The Sea Detective (32 page)

‘And if I’m not?’

Mr Mackenzie considered the possibility. ‘Well, I’d advise you against it,’ he smiled contentedly at his dry, legal humour. As Cal was about to reply, he held up his hand to stop him, ‘Bear with me for a minute, yes?’

Cal shrugged.

Mr Mackenzie said, ‘What do you know of your grandfather, Mr McGill?’

Cal said, ‘A bit … quite a bit, but I’m missing some pieces.’

Mr Mackenzie reached for the envelope with the broken sealing wax and slid it across the table. ‘In that case, these might interest you. Old Hector MacKay, the skipper of the Eilean Iasgaich, left them behind. They’re pages from his log, the one you took from the island’s museum. I imagine these are what you’ve been looking for.’

Cal opened the envelope and removed some yellowing paper which was folded over. He pulled apart the sheets. The first was dated September 30th. ‘Arrived Vaeroy, to the south of the Norwegian Lofoten Islands, to shelter from the storm. We pray for all our lost brothers and comrades, young Sandy MacKay being the most recent of them. May God grant them all peace.’

The next was dated October 1st. ‘Another day at Vaeroy. Storm force westerlies. Uilleam Sinclair has been banished from our company. Sandy MacKay’s death has broken us and there is talk of vengeance among the crew, what is left of us.’

Cal looked up at Mr Mackenzie.

‘Read on.’

Cal looked at the third page.

‘October 2nd: The storm abated and we sailed at dusk, using the last of the light to navigate from Vaeroy. Sinclair sighted two German airmen in the water and we left them where they were for our five crewmen who were shot and killed by their planes. God knows, their deaths have turned us into cold hearted creatures. Sinclair jumped overboard and swam to them to force us to turn the boat. God help us all. We are in the grip of madness.’

Cal asked, ‘What does this mean?’

‘They sailed on.’

‘And left him in the water.’

Mr Mackenzie nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘To die.’

‘Yes.’

‘My God.’

Cal read the pages again. ‘Where have these come from?’ he asked when he’d finished.

‘Hector MacKay deposited them with my company in November 1942.’

‘And you’ve been keeping them secret?’

‘My grandfather, who was the senior partner at the time, didn’t know they were there until 1945, the year after Hector’s death. His widow, Mary, found them when she came to my grandfather’s office to go through her husband’s effects. According to a note my grandfather left, she’d put it off and put it off but what with the ending of the war and the island being abandoned he persuaded her it was time for her to put things in order, if you understand me.’

‘Didn’t they realise what these pages meant?’

‘Oh yes, they did. Mary MacKay wept – cried for a month according to my grandfather. She had to revise her view of her husband, a man she and everyone else for that matter held in admiration. It was painful for her. She asked my grandfather – and my grandfather agreed, to his discredit – to keep the pages secret. You see the widows and the families had nothing left of their husbands and fathers but their reputations and their bravery. They were destitute, forced to leave the islands, and their only hope was help from the Norwegian government and the money from a public appeal. My grandfather and Mary MacKay agreed it should be kept secret for the well being of the community.’

Mr Mackenzie coughed with embarrassment. ‘You have to remember these families were my grandfather’s clients. He thought it his duty to protect their interests.’

‘So was my family.’

‘Yes indeed, though the Sinclairs had left the island before then. My grandfather’s view, if I can speak for him, is that your family were former clients. He told my father that he’d wanted to make it public after Mary’s death but by then the myth of the ‘Brave Men of Eilean Iasgaich’ had taken such a hold that it had become impossible. It was easier to let the lie go unchallenged, though there was a caveat. My grandfather told my father, and my father told me when I took over the company, that if ever again the story of Uilleam Sinclair attracted public attention we had a duty to reveal the truth. My grandfather wrote a simple account of the events, setting out the circumstances of Uilleam Sinclair’s death and this afternoon it was put up on notice boards in the village.’

He passed it to Cal who said, after reading it twice, ‘They murdered him, didn’t they?’

‘In a manner of speaking they did, even if they didn’t strike a blow. They left him knowing he would die, and the two Germans with him.

‘My grandfather’s view, told to me by my father, was that young Sandy MacKay’s death broke them. He was the boat’s talisman. They wanted to avenge him, and the others who had died, and your grandfather was the target of their desire for revenge. As you probably know, the Sinclairs and the Raes and the MacKays had been at odds for years.’

