There are some lovely places out there. The army taught me a lot, but I don’t intend taking orders from anyone again.’ There was more movement, scuffling. ‘Well, it’s been great talking to you, but I have to go now. Enjoy having my life, but don’t worry, in this temperature and without food and water, it won’t last long.’ The voice was receding.
‘Where am I?’ Mariner called out in desperation.
‘Just think of it as coming home.’ There was a brief flash of light, followed by a clunk, and darkness and silence again prevailed.
Mariner knew he should make some effort to move towards that light, to try to get out of here, but he had no energy. He was exhausted. All he wanted to do was sleep. Rolling onto his side, he closed his eyes.
Chapter Twenty-One
Armed with a warrant to obtain the relevant information, Jack Coleman accompanied Knox up to Scotland himself. ‘I’d no idea my last week on the job would be so exciting,’ he said, grimly.
‘No sir,’ but Knox wasn’t really listening. He was staring out of the tiny cabin widow at the precariously wobbling wing, his hands gripping the arm rests until his knuckles were white. Even Coleman’s concession of a pre-fight drink had failed to calm his nerves. It didn’t help of course that the aircraft was a small fifteen-seater shuttle that creaked and rattled its path through the sky, and he couldn’t decide if this was a fair trade for a couple of nights away from home. Selina hadn’t taken it well, and if he hadn’t dodged at the right moment, he would have found himself explaining something else to the DCI.
‘Not long now,’ said Coleman.
‘When we find him, I’ll make bloody sure the DI knows what he’s put me through,’ Knox retorted. But he didn’t express what he knew must have crossed Coleman’s mind, too; that it might be ‘if’ and not ‘when’.
Knox’s discomfort came to an end just over an hour later as they touched down at a grey, cloudy Glasgow airport in the early afternoon. Picking up a hire car they took the M8 to north of Glasgow and into the open country through rolling hills to Wicktown, a bleak and functional collection of buildings strung out along a narrow main street that was more the size of a large village.
Their first stop was a courtesy call to the nearest local police station, where Coleman had expressed hope for a man of his own generation, who would remember something about Our Lady of Lourdes. They were to be unlucky. DC Tyrell was in his mid-thirties and had recently transferred from Dunfermline. But he was able to direct them to Hollyfield Grange.
The retreat-turned-health-club was a solid granite manor house some way out of the town, whose long drive cut through an avenue of stunted trees. An expansive, gravel car park was littered with luxury vehicles, from 4x4s to sports coupés. Duncan, the manager, was older than Knox expected, around fifty, with immaculately groomed hair, so flawlessly black that it could only be from a bottle, ditto the tan. He’d already checked that they had permission to access the files.
Inside, the building had been gutted and completely refurbished in ultra-modern glass and stainless steel, and the atmosphere was hushed as he took them through thick-carpeted corridors away from the main reception area, past tanning rooms and therapy suites. Everyone they met, whether dressed in shiny designer sports wear or the white uniforms of the staff, seemed to glow with unnatural good health. It was just the sort of place Mariner hated, thought Knox.
‘How long are you gentlemen in bonnie Scotland?’ Duncan turned a dazzling white smile on Knox, his gaze lingering just a little too long.
‘Until the job’s done,’ said Knox, stonily.
‘Well if you would care to avail yourselves of our facilities here, we’d love to have you. We’re always happy to accommodate officers of the law.’
‘Thanks,’ said Knox. ‘But I don’t do health clubs.’ He was sure he saw Coleman smirk.
They’d come to a storeroom, its steel reinforced door securely locked. ‘We had a break-in a couple of years ago,’ Duncan told them, isolating a key from the bunch and unlocking the door. ‘We agreed to retain the archive here but it only if it was secured. The records are confidential after all.’ Pushing open the door, he flicked on overhead strip lighting to reveal a long, narrow room, each side lined with steel filing cabinets, ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Hope you find what you’re looking for.’
A quick glance revealed that the files were in alphabetical order, and armed with Diana’s maiden name, theoretically it should have taken only a matter of minutes to find her records. But when they got to ‘F’ the file wasn’t there.
