The unforgiven dead, p.42
The Unforgiven Dead, page 42
Angus took a half-step towards the housekeeper. “Probably nothing, Mary. Just something we need to tidy up.”
“Before she was employed here in Dunbirlinn, I knew Betty through the bowling club,” she said.
“Like ten-pin bowling?” Nadia asked.
An improbable image of Mrs. MacCrimmon launching a ball at some skittles popped into his head, then instantly dissolved under the housekeeper’s withering glare.
“No, lawn bowls, of course.” She glanced down, and when she next spoke, her tone was wistful. “Betty had one of the best wick-and-plant shots you’d hope to see. She used to take Lewis along to watch us play. He loved that. Used to sit there in his wheelchair, eyes never leaving the game.” She smiled sadly. “I can still see him with a tartan rug over his knees, clapping when someone made a good shot.”
Mrs MacCrimmon blinked rapidly, as if fighting back tears. “Betty did everything she could for that boy, but the legal case against Agri-Scotia broke her. It’s them I blame for what happened, not Betty.”
She looked up and fixed them with a frank stare. “Betty became obsessed with getting justice. She told me all the twists and turns in the case. It was never reported in the papers, but Agri-Scotia wanted to settle out of court. They offered Betty over a million pounds, but she refused because they wouldn’t accept liability. She was a principled woman. Aye, she wanted recompense, of course she did—but more than that she wanted Agri-Scotia’s management to admit what they’d done. They wouldn’t do that, so the case dragged on. That took its toll on Betty’s health. If it weren’t for the laird, she’d have cracked long before she did.”
“Why? What part did Chichester play in all this?” Angus asked.
Mrs MacCrimmon raised her head, the sinew in her neck tightening. “The laird heard of her predicament. This was never made public, but it was Mr. Chichester who paid for her legal case.”
Chapter 64
A high spring tide had crept up the beach, choking the river mouth and transforming Glenruig bay into a wide sheet of burnished metal. The ranks of press outside the village hall seemed to have swelled too. Technicians swarmed around the outside broadcasting units, fiddling with lighting equipment and cables, whilst reporters prepped for pieces to camera, makeup crews flitting around them like birds around a feeder. There was a sense of frenzied activity. Angus nosed the Land Rover through the scrum of reporters, almost running over the foot of Alice Seaton, who gave him a look that could have frozen the Minch.
He parked the car around the side of the hall, his senses tingling.
“Should we tell Crowley what we’ve found?” he asked.
Nadia gave a slight shake of her head. “We need more, Angus. We have zero evidence.” Her eyes looked tired, the gold flecks lacking their usual spark. “But if a thread connects these cases like Gills said, it’s James Chichester. He told us he didn’t know Joe Carver, but now we find out he actually befriended him and introduced him to his business contacts. He also said he didn’t know Betty Duncan, despite the fact he bankrolled her legal case against Agri-Scotia. And it was Chichester himself who ordered the paintings be restored. Boyce was in the castle for weeks. Surely the laird would have taken an interest in the work, and the artist.”
Angus instinctively felt a need to defend the laird. “He’s just lost his wife and daughter, Nadia. Who knows where his head’s at?”
She gave a contemptuous sniff. “Establishing a pagan commune on your land gives you a perfect scapegoat,” she mused. “It’s brilliant.”
They sat in silence for a long minute. “We still need evidence,” she said at last. “You don’t take a shot at someone like Chichester without lots of ammunition. He has political clout. He can afford the best lawyers. And he owns half the media.”
They climbed from the Land Rover and walked towards the entrance of the village hall, where Constable Devine stood sentry. “How’s form, Archie?” Angus asked.
“Living ma best life, Gus,” he replied, stony-faced.
“Aye, me too.” Angus sighed. “What’s going on? Why are the press pack foaming at the mouth?”
“Haven’t ye heard?”
Something cold rippled across his shoulders. “No, what’s happened?”
“Our prime suspect’s brown bread.”
“What!” he exclaimed. “Kelbie’s dead?”
“As a doorknob.”
“How? What happened?”
