FORTY-EIGHT

'Exactly how much dosh did Jackie give you?' Chipchase asked when Harry returned from the bar with another around of drinks.

'Never you mind,' Harry replied, taking a slurp of beer.

'I only ask because pouring Talisker down Dougie's throat could be regarded as flagrantly wasteful given how little we learned from the crabby old bugger.'

McLeish had just left, claiming it was way past his bedtime, though looking alert enough to suggest that may not have been the literal truth. He had relapsed into taciturnity once Harry's interest in Ailsa Redpath's whereabouts had become apparent and had shown no inclination to expound further on the Haskurlay mystery.

'I wouldn't mind a drop of Talisker myself. While we're up here, we may as well sample the—'

'You'll have Bell's and be grateful. You won't be able to taste the difference through that cigar anyway.' Harry was beginning to regret buying Chipchase a replacement pack of Villiger's during their stop in Oban. 'And we learned more from Dougie than you seem to think.'

'Did we?' Chipchase blew a defiant ring of cigar smoke towards the ceiling. 'You'd better remind me what exactly.'

'Ailsa's here. On Vatersay. With her brother. The man's a bachelor. Dougie said so. There's no Mrs Munro. So, the woman Mark spoke to must have been Ailsa.'

'Bachelors have been known to entertain women other than their sisters. I'm glad to say.'

'Ailsa's here. Dougie knows that. She's been seen. He only went coy on us when his loyalty to a fellow islander kicked in.'

'OK. Have it your way. She's here. We're here. Though God knows why. We never have been before. You know that as well as I do, Harry. Whatever went on on some unin-bloody-habited lump of rock out there fifty years ago' — Chipchase gestured towards the night-blanked window — 'has sod all to do with us.'

'It shouldn't have, I agree. But it does, Barry. You know that as well as I do. You just don't want to admit it.'

Chipchase puffed out his cheeks. 'Bloody hell,' he growled.

'We're linked to the Haskurlay mystery in some way or other. Everyone in Operation Clean Sheet is. Tomorrow… we'll find out how.'

'Is that a promise?'

'I suppose it is.'

'Funny. It sounded more like a threat to me.'

—«»—«»—«»—

There were no more rounds. With midnight fast approaching, they decided to head back to the hotel. Close by though it was, Chipchase opted to visit the bar's loo before leaving. Harry said he would wait for him outside. As a reformed smoker, he had no wish to linger in the fug created by Chipchase's cigars and the locals' cigarettes.

The air that enveloped him as he left was certainly fresh. It was also on the wintry side of cool. But the wind had dropped. A pallid serpent-tail of moonlight stretched out across the bay towards Vatersay. Harry stared towards the distant peninsula where Murdo Munro lived — and where, he strongly suspected, Ailsa Redpath had taken refuge.

Then someone whistled to him, softly but distinctly, from the bottom of the path leading up from the road. Harry looked down and saw a figure standing there, gazing up at him. An aromatic drift of pipesmoke clinched his identity.

'I thought you said it was past your bedtime,' Harry remarked, strolling down to join McLeish at the roadside.

'Decided on a walk before turning in. Pure chance I should be coming back this way as you stepped out of the bar.'

'That a fact?'

'Where's your uncontemplative friend?'

'Getting rid of some of the beer he's drunk.'

'Is he the only one of the men you served with you're still in touch with?'

'Not the only one, no.'

'Have regular reunions, do you?'

'I wouldn't say that.'

'And you were definitely based in Aberdeen?'

'Definitely.'

'Not Benbecula, say, or somewhere… closer to hand?'

'No. Not Benbecula. What are you driving at, Dougie?'

'Was there a black fellow in your unit?'

'What?'

'Name of Nixon.'

'What?'

'I'd judge from your reaction there was.'

'OK. Yes. There was. Leroy Nixon. Dead and gone now, I'm afraid.'

'Aye. As you say. Dead and gone.'

'What do you know about Leroy?'

'Take a turn down to the quay with me and I'll tell you. You can leave your friend to make his own way back to the hotel. I wouldn'a want to be… interrupted.'

—«»—«»—«»—

They descended a short hill and turned onto the quayside road, where Castlebay's few shops formed an orderly row facing the bay. McLeish crossed the street and gazed out at the stark black outline of the offshore castle.

'Kisimul was nought but a ruin when I was a boy,' he said, pitching his voice so low Harry had to strain to catch his words. 'The Forty-Fifth MacNeil came back from America just before the war and set about restoring it to its former glory. You can take a tour. Most of the holidaymakers do. The boat leaves from the jetty in front of the post office. Well worth it, I'm sure. If you have the time and the inclination. But you have neither, do you? Because you're not here for a holiday, are you?'

'What makes you think that?'

'The use of my faculties. The polis never connected the murders on Haskurlay with the Nixon drowning back in 1983, but I did. You can be sure of that.'

'Leroy died here?'

'Lost overboard from a ferry on the way to Oban. The body was washed up on the coast of Skye. Like the Munros' boat all those years before. 'Twas only the CalMac ticket they found on the poor fellow that accounted for what had happened to him. He was remembered at the guesthouse he'd stayed in here, of course. And he was remembered by me.'

'Why particularly by you?'

'I kept a sea-going boat in those days. Took visitors out on trips round the islands. To see the seals and puffins and such. Landed them on Mingulay if the weather was fair, which it was the day your friend Nixon was one of the party. But he never got as far as Mingulay. When we passed close to Haskurlay, he seemed to… recognize it. I don't know how else to put it. He'd never been there before, he said. And yet … He asked me to land him on the island. Paid me well enough too. So, I put him ashore — which was no easy matter — and took the others on to Mingulay. We picked him up on the way back. That was no easy matter either. He'd had four or five hours alone there by then.'

'How did he seem?'

'Stunned, I should say. Aye, stunned is the word. And a word is more than I had from him all the way back here. He walked off up the pier like man in a trance. I never saw him again. He took the ferry next morning. In more ways than one.'

'He had… mental problems, I'm told.'

'I wouldn'a disagree with that. The question is: what caused them?'

'I don't know.'

'Do you not? Do you really not?'

'No, Dougie, I really don't.'

'Why are you here, then?'

'It's… too complicated to explain.'

'Oh, I don't doubt it's complicated. Facts are facts, though, however few they may be where the Munro murders are concerned. You and your friend are awful interested in the Haskurlay mystery. It goes a lot deeper than curiosity. Does it not?'

'Yes. It does.'

'Have either of you ever been to Haskurlay?'

'No. Absolutely not.'

'But that's what your late National Service chum Mr Nixon said, of course. And the fellow who turned up a few months after his death… enquiring about the circumstances. He'd be about your age too. Name of—'

'Lester Maynard.' Pretence on the point seemed suddenly futile. 'He's dead as well. Natural causes, though.'

'Aye, well, they claim us all in the end. Serve with him too, did you?'

'Yes.'

'In Aberdeen?'

'Yes.'

'Of course. In Aberdeen.'

'Did you take Maynard to Haskurlay too?'

'No. But some other skipper might have. It wouldn'a surprise me. Nor you, I suspect.'

'None of us came here in 1955, Dougie.'

'If you say so.' McLeish drew on his pipe, the tobacco glowing amber-red in the bowl. 'But it's no me you have to convince, is it? It's yourselves.'