The Blackhouse

SIX

Fin drifted through the bar in a trance. The music was pulsating here, competing with the babble of voices and drink-induced laughter. He was aware of the lights of a gaming machine flashing somewhere in his peripheral vision, the pips and beeps and whirrs of an electronic age. He ordered a pint and leaned on the bar waiting for the barmaid to pull it. He felt as if he were hermetically sealed inside an invisible bubble. As if he simply did not exist in this place. He had decided on a drink, a fish supper and an early night, but unable to face the solitude of the lounge bar he had come downstairs to the public bar in the hope of being distracted from his own thoughts. Now he was learning again how easy it was to be lonely in a crowd. Whoever these people were, he did not know them, and he was no longer one of them.

His pint arrived, thumped down in a beer puddle on the bar. He dropped his money in the same puddle and caught the look the barmaid threw him. She swept the money into her hand and returned a moment later with a beer towel to wipe the counter dry. Fin gave her a winning smile and she replied with a sullen scowl.

This was depressing. He raised the glass to his lips and stopped before he could take a drink. A group of workmen, some of them still in their overalls, was gathered around a table in the window, empty glasses accumulating in large numbers. The banter was in Gaelic, and there was loud, raucous laughter. It was the voice, really, which had drawn his attention, like a familiar tune caught in snatches that you can’t quite place. Then he saw the face, and the shock of it was like a fist in the solar plexus.

Artair had changed. He looked ten years older than Fin. He had put on more weight than even his big frame could carry comfortably. Fine childhood features were lost in a round red face, and hair that once had been thick and black was now a fine grey stubble. Broken veins on his cheeks betrayed an over-fondness for the drink, but his eyes were clear and sharp and the same rich, warm brown.

Artair was throwing back the remains of a whisky when he caught Fin’s eye. He lowered the glass slowly from his lips and looked across the bar with something like disbelief.

‘Hey, Wheezy,’ one of the men at the table said. ‘What’s wrong? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.’

‘I just have.’ Artair stood up, and the two men looked at one another across the heads of the drinkers for a very long moment. The others at his table turned and looked at Fin. ‘Jesus wept and shrank His waistcoat,’ Artair muttered. ‘Fin-fucking-Macleod.’ He squeezed out from the table and pushed through the bodies between them, and to Fin’s embarrassment threw his arms around him in a huge hug. Fin spilled half his beer on the floor. Then Artair stood back and gazed into his face. ‘Hell, man. Where the fuck have you been all these years?’

‘Here and there,’ Fin said uncomfortably.

‘There, maybe.’ Artair’s voice carried a tone. ‘Certainly not here.’ He looked at the remnants of Fin’s pint. ‘Let me fill that up for you.’

‘No, I’m fine, honest.’

Artair caught the barmaid’s eye. ‘Gimme another dram, Mairead.’ He turned back to Fin. ‘So what have you been up to?’

Fin could never have imagined how awkward this would be. He shrugged. What do you say? How do you fill in eighteen years in a sentence? ‘This and that,’ he said.

Artair smiled, but it was forced friendly, and he still couldn’t keep the tone out of his voice. ‘That must have kept you fully occupied.’ He snatched his whisky from the bar. ‘I hear you joined the polis.’ Fin nodded. ‘Hell, you could have done that here, man. We could still have been rock’n’rollin’ all these years, you and me. What happened to the big degree?’

‘I flunked out of university in second year.’

‘Shit. All that time my old man put in, getting you through your exams, and you blew it?’

Fin nodded. ‘Big time.’

‘Well, at least you’ve got the good grace to admit it.’ Artair coughed and found himself short of breath. He took an inhaler from his pocket and sucked on it twice. Phlegm rattled in his throat as he drew oxygen deeply through widening airways. ‘That’s better. Nothing changes, eh?’

Fin grinned. ‘Not much.’

Artair took Fin’s elbow and steered him towards a table in the far corner. He stumbled slightly, and Fin realized that there had been a few whiskies before this one. ‘We need to talk, you and me.’

‘Do we?’

