Jeremiah's Bell

by Denzil Meyrick

  ‘Amazing!’ Tom Macmillan was clearly impressed. He leaned over and held his hand out to Hamish. The old man shook it enthusiastically. ‘People do say that, mind you. But to spot it out of context like this, that’s an impressive feat, sir.’

  ‘Hamish. Just call me Hamish. Och, I knew your faither passably well, even though his time was spent driving lorries and mine aboard a boat. He married auld Willie’s daughter – your mother.’

  ‘He did. They emigrated to Canada before I was born.’

  ‘I dare say there was plenty mair room on they Canadian roads for lorry drivers.’

  ‘Yeah, there sure was. He set up his own company in Toronto. I’m very proud to say that I run it now, since – well, since he passed away.’

  ‘I’m fair sad tae hear that. You have my condolences, son. He was a fine man.’

  ‘Which “auld Willie” are you on aboot, Hamish?’

  ‘You knew this man’s grandfaither as well as yoursel’. He was your boss for a wee while, sure.’

  ‘My grandfather owned this place. When he left it to my uncle, my mom and dad decided to take their share of what he’d given them and start a new life. Now I come here and discover that the place is to be turned into flats. It makes me very sad.’

  Annie sighed. ‘I remember noo. I was just a lassie then. It’s by pure chance that you caught us in time. In a few months this place will be nothing mair than a building site.’

  Tom Macmillan looked from the old man to the woman behind the bar. ‘This makes you guys sad too, right?’

  ‘No’ jeest sad, son. Damn near a tragedy, if you want my opinion. There’s been an inn on this site for a good three hundred years. No’ the fine establishment you see now, but a convivial place o’ welcome in one way or t’other. Noo, well, it’ll just be some holidaymakers, or them wae too much money wandering aboot wae the ghosts, wae no idea o’ all the tall tales an’ grand deeds that took place within these walls.’

  Tom Macmillan took a sip of his beer. ‘I know my mother will be devastated. She bangs on about the County Hotel all the time.’

  ‘It’s a great pity it went tae her brother. I mind your mother well – a bonnie lassie, so she was. You be sure tae pass on my regards next time you’re talking.’

  Before Tom could say more, a stocky man with silver hair and a smart overcoat appeared in the bar. ‘I’ve been ringing the bell. I wonder, could I have a room for a few nights?’

  ‘I am sorry, sir,’ said Annie. ‘We were jeest reminiscing aboot old times.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ said Mike Strong. ‘I do it all the time.’

  Daley knew James junior would be at nursery. If truth be told, he was uneasy as to what scene would greet him as he opened the front door to his home on the hill and made his way down the hall and into the lounge. He prayed that Liz was managing to maintain her sobriety of recent days.

  ‘Shit! You gave me a fright, darling,’ she said, looking up from the paper on which she was writing. She was sitting at the big dining table at the far end of the long room, her reading glasses balanced on the end of her nose.

  ‘Are you writing your memoirs?’

  She removed the spectacles and shot him a sad smile. ‘I’m writing to my mother.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She shrugged. ‘I have to tell her what really happened. I know she’s been beside herself. You know what she was like the last time she was here.’

  ‘Worried.’

  ‘Yes. It’s only fair that I tell her. I know you’ve never liked her, but she’s been good to me. She deserves an explanation, don’t you agree?’

  ‘It’s never been a case of me not liking her. She’s always hated the fact that you married beneath you. If there’s been any hating done, it has come from her.’

  Liz nodded sadly. ‘You’re right, of course. But you know why that is, don’t you?’

  ‘She’s a snob.’

  ‘She came from a scheme in Glasgow.’ Liz stared at her husband levelly.

  ‘What? I thought she went to a private school, then uni – where she met your father.’

  ‘No, that didn’t happen. She was a barmaid at the uni bar. That’s when she met my father.’

  ‘You mean, after all these years . . . I mean, you’ve all been lying to me. Why?’

  ‘That would take a long time to explain. Why don’t we talk about it tonight?’

