The Orkney Scroll

Chapter 2

My family traces its roots in Orkney back almost a thousand years to one Bjarni, son of Harald, also known as Bjarni the Wanderer. Bjarni came from a good family in Norway and journeyed to Orkney during the time of Earl Sigurd the Stout, who gave him land in Tankerness. Bjarni, you see, was Earl Sigurd’s man, a warrior as well as a farmer. In Orkney, in those days, there were three social classes: the wealthy and powerful earls who inherited their estates; free farmers and warriors of which Bjarni was one; and thralls or serfs who worked the land. Bjarni spent the winters in Orkney, but every summer, he joined Sigurd’s raiding parties to Caithness, the Hebrides, and as far away as Ireland. They were looking for booty, of course, but also for land, trying to extend the power of the earls of Orkney throughout the British Isles. There’s a story about Sigurd, that his Irish mother, a sorceress, made him a magical raven banner: whoever carried the banner would die, but victory would go to the man before whom it flew. It was in Ireland that Sigurd died, and it’s said he himself was carrying the banner.

True or not, it was then Bjarni’s fortunes changed. Sigurd had four sons in all, but one of them, who would later be Earl Thorfinn the Mighty, one of the greatest earls of Orkney, was still a lad at the time. The other three, Sumarlidi, Brusi, and Einar took over Orkney when Sigurd died. They were a fractious lot, especially Einar, known as Wry-Mouth, and not disposed to share the land equally. As often happened in those days the competition turned bloody.

Rivalries both within families and without were intense in those days, and power changed hands often, making it rather easy to find oneself on the wrong side of a political struggle. And so it was with Bjarni. Bjarni sided with Earl Brusi in the dispute over the control of Orkney and killed Thorvald the Stubborn, one of Einar’s men, in the struggle. While Bjarni offered to make a settlement over the killing of Thorvald, and to hold a great feast in the earl’s honor, Einar, a hard man, was not disposed to accept it. Men of goodwill interceded on Bjarni’s behalf, but to no avail. Einar’s men came for him and burned down his house, but Bjarni, having been warned of the attack, was able to make his escape with the help of some like-minded men.

A family conference was held and there was much discussion about what was to be done. Finally Oddi, Bjarni’s brother spoke. “I’m not blaming you for what you’ve done, Bjarni. Thorvald the Stubborn deserved what he got. But it seems to me if you stay around here, your head and your shoulders will soon be parted. I’m thinking a voyage of some distance and some duration might be in order here. I say we take two longboats, and some men who are willing, and head for Scotland. It may be that those who care for Sigurd’s young lad Thorfinn can intercede on our behalf with Einar, persuade him to have a change of heart. In the meantime, we will be out of harm’s way. We won’t be the first to leave Orkney because of Einar. Nor will we be the last.”

All agreed that this was the best course of action. And so it was that Bjarni, Oddi, and some of their kin, including the skald or “poet,” Svein the Wiry set off in two longboats on a voyage that would take some of them farther than they ever dreamed.

You are thinking I am making this up, which I can certainly understand, but you’ll find the stories of Sigurd the Stout, his sons Brusi and Einar, Sumarlidi and Thorfinn if you look. The lives of all of them are therefor anyone to see in the pages of the Orkney inga Saga. As I’ve said, our story is not inconsistent with the facts. True, you’ll not be finding Bjarni the Wanderer or his brother Oddi in the saga. No, you’ll not be finding them.

You didn’t need a degree in criminology to guess the number one murder suspect in the death of Trevor Wylie. After all, Blair Bazillionaire had been swinging an axe about in front of approximately seventy-five people, one of whom was the chief of police. Not that anything was said about an axe-murderer, mind you, that being evidence the police were keeping to themselves. It was suggested strongly to me that I do the same.