Artair seemed surprised. ‘Of course we do. Eighteen fucking years to catch up on.’ They sat down opposite each other and Artair looked carefully into his face. ‘Jesus, it’s not fair. You don’t look any bloody older. Look at me. Big, fat, fucking porpoise. Must suit you, being a polisman.’

‘Not a lot. I’m trying to get out. Doing a degree in the Open University.’

Artair shook his head. ‘What a fucking waste. Me? Well, that was to be expected. But you, Fin. You were a cut above. Made for better things than the polis.’

‘So what have you been doing all this time?’ Fin felt obliged to ask, although in a strange way he didn’t really want to know. The truth was, he didn’t want to know anything about this man. He wanted to remember Artair the way he was, the way they had been together as boys. This was like making conversation with a stranger.

Air exploded from Artair’s lips, an expression of self-contempt. ‘Finished my apprenticeship at Lewis Offshore just in time for them to shut the fucking place down. I suppose I was lucky to get back in when it reopened in ninety-one. Then it closed again in May, ninety-nine. Went into liquidation. Turfed us all on to the street again. Now it’s reopened making wind turbines. Can you imagine? They’re trying to persuade the government to plant big fucking windmills all over the island. It’ll make us self-sufficient in energy, they say. But it’d kill the tourist industry. I mean, who’s going to want to come to the fucking place to look at a lot of bloody windmills? Whole fucking forests of them.’ His grin was sour as he upended his glass and poured its liquid gold down his throat. ‘But Marsaili says I’m lucky they took me on. Again.’ The mention of her name gave Fin a tiny jolt. Artair’s smile was mirthless. ‘And you know what? I feel lucky, Fin. I really do. You have no idea how fucking lucky I feel. You want another drink?’

Fin shook his head, and Artair pushed back his chair wordlessly and headed off to the bar to get his glass refilled. Fin sat staring fixedly at the table. It was sad beyond words seeing his old childhood friend bitter like this. Life went past you in a flash, like a bus on a rainy night in Ness. You had to be sure it saw you and stopped to let you on, otherwise it was gone without you, and you would be left with a miserable walk home in the wind and the wet. He supposed that, in his own way, he was just like Artair, dogged by a sense of what might have been, of somehow having missed that bus, embittered by his failures and daunted by the weary trudge into an uncertain future. All those childhood dreams lost for ever, like tears in rain. They were not so different, really, he and Artair. In a way, looking at him now was like seeing a reflection of himself, and he did not much like what he saw.

Artair dropped back into his seat and Fin saw that he had got himself a double. They served quarter gills here. ‘You know, I was thinking, when I was up there at the bar. Just the mention of her. I saw that look in your face. That’s why you never came back all these years, isn’t it? Because of bloody Marsaili.’

Fin shook his head. ‘No.’ But he wasn’t certain that was the truth.

Artair leaned across the table, staring discomfitingly into Fin’s eyes. ‘Not a phone call, not a letter, nothing. You know, at first I was just hurt. And then I was angry. But you can’t keep stuff like that going. A flame always burns itself out in the end. That’s when I started feeling guilty. That maybe you thought I’d taken her away from you.’ He shrugged his shoulders helplessly, not knowing how else to express it. ‘You know?’

‘It wasn’t like that, Artair. It was over between me and Marsaili.’

Artair held the eye contact, like a hand held too long in a handshake, and Fin became self-conscious. ‘You know, I never believed that. Not really. I might have got her in the end, but you and Marsaili … well, that’s how it was supposed to be, wasn’t it? That’s what it should have been.’ Finally the eye contact was broken and Artair took a mouthful of whisky. ‘You married?’

His hesitation was imperceptible. ‘Yeh.’

‘Kids?’

A month ago the answer would have been, yes. But he could no longer lay claim to being a father, and it was not a story he was about to tell. Not here, not now. He shook his head.

