THE VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY (Jack Calder Crime Series #1) Read online

  The savage black dog of idle days without earnings or even the hope of earnings bit deeper and the debt collectors’ knockings became more frequent and more hostile. Not-so-veiled threats accompanied those demands for payments of some sort. Piece by piece, the Calder family items of even limited value found their way into the pawnshops around Govan.

  Periodically, Tommy would get a couple of days' relief in the form of part-time use of his physical labour. The fact his kids might go without food clawed at him. He himself ate sparingly whenever there was something on the table in order that his family would eat. Slowly, he was drawn towards the trap of many in the same stretched hellish circumstances. Cheap wine secreted in brown paper bags from the bottle shops provided temporary solace from the frequent rounds of depression.

  Jenny aged in front of his eyes with the burden of spinning the timing of her work with nursing the kids. At first, Tommy became the house-husband, but as he spent more time out looking for jobs, this lapsed as his primary concern. Daily fights with Jenny became a source of mutual agitation. The smell of the cheap wine incensed her more than his inability to find work.

  Tommy found a few weeks’ employment bagging flour for a local tradesman. The flour was transported in bulk and delivered through a street-level trapdoor to a cellar in an old tenement building about half an hour’s walk from the Calder home. Dirty, messy work, it paid barely enough to justify the labour, but better than nothing at all.

  Six days a week in the dimly-lit cellar, Tommy kept the company of mice and rats scurrying around his feet. The flour clouds as he packed the half-hundredweight canvas bags permeated his clothing, finding its way into his hair, his eyes, the soles of his shoes. He detested the work.

  On a cold rainy Saturday in October, Jenny persuaded her husband to take young Jack with him to get the boy out from under her nose for the day. Jack had never been there with his dad. The seven-year old thought it a marvellous adventure, going to his Daddy’s work. He didn't notice the cellar was dingy. The scrabbling and squeaks from the mice held no danger for him. Oblivious to the grunts and groaning as his father filled the rough sacks with the clotting flour, this was a wonderful playground.

  In between bagging, Tommy sipped from the brown paper bag, and when he talked to Jack his voice began to waver. Too young to notice any change in the demeanour of his father, he continued to trace drawings in the flour soot covering the floor of the cellar.

  “Come here, wee Jack,” he beckoned to the boy, as he swayed on the stool next to the bagging bench.

  “Yes, Daddy. What is it?"

  Tommy dug some coins from his stained jacket pocket and offered them to his son.

  "Here, take these."

  Jack took the money and his father drew him close in a hug and kissed him. The boy was aware of the strange smell he always smelled when his Daddy got quiet, and a lot of times when he and Mammy fought and shouted at each other.

  “You know your Daddy loves you, don't you, eh? Go down to Collins’ shop at the end of the road, and buy us a couple of ice-creams. You’d like that, eh?”

  "Aye, Daddy.”

  “Take your time. You don’t want them cones to fall and get ate by some doggie, do you?”

  “Right. Walk back slow it is, Daddy.”

  “You’re a good boy, wee Jack. Now listen, there’s something I want you to do."

  “What’s that?”

  “I need you to tell your Mammy, Daddy says, ‘The Violin Man’s stopped playin’, and he’s nae comin’ back.’ Can you remember that?”

  “I think so, Daddy."

  “Good boy. Now off you go and get these ice-creams before the shop shuts.”

  Collins’ was right at the end of the road, about ten minutes walk. Jack did as his father instructed and walked back slowly. No big doggie was going to have his ice-creams.

  The ice cream started to melt and dribble down his clutching hands as he got back to the building.

  “I’m here Daddy,” he called as he climbed down the brick stairway into the cellar.

  His father didn’t reply. In the half-light, he saw him lying down beside the stool, as if asleep. The dim light from the bare bulb hanging above the bench couldn’t hide the stare from his Daddy’s eyes. A dark pool seeped into the soiled floor, curdling the caked flour on the stone with deep red liquid still flowing from his father’s arms. Near the side of his face lay a bloodied razor blade, which had painlessly opened the arteries on his wrists.

