Peter May - The Chessmen

Amazingly he found footholds, something beneath him to anchor his feet, and his upper body lifted up out of the flow like Neptune rising out of the sea. And suddenly there he was, right next to me, the veins on his forehead standing out like ropes, a big lad straining every sinew, pitting himself against all the forces of nature to try to save his friend. The water crashed all around him in a fury, white and frothing, as he literally scooped me up in his arms. In an enormous leap of faith I relinquished my hold on the rock and grabbed the rope, feeling his arms lock themselves around my waist. And in the same moment he lost his foothold, and we were both carried off in the surging water. Lost for just a second to a power so much greater than we could ever have imagined. Until the rope held, and we swung crazily to the side, smashing up against the near bank. Whistler somehow found the strength to reel us in on the end of the rope until we reached the Land Rover and fell gasping and wordless in the reeds and rain-sodden peat beneath the rear wheels. The water passed just inches from our faces, hissing and spitting and cursing. Cheated somehow. And it occurred to me that Whistler’s great-grandfather must have used John Finlay Macleod’s line from the Iolaire in much the same way to save my grandfather’s life.

Whistler rolled over on to his back and started laughing at the sky. I fought to find my breath, and heard my trembling voice demand to know what was so damned funny. He turned his big grinning face towards me. ‘You, daft bastard. Biggest bloody fish I ever pulled out of the river, and totally inedible!’

On the drive back down the valley, pitching and bumping through the potholes that the rain had scoured out of the hard core, hot air belted out of the heater and slowly brought life back to my frozen bones. I sat shivering next to Whistler, who handled the Land Rover as if he’d been driving it all his life. But I wasn’t sure he even had a licence.

‘What the hell’s Jock Macrae going to say when he finds his Land Rover’s gone?’ I said.

Whistler just laughed again. ‘I’d love to know. I can see the air turning blue. And he’s going to have to walk back home.’

‘We’re going to be in trouble.’

‘Nah.’ Whistler shook his big head, like a dog shaking water from its fur. His grin was almost maniacal. ‘He’ll never know it was us. And who’s going to tell him? Not me, not you. Just be grateful the old bugger was up there, and keeps a tow rope in the back.’

At the house, we got out of our wet clothes, and Whistler set them drying on a clothes horse in front of a roaring peat fire and put the kettle on. He got dressed, and I recognized the shirt my aunt had bought him. ‘Back in a few,’ he said, and when he went outside I heard the Land Rover start up and drive off. In fact it was half an hour before he was back, on foot, to find me huddled at the fire, hands cupped around my second mug of hot tea. ‘I’ve got something that’ll warm you up better than that.’ He vanished into a back room and returned with a half-empty bottle of whisky and poured a good measure of it into my mug. He grinned. ‘Central heating. My old man thinks I don’t know where he hides it.’ He disappeared to return it to its place of concealment, and then sat down next to me.

I looked at him. ‘Are you not having any?’

But he just shook his head. ‘Who knows what’s in the genes. Don’t want to end up like him.’

I sat staring into my mug for a long time before taking a stiff draught and turning my head towards him. ‘You saved my life, Whistler.’

But he just shrugged. ‘That’s my job, Fin.’

I learned later that Jock Macrae had been apoplectic when he returned to find his Land Rover gone. At the end of a long walk back in the rain, he had gone into the first croft he came to and phoned the police to report it stolen. To his, and their, consternation, it was found a short time later parked outside his house. No one ever did find out who took it, or why.

‘Marsaili said I might find you up here.’

Fin was startled by the voice behind him, and looked up to see George Gunn looking down at him. Beyond him he saw the policeman’s car pulled up at the roadside, a hundred yards or so beyond the house where Fin had grown up. He had not heard Gunn approach over the noise of the wind. He got to his feet and shook the other man’s hand.

Gunn wore a white shirt, dark tie fluttering in the wind beneath a quilted black anorak that hung open. Trousers a little too long for him gathered around highly polished black brogues. His appearance here, crashing into Fin’s reflections, felt ominous.

‘How did the autopsy go?’

Gunn shrugged and pulled a face. ‘It was pretty unpleasant, Mr Macleod. And didn’t really throw any further illumination on the circumstances or cause of death.’ He sucked in a breath. ‘But the brass have arrived from Inverness. And they’re treating it as murder.’

Fin nodded.

‘The advance guard of the fourth estate has arrived, too. On the first flight this morning. God knows how the press gets hold of these things, but given Roddy Mackenzie’s status in the music world, and the manner of his disappearance, we can probably expect a flood of them over the next few days. And I imagine most of them will be wanting a word with you, as the man who found him.’

Fin smiled grimly. ‘Then I’ll make sure to stay out of their way, George.’

‘Aye, that would be a good idea.’ Gunn rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. ‘Did you ever manage to have that word with your friend, Mr Macleod?’ The question seemed almost casual, but Fin knew that it wasn’t.

‘Whistler?’

‘John Angus Macaskill,’ Gunn confirmed.

‘No, I didn’t.’ He hesitated. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘The Detective Inspector would like a word with him.’

‘Why?’

‘As I told you yesterday, we need his statement. About the finding of the plane.’ He paused. ‘Also, he knew the deceased.’

‘So did I.’

‘Yes, sir. But you haven’t disappeared.’

Fin frowned. ‘And Whistler has?’

‘Well, it seems he’s not to be found, or doesn’t want to be. I’m assuming you went looking for him yesterday?’

Fin nodded his affirmation.

‘And we sent the local bobby to go fetch him first thing this morning. But he’s not at his croft, and appears not to have spent the night at the house. You wouldn’t know where he might be?’

‘No idea, George. Whistler’s a free spirit. Goes where the fancy takes him. He probably spent the night in a shieling somewhere, in shock about Roddy.’

Gunn pushed out a thoughtful lower lip. ‘Local intelligence would have us believe that Whistler Macaskill and Roddy Mackenzie were known to have had their differences.’

Fin almost laughed. ‘If anyone thinks that Whistler had anything to do with Roddy’s murder, they’d be barking up the wrong bloody tree, George. And anyway, he was as upset by finding the body in the plane as I was.’

‘That’s as may be, Mr Macleod. But it seems more than a little odd that he should just vanish off the face of the earth, don’t you think?’ He hesitated. ‘At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll ask again. Is there something you’re not telling me?’

Fin felt the first spits of rain in his face as the wind freshened from the west. And he wondered again what it was that Whistler hadn’t told him. ‘No, George. There isn’t.’

Whistler’s blackhouse had a deserted look about it, even from the road. Fin could not have said quite why, but he knew that he wasn’t going to find Whistler there. It wasn’t until he had climbed the hill that he realized the door was not closed, but lying several inches ajar, swinging back and forth in the wind, as if the house were breathing.