A Small Death in the Great Glen (33 page)

Grandad Ross joined her, Jean slumped over his shoulder.

“I'll take the wee soul home now. She's exhausted.”

“Are you sure, Dad? Don't you want to hear the music?”

Joanne knew how much he enjoyed the fiddle.

“Call thon music? Seagulls following the plough'd be better than this lot.” Her father-in-law shouted to be heard above the band.

“I forgot, you're not overfond of Kenny Macbeth.”

An unknown grievance between him and Kenny Macbeth had lasted all of thirty-odd years. She looked at him fondly and smiled.

“Thanks, Dad, that would be great. Where's Annie? And Granny Ross?”

“Mother's finishing up in the kitchen, Annie's stuck in yon corner with her book, but she'll come home wi' us.”

Annie looked up as though she'd divined her name through all the noise and started pushing through the crowd. Granny Ross appeared, laden with empty baskets and the washing tub. A sleepy Jean raised her head briefly from Grandad's shoulder to give her mother a kiss. Joanne turned back to the dancing. She had not gone three paces when a scream sliced through the music. The band played on. The shrieks didn't stop. The music faltered. All eyes turned to the bewildered old man and the terrified child writhing in his arms.

“The hoodie crow!”

Struggling and shaking, Jean tried to hide in her grandfather's coat collar, sobbing over and over, “Hoodie crow, it's a hoodie crow.” Annie clutched Grandad's arm, trembling, staring, defiant, transfixed. Granny Ross was lost for words. For once. The Reverend Duncan looked at his sobbing niece. He too was lost for words. At his side stood Father Morrison in a shiny midnight-black cassock and outdoor cape, the collar turned up high against the night. With a huge smile he walked toward an astonished Joanne, hand outstretched.

“It's very good to meet you, Mrs. Ross, I've heard so much about you.”

F
OURTEEN
 
 

What can I do for you, Mr. McAllister, sir?”

PC Grant seemed to take up all the front desk at the police station, leaving not enough room for anyone else either to sit beside him or squeeze behind.

“Have we met?” McAllister was sure he'd have remembered an elephant masquerading as a policeman.

“No, sir. But I've heard a lot about you. I'm friends wi' Rob McLean.” He suddenly realized his gaffe. “Please don't let on to Inspector Tompson, though.”

“Wouldn't dream of it. Is he in?”

“Oh no,
he
never works a Sunday.”

“Good. Who I really want is Detective Chief Inspector Westland.”

“He's no in neither.”

“Constable … ?”

“Grant. Willie Grant.”

“Constable Grant, I need to see the DCI It is extremely important that I see him immediately. Urgent, in fact.” McAllister was still not sure he was getting through. “It's a matter of life and death.”

“I suppose I could phone his landlady.”

McAllister waited.

“Yes, uh-huh, could you go get him? Yes, it's important. Aye, police business.”

They both waited a good five minutes.

“Yes, sir. No, sir, he didn't say but he says it's life or death. Aye. I'll tell him.”

PC Grant put down the phone and pronounced, “Fifteen minutes, sir, he'll meet you here.”

McAllister chose to wait outside—more room to pace. It was a ridiculously early hour for him to be out on a Sunday, but then, he had been up most of the night. DCI Westland appeared within ten minutes. They shook hands and went inside. McAllister mentally prepared himself to put his case. He in no way underestimated the task. He knew the accusation would be regarded as an impossibility. But he had to. …

“Mr. McAllister?”

“Sorry. I was trying to gather my thoughts.”

“Right then.” He gestured to a chair and they sat. “Life or death. Which is it?”

“A man's life, a boy's death.”

“I don't need to ask who the boy is—was.”

For all that McAllister was concise and articulate, and for all his pride in his ability to be detached, unemotional, the drowning of the boy had raised the ghost of his own dead and overwhelmed him.

“Have you looked at the possibility that the local priest, Father Morrison, might have had something to do with the boy's disappearance?” The shock on the policeman's face made McAllister charge on. “You've no doubt heard the story from the girls.” McAllister could see he had lost him. “About them seeing a hoodie crow pick up the boy and fly off with him?” No, that was not well put. “You know how in Glasgow there are rumors of some of the priests being involved in, well, interfering with boys and suchlike?”

“I don't know Glasgow, Mr. McAllister. And I would like to know how you got the idea that the boy was interfered with, as you put it.”

McAllister heard the warning in his voice.

“I know. You're right. I don't know. But I'm convinced you should look into this man.”

As the words came out, he felt an immediate pang of regret. McAllister himself hated others telling him how to do the job. How he hated it when someone would say to him, newspaper in hand, What you should do is …

“Are you saying that rumors, circulating around Glasgow, about priests of the church … are you saying the same thing is being talked of around here?”

“No. No, that's not being said around here—not to my knowledge. But I know, or at least suspect, that there is some truth in the stories. …”

“Aye. Stories,” Westland repeated. “And tell me, Mr. McAllister, how have you made the leap from stories, unconfirmed rumors, in Glasgow, to here, in the Highlands, to Father Morrison, as far as I know a respectable cleric? And, what did you say, the children saw hoodie crows kill the boy? I've got that right, haven't I? Hoodie crows?”

