The Lewis Man

THIRTY-TWO

Tommy Jack lived in a two-bedroomed tenement flat above a wine shop and a newsagent’s in Broughton Street. The taxi dropped Fin and Marsaili in York Place and they walked slowly down the hill in the soft evening light, breathing in the strange smells of the city. Exhaust fumes, malt bins, curry. Nothing could have been further from the island experience. Fin had spent fifteen years of his life in this town, but just a matter of days back among the islands and already it seemed alien, impossibly claustrophobic. And dirty. Discarded chewing gum blackening the pavements, litter blowing in the gutters.

The entrance to the close was in Albany Street Lane, and as they turned into it Fin saw a van driving past up the hill. It was a vehicle belonging to Barnardo’s, the children’s charity, and carried the logo, Giving children back their future. And he wondered how you could give back what had already been destroyed.

Tommy was a short man with a round, shining face beneath a smooth, shiny head. His shirt collar was frayed. He wore a grey pullover with egg stains down the front, tucked into trousers a size too big that were held up high around his stomach by a belt tightened one notch too many. There were holes worn in the toes of his carpet slippers.

He ushered them into a narrow hallway with dark wallpaper, and a front room which probably trapped the sun during the day, but which was dingy now in the dying evening light. A smell of stale cooking fat permeated the flat, along with the faintly unpleasant perfume of body odour.

But Tommy was a man of cheerful disposition, with sharp dark eyes that shone at them through frameless glasses. Fin figured that he was probably in his mid to late late sixties. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘That would be nice,’ Marsaili said, and he talked to them through the open door of the tiny kitchen scullery as he boiled a kettle and brought out cups and saucers and teabags.

‘I’m on my own these days, ever since my missus died about eight years ago. More than thirty years we were married. Still can’t get used to being without her.’

And Fin thought that there was a certain tragic irony in both starting and finishing life all alone.

Marsaili said, ‘No children?’

He appeared at the door, smiling. But it was a smile laden with regret. ‘Afraid not. One of the big disappointments of my life. Never having children, and being able to give them the kind of childhood I would have wanted for myself.’ He turned back into the scullery. ‘Not that I could have given them that much on a bank clerk’s salary.’ He chuckled. ‘Imagine, a lifetime spent counting money, and all of it belonging to someone else.’

He brought their tea through in china cups, and they perched on the threadbare fabric of ancient armchairs dressed with grubby white antimacassars. A black-and-white framed photograph of Tommy and what had to be his wife stood on the mantelpiece above a tiled fireplace where a gas fire glowed dully in the gloom. The photographer had captured the mutual affection in their eyes, and Fin was moved to think that Tommy had, at least, found some happiness in his life. ‘When were you at The Dean, Tommy?’

He shook his head. ‘Couldn’t give you exact dates. But I was there for a few years in the fifties. It was run by a brute of a man, then. Anderson, his name was. For someone in charge of a home supposed to provide comfort and refuge for orphans, he didn’t like children very much. A foul temper, he had. I remember one time he took all our things and burned them in the central heating furnace. Retribution for having fun.’ He chuckled at the memory.

From somewhere he was able to find humour in the story, and Fin marvelled at the human capacity for making light of the worst that life could throw at you. An endless resilience. It was all about survival, he supposed. If you gave in, even for a moment, you would be dragged down into the dark.

‘Of course, I wasn’t only at The Dean. You got moved around quite a bit. It was hard to keep friends, so you just stopped making them. And you never let yourself hope there might be an end to it. Even when the grown-ups came to look at us, and pick out one or two for adoption.’ He laughed. ‘They wouldn’t do it now, but in those days they used to give us a good scrubbing, get us all dressed up in our best togs, and stand us in a line while ladies smelling of French perfume and men that reeked of cigars came and examined us, like sheep at a market. Of course, it was always the girls they picked. Wee boys like me had no chance.’ He leaned forward. ‘Can I refill your cups?’

‘No thanks.’ Marsaili put a hand over her still half-full cup. Fin shook his head.

