The Chessmen l-3 Read online

  ‘You might make that assumption, Mr Kelso. It’s my understanding that the Reverend Murray and Fionnlagh Macinnes made several attempts to reach Mr Macdonald’s daughter, Marsaili, by mobile phone in order to warn her that the Edinburgh gang members were on their way.’

  ‘Yes, but even had he managed to warn them, that would not have altered the fact that his daughter and granddaughter had been kidnapped by dangerous criminals. And he had armed himself and taken off in pursuit of them. It is unlikely that his intention was to read them a passage from the Bible.’

  Which elicited some laughter from around the hall.

  The chairman of the Judicial Committee, however, was not amused. He leaned across the table. ‘I do not believe, Mr Kelso, that this is an occasion for levity.’

  Kelso made a tiny bow of his head. ‘My apologies, Mr Chairman.’ He turned towards Gunn. ‘Thank you, Detective Sergeant, that will be all.’

  Gunn was shocked. ‘Don’t you want to hear about what happened at the house?’

  ‘We’ll hear that from those who were there. Thank you.’

  Gunn glanced apologetically towards Donald Murray as he went to retake his seat, but Donald was impassive.

  It was Marsaili who was called to the witness desk to give evidence about what happened at the house itself. Fin watched her as she spoke in a strong confident voice, recounting the events he had lived through himself. There was a sad, pale beauty about her still. There was only a touch of make-up on her clear-complexioned face, her hair drawn back and tied in a ponytail, but still he could see the little girl in her. The little girl he had loved with all his heart when he couldn’t even have told you what love was. The little girl whose heart he broke, not once, but twice. The little girl whose love for him never wavered until his final act of betrayal. Was it any wonder they’d had such difficulty finding their way back to who they had once been?

  Her story of what happened that night was compelling. The Edinburgh gangland boss raising his shotgun to unleash a blast of it at Donna and the baby. His revenge for some history between himself and Marsaili’s father. But glass shattering through the room instead, as Donald fired at him through the window, sending the big man slamming back against the far window, and saving a young mother and her child from certain death. The people of Lewis crammed into the hall that day held their collective breath as she spoke.

  Fin was barely aware of her reaching the conclusion of her evidence, or of his name being called out. It was only when Marsaili sat down again beside him and whispered, ‘You’re on,’ that he realized it was his turn.

  He took his place behind the witness desk and gave his solemn assurance to tell the truth without malice or prejudice.

  Kelso regarded him speculatively. ‘You were a police officer yourself, Mr Macleod?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘About fifteen years.’

  ‘And what rank did you attain?’

  ‘Detective Inspector.’

  ‘So you have some considerable experience of crime and criminals.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And is there any circumstance in which you would recommend that people take the law into their own hands?’

  ‘I think, perhaps, you have a basic misunderstanding of the law, Mr Kelso.’

  ‘Oh, do I?’ Kelso seemed amused. ‘I practised the law for more than thirty years, Mr Macleod.’

  ‘And I’m sure practice makes perfect, Mr Kelso. But it wasn’t just your law. And it’s not just mine. The law belongs to all of us. We elect representatives to make the law on our behalf, and we employ policemen to enforce it. And when they’re not around to do that for us, sometimes we have to do it ourselves. That’s why we have such a thing as a citizen’s arrest. And if we arm a policeman and give him permission to shoot a criminal in our stead, that’s taking the law into our own hands, too. We’re just doing it by proxy.’

  ‘So you believe that the Reverend Murray was correct in taking the action he did?’

  ‘Not only do I believe he was right, I hope I would have had the courage to do the same thing myself.’

  ‘You don’t believe that the outcome would have been different had the Reverend Murray called the police?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir, the outcome would have been very different. Donna Murray and her baby would be dead, as would probably everyone else in the house that night. As it is, only one man died. A man whose stated intention was to murder an innocent girl and her child.’

  Kelso snorted derisively. ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘Because I was there and you were not. And with the experience of a police officer of some fifteen years’ standing I can say without equivocation that the local police, unarmed and inexperienced as they were, could never have dealt with the situation.’

  Kelso gave him a long, cold look, then slipped on his half-moons and lowered his eyes to the sheet of paper he held in his hand. ‘Well, let’s just return in detail to the events of that night.’

  ‘No.’ Fin shook his head. ‘I think we’ve heard more than enough about that.’

  Kelso’s head jerked up in surprise.

  Fin said, ‘I sat here all day yesterday listening to a bunch of Holy Willies pour out bile in the guise of piety.’ There was a shocked murmur of astonishment among the crowd as Fin ran his eyes among them, searching. Then suddenly he pointed. ‘There. Torquil Morrison. Used to get drunk and beat up his wife. Until he found God. Or God found him. Now butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.’ As gasps rose from the auditorium, he swung his finger across the sea of faces. ‘And there. Angus Smith. I can think of at least two illegitimate kids that he won’t acknowledge. I bet he wouldn’t have had the courage to kill a man to save either of their lives. I don’t know about the Reverend Murray’s other accusers, but I’d say this. He among you who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.’

