Well of the Winds

by Denzil Meyrick

  The Reverend McLintock, Minister of the Wee Free Church, looked on with tight-lipped distaste, though the blush of whisky was plain on his cheeks if you stood close enough.

  An old woman in a rickety wooden wheelchair sniffed quietly as she watched the Marines, remembering the three sons she had lost in a previous conflict.

  A man in tartan trews and a Tam o’ Shanter raised his eyes to the heavens and sang the Gaelic words to the tune the band were asthmatically wheezing out.

  A young boy, standing at his young mother’s side, ran the back of his hand along his dripping nose, then wiped it on her bare leg, leaving a white streak where the gravy browning was erased.

  Across the street, the coloured bunting flapped in the gentle evening breeze, as though waving to the townsfolk below, sharing in their joy and celebration.

  Urquhart took in all of this with a jaundiced eye. Crowds – any large group of people – took him back to the beaches of Normandy, and the desperate struggle for survival. He turned the silver lighter over and over in his palm, trying hard to keep the memories at bay, trying to share the joy of the people amongst whom he was standing, but from whom he felt devastatingly apart.

  He watched the Kinloch provost clamber onto the platform, a sheet of white paper clutched in his hand, ready to make his speech.

  Someone flicked a switch and the Tannoy squealed into life over the skirl of the pipes and the roar of the crowd. A man in a brown dustcoat stepped in front of the box microphone and mumbled one-two-three into it, but succeeded only in making the squeal more ear-splitting.

  Urquhart felt a tug at his sleeve, and spun round, his mind back in Kinloch, no longer absorbed with his own horrors.

  ‘Sir, thought you’d b-better see this,’ said McColl.

  ‘I told you to keep an eye on Mitchell,’ boomed Urquhart in reply.

  ‘Y-yes, that’s what I’ve been doing. Look over there, s-sir.’ He stood on his tiptoes, pointing over the heads of the people, across the street to the Post Office. A group of local young men were leaning against the whitewashed walls, sharing a joke with two kilted soldiers, who appeared to be handing out cigarettes.

  ‘What is there to see?’ asked Urquhart, slightly irritated by McColl’s inexplicable excitement.

  ‘D-do you not see him? M-Mitchell, I mean, he’s on the left.’

  Urquhart scanned the knot of young men. Not just any gang of local lads; he noticed the son of one of Kinloch’s prominent businessmen, the nephew of the sheriff, and young MacAllister, heir to the lairdship of Glen Loss. They were all smartly dressed and confident, in trilbies, not the flat caps of their less illustrious peers. The suits and raincoats they wore were new and of a fashionable, modern cut. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t spot the young farmhand.

  ‘Why on earth would Mitchell be with those boys? Out of his league, I would’ve thought.’

  ‘In the grey trilby, sir.’

  There he was. The thick-set youth was laughing loudest. He was wearing a gabardine raincoat over a suit. He turned momentarily in Urquhart’s direction, but didn’t spot him in the crowd. Andrew Mitchell was no longer in filthy corduroy trousers, tied at the bottom against vermin by nicky tams. He was clean-shaven, well dressed, and in the company of Kinloch’s most well-to-do sons.

  ‘I lost him for an hour. D-disappeared out of sight. I was about to come and tell you when I s-spotted him again,’ shouted McColl, the screech of the Tannoy system now so deafening that some of the townsfolk were gesturing wildly at the podium.

  ‘Come with me, McColl.’ Urquhart forced his way through the crowd and crossed the street by the Post Office, in front of a battalion of the local Boys’ Brigade.

  Mitchell was gesticulating, his accent sounding loud over the more refined tones of his associates. ‘She’s got a big pair, I tell you, I saw her at the barn dance in Blaan. Jeest a cracker. Hey, what the—’ He yanked his arm from Urquhart’s grip, then turned, and on realising it was the detective, looked sheepish.

  ‘Having a good time, Andrew?’

  ‘Whoot’s it tae you?’

  ‘I want a word, up at the station. You’re coming with me.’

  Urquhart hauled Mitchell away from the company as his erstwhile friends purposefully turned their backs on their unfortunate companion.