‘We just got the one. Finished school this year. Takes after his old man. Not too bright. I’m trying to get him a job at Arnish.’ Artair tipped his head gently, smiling fondly now. ‘Good kid, though. He’s coming out to the rock with us this week to kill himself a few gugas. His first time.’ He chuckled. ‘Come to think of it, he’s just the same age as you and me when we went out there the first time.’ He emptied his glass and banged it on the table. Fin could see the effects of it dulling his eyes. He looked up at Fin, suddenly serious. ‘Is that why you never came back? Is it?’

In a way Fin had dreaded the moment. But it was a confrontation with the past he had known he could not avoid from the moment he set foot on the island. ‘What?’ he said, disingenuously.

‘What happened that year on An Sgeir.’

Fin couldn’t meet Artair’s eye. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, and meant it. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘Well, if it was, it was no fucking reason at all.’

‘If I hadn’t been so bloody careless …’ Fin realized he was wringing his hands on the table in front of him, and he laid them palms down to stop himself.

‘What happened, happened. It was an accident. Not anybody’s fault. Nobody ever blamed you, Fin.’

Fin looked up quickly to catch Artair’s eye, and wondered if he meant, nobody except Artair. But he saw no sign of hostility there, no indication that his old friend meant anything other than what he had said.

‘Are you ready for that refill now?’

There was an inch of beer left in Fin’s glass, but he shook his head. ‘I’ve had enough.’

‘Fin,’ Artair leaned confidentially across the table, ‘there’s never enough.’ And his face divided itself into a big infectious smile. ‘I’m for one for the road.’ And he headed off again to the bar.

Fin sat nursing his glass, memories crowding his thoughts. An Sgeir, Marsaili. The sound of voices calling across the bar made him look up. Artair’s workmates were leaving, shouting their goodbyes, waving from the door. Artair raised a cursory hand of acknowledgement and made his way unsteadily back to the table. The seat creaked as he dropped himself into it. He banged another double down on the table. There was a smile fluttering around his lips like a butterfly trying to find a place to settle. ‘I was thinking … You remember that history teacher we had in second year?’

‘Shed? William Shed?’

‘That’s him. Remember he had that gap between his front teeth, and every s came out as a whistle?’

Fin remembered very clearly, although he hadn’t thought about William Shed in more than twenty years. And the memory made him laugh. ‘He used to make us read paragraphs from our history book out loud around the class …’

‘And everybody made their s’s whistle, like his.’

‘And he would say, “Stop that whistling!”’ Fin said, making his s’s whistle just like Shed’s had done. And the two of them laughed like schoolboys at the absurdity of it.

‘And you remember that time,’ Artair said, ‘when he tried to separate us, and he grabbed my ear to drag me off to another desk?’

‘Aye, and you kept reaching to get your bag, and he thought you were trying to get away from him, and the two of you ended up wrestling in front of the class.’

Artair was almost helpless with laughter remembering it. ‘And you, you bastard, you just sat there laughing.’

‘Only because he kept whistling, “Stop that, sonny!”’

Which sent Artair off into a fresh paroxysm of laughter, tears streaming down ruddy cheeks, until he couldn’t breathe and had to resort to his puffer. The laughter somehow unlocked all the tension in Fin, releasing him from the stress of dealing with a friend who’d become a stranger. They were both just schoolboys again, laughing inanely at childish memories. No matter how much they had grown apart in the intervening years, their memories were something they would always have in common. A bond for life.

The laughter faded as they regained control, and they sat looking at each other, serious again. Adults once more. Until laughter exploded suddenly from Artair’s trembling lips and they started all over again. Several heads in the bar turned towards them, wondering what the joke was. But they would never get it.

When, finally, Artair regained his composure he looked at his watch. ‘Aw shit, gotta go.’

‘To Ness?’ Artair nodded. ‘How are you getting back?’

‘Car’s parked at the quay.’

‘You’re not driving?’

‘Well, the fucking thing doesn’t drive itself.’

‘You’re in no state to drive. You’ll kill yourself. Or somebody else.’

‘Oh,’ Artair wagged a finger at him. ‘Forgot. You’re a polis now. What’re you gonna do? Arrest me?’

‘Give me your keys and I’ll drive you.’