“Crashed her camper van into a loch.” He gave Angus what passed for a smile. “Case closed.”
Angus glanced at Nadia. Her eyes were wide, mouth hanging open in a parody of surprise. Without a word, they sidestepped Constable Devine and marched into the village hall. Angus held open the door to the incident room for Nadia and then followed her inside. The atmosphere in the room was bordering on giddy. Boaby Dunbar sucked from a can of Tennant’s whilst Ryan Fleet and Vee Lockhart were perched on Crowley’s desk, demolishing a bottle of prosecco.
The DCI himself looked up from his mobile phone and spotted Angus and Nadia.
“Ah, the wanderers have returned!” he boomed. “Come into the body of the kirk. Angus, grab yourself a beer.” He jabbed a finger at an open case of Tennant’s next to the coffee machine. “There’s gin over there too, DI Sharif.”
Nadia gave Crowley a what-the-fuck look, but he only smiled.
“Go on,” he said. “Fill your boots.”
The last thing Angus wanted was a drink, but Crowley wasn’t so much asking as telling. They walked to the table on which the alcohol had been laid out. Angus slid a yellow can out of the case and popped it open. Nadia decanted a small amount of prosecco into a plastic cup.
“Cheers,” he said, voice dripping sarcasm.
“Aye, slàinte,” Nadia replied.
“Right, gather round, everyone,” Crowley shouted above the din. The officers and support staff shuffled forward and stood in a semicircle around Crowley. The DCI gave them a paternal smile. “First off, I want to congratulate you all on your sterling work over the past ten days. It’s not been easy, but not one of you has let me down. Even you, Rylo.”
Angus glanced around him at the laughing faces, and felt a strange sense of dislocation. He was not one of these people. Perhaps he never would be.
“However,” Crowley continued, “we’ve still got work to do. Now for the absence of all doubt, and because some of you haven’t heard all the gory details, I’ll walk you through the sequence of events that led to Christine Kelbie’s untimely demise.”
He raised a finger on his mutilated hand. “Firstly, and it’s not often I say this, we have the public to thank. An upstanding member of the community saw Kelbie in a Co-op in Portree at approximately half past four. Local police were alerted and Kelbie’s camper van was spotted heading north on the A855 towards Staffin. They tailed her at a distance, to a remote crofthouse by the side of Loch Leathan. Boaby, we need to find out who owns that property.”
“Yes, boss.”
“The decision was taken to arrest Kelbie, but there was, frankly, a bit of a cock-up. In short, Kelbie battered a couple of uniforms—who were big strapping lads, or so I’m told—and made a bid for freedom. The local lads set off in pursuit along one of these shitty twisty wee roads that are the absolute curse of the Highlands. It had not been gritted. Either Kelbie hit a patch of black ice or she swerved to avoid some sheep. The camper van ended up in the loch. She hadn’t put on her seat belt and suffered catastrophic head injuries. Probably died instantly. Now, I don’t mean to sound callous, but that’s saved the taxpayer a shitload of money. If she’d survived, this case would have gone to trial. Some morally bankrupt lawyer would have taken Kelbie’s case and tried to weasel her out of it. But let me be clear—the evidence is incontrovertible. Hidden in that camper van we found another garrotte knotted in three places.”
“But didn’t forensics search the camper van, sir?” Ryan asked.
“Yes, they did. Before Eleanor was killed. Arses are getting kicked as we speak. Clearly, forensics did a piss-poor job, but don’t be surprised if no one gets fired—the chief constable is determined the press doesn’t catch wind of this”—he raised his fingers to make quotation marks—“‘little faux pas.’”
Angus leaned across and whispered in Nadia’s ear: “Bit convenient?”
“I was thinking the same.”
Crowley gave them a sharp glance. “Something you want to share with the class, DI Sharif?”
“No, sir. Nothing important.”
“Good. Now, we need to get a press conference set up. The sooner we get that done, the sooner these journalist bastards will fuck off back under the rocks from which they crawled.”
