Sail of Stone

41

Winter saw the lake for the first time at Lochend. It looked like a fjord; the mountains were high on the other side of the water, which was black and white, in layers.

“How’s it going with the monster?” Winter asked. He thought he saw a movement on the surface of the water, a waving movement. He pointed.

“Nessie?” Macdonald followed his gaze. “She stays away.”

“Does she exist?”

“Naturally,” said Macdonald.

“You have to say that,” said Winter. “The tourist industry here rises and falls on the monster.” He saw road signs that announced the Loch Ness Monster Exhibition in Drumnadrochit three miles down the road. The water to the left was still black and white.

“It’s not that simple,” said Macdonald.

“What do you mean by that?”

Macdonald didn’t answer. He looked serious.

Winter let out a laugh.

“Come on, Steve.”

Macdonald looked out across the lake, which was wider here.

“There are places,” he said.

“What kind of places? Places where you can see?”

Macdonald nodded slightly.

“Do you know something no one else knows?”

“Maybe,” Macdonald said.

“But you don’t want to reveal it?”

“Certain secrets must remain secret,” said Macdonald.

“The first rule of the chief inspector,” said Winter.

“Nessie hasn’t been accused of anything, as far as I know,” said Macdonald.

Winter looked at him, turning around in his seat.

“You like the monster, don’t you, Steve. You really believe this.”

“She has always existed,” Macdonald said with an innocent expression, and Winter couldn’t tell what was serious and what was some kind of subtle joke. “Nessie is part of my youth.” He turned to Winter. “I’ll show you something another time.”

“Why not now?” Winter asked.

“Wrong season.” He looked out over the water. “Maybe the wrong season.”

Winter saw the monster center emerge just before the city limits of Drumnadrochit. No passerby could avoid it. The water was still visible to the left. Far to the south where the lake ended and turned into the river Oich, Axel Osvald had met his death, possibly in a confused state. Most likely. What was it? Was there something evil down there, beyond exhibits and the idiotic tourist industry and legends of monsters and medieval ruins that stood like mangled sand castles around Loch Ness? Did it exist? Had Axel Osvald met it? What had he met, whom? Why here? Why right here?

“I’m thirsty,” Macdonald said, turning off and parking outside Hunter’s Bar and Restaurant, which was right across from the exhibition.

“Have you seen the exhibit?” asked Winter.

“I don’t need to,” said Macdonald.

“Now you’ve hinted so much that soon I will insist that we make a serious attempt to solve the monster mystery,” Winter said. He got out of the car. “We’ll be world famous.”

“I don’t want to be famous,” Macdonald said. “I just want to be rich.” He got out and locked the car with the remote. “Like you.”

“And I just want to be famous,” said Winter.

They went into the bar. A movie poster was hanging on the wall, an ad for a ten-year-old Hollywood production about the monster myth, with Ted Danson in the lead role. Winter didn’t feel disappointed that he hadn’t seen it.

Macdonald ordered two pints of Scotch ale.

Winter took out his pack of Corps and lit one of the cigarillos.

“So you haven’t given up that crap yet,” said Macdonald. “I thought you’d quit.”

“Soon,” Winter said, pulling in the pleasant smoke and letting it out again as discreetly as he could.

Fort Augustus was two rows of houses in a U-turn, gas stations, pubs. It smelled like fried fat and gas and maybe rotting seaweed in the parking lot in front of Morag’s Lodge.

Macdonald read from a piece of paper. They walked down the street to Poacher’s and went in. The air was thick with smoke from the late-afternoon drinkers. The volume was loud.

The manager showed them to a room behind the bar. His face was gray from way too many years in the poisoned air. Perhaps he had never been closer to the sea than this.

“Funny geezer,” said the man, an Englishman whose name was Ball. “Didn’t seem to know what he was doing, or why.”

“Apparently he was asking questions,” Macdonald said.

“Apparently,” said Ball. “But in any case I couldn’t answer them, because I didn’t understand what he said.”

“No words at all you remember?”

“Nix.”

“Was he agitated?”

“No, he was… confused, but on the other hand that’s nothing strange in here,” Ball said, smiling, “and people become agitated rather often when they’ve drunk their wallet empty and aren’t allowed more credit.”

“How would you care to describe him, then?” Winter asked.

Ball looked at him.

“Are you a Swede too, like him?”

They knew that Ball knew that the dead man was a Swede.

“Yes,” said Winter.

“I can barely hear it,” said Ball.

“What was he like?” Macdonald repeated.

“Well, since you asked, he seemed… spooked. Scared. Wacky somehow, and, well, scared.” Ball made a movement with his head. “Like this, you know, it was like he was looking around for someone who was after him. He acted like he was being followed or something.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“What, following him?”

“Yes,” Macdonald said.

“Nah.”

“When he left the pub, then?”

“Nah. I suppose I watched him go, because he seemed strange, but then he shut the door behind him and that was that.”

“So he didn’t say a single word in English?” Winter asked.

“Nah.”

