Jeremiah's Bell

by Denzil Meyrick

  Something in Thorbin Doig’s head snapped. In one easy motion he delved into his pocket, removed the knife and clicked the switchblade into the light. It too glinted in the sun before it was slathered with the blood of his father as again and again he plunged it between his shoulder blades.

  Ethan screamed and ran at his brother, desperately trying to pull the knife from his hands, as their father staggered and dropped the ingot to the deck with a clatter. Without thought, Thorbin pulled the knife from his father’s back and thrust it between his brother’s ribs.

  Ethan stared at him wild-eyed as he took a step backwards, then looked down at the hilt of the switchblade still sticking from his chest. He tried to speak but only a rasp sounded as bubbles of dark blood appeared at the corners of his mouth.

  The act had been instinctive, without any force of will, as though some other hand had turned the knife on his younger brother. With his father in his death throes on the deck, Thorbin leaned over Ethan’s motionless figure and pulled the knife from his chest. A slow flow of dark blood trickled from the wound.

  Thorbin Doig stepped back. He remembered his mother’s words as he had tried to bathe the wounds inflicted on her by his father.

  ‘The Doigs are monsters, son. Don’t be like them. Don’t be like them.’

  He’d promised her that he wouldn’t, but in that moment he knew the promise was broken, was nothing but a lie. For Thorbin Doig was the biggest monster of all, and now he knew it.

  19

  Hamish was sitting beside another elderly fisherman, quietly remembering the halcyon days of the County Hotel. They both swirled the whisky in their glasses as though using the spirit to conjure up images of past and future, a divination. A young couple – holidaymakers – looked on as they picked at their food, the atmosphere of gloom and despondency making them wish they’d chosen another venue for their meal. Behind the bar, Annie was polishing a pint tumbler, but with none of her usual gusto. The task was perfunctory, as she too stared into space looking for an answer that wouldn’t come.

  ‘Bugger me, it’s like a badly attended wake in here,’ said Charlie Murray as he entered the bar. He was wearing an old sports jacket with leather pads on the sleeves over his dungarees, all powdered with sawdust from his work as a joiner, made more obvious by his protruding belly.

  ‘Whoot’s there tae be cheery aboot?’ asked Annie. ‘Enjoy the place while it’s here, Charlie, for come February it’ll just be so much bricks and mortar, gone for ever. Aye, and me oot o’ a job intae the bargain.’

  The local councillor, Kinloch’s own political tour de force, sat down heavily on a stool, leaning forward, his elbows fixed on the bar. ‘Aye, I’ve heard the rumours, right enough. The owners are going tae turn it intae flats, so the gossips say.’

  ‘Aye, they are that.’ Annie put down the glass she was drying. ‘What can I get you, Charlie?’

  ‘A pint o’ heavy, please. You get a fair drooth wae all that dust in the air.’

  ‘I thought you retired long ago?’

  ‘I did. But they sons o’ mine – och, they’re good enough tradesmen, gifted, in fact. But when it comes tae business, well, they might as well be toddlers. I go in two days a week and keep them on the right track. Aye, and it’s good tae keep my hand in wae the tools noo and again.’ He brushed some dust from his dungarees as he spoke, and Annie quickly wiped it from the bar with a wet cloth before she laid the pint of beer in front of him.

  ‘It would seem that fiscal jurisprudence doesna run in every family,’ said Hamish from his seat at the table. ‘Certainly not the one that owns this place, at any rate, Charlie.’

  Murray took a long draw of his pint, wiping foam from his lips with the back of his hand. ‘My, but you’re a right defeatist. If we’d had that attitude in the war we might as well have surrendered.’

  ‘At least we had a fighting chance in the war. We’ve got hee-haw, noo. They’ve made up their minds. Off tae live the high life in the sun on the money they make fae this place once it’s carved up intae flats.’ Annie looked around the bar. ‘This hotel has been my life, Charlie – for better or worse. I’m fair heartbroken, so I am.’ She brushed away a tear.

  ‘Turning a place intae flats insna as simple as you might think,’ said Murray.

  ‘Why, whoot do you mean?’