Tommy stood. ‘I’ll have another one myself. If I have to get up in the night, I might as well have something in the tank to empty.’ He returned to the scullery to bring the kettle back to the boil. He raised his voice to be heard above it. ‘There was one place I was in that got visited by Roy Rogers. Remember him? Famous cowboy he was, in films and TV. Came touring round Scotland with his horse, Trigger. Stopped off at our orphanage and picked out one of the lassies. Adopted her and took her back to America. Imagine! One minute you’re a poor wee orphan lassie in a home in Scotland, the next you’re a rich man’s daughter in the wealthiest country in the world.’ He came back out with a fresh cup in his hand. ‘Of such things are dreams made, eh?’ He sat down, then suddenly stood again. ‘What am I thinking? I never even offered you a biscuit.’

Fin and Marsaili politely declined and he sat down once more.

‘When I got too old for the orphanages they put me in a hostel in Collinton Road. They were still talking then about an older boy who’d come to stay for a short time about ten years before. Returning home from the navy, and his family had no room for him. Something like that. Big Tam, he was called. A handsome big fella by all accounts. One of the other boys had heard there were auditions in town for the chorus of South Pacific and suggested Big Tam put himself up for it.’ Tommy grinned. ‘You know what’s coming.’

Neither Fin nor Marsaili had any idea.

‘Big Tam was Sean Connery.’ Tommy laughed. ‘Big star. And we shared the same hostel! He came back to Scotland for the opening of the Scottish Parliament. First time a parliament had sat in Edinburgh for nearly three hundred years. I went along, too. Historical moment, eh? Not to be missed. Anyway, I see Sean as he’s going in. And I wave at him from the crowd and shout, “How are you doing, Big Tam?”’ Tommy smiled. ‘He didn’t recognize me, of course.’

Fin leaned forward. ‘Was The Dean a Catholic home, Tommy?’

Tommy’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Christ, no! That Mr Anderson hated Catholics. Hated everything and everyone, come to think of it.’

Marsaili said, ‘Were there ever any Catholics in the home?’

‘Oh, aye, but they never stayed. The priests would come and fetch them and take them away to some Catholic place. There was three of them once, I remember, got whipped off double quick after a boy died on the bridge.’

‘What bridge was that?’ Fin asked, his interest suddenly piqued.

‘The Dean Bridge. Crosses the Water of Leith just above the Dean Village. Must be a hundred-foot drop.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh, nobody knew for sure. There was lots of gossip and speculation, of course. Some bet, or dare, about walking across the ledge on the outside of the parapet. Something like that. Anyway, some of The Dean kids were involved. Sneaked out one night, and a village boy fell to his death. Two days later those three Catholic kids were gone. Taken away in a big black car by all accounts.’

Fin felt a stillness in his heart, that sense of being close enough to the truth to touch it. ‘Do you remember their names?’

‘Oh,’ Tommy shook his head. ‘It was a long time ago, Mr Macleod. There was a lassie. Cathy, or Catherine, I think it was. And two brothers. One of them could have been John. Maybe Johnny.’ He paused, searching back in his mind. ‘I do remember quite clearly the name of the boy who died, though. Patrick Kelly. Everyone knew the Kelly boys, of course. They lived in the Dean Village, and their dad was involved in some kind of criminal gang. Been to prison, they said. The boys were right tough nuts. You stayed out their way if you could.’ He tilted his head in a moment of lost reflection. ‘A bunch of them came up to the Dean a few days later looking for the daftie.’

Marsaili frowned. ‘The daftie?’

‘Aye, the brother. What was his name …?’ Recollection broke suddenly in his eyes, like dawn light. ‘Peter! That was it. Johnny’s brother. Nice laddie, but not quite right in the head.’

It was almost dark by the time they stepped back out into the street, earlier than it would have been up on the islands, and everything a little unreal, leached of colour by the pools of cold light that fell from the overhead streetlamps.

‘So my dad and his brother really were John and Peter,’ Marsaili said, as if knowing their names in some way made them more real. ‘But how will we get to find out their family name?’

Fin looked thoughtful. ‘By talking to someone who knew them.’

‘Like who?’

‘Like the Kellys.’

She frowned. ‘How would we ever find them?’

‘Well, if I were still a policeman I would have said, because they’re known to us.’

‘I don’t understand.’

A young couple emerged from the blue frontage of the wine shop, bottles clunking in a paper bag. She slipped her arm through his, and their voices came like chattering birds in the twilight.

Fin said, ‘The Kellys are a well-known crime family in Edinburgh, Marsaili. Have been for years. Started out in what was then the slum village of Dean. Drugs, prostitution. They’ve even been implicated in a number of gangland killings, though nothing was ever proved.’

