Dalintober Moon
Authors: Denzil Meyrick
Tags: #Detective and Mystery Fiction, #Short Fiction
Dalintober Moon: A DCI Daley Story
Denzil Meyrick
(2014)
DALINTOBER MOON
DALINTOBER MOON
A D.C.I. Daley Short Story
Denzil Meyrick
A note on the author
Denzil Meyrick was born in Glasgow and brought up in Campbeltown. After studying politics, he pursued a varied career including time spent as a police officer, freelance journalist and director of several companies in the engineering, leisure and marketing sectors. His first novel,
Whisky from Small Glasses
, was published in 2012 and will be reissued by Polygon in 2015. His second book,
The Last Witness
, published by Polygon in 2014, reached the top twenty of the UK eBook charts. He lives on Loch Lomond side with his wife Fiona.
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd.
Birlinn Ltd
West Newington House
10 Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS
Copyright © Denzil Meyrick 2014
The right of Denzil Meyrick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
eBook ISBN 978-0-85790-853-7
To the other wee boys who caught the taxi to school in Dalintober, every day, long, long ago.
The action in this short story takes place between that of novels
Whisky from Small Glasses
and
The Last Witness
.
Dedicated to the people of Campbeltown.
I
Thankfully the rain had stopped, but the wind raged on as Daley and a handful of others gazed down at the hole in the sodden sand. Even though it was mid-morning, the dark sky seemed to hang low over the tiny beach, sucking the light from the day.
Once a separate village in its own right, Dalintober had been eaten up by Kinloch over the years, and now formed the town’s northern shore. Its inhabitants, though, still thought of themselves as apart from the rest of the community; and many were descendents of the old fishing settlement’s population. For them, Kinloch was the interloper.
‘Yes, well, I think we can say that judging by the nature of the remains this isn’t a recent burial, Chief Inspector,’ said the young doctor McLaren. ‘We’ll have to get your forensic boys to get it out of there and send it up the road for more rigorous testing, but from this initial examination I’d say the body’s been here for decades, if not longer.’
Daley stared down at the skeleton, the skull of which was angled back, leaning on the bony knees. It appeared to be staring up at him. The remains were contained within a large black barrel, and in remarkable condition given the time they might have spent buried in the sand of Dalintober beach.
‘The SOCO boys are on their way,’ said Daley. ‘Should be here within the hour. We’ll need to get the body and the barrel out of the sand before the tide turns, but they’re bringing the right kit they tell me, so all the better.’
‘It’s a sherry butt,’ said council workman Anderson, the fluorescent orange of his jacket bright in the November gloom.
‘What?’ said Daley.
‘Type of barrel, Mr Daley. I used to work in the distillery, and these are the big casks they buy from Spain tae fill with whisky. All the best stuff comes oot o’ a fresh sherry cask. Aye, and you pay for it, tae. They’d never have fitted the poor bastard in a hoggy.’
It was clear that the body had been crammed into the cask then buried deep in the sand. Only the exceptional severity of the storms that had lashed Kinloch for the last four days had managed to strip away layers of sand and expose the white bones of the corpse. Remnants of blackened cloth lay at the feet of the skeleton, save for one piece attached to a buckle, which had rusted to the bones of the right shoulder. The top of the whisky cask had rotted away, exposing its gristly contents.
Daley contemplated the skull’s rictus grin. Even if this unfortunate individual was indeed from an earlier time, this was obviously a crime; one side of the skull appeared to have been smashed by some blunt force. He watched as the doctor examined it further. As far as he was aware, there was no tradition of such burials in Kinloch, though, in the town he now called home, anything was possible.
As he ruminated on this most baffling problem, the shrill voice of a woman could be heard on the wind.
‘Let me through!’ she shouted at the uniformed cops who were trying to hold her back. ‘Jeest get yer hands off me this meenit!’ Her tone changed to one of pleading. ‘I might be able tae help you here.’
