The Fireraisers

by Malcolm Archibald

  Watters was aware that the fishing community possessed only a limited number of surnames, so affixed tee-names, or nicknames, to identify each other. 'That's only three,' he pointed out. 'You said there were four in the boat.'

  'Aye,' the woman looked at him without expression. 'There's the Buckie as well. He's waiting on the Sisters.'

  'Waiting?' Watters looked out to sea. He could see the shape of a man on the Sisters, half hidden behind the bursting spray. 'Waiting for what?'

  'He's waiting for the sea to claim him or for you to bring him back.' The woman was about twenty-five with clear skin and eyes. 'Would you? He's my man.'

  Even as he pumped Curly John dry, the old man spoke. 'Fishermen can't swim,' he explained. 'They've never learned.' His voice was flat. He did not suggest that Watters try to rescue the Buckie but waited patiently for his decision.

  Watters felt sick at the thought of going back in the sea. He looked at the heavy leather boots with iron-shod soles of the man he had rescued and thought it was no wonder the fishermen could not swim. These boots would drag anybody down.

  'Do you think he can hold on until the tide is fully ebbed?' Watters already knew the answer. If the man slipped or weakened further, the tide would pull him out to sea with no chance of survival. I have to go out there again. 'Could you back the gig as far as possible into the sea, Amy?'

  'Yes.' There was no hesitation.

  Brave girl. 'Come on then.'

  'Please take care, Sergeant.' Elizabeth touched his arm.

  'I will,' Watters promised.

  Amy was as good as her word. She drove until the gig wheels were under water and waves surged along the side of the horse, and only then did Watters again plunge into the sea. He was tired now and allowed the tide to drag him out, just kicking enough to keep his head above water. The Sisters seemed very far away, and the line around his waist was rubbing at already open wounds. Again there were the waves, rising, curling, tossing him around in a mad frenzy, but this time, Watters had a definite objective in view.

  The rocks were ahead, looking even uglier now that he was close. Black fanged, streaked with seaweed, spangled with whelks and mussels, they alternatively appeared and vanished as the waves surged, exploded, and receded. The Buckie sat on the rock, eyes closed and mouth open as he struggled to breath.

  'Buckie! Move toward me!' Watters swore as a wave smashed him against the rock, drawing blood from his left shoulder. 'Move, man!'

  The Buckie opened his eyes, staring at him without moving. Another wave lifted Watters and threw him against the Sisters, dragging him across the sharp rock, tearing his shirt and trousers and forcing him under the water. There was a moment of blackness, that terrifying roaring in his ears, and then the sea threw Watters up again, smashing his head agonisingly against a spur. Reaching out, Watters clung on, swearing as he saw his blood easing from a dozen scrapes and cuts.

  'Come on, man! Come to me! I'll save you! Otherwise, we'll both drown here!'

  The Buckie's eyes were wide, his mouth working, and Watters realised that he was singing a psalm.

  'Buckie!' Sudden anger surged through Watters. He dragged himself onto the rock, slipping on the seaweed. He staggered as a wave splintered at his feet, grabbed the Buckie by his jacket, and held his shoulders.

  Buckie only stared as Watters shouted above the thunder of the waves. 'Your boots! Take them off!'

  When Buckie shook his head, too shocked to move, Watters began to haul at the thigh length leather boots. 'They'll pull you right under!' Dragging both boots off the unresisting fisherman, Watters threw them into the sea. 'Now come on!' Watters could feel the rope biting into his waist. The salt water was stinging his various scrapes.

  'It's God's will,' the Buckie began, so Watters manipulated him from the rock.

  'Hold onto me! Kick for the shore!'

  Watters felt the familiar sick fear as the waves rose above him, the same terrible thunder in his ears, but at least the Buckie had learned how to kick his legs. Watters felt his strength ebbing as the fisherman's weight dragged on his shoulders. He would be all right if he kept fighting, kept struggling. Move, kick, use my arms, ignore the pain, move kick, use my arms, ignore the pain … The world was only salt water and sudden spells of agonising air.

  Watters reached the beach in a sudden welter of noise and light. The fisherwomen had remained, watching in a tense silence that somehow highlighted the sinister suck and crash of the sea. There were fishermen too, most moving to help, others waiting in hope. Watters lay with the sand rough beneath his face and the surf exploding around him.