For a while, though, it seemed to me that I was spending as much time at the local police station as Blair was. Like Blair, I had to be fingerprinted. The police said it was to eliminate mine from the many at the scene, which made sense, I suppose, given my prints were all over just about everything, even a half-empty coffee cup I’d moved so that I could get at Trevor’s files. Blair’s prints were all over the same things mine were, with one unfortunate addition: the axe. Neither Blair nor the staff at his residence were able to produce the axe he’d so publicly used to chop up the furniture, so while it couldn’t be proven definitely, it pretty much looked as if the same one had been used to chop up Trevor’s head.

It looked open and shut as they say, and not good at all for Blair, and just about everything I said to Detective Ian Singh only made it worse.

“Take me through this,” Singh said, after I’d explained that I’d gone to Scot Free to discuss Baldwin’s purchase of the writing cabinet. “Baldwin was a good customer, and you went with him to Trevor Wylie’s establishment to check out this desk that Baldwin wanted to buy.”

“I met him there, yes.”

“You thought it was genuine, the desk, I mean.”

“I thought it might be,” I said, reluctantly.

“And Baldwin bought it on your say so.”

“I guess so.” This was going to be really painful. “I did point out I’d like to do more research.”

“And Baldwin later found it to be a fake.”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell him it was?”

“No. I don’t know who told him.”

“But it was a fake.”

“I think so. I did manage to get a piece of it, after it was chopped up, and had a good look. The lock used was not consistent with the supposed age of the cabinet. It was brand-new, in fact.” I really hoped he didn’t ask me how I got that piece of wood. I still had the scratches.

“How much was the desk thing worth?”

“Under the circumstances not much,” I said. “A few thousand, maybe. It was a nice piece regardless of who made it.”

“Let me rephrase the question. How much would it have been worth if it was genuine?”

“A similar one sold for a million and a half not that long ago.” Trevor had been right about that. I’d checked it myself later.

Singh’s eyebrows went up. “So, in your opinion, Baldwin, thinking it was genuine, might have paid well over a million for it.”

“I guess so. I don’t know, though. I left before they discussed price.”

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Baldwin.”

“He was a longtime customer, at least ten years.”

“He bought a lot of merchandise from you over those ten years?”

“Yes.”

“How did he normally pay?”

“What?”

“How did he pay for this merchandise?”

“The usual way. Check, credit card, cash.”

“How often did he pay cash?”

“I can’t recall. From time to time, I guess, for the smaller purchases.”

“Can you recall the largest purchase he paid cash for?”

“Not really.”

“Would he have paid, say, a hundred thousand in cash?”

“Hardly. We don’t carry that kind of merchandise often. He might give us a couple of hundred dollars in cash, on occasion, maybe four hundred? Anything over that, and he wrote a check or paid by card. Why are you asking this?”

“Just part of our investigation,” Singh said.

“Surely it’s academic. He couldn’t have paid cash for the writing cabinet,” I said. “Could he?”

Singh didn’t answer. Instead, he went on to ask about the evening at Baldwin’s, which we went over in excruciating detail, and then back to my unfortunate discovery of the body.

“The shop was empty when you got there,” he said.

“It was. No, it wasn’t, but I thought it was. There was a customer upstairs.”

“So you waited.”

“Yes.”

“As did this customer wait with you?”

“Yes.”

“And then you both went looking for him.”

“Yes. The shop was open. I thought Trevor had to be there somewhere. You don’t just go out and leave the merchandise for all takers. For one thing, there have been a number of robberies at antique stores around here. So far there have been no arrests.”

Singh ignored the jibe. “And this customer, what did you say his name was? Percy?”

“Yes. He looked for Trevor, too.”

“Percy who?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t get that far.”

“So, you and this fellow with whom you are on a first-name-only basis decided to look in the basement?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that a little odd?”

“As I said, Trevor had to be there. I mean, what if he’d had an accident and fallen down there?”

“An accident,” he repeated, and he almost smiled. “And this Percy came downstairs with you.”

“I didn’t want to go by myself,” I said. That was partly true, I suppose.

“And when you found Trevor, then what?”

