The Lewis Man (36 page)

‘I was late that night. The widow O’Henley hadn’t been well, and took much longer than usual to get off to sleep. So I was in a rush, and breathless when I got here. And disappointed when there was no sign of Johnny.’ She paused, lost in momentary reflection. ‘That’s when I heard the voices coming from down below on the beach. I could hear them even above the beat of the sea, and the wind in the grass. And something in those voices put me on my guard straight away. I crouched down here behind the wall and looked across the sand.’

Fin watched her face carefully. He could see from her eyes that she was there, crouched among the stone and the grass, looking down on the scene unfolding below her on the beach.

‘I could see four figures. At first I didn’t know who they were, and couldn’t make any sense of what was going on. And then there was a parting of the sky, and moonlight washed over the beach, and it was all I could do not to cry out.’

She took out a cigarette with fumbling fingers, and cupped her hand around its end to light it. Fin heard the tremor in her breath as she inhaled the smoke. Then his concentration was broken by the sound of his mobile ringing in his pocket. He searched for and found it, and saw that it was a call from Fionnlagh. Whatever it was it could wait. He didn’t want to interrupt the telling of the story. He turned it off and slipped it back in his pocket.

‘They were right at the water’s edge,’ Ceit said. ‘Peter was naked. His hands tied behind him, his feet bound at the ankles. Two young men were dragging him along the sand by a length of rope tied around his neck. They stopped every couple of yards, kicking him till he got to his feet again, then pulling him till he fell. Johnny was there, too. And at first I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t doing something about it. Then I saw that his hands were tied in front of him, eighteen inches of rope strung between his ankles to limit his movement. He was limping along after them, imploring them to stop. I could hear his voice rising above the others.’

Fin glanced at Marsaili. Her face was etched with concentration and horror. This was her father that Ceit was describing on the beach below them. Helpless and distressed, and pleading for his brother’s life. And he realized that you can never tell, even when you think you know someone well, what they might have been through in their lives.

Ceit’s voice was low and husky with emotion, and they could barely hear it now above the sea and the wind. ‘They had gone about thirty or forty yards, laughing and whooping, when suddenly they stopped and made poor Peter kneel there in the wet sand, the incoming tide washing around his legs. And I saw blades flashing in the moonlight.’ She turned to look at them, reliving every awful moment of what she had witnessed that night. ‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I kept thinking that maybe Johnny and me had met up after all, and made love, and that I was lying sleeping in the grass, and that this was all some dreadful nightmare. I saw Johnny trying to stop them, but one of them hit him, and he fell into the water. And then that man started stabbing Peter. From the front, while the other held him from behind. I saw that blade rise and fall, blood dripping from it each time, and I wanted to scream out loud. I had to stuff my hand in my mouth to stop myself.’

She turned away again to look across the sand towards the water, the moment replaying itself in gut-wrenching detail.

‘Then the one behind drew his blade right across Peter’s throat. A single slashing movement, and I saw the blood spurt out of him. Johnny was on his knees in the water screaming. And Peter just knelt there, his head tipped back, until the life had drained out of him. It didn’t take long. And they let him fall, face-first, into the water. Even from here, I could see the froth of the waves turn crimson as they broke. His killers just turned and walked away as if nothing had happened.’

Fin said, ‘You recognized them?’

Ceit nodded. ‘The two surviving Kelly brothers from that terrible night on the Dean Bridge in Edinburgh.’ She looked at Fin. ‘You know about it?’

Fin tilted his head. ‘Not the whole story.’

‘The eldest brother fell to his death. Patrick. Danny and Tam blamed Peter. Thought he had pushed him.’ She shook her head in despair. ‘God knows how they found out where we were. But find out, they did. And came looking to avenge their dead brother.’ She gazed out across the beach.

Almost as if mirroring the moment, nature turned the sea the colour of blood as the sun sank on the horizon.

