Peter May - The Chessmen

‘And you think Kenny John killed Whistler to stop him getting his daughter back?’

But Fin shook his head. ‘No, not as a simple as that. But I think that when we found that body in the plane it gave Kenny a leverage he never dreamed he had. Something that would ruin Whistler’s chances of ever getting custody of Anna. My guess is he must have confronted Whistler with it. I can’t believe he ever meant to kill him. But I know Whistler. And I can only imagine how he must have reacted.’ He closed his eyes and had a picture of it in his mind. Two giant men, friends since childhood, crashing about this very room, locked in desperate conflict. Furniture flying. Plates and cups and glasses smashing around them.

Gunn’s voice crashed into his imagination. ‘There’s no proof of any of this.’

Fin opened his eyes, almost startled. ‘It’s only a few days since Whistler was killed, George. There must have been a terrible bloody fight in here. Kenny’s still going to bear the scars and bruises of that. And there’s bound to be forensic evidence in whatever the Scenes of Crime boys pulled out of here. If only your boss would stop trying to pin it on me and start looking in the right places.’

There was a long silence, then, in the still of the blackhouse. ‘What leverage, Mr Macleod?’

Fin’s gaze flickered towards Gunn.

‘You said the discovery of the body in the plane gave Kenny John a leverage he didn’t know he had.’

And Fin knew that there was no way he could keep Roddy’s secret.

The drive to Suaineabhal Lodge took less than fifteen minutes, enough time for Fin to tell Gunn the potted version of the story that Roddy had told him not twenty-four hours earlier.

When they pulled up outside the lodge, Gunn turned off his motor and sat behind the wheel staring out through the windscreen beyond the trees to the ruffled surface of the loch. ‘Jesus, Mr Macleod, that’s one hell of a story.’ He turned his head towards the younger man. ‘And Roddy Mackenzie’s been living all these years in Spain when the rest of the world thought he was dead?’ It wasn’t so much a question as a reiteration of his disbelief. ‘He’s going to be in big trouble now.’

Fin nodded. He was. And Fin felt a fleeting pang of guilt. But none of it was of his doing, and all of it was out of his hands now.

They walked up the path to Kenny’s house and banged on the door. When there was no response Gunn opened it and stepped into the gloom of the hallway. ‘Hello? Mr Maclean?’ His call was greeted by silence, and after a moment he stepped back out into a freshening, blustery wind. ‘Let’s try the estate office.’

Jamie Wooldridge’s secretary looked up, surprised to see them. Neither Jamie nor Kenny John were at the lodge, she said. Both were at the chessmen gala day at the beach. Fin was taken aback. ‘What’s Kenny John doing there?’

‘He’s driving one of the boats for the gala day, Mr Macleod.’

The boats seemed to be a long way off as Fin and Gunn walked across the sand. It was firm and dry underfoot, and only faintly ridged by the underlying currents of the outgoing tide. The gala day was in full flow by now, and the crowds on the beach had swelled in number. The bouncy castle swarmed with youngsters, their shouts of excitement rising above the drone of the pipes that drifted across Traigh Uige in the wind. There was accordion music belting out from speakers at one of the stalls, and as they passed the giant chessboard, from somewhere they heard the plaintive purity of Mairead’s voice rising above the throng, the wail of a violin, the moan of a Celtic flute. A Roddy Mackenzie song playing on some stall owner’s sound system. His music, finally, come home.

Fin paused for a moment by the chessboard, and Gunn had taken several more strides before he noticed and stopped to look back. He followed Fin’s gaze to the three-foot carved figure of the Berserker being moved from one square to another by two volunteers on instructions from the girl with the walkie-talkie. There was no mistaking the thick-lipped features of Kenny John Maclean, and the characteristic scar that followed the line of the cheekbone. Protruding teeth bit down hard on the top of his shield.

The two men exchanged glances, and something about the Berserker seemed to instil a greater sense of urgency in them. Gunn turned and lengthened his stride towards the distant shore. Fin hurried to catch him up.

A framework of stout wooden stakes had been hammered into the sand to provide an anchor for pontoons which had been lashed together to create a floating jetty for the boats. A long ramp with rope rails fed back to the sands, rising and falling with the jetty. A wooden hut on a low-loader was a dispensary for life jackets and waterproofs for the long lines of people awaiting their turn for the ride out into the bay.

Both boats were at the jetty as Gunn and Fin approached. The on-loan Delta Deep One rigid inflatables were orange and black, with powerful 150-horsepower four-stroke engines. Pairs of seats fore and aft of the Delta’s open cockpit carried up to twelve passengers. One of them had just finished disembarking, and patiently waiting day-trippers were making their way cautiously along the ramp to climb aboard the other.

Fin scanned the faces at the jetty for some sign of Kenny John. Then suddenly the big man stood up in the cockpit of the inflatable which had just shed its passengers. He turned almost at the same moment, and saw Fin and Gunn heading purposefully in his direction. For a moment his face was a blank, hiding a multitude of confused thoughts. But as his thoughts cleared, so his face took on expression, and Fin saw the panic in his eyes.

He turned in an instant and gunned his idling motor, sending the Deep One surging away from the jetty, nose up. A small waterproof-clad figure who had been standing in the bow coiling a tethering rope fell backwards into the boat with a scream. Fin caught just a flash of her pale, startled face.

‘Jesus, George! Anna Bheag’s in that boat!’ He ran along the ramp, pushing passengers aside, shouting at them to get out of his way. Those already aboard the second boat turned, alarmed by the raised voices. ‘Get out! Get out of the boat!’ Fin bawled at them.

Gunn was right behind him, waving his warrant card above his head. ‘Police. Please evacuate the boat immediately.’

Frightened faces jostled in the crush to scramble back on to the jetty, and the inflatable rocked dangerously. The driver turned towards Fin as he jumped aboard. He was a man Fin knew. An older man, a worker on the estate known as Donnie Dubh. Fin saw the consternation in his eyes, his face drained suddenly of colour. ‘What the hell’s going on, Fin?’

‘Donnie, we need you to go after Big Kenny. We think he killed Whistler Macaskill.’

‘Jesus!’

‘And he’s got wee Anna on that boat with him.’

Gunn jumped down beside him. ‘Just go, for Christ’s sake!’

Donnie scrambled across the boat to untie the tethering ropes, then swung himself back into the cockpit to rev the Yamaha engine and accelerate out into the bay after Kenny.

The wind threw salt spray back in their faces as the bow of the inflatable smacked up and down on the unforgiving surface of the incoming swell. Gunn crouched down behind the shelter of the tiny windscreen, one finger in his ear, as he shouted into his mobile phone. Fin couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he could only be calling for help. He glanced back towards the shore, and saw the vast expanse of beach stretching away towards Uig Lodge on the rise, the excited shout of distant gala day revellers lost above the roar of the engine as they abandoned stalls and train rides and chessmen to come running towards the water’s edge.