The Chessmen by Peter May Page A

wife, and was single-handedly bringing up another man’s daughter. His lover’s daughter. The only part of herself she had left him.
    Jamie ordered them pints without asking what they’d like, and the barman set up three glasses of fizzing amberthat ran with condensation and foam on to a counter already shiny with beer. He lifted his own pint and raised it. ‘To success,’ he said. Fin and Kenny raised their glasses, too, and sipped silently on their beers. Then Jamie signalled to a group of men across the room, and shouted, ‘Ewan. Peter. Come and meet Fin Macleod.’
    A number of heads turned in their direction, and Ewan and Peter started pushing their way towards the group.
    ‘Gamekeeper and water bailiff,’ Jamie said. ‘Good men, both.’
    Ewan was a man in his fifties, with a deeply creased face weathered brown by all the hours he spent outdoors. Peter was younger, but a monster of a man with a full beard, like horsehair bursting out of a mattress. They all shook hands.
    ‘Fin is our new head of security,’ Jamie said. ‘He’s going to catch our poachers.’ Both men cast sceptical looks in Fin’s direction but kept their counsel.
    Fin said, ‘It might be an idea if we didn’t advertise it, Mr Wooldridge. We don’t want to go showing our hand even before we’ve played a card.’
    Kenny laughed. ‘You can’t keep a secret here for five minutes, Fin. You should know that. The poachers probably knew all about you from the minute you set foot on the estate.’
    Fin was barely aware of the door opening, the rush of cooler air around their legs, but the sudden lull in the sound of voices from all around the bar immediately caught his attention. He turned to see Whistler standing in thedoorway, and the noise around them fell away to silence, save for the continued pulsing beat of the sound system.
    Whistler looked like a wild man straight off the hills. His hair was blown and tangled by the wind. Another day’s growth on his face made him seem even more unkempt, patches of silver mirroring the streaks of it in his hair. His eyes were black, without pupils or highlight. He scanned the faces all turned in his direction, and Fin detected the merest trace of a smile in the set of his lips. There was no doubt he enjoyed being the centre of attention, and his appearance in the bar at Suaineabhal Lodge was a first.
    ‘What’s wrong? Seen a crowd?’ His voice bellowed out across the pub and everyone was suddenly self-conscious, but locked into a communal stare, and a silence that no one wanted to be the first to break. Whistler pushed his way to the bar. ‘Pint of lemonade.’ The barman seemed transfixed. His frightened rabbit’s eyes darted from Whistler to Jamie and back again. ‘Don’t worry about how I’ll pay for it.’ Whistler appeared to be trying to assuage his doubts. ‘My credit’s good here. The Wooldridges owe me a fortune.’
    ‘I think you have that wrong, John Angus.’ Jamie’s outward appearance of unruffled calm was betrayed by the faintest tremor in his voice.
    Whistler swung his head in Jamie’s direction. ‘Oh? And how’s that, Mister Wooldridge?’
    ‘You’re the one who owes us. More than ten years in back rent. So there’s a good chance I’ll be sending in the bailiffs to have you removed. From the croft, and the house. Unless you’ve come to settle up tonight.’
    ‘I’d be happy to, if you’d just cough up what you owe me.’
    Someone had turned off the music, and the silence was broken now only by the sound of the wind whistling around the door and windows.
    ‘We owe you nothing.’
    ‘Your father does.’
    ‘How so?’
    Whistler swung the rucksack off his back and thumped it down on the bar, unzipping it to reveal one of his carved chessmen inside. ‘A full set he commissioned me to do for the gala day. Job done. Come and get them any time you like.’
    Jamie returned his stare, unwavering. ‘You can show me a contract, I suppose.’
    And Fin saw doubt creep