It Continued with the Cowries

By Jane Ross Potter

Kelville-by-the-Sea, an outwardly quiet seaside town on the northeast coast of Scotland, is the setting for this sequel to It Began with the Marbles. The story begins with the sudden death of an elderly man who served during World War Two as a guard at the town's famous glass factory. Local police officer Helen Griffen treats the death

• Language: English
• Publisher: Goose River, Inc.
• Release date: May 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781597132657

Jane Ross Potter

Jane Ross Potter has a background in science and law. Her novel Because it's There (Bennett & Hastings Publishing, Seattle, WA) was an Indie Excellence Finalist, and her novel Margaret's Mentor was published in 2019 by Maine Author's Publishing (Thomaston, ME). Margaret's Mentor is the first book of the Birsay Trilogy, which also includes Symbol Stones and The Secret of Finlay Village, all of which are partly set in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, and are based on Jane's travels. It Continued with the Cowries is the sequel to It Began with the Marbles, published by Goose River Press (Waldoboro, ME) in 2022. Jane divides her time between Maine and Scotland.

Book preview

Chapter 1

A full week had passed since Alistair Wright’s last visit to Kilvellie, a seaside town north of Dundee, Scotland. He had planned for it to be, literally, his last visit, and was relieved to be back in his temporary Scottish home, a cottage on the coast of Fife. The cottage was owned by his American fiancée Margaret Milford, and they were living there together while making decisions about their future.

Much was up for discussion: should they return to their real homes in Portland, Maine, and start planning a Portland wedding? Margaret’s parents, and most of her friends, were in the Boston area, so that made logistic sense. However, they had become engaged in Scotland, and he knew that the residents of the nearby village, Finlay, were hoping to attend the wedding. Alistair thought back to several weeks earlier, when he imagined marrying Margaret in the little picturesque church in Finlay, the ceremony conducted by the local minister who had become a good friend and confidant to both Alistair and Margaret.

In addition to deciding where to marry, they had to choose where to live. Between them, they had the resources to spend a couple of years at the cottage in Finlay, but that meant loosening their professional ties in Portland: Alistair’s private investigation business which he’d built up over the years, and Margaret’s career as a young attorney at a law firm in Portland.

Margaret’s supervisor Hamish, and the firm’s partnership, had been understanding when Margaret’s uncle died the previous spring and left her a cottage. Their understanding had continued when Margaret, working remotely, had still managed to orchestrate a major, and lucrative, win in a lawsuit that Hamish was handling. But that understanding couldn’t last much longer.

Alistair looked out through the beach-facing picture window, absently taking in the waves of the Firth of Forth, the wet sand glistening in the morning August sun, and the calling gulls. It was an idyllic existence, in terms of location. The cottage was two miles from Finlay Village, with access by either walking along the beach at low tide, or driving the recently-cleared disused railway track route. A fifteen minute drive north brought him to St. Andrews, the vibrant university town he never got tired of exploring, and Edinburgh was to the south, close enough for day trips.

Why would he ever need to leave, he wondered, not for the first time. But the visit to Scotland had only ever been that, a visit. He hadn’t chosen to settle in Scotland, but his stay kept being prolonged by various projects and events that he and Margaret, together or separately, couldn’t resist. He knew this limbo situation couldn’t go on indefinitely, with both of them avoiding a firm decision to stay or go.

He heard the shower running in the bathroom off the adjoining bedroom, indicating that Margaret would soon join him at the table for breakfast. She hadn’t initiated a discussion about moving back to Maine, so he decided it was up to him.

In fact, Margaret hadn’t talked about anything serious since her return from Orkney, the group of islands north of the mainland Scottish coast. Her visit had coincided with his time in Kilvellie, but other than telling him she was in Orkney to provide background for a magazine article, she hadn’t offered much.

Margaret’s ties with Orkney were complex. Alistair knew she loved visiting the islands, with their wealth of Neolithic stones and tombs, their natural beauty and opportunities for hiking, and, more recently, their important role during both World Wars. However, earlier that summer, she’d fallen into a dungeon below a crumbling palace ruin, then risked her life to crawl through a long, dark tunnel, only to emerge to daylight and a young man threatening her with a knife.

