The unforgiven dead, p.22
The Unforgiven Dead, page 22
Beside him, Nadia tried—and failed—to suppress a laugh.
“I am kind of busy, sir,” he protested.
“You’ll find time,” Stout replied, then cut the call.
Angus muttered a Gaelic curse under his breath. He gave Nadia a pained smile. “Welcome to the minor investigation team.”
They pulled up in a secluded car park and set off on foot towards Carlotta’s Eyrie. To begin with, a path sinuous with tree roots wended alongside a small stream, but soon they were climbing upwards through a murky wooded section of hillside, their footfalls muffled by moss and pine needles. Coal tits, siskins, and robins flitted between branches, but there were larger shadows too—hoodie crows that seemed to watch them pass with intense beady eyes. Their caws echoed around the canopy, the dry cackles an impenetrable language that somehow he recognised. He thought of James Chichester and heard again his bitter assessment of the human condition. We’ve sacrificed a deeper, innate knowledge. We’re now so far removed from our true selves that I fear there’s no way back.
A gloomy mood fogged his mind, one that did not dissipate until they left the forest behind and began the descent towards the secluded bay—named Camus Ghaoideil in Gaelic. Shingle crunched under their feet as they walked along the beach. Waves crashed onto the shore. Out to sea, gannets hung in the wind like white poly bags, then tucked their wings to their bodies and arrowed into the surf after the shoals of krill.
Carlotta’s Eyrie was just visible in the distance, clinging to a sea stack like a limpet.
“Who’s this Carlotta anyway?” Nadia asked, flicking hair out of her face.
“She was a trainee saboteur in the Special Operations Executive during World War Two,” Angus said. “The SOE had several bases in the West Highlands. My dad used to say it was here the real battle against the Nazis was won. Agents were schooled in the dark arts of war—hand-to-hand combat, sabotage, espionage, explosives training, and how to live off the land.”
“Do you think Ewan will be here?” Nadia asked.
“Aye. Ewan came here with his own father. It’s a special place for him.”
She didn’t look convinced. “We checked his bank account. There’s been no activity for a couple of days and Mrs. MacCrimmon said he was extremely upset about Faye.”
“What are you getting at, Nadia?”
“Listen, Angus, you said yourself he’s not coped well since the death of his dad. Sounds to me as if he’s in a pretty dark place.”
He understood now what she was hinting at. Ewan might well have decided to end it. However, there was another possibility, one he didn’t feel like sharing with Nadia. Ewan could be lying in the heather, watching them through the scope of his hunting rifle, his finger on the trigger. Angus scanned the hillside, where drifts of dead bracken carpeted the lower slopes and scraggly trees sprang from fissures in the rock. There was no sign of movement, but that sense of being watched lingered until he reached the sea stack.
He paused, glanced up at the leaden sky, then skirted around the foot of the crag and began to climb. The path was steep but fairly well trodden down by sheep, and soon he reached the small, wizened trees that crowned the stack like coarse hair. From the rear, the bothy appeared deserted. It had been constructed with random-sized blocks, as if chiselled from the crag itself. A climbing rope was strung along the trees that fringed the building, and Angus used it for balance as he slithered down a slope to the bothy entrance. Past the rope was a sheer drop of some thirty or forty feet to the rocks below.
In the distance, the Moidart hills lay in the sea like a sleeping giant. Sunlight pierced the cloud blanket, throwing puddles of light on the waves. Slumped on a flat rock some twenty yards away—the place Faye had sat in the photograph—was Ewan.
Angus turned to Nadia. “Do you mind if I do the talking? If we come at him with cautions and arrests, he might spook.”
“Aye, fair enough.”
Ewan made no movement as Angus walked towards him, although he must have heard his approach. The ghillie faced out to sea, as if he were carved from rock. For a brief second he feared that Ewan had killed himself, but then he saw a slight movement. Ewan barely reacted when Angus walked past him and stood in his line of vision. The lad’s eyes were haunted and red, and his stubble was fast becoming a beard.
“You’re a hard man to find.”
Ewan did not even look at him.
“You need to come with us, a’bhalach.”
