The Rat Stone Serenade

by Denzil Meyrick

  ‘A least you’ve got a good Scot’s tongue in your head,’ said Percy, opening the door.

  Scott was taken aback; he felt as though he’d stepped straight back into his own childhood. An old-fashioned basket-weave lampshade hung above a bed covered in a cream candlewick bedspread. The wallpaper pictured knights on horseback and men in armour with swords. On a small chair, a pair of jeans with a yellow and black snake belt sat neatly folded under a couple of knitted jumpers. A pile of old comics lay on the bedside table, their pages yellowed with age. Scott recognised the Eagle and The Beano. In short, it was a child’s room from fifty years before, perfectly frozen in time, almost like a museum display.

  ‘Fuck me,’ said Scott. ‘I always wanted a pair o’ denims wae one o’ they snake belts. Harped on at my faither for months.’

  ‘Did you get it?’

  ‘Naw. Ended up wae moleskin trousers held up wae my sister’s skipping rope. Bloody great in the winter, but you ended up wae right sweaty bollocks in the summer, I’ll tell you. Aye, an’ we had tae dae wae second-hand comics, too, half o’ the pages missing, or stuck the gether wae snot.’

  ‘Trust me, my childhood was worse.’

  ‘Aye, those were the days.’

  ‘He was the last hope for the family, you know,’ said Percy.

  ‘What dae you mean?’

  ‘Young Archie, the boy that went missing. There is another, but he’s a waste of space. A lush like his father,’ continued Percy, almost to himself.

  Pot calling the kettle black, thought Scott, as the old man locked the door and they bid each other goodnight.

  8

  Daley stretched before he put on his jacket. It was almost two a.m. and he had to get some sleep. Tomorrow promised to be a challenging day. He left his glass box and said goodnight to the detectives manning the nightshift. Outside the CID Suite the corridors of Kinloch Police Office were eerie in the subdued night lights.

  He was about to leave via the backdoor into the car park when he heard footsteps behind him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jim – sir. I didn’t mean to be so abrupt earlier on,’ said Dunn, appearing from the shadows, nervously smoothing unseen creases in her trousers.

  ‘Don’t worry. My fault, not yours. I’m just sorry things . . . Well, you know,’ replied Daley sadly.

  ‘I really hope it all works out – with Liz and the baby, I mean.’

  ‘Thanks. It’s all going to be very different when I don’t have a job to go to.’

  ‘I hope that’s nothing to do with me. I had applied for a transfer, but then, well, Angus and I . . .’

  ‘No, don’t worry, nothing to do with you,’ Daley lied. ‘I wonder if I should ever have been in this job in the first place. I’d certainly be a different person now if I hadn’t had to look at all the horror and misery I’ve seen over the last few years, I can tell you that for nothing.’

  ‘Well, anyway, I’d better get back to it.’ She smiled wanly.

  ‘Mary, I miss you, I—’

  ‘Please don’t. I’m with someone and so are you. Goodnight.’ She turned on her heel and ran back down the corridor.

  Daley sighed as he sat in his car. He felt his throat tighten and his eyes started to sting. The empty feeling in his chest was one he was well accustomed to, even though the cause of it was new. Slowly, he pulled out of the car park and onto the road; the road back home, to his wife and child. The song on the radio spoke of lost love under the lights that shone. He turned it off.

  Scott turned over in bed again. His bedtime reading had been the files and photographs on the Shannon family, sent from the police office to his smartphone. He was comfortable, warm and certainly tired enough after his drive to Kinloch. Despite this, he found sleep hard to find. There was something about the house he didn’t like; it was cold and austere. A house that wasn’t a home. He wondered if anyone had ever really thought of it as that.

  He thought back to a visit to his great aunt on the Isle of Mull. His mother had been unwell – ‘women’s problems’ his father had said. To temporarily remove the strain of bringing up two small boys, he and his brother were farmed out to reluctant relatives for the long summer holiday. With family unwilling to put up with two boisterous boys, he and his brother were split up. Charlie went to an uncle in Troon, while he, being the oldest, was put on the train from Glasgow to Oban, where an old woman met him. He’d never seen her before in his life, but she did have a distant resemblance to his mother – her niece.