  Jack tried to guess what kind of game Daddy was playing this time, like Cowboys and Indians at school, when you try to stay still as long as you can before somebody touches you and says Tag, and you get to be alive again.

  The Violin Man was incapable of hearing his boy trying to Tag him alive, but Jack Calder became equally incapable of ever erasing the death of his father from his memory.

  The Methodist Church in Greenfield Street in Govan was a magnet for all denominations of believers. Young Jack had been a part of the youth Life Boys group since four years old, with regular Sunday School attendance a must imposed by his Mammy. He enjoyed the Sunday School children's songs, when he and his pals could really just make as much noise as they liked bringing ‘Jesus close to the fishers of men’ at the top of their lungs.

  It rained stair-rods on the day they buried Tommy Calder. The packed church held neighbours from the streets around. A lot of snuffling into handkerchiefs. Lots of people whispering to Mammy. Some passing envelopes to his mother.

  What was in them? Jack wondered.

  The crowd sang 'Abide With Me' with a deafening noise. Then, silence, a few murmured voices. Big men carried the large, wooden box outside and one of his aunties moved Jack toward the door. He looked back at his Mammy standing with a group of women from their own street. One of them held Mammy's hands and stared into her face, neither of them talking. He remembered the bewilderment on his Mammy's face. Empty. Lost. Not hearing or seeing anything around her. It would take him until many years later to understand what the look meant. The Violin Man was not coming back.

  Annie Bell’s face bore the same pain as they lowered her husband into his final resting place.

  He hated funerals.

  The Reverend Thornton had officiated at hundreds of funeral services. Adept at consoling those in grief, with all the delicacy of a natural carer, he handed the widow gently into her car. He then approached Jack, about to speak. Jack spoke first. "Thank you for everything today, Reverend. We’re most grateful to you. And thanks for looking after Mrs Bell so well. We all appreciate your kindness."

  "Mr Calder. Each of us is touched in different ways by the passing of our nearest and dearest. Sometimes sooner. Sometimes later. May the Grace of God be with you. I’ll pray for all of you tonight, including for the soul of your friend."

  "Thank you," replied Jack and moved away toward Jules and Malky.

  "You wanna join us for a drink, Jack?" asked the Irishman. "It's kinda early, but what the hell?"

  "No thanks, Malky. If you don't mind, I'd rather go back to the flat and chill out. You know these funerals fuck with my head."

  "Sure, big man. Jules and me’s got stuff to catch up on. See ye later.”

  The emptiness numbed his thinking. The journey back to his pad in St John's Wood hardly registered.

  The mirror told its own story. Jack’s military training had spilled over into a regular exercise habit after leaving the forces, fleshing out well his six-foot-two frame. The pale blue Scottish eyes and fair brown hair did nothing to detract from his good looks. He wasn’t a ladies man inasmuch as he didn’t go searching for them. He’d had plenty of female admirers, captivated not least with the mild burr in his accent. The mirror only told part of the story. Other things preyed on his mind every now and then, things he had never learned how to handle, except by pouring himself a temporary solution from a whisky bottle. The Scotch hit the spot, good stuff - excellent malt. About half the bottle had gone and Jack was getting tipsy now.

  What the
hell, he’d buried yet another of his former buddies today hadn't he? Hadn't he? It caught him by surprise. Sneaked up on him. His neck grew cold. He shivered. Damn. Then, from his stomach, from his guts, somewhere deep inside his body even he couldn't grasp, it came.

  He couldn't breathe. He gasped. He gasped again, trying for breath. Then a huge heaving wrench in his lungs. Like a drowning man searching for the first intake of air coming up from under the water. It broke as a massive sobbing noise. Then again. And again. Now he was on his knees on the carpet, his hands outstretched in front of him. He cried. He cried like he’d cried so many times before. In private. Alone. Gut-wrenching sobbing. God, it hurt.

