“Do you remember his first name?”
The man withdrew a pipe from his jacket pocket, filled it with tobacco from the tin sitting on a milk can, and lit it. “Frank.”
“Did Frank Papadakis live here long? Is he still here?” McLaren gazed at the village, as though wondering if he’d passed the man.
“Died a few years ago. Buried in the village churchyard, if ye care to have a look. Not many attended his burial. Oh, we villagers went, of course, but I mean foreigners didnae come. Could be because he was a foreigner, left his family in America. Could be he was the last of his line, too. I dinnae know.”
“He wasn’t married, then? Had no family?”
“None that I know. Or ever saw in the village. Seemed to be alone, as I said. Some blokes came to visit him a few times. But they were mates from the war. I know that because they’d sit in the pub and tell stories of their times in the service, sing songs. They were in different armies, of course. Different divisions. Papadakis was in the US Army Forces in the Far East. In the Philippines, under MacArthur, I believe.” He stopped to draw on his pipe and watched the puffs of smoke fade into the wind. He seemed in no hurry to get back to his work. Perhaps he enjoyed McLaren’s attention, or he just wanted an excuse for the break. McLaren could hear a voice calling from the house and a back door slam. Music seeped outside, from a radio or a record player, perhaps, and the voice spoke to a dog that yapped in answer. The older man maneuvered the pipe to the corner of his mouth. “Must be right. I heard their stories enough. Same stories, a’ the time, each time they’d get together. As though they loved talking about the South Pacific campaign.”
“You said I was the third person who asked about shielings, sir. Who was the other one?”
“Some tourist. He came after Papadakis had been livin’ here for a few years. He asked around the village, took to walkin’ the hills and snappin’ photos with a grand camera. Must’ve cost him a handful o’ quid. I didnae pay him much mind. He was gone after a day or two.”
“Do you remember any of the others who visited Papadakis?”
“From the war?”
“Yes.”
“Two chaps, one English by the sound o’ him. Bath served in the Burma campaign under First Viscount Slim.” His teeth clamped down on the stem of his pipe and he pulled on his gloves.
“Just those three men?”
“I never heard or saw anyone else. Papadakis and his two mates.”
“Do you know either of their names?”
The farmer cocked his head slightly and squinted at McLaren. “Why are ye so interested? You mates with one them?”
“I’m writing a book about the area. About the village in particular. I’d like to include its history and interesting stories of residents.” He smiled and hoped he’d said it smoothly and readily enough.
“Oh, aye? Well, that’s interestin’.” He took a few puffs on his pipe, perhaps dredging up the names from the past. “I recollect no other names. Even if I heard them, I’ve forgotten. They meant nothing to me.”
“But the two men were British.”
“Unlike Papadakis, aye. I think one must’ve lived near the village, though. Not in Balquhidder, or I’d have known him. But perhaps close by. They talked a lot about Callander. That I remember.”
“Do you know why? You think one or both of them lived there?”
“One might have done. The wee lad.”
“He was smaller than Papadakis?”
“Oh, aye. Like a jockey. I thought he rode the horses for a livin’ afore the war. Could do then, I suppose. Thin and wiry, but with a hard face, like he’d been in one too many fights and wouldnae hesitate a moment to kill the next chap he tangled with.”
“Do you remember the other man, what he looked like?”
“He was the Sassenach. Tall like a tree. His eyes were dark and looked like they could throw daggers when he frowned or stared. He was bald, though he couldnae have been over fifty. I dinnae think he lived around these parts. Had an accent different from us.”
“Did the small man have a local accent?”
“Not local, but maybe lowland Scots. Or the border country. Could be Carlisle or close by.”
“And this third man…”
“Nothing like Geordie or Cockney or Somerset. Sorry.”
“Anything distinctive about his speech? A stutter or lisp or rough voice?”
“You need all this for that book of yours?” Again the man eyed McLaren with what seemed to be a growing misgiving.
