The Lewis Man by Peter May Page B

three months pregnant. She looked no older in motherhood. Her father’s thick sandy hair was drawn back from a narrow face devoid of make-up. She seemed frail and tiny, like a child. Painfully thin in skin-tight jeans and a white T-shirt. But she looked at him with old eyes. Knowing, somehow, beyond her years.
    For a moment she said nothing. Then, ‘Hello, Mr Macleod.’
    ‘Hello Donna. Is your father in?’
    A momentary disappointment flickered across her face. ‘Oh. I thought you might have come to see the baby.’
    And immediately he felt guilty. Of course, it would have been expected of him. But he felt, in a strange way, disconnected. Unemotional. ‘Another time.’
    Resignation settled like dust on her child’s features. ‘My dad’s in the church. Fixing a hole in the roof.’
    Fin was several steps down when he stopped and looked back to find her still watching him. ‘Do they know?’ he said.
    She shook her head.
    He heard the hammering as he entered the vestibule, but it wasn’t until he walked into the church itself that he found its source. Donald Murray was at the top of a ladder up on the balcony, perched precariously among the rafters, nailing replacement planking along the east elevation of the roof. He wore blue workman’s overalls. His sandy hair was greyer, and thinning more rapidly now, it seemed. So concentrated was he on the job in hand that he didn’t notice Fin standing among the pews watching him from below, and as Fin stood there looking up, a whole history spooled through his mind. Of adventures on bonfire night, parties on the beach, riding down the west coast on a fine summer’s day in a red car with the roof down.
    There was a pause in the hammering as Donald searched for more nails. ‘It seems you spend more time working as an odd-job man in this church than you do preaching the word of God,’ Fin called to him.
    Donald was so startled he almost fell off his ladder, and had to steady himself with a hand on the nearest rafter. He looked down, but it was a moment before recognition came. ‘God’s work takes many forms, Fin,’ he said when finally he realized who it was.
    ‘I’ve heard it said that God makes work for idle hands, Donald. Perhaps he blew that hole in your roof to keep you out of mischief.’
    Donald couldn’t resist a smile. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite as cynical as you, Fin Macleod.’
    ‘And I’ve never met anyone quite as pig-headed as you, Donald Murray.’
    ‘Thanks, I’ll take that as a compliment.’
    Fin found himself grinning. ‘You should. I could think of much worse things to say.’
    ‘I don’t doubt it.’ Donald gazed down on his visitor with clear appraisal in his eyes. ‘Is this a personal visit or a professional one?’
    ‘I don’t have a profession any more. So I suppose it’s personal.’
    Donald frowned, but didn’t ask. He hung his hammer from a loop on his belt and started carefully down the ladder. By the time he had descended into the church Fin noticed that he was a little breathless. The lean figure of the once athletic young man, sportsman, rebel, and darling of all the girls, was beginning to go to seed. He looked older, too, around the eyes, where his flesh had lost its tautness and was shot through with lines like fine scars. He shook Fin’s outstretched hand. ‘What can I do for you?’
    ‘Your father married Marsaili’s mum and dad.’ Fin could see the surprise in his face. Whatever he might have been expecting it wasn’t that.
    ‘I’ll take your word for it. He probably married half the folk in Ness.’
    ‘What kind of proof of identity would he have required?’
    Donald looked at him for several long seconds. ‘This sounds more professional than personal to me, Fin.’
    ‘Believe me, it’s personal. I’m no longer in the force.’
    Donald nodded. ‘Okay. Let me show you.’ And he headed off up the aisle to the far end of the church and opened the door into the vestry. Fin followed him