Well of the Winds

by Denzil Meyrick

  ‘Your colleague has arrived. Sergeant Scott, I think I’m right in saying?’

  Daley’s brow furrowed. ‘How are you so well informed, Mr Feldstein?’

  ‘Being well informed has been my business for very many years, Mr Daley. Far too many, in fact.’

  ‘Jimmy, are you doon there?’ Both men raised their eyes to the ceiling at the sound of the call. Scott’s footsteps above sounded deafening in the low-roofed cellar.

  ‘Your colleague has a less subtle approach, no?’ Feldstein smiled.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘If you are not accustomed to listening to advice, DCI Daley, I urge you to listen to mine. Take this journal and keep it safe. You will learn much. Make it subject to your evidence protocols and it will be spirited away, and what happened here, and in many other places, will remain hidden for longer than it has been already. And let me assure you, what happened here is not just dusty old history.’ He held up the journal. ‘I was lucky to find it so quickly, but I don’t suppose Bremer ever thought we’d get this close.’

  ‘Don’t you mean Bremner?’

  ‘I meant what I said.’

  Scott burst into the room, an extendable baton clutched in his right hand. ‘What the fuck’s going on? Is this the bastard that did for DC Potts? He’s up there in the motor, spark oot.’

  ‘It’s okay, Brian. Please place Mr Feldstein under arrest. Attempted theft by OLP should be an adequate charge for now,’ said Daley.

  ‘Come here, you big bugger,’ shouted Scott, grabbing Feldstein and handcuffing him in one smooth, well-practised movement. ‘Here, there’s a shooter on top o’ that filing cabinet!’

  ‘Remember what I said, Mr Daley.’ Feldstein smiled as Scott pulled him roughly out of the room and upstairs.

  Daley fanned the pages of the journal in his hand. Tiny spidery writing, in faded fountain-pen ink, neatly covered the pages, so tightly spaced it was hard to decipher. He closed the journal, and followed Scott and his prisoner out of the cellar at Achnamara.

  9

  Kinloch, 1945

  The mortuary was filled with bodies. Thirty, Urquhart counted. The smell was putrid, and he could hear McColl gagging. He turned to see the lad cover his mouth and nose with a freshly ironed white hanky. ‘Are these the first dead bodies you’ve seen?’

  ‘Y-yes, sir,’ spluttered McColl. ‘I-I saw my grandmother when she died, but she didn’t smell like this.’

  ‘If you make it as a police officer, rest assured you’ll see the dead nearly every week. If it’s any consolation, it took me time to get used to it. It’s only natural.’

  ‘Why are they that colour?’ McColl was pointing at the bloated face of a man that looked distinctly green.

  ‘Hypostasis. Caused by a mixture of asphyxiation and sea water. Though these poor souls have been dead less than two days, I reckon, the sea has still had time to do its bit.’

  Urquhart lifted a white sheet that was covering a young bearded man. His naked body was a pale grey colour, making the dark hairs on his chest look black. ‘This is the captain, so I’m told.’

  ‘He’s very young.’

  ‘Mid twenties, I’d say, not much older than you. People grow up quickly in war.’

  Urquhart made his way along the line of corpses, taking a brief look at each in turn. ‘What do you know about U-boats, Torquil?’

  ‘They’ve been sinking our ships in the Atlantic throughout the war. My father says that anyone who serves in a submarine is a brave man, though.’ The expression on Urquhart’s face made him stop.

  ‘There’s nothing brave about taking people’s lives the way they do. Nothing brave about war, full stop. It’s just a hell that everyone gets flung into – the innocent, the guilty, the brave, cowards, all alike. It makes no difference.’ He paused. ‘One thing is strange, though. The crew should be larger.’

  ‘How so?’

  Urquhart lifted the sheet covering the last sailor, then replaced it. ‘They were in a Type Twenty-one U-boat. The usual crew would be nearly sixty men yet there are only half that number here.’

  ‘Maybe the Germans don’t have many sailors left, sir. My father says that they have children fighting for them now.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure that’s true. For once, he seems to have the right of it.’ Urquhart rubbed his chin. ‘Come on. I want to see their personal effects.’

