The Chessmen

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I

Sunlight slanted in through the barred window high in the wall. Fin sat on his bunk, hands holding on to the edge of it as if he were afraid he might fall off. His head was bowed, and he stared at the concrete floor. On the far side of this tiny space, a white-painted arrow on the floor near the door pointed east. If he had believed in God, and were of that persuasion, he might have been tempted to kneel down and pray. A prayer for a dead friend. A moment passed, and a life lost. No way to bring it back. No way to rewind the clock and do it all differently. Whistler existed now only in his memory, and in the memory of others. And when they were gone there would be no trace of him left on this earth, except for his bones in it, and his wind turbines and his chessmen. And a daughter who was now an orphan.

Fin’s head still felt as if gripped in a vice. A white bandage around his forehead kept the dressing in place at the back of it where they had stitched up the wound. But there was no pain. He was still too numb to feel it. Only when the numbness had gone would the full realization of all that had happened visit its pain upon him. And he wondered if he would be able to bear it.

He closed his eyes. How many lost souls had passed through this place? Drunks and wife-beaters, frauds and fighters. But he was, he knew, one of very few ever likely to be charged with murder. For the moment he was just helping police with their inquiries. Not that he had been, or could be, of much help. He had no idea what had happened to Whistler, and they had not asked him yet. He had lost a day in the hospital, and now he had lost his freedom, locked up in a police cell, a victim of events beyond his control.

He heard the scrape of a key in the lock, and the door swung open. George Gunn slipped in and shut the door quickly behind him. He was still wearing the quilted anorak he had worn yesterday morning. He turned and looked at Fin, and Fin could see the tension in his face. ‘I suppose the salmon’s all gone by now,’ Fin said.

But Gunn didn’t smile. ‘For God’s sake, Mr Macleod! You know they want to charge you?’

Fin lowered his head to look at the floor again and nodded.

‘He’s a twenty-four-carat bastard that DI Mackay. Knew him when I was at Inverness.’

‘I didn’t kill him, George.’

‘Jesus Christ, Mr Macleod. I never thought for one minute that you did.’

‘Whistler was still alive when I got there. I felt a pulse.’

Gunn nodded. ‘It looks like he crawled across the floor while you were unconscious. You can see the trail of blood where he dragged himself over it, almost as if he was trying to reach something. The pathologist said he died from an epidural haematoma, and that it wasn’t uncommon for there to be a brief period of lucidity after unconsciousness. But then followed by coma and death. He’d had a helluva crack on the skull, Mr Macleod.’

‘There’d been some kind of a fight, George.’

‘Well that much was obvious. But what were you doing there, Mr Macleod? What did you see in that postmortem report that made you go looking for Whistler Macaskill?’ When Fin failed to respond he blew his frustration through clenched teeth. ‘Well, let me tell you what I know. I know that I let you see the PM report on Roddy Mackenzie. I know that you saw something in it that you wouldn’t share with me. And I know that you went straight from Tolastadh to John Angus Macaskill’s croft at Uig. And the next thing the man’s found dead, and you lying there beside him with your skull cracked open.’ More silence. ‘For Christ’s sake! I’ve bent over backwards to help you, Mr Macleod. More than once. I think you owe me.’

Fin drew a deep breath. Mairead, and now Gunn. ‘I do. But I can’t tell you, George. Not yet.’ He heard the other man’s sigh of exasperation.

Gunn pulled the door open a fraction and craned his head to glance anxiously back along the corridor. He lowered his voice. ‘I shouldn’t be here. And I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.’ He glared at Fin. ‘I only hope that you’re not going to drop me in the shit.’

Fin lifted his eyes to meet Gunn’s and raised one eyebrow. ‘I think you know me better than that, George.’

‘I hope so, Mr Macleod. I really hope I do.’

He opened the door a little wider and squeezed back out into the corridor, pulling it shut behind him. Fin heard the key turning again in the lock.

It was almost half an hour before he heard the rasp of hard leather on concrete and the rattle of a key in the lock once again. This time it was a uniformed sergeant who stood in the doorway regarding Fin with thoughtful curiosity. ‘The DI’s ready for you now, Mr Macleod.’

Fin nodded and got slowly to his feet.

There was a single window in the interview room, looking out on some kind of courtyard or car park. DI Mackay and DS Wilson stood behind a wooden table, two chairs behind them, a single chair on the opposite side of the table. The uniformed sergeant closed the door and positioned himself with his back to it, arms folded. Mackay waved Fin into the single seat opposite.

