A Small Death in the Great Glen (50 page)

“See you at the wedding, Bianca.”

“Aye. See you there.” She waved.

Rob, returning her wave, walked backward right into another very short, very round man in a strange black hat with the Italian colors stuck in the band.

“Excuse me, I'm so sorry,” he apologized.

“Yes, she is a pretty girl, no?”

“No. I mean yes.”

They laughed. They introduced themselves. He was the
convoy's commandant. He showed Rob the whistle to prove it. He also had the newest and brightest of the ice-cream vans and, as Rob was soon to find out, the loudest of the chimes. They discussed tactics. Rob would be motorbike scout, escort, navigator and communications officer.

It took twenty minutes for the vehicles to gather their cargo of wedding guests and another twenty minutes of backing up and three-point turns that were often seven- or nine-point turns in the narrow streets, then getting into formation. The commander, a Neapolitan, shouted one final instruction, which was relayed down the line, then they set out of the fishing village, on through the town, out onto the main north road.

The flags and bunting snapped in the wind. The cacophony of jingles from the passing panoply was returned with cheery waves from the astonished denizens of Nairn. Shopkeepers stood in doorways, arms folded over their aprons, amazed. Children and a stray dog ran behind cheering. The police, having been alerted by their colleagues from previous town and county forces along the convoy route, saluted as the vehicles sedately passed out of the town limits.

Slow and steady, they continued on the road they had been on since Arbroath. The logistics of the trip were complicated. Many of the towns they had passed through were a chance for a reunion with friends and family. There were new babies to admire, new chip shops to inspect, many stories to share. Diversions and digressions due to weather, and sometimes wine, meant the journey lasted over a week for the Ayrshire and Clydeside contingent. No one minded. Edinburgh, Alloa, Dundee, Arbroath, Aberdeen, Forres, Elgin, or was it the other way round, Elgin and Forres, then Nairn; many had lost count of the stops on the road to the wedding.

Rob flitted back and forth carrying messages, checking on
the progress of some of the older vehicles, reporting back to the commander that all was well. He tried his best to outdo the children pulling faces at him every time he passed. And somehow he always managed to end up next to the car carrying Bianca. He hoped she was impressed. She was.

Before the last level crossing on the edge of the town, Rob signaled the convoy to a standstill.

“Now; at the town, we go straight through Eastgate, down the High Street, across the river, left at Gino's café and park along the riverbanks. Remember, straight all the way till we're across the river.”

“Lead on,” commanded the commander.

Entering the town proper, the lead vehicle turned on its chimes, the others following suit. “O Sole Mio” rang out from at least six ice-cream vans. Others played different Italian tunes or opera arias, and one played “Jingle Bells.” The chip vans had their own tunes or two-tone klaxons. One played “I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” over and over. The cars and coach joined in, honking the length of the High Street and across the bridge. Rob, proudly leading the procession, slowed at the sight of Inspector Tompson standing on the Town House steps.

He gave the policeman a big wave. It was not returned.

DCI Westland had to share an office with Inspector Tompson. Not an ideal arrangement, he had quickly discovered, but the room the detectives worked from was even worse. Tiny nineteenth-century spaces set off a narrow spiral stone staircase; it was handy for the courts in the castle and the procurator fiscal's office, but not much else. As well as having to cope with the physical limits of the space, he was forced to put up with the limits of Tompson's policing methods. The inspector decided who was guilty, then set out to prove it. His prejudices were manifold. He was incapable of
listening. He bore grudges. Detective Chief Inspector Westland was reminded again of the loss of the brightest and best in the war only a decade past. He made a decision. He would talk again with McAllister. The typed report was succinct and clear, but what was between the lines was what Westland needed to hear. It went against the grain to share police business with a layman, but the editor had impressed the policeman. His obsession with the priest was not helpful but understandable. Maybe … he thought, maybe I should make my own inquiries about Morrison. Tompson found nothing. But had he looked hard enough? The church had not been forthcoming, Tompson had said, but maybe …

What I need is a private phone, Westland decided.

The photographs of the boys, the innocent pictures that Morrison was so keen on hiding, sat on his desk emanating disquiet. The sound of his own boys—chattering, laughing, arguing—was the background noise whenever he looked at the wee faces peering up at the camera. Faces, each and every one different but somehow the same. In shades of sepia or gray, there they were, anonymous boys that only they or their families would recognize. He handled the photos with care, giving each one the respect he would show to his own family snapshots, before putting them into the envelope, then into the evidence locker. Tompson had objected even to that. But at least, thought Westland, I had the sense not to ask him to include the envelope in the file on the boy's murder. That would have Tompson running straight to the chief constable.