“I ran upstairs and called nine-one-one.”

“And Percy?”

“He ran outside. I don’t think he was feeling well.” Actually, he’d made little retching sounds and dashed up the stairs.

“I don’t suppose you know where Percy might be found,” Singh said.

“I told you already that I don’t. He said he’d flown in from Scotland recently. That’s all I know.”

“But you saw him in the shop before, the day you went to look at the desk I believe you said.”

“Yes. Is he a suspect?”

“We have only your word that he exists,” Singh said. “But on the assumption your story is true, he would of course be of interest to us. You did say he was there when you got there?”

“Yes.” I was certain Percy hadn’t killed Trevor. He was such a timid-looking man. Furthermore, killing Trevor wasn’t going to get his Granny’s writing cabinet back. I hadn’t seen him at the party either, so how would he have known about the axe business, and how would he get the axe? I said none of this to Singh.

“Did you see Wylie socially?” Singh asked.

“There’s a bunch of shop owners in the neighborhood who get together for drinks from time to time, maybe once a month. We talk about issues affecting the area and whine about business and stuff. Both Trevor and I are, were, part of it. Trevor liked The Dwarfie Stane. It’s a bar named for some tomb in Scotland. Maybe you know it. It’s the place that has a hundred different single malt scotches, or something like that. We often get together there. Trevor was working his way through all one hundred. Other than that, I’d see him every now and then at parties. We had some clients in common.”

“Did you like Wylie?”

“He was very charming,” I said. “And I liked him well enough up until that cabinet turned out to be a fake.”

“About this friendly little note Trevor left for you,” Singh said. “What did you think the note meant?”

“I have no idea. I thought he was just being a jerk.”

“Wylie could be a jerk, could he?”

“I thought so.”

“But you spent a lot of time with him.”

“No, I didn’t. I told you already that I saw him only occasionally.”

“Your fingerprints are on every piece of furniture in the place.”

“I was looking for him.”

“In the furniture?”

“Yes, in the furniture. I thought he was hiding from me.”

“You didn’t by any chance receive a—what shall we call it?—a commission on the sale of this desk?”

“I did not!” I said.

“Would you not perhaps have felt entitled to a… um… commission? It was on your say so that Baldwin bought the desk.”

“I did not bring Baldwin to Trevor. Trevor called him all by himself. If there were to be a finder’s fee, it would only be paid if I brought Baldwin to Trevor. Even then, I would not have asked for a commission. Baldwin was a good client. He asked for my help from time to time, and I gave it, free.”

“I guess it was worth what he paid for it,” Singh said. I took that to be payback for my remark about the lack of arrests, and I suppose I deserved it. “So no discreet palming of an envelope filled with cash? A little undeclared and therefore tax-free income?” he said. “If so, I’d report it now if I were you.”

“There was absolutely no commission, tax-free or otherwise,” I said. “Nor was it expected.”

“You have received nothing of any sort from Wylie?”

“I have not.”

“Assuming what you say is true, you must have been just a little annoyed with Wylie yourself.”

“I was,” I said. “But I don’t axe people, if that is what you are implying. Do I need my lawyer?”

“Up to you.”

“You know what?” I said, rising from my chair. “I don’t believe you can keep me here, and I’m tired of all these questions that imply I am a murderer, a liar, or a thief. So let’s just say this discussion is over.”

“Please sit down,” he said. “Nobody is accusing you of anything. Did anyone else see this Percy?”

“There was just the two of us there. Blair might remember him because he was there when Blair and I first went to look at the cabinet. Just a minute: there was another person there, too, that first time, a rather unlikely-looking person to be interested in antiques. He had a big dog, a Doberman.”

“A Doberman? Was this strange-looking person about the same height as the dog and maybe as wide?”

“Yes,” I said. “You know him?”

“I might,” Singh said. “You do meet the most unusual people.” He made a note on the pad in front of him. “If this man with the dog is who I think it is, then you really keep bad company, Ms. McClintoch.”

