The Chessmen by Peter May Read Free Book Online

of a child to hold them together. Unlike Fin and Marsaili. Maybe things would have been different had Fin known back then that Marsaili was carrying his child.
    They transferred Donna’s case to Marsaili’s car. She was driving them to the ferry in Stornoway. Then they all stood around for an awkward moment, none of them wanting to initiate the goodbyes, and yet they would have to be said. Eventually, they went through the ritual hugs and kisses, and before she slipped behind the wheel Marsaili said to Donald, ‘Tell Catriona I’ll pick up Eilidh in the morning.’ It was the last night the baby would spend at the Murrays’. Marsaili had agreed to look after her granddaughter during Fionnlagh and Donna’s university years. An unwanted second motherhood, crushing the desire she had expressed only a few months before to resume her own studies, and go in search of the young woman whose potential she had wasted. She was sacrificing her second chance at life in order to give them their first.
    Fin and Donald stood watching the car as it rounded the bend where the single-track road dipped down towards the Crobost Stores and the main road that would take them to Stornoway. This time tomorrow night their children would be in Glasgow, embarking on new lives, leaving their parentsbehind to come to terms with the mess they’d made of theirs.
    Fin glanced up at the sun sinking now towards the west. The days were long still, and there were perhaps another several hours of daylight remaining. But soon those days would start shrinking fast, and the islanders would take badly to the onset of another long, bleak winter in the aftermath of the best summer in living memory.
    The striking of a match turned Fin’s head and he saw with something like shock that Donald was lighting a cigarette, hands cupped around a flickering flame. It seemed discordant, out of keeping with the black cotton and the dog collar, which themselves struck an odd note with his jeans and trainers. His face became thinner as he sucked on his cigarette. The last time Fin had seen Donald smoking would have been nearly eighteen years before, at which time it would almost certainly have been a joint.
    ‘When did you start smoking again?’
    Donald drew more smoke into his lungs. ‘When I stopped caring.’
    ‘About what?’
    ‘Myself.’ He blew smoke into the wind. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Fin. I’m not wallowing in self-pity just yet.’ He glanced at him. ‘Let’s walk on the beach. I need to ask you a favour.’
    The tide was on its way in again. Creamy foam rushing over compacted virgin sand broken only by the tracks of seagulls where they had foraged for creatures just below the surface. Fin and Donald left their own trail of erraticfootprints in their wake, breaking frequently up the slope to avoid the incoming wash. Gulls wheeled and cawed overhead, enjoying the last of the sunshine that caught the gable ends of houses all along the road above the harbour. The wind was stronger now, but still soft in their faces.
    They had walked some way in silence before Donald said, ‘I heard the other day that they might ask me to quit the manse.’
    Fin was astonished. ‘What happened to innocent until proven guilty? You’re only suspended, for God’s sake!’
    ‘It’s for the Church’s sake, Fin, not God’s.’ Donald kept his eyes focused on some distant point far ahead of them. ‘Apparently some of the elders feel that the minister they have sent to preach in my stead should also have my house.’
    ‘The same elders who’ve brought the charges against you, no doubt.’
    The merest smile played about Donald’s lips for a second. ‘Of course.’ Then it vanished almost as quickly. ‘I think Catriona might be going to leave me.’
    Fin stopped dead in the sand, and Donald had taken several more steps before he realized it and stopped too. He turned. Fin said, ‘Why?’
    Donald shrugged. ‘Because I’m not the man she married, she says.’
    ‘You’re