  They left the mortuary, crossed a yard, and entered the main building that housed the Kinloch Cottage Hospital. A pretty nurse with dark hair, wearing a blue uniform and stiff white apron, was pushing an old man in a wooden wheelchair.

  ‘Nurse, do you know where the possessions of the men from the U-boat have been stored?’

  ‘I’ll take you to Matron,’ she replied, a smile lighting up her face. ‘Are you a policeman now, Torquil?’

  ‘S-sort of,’ McColl replied. ‘Well, I’m hoping to be.’ His face reddened as he looked warily at Urquhart, hoping he would say nothing to add to his embarrassment.

  ‘This way, please. She’s on her rounds.’ The nurse led them down a corridor and into a large men’s ward. Rows of beds faced each other, a patient occupying every one. At the end of the room, Matron, resplendent in a dark blue uniform and an elaborate hat, greeted the policeman and took them to her office where she took a large bunch of keys from a drawer.

  ‘Just their uniforms and whatever personal effects they had, I’m afraid. Anything of a sensitive nature – letters and the like – was retained by the navy.’ She selected a key then took them down a long corridor to the room where the men’s possessions had been stored. She switched on a light that revealed a pile of soaking sea boots, thick woollen jerseys, oilskins and caps. The stench was nearly as pronounced as it had been in the mortuary, but seemed not to bother either the matron or Urquhart.

  ‘Here,’ she said, handing the inspector a blue duffel bag. ‘Everything the navy left is in this bag. Mainly rings and so on. Their identity tags have been taken away.’

  Urquhart took the bag and thanked her. ‘I’ll ask the navy for access to the other items, though I doubt I’ll get anywhere.’

  A quizzical look crossed her face. ‘Why should you? I would have thought this was purely a naval matter.’

  Urquhart smiled pleasantly. ‘I like to think that anything that happens in Kinloch or its environs is at least partially my business.’

  ‘Well, if you’re speaking to anyone in authority in the RN, please ask them if I can burn these uniforms. This is a place of healing, not a dumping ground. I really must get on with my rounds now. The doctor will be here soon, and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting, especially when he’s spent the morning at the golf club.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Good day to you, Inspector Urquhart.’

  The Ministry of Defence,

  Whitehall, London, the present day

  Timothy Gissing stared at the memo and sighed. He had less than a year to serve before he could retire to the little cottage in Cotswolds he and his wife had purchased just before Christmas the previous year. The communication he’d just received from his section chief was the nightmare he’d been hoping to avoid for almost every day of his thirty-year career. Ironic, he thought, that it had to happen right now, just as he was about to leave. ‘One last hurrah,’ he said to himself as he put the memo to one side and lifted his phone.

  He hated being called into the office early, and chided the secretary for taking four rings to answer the internal call. ‘Get me the ACC in charge at Police Scotland,’ he ordered. ‘Quickly.’

  He pictured the roses that framed the front door of his cottage, and smiled wistfully. A photograph of his wife took pride of place on his desk. She still turned heads. He found it impossible to believe that the woman with whom he had shared so much of his life was now in her sixties. She certainly didn’t look it, despite her rather extravagant lifestyle.

  He looked across the room and studied his reflection in the large gilded mirror facing his desk. His hair was thinning now, grey, and hi
s face looked more lined than usual. Those dark shadows under his eyes. If his wife looked ten years younger than her actual age, he looked at least ten years older than his. Too much time stuck in here, he thought to himself. Too much time dealing with the things that had to stay out of sight, yet had to be managed every day, swept under the carpet if possible, or made to disappear if necessary. The nation’s dirty washing, laundered and hung out to dry every day. If the stains wouldn’t come out, the garment had to be burned, all trace of its offending presence obliterated.

  The seriousness of the memo he had just read firmly pointed to the latter.

  The phone interrupted his thoughts. ‘ACC Dixon on the line, Mr Gissing,’ said his secretary.