All had ended well, but Margaret’s claim to fame for not only helping to discover a lost architectural feature, but also a hidden cache of stolen gold coins from the first millennium, meant that she had become an authoritative source for any reporter or writer investigating the stories. Alistair knew she was tolerating the attention, if only because she was a stickler for getting facts reported correctly.

He also knew that every hour she spent with a reporter, or demonstrating where she fell into the dungeon and where the tunnel emerged at the shore, meant another hour she could have been billing to a client for her law firm. In his career and hers, there was no escape from the hard truth: time was money, but time was limited.

The hairdryer began droning, and Alistair poured himself another cup of tea. He fumbled with his cell phone. There was a piece of unfinished business from his visits to Kilvellie, an awkward call he simply had to make to the police. And the longer he put it off, the more awkward it became. But now he had a short reprieve as Margaret emerged from the bedroom, ready for the day. He slipped his phone into his pocket.

Chapter 2

Margaret’s curly red hair was glowing in the morning sun, and she’d tied it back in a ponytail. She wore jeans and a cream linen tunic, with indoor felt clogs on her feet. Alistair smiled at her as she sat down, touched the teapot to make sure it was hot, and poured herself the first welcome cup of tea of the day.

Do you need to make a call? she asked. You had your phone out before I sat down. She was surprised that he was still in his bathrobe, a warm navy blue terry robe from a shop in St. Andrews. He must have been up early, she thought, and hadn’t wanted to wake her by rummaging for clothes in the bedroom.

He hesitated before replying. So far, he hadn’t told her about his unfinished business, about the burden he carried, and decided now was the time. It would help to ease them into a discussion about their immediate future.

Actually, I do, but it’s not something I’ve told you about yet. Do you want to hear it now, or do you need to work first?

Alistair thought he knew the answer: with Margaret’s boss and colleagues in Maine, five hours behind, she usually had her mornings free before she had to check for anything urgent.

I don’t need to work this morning, not law work anyway. If it’s a long story, should I make us a new pot of tea? You must have been up for a while.

Alistair poured the dregs, strong from steeping, into his cup and handed the empty pot to her. Thanks. And I’m sorry the kitchen counter isn’t fixed yet. I had planned to work on it while you were in Orkney, but I’ll get right back to it, I promise!

Margaret laughed. No hurry, I won’t disturb whatever you’re doing.

He just nodded his head. He actually hadn’t started on the kitchen at all, part of his avoidance of anything new that could extend their time and prevent a realistic decision about returning to Portland. And his recent days of sleuthing in Kilvellie, being reminded of the kind of work he enjoyed back home, reinforced his reluctance to start any cottage remodeling.

When Margaret returned with the fresh pot of tea, Alistair began the story he’d kept from her until now. She listened with increasing interest, so engaged that she took few sips from her cooling tea.

You know I told you that the town, Kilvellie, used to be famous for its glass factory, and now it’s famous for the sea glass, the beach glass that people come from all over to collect?

Yes, and I want to go there and look for glass!

Alistair glanced at the shelving against the nearby wall: on it were numerous jars of multicolored sea glass collected by Margaret’s late uncle, on the nearby beach. He felt like saying that she’d inherited plenty of glass, but resisted the temptation.

"Margaret, you may not want to collect glass there when I’m done with the story. The glass factory was productive from the early nineteen twenties until the nineteen nineties. Their best work was done in the twenties and thirties, when they turned out vases using skills and techniques that someone brought from Venice, from Murano specifically. I’ve seen the vases. Some in millefiori design, just gorgeous. And valuable now. Anyway, after several decades, the cliff edge erosion was making the location unsafe. It was far too expensive to move or rebuild the factory, so it closed down and was demolished. He stopped and took a long drink of tea. But that’s not what I need to tell you. During the Second World War, there were a series of attacks on the factory. A few young men, too young to go to war, went on rampages through the factory and they tossed all the glass they could get their hands on over the cliff..."

Margaret interrupted. "So that’s why the sea glass there is unique? Because it began as beautiful glassware?"

Yes, that’s part of the story. People who don’t know the background only see the positive side to the colored glass pebbles and shards they collect. And sell, and use to make jewelry. The negative side is that the sea glass is evidence of criminal activity that went on for most of the war.

