‘Giancarlo is a man of his word.’
‘Indeed he is Helen Jamieson.’
A man of chocolate smooth words
The case was wrapped up, or as wrapped up as Jamieson or anyone else could make it. Perhaps someone more important than her, the Chief Constable, the Prime Minister, Scotland’s First Minister would decide it was worth spending hundreds of thousands of pounds recovering the container from the sea bed. Perhaps, though Jamieson doubted it. After so many months and the storms of winter the container had probably broken up, the debris scattered, the bodies dispersed, limbs slowly disarticulating, fish scavenging the remains. What would there be to find? Even if the collision with the oil tanker had only holed the floating container, causing it to sink more or less intact, whatever remained of the bodies would be unrecognisable.
As Giancarlo said, ‘The Mafia don’t keep records and people are disappearing from Eastern Europe and North Africa all the time. It is impossibile.’
Whatever the cost of a salvage operation, it would be a lot of money to spend on recovering 10,000 pairs of saturated counterfeit Nike trainers. Jamieson corrected herself: 9,997 pairs since she was looking at three unmatched trainers on her desk. Whether more feet would surface depended on how many of the container’s illegal human cargo helped themselves to free samples. There were thirteen men, all from Algeria, according to the Italian warehouse clerk who confessed all after he was offered immunity from prosecution by Inspector Costantini. Jamieson picked up the shoes one by one and locked them away. They had provided the final piece of evidence. The stitching and the labels were an exact match with the Chinese-made counterfeit Nikes found by Inspector Costantini’s men when they raided a cargo clearing warehouse at the Gioia Tauro container port, on the knuckle of the toe of Italy.
Thanks to Cal McGill the case was solved, though 24 hours earlier Jamieson was cursing him for raising her hopes. The cargo manifests from Gioia Tauro and New York, respectively the home port and final destination of the container ship, matched. 1257 containers were loaded at Gioia Tauro, 460 were unloaded at Liverpool and the remainder at New York, the intended destination of the counterfeit trainers and the illegal cargo of Algerians.
The satellite tracking report provided the breakthrough. Inspector Costantini had sent the data company the coordinates of the container ship’s May Day call and the oil tanker’s collision 20 days later. Prompted by Jamieson, he had asked for the details of any containers which had travelled from the first set of coordinates to the second set between October 6 and 26 last year.
The response was what she wanted. ‘There was a container following that course but the owners informed us the tracking device was malfunctioning. They contacted us on October 8 and the last signal we received from it was on October 26 at 57°28′N, 8°12′W, the last of the two coordinates you sent us.’
The collision with the tanker had brought an abrupt end to the tracking device’s signals.
Revenge time sir.
Jamieson lifted the half-closed lid of her lap top and opened her Bembo hotmail account. She clicked on ‘new mail’ and typed [email protected].
‘Dear Rosie, I read your story on Cal McGill and enjoyed it very much. Would you like a story about him which is even bigger?’
Rosie replied, ‘Dear Bembo, Bigger than him being charged with theft and breaking into a museum?’
‘Dear Rosie, I don’t understand.’
‘Dear Bembo, Cal McGill is in custody. He broke into a museum on an island called Eilean Iasgaich and stole its most precious artefact. Is your story bigger than that?’
Jamieson stared at the email, mouth gaping. Cal McGill what have you done?
Detective Inspector David Ryan held his face in his hands. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’
Joan, his PA, at her desk across the corridor from Ryan’s open door, inquired, ‘Is there something the matter Mr Ryan?’
‘Nothing you should be worrying about Joan.’ Ryan glowered at her. ‘Get me Detective Constable Jamieson, now.’
‘Yes Mr Ryan.’ He had spent the morning reviewing the ‘20 front runners’- Jamieson’s description of them. He could see why she’d chosen them. Most involved missing bodies, suicides or yachting accidents of one kind or another, but in only three cases were the missing people definitely wearing trainers. The investigation was being buried under mountains of paper, missing people files, marine accident reports, and with all the television coverage, dozens of random calls from worried relatives saying ‘My so-and-so was wearing trainers when he left home x years ago. Do you think the foot could be his?’. Every day brought so many new lines of inquiry forty officers were working full-time on the case. There had been moments in the last few days when Ryan had wondered whether Cal McGill could be useful, if only to narrow the scope of the investigation. But no sooner had the notion come into his head than he rejected it. McGill was a troublemaker; what’s more a troublemaker who had no reason to do him or the police any favours. Now Ryan thanked God for his instincts. He’d heard about McGill’s arrest on the police grapevine.
Jamieson knocked on his open door.
‘Come on in,’ Ryan stood up. ‘Take a seat.’
Jamieson hovered by the door with an expression of bemusement. She looked behind her in case someone else was there, but there was only Joan across the corridor, cowed and at her desk.
‘Do you mean me sir?’
‘Yes Helen. Of course I mean you.’
He called me Helen.
