First thing Monday I called the newsdesk at the Bugle and left a message for my boss telling him I was following up a murder inquiry. I didn’t say it was nearly my own. He sounded sceptical and long suffering. Who could blame him?
The Glen Sannox was back in action. We drove the Riley on board the eight thirty to Brodick. Its twin funnels were soon belching streams of smoke as we hurried through the waves.
‘Shall we take a stroll on deck or would that worry you too much?’ she asked with a fine balance of seriousness and amusement.
‘I’m safe now. They already think I’m dead.’
We took the air as though we were on a day trip for the fun of it. As we passed the mid point between the mainland and the island, I stared out into the choppy dark waters and thought how unlikely it was that I’d survived. After my unlikely escape from St Valery in ’40 I found I’d acquired a fatalistic shell. Even as I was stretchered off the battlefield in Sicily I wasn’t surprised that the shrapnel hadn’t taken my head off. It wasn’t that I felt I was being saved for some more dramatic end, or that someone was watching over me. I just stopped worrying about it. Some of the other blokes understood. I guess it was how the brain adjusted to daily exposure to the randomness of dying. It was only when I got back to Blighty that the dam seemed to burst and all my pent-up fears and terrors spewed out. Was that how it was for the others? Maybe I should get in touch with the regiment, compare notes?
As for this latest attempt at shortening my life, I felt no after-shocks other than the physical. Had I donned my protective shell again? So easily? Had a sense of danger been cauterised from my mind? Though it was only two days ago, the whole thing seemed like a bad dream. And I knew all about bad dreams. I touched my cheek. No dream. It must have shown. Sam laid a slim hand on my arm and raised an eyebrow. I smiled to reassure her. A cold dip was nothing to worry about.
‘I could murder a cup of tea and a bacon roll.’
‘You certainly know how to spoil a girl, Brodie.’
We trundled off the ferry and turned south out of the town. The journey up and over from Brodick Bay to Lamlash took us half the time of the bus. Sam nurtured the pre-select gearbox and pedals like a Le Mans driver as we took the gradient. As we crested the top, the sun came out and how I wished we were indeed on a holiday jaunt. But my heart didn’t stay light for long.
We drove down and into the village, found the Ross Road and pulled up outside Mrs Reid’s house. The curtains were drawn and there was no smoke from the chimney. Not necessarily anything to worry about, but I made Sam stay in the car and walked up to the front door. I knocked and waited, knocked and waited. I could see nothing from the window; the curtains were tightly closed.
‘She’s no’ in,’ came a voice behind me.
I turned round. A small woman was standing by the gate. She was in her slippers and sporting a hairnet over pink rollers. A cigarette dangled from her mouth.
‘Is she shopping? Or at the school?’
‘Ah wouldnae think so.’ She shook her head. ‘You’re not the first wi’ your big cars.’
Samantha had wound down her window. ‘What’s happening?’
I walked up to the neighbour so that Sam could hear her response. ‘You say a big car came? When?’
‘Just yesterday.’
‘And took her away?’
‘Aye. Twa men, big men. Took her and the weans.’
‘Took them? You mean forced her?’ Sam asked.
‘Weel, Mrs Kennedy didnae look that comfortable, ken. But she was watching for her weans. Ah was inside, ye ken. So Ah didnae hear anythin’. Just keeked the look on her face. She wisnae happy, neither she was.’
‘Had you seen the men before?’ I asked.
‘Oh aye, they were the ones that brung them here, a’ they months back. Right big hard men, ye ken. Scars and everything. Nae offence,’ she said, eyeing my face.
‘You’d seen the car before?’
‘You don’t see mony big cars like thon. No’ here.’
‘So it wasn’t a local car?’
‘Nup.’
We drove to the seafront and got out. We sat on the same bench I’d used two days ago. We gazed across at the mainland. I took out my pack and offered her one.
‘They didn’t lose much time,’ she said.
‘While we were being questioned by Silver’s idiots!’
‘Would they keep her on the island?’ Sam asked.
‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Whether she’s alive or dead.’
We finished our cigarettes and flicked the butts into the sea, watching the trail of sparks sail through the air and land with a swift hiss.
