Grimm (13 page)

Rory shook his head. “You have completely lost me.”

“The Curse of the Stonemason … it’s all to do with your Grandad.” Rory looked at Derek Goodman with bewilderment. At that moment, it dawned on Derek Goodman that he was giving information to Rory that the boy knew nothing of, and his amused smirk returned. “Well, well, well.” The words came out slowly and each one delivered with relish. “We really are in the business of telling people the news here, aren’t we? I can hardly believe that you don’t know. You’ve got skeletons in your closet, Rory McKenna and pretty big ones at that.”

Rory was speechless. He had nothing left to reply with.

“The Curse of the Stonemason,” repeated Goodman. “You need to ask your Grandad about his stone-carving career and why it was so short-lived.”

Rory tumbled out of the seat without a word and walked out of
The Chronicle’s
office in a daze.

Bonnie was waiting outside for Rory as planned and found him in a state of confusion. When he could finally explain what had happened at
The Chronicle
office, he was keener than ever to have sharp words with his Grandad. Bonnie pleaded with him not to rush in. “There must be more background information we can find out before we land this on him. Let’s face it, if he’s not telling us everything then it might be more productive to do some research elsewhere first.” Since they were near to the library she was able to reason with Rory further that some of the facts were almost at their fingertips. Rory had to grudgingly admit that Bonnie was right, even though he was anxious to get to Boglehole Road.

Mrs Trinder-Kerr looked distinctly unimpressed that
two
people now wanted to look at
The Chronicle
archive, and her face soured still further as Bonnie also requested a copy of Lachlan Stagg’s book on Hotel Grimm’s stone carvings and gargoyles. She gave Bonnie a look as if to say she had expected better of her. Checking
The Chronicle
index gave them a few references to the Curse of the Stonemason, but the related articles didn’t give the detail of the story that they were after. They soon realized that it was Lachlan Stagg’s book that had the information they wanted, and they both fell silent as Bonnie turned to the chapter entitled “The History of the Curse.”

The Curse of the Stonemason dates back to the late 1940s when much of the decorative work was being undertaken on Hotel Grimm. At that time the workforce is estimated to have been forty men at any one time, and included stonemasons from around Scotland. This group was supplemented by local Aberfintry men, and also by boys who had just left school. They gained work experience and apprenticeships in a way that no other project in the area could have provided in the post-war
years. The story of the Curse of the Stonemason revolves around one of these schoolboys. As with all of the young lads, Hugh Munro was given bits and pieces of work to do to start with, typically fetching and carrying for the more experienced men, but such were the demands of Sir Gregory Grimm’s plans for intricate designs throughout the hotel, that many of the boys moved onto stone-carving work, learning the skill on the job. Hugh Munro cut his stone-carving teeth on some of the gargoyles on the north tower and then on the figurehead over the front door. Those who worked alongside him reflect now that, right from the start, Munro was a prodigious talent, and the experienced men were soon happy to leave him to carve complicated pieces. Munro’s appetite for a challenge was also there and he was drafted in to some of the jobs that required the greatest head for heights.

The story of the Curse revolves around a piece that was destined to remain firmly on the ground. Sir Gregory Grimm was keen to have the family emblem of a snarling wolf brought to life in the form of a giant statue that he wanted to place just inside the main door of the hotel as a spectacular welcome for every guest. The early stages of the statue were being worked on by master stonemason, Fraser Dalyell, who took it on as a personal project. However, Dalyell fell ill and was off site for a month. As time pressures grew, and an opening date was scheduled for the hotel, the young apprentice, Hugh Munro, took over. He became so absorbed in the task that he is reputed to have worked on it day and night. In fact, the story goes that when Dalyell eventually returned, the statue was finished and the exhausted Munro was asleep beside it. The statue was so amazing, so life-like and such an example of remarkable stonemasonry that Dalyell flew into a rage of professional jealousy. He was so incensed that he stormed away from the hotel refusing to touch another stone. His final act was to hurl his tools at the wolf, breaking off the tongue and three of its front teeth and screaming that a curse would befall the Grimm family, the hotel and those connected with the statue. Dalyell was never seen again. Those who witnessed Dalyell’s fury said that ….