‘Thank you very much sir.’ Jamieson walked nervously to the chair in front of Ryan’s desk and slid sideways into it. Her hips caught on the arms. She pushed down and her bottom hit the seat with a thump. She blushed.
‘This is what we’re going to do Helen.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘I’m going to solve this case in the next seven days.’
‘Are you sir?’
Jamieson knew what happened in seven days. Joan had told her. The date of Ryan’s SCDEA interview had been brought forward.
‘Yes, Helen.’ He smiled at her and leaned back in his chair, throwing his arms wide. ‘Look Helen. I know we don’t always see eye to eye …’
‘If you say so sir.’
‘But we have to put aside personal differences here.’
‘Yes sir?’ Jamieson’s voice lifted quizzically.
‘We’re in this together Helen. We’re a team.’
‘Yes sir.’ No sir.
‘I just wanted you to know that.’
‘Thank you sir.’ No thank you sir.
‘So you’ll do your damnedst to get a result in seven days? No stone unturned, eh, Jamieson … Helen.’
‘Yes sir.’ I’ve got a result already sir.
‘Good girl.’ Ryan’s smile withered.
Fuck you sir.
Out of habit Jamieson angled her body when she stood up but her hips still stuck on the chair’s arms. She was at the door when Ryan said, ‘Have you heard about McGill?’
‘Yes sir, just now sir?’
‘I knew he was no good.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘We’ll come under fire I’m afraid.’
‘Will we sir?’
‘We had him in custody a week ago.’
‘I suppose we did sir.’
‘The media will be blaming us for letting him go.’
‘I suppose they will sir.’
Not us sir. You, sir.
‘But thank God we didn’t use him on this case, eh Helen.’
‘I guess so sir.’
Jamieson regained her composure as she walked along the corridor. Cal’s arrest had thrown her but it didn’t really change anything.
When she returned to her desk she emailed Rosie Provan.
‘Dear Rosie, Yes, it’s bigger than theft, much bigger. Details will follow.’
Chapter 26
The Eastern Township hotel bar at lunchtime was buzzing. The talk was all about Cal McGill’s ‘bad blood’. Hadn’t his g
randfather caused the death of a teenage lad called Sandy MacKay, one of the brave men of Eilean Iasgaich? Hadn’t McGill’s grandfather’s name been left off the Eilean Iasgaich memorial because of it? No-one could remember the exact details of the story, except that young Sandy had been swept overboard because of Uilleam Sinclair’s negligence. The reporters listened and took notes. There were three of them, two from local weeklies and one from Aberdeen, the Press and Journal. More were on the way. BBC Scotland was sending a crew. The hotel had taken the booking. Cal McGill was big news after his exploits in politicians’ gardens. What was he doing stealing a wartime logbook from a museum? It didn’t fit.
The bar’s lunch-time regulars didn’t seem to have the answer, but it didn’t stop them speculating if there was a prospect of another round of drinks and the reporters were paying. None of them noticed a man in a red woollen hat leaving his coffee untouched as he listened to the chatter then hurrying from the bar.
Audrey Gillespie saw him.
She was sitting, as she usually did at lunch time, at the round table by the fire. She was eating her toasted cheese sandwich and drinking IRN-BRU. She’d never spoken to Red MacKay but she knew him, by his hat, by township gossip and by the file in her employer’s office.
It was time for her to go, too. She had to be getting back to work.
Outside the bar, she saw Red MacKay crossing the field, the short cut to the pier. He was walking quickly. Audrey wondered if he was rushing to catch the tide, but she looked at the Kyle. The tide was still full. He was a rule unto himself, so she thought nothing more of it, instead worrying that she was going to be late. Her boss liked to start the afternoon at 1.55pm with a cup of coffee. She walked quickly along the road to the premises of Alexander Mackenzie & Partners. She went in, glanced at the clock – it was 1.53 – and put her bag down on her desk in reception. When the water had boiled she stirred in one level teaspoonful of Gold Blend, dropped in a white sugar lump and carried the cup and saucer to the closed door opposite. The name plate on it said Mr Robin Mackenzie, senior partner. It made Audrey smile because he was the only partner. She knocked, taking care not to spill the coffee. ‘Come, Audrey.’
Mr Mackenzie was sitting at his desk with tidy piles of legal papers balanced on either end of it. He was a small man with thinning ginger hair, a freckled face and a long nose, at the end of which he perched his computer glasses. He squinted at Audrey over them, the look he always gave her, not quite approving, not quite disapproving but always closer to the latter than the former. ‘Ah Audrey, my coffee.’
‘Have you heard what’s happened?’
‘Enough for my purposes I think, Audrey.’