Artair’s smile faded. ‘Serious?’

‘Serious.’

Artair shrugged and fished the car keys from his pocket and dropped them on the table. ‘My lucky day, eh? Get a police escort all the way home.’

The sky was a dusky blue, the sun disappearing behind pewtery clouds bubbling up on the western horizon. From mid-August the nights start shortening very quickly, and yet it was still lighter than it would ever get in London, even at the height of summer. The tide had begun to recede, and the boats at the quayside stood lower in the water now. In an hour or two you would need ladders to get down to them.

Artair’s car was a badly resprayed Vauxhall Astra that smelled inside like old trainers which had been left out in the rain. An ancient air freshener in the shape of a pine tree swung ineffectively from the rearview mirror, having long since given up the unequal struggle of trying to sweeten rank air. The upholstery was tashed and torn, and the speedometer was about to reset itself for a second go round. It struck Fin as ironic how their fortunes had reversed themselves. Artair’s father had been the teacher, middle-class, good income, driving the shiny new Hillman Avenger, while Fin’s folks had struggled between unemployment and the croft and driven a battered old Ford Anglia. Now Artair worked in a Stornoway construction yard and drove a car that would probably fail its next MOT, and Fin was a ranking CID officer who drove a Mitsubishi Shogun. He made a mental note never to tell Artair what kind of vehicle he owned.

He slipped into the driver’s seat, snapped on the seatbelt and turned the key in the ignition. The engine coughed, spluttered and died.

‘Christ,’ Artair said. ‘It could do with my puffer. There’s a wee trick. Clutch and accelerator to the floor. Soon as she kicks in, feet off the pedals. She’ll run sweet as a nut. What are you driving these days, Fin?’

Fin concentrated on the wee trick, and as the engine exploded into life, he said casually, ‘Ford Escort. Not much call for a motor in the city.’ And telling the lie left a bad taste in his mouth.

He pulled out on to Cromwell Street, and there was virtually no traffic as he headed north on to Bayhead. The headlights made little impact in the twilight, and he almost failed to notice the hump in the road at the crossing to the children’s play-park. They bumped over it too quickly, and the car juddered.

‘Hey, take it easy,’ Artair said. ‘I’ve got to get a few more miles out of this old lady yet.’ Fin could smell the whisky on his breath as Artair exhaled deeply. ‘So, you still haven’t told me why you’re here.’

‘You never asked.’

Artair turned his head and delivered a look that Fin assiduously avoided. ‘Well, I’m asking now.’

‘I’ve been attached to the inquiry into the death of Angel Macritchie.’ He felt Artair’s sudden interest, aware of him turning physically in the passenger seat to look at him.

‘No shit! I thought you were based in Glasgow.’

‘Edinburgh.’

‘So why’d they bring you in? Because you knew him?’

Fin shook his head. ‘I’ve been involved in a case in Edinburgh which was … well, very similar. Same MO. That’s modus—’

‘—operandi. Yeh, I know. I read fucking detective stories, too, you know.’ Artair chortled. ‘That’s funny, that. You ending up back here to investigate the murder of the guy who beat us all up when we were kids.’ He was struck by a sudden thought. ‘Did you see him? I mean, were you at the autopsy, or whatever they call it?’

‘Post-mortem. Yes.’

‘Well …?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Maybe I do. There was never any love lost between me and Angel Macritchie.’ He thought about it for a moment before issuing his considered opinion. ‘Bastard! Whoever did it deserves a fucking medal.’

As they crossed the moor road towards Barvas, the sky was still light in the west, streaks of dark purple-grey and fading pink. Clouds, like billowing black smoke, were gathering out at sea, The sky in the east was dark. By the time they passed the green-roofed shieling, it was barely visible, and Fin became aware of Artair snoring gently in the seat beside him. The streetlights were on in Barvas, Fin swung the car north and they headed towards Ness.

