by Matthew Dunn
Sign replied with the truth. “I can assure you I am.” He was about to ask another question.
But Knutsen interjected. “Did they ever come in here with a fifth friend?”
Sally frowned, deep in thought. “No. I don’t remember that ever happening. It was either the four of them, or two or three of them. They seemed to have got their tracks aligned, as us publicans like to say. Just the four of them. They didn’t need another drinking partner. I can tell when men have long ago decided who they want to drink with. They stick with it. No deviations. No new friends. On a Sunday here we do a roast. Alongside the trimmings, we serve roast chicken, beef, gammon, and turkey. Wilson always has beef; Taylor, chicken; Green turkey; Jackson gammon. They’ve been doing that every week for years. It says something about their characters. They know what they like and dislike. And when they find something they like it becomes etched in their brains. Foods, friendships, routines, clothes they wear, you name it. They knew their own minds.”
“They were loyal to their tastes,” said Sign.
“Yes.” Sally had a tear running down her face. “They were such loyal customers. More than that, they were good men. Helped me out. Helped others out. No fighting. They swore like troopers, but never at anyone. Now and again they got drunk and drove home way over the limit, but they’d drive carefully, sleep it off and be up and at ‘em for work at four AM. They were hard men but you’d want them by your side if shit hit the fan.” She wiped away her tear. “Excuse my language. I’m just saying they are missed.”
Sign withdrew a pristine white handkerchief and handed it to her. “My dear – Mr. Knutsen and I have been around death all of our lives. It never gets easier to deal with the consequences of loss. If anything it gets harder.”
She took his handkerchief, dabbed her face, and handed it back to him, her mascara smudged below her eyes. “You knew I’d cry. Your handkerchief was washed and ironed this morning.”
“Nonsense. I carry a handkerchief at all times. I’m prone to hay fever. I sneeze when the pollen count is off the scale.”
“In winter? In the Falklands?” Sally laughed, though was still emotional.
“Alright. Maybe I carry the handkerchief because Mr. Knutsen is accident prone. He’s always falling over and grazing his knees. I have to dab the blood off him.”
The comment cheered Sally up. “Your friend doesn’t look accident prone.” She breathed deeply.
Sign leaned forward and said in a sympathetic tone, “My dear – is there anyone you know who might have accompanied the men on that fatal night? A fifth man. We believe he might have survived. We’d dearly like to speak to him. He’s not in trouble. On the contrary, his evidence might prove invaluable to further our case.”
Sally took a swig of her coffee. “I just don’t know. Wilson and Green divided their days at sea and in my bar. Wilson had the hots for me. Maybe that’s why he kept coming here. Green isn’t an islander but you wouldn’t be able to tell that. He’s got a kid on the island though he never saw her. Taylor worked the land and had the stamina of a huskie. Ditto lighthouse keeper and part-time fireman Jackson. Like I said, they were hard men. They slotted together because they saw themselves in each other. Least ways, that’s my take. I can’t imagine they had room in their minds for a fifth member of their gang. They were too close knit.”
Sign asked, “What about suppliers? Someone who gave Wilson and Green their fishing nets; a man who supplied meal for Taylor’s sheep; anyone who sorted the electrics in Jackson’s lighthouse; or variants therein; anything that springs to mind?”
“Someone who was useful to the men,” said Knutsen.
Sally upended a beer map and withdrew a pen from behind her ear. “Good luck. In the Falklands, everyone not only knows everyone, we also make sure we’re all taken care of. But, I don’t know who Wilson and his friends used to support their businesses. It might be someone near here on the east island. But it could also be someone on the west island. If so, be careful visiting that place. It’s mostly uninhabited. You might die if you go there – no petrol, no food, no water, just penguins.” She wrote on the white underside of the beer mat. “This is Carl and Nick’s addresses. You can say that I sent you. They won’t mind if you do that. They will mind if you turn up saying you’re busybodies from London.” She handed the mat to Sign. “Be careful. We love and trust the British. We also hate them nearly as much as we hate Argentina.” She stared at Sign with piercing eyes. “Does that make sense?”