The DI was a tall, thin-faced weasel of a man, the remains of his hair grown too long, gelled and scraped back over a narrow skull in an attempt to disguise its baldness. Fin always had an instant distrust of anyone with such a capacity for self-deception. He was clean-shaven, with the faintly purple raised skin of someone sensitive to the blade. His long neck was punctuated by an oversized Adam’s apple, and vanished into a collar a size too big. As he sat down, he used a long bony finger to press the record button on the digital recorder that sat in front of him on the table next to a beige folder.

Detective Sergeant Wilson was an altogether smaller man, reduced by the rank of his superior officer to the role of observer. He was almost invisible. Neither Fin nor Mackay paid him any attention.

Mackay spoke with a strong Invernesian accent as he voiced the date and time for the record along with the names of those present. He interlaced his skeletal fingers on the table in front of him. ‘Perhaps you would like to tell us, Mr Macleod, why you murdered John Angus Macaskill?’

Fin returned Mackay’s stare until the Detective Inspector started to become uncomfortable. He would have known that Fin had attained the rank of detective inspector himself before leaving the force, and so there was an element of something like rivalry between them. Almost open hostility.

Fin said, ‘Let me make it clear from the outset, Detective Inspector, that I did not kill John Angus Macaskill.’ Even as he spoke the words he felt again the pain of Whistler’s death. Each and every time he gave it voice made it all the more real.

‘I’m listening.’

‘John Angus has been a good and close friend since we were at the Nicolson Institute together here in Stornoway more than twenty years ago.’

‘Not so friendly according to witnesses we’ve spoken to.’ Mackay regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Apparently the two of you were involved in a brawl in the bar at Suaineabhal Lodge just over a week ago, when the deceased struck you, and threats were issued.’ He opened his beige folder. ‘And again, just the other day. Outside the Sheriff Court. You were seen to be arguing, and the deceased knocked you off your feet.’

‘Perhaps,’ Fin said, ‘if you stopped looking at motive for five minutes and just examined the facts. .’ Fin saw Mackay’s Adam’s apple slide up and down his neck as he swallowed his anger.

‘Go on.’

‘I went to visit John Angus at his croft in Uig yesterday morning, and found him lying unconscious on the floor. It seemed clear to me that there had been some kind of a disturbance. Furniture was overturned, there was broken glass and crockery all over the floor. I knelt beside him to feel for a pulse in his neck, and at that point he was still alive. I was aware, then, of someone approaching me from behind, and can remember nothing further until I regained consciousness and found the postman crouching beside me on the floor.’

He paused, keeping the detective inspector steadily in his gaze.

‘Whistler was bleeding from the back of his skull. There was a pool of blood on the floor beside him. His face was bruised. His lip was split and bleeding. The knuckles of his right hand were swollen and grazed. I am quite sure that these, and other injuries, will have been described in the postmortem report by the pathologist. I am equally sure he will have concluded that the man had been in one hell of a fight.’

Mackay conceded, ‘The evidence would certainly support that.’

Fin stood up. And the uniformed sergeant was suddenly alert, pushing himself away from his leaning position against the door.

‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ Mackay demanded.

‘I’m not going anywhere, Detective Inspector.’ Fin unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off, draping it over the back of his chair, while the two detectives looked on in amazement. ‘You can get a doctor in to examine me if you like.’ He held out his arms in front of him and spread his hands to display his knuckles. ‘But I don’t think you’ll find a single bruise, cut or graze on my upper body, arms or hands that could possibly have been the result of being involved in such a fight. Whistler Macaskill was a big man. He will have inflicted a great deal of damage on whoever it was that killed him. And whoever that might have been, it clearly wasn’t me.’

He watched as the interrogating officer ran his eyes over Fin’s torso and hands, and he saw doubt creeping into them. He lifted his shirt from the chair to drag it back on.

‘Now, I’m happy to help you in any way that I can. But I don’t think you have any grounds for detaining me, even for the hours that the law allows. So I would suggest that you either charge me or let me go. And unless you want to make complete fools of yourselves I would strongly advise you to do the latter.’

Mackay glared at him. He reached across the table to turn off the recording device. ‘You fucking ex-cops think you know it all.’ He stood up and jabbed one of his bony fingers in Fin’s direction. ‘But I’m willing to bet, Macleod, that you know a damned sight more than you’re telling us. And when I find out what that is, trust me, I’ll have you back in here so fucking fast. .’

‘My feet won’t touch the ground? Is that what you were going to say, Mr Mackay?’ Fin paused. ‘Very original.’

For the first time Fin’s eyes wandered momentarily towards the detective sergeant, and he thought he saw just the hint of a smile playing around the junior officer’s lips.