Sail of Stone

“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.”