  ‘Aye, your faither looking straight oot of you,’ she’d said.

  He’d never really been on a boat before. He’d seen them ply their trade up and down the Clyde under the tall shipyard cranes, but he’d never been out to sea. It was an assault on the senses: the motion of the vessel and the tang of salt mixed with fumes from the large funnels made him miserably sick for the whole hour or so it took to reach the Isle of Mull.

  A rickety bus took him and his aunt on a journey that never seemed to end. Eventually, they alighted at the end of a bumpy farm road.

  ‘A mile or so and we’ll be there,’ said his great aunt, taking him by the hand. They walked over a small hill then along a rutted path. On top of another rise, Scott was able to look down onto a small valley, in the midst of which sat a low black cottage.

  It was blacker inside than out, lit by gas lamps and the huge fire that his aunt kept burning in the grate, despite the time of year. He spent a miserable few weeks with only the old woman for company, willing the long summer nights to last around the clock. The dark hours of night, though mercifully short, were the darkest he’d ever known. Unless the sky was clear – which it never seemed to be – and the moon shone, the whole house was black. He remembered thinking that this was what it would be like to be blind. The creaks and inexplicable noises of the night terrified him.

  At home, he might be at risk of a clip around the ear from his father, or a bleaching from the big MacDougall boy down the street, but the young Brian Scott could cope with these things. What he couldn’t cope with was the long highland summer where he could only sleep when the short night was over.

  Lying in his bed in Kersivay House, he felt the same way.

  Twice, he’d used his radio to check in on the cops patrolling the grounds of the mansion. On both occasions, there’d been nothing to report.

  He knew he had to get some sleep, that he would be exhausted the next day otherwise. This was the way it had been since he stopped drinking, but this house made it worse somehow.

  ‘Bloody misery,’ he whispered to himself.

  He had started to doze, on the edge of sleep, when something roused him. He sat up in bed and listened; nothing at first, but, just as he was about to lie down he heard it again. Footsteps, light and quick like a child’s running up and down the corridor outside his room.

  ‘Typical, bloody weans.’ He was wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and shivered as he levered himself out of the bed and away from the warmth of the duvet.

  He padded across the thick carpet then opened the door and stepped out into the dim corridor. The cold almost took his breath away as he squinted into the gloom. ‘Looks like your central heating’s burst, Percy,’ he mumbled.

  He was stepping back into his room when he heard it, the soft tinkle of a child’s laughter. He spun round. ‘Right, you wee bugger, where are you?’

  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he noticed, with surprise, that the door opposite, the one with the wreath of red roses, was lying open.

  ‘Ach, you stupid old bugger, you’ve no’ locked the thing right.’ He crossed the corridor, grabbing the handle of the door to pull it shut. As he did so, he heard the child’s laugh again, this time coming from behind the door.

  ‘Got you!’ Scott swung the door open and fumbled for the light switch, cursing when he pressed it and nothing happened. Then, in the darkness, something caught his eye. Sitting on the chair on top of the folded denims and jumpers was a tiny figure, a young boy, staring straigh
t at him.

  The breath caught in Scott’s throat. He wanted to walk towards the child and remove him from the cold room, but he couldn’t. Trying to speak, he watched as the boy stood up and walked slowly towards him.

  ‘Hello. My name’s Archie Shannon.’

  The boy reached out to him, but in that same instant was gone, leaving Scott alone in the cold, empty room with his heart thudding in his ears, struggling for breath.

  Driving along Kinloch’s Main Street, Daley noticed a figure walking slowly, huddled against the cold wind. Recognising the man, he stopped and wound down the passenger window.

  ‘Hamish, bloody hell, you must be freezing. Come on, jump in.’ The old man slid onto the passenger seat, bringing a blast of bitterly cold air into the warm car.

  ‘What are you doing out on a night like this – it’s bloody freezing,’ said Daley.

  ‘Och, this time of year. I hate it. Never have liked the festive season.’

  Daley stared at him. ‘Anything else wrong? You’ve got a face like a wet weekend.’