“Time’s up,” said a sharp voice behind them. Mrs Trinder-Kerr stood with arms folded. “We’re closing. It’s Saturday. We close early.”

“But …!” said Rory and Bonnie simultaneously, knowing that they had just unearthed a new treasure chest of information. Rory started to plead. “Can we take …?”

“No,” snapped Mrs Trinder-Kerr. “Reference book. No, you cannot take it home.”

Bonnie and Rory left the library together, deeply frustrated and reeling from what they had just read. As they talked over what Lachlan Stagg’s book had revealed, they agreed that they could not put off a trip to Grandad’s any longer.

“This might be difficult stuff for him to talk about, Rory,” Bonnie warned him.

“Well, he’ll just have to,” said Rory feeling little sympathy. “This could be a life or death matter for me if I don’t get my facts straight about the hotel.”

“Sounds like it nearly was for him too,” said Bonnie. Her attempts to get him to take it easy, fell on deaf ears. Rory managed at least to make his usual entrance into Boglehole Road with the cry of “It’s me,” but the niceties were out of the way as soon as they got into the living room.

“Who did you take to the ball?” asked Rory.

“Eh?” said Grandad looking up from his armchair and casting a glance at Bonnie for help.

“Come on, Grandad, you heard me,” said Rory.

Hugh Munro looked uncomfortable. “Well first things first. Can you shift these cushions? My back is really beginning to play up.” Rory could see that Grandad was a bit ill at ease but it didn’t seem like the usual stiffness. He did as he was asked, but reckoning that Grandad had let the question slip by, he repeated it.

“So who did you take to the ball then, Grandad?”

“Ach, son, it was a long time ago. A man of my age can’t mind everything, you know.”

“Come on Grandad. That’s not the sort of thing you would forget. Who was it? I can cope if it wasn’t Gran, you know. I suppose it might have been before the two of you got together.”

Grandad cleared his throat and continued to squirm in his seat.
He was looking less and less comfortable by the minute. As he watched the old man, Rory was struck by sharp pang of guilt. Here he was pushing his Grandad to open up and be honest, and feeling hurt that the old man might not have told him everything he could, while he himself was still holding on to his own big secret, with no plan to let anyone know.

Rory realized that the colour had drained from the old man’s face and his breathing didn’t sound quite right. Now feeling more concerned than anything else, Rory asked, “Are you alright, Grandad?”

“Aye, son … just give me a wee minute and I’ll be fine.” Grandad fiddled with his collar and took a deep breath.

Grandad’s “wee minute” seemed to take a few, during which Rory and Bonnie exchanged wordless glances.

“Right, son, there’s something I should tell you,” said Grandad. He was sitting more comfortably although he still looked tense and drawn. He looked off to the side as he spoke, seemingly unable to meet Rory or Bonnie’s gaze. “The truth of the matter is that I did take someone to the dance that night.” His voice faltered, “But well, I suppose I wish now that I hadn’t. I took a girl who I’d been seeing a wee bit of. It was maybe the third time we had done something together.” Grandad’s chin trembled and his voice began to falter. “It was Lottie Gilchrist.”

It was Rory’s turn to feel the colour drain from his face. He felt his mouth go dry and his brain begin to whirl. His Grandad was still looking away from him, and looked like he had aged ten years in the last two minutes. Rory could barely raise a whisper. “It was you with her up on the roof that night?”

“Aye, it was. The worst night of my life.”

“It must have been awful, Mr Munro,” said Bonnie. “I’m so sorry.”

“Ach, it’s in the past now. It’s just not the easiest thing to speak about, even after all this time.”

Rory had gone very quiet. Inside he was boiling with questions and unable to help himself, they all spilled out.

“So what else is there, Grandad? What about the Curse of the
Stonemason? We’ve just found out about that one too. What’s all this about you being an expert stonemason? The Curse came out because of your work didn’t it? Did Lottie die because of your wolf statue and Fraser Dalyell’s curse?” he said, far more sharply than perhaps he meant to.