“Not at all. It just occurred to me as you were telling me about the three men that I could talk to them, get some war time stories from them, perhaps interview them to see if they knew Frank Papadakis’ reason for living in Balquhidder instead of in America.”
“And since he’s breathed his last on his soil yer’re thinkin’ of talkin’ to his mates. Aye, perhaps they’d know.”
“Have you seen either of them since Papadakis died?”
“That I haven’t. They’ve no reason to visit here.”
“Just wondered.” McLaren felt his hope slipping away.
He was about to leave when the man called to him. “I do mind something that might or might not help ye in your search for them.”
“Yes?”
“That third chap…the English bloke.”
“Yes?”
“He were a beefy chap. Tall and muscles like boulders. He had a tattoo on the side o’ his face. Just in black, it was, no colors other than black.”
“Do you remember what the tattoo looked like?”
“I’d never seen anything like it afore. All geometric, like a modern painting.”
“Just a design, then. No graphic or word.”
“Just the design. I found it strange yet interestin’ to look at. Didnae look like a gang tattoo, like ye see nowadays. More like art.”
McLaren said it sounded intriguing and he wished he could see it.
“I’d stake my life he were a Sassenach,” the man added, his voice floating downwind and urging McLaren to stop.
He turned and looked at the farmer. “Why’s that? You remember something about the locality of the accent?”
“No. Not a thing. Though I thought the three o’ them could’ve competed for the parts of first and second murderer in Macbeth and it’d be a good choice whichever two got it.”
“Then, what?”
“They had a few toasts they’d give over and over in the pub. I got to thinkin’ they knew no others, or those few meant somethin’ very special to them.”
“Would they have toasted their regiments or the safe return of their friends from the war?”
“Might’ve done. But it wasn’t like any other toast I’ve ever heard. They’d raise their glasses and the tall, muscular chap wi’ the tattoo would call out ‘To my little king.’ The first time I heard it I thought he was salutin’ George VI. But he said little.”
“Did he say it in a disparaging fashion, as though he were demeaning the king?”
“No way! All three blokes were straight faced and stone cold sober.”
McLaren thanked the man and returned to the village.
****
He stopped several yards from the b-and-b, in a clearing where he couldn’t be overhead, and opened his mobile. He looked up the phone number of Saltire Guest House and waited for Jean MacNab to answer. He tore a page from his notebook and held it near the phone.
“Saltire Guest House. Jean MacNab, proprietor. May I help you?”
McLaren almost gagged as the honeyed tone came to him. He took a breath, mentally ran off a quick prayer, and changed his voice to a nasal whisper he hoped would pass for Harvester’s. It should; he’d heard it for years when they worked together. “You alone?”
“Charlie?” Jean’s voice queried McLaren more than her actual question did.
“Yeah. Can you talk?”
“Sure. Are you in town?”
“No. I got a call from Lanny. He needs a hand. But he ran
g off without telling me where he was.” He repeated his prayer, hoping Jean hadn’t heard from Harvester or Lanny before this phone call.
She evidently hadn’t. Her tone was bitter. “The twit. Sounds just like him. He have McLaren, then?”
“Yeah. Finally. Do you know where Lanny is? He doesn’t answer his mobile.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. Probably turned it off or lost it. He’s at the shieling. At least, I think he is. That’s where they’ve got the woman stashed.”
McLaren’s throat tightened. His mind whirled as he fought to think straight.
“You hear me?” She paused, as though reconsidering the conversation. “Charlie?”
McLaren crumpled the paper and held it close to the phone receiver. He continued crinkling it and talked over the sound. “Yeah. He didn’t change spots, did he? Still at…” He dropped his voice and rustled the paper more loudly.
“Awful connection, Charlie. I can’t hear you. They’ve not botched that up. They’re on the ben.”
“Creag Mac Ranaich.”
“Of course.” Her voice sounded wary.