But how could it? Margaret cried. Why did the local police and the townspeople let the factory be trashed like that?

Alistair shook his head. It baffles me too. One explanation is that the factory was built by a former German soldier, who’d fought against the British in the First World War. He was injured badly at the front and ended up in a British ward. While he was recovering he met a Scottish nurse, and after the war he moved to Scotland where they married and had a family. Maybe the townspeople saw the factory as a legitimate target when Britain went to war against Germany again. But another explanation is that there were no ablebodied men left in the town to protect the factory...

Margaret let out a groan. "Well, there would have been able-bodied women I would think. If the factory provided jobs for their sons and husbands who were off fighting, they’d have had a strong motive to keep the factory secure until the war ended."

Good point, of course, but for whatever reason, protecting the factory was left in the hands of one young man, who they called the factory guard. His bad eyesight kept him out of the military, but he was deemed capable of guarding a building.

But it didn’t work, did it, if the place was still looted?

Alistair paused to drink more tea and consider how much to tell her.

Here’s where the stories diverge. Some people think the guard may have colluded with the vandals, or that he was forced to let them in under threats to his family. Whatever the explanation, he emerged from the war with a stash of valuable glass vases and other glass items. When he was moving into a care home a few years ago, his granddaughter sold the glass for him and he’s living in luxury accommodations. An old manor house in the town.

Margaret took a sip of tea and shook her head. It sounds to me like he was unjustly enriched by his work during the war years. Sorry, I’m speaking legalese. He basically had his granddaughter sell stolen goods. Does she know where the glass came from, or maybe you don’t know the answer to that. Maybe she’s innocent in it all?

I spoke to her just once, and that conversation is what’s giving me so much anxiety about the phone call I have to make.

Margaret touched his forearm for a moment. I know you’ve been a bit quiet since we both got back last week, but I figured you have a lot on your mind, with the cottage renovations and thinking about our wedding. I had no idea you’re feeling stressed. You should be sharing these things with me!

He smiled. I know, but there’s one piece I can’t share yet until I make a call to a police officer I know in Kilvellie. When all this is over, I want to invite her here. You’ll get along well. It’s her last job before she plans to retire, but policing the town is more challenging than she expected. It’s not all beachcombing, ice cream, and fish and chips. He stopped and sighed. "And now I’m going to give her some news she will hate."

Chapter 3

Margaret went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, leaving Alistair to make his phone call. She hoped it wouldn’t take him long, because she had something to discuss with him, something that had a bearing on whether they would stay in Scotland for longer, or return to Maine. As she waited for the toast to pop up from the toaster, she thought back to her recent visit to Orkney. It felt like the islands were weaving a web around her, preventing her from thinking about anything else. And now she had a request that she was having a hard time turning down.

Although raised in America, Margaret had been born in Scotland to Scottish parents. With Margaret on her own now and working in Portland, her parents spent more and more time in Britain, and her father assisted the royal family now and again, diplomatic issues as far as Margaret knew, as her father didn’t reveal much. One of the princes, in his late twenties, was soon to marry a young woman who lived in Orkney, and on Margaret’s most recent trip to Orkney, the prince had been there also.

During a casual dinner, he’d told Margaret about his latest project. He was already taking a leadership role in helping the British regain their sense of civility and civic pride, and the village of Finlay was the recipient of an award for civility. As an avid beachcomber, the prince had turned his attention to Scotland’s coasts. Increased tourism in remote areas was causing formerly pristine beaches to become dumping grounds for waste, including the ubiquitous plastic bottles and other plastic items that could prove fatal to marine life.

Margaret knew that beach clean-up projects were popular, but the prince had something else in mind, in which the collection of trash would be incidental to the real incentive: a competition to find natural treasure on Scottish beaches. After hearing the prince’s idea, Margaret was eager to get involved. But, realistically, could she put her career on hold for another couple of months to collect cowrie shells?

When she returned to the dining table, carrying a tray of toast, jam, marmalade, and butter, Alistair was sitting immobile, staring at the phone in his hands.

Was that enough time to make your call? Margaret asked. She thought he looked shaken.

