Peter May - The Chessmen

Fin frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

Kenny’s smile almost returned. ‘Whistler,’ he said.

‘John Angus?’

Fin’s consternation made Kenny chuckle. ‘Aye. Big idiot that he is!’

Fin had not set eyes on Whistler since leaving the island. He had been the smartest boy of his year at the Nicolson, perhaps of any year. With an IQ so far off the scale it was almost impossible to measure, Whistler could have had the pick of any university he chose. And yet, of all of them, he was the only one who had chosen to stay.

‘Whistler’s involved with the poachers?’

Kenny’s chuckle turned to a laugh. ‘Good God, no, man! Whistler Macaskill’s not interested in money. He’s been poaching for years. Well, you know that. Deer, mountain hare, salmon, trout. But just for the pot. Personally, I’ve always turned a blind eye to it. But Jamie. . well, Jamie has other ideas.’

Fin shook his head. ‘Sounds like a waste of time to me.’

‘Aye, maybe so. But the daft bastard’s got Jamie all riled up.’

‘What happened?’

‘Jamie comes across him a few weeks ago, fishing out of Loch Rangabhat. Broad daylight, bold as you like. And when Jamie asks him what he thinks he’s doing, gets a mouthful of abuse for his trouble, and a kick up the arse when he tries to put a stop to it.’ Kenny grinned. ‘Wouldn’t have minded seeing that for myself.’ But the grin faded. ‘The bad bit is that Jamie’s his landlord, too, and looking for any excuse to shoehorn him off his croft.’

‘I think he might find that Whistler’s protected by the Crofters Act.’

‘Not if he doesn’t pay his rent. And he hasn’t done that for years. Old Sir John might not have bothered, but it gives Jamie the perfect excuse. And since he also rents Whistler his house. .’ Kenny pulled a gob of phlegm into his mouth and spat it into the wind. ‘The truth is, Fin, he’s just a bloody distraction. You and he were always tight. It might be an idea if you were to have a quiet word with him. Then we could get on with the real job.’

Whistler’s croft sat up off the road, not far from the cemetery at Ardroil, a steep strip of land rising to a restored blackhouse with views out over the dunes and the vast expanse of Uig beach beyond. There were a handful of sheep grazing on the lower slope, and nearer the house itself old lazy beds had been reactivated to grow potatoes, rows of turned earth fertilized by layers of seaweed cut from the rocks and dragged up the hill.

Fin had been here often in his teens, sitting on the hill with Whistler, avoiding Mr Macaskill, smoking and talking about girls, and taking the view absolutely for granted. It was only his years of living in the city which had taught Fin how privileged they had been then.

But the place had changed. Gone was the old rusted tin roof, to be replaced by what looked like home-made thatch incongruously set with solar panels on the south-facing pitch. The whole was secured against the gales that blew in off the Atlantic by fishermen’s netting stretched over the roof and weighed down by boulders dangling on lengths of stout rope. It was like stepping back in time.

The cannibalized remains of three or four rusted old vehicles, a tractor among them, lay around like the carcasses of long-dead animals. A beautifully herringboned stack of drying peats had been built a few feet from the west gable, and rising fifteen feet above it were the fast-turning blades of two home-crafted wind turbines.

Fin left his car at the side of the road and walked up the hill. There was no vehicle parked at the house. Fin knocked on the door, and when there was no answer, lifted the latch and pushed it open. It was dark inside, traditionally small windows letting in a minimum of light. As his eyes grew accustomed to it, Fin saw that the place was a shambles. An old settee and armchairs, filthy and worn, horsehair pushing through holes torn in their covers. A table littered with scattered tools, and wood shavings that spilled on to the floor. Bizarrely, carved wooden effigies of Lewis chessmen stood in serried ranks along one wall; some of them eight or ten times the size of the originals.

The remains of a fire smouldered in the grate where a chimney had been built against the far gable, and the distinctively toasty scent of warm peat smoke filled the house. Stepping into it was like falling down the rabbit hole.

Fin turned at a sound that came from behind him. The figure of a large man stood silhouetted in the doorway, very nearly filling it. There was a momentary stand-off until he stepped into the light of the window and Fin saw his face for the first time. A large, broad face, black-whiskered by a week’s growth. Long dark hair, shot through with what looked like strands of silver fusewire, was swept back from a deeply lined forehead. He wore patched and faded blue jeans, frayed around the ankles, and a thick woollen charcoal jumper beneath a waxed waterproof jacket. His boots were wet and caked with peat. Fin could smell him from where he stood.

‘Well, Jesus wept and shrank his waistcoat! If it isn’t that bloody Niseach, Fin Macleod.’ His voice filled the crofthouse. And to Fin’s embarrassment he took two strides towards him and gave him a hug that nearly squeezed all the breath from his lungs. His big whiskery face scratched against Fin’s. Then he stood back and gazed at him, holding his shoulders at arm’s length, liquid brown eyes wide and full of pleasure at seeing his old friend. ‘Hell, man! Hell and damnation! Where in God’s name have you been all these years?’

‘Away.’

Whistler grinned. ‘Aye, well, I think I’d figured that out by now.’ He gazed speculatively at him. ‘Doing what?’

Fin shrugged. ‘Nothing much.’

Whistler stabbed a finger like an iron rod into Fin’s chest. ‘You were in the fucking polis. Think I didn’t know?’

‘Well why are you asking?’

‘Because I wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth. What on earth possessed you, man?’

‘I’ve no idea, Whistler. I took a wrong turning somewhere.’

‘Aye, you did. Clever you were, Fin Macleod. Could have made something of your life, so you could.’

Fin looked pointedly around. ‘Not as much as you could have made of yours. School dux. Smartest boy of your generation, they said. You could have been anything you wanted to be, Whistler. Why are you living like this?’

There was a time when the Whistler of old might have taken offence, cursed vituperatively, even got violent. But instead he just laughed. ‘I’m exactly who I want to be. And there’s not many can say that.’ He unslung a canvas satchel from his shoulder and threw it on the couch. ‘A man’s home is his castle. And I’m a king among kings. You saw those solar panels on the roof?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Made them myself. And the wind turbines. Generate all the electricity I need. King of the sun and the wind, I am. And the water. Got my own freshwater spring. And fire too, begod. The peat’s as free as the rest. All it costs is your labour. Look at this. .’

He strode to the door and stepped outside into the wind. Fin followed.

‘Grow my own food, too, or raise it on the hoof.’

‘Or poach it from the estate.’

Whistler threw Fin an ugly look, but the darkness in it vanished in a moment. ‘As we always did. A man’s entitled to take from the land that the Lord gave us. And He gave it to us all, Fin. You cannae take it with you when you die, so how can anyone think they own it while they’re living?’

‘The estate spends money and time and manpower managing the fish and the deer, Whistler. And it was man who introduced the rabbits and the mountain hares for hunting.’

‘And if I take a fish here or a deer there it does no harm at all. When the fish spawn there’s more of them in the river. When the deer rut there’s aye one on the hill. And the rabbits?’ He grinned. ‘Well, they breed like fucking rabbits, don’t they?’ His smile faded. ‘I steal from no man, Fin. I take what God gives. And I owe nothing to no one.’