  Daley looked at his watch. ‘Yes. I’ve only come back to get some tablets.’ He was about to say more when his phone rang. ‘Yes, Brian . . . Okay, I’ll be back in a few minutes.’ He ended the call and turned to Liz. ‘To be continued, yes?’

  She nodded and got back to her letter writing.

  46

  Daley entered Kinloch police office to a commotion. The urgency on everyone’s face was obvious. Even Sergeant Shaw looked flustered.

  ‘Brian’s in your office, sir.’

  Daley nodded and hurried into the CID suite. Two detectives were wearing bulletproof vests. Daley noticed how young they looked, their faces a mixture of fear and excitement. For a split second he was reminded of the first time he’d carried a gun, the feeling coming back unbidden, making him shiver.

  Scott, himself decked out in firearms kit, was standing in his glass box looking at a map on the wall.

  Daley didn’t need to ask the question: Scott got straight to the point. ‘A few things, Jimmy. First of all, an auld farmer up in the hills has reported both his truck and hunting rifle missing, aye, along wae the ammunition. He was questioned yesterday by two uniforms who were looking for Ginny Doig, but he lied to them. He picked her up on the hill, near dead wae the cold. It would appear she’s recovered.’

  ‘She took the vehicle and the rifle?’

  ‘Aye, she did that. This auld fella thought better o’ it and called us.’

  ‘Is that the few things? The truck and the rifle, I mean?’

  ‘No, there’s mair.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘I’ve had a phone call from Grant Dunwoody.’

  ‘If Alice Wenger wants to get on the next flight to the States it would be for the best. There’s only one person her mother will be looking for.’

  ‘The opposite. She wants to stay – be a decoy to attract her mother, Jimmy.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’ Daley looked blankly at the wall for inspiration.

  ‘Big man, there’s also the matter of her two sons; we have them here, remember? Would you put it past her tae try and break them oot?’

  Daley shook his head. ‘No, I wouldn’t put anything past her. She has ammunition, right?’

  ‘She has that – and plenty o’ it, tae.’

  ‘Where’s Symington?’

  ‘At a local council meeting. Mind, you were supposed tae go, but she stepped in.’

  ‘Get her back, Brian. I need to go to the hospital to speak to Alice Wenger.’

  ‘No need. She’s in the family room with Dunwoody.’

  ‘This is madness. Now we have two armed and dangerous individuals roaming free.’

  ‘I’ve got the helicopter on its way, but they’re no’ happy wae the snow. It’s off at the moment, but if it comes back on – well, they’re grounded.’

  ‘This truck that Ginny Doig has. Surely it won’t get through a blizzard?’

  ‘Aye, it will. It’s a Subaru SUV. And he’s got snow chains on it. Put them on when the snow started. She’s likely mair mobile than us.’

  Daley couldn’t fathom it all. One murdered man, one murdered woman, both with connections to Alice Wenger. Nathaniel Doig’s suicide; his lawyer complicit in, well, something. Then there was the attack on Alice Wenger, her financial problems in America. Not to mention a New Jersey gangster on the loose.

  Every time he asked himself the question, the same three names presented themselves: Alice Wenger, Ginny Doig and the USA. But what was the connection?

  ‘Okay, Brian. I see you’ve got a team together. I take it you’ve put out an alert for this Subaru?’

>   ‘Yup. Dae you want me tae get on the road, see if we can find the woman?’

  ‘Hang tight until the chopper arrives. We can only assume that she’s after Wenger or her sons, and they’re all here.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Secure the office: gates, front door, the lot. Nobody in or out without authorisation from you or me.’

  ‘Symington will love that.’

  ‘See if you can get her on the mobile, Bri. I’ll go and speak to Alice Wenger.’

  ‘Spot on, big man, spot on.’

  With no little difficulty Vito Chiase found the cottage that Strong had arranged for him. It nestled in a small valley, everything shrouded in a carpet of sparkling snow. When he walked through the door scented logs were ablaze in a large fireplace. The warmth washed over him like a hot bath.