  ‘They have tae get permission from the council planning department. I’ll have a look at it. Who knows, for some reason this building might no’ be suitable for conversion, eh?’

  For the first time in days, Annie felt her spirits rise. ‘Your pint’s on the hoose, Charlie,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘I thank you, Annie. But mind, while I’ll dae my best, I canna make any promises.’

  Hamish piped up. ‘Any port in a storm, Charlie Murray – any port in a storm.’

  Daley and Scott eyed the three men in front of them. Though they were of varying heights and ages, they were all big and overweight, the youngest nearly as tall as Daley. They stood looking at their diminutive mother, almost as though the policemen weren’t there at all. Behind them, a small lobster boat was pulled up on the pebbled shore, a haven for empty creels, curls of rope and a couple of orange buoys. The boat, however, looked as dilapidated as Rowan Tree Cottage.

  ‘Right, yous jeest listen tae me,’ said Ginny Doig. ‘There’s bad news.’

  ‘Whoot, Mother?’ slurred the smallest and oldest-looking of her sons, a few strands of hair sticking up almost vertically from his otherwise bald head.

  ‘Your faither’s deid.’

  Scott raised one eyebrow. ‘Don’t you break it too gently, noo,’ he muttered under his breath, eliciting an elbow in the ribs from Daley.

  The men’s reaction was hard to gauge. Never taking their eyes off their mother, the only real show of emotion at the news their father had passed away was a gaping mouth or a sigh between them.

  ‘And there’s mair, tae. Your sister – the one that ran away all they years ago – she’s back. She killed him!’ Ginny Doig spat the words out.

  ‘That’s enough, Mrs Doig!’ said Daley. He looked around the three men. ‘Your sister is back, yes. And though we’re carrying out investigations, we don’t know what happened to your father yet.’ Though he spoke to them directly, they still stared at their mother with expressionless, empty faces, seemingly devoid of any emotion or feeling, apparently entranced by the tiny woman in front of them.

  ‘So you say,’ said Ginny Doig. ‘As I telt you, there’s no coincidence that she disappears for mair than thirty years, then the minute she’s back her faither plunges tae his death off Thomson’s Hill. Aye, and her at that very place, tae.’ She addressed her sons. ‘Yous go and get on wae your chores.’ Then to the policemen, ‘You’ve done what you came tae do. Yous can go.’

  Daley watched as Ginny Doig’s sons shuffled back towards the small boat. He noted that despite the tragic news about their father not one word appeared to pass amongst them as they went about their ‘chores’.

  ‘I’m not happy with what has happened, and we will be investigating the death of your husband, Mrs Doig. But to do that, I want to speak to you all one by one. Out of respect for your loss that can wait until tomorrow. We’ll return then – around noon, if that’s convenient for you?’

  ‘And whoot if I tell yous tae fuck off?’

  ‘Then you’ll be making your statements at Kinloch police office. One way or another, Mrs Doig, you and your family will all answer my questions. And I’ll want to know more about the disappearance of your daughter Alison.’

  ‘Jeest ask her!’

  ‘I want to ask you, Mrs Doig – and your sons. You have my sincere condolences. Until tomorrow at noon.’ Daley turned on his heel and walked back up the pebble beach, Scott in his wake.

  ‘That was just weird, Jimmy.’

  ‘I’ve seen more effusive displays of grief, it has to be said.’

  ‘And boys tae men, that’s no’ right, neither. You’ve just been telt your father’s gone and they n
ever cut a light!’ He shook his head. ‘Aye, and did you notice their eyes?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Each one o’ them had a droopy right eye. You’ve been away too long, Jimmy. I spotted that a mile off.’

  ‘Some family trait or other, I expect – probably genetic. I was keener to gauge Mrs Doig’s behaviour. Anyway, all your nephews have red hair.’

  Scott nodded. ‘Mind you, so has their mother.’

  Daley stopped and turned back towards the sea. Standing with her arms folded, Ginny Doig stared darkly back.