The tide had receded, leaving a shiny damp residue on the shingle. The wind suddenly dropped and the sea became calm, the surface reflecting a milky-white moon and a scattering of stars. Everything was still and slightly foreboding—the waves that lapped the shore like a dog licking flesh from a bone; the rustle of the wind through the gorse; the odd cackle of crows from their roosting place in the woods surrounding the village hall.
Angus’s fingers curled around the hip flask that Chichester had given him, which was still in his coat pocket. Was this the same whisky that had turned Joe Carver into the lunatic who had strangled and beaten his wife? He took it out and angled the flask so the moonlight glinted off the swirling patterns.
Don’t be an eejit, he heard his father say. It’s just expensive whisky.
“Bugger it,” Angus muttered, then unscrewed the lid. He put the flask to his lips and tipped his head back. The Macallan slid down his throat, the liquid slightly syrupy, the flavours of peat, cedar, and oak so evocative, it was as if he were drinking the land itself. The whisky burned its way down his throat and settled like a ball of heat in his stomach. He closed his eyes and savoured the warm sensation. His senses were lulled by the murmur of the waves on the shore.
Suddenly the moment of tranquillity shattered. A sharp pain shot through his body, from the base of his spine to the tips of his ears. His legs gave way and he collapsed to his knees on the shingle. Images flashed through his head—a bloodstained hammer, white hair attached to the head; a clay corpse spinning in the air and exploding in a cloud of dust; a bound body plummeting head down into the sea.
He gasped for breath and his eyes snapped open. The hip flask was still clutched in his hand. He sprang to his feet, adrenaline pulsing through his body. A slight wind ruffled the sea, as if something writhed, unseen, just below the surface. He replayed the images in his head, saw again the body drop into the waves, headfirst. The victim had a shock of white hair and as he hit the water, Angus had seen his face.
It was Gills.
Act V
“When roused to anger, Beira was as fierce as the biting north wind and harsh as the tempest-stricken sea.”
—Wonder Tales from Scottish Myth and Legend,
Donald A. Mackenzie, 1917
Chapter 65
His mobile phone felt like a brick as he raised it to his ear. But before he could place a call, the phone sprang to life. He flinched, and the phone almost slithered out of his hand. He grabbed the device and glanced at the screen, saw the name GILLS flash up. Relief flooded through his body. He jabbed at the screen.
“Gills! Where are you? Are you okay?”
He heard the old man chuckle. “Never better, old bean. But you don’t sound too chipper.”
“Where are you?”
“Err, at home,” Gills replied, now sounding a wee bit concerned.
“I’m coming over.”
“Good, because I’ve found something out—”
Angus cut the call before Gills could finish. He turned away from the sea and ran towards the Old Manse, a familiar mixture of dread and panic churning inside his stomach. The vision played on a loop in his head. He tried to focus on the details. Gills’s wrists and legs were bound with the same coarse rope that had been used to tie up Faye. His face was speckled with blood. He wore odd socks, one a diamond pattern, the other plain and maroon.
Almost before he knew it, he was standing on the front step of the Old Manse, breathing heavily. He reached for the brass handle and pushed the door open. Why the hell does Gills never lock the door?
He barged into the house, calling the old man’s name.
“In here!” came the shout from the study.
Angus scampered down the hallway and yanked open the study door. Gills was reclining on the retro leather chair, staring at the bòrd-murt. He twisted his head and gave Angus a wide grin. “Ah good, just in time.” He raised an empty whisky glass. “Care to do the honours?”
Angus wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead. Gills’s bristly eyebrows scrunched together. “Have you been running?”
A bottle of Talisker languished amidst the books and papers on Gills’s desk. Angus lifted the bottle and sloshed the amber liquid into the old man’s glass. “Whoa!” Gills said. “That’s a hefty dram, even for me.”
“You’ll need it,” he muttered.
The creases on Gills’s forehead deepened. “Why? What’s happened?”
Angus walked back to the desk and rummaged in a drawer for another glass. There were none, but he found an old chipped mug that would do the job. He poured an equally large dram for himself and then turned to face Gills.