  Let me die here. I can move no further.

  'Up you get.' Rough hands grabbed Watters by the shoulders; gruff voices sounded in his ears. 'You're safe now.'

  Watters spewed seawater. He heard a familiar voice among the crowd. 'Let me have him. That's my husband.' He looked up. Marie was there, giving orders, taking control. He closed his eyes. Everything would be all right now; Marie was there.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: NESSHAVEN: OCTOBER 1862

  Watters recalled nothing of his journey from the beach to Ness House, but he knew that Marie helped carry him from the chaise to the dining room, where the warmth of the fire relaxed him as much as the bite of raw whisky that persistent hands pressed past his lips.

  'I must examine him.' Marie gave firm orders. 'Put him on the table.'

  Watters felt strong hands lift him gently onto the table. He saw strands of blonde hair wisping across Marie's concerned eyes; he felt her capable hands on his head. 'You're covered in blood, George. I'll have to look.' There was a pause, during which he heard her voice as a low murmur. 'We'll need your shirt off.'

  Watters allowed Marie to manoeuvre him, and then the bite of kill-me-deadly whisky on his wounds made him gasp, but Marie's eyes were critical and kind.

  'Plenty scrapes here, George. They're ugly enough but shallow and not dangerous. They go right around your waist where the rope burned and down your side.' Marie paused. 'We'll need your trousers off too.' She raised her head. 'Could you all please leave? Except you.' She pointed to the manservant. 'You can stay. I might need you. What's your name?'

  'Andrew,' the man said.

  'I want to stay too,' Amy said.

  Marie's voice cracked. 'Leave! This is between my husband and me.'

  Marie lifted Watters's hips and eased down his trousers. She soothed him with quiet words as she examined his cuts, and then turned him onto his face to see how extensive they were. 'This will sting a little,' Marie said as she smeared the whisky from thigh to flank, cleaning each scrape with a thoroughness that in other circumstances would have made Watters yelp. 'Lie still now.' Marie's voice was gentle as she worked the spirit into a long cut that extended from his hip down his left thigh. Watters could feel Marie's breath hot on his body as he instinctively tensed.

  'No major damage,' she said at last, and when she brought her attention back to his face, her eyes were pure blue. 'Your clothes are wet. I brought dry clothing for you.' She watched him, smiling. 'That was a brave thing that you did, George.'

  Watters shook his head. 'It had to be done.' He would probably never admit how frightened he was or how near he had been to panic. He lay still for a moment, revelling in her attention before he forced himself to rise from the table. 'Marie. We'll have to get you home. It's late.'

  Marie shook her head. 'I'm not leaving you here.'

  'I'm on duty,' Watters said. 'This is Mr Beaumont's house.'

  Marie nodded. 'I am well aware of that.'

  'It may be dangerous.'

  Marie swept a hand to indicate his battered body. 'So I see.'

  'I mean it might be dangerous for you.'

  'You'll look after me,' Marie said, 'and I'll help you look after the girls.'

  'It's not only the American to worry about.' Watters knew that he had already lost the argument. 'There is the seaman Jones, the foreign woman, and I have no idea who or what else.'

  'I'm staying with you
,' Marie said with a smile. 'So just accept that.'

  'In that case,' Watters bowed to the inevitable, 'could you check the girls for me? It's not proper that I should look into their bedrooms, and they've had a bit of a busy day.' He hesitated, dressing slowly as his injuries stiffened. 'I must send a note to Scuddamore at the police office.'

  'Andrew will take it,' Marie decided for him. 'You aren't going anywhere tonight. Write a note, and Andrew will get to Broughty and send a telegraph from the post office.'

  Watters nodded, bowing to superior authority.

  There was a tap on the door. 'Oh, Sergeant Watters.' Elizabeth poked her head into the room. 'What a lot I have to tell William in my next letter.'

  'Get to your bed!' Marie snarled and winked at Watters. 'You've been letting these girls away with murder. That will change now that I'm here; I'm telling you.'

  * * *

  As dawn grey-streaked the horizon, Watters limped around the grounds, checking that each shuttered window was still secure, looking for scuff marks or footprints that might indicate a prowler, asking the unshaven gatekeeper if there had been any movement during the night.

