Sail of Stone

by Ake Edwardson

  “When were the girls getting to Dallas?” said Winter.

  “About the same time as us,” Macdonald said, and smiled.

  The hotel had been built in 1880, Victorian up to its trusses. It had six rooms and a dining room in all the shades of pink God had given to man. A young woman who looked nice showed them to a table that seemed fragile. The chairs were narrow armchairs.

  Macdonald looked like he was sitting in a child’s chair. Winter realized that he looked the same himself.

  The little old ladies were sitting at a larger table next to one of the windows, ten feet away. They smiled at them, someone giggled; a few whispered.

  “Good morning, ladies,” Macdonald said, and Winter nodded as well.

  A wide, rounded staircase led down from the dining room. Framed black and white photographs hung on the wall all the way down to the reception desk. It was, you could say, a nostalgic display, or a sad one. Most of the pictures showed the former fishing fleet, when it had been proud and great: In the photos from the harbor there didn’t seem to be room for all the boats. Masts stretched as far as the eye could see, like tree trunks in a forest. Like mobile trees. Winter thought of Macbeth again as he stood there looking at the forest of masts. Not until the forest moved toward him did Macbeth have to fear anything in his castle.

  He had the witches’ shrill word on it.

  Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until

  Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill

  Shall come against him.

  And no man born of woman could threaten him.

  But Macduff, the man born by Cesarean section, cut down the trees and fastened them to his body and marched.

  Winter moved his eyes from the photograph of the masts.

  They continued down the stairs, past other pictures, of houses, more boats, of people from other times.

  They stood on the street again. The Buckie boys are back in town. Arne Algotsson’s demented drivel popped up in Winter’s memory. It really must mean something. Was John Osvald a Buckie boy? Or was it just an expression? They had asked, but so far no one had known.

  On the square was a war monument for World War I. Winter stood in front of it and thought the impossible thought that he had seen it before. He read on the stone: “Their Name Liveth For Ever.”

  They were alone in front of the monument. That said something to him too, but he didn’t know what. It meant something that they were standing there alone.

  On the north side of the little square was a building that looked like a community center. There was a sign, but it was on the wall and they didn’t notice it: “Struan House—Where older people find care in housing.”

  Two old people were sitting on a bench on the opposite side of the square.

  “Well,” said Macdonald.

  They walked to the car, which was parked in front of the Buckie Thistle Social Club.

  “The local football gang,” said Macdonald. “Buckie Thistle.”

  “I know Patrick Thistle,” said Winter.

  “Do you? The Glasgow gang?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be damned. They’re in division two now, I think, but they’re the favorites for all the celebrities.”

  They got into the car and rounded the hotel. Macdonald pushed a disc into the CD player and a woman from the past started to sing about lost love and bittersweet dreams.

  “Patsy Cline,” said Macdonald.

  Winter suddenly felt sad. They were back on the A96, driving south to Dallas. It was a no-man’s-land here, no sea, no mountains. Patsy Cline sang about another life, or rather cried: Sweet dreams of you, every night I go through, why can’t I forget you and start my life anew, instead of having sweet dreams about you.

  Aneta Djanali felt herself freeze under the water. She grabbed the edge of the bathtub.

  She heard one step, two steps.

  A harsh sound from the kitchen or the hall.

  Another harsh sound.

  The bathroom door was half open.

  She had a telephone on the wall out there, but it was ten thousand miles away.

  Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, stay calm.

  Her heart started to beat like a hammer, donk-donk-donk-donk.

  “WHO IS IT?” she yelled.

  And now she was already up out of the bathtub and into her robe and she kicked the door hard with her heel and the door flew into the wall without hitting anyone and the hall was empty and untouched, and she couldn’t hear any harsh sounds now.

  She stood in the doorway and yelled:

  “IS SOMEONE THERE?”

  Nothing.