‘But they continued hating him even though they killed him.’

‘In my grandfather’s view …’ Mr Mackenzie weighted his words with lawyerly gravitas. ‘… Their loathing of Uilleam grew after his death.’

‘But why?’

‘They’d made themselves hateful for what they did to him. The manner of his death ate away at them and as time went by they despised him all the more for it. They passed it on to their wives and their children, but not the reason for it. Your grandfather was a wronged man, Mr McGill, a brave man.’

Detective Constable Jamieson was woken by the beeping of her digital alarm at 6am. She sat up, ran her fingers through her hair and went to her wardrobe. Her winter overcoat was on the hook behind the door. She slipped it from its hanger, put it on over her pink silk pyjamas, slid her bare feet into some mules on the bottom shelf of her shoe rack and took a £20 note from her purse on the dressing table. Her flat was a block from the 24 hour store. Half way there two labourers nudged each other and pointed to the pink pyjamas showing beneath her coat.

One of them whistled and the other shouted ‘any time you’re lonely.’

She wriggled inside her coat, trying to pull it down, and pushed open the door of the shop. The newspaper stand was beside the counter. She took one of each title, glancing at the front page headlines as she put them by the till. A middle-aged man with sandpaper skin and bad teeth came to stand behind her. ‘Empty day ahead, luv?’

Jamieson turned to give him a piece of her mind but thought better of it. She paid the shop manager and returned to her flat, where she kicked off her shoes and fell on to the sofa, the newspapers still in her arms. The headlines were different from the Italian editions she had read on the internet. They put the stress on anti-mafia police rolling up a counterfeiting and trafficking gang, whereas the British papers went strong on Cal McGill assisting the Italian police to solve the mystery of the severed feet. The Telegraph’s front page splash heading was ‘Amateur ocean detective solves severed foot mystery’ with a sub deck ‘Scottish Police humiliated by PhD student in custody for theft.’ Jamieson scanned the other front pages. Rosie Provan had by-lines in all of them. Most of the papers also ran inside pages of coverage: the story of Cal McGill’s grandfather left to die by his crewmates also made it big in the tabloids. Jamieson was reading the details with a growing sense of outrage when her phone rang. It was Ryan’s number, the call she’d been expecting.

‘Have you seen the papers, Jamieson?’

‘Yes sir, just reading them. I was going to ring you. It’s bad for you isn’t it sir?’

‘This is your fault Jamieson. I blame you. …’

‘Well, I did suggest we use McGill sir.

‘Don’t mess with me Jamieson …’

‘No sir.’

‘You’re way out of your league.’

‘Am I sir?’

‘You’re finished Jamieson.’

‘I sent you a memo sir.’

‘What?’

‘Joan put it on your desk sir. Perhaps it was under some other papers and you didn’t see it. I’ve got a copy if you’d like one.’

‘What are you talking about Jamieson? What memo?’

‘The one about McGill, sir, where I proposed using him to prioritise our investigations sir.’

‘Are you trying to fuck with me, Jamieson?’

‘Definitely not, sir.’

‘Your career’s going nowhere, Jamieson.’

Ryan cut the call.

Neither is yours sir.

Ryan slid open the glass door to the balcony outside his bedroom. He leaned against the frame and took a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his white towelling dressing gown. He lit one and drew the smoke deep into his lungs before letting it leak away in short puffs from the side of his mouth. Jamieson had pulled a stroke. He hadn’t seen that coming. He inhaled again before dropping the cigarette on the decking and going back inside.

The Eilean Iasgaich bumped against the tyres hanging from the side of the pier. Red MacKay threw a rope and one of the reporters waiting for the Rib’s scheduled sailing to the island from the nearby slipway said, ‘Want a hand?’

‘Thank you, could you tie it round that post?’ Red collected his bag and climbed out.

‘It’s a lovely day.’

Red looked around as if he hadn’t noticed until then. ‘So it is. Going to the island?’

The reporter nodded. ‘I thought I might as well see the scene of the crime.’ Red pursed his lips. ‘Have a good trip.’ He walked into the township, clutching a brown envelope in his right hand. Janice, the physiotherapist, saw him as she was going into Rae Family Stores and held back for him. ‘We’re not used to seeing you twice in a week.’