  The chairman of the Judicial Committee banged his gavel, his face flushed with anger and embarrassment. ‘That’s quite enough, Mr Macleod!’

  ‘I’m not finished,’ Fin said. ‘I’m here on my terms, not yours. I’m here because a good man did the only thing he could in impossible circumstances. Doing nothing wasn’t an option. Doing nothing would have meant the loss of innocent lives. Doing what he did saved those lives at the expense of one that, frankly, wasn’t worth a damn. And I don’t buy into all this sixth commandment crap. Thou Shalt Not Kill? No. Unless you happen to be German in World Wars I and II, or Iraqi in the Gulf War. Then it’s OK, because it’s. . justified. I didn’t know there was a rider to the sixth commandment, Mr Chairman. Thou Shalt Not Kill — unless it’s justified.’

  Fin raised his head a little and sniffed the air.

  ‘I smell something familiar.’ He sniffed again. ‘I know what it is. I’ve smelled it before. It’s hypocrisy. It’s a rank smell, and there should be no place for it here.’ He swung around towards Donald, and was almost shocked to see his eyes filling up. Fin nearly choked on his own emotions before finally finding his voice. ‘Your God will judge you, Donald. And if He’s half the God you think He is, then He probably helped you pull the trigger.’

  A hush fell over the crowd outside the hall as Fin exited with Marsaili on his arm. They parted silently, opening up a passage towards the gate for the departing couple. It wasn’t until they were halfway down Kenneth Street that Marsaili squeezed Fin’s arm and turned her cornflower-blue eyes on him, just as she had done that first day at school. ‘Proud of you,’ she said.

  II

  The Judicial Committee delivered its verdict on the third day. It was standing room only in the hall, and there were hundreds more out in the street. Donald sat cool and dispassionate at his table, hands folded one inside the other in front of him. And only once, before the members of the Judicial Committee filed in to take their seats, did he turn around to scan the faces in the crowd behind him. It was a look not missed by Fin. He turned to Marsaili, an eyebrow raised in query. She shrugged. ‘Still no sign o
f her.’

  The one person conspicuous by her absence throughout the hearing had been Donald’s wife, Catriona. Fin’s heart ached for him. Whatever the verdict, his wife and mother of his child would not be there to offer comfort or share in his joy. Donald presented a lonely figure at the front of the hall.

  Silence settled like down after a duck fight as the members of the Judicial Committee drew in chairs behind their long desk. It was impossible to tell from the row of grave faces they presented what decision it was they might have reached.

  Proceedings opened, as they had each day, with a prayer. Then the Chairman looked towards Donald. ‘Would you be upstanding, please, Reverend Murray?’

  Donald stood and faced his future.

  ‘This was an extremely difficult decision for the committee. We have been, as you were yourself, faced with a complex web of moral decision-making. And while we have had the advantage of time to make a considered decision, we appreciate that you did not. One could almost imagine that God had set a test for you, Reverend Murray, as He has done for us. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. In the end, whatever the moral and religious arguments, we could only, each of us, ask ourselves in all humanity what we would have done in the same circumstance, and measure our actions against the expectations of the Lord our God. And, in the end, truly, only He can make that judgment.’

  He took a long breath, briefly examining his hands on the table in front of him. When he raised his eyes again the silence was absolute.

  ‘However, we have been charged with reaching a decision. And so on that basis, we have decided not to uphold the libel against you. You are free to continue your ministry at Crobost for as long as your congregation wants you there.’

  The roar that went up from the crowd, and the subsequent applause, was almost deafening. No doubting where the sentiments of the public lay. There was a rush to congratulate Donald, and among the many who shook his hand in the aftermath of the verdict were those who had earlier been afraid publicly to take his side. Donald himself appeared bewildered, lost among a sea of faces, a confusion of voices. The Chairman’s announcement that a full and detailed written account of the verdict would be published within two weeks was lost in the melee.

  Fin and Marsaili waited outside in the crowd for Donald to emerge from the hall. When he did he looked pale and shaken. He had no coat but seemed impervious to the rain that fell on him from a leaden sky. He was jostled by supporters and reporters, and TV lights cast an unreal light upon the frantic scene in the car park.

  He fell before anyone heard the shot. Because of his black shirt, the blood where the bullet had entered his chest was not immediately apparent. At first the crowd thought he had simply stumbled and fallen. But Fin recognized the crack that followed immediately as the report of a rifle.

  As others rushed towards Donald, he turned in the direction of the skyline opposite, and saw the silhouette of a man, and the barrel of his rifle, as he vanished from view among the rooftops.