  She heard sounds from out in the stairwell, could be anything. A car honked on the street below. Life continued outside her apartment, but in here it felt like it was holding its breath, taking a break. Waiting. Waiting for what? She took a step forward and one into the kitchen, but there was no one there.

  She could hear the rain on the window now. It had been raining on and off all afternoon. She saw water on the floor. A few pieces of gravel or some kind of dirt. Puddles on the floor, small, but they were there. Her feet suddenly started to freeze, as though her naked feet were standing in that ice water. She looked down, followed a trail that led from the kitchen out into the hall, or vice versa. There was water on the floor of the hall, and it hadn’t come from her shoes.

  She looked at the knob of her apartment door. Fingerprints? Hardly. She looked at the floor. Footprints. Uh-uh.

  She felt her knees weaken. She was about to lose her balance, but she managed to stagger into the bedroom and lie down and dial the number and wait for an answer.

  “Are you really sure?” Halders said after she had quickly explained.

  “I’m sure,” said Aneta. She felt more calm now.

  “Well, shit,” said Halders.

  “It might have been him,” she said. “Shit.”

  She heard Halders breathing.

  “We’ll look at the lock,” he said. “And the doorknob, and the floor.”

  “Whoever was here must have had a key,” she said. “Or a picklock.”

  “We’ll probably find out,” said Halders.

  “God,” she said. “What is this?”

  “You’re not renting from Sigge Lindsten, are you?” said Halders.

  “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  “Sorry, Aneta, sorry. I’ll ask the guys up at Lorensberg to come by right away.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “They can give you a ride home—to here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You live here, starting now.”

  “Fredrik …”

  “Doesn’t it make sense?”

  She couldn’t answer.

  “At least until we’ve checked the lock and changed it and installed a deadbolt and dug a moat,” said Halders.

  For a microsecond she saw Halders sneaking around the apartment while she lay in the bathtub. Fredrik did everything he could to get her to move to his house in Lunden.

  But he wouldn’t have had time to get back to his house before she called.

  God. She needed something strong. She was suddenly tired, dead tired.

  45

  They took the road through Forres again. On High Street Winter saw a poster he’d missed earlier: Nairn International Jazz Festival. Jane Monheit, David Berkman Quartet, Jim Galloway, Jake Hanna. It had ended two weeks ago.

  The police station was next to the south exit, right across from the Ramnee Hotel, which looked like a colonial manor. Everything around here sure is Victorian, thought Winter.

  But the police station wasn’t Victorian, it was built in the bunker style of the brotherhood. A teenager was playing with a ball on the lawn outside, one-two-three-four-five on his foot. A police van was parked on the graveled area that served as a parking lot. “Crimestoppers” was painted in white on the van’s black side. It might as well say “Ghostbusters,” thought Winter. At least if Steve and I were driving around in it. We’re
hunting ghosts.

  It wasn’t possible to determine whether the windows were tinted or just dirty. Leaves were blowing across the lot. Fall was here.

  Winter knew that Macdonald’s uncle had been a policeman here and had retired quite recently.

  “There was a period in my teens when I was a little wild,” Macdonald had said in the car. “Uncle Gordon picked me up discreetly once, in a neighborhood south of High, and that was kind of a turning point.”

  “What were you doing? Robbing cars?”

  “It wasn’t anything that ended up in the papers,” Macdonald had answered, and that was that. Winter hadn’t asked any more questions. Whatever it was, maybe it had caused him to become a policeman, and a good policeman at that, he thought.

  Inside, a woman got up from a desk behind the counter, which was partially made of steel. Never seen that, thought Winter. Wood and steel. The woman was dressed in a black uniform with white bands. She had to be near retirement. Winter noticed her powerful upper arms. There was an open door behind her.

  She didn’t recognize Macdonald. He greeted her and introduced himself and asked for someone.

  “Oh, it’s you!” she said enthusiastically. “Jake has told us about you comin’ here.”

  “Just a wee short stop,” said Macdonald.

  “Local laddie make good,” she said, looking proud. “Hows’t down in the Smoke?”