“I wasn’t the one keeping company with this person,” I said.

“I suppose,” he said.

“I’m leaving now,” I said rising from my chair and heading for the door.

“I require some of that free advice of yours,” he said to my back.

“I guess whatever advice I’d give you will be worth what you pay for it then,” I retorted, but I stopped my retreat.

“There is no record of a transaction between Baldwin and Wylie,” Singh continued.

“What are you saying?” I said.

“I’m saying it’s not just Percy that’s missing. No check has cleared Baldwin’s bank accounts, at least not the bank accounts we know about, nor has there been a significant deposit in the order of magnitude we’re talking about here, in Wylie’s. There isn’t a credit card transaction on any of the cards we can find for Baldwin either. Wylie had about eighty dollars on him when he died. We’ve searched his house and the shop. No cash.”

“So if Baldwin hadn’t yet paid for it, why did he get so annoyed about the fake?” I asked. “Or are you saying he had other accounts, offshore or something?”

“I need you to go with one of my forensics people to look at Wylie’s records,” he said. I said nothing. There was obviously no point in asking a question, because Singh had already demonstrated he wasn’t for answering any of them. “Forensic accountant, that is,” he added.

“Baldwin couldn’t have paid cash, could he?” I said. “That’s what you were getting at when you asked how Blair paid for merchandise. It would be way too much.”

“We need you to identify the records pertaining to this desk thing. We can’t find any record for it, either.”

“It’s probably not called a desk,” I said.

“That would be why we need your help,” Singh said. “You cannot be compelled to assist, but perhaps you might like to do so.”

“I might not,” I said.

“My mistake,” he said. “I assumed given your relationship with a fellow law enforcement professional…”

“What has my relationship with Rob Luczka have to do with it?” But he had me. I could hear Rob’s speech now, something along the lines of how honest citizens needed to come forward to assist police in their investigations or we would all go to hell in a hand basket or something. “Okay,” I said. “When?”

“How about right now?” Singh said.

About thirty minutes later I found myself sitting once again at Trevor’s desk, going through his papers. This time I wasn’t snooping, or rather I was now snooping officially, in the company of a policewoman by the name of Anna Chan. Chan was an accountant as well as a police officer, and she struck me as rather good at both.

“I can’t find any reference to a desk in these documents,” she said.

“That’s because it’s a writing cabinet,” I said. “Or rather it was a writing cabinet. A desk, well, we all know what a desk is. A writing cabinet has doors that you open to reveal the work surface and the drawers. This one had beautiful inlaid work, leaded glass. It was really lovely. So we’d be looking for a different listing.”

“So can you find it?” she asked.

The office looked pretty much the way it had when I’d left it to find the elusive Percy upstairs. I handed Anna the relevant files right away. I had, after all, been looking at them before.

“You found those rather fast,” she said, with a hint of suspicion in her voice.

“They were right on the top of the desk,” I said. “Trevor must have been working with them when… you know.” I glanced toward the basement door.

“I’ve checked the declared value for customs,” she said in a disapproving tone a few minutes later. “There is nothing listed anywhere close to a million dollars. I suppose our customs officials are concentrating on finding terrorists and weapons, not furniture that is seriously undervalued.”

“That doesn’t make Trevor a criminal,” I said. “The reason this was supposed to be worth as much as it was rested entirely on the claim that it was by one of the masters of the Arts and Crafts movement, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Trevor, when he bought it, might have wanted it to be Mackintosh, but he wouldn’t necessarily have known that it was. He would have to do his research. So he would have valued it at what he paid for it, which was probably a decent sum for a writing cabinet, but a pittance for Mackintosh. People take chances on this kind of thing all the time. It doesn’t make them dishonest.”

“Tell that to the poor sod he ripped off,” she said.