‘You know them?’ Marsaili couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice.

‘I never had any dealings with them, no. But I do know that my old DCI did. He was my boss when I was first in the force. Jack Walker. Retired now.’ He took out his mobile. ‘He’d probably be happy to meet us for a drink.’

Someone seemed to be going around Edinburgh painting shopfronts, bars and restaurants in primary colours. Vandals with a misplaced sense of civic pride. The Windsor Buffet at the top of Leith Walk was a virulent green, the former Scottish Television studios next door to it a shocking blue. Yellows and reds featured up and down the street, along with more greens and blues. All topped by drab sandstone tenements, some of which had been stone-cleaned, while others remained blackened by the years, like bad teeth in a brave smile.

The Windsor was nearly full, but Jack Walker had reserved them an alcove at the back. He looked curiously at Marsaili when they were introduced, but didn’t ask. He ordered beers for Fin and himself, and a glass of white wine for Marsaili. He was a big man with wide shoulders, and an untidy shock of white brillo-pad hair. For all that he must have been in his mid-seventies, he was not a man you would choose to pick a fight with. He had a sunbed-tanned face and emerald eyes that never quite achieved the same apparent warmth as the sardonic smile that played constantly about his lips.

He shook his head gravely. ‘You don’t want to mess with the Kellys, Fin. They’re bad bastards.’

‘I don’t doubt that they are, sir. And I have no intention of messing with them.’ Even as he said it, he was aware of addressing his former boss as ‘sir’. Old habits died hard. ‘I just want to talk to any one of them who might have been around in the fifties when the family lived in the Dean Village.’

Walker cocked an eyebrow. His interest had been engaged, but all his years in the force had taught him that sometimes there were questions better left unasked. ‘The only one left from that time would be Paul Kelly. He would just have been a kid, then. There were two older brothers, but they were gunned down outside their home well over fifty years ago. Tit-for-tat killings, we figured. There were some pretty violent turf wars going on at that time. I was just a young cop starting out. We never probed these gangland murders too deeply, so no one ever got done for it. And then over the years I watched as the young Paul Kelly took the reins. Built himself a bloody empire on the back of other people’s misery.’ He made a face that masked a lot of pent-up anger and frustration. ‘We never were able to lay a finger on him.’

‘So he’s still the head honcho?’

‘Getting on a bit now, Fin, but aye. No doubt likes to think of himself as the Godfather. Came from the gutter, but lives in a big fucking mansion in Morningside.’ He glanced at Marsaili, but there was no apology for his language. ‘He has kids and grandkids now. Sends them all to private school, while honest Joes like you and me struggle to pay the heating. He’s scum, Fin. Just scum. I wouldn’t give him the time of day.’

They lay in silence for what seemed like an eternity in the darkness of their hotel room. The only accompaniment to their breathing was the sound of running water coming from the river below. The same water that flowed under the Dean Bridge. Fin had taken them there after they left the Windsor, and they had crossed to the middle of it, looking down on the Dean Village, and the Water of Leith a hundred feet beneath it. Marsaili’s father and his brother had been here once. Something had happened on this bridge and a boy had died.

Marsaili’s voice seemed resoundingly loud coming out of the dark, crashing into his thoughts. ‘It was strange watching you tonight,’ she said. ‘With that policeman.’

Fin turned his head towards her, even although he couldn’t see her. ‘Why strange?’

‘Because it was like looking at someone I didn’t know. Not the Fin Macleod I went to school with, or the Fin Macleod who made love to me on the beach. Not even the Fin Macleod who treated me like shit in Glasgow.’

He closed his eyes and remembered how it had been, that brief sojourn together at university in Glasgow. Sharing a flat. How badly he had treated her, incapable of dealing with his own pain, and taking it out on Marsaili. How often is it, he thought, that it’s the people closest to us that we hurt the most?

‘It was like looking at a stranger. The Fin Macleod you must have been all these years when I didn’t know you. Married to someone else, raising a kid, being a policeman.’

He was almost startled by the sudden touch of her hand on his face.

‘I’m not sure I know you at all. Not any more.’

And those few moments of passion they had shared that afternoon, pencil-thin lines of sunlight zigzagging across their frantic lovemaking, already seemed like a lifetime ago.