  “It’s smoky,” said Macdonald, and the woman smiled with her Scottish teeth.

  “How’s things ’ere?” asked Macdonald.

  “Pretty quiet since you left town, my lad,” she said, smiling again. “From what I’ve heard.”

  “I’ve tried to behave myself since then,” said Macdonald.

  “That’s outside the statute o’limitations,” said a loud voice from the doorway. A man came through it with difficulty; he was about as wide as the door and slightly shorter.

  “Hello, Jake,” said Macdonald.

  “Hello, my boy,” said Chief Inspector Jake Ross, giving him a handshake and the traditional punch on the shoulder.

  Macdonald introduced Winter. Ross showed them into his office. Through the window, Winter could see the kid playing with the ball. Ross noticed that Winter was looking.

  “Comes here every day,” said Ross. “I don’t know if he wants t’tell us somethin’.” Ross went on. “I spoke with Craig in Ness.”

  “Was it the first time?” asked Macdonald.

  “Come on, Steve. I might not like that Englishman, but we’re all professionals ’ere, right?” Ross looked at Winter. Winter nodded in agreement. Ross took out a bottle of whisky and, with professional skill, poured some into three small glasses.

  “Not bad,” said Macdonald after a first sip. Winter held up the bottle. Dallas Dhu 1971. He tasted it. Ross studied him.

  “Well?” Ross asked.

  “It’s almost chewy,” said Winter.

  Ross looked at Macdonald and then back at Winter.

  “You’ve had this b’fore, my lad?” asked Ross.

  “No,” said Winter. He kept the liquor in his mouth and swallowed. “Isn’t there some dark chocolate and a dash of bitter on the palate?”

  “There certainly is, there certainly is,” said Ross, smiling. “Why don’t you start working for me, laddie? We could use professional people up here.”

  “Professional drinkers,” said Macdonald.

  “The finish, the finish?” asked Ross, who hadn’t heard Macdonald.

  The next test. Winter delayed his answer, thinking.

  “Smooth, of course. Dry and very long. Kind of oak-sappy. But it also goes with that flowery sweetness that still lingers in the nose.”

  “Yes,” Ross said, raising his glass. “You’ve got the job.”

  “The distillery is unfortunately closed,” said Macdonald.

  “You’re drinking history here, my lads,” Ross said.

  Macdonald told the tragic story as they drove south on the A940. Dallas Dhu Distillery, which was three miles ahead of them, had closed in 1983, on its hundredth anniversary, put out of business by the Distillers Company. Several of the oldest and smallest distilleries in Speyside had disappeared.

  There weren’t many bottles of Dallas Dhu left. They had, as Ross pointed out, drunk history.

  “What does ‘Dhu’ mean?” Winter asked.

  “‘Black,’” said Macdonald, “or ‘dark,’ in this case. It’s actually the same Gaelic word as Dubh in MacDuhb, MacDuff.” He turned onto a smaller road. “And the name Dallas is Gaelic for ‘valley and water.’”

  They were driving through valleys now. Winter saw water. There were forests, but they were small, like clusters of trees. The trees looked like they might move at any moment.

  Winter saw the sign for the distillery.

  “The interesting thing is that Historic Scotland rebuilt the place into a gigantic museum,” Macdonald said, slowing down. “It’s the only one of its kind in Scotland. And the equipment is the original Victorian stuff. There’s no electricity there.”

  Victorian again. Winter saw another time in his mind’s eye. Horses, riders, a different and stronger scent in the air.

  “No good going down there now,” said Macdonald.

  Ross had told them that Dallas Dhu Distillery was closed on Tuesdays. He had said that he could arrange a visit anyway. Macdonald had looked at Winter. Did they have time? They didn’t, really. They were on their way to Dallas, and Aberdeen, and maybe other places.

  “We’ll do it next time, Jake,” Macdonald had said.

  “Ross has plans to open the place again,” Macdonald said, driving through a sharp curve. “He’s really far gone, actually.”

