The Chessmen

III

Padraig Post had been delivering the mail in this part of the island for almost as long as anyone could remember, and no one even thought his nickname funny anymore. He always left his van on the metalled road, and walked up the track to Whistler’s place. Today he had a registered letter from the Sheriff Court that required a signature. Which is why he knocked and pushed the door open into the chaos beyond.

Fin could barely move, but was aware of the light that spilled across him as the door swung open. He shut his eyes against the pain and was blinded by the light in his head. When next he opened them, he was aware of someone kneeling beside him, a sack of Royal Mail discarded among the debris. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and a voice told him not to move. There was an ambulance on the way. It was a voice that thundered in his ears. He blinked away the blood running red in his eyes and saw Whistler lying not a foot away, his big whiskered face folded hard against the floor, bloodied lips parted, jaw slack. And the faces of the Norse warriors all around silently mocking.

It was impossible now to tell how much time had passed. He was aware of moments that came and went like blinks of sunlight from a cloud-broken sky. The rumble of wheels beneath him, the sound of a siren. Light, dark, then light again. A blue light now. And then white lights overhead, passing like a succession of large balloons. He thought he saw Marsaili’s pale face, etched with concern, but couldn’t be certain it was not a dream.

Until finally, emerging from darkness, the world seemed somehow solid again. The pain was still there, like a distant echo in the back of his mind, felt through gauze and cotton wool. He was in a bed. Tubular metal at the head and foot of it. Another beside him. Two opposite. All empty. Sunlight leaked from behind vertical blinds. The figure of a man leaned over him. A man in a white coat with a foreign accent. German perhaps. And he remembered, from nowhere, George Gunn once telling him that the hospital was full of foreign interns. God only knew what brought them here.

He peered into Fin’s eyes, peeling back the lids, one after the other. ‘He is severely concussed,’ he said, and Fin wondered who he was speaking to. ‘I will want to keep him here under observation for another twenty-four hours.’ He straightened up and turned away from the bed. ‘After that. .’ Fin could see the shrug of his shoulders. ‘You can have a few moments with him now.’

He moved out of Fin’s range of sight and Fin found he could not turn his head to follow. A shadow fell across him. And then another. He smelled aftershave, almost overpowering, worn like a whore wears too much perfume. That, and something of the demeanour of the man standing closest to his bed, told Fin immediately that he was a cop.

‘Detective Inspector Colm Mackay.’ The voice confirmed it. He half turned. ‘Detective Sergeant Frank Wilson.’ A pause. He moved closer, his voice a little lower. ‘As soon as you are fit, Mr Macleod, I’ll be arresting you on suspicion of the murder of John Angus Macaskill. In the meantime I’ll be leaving an officer at the door. Just in case you decide to take a walk.’

And all that Fin could think, with a pain greater than the one that filled his head, was that Whistler was dead.