One Last Dram Before Midnight

by Denzil Meyrick

  ‘It’s no’ every day you gie the deid back whoot’s rightfully theirs,’ said the man, his arm around his grandson’s shoulders.

  ‘Och, I’ve a fine warm fire on the go,’ said the fisherman. ‘Aye, and you know fine, there’s always time for one last dram before midnight.’

  THE SILENT MAN

  A DCI Daley Short Story

  ‘Come with me,’ the voice insists.

  He rolls onto one side, trying to shake the dream and go back to sleep.

  ‘Come with me.’

  He opens his eyes.

  ‘Come with me.’

  It had been almost twelve hours since the silent man had gathered together his few belongings, made his bed, and prepared to leave the place he had called home for nearly five years. The security camera had caught him as he slipped out of the care home and into the cold dark of early morning, just as the first fat snowflakes began to fall. It was the day before Christmas Eve.

  Now, thick snow clothed Kinloch in a smothering blanket, tinged orange under the glow of the street lamps. DCI Jim Daley stood at an arched window of the town hall, looking down at the scene from one floor up. The cold breath of last-minute shoppers billowed into the air and around the decorations and fairy lights that adorned the street and illuminated a bright path from each shop doorway. Festive cheer, warm and welcoming, was palpable; an enticement to one and all, as the good people of Kinloch prepared for Christmas Day.

  Daley turned his attention away from thoughts of Christmas and back to the hall. Stark white striplights picked out faces etched with worry and fatigue. This was the impromptu incident room from where the search for John Sweeney had been coordinated for most of the day. Darkness had descended more than two hours ago and with it the realistic hope that the old man would be found alive; this, though, remained unspoken.

  Sweeney’s family – daughter, husband and their little boy – sat at a table. The daughter wrung her hands, face red and blotchy from the tears that had spilled down it all day, while her husband fussed over the six-year-old who was working busily with thick crayons, stopping occasionally to glance up at his mother with big sad blue eyes.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mummy,’ he said, reaching his hand out to pat hers. ‘Grampa will be out looking for Santa. He said he would ask him to get me a bike. He told me he would.’

  ‘Calum,’ scolded his father, ‘what have we told you about this? Grampa doesn’t speak. You know he doesn’t. I want you to be a big boy for Mummy and be good, OK?’

  ‘He speaks to me,’ replied the little boy, nodding furiously to underline what he’d just said. ‘He does!’

  ‘Stop it, Calum! Just stop it!’ shouted his mother. ‘I’m fed up listening to you tell me what Grampa said to you. He doesn’t say anything! He hasn’t since you were a baby. You’ll go to the bad place for telling tales. How many times have I got to tell you? Just . . . be quiet!’

  Calum looked on as his mother buried her head in her hands and his father put his arm around her shoulder. He sighed and quietly went back to his drawing.

  Daley was surprised at the boy’s self-possession. Most children of his age would have burst into tears had they been at the sharp end of a tongue lashing from a distraught mother threatening hell and damnation. Calum, however, seemed unperturbed, resigned almost, as though he was no stranger to such outbursts.

  A murmur of voices heralded movement at the table at the head of the room, where the rotund Fire and Rescue officer was getting stiffly to his feet.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid to say that the weather is closing in again, and now that darkness has fallen we have to suspend full operations until the morning. If the snow stops, the Navy and Police helicopters will carry on their work with searchlights and heat-seeking devices overnight.’ He paused and cleared his throat as the woman’s sobs filled the hall. ‘We’ll gather here again tomorrow morning at five o’clock. Myself and Sergeant Shaw will coordinate efforts until midnight, followed by DS Scott and my deputy thereafter. Where is DS Scott, incidentally?’ he asked, looking at Daley.

  ‘Just taking a break,’ replied Daley, knowing full well where DS Scott was.

  As Daley walked into the vestibule of the County Hotel, he noticed that the tables and chairs where customers normally had coffee, cake and a gossip had been cleared, and the space transformed into a gaudy Santa’s Grotto; all tinsel, fairy lights and crushed baking foil. A long line of children and bored-looking parents snaked towards a rather moth-eaten Santa, who leaned forward and spoke to a little boy in an accent definitely not from the North Pole.

