Peter May - The Chessmen

‘Mr Macdonald is an elderly man suffering from an advanced form of senile dementia. His family had taken him to the home of an old friend in Eriskay that morning. On discovering that Mr Macdonald was not at home, the gentlemen from Edinburgh kidnapped Mr Macdonald’s great-granddaughter and her mother, and took them to Eriskay, where they intended to shoot them in front of Mr Macdonald.’

‘With all due respect, Detective Sergeant, I don’t believe you can speak for the intent of the deceased. I would be obliged if you would stick to the facts as you know them.’

Fin saw Gunn bristling. ‘With equally due respect, Mr Kelso, the shooting of Mr Macdonald’s great-granddaughter and her mother was the stated intent of the deceased, an intention declared in the presence of several witnesses from whom I took statements. And those are the facts as I know them.’

If Kelso was surprised by Gunn’s rejoinder he gave no indication of it. But being on the wrong end of a rebuttal by what he probably regarded as a hick island policeman must have been more than a little humiliating. Fin found himself stifling a smile. Kelso consulted some papers on his desk. ‘Let’s turn to the statement you took from Mr Macdonald’s grandson, and father of the baby. One Fionnlagh Macinnes. From all accounts, the gentlemen from Edinburgh left him tied up at his home in Ness while they drove down to Eriskay. And yet, he was with the Reverend Murray at the time of the shooting. How did that come about?’

Gunn cleared his throat. ‘According to Fionnlagh Macinnes, he managed to free himself and make his way to the Reverend Murray’s house to break the news to him about what had happened.’

‘Why did he go to the Reverend Murray and not the police?’

‘Because the baby’s mother, Donna, was the Reverend Murray’s daughter.’

‘So the Reverend Murray went to the police?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He took a shotgun and a box of cartridges from their lock-safe place in the manse, and drove to Eriskay.’

‘With Fionnlagh Macinnes?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Why didn’t he call the police?’

‘You’d have to ask him that, sir.’

Kelso sighed his irritation. ‘Why do you think he didn’t call the police?’

‘With all due respect, sir, I don’t believe I can speak for the accused. I would rather stick to the facts as I know them.’

Kelso contained his annoyance with difficulty. ‘You took a statement from the Reverend Murray?’

‘I did.’

‘And why did he say he didn’t call the police?’

Gunn hesitated. There was no way to avoid it. ‘He said he didn’t trust inexperienced and unarmed police officers in South Uist to deal with armed criminals intent on harming his daughter and granddaughter.’

‘In other words he took the law into his own hands.’

‘I’m not sure I would say that, sir.’

‘He failed to report the commissioning of a crime, and undertook to deal with it himself. Was that not taking the law into his own hands?’

Gunn shifted uncomfortably. ‘I suppose it was.’

Kelso acknowledged the admission with a sarcastic little smile. ‘Thank you, Detective Sergeant.’ He perched half-moon spectacles on the end of his nose and shuffled through more papers on his desk, then removed them with a flourish. ‘It would be fair to assume, then, that having failed to inform the police, and having armed himself with a shotgun, he must have been prepared to use it.’

‘You might make that assumption, Mr Kelso. It’s my understanding that the Reverend Murray and Fionnlagh Macinnes made several attempts to reach Mr Macdonald’s daughter, Marsaili, by mobile phone in order to warn her that the Edinburgh gang members were on their way.’

‘Yes, but even had he managed to warn them, that would not have altered the fact that his daughter and granddaughter had been kidnapped by dangerous criminals. And he had armed himself and taken off in pursuit of them. It is unlikely that his intention was to read them a passage from the Bible.’

Which elicited some laughter from around the hall.

The chairman of the Judicial Committee, however, was not amused. He leaned across the table. ‘I do not believe, Mr Kelso, that this is an occasion for levity.’

Kelso made a tiny bow of his head. ‘My apologies, Mr Chairman.’ He turned towards Gunn. ‘Thank you, Detective Sergeant, that will be all.’

Gunn was shocked. ‘Don’t you want to hear about what happened at the house?’

‘We’ll hear that from those who were there. Thank you.’

Gunn glanced apologetically towards Donald Murray as he went to retake his seat, but Donald was impassive.

It was Marsaili who was called to the witness desk to give evidence about what happened at the house itself. Fin watched her as she spoke in a strong confident voice, recounting the events he had lived through himself. There was a sad, pale beauty about her still. There was only a touch of make-up on her clear-complexioned face, her hair drawn back and tied in a ponytail, but still he could see the little girl in her. The little girl he had loved with all his heart when he couldn’t even have told you what love was. The little girl whose heart he broke, not once, but twice. The little girl whose love for him never wavered until his final act of betrayal. Was it any wonder they’d had such difficulty finding their way back to who they had once been?

Her story of what happened that night was compelling. The Edinburgh gangland boss raising his shotgun to unleash a blast of it at Donna and the baby. His revenge for some history between himself and Marsaili’s father. But glass shattering through the room instead, as Donald fired at him through the window, sending the big man slamming back against the far window, and saving a young mother and her child from certain death. The people of Lewis crammed into the hall that day held their collective breath as she spoke.

Fin was barely aware of her reaching the conclusion of her evidence, or of his name being called out. It was only when Marsaili sat down again beside him and whispered, ‘You’re on,’ that he realized it was his turn.

He took his place behind the witness desk and gave his solemn assurance to tell the truth without malice or prejudice.

Kelso regarded him speculatively. ‘You were a police officer yourself, Mr Macleod?’

‘I was.’

‘For how long?’

‘About fifteen years.’

‘And what rank did you attain?’

‘Detective Inspector.’

‘So you have some considerable experience of crime and criminals.’

‘I do.’

‘And is there any circumstance in which you would recommend that people take the law into their own hands?’

‘I think, perhaps, you have a basic misunderstanding of the law, Mr Kelso.’

‘Oh, do I?’ Kelso seemed amused. ‘I practised the law for more than thirty years, Mr Macleod.’

‘And I’m sure practice makes perfect, Mr Kelso. But it wasn’t just your law. And it’s not just mine. The law belongs to all of us. We elect representatives to make the law on our behalf, and we employ policemen to enforce it. And when they’re not around to do that for us, sometimes we have to do it ourselves. That’s why we have such a thing as a citizen’s arrest. And if we arm a policeman and give him permission to shoot a criminal in our stead, that’s taking the law into our own hands, too. We’re just doing it by proxy.’

‘So you believe that the Reverend Murray was correct in taking the action he did?’

‘Not only do I believe he was right, I hope I would have had the courage to do the same thing myself.’

‘You don’t believe that the outcome would have been different had the Reverend Murray called the police?’