McLaren rolled the crumpled paper between his fingers. “Just making sure they didn’t muck that up. Smashing. I know where to find him. I’ll see you soon.” He rang off before Jean could say anything more.
He pocketed his phone, smiling as he gazed up the hill. Harvester came in handy in the most unexpected times and places. Perhaps their years working together hadn’t been in vain.
The shieling made sense as a hideout or as a spot to keep kidnapped victims, whether it be him, his grandfather, or Liza Skene. They could probably see anyone approaching the hut for dozens of yards. Anyway, who’d think of looking in Balquhidder for a missing Edinburgh woman?
He considered leaving a message in his bed-and-breakfast room, stating where he was going and when he was leaving. Harvester had a nasty habit of popping up where and when he was least wanted. But McLaren couldn’t envision the man at the shieling. Keeping Liza hidden in a rock hut wasn’t Harvester’s style. He left the menial labor to underlings. And Lanny Clack was as close to the epitome of menial labor as McLaren had ever seen. Besides, who was there to know if he went missing? The b-and-b owner wouldn’t know, and Jamie had no idea what he was about to do.
He turned away from the guesthouse and walked toward the kirk.
The climb up the hill was slick in spots. Skiffs of snow had melted and refrozen overnight, giving the top of the snow an icy mantle. Rocks poked out of the earth, black and mossy and lichen-covered on their northern faces. Dotting the ground like reverse dominoes. The soil around them had become sodden where the melt collected. Where the snow still lay pristine, sunlight glanced off the crystallized surface, breaking into prisms of light. Deer and hare tracks interlaced on the white surface but vanished in the brown grass and bracken.
McLaren followed the line of fence posts, stopping periodically to catch his breath and make visual notes of his route. It could be helpful on his return. He stopped in an expanse of heather, now brown and dried as the grass, then moved on.
Fifteen minutes’ further hike brought him to the beginning of the forest. The trees stood sparse around the first hundred yards of the perimeter, as though they’d been newly planted a decade or so ago. The wire fence fell behind as he continued on, and another minute’s walk brought him to a large rock. A footpath meandered off the main trail, cutting across the heather field to the left.
As he entered the wood the world took on a different feeling. Sunlight fell in sporadic patches, slanting through the boughs like searchlights. The air held the scents of damp earth, pine, and wet stone, chillier now that the sun could not warm it.
The light grew dimmer as he tramped deeper into the wood and he felt the first prickles of the old fear and panic. He concentrated on the directions the farmer had given him, forced himself to think of Frank Papadakis and his two mates.
King had been mentioned twice, now: first in George Roper’s diary entry and then in the toast drunk nightly by the three wartime buddies. It hadn’t been a slander against George VI, McLaren was certain. Not if the three men had been as serious as the farmer stated. He’d stake his life that the reference was to George Roper’s son, King. Even if the boy hadn’t been born yet, or even conceived, it wouldn’t stop Roper from planning for his prospective son’s future. Men did a lot of that in wartime when they saw mates die beside them, heard of men lost on bombing flights or aboard ship. Life was more precious then. A child, even the hope of having a child, grew in importance. The child would come from the soldier, carry some of the father’s talents or likes, perhaps. It would continue the family for another generation.
There was no reason George Roper hadn’t had these same desires and dreams. A toast to his as yet unborn son carried the solemnity of the future. If George were lucky, the infant would be a duplicate of himself. Who said you couldn’t live forever?
McLaren pushed a bough out of the way and walked around a large rock. The wood was quiet but for occasional birdsong. He wondered if George had been pleased with his son, if he’d made plans for the boy’s education, thought of father-son outings, wrote about what he’d done in the war to make King proud of his old man.
Perhaps some of King’s pride in his father would come from George’s participation in the Corregidor money scheme.
