The Orkney Scroll (28 page)

Blair Bazillionaire was sitting in one of his many vehicles when I got there. I didn’t even recognize the car. I’ve been told since by Clive and Rob that it was a Maybach sedan, worth something over three hundred and fifty thousand. For all I know that’s where all rich men go when they have nothing else to do—they sit in their ridiculously expensive cars. Still, compared to a Charles Rennie Mackintosh writing cabinet, it’s a steal, particularly if a very stupid antique dealer ships you a fake one. I tried to take some comfort from that, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t find closure on this one. Nothing could make me feel better. Everything was bothering me, even my home. Toronto hadn’t changed any when I got back, but in some fundamental way, I had. The city was sophisticated, noisy, gritty, hurried, cars everywhere, people too rushed to be even polite, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I was awash in a sort of creeping melancholy not knowing where to turn. I even suggested to Clive that we sell the business, quit while we were ahead. All he said was, “Define ahead.”

Standing there, it occurred to me that Blair liked sitting in his car because it was quiet. It was relatively pleasant in his secluded and leafy neighborhood. From his driveway, the cacophony of the city had been reduced to a hum, punctuated by the soft wail of a siren somewhere in the distance.
Maybe,
I thought,
that’s what money really buys: silence.
He rolled down the window as I approached.

“Hey, babe,” he said. “I’ve been planning to call you. What’s cookin?”

“I know you killed Trevor Wylie,” I said.

“Do you now?”

“Yes.”

“Can you prove it? Not that it matters. The judge threw the case out. I have an airtight alibi, one that will be believed because of the—shall we say embarrassing?— circumstances attached to it. I suppose I’ll have to marry her though. Anyway, they’re looking for some guy called Dog. They won’t be arresting me for this one again.”

“I guess not,” I said. I was feeling very tired at that moment, even though I’d done little else but sleep since I got home; I was also oddly disinterested, given the subject at hand.

“Don’t guess, babe. Know it.”

“Okay, I know it. But you did do it.” A slight breeze rustled the leaves of the trees, masking the siren that grew closer.

“Maybe I did.” He was smirking. “Maybe he irritated the hell out of me. Maybe he just picked the wrong guy to rip off.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “That was quite the legal maneuver you pulled, hiring Dez Crane when you were having an affair with his wife.”

“Had to get her to come forward somehow, didn’t I, babe?”

“She didn’t come forward voluntarily?”

“Hell, no! I had to force the issue, didn’t I? She didn’t give me much choice. She was going to let me fry rather than tell her husband about our affair. I fired my legal counsel, hired Dez, and then had the distinct pleasure of telling him I had an alibi, which was to say that I was with his wife. It was worth it just to see the expression on his face.”

“You’ll probably be reprimanded for that ploy.”

“Would it surprise you to know I don’t care? I’m on top of the world right now, babe. Tell me why I shouldn’t be.”

“How about because you’re going to be charged with drug trafficking and money laundering? You know, sort of like Al Capone: They couldn’t get him for all the murders, so they got him for tax evasion. I suppose that will have to do.” Now Blair wasn’t looking quite so smug.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Actually I do know something about money laundering,” I said. “It comes with being close to a police officer. Money laundering is, as my partner is always telling me, really very simple, in theory anyway. It’s all about either overvaluing or undervaluing something in order to move money around, money obtained, of course, from illicit activities. Robert Alexander, drug dealer and generally scum, someone who had a sense of… shall we say irony?… so profound he could donate money to help those whose misery he had personally caused, was in possession of some of your furniture and a necklace of yours. He paid way too much for them. By furniture I am referring to a chair by Antoni Gaudi, a sideboard by Victor Horta, and a Liberty and Company garnet and pearl necklace. Their combined worth is a hundred and fifty thousand tops. Alexander paid you well over a million, minus a small commission to Trevor Wylie.”

“You don’t say.”

“I do say. I saw them, and Robert Alexander was stupid enough to try and make sure I didn’t have a good look, once he realized I did know all about them, by moving the chair and pretending to steal the necklace. I have to say that really irked me. Then there is my personal favorite, the Charles Rennie Mackintosh writing cabinet. This is the flip side, the undervaluing of an object. There was a real one, belonging to Robert Alexander. Alexander still owed you money, so he shipped it, again via Trevor to you. The reason there is no record of a transaction between you and Trevor is that you didn’t pay for the Mackintosh writing cabinet at all. It was actually a payment to you. Alexander owed you a few million for drugs, and all that cash crossing international boundaries and all, well, it is just so inconvenient. So he sent you something you wanted, a Charles Rennie Mackintosh writing cabinet valued at ten thousand on the books, but worth something in the millions, and presto you’re paid. No fuss, no muss, no bribing of bank officials, no setting up of bogus businesses.

“All you needed was someone to make the transfer happen, which is to say Trevor Wylie, rather vulnerable given his gambling debts, and the violent individual to whom he owed money. Even you and Alexander must have seemed to be an improvement over the guy with the Doberman. You should have kept the transaction just between you and Trevor, but you wanted someone like me to verify that the object in question was worth what Robert Alexander said it was. The trouble, of course, is that you didn’t actually receive your payment, because Trevor was an idiot. He thought he could outfox and outrun one of the most ruthless men around. He showed you the real cabinet, then sold it to someone else, giving you instead a reproduction made in Orkney by a man who almost certainly would not understand nor condone the purpose to which Trevor was putting his work.”

