The Blackhouse Read Online Free PDF Page B

his indignation. “I’m older than you. I’d have got the blame for letting you go.”
    â€œOlder? Four weeks!”
    Artair cocked his head and shook it with great solemnity, like the old men who stood around the Crobost Stores on a Saturday morning. “That’s a lot.”
    I was less than convinced. “Well, I told my mother I was going to your house to play after school. So you’d better back me up.”
    He looked at me, surprised. “You mean you’re not?” I shook my head. “Where are you going, then?”
    â€œI’m going to walk Marsaili home.” And I gave him a look that defied him to object.
    We walked in more silence until we reached the main road. “I don’t know what you want to go walking girls home for.” Artair was not pleased. “It’s sissy.” I said nothing, and we crossed the main road and on to the single track that ran down to the school. There were other kids now, converging from all directions, and walking in groups of two and three toward the little clutch of school buildings in the distance. And suddenly Artair said, “Okay, then.”
    â€œOkay what?”
    â€œIf she asks, I’ll tell your mum you were playing at ours.”
    I stole a glance at him, but he was avoiding my eye. “Thanks.”
    â€œOn one condition.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œThat I get to walk Marsaili home with you.”
    I frowned my consternation and gave him a long, hard look. But he was still avoiding my eye. Why, I wondered, would he want to walk Marsaili home if it was so sissy?
    Of course, all these years later I know why. But I had no idea then that our conversation that morning marked the beginning of a competition between us for Marsaili’s affections that would last through all our school days, and beyond.

THREE
    I
    Fin had barely lifted his bag from the luggage carousel when a large hand grabbed the handle and took it from him. He turned, surprised, to find a big friendly face grinning at him. It was a round face, unlined, beneath thickly oiled black hair that grew into a widow’s peak. It belonged to a man in his early forties, broad built, but a little shorter than Fin’s six feet. He wore a dark suit with a white shirt and blue tie, beneath a heavy, quilted, black anorak. He thrust another large hand into Fin’s. “DS George Gunn.” He had an unmistakable Lewis accent. “Welcome to Stornoway, Mr. Macleod.”
    â€œIt’s Fin, George. How the hell did you know who I was?”
    â€œI can spot a cop at a hundred paces, Mr. Macleod.” He grinned, and as they stepped out to the car park said, “You’ll probably see a few changes.” He leaned into the strong westerly and grinned again. “One thing that never changes, though. The wind. Never gets tired of blowing.”
    But today it was a benign wind with a soft edge to it, warmed by an August sun that burst periodically through broken clouds. Gunn turned his Volkswagen on to the roundabout at the gate to the airfield, and they drove up over the hill that took them down again to Olivers Brae. They took a right toward the town, and the conversation turned toward the murder.
    â€œFirst of the new millennium,” Gunn said. “And we only had one in the whole of the twentieth century.”
    â€œWell, let’s hope this is the last of the twenty-first. Where are postmortems usually held?”
    â€œAberdeen. We have three police surgeons here on the island. All doctors from the group practice in town. Two of them are locum pathologists. They’ll examine the bodies of any sudden death, even carry out a post-mortem. But anything contentious goes straight off to Aberdeen. Foresterhill.”
    â€œWouldn’t Inverness be nearer?”
    â€œAye, but the pathologist there doesn’t approve of our locums. He won’t do any post-mortems unless he does them all.” Gunn flicked