  ‘Put him through.’ He listened to the clicks as the call connected. ‘ACC Dixon, so sorry to disturb you this early in the morning. Tim Gissing here, Section One at MOD. I spoke to one of your colleagues yesterday, a Chief Superintendent Carrie Symington.’ He waited as the voice on the other end went through the normal pleasantries. ‘The outlook has changed, however. We now have a Category Five problem and I’ll have to pull rank, I’m afraid. On you and the Scottish legal system, as it happens.’

  He listened as the senior police officer raged and spluttered on the other end of the line. ‘Sorry, old boy. The paperwork’s on its way via the usual channels. Make sure it’s dealt with as a priority. I’ll check in with your local office in a couple of hours.’ He heard the policeman attempt a reply, but decided to end the call. ‘Life’s too short, Jock,’ he said to himself.

  Scott shook his head. ‘So we’ve tae let this guy go, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, Brian. He has diplomatic immunity.’

  ‘But he has to leave the island, right?’ asked Daley.

  Symington raised her eyebrows. ‘No, he doesn’t. He has to undertake to stay away from Achnamara, but that’s all. I’ve made my feelings known to the chief constable, but it won’t make any difference.’

  Daley thought about the journal he’d been given by Feldstein. It was at the bottom of his suitcase, and he didn’t quite know why he hadn’t lodged it as evidence. He supposed that instinct was at work again, and he rarely ignored his instinct – in his career, at least. Having not had time to study the journal’s contents, Daley puzzled over what could be gleaned from its pages.

  ‘Penny for them, Jim?’ asked Symington.

  ‘Nothing, ma’am. Just daydreaming.’

  ‘Makes a difference fae mooning aboot wae a face like a wet weekend, Jimmy,’ replied Scott. ‘If this bugger is tae walk free, can I go for another couple o’ hours o’ shut eye? I’m fair puggled, ma’am.’

  ‘Off you go, then,’ said Symington, watching as Scott trudged out of the room. ‘What about you, Jim?’

  ‘It all depends on your movements, ma’am. I know there’s a lot to do here, but I need to make sure things are adequately covered back in Kinloch.’

  ‘No problem. I’m expecting a visit from an ACC, so I’m staying put. I’m also told that the media are on their way in force, so someone will have to be here to fend them off. Not your favourite task, I suspect.’

  ‘No, most certainly not. What about the farmhouse? Any joy contacting this young man – Alex, or whatever his name is?’

  ‘We’re still looking for any evidence of contact with him. Old letters, address, emails, but nothing yet. A specialist team are being sent over from Glasgow so hopefully they’ll have more success. Then there’s the imminent arrival of our ACC. Can of worms, Jim. This Feldstein character takes the biscuit.’

  ‘Yes. Can I ask what diplomatic immunity he’s working under? It all seems a bit cloak and dagger, from what I can gather.’

  ‘He’s an Israeli.’ She let the information sink in.

  ‘Okay . . . I think I’m right in saying that the Bremner family are Jewish?’

  ‘So we’re led to believe.’

  ‘If that’s their real name.’

  ‘Sorry, what do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing, ma’am, just idle speculation. I’ll head to the mainland on the first available ferry. I can get back here quickly, if there are any problems.’

  ‘Very good. I’ll keep you up to speed. Go and tend to our flock in Kinloch.’ She stopped, biting her lip. ‘And, Jim, try not to dwell on the past. It’s a fruitless exercise, trust me.’

  ‘Yes . . . Carrie. I’ll keep in touch. Good luck with the ACC and the press. Rather you than me.’

  She watched him slouch along the hotel corridor. Again, she wondered at the wisdom of letting him carry on without a proper break. He’d functioned perfectly well in the last twenty-four hours, so she reconciled herself to the fact that her decision was the correct one. Let him work on, exorcise the ghosts with the sheer effort of being a detective.

  Her phone rang. She didn’t recognise the number, but answered the call nonetheless, expecting a senior officer or, worse still, a member of the press.

  ‘Hello, ma’am, hope you haven’t forgotten about me?’ The voice was mocking and painfully familiar.

  ‘How did you get this number?’ she asked, flustered.

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting? I’m a detective. You didn’t think you could hide for ever up in Jockoland, did you? Time we had another little chat, don’t you think?’