“Did you talk to anyone else who talked to him?” Winter asked.

“Only old Macdonald down at the Old Pier,” said Ball. “It seems the Dane was staying there, from what I hear.”

“Sorry?” said Macdonald.

“The Dane had a room there, right?”

“The Swede,” said Winter.

“Yeah, yeah, what the hell difference is there? Anyway, he definitely had a room there.”

“Not that we know of,” said Macdonald, looking at Winter.

“Then it must have been a different Swede,” Ball said, smiling with teeth that were not Scandinavian. There was a certain degree of difference in the status of teeth in Scandinavia and Great Britain. “Old Man Macdonald talked about a Swede.”

“Not to the police,” said Steve Macdonald.

“Probably no one asked,” said Ball. “Old Man Macdonald doesn’t say anything if you don’t ask straight out.”

Macdonald asked Macdonald straight out. Yes. A Swede in “the older ages” had stayed at the Old Pier for a night. The guesthouse was on the north shore of the lake, north of Fort Augustus. The smell of water and overgrown stones was strong as they walked up the steps. Old Man Macdonald was in the older ages himself. He steadied himself with a cane. A fire was burning in the large room. It snapped like a pistol shot from wood that wasn’t completely dry.

“You should have let the police know,” said Macdonald.

“I never got around to it,” Macdonald said, scratching with his cane like a tic.

“What do you mean when you say he was old in general terms?” Macdonald asked.

“Over eighty for sure, but moved like a fifty-year-old or something,” said Old Man Macdonald. He could have been over eighty himself. There were black flecks on his face.

“What was his name?” Winter asked.

“I’ll have to look in the register,” said Old Man Macdonald.

They followed him to the reception desk.

He flipped back a few pages.

“John Johnson,” he said.

Yet another Johnson. Winter saw that Steve noticed.

“When did he stay here?” asked Winter.

John Johnson had rented the room the night before Axel Osvald had shown up in Fort Augustus and then wandered from there up into the mountains.

“When did he leave? Early? Late?”

“Probably morning.”

“What time?”

“Well… nine, I think.”

“What did you talk about?”

“When?”

“Whenever,” said Steve.

“He didn’t say a word,” Old Man Macdonald said.

“How did you know that he was Swedish, then?” Macdonald asked.

“He probably said something then,” said the old man.

“What?”

“Don’t remember.”

“Are you senile?” Macdonald asked.

“Do you want a beating, you damn cocky island fool?” Old Man Macdonald said, raising his cane.

“Calm down,” said Steve Macdonald.

The old man lowered his cane. Steve Macdonald smiled. The old man grinned. “Damn Mac,” he said.

“So what made you think he was Swedish?” asked Steve Macdonald.

“I knew some Swedes during the war,” Old Man Macdonald said. “Fishermen.”

“Yes?”

“Well, it was probably just something I thought. That the old man was Swedish. And his name. Johnson.”

They continued to ask questions for a little while, but the old man had become tired.

“Get in touch if you remember anything else, and thanks,” Steve Macdonald said, and gave the old man his phone numbers.

“If I remember to remember,” said the old man.

“You’re sharp as a knife,” Macdonald said.

They were standing outside again.

“How did he get here and how did he leave?” Winter asked.

“Car,” said the old man.

“Did you see it?”

“Green,” the old man said, waving his cane again, “about like the shrubs on the beach here in the winter.”

“Metallic,” said Steve Macdonald.

“Yes, it was some kind of strange glittering,” said the old man. “But don’t ask me about the model.” He spit suddenly. “The damn things all look the same to me nowadays.”

“Was it new?” asked Winter.

“The damn things all look new to me nowadays,” said Old Man Macdonald.

Steve Macdonald laughed.

“But there was someone else in the front seat when he drove out onto the road over there,” the old man said, lifting his cane to the east.

“A relative of yours?” Winter asked as they drove east. It was starting to get dark. The water in Loch Ness was more black than white now.

“Hell no,” said Macdonald. “That character probably belongs to Macdonald of Clanranald, up on the north islands.”

“What’s the difference?” asked Winter.

“Didn’t you see?”

“Besides age,” said Winter.

“My clan is originally from the western islands,” Macdonald said. “Macdonalds from Skye. Proud old clan.”

“How did you end up on the mainland?”

“My great-grandfather took the ferry over when he was very young,” Macdonald said drily, “and kept going a bit but stopped in Dallas. He really had no other choice but to leave. There was some agreement that went wrong with a MacLeod.” Macdonald turned his head. “That’s the other big clan on the islands.”

“So that’s why that old man called you a damn cocky island fool,” Winter said.

“Yes. He could scent it out.”

“Interesting,” said Winter, “considering that he’s also an island fool, originally.”

“But it’s okay that we ended up a bit away from the sea,” Macdonald said, “and it might not be forever. The clan’s motto is Per mare per terras. Do you know what that means?”

“‘Mare’ is ‘sea’ and ‘terra’ is ‘land,’” said Winter.

