatened to tell the police what I knew about the plane Whistler would give up on the court case. I mean, it wasn’t Roddy in that cockpit, and I knew it. So if Whistler really had been involved in the death of the guy you found he’d have lost Anna for ever.’ He paused, still breathing hard. ‘But I never would have told, Fin. I wouldn’t. I thought the threat of it would be enough. But he went berserk.’ The use of the word was not lost on Fin. If anyone fitted the role of Berserker, then it was Whistler. A man who had lived his life on a short fuse, with a temper that took him over the edge, time and again, negating any intelligent thought he had ever formed. ‘He came at me like a maniac, Fin. I never expected that. Jesus Christ, I never meant to kill him. It was all I could do to stop him from killing me.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Kenny. You were threatening to take his daughter away from him. Couldn’t you imagine how he would take it?’ Fin felt sick. It was clear to him now that in a strange and unforgiving twist of fate, Whistler had sown the seeds of his own destruction by agreeing to help Roddy with his subterfuge seventeen years before. And it was Kenny’s threat to break the bond of silence the three old friends had kept all that time which had killed him.

  Kenny raised his hands helplessly and shook his head, the tears on his face glistening in the spotlight. And he said again, ‘I never meant to kill him.’ As if somehow by repeating it he could change what had happened.

  The scream that reverberated around the cave turned Fin’s blood to ice. He had no time even to open his mouth to shout ‘No!’, before he saw the light glinting off the curve of the boathook, as wee Anna swung it two-handed in an arc of fury, to bury it deep in Kenny John’s chest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I

  The Free Church of Scotland in Kenneth Street in Stornoway, was a large, joyless, pink-harled edifice, its bell tower crowned by four miniature spires, each with its own weather vane. The weather as a topic on the Isle of Lewis was always high on the agenda.

  A notice at the gate announced English services on the Sabbath at 11 a.m. and 6.30 p.m., with services in Gaelic being held at the same times at the seminary in Francis Street. Services in rural churches on the island would normally be held in Gaelic, but in Stornoway Gaelic speakers were in the minority.

  The church hall ran along the right-hand side of the church itself, a building of recent vintage, with windows set high up in the walls to cast as much of God’s light as possible into its gloomy interior.

  It was here that a quorum of twelve members of the Judicial Committee appointed by the Church’s general assembly gathered on a bleak wet Wednesday in October to hear the evidence against the Reverend Donald Murray. A large chestnut tree in front of the hall had shed most of its leaves on the lawn, as if announcing once and for all the end of summer. The portent was not good.

  Every inch of the car park was taken up by wet, shining vehicles, and cars were parked on solid single and double yellow lines up either side of Kenneth Street, a special dispensation for the day, with traffic wardens controlling entry at each end of the street. This was theatre of a kind never before seen on the island, the playing out of a human drama that the Church itself would have frowned upon had it come from the pen of a playwright and been performed by actors.

  But there was nothing pretend about these proceedings. A man’s future was at stake. Despite the procurator fiscal’s decision not to pursue a criminal prosecution, a private libel had been lodged with the Presbytery by a group of Donald Murray’s own elders. They had accused him in a minuted and signed statement of committing an offence contrary to the Word of God and the laws of the Church. Following an investigation of the complaint, the Presbytery had passed it to the Judicial Committee for a trial of the evidence, with the recommendation that if the Reverend Murray be found guilty, he be summarily dismissed from his post as minister of the Crobost Free Church.

  Fin had decided to park at South Beach and walk up, even though it was raining. He was anxious to get away as quickly as possible at the finish of proceedings, and that would be achieved faster on foot. He and Marsaili shared an umbrella on the walk up past the gallery and theatre at An Lanntair, and saw the crowds standing below a shiny assembly of multicoloured umbrellas on the pavement outside the church at the top of the hill. Residents leaned on open windows above the barber’s shop and the religious bookshop opposite, to get a view of the circus. The Church court had been receiving much coverage in both local and national press, and the media had set up camp outside the church, satellite vans in the car park, photographers and camera operators and reporters milling among the crowd.

  Although Marsaili held Fin’s arm, there was a distance between them. His trip to Spain and subsequent events had opened up a fissure in their relationship, acknowledged for the first time after months of papering it over. Neither, perhaps, had been willing to admit that for all their shared past, their future remained an unknown quantity in which the possible admission of failure cast the biggest shadow. As they walked up the street, two souls a world apart, Fin wished he could just raise a hand and call a halt. And start all over again. From the beginning. From that first day at school when the little girl with the pigtails and blue ribbons had smiled at him and told the teacher that she would translate for the boy who could only speak Gaelic.

