He knocked on the door, but the clackety-clack of the loom continued uninterrupted. Fin drew a deep breath and waited until there was a pause for a change of shuttle. Then he knocked again. There was a moment’s silence, then a voice told him to enter.
The inside of the shed was a dumping ground for almost everything imaginable. An old bicycle, a lawnmower and strimmer, garden tools, fishing net, electric cable. The loom itself was set in the corner, the walls behind it lined with shelves of tools and stacks of different-coloured spun wool, all within easy reach of the weaver. There was a clear passage to it for the wheelchair, and Calum sat behind the loom, large metal handles jutting up at either hand from the mechanism below.
Fin was shocked. Calum had put on a huge amount of weight. His once delicate frame was round-shouldered and gross. A great collar of flesh propped up his chin, and his ginger hair was all but gone. What was left of it had been cropped, although it still kept its colour. Pale skin that never saw the sun looked bleached, almost blue-white. Even the once vivid spattering of freckles seemed to have faded. Calum squinted at Fin standing in the light of the doorway, his green eyes wary and suspicious.
‘Who’s that?’
Fin moved away from the door so that the light was no longer behind him. ‘Hello, Calum.’
It was a moment or two before Fin saw recognition in Calum’s eyes. There was surprise there, too, for just a second before a dull glaze passed across them like cataracts. ‘Hello, Fin. I’ve been expecting you for twenty years. You took your time.’
Fin knew there were no excuses he could make. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What for? It wasn’t your fault. My stupid idea. And as you see, I didn’t have wings after all.’
Fin nodded. ‘How have you been?’ Even as he said it he knew it was a stupid thing to ask. And he only did because he had no idea what else to say.
‘How do you think?’
‘I can’t imagine.’
‘I bet you can’t. Unless it’s happened to you, how can you possibly imagine what it’s like to have no control of your bowels or your bladder? To have to be changed like a baby when you soil yourself? You wouldn’t believe the sores you get on your arse when you have to sit on it all day. And sex?’ A tiny bitter breath of laughter forced its way between his lips. ‘Well, of course, I’m still a virgin. Can’t even have a wank. Couldn’t find the damned thing even if I wanted to. And the irony of it is, that’s what it was all about in the first place. Sex.’ He paused, lost in some distant memory. ‘She’s dead, you know?’
Fin frowned. ‘Who?’
‘Maid Anna. Killed in a motorbike accident years ago. And here’s me, a big lump of lard stuck in a wheelchair, still going strong. Doesn’t seem right, does it?’ He dragged his eyes away from Fin and finished rethreading the shuttle before slipping it back into the empty slot in its drum. ‘Why are you here, Fin?’
‘I’m a cop now, Calum.’
‘I’d heard.’
‘I’m investigating Angel Macritchie’s death.’
‘Ah, so you didn’t just call for the pleasure of my company.’
‘I’m on the island because of the murder. I’m here because I should have come a long time ago.’
‘Putting old ghosts to rest, eh? Rubbing salve on a troubled conscience.’
‘Maybe.’
Calum sat back and looked at Fin very directly. ‘You know, the biggest irony of all is that the only real friend I’ve had in all the years since it happened was Angel Macritchie. Now there’s a fucking turn-up for you.’
‘Your mother told me he’d built the shed for the loom.’
‘Oh, he did more than that. He refitted the whole house, made every room accessible for the chair. He made that garden out there, and laid the path so I could sit out if I wanted.’ He shrugged. ‘Not that I ever wanted.’ He grabbed the handles on either side of him. ‘He adapted the loom so that I could work it by hand, a clever extension to the foot pedals.’ He started working the levers backwards and forwards, and the shuttles flew across the weave of the cloth, wheels and cogs interlocking to drive the whole complex process. ‘Smart man.’ He raised his voice above the clatter of the machine. ‘Much smarter than we ever gave him credit for.’ He released the levers and the loom came to a halt. ‘Not that I make much from the weaving. Of course, there’s my mother’s pension, and the little money that’s left from the compensation we got. But it’s hard, Fin, making ends meet. Angel made sure we never went short. He never came empty-handed. Salmon, rabbit, deer. And, of course, he always had half a dozen gugas for us each year. Cooked them himself, too.’ Calum lifted another shuttle from a wooden bin hooked over the arm of his chair and played with it distractedly. ‘At first, when he started coming, I suppose it was guilt that made him do it. And I think he expected I would blame him.’
‘Didn’t you?’
Calum shook his head. ‘Why should I? He didn’t force me to go up on the roof. Sure, he was trying to make a fool of me, but I was the one who made the fool of myself. He might have taken the ladder away, but he didn’t push me off the roof. I panicked. I was stupid. I’m the only one to blame.’ Fin saw his knuckles turning white as his fingers tightened around the shuttle before he released it into its box. ‘Then when he realized I didn’t bear him any ill-will, I suppose he might just have stopped coming. Conscience clear. But he didn’t. If you’d told me all those years ago that I’d end up being friends with Angel Macritchie I’d have told you you were off your head.’ He shook his head as if he still found it hard to believe himself. ‘But that’s what we became. He’d come up every week to work in the garden, and he’d sit in here for hours, just talking. About all sorts.’
He broke off, and sat lost in a silence that Fin did not dare to break. Then tears welled up suddenly in his eyes, blurring green, and Fin was shocked. Calum glanced up at his old school friend. ‘He wasn’t a bad man, Fin. Not really.’ He tried to wipe the tears away. ‘He liked folk to think he was some kind of hard case, but all he did was treat people the way life treated him. A kind of sharing out of the misery. I saw another side to him, a side I don’t think anyone else ever saw, not even his own brother. A side he wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to see. A side to him that showed how he might have been in other circumstances, in another life.’ And more tears trembled on the rims of his eyes before spilling over to roll down his cheeks. Big, silent, slow tears. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.’ He made a determined effort to blink them away and took out a handkerchief to dry his face. He tried to force a smile, but it looked more like a grimace. ‘Anyway …’ A bitter edge crept back into his voice. ‘It was good of you to drop by. If you’re ever passing, call again.’
‘Calum …’
‘Go, Fin. Just go. Please.’
Fin turned reluctantly towards the door and pulled it gently shut behind him. He heard the loom start up inside. Clacketyclack, clackety-clack. The sun was shining across the moor beyond the peat stack, a mocking sun that only heightened Fin’s depression. He found it hard to imagine what Angel and Calum had talked about together all those years. But one thing was certain. Whoever had murdered Angel Macritchie, it wasn’t Calum. The poor, crippled weaver was probably the only person on earth to spill a tear over Angel’s passing.