Page 12 of The High Island

Auld Mackie shot him a look. ‘Ye ken fine I meant the lass you found buried next to the old Mowat house.’

‘Why do you think it’s her?’ Jo said.

Auld Mackie gave her an appreciative look. ‘I didn’t know Stella,’ he said with a smile. ‘But Ivor did.’

‘He spoke to you about her?’ Jo said in an encouraging voice.

This was the invitation Mackie had been waiting for, Erling realized, as the old man leaned forward in his high-backed chair.

‘Aye, he did. He was quite taken with her, but he was much too young. Him being twelve at the time.’ He laughed. ‘First love. Nothing quite like it.’

‘She was staying with his family?’ Jo suggested.

He shook his head. ‘No. The old Mowat place was full already. Four sons plus their parents. Far as I remember, she was billeted somewhere nearby on Hoy.’

‘She was a soldier, then?’ Jo asked.

He shrugged. ‘She was there because of the war, in some fashion or another.’

‘And she visited the Mowat place?’ Jo said.

‘Aye. That’s how Ivor met her,’ he said. ‘I think she was there for one of the older brothers. There were three of them. Billy, Geordie and Ian. Ivor had no chance against them.’

‘Did Ivor ever mention her surname at all?’ Jo tried.

‘He just called her Stella. And then she disappeared one night, and he never saw her again.’

6

‘Disappeared?’ Erling repeated.

Auld Mackie nodded. ‘I remember it as clear as if it had happened yesterday. I went with my father to Hoy and Ivor told me that Stella had gone missing. Everyone was out looking for her. Ivor was mightily upset. Blamed his eldest brother, Billy. Said he heard them arguing and that Billy had told her to go away.’

Erling was remembering the rough wooden coffin and its contents and was now trying to match them in some way to Auld Mackie’s story.

But – and it was a big but – there had been two bodies in the coffin, one of them a child, and the old man’s story of Stella didn’t feature a baby.

As though reading his mind, Mackie said, ‘I heard there was an infant in there with the lass. Is that true?’

Erling saw no reason to deny this. ‘There was,’ he confirmed.

‘Ivor never mentioned a bairn,’ Auld Mackie said. ‘But maybe the lass was pregnant. Maybe that was the reason for the falloutwith Billy. Though it still doesn’t tell us how she ended up dead and buried there with her child.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Erling agreed. ‘But I’m glad you sent me that note and that we’ve spoken about Stella.DSGreen will give you her card, and if you remember anything else, you can call her.’

‘You’ll find out who the lass is?’ Auld Mackie said, taking the card Jo offered. ‘She deserves a proper burial at least.’

‘We will certainly try,’ Erling assured him.

Back now on the road with Erling driving, Jo asked him what he’d made of Mackie’s story.

‘It sounded genuine enough. Hoy was a busy place during the war with a lot of army personnel and associated civilians. The evidence of that stretches all along the coastline fronting Scapa Flow. Gun placements, camps. There was even an anti-submarine boom stretching across to Houton,’ he said. ‘Ivor would have known all the local lasses. As would his brothers.’ Erling paused, then continued. ‘Anyway, I’ll drop you at the station and head forUHI. Hopefully Colin will be able to place our victim’s era, at least.’

‘It’s a shame Ivor died before we found her,’ Jo said. ‘I can’t help but think he would have told us more about Stella.’

Erling had been thinking the same thing. ‘I plan to speak to Tommy again. He was the one who pointed to Auld Mackie as the likely sender of the note. Plus my grandfather Sandy and Ivor Mowat were best pals, and Sandy spent a lot of time at the Mowat place. He must have known about this Stella. If Ivor told Mackie, he would have confided in Sandy without a doubt. Maybe there’s some evidence of that among Sandy’s things.’

Dropping Jo at the station, he reminded her to call him if anything urgent came up.