“It does indeed.” Sign stood and extended his hand. “We are here to help.”
Sally shook his hand and glanced at the bar. “Breakfast was a waste of time. I’m on a split shift. My dad’s doing the midday roster. I’m back on this evening. When I’m between shifts, I’ll have a spliff and a couple of hours sleep.”
“A spliff?”
Knutsen explained. “A cannabis cigarette.”
Sally looked tired. “Don’t judge me for that.”
Sign was utterly sincere when he said, “I never judge hard working honest souls. Mr. Knutsen! We must leave this young lady to her duties. Thankyou Sally. Let’s hope the weather abates and allows you more custom later today.”
She shook her head. “Don’t hold your breath. This weather’s not going anywhere soon.” She smiled. “Take my advice – you can tell Carl and Nick that I gave you their addresses but don’t say you’re PIs from London. They’ll clam up. Just so we reading from the same page, come up with another story.”
Sign replied, “We’re scientists, based in South Georgia. We’ve been tasked to investigate the deaths and whether they’re related to aggressive intrusion of fishing rights and whether such intrusions are causing Falkland Island sailors to take unnecessary risks with their boats.”
“Why didn’t you spin me that lie?”
“Because we trust you and want you to know the truth. I judge you to be the eyes and ears of Stanley. Probably you don’t have your finger on the pulse on matters further west on the islands. That doesn’t matter. But if anything else does occur to you please let us know.” He handed her a slip of paper. “We can be contacted via RAF Mount Pleasant. The number on the paper is not widely known.”
Outside the pub and while standing next to their jeep, Knutsen said to Sign, “I don’t think she was lying or holding back.”
“I agree. But, we bounced her today and she was fatigued and emotional. Sometimes, what’s important is not just what we remember, but what we forget.”
“True. And she’s a dope smoker – she’ll forget quite a few things.”
“Give her time. The important thing is that if anything does occur to her about a fifth man, I know she’ll call us.”
Knutsen wasn’t convinced. “She might get wasted off shift and forget things in her private life. But in the pub she’ll be on point. She has to be. She knows everything that goes on in the bar. She hasn’t forgotten anything about Wilson and his mates.”
“I fear you may be right, sir. And that takes us back to the starting line. We must visit Carl and Nick.”
Knutsen drove six miles west out of Stanley. Though the four wheel drive was designed for treacherous conditions, Knutsen still had to drive slowly and with skill to avoid careering off the road. The windscreen wipers were on full and the pathetic heater was on maximum. Steam was coming out of the men’s mouths. The land around them was becoming increasingly rugged, visible only between small breaks in the snowfall.
Sign had a military map on his lap. For the most part, GPS was useless in a Falklands winter. “Turn right here. Follow the track. Carl’s place is four hundred and fifty yards at the end.”
At the end of the track was a house and barn. Knutsen stopped the jeep outside the house and said, “I hope he’s not miles away, tending to his sheep on the mountains.”
“I doubt that’s the case. I would imagine his sheep are in the barn. Even sheep feel a chill.”
They approached the house. Sign knocked on the door.
; A woman opened the door. “Yes?”
Sign gave her a variation of the line he’d given Sally and concluded, “We want to help the islands and Mr. Wilson, Taylor, Green, and Jackson.” He also embellished and elaborated, “Our client’s based in London but we’re from South Georgia.”
The island nine hundred and sixty miles east of the Falklands.
She looked dubious. “No one lives there. No one can live there.”
“We do. We’re from the British Antarctic Survey’s base on Bird Island. We’re scientists. Our client reached out to us because we have mutual interests and because we were closer to the source of the problem – namely the deaths of four Falkland islanders. Is your husband at home?”
“He’s on site. You’ll find him there.” She nodded at the barn and withdrew into the house, closing the door behind her.