  He walked to the flames and rubbed his hands before the fire, feeling every joint in his body loosen up, the dull ache in his knees and shoulders slowly disappear.

  He pulled the cell phone from his pocket. He had a signal. He plugged the phone into a socket near the fireplace and went in search of food. Though the kitchen was small and cramped, the cupboards were full. He opened a large packet of potato chips and devoured them ravenously.

  In another cupboard he found a big loaf of home-baked bread. In the fridge were some cold cuts and cheese. He placed them on a plate, together with a knife and some butter. Before going through to eat this impromptu meal by the fire, he opened the last cupboard. This contained the necessities of life, well, certainly as far as he was concerned. A large jar of coffee and two mugs stood by a bottle of Scotch and a small crystal glass.

  It took him two trips to bring everything through to the lounge. He placed the food and the whisky on a small table beside a chair by the blazing fire. The coffee could wait. He wanted a drink – he needed one.

  He poured three fingers into the glass, set it down on the table, ate some of the bread, cheese and cold meat and then sat back, letting the heat wash over him again. He took a large gulp of whisky and his relaxation was complete.

  As the spirit warmed his body and soothed his brain, his mind began to wander. White-wall tyres, a beautiful girl with silky smooth legs in the back seat of his Lincoln; on the tables with his crew in Atlantic City; a man’s head disappearing in a spray of blood; an iron bar over a security guard’s knee as he yelled in agony; throwing piles of money into the air like confetti.

  He took another sip of the whisky – it was good. Deep and mellow, with a bite of spice at the back of his throat that reminded him of Christmas.

  Vito Chiase was surprised to feel a fat tear meander down his cheek. In his world you didn’t show any emotion. In the funeral parlour, yeah, you got a pass. But everywhere else it was all bravado: terrible jokes, breaking balls – being a stand-up guy.

  The taste of the spirit mixed with the cold cuts took him back to his favourite restaurant in Caldwell. A friend of his from school had taken over a joint that had been built up by his grandfather and father before him. Originally they made the peasant food of southern Italy that the immigrants to the new world so craved, but as the years passed and palates became more sophisticated, the restaurant became one of the best places to eat in the tri-state area – certainly if you were Italian. He could see it, smell it and taste it.

  All these memories brought back by a hunk of bread, some meat and a little booze. Life was strange; he couldn’t remember such a mix of emotions. But here, in this strange country in the middle of nowhere, he was reliving his past. It was playing out across his mind’s eye like a movie that never ended, but just went on and on and on.

  He remembered the picture of his grandfather that stood on the mantel above the fire in his grandmother’s house. She used to kiss it every morning, and say a prayer and a Hail Mary, working the string of beads through her fingers as tears slipped down her face. He remembered her doing this from when he was a kid until the day she could no longer stand and had to be taken to a retirement home, the best in North Jersey, the one he paid for gladly, the one where the photograph of his grandfather sat by her bedside. In her last days, when she could barely breathe, all she could do was stare at the man with the thick dark hair and the broad shoulders – like Victor Mature, he’d always thought. That he had died here, in this place – it made Vito Chiase feel nauseous.

  People watched too many movies. Those in this thing of ours were invariably portrayed as monsters – and some were, but they were in the minority. Most of the guys he’d grown up with wanted the best for their families, wished their kids to lead any life but the one in which they found themselves. Everybody knew the risks and the rules; they were soldiers, they obeyed orders. Amongst their own, when the gloves were off, anything went. If you were a made man you had some leeway, but if a boss wanted you clipped, you might as well have been some punk on the street.

  Memories: they were beautiful and haunting at the same time.

  He drained the glass and felt the whisky warm his gullet.

  His last thoughts were of his beautiful wife.

  He didn’t have time to realise that his heart had stopped.

  The glass dropped from his hand and rolled across the wooden floor.

  Dunwoody sat like an owl on the sofa in the Kinloch police office family room beside Alice Wenger. His gaze flitted between Daley and his client through expensive round horn-rimmed spectacles.

  ‘It’s me she wants,’ said Wenger, the large bruise over her eye now yellow at the margins.