  ‘Just a feeling. Aye, and it won’t go away. I had tae get oot o’ the hoose tonight – jeest tae break the spell, you understand.’

  ‘What kind of feeling?’

  ‘I don’t know. Like something’s no’ right with the world. I daresay you get it yourself fae time tae time. No rhyme or reason tae it at all.’

  ‘I get feelings like that all the time, Hamish. But then again, I don’t have your second sight.’ Daley laughed, hoping the old man would join in. He didn’t.

  Daley pulled the car up by Hamish’s cottage on the outskirts of the town, by the side of the loch, with its island guardian looming in the darkness. The street lights far behind, he stared into the darkness.

  ‘Hey, wait. Your front door’s lying open, Hamish.’ He jumped out of the car and walked up the narrow path.

  As he stepped inside and started groping for a light switch, he heard sudden movement from inside the room. Before he could swing round, something crashed into him, forcing his head hard against the wall. The blow stunned him, but the agony in his scalp was worse, tiny needles thrusting into his head. He cried, desperately trying to shake off his attacker.

  ‘Hamish, help!’ he yelled. He felt pain in the back of his neck; something sharp was piercing the skin.

  ‘Here, you daft bastard.’ Suddenly the room filled with light and with a blood-curdling screech the attack stopped, leaving Daley breathing hard, trying to take in what had just happened. He felt something running down his face and, patting at it, saw that his hand was covered in blood.

  ‘Bloody hell, Hamish. What the fuck.’ He looked around the room, now lit by a single bare bulb hanging from an old flex. Hamish’s home had been trashed. The old man stood in front of Daley, keeping a huge striped cat at bay with a walking stick.

  ‘Jeest you stay where you are, Hamish. There’s nothing tae worry aboot noo, son,’ he said to the cat, which was still squatting in an attack pose, ears flat against its head, hissing loudly.

  Scott shivered in his bed. He’d toyed with the idea of asking one of the cops on duty in the grounds of Kersivay House to come to his room, but thought the better of it. He then considered heading out into the grounds himself to meet one of his colleagues, but couldn’t face walking out into the cold corridor again.

  He couldn’t keep his limbs still; with trembling hands he reached for his mobile, managing to steady the device enough to switch it on. Thankfully he had a signal. He scrolled down his contact list until he came to the name Crichton. Awkwardly he touched the screen and held the phone to his ear with both hands.

  Just as he was about to hang up, the call was answered. ‘Brian Scott. What on earth is going on? It’s just after four in the morning, man.’

  ‘Listen, Wattie, you’ve got to help me.’ Scott quickly blurted out the details of what he had seen in the child’s room.

  ‘As I thought,’ replied Crichton testily. ‘It’s the DTs, they’re reaching the psychotic stage. No bloody wonder after all the booze you’ve flung down your neck. How real did this all seem?’

  ‘Bloody real. I . . . I saw a boy. He fucking spoke tae me, Wattie.’

  ‘Listen to me. I want you to calm down, take deep breaths, think of something calming: Rangers winning the treble, for instance.’

  ‘Steady on, Wattie, I’m no’ that far gone yet. I’ve had enough hallucinations fir one night.’

  ‘There, see. You’re calming down already. Take your time, Brian, deep breaths.’

  Crichton continued to speak to Scott in quiet tones as, slowly, the detective regained some of his composure.

  ‘Now, listen to me, Brian. You’re going to have to get medical help. You need something to calm you down, to stop these, well, experiences. You need to see a doctor.’

  ‘I’m in bloody Kinloch – well, near there, anyway. In the middle of fucking nowhere, in fact.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. This won’t go away by itself. In fact, without treatment, it’ll likely get worse. See a bloody doctor!’

  Scott apologised for waking his friend then ended the call. He felt much calmer now, but still reckoned he’d wait until daylight before venturing out of his room. He propped himself up against some pillows and closed his eyes, willing sleep to come.

  Daley helped Hamish make the best of tidying his house. ‘I jeest canna understand it, Mr Daley. Who would want tae dae a thing like this? It’s no’ as though I’ve got anything worth stealing.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Daley. ‘But I don’t think this was your usual burglary.’

