Well of the Winds

by Denzil Meyrick

  ‘On the first ferry. They’re on their way down the road from Glasgow now.’ Daley reached into his pocket. ‘Put these on,’ he said, throwing a small bag at his DS. ‘We’ll have to tread carefully here.’

  ‘You could’ve gied me these before I jumped intae that puddle,’ said Scott, struggling to put on the cover-shoes that would help preserve any forensic evidence. Daley did likewise, and they entered the house.

  The smell hit Daley instantly. He knew that when he eventually had the courage to leave this job, the most visceral of his memories would be tied in with smell: rotting corpses, the metallic stench of blood, shit and vomit. Not for the first time, he wondered why on earth he was still exposing himself to this cavalcade of misery. He braced himself and scanned the living area.

  ‘Dee whad I mean?’ said Scott, holding his nose.

  Daley’s eyes were drawn to the painting above the fireplace. The woman in the old-fashioned clothes, in the bright scene, was completely at odds with the chaotic, stinking room. He wondered why anyone would put such a cheerful work in such a dismal frame. It appeared to be made of some kind of dark wood and was covered in soot. For a second, it crossed his mind that the painting looked in much better condition than the frame, but this thought was banished by a cry from Scott.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! Just when I didnae think things could get worse.’

  Daley followed the voice into the kitchen. The dead woman was slumped against a cupboard on the kitchen floor. She sat amid a dark pool that Daley knew would be a disgusting mix of blood and faeces. Her open eyes looked heavenward, her mouth gaped, and her chin was slathered with thick green vomit. A bluebottle was buzzing around the corpse and, as the detectives looked on, it settled on her cheek.

  Daley felt nausea washing over him in waves.

  ‘Come on, Jimmy, let’s get oot o’ here. I know you’ve got a weak stomach, and I feel as if I’ve just woken up after fourteen pints and a vindaloo.’ He tugged at Daley’s sleeve.

  ‘I don’t like this. This old woman just dies in the middle of all this Bremner business? It doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘Don’t tell me we’ll have tae deal wae this as well, if she didnae die fae natural causes?’

  ‘No, we’re too stretched with the Bremner case. When SOCO get here they’ll pass their findings up to Division. If there’s anything about your friend here to be investigated, they’ll have to do it.’

  ‘No friend o’ mine, God rest her soul.’

  Daley looked around the kitchen. Two of the Bremner family found dead – the rest probably dead at the bottom of the Atlantic – and now this. He wasn’t certain that Glenhanity hadn’t died of natural causes – after all, she was a chronic alcoholic – but, as always, doubts, questions, buzzed in his head.

  ‘It’s a miracle she didn’t keel over long ago, mind, with her drinking,’ said Scott. ‘They telt me at the hotel that she’d got a lot worse recently. She was always a boozer, but she only started tae make a nuisance of herself in the last wee while.’

  ‘I wonder why?’

  ‘Oh! Oh, ya wee bastard!’ Scott rubbed his head vigorously.

  Something fell onto the linoleum. Daley watched as a large insect with long antennae scurried across the floor in a series of little clicks.

  Both policemen hurried out of the cottage to wait for the SOCO team in fresh air.

  44

  Symington sat behind Daley’s desk in his glass box, running her tongue around her parched mouth. She had a pounding headache, brought on by too much wine – far too much wine. She’d taken some painkillers and was desperate for them to take effect.

  She lifted her mug of coffee shakily with both hands and thought never again. She wasn’t a regular heavy drinker by any means. Hangovers got worse the further she progressed into her thirties. Today, especially, she could easily envisage the day she would swear off alcohol for good.

  The phone on her desk rang.

  ‘Ma’am, Superintendent Nelson at Complaints and Discipline for you. He called HQ and was redirected here.’

  Her head was spinning, and her chest felt tight. This could be the end of her career – the beginning of the end, at any rate. Her mind flashed back to the fracas in the car park on Gairsay.

  ‘Chief Superintendent Symington, Bill Nelson. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you, as yet.’