‘When they had gone, I ran down the beach to where Johnny was kneeling over Peter’s body. The tide was breaking all around them. Blood on the sand, foam still pink. And I knew then what an animal sounds like when it mourns for the dead. Johnny was inconsolable. I have never seen a grown man so distressed. Wouldn’t even let me touch him. I told him I would go for help, and he was on his feet in a moment, grabbing me by the shoulders. I was scared.’ She glanced at Tormod. ‘It wasn’t Johnny’s face I saw looking into mine. He was possessed. Almost unrecognisable. He wanted me to swear on my soul that I would never breathe a word of this to anyone. I couldn’t understand. These boys had just murdered his brother. I was almost hysterical. But he shook me hard, and slapped my face and said they’d made it clear that if he ever told what happened here they would come back for me.’

She turned towards Fin and Marsaili.

‘That’s why he was going to do what they said. They’d told him to get rid of the body himself and never breathe a word of it to another living soul. Or they would kill me.’ She opened her palms in front of her in pure frustration. ‘Right then I couldn’t have cared less. I just wanted him to go to the police. But he point-blank refused. He said he would bury Peter himself where no one would ever find him, and then there was something he had to do. He wouldn’t say what. Just that he owed it to his mother for letting her down.’

Fin looked across the ruin to where old Tormod had gone and sat on the remains of the front wall, staring vacantly out across Charlie’s beach as the sun slipped, finally, from view, and the first stars began to emerge in a dusk-blue sky. He wondered if Ceit’s words, so vividly recreating the events of that night, had penetrated his consciousness in any way. Or whether simply being here, all these years later, would in itself stir some distant memory. But he realized it was something they would almost certainly never know.

It is so hard to remember things. I know they are there. And sometimes I can feel them, but I can’t see them or reach them. I’m so tired. Tired of all this travelling, and all this talk that I can’t follow. I thought they were taking me home.

This is a nice beach, though. Not like those beaches on Harris. But nice. A gentle crescent of silver.

Oh. Is that the moon now? See how the sand almost glows by its light, as if lit from beneath. I think I was here once. I’m sure I was, wherever the hell we are. It seems familiar somehow. With Ceit. And Peter. Poor Peter. I can see him still. That look in his eyes when he knew he was dying. Like the sheep in the shed that time, when Donald Seamus slit its throat.

I still dream, sometimes, about anger. Anger turned cold. Anger born of grief and guilt. I remember that anger. How it ate me up inside, devoured every shred of the human being I had once been. And I watch myself in my dream. Like watching some flickering old movie, black-and-white or sepia-brown. Waiting. Waiting.

The air was warm on my skin that night, though I couldn’t stop shivering. The sounds of the city are so different. I had got used to the islands. It was almost a shock to be back among tall buildings and motor cars and people. So many people. But not there, not that night. It was quiet, and the sound of traffic was far away.

I had waited maybe an hour by that time. Concealed in the bushes, crouched down on stiffening legs. But anger gives you patience, like lust delaying the moment of orgasm to make it all the sweeter. It makes you blind, too. To possibilities, and consequences. It dulls the imagination, reduces your focus to one single point, and obliterates all else.

A light came on, then, in the porch, and all my senses were on heightened awareness. I heard the latch scrape in the lock, and the squeal of the hinges before I saw them stepping out into the light. Both of them. One behind the other. Danny stopped to light a cigarette, and Tam was about to lean back to close the door.

And that’s when I moved out on to the path. Into the light. I wanted to be sure they saw me. To know who I was, and what I was going to do. I didn’t care who else might see me, as long as they knew.

The match flared at the end of Danny’s cigarette, and I saw in the light it cast in his eyes that he knew I was going to kill him. Tam turned at that moment and saw me, too.

I waited.

I wanted him to realize.

And he did.

I raised my shotgun and fired the first barrel. It hit Danny full in the chest, and the force of it threw him back against the door. I’ll never forget the look of sheer terror and certainty in Tam’s eyes as I pulled again. A little off balance, but accurate enough to take half his head off.

And I turned and walked away. No need to run. Peter was dead, and I had done what I had to do. Hang the consequences! I was no longer shivering.

I don’t know how many times I have dreamt that dream. Often enough that I am no longer sure if that’s all it ever was. But no matter how many times I dream it, nothing changes. Peter is still dead. And nothing can bring him back. I had promised my mother, and I had let her down.

‘Come on, Dad. It’s getting cold.’

