Peter May - The Blackhouse

Fin turned after him. ‘I’d rather hear it from the horse’s mouth.’

Donald stopped in his tracks. He wheeled around and took a step back towards his old classmate. He was still a good three inches taller than Fin. Well over six feet, and well capable, Fin thought, of hoisting Macritchie’s eighteen stone on a length of rope to hang him by the neck from the rafters of the boatshed in Port of Ness. ‘I don’t want you, or anyone else, talking to her about it again. That man raped her, and the police treated her like she was a liar. As if rape isn’t humiliating enough.’

‘Donald, I’m not going to humiliate her, or accuse her of lying. I just want to hear her story.’

‘No.’

‘Look, I don’t want to force the issue, but this is a murder inquiry, and if I want to talk to her, I’ll talk to her.’

Fin saw a father’s anger in Donald’s eyes. It flared briefly, then some inner control dulled its flame. ‘She’s not here just now. She’s in town with her mother.’

‘I’ll come back, then. Maybe tomorrow.’

‘It might have been better, Fin, if you hadn’t come back at all.’

Fin felt the chill of a threat in Donald’s words, and in his tone, and found it hard to remember that this was the same boy who had stood up for him against bullies, and risked his own hide to come back and rescue him the night that Angel Macritchie had felled him outside Crobost Stores. ‘Why’s that? Because I might find out the truth? What’s anyone got to fear from the truth, Donald?’ Donald just glared at him. ‘You know, if Macritchie had raped my daughter, I’d probably have been tempted to take matters into my own hands myself.’

Donald shook his head. ‘I can’t believe you’d think me capable of something like that, Fin.’

‘All the same, I’d be interested to know where you were on Saturday night.’

‘Since your colleagues have already asked me that, I think you’ll probably find it’s a matter of record.’

‘I can’t tell when the record’s lying. With people, usually I can.’

‘I was where I always am on a Saturday night. At home writing my sermon for the Sabbath. My wife will vouch for me if you care to ask her.’ Donald walked to the door and held it open for Fin, signalling that their exchange was over. ‘In any case, it is not for me to deliver retribution to sinners. The Lord will deal with Angel Macritchie in his own way.’

‘Maybe he already has.’ Fin stepped out into the blustery afternoon as the rain began falling in earnest. Horizontally.

By the time Fin reached Gunn’s car idling in the car park, he was soaked. He dropped into the passenger seat with the rain clinging to his curls and running down his face and neck, and slammed the door shut. Gunn turned on the blower and glanced over at Fin. ‘Well?’

‘Tell me what happened the night the girl claimed Macritchie raped her.’

The cloud was shredded all across the sky as they drove back to Stornoway, ragged strips of blue and black and purple-grey. The road stretched straight ahead of them, rising to the horizon and a strip of light beneath the bruising where you could see the rain falling in sheets.

‘It happened about two months ago,’ Gunn said. ‘Donna Murray and a bunch of her pals were drinking at the Crobost Social.’

‘I thought you said she was only sixteen.’

Gunn sneaked him a look to see if he was joking. ‘You have been away a long time, Mr Macleod.’

‘It’s illegal, George.’

‘It was a Friday night, sir. The place would have been jumping. Some of the girls would have been over eighteen. And nobody’s paying that much attention anyway.’

Sunlight unexpectedly split the gloom, wipers smearing light with rain across the windscreen, a rainbow springing up out of the moor away to their left.

‘There was all the usual stuff going on between boys and girls. You know how it is when you mix alcohol with teenage hormones. Anyway, Macritchie was at his habitual place at the bar, sitting up on a stool, leaning in his elbow groove and casting a lascivious eye over all the young girls. Hard to believe he still had any hormones after the amount of beer he’d flushed through his system over the years.’ Gunn chuckled. ‘You saw the state of his liver.’ Fin nodded. Angel had been a big drinker, even as a teenager. ‘Anyway, for some reason young Donna seems to have caught his eye that night. And inexplicably, he seems to have thought she might find him attractive. So he offered to buy her a drink. I guess when she turned him down that might have been the end of it. But, then, apparently someone told him that she was Donald Murray’s girl, and that seemed to encourage him.’

Fin could imagine how putting his hands all over Donald Murray’s daughter might tickle Macritchie’s sick sense of irony, particularly if her father got to hear about it.

‘He spent the rest of the night badgering her, buying drinks that she wouldn’t touch, trying to put his arm around her, making lewd suggestions. Her friends all thought it was a great laugh. Nobody saw Macritchie as a real threat. Just some drunken old fart in the bar. But Donna got really pissed off. He was ruining her night out, so she decided she was going home. Flounced out in a right tid, according to her pals. Most people didn’t notice it, but about a minute later the barmaid saw Macritchie slipping off his stool and heading out after her. This is where different accounts start to conflict.’

Their car passed a bunch of teenage girls huddled in a concrete bus shelter at South Dell. They were peculiar to Lewis, these constructions, flat-roofed, with four open compartments that would provide shelter regardless of the direction of the wind. Fin remembered that they used to call them giants’ picnic tables. The youngsters looked about Donna’s age, waiting for a bus to take them into Stornoway for a night out. Alcohol and teenage hormones. Fin felt certain that these girls had no idea just how dangerous a cocktail that could be. Smiles on pale faces that flew past rain-streaked windows. Lives headed on a course that none of them could predict but which were, at the same time, utterly predictable.

‘It was about thirty-five minutes from the time Donna left the Social till the time she got home,’ Gunn said.

Fin exhaled through pursed lips. ‘It would take about ten minutes at the most.’

‘Seven. We got a policewoman to time it.’

‘So what happened during the missing half-hour?’

‘Well, according to Donna, Macritchie sexually assaulted her. Her words. She was dishevelled when she got back to the house. Which was the word her father used. Red-faced, make-up all smeared, blubbing like a baby. He called the police, and she was taken to Stornoway for questioning and examination by the police surgeon. That was when she used the word rape for the first time. So between Ness and Stornoway it had changed from sexual assault to rape. Of course, as we always do, we had to establish the exact nature of the assault. When we started getting into detail, the girl got hysterical. But, yes, she confirmed, Macritchie forced her to the ground and put his penis inside her vagina. No, she had not consented. Yes, she was a virgin. Or had been.’ Gun glanced uneasily at Fin. ‘But I have to be honest with you, Mr Macleod, there was no blood on her, or her clothes, and there was no outward indication that she had been forced to the ground on a wet night. There was no bruising visible on her arms, her clothes did not appear to be wet or dirty.’

Fin was puzzled. ‘What did the medical examination show?’

‘Well, that’s just it, Mr Macleod, she wouldn’t submit to a medical examination. Point-blank refused. Said it would be too humiliating. We told her that it was unlikely that charges could be brought against Macritchie unless we had physical, or witness, evidence. As it turned out, the only witness we could find outside the Social said that Macritchie had headed off in the opposite direction from Donna. And since she refused a medical examination …’