He was always trying to stop her relating gossip about clients. There were some things a family solicitor in a small community was better off not knowing, he would tell her. On this occasion Audrey thought otherwise and told him everything she’d heard: how Cal McGill, the man who broke into the museum, was Uilleam Sinclair’s grandson. Wouldn’t Mr Robin want to know about it? Wouldn’t he want to hear what the reporters were asking? Wasn’t Uilleam Sinclair’s name on a big enamelled box in the back room, one of the dozens he made her dust once every quarter? ‘Nothing happens for months around here then this!’
After her tumble of words, he held up his hand. ‘My coffee please, Audrey. Are you going to give it to me before it gets cold?’
‘Oh Mr Robin I got quite carried away with myself.’
‘Mmmh.’ There was that look again. She put the cup down. ‘Audrey.’
‘Yes Mr Robin.’
‘Has there been much talk about Uilleam Sinclair?’ She screwed up her expressive face with a frown of concern. ‘Yes Mr R, they say Cal McGill’s bad blood comes from him.’
Mr Mackenzie let out a little sigh of exasperation. ‘How many times must I tell you Audrey?’ He looked at her sternly.
She put a hand to her mouth. ‘Sorry, Mr Robin.’
Audrey sometimes called him Mr R when she forgot herself, though she wasn’t sorry at all. She pitied her employer, the way no-one, apart from her, ever called him anything but Mr Mackenzie. She’d never heard anyone use his first name. No-one in the township did. None of his clients did. No-one at home did because there was no-one at home. He was unmarried without any close family. Audrey thought the least she could do was to show him a little familiarity, because it pained her to think of a life like his without it. So sometimes she called him Mr R.
‘Oh, there’s something else.’
‘What Audrey?’
It was unusual for Mr Robin to encourage her like this.
‘Well,’ she said, enjoying the moment. ‘There’s another bit of news. There was some talk about an old woman called Grace Ann MacKay.’
‘What of her?’
Audrey knew Mr Robin would be interested. Wasn’t her name also on one of the boxes? She knew all the names off by heart now. What else was there to do when she was dusting?
‘Well,’ she said. ‘She’s died, from a stroke. She lived in the Borders apparently though no-one’s seen her or heard of her for years.’
‘Thank you Audrey. Please close the door behind you.’
When she had gone, he reached into the top drawer and removed a key. He went to the door behind his desk, unlocked it and turned on the light. His back room, as Audrey referred to it, or the client repository as it had been called by the partners of Mackenzie & Partners since Mr Robin’s grandfather Alexander founded the firm in 1926, was shelved from floor to ceiling. Every shelf was packed tight with black tin boxes, about two feet high and eighteen inches across. Each had a lid and each was tied with red ribbon. The names of the clients were also enamelled in red. He went to the box which bore the name Hector MacKay and his dates, 1891–1944. He lifted it down to the floor, untied the bow, blew away the dust (‘That girl,’ he muttered) and removed the lid. He took out a buff-coloured file and returned the box to its position on the shelf. Four away was another box which bore three names and dates Ina MacKay, 1896–1943; Alexander (Sandy) MacKay, 1926–1942; Grace Ann MacKay, 1924–. Mr Mackenzie made a mental note to add the date of Grace Ann’s death and left the room.
He put the key back in his drawer and opened the file, taking from it a single typed sheet of paper and a long white envelope which had broken red sealing wax on the open flap. He read the paper briskly – he didn’t need to take his usual lawyerly care because he’d read it many times before. Satisfied with it, he went into the outer office.
‘Audrey, I want you to copy this.’ He gave her the sheet of paper. ‘And on your way home this afternoon append it to the notice boards in Eastern Township, the store, the hotel bar and outside the community centre.’
‘Yes Mr Robin.’ As he returned to his office she noticed he was carrying an envelope with red sealing wax and wondered what it was.
Soon after 4pm, when the last appointment for the day had ended, the phone went. Audrey answered. It was Red MacKay, asking to speak to Mr Mackenzie. She put him through. The call lasted ten minutes. Audrey logged it as usual on Mr Mackenzie’s client time sheet. As she was doing so, her employer left the office, suggesting she lock up early. ‘On reflection, Audrey, the sooner you put up those notices the better.’
Cal McGill was already in the police interview room, his back to the door, when Mr Mackenzie was shown in. He pulled out a chair, put his case on the table, snapped open the locks, lifted the lid and sat down.
‘Well, young man it looks as if you’re going to need some legal assistance.’
‘I didn’t ask for a lawyer, did I?’
‘Red MacKay thought you might need one.’
Cal didn’t reply.
Mr Mackenzie took an A4 notepad from his case and the envelope he’d taken from Hector MacKay’s box. ‘My grandfather represented your great grandfather Robert Sinclair in a dispute about grazing rights in 1929. My father was the executor of your great grandmother Margaret’s will.’
Cal watched the lawyer who held out his hand.
‘I’m Robin Mackenzie, of Alexander Mackenzie & Partners. We’ve represented your family many times over the years, as we have all the families from Eilean Iasgaich. I’m here to help you, if you’re agreeable of course.’
‘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.’
The Sea Detective Page 25