Peter May - The Blackhouse

‘So what now?’ She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand, and left a dirty, peaty smudge across her cheek.

‘I don’t know.’ He saw the weariness in her eyes, the life ground out of her by all the years with Artair, and the guilt for all the beatings her son had been forced to endure, beatings that she had been unable to prevent. His phone started ringing again. ‘Jesus!’ He snatched it from his pocket, punched the phone symbol and slapped it to his ear. It was his answering service calling him back to let him know that he had one new message. He listened impatiently and heard a familiar voice, but so out of context that it took him several moments to identify it.

‘Too busy to answer your bloody phone, eh? Out catching our killer, I hope.’ It was the pathologist. Professor Angus Wilson. ‘If not, I’ve got a little something for you that might help. It’ll be in my report, but I thought I might give you a little advance notice. That wee ghost pill that we found in the killer’s vomitus? It contains an oral form of the steroid cortisone, known as prednisone. Commonly used to treat painful skin allergies. But also very effective in reducing inflammation in the airways, so it’s frequently prescribed for asthma sufferers. I suggest, therefore, that you keep your eyes peeled either for someone with a nasty rash, or an habitual asthmatic. Happy hunting, amigo.’ The answering service told him there were no more messages.

Fin wondered why the ground had not swallowed him up. Everything else about his world had just fallen apart. So why should the earth still support him? He disengaged the phone and slipped it back in his pocket.

‘Fin?’ Marsaili was scared. He could hear it in her voice. ‘Fin, what is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

He looked at her without seeing her. He was in the boatshed at Port of Ness. It was Saturday night, and it was dark. There were two men there. One of them was Angel Macritchie. The other one moved into the moonlight. It was Artair. Fin had no idea why they were there, but when Macritchie turned away, he saw something like a metal tube or a wooden pole flash through the light of the small open window and crash down on Angel’s head. The big man dropped to his knees before falling forward on to his face. Artair was excited, breathing rapidly. He got down on his knees to pull the big man over on to his back. The dead weight was heavier to move than he had expected. He heard something, sounds from the village. Was it voices? Maybe it was just the wind. He began to panic, and with the panic he felt his airways start to close. His stomach reacted by heaving its contents out through his mouth. A reflex response. All over the unconscious Macritchie. Artair fumbled in his pocket for his pills and swallowed one and sucked on his puffer while he waited for it to work, still on his knees, breath rasping in the dark. Slowly his breathing became easier again, and he listened for the sound which had sparked his attack. But he heard nothing, and returned then to his task, slipping thick fingers around the big man’s throat. And pressing. An urgency now about everything he would do.

Fin closed his eyes tight to try to squeeze the images out of them, and then opened them again to see Marsaili’s consternation. ‘Fin, for God’s sake talk to me!’

His voice, when he found it, sounded small and caught phlegm in his throat. ‘Tell me about Artair’s asthma.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean, tell you about his asthma?’

‘Just tell me.’ He was finding strength in his voice. ‘Is it worse than it used to be?’

She shook her head in frustration, wondering why he was asking her such stupid questions. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was becoming a nightmare. The attacks were getting worse and worse, until they put him on new medication.’

‘Prednisone?’

Her head tilted in surprise, and something darkened the blue of her eyes. Premonition, perhaps. ‘How did you know that?’

He took her arm and started pulling her towards the house. ‘Show me.’

‘Fin, what’s this all about?’

‘Just show me, Marsaili.’

They went into the bathroom, and she opened a mirrored cabinet on the wall above the washbasin. The bottle was on the top shelf. Fin lifted it down and opened it. It was nearly full.

‘Why doesn’t he have these with him?’

Marsaili was at a loss. ‘I’ve no idea. Maybe there’s another bottle.’

Fin did not even want to think about it. ‘Is there somewhere he keeps his private papers? Stuff he never lets you see?’

‘I don’t know.’ She thought about it, distracted, finding concentration difficult. ‘There’s a drawer in his father’s old desk that he always keeps locked.’

‘Show me.’

The desk was pushed up under the window in Mr Macinnes’s former study, buried beneath an avalanche of papers and magazines, and wire trays overflowing with paid and unpaid bills. Fin had slept in here the other night, but not even noticed it. The captain’s chair that originally went with the desk was nowhere in evidence. An old dining chair was tucked between the pedestals. Fin pulled it out and sat down. He tried the lefthand drawer. It slid open to reveal a concertina folder full of household papers. Fin flicked quickly through it, but there was nothing to interest him. He tried the right-hand drawer and it was locked.

‘Do you have a key?’

‘No.’

‘A heavy screwdriver, then. Or a chisel.’

She turned without a word and left the room, returning a few moments later with a large, heavy-duty screwdriver. Fin took it, driving it between the top of the drawer and the pedestal, levering it upwards until the wood splintered and the lock broke. The drawer slid open. Suspension folders hung from a built-in rack. Yellow, blue, pink. He went through them one by one. Bills, investments, letters. Newspaper articles, downloaded from the internet. Fin stopped and heard himself breathing. Short, shallow breaths. He tipped the articles out on to the desktop. The Herald , the Scotsman , the Daily Record , the Edinburgh Evening News , the Glasgow Evening Times . All dated late May or early June. Disembowelled Corpse Found in Leith. The Edinburgh Ripper. Strangled and Mutilated. Death in the Shadow of the Cross. Police Issue Appeal over Leith Walk Murder. More than two dozen of them over a three-week period, when reporting of the murder was at its most frenzied, and before news of an impending increase in council tax took over the front pages.

Fin slammed his fist down on the desk, and a pile of magazines slid on to the floor.

‘For Christ’s sake, Fin, tell me what’s going on!’ A hint of hysteria was creeping into Marsaili’s voice.

Fin dropped his head into his hands and screwed his eyes tight shut. ‘Artair killed Angel Macritchie.’

There was a hush in the room so thick that Fin could almost feel it. Marsaili’s voice, small and frightened, forced its way through it. ‘Why?’

‘It was the only way he could be sure of getting me back to the island.’ He scuffed his hand through the printouts of the articles, sending several of them fluttering through still air. ‘The papers were full of the murder in Edinburgh. All the gory details. The fact that I was in charge of the investigation. So if another body turned up here on Lewis, same weird MO, what was the betting I’d get involved at some stage? Especially when the victim was someone I was at school with. A gamble, maybe. But it paid off. Here I am.’

‘But why? Oh, Fin, I can’t believe I’m even hearing you say these things. Why would he want you here?’

‘To tell me about Fionnlagh. So that I would know he was my son.’ He thought about what Donna Murray had said. Like he was taking out the sins of the father on the son.