‘We could look for the car?’ she suggested.
‘We could. But let’s think about this. If it’s on the island, it’s likely to be in a garage or on a drive somewhere. We could search for days. If it came from the mainland, it went back there. We might get something from the manifest of yesterday’s ferry.’
‘Well, it’s better than just sitting here watching the waves come in,’ she said.
I looked out at the gentle surf and let my eyes fill with the sight of the green hills of Holy Island.
‘I’m not so sure.’ I sighed and got to my feet. ‘But duty calls. And before we go, there’s one thing I should have asked wee Mrs Busybody.’
We slipped back to the Reid-Kennedy house and I knocked on the neighbour’s door. She opened it fast, as though she’d been waiting behind it, eye pressed to the net curtain over the glass panel.
‘I don’t suppose you saw the number plate, missus?’
She shook her curler-clad head. ‘Nup.’
‘OK, thanks.’ I turned to walk back to the car. She waited till I was at the gate.
‘But oor Alec did.’
I walked back. Nosy wee boys seemed to pop up just when you needed them. Alec was produced. Standard-issue urchin. Shorts hanging off his skinny hips, a vest under a sleeveless jumper and a runny nose. But wee Alec was also clutching a scrap of a notebook.
‘He collects nummers,’ his mother said. ‘Nae trains here, so he collects car nummers.’
‘See, in the summer, a’ thae folk come ower here for the fair an’ I get their nummers,’ piped Alec.
‘Don’t taigle the man, son, just tell him the nummer o’ the big car frae yesterday.’
Alec flicked through his little pad of childish scrawl and with his filthy finger tracing across the last page he proudly declaimed: ‘An Austin 10. SD 319. That’s a Glesga nummer, mister.’
‘So it is, Alec. So it is,’ I replied, only just forbearing to bend down and kiss his nitty head.
We stopped at Brodick harbour and enquired at the ticket office. They kept no record of cars using the ferry unless it had been booked in advance. Most people just rolled up, as we had. The only bookings they took was for sheep especially in the months after the lambing season.
We tried again on the ferry itself as it battled back to Ardrossan. Same story from the purser, but he suggested we have a word with the deck hands who guided the cars on and off. We found a pair of crewmen lurking by the stern on the car deck, grabbing a fag.
‘Ah mind it fine,’ said the short one. ‘A big black Austin wi’ twa men in black suits. Looked like they were undertakers.’
‘Mair like folk that kept the undertakers in business, Bobby.’
‘Is that why you recall them?’ I asked.
‘No’ just that. Ah’ve seen yon car before. An’ this time they kept in it a’ the way to Brodick. Just sat there. Ah telt them they could go upstairs, ha’e a tea and that. But they wurnae interested. Rolled up their window, so they did.’
Lofty wasn’t about to be upstaged. ‘They didnae go back neither.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Sunday service. We were the only boat coming back in the afternoon.’
We thanked our sharp-eyed sailors and retreated to the passenger deck. Keeping my back to the rail and a roving eye out for thugs with evil intent, I heard myself sounding optimistic to Sam, like with my men just before battle.
‘First, they’re still on the island. And it sounds like they have a base there if they come and go. But it’s a big island. Second, if we trace the car, we trace Mrs Reid’s kidnappers. And I bet we’ll also know who killed Cassidy. That in turn will give us a connection to Rory and maybe the other four missing boys. SD is a Glasgow plate. We can go round to the Glasgow Council offices in the morning and find out who’s the proud owner. Maybe there’s an Arran address? Then, bingo!’
Sam looked less cheery. ‘You make it sound dead simple, Brodie. But Mrs Reid could be dead, and the appeal hearing starts in a week. All I have at this stage is circumstantial.’
‘A dead priest isn’t circumstantial.’
‘He is if we can’t prove he was murdered and can’t link him to your attempted murder.’
‘But you will use it? You will try to make a case out of it?’
‘Of course! God, it’s something! More than I hoped. But I need to prove these allegations or the Appeals Court judges will just smile and ignore them.’
‘But without our witness – Mrs Reid – we can’t link anything?’
‘Exactly.’