  ‘No, indeed, nor I you. What can I do for you?’

  ‘It concerns one of your detectives – Detective Sergeant Brian Scott, to be precise.’

  ‘Yes.’ She felt the phone shaking in her hand against her ear.

  ‘We’ve had a back-channel – unofficial, if you like – contact from the Met. Not a complaint, as such, but it could turn into one unless we handle it carefully. Apparently, he was involved in some kind of altercation with a Met detective recently – a chief inspector from Special Branch, no less.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Symington felt her face burning, the way it always did when she was in an awkward situation. ‘What are the details?’ She closed her eyes in readiness for the onslaught.

  ‘That’s just it. The details are very patchy. The Met hinted that if we administer the veritable boot to the arse we can nip this in the bud. As you’ll be aware, because of due process, although I know about this, I don’t know, if you get my drift.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I see.’

  ‘If I have to turn this into an official discipline enquiry . . . well, you know the score, I’m sure.’

  ‘Oh, I do.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Anyone else we know involved?’

  ‘All I know is that there was some kind of contretemps. There are murmurs of another senior officer behind it all. Whether it’s one of theirs, or one of ours, I don’t know.’

  ‘So, what would you like me to do?’ she blurted.

  ‘Well, given it’s best that we keep this low-key, I was hoping you would deal with Scott and lay down the law. He needn’t know that a lid can be kept on this, so we have some leverage.’

  ‘Right, well, leave this to me. I’ll make sure that DS Scott is in no doubt as to what is expected from him in the future.’

  ‘Thank you, Carrie. Good luck. I’m afraid DS Scott has one of the bleakest disciplinary records of any cop on the force. The boot you administer may need to be a firm one – and take a good run-up before you do it.’

  ‘I’ll let you know how I get on.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to handle it, but, one word of advice, if I can be so bold?’

  ‘Yes, most welcome.’

  ‘Keep your boot on Scott’s throat. He’s a bloody menace – always has been, despite his many successes. I’ve always thought that tolerating his behaviour was too high a price to pay. After all, he’s not the only talented detective we have on the books.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Trust me, give him too much rope, and it will be your head in the noose – not his. You can’t rely on Daley to keep him on the straight and narrow – hand in glove, that pair, too close personally to be working together. You’ll be tired of hearing about John Donald, I dare say, but only someone with his, well, let’s say skill set, could cope with that little nexus. Anyway, I hope you don’t think I’m standing on your toes,’ he said, ending on an upbeat note.

  ‘No, not at all. I’m grateful for the advice. He and Daley do have an unusual professional relationship.’

  Symington ended the call, her hand still trembling as she placed the receiver back on its cradle. This had all the hallmarks of another lucky escape. If she wanted to keep the career she’d coveted since being a girl, she would have to keep the lid firmly closed.

  She thought about Daley and Scott. Maybe it was time for a bit of space to be inserted between the two detectives.

  The email alert on her mobile sounded. It was the professor who was studying the Achnamara documents. Taking a deep breath, she decided to take her mind off her personnel woes and read on.

  Daley sat in the lounge of the Gairsay Hotel, nursing a m
ug of steaming coffee. The dawn had broken into a magnificent spring morning, and he was looking absently out of the big bay windows across the sound, which shimmered blue in the sunshine. Two fishermen plied their trade in a small lobster boat, while gulls wheeled above their heads in the gin-clear sky.

  He’d had a message from the records department at HQ. They’d found a statement from the shepherd who had discovered the body of Andrew Mitchell. He was found in a crevice above the Goat Rock, a tall pinnacle of granite that jutted from the very edge of the peninsula, as though pointing an admonitory finger towards Ireland.

  The report was dated two days after the disappearance of Inspector William Urquhart. But, then again, what Daley knew, and the records department did not, was that the inspector hadn’t simply disappeared: he had been murdered. The fact that this incident had remained redacted, covered up for so many years, was testament itself to something unusual. The war would always be used as an excuse, but, as far as Daley was concerned, at least, it wasn’t a legitimate enough one.

