The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein
For Helen
Time and change shall not avail
to break the friendships formed
O, my love’s like a red, red rose, that’s newly sprung in June; O, my love’s like the melody that’s sweetly play’d in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, so deep in love am I,
and I will love thee still, my dear, till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, and the rocks melt wi’ the sun: I will love thee still, my dear, while the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee well, my only love!
And fare thee well awhile!
And I will come again, my love, tho’ it were ten thousand mile.
Robert Burns, ‘A Red, Red Rose’
WHAT HAPPENED
15TH–28TH JUNE 1938
1
AN ASSORTMENT OF THINGS GONE MISSING
‘You’re a brave lassie.’
That’s what my grandfather told me as he gave me his shotgun.
‘Stand fast and guard me,’ he instructed. ‘If this fellow tries to fight, you give him another dose.’
Grandad turned back to the moaning man he’d just wounded. The villain was lying half-sunk in the mud on the edge of the riverbank, clutching his leg where a cartridge-ful of lead pellets had emptied into his thigh. It was a late summer evening, my last with Grandad before I went off to boarding school for the first time, and we’d not expected to shoot anything bigger than a rabbit. But here I was aiming a shotgun at a living man while Grandad waded into the burn, which is what we called the River Fearn where it flowed through his estate, so he could tie the evildoer’s hands behind his back with the strap of his shotgun.
‘Rape a burn, would you!’ Grandad railed at him while he worked. ‘I’ve never seen the like! You’ve destroyed that shell bed completely. Two hundred river mussels round about, piled there like a midden heap! And you’ve not found a single pearl, have you? Because you don’t know a pearl mussel from your own backside! You’re like a bank robber that’s never cracked a safe or seen a banknote!’
It was true – the man had torn through dozens of river mussels, methodically splitting the shells open one by one in the hope of finding a rare and beautiful Scottish river pearl. The flat rock at the edge of the riverbank was littered with the broken and dying remains.
Grandad’s shotgun was almost too heavy for me to hold steady. I kept it jammed against my shoulder with increasingly aching arms. I swear by my glorious ancestors, that man was twice Grandad’s size. Of course Grandad was not a very big man – none of us Murrays is very big. And he was in his seventies, even though he wasn’t yet ill. The villain had a pistol – he’d dropped it when he’d been hurt, but it wasn’t out of reach. Without me there to guard Grandad as he bound the other man, they might have ended up in a duel. Brave! I felt like William Wallace, Guardian of Scotland.
The wounded man was both pathetic and vengeful. ‘I’ll see you in Sheriff Court,’ he told my grandfather, whining and groaning. ‘I’m not after salmon and there’s no law against pearl fishing, but it’s illegal to shoot a man.’
Grandad wasn’t scared. ‘This is a private river.’
‘Those tinker folk take pearls here all the time. They come in their tents and bide a week like gypsies, and go away with their pockets full!’
‘No tinker I know would ever rape a burn like this! And they’ve the decency to ask permission on my private land! There’s laws and laws. Respect for a river and its creatures goes unwritten. And the written law says that I can haul you in for poaching on my beat, whether it’s salmon or pearls or anything else.’
‘I didn’t – I wasnae –’
‘Whisht. Never mind what you were doing in the water: you pointed your own gun at my wee granddaughter.’ Grandad now confiscated the pistol that was lying in the mud, and tucked it into his willow-weave fisherman’s creel. ‘That’s excuse enough for me. I’m the Earl of Strathfearn. Whose word will the law take, laddie, yours or mine?’
Grandad owned all of Strathfearn then, and the salmon and trout fishing rights that went with it. It was a perfect little Scottish estate, with a ruined castle and a baronial manor, nestled in woodland just where the River Fearn meets the River Tay. It’s true it’s not illegal for anyone to fish for pearls there, but it’s still private land. You can’t just wade in and destroy someone else’s river. I remember how shocking Grandad’s accusation sounded: Rape a burn, would you!
Was that only three years ago? It feels like Grandad was ill for twice that long. And now he’s been dead for months. And the estate was sold and changed hands even while my poor grandmother was still living in it. Grandad was so alive then. We’d worked together.
‘Steady, lass,’ he’d said, seeing my arms trembling. I held on while Grandad dragged the unfortunate mussel-bed destroyer to his feet and helped him out of the burn and on to the riverbank, trailing forget-me-nots and muck and blood. I flinched out of his way in distaste.
He’d aimed a pistol at me earlier. I’d been ahead of Grandad on the river path and the strange man had snarled at me, ‘One step closer and you’re asking for trouble.’ I’d hesitated, not wanting to turn my back on his gun. But Grandad had taken the law into his own hands and fired first.
Now, as the bound, bleeding prisoner struggled past me so he could pull himself over to the flat rock and rest amid the broken mussel shells, our eyes met for a moment in mutual hatred. I wondered if he really would have shot at me.
‘Now see here,’ Grandad lectured him, getting out his hip flask and allowing the wounded man to take a taste of the Water of Life. ‘See the chimneys rising above the birches at the river’s bend? That’s the County Council’s old library on Inverfearnie Island, and there’s a telephone there. You and I are going to wait here while the lassie goes to ring the police.’ He turned to me. ‘Julie, tell them to send the Water Bailiff out here. He’s the one to deal with a poacher. And then I want you to stay there with the librarian until I come and fetch you. Her name is Mary Kinnaird.’