“Rory!” hissed Bonnie.

“What?” he snapped back.

She gave him a look as if to say “Back off!!”

“Well things keep coming up that you’ve deliberately not told us, Grandad. How can we expect to get the answers we need, if you keep secrets from us? I mean is there anything else you’re hiding?”

The accusation was out before Rory even realized what he was saying, but he was finding it so frustrating that someone, who was supposed to be helping him was keeping so much to himself. Grandad didn’t say anything. He just sat there looking very very tired, and nodding slowly as if processing what Rory had just said.

As the silence continued, Rory began to feel bad. He had never spoken to his Grandad like that before and it didn’t feel like a good place to be. He felt he had to speak first.

“Listen, Grandad, I’m sorry. That was a bit out of order. I’m just really worried about all of this stuff and I thought … I thought I knew everything there was to know about you.”

“No, you’re right, son, you’re quite right,” said Grandad. “It’s not fair on you. There is something else and it’s high time I told you about it. Time to stop hiding away.”

Rory looked at his Grandad. Given the recent revelations, he couldn’t begin to think what was going to come out next.

“You know my workshop, Rory? Well, there’s something that you should maybe have a look at. The door at the back. The one I always said was my own wee place. Well take a look in there. It might help to explain the way things have been over the years.”

Momentarily confused, Rory then remembered the door at the far side of the workshop which had been out of bounds all of the time he had spent there. Grandad struggled to his feet ignoring the protests from Rory and Bonnie, and with great effort shuffled to the back
door of the house, his slippers squeaking on the kitchen linoleum. He reached for two keys on a hook, peering at them to make sure they were the right ones. “This was always going to happen some day,” he said handing them to Rory and opening the door to the garden. “I just didn’t know if I’d be alive to see it. Take these and go and have a look.”

Stepping out of the back door and down the steps, Rory walked along the long path to the bottom of the garden as if on a journey back in time. It soon became clear that with his Grandad now living life indoors, the garden that he knew so well from the past had been lost. The once neat flowerbeds were bare and the grass leading down the slope towards the workshop was long and unkempt.

A pile of leaves had gathered against the base of the workshop door and ivy had begun to grow around the hinges. Rory crunched the first key into the rusting padlock. It took a few twists and a squeak of protest before it turned and the lock grudgingly opened. The wood had warped over the years and Rory had to tug hard to get the door to budge. As it creaked open, cobwebs tore and spiders scrabbled away as the first rays of light filtered in to the workshop. Inside, unused tools were covered in a thick layer of dust, cardboard boxes had collapsed, and the holes in the old armchair that Rory used to sit on suggested that a family of mice had moved in to it. Rory’s nose wrinkled as long forgotten smells came back to him.

Taking the second key and brushing past more cobwebs, Rory headed for the back of the workshop and the door that he had never been through before. It was another tough job to get the lock working but with a heave on the handle and his shoulder to the frame, he shoved it open. Rory fumbled for a light switch. It clunked down and a strip light flickered, once, twice, three times and then on. Rory stood motionless, faced by a roomful of animals staring at him.

Deer, foxes, squirrels, rabbits, hedgehogs, owls and many more creatures sat on the workshop floor; every one of them beautifully carved in stone and larger than life. Details of paws and claws, feathers, fur and whiskers were all carefully ground out of grey granite. The tools that had shaped the animals, hammers of different weights and chisels of varying sizes, lay neatly in rows on a workbench, relics of another era. Rory moved among the animals almost expecting that brushing against them might bring them to life. His mind turned over and over. All of these years and this collection being painstakingly chiselled, carved and polished by his Grandad working alone, for the finished sculptures to sit unseen by anyone. How much of the time as he created each animal had he spent thinking of the Stonemason’s Curse? Or even of Lottie Gilchrist? That was surely the reason why this work had never seen the light of day; a fear that anything else he created might have similar deadly consequences.