  ‘And whoot wid you like fir Christmas, young fella?’ asked Santa in a very familiar voice. The child took a step backward, wary of the slanted eyes in the crinkled face, and the exceptionally unconvincing cotton-wool beard. Despite his disguise, Hamish wasn’t hard to spot.

  ‘Excuse me, Inspector Daley,’ said a voice from behind. Andrew Duncan, John Sweeney’s son-in-law, had Calum by the hand. ‘Thank you so much for all your efforts today. I really appreciate it; we both do.’ He tried to smile.

  ‘I’m sorry we haven’t turned anything up yet, Mr Duncan. But don’t worry,’ said Daley, kneeling down stiffly on one knee to talk to the boy, who stared back at him, his face pale under a mop of red hair. ‘We’ll be out looking for your grampa first thing tomorrow.’

  The little boy fished around in the pocket of his anorak. ‘This is for you, Mr Policeman,’ he said, handing Daley a piece of crumpled paper. ‘Can you give it to Grampa when you find him? It’s his special place. He told me.’

  ‘Sorry, Inspector Daley, my son has a rather vivid imagination. As you know, my father-in-law hasn’t spoken for a long time. Not since the death of my mother-in-law, before Calum was born, in fact. Partly because of his condition, they reckon.’

  Daley nodded and turned his attention back to the boy. He smoothed out the crude drawing of what looked like a cliff above a little slash of yellow, presumably a beach, bordered by blue squiggles representing the sea. ‘This is very good. What’s that?’ He pointed to a shape picked out in black crayon on the yellow beach.

  ‘It’s a cross. My grampa told me about it. There’s a dead man buried there,’ said Calum cheerfully. He grinned, showing a big gap in his front teeth.

  ‘Noo, hold on, children,’ shouted Santa, his voice muffled by cotton wool. ‘We’ve got a special little boy wae us. Come on ower here, Calum, an’ tell Santa whoot ye want for Christmas.’ It was clear that Hamish, having spotted Calum and knowing the circumstances, was keen to make a fuss of him.

  The red-haired boy made his way past the line of parents and children and stood in front of Father Christmas.

  ‘Noo, whoot present wid ye most like, Calum?’ said Hamish in a gentle voice, leaning down and taking the boy by the hand.

  Calum looked back at his father. ‘I wanted a bike . . . but I’d rather have Grampa back. Please, Santa?’

  ‘It’s a wean’s drawing, Jim. I can’t understand why you’ve been staring at it for the last hour,’ said DS Brian Scott, taking a sip from his pint of ginger beer and lime and grimacing.

  ‘You’re just fed up that’s not a pint of lager, Bri,’ Daley replied. ‘I don’t know . . . there’s something about it – about the boy. Just a feeling, I suppose.’

  ‘You and your bloody feelings, Jim. They’re not right this time. You know as well as I do there’s no way that old man will survive out there tonight. Aye, and that’s if he’s not dead already.’ Scott spoke quietly, anxious that the other customers in the County Hotel bar wouldn’t overhear his understandable pessimism. ‘It’s been freezing or thereabouts for most of the day. Well below it, now. The man’s no’ in his right mind. Dementia’s a terrible thing. You know the score, Jimmy.’

  A red sleeve appeared in between the policemen as Santa placed a small glass of whisky on the table, then sat down heavily.

  ‘I don’t know whoot they pay Father Christmas, but whootever it is, he deserves every penny o’ it,’ decl
ared Hamish. ‘I’m fair frazzled efter dealing wae a’ these weans.’

  ‘It’s your age, man,’ said Scott. ‘Why did you volunteer?’

  ‘Och, my faither used tae dae it every year. I suppose it’s a family tradition. Aye, and that little elf o’er there’s quite handy wae a dram or two once it’s all over,’ replied Hamish, gesturing to Annie, who was in a short green dress and busy pouring drinks for her customers, most of whom were already brimming over with festive cheer. ‘Whoot’s that ye have, Mr Daley?’

  ‘This?’ Daley lifted the boy’s picture from the table. ‘Och, Calum drew it. Said it was the old man’s special place.’

  Hamish looked at the picture, took his pipe from his pocket and sucked at it, unlit. ‘And is this supposed tae be a cross, by any chance?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Daley, ‘how did you know?’