“Not entirely fair,” I said. “Trevor did his research. The owner didn’t.” I felt a stab of sympathy for the nice old woman with dementia in Percy’s photograph, but still I continued. “Trevor took a chance. He paid to ship it. If it wasn’t what he thought it might be, he’d be out a lot of money. If you’re going to sell something like this, then maybe you have to do some work to find out about it. If you don’t, then people prepared to take a chance may be the winners. I wouldn’t knowingly rip somebody off, but I might take a chance on something, and win, and I wouldn’t be too happy if the owner came back to me and claimed I’d ripped him off. Now let’s have a look at all this stuff.”

“He seems to have done better shipping back to Scotland,” she said a few minutes later.

“We ship all over the world. I can only assume Trevor did the same.”

“For your sake I hope you have this kind of business. This one is valued at just under million bucks. It’s a chair. It must have been some chair!”

“Wow! Let me see.” I looked at the paperwork she showed me. “I guess Trevor was doing better than I thought.”

“Not exactly,” she said, pulling out another file. “Looks to me as if he shipped it but he only got a commission, just under ten thousand, plus shipping and handling. So that means he sold it for someone else, I presume.”

“I guess so.”

“Would that be unusual?”

“Not unprecedented. We take some pieces on consignment from time to time. The markup is usually pretty good.”

“Would one percent or so be considered good in your business?”

“For consignment, no, but the percentage would be lower on a high-ticket item.”

“But not that low.”

“I guess not.”

A few minutes later Anna spoke again. “Baldwin,” she said. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Baldwin what?”

“It was Baldwin’s million-dollar chair. He cashed a check for nine hundred and fifty thousand, and paid Baldwin, less the small commission and expenses.”

“Blair had a chair worth nine hundred and fifty thousand? Not from me.”

“Too bad.”

“I’ll say. Let me see.” It looked to me as if Anna were right. The chair was marked as museum quality, which it would have to have been. The merchandise was delivered to a dealer in Glasgow. There was a copy of both checks in the file.

“Is there really such a thing as a nine-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar chair in real life?” she asked.

“Obviously, there is. Not in my league. I helped Blair buy an Antoni Gaudi chair for something over a hundred thousand once.”

“That’s nowhere near this one. Name one chair that would be worth that much.”

“King Tut’s throne?” I said. I was being facetious of course, but I was also making a point.

“You found that desk thing yet?” she said.

“Not yet.” In fact, it took a couple of hours going through Trevor’s files. I’d known Trevor for years, but never this intimately. I felt as if I were going through his underwear drawer. To make matters worse, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the door to the basement, and half expected Trevor’s ghost to come floating past. It was not a pleasant experience. I tried to concentrate.

Trevor had specialized in Scottish antiques, obviously, given his background and the name of his store, and when I’d first known him he’d gone to Scotland at least three times a year. In the past year, however, he’d gone only once, and that was about six months earlier. He’d shipped back a container of furniture at that time, which had arrived about three months before. There wasn’t anything specifically referred to as a writing cabinet in that shipment, but there was something I was reasonably certain was it, a lacquered mahogany cupboard. The dimensions were about right. Its value was listed as $15,000 U.S. I pointed it out to Chan.

“You think this is it?” she said.

“I think so. There isn’t anything else that qualifies.”

“Nice markup if Wylie got over a million for it.”

“I guess he hasn’t been doing too well financially,” I said. “Up until the transaction with Baldwin.”

“Why would you think that?” she said.

“He only made one trip this year to Scotland, which would indicate he wasn’t selling enough to make another trip.”

“Hmmm,” she said. Another police officer not inclined to answer my questions. When I thought about it, though, I realized that wasn’t right. I’d had to check invoices and receipts as well, and he wasn’t doing too badly. He didn’t have any employees, just minded the shop himself, and while the rent in the neighborhood was considerable, as I very well knew, he’d managed to sell a decent amount of merchandise.

“I wonder what this is,” I said aloud a few minutes later.

“What?” she said.

“Another shipment from Scotland about a month later. It’s only one piece, though.”

