Peter May - The Lewis Man

Fin picked his way carefully through the interior of the crofthouse, a jumble of fallen walls half-hidden by grasses and nettles. This was the Gillies croft that Morag McEwan had pointed out to him yesterday. The home of the boy called Donald John, who had been belted for disobeying his headmaster at Daliburgh school. The home of Mary-Anne Gillies, who had knitted the blanket whose pattern was blanched into the body of a young man taken from a peat bog on the Isle of Lewis four hours north of here. More, Fin reflected. For in the days when the body had been buried, the roads would have been much poorer, there would have been few if any causeways, and the ferry crossings would have taken longer. To the folk living on Eriskay back then, the Isle of Lewis would have been a whole world away.

The blast of a car’s horn was carried to him on the wind, and he stepped out of the ruin, knee-deep in spittle-grass and yellow flowers, to see Morag’s pink Mercedes drawn up beside his own car at the foot of the hill. The roof was down, and she waved up at him.

He started off down the hill, treading cautiously through the patches of bog where the land squelched beneath his feet, until he reached the car. Dino barked a greeting from his accustomed place on his mistress’s lap. ‘Good morning,’ Fin said.

‘What are you doing up there, a ghraidh ?’

‘You told me yesterday that was the Gillies croft.’

‘Aye, that’s right.’

‘And that a homer called Donald John Gillies lived there.’

‘Yes. With old Donald Seamus and his sister, Mary-Anne.’

Fin nodded thoughtfully. ‘Just the three of them?’

‘No, Donald John had a brother.’ Morag sheltered a fresh cigarette from the wind as she lit it. ‘Just trying to remember his name …’ She got her cigarette going and blew out a long stream of smoke that vanished at the same moment it left her lips. ‘Peter,’ she said at last. ‘Donald Peter. That was his name.’ She laughed. ‘Everyone here’s called Donald. It’s your middle name that counts.’ Then she shook her head sadly. ‘Poor Peter. A lovely boy he was. But not all there, if you know what I mean.’

And Fin knew then that he had found the place that Marsaili’s father had come from, and whose body it was they had dug out of the bog at Siader.

A strange calm had settled across the northern half of the Isle of Lewis. In contrast to the confusion of chaotic thoughts which had filled Fin’s mind on the long drive north.

He had not stopped once, except for the half-hour spent in Stornoway briefing George Gunn on what he had discovered. Gunn had listened in silence in the incident room. He had stood staring out over the roofs of the houses opposite, towards Lews Castle and the trees on the hill, the final sunshine of the day slanting down among the branches and lying in long pink strips across the slope. And he had said, ‘So the dead boy is Marsaili’s father’s brother.’

‘Donald Peter Gillies.’

‘Except that neither of them is really called Gillies. That’s just their homer names.’

Fin nodded acknowledgement.

‘And we have no idea where they came from, or what their real names might be.’

After leaving Stornoway, Fin had thought about that on the drive across the Barvas moor, and through all the villages of the west coast. Siader, Galson, Dell, Cross. A blur of churches, each one a different denomination. Of DAF 2s and 3s, whitehouses, blackhouses, modern harled bungalows, braced all along the coast for the next assault.

He had no idea what kind of record, if any, the Church might have kept of those poor children it had torn from homes on the mainland to transport to the islands. There was no guarantee that the local authorities would be any more forthcoming. It was all so long ago. And who had cared back then about the human detritus of failed families, or orphaned children without relatives to champion their rights? Fin’s overwhelming emotion was one of shame that such things should have been so recently perpetrated by his fellow countrymen.

The biggest problem in trying to identify who Donald John and Donald Peter Gilles actually were, was that no one had any idea where they came from. They would have arrived, anonymous passengers off the ferry at Lochboisdale, with cards around their necks and their past erased. And now, with Peter dead and his brother John lost in a fog of dementia, who was there to remember? Who was there to testify as to who they had really been? Those boys were lost for ever, and the likelihood was that neither he, nor the police, would ever know who had killed Peter, or why.

The lights of Ness sparkled all across the headland in the gloom, like a reflection of the stars emerging in the clear, settled sky above. The wind that had buffeted his car on the unprotected drive up through the Uists had died to an unnatural stillness. In his rearview mirror he could still see the clouds brooding in their habitual gathering place around the peaks of Harris, and away to the west on an ocean like glass, the reflected last light of the day was fading into night.

There were three cars parked on the gravel above Marsaili’s bungalow. Fionnlagh’s Mini, Marsaili’s old Astra and Donald Murray’s SUV.

Donald and Marsaili were sitting together at the kitchen table when Fin knocked and walked in. For a moment he felt a strangely unpleasant pang of jealousy. After all, it had been Donald Murray who had taken Marsaili’s virginity all those years before. But that had been in another life, when they had all been very different people.

Donald nodded. ‘Fin.’

Marsaili said quickly, almost as if she wanted Fin to know straight away that there was no cause for jealousy, ‘Donald came with a proposition about Fionnlagh and Donna.’

Fin turned to Donald. ‘Has Fionnlagh been to see you?’

‘He came this morning.’

‘And?’

Donald’s smile was wry, and laden with history. ‘He’s his father’s son.’ Fin couldn’t resist a smile.

Marsaili said, ‘They’ve moved in here permanently, the two of them. And the baby. They’re upstairs.’ She flicked an uncertain glance Donald’s way. ‘Donald has suggested that he and I share the cost and responsibility of the baby to let Fionnlagh and Donna finish their studies. Even if it means one, or both of them, leaving the island to go to university. I mean, we all know how important it is not to throw away the opportunities life offers when you are young. You spend the rest of your life regretting it.’

There was more than just a hint of bitterness in her voice. And Fin wondered if there was recrimination in it, too.

‘Sounds like a plan.’

Marsaili lowered her eyes to the table. ‘I’m just not sure I can afford it. Fionnlagh going to university, I mean. And the cost of the baby. I’ve been surviving on Artair’s life policy, and was hoping it would see me through university, if I get in. I guess I’ll have to postpone my degree and get a job in the meantime.’

‘That would be a shame,’ Fin said.

She shrugged. ‘Not much alternative.’

‘There could be.’

She turned inquisitive eyes on him. ‘Like what?’

‘Like you and I share the burden of your half.’ He smiled. ‘I am Eilidh’s grandfather, after all. Maybe we can’t stop our children making the same mistakes we did, but at least we can be around to pick up the pieces.’

Donald’s gaze alternated between them, discerning and interpreting everything that remained unspoken. He stood up then. ‘Well, I’ll leave you two to talk about it.’ He hesitated before offering Fin his hand. Then, at length, held it out and they shook. He left without another word.

The kitchen was oddly silent in the wake of his departure, burned out, almost unreal in the flickering glare of the overhead fluorescent. Somewhere deep in the house they could hear the thump, thump of Fionnlagh’s music.