The Unbelievers (16 page)

Her face relaxed.

“That's a high calling, sir.”

“It is. But I don't know yet if Mr Slater is truly a suitable subject.”

“I used to think he was the very devil, sir, but a great change seems to have come over him.”

Allerdyce sat back down. The woman pulled up a stool and sat to tell the story she knew. The earlier part of it was familiar from McGillivray – rents raised unaffordably high, eviction notices served, families burnt out of their houses in winter, the empty villages. The later part of the story was more extraordinary. Last autumn, fourteen years after he was transported, Slater had been seen disembarking from a ship at Cromarty. Thinner, ill-looking, but unmistakeably the same man who'd harried crofters from their homes all over Sutherland.

Since then there had been other fleeting sightings of him, usually on the open road at dusk or dawn. There had also been strange happenings in the few townships, on the very worst land or in pockets outside the Duke's ownership, which had so far survived the clearances. A hungry family would find a haunch of venison on their doorstep. A family about to be evicted for arrears would find gold sovereigns at their door. Where there was a sick child a doctor would arrive and say he'd been paid to attend. The story had got around that Slater was going round like a spirit, leaving a blessing behind him. No-one knew where Slater lived, how he knew where crofters were in distress, or how he had the money to do good. Many people thought he really was a spirit, forced to do a penance of good works to avoid the fires of hell.

Interesting, thought Allerdyce. Perhaps not the conduct of a murderer, but it must be worth meeting Mr Slater. If I can.

Allerdyce stayed overnight at the new hotel in Lairg, slightly dizzy from the fumes of fresh paint and varnish. He laid an Ordnance Survey map in front of him on the bed. From the handful of people he'd spoken to in Lairg he'd established at least some sort of pattern to Slater's appearances. They ranged from Altnaharra in the north to Strath Carron in the south, from Glen Einig to the west to Strath Brora in the east. Acts of charity had been done on the east side of Loch Shin but not the west.

Drawing a rough circle between these points Allerdyce reckoned that the centre of Slater's movements must rest somewhere north of Lairg, and to the east of Loch Shin. He searched the map for isolated houses where a man might be undisturbed for weeks on end.

There was one that seemed to be a possibility. Nearly at the centre of the circle, and completely inaccessible by road, a single building was marked at Dalnessie. It was on high moorland, near the headwaters of the River Brora, five miles off the track from Lairg to Strath Naver. That's where he would look first.

It was a relief to step into the fresh air at dawn. The cool breeze from the heather moors was invigorating rather than chilling. The last stars were still shining through the brightening sky as Allerdyce walked northwards out of the village.

He covered the first few miles along the narrow gravel road easily, enjoying the exercise and listening to the wind through the rushes, the fast tumbling of the little burns which the road crossed, the far-off cry of the curlew and, everywhere, the bleating of sheep. Every now and then he stopped to check the map, seeing which ruined hamlet he had reached and how far he was from the place where he would need to leave the road and cut across the moors to Dalnessie.

It's a desert, he thought, it's a man-made desert but there's a certain beauty to it – the sheer space and silence of the place. He breathed deeply, tasting heather and grass in the clean air. It was a joy to be out of the stink of smoke and ordure which polluted the city. Perhaps a few days up here really would help him recuperate.

Finally, just where a wide peat-dark burn ran under the road, he saw a narrow path running off to the right, into the heather. He checked the map. This must be the place to turn off.

Looking around at the sheer wild emptiness it seemed incredible that anyone had ever lived here, and more incredible that he'd find anyone living at Dalnessie now. He wondered what sort of existence McGillivray's family had managed before they were expelled from this barren land. The path, however, wound a narrow course through the heather which showed that somebody was still using it. Perhaps it was just used by shepherds or deer stalkers, or perhaps his guess was right and he'd find an inhabited house at the end of the path.

Walking was more difficult on the path. The tall heather snagged at his trousers and his boots kept sinking into peaty mud. The vastness of the landscape made his progress feel paralytically slow, with the dark ridges of the hills remaining steadfastly distant. The sky was clouding over and he felt a smir of rain on his cheek. The wound on his arm had started to sting again and he thought it must be seeping blood or pus into its bandage. After fording a burn, his trousers were soaked up to his knees and with each pace he felt like he was lifting lead weights out of the sticky mud. A stag looked curiously at him then bounded away across the moor.