“And that would be unusual because?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose it just didn’t make the container, for some reason. It’s expensive to ship one piece all by itself, that’s all.” But that wasn’t really it. This shipment was for one black cabinet, valued at $10,000 U.S. “I guess this one could be the writing cabinet, too. It got here about eight weeks ago. That would have given him a few weeks to get it out of customs, do the research, and approach Baldwin. I’m sorry, but I think it could be either of these.”

“If you had to choose one?”

“I don’t know. Have you found receipts or invoices for this trip? There might be more information there.”

“Wylie did keep all the paperwork for that trip in one file. Let me see. Here,” she said, a few minutes later. “A receipt from an antique shop on George’s Square in Glasgow called J.A. Macdonald and Sons Antiques, for the right amount, and it refers to it as a lacquer cupboard.”

“Let’s see,” I said. “This looks like it, and you’re right, when you do the currency conversion, it’s about fifteen thousand dollars. Is there something for the other one?”

“Not that I can find,” she said. “Hold on. It’s in another file. This one is for someone by the name of, well, I can’t read the name, it’s handwritten, but the address is, are you ready for this? St. Margaret’s Hope. Where do you think that is?”

“I have no idea. I think that has to be the one, though. Percy, the man Detective Singh does not believe exists, said the cabinet was purchased from his grandmother, and the first one we found was purchased from an antique dealer. I wonder if St. Margaret’s Hope is near Glasgow. So my vote is with the second one. It’s called a cabinet, for one thing, and I don’t think Trevor would have waited four months to contact Baldwin once he knew what he had.”

“But he didn’t have it, right? He would need some time to set up the scam?”

“Right,” I said. “Something that should be said here is that there is a very real possibility that Trevor was fooled, too, that he was the victim of the scam and not its perpetrator.”

“I don’t think so,” Chan said.

“Why not? You don’t know that,” I protested. “Have a look around. The furniture in this place is good quality. It’s genuine. It’s not overpriced. It’s not inexpensive, but it’s worth what you pay for it.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said.

“I would. There is nothing I can see here that indicates Trevor was a crook.”

“Except the Mackintosh,” she said.

I was trying to think of a suitable retort when Chan’s cell phone rang. After a word or two, she told me that my statement was ready, and that Singh was wondering if I’d mind stopping by the station to sign it. “I will later,” I replied. “A bunch of us are getting together at Trevor’s favorite bar, The Dwarfie Stane, for a bit of a wake. I’ll stop by after that.” Chan relayed the message.

“You haven’t told me why you’re sure Trevor wasn’t fooled along with me,” I said.

“No,” she said, and that was it.

The gang was already at the Stane when I got there. McClintoch Swain was well represented, as we had a part-time employee, a student, to close up the shop. Clive came, as did Alex Stewart, our part-time employee and friend. Moira, who owns the Meller Spa came, too, looking perfect as usual. She was sporting a very chic haircut, very short all over. It suited her, even if the circumstances weren’t the greatest. Moira’s had some health problems, chemotherapy, in fact. Elena, the craft store owner was there, as was Kayleigh, who’d bought the linens shop a year earlier. A local restauranteur by the name of Kostas dropped by, as did several others I didn’t know very well. Even Dan, who had once owned an independent bookstore in the area, showed up, back from his new home in Florida. I was very happy to see them all, particularly because not one person mentioned the affair of the fake Mackintosh, at least not at first.

The first round was on the house. We all had Highland Park Single Malt, Trevor’s favorite. “Here’s to Trevor Wylie,” Rendall Sinclair, the publican said. “He had his faults, but his choice of whisky wasn’t one of them.” It was a good toast, and kept the event from being too maudlin, and soon everyone was sharing their favorite story about Trevor. I decided that, under the circumstances, I wasn’t about to contribute to this, but the tales, tall some of them, were funny, and I found myself warming to Trevor a little once again.

When I thought about it, though, all the stories had one thing in common. Elena was telling a story about how she’d been bested by Trevor in some business dealing or other. “I could have killed him,” she concluded. “Oops! I didn’t mean that.” Everyone assured her they knew that, that it was just an expression.