Yes, but the person I need to talk to isn’t available. There was an accident yesterday that resulted in a death, so she and her sergeant are both out looking for witnesses. They have an officer from another station handling the office calls.

A car accident? Margaret waited for his reply while she arranged the food and dishes on the table, then refilled their teacups.

No, it sounds like someone may have fallen over the cliff. I hate to say it, but I’m not surprised. There’s nothing to prevent people from getting too close to the edge, and it’s eroding away, so...

Was it an elderly man?

I don’t know. Did you see something in the news?

She opened her laptop. Possibly. I was reading about access to some of the Scottish coastline last night. There’s an online petition to install guardrails along the more dangerous cliff edges. She stopped while she found the information, then summarized it for Alistair.

It’s the same town, Kilvellie. An elderly man was sitting on a bench near the edge of a cliff one minute, and then he was gone. His body was found lying on the beach below. No one claims to have been near enough to see it happen, but so far it’s not being treated as a suspicious death.

She looked up. Poor old guy. He probably lost his balance. Horrible way to go.

Does the report give a name? Alistair asked, his voice far away, as if he was dreading the answer.

No, only that he’s local, not a tourist.

Alistair turned his phone over and over in his hands, and finally he looked through his contact list and pressed the number for his private investigator friend Adam. They had worked together on a recent case in Kilvellie, involving a missing teenage girl. But beyond that, Alistair had a specific reason to call Adam: Adam’s mother was the senior officer in the Kilvellie police station.

Alistair listened: Adam had seen who was calling, and knew why.

Hi Alistair, I assume you’re calling about the news from Kilvellie. The identity of the man hasn’t been released to the public yet, but it’s Ronald Wilson.

Was... was... Alistair hesitated. He and Adam knew something of the man’s involvement as the glass factory guard during the Second World War, but Alistair had another layer of information, the secret he had yet to share with Adam’s mother. Was it really an accident?

Adam’s voice was reassuring. When Alistair had first met Adam in the spring, Adam’s strong Scottish accent and word choices had taken some getting used to, but now Alistair was able to tune in quickly and follow the conversation without interrupting for explanations. As far as we know, aye. I’ve spoken to Mum a couple of times. No one has come forward saying they actually saw him fall. As you know, the bench he always sat on is at the far side of the parking lot, and people around the cafe would have had to be looking toward the cliff at that precise second.

So, Alistair mused, no real-time witness...

Nae so far, but Mum’s appealing to anyone who was in the vicinity to check their photos and videos, in case there’s something in the background. It’s a long shot, but someone might have inadvertently captured the fall while they were filming their wee bairns nearby, or scenery.

Alistair sighed. I agree, it is a long shot. We’ll probably never know. Poor old guy.

Aye, although maybe better a sudden death than lingering for months or years with a terminal illness. But I agree, a sudden death will be difficult for his family to adjust to.

They ended the call with the usual promises to get together soon, although that might be a while, given Adam’s busy work schedule in Inverness, a long day trip from Finlay.

That sounded intense, Margaret commented, looking at Alistair’s face as he stared out at the beach, his eyes half-closed and his forehead wrinkled in confusion.

He turned to her and his face softened. It’s tragic for the man and the family, but it actually renders my dreaded phone call moot. That’s the right legal term, for a situation changing so that a course of action is no longer relevant?

Close enough, Margaret agreed. "And if the point of your dreaded call is now moot, can you tell me what it was about?"

Yes, and I know I don’t need to say this, but please keep it to yourself.

Margaret smiled. If you know nothing else about me, Alistair, you know I can keep a secret.

Chapter 4

Alistair and Margaret cleared away the breakfast dishes, and Alistair decided he needed coffee to stimulate his mind while he told Margaret about the last hours of his second, and he’d hoped final, visit to Kilvellie. During those hours, he’d felt his mind pushed to the limit to try and make sense of conflicting facts, if they were facts at all.

While the coffee was brewing, he went to the bedroom and threw on jeans and his favorite gray St. Andrews University hoodie. He’d never wear it to go out, for fear of looking like a tourist—he was too old to pass for a student— but wearing it at home gave him a cozy sense of belonging.