  He read again Urquhart’s last journal entry. The man had known he’d been dealing with something untoward. People – powerful people – would always influence events in their favour. Daley pondered how much more significant the power of privilege would have been at the end of the Second World War.

  On examination, though, it seemed likely that, despite Urquhart’s leniency and efforts to help the wretched farmhand, Mitchell had turned on the policeman. Daley wondered what pressure had been placed on the young man. A simple farm worker, caught in a web of danger and intrigue, manipulated by men whose lives the young man would have found it hard to imagine. It had been sufficient to bring about the end of Urquhart’s life and drive Mitchell to suicide – or was that too neat? He’d read the archived shepherd’s report when it arrived. It would make no difference to William Urquhart, who had given his life, so long ago, trying to make a difference, but at least he would have an answer.

  Daley felt more of an affinity with his predecessor, who had died long before he was born, than he did with many of his contemporaries. Times had changed and he had a feeling of being left behind. And it wasn’t the first time he’d felt this way.

  He’d miss Inspector William Urquhart.

  ‘You wantin’ an egg roll, or something, Jimmy?’

  Daley hadn’t heard Scott enter the room. ‘Yeah, why not? Don’t forget the tomato sauce.’

  ‘Aye, nae bother. Free range, or grain fed?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Just joking, buddy. I’ll bring it on a china plate, tae. Earl Grey do the trick?’

  ‘Cut it out, Brian.’

  Scott shook his head. He knew there was no point in talking to Daley when he was in a mood like this. Whatever was bothering his old friend, he was so deep in thought that only something concerning the case would rouse him.

  ‘Oh, just tae keep you up tae speed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Latest on Glenhanity.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve just been talking tae the forensic boys. They’re no’ happy the old dear just died o’ natural causes. She’s going up the road for a post mortem. The Crime Squad are investigating, seein’ as we’re all oot o’ resources, Jimmy.’

  ‘Yet another mystery on Gairsay.’

  ‘Aye, looks like it. They’re just finishing off. They’ll come doon and gie us the heads up in an hour or two. In the meantime, I’ll away an’ get oor scran.’

  ‘That can wait.’

  ‘Eh? Where are we going?’

  ‘Back to the house, Brian.’

  ‘No way, no’ on an empty stomach. I’m only feeling well enough tae get something tae eat noo.’

  ‘Come on, we’ll pick stuff up on the way. Something’s bugging me.’

  With an ease of movement that belied his bulk, Daley jumped out of the chair and bounded out of the room, Scott in his wake.

  ‘Bring oot your deid,’ muttered Scott under his breath.

  45

  Harris was packing a bag in his hotel room at the Gairsay Hotel. He’d achieved all he could here, though the fallout from the Bremner case had the potential to spill into the national – perhaps international – consciousness. Most fortuitously, in fact. If things did get hot, the Bremners could be consigned to the realms of the conspiracy theorists – a whole world of the unexplained reduced to twenty-second YouTube grabs.

  He looked out of the window. DCI Daley was hurrying across the car park, tucking his shirt into his trousers as he went.

  Harris had heard that a mad old alcoholic woman who lived in the hills had been found dead, but had paid it no heed. Now, though, there was something about the chief inspector’s urgency that piqued his curiosity. He was doing what he was trained to do: observing and making connections that others could not.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t be catching the afternoon ferry with the Special Branch contingent, after all.

  Daley hesitated outside Glenhanity cottage and sniffed the air, deep in thought.

  ‘Aye, nae wonder you’re taking the chance tae get a breath o’ fresh air, big man. You’ll suffocate in there.’

  ‘Have you ever painted, Bri?’

  ‘Aye, Ella and I just finished the kitchen and the hall a couple o’ weeks ago.’

  ‘No. I mean painted as in van Gogh. Painted a picture.’

  ‘If it wasnae the morning, I’d swear you was on the sauce. The last picture I mind painting was in primary five. The teacher – she was a right auld bitch – took one look at it and flung it in the bin. “You stick tae the welding when you get older, Brian Scott,” she says tae me. So that was kind o’ the end o’ my artistic career.’