  It was just days now since they had put Whistler in the ground. By some miracle, Kenny John had survived the boat hook, most of its length absorbed by his life jacket. But he still lay gravely ill in a hospital bed. Of the three of them who had gone out that day so many years before to the monument at Holm Point, and discovered a common history in the Iolaire disaster, one was dead, and another charged with his murder. Anna was being held in a young offenders’ institution on the mainland while the authorities decided on how best to proceed with the case of a child who had attempted to kill her father’s murderer.

  And Fin wondered how such a loss of innocence and life was possible.

  Amran, once Sòlas, the band which had provided the musical accompaniment to his teenage years, was riven by infighting and legal action, falling apart in the full glare of international publicity. The papers and TV news bulletins had been filled for days with the story of Roddy faking his
own death, and being still alive seventeen years on. Extradition from Spain was being sought on possible murder charges. It was only a matter of time before a European warrant was issued for his arrest.

  And now it was Donald’s turn to face his moment of truth. Marsaili had come, not to keep Fin company, but to offer moral support to Donald and give evidence on his behalf. He was, after all, the boy who had taken her virginity when they were still teenagers. And Fin could only remember now how relieved he had been that it wasn’t Artair.

  The rows of seats laid out behind them in the hall were all filled. Fin, George Gunn, Donald’s accusers and other witnesses sat along the front row behind tables that accommodated lawyers for the Church on the left, and the solitary figure of Donald Murray on the right.

  Facing the assembled were the twelve members of the Judicial Committee, seated at a long table, like Jesus and the disciples at the last supper. Only these men wore dark suits and suitably sombre faces, come to pass judgment on one of their own, a task that clearly weighed heavy upon their shoulders. At least half of them were fellow ministers. The atmosphere was tense, the sense of expectation electric. The chairman banged his gavel to elicit silence in the hall, and a clerk, who was also in charge of recording proceedings, rose to read out the libel. He was a small man, almost completely bald, and Fin found himself transfixed by the shiny wet purple of his lips. He barely listened to the accusation that, as dusk fell over the island of Eriskay on a spring evening earlier that year, the Reverend Donald Murray had taken the life of another man by firing a single barrel of his shotgun into the man’s chest. Which was in clear and unequivocal contravention of the sixth commandment given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. Thou Shalt Not Kill. A commandment enshrined in the laws of the Church.

  The chairman swivelled his head towards Donald. He was an older man, very possibly in his sixties, with abundant steel-grey hair brushed back from his forehead in crimps and waves. He had lugubrious, watery-brown eyes that seemed to convey, if not sympathy, then neutrality. ‘You are entitled to make an opening statement in your defence, Reverend Murray.’

  Donald rose to his feet. He wore a light-grey suit over his black cotton shirt and white clerical collar, and placed the fingertips of both hands on the desk in front of him, as if requiring to steady himself. The colour of his skin was the same as his suit, and like putty in tone and texture. His hair had lost its sandy sheen. Most of those in the hall heard his voice ring out clear and strong. But Fin knew him better than most and detected the tremor in it. ‘I have nothing to say in my defence, sir. The facts are known and speak for themselves. You will arrive at whatever decision you reach here today on the basis of the evidence that is presented to you. And I will accept without question that decision. But I will not be judged except by the Lord my God.’

  ‘And judged by the Lord you will be, Reverend Murray, as we all will. And that shall be between you and Him. We are here today to determine whether or not you have broken His laws and by doing so brought His Church into disrepute. And that, I can assure you, is a judgment we fully intend to make.’

  The hearing took place over two days. Much of the evidence presented on the first day involved statements from the elders who had brought the initial libel against their minister. A string of grey men, resolute in their unforgiving faith, arguing the sanctity of the Ten Commandments, and Donald’s unworthiness to lead their congregation. Long legal and doctrinaire arguments that sapped the energy of all present.

  It wasn’t until the second day that the facts of the case came under scrutiny. The most important witness in that context was Detective Sergeant George Gunn. Fin watched as he walked to the front of the hall and took his place behind the table reserved for witnesses. In a long career in the force he would have given evidence at countless trials on the island, and on the mainland. He was an experienced police officer. But Fin had never seen him so nervous. The clerk addressed him directly.

  ‘State your name for the record, please.’

  ‘George William Gunn.’

  ‘Do you give a solemn assurance that you will speak the truth, that you have no malicious motive in giving evidence here today, and are not knowingly biased in any way?’

  ‘I do.’

  The chairman nodded towards counsel for the Church, a retired advocate from Edinburgh. ‘Mr Kelso?’