An old hunting rifle lay at Ewan’s feet. The ghillie’s eyes darted towards the gun.
Angus stepped forward and placed a foot on the barrel. “That’s not how your dad would want his gun used.”
The young man’s shoulders began to shake. He hunched forward, hands covering his face as he sobbed quietly. Angus laid a gentle palm on Ewan’s shoulder, just as he had in the hospital after John Hunter’s death. “You’re okay,” he murmured, “it’ll be okay,” his words echoing the flimsy platitudes he’d used back then. Angus knew the unpalatable truth: Ewan was probably going to jail for murder.
Chapter 30
Half an hour into the interview, Ruthven Crowley had still not asked Ewan about Faye or, indeed, anything remotely related to the case.
Angus sat on an uncomfortable office chair in the Silvaig Police Station observation room and watched the interview on a monitor. He was alone, Crowley having taken Nadia into the interview suite with him. Apart from a dishevelled Ewan, the only other person on-screen was the duty solicitor, Hamish McKeown, a grumpy borderline alcoholic who had once fallen asleep on his client when Angus was mid-interview.
To be fair to the solicitor, he was manfully keeping his eyes open as Crowley continued to quiz Ewan about hunting rifles and all aspects of deer stalking. Nadia sat with a notebook and a folder in front of her, but so far she’d not said a word, let alone made a note.
“. . . you cannae go wrong with a Schmidt & Bender 8x56 Hungarian,” Crowley opined, hands locked casually behind his head. “As good as any scope I’ve used. Point and shoot and unsurpassed light gathering, which means they’re equally effective at dawn or dusk.”
“Aye,” Ewan said, nodding along, “they’re no’ bad for the price. Personally, I use a Vortex with my .243. Great in low light.”
“What about bins?”
“Same: Vortex, although if I had the money, I’d go Swarovski or Zeiss. Best binoculars makers around.”
Crowley grinned. “You’d love it in the States, young man. The hunting’s out of this world. I’ve a buddy in Montana: ex–special forces, runs a hunting retreat in the Kootenai National Forest. I used to go up there two, three times a year. The game’s incredible: mule deer, pronghorn antelope, Rocky Mountain elk, Shiras moose. . . .”
The DCI gazed up at the nicotine-yellow ceiling. “Then there’s the big beasts—black bear, bison, mountain lion, wolves.” He glanced suddenly at the ghillie. “I shot a wolf once. Big bugger. Me and my buddy tracked him for days, right out into the wilderness.” He shook his head, and his tone became wistful. “You think the Highlands is vast, Ewan—you should see Montana. The Kootenai covers over two million acres. . . .”
He sighed. “Anyway, we tracked this wolf for three days, but the trail ran cold. My buddy, he’s Native American as well as ex-army. Maybe it’s in his genes, but he has this kinda sixth sense when it comes to wolves. He doubled back the way we’d come while I sat in camp. Guess what he found.”
Angus watched Ewan on-screen. He could see Crowley had him hooked.
“That bloody wolf, Ewan, had been shadowing us for days.” Crowley barked a laugh. “The hunters had become the hunted.”
“What happened?” Ewan asked.
“My buddy told me to sit tight and keep my rifle locked and loaded.”
“But how did he contact you?” Ewan asked.
“That’s where us humans have the edge. Technology. He sent me a text message.” Crowley grinned. “So I sat there and waited for the wolf to attack, which he duly did. . . .” The DCI paused, milking his captive audience.
“And?” Ewan asked, enthralled by the tale.
“I shot the bastard right between the eyes.”
A slight smile tugged at Ewan’s lips. Angus could only admire the way Crowley had set the ghillie at ease. Behind the laddish banter, Crowley clearly possessed a keen intelligence. Or base cunning, he wasn’t sure which.
“So, who taught you to shoot, Ewan?”
“My old man.”
“Is he a stalker too?”
Angus gave a small tut. Crowley knew fine well Ewan’s father was dead.
“Was. He’s dead,” Ewan said.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Ewan. Lost my own da’ about ten years back. He was a cop too.” Crowley gave a sad laugh. “All I ever wanted to do was make him proud—know what I mean?”
Ewan nodded but did not answer. For a long time no one spoke.