  ‘But if you did – let’s try to imagine,’ said Daley, his brow furrowed. ‘When you gave your painting a title, you’d name it appropriately, yes?’

  ‘Like the Mona Lisa?’

  ‘Well, yes, in a way. You’d name it after the subject, or at least what’s going on in the picture.’

  ‘Aye, sounds reasonable tae me. What you getting at?’

  ‘Come with me.’

  Daley strode towards the house, just as a man in a hooded grey coverall exited the front door.

  ‘Okay to go in, like this, I mean?’ asked Daley.

  ‘Yes, sir. We’re just about done – wire in.’

  Daley walked straight into the stench and darkness of Glenhanity’s lounge. Ignoring the blue tape, and a SOCO officer packing away his fingerprint kit, he loped over to the fireplace. Scott was behind him, peering up at the ceiling for any stray insects that might try to make a bid for freedom onto his head.

  ‘What are you after, big man?’

  Daley was studying the painting in the filthy, old frame. ‘In Urquhart’s journal, someone – the Bremners, he’d deduced – were looking for something on Glenhanity’s boat, Well of the Winds. His daughter, the old woman who died here, had put them on the trail by saying something at school. They broke into a strongbox, and likely killed the father, just to have a look. It was so important to them that they were willing to take the risk of killing a man to find it.’

  ‘And that means we’re in here, why?’

  ‘The boat was called Well of the Winds. It was painted by the man who used to live here, and who was also responsible for this picture.’ Daley indicated the painting of the smiling woman.

  ‘Aye, the auld yin was never done goin’ on aboot him. How she got him killed an’ that. Steaming when she said it, mind. You don’t think there’s something in it, dae you?’

  The bright morning light was diffused into a dull grey by the tattered net curtains shrouding Glenhanity cottage. In this pale glow, Daley walked towards the fireplace, reached out, and ran his finger across the small brass plate at the bottom of the picture frame.

  ‘See, it says, Well of the Winds. You’ve been there – can you see it in this painting?’

  ‘No, I cannae. That’s the village, is it no’?’

  ‘Give me your penknife, Bri.’ Daley rea
ched out, knowing that his friend never went anywhere without the Swiss Army knife his father had given him as a teenager, and which had proved useful over the years. He pulled the painting from the wall and laid it on the couch.

  ‘I’d ca’ canny on there, big man. The auld yin was born up that end.’

  Daley ran the sharp knife around the edge of the painting. Soon, he was peeling the picture of the smiling woman away, like removing the film cover from the screen of some new electronic device. Another painting was being slowly revealed as Daley rolled back the original.

  Minutes later, they could see the second painting underneath. It looked fresh, unsullied by dirt, dust, the stain of nicotine or bleaching from the sun. In fact, it looked as though it had been painted the day before.

  Five figures stood on a dark windswept hillside, beside a stretch of water.

  Instantly, Daley recognised one of them from the photographs at Achnamara. The tall figure of Bremner was unmistakeable: the blond hair cut close to his head, the square jaw and grey-blue eyes.

  Two other men in dark trenchcoats bookended the scene. In the middle stood a young woman holding the hand of a toddler swadddled in a thick coat and bobble hat.

  Daley stared at the painting. The woman had blonde hair, and the artist had been careful to paint her face with the same detail he had Bremner’s, as though anxious to portray their features precisely. The other subjects – including the child – were less well defined.

  He noted that her eyes were blue and slightly hooded, giving her a languid expression. She had a peaches-and-cream complexion.

  ‘Fuck me, Jimmy,’ said Scott, breaking the spell in his own inimitable fashion. ‘I wonder who that is. Glenhanity’s wife, and the auld yin as a wean?’

  ‘Not a girl, I don’t think, Brian. Look at the clothes the child’s in – all blue.’

  ‘Right enough. Blue for boys, pink for lassies. My auld dear was a stickler for it.’

  ‘They all were at the time. No, that’s a wee boy.’ Daley rubbed his chin. ‘You’ll recognise the location though.’