Evidence of what, the inspector had demanded when asked to make a file on Morrison's portraits. They are pictures of boys in their boxing rig-outs. What's wrong with that? The images of boys in the bath were equally dismissed. After all, he had said, everyone baths together after any game of sport. Miners bath together after a shift, men bath together after a game of football,
what was he, Westland, on about, Inspector Tompson had asked in fury.

“I'll have you know”—and at this he had poked a finger toward his superior officer's chest—“Father Morrison is a man beyond reproach. He's a priest for goodness' sake! We, his parishioners, know him as an admirable dedicated person who gives so much to the unfortunates he helps. Anyone who says different is a Protestant or an Orangeman or a Jew, someone with a grudge against the Catholic Church.”

The trouble is, Westland thought, Tompson is right. And even worse, Westland thought for the umpteenth time, we are no nearer finding out who interfered with and killed the boy. The Polish man couldn't have done it—he believed the tinkers' story. That was another matter. Tompson was livid; he was still convinced of the Polish man's guilt. Who could believe a stranger, who would ever take a tinker's word on anything, he had ranted. What about his coat being found on the canal towpath? Westland admitted he had no explanation for that. I have a good mind to take this higher, Tompson had threatened.

The procurator fiscal was just as unhelpful; no evidence against the man, he has a strong alibi, he had said—and that had set Tompson off again. A heart attack waiting to happen, had been McAllister's observation on the inspector.

McAllister's obsession, the past, was a place Westland decided he would revisit, going over ground the inspector had already covered. He vaguely recalled that a colleague in Aberdeen had been in Glasgow about that time. May as well inquire, he thought, I have to try something. Perhaps the answer, or at least a pointer,
is
in the past.

The only bright part of the day, the chief inspector recalled, was the sight of the inspector's face when asked about the Italians arriving in town for the wedding. That thought sustained DCI
Westland as he made his way down Bridge Street back to his icy billet at the boardinghouse to collect a stack of pennies in order to make a long-distance phone call from a freezing public phone box on one of the coldest days of the year.

“Can I do a piece on the convoy for next week?” Rob inquired next morning.

“Ask Don.” McAllister didn't look up as Rob poked his nose around the door.

This Friday was even quieter than usual. McAllister sat in his office, infecting others with the palpable feeling of defeat that shrouded him. Everyone tiptoed around him, putting his somber presence down to his injuries. But they all knew it was not that. The ghosts of guilt that had hovered over the editor for many a year were taunting him. The monster is free, McAllister kept telling himself, free to continue preying on other wee souls, protected by the cloth and a church that would always give him shelter and a society that refused to countenance any wrongdoings from a member of the clergy or even acknowledge that such things happened, it was dismissed, wasn't talked about, boys disbelieved if they ever found the courage to mention the unmentionable.

“It's only pictures.”

McAllister acknowledged that; it
was
only pictures. Any connection with his brother and Jamie was a connection of waters, a river, a canal, nothing more.

The frustration that Angus McLean felt with the lack of progress was less than that felt by McAllister; to him, his involvement came about because of his client, Karl Cieszynski, and his friendship with Peter Kowalski. Nevertheless, curiosity and a need for justice aroused him to action. He dialed the long-distance operator for a connection.

“We are both well, thank you. … Yes, I know. We are so cut off here that a trip to Edinburgh could well be a trip to the Continent.” Angus laughed at his former colleague's teasing. “Yes, I do seem to recall a train that runs south.” He listened. “You received my message about the man's full identity? Right. That was good of you. And what did you discover?” He started taking notes. “Hmmm, I suppose we Presbyterians are equally secretive. No point in dirty laundry in public and suchlike.” He scribbled some more. “Fine. Thank you. I will pass that on. No, no. It may not mean much, but then again, it is something the police should know.”

After many thank-yous and yes-we-will-try-to-make-it-south-when-the-weather-is-better, he hung up the phone and stared out of the casement windows, not seeing the distant Wyvis, a mountain in name, but really only a horizon to the townspeople.

He had to at least consider the unthinkable.