Sign and Knutsen entered the barn. As Sign had predicted, the place was full of sheep, eating grass, some of them baaing and bleating, all of them contained in pens. There were seventy of them, with blue dye markings on them identifying they belonged to Carl’s farm. Sign and Knutsen walked down the central aisle, pens either side of them. Alongside the cacophony of noise, the stench of cooped up wildlife was palpable. There was no sight of Carl.
Sign spun around three sixty degrees. “There will be a private place here. One that Carl doesn’t want these sheep to know about.”
Knutsen jogged back down the aisle, looked up, saw nothing of interest, turned around, and pointed at the other end of the aisle. “Outside. I’m guessing an annex.”
“Yes.”
Both men exited the barn. Knutsen was right. There was a small outhouse, attached to the barn. They entered. An elderly man was inside, his back against them. A tethered lamb was in front of him. The man held a pneumatic pistol against the lambs head and pulled the trigger. A six inch metal spike exited the pistol and penetrated the lamb’s brain, before retracting into the gun. The lamb’s death was instant. The man used ropes attached to the ceiling and a motorised winch to raise the lamb. It was now dangling mid-height in the room.
“Carl?”
The man turned. “Who’s asking?”
Sign gave him the same story he’d given Carl’s wife. “We can wait for you in our car if now’s an inconvenient time?”
Carl shrugged. “You can talk here, so long as you’re not squeamish.” He picked up a razor sharp knife, slit open the lamb’s belly, placed his hand inside the creature, and yanked out its innards, all of which went into a bucket. He lifted the bucket and put it to one side. “Nothing goes to waste. I’ll mince the guts and organs up. It’ll feed my dogs for a few days. You want to know about Wilson and his friends? There’s nothing I can tell you that Sally hasn’t already told you. Damn fools were drunk that night and got in their boat. I heard they fell overboard, a mile out at sea. Must have been a swell or something.” He started using the knife to remove the lamb’s coat, slicing portions underneath the wool, ripping parts, then repeating the process. He winced and held his wrist. “Bloody arthritis. There were times when I could do this job in minutes. Now it takes me an hour.”
Knutsen said, “Let me do it for you. I’m handy with a knife.”
Carl shrugged. “Can’t say I couldn’t do with the help.” He handed Knutsen the knife. “But it won’t be just a case of skinning the lamb. You’ll have to butcher it as well. Follow my exact instructions. Don’t mess it up. The meat will be exported for a pretty price but I only get paid it the joints are perfect.” He sat on a stool and used a cloth to wipe blood off his hands.
Forty five minutes later the job was done. The joints of lamb were laid out on a large wooden chopping board.
“Not bad for a beginner,” said Carl. “These will sell. Here,” he tossed Knutsen a leg, “put that in a roasting pan. It’s for your troubles.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied Knutsen.
“Call me Carl.” The elderly farmer rubbed his ankles. “My son’s taking over the farm. He’s in Scotland at the moment, finishing off his PhD. But next week he’ll be done and will be returning home with his wife and kids. Mable and I have enough rooms. He’s a good lad. He knows about farming. His PhD was in ethical farming, or something like that. I don’t care. What I do care about is that he’s got the muscle I once had.” He stood and placed each cut of meat on trays, which he wrapped in cling film and labelled. “Four men died in an accident. The Argie boat that’s been spying on us might have made them change course and make a mistake. But, I don’t know. I know nothing about the sea. As far as I’m aware, the Argies have buggered off. They might have been nowhere near the boat that night.”
Sign said, “We’re trying to solve the deaths. Is it possible that Wilson and his friends had a fifth man with them that night?”
Carl looked nonplussed. “It’s possible I suppose. But, I don’t know who.”
“Maybe a man who had access to guns. There were weapons on board Wilson’s boat.”
Carl looked stern as he said, “Help me bring the trays of meat into the house. I’ll show you something.”
