Peter May - The Chessmen

Carefully, he pushed it open wide, scraping it over the flags, and letting his eyes accustom themselves to the gloom before stepping inside. He half expected that he might find wee Anna there, as he had done the day before. But the house was empty. He walked in and felt the chill of the place, a smell of damp in the air. The remains of a days-old peat fire in the hearth were as cold as death. The house felt oddly abandoned, as if there had been nobody here for days. And for the first time Fin began to fear for his old friend. The Lewis chessmen stood lined up along the wall, silent witnesses lurking in the dark. But witnesses to what?

It was with a creeping sense of foreboding that Fin stepped back out into the wind. The tide was in, emerald water a foot deep over acres of golden sand, splinters of distant sunlight stabbing through breaks in the cloud, firing light in fast-moving flashes across the far machair.

A Range Rover pulled up on the road below, and two men stepped out. Fin had to squint to see their faces against the glare of sea and sun behind them, but he knew from the vehicle that the driver was Jamie. It was only as they began the climb up to the blackhouse that Fin recognized the set of the other. Solid and square, with his cap pulled low over his brow. Big Kenny.

Jamie came to a stop in front of Fin, breathing a little heavily from the climb. Kenny remained a couple of paces behind him, catching Fin’s eye briefly, then averting his gaze almost as if ashamed.

‘Is he there?’ Jamie said.

‘Who?’

Jamie tutted his irritation. ‘Macaskill, of course.’

‘No.’

‘Where is he, then?’

‘I haven’t the first idea.’

Jamie tilted his head and cast a sceptical eye over Fin. ‘You were with him when you found that plane.’

‘Can’t keep a secret around here.’

If Jamie suspected insolence, there was nothing in Fin’s tone to betray it. ‘So you took the bait, went up to Tathabhal after him that night?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing.’

‘He wasn’t poaching?’

‘No.’

Jamie sighed, barely able to conceal his annoyance. ‘So what happened?’

And Fin wondered just how much, or how little, he should tell him. His own stupidity was an embarrassment. The only other witness to events up at the loch the night before the storm was James Minto. And Minto, Fin was sure, was unlikely to say anything. Although he regretted now that he had ever involved the man.

In the time it had taken Fin to drive down to Uig the day after his confrontation in the bar with Whistler, the wind had whipped itself up to a force-six or seven. But it was still unnaturally warm, and even stronger stratospheric winds had combed the incoming clouds thin across the sky in odd quiffs and streaks, like folds of gauze veiling the sun.

The tall reedy grass all around James Minto’s cottage, tucked away amongst the dunes overlooking Uig sands, moved in waves and eddies like water in the wind. There was a Land Rover parked in front of a dilapidated outbuilding that hadn’t seen paint for many a year. Fin turned his Suzuki off the metalled road and pulled up at the end of a sandy track that petered out at the front of the house. Beyond the dunes the mountains rose up in dark masses like waves of rock washing against the sky.

There was no sign of life behind either of the small windows set in thick whitewashed stone, and the sound of Fin’s knuckles rapping on the old wooden door had an empty ring to it. He was about to give up and drive on to Ardroil, when the door opened and the dishevelled figure of James Minto stood in his dressing gown blinking in the bright morning light. He squinted at Fin, one hand raised to shield his eyes.

‘Jesus Christ, mate! What kind of bloody time’s this to come calling? Don’t you know I work nights?’

Fin recalled the soft-voiced, flat-toned cockney accent from the first time they had met, and the latent threat that lay behind it. Minto was ex-special forces, brought in by the estate a couple of years before to deter poachers. Which he had done very successfully, by dubious means. He was feared and hated in almost equal measure by almost everyone in Uig. But no one man was equipped to deal with the poaching that was now taking place on an industrial scale, and Minto did not possess Fin’s skill as an investigator. He was a Rottweiler, not a hound.

Fin regarded him thoughtfully, unremorseful for dragging the man from his bed. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

Minto glared at him for a moment, before realization washed over him. ‘You’re that rozzer. Came calling a year or so ago to accuse me of murdering some poacher up in Ness.’

‘There were no accusations involved. We were simply eliminating you from our inquiry.’

‘Yeh, well that’s not how it seemed to me, mate.’

‘Anyway, that’s history. I’m no longer a. . rozzer. I’m head of security on the Red River Estate. My name’s Fin Macleod. And effectively I’m now your boss.’

‘Oh, well, fuck me if I ain’t trembling in me slippers, Mr Macleod.’

Fin looked into the palest of green eyes in a lean, tanned face. Minto’s dark crew-cut hair was liberally peppered with silver now, but he was not a man to mess with. Trained to kill, and still fit and honed beneath a dressing gown that hung open to reveal only boxer shorts and a pair of flip-flops. Fin said, ‘Well that’s probably because you’re so underdressed and feeling the cold. Why don’t you ask me in and you can slip into something more comfortable?’

Minto hesitated for a moment, as if not quite sure how to take this. But the twinkle in Fin’s eye brought a reluctant smile to his face. He stood back and held the door open. ‘On you go then. Into the living room. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

As soon as he entered the cramped little space that was the cottage living room, Fin remembered the impression he had taken away from his last visit, a sense of a manic and unmasculine tidiness. Every piece of furniture was placed for maximum efficiency and accessibility, clean white antimacassars draped over the arms and backs of a three-piece suite. Dust-free shelves were lined with carefully arranged books and ornaments. A range of fire irons hung neatly in the fireplace, tiles swept clean and polished to a shine. The open door to the kitchen gave on to tidy worktops, mugs hanging in regular rows from hooks fixed to the walls, washed dishes drying on a rack by the sink.

There was a faintly antiseptic smell in the air.

Fin turned towards the window and saw the chessboard on its small square table below the sill. There was no room for chairs at either side, but there was a game in progress. Resin reproductions of the Lewis chessmen in crimson and ivory. Fin wandered over to take a look, and lifted the Berserker from its square to look at the bristling beard and snarling mouth, teeth sunk into the shield. The original made Fin think much more of Whistler than of Kenny. He carefully replaced it and turned as Minto came into the room pulling a khaki woollen jumper over a white singlet. He wore jeans and sneakers now, and Fin saw how puffy his eyes were and still full of sleep.

Fin nodded towards the chessboard. ‘Still playing your old commanding officer by phone?’

‘By email now. Times move on.’ He headed for the kitchen. ‘Cup of tea, mate?’

‘Thanks.’ Fin sank into the settee and found himself looking at a wall lined with framed photographs of Minto with various groups of men, sometimes in uniform, sometimes casual. On parade, or in jungle camouflage in some lush tropical forest on the other side of the world. And he wondered at the solitary existence the man led now after years of comradeship and teamwork. But whatever he had lost in fellowship he had retained in the fastidious attention to detail and organization that the army had dinned into him. Everything had a place and had to be in it. A reason for going to bed at night and getting up in the morning. Except that with Minto, it was the other way around.