Frank Papadakis must have buried part of the money in the shieling. He’d had no job, so how had he supported himself? He could’ve lived off an inheritance, but if he’d stolen some of the silver coins that could have supplemented his Army pension enough to afford him a comfortable life style. He’d chosen to live in Balquhidder and bury the money close by because the nameless friend lived close by in Callander. Frank wouldn’t have just come to Scotland on a whim; he’d had some reason. Same thing for choosing the village in which to live. Why Balquhidder?
McLaren came to the burn. The water had frozen in the shallower depths and around the edges of the rocks littering its bed. A path of large, flat stones had been laid to connect bank to bank. He stood by the river’s edge, grabbed his mobile, and punched in Jamie’s phone number.
Jamie answered with a cheery “Mike. What’s going on?”
“Just walking around.” McLaren looked at the hill rising steeply to his right.
“You must be having fun. Or drinking your way through the beers. Which’s got your vote so far?”
“I need a favor.”
“If you’re out of money—”
“Can you look up some old Army records and send me some information on three individuals?”
The silence on the other end of the phone told him Jamie hadn’t been expecting that. Several seconds passed before Jamie replied. “If it’s not too involved. Who, what, and when?”
“George Roper.”
“King’s old man.”
“Yeah. George Roper served under First Viscount Slim in the Burma campaign.”
“Burma? When was this?”
“World War Two.”
Jamie groaned and muttered that consideration was awfully scarce these days. “Who else?”
“There’s another bloke who was in the same regiment as Roper. I don’t have his name.”
“Of course not. That would make it too easy.”
“But he had the physique of a jockey, if you stumble across any photo of him. After the war he lived in Callander.”
“You think that’s his home town?”
“I don’t know, Jamie. But Callander couldn’t have been that large after the war. Surely it won’t be hard to track down a bloke who served in Burma who resided in Callander.”
“You won’t say that if you had to do it. Anything else, I’m afraid to ask?”
“One more. An American named Frank Papadakis. He served in the US Army Forces, stationed for a while in the Philippines, under General MacArthur. He lived in Balquhidder after the war and died in 2008.”
“How’d you learn that?”
“I looked at his gr
avestone. He’s buried in the village churchyard. Born in 1924. That should help you a bit.”
“Right. What do you want to know?”
“Photos of them, if you can get them. Either from their military records or police records—”
Jamie’s voice held a tint of suspicion. “You know they’re criminals?”
“I have a suspicion. From what I hear they at least look the part. George Roper had a tattoo on the side of his face.”
“Like father, like son.”
“What do you mean?”
“King has a Maori tattoo on his thigh. I’ve not seen it myself, but some chaps here at the station have.”
“DCI Graham.”
“Right. It’s quite large. Done in black, red and cream colors, I believe. Or close to it. Evidently it’s an authentic moko.”
“A what?”
“You need to get out more, Mike. A moko. The Maori of New Zealand have these tattoos on their faces or shoulders or thighs. They’re as individual as fingerprints. They’re not merely a pretty design; they tell the individual’s ancestry or personality. For anyone but a Maori to wear it is equivalent to what we call identity theft. It’s taken very seriously by the Maori when someone requests to get the tattoo. Permission is granted by the chief.”
“So George and King Roper are part Maori, then?”
“I wouldn’t know. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s like everything else King’s done in his bloody life.”
“Stolen it from the Maori, you mean?”
“Theft is just one of his pastimes, as I said.”
“Nice family, the Ropers.” McLaren tried to picture what the tattoo looked like, but he had no idea. “Anyway, the bloke who lived in Callander evidently had the looks and perhaps the disposition of a man who’d not hesitate to slug a vicar if he didn’t like the clergyman’s expression.”
“Lovely. Anything else besides the photos?”
“Send them to my mobile, if you would, Jamie.”
“Sure.”
“If you can get the name and address of the chap in Callander, send that on. Plus, I’d like the address of George Roper. Find out if they’re living and if so, where. If he died, find when. I need that date. That should do it.”
An Unfolding Trap Page 17