As Daley stood up, his knees clicked and popped, and he grimaced in response. ‘OK, lads, let her through.’ Now unhindered, the elderly woman, dressed in a bulky waterproof jacket, made her way to the hole in the ground. Without a word to Daley or anybody else, she put her face in her hands and began to wail, ‘Grampa Billy! Efter all this time, Grampa Billy!’
II
‘Please take a seat, Mrs Hutchinson,’ said Daley, glad to be out of the biting wind of Dalintober beach. Across from him sat the old lady who had cried when she saw the skeleton in the barrel. She was quiet now, with a look of great sadness on her face.
‘I’m sorry I made such a fuss jeest there, Inspector.’ She took a gulp of the warm tea Daley had given her. ‘I just didna expect tae find oot the truth in my lifetime, that’s all.’
‘The truth?’
‘Of whoot heppened tae my grampa Billy, Mr Daley. I don’t think any o’ the family ever thought we’d find out what that brute McMunn did tae him.’
‘McMunn? I’m afraid I’m a bit lost, Mrs Hutchinson. Can you tell me from the start, please?’
‘Aye, jeest so, Mr Daley, jeest so,’ she said taking a sip of her tea and settling back in the chair. ‘My faither was jeest a wee boy when it happened. 1910 it was, before the Great War, ye understand.’
Daley nodded as the woman spoke. Her expression was blank, as though she was seeing pictures before her mind’s eye.
‘My grampa Billy worked at Wellside Distillery – long gone noo, mind, but a thriving business at the time. Och well, apparently he was a good-looking lad – curly hair, blue eyes – and folk often said that my faither was his spitting image. A nice young man, full of fun, and only twenty-three when it happened.’
‘When what happened?’
‘Him and Archie McMunn were on the nightshift. Archie was a wee bit older than my grampa, no’ much, mebbees in his late twenties. He’d been in the army for a wee while, but it didna suit him – well, mair like he didna suit it, I wid say.’
‘Why was that, do you know, Mrs Hutchinson?’
‘Och, at the time everybody knew whoot Archie was like. A brutal man, Mr Daley, cruel, wid fight with his own shadow, or so they said. He had a lovely wee wife, gied her a hell o’ a time, apparently. Didna stop there, neithers. He was jeest as cruel tae the folk he worked with. His uncle was the distillery manager, so he got the job as foreman. If you didna dae as you were telt, well, you suffered the consequences. He had a right spite at my grampa Billy for some reason, tae. Poor Grampa would come home black and blue from his work, regular, so my faither said.’
‘Didn’t he complain?’
‘Whoot was the point? With McMunn’s uncle the boss, who would have listened?’
‘True, I suppose,’ said Daley, trying to imagine the young man’s plight at the hands of his vicious foreman.
‘In those days, you jeest shut up an’ got on wae it. There was no benefits or the like, so if you lost your job you and your family starved, so Grampa Billy wid likely have had tae jeest grin and bear it all.’ She wiped away a tear.
‘Take your time, no hurry.’
‘Och, I’m jeest being stupid, Mr Daley. I didna even know my grampa, but I’ve heard so many tales aboot him, I feel as though I can picture him standing before me as plain as day. Do you know how it is?’
‘I do,’ Daley replied, remembering how real the stories his mother had told him about her father had made the man, despite the fact he had been killed in World War II, long before Daley was born.
‘At any rate, this night the two o’ them was on nightshift,’ continued Mrs Hutchinson with a sniff. Despite being in her eighties, she was clear-eyed and sharp-witted. ‘Their job was tae load a coastal puffer wae barrels o’ whisky so the captain could catch the tide first thing in the morning. They had a horse and cairt and used tae put the barrels on a pulley and lever them aboard the boat. I mind seeing it done when I was a wee lassie.’
‘Wasn’t it dark?’