Rory looked more closely at the first row of animals. They were brilliant. He couldn’t help thinking of his mother in recent years with her exhibitions of household objects and statements of the obvious to go with them. Here was the real talent in the family but no one even knew about it. It seemed such a waste. He felt a creeping sense of embarrassment at the fact that he was falsely thought of as a genius, when here were the results of decades of his Grandad’s creativity right in front of him.

The animals were stacked a few deep right across the width of the room and on a rough count Rory could see at least fifty. It felt like he was standing in some kind of stone-sculptured Noah’s Ark. He wanted to stay and try to take it all in, but deep down he knew that what he really wanted was to see his Grandad again.

As he reached the back door, he could hear raised voices at the front of the house. Going through the kitchen he found both Bonnie and Grandad in the hall having just closed the front door.

“I reckon the heat might be about to be turned up on the hotel, Rory,” said Bonnie.

“What’s happened?” said Rory.

“There was a bit of a commotion outside. People running past. So we went to check it out. Sounds like Gracie and Gordon have pushed Stobo just a little too far.”

“Aye, the wee man has struck back. Quite right too if you ask me,” said Grandad working his slow way back into the living room and easing himself into his armchair.

“They were on a dare to go right inside a cable car,” explained Bonnie. “Probably planning to leave something horrible in there. Anyway, Stobo spotted them coming so he left them to it, but as soon as they were in the car, he closed the doors and set it off a few hundred metres, then stopped it.”

Rory couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Gracie and Gordon suspended in mid-air high above Scrab Hill, with no hint of when they might get down.

“Anyway,” continued Bonnie. “It seems that Gracie had her mobile phone so of course she immediately called her Dad who went absolutely ballistic and came down at ninety miles an hour to sort things out. He’s coming out with all sorts of accusations of kidnapping children and assault.”

“Aye, but good on Donald Stobo,” said Grandad chuckling. “Apparently he said, “If I wanted to kidnap someone they would be the last people I would want to spend time with … and why would anyone want to pay a ransom for them anyway?””

“So where are they now?” said Rory.

“Back down on the ground,” said Bonnie. “That was them all heading back into town there. Gracie and Gordon were both bubbling their eyes out. Apparently Gordon’s not that good with heights.”

“What a laugh!” said Rory. “It’s brilliant they’re getting a taste of their own medicine.”

“Yeah, but what’s
The Chronicle
going to do about this, Rory?” asked Bonnie. “Stand by for the backlash. I think your job might be about to get harder.”

As they settled down again, Rory got the chance to explain to Bonnie and speak to his Grandad about the secrets of the workshop.

“Sorry I spoke to you like that, Grandad. The things you’ve done down there are just amazing.”

His Grandad spoke a little about why he had worked away in secret over the years.

“I loved my work at the park,” he said, “but my real love was working in stone. I just couldn’t do it in public again though. I was too afraid after what happened up at the hotel. If anybody else had been harmed, I’d never have forgiven myself.”

It seemed as though the events of the last hour had worn Grandad out and after a short time Bonnie gave Rory a nod to suggest that they should leave the old man alone for a while. They left the house talking about some of the day’s long list of events. Rory could hardly believe it was only that morning he had been up at the hotel.

Whilst all of the stories from Grandad’s younger days were incredible, what was increasingly troubling him was the fact that a Curse did seem to have been the start of the Hotel’s problems.

“Just how am I supposed to come up with something that beats that?” asked Rory.

“All these things could still just be coincidence and misfortune, Rory,” said Bonnie. “You’ve said it yourself. You can look at things in a different light. Nothing has happened to you from all the contact you’ve had with the place.”

Not yet,
thought Rory.

Looking forward to a quiet evening, Rory returned home to find that his day of unfolding stories had not yet come to an end. As he came in the door there was a shout from his mum.

“Rory! Call for you!”

Going into the kitchen he found Momo McKenna on the phone with a huge dippy smile on her face. “That’s him here now,” she spoke into the phone, “I’ll hand you over.”

She put her hand over the receiver and whispered in a far too loud voice. “Don’t worry I’ve been keeping him occupied for the last wee while! It’s that nice American, Mr Finkleman. I think he might be interested in sponsoring my exhibition!” Rory looked at her in despair as he grabbed the phone.

