Sail of Stone

“You’ll have to tell me sometime. It’s interesting.”

“It’s mostly very sad stories,” said Macdonald.

39

An abandoned stroller lay upside down in the concrete stairway in the viaduct. It was yellow and blue. It immediately reminded Winter of an earlier case, still painfully in his memory. Macdonald turned it over without saying anything.

The wind on the bridge was harsh. Winter had a view over the city and the river and the mountains to the south. There was a closed-down bakery to the left down there. They walked a hundred yards along Longman Road and turned off at the police station, which looked relatively newly built, and for that reason stood out among the buildings around it.

They walked in under the bilingual sign: Inverness Command Area. Sgire Comannd Inbhirnis. The office reminded Winter of the Police Palace at home, the same worn charm, the international brotherhood’s surly reception of a public in need. Some of them were sitting in there with the same expression as everywhere else. A mixture of helplessness and fear, of solitude in a world that wasn’t kind. A woman was standing at the counter and carrying on a conversation in something that must have been Gaelic; her voice was high and hollow like a cracked muffler, and the words seemed to rasp through the room. There was a notice on the other side of the wall: Deiligeadh leis a h-uile tachartas de ghiulan mishoisealta gu h-eifeachdach. There was what Winter presumed was a translation next to it: To effectively tackle all incidents of antisocial behavior.

A proud task for the international brotherhood, his and Steve’s. Put quote marks around “effectively.” But we try. At the same time, the damned society doesn’t want to stand still so we can get some order in the middle of everything that is antisocial, or has become antisocial.

Another poster was hanging on the wall in yellow and black: Going to the Hills? Let Us Know Before You Go.

Axel Osvald hadn’t followed this request. But he hadn’t climbed that high.

Jamie Craig came out from a door to the right of the glassed-in reception area. He looked like he sounded. Brutal. His cheeks were red and chapped, which might have been due to whisky or the Highland air or both. He greeted Macdonald with a professional handshake that lacked enthusiasm, and he pressed Winter’s hand quickly and firmly.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They walked through underground corridors. The lighting was weak and it cast shadows that might have been anything at all from the last hundred years. Winter thought of the gas works, which he’d seen from the bridge. Maybe there was a running hundred-year agreement between the police and the gas company.

When they came up, the light was blinding and electric. Johanna Osvald was waiting in a room.

Winter gave her a hug. She greeted Macdonald. They stood in the middle of the room.

“I’m… we’re leaving in a few hours,” she said.

“I know,” said Winter.

“You wanted to see him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Winter, but he knew; he knew something he couldn’t explain, even to himself.

“But it was a natural death,” said Johanna with doubt in her voice: I do not accept death as natural. Not this one.

Axel Osvald looked like he was sleeping. Winter sat at his head for two minutes and then got up. Osvald’s hair was brushed back, and there was a weak shadow of stubble on his cheeks. Winter couldn’t tell whether he’d been unshaven or recently shaven when he died. The beard continued to grow on dead men, and the nails too. It was natural.

Macdonald and Johanna and Craig waited in the bare room.

“Let’s go,” said Craig.

They returned through the same corridor. Johanna’s hair looked like gold. Winter thought he smelled gas. It was cold down there, colder since he’d seen the body. He felt goose bumps on his upper arms. These passages must have existed when the buildings above had been different, in another time. They had been saved as a reminder.

They came up into a new light that blinded their eyes. Craig showed them into his office, which was a glass cage in the middle of an office landscape. He could see all of his subordinates, but they could also see him. Winter couldn’t have stood being there for ten minutes, but Craig moved about as though he could see out but no one could see in, the way it was in rooms they had used before for witness lineups. But the other way around.

Craig showed them to three chairs that had been put there for this purpose. He sat behind his desk, which was clear of papers, pens, stands, baskets, ashtrays, everything. The top of the desk gleamed, as though Craig devoted all his time to polishing it. Winter met Macdonald’s glance. One of those. The telephone stood on a little side table. Behind Craig people were working to effectively tackle all incidents of antisocial behavior. Winter could see this through the glass. Men and women in and out of uniform were moving back and forth, telephones were picked up and put down, computer screens flickered at random. Winter saw two officers come in wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, with machine guns strapped on. A man who looked southern European and dismal was sitting next to one of the desks closest to Craig’s glass wall, and he seemed to be staring at the back of Craig’s neck.

“I believe we’ve done all we can here,” Craig said, scratching that neck.

“We appreciate it,” said Winter.

Johanna Osvald nodded. She had been very quiet during the hike through the corridors, as though she were already sitting on the plane with her father in a coffin among all the Samsonite suitcases in the belly of the plane.

“There’s still that car,” said Craig.

“We met the rental guy,” said Winter. “Cameron.”

“Nice fellow,” Craig said with a thin smile.

“Stolen cars usually turn up right quick,” Macdonald said.

Craig seemed to stiffen, just barely.

“That’s why I’m bringing it up,” he said, and he got up and walked to a filing cabinet and opened it.

He came back with a piece of paper and sat down and put on a pair of reading glasses.

“Between April and July this year we had one hundred twelve auto thefts in the greater city and all but one of the cars showed up,” he said. “We also caught forty-six car thieves in the act.” He looked up. “It was peak season.”

“Admirable,” said Macdonald.

“Which part is admirable?”

Craig smiled; perhaps there was an ironic wrinkle in one corner of his mouth.

“Your statistics.”

“We’re the best in all of Scotland,” he said.

“This car,” said Winter, “that it didn’t come back. That indicates a crime, of course. Maybe a violent crime.”

“Yes,” said Craig, “that’s exactly why I’m bringing it up. But of course it’s not necessarily connected to the death.” He looked at Johanna, who was looking at something else through the window walls. “He could have gotten rid of the car somewhere else.”

“Is that likely?” said Winter.

“No.”

“Someone could have given him a ride in a different car to Fort Augustus,” said Macdonald.

“In that case we’re really talking about a crime here,” said Craig.