  ‘It’s Sorn Bay, jeest along the coast fae Machrie. A sailor was washed up there in the First World War, and the locals buried him on the shingle and erected a cross in his memory. I recognised it straight away,’ said Hamish with a self-satisfied smile.

  ‘So, it’s a real place? I thought it was just something the wee boy had made up. Hmm.’

  ‘See what you’ve gone and done now,’ said Scott. ‘He’s got that look in his eye again. It’ll be another mad idea, that no doubt I’ll be up to my ears with sometime soon.’ He watched as Daley walked over to the bar to buy a round. ‘Mind you, you’d be amazed how many times he’s right.’

  ‘There’s somethin’ else aboot Sorn Bay. I jeest canna bring it tae mind,’ declared Hamish, scratching his head with the end of his unlit pipe.

  She slept fitfully, her father’s face in every dream. He never said a word, though; she wasn’t sure if she could even remember what he sounded like. It seemed so long since she had heard him say her name.

  Suddenly, she felt the hairs stand on the back of her neck and a tingle ripple down her spine – an ancient instinct that somebody, something was behind her, watching her. She heard her heart pound in her ears, but she could hear something else.

  ‘Come with me. Come with me.’ The voice was soft, no more than a whisper.

  She held her breath, too frightened to move.

  ‘Come with me. Come with me.’

  Unable to restrain herself, Helen Duncan screamed, and screamed again at the top of her voice.

  ‘Helen!’ shouted her husband, who, now sitting straight up in the bed, turned to reach out and hold her in his arms. It was then he noticed something. Across the room a shadow moved, illuminated suddenly by a shaft of white light coming through a chink in the bedroom curtains.

  ‘Has Calum walked in his sleep before, Mrs Duncan?’ enquired Daley. They were back at the incident room in the town hall. It was seven in the morning, and the woman before him looked shattered. Her eyes were bleary and circled with dark shadows.

  ‘Once or twice, but nothing like this. Usually he just gets up and starts crying on the landing and I take him back to bed,’ she said. ‘This time, he spoke. He just wouldn’t wake up.’

  ‘He was staring straight ahead, Mr Daley,’ added Mr Duncan, ‘just saying the same thing over and over again.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Come with me,’ she said quietly. ‘Come with me.’

  ‘He didn’t remember anything about it this morning,’ added Mr Duncan.

  As Daley left the distraught couple, he spotted Hamish waving at him from the entrance to the hall.

  ‘I knew I remembered something else aboot Sorn Bay,’ he said breathlessly. ‘It jeest came tae mind this morning when I woke up. I came straight ower tae tell you.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘When John Sweeney was a wean the family stayed at Machrie. He had an older sister, Maggie, a wee red-haired lassie. He doted on her – they went everywhere together.’

  Daley brought the older man a chair, and they both sat down. ‘Take your time, Hamish.’

  ‘Aye, well, naebody knew how it happened. But one day the two o’ them were out, jeest playing, the way weans do. John came back home hysterical, no sign o’ his sister. Their folks were up to high doh. The whole village was oot lookin’ for the lassie.’

  ‘Did they ever find her?’

  ‘Aye, they did.’ Hamish looked at the floor. ‘That’s jeest it, her body was found on the beach at Sorn Bay. They reckon she fell off the cliff, lookin’ for bird’s eggs. Poor wee thing, she wiz only nine. John wid be six at the time, the same age Calum is noo.’

  ‘And why has no one mentioned this, Hamish?’

  ‘Och, well, you know how things are. In wee places like this, when tragedy strikes we a’ dae oor best tae move on. I know John wid never speak aboot it. I’m a bit older than him so I mind it happening – that’s the only reason I know anything aboot it.’

  ‘But even if he’s gone back there, he’ll never have survived the night,’ said Daley.

  ‘Aye, well, there’s the thing. There’s a wee hut up on the hillside. It wiz used by shepherds in the old days for shelter – if the weather closed in, ye understand. They tell me walkers use it noo. There’s a wee stove, some wood likely. If John Sweeney’s gone there – aye, and he’ll know aboot it – he could have got through the night. Jeest a theory,’ concluded Hamish.