  Kelso stood up from behind his desk at the front of the hall. He was a small, round man in a dark suit, with the last remnants of dyed black hair dragged across a square, flat head. Fin could picture him with his wig and gown in the Edinburgh courts arguing his case with all the confidence that more than thirty years of legal experience instils. But today he had none of the accoutrements of his former profession to hide behind, and the Bible was not an Act of Parliament with an arguably definitive interpretation. It was a loose collection of stories and anecdotes which had spawned any number of religious sects, each drawing its own inferences and applying its own constructions.

  ‘You are a Detective Sergeant in the Criminal Investigation Department of the Stornoway police, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You were called to the scene of a shooting on the island of Eriskay in the spring of this year.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Which is some hours away from Stornoway by road. How did you get there?’

  ‘I enlisted the help of the coastguard, sir, and myself and several uniformed officers were flown down by helicopter to assist the local police.’

  ‘And when you got there what did you find?’

  ‘A man was lying dead on the floor in the living room of the house. He had been shot in the chest. A second man had been detained by citizens present in the house, and later arrested by police officers from South Uist.’

  ‘I understand, Detective Sergeant, that you took statements from everyone present, some of whom are unable or unwilling to be here today. On the basis of those statements, I would ask you to present the Judicial Committee with as clear a picture as you can of the events which led up to the shooting.’

  Gunn took a deep breath. ‘The situation arose from what appears to have been a case of revenge, sir, for an act or acts which may or may not have taken place more than fifty years ago. We are unable to verify that. What is clear is that a well-known gang leader from the city of Edinburgh arrived on the Isle of Lewis earlier that day, with a colleague, intent on doing harm to a Niseach called Tormod Macdonald. A Niseach . . . that’s someone from Ness, sir.’

  Kelso nodded.

  ‘Mr Macdonald is an elderly man suffering from an advanced form of senile dementia. His family had taken him to the home of an old friend in Eriskay that morning. On discovering that Mr Macdonald was not at home, the gentlemen from Edinburgh kidnapped Mr Macdonald’s great-granddaughter and her mother, and took them to Eriskay, where they intended to shoot them in front of Mr Macdonald.’

  ‘With all due respect, Detective Sergeant, I don’t believe you can speak for the intent of the deceased. I would be obliged if you would stick to the facts as you know them.’

  Fin saw Gunn bristling. ‘With equally due respect, Mr Kelso, the shooting of Mr Macdonald’s great-granddaughter and her mother was the stated intent of the deceased, an intention declared in the presence of several witnesses from whom I took statements. And those are the facts as I know them.’

  If Kelso was surprised by Gunn’s rejoinder he gave no indication of it. But being on the wrong end of a rebuttal by what he probably regarded as a hick island policeman must have been more than a little humiliating. Fin found himself stifling a smile. Kelso consulted some papers on his desk. ‘Let’s turn to the statement you took from Mr Macdonald’s grandson, and father of the baby. One Fionnlagh Macinnes. From all accounts, the gentlemen from Edinburgh left him tied up at his home in Ness while they drove down to Eriskay. And yet, he was with the Reverend Murray at the time of the shooting. How did that come about?’

  Gunn cleared his throat. ‘According to Fionnlagh Macinne
s, he managed to free himself and make his way to the Reverend Murray’s house to break the news to him about what had happened.’

  ‘Why did he go to the Reverend Murray and not the police?’

  ‘Because the baby’s mother, Donna, was the Reverend Murray’s daughter.’

  ‘So the Reverend Murray went to the police?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He took a shotgun and a box of cartridges from their lock-safe place in the manse, and drove to Eriskay.’

  ‘With Fionnlagh Macinnes?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Why didn’t he call the police?’

  ‘You’d have to ask him that, sir.’

  Kelso sighed his irritation. ‘Why do you think he didn’t call the police?’

  ‘With all due respect, sir, I don’t believe I can speak for the accused. I would rather stick to the facts as I know them.’

  Kelso contained his annoyance with difficulty. ‘You took a statement from the Reverend Murray?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And why did he say he didn’t call the police?’

  Gunn hesitated. There was no way to avoid it. ‘He said he didn’t trust inexperienced and unarmed police officers in South Uist to deal with armed criminals intent on harming his daughter and granddaughter.’

  ‘In other words he took the law into his own hands.’

  ‘I’m not sure I would say that, sir.’

  ‘He failed to report the commissioning of a crime, and undertook to deal with it himself. Was that not taking the law into his own hands?’

  Gunn shifted uncomfortably. ‘I suppose it was.’

  Kelso acknowledged the admission with a sarcastic little smile. ‘Thank you, Detective Sergeant.’ He perched half-moon spectacles on the end of his nose and shuffled through more papers on his desk, then removed them with a flourish. ‘It would be fair to assume, then, that having failed to inform the police, and having armed himself with a shotgun, he must have been prepared to use it.’