The Going Down of the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

“I didn’t know we didn’t know.”
    I shook my head. “We know who the boat belonged to. We know who the woman was. All we know about him is that he wasn’t her husband.”
    â€œThere was no ID in his clothes?”
    â€œYou saw what he was wearing.” Approximately the same as me, and I was carrying nothing that would identify me either. All his property that wasn’t directly about his person had gone up in flames.
    â€œWell, he’s pretty much awake now. Ask him.”
    He hadn’t cried himself out yet, but while we’d been talking quietly at the other end of his bed the violence of his grieving had abated. Now he lay still behind the shelter of his arm, too weak to do anything else. Neil Burns was right: grief takes most out of those who have most to spare for it. This boy would cry again when he was stronger, but for now he had reached a kind of peace.
    I took his hand, and his elbow in my other hand, and lifted his arm high enough to peep underneath. “Feeling better?”
    His eyes were red. His hair, which had dried from the sea, was wet again at both temples. But crying had at least given him a voice. “I’m all right.” It was a lie, of course. He wasn’t all right; he wasn’t even feeling better.
    I said, “We don’t know your name.”
    He paused a little longer than made sense. There was no question of amnesia. He remembered what had happened, remembered Alison McAllister clearly enough to break up over her—the chances of his having forgotten his own name were negligible. But something was going through his mind, and only after he had it resolved did he consent to answer. “Alex Curragh.”
    It was his name all right, it’s such a personal thing that it’s quite difficult to give a false name convincingly, but I was sure he had thought about telling us another lie and I wondered why.
    But the answer was obvious enough. He had been on a boat with another man’s wife when fate stepped in and promoted their discreet duty weekend to front-page news. Her husband was going to know; his wife, if he had one, was going to know. He might have got away with giving a false name to the hospital, but plainly the police were going to be involved as well. So he told us who he was.
    â€œWhere do you live, Alex?”
    â€œCrinan. I work on the boats.” So that was how they’d met, the rich man’s sailor wife and the boat hand.
    â€œHad you known her long—Alison, Mrs. McAllister?”
    Again that brief pause while he thought, a gathering of cloud in his dark eyes, and this time he lied. “A few weeks. She needed some help with her boat. I helped her out.” He avoided looking at me.
    I didn’t believe him—a young man doesn’t cry like that for the death of a casual employer—but I didn’t force the issue. The police would do that. “You were crewing for her?”
    â€œYes.” But the yard in Oban had been unconcerned to see her leave for the thirty-mile passage to Crinan; if she didn’t need a crew to get that far, she didn’t need a crew. They were lovers, all right. He was thinking of the dead woman’s reputation.
    â€œDo you know what caused the explosion?”
    His eyes filled up again but the tears didn’t spill.
    â€œShe was so careful. ” The accent was Highland, soft and musical. “She never turned the gas on unless she had a match lit. She wouldn’t have smoking on board. She wouldn’t have so much as the radio on when she was fuelling. She said she saw a boat burn up once, and she didn’t want to go that way.” His face twisted and the tears spilt.
    I held his hand, for comfort but also to stop him hiding. His hands were brown with weather, hardened by salt and work, but surprisingly slender in design. He was not a big man. If he had been he would likely have died in the lagoon before we could haul him