The Going Down of the Sun by Jo Bannister Read Free Book Online

turned towards me again and for a moment, past the bulk of his shoulder, I saw Alex Curragh’s face. And what I saw there I couldn’t understand. Of course there was fear—he wasn’t a fool, he recognised a threat when one was snarled at him, and he had better reason than I to know the stamp and nature of the man snarling it. Fear was the appropriate response of a nobody threatened by the likes of Frazer McAllister. The shock was a hangover from what had happened to him this morning, compounded by what had happened to him just now—they’d have to do that arm again, broken limbs shouldn’t be treated like that.
    But beside the fear and the shock stretching his eyes was the thing that I couldn’t describe, even to myself, couldn’t begin to understand. Momentarily it looked almost like pride—a frightened, defiant pride. Then Neil Burns leaned over to see to his arm and came between us.
    I found some seats for McAllister and myself in a quiet corner of a corridor, grouped round a plastic palm, and shortly afterwards Jim Fernie and the policeman found us. Jim looked surprised, if not actually disappointed, at the lack of blood. “Is everything all right, Dr. Marsh?”
    It still sounded funny to me. I’d hardly been addressed as “Doctor” since my marriage. I nodded. “I think so. At least for now.”
    McAllister squinted sideways at me, a bleak humour in his eyes, which were the colour of blued steel and held the same kind of edge. “For now.”
    I ignored him. “You’d better have a word with Dr. Burns. Curragh is his patient.”
    â€œAnd then come back here, Constable,” said McAllister, in the tone of a man used to command, “because I may have something to tell you.”
    Plainly the policeman knew McAllister, or anyway knew who he was. He raised no questions, no objection. “Yes, sir.” He trotted away tamely on Jim Fernie’s heels.
    McAllister turned back to me with a satisfied expression. How that ruined face could express feelings was part of the miracle, but in fact it did so quite clearly. Everything he did was precise, deliberate. He left no room for misunderstanding. “OK, lassie, what was it you were going to tell me?”
    I have never much cared for diminutives, but you have to make allowances for the recently bereaved. I tried not to bristle visibly. “I was going to tell you how the accident happened—how your wife died.”
    His jaw came up like a naval gun. “I know how she died, and it wasn’t an accident. He murdered her—Curragh, the wee shite.”
    I frowned but also I was curious. “That’s a serious accusation, you know, and now you’ve made it twice. I know how you must be feeling, but have you any reason to blame Curragh? For what happened to the boat, I mean.”
    He gave me what I can only describe as a canny look. Even the anger seemed to have gone now—gone, or gone to ground. “Your tale first, lassie.”
    So I told him what had happened—what Harry and I had heard and seen, and what we had done. He listened without interruption, although his face clouded as I described the efforts necessary to save young Curragh’s life. I couldn’t altogether blame him for feeling that way. I went on without comment and finished my account.
    While I was still talking, the policeman came back and stood near us, a respectful distance behind McAllister’s shoulder.
    When I finished I looked at McAllister, seeking some sign of grief in him. I hadn’t seen one yet. Unless he had done all his crying at home, in the few minutes between receiving the news of his wife’s death and coming here to confront her lover, he hadn’t shed a tear for Alison. You couldn’t count the anger. It was passion enough, certainly, but not for Alison. I thought he was angry about what had been done to him.
    And still that blue steel eye was undimmed