“Listen, Ewan,” Crowley said at last. “I don’t think you’re a bad guy. But I think you might have done something in the heat of the moment. I get it, man—we’ve all done and said stuff we wish we could take back. Yeah?”
When Ewan didn’t answer, Crowley nodded to Nadia. She took a selection of A4-sized images from a folder and fanned them out on the scored table. “We conducted a search of your property yesterday, Ewan. We found these photographs on your bedroom floor, torn to shreds. We managed to piece them together, and the photographs are all of Faye Chichester.”
McKeown shifted forward on his chair and peered at the photographs, then leaned towards Ewan and mumbled something in his ear.
Angus could guess what the solicitor was telling his client—say nothing. This was confirmed a moment later when Ewan muttered a “No comment.”
“We have a witness who saw Faye slap you on the night she died,” Nadia continued. “What was that about, Ewan?”
Even watching on-screen, Angus noticed a flash of anger in Ewan’s eyes. He folded his arms and jutted out his chin. “No comment.”
Crowley again folded his arms behind his head, as if he had all the time in the world. He gestured to Nadia, who reached into the folder and produced a series of photographs taken in Ewan’s cottage. Angus could make out the messy kitchen, a close-up of the washing machine, and the evidence the SOCOs had discovered there: a balled-up bundle of bloodstained clothes. The proverbial smoking gun.
“Tell me about these, Ewan,” Crowley said.
Ewan stared at the photographs, and put his head in his hands. “No . . . no . . . it’s not what you think.”
McKeown tried to intervene, but Ewan ignored him. “You’ve got this all wrong. That’s deer blood, from a beast I gralloched out on the hill that morning.”
“A doe?” Crowley asked.
“No. A stag.”
“Royal?”
“Imperial!” Ewan spat.
Crowley sucked air between his teeth and gave an appreciative nod. “A real cracker, then? Just like Faye?”
Angus was glued to the screen, unblinking, watching for any sign that Ewan was lying. The ghillie bunched his hands into fists and scowled at the DCI. “I strung the deer up in Dunbirlinn. Go check if you don’t believe me.”
“We will, but that doesn’t prove anything. You could have shot the deer anytime.”
Ewan tapped an angry finger on one of the photographs. “If this was Faye’s blood, do you honestly think I’d have stuffed the clothes in the washing machine and not turned it on? I’m not that thick.”
Angus caught himself nodding along, and it hit him how desperately he wanted Ewan not to be the killer.
“We hear you like a drink?” Crowley said. “Maybe you forgot to turn the machine on? Maybe that’s not all you forgot?”
Ewan shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the suggestion. “I hope you’re a better hunter than you are a detective.”
Crowley did not like that. The DCI stared at Ewan as Nadia flicked through her notebook.
“You claim that on the night of the thirty-first of October you stayed in a bothy at . . . Camus Ghaoideil,” she said, consulting her notes. “Then on the morning of November the first you rose early to stalk deer in a nearby glen.” She glanced up, seeking out Ewan’s eyes. “Can anyone confirm that?”
“No comment.”
“I’m trying to help you, Ewan. If someone could corroborate your whereabouts . . . well, it would put you in the clear. So I’ll ask again, did anyone see you?”
The ghillie blanked her and clamped his lips shut.
“All this is hearsay and supposition,” McKeown said, sounding bored. “As you clearly don’t yet know whether the blood on these garments is the victim’s, I suggest you either arrest my client or let him go, Detective Chief Inspector.”
Crowley glanced casually at his thick gold watch. “We’ve still plenty of time left by my watch.”
A blob of yogurt clung to the side of his father’s mouth. He reached for a tissue and wiped the spot away. “That’s us.” Angus sighed, dropping the tissue on the tray beside the remnants of breakfast. His father, who used to have a healthy appetite, now ate like a bird. Anything solid made him choke, so the nurses pureed his food. Even after all these years it still felt wrong, a son feeding his father as if he were a weaning child. He wished he could be more like Gills, who was always cheery and full of banter, nattering away to Uisdean in Gaelic just as he always had. Angus smiled sadly—to hear Gills you’d think Uisdean was an active participant in the conversation, rather than some mute. His voice took Angus back to his childhood, the two friends arguing and laughing as he played on the rug with his Legos. Everything was vibrant and bejewelled in those memories: the sapphire-blue sea, lush emerald bracken, heather that shone like amethyst on the hillside. The cottage echoed with laughter and country music and smelt of caramelized apples from the tarts Mum baked.