  That was only the physical part.

  He realized for the umpteenth time. This was grieving. Painful grieving.

  The thing was, he really didn't know if he was grieving for the death of his mate. Or grieving for the death of his father. Or grieving for the death of something in his own soul.

  CHAPTER 6

  In the past month, Jules Townsend had shuttled from London to Holland twice a week, pursuing the growing business between the Dutch client base and their own network in London. On the day after Roddie’s burial, he, Malky and Jack played catch-up in the ISP office.

  The news of the hits in Rotterdam and Utrecht made screaming headlines in the industry. Respected major security firms with prestige clients losing hefty value shipments of gold bullion and diamonds, each within a few days, was a rarity.

  "It's been a bad week for everyone over there," said Jules.

  "This second hit was on Gemtec," he continued. "Big players in the gems business, mostly South African diamonds, headquartered in Amsterdam. They lost a shipment in Utrecht, two of their people gunned down, cold-blooded, in the middle of the street in plain daylight. I met with Deryk Ostman, Gemtec’s owner and we also talked for a long time yesterday on the phone. The police are on the case already but he wants us to do a comprehensive review of his group’s security operations."

  Jules removed a sheaf of Gemtec's corporate brochures from his files and passed them across to Jack.

  “Go meet Ostman in Amsterdam. I reckon your fresh eye on their security protocols is what's needed. Their business is worth a lot to us if you can tie it down. Your tickets and hotel bookings are with your office as we speak. I want you on a plane tonight and to stay until you get us a result.”

  Jules was in the kind of mood they knew from many times on active patrol. Very intense. Very focused. "Malky, you keep running this side of the water for us, and you can have your buddy back in a month or so. If we don’t have the Gemtec account by then, we never will." Nobody ever argued with Julian Townsend. The saying about him had always been ‘What the Major wants, the Major gets.’

  Jack shrugged his shoulders. "You got anything else on them? I like to do my homework before I go visiting."

  Jules removed a second, bound folder and handed it across the table. "These are dossiers on some of their people. The Head of Security's an old acquaintance. Hubert Meiss."

  Jack recalled Meiss. They’d worked more than once before with inter-jurisdictional forces in the Balkans and elsewhere, including Africa.

  "Interesting," he replied, placing the brochures and the added material into his briefcase. "I'll bone up on this on the flight tonight."

  A familiar stamping ground for all of them, Jack operated as comfortably in Amsterdam as in London. The morning after landing at Schiphol Airport, he was shown into the office of Deryk Ostman. He was the third-generation owner of Gemtec, one of the largest wholesale diamond traders in Holland. Seated to the side of Ostman was Hubert Meiss.

  The dossier had provided a refresher on Meiss. Originally from Munich, stockily built, a good operator with a track record to match the best, he was ten years older than Jack. It looked to the Scotsman that the softer life away from the mercenary beat had added a few pounds around the waist. The face had lost some of the leanness of the field craftsman the SAS had worked alongside in Africa twelve years before. The riveting look from the penetrative blue eyes had also mellowed a little. Life as chief of Gemtec security suited Meiss. The recent loss of corporate colleagues however, seemed to weigh him down. The customary stiff-necked bearing was missing. In its place a distinct sagging at the shoulders spoke volumes.

  “Jack, good to see you again," Meiss began, with a firm handshake. "It’s been a while, partner. This is Deryk Ostman, whom I think you know already?"

  “Hi, Hubert, same here, my friend. Mr Ostman, of course I know of you but I believe this is the first time we’ve met. My pleasure, sir,” said Jack, nodding towards the Dutchman.

