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

by any token of his bereavement. He might have been robbed of some valuable possession, in a theft that had left him seething with indignation rather than aching with loss. Two possibilities occurred to me: that he really hadn’t cared for his wife very much, or that he cared so much he didn’t dare let loose the grieving for fear that it would consume him. Anger is a useful tool in many ways. If you’re angry enough you hardly feel hurt at all.
    â€œSo the boat was gone, and Alison was gone, and that wee shite was floating round with nothing but a few cuts and bruises to show for it?” There was a light like wine or fire in his eye. “You didn’t think that was a bit odd?”
    And of course I had, but not inexplicably so. “He says he was on deck, in the bows, when the explosion occurred. The shock-wave must have knocked him into the water before much else reached him.”
    â€œDid you see him?”
    â€œI told you, we saw nothing until after the explosion.”
    â€œAye, well,” said McAllister heavily. He looked round for the police-man, beckoned him to a seat. “You see, my wife was very careful aboard that boat of hers. Very careful. You might think she took risks heading out alone, sailing in big seas and bad weather, but actually she did nothing without she had a big safety margin. She picked that boat because it was about the toughest on the market. Not the biggest, or the flashiest, or the fastest or even the most expensive—she reckoned it was the most seaworthy. She wanted diesel engines rather than petrol. She had the radio installed handy to the wheel—she always planned to sail mostly alone. I’d go with her on a nice day but I never had that much time or affection for it.
    â€œAnd she put in one of those gas detectors. It was that bloody sensitive it went off if we had baked beans on toast. I don’t believe there was any gas leak. She wouldn’t have fitted the canister wrong, and she wouldn’t have left the tap on, and most of all that damn detector would have woken half the Western Highlands long before there was enough gas to explode. You didn’t hear it, I bet.”
    â€œNo. Would we have done?—we were anchored a hundred yards away from the Skara Sun. ”
    â€œYou’d have heard it half a mile a way, maybe more, if it had gone off.”
    â€œCould it have failed?”
    He shrugged his big shoulders. “Anything’s possible. But she’d have checked it before she left Oban. She left nothing to chance.”
    He paused then, waiting to be prompted. I resisted the temptation, knowing he’d go on anyway, but the constable was made of less stem stuff. “So what are you suggesting happened, sir?”
    McAllister waited a moment longer. For some reason he was looking at me. There was a kind of suppressed excitement within him, as inappropriate an emotion as I could imagine. One shaggy eyebrow went up, the other down. Finally he said, “I’m suggesting that if the gas leaked it was meant to leak. I’m suggesting that if the alarm didn’t sound it was fixed not to.”
    He looked at me, waiting for my response. Again I said nothing.
    The constable, both excited and uneasy at having one of the biggest men in the city making wild allegations in his presence, said carefully, “You seem to be implying there was some foul play here, Mr. McAllister.”
    McAllister went off in a small explosion of his own. “I’m implying nothing, sonny. I’m saying that my wife’s death was not an accident. I’m saying someone fixed the stove to blow her sky-high the moment she put a match under the bacon.
    â€œI’m saying that he made damn sure he was on deck before breakfast, and when she moved towards the stove he got into the dinghy and rowed like hell. It was just bad luck he couldn’t get out of range before the explosion. Or maybe it wasn’t; maybe the fact