  Forcing their way through the crowds, Urquhart, McColl and the nattily dressed farmhand made their way back up the hill towards Kinloch Police Station.

  31

  As Daley stood by the roadside watching Feldstein’s wrecked car being towed away, he remembered the swish of the vehicle speeding past the strand the night before. The body had been taken to the local hospital, but had been dead on arrival.

  This had been no accident. According to the lorry driver, who had managed to jump to safety from his burning vehicle, another car had been involved, driving recklessly, and had failed to stop, despite the collision.

  After a few words with the investigating traffic officer, Daley made his way back to Kinloch, going straight to his office and not even acknowledging those who wished him good morning.

  He removed the file given to him by Feldstein from the holdall at his feet and settled behind his desk. He no longer cared that he was looking at material unauthorised by his superiors; he only cared that yet another life had been lost, another face to add to the spectral parade throughout his career. The dead girl, lying in a pool of her own blood on a shabby bed in an even shabbier room, loomed in his mind. She had been the first. He wished she had been the last.

  He read a report that had been typed on an old-fashioned machine and corrected by Acting Constable McColl in 1945. He thought again of the wizened man staring from the high window in Stonebrae House. It was hard to picture him clattering away at a typewriter.

  Inspector Urquhart intimated to me that he was meeting with someone at the causeway. He didn’t tell me who he was meeting, and I knew not to press him on the matter. The Inspector was very determined that his orders be followed to the letter. He always was.

  At this point, Daley spotted a hand-written note at the bottom of McColl’s statement.

  Insp. D. Gloag. NB: Though McColl doesn’t mention it in this statement, he expressed a feeling that this meeting had something to do with Andrew Mitchell, main witness in the Kerr case.

  Inspector Gloag had signed this off with a flourish, though as Daley scanned the rest of the file, he saw no further mention of the observation.

  The copies of various files and documents were stamped, but the mark was so faded that Daley couldn’t make it out. Only when he came to a file marked TOP SECRET did he realise that the stamp read PROPERTY OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL.

  He’d always known that Feldstein was a member of some group dedicated to flushing out the dwindling numbers of war criminals, but not an agent of Israeli Intelligence. This realisation made his heart race. How could the disappearance of a family in the twenty-first century – despite their historical Nazi connections – be of any interest to modern Israel?

  He thought more about Feldstein. What did his death mean for the rest of those trying to make sense of the disappearance of the Bremners?

  He thought about the deceptively easygoing Iolo Harris, the Special Branch team on Gairsay with Scott and Symington, the cellar of the old farmhouse filled with pictures and documents from the war, the photographs he’d seen of Urquhart, his solid and dependable predecessor.

  He felt as though he was taking up the cudgels of an investigation that had ended with the inspector’s untimely death – as though, with his last breath, Urquhart was trying desperately to tell him something. It felt like the man was shouting to be heard in the next room – across decades.

  The glass box in which Daley sat would have been unrecognisable to Urquhart, but they were united by elements of an investigation that he could follow up. He decided to take up what he could of Urquhart’s last case, but he felt alone – and distinctly uneasy.

  The door was rattled by a sharp knock.


  ‘Sir,’ said Sergeant Shaw, his face anxious. ‘It’s the old boy, Hamish. He’s been attacked. He was found outside his house by someone out jogging early this morning. He’s in Kinloch hospital.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Pretty bad, sir.’

  Without waiting to hear more, Daley flung on his jacket and within minutes was at the wheel of his car, screeching out of the yard.

  Harry Chappell examined his bruised and bloody face in the harsh fluorescent light of his bathroom. His lip curled at the thought of the rough-looking detective sergeant who had bettered him in a fight.

  He walked stiffly to his bed, working out what he’d tell his superior while planning revenge: revenge against the man who had left him battered in the car park, but most of all, revenge against her. It seemed she’d found another champion – someone who would try and protect her from his advances. But he was different now, more powerful. He was part of Special Branch, a chief inspector. No Scotch DS with heather in his ears would get the better of him.