  "Thank you, Mr Calder. Hubert here speaks very highly of you and of ISP. Given this week’s unfortunate events, I've proposed we seek the assistance of an independent agency such as yourselves to help us to understand how this tragedy happened.” The gems boss also carried his grief heavily. “You're aware, of course, two of our employees were shot dead in the robbery. I can assure you that takes a higher priority at Gemtec than losing the diamond shipment. Diamonds are insurable and therefore replaceable. The lives of my personnel are not. I want you to find out who did this and how. My entire organization will be open to you to make whatever enquiries you feel necessary,” he added, signalling to Meiss. “I've already instructed Hubert to ensure all files, records, logs and any other relevant documents be made available to you. You can work with and through Hubert, but progress reports will be directly to myself. Is that acceptable?"

  Jack acknowledged the instruction. "Perfect, Mr Ostman. I understand Jules Townsend agreed with you the terms of engagement, extending for up to three months from today's date?"

  "Correct. Mr Calder. My family has operated for more than seventy years in this business. Of course we've had losses in the past, but nothing worse than modest disappearances of a few stones. In every case, we've been able to identify the people involved, or at least close the process lapses in order to avoid similar things happening to us again.” He leaned forward. “But, Mr Calder, we've never, repeat never, had fatalities. I have no words to describe how agonizing that is to me personally. I know the wives of those who lost their husbands, and of course we’ll look after them financially. It’s imperative we bring the killers to account. Whatever it takes, I’m prepared to support. Do you understand me, Mr Calder?"

  Jack responded, "Yes, sir, I do understand you. I’ll make you no promises which I can’t guarantee at this time, other than to commit you’ll get our best efforts on this."

  "Thank you, Mr Calder."

  Jack guessed Deryk Ostman had never faced real violence before. To Jack and his former SAS colleagues, violence represented a natural means to an end, confronting it part of the end-game.

  He wondered how far Ostman was prepared to go to ‘bring the killers to account.’ Did he mean in a simple legal manner? Or in a more absolute sense? Time would tell. First things first. Finding out the ‘how’ and the ‘who’.

  Jack turned to Meiss. "Hubert, what’ve you lined up for us this morning? I'd like to start as soon as possible. The longer these things are left, the more difficult it is to get to the answers."

  Meiss tapped the papers in his hand. "We’re working with the heads of the Serious Crime Squads both in Utrecht and here in Amsterdam. They’ve been informed we're bringing you guys in on a private basis. As you might expect, some of them aren’t overjoyed at the prospect, but I understand Jules is an old buddy of their Chief of Police in Amsterdam, Jens Kluvin. Jens has given the nod to let you do what you need to do. I know you won't rub them up the wrong way."

  Jack smiled his appreciation. "Who's handling the documentation and papers at Gemtec?"

  "My number two, Nils Bergman. He buddied with me in Honduras and South America. He joined the company about four years ago. Norwegian. Steady man. Excellent administrative mind. He'll be the key point man for document flows. He's located two floors down. Let's go introduce you."

  Calder stood up "Sounds fine," he
said, and turned to the boss. "Mr Ostman. Good day, sir. I'll be in touch regularly and trust we'll get this sorted out as soon as possible."

  "Goodbye, Mr Calder," replied the Dutchman, without looking up from his desk.

  CHAPTER 7

  The career of a journeyman mercenary isn’t plotted on schoolbooks.

  Soldiers gravitate towards the life by accident or economic circumstance rather than by choice. Nils Bergman grew up in a small village in the countryside in the east of Norway. He saw some service and limited travel aboard a vessel in the Norwegian Merchant Navy. This he found boring, but not enough to deter him from continued involvement in military activity. He answered an advertisement for soldiers of fortune deployed in the backwaters of South America. His leader in that venture was Hubert Meiss. From Meiss, he learned the techniques of cold-hearted guerrilla warfare tactics. Over the course of almost twenty years together, they served several paymasters in jungles and crooked third-world regions.

  Jack had never met the Norwegian and the slight build surprised him with features drawn across a tight-skinned face and balding skull. When he came forward to offer his handshake, Jack noticed a distinct limp in the left leg. Probably a bullet or shrapnel wound, he guessed. The hands matched those of a much older man.