After an hour and a half, with the rain blattering down properly now and his legs shaking with tired weakness, he finally saw a house beside a stream. ‘House' was perhaps an exaggeration. Half of the roof of the low drystone cottage was missing, and the right hand gable had collapsed. Some smoke, though, rose from the chimney of the other gable before being dispersed into the whipping rain-soaked wind. Allerdyce pressed on, anxious for the heat and warmth promised by that chimney.

Whoever lived here had built a wall of peat between the ruined portion of the cottage and the end where the thatched-heather roof still survived. There was no door in the peat wall, merely a narrow opening across which crudely stitched deerskin had been hung. Allerdyce pushed the deerskin aside and stepped into the dark hovel.

Some light struggled in through a tiny window, and a dull glow came from the hearth. As his eyes adjusted Allerdyce could see the figure of a man knelt in prayer before a wooden cross on a simple table. The hovel was pathetically simple – a bed of heather along one wall, a cooking pot hanging over the hearth, a couple of dead grouse hanging from the thatch and a shotgun leant against the corner of the wall.

The man looked round. Allerdyce prepared to reach for the gun before he did, but the man just smiled at him.

“Peace be with you, stranger.”

Allerdyce looked at his gaunt cheeks and dark-rimmed eyes under lank, greying hair. I've seen that look often enough in the slums and taverns of Edinburgh, he thought. That's a man who won't last another winter.

“Are you Mr Patrick Slater?”

“Yes I am.”

“I am Inspector Allerdyce of the City of Edinburgh Police. I am required to ask you some questions.”

Slater sighed.

“I'd been expecting something like this.”

“Really?”

“You can't go around doing good to the poor without offending the rich. I suppose you want to arrest me for poaching.”

“Poaching? No, Mr Slater. I want to ask you about a murder.”

“Murder?” Slater laughed, though the noise of the air in his thin throat sounded like the rustle of dead leaves. “Me?”

“Your name has been mentioned to the police in connection with the death of the late Duke of Dornoch.”

Slater laughed some more, rocking backwards and forwards as he wheezed. Allerdyce wondered if he was actually mad.

“Come now, Inspector. You can't be serious. Sit down on the bed. Let us share some stew while you dry off and we'll talk about this like rational men.”

Allerdyce stooped down on the heather, reassured that he was between Slater and the shotgun. Slater poured some sloppy stew out of the cooking pot and brought it over. Allerdyce tasted the strong venison, feeling warmth return to his body. Slater sat opposite, crouched on a low stool with his own bowl.

“You're injured,” said Slater, looking attentively at Allerdyce.

“How do you know?”

“The way you're holding your bowl. You've been injured in your upper arm.”

“It's nothing to worry about, Mr Slater.”

“I could tend to the wound. I collect lichen and berries. They have healing properties.”

The pain in his arm was more intense now. Perhaps the rain soaking through his coat and into the dressings had made things worse, but he couldn't put himself at the mercy of an armed and possibly deranged suspect.

“No thank you, Mr Slater.”

“As you please.”

“I take it you're aware of the death of His Grace?” asked Allerdyce.

“Yes. I'm not a complete hermit. There's a handful of good people from the villages who I speak to at night sometimes. They tell me the news – who's ill, who's in trouble. They told me about the Duke's death. An accident, the newspapers said.”

“Not a complete accident, Mr Slater. I can't imagine you were sorry to hear about it.”

Slater smiled.

“To my shame, Inspector, no. When I made my peace with the Lord Jesus Christ I told myself that I had forgiven the Duke for his part in my transportation. My reaction when I heard he was dead showed me that my spiritual regeneration was woefully incomplete.”

“And do you know where you were on the night of his death?”

He laughed again.

“I can't help you with that, Inspector. Living out here I do not keep a strict calendar. I remember days by whether it snowed, by whether I shot a deer, or whether I saw an eagle, not by dates printed in a diary.”

“And so you would be unable to demonstrate that you were here at the time of his death?”