“Why would anyone want to murder Trevor?” Dan said.

Clive opened his mouth to speak, but I gave him a look that should have turned him to stone. Moira added a jab in the ribs.

“Were you going to say something, Clive?” Dan asked.

“I was just going to suggest we order some snacks,” Clive said. Moira smiled at me.

But that had been the nub of it, surely. Trevor, for all his charm, was always getting the better of people, always taking shortcuts of some kind at other people’s expense, but doing it in such a way we all forgave him. Except for one person, whoever that might be. Trevor had taken his little escapades just one step too far, with someone who was not only immune to his charm, but had a short fuse. Someone like Blair Bazillionaire.

As I listened in a rather subdued fashion to the conversations around me, I thought about Anna Chan’s conviction that Trevor knew what he had, and her comment about his needing time to set up the scam. It occurred to me that I’d been seeing rather more of Trevor in the last couple of months than at any time previously. He’d regularly made dates at the bar for the shopkeeper’s association we’d set up in the neighborhood, and in fact had to all intents and purposes become the leader of the group, which was fine with the rest of us. Dan the bookseller had done it for a while, but he’d closed up shop when one of the big chains had opened up nearby and retired to Florida. After that the group had languished until Trevor had taken an interest. Was there, I wondered, something more to Trevor’s enthusiasm than met the eye? In other words, had he been setting me up for the two months since the second cabinet had arrived? I was losing my edge, charmed by a guy who looked like Sean Connery. Any warm feelings engendered by the wake evaporated. I should sell my half of the business to Clive, I thought. I should follow Dan to Florida.

The Dwarfie Stane was a very pleasant place, rather modern in design despite being named after some ancient tomb, with lots of comfortable chairs and alcoves, and a beautiful granite-topped bar with lots of mirror and chrome to show off the single malts, of which there were many. I had a sense that someone was watching me, and sure enough, sitting facing the bar but watching in the mirror was Detective Singh. I’d heard about police attending the funeral of a murder victim, but not the wake. This did not improve my mood any. This seemed rather tasteless of him to me, but then everything was making me crabby these days, something Clive and Rob had both pointed out to me. I walked right up to the bar, told Rendall I’d like to buy the next round, and then said, “Hello, Detective Singh. Off-duty are we?” He had a glass of something in front of him, but it might well have been soda and a folded newspaper.

“Seen the late edition of the paper?” Singh said. I could tell that Rendall had not only heard, but was interested in the conversation.

“Not yet,” I replied. He unfolded the newspaper to the top of the front page and slid it along the counter toward me. “Axe Murderer at Large,” the headline screamed.

“Only one person other than our small team at the station knew about the axe,” he said.

“Two, including Percy,” I said. “I have told no one.”

“The elusive Percy,” he snorted. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. If it did, you wouldn’t be sitting here swigging single malt. You’d be down at the station with me.”

At this point I just wanted to go home, but I went back to the group, not wanting to seem rude. As I sat there, who should come in but Percy himself. “Percy,” I said, standing up. He turned at the sound of my voice, then sprinted back out the door. It took me a minute to climb over everybody, wedged as I was in the middle of a large sofa, and behind a long table, but as soon as I was able, I, too, was out the door and running down the street in the direction I thought he’d gone. I caught sight of his head a couple of times, but it was soon pretty clear I’d lost him. I made my way back slowly, peering into the shops that were still open, of which there were not many, and going into my own to say good night to Ben, our student. Detective Singh was standing at the door of the Stane when I got back.

“Lose somebody?” he said.

“Percy,” I replied. “The guy who doesn’t exist?”

“Really,” Singh said. It wasn’t a question. He didn’t believe me.

“Yes, really,” I replied.

“How convenient,” he said. “Just when I’m in the neighborhood.”

“Come on! You can’t help but have noticed he ran away when I called his name.”

