Peter May - The Chessmen

Mairead’s face was mostly in shadow. Only the line of her nose and the curve of her brow above her right eye caught the light. Her eyes themselves were lost. Darkness had followed dusk like a shutter descending on the day. They listened in silence to the sounds of Roddy preparing his paella in the kitchen. He had some music playing. Flamenco guitar and a guttural, alien voice wailing the tuneless melody of an ancient culture that owed more to Arab Africa than to Europe. Fin closed his eyes for a moment and wondered how it had been possible to keep the secret for so long. Mairead lit a cigarette and her face flared briefly in the darkness. He said, ‘Did you know about all this?’

She drew on her cigarette and blew smoke into the night, shaking her head. ‘Not a thing. Not until he confided in me and told me how he planned to escape.’ She turned her head towards Fin, but he still couldn’t see her eyes. ‘All this was going on while you and I were having our. . what would you call it? Affair? Fling?’ When Fin failed to respond she said, ‘Of course, I noticed the change in him. We weren’t lovers at the time, but when you play in a band with people it’s like living with them. Well, you know that.’

Fin nodded.

‘He became morose, withdrawn. Not like the Roddy we knew at all. And you know Roddy. He was like an open book. No matter whether he was happy or depressed he had to tell you why. But that all stopped. He was secretive, spending less and less time with the guys. I noticed he was losing weight and wondered if he was ill. There was something wrong, I knew that much. But I had no idea what it was until the night he told me.’

She flicked her ash into the ashtray, and as she took another pull on her cigarette, Fin saw by its glow the introspection in her eyes. Eyes that flickered reluctantly in his direction. And he wondered if it was really regret that he saw in them.

‘It was the night he intended to disappear for good. The same night I broke it off with you.’ She paused. ‘And why.’

All these years later, finally, Fin understood.

‘Roddy was in trouble, Fin. He needed me. And there was too much history between us for me to give him anything less than a hundred per cent.’ But the explanation was unnecessary.

They had no time to dwell on it, or discuss it further. Roddy emerged from the kitchen clutching a bottle and three glasses. He placed them on the table and removed the cork with a flourish. His good mood, it appeared, had returned.

‘Rioja,’ he said. ‘Gran Reserva. Best you can get. Smooth as butter on the tongue, and slips over like vanilla silk.’ He filled their glasses. ‘Try it, Fin.’

Fin sipped at it and nodded. ‘It’s good.’ But wine wasn’t his thing, and Roddy seemed disappointed.

‘Paella’ll be ready soon.’ He disappeared and returned with three plates and cutlery, then came back to the table ten minutes later with a large steaming paella pan full of rice and prawns and chicken and mussels. He placed it in the centre of the table and sat down. ‘Tuck in, guys.’

They helped themselves and ate for a while in silence until Fin could contain his curiosity no longer. ‘So what happened, Roddy?’

Roddy glanced at him, his enthusiasm for the food quickly waning. He sighed, pushing his half-empty plate away from him on the table and lifting his glass to his lips. He let the wine flow back across his tongue and savoured it for a moment. ‘I must have flown ten, eleven pickups for them by mid-July, and Jimbo always came with me. There was just no end to it in sight, Fin. I was in way too deep by that time to go to the police, and probably wouldn’t have lived long if I had. That’s when I came up with my plan.’ His chuckle was bitter and almost choked him. He took another mouthful of wine. ‘It was foolproof, I figured. I was going to disappear. Me and the plane together. Somewhere out over the sea. If they thought I was dead they couldn’t touch me.’

He refilled his glass, leaning forward on the table and cradling it in his palms. Fin could see the glassy quality of his eyes in the reflected candlelight.

‘I never filed a flight plan on those flights up to Solas, so there would be no questions. And obviously I fuelled up enough to get me there and back. But on the night I planned to disappear I filed a flight plan out to Mull, the landing strip at Glenforsa. A short flight, there and back, so when I went missing they would be looking in the wrong place. I took on enough fuel to get me up to the Outer Hebrides, but not back. It was going to be a one-way trip.’ He smiled sadly. ‘To eternity.’

He took several mouthfuls of wine, staring reflectively off into the darkness, revisiting painful memories in his mind.

‘I hugged the mountains on the flight up the west coast, to disrupt primary radar systems. Didn’t want anyone watching me. I ignored repeated queries from air traffic control, then dropped off secondary radar by switching off my transponder and telling ATC it had failed. Radio silence then. Of course, as far as Jimbo knew it was just another pickup and we landed at Solas as usual.

‘There was never anyone there to meet us. Just a set place to pick up the packages. There are no houses overlooking the beach, and the village of Solas is way the other side of the dunes. My plan was to wait at the plane while Jimbo went to pick up the goods and then just fly away without him.’

He breathed through his teeth in remembered frustration and shook his head.

‘But I guess I must have been giving off vibes. I was nervous as hell, and that must have transmitted itself to him. He insisted that I come with him. What could I do? I couldn’t refuse, so we left the engine running and hurried across the sand to where the stuff was hidden among the long grass. I was in turmoil, Fin. It was all set up. If I didn’t do it now I figured I never would. I was carrying one of the bags. And there was a fair bit of weight in it. A few kilos anyway. I don’t know what it was. Probably dope. Anyway, I hit him with it, from behind, swinging the bag at his head as hard as I could. He went down like a sack of potatoes, and I ran like hell for the plane.

‘I thought I was home free. But just as I’m reaching the plane I hear him breathing like a bloody steam train right behind me. I tried to get up on the wing, but he pulled me back down. Must have had the constitution of a fucking ox. He had blood running down his neck, and a look on his face like he wanted to kill me.’

Roddy stared off into an abyss that spanned seventeen years, breathing hard, just as if he were still there.

‘I knew I had to put him down, or I was fucked. But he was a strong bastard. He tried to hit me, and I hit him back, and then pushed him hard. He staggered backwards.’ Roddy closed his eyes. ‘Right into the fucking revolving propeller. Smashed in half his head and dropped him with a single blow.’

Fin knew now how the body in the plane had received its dreadful cranial injuries. He could only imagine what a bloody mess it must have been at the time.

‘He was dead, Fin. Fucking dead. His brains all over the fucking beach. At first I had no idea what to do. My immediate instinct was to get on the plane and just go. But then I knew I couldn’t leave him there. His family would think I’d killed him, and there’s no way they’d believe I just went missing after it. No one would believe that.’ He breathed out deeply, and Fin heard the tremble in his breath. ‘So then I started to think more clearly. I got him into my jacket with my wallet and stuff inside, in case anyone ever found it. Then I got him into the cockpit.’ He ran a hand over his face in recollection of the horror of it. ‘You have no idea how hard that was, Fin. He was a dead weight. Literally. Blood everywhere. It was about twenty minutes before I got him into the passenger seat and was able to shut the cockpit door and take off again.’