“Hi, Mr Finkleman, it’s Rory here.”

“Heh there, buddy … how’s it going? Just had a great little talk with your mom. Boy, she’s a character, huh? Must be great fun to live with.”

“Er yeah … quite … um … unusual.”

“Listen, buddy, I needed to touch base with you about a few things. There is some Zizz business, or
Zizzness
as the marketing guys are calling it now, to attend to soon. I think China is going to be massive for us and the guys over there are interested in your story.”

Rory’s head slumped.
Not more publicity, please!
he thought.

Finkleman continued. “But the real reason for this call though is that I wanted to let you know about this bizarre family coincidence I mentioned in my e-mail. When I met you at the café on my holiday all that time ago, I had bought a bunch of postcards of your pretty little town. Anyways, the way things went after I met you it was months before I actually got round to sending them. When I did, one of them went to my Aunt Agatha in Wisconsin. Turns out, not only has she been to Aberfintry years ago — and I’m talking
years
ago — but, wait for it, she says she owes her life to some guy in your town! She was very insistent that if I ever get to Scotland again I’m to hunt this guy down and shake him by the hand!”

“A guy from Aberfintry saved your aunt’s life?” said Rory, wearying slightly that his day appeared to be gaining further complications.

“Yup, so the story goes. Apparently it was quite a big local incident. She was staying in a hotel and there was a fire …”

Rory felt his throat tightening as he spoke. “Do you happen to
know the name of the hotel?”

“Yeah … it sounds a bit weird to me but apparently it’s the family name.”

“Hotel Grimm?” asked Rory, picturing a
Chronicle
headline about a fire from the framed pages beside Deirdre Dunbar’s desk.

“That’s the one. You know it?”

“Just a bit,” said Rory weakly. “You can’t miss it.”

“Excellent! You can fill me in when I come over next week.”

“You’re coming over next week?” shouted Rory, picturing Finkleman arriving in the midst of
The Chronicle
kicking up a stink about the one place that he wanted to visit.

“Yeah, don’t sound so happy about it, buddy!”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just there is quite a lot going on in the town at the moment.”

“Perfect,” said Finkleman. “I always like to visit a place when it’s buzzing.”

That’s one word for it
thought Rory. “Anyway,” he said. “Do you know who the guy was that saved her life?”

“Some guy called … wait a minute. I have it here … Alistair McGroggan.”

Rory looked blank.
McGroggan?
The name meant nothing to him.
Unless … Grog?
He tried to picture
The Chronicle
headline he had seen.
Inferno at Hotel Grimm. American tourist and staff member recovering in hospital.

“Apparently he was the butler there,” continued Finkleman. “Aunt Aggie took quite a shine to him from the sounds of things.”

Rory tried to picture anyone finding Grog attractive and dismissed the thought immediately. “We can’t be thinking about the same person then.”

“He was a bit of a dancer apparently. My aunt would have loved that. Anyway the story goes that there was a fire in one of the rooms one night. One of the guests had left a candle burning. Aunt Aggie was next door to this, and the first she knew was this butler guy busting down the door and carrying her out. Real superhero stuff.”

The painting of Grog that Rory had seen on Grimson’s wall
suddenly popped into his head. An upright man with a proud gaze and a look of fearlessness.

“Aunt Aggie needed a night or two in hospital, but she reckons she’d have been a gonner but for this character, McGroggan.”

“Do you know what happened to him?” asked Rory, posing the question as innocently as possible.

“Apparently he did himself some damage in rescuing her, which she says she always felt guilty about.”

“What sort of damage?” said Rory picturing the coughing, limping Grog.

“Pretty bad smoke inhalation and then just as he got her out of the building he fell and broke his ankle real bad. Do you think you can fix me up with a trip to this hotel when I come over?”

“Can we talk about it when you arrive?” said Rory.

“Sure thing, buddy. I’m looking forward to catching up with you. Need to talk to you about the next stage of the Zizz campaign too of course. Ever been to China?”

Rory just managed to stop himself groaning audibly before he put the phone down and sank his head firmly into his hands.