The cloud was shredded all across the sky as they drove back to Stornoway, ragged strips of blue and black and purple-grey. The road stretched straight ahead of them, rising to the horizon and a strip of light beneath the bruising where you could see the rain falling in sheets.
‘It happened about two months ago,’ Gunn said. ‘Donna Murray and a bunch of her pals were drinking at the Crobost Social.’
‘I thought you said she was only sixteen.’
Gunn sneaked him a look to see if he was joking. ‘You have been away a long time, Mr Macleod.’
‘It’s illegal, George.’
‘It was a Friday night, sir. The place would have been jumping. Some of the girls would have been over eighteen. And nobody’s paying that much attention anyway.’
Sunlight unexpectedly split the gloom, wipers smearing light with rain across the windscreen, a rainbow springing up out of the moor away to their left.
‘There was all the usual stuff going on between boys and girls. You know how it is when you mix alcohol with teenage hormones. Anyway, Macritchie was at his habitual place at the bar, sitting up on a stool, leaning in his elbow groove and casting a lascivious eye over all the young girls. Hard to believe he still had any hormones after the amount of beer he’d flushed through his system over the years.’ Gunn chuckled. ‘You saw the state of his liver.’ Fin nodded. Angel had been a big drinker, even as a teenager. ‘Anyway, for some reason young Donna seems to have caught his eye that night. And inexplicably, he seems to have thought she might find him attractive. So he offered to buy her a drink. I guess when she turned him down that might have been the end of it. But, then, apparently someone told him that she was Donald Murray’s girl, and that seemed to encourage him.’
Fin could imagine how putting his hands all over Donald Murray’s daughter might tickle Macritchie’s sick sense of irony, particularly if her father got to hear about it.
‘He spent the rest of the night badgering her, buying drinks that she wouldn’t touch, trying to put his arm around her, making lewd suggestions. Her friends all thought it was a great laugh. Nobody saw Macritchie as a real threat. Just some drunken old fart in the bar. But Donna got really pissed off. He was ruining her night out, so she decided she was going home. Flounced out in a right tid, according to her pals. Most people didn’t notice it, but about a minute later the barmaid saw Macritchie slipping off his stool and heading out after her. This is where different accounts start to conflict.’
Their car passed a bunch of teenage girls huddled in a concrete bus shelter at South Dell. They were peculiar to Lewis, these constructions, flat-roofed, with four open compartments that would provide shelter regardless of the direction of the wind. Fin remembered that they used to call them giants’ picnic tables. The youngsters looked about Donna’s age, waiting for a bus to take them into Stornoway for a night out. Alcohol and teenage hormones. Fin felt certain that these girls had no idea just how dangerous a cocktail that could be. Smiles on pale faces that flew past rain-streaked windows. Lives headed on a course that none of them could predict but which were, at the same time, utterly predictable.
‘It was about thirty-five minutes from the time Donna left the Social till the time she got home,’ Gunn said.
Fin exhaled through pursed lips. ‘It would take about ten minutes at the most.’
‘Seven. We got a policewoman to time it.’
‘So what happened during the missing half-hour?’
‘Well, according to Donna, Macritchie sexually assaulted her. Her words. She was dishevelled when she got back to the house. Which was the word her father used. Red-faced, make-up all smeared, blubbing like a baby. He called the police, and she was taken to Stornoway for questioning and examination by the police surgeon. That was when she used the word rape for the first time. So between Ness and Stornoway it had changed from sexual assault to rape. Of course, as we always do, we had to establish the exact nature of the assault. When we started getting into detail, the girl got hysterical. But, yes, she confirmed, Macritchie forced her to the ground and put his penis inside her vagina. No, she had not consented. Yes, she was a virgin. Or had been.’ Gun glanced uneasily at Fin. ‘But I have to be honest with you, Mr Macleod, there was no blood on her, or her clothes, and there was no outward indication that she had been forced to the ground on a wet night. There was no bruising visible on her arms, her clothes did not appear to be wet or dirty.’
Fin was puzzled. ‘What did the medical examination show?’
‘Well, that’s just it, Mr Macleod, she wouldn’t submit to a medical examination. Point-blank refused. Said it would be too humiliating. We told her that it was unlikely that charges could be brought against Macritchie unless we had physical, or witness, evidence. As it turned out, the only witness we could find outside the Social said that Macritchie had headed off in the opposite direction from Donna. And since she refused a medical examination …’
‘What did her father say?’
‘Oh, he backed her all the way. Said that if she didn’t want to be examined by a doctor then that was her right. We explained the position to him, but there was no way he was going to try to persuade her to do it if she didn’t want to.’
‘What was his demeanour through all this?’
‘I’d say he was angry, Mr Macleod. Kind of tight, balled-fist angry, you know, pent up inside. He seemed calm enough on the exterior. Too calm. Like water in a dam before they open the sluice gates.’ Gunn sighed. ‘In any event, the investigating officers questioned just about everybody who was at the Social Club that night, but there was no one who could corroborate Donna’s story. In theory, the case remains open, but in fact the investigation was shelved.’ He shook his head. ‘Of course, shit sticks. There was rumour, and gossip, and a lot of people were convinced that Macritchie raped the girl.’
‘Do you think he did?’
Scraps of water, tiny lochan lying in fragmented pools across the moor, glinted a cold blue in the sunlight. The rain had blown over, clearing the sky to the south. Siadar lay behind them, and the white cottages of Barvas as they approached it caught the western sun slanting across the land, lighting the gentle slopes of the southern mountains in the far distance.
‘I’d like to say I did, Mr Macleod. From everything I know about the man he seems to have been a bad bastard. But, you know, there was no evidence.’
‘I didn’t ask you about the evidence, George. I asked you what you thought.’
Gunn held the wheel firmly in both hands. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what I think, Mr Macleod, as long as you don’t quote me on it.’ He hesitated just for a moment. ‘I think that girl was lying through her teeth.’