A Small Death in the Great Glen (27 page)

Five o'clock in the afternoon, almost dark, McAllister again made his way to the river, then across St. Andrew's bridge to the club that was a recurring setting in his recurring dreams. As he opened the door the smell brought the nightmare from sleep to awake; plimsolls, socks, disinfectant, sweat, terror. The bilious institutional green of the walls was the exact color of fear. And the never-changing noise: grunts, moans, shouts, commands, shuffle-shuffle of feet, tick-tock, tick-tock of a big boy in the corner with a skipping rope, the repetitive pounding on the punching bags, the
oomph
of a man on the huge medicine bag swaying from the ceiling, the sound for all the world as real as a blow to the belly. And every sound was distinctly Glaswegian.

“Mr. McAllister, is it?”

A short man with mouse-brown hair in a lavatory-brush
haircut, narrow eyes and a narrow mouth, stepped forward. His grin expiated his looks, making anyone in range of his searchlight smile feel that they were interesting to know.

“I'm Joe Brodie. Michael Kelly told me to expect you.”

McAllister noted that he didn't use the honorific “Father.”

“I knew your wee brother Kenneth.”

Straight to the point; McAllister liked that.

“I'm happy to talk about him with you, all you want.”

On the train journey back to the Highlands, he thought over his visit home and laughed at himself. In the eight years of his quest—the matter of the Gorbals Boys' Boxing Club—he'd found, like any true Scotsman, the key to it in a bar. And no, he hadn't been mistaken; it
was
Jimmy McPhee in the photo with his brother. As for the elusive object of his obsession—he wouldn't give him the dignity of a title—he was no further toward finding his whereabouts.

“No idea what happened to him,” Joe Brodie had said. “All I remember was that he was here one minute and gone the next.” Aye, Joe had replied to McAllister's question, Father Bain knew Kenneth. “Kenneth was aye his favorite. But there was no harm in the man—not like
some.
” He continued: “He was a dab hand at the photography, he was the one who took all the pictures”—he gestured to the hundreds of framed photographs lining the walls—“probably took this one an' all,” he said, handing the photo back to McAllister.

“Gone,” was all Michael Kelly could tell him. “I don't know where.”

The train sped northward, snuffling and snorting through the empty snow-speckled landscape, racing the rivers and burns and waterfalls and rapids of gurgling whisky-peat foam that ran alongside the tracks, making their way to distilleries downstream. Remnants of ancient pine forest appeared and disappeared as the train chuffed joyously through the dramatic backdrop.

They stopped at the edge of the high plateau to uncouple the dining and sleeper cars and to water the two steam engines needed for the descent to the sea. Once through the Drumochter Pass, a distant Ben Wyvis flaunted a covering of pink snow that changed to blue as the dark navy of evening crept upward from the firth below. The earthly stars of villages scattered along the shoreline were soon being reflected in the clear northern sky. Home? thought McAllister. Aye, maybe. He smiled to himself.

It was hard to resist the warm lights of the Station Hotel as he alighted into a blast of icy air. Fellow passengers had scattered into the dark, but McAllister hurried for the bar. He'd never liked drinking nor eating on a train; too afraid of being trapped with someone who recognized him, just wanting “a wee word,” usually a libelous wee word. There were not a few in the town who felt it their duty to tell him what to write and how to run the newspaper. No anonymity in a small town.

He settled in a quiet corner behind a pillar, having decided on a pint of the best before going to the dining room for supper. Turned to the sports pages of the Aberdeen daily—“Only thing worth reading in thon rag” was Don's comment on the rival paper—he settled down to peruse the results of the tribal warfare that was the Highland Football League. Figures came and went, footsteps hushed by the thick carpet; midweek, but the bar was busy. The lonely and the anxious from the outposts of the county came for the sheriff's court or to the county council or to check on their looming coronary or some such in one of the two hospitals that served the far reaches of the shire. Commercial travelers from the south, lodging in a bed-and-breakfast that shut the doors by nine o'clock, came for a drink and company. Those waiting for the sleeper to Edinburgh, furtive lovers or wheelers and
dealers buttering up their local government representatives, all were here, all used the Station Hotel, for this was the place where the
respectable
folk of the Highlands met. McAllister—he came for the wide selection of single-malts, the food, the quiet and the short walk home.

“John McAllister. What can I get you?”

He looked up, distaste a momentary flicker across his face.

“I'm fine, Mr. Grieg. Fine. Just off. Still got things to see to.”

“Just a quick word.”

Little deflects a bully, certainly not subtlety. The town clerk proceeded to lecture McAllister for a good fifteen minutes on what stories to run to “improve the paper,” all the while waiting to be asked to take a seat.

“I really do have to go, Mr. Grieg.”

Seeing his time was up, the town clerk went straight into his backstabbing best.