  He picked up the mobile phone from his bedside table and scrolled down to his boss’s name. He would tell the truth – well, mostly the truth. How the Scotch detective was out of control when he found himself and Symington having an intimate moment in the car park. How he’d been completely unprepared for an attack, especially one from a fellow officer. He knew he’d have to give something away as to his past with Carrie, but his boss was old school and wouldn’t hold up his hands in horror at the thought of a liaison between officers.

  As for Symington, well, she’d be bound to keep her mouth shut. He had her where he wanted her, no matter how much she tried to twist from his grasp. She would never risk the exposure of being responsible for the death of a young man and then being part of the cover-up.

  He might get a bit of stick from his colleagues, perhaps even a reprimand from the boss, but who cared?

  He was about to press the call button when he heard a tentative knock at his room door.

  ‘Who is it?’ he called, rather suspecting that it would be Symington, anxious to concoct some excuse in order to protect herself from any implications of the fight. She’d want to apologise, keep him sweet.

  ‘Maintenance!’ The voice was local, high-pitched and effeminate. What was it about the hotel industry that attracted so many mincers, he thought.

  ‘Can you come back later? I’m busy.’

  ‘Och, dearie me,’ came the sing-song voice in reply. ‘It’s jeest that we’ve had a right bugger wae the boiler for the central heating. If I don’t get to your radiator, I dread to think what might happen. Water everywhere, I shouldna wonder.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ cursed Chappell as he got up from the bed. ‘Save me from these yokels.’ He opened the door wide, expecting to find the camp boiler-suited maintenance man he’d seen sashaying around the hotel, but his mouth fell open when he realised who’d come to call, and he tried frantically to close it. He failed when a sharp kick to his abdomen sent him flying backwards onto the carpeted floor with a heavy thud.

  ‘So you’re up and aboot,’ snarled Scott, kicking the door shut with a back-kick. ‘I hoped you’d maybe given up the ghost last night.’ He loomed over the stricken man as he tried to get up.

  ‘I’ll make sure you lose your miserable job, you Jock bastard,’ panted Chappell, still winded.

  ‘Will you? Fuck me, that’ll be interesting. Especially when I tell your gaffer that you’ve been raping a female colleague for years. Exposing shit like that’s worth losing my job for. Anyhow, I’m no’ bothered. It’s high time I was out of this, tae be honest.’ Scott knelt down over Chappell, grabbed him by the shirt collar, and whispered in his ear, ‘Noo, listen tae me. You’ll tell your boss you had a wee tumble last night – too much to drink. Then you’ll tell him you’re gettin’ right bad heidaches an’ you need tae call it a day and go off the panel.’

  ‘What if I refuse?’ wheezed Chappell, his throat constricted by Scott’s grip, his face crimson, a vein pulsing blue in his temple.

  ‘’Cause. I’ll kick you good-looking, ya prick. Doing time for sexual assault and corruption will be the least o’ your worries. I’ll make sure you never see the inside o’ the jail, don’t worry. Inside o’ the crematorium, mair like.’

  ‘So, she told you about our little secret—’ Chappell was stopped speaking mid sentence when Scott caught him with a sucker punch under the chin.

  ‘Whit secret? Dae you know one? I don’t know any secret. Just leave her alone fae noo on in. I’ll find you. I don’t care aboot my career, but I think you’ve a good bit mair tae lose than me, Chief Inspector.’ To finish off, Scott punched him hard in the stomach and stood up, straightening his tie. ‘Now, you have a good day. If you’re no’ off this island on the next ferry, I’ll make sure you find another route hame – in an ambulance. See ya.’

  Scott sauntered out of the room, leaving Chappell gasping for breath.

  ‘Lovely day, Mr Scott,’ remarked the chambermaid as she pushed a trolley loaded with bed linen along the corridor.

  ‘Aye, no’ bad at all, dear,’ he replied, pulling the hotel room door firmly shut behind him.

  Hamish was lying on a bed, a drip feeding into his arm, connected to a monitor that bleeped in time with the old man’s heart. A woman was sitting at the bedside, holding his hand, while two young men, dressed in rancid dungarees that stank of fish guts, towered over her.

  ‘Annie, how is he?’ asked Daley.