  ‘What about your brothers?’ said Daley.

  Before she could reply Dunwoody held his hand in the air, ending the exchange. ‘I must say at this point that my client is most certainly going against my advice. I—’ He wasn’t given time to finish the sentence.

  ‘You keep it shut, honey. I’ll tell you if I want an opinion,’ said Wenger emphatically. ‘If you put me in that house, she’ll come after me. You know it’s true, Mr Daley.’

  ‘I know it’s a ridiculous idea, and a dangerous one.’

  ‘So you’d rather have my mother roaming free with a hunting rifle and enough bullets to start a war. She’s going to come find me – and this is where she’ll come.’

  ‘I think we can handle your mother.’

  ‘And what about the guy who killed Sheena, not to mention the person who arranged that little “joke” at the Machrie House Hotel?’ She pointed to her injured eye. ‘Some joke, yeah?’

  ‘We have the people who did that.’

  ‘But you don’t have the person who paid them to do it.’

  ‘I can’t say anything about that at this time.’

  She laughed mirthlessly. ‘You might want to sit here like a turkey before Thanksgiving, but I don’t. We put an end to this now. I’ve spent too many years with horror of what my parents did to my brothers – tried to do to me. It has to end!’

  ‘Not that way,’ replied Daley wearily.

  ‘You tell them about your journalist friend, Grant?’

  ‘What?’ said Daley.

  ‘Not a friend, merely an acquaintance, DCI Daley. As I’m sure you know, in my profession it sometimes pays to have a contact amongst the gentlemen of the press.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He knows everything: about my client’s upbringing, her brothers – the events of the last two days. More pertinently, about the utter incompetence you and your officers have displayed in dealing with this case.’

  ‘And a little bird told them this, yes?’ said Daley, feeling his heartbeat thud in his chest.

  ‘Lots of little birds in places like Kinloch, I find. This will make headlines on both sides of the Atlantic. My client has a reasonably high profile amongst the business community in the United States of America.’

  ‘The answer is still no,’ said Daley.

  ‘No to just what, exactly?’ said Wenger. ‘You have no power to hold me here. I can leave and go anywhere I damn well please.’

  Daley shrugged.

  ‘Good, that’
s agreed then. Grant, let’s get the hell outta here, boy.’

  As Daley opened his mouth to object, there was a knock at the door. Symington appeared, her face a mask of concern. ‘A word, Jim.’

  Daley left the room and walked a few feet down the corridor with his boss.

  ‘First, I know what she wants to do, and second so do the bosses.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning they think the idea will work. Dunwoody plays golf with one of the ACCs.’

  ‘Typical.’

  ‘We can’t just sit here like fish in a barrel, Jim. Plus the helicopter is snowbound in Glasgow, and the road’s closed by heavy snow on the rest. Our options are narrowing.’

  ‘So we use Alice Wenger as a decoy to trap her own mother. Bizarre!’

  ‘But it might work. We’ll have plenty of bodies tucked away. She won’t get anywhere near Wenger.’

  ‘What about Chiase?’

  ‘The considered opinion is that they’re working in tandem, Jim.’

  ‘What’s Blair Williams saying?’

  ‘Nothing. He claims that he left everything to Mike Strong.’

  ‘But the phone used to contact O’Hara was in his possession.’

  ‘He says Strong planted it.’

  ‘How convenient.’

  ‘But it makes sense when you think about it.’

  ‘Okay, so there’s lots of money at stake, apparently. Though where this money has come from nobody knows.’

  ‘And Nathaniel Doig is riven by guilt when he sees his daughter for the first time in nearly four decades. He knows why she’s come – to seek vengeance for the way her mother and father brutalised her brothers, and would have treated her if she hadn’t run away.’

  ‘And Ginny Doig is the brains behind all this, Carrie?’

  ‘We know what she’s like.’

  ‘But the whole hotel thing doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Why? It was a warning, plain and simple.’

  ‘And the attacker just happened to be the same height and build as Ginny? Did you know Wenger’s company is in trouble?’