  Then screams rose into the wet morning air as Donald’s blood oozed across the tarmac, and the crowd scattered in panic. Fin and Marsaili were the first to reach him, crouching down to assess the damage. His eyes were wide, staring up at them in fear and confusion. His whole body was trembling. Marsaili put her hand beneath his head to raise it from the wet. Fin bellowed, ‘Get an ambulance! Fast!’ He stripped off his jacket to lay it over Donald’s chest and shoulders. And he remembered that day when they were just boys, and Donald had returned in the dark to drag him off to safety when bullies had left him bleeding in the road. And the time they had taken Fin’s aunt for the drive of her life in an open-topped car, just months before she died. He felt Donald’s hand clutch his arm. His voice was a whisper.

  ‘I think God just delivered His own verdict, Fin. Looks like I’m going to have a lot to answer for.’

  A tiny cough brought blood bubbling to his lips, and he was gone.

  EPILOGUE

  Sunlight spilled across the green slopes of Salisbury Crags, sweeping up to the cliffs that swooped high above the Edinburgh skyline. Fin’s taxi turned into St Leonard’s Street and dropped him outside No. 14, the sand-coloured brick building that housed the city’s A Division police station.

  There was something more than faintly surreal about being here again. Like dropping in on a past life to discover that everything which had once been so familiar was alien now. Smaller, meaner, dirtier. Not like you remembered it at all. St Leonard’s Lane felt narrower, squeezed in by the sand-blasted tenements on either side, and the Crags beyond it smaller somehow, less impressive.

  It was a week since Donald’s interment, the longest funeral procession in Crobost that anyone could remember. A funeral that had received coverage on the national news. Coverage which had already passed into archive, along with the police search for his killer. Fin doubted he would ever be caught. It had been a professional hit. Revenge, almost certainly, for the killing in Eriskay. The shooter had vanished without trace, the weapon never recovered. All that was left for Fin in its aftermath was a feeling of emptiness, if it could be described as a feeling at all.

  Mona was standing waiting for him outside the tall glass facade of the entrance. By contrast she looked younger. Perhaps life without Fin had been good for her. She wore a long fawn coat, and a new, shorter haircut suited her. Like a return to her youth. It showed off her still strong features. Not exactly pretty, but in some ways almost beautiful. He felt a pang of regret as he greeted her, taking her gloved hand in his and kissing her cheek.

  She canted her head. ‘Do you know what this is about?’

  ‘Robbie, I imagine. I can’t think why else they would want us both here.’

  DCI Black’s call had been short and pointed. He didn’t want to do this by phone or by letter, he said. Would it be possible for Fin and Mona to meet him in person?

  Black’s face had the pasty complexion of a man who rarely saw daylight. The curve of his nose and his small black eyes gave him the appearance of a hawk always on the hunt for prey. His desk was a mess, and Fin smelled stale cigarette smoke on his clothes, and saw that his fingers were still nicotine yellow. He was a man of little ceremony. Beyond the briefest of acknowledgements he lifted a clear plastic folder with a crumpled handwritten note pressed between its leaves. He held it out to the couple on the other side of his desk, and Fin took it from him. He turned it towards the light so that he and Mona could both read it. Scrawled words in blue ink.

  This has been on my mind for some time. I know most people will not understand why, especially those who love me, and whom I also love. All I can say is that no one knows the hell I have lived through. And these last weeks it has become, simply, unbearable. It is time for me to go. I am so sorry.

  Fin raised his eyes towards Black for elucidation.

  ‘It took some weeks for that note to make its way to the officers investigating your son’s hit-and-run. Connections were not immediately apparent. It was a collection of tormented ramblings in his diary that led officers finally to a link with Robbie.’

  Mona’s face was flushed. ‘This is the man who killed Robbie?’

  Black nodded. ‘If it’s any consolation, it would appear that really his life ended that day, too. And when he couldn’t live with himself any longer, he fed a tube from the exhaust pipe of his car into its interior and turned on the engine.’

  Fin shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s no consolation.’ He glanced at Mona. ‘But at least it’s over.’

  Mona’s taxi stood belching fumes into the chill November air. They had parted before, but this time it was harder, because it seemed certain to be the last. And Fin thought how difficult it was to let go of such a big part of his life. He remembered the moment she had dropped into his lap at the party the night they met, and seeing her face leaning over him the next morning as she shook him awake with the news that Roddy’s plane had gone missing.

  ‘You’ll go back to the island, I suppose.’

 
‘I suppose I will.’

  She held his arm as she leaned in to kiss him one last time. ‘Goodbye, Fin.’

  He watched as she got into the cab, and it accelerated away towards the city. Just one more part of his life consigned to memory. And he wondered if he and Marsaili really had a future. If it would ever be possible to rediscover the love they had felt that teenage summer before leaving for university.

  And he wondered, too, about the life that awaited him on the island of his birth, the place from which he had tried so hard to escape but which had, in the end, drawn him back. He thought about everything that had been, and everything that lay ahead. The big, blank, unwritten chapter that was the rest of his life. And only two things were certain. He had a son who would require his guidance. And there was a fifteen-year-old girl who needed an advocate. The last living trace on this earth of the man who had been his friend and saviour. A tortured, orphaned little girl who had need of someone to stand up and speak for her and steer her towards some kind of hope for the future.

  And he knew that it could only be him.

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