“By sea and by land,” said Macdonald. “That’s the motto.”

“Very majestic,” said Winter.

“The name Donald comes from Gaelic Domhnull, which means ‘water ruler,’” said Macdonald.

“I’m impressed,” Winter said, looking out over the lake as they started to go up the narrow road at the southeastern part of the lake.

“Not that water,” said Macdonald. “The sea. The Atlantic!”

Sheep were grazing on the green slope down to the water. It hadn’t changed to metallic yet. The gray coats of the sheep shone like the stones in the grass below.

The landscape around them suddenly changed dramatically. Up on Murligan Hill it was like on the moon. Winter rolled his window down halfway and heard the wind. It had immediately become colder. The road was narrow. In the rapid twilight it looked like something that couldn’t be trusted.

There was a feeling of darkness up here that might have belonged to the lake but wasn’t necessarily part of it; it might have come from the naked, rough landscape.

The lake turned its back on this landscape. On the western side you could reach the water after a comfortable and short walk; here you would have to jump thirty yards from pointed cliffs.

They parked next to the little man-made lake, Loch Tarff. It stared up at the darkening sky like a blind eye.

They got out. Winter shivered in his coat. He noticed that Steve was shivering.

To lie here without clothes would have meant death for them too. To be naked in this nakedness.

Macdonald studied the sketch that Craig had drawn. Craig had offered to come along, or to send someone who had been along then, but they had declined.

Macdonald pointed to the left of the motionless surface of the water. They stepped through rough grass over a small hill and down on the other side into a hollow that was shallow and wide.

“He was lying here,” said Macdonald, crouching down.

“And he walked here, in other words,” Winter said, looking off across Loch Tarff; he could glimpse the ridiculously narrow road to the left and a bit of the water of Loch Ness, which was now as black as the sky would be soon.

“That hasn’t been proven,” said Macdonald, who was still crouching. “They found his clothes out in the open below Borlum Hill and up here, but we don’t know that he put them there himself, do we?”

“No.”

“Now we know that someone else was with him in Fort Augustus.”

“Do we?”

“It was Axel Osvald who was sitting beside Johnson in the car. Whoever Johnson is.”

“Anyone could have been sitting beside him,” Winter said.

And Johnson could be anyone, he thought.

Macdonald grunted and changed position but kept crouching.

“What did you say, Steve?”

“Do you want to believe this, or what?”

“What do you mean?”

“That it’s a crime.”

“I hope it’s not a crime,” Winter said.

Macdonald grunted again. Maybe it was in Gaelic. He got up. It was as though the darkness was falling at one hundred miles an hour now. Winter could see Macdonald’s teeth and the shape of his head. Steve mumbled something and turned around, toward land, toward the Monadhliath Mountains. Aviemore, the skiing paradise, was on the other side of the chain of mountains. But there was no paradise here, only wind and cold. Winter felt the tip of his own nose become cold. He had no gloves. His fingers started to become cold.

“Why this place?” Macdonald said now, as though to himself. He started to walk away, quickly.

“It is a crime,” he said as they stood next to the car. “The question is what kind.” He opened the car door. “It could be worse than we thought.”

“You don’t need to think out loud, Steve,” Winter said, and climbed in on his side.

Angela came out of the bathroom. Winter was lying crosswise on the bed with his head at an uncomfortable angle.

“Is that an acrobat trick?” she said.

“I have to get the blood back into my head,” he said.

She sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Yes, you seemed a little sluggish during dinner.”

“I did?”

“You and Steve both did, to be honest.”

Winter lifted his head and sat up.

“Like we said, it was a strange feeling to be up there this afternoon, in the mountains.”

“Mmhmm.”

“I’m sorry if I ruined dinner.”

“No, no, it was nice.”

Winter climbed up from the bed and walked over to the console table and poured out a little whisky from the bottle he’d bought at the airport. He lifted the bottle but Angela shook her head.

Winter drank the whisky, which was a Benrinnes. He saw his own face in the mirror. It still looked frozen from the wind on Murligan Hill. He rubbed his chin. He saw Angela’s amused face in the mirror. He made an ugly face. He thought of Old Man Macdonald. Steve had told Angela and Sarah about him during dinner, and about other strange things having to do with the clans in Scotland. It was, as Steve had said earlier, mostly very sad stories. But many of them were also senseless, comical.

Winter turned around.

“So we get to see Dallas, then,” he said.

She nodded.

“But you two will get there first,” she said.

He and Steve would leave early in the morning. Angela and Sarah would wait for Steve’s sister, Eilidh, and the three women would leave around lunchtime.

“It’s funny,” said Angela, “when I hear the name Dallas, or read about it, I immediately think of the name Kennedy.” She waved a finger. “I think I’ll take a whiskey after all, a small one.” Winter took a glass from the table. “But of course this is a different Dallas. Proto-Dallas, as Steve said.”

Winter nodded and poured out a half inch.

“But Kennedy is also the name of a Scottish clan, isn’t it?” she said, and took the glass.