After the meat was placed into the kitchen chest freezer, Carl guided them to his home’s shed. “You talk of guns. We all have guns. Look at this.” He opened a steel cabinet. Inside were three shotguns and a bolt action hunting rifle. “The shotguns are for bird game, when in season. The rifle’s only used in bad situations – a lamb’s got stuck up a mountain, I can’t get to him, he can’t get down, he’s injured and in agony, that kind of thing. The kindest thing is to end his misery.” He shut the cabinet. “Everyone around here has guns, for the same reason.”
Sign asked, “Do you have weapons from the Falklands War? Trophies?”
Carl shook his head and genuinely looked upset by the question. “After the war we worked with the army to clear as much shit from the islands as we could. It was only the landmines that proved a bugger. None of the islanders were trophy hunters. We wanted our islands clean again. Why do you ask?”
“Because Wilson, Taylor, Green, and Jackson sailed out to confront the Argentinian spy ship, armed with five British Browning handguns and two SLR assault rifles. The weapons were almost certainly picked off the battlefields during or after the war. We are not talking about two shotguns and a hunting rifle. We’re talking about military-grade devices that are designed to kill humans.”
Carl looked puzzled. “I don’t know anyone who’d store stuff like that. We’re honest folk. We look after our animals. We feed them; shelter them at this time of year. We cull them when it’s time. We shoot geese or whatever when it’s that time of year to put something on the table for Christmas. But we don’t keep military weapons. Least ways, not to my knowledge.”
“Someone did. And I think that person is now very scared. He supplied his weapons to Wilson and his friends. He went out on the boat. They had an accident. Wilson, Taylor, Green, and Jackson drowned. The fifth man panicked and rowed ashore. He’s in hiding because he supplied the guns and is worried he might get in trouble. The truth is, he’s not in trouble. He’s a witness. If there was a swell, as you suggest, or a large wave, or similar, and Wilson had to bank his vessel hard left or right to avoid the Argentinian ship, we need to know. Our client is a law firm. They’d say it was manslaughter by an illegal invasion of sovereign waters. But we need evidence. The fifth man can give us that.” Sign stared at Carl.
Carl sighed. “I’d like to help. I really would. Did Sally give you Nick’s address?”
Sign nodded.
“He’s a lot younger than me. He’s more likely to know the type of man that would store military weapons.”
Five minutes later Knutsen and Sign were in their vehicle, driving west. Knutsen asked, “Do you think Carl’s right – we’re looking for a younger man? It would make sense. Older men wouldn’t hoard military weapons unless…”
“He’d served in the war and wanted mementos. We must ask Richards to check his records to see if any veterans settled here after ‘82.”
Knutsen thought it through. “The average age of British soldiers who fought in the war back then must have been at least twenty five. The government didn’t want to send rookies to recapture the islands. That would make most of them in their mid-sixties now.”
“Let’s keep options open. The fifth man could be a trophy hunter. He could be a veteran. He could be the son of a veteran. He could be an islander or a foreigner. One thing’s for sure – we’re no nearer to identifying him. But I wonder…” Sign’s voice trailed.
“What?”
“It’s just an idea. I wonder about his profile. It is possible he’s a loner. That would mean he doesn’t live in Stanley. And that means our search is considerably narrowed down.”
“A loner?”
Sign said, “Show me your weapon.”
Knutsen placed his pistol in Sign’s hand.
Sign checked its workings. “You cleaned and oiled it last night. You care about this weapon, but not because you love it; rather, because you don’t want it to fail you. It is a tool that must be effective in extreme circumstances.” He handed the gun back to Knutsen. “The weapons found on Wilson’s boat were, according to Colonel Richards, in immaculate condition. Their owner made sure of that. But, why were the guns so cared for if he was just a trophy hunter? No. He wanted military grade weapons to be in their prime in case he needed to use them. I doubt he’s a Falklands War veteran; or the son of one. I think he’s an islander. And I think he has few friends and is a survivalist.”
Knutsen stopped the jeep, tucked his handgun into his belt, and looked at Sign. “You’re making huge assumptions.”