  'Two foxes and a deer. Nothing else.' Ragina shook his head. 'I heard you were swimming yesterday.'

  Watters nodded.

  'That won't be forgotten.' Ragina bit on a hunk of tobacco. 'You'll have heard about that foreign boat that's cruising offshore.'

  'No.' Watters shook his head. 'The fishermen are a bit close-mouthed.'

  'Aye, they don't like strangers. The customs men check the nets too much and don't trust them in case they're smuggling in duty-free.' Ragina turned away, reached behind his door, and tossed over an empty bottle. 'You said you were looking for strangers. What do you make of this?'

  Watters lifted the bottle. 'That's an interesting shape; I've never seen one like that before.' He sniffed the neck. 'What was in it? Gin?'

  'Gin,' Ragina confirmed, 'from a stranger boat.'

  'Did foul weather force her in?'

  'Nothing like,' Ragina said. 'She turned up a few weeks ago, cruising the coast and selling gin to the fishermen.'

  'Is that usual along this coast?'

  Ragina shook his head. 'It's the first I've heard of it up here. It's common off the English East Coast.' He grunted. 'I was down that way with the Royal Navy before we went to the Med.'

  'HMS Glasgow, you said?'

  'That's right. The Navy kicked me out after I got wounded at the Battle of Navarino back in '27.'

  The Battle of Navarino. The name jarred in Watters's head, although he was not sure why. There was something about Navarino that should be important to him.

  'Anyway, you were asking about strangers,' Ragina said. 'I thought it might help to know about the foreign boat.'

  'Thank you.' Watters was not sure if the information was of any use to him. 'Why did you not tell me this earlier?'

  Ragina shrugged. 'When you first came, you were just a Dundee bluebottle,' he said. 'Now, you're the man that saved Curly John and the Buckie.'

  Watters nodded his understanding. He had proved himself.

  'There's another thing that might interest you.' Now that Ragina had started to speak, he seemed determined to make up for lost time. 'This foreign vessel has a woman in charge.'

  Watters stiffened; a foreign vessel, a woman in charge, and the Battle of Navarino. That was the connection: Isabella Navarino. He thought back to his first case as a young criminal officer with Scotland Yard. A group of daring fraudsters had sailed a stolen ship around the world, taking on cargos without paying. One of the principals in the case had been a female ship's captain named Isabella Navarino, so called because she had been born on HMS Genoa during the battle of Navarino.

  'Are you all right, Sergeant? You have gone very quiet.'

  'Thank you, Mr Ragina.' Watters touched the brim of his hat. 'You have been extremely helpful.'

  Henrietta Borg was Isabella Navarino. Although Isabella Navarino might not have been the foreign woman who bribed children to become fire-raisers, Watters knew that she was no blushing innocent. That was something else to notify the police office about. Watters grunted; his trip to Nesshaven had proved more worthwhile than he had thought.

  Watters lined up a patch of nettles and swung his cane. He had gathered quite a lot of information over the past few weeks. Now he had to place it all in order and see what sort of picture it created. At present, nothing made sense. He desperately needed a round of golf to clear his head, but that was not possible.

  Striding around the grounds of Ness House, Watters examined the various pieces of the puzzle. He had a dead man who may or may not have been an American. He had a series of fires in Mr Beaumont's mills, with no real idea who had instigated them. He had a female gin-dealing ship's captain wandering around Dundee under an assumed name. He had threats to Mr Beaumont, probably because of his past involvement with the Confederate States of America. He had a missing suspect who may or may not be named Jones. He had an unidentified foreign female who bribed little boys to set fire to mills. He had an equally unknown American and possibly the same woman who paid a naïve abolitionist to attack Mr Beaumont's daughter. He had a vague possibility of murder with Mr Caskie senior's death. He had stories that William Caskie junior had dealings with France, possibly through armaments. There was no apparent link except a loose affinity with the war in the United States and perhaps with France.

  That was the debit side. On the credit side, he had arrested a small group of misguided people who had been duped into criminal fire-raising. Once again, the chess analogy came into Watters's mind, but who was the king, and even more importantly, who was moving the pieces?