I turn to see Marsaili leaning down to slip her arm through mine and help me to my feet. I stand up and look at her in the moonlight as she straightens my cap. I smile and touch her face. ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ I tell her. ‘You know I love you, don’t you? I really, really love you.’

As they drove up the path to her house Ceit frowned and said, ‘There are no lights. The timer should have switched them on ages ago.’ But it wasn’t until they clattered across the cattle grid that they saw the white Range Rover parked next to Fin’s car.

Fin glanced at Ceit. ‘Looks like you’ve got visitors. Do you know the car?’ Ceit shook her head.

They all got out of the Mercedes and Dino went running, barking, to the front door. As they climbed on to the deck in the dark, Fin felt glass crunching beneath his feet. Someone had smashed the light bulb above the door.

He said to Ceit, ‘Pick up the dog!’ And something in his tone brought an immediate and unquestioning response. He was on full alert now. Tense and apprehensive. He moved cautiously towards the door, hand outstretched to grab the handle.

Ceit whispered, ‘It’s not locked. It never is.’

He turned it and pushed the door into darkness. He held his hand behind him to warn the others against following, and stepped carefully into the hall. More glass ground itself into the tartan carpet beneath his feet. The bulb in the hall had been smashed, too.

He stood listening, holding his breath. But he could hear nothing above the barking of Dino in the arms of Ceit on the deck outside. The door to the living room stood ajar. He could see the shadow of the silver panther cast by moonlight streaming in through the French windows. He stepped into the room and immediately sensed a presence, before a baby’s muffled cry sounded in the dark.

A match flared, and by the light of its flame he saw the illuminated face of Paul Kelly. He was sitting in a chair by the window on the east side of the room. He puffed several times on his cigar until the end of it glowed red, then he reached across to turn on a glass standard lamp. Fin saw the sawn-off shotgun lying across his lap.

Directly opposite him, perched on the edge of the settee, Donna sat clutching her baby. The black-haired young man from the villa in Edinburgh stood beside her with another sawn-off shotgun extended towards her head. He looked nervous. Donna was like a ghost. Shrunken and shadoweyed. Visibly shaking.

Fin heard the crunch of broken glass behind him, and Morag’s gasp. The dog had gone silent, but Marsaili’s whispered ‘Oh my God!’ seemed almost deafening.

No one moved, and in the seconds of silence that followed, Fin’s assessment of the situation was bleak. Kelly had not come all this way just to frighten them.

Kelly’s voice was obversely calm. ‘I always figured it was John McBride who murdered my brothers,’ he said. ‘But by the time we got people up here he’d vanished without trace. Just like he never existed.’ He paused to draw on his cigar. ‘Until now.’ He lifted the shotgun from his lap and stood up. ‘So now he can watch his daughter and his granddaughter die, just the way I watched my brothers die in my arms.’ His mouth curled into a barely controlled grimace, ugly and threatening. ‘I was in the hallway behind them that night when they were gunned down and left bleeding to death on the steps. You’ve got to know what that feels like to know how I feel right now. I’ve waited a lifetime for this day.’

Fin said, ‘If you kill one, you’ll have to kill us all.’

Paul Kelly smiled. His eyes creased with genuine amusement. ‘You don’t say.’

‘You can’t take us all at once. Shoot that girl and you’re going to have to deal with me.’

Kelly raised his shotgun and swung it towards Fin. ‘Not if I take you first.’

‘This is crazy!’ Marsaili’s voice pierced the still of the room. ‘My dad is in an advanced state of dementia. Killing people won’t serve any purpose. It won’t mean a thing to him.’

Kelly’s eyes turned cold. ‘It will to me. In the end, an eye for an eye’ll suit me just fine.’

Ceit stepped forward, Dino still clutched to her chest. ‘Only it won’t be an eye for an eye, Mr Kelly. It’ll just be plain bloody murder. You weren’t on the bridge that night. I was. And Peter McBride never pushed your brother. Patrick lost his balance in all the panic with the cops showing up. He was going to fall. Peter risked his life going up on the parapet to try and grab him. Your brothers killed an innocent man. A poor half-witted boy who would never have harmed a soul. And they got their just desserts. It’s over! Let it go.’