  Daley and Scott went straight to Kinloch hospital where Alice Wenger was being assessed following her ordeal. They were ushered into a side room, where they found Wenger sitting up in bed having an animated conversation on a mobile phone. Whoever she was speaking to could have been in no doubt that she wasn’t happy with the way things were going – whatever those things were.

  As she waved the detectives in she ended the call abruptly, not bothering to say goodbye.

  ‘Ms Wenger,’ said Daley. ‘I hope you’re okay?’

  ‘You know hospitals, detective. They just love sticking needles into you and making you wait for results. Apparently my blood pressure is too high, so they want to keep me in overnight. But that’s not going to happen. As soon as the doc arrives, I’m outta here!’

  ‘Are you sure? Better safe than sorry,’ Daley remarked from experience.

  ‘I have a thorough medical every six months in a state-of-the-art hospital in LA. I think if there was anything wrong with me they would be more likely to pick it up than this quack’s paradise. Who wouldn’t have raised blood pressure when they’ve just watched their father die by his own volition? Just normal, wouldn’t you say?’ She reached for a bottle of water on her bedside table and took a gulp.

  ‘Well, if you’re sure. We can put this off and speak to you at the office once you’re discharged, if you’d prefer?’

  ‘Heck no, let’s just get on with it.’

  Daley and Scott sat down on either side of the bed. Scott consulted his notebook. ‘So, you’re back here to make some kind o’ contact with your family, right?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, Mr Scott, I don’t know why I came back. I guess outta curiosity, a bit of nostalgia maybe.’

  ‘You had no firm plans to make contact with your family?’ Daley asked.

  ‘Not really.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I missed my father – Faither, as I used to call him.’

  ‘What aboot your mother?’ said Scott.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘You didn’t want to see her again? I mean you made a special effort to go and see your father up on Thomson’s Hill, rather than at home. You weren’t sure if he’d even be there.’

  ‘Home? Shack, more like. But no, I didn’t want to see my mother, not now, not ever.’

  ‘Was she the reason you ran away?’

  ‘One of the reasons, yes.’

  ‘What about your brothers?’

  ‘I take it you’ve been to see them, yeah?’

  Daley nodded.

  ‘So, you make up your own mind as to whether I wanted to see them or not.’ The reply was flat, without emotion.

  ‘They’re no’ much like you, Alice,’ said Scott.

  ‘You bet they’re not. Leastways, not now.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  She didn’t answer the question, merely shrugging her shoulders.

  ‘What did you and your father talk about?’ asked Daley.

  ‘As I told you, he knew I was here, wasn’t surprised. I forgot what this place was like, no secrets. We talked a whiles, then . . .’

  ‘You said you argued.’ Daley stared at her, looking for a response – looking for anything.

  Wenger folded her arms. ‘I said, I was pissed that he didn’t seem bothered he hadn’t seen me in all this time. You kinda hope you’ll get some reaction, some kinda emotion from a father who’s not seen you in half a lifetime.’

  ‘Not much emotion to be found in your family, it would appear,’ said Daley.

  ‘So yous did argue?’ Scott asked.

  Alice Wenger laughed. ‘You cops. Like I always say, you are the same all over the world. I also know, with the kinda tech you have now, you’ll be able to see that I never stepped nearer than ten feet to the man, if that.’

  ‘You’ve had experience of the police?’ said Daley.

  ‘Some – enough to last me all my life.’ She ignored a ping from her mobile and sighed. ‘I was a kid when I first landed in America, Mr Daley. Raw, stupid – I had no idea about the world. I got in tow with the wrong guy. He had a motorbike, he was handsome – in the biker kinda way. He was kind for a while; until he beat the shit outta me, that was.’

  ‘You went to the police?’ asked Daley.

  ‘They came to us. He let me go, but he wouldn’t surrender to them.’ Alice Wenger stared into space, everything passing before her mind’s eye. ‘They shot him dead.’

  Slightly taken aback, Daley swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No need, he was an asshole.’

  ‘So that was Mr Wenger?’ asked Scott.

  ‘Hell no!’ Her laughter filled the room. ‘I was young then but I soon learned. I got me a job as a nanny in a big house in Louisiana. Two kids to look after, but compared to my brothers they were no problem. Jack and his wife – well, they fought a lot.’

