"That sounds ominous," McLeod said. "What have you got?"
"A damned nuisance!" Somerville replied. "This is strictly off the record, but we're all but certain the dead man is an Irish Fisheries officer, name of Michael Scanlan, who went missing several days ago off the coast of Donegal. His brother's flying in tonight from Belfast in order to make a positive ID, but no one's in any serious doubt about it, including the Irish government. They're sending along a representative from the Garda Siochana, who will liaise between us and our opposite numbers in Dublin."
"It's turning into an international incident, then, if you've got the Irish police involved," McLeod said. "I take it that we're not talking about a simple drowning."
There was a pause.
"We'll just have to wait and see," Somerville said. "Listen, sorry to cut you off short like this, but my watch is telling me I'm three minutes short of being late for an appointment. Where are you just now? Out in the car?''
"Aye."
"In that case, why don't you find a public phone box and call me back in half an hour? By that time, I'll be at the number two phone box I usually use when I'm out of the office. You know, the one on the square."
The phrase carried significance amongst members of the Order of Freemasonry to which both McLeod and Somerville belonged. To any uninitiated listener, the words would have conveyed nothing more than a set of directions. To McLeod, it was an indication that something more was afoot than Somerville was prepared to discuss over an open line.
"I know exactly the phone box you mean," he told his colleague. "I'll talk to you again in half an hour."
Slowing for a traffic signal, Cochrane watched his superior return the portable phone to its place in the glove box.
"Where to now, Inspector?" he asked. "You still want to go back to headquarters?"
McLeod's shrewd blue eyes were half-lidded in thought behind his gold-rimmed aviator spectacles.
"Not just yet," he told his young assistant. "Let's make a detour to Jordanburn. I have a feeling that Dr. Sinclair and I may have some further business to discuss."
On their way back across town, McLeod kept an eye out for a public telephone and finally spotted one outside a neighborhood grocery shop. Directing Cochrane to pull over, he got out of the car and went over to the call-box, fishing coins from his pocket. After consulting his pocket directory, he lifted the receiver and dialled.
Somerville's voice answered promptly. "That you, McLeod?"
McLeod fed a selection of coins into the slot. "Aye, it's me. Now, suppose you tell me what this is all about."
From the other end of the line came a deep intake of breath, like a weightlifter getting ready to heft a heavy set of barbells.
"Sorry about the cloak-and-dagger tactics, but I don't suppose I have to tell you how easy it is to scan a cellular phone. I meant what I said earlier about your friend Lovat. It's damned lucky for us that he was the one who found the body, not some other hapless member of the public. The last thing anybody needs is for the press to get wind of what I'm about to tell you." McLeod was fully on the alert now. "I'm listening."
"Well, for starters, this Scanlan fellow didn't just fall overboard and drown. He was helped along by a knife in the back and a clip on the head."
"Some brush with illegal fishermen, perhaps?" McLeod asked, for incursions of foreign fishing boats into British and Irish waters had led to more than one violent clash in recent months.
"That's what we thought at first," Somerville replied. ' Their control said that Scanlan and his partner were going out to check reports of illegal fixed nets, but he lost them when a fog came rolling in. The next anyone heard from them was the next day, when Scanlan's partner was found adrift in their boat."
"And what does the partner have to say?" McLeod asked.
"Nothing," Somerville said bluntly. "He had a matching knife wound."
"Ouch. Could he and Scanlan have gotten into a fight?"
"With each other? Not impossible, but bloody unlikely," Somerville said. "The word from the Northern Fisheries Board is that the two men had been working together for the better part of four years. Nothing to indicate that there was ever any friction between them."
"Which brings us back to square one."
"That's right. And it gets worse. The weapon that inflicted the wound in Scanlan's back wasn't your usual switchblade or hunting knife. This was something out of the ordinary: heavy, with a triangular blade, probably a good eight to ten inches long. Preliminary examination indicates that it pierced the lung. Even if Scanlan hadn't landed in the sea, he probably would have died of internal hemorrhaging within a matter of minutes."
"I see," McLeod said. "What about the partner's wound?"
"Pretty much the same, so far as we know."
"And the blow to Scanlan's head?"
"Probably not sufficient by itself to be fatal," Somerville said. "It's possible he got it falling out of the boat - hit his head on a rock or something. Actual cause of death may turn out to be drowning - not that it much matters to Scanlan. We'll know more after the post-mortem."
"When's that?"
"As soon as possible, if I have anything to say about it," Somerville growled. "I'll let you know exactly when and where, as soon as the arrangements have been made. You and that psychiatrist friend of yours - what's his name, Sinclair? - might well want to be present."
"Oh?"
Adam Sinclair's role as a police consultant was well documented, especially with respect to some of the stranger cases that came the way of the Lothian and Borders Police. Somerville's suggestion was enough to kick McLeod's internal warning system into full operation.
"What makes you think Adam Sinclair might have anything to contribute to this case?" he wondered out loud. "For that matter, is there any particular reason why we shouldn't just wait to read the medical examiner's report when it comes out?"
"I've saved the best for last," Somerville said. "What do you suppose they found on Scanlan, when they were looking him over for identification?"
"From the sound of your voice," said McLeod, "I shouldn't be able to guess if I lived to be a hundred. A winning ticket for the Irish Lottery?"
Somerville gave a gallows chuckle. "Not even close, Brother McLeod. It was a flag - and not just any flag. This was a World War Two Kriegsmarine flag, apparently off a German U-boat. It has U-636 stencilled along the canvas of the hoist."
"He had a Nazi flag on him?" McLeod asked, astonished.
"Yep. The thing was wadded up inside the breast of his survival suit - waterlogged, as you might well expect, since the suit had been breached, but otherwise intact. The experts haven't had a chance to examine it yet, but it looks damned authentic to me. And if it is authentic," he finished, with dour relish, "this Scanlan bloke was messing about with a ghost ship."
"How's that?"
"Official naval records list U-636 as having been depth-charged by Royal Navy frigates in April of 1945, some ninety miles northeast of Donegal."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Sure am. I checked the stats myself."
McLeod was prepared to take Somerville at his word. A war games enthusiast, the Strathclyde inspector had made a special study of Nazi regalia.
"I'll grant you, this is an odd one," he replied. "But ghost ship or not, no ghost stabbed Scanlan in the back. Have you considered the possibility of a tie-in with the IRA or some other terrorist group?"
"Aye, we have - and from a purely pragmatic point of view, I'd go so far as to say that may be our best line of further inquiry. Depending upon the state of preservation, a German U-boat could be a source of weaponry for terrorist activities. If Scanlan and his partner did inadvertently stumble across something like that, the organization involved would certainly have taken steps to make sure they didn't live to tell about it…."