  ‘Well, whoot were they after?’

  ‘Look, see this box of photographs, and the one in your bedroom, scattered as though they’ve been looked through. If your aim is to steal something of value, you’re not going to sit down and go through the family albums before you do it, Hamish.’

  ‘Aye, right enough. I hadn’t thought o’ that. But they’re jeest old pictures. Some o’ them belonged tae my mother.’

  Daley answered the door to a young detective and a uniformed cop. ‘I want you to fingerprint the usual surfaces and see if you can pick up anything from these photos. There’s more in the bedroom.’

  ‘Thanks for all your help, Mr Daley,’ said Hamish. ‘I canna get my heid around this at all.’

  ‘Looks like your premonition of something being wrong was spot on. Once the boys are finished in your bedroom, try and get some sleep. I’ll make sure there’s a cop at the door until we can make some kind of sense of this. In the morning I want you to go through the photos and see if any are missing. And keep Hamish the cat under control, he could have had my eye out.’

  ‘Och, he was jeest feart. It’s his wild instincts coming oot. He likely got a fright when they burglars were in. He’s quite highly strung, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got the teeth marks in the back of my neck to prove it. Anyway, I want you to concentrate on what’s missing, if anything.’

  ‘Aye, nae bother, Mr Daley. But I can tell you right noo aboot one that’s been stolen.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  He pointed above the mantelpiece to a rectangular patch of wallpaper, a lighter shade than the rest of the walls.

  ‘What was the picture of, Hamish?’

  ‘My mother.’ A look of sadness passed over Hamish’s wrinkled face. ‘She was jeest young when it was taken. Och, a few years before I was born, I reckon.’

  ‘And who else was in the picture?’

  ‘Jeest her an’ a few o’ her workmates, as well as some o’ the folk fae the big hoose.’

  ‘What big house?’

  ‘Where she worked in they days, Mr Daley. She was in service at Kersivay Hoose, in Blaan. Och, I’m sure you know it fine, up there on the cliff. Great big rambling place.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I know it.’

  ‘I’m telling you,’ Hamish sighed. ‘The world’s far from right tonight, and that’s a fact.’

  Daley walked to his car pondering once more on
Hamish’s gift of prescience, as he watched the snow fall over Kinloch.

  9

  Colin Grant was cold – very cold. His whole body shook as he came to on the damp floor. Bound in a sitting position, his hands were tied to his ankles. His teeth chattered as the dim moonlight illuminated the space in a cold, thin light. He could hear the sound of waves crashing on a beach; the smell of the sea was strong, but overlaid by a dank, earthy smell.

  He tried to swallow, his tongue sticking to the roof of his dry mouth. Then the memory of seeing the steel point appear through the neck of his colleague Brockie came back to him. He started to scream, trying to shuffle forwards to the mouth of the cave, but he was manacled to something at his back and any movement was impossible.

  ‘For fuck’s sake help me!’ he shouted. At his feet, moonlight glinted on puddles of ice on the floor of the freezing cave.

  Gulls squealed and the sound of the sea grew louder in his ears, but Colin Grant’s screams did not summon help. Eventually, only a croak emanated from his ruined throat, giving way to sobs.

  As he was about to lose all hope, he heard the crunch of footsteps on the pebbled beach. With all the force he could muster, he cried out again.

  A shadow loomed across the mouth of the cave. He tried to squint at the figure, but the bright sunlight obscured all features.

  ‘Please help me,’ he said, straining at his bonds. ‘I have money . . . you can have anything. Please, please . . .’ His pleas were cut short as something stung his chest, making him writhe in pain.

  Scott asked the officers who had patrolled the grounds of Kersivay House through the night to come to his room to make their reports. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but he made sure they accompanied him out of his room and down the corridor to the stairs. He hadn’t dared leave the room by himself, though he was careful not to let his colleagues see his nervousness, cracking jokes as he walked past the door with the red wreath. Despite the presence of two constables, a shiver went up his spine.

  They were shown to a large dining room, where a long table had been set for breakfast.