“Donnie McLeod still with you I see. Aye. Used to be a good man. A right shame he's so fond of the bottle.”

He said this while clutching what must have been a double at least, McAllister noted. “As for his betting … some very unsavory characters in thon game. Not that it's any business o' mine, but I'm surprised you've kept him on.”

McAllister said nothing, waiting for him to put the boot in, and Grieg was true to form.

“He's been poking about in town planning affairs, asking ridiculous questions. I've had to warn him. And stirring up those tinkers, poking his long neb into things that are private council business.”

“But if it's council business, how can it be private?”

McAllister was deliberately mild, holding back an urge to head-butt the pompous plook of a man.

“And my dear lady wife was most put out about that sneering
wee piece on the Highland Ball. No call for that tone at all. I don't know who wrote it, but I have my suspicions.”

“I take full responsibility for all that appears in the
Gazette.
”

“The council puts a lot of advertising revenue the
Gazette
's way. It needn't. There's more than one paper in these parts.”

McAllister, in his short time as editor, had come into contact with Grieg a few times and had always regarded him with amused contempt, as one of a type—a puffed-up popinjay who thought himself God's gift (another of McAllister's mother's favorite phrases).

“I think we both know that that's not the way of it, Mr. Grieg.” McAllister, icily polite, stood. “I must be off.”

He picked up his hat, his newspapers, and strode out the bar, peeved and hungry.

E
LEVEN
 
 

McAllister's return to the Highlands and the office brought him back to the unquiet of the other death, the other boy. An uncommonly subdued Don McLeod nodded as he came in for the Monday meeting. A terminally cheerful Rob McLean grinned through a thatch of hair that badly needed cutting. And Joanne? He couldn't make out her mood, but then, he reminded himself, understanding women had never been his strong point; hence the life of a bachelor free, he joked sadly.

“Any news whilst I've been gone?”

“The funeral is the day after tomorrow.” Don looked tired. “I know it's taken a long time to release the body, an eternity to the parents no doubt.” Don gestured with open hands. “It doesn't bear thinking about.”

McAllister was fascinated to note the nicotine stains that covered the center of his deputy's left palm, remembering that Don had spent his boyhood at sea. Smoking with the cigarette turned inward to protect it from the wind was an ingrained habit. Don McLeod, once he had been around the world twice, had forsaken merchant ships and taken up journalism. To him it was not a highfalutin occupation; it was a trade. A job where you did an apprenticeship, worked your way up the ladder, to produce a newspaper in the same format as time immemorial. Police statements, reports from the procurator fiscal, news from the councils were run verbatim. Occasionally he would do a rewrite in reported speech to present a smatter of variety. And if Don knew there was more to the story than was published in the local press,
he would say, in private, usually in the Market Bar, of course there's more to it than that, and tap his nose, and wouldn't reveal what he knew, just allow the remark to hang there in the smoke, adding to his reputation for being the man in the know.

“It's a crime that's cracked a faultline as deep as the Great Glen through this whole community, a faultline marking the before and after. We're innocents, McAllister. Stuff like this is for the big cities.”

“I know.” McAllister changed the subject, weary of thoughts of death. “Any news on Councilor Findlay Grieg's grand schemes?”

“Not yet,” Joanne answered.

“Any more on Karl the Polish gentleman?”

“Still locked up.” It was Rob's turn.

“The Corelli family?”

“A bit upset but fine.” Joanne again.

“So nothing, no news.” McAllister was becoming exasperated.

“Oh, aye, some great news.”

McAllister cheered up.

“The chip shop's open again. Must have been your brilliant editorial.”

They busied themselves divvying up the rest of the routine. Joanne reached for the bundle of illegible handwritten reports from contributors, the typing of which made her consider profanities. But she was too well brought up to even think of a swear word without blushing. Rob left on mysterious Rob business. McAllister signaled to Don.

“A word?”

In the editor's office, the door firmly shut, McAllister didn't have to ask.

“No, it's not got out. Though how long the news can be kept quiet in this place …” He lit up. McAllister took one of his own; he couldn't manage the Capstan Full Strength that Don smoked.

“And aye, you're right. Things like this can go on anyplace; although it's usually kept in the family hereabouts, well hidden. We know our own perverts and we keep an eye on them. But this? An assault on a wee boy by a stranger?”

“And the Polish man Karl will take all the blame?”

“Who else?” But Don looked uncomfortable. “He may have done it; on the other hand … Let's just say I'm yet to be convinced. Inspector Tompson has never, in the eight years since he was posted to the town, been this efficient.”

McAllister couldn't bear talking about the matter a second longer.

“I need to find Jimmy McPhee.”

“Join the queue. Peter Kowalski is desperate to find him. The polis too. Anything I can help wi'?” Don took McAllister's shake of the head in his stride. He'd find out why sooner or later. He always did.