Sail of Stone

“Sorry?” said Winter.

“There comes a time,” said Osvald, who spoke Scottish English.

“A time for what?” said Macdonald, who was now standing next to Winter.

No answer.

“A time for what?” Macdonald repeated.

“A time to tell,” said Osvald. He gestured with his arm, his hand. Winter looked at his jacket pocket again. It was…

“To tell what?” Macdonald asked.

He took a step closer.

“Stay away from me!” Osvald yelled.

“To tell what?” Macdonald repeated.

“Take it easy, Steve,” said Winter.

Winter looked at Osvald’s jacket pocket. He looked at Macdonald. He opened his mouth again to warn-

“Tell me what there is to tell,” said Macdonald, who could almost reach Osvald now.

“Nooooo!” Osvald suddenly yelled, and he pulled a pistol out of his jacket pocket and shot it. Winter had time to register the Luger with his eyes, and he heard the bullet pass between himself and Macdonald. Winter was already moving to the side, a reflex. He didn’t have a weapon. Macdonald didn’t have a weapon. Winter heard another shot, and another; he didn’t hear any bullets, but he saw Macdonald, ahead and to the side, get hit in the throat, he saw the blood start to spurt like a fountain, a gurgling sound from Macdonald, an open wound in Macdonald’s shoulder where the other bullet must have exited, a slow movement as Macdonald began to fall, the taste of sand in his mouth, of horrid fucking sand that filled Winter’s face, the image of the earth spinning around and around and becoming a blue clump of sea and sky, and then suddenly the sound of footsteps passing him but from the other direction, and through the haze of sand he saw Erik Osvald’s profile, and he heard a scream up ahead, and another from a direction he couldn’t determine, and he thought about how he had lured Macdonald into this, that he was responsible and no one else, that he would have to face Sarah and see her face, and she would have to face the children, the twins, and he pawed the sand out of his face and hurled himself up and forward and screamed and screamed, screamed like a madman.

53

When everything was over, Winter could look back. When everything was said and done, he saw that everything meant something else. Everything came undone.

Identity is a loan, a role, a mask. We cross the border between truth and lies and the light thickens into dark.

O, never

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men

May read strange matters. To beguile the time,

Look like the time…

Winter had read Macbeth late in the evening, a paperback he’d found in the little book and stationery shop next to the entrance of the hospital in Elgin where Macdonald had received care for his gunshot wounds. In two or three days he would be transported to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, but that was too risky now. But he would survive.

You could have said that Macdonald had been lucky, if that expression could be used in this situation. But it wasn’t luck. It was something linked to everything that had happened, everything that had come to a head on the beach in Cullen.

It was John Osvald’s daughter who had called the police even before the shots were fired. John Osvald’s daughter.

Her name was Anna Johnson, and she had seen them walk toward her father on the beach. She had stood at the window with the view of half the beach, and it was enough for her to see her father, and then the men who approached him, and Macdonald, who got too close.

She had come rushing across the sand at the same time the ambulance screamed up from between the cliffs.

It had been nearby when the call came, on its way west from Macduff.

It took Macdonald to the nearest emergency room, twelve miles to the west on A96.

Macdonald’s blood had been black in the sand. The large spot had looked like a stone. Suddenly there was a shallow wave, as the sea rose, and the blood had been washed away.

John Osvald hadn’t moved.

They still had to talk to him. He was mute now.

He was sitting in the jail in Inverness. Chief Inspector Craig still hadn’t spoken with him.

His grandson had been motionless on the beach, crushed. Winter had tried to talk to Erik Osvald even while Macdonald was still lying injured in the sand. Erik had bent over him. Winter didn’t know whether Macdonald was dead. He had felt his heart pounding like the hammer at the shipyard at Buckie. He hadn’t tried to talk to Erik, he had screamed, kept screaming as the sound of the shots was still echoing over Cullen; Winter had screamed his question to Erik Osvald, the usual old damned question: Why?

They would piece it together, stitch by stitch.

Erik Osvald had been in contact with his grandfather.

The grandson was still in a state of shock. It wasn’t yet clear when they had first made a connection.

But the blue trawler, the Magdalena, that shining modern vessel, was in the harbor at Cullen as proof. Money had been put into it, lots of money.

It was a matter of penance, of guilt.

But in the end, that wasn’t enough for John Osvald.

Night fell over Elgin. Macdonald was unconscious; he was in critical but stable condition. Winter could see Sarah at his bedside; half the wall was made of glass and for a second he thought of the walls around Jamie Craig’s office at the police station in Inverness.

The light around Steve and Sarah was blue.

Angela held on to his shoulders.

“Let’s go out for a while,” he said.

The air was fresh and clean on the street, but the wind was mild. Indian summer continued. Winter could see the silhouette of the cathedral above the buildings of the city. He couldn’t help but think of the viaducts through Cullen. Seatown below.

He and Steve and Sarah and Angela had passed through Elgin when they drove to Aberdeen. That was only yesterday. Good God.

Macdonald had said that Elgin Cathedral had once been considered one of the most beautiful in Scotland, the only one that could compete with St. Andrews in beauty.

Now it was only a shell, but the facade was the same, and its beauty remained when the cathedral became a silhouette in the night. The darkness did what it could to maintain beauty.

They sat on a bench. Neither of them spoke.

Winter’s phone rang. He let it ring.

“I think you should get that,” said Angela.

He answered. It was Ringmar.

“How is Steve doing now?” Ringmar asked.

“He’s going to make it,” said Winter.

They had spoken during the afternoon, after the shooting. Ringmar had also had information, shocking information. It was a unique afternoon.