“I had another vision.” He lifted the mug and took a gulp of whisky. He swiped his hand across his mouth and the words tumbled out. “I saw you, Gills. You were trussed up and you were falling headfirst into the sea. I saw you hit the water and go under. I saw you die.”
Gills stood and walked over to him. He placed his hands on Angus’s shoulders. “That is excellent news.”
Angus glared at the old man as if he were mad.
“Forewarned is forearmed, old bean.”
“Gills, you need to take this seriously.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I will. But don’t you see? This shows that those pills were stifling your gift. For the first time, you’re seeing properly, Angus.” Gills gave his shoulders an encouraging squeeze. “Now, tell me again what you saw. Slower this time.”
Angus sat in the chair recently vacated by Gills and took him through the sequence of events. He described the vision with as much detail as he could, but there were no clues pointing to where Gills was when he was thrown into the sea, nor who had done it.
“I was scared I was already too late,” Angus said, finishing the dregs of his whisky. The bottle of Talisker appeared at his elbow, as if by magic.
Gills poured him another dram. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. You saved Ewan. You can save me, too, old bean.”
He walked back over to his messy desk and lifted a book. The cover showed a bearded figure in a plaid holding an upraised staff. Around him, supplicating followers lay prone on the ground. “Now, let’s put my impending demise to one side for the moment. Like I tried to tell you on the phone—I’ve found something interesting. I’ve been reading up on Chichester’s ancestor Dòmhnall MacRuari.”
Angus wasn’t in the mood for another history lesson, but the hint of excitement in Gills’s tone piqued his curiosity.
“This book claims Dòmhnall established a unit of elite warriors to act as his personal bodyguard. They were known as na Sgàilean. The Shadows.”
“Like a Praetorian Guard?” he asked.
“Exactly. Charlemagne had his Paladins, Genghis Khan the Kheshig, the Ottomans had the Janissaries—Dòmhnall MacRuari had his Shadows. Although, now that I think about it, the Norse berserkers is perhaps a more fitting analogy. Like these feared Viking warriors, the Shadows worked themselves into a frenzy before battle, then charged into the carnage impervious to fear or pain. Interestingly, the mythological hero of the Ulster Cycle—Cú Chulainn—was possessed by a similar bloodlust in battle. The ancient chroniclers even had a name for it—ríastrad—which has been translated as ‘warp spasm.’
“Now, becoming one of these esteemed warriors conferred status and privilege, but that came at a price. As well as brutal training, a would-be Shadow had to demonstrate his loyalty.” Gills took a sip of his dram.
“And how did he do that?” Angus asked.
Gills fixed him with a piercing stare. “By sacrificing one of his kin to the old gods. But that’s not all. Dòmhnall himself is said to have led by example. He had one of his own children slaughtered as an offering to the Bone Mother.”
Chapter 66
Angus drifted in the liminal space between slumber and wakefulness as dawn crept across the sea and roused the crows from their roosting spot high in the branches of the beech, elm, and sycamore trees surrounding the Old Manse.
He woke to the cawing of the birds and sat bolt upright, glancing around wildly. It took him a second to find his bearings. Gills had insisted he should go home last night, but instead he’d sat awake in the Land Rover keeping vigil. At some point during the long night he must have fallen asleep. He rubbed his gritty eyes and checked the time on his phone—just after seven o’clock.
He opened a Web browser on his phone and typed “survival rates for pancreatic cancer” into the search engine. He was directed to a page of links to cancer charity websites. Eleanor had said Chichester’s cancer was distant, meaning it had spread to other parts of the body. It didn’t take Angus long to confirm what he already suspected. When pancreatic cancer was as far advanced as Chichester’s, it simply did not go into remission. Patients could cling on for a year or so, but after two years the survival rates were zero. It seemed the laird was a medical miracle.
Yawning, he clambered out of the Land Rover and stretched his arms above his head, wincing at the ache in his back. It was a brisk morning, a biting northerly wind bringing with it the threat of more snow. A robin sat on the garden dyke, its feathers puffed out, as if it had gorged on worms. Cobwebs bejewelled in frost shimmered from the branches of bushes and shrubs.