McAllister walked out into Sunday in despair.

As she cycled to the Monday-morning must-not-be-late-for meeting, she was steeling herself for the first real confrontation with McAllister. Every time Joanne remembered the night of her flight, which was often, she burned in shame. The fine drizzle of chill rain that penetrated every nook and cranny of her coat cooled her cheeks, but the memory of standing—no, swaying—on the doorstep of McAllister's house made her cringe down to her damp boots.

McAllister knows, was all she could think—he knows. And the blame was all hers, of that she was certain. I let this violence happen to me, was how she now saw it.

Joanne was barely in the office door when the phone started.

“Am I the only one who answers the blooming thing?” It was a rhetorical question.

“Gazette.”
She sat on the edge of the desk. “Chiara! How are—? Slow down—tell me again. … Never!”

“What was that all about on Halloween night?” McAllister strode in and was looming over her.

“That's terrible!” Joanne, trying to concentrate, flapped her hand, shooing him away as though he was a swarm of midges.

“I went by your house yesterday,” McAllister informed Joanne. “No one was in.”

“Chiara, say that again.”

“Do you mind getting off the phone to your female friends?”

“I can't believe it. It's just so … Uh-huh, right, I know, unthinkable! That inspector is mad! Aye, I'll be by as soon as I can.”

She turned on McAllister. “That was Chiara Corelli and—”

“Why was your wee girl so terrified of that priest?”

“It was Halloween. She was exhausted.” Joanne was distracted, didn't pick up that McAllister was serious.

“You yourself said she saw a hoodie crow when the boy disappeared! She was terrified because he is what she saw!”

“McAllister, what on earth are you talking about?”

“He's the hoodie crow!”

“Don't be ridiculous. He's a priest!”

“What's that got to do with it?”

“McAllister, have you lost your mind? I told you, it's all havers. Sure, they saw something, shadows most likely, but there is no hoodie crow.”

He glared at her. “Your daughter said—no, she screamed—he's the hoodie crow. She was pointing straight at the priest.”

“She sees the hoodie crow everywhere, in the street, at the pictures, in her dreams … and, in case you hadn't noticed, it was
Halloween—all the children were working themselves up to be frightened.”

“You're ignoring the obvious.”

“Is this a private fight or can anyone join in?” Don appeared.

“He's off his head.” Joanne jumped off the table and out of reach of McAllister's rage.

Rob, not far behind Don, last as usual for the Monday meeting, joined in.

“What's going on?”

“McAllister thinks Father Morrison is the hoodie crow and …” The logical connection to that, she couldn't make. But the fierceness of McAllister had Joanne completely flustered. She had never seen the man emotional about anything.

“That's it? You're taking bairns' fancies seriously?” Don shook his head.

“That's daft.” Rob was laughing. “I've known Father Morrison for years.”

“You know him?” McAllister practically pounced on Rob.

“He's our next-door neighbor. A nice man. Maybe a bit too fond of a drop, and he's forever taking photographs, but harmless.”

“Your next-door neighbor, he lives on the street where the boy went missing, and you didn't think to tell me!” McAllister was cold with anger. “Don't you get it?”

Rob had his mouth open to speak but didn't have a hope of a chance to say anything.

“The girls saw a hoodie crow take the boy.” McAllister pointed a finger at Rob's face. “A priest, in a cassock, looks like a great big hoodie crow. And that is what they saw.”

They were all three staring at the editor. Joanne was the first to move. She hadn't had time to take off her hat nor scarf. She grabbed her coat and made for the door.

“I'm away out. If you need me I'm at the Corelli house. And
instead of shouting your unbelievable, your
mad
accusations about a
good
man, a priest, how about this? The procurator fiscal is accusing the Polish man—Karl—with sexually interfering with the boy.” She was shouting now. “Did you hear me, McAllister? Someone did something unspeakable to that boy. Now,
that
is unbelievable!”

“There goes your theory, McAllister.” Rob pointed out, “Priests are celibate.”

Don had to look away at that comment.

“Tell me, Mrs. Ross, what exactly is so unbelievable?” McAllister knew he was pushing it but couldn't stop himself. Joanne stood silhouetted in the doorway, desperate to be anywhere but here. Don and Rob, invisible onlookers, were also wishing they were elsewhere.

“I … it's unbelievable that anyone could do that, to a child, to a wee boy. …”

“It's not unbelievable in the real world,” McAllister retorted. “It's not unbelievable that a priest—”

“It's unbelievable in
my
world.”

“So you're going to bury your head in the sand? Ignore the fact that perverts live amongst us? Pretend that children don't get assaulted? Pretend that men don't beat their wives, pretend that—”

He stopped and stared at her in horror. She stared back. There was absolute silence—except for a phone ringing downstairs and footsteps clattering down to the print room and a distant bus straining up the steep brae and a flock of gulls swooping by the window.

“How about a cup of tea before we start the meeting?” Don broke the spell.

But Joanne had fled, so there was no one to make the tea.