He had nearly twenty minutes to think, undisturbed by Artair’s drunken ramblings. Nearly twenty minutes to anticipate the moment when he would find himself face to face with Marsaili for the first time since his aunt’s funeral. Close to eighteen years. He had no idea what to expect. After all, Artair had changed so much. Would he even recognize the girl with the pigtails and the blue ribbons after all this time?

They drifted through deserted villages, yellow lights in cottage windows the only sign of habitation. A dog came barking out of nowhere and Fin had to swerve to avoid it. The smell of peat smoke seeped in through the car’s ventilation system, and Fin remembered those long weekly bus journeys he and Artair had shared to their respective school hostels in Stornoway. He glanced across and saw, in the flash of the streetlights, Artair’s jaw slack, hanging open, a tiny dribble of saliva running from one corner of his mouth. Dead to the world. A drink-induced escape. Fin’s escape from the island had been physical. Artair had found other means.

By the time they reached Cross, Fin realized that he had no idea where Artair lived. He reached over and shook him by the shoulder. Artair grunted and opened an eye and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He was disorientated for several moments, staring unseeing through the windscreen, before pulling himself upright in the seat. ‘That was quick.’

‘I don’t know where you live.’

Artair turned to look at him, face distorted by disbelief. ‘You what? You can’t have forgotten where I live! I’ve lived there all my fucking life!.’

‘Oh.’ It had never occurred to Fin that Artair and Marsaili would have made their home in the Macinnes bungalow.

‘Yeh, I know, sad isn’t it? Still living in the same house I was fucking born in.’ The bitterness was back in his voice. ‘Unlike you, I had responsibilities.’

‘Your mother?’

‘Aye, my mother.’

‘She’s still alive?’

‘Naw, I took her to the taxidermist and had her stuffed so she could sit in the chair by the fire and keep us company at night. Of course she’s still alive! Do you think I’d have stayed here all these years if she wasn’t?’ He gasped his frustration, and the smell of stale alcohol filled the car. ‘Jesus. Eighteen years of spoon-feeding the old bitch morning noon and night. Lifting her to the toilet, changing her fucking nappies — sorry, incontinence pads. And d’you know what really fucks me off? She maybe can’t do much else, but she can talk nearly as good as you and me, and there’s a big part of her brain as sharp as ever it was. I think she just revels in making my life a misery.’

Fin didn’t know what to say. He wondered who fed her and changed her when Artair was working. And almost as though he’d read his mind, Artair said, ‘Of course, Marsaili’s good with her. She likes Marsaili.’ And Fin had a sudden picture of what their lives must have been like for all these years, trapped in the same house, chained by family responsibility to the needs of an old woman robbed of most of her physical and mental faculties by a stroke she’d suffered when Artair was still in his teens. Again, as if he was inside Fin’s head, Artair said, ‘You’d think after all this time she’d at least have had the good fucking grace to die and give us our lives back.’

Fin turned off on the single-track that took them up the hill to the streetlights of Crobost strung out for half a mile along the cliff road. They passed beneath the shadow of the church, and Fin saw lights on at the manse. Around the curve of the hill, the road rose steeply towards the Macinnes bungalow built into the slope of the land as it fell away towards the clifftops. Light spilled out from its windows, falling on to the peat stack, illuminating its carefully constructed herringbone pattern, built just as if Artair’s father had done it himself. A couple of hundred yards further on, Fin saw the dark silhouette of his parents’ crofthouse smudged against the night sky. No lights, no life there.

He slowed and turned down on to the Macinnes drive and stopped the car in front of the garage doors. A blink of moonlight splashed a pool of broken silver on the ocean beyond. There was a light on in the kitchen, and through the window Fin could see a figure at the sink. He realized, with a start, that it was Marsaili, long fair hair, darker now, drawn back severely from her face and tied in a pony tail at the nape of her neck. She wore no make-up and looked weary somehow, pale, with shadows beneath blue eyes that had lost their lustre. She looked up as she heard the car, and Fin killed the headlights so that all she could see would be a reflection of herself in the window. She looked away quickly, as if disappointed by what she‘d seen, and in that moment he glimpsed again the little girl who had so bewitched him from the first moment he set eyes on her.