  10

  Daley looked on as the Forensic Investigation team left the ferry he was about to board to return to Kinloch. Inspector Stoddart, the head of the unit and an old friend of Daley’s, caught sight of him and stopped his car. ‘Jim, I knew this was part of your new kingdom. Bit of a mystery, is it not? From what I’ve read in the background report, anyhow.’

  They chatted for a few moments. The last time they’d worked together had been in a murder squad in Glasgow almost ten years before. Stoddart asked after Liz, and not being able to face explaining his depressing domestic situation, Daley replied that she was fine, thriving, in fact.

  ‘We’ll take the place apart and see what we can find. Fascinating, really – a change from the normal shit, at least. If I have to deal with another drug dealer’s mini-mansion in the leafy suburbs, I think I’ll resign.’

  The ferryman was waving to Daley to board, so he wished Stoddart good luck and fired up the engine. ‘Oh, Brian’s on the island.’

  ‘Brian Scott? Well, at least I’ll have someone to sink a few with at the end of the shift,’ replied Stoddart brightly.

  ‘If you mean ginger beer and lime, yes, you will.’ Daley waved vaguely and drove down the ramp towards the vessel, leaving Stoddart with a puzzled look on his face.

  Kinloch, 1945

  Urquhart was astonished that the cigarette lighter burst into life, issuing a strong blue flame when he flicked the ignition wheel. Maybe it was true what they said about German engineering; certainly, for this to work after being submerged under the sea for several days was impressive. Extinguishing the flame, he examined its silver casing. The German eagle embossed on the side of the device was clutching in its claws a red roundel containing a black swastika. This was the second such device he had pulled from the dead sailors’ belongings, and for some reason it fascinated him more than the gold rings and cigarette cases that made up the rest of the haul.

  There was an inscription, engraved in tiny writing beneath the eagle. Urquhart peered at it through his steel-rimmed glasses, but still couldn’t make it out. ‘McColl, you have youth on your side, what does this say?’ He handed the lighter to his new charge, noting the lad’s trembling hand as he took it from him.

  ‘I-Ich liebe dich, E.’ He handed the lighter back to Urquhart. ‘I love you. His sweetheart, probably?’

  ‘Yes, no doubt.’ Urquhart looked at the other cigarette lighter, but the eagle and swastika emblem on it were not accompanied by any inscription. ‘I want you to log all of these items, with a brief description in here,’ he said, handing McColl a thick blue ledger. ‘Date and time we took them into our possession, along with the details of any engraving et cetera. Take it through to the general office. You
’ll find all you need there.’

  He watched McColl go and shook his head. He disliked patronage of any kind. He’d served with enough sons of the gentry in the last war to realise that it was a system that weakened any institution, whether it be a military regiment or a police force. He believed in meritocracy; that said, he had taken to McColl, and hoped the young man would thrive away from the overbearing presence of his father.

  He thought of his own parents for a few moments. His mother, kind and hard-working, his father, remote and ill-tempered. He knew he should be married and settled down with children by now, but shuddered at the thought. His life was one of rented rooms in shared houses or cheap hotels. After the all-embracing life of the army, the police had seemed the natural choice. He was ready to move from town to town at a moment’s notice, his possessions fitting easily into two stout suitcases.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw her again: her dark hair and twinkling brown eyes came back to him with little effort. It hardly seemed any time since he’d waved her goodbye on the bridle path beside the brook in the small Normandy village. In reality, it was long ago, and a very different world. Yet he could still see the wrinkle of her nose as she angled her face into his to kiss him.

  Evelyn. Beautiful Evelyn. He resisted the desire to take out his wallet and stare at the faded image of her that dwelt there, next to his heart, and instead turned the key of his right-hand desk drawer. He reached in and removed the leather-bound journal. It was new, smooth to the touch. Placing it on his desk, he opened it at the appropriate page. He picked up his silver fountain pen, and then, in a slow precise hand, began to write.

  Monday, 7th May, 1945

  With regret, I have been forced to take on a young assistant, one Torquil McColl, the son of the retired Procurator Fiscal. I will do my best to train this young man in the ways of the police service, but I fear – even at this short exposure – that he will prove too highly strung to become an effective police officer. I have not lost hope, though.