With coffee in hand, he returned to the dining table. He realized it would help to have a map of Kilvellie handy, so he printed one from his laptop. Margaret sat next to him at the table and he placed the map in front of them.

I’ve already told you about the glass factory and the young men, six of them we think, who repeatedly pillaged it and threw glass over the cliff. Well, everything pointed to them being young men from Kilvellie, or nearby, who resented the idea of a German, who’d fought the British in the First World War, having a successful business in their town. If they’d been old enough to enlist, presumably they would have done so, but maybe they had older brothers or fathers fighting over in France or Italy, or Africa, and they had to let off steam somehow.

He stopped to drink some coffee and re-orient himself with the map. Using his pen as a pointer, he continued.

The locations matter for what I’m going to tell you. The town itself is here, the beach is at the east side of the town, and the Beachside Cafe is to the north, about halfway along the cliff.

How do you get onto the beach? Margaret asked.

The land slopes downwards, going south to the town, so you can access it from a ramp in the town. There’s also a long set of wooden steps from the beach up to this parking lot. It’s where the glass factory used to be.

He stopped and thought. Oh, and there’s another set of steps up the cliff at the far north end of the beach. It was mainly put there as an escape route for people who risked getting caught on the beach during high tide.

I’ll keep that in mind! Margaret interjected.

Alistair pointed again to the parking area on the map. The man who fell, he used to sit on a bench here. His granddaughter would drive him to the cafe, then he’d hobble over to sit on the bench for a while, with his memories I was told, while his granddaughter and her young child would have a half hour or so at the cafe.

Margaret looked up at him. How do you know all this?

It’s part of a very long story of what I was doing in Kilvellie. I promise I will bore you with it all soon. But to get back to the old man, he was the grandfather of the sergeant in the police station there. And the woman who brought the old man to sit by the cliff is the sergeant’s sister. I got bits of the story from both of them, but they have different versions. The grandson, his name’s Desmond, he said he grew up disliking the grandfather, Ronald. Ronald had moved in with Desmond, his sister Emily, and their parents. According to both grandchildren, Ronald’s mind had been damaged during the war. Not like on the battlefield, but his unsuccessful efforts to protect the factory from the vandals had left him mentally stuck in those years, still battling.

It sounds like he was a very unhappy man. It must have been difficult having him in the family home.

Yes, Alistair confirmed, nodding his head. It got so bad that as soon as Emily and Desmond took off for university, their parents moved and the grandfather stayed on alone in the house. That is, until he couldn’t look after himself and he went into a care home.

Margaret thought for a moment. It seemed a bit extreme, in her experience, for a married couple to have to move out of their home, simply to accommodate one aging parent.

Why didn’t they get home help for him in his own house? That’s one of the benefits of aging in Scotland, getting help to enable people to stay at home.

Good point, but according to Desmond’s father, Ronald could be mean and rude, and that made it uncomfortable for people to come in and help. So Ronald moved himself into a fancy care home.

Alistair pulled up the website for the Seaview Manor Home on his laptop. It’s located a few blocks inland from the coast, but it still has a view of the water, and it was convenient for Emily to visit and take him out.

Wow! Margaret exclaimed as she looked at the pictures of magnificent gardens, elegant rooms, and the descriptions of the food available to the residents. Ronald, the grandfather, must have had a good income to afford this place.

He didn’t, that’s the point. This is the man I mentioned earlier who accumulated a lot of valuable glass during the war, and his granddaughter Emily sold it for him in the past few years and he used that money to pay for this place.

"Oh, sorry, I didn’t put two and two together. So Ronald was the glass factory guard?"

Exactly, Alistair confirmed. But here’s how I got involved last week. Ronald’s grandson Desmond, the police sergeant, was staying at Emily’s for a couple of nights while he was moving to a different apartment, and he noticed boxes with recent auction records, including the vintage glass Emily had been selling. Adam went through one of Ronald’s other boxes and found that he’d kept diaries during the war, with records of the days the factory was vandalized, and lists of glass that apparently he was given or he took. Way back then, the pieces were each unique, so Adam and I managed to match them up with the ones Emily sold to fund his comfortable life in the care home.

Margaret drank some tea and stared at the care home website.

So, she ventured after a few moments, this is what you alluded to earlier. Ronald lived in comfort thanks to the sale of stolen property? Wartime theft?