  The snow had stopped. The bright winter sun sparkled on the white mantle that covered roofs, fields and roads. A large yellow helicopter soared into the air above Kinloch.

  The naval pilot chatted to Daley via the headset as they flew over the town. Those coordinating the search had been sceptical when Daley had first mooted the idea of looking for John Sweeney at Sorn Bay. However, with all hopes of finding the man virtually dashed, and nothing else to go on, they had let the policeman follow his instinct.

  He looked down as a flock of sheep, a dirty cream colour against the white snow, scattered as the helicopter passed overhead. They made heavy progress through the thick snow, leaving deep tracks in their wake.

  ‘Inspector Daley, look!’ exclaimed the pilot, his voice tinny through the headphones. ‘There, smoke!’

  Sure enough, a thin line of black smoke spiralled up from a little shack below them, plain against the white ground.

  ‘I can see footprints in the snow,’ shouted Daley. ‘Can we land here?’

  The pilot brought the helicopter gently to the ground, its downdraft scattering snow into the air in a thick flurry.

  Daley, after being helped out of the aircraft, saw a small line of footprints that led away from the shack and over a small rise. He followed them, and on reaching the top caught his breath at the beauty of the scene before him. The vast Atlantic appeared almost motionless beneath sheer cliffs. And there, dwarfed under the huge sky, Daley could see a figure in the distance.

  He crunched through the snow, which was almost up to his knees, soaking his trousers. ‘Mr Sweeney!’ he shouted, the echo sending gulls screaming into the clear air.

  Closer now, Daley could see the man turn around, look at him for a heartbeat, then step nearer the edge of the cliff, facing back out to sea.

  ‘John, please! Come on, let’s get you back into the warmth. We’ll freeze out here.’

  The old man took another step forward, now only a few inches from oblivion.

  Daley struggled to think what to say to prevent John Sweeney taking his own life, when a small voice rang out behind him.

  ‘Grampa, come with me!’ shouted the little boy, out of the helicopter now, and wrapped up in a thick coat and hat, in his father’s arms.

  The old man didn’t move, and for a moment Daley thought he was about to step over the edge of the cliff. But, slowly, he turned. Daley could see his jaws working as he opened and closed his mouth wordlessly, then shook his head.

  ‘Grampa, please!’ Calum wailed.

  John Sweeney looked up again. ‘Calum, my wee lad, you’re so bonnie,’ he said, as he sank to his knees in the deep snow.

  The little boy had wriggled free of his father’s grip and
was doing his best to plunge towards them. His hat had fallen off in the snow and his hair seemed even more red against it. Daley scooped him up in his arms and took him across to his grandfather.

  ‘Grampa,’ said Calum, holding his hand out. ‘I don’t mind if Santa doesn’t bring me a bike. Don’t worry.’

  Tears coursed down the old man’s face as the little boy clung onto his grandfather.

  ‘See, Daddy. Grampa does speak to me. I wasn’t telling tales.’ Calum beamed at his father.

  Just as they were about to climb aboard the helicopter, John Sweeney stopped and turned to face the cliff once more.

  ‘Maggie, I canna come with you, not now – one day, but not now.’ He took a deep breath and hugged his grandson.

  ‘Don’t worry, Grampa,’ said Calum, his face sincere. ‘The girl with the red hair is waiting for you.’

  Andrew Duncan looked, astonished, at the boy. ‘He doesn’t know anything about Maggie,’ he said to the detective.

  All Jim Daley could do was shrug his shoulders.

  STRANGERS

  A DCI Daley Short Story

  I

  A tumble of exhaust fumes billowed into the cold November air as the old red bus pulled into the stance on Kinloch’s seafront. It was already dark, but the passengers could glimpse the shimmer of the loch and the looming island at its head under the twinkle of the town’s lights and the bright full moon.

  Miss Jane Steele peered through the car window, occasionally giving the wipers a turn to rid the screen of the ice that was forming on it. She’d have liked to sit with the engine idling and the heater on, but that was now taboo, certainly for council employees, so she cupped her hands together instead, blowing into them in an attempt to keep warm. Normally, she’d be picking up colleagues or clients from various parts of the peninsula, but tonight it was her job to transport a family to their new home in Kinloch. These were not her usual charges; these were people who had endured a long and hazardous journey from a war zone.