  Watters shook his head. The pieces of this puzzle were too fragmented to make any sense. He would have to keep worrying away, putting small scraps of information together in the hope of creating a coherent picture. In the meantime, he had a girl to keep safe. Watters swung his cane in frustration. He needed to get onto a golf course.

  When Watters returned to the house, Marie was waiting for him.

  'Why did Mr Mackay send you out here?' Marie challenged him across the breakfast table.

  'To look after Amy,' Watters said.

  'There's more to it than that,' Marie pressed him. 'This is a complex case. There is a murder, and there is fire-raising.' She held Watters's gaze. 'How many murder cases does Mr Mackay give to a sergeant?'

  Watters frowned. 'There are not many murders in Dundee.'

  'That's not what I asked,' Marie said. 'How many murder cases does Mr Mackay give to a sergeant?'

  'None,' Watters said. 'An inspector normally gets the murders.'

  'Exactly so,' Marie said. 'Why give this particular case to a sergeant and then take you off the case when you begin to make progress?'

  'I don't feel as if I am making progress,' Watters said.

  'You are.' Marie stopped any further protests. 'You got Varthley and Kelly and their gang into jail and then what? Mr Mackay gives the case to Anstruther.' She rolled her eyes. 'Anstruther of all people! A man who can hardly lace his boots without help. No, George, there is something very wrong here.'

  'What do you think?'

  'I think that for some reason, Mr Mackay does not want this case solved. He knows more than he's saying and did not expect you to find anything.'

  'It's political,' Watters said. 'Mackay can't tell me everything.'

  'Exactly,' Marie agreed. 'It's political. That's why Mackay is trying to keep clear of it. Politicians are a dirty, underhanded, double-dealing set.' She leaned closer to him across the table. 'You have two choices here, George. Your first choice is you can do your duty, look after these young ones while Anstruther bumbles through and finds nothing.'

  'Or?' Watters already guessed what Marie was about to say.

  'Or you do your utmost to solve the thing to prove to Mr Mackay that you are a better detective than Anstruther or a hundred Anstruthers.' Marie sat back smiling. 'You can show Mr Mackay that he was
wrong to treat you in this manner.'

  'Solving the case is what I have been trying to do,' Watters said.

  Marie smiled. 'I thought so. I did not marry a man who would give up merely because Mr Mackay is shy of probing anything political.'

  'Mr Mackay might not have a choice,' Watters said. 'He has had interviews with Sir John Ogilvy, the MP, and Holderby, the US Ambassador lately. One or both of them might have warned him to steer clear.'

  'Has anybody warned you to steer clear?'

  'Worse.' Watters shook his head. 'Mackay more or less ordered me to walk away.'

  'Well, that's that then.' Marie sat back in triumph. 'He's scared you might solve it and find answers he does not want to be revealed.'

  Watters sighed. 'We have what may be a small clue.' He placed Ragina's bottle on the table.

  'Gin, is it?' Marie sniffed at the mouth of the bottle. 'I thought some of these fishermen were drunk yesterday. I smelled it on their breath, even through the seawater. No wonder they capsized their boat.'

  'I am not here on a moral crusade,' Watters said. 'The fishermen's drinking habits are nothing to do with me.'

  'Maybe they have,' Marie said. 'Why would somebody sell gin to fishermen?'

  'To make money.' Watters explained about Isabella Navarino and the stranger boat.

  'So it's a business thing then.' Marie's eyes were sharp with interest.

  'Yes.' Watters wondered where Marie was headed.

  'What's the first rule of business?' Marie continued.

  'I couldn't even begin to guess.' At one point in his life, Watters had believed the contemporary wisdom that women were incapable of understanding such matters as politics or business. Then he had met Marie.

  'I could guess,' Marie said. 'I would say that the first rule is to make money, as you already said, so why is the vessel here?'

  'What do you mean?' Watters allowed Marie to pursue her course.

  'This is a minor fishing area. Except when the herring shoals are on the coast, there are only a few dozen boats out at most.' Marie raised her eyebrows. 'That vessel selling gin won't make much of a profit off Nesshaven. Her captain would be far better looking for custom off Aberdeen or in the Forth or the Dogger Bank.'