It looks like it. We don’t know for sure that he didn’t receive it legitimately, for example maybe the factory management paid him in glass, but there’s no record of that, at least that I’ve heard. He also wrote the names of six men in his diaries, on the dates of the vandalism.

Good, so with the diaries, could the police still go after the men, if any are alive?

We talked to the police officer who heads the Kilvellie station, Helen Griffen, and she decided that it would rake up too many bad memories. There could be people living in the town whose parents or grandparents knew the young men, or other people who had colluded and also got some of the stolen glass.

Alistair stopped and sighed. Have you seen the television show Foyle’s War? he asked.

Yes, my parents watched it. In your situation, do you think Foyle would still expose the vandals’ identity, all these decades later?

That’s the question. But we decided not to. Well, I mean, Helen decided not to, after she and Adam and I went through the pros and cons. I made the point that with no evidence of loss of life, it was all property damage, and maybe too much time has passed to hold young men, teenagers at the time, accountable. Or even to make their names known.

Margaret looked up and smiled. With just that set of facts, I think I agree with you. It’s one thing to still go after wartime criminals in their eighties and nineties who were responsible for killing, but somehow, tossing glass over a cliff doesn’t rise to the same level, that’s what I think.

Good, I’m glad you would have concurred, with your legal background. Alistair stood up. I need more coffee before we continue.

Margaret was ready to finish her tea and make a start on the day. Isn’t that the end of the story? With the old man, the factory guard, now dead, it sounds like he was the only witness, so even if the vandals were found, you only have his diary evidence of their involvement, right?

I wish that were so. But there’s another part of it, and only I know. I should have told the police right away, but I was having arguments with my inner Foyle!

Chapter 5

Alistair returned to the dining table. Margaret had also gone to the kitchen for a fresh mug of tea. She brought back a dish of shortbread.

Brain food, she explained. This story is getting too convoluted for me to follow.

After a long drink of coffee and a satisfied, Ah, that’s better, Alistair resumed the story by pointing again at the map.

The last day in Kilvellie, my mind was at rest about the old man and the factory attacks, but I was still feeling unsettled. I missed having you to talk to, so I was wavering between driving south to Finlay and waiting for you to get back from Orkney, or driving up to catch a ferry and meet you. I thought maybe I could help with whatever you were doing. So I drove north through Kilvellie, and made a split second decision to stop at the cafe I mentioned before. He stopped and looked at Margaret, a questioning look on his face.

Does that happen to you? he asked. That sense of not being able to make a decision, and your body kind of makes it for you?

Sure it does. Like when I crawled through that tunnel from the palace in Orkney. My brain said I should wait and keep yelling for help, but all the while, I was on hands and knees and crawling toward what might have been a very nasty end, stuck in a tunnel.

So you understand when I tell you that the car just about pulled into the parking lot of its own volition. I got some coffee and a box of pastries, then it was so nice out, I sat outside the cafe while I tried to decide what to do next. I could see the old man on his bench by the cliff, but I had no reason to walk over and talk to him. Then suddenly, I felt someone sit on the bench next to me. I recognized her from Desmond’s photos—it was his sister Emily.

Did you tell her who you were, and what you’d learned about her grandfather?

Alistair smiled. Margaret, I’m sure you know the answer, I didn’t. I just told her my name. But she seemed to be in a mood to chat, so I listened. I won’t repeat all the details, but she told me that her grandfather had confided something to her, and only to her. He thought she would understand because her husband is in the military. The story she told is that the six young men who vandalized the factory were Germans. They supposedly told her grandfather, the guard, that the factory founder had stolen equipment and supplies from their own family glass factories in Germany, right after World War One. Then the founder somehow shipped all that stuff to Scotland and built his successful factory in Kilvellie. In their eyes, they were simply getting revenge on him.

What? Margaret shook her head. I thought everyone knew that the vandals were local boys, but they weren’t caught or prosecuted because people in the town might have been quietly benefiting, or at least looking the other way since the factory was built by a German man, an ex-soldier?

"Yes, that seems to have been the party line, if you can call it that. The factory owner came back from being interned as an enemy alien, and then after years of closure, he