The Lewis Man (37 page)

But Kelly just shook his head. ‘Three of my brothers are dead because of the McBrides. It’s payback time.’ He half-turned towards Donna, shotgun levelled at the baby. And even as a desperate Fin started his lunge towards Kelly, he saw the younger man swing his shotgun to point straight at him.

The sound of the gun was ear-splitting in the confined space of the living room. The air seemed to fill with shattered glass. Fin felt it cut his face, and his hands as he raised them to protect himself. He felt warm blood splash across his face and neck, the smell of it filling his nostrils. He was only half aware of the bulk of Paul Kelly staggering backwards with the force of the blast, but was wholly confused by it. The big man crashed into the window at the far side of the room, turning it red, a gaping hole in the centre of his chest, a look of complete surprise frozen on his face as he slid to the floor. A woman was screaming, Dino was barking. Eilidh was sobbing. Fin felt the wind in his face and he saw Donald Murray standing on the far side of the window he had shattered with his shotgun. He held it still, levelled at Kelly’s young protégé. The man looked shocked and dropped his weapon, quickly raising his hands.

Fin darted forward to grab it and throw it away across the room, and Donald lowered his weapon. Beyond him, in the dark, Fin saw a pale, wide-eyed Fionnlagh.

‘He wouldn’t let me call the police. He wouldn’t.’ The boy was very nearly hysterical. ‘He said they would just make a mess of it. I called you, Fin, I called you. Why didn’t you answer your phone?’

There was not a scrap of colour in Donald’s face. Desperate eyes flickered towards Donna and the baby. His voice came in a whisper. ‘Are you all right?’

Donna couldn’t bring herself to speak, her sobbing baby clutched tightly to her chest. She nodded, and her father’s eyes briefly found Fin’s, lingering for just a moment. Somewhere behind them was a recollection of all those beliefs asserted on a drunken night when they had fought in the rain, and again on the windblown cliffs in the cold light of the next morning. Blown away in the pulling of a trigger. Then they returned to the man he had shot dead, where he lay among shattered glass and ornaments in a pool of his own blood. He screwed his eyes closed to shut out the sight of him.

‘God forgive me,’ he said.

I don’t know what’s going on any more. My ears are still ringing and I can hardly hear a thing. Something terrible happened, I know that. They’ve sat me down here in the kitchen, out of the way. There’s all sorts of people through there in the next room, and that damn dog just never stops barking.

There are blue lights and orange lights flashing out there in the dark. I heard a helicopter earlier. I’ve never seen so many policemen in my life. And that man who came to talk to me at Solas. I only remember him because of his widow’s peak. Made me think of a boy at The Dean.

I wonder what the minister’s doing here. I saw him earlier. He looked ill, not a well man. I feel sorry for him. Hasn’t the gumption of his father. A fine, God-fearing man
he
was. Damned if I can remember his name, though.

That woman’s coming into the kitchen now. I know I know her from somewhere. Just can’t think where. Something about her makes me think of Ceit. Can’t quite think what.

She pulls up a chair and sits down opposite me, leaning forward to take both of my hands in hers. I like her touch. She has fine, soft hands, and such lovely dark eyes looking into mine.

‘Do you remember the Sacred Heart, Johnny?’ she says. But I don’t know what she means. ‘They took you and Peter there after that night you both got trapped at the cliffs. You broke your arm, remember? And Peter had pneumonia.’

‘There were nuns,’ I say. Strange, but I can see them in that yellow half-light of the ward. Black skirts, white coifs.

She smiles at me and squeezes my hand. ‘That’s right. It’s a care home now, Johnny. I’m going to ask Marsaili if she’ll let you stay there. And I’ll come and see you every day, and bring you back here to the house for lunch. And we can go for walks on Charlie’s beach, and talk about The Dean, and the people we knew here on the island.’ She has such beautiful eyes, smiling at me like that. ‘Would you like that, Johnny? Would you?’

I squeeze her hands right back, returning her smile, and remember that night I saw her crying on the roof of The Dean.

‘I would,’ I say.

I would like to offer my grateful thanks to those who gave so generously of their time and expertise during my researches for
The Lewis Man
. In particular, I’d like to express my gratitude to pathologist
Steven C. Campman, M.D
, Medical Examiner, San Diego, California;
Donald Campbell Veale
, former ‘inmate’ of The Dean;
Mary-Alex Kirkpatrick
, actress (Alyxis Daly), for her wonderful hospitality while I was in South Uist researching locations;
Derek (Pluto) Murray
, for his advice on the Gaelic language;
Marion Morrison
, Registrar at the Tarbert Registry Office;
Bill Lawson
, Seallam! Visitor Centre, Northton, Isle of Harris, who has been specialising in the family and social history of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland for over forty years.

Note: the actual Dean Orphanage closed its doors in the late 1940s, its children dispersed to other homes. For the purposes of my story I have extended its life by eight to ten years. Conditions at the home related in the book were, however, exactly as described by the last ‘inmate’ to pass through its doors.

To read the first
three chapters of the
next Fin Macleod book,

THE CHESS MEN

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