‘Aye, nae electric lights or anything like that in they days, Mr Daley. Normally, they wid work by the light o’ the boat’s big storm lanterns. But on this night – so the story goes – they didna need them. There was a Dalintober moon.’
‘A what?’
‘Jeest that, a Dalintober moon – big an’ blue in the sky, lit up the whole scene. You don’t see them very often.’
‘Once in a blue moon?’
‘Aye, well, a Dalintober moon’s no’ as regular as that,’ she said dismissively, with another sniff.
‘So where were the crew?’
‘Och, sure you know, Mr Daley. Oot in the toon enjoying themselves. The whisky boats were dry, ye see. Wae all that booze on board, it widna do for the crew tae get drunk and start tapping intae barrels o’ whisky to keep the sensation going. They were paid by how quick they were. The earlier they got intae port, the mair money they got. A well-oiled machine at sea, and well-oiled in port, if you know whoot I mean.’
‘So your grandfather and this McMunn are loading the boat?’
‘Aye, jeest so. The crew got back efter their carousing – in the early hours o’ the morning, you understand – and there was no sign o’ either o’ them, neither my grandfaither or McMunn. The horse jeest standing haltered tae the cairt, fair scunnered, but o’ them nothing. The next day they found Grampa Billy’s bunnet washed up on the shore at Dalintober beach.’
‘Really?’ remarked Daley, remembering the location of the skeleton.
‘Aye. At first, everyone thought they’d had some accident – a fight mair like – tumbled intae the sea an’ drooned. For years folk thought it, that my grandfaither had enough o’ McMunn’s bullying an’ fought back. And then, twenty years later, the money started,’ she said in a matter-of-fact way.
‘What money?’
‘McMunn’s wife started tae get money from America. At first naebody knew where it came from, but her son, born jeest two months efter the pair o’ them went missing, started poking about.’ Mrs Hutchinson sat back in her seat and sighed. ‘Turns oot that after killing my grandfaither, McMunn had made it tae America, where he’d made good. He was the mayor o’ a wee toon in New Jersey. The boy wanted tae go over tae America tae see him, but McMunn didna want tae know. Kept sending the money, mind.’
‘Surely there was some kind of official investigation? This was a murder, after all,’ said Daley.
‘Och, you know fine. He was interviewed by the police over there. They were happy with his story.’
‘Which was?’
‘Jeest that Grampa Billy had attacked him, would you believe? In the scuffle, my grandfaither fell overboard. McMunn said he panicked, made it tae Glesca and worked a passage tae America, an’ that was that.’
‘So he basically got off with murder,’ said Daley with a shake of his head.
‘Aye, that he did, Inspector. Though today is the first time we’ve been able tae prove it. In them days if there wiz no body tae be found, the polis jeest weren’t interested, an’ that’s a fact.’
‘What was your grandfather’s second name, Mrs Hutchinson?’
‘Cardle, Willliam Cardle,’ she replied as another tear slipped down her cheek.
‘Cardle? There are still Cardles in Kinloch now, aren’t there?’ said Daley, recognising the name from somewhere.
‘Aye, and McMunns tae. There’s been a feud ever since. My ain great nephew was up in court recently for fighting with Hugh McMunn, I’m ashamed to say. Some things never change, Mr Daley.’
‘Ian Cardle, am I right?’
‘Yes, you are,’ she replied ruefully. ‘In wee places like this, Mr Daley, a slight is a slight and can last for generations. My grandmother struggled tae bring my faither and his brother up on a pittance, while the man who killed oor grandfaither made sure his family wanted for nothing.’
‘I can see that would cause bad feeling, Mrs Hutchinson.’
‘Mair than that, Mr Daley. Both families hate each other. All these years, me, my weans – theirs, tae – have been playing on that beach, no’ knowing that poor Grampa Billy is right underneath us, horribly murdered. I’ll tell you something for nothing, finding my Grampa Billy deid in a barrel will dae nothing tae make this feud any better. Aye, no matter how many years have passed.’