  ‘Och, is this no’ jeest a wile thing. Who wid attack an auld man, especially oor Hamish? Widna hurt a fly, so he widna,’ replied the hotel manager, tears in her eyes.

  ‘He’s been responsible for hurtin’ a few fish o’er the years, mind you,’ said the youngest of the two fishermen, his belly bulging beneath his dungarees.

  ‘See if you canna say anythin’ that’s no’ stupid, jeest say naething, Erchie,’ the older fisherman replied. ‘No’ hurting a fly is a figure o’ speech – it doesna mean he’s actually no’ hurt a fly, you stupid—’

  ‘How did this happen? I mean, who found him, Annie?’

  ‘Wee Tina, Michael Kerr the baker’s daughter. She’s on a health kick. Goes oot jogging early every morning before she goes tae the shop.’

  ‘Aye, then she stuffs her face full o’ they Danish pastries and pineapple whirls. It’s a wonder she can run the length o’ hersel’ wae an arse the size o’ a lobster boat.’

  ‘Erchie, will you shut up!’ protested Annie. ‘Can you no’ see that your great-uncle’s struggling for his life here? I don’t know whoot gets intae you boys.’ She gave him a withering look.

  ‘Anyhow, is it no’ your job tae tell us whoot happened tae Hamish, Mr Daley?’ the older man said pointedly.

  ‘You be quiet an’ aw, Tony. Mr Daley’s jeest found oot whoot’s happened. You’ll find the culprit, sure you will,’ implored Annie.

  ‘Yes, of course I will,’ he replied, still shocked to see the man who had saved his life in such a state.

  A doctor, accompanied by a staff nurse, entered the room and asked the visitors to leave.

  As Annie and Hamish’s great-nephews trooped out, Daley hung back. ‘How is he really?’ he asked the doctor.

  ‘Taken quite a beating, sir. For the life of me, I don’t know who would do such a thing. We’re getting him stabilised, then he’s for the helicopter to Glasgow. He’ll need to have an MRI scan, and he’ll be better off up there in case, well, in case he suffers any complications.’

  ‘But you think he’ll regain consciousness?’

  ‘Oh, he was semi-conscious when he was brought in. Even spoke a few words.’

  ‘What did he say? I’m sorry, I have to ask. I need to find who did this, and it may help.’

  ‘I doubt it, but it was strange. He kept on saying the same thing over and over again, sounded like gobbledegook.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘The well of the winds. He said it over and over again. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to examine my pat
ient.’

  Scott was enjoying a kipper in the dining room when Symington arrived for breakfast. She’d done a good job of disguising her pallor with foundation, but he could see that her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She looked relieved when she realised that the only other diners were the elderly couple, not any Special Branch personnel.

  ‘Morning, ma’am,’ said Scott, trying to sound as cheerful and as natural as possible. ‘It’s a lovely day.’

  She sat at the table and summoned a weak smile. ‘How are things?’

  ‘Just dandy. You should try one o’ they kippers. Lovely, so they are.’

  She looked nervously around the room as the young waitress who had admired her handbag came to the table to take her order.

  ‘Good morning. What would you like today?’

  ‘Oh, just coffee and a croissant, please,’ said Symington. ‘I’ve had too many hearty breakfasts over the last few days.’

  The girl smiled and padded away.

  ‘Here,’ said Scott. ‘Don’t you know breakfast is the most important meal o’ the day? I keep trying tae encourage oor Jimmy tae eat a proper breakfast, but no’ him. If you eat well first thing, you’re no’ wanting tae nibble away at rubbish for the rest o’ the day. My auld faither didnae gie me much good advice, but that was a pearler.’

  ‘What other gems did he pass on?’ said Symington, beginning to relax a little.

  ‘Never eat yellow snow, and pretend you’re another bugger when the sheriff officers come tae the door.’

  ‘Bailiffs, where I come from.’

  ‘Aye, whatever. It was quite an education seeing my auld fella when they came knocking at the door, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘He was a maister at it. Even pretended he was French once. Put the big bugger right off. “I am not knowing zees Meester Scoot.” The works. Aye, he was classic at it.’