‘Who ever broke in two years ago, must have taken it,’ said Coleman. ‘Our man was doing his research. Shit!’ He slammed the drawer shut from frustration.
Something on top of the cabinet fluttered, catching Knox’s eye. ‘No he didn’t,’ he said, grabbing the thin sheet of card. ‘He just wrote down the details and didn’t replace it.’
The record was in the form of an index card, and stated Diana Fitzgibbon’s name, age and address, along with the names and address of the couple who had adopted the 7lb 4oz boy born on 3rd July 1963. The baby hadn’t gone far.
The couple who’d adopted him, Fiona and Angus McCrae, lived at Keepers Cottage, Wicktown.
But without local knowledge Keepers Cottage proved too vague an address to locate and after an hour’s of driving around country lanes they were forced back to the police station. ‘We have names and an address,’ Coleman told Tyrell. ‘Fiona and Angus McCrae, at Keepers Lodge.’
‘Well, you’ll not find either of them there,’ the Sergeant shook his head. ‘Keepers Cottage hasn’t been inhabited for years. The only reason we get called out there is if there are kids vandalising the place, and even that’s not happened for months.’
‘Is there anyone who might know what’s happened to the McCraes?’
‘Give me a minute, will you?’ Tyrell lifted the phone. ‘Hello, Jim, I need your help with something.’ Explaining the situation to the person at the other end, he ended with the traditional pleasantries before hanging up. ‘Jim Paterson will talk to you,’ he told Coleman and Knox. ‘He was the Sergeant here until a couple of years ago. He remembers them. His house is just up the main street there, number fourteen.’
Jim Paterson’s neat bungalow was on the edge of the village. He was awaiting them and already had the kettle on. ‘Angus McCrae died back in 1978, and Fiona passed away from St Hilda’s rest home last spring,’ he told them, as they sipped tea around a tiny kitchen table. ‘She hadn’t lived at Keepers Cottage for years. It wasn’t fit for human habitation anyway, the place was an anachronism.’
‘We’re actually looking for their son,’ Coleman said.
‘Which one?’
Good question. Knox looked over at the gaffer. They hadn’t considered that there might be more than one, and had absolutely nothing to offer in the way of description.
‘We don’t know,’ said Coleman lamely. ‘He was adopted.’
‘They both were, but I’d guess it’s Kenneth you’re after. Clive still lives over in Dunnoch, but I’ve no idea what happened to Kenneth. He was a troubled boy, but then they were a very unusual family.’
‘In what way?’
‘Angus and Fiona were devout Calvinist Christians. The family kept to themselves and the children were educated at home and expected to help their father on the land. The father was a gamekeeper on the estate, when it still was an estate. Ten years ago the land was sold to the Forestry Commission and the big house converted to a country hotel and golf course. The boys’ education seemed to consist of pest control, trapping vermin and repairing damage to fences and dry-stone walls. They didn’t attend the local school and you never saw them riding bikes or hanging around like the other kids. On the rare occasions when they did come into the town it was always with their parents and they never looked happy. Often they were poorly clothed for the weather up here, and my wife used to say the whole family looked in need of a good dinner.’
‘You think the children were neglected?’
‘By modern standards, I’m pretty sure they were. These days Social Services would have been in and taken them away. I’ve an idea their mother was subjected to regular beatings too, but we’d no proof, and no one could ever get near enough to talk to her. People knew what was going on, but back then nobody discussed that kind of thing. Angus died in a shooting accident when Kenneth was about fifteen.’
‘What happened?’
‘The two of them were out on the moors and Angus was shot in the thigh. Kenneth came to get help but he got lost and it was almost dark before he got back to the village. Then we had to go out and find Angus. By the time we got there he’d bled to death. He must have died in agony.’
‘It was definitely an accident?’ Knox asked, thinking about the man they were pursuing.
‘The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death. The gun could have backfired. Who was to say that it didn’t?’ But his words lacked a certain conviction.
‘Have you any idea where Kenneth is now?’
Paterson shook his head. ‘He signed up for the army as soon as he was old enough and I haven’t seen him since, though I heard rumour a few years ago that he was back in the area. His brother might know.’