He reached for a jug of water and filled a small plastic cup. He stuck a straw in the cup and raised it to his father’s cracked lips. His wizened thrapple rippled as he drank.
“Do you remember Mum’s apple tarts, Dad?” he asked softly.
His father’s unfocused gaze on the painting of Ben Nevis mocked his efforts.
He placed his hand on his father’s wrist. Fat veins bulged under his parchment skin, as if worms were crawling across his bones. “Do you hear anything I say?” he asked, a catch in his voice. Uisdean’s eyes remained remote and unwavering; dark brown, like the fence in the back garden that they had treated with creosote one spring.
“I’ve been . . . seeing things again, Dad. Mum and the little boy and now this girl.”
He heard in his voice an echo of a conversation they’d had almost two decades ago. He recalled his father’s stern tone. Listen, son, it’s all in your head. Take the pills. Speak to the psychologist.
But I want to speak to you, Dad.
No.
But why?
I can’t, son. I just can’t. Now, leave it at that.
He closed his eyes and felt the sting of splintered memories. Dad lying on the bathroom floor. Sobbing. Drunk. Bleeding. The softness of Sammy the Seal under his arm. Gills’s calm voice: Your dad’s . . . a wee bit broken. But he’ll mend. In time. We’ll fix him, you and I.
The sound of the door opening snapped him back to the present. He opened his eyes and saw Catriona walk into the room. She might not have been the friendliest nurse, but she was efficient. Gills suspected she was light-fingered, and he was right, but how else was he to get the little yellow pills? The internet was an option, but you never knew what you were buying, and he didn’t want suspicious packages turning up on the doorstep for Ash to find.
She glared at him blankly, neither judging nor sympathetic, another thing he liked about her. Without a word, she took the pills from a pocket of the insipid lilac tunics all staff wore and placed the bottle on Uisdean’s breakfast tray. He dropped two twenty-pound notes on the tray and lifted the bottle. “Thanks,” he muttered.
Catriona gave a curt nod, lifted the tray, and swept back out of the room. Before he could take a couple of pills, Nadia phoned to tell him they’d finished interviewing Ewan, for the time being.
“He’s sticking to his story,” she said. “Until the lab gets back to us with the results of the blood analysis on the clothing we found in his washing machine, we don’t have much to go on.”
“What’s your gut instinct?” he asked after a beat of silence. James Chichester had asked him the same question.
“Hard to say, although he doesn’t seem the cold, calculating sort who could hold up under questioning. I can definitely see him killing Faye—there’s rage enough in him—but that would more likely be a frenzied attack. Unplanned, spur-of-the-moment.”
“Which doesn’t fit with the elaborate killing method,” he said.
“Aye, exactly. Which reminds me, Crowley wants you back at the village hall. We’ve got an expert coming in to talk to us about ritual killing.”
“What expert?”
“Gills, of course.”
The mobile almost slid from his hand. A vision, the same as before at the clootie tree, flashed through his head. He saw the rusted chain biting into flesh, but now he noticed more small details: a ring of purple bruising around the ankles; blue-veined feet, the toenails painted scarlet; brown fake-tan streaks on her skin. He blinked and the image disappeared, but only to be replaced with the same bloodied body he’d seen before. The corpse twisted in slow motion, ruby droplets of blood suspended in the air. Suddenly the body burst into flames.
Chapter 31
Angus stood at the sink in the village hall, staring at himself in the smeared mirror and trying to ignore the smell of piss that leached from the urinals. He threw a couple of yellow pills into his mouth and washed them down with water drunk straight from the tap. When he straightened up, Ethan Boyce was watching him from the corner of the toilets. He leant forward until his forehead rested on the glass. “Leave me be, piollan,” he muttered. “For the love of God! Leave me be!”