Red smiled. ‘Things to do,’ he said and walked on. Janice stared after him as he went into Mackenzie’s, the lawyers. She’d never been able to make him out. Nice enough man, though a bit odd living alone like that.

Audrey was at her desk, engrossed in the Eastern Township chat-room on the internet. She wanted to let Mr Robin know what people were saying about him but he would only give her one of his looks and say ‘Mmh.’ Audrey was becoming outraged by all the cruel comments, on Mr Robin’s behalf. Interfering busybody was the least of the insults being levelled at him. Some people, clients among them, criticised him for bringing disgrace on a fine group of men who died for their country. ‘Betraying them like Judas,’ said one. Others were alarmed at the effect on the local tourist industry and one accused Mr Robin of cruelty of the worst kind, raking over old coals and bringing suffering to all those fine families. Audrey was contemplating writing under a pseudonym to defend her employer when the bell on the door went. She sighed with irritation at the disturbance. Then she saw who it was.

‘Mr MacKay, isn’t it?’

‘Is Mr Mackenzie available?’

‘I’ll inquire.’

She tapped in Mr Robin’s number. ‘Red MacKay is here to see you Mr Robin.’ Red could hear Mr Mackenzie’s weary reprimand. Audrey flushed and glanced up at Red with embarrassment before speaking into the phone. ‘Mr Hector MacKay is here to see you Mr Robin.’

She put down the phone. ‘He’ll see you now Mr MacKay.’

An hour and twenty three minutes later – Audrey kept the precise time as usual – Mr Robin put his head round the door.

‘Cancel my appointments this afternoon, Audrey, and ring a car hire company would you?’

‘Yes Mr Robin.’

‘Tell them we’ll need a driver too. Give them my mobile number and I’ll tell them when and where.’

‘What’s the destination Mr Robin?’

‘Edinburgh.’

Mr Robin returned to his office closing the door behind him and Audrey made a note to deduct 34 seconds from Red MacKay’s bill because, strictly speaking, her conversing with Mr Robin wasn’t ‘client time’. Twenty six minutes and 22 seconds later Mr Mackenzie opened the door, and held it for Red. ‘Mr MacKay and I have an appointment out of the office Audrey. If anyone wants me I won’t be available until tomorrow.’

‘Yes Mr Robin.’

Red MacKay had his woollen hat in his hand. Audrey hadn’t seen his hair before. It was blond and curly and made him look rather dishy. She smiled at him but he didn’t seem to notice her. At lunchtime in the hotel bar, Audrey was telling her story of Red MacKay’s hair when the group of reporters and photographers in the table by the window began running for the door.

‘What’s up?’ Audrey asked the short scruffy one in jeans and black corduroy jacket who had offered to buy her a drink the day before.

‘Dunno yet, but something’s going on at the police station. McGill’s lawyer is holding a press conference in the car park at 2.30pm.’

‘Mr Mackenzie?’ Audrey asked.

‘Yup that’s the bloke.’

‘He’s my – ’ But before Audrey could finish the sentence the door slammed shut.

The reporter who had gone to Eilean Iasgaich made it back with ten minutes to spare. Mike nosed the rib up to the slipway, registering surprise that Red’s boat was still moored at the pier and wondering what had kept him. It was unusual for him to spend much more than an hour or two in the township. At 2.30 Mr Mackenzie, in his tweed suit and with a severe expression, came out of the police station accompanied by Chief Inspector Donald Findlay. Mr Mackenzie waited for the reporters to settle.

‘I will read out a short statement and then the Chief Inspector will also read out a short statement. I will answer no questions.’

He coughed and composed himself. ‘My client Mr Cal McGill was released without charge this afternoon after new information came to light. Thank you.’

One of the reporters shouted, ‘What information? Either he broke into the museum or he didn’t.’

The Chief Inspector stepped forward and held up his hand. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen …’

‘I have a short statement to make and like Mr Mackenzie here I will not be answering questions. The charges against Mr McGill have been dropped. As of this time police inquiries into this incident are at an end.’

He put his arm round Mr Mackenzie to guide him back to the police station door. ‘Thank you, gentlemen.’

The reporters did not notice a chauffeur driven hire car with a male passenger leaving the back of the police station and taking the road to Whale Back Beach, or an old fishing boat steaming up the Kyle, a man in a red hat in the wheelhouse.