Clive McCrae still worked the land. His wife Moira took them through the spotless kitchen of their grey, pebble-dashed council semi and into the long garden, where, in the drizzle, McCrae was doing the winter work on an immaculately laid out vegetable patch, breaking up the hard frozen soil with a fork. He didn’t give them an ecstatic welcome, but stopped what he was doing to speak to them.
Knox let Coleman do the talking.
Of his relationship with Kenneth, Clive McCrae had little to say except, ‘We were never close.’
‘We know that you and Kenneth were adopted.’ Coleman gave him a quizzical look.
‘I came after him. I don’t think he ever forgave me for that.’
‘Did he resent the fact that he was adopted?’
‘We both did, to differing degrees. Everyone assumes that adopted kids are lucky, adopted into warm loving families who desperately want them. It wasn’t like that with us. We were taken in for slave labour. Kenny found it harder to deal with, but then he had a tougher time. He was older and he hated the outdoor life. He seemed to know that what we had wasn’t normal. I didn’t really understand that until I met Moira.’
‘Did Kenneth ever express any interest in knowing who his birth mother was?’
‘I know he blamed her for everything, but since he knew nothing about her it was convenient to do that. He used to say that he hoped she was dead too, that she’d died a painful death giving birth to him, because that’s what she deserved. There was a lot of hate and anger in him.’
‘About his adoption?’
‘About everything. He was hard. But my father made him that way. Like me, Kenny hated killing animals, but we were made to set traps and then our dad would watch while we took out the dead creatures and if we ever balked, he would rub our faces in the blood. Everything was done in the name of God, even the thrashings.’
‘You were beaten?’
‘Several times a week with whatever was to hand, to make us better servants of the Lord.’
‘Weren’t you angry?’
‘Anger didn’t change anything. I survived. The experience has certainly helped me to appreciate the life I have now, so perhaps my father would say it was justified, part of His plan for me.’ As he spoke McCrae raised his eyes skywards. Despite everything, he had kept his faith.
‘We could use any photographs of Kenneth,’ Coleman said.
‘I’ve only the one, and it’s hardly recent.’ Resting his fork against the fence, McCrae led them back into the house, removing his boots on the mat outside and washing his hands in the kitchen along the way. Coleman and Knox trailed him into the lounge. They remained standing as he went to the drawer of an old-fashioned oak sideboard, riffling through papers until he came up with a curled monochrome snapshot of two young boys, the taller one, lighter haired, staring expressionless into the camera. It would be no help at all. ‘I can’t even remember who took it,’ McCrae said. ‘We didn’t have a camera. We weren’t that sort of family.’
‘Which regiment did Kenneth join in the army?’ Coleman asked.
‘The Guards.’
‘And when would that have been?’
‘He joined at sixteen, as soon as he could get away from here. It would have been what, some time in ’79.’
‘Have you any idea where Kenneth is now?’
‘I heard he came back here for a while after he left the army. He’d married a German girl, and brought her back here to a caravan on Loch Cree. He was working in the security business. Then much later someone told me his marriage had broken down and his wife had gone back home. Like I said. We’ve never been close.’
Showing them out, McCrae said: ‘Our parents were cruel people and we didn’t have an easy childhood. It should have brought Kenny and me closer together, but it didn’t.’
Regimental HQ and archives for the Scots guards were at Wellington Barracks in London. Knox and Coleman retraced their steps to Wicktown police station and met Andy Tyrell.
‘Can I use your phone?’ Coleman asked.
‘Be my guest.’
Having verified Coleman’s identity, the archivist at Wellington Barracks agreed to fax through details of McCrae’s army record, including a more up-to-date photograph. He also gave them details of McCrae’s then commanding officer along with his telephone number.
‘Ever seen him before?’ Coleman handed the picture to Knox. Knox hadn’t.
Captain Ron Allgood (retired) remembered McCrae as a good soldier; ‘An excellent marksman and good at undercover work. He had a great practical aptitude and was disciplined. He could put up with more hardship than most.’
‘He’d had the experience,’ Knox murmured, under his breath.
‘Where would he have served?’ Coleman asked.