  “Was that what he meant about giving me a job?” Winter said.

  “You never know,” said Macdonald, letting out a laugh. “Interested?”

  “You never know,” said Winter.

  “Everything is actually in good order down there,” said Macdonald. “It would only take four or five weeks to get it up and running again.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “I hope Ross fixes it up. The whisky is really very good.” He flung his hand out. “It’s the valley and the water, and the wind. The grain in this region is special.”

  “I would like to buy a few bottles while I’m here,” said Winter.

  “We’ll do it on the way home,” said Macdonald.

  There would not be any such way home.

  Winter saw a cluster of trees again, like a platoon on its way to the castle.

  Everything looked peaceful, but this was a violent region, wild. Steve had told him about all the violent men there were and had been per square mile in Moray and Aberdeenshire. Blood flowed under the soil.

  They drove in a long arc, past Branchill. Macdonald played Little Milton at a high volume, another of the forgotten black masters. “Let Me Down Easy”: I gave you all my love, don’t you abuse it, I gave you tender love and care, oh baby don’t you misuse it. He had played Joe Simon, O. V. Wright.

  They drove past a black church behind a black cemetery on a low hill. Macdonald lowered the volume. Winter saw the sign on the side of the road: Dallas. There were low houses on either side, small cottages with plaster walls that had cracked here and there. The fourth building on the right side was a closed-down gas station with the VALIANT sign with the picture of the prince. The pumps were still there, like something out of a rusty film from the fifties. A wrecked RV was leaning against the gas station, which was missing windows. There was junk everywhere. The image reminded Winter of the shipyard in Buckie.

  Diagonally across from that was Dallas Village Shop and Post Office. Macdonald parked the car and they got out. He cast a glance at the ruins of the gas station and then at Winter.

  “The first impression is important,” he said, nodding across the street.

  “I suppose it has looked different,” said Winter. “And I like the melancholy.”

  “It was melancholy even when the pumps worked,” said Macdona
ld.

  Winter looked down the street. Dallas was a single straight street, or road, with a single row of houses on each side. That was all. The association was obvious.

  “Looks like something out of the Wild West,” he said.

  “Naturally,” said Macdonald.

  Winter smelled smoke from a fire in the air. He didn’t hear any sounds, but then he heard a dog barking. There were no people out. There were three cars parked a hundred yards farther up the road. Winter thought he heard a cement mixer start up. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun broke through and it suddenly became warm. Winter could see silhouettes of mountains around the hollow of the valley.

  “Might as well show you our supermercado too,” Macdonald said. “Now that you’ve seen the gas station.” He took a step. “Then you will have seen everything.”

  The country store/post office was in a little bungalow of red brick, and it was closed. There was a sign in the window that said “Dallas—the Heart of Scotland” and “Open 10–1, 4–6.”

  “The heart is closed for us,” Macdonald said.

  Through the window Winter could see a stack of cans, a pile of papers, candy, a small counter, and a small cash register.

  They walked back in the sunshine and got into the car. Macdonald drove down the street and it took two minutes. They passed a construction site. The cement mixer Winter had heard was on. The three construction workers turned toward the car. Macdonald stretched his arm through the open car window. One of the men raised his hand.

  They were through, and they stopped at an intersection.

  This was the end of the world. If Winter had been anywhere that might be the End of the World, this was it. The ironic name; that was part of it. A wild name, here and there. Dallas. Dallas, Texas. Dallas, Moray. Dallas, Scotland. It made him think of the film Paris, Texas. The same feeling of tragic irony, a play on associations with names that stood for completely different things. Or not.

  Macdonald turned right onto a gravel road and drove up to the house and stopped the car. There were several buildings on the plot of land. Chickens were running around in the yard. Winter saw three hunting dogs in a kennel. The dogs hadn’t barked a single time. There were two modern Ferguson tractors with muddy back wheels alongside the wall of a barn.