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘Jack Wenger.’ She smiled at the expression on their faces. ‘Yeah, he became my husband. One day his pretty wife and his two kids just upped and offed. She came from old money, so they disappeared. Jack, well, he was different. He’d made it from nothing – from a bellhop to the owner of ten hotels – good ones, too. Anyhow, there was just me and him rattling about in this big ol’ house. One thing led to another; I’d learned what men liked in a woman by that time, and I suppose I made it easy for him. I don’t regret it. Trust me, I’d paid my dues.’

  ‘Why did he keep you on – when his children left, I mean?’

  ‘He hoped they’d come back, he really did. But he never saw them again from the day they left until the day he died.’

  ‘By which time you were Mrs Wenger, aye?’ said Scott.

  ‘I sure was. He was more than thirty years older than me, but he treated me well. Yeah, I saw guys my own age – had a tumble in the hay more than once. But on the whole we were happy.’

  ‘He died?’ Daley asked.

  ‘Took a liking to the bottle when she took his kids away. He could hold his liquor, I’ll give him that. It wasn’t until the end that I realised just how much he was stowing away. But by then it was too late.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘He died in my arms. He was no more than the weight of a child. You see, his liver and his kidneys had gone and shrivelled right away, and he just kinda disappeared. Sometimes I think he was glad to die. He missed those kids so much.’

  ‘And you inherited the hotel chain?’ said Daley.

  ‘I did. He taught me all he knew, and I learned real quick. I realised that while we made a good living where we were, LA was the place to be.’

  ‘What aboot Las Vegas? Some cracking hotels oot there. Me and the wife went on holiday a few years ago. Must be a goldmine,’ said Scott.

  ‘Sure it is, but once you’ve paid off the mob, you’d be surprised how little there is left.’

  ‘I thought that was a thing of the past,’ said Daley.

  ‘You think? Oh, they don’t go around toting guns and burying folks in concrete any more. It’s all smart suits and smarter accountants. Still an’ all, if you cross them they soon show their true colours. Try as they might to hide behind big corporations, the Mafia still runs Nevada, trust me. Atlantic City too, come to that.’

  ‘You just had an aptitude – for business, I mean?’

  ‘Sure helps when you have some money to play with; and Jack was a good teacher. But my family has always been good at business.’

  ‘They hide it right well,’ said Scott.

>   ‘Oh, they do. But if you dig a little deeper than that shithole shack, those three dummies and my witch of a mother – well, you’ll see.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Daley asked.

  ‘Nothing I can be sure of, Mr Daley. But I’d bet everything I have on the fact there’s money hidden away. And before you suggest I’m here trying to bag some of it, you know I own Wenger Leisure Inc. One thing I don’t need is money.’

  ‘Where did your family’s money come from, and mair importantly where is it noo?’ asked Scott, looking bemused.

  ‘You’ll have to ask my mother that – or on second thoughts, probably easier to ask folks around here. I’m sure you’ll hear some grand tales about the Doigs, that’s for certain sure.’

  Daley looked at Scott. ‘Okay, Ms Wenger, we’ll let you rest. And again, I’m sorry about your father.’

  As the two detectives prepared to leave the room Alice Wenger looked troubled. ‘One more thing, officers.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My father. All my life he used to go into the back room and tap away on this old typewriter. I don’t know what he was writing, but, like walking up Thomson Hill, he did it every day. If you can set your hands on that, well, who knows what you’ll find.’

  ‘Thank you. Oh, and I’ll need your passport, Alice. Until we find out what happened to your father . . . I’m sorry, just procedure.’

  ‘It’s back at the hotel. If one of your constables wants to drive out tonight, I’ll hand it over. But I tell you this, Mr Daley. I’m fixing to get the best lawyers Scotland has, so don’t be too confident you’ll have it for long.’

  As the policemen made their way back to the car, Scott shook his head. ‘What do you make o’ that, Jimmy?’

  ‘She knows more than she’s letting on, that’s what I make of it.’

  ‘Huh. Great minds think alike.’

  ‘And, Brian, fools seldom differ.’