“Not that I saw,” he said, returning to his seat at the bar. I decided it was time to go home and went to the bar to pay my tab.

“Lara,” Rendall said, appearing from the back. “Call for you. You can take it my office. I’ll show you the way.”

That seemed a bit odd to me, given I have a cell phone, but I followed Rendall down a corridor and into a back room. “There’s no phone call,” he said. “I need your advice. First, that guy you went chasing after. He’s been in here a fair bit. He was asking about you. He’s Orcadian, and…”

“What’s Orcadian?” I said.

“From Orkney. It’s the name of the place that attracted him I’m sure. The Dwarfie Stane is a tomb on the island of Hoy in Orkney. He was also asking about a fellow Orcadian called Trevor Wylie.”

“I thought Trevor was from Glasgow,” I said.

“Not originally. He was born on the Mainland.”

“The Mainland of what?”

“Mainland, Orkney.”

“I’m not sure I know exactly where Orkney is,” I said. “All I know is that wherever it is, Trevor was glad to have left it.”

“Dull as dishwater is what he called it.”

“That doesn’t sound like Trevor.”

“Aye. Perhaps I edited it for your delicate ears. Boring as shite is what he said.”

“That sounds more like it. So where is Orkney?”

“Group of Scottish islands and too small a place for our Trevor. The thing is I told that fellow where to find Trevor. You don’t think…”

“That he killed Trevor? No, I don’t. He looked pretty harmless to me,” I said. “His name is Percy, right?”

“That’s not the name I recall. Arthur, that’s what it was.”

“Are you sure?” I said, but it was a stupid question. Like all good publicans, Rendall didn’t forget a name.

“I’m pretty sure it was Arthur. Do you think I should tell the police?”

“I don’t think it would help,” I said. “Singh, the policeman at the bar, didn’t believe there was anyone by the name of Percy at Trevor’s place, and if you tell him the name is Arthur, he’ll be really skeptical. But you decide. As far as I’m concerned, we never had this conversation.”

“What conversation?” he said. “You’re not worried he was asking who you are?”

“Not really. I’m just as suspicious of him as he is of me.”

“I told him you owned an antique shop down the street. He seemed to be satisfied by that.”

“Okay. It’s not a secret. You wouldn’t happen to know of a place called St. Margaret’s Hope, would you?”

“Indeed, I do. Lovely little town on South Ronaldsay. You should visit Orkney some time.”

“I just might do that,” I said.

My day ended as it began, at the police station with Singh. I arrived there at the same time that Betsy Baldwin, Blair’s ex-wife did. She, too, came to sign a statement and gave me a tight little smile. I’d always liked Betsy and was sorry when she and Blair parted. I didn’t think it looked good for Blair that she was there.

In what I can only describe as a stroke of bad luck, our exit from the station coincided with the arrival of Blair, handcuffed and surrounded by dozens of reporters and cameras. The media was all over this one, in all its gore. Through the chaos, though, Blair saw me. “This is your fault,” he hissed, as the crowd swept past. I noticed he hadn’t called me “babe.”

“I wonder how he knew about my statement,” Betsy sighed. “I didn’t want to give it, not that I had any choice. They knew.”

“Sorry?”

“He blames me for his being pulled in for questioning, but I don’t know how he’d know what I said,” she replied.

“I think he was blaming me,” I said. “He thinks I misled him on something.”

“I’m sure he meant me,” she said. “The police looked into his background and discovered I’d once called them about his violent behavior. He hit me, you know. More than once. That’s why I left him.”

“I had no idea,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s why he didn’t contest the divorce. I agreed to shut up about it, and he paid up big. Now, though, with the police all over this, I didn’t have much of a choice. He has such a temper. There were times when I was afraid he was going to kill me, and for sure he hurt me a lot. Now maybe he has killed someone. I think my statement will be rather damning. I’m sorry he blames me, though. I did love him. Still do.” I left it at that. I knew Blair had meant me, but it seemed a rather silly argument to have with her under the circumstances.