“I’m thinking you’ve been working too hard. Your brain is overheated. I’d like to help. How about a little Porsche sports car, silver, something like that, a gift from me to you? You’d look pretty good tooling around in that. And of course, you can count on all my business from now on.”

“No, thanks,” I said. Apparently Blair thought everything could be solved with a car.

“Not extravagant enough for you?” he said. “Okay, name your fee. You might as well take something for your trouble, because you can’t prove any of this.”

“I believe I can. I recognize that a million here or there is nothing in the drug business, small potatoes and all that, but now that we know what to look for, I’m sure we can find lots more. Maybe furniture isn’t your favorite modus operandi for moving money around, either, but you did it a couple of times, and it’s a start. I know this is only the tip of the iceberg. I’ve already seen the paperwork on the Gaudi chair, the one Alexander paid almost a million for even though it wasn’t worth a tenth of that, while I was helping the police go through Trevor’s files, even if I didn’t know what I was seeing at the time. There’ll be similar paperwork for the Horta and eventually the real Mackintosh is going to turn up.”

“You won’t be able to prove conclusively that the Gaudi or the Horta were mine.”

“Yes, I will. There’ll be photographs for insurance purposes.”

“I didn’t insure them,” he gloated.

“I’m not talking about
your
insurance, Blair. I’m talking about
ours.
McClintoch and Swain photographs all pieces it has in its possession worth over about five thousand at the request of our insurance company. We staple the photo to our copy of the invoice when it’s sold, and believe me our files are in very good shape. So, yes, there’s a very clear photograph of the Gaudi chair complete with cigarette burn, and the Horta, too. I’ll be very happy to testify to that effect. We don’t have the necklace because you didn’t buy it through us, but I do know where you got it. I believe they will have what is needed there, too. Even if they don’t, I expect your ex-wife will remember it well. The really wonderful thing about this furniture is that it links you to Robert Alexander, now a known drug kingpin. One link in the chain is broken, and you’re next.”

“It’s your word against mine, and you’re just an antique dealer,” he said, reaching over and opening his glove compartment.

“Actually it’s the police’s forensic accountant, Anna Chan, whose word it is you’re up against, not mine. If you’re going to take out a gun, I wouldn’t if I were you. It will only make it worse,” I said, as the sirens grew much louder, and a number of law enforcement officials jumped out of the cedar hedge in which I, too, had hidden some weeks before. I had been able to tell them exactly where to stand. Six police cars swept up the driveway.

“It’s over, Blair. They’ve recorded all this.”

“Step away from the car, Lara,” Rob ordered, something I was only too happy to do. Within minutes Blair was on his feet, cuffed, and Rob was informing him of his rights.

“You’ll pay for this, babe,” Blair said, almost spitting at me.

“The person who will pay here is you, Baldwin,” Detective Singh said. “Our colleagues in the Northern Constabulary have Drever Clark in custody, with enough evidence to convict him, and Robert Alexander, too, had he lived to be in court, and you’re not going anywhere for a long time. As Ms. McClintoch says, it’s over. Anything else you’d like to say to this rat before we take him away, Lara? This is your last chance before you see him in court.”

“No,” I replied, but there was. As I watched Blair’s head recede into the distance in the back seat of that police car, I suddenly felt better.

“Don’t call me babe!” I yelled at the top of my voice. The malaise I was feeling suddenly lifted. I was going to pull through.

Epilogue

And there you have it, Bjarni’s story. You can see why there are those who think there is treasure to be found. Bjarni’s travels took him to places both exotic and spiritual. People draw their own conclusions as to what Bjarni found, and indeed what has been lost. If it is gold and jewels from Constantinople or Baghdad you seek, or gifts worthy of a caliph of Spain, or religious icons of incomparable worth, then Bjarni’s saga gives you cause for hope. I was always amazed at the theories my students would invent, in terms of what happened to Bjarni, and what the real treasure might be. It seemed to stimulate their creativity in ways that other lessons did not, perhaps because there was no proof, and therefore their imaginations could roam at will. My grandfather was convinced that a piece of the True Cross acquired by Bjarni during his stint in the Varangian Guard would be found in the tomb of the orcs, along with the pagan cauldron. If that is what you choose to believe, the evidence is there.

You can decide for yourself if you think the saga is true. Some consider Bjarni’s story absolute rubbish. I am not one of those. Can I prove it? No. Does that matter? It does to some, those who would see and hold the evidence, but not to me. I suppose if I could find the tomb of the orcs, then that would go some distance toward silencing the skeptics. If I could find the cauldron, those who now scoff would at least be forced to listen and consider what the saga reveals. But in truth it doesn’t matter. I know what happened. When I sit here watching a storm blow through, or the sunset turn the sea and sky to purple, or a soft mist clinging to the dark slopes of Hoy across the water, I know I’m hearing the same wind, watching the same mist and sky and sea that Bjarni did. We both have Orkney in our blood. That’s what matters to me.

In Orkney they believe that Thorfinn Skull-Splitter, earl of Orkney, father of Hlodovir, grandfather of Earl Sigurd the Stout, the man to whom Bjarni the Wanderer gave his loyalty and trust, was buried in 976 in the Howe of Hoxa, a crumbling prehistoric broch or tower filled now with weeds and stones. If the Skull-Splitter, one of the first Orkney Vikings to die in his bed rather than in battle, really is there, he has a very good view for all eternity. I know, because I set out to find the spot before I left for home. It seemed fitting somehow, given the way this all started, that I should spend a moment at Skull-Splitter’s grave.