Slater put his bowl down and looked directly, still smiling, at Allerdyce. The Inspector felt unsettled by a look which spoke of sadness and compassion rather than anger.

“Inspector, you will have to believe what you choose to. Since my return from Australia I have never ventured more than twenty miles from this place. My entire mission has been to make some poor restitution, as far is it is within my powers, for the evils I did in Sutherland as a younger man. I have visited townships secretly to learn what troubles they face. I have made a small number of confidential friends who will bring me news, and to whom I entrust gifts of food or money to alleviate the sufferings of the poor. I seek only to sustain life, not to take it.”

“I see.”

“Tell me, Inspector, who suggested that I might have killed the Duke?”

“His brother. George Bothwell-Scott. The advocate.”

Slater sighed.

“So the family still hate me for telling the truth about them. Well, Inspector, let me be honest. You deserve that after making the effort to find me. For ten years I did sincerely want to kill the Duke and would have done so if I hadn't been half the world away.

“He confined me to a barely-living hell, Inspector, by his refusal to testify that I was directly carrying out his instructions when I evicted people in the winter of '49. Each day in Tasmania I was scorched and parched under the sun, exhausted by hard labour clearing swamps and forests, bitten by disease-bearing insects, starved, and beaten whenever I faltered in my work. My heart had hardened into stone and the only force that kept me alive was anger and the burning desire for revenge. I thought I had been cast out entirely from men and God into a place where only devils lived.

“One day I collapsed while I was working in a quarry. I'd already drunk my pint of water and I lay on the ground too weak even to push my pickaxe from off my chest and stand up. I simply waited for a guard to find me and beat me.

“Another prisoner came up to me first. He offered me water from his bottle. I refused – I knew he'd be flogged for it and it didn't seem worth it. But he lifted my weak body and poured water on my face. I opened my mouth and drank.

“When I had drunk my fill I asked him why he had done so. He told me the words of Jesus that if you offer even a cup of water in His name you will be blessed. I asked him what he would do if he was flogged for his kindness, and he said he would sing praises to his Saviour for His continued presence with him even amidst the horror which surrounded us.

“I asked the Lord into my life at that moment, Inspector. I gave Him the rest of my life and promised that I would use it to make restitution for my sins.”

“And you repented of wanting to kill the Duke?”

“Yes. I made some money when I was released on ticket-of-leave from the prison camp. I advised landowners on how to draw up contracts with gold prospecters. I did quite well. I brought nearly a thousand pounds back with me from Australia and I hope to spend every penny of it on helping the poor before I die here. I think that's a better restitution of their afflictions than murdering the Duke.”

Allerdyce was silent. He knew that religion was mostly humbug and deception, and he still didn't quite trust Slater's sanity. Something had clearly happened though, whether madness or religious inspiration, to make him pour out the remainder of his life in the service of the weak.

Slater still fixed him in is gaze.

“So, Inspector? Do you think I did it? Do you think I killed the Duke? If you do, I suppose you ought to arrest me.”

Allerdyce looked at the physically broken man who squatted before him, who only seemed to be held together by his force of will.

“No, Mr Slater. No, I don't think you killed him.”

It was well after dark when the coach from Lairg rolled back into Dornoch. Allerdyce went up to his room and lay on his bed, exhausted. He should probably stay up here for another couple of days and track down anyone who could corroborate Slater's whereabouts on the night of the murder, but in his heart he just couldn't see him as the killer. And for tonight, he should just relax and enjoy a drink and a meal.

He lay down on the bed and shut his eyes, but couldn't relax. It wasn't any question of Slater's possible guilt that was unsettling him. It was something undefined about the man himself. He couldn't believe in the religious side of Slater's conversion story but there was something in it – something about the need for a change of life – that troubled him. He felt as if Slater had looked into him and seen some nameless deficiency.

He'd only lain on the bed for a few minutes when he heard a knock on the door. He opened it to the hotel-keeper's boy.

“Telegram for you, Mr Allerdyce. It was handed in while you were away.”

He opened the envelope and froze.

Dear God, he thought, not that. Please, anything but that. He read it again, willing the words to go away.

‘
ALICE GRAVELY ILL STOP

RETURN HOME URGENTLY STOP

ENDS
'