The Curator (Washington Poe)

by M. W. Craven

  ‘I’m booking into a local hotel,’ she said. ‘Going to grab an hour’s kip if I can. Will you, Tilly and DI Flynn want rooms? We could be here a while.’

  Poe looked across at his car. Earlier, Bradshaw had taken three steps into the stinging wind and said, ‘Blimey’. She’d immediately got back in the BMW and turned up the heating. So far she’d steadfastly refused to get out, saying the sea air would damage her computers. Flynn was arriving later in her own car.

  ‘Probably just the two,’ he said. ‘I’ll commute.’

  She nodded. ‘We’ll be able to walk across in two hours apparently. As you weren’t with Cumbria when he was attacked, and you’re not with Cumbria now, I’m hoping he might find your presence a bit more palatable.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ Poe said. ‘Do we have a guide? It’s a dangerous walk.’

  ‘I spoke to someone who takes tourists from here to Piel Island. He’ll take us across the first time. After that we’ll just have to work something out. Until we’ve found this bastard, I’m putting officers on that island whether Atkinson likes it or not. The marine unit reckons there’s only one place a boat can dock – if we watch that and the route in on foot I think we can ensure no one gets on the island who shouldn’t, while keeping the low profile you wanted.’

  Poe nodded. As an ex-infantryman, he knew that observation posts were all about location, not boots on the ground. Choose the right position and one person and a pair of binoculars could cover tens of miles of ground. At sea it was even easier as the only thing you had to contend with was the curvature of the earth.

  He walked back to his car and rapped on the window. A startled Bradshaw lowered it an inch.

  ‘What is it, Poe?’

  ‘Superintendent Nightingale is booking you and the boss into a hotel,’ he said. ‘Take my car and get checked in. Get a wi-fi signal and start working on who might have hired this prick.’

  ‘What will you be doing, Poe?’

  He looked at the retreating tide.

  ‘Me? I’m going for a walk …’

  Chapter 59

  The close-growing lichen that covered the rocks above the tide-line made them look as though they had been sprinkled with curry powder. They were slippery and Poe trod carefully. If Bradshaw heard he’d gone arse over tit he’d never live it down. Gradually, the muddy inlet they followed petered out and became tide-smoothed sand, the dark brown kind that never really dries out, and the going got easier.

  It wasn’t obvious at what point they left the saltmarsh on Walney Island’s Snab Point and stepped onto the bed of the Irish Sea. Judging by the way the jelly-like sand was moving underfoot, sucking at his walking boots, Poe reckoned it had been fifteen minutes earlier.

  The sand was wet and flat, an environment best suited to crabs and burrowing shellfish. Other than the odd bed of ugly black seaweed, there was no vegetation whatsoever. The gritty sand didn’t even glisten, dulled as it was by the blanket of cloud overhead.

  Their guide was called John and he’d been taking tourists to Piel Island for almost thirty years. He had a shock of white hair, a nut-brown face and wore boots stained with salt.

  ‘We’ll skirt around Sheep Island, take the usual route towards Piel Island for half an hour then bear right towards Montague,’ he told them. ‘You should be able to see it soon.’

  Nightingale’s plan was to speak to Atkinson then head back to Walney Island where a command centre was being set up. The two plain-clothed cops she had with her didn’t look happy that they’d be standing the first post.

  ‘Dunno why the gutter rats couldn’t have loaned us one of their X5s,’ one of them muttered, using the derogatory term for traffic cops.

  The other replied, ‘White-hatted bastards wouldn’t want to get mud on their shiny—’

  ‘Shut it!’ Nightingale snapped.

  John the guide chuckled. ‘Can’t drive to Montague Island, son. Piel, yes, if it’s low tide and you have a four-by-four and follow the markers, but Montague, not a chance. Even when the tide’s fully out it’s surrounded by water.’ He pronounced it ‘watter’.

  He paused to look around as if searching for something.

  ‘You see that brown thing sticking out the sand over there?’ He pointed towards a dark misshapen tangle of metal that Poe had assumed was a piece of flotsam. ‘That’s what’s left of the last idiot who tried to take a short cut.’

  Poe looked closer. It wasn’t marine debris; it was the skeleton of a vehicle – a campervan by the looks of it. It was half buried in a sandbank. The only thing not yet stripped away by the sea was its frame, which was now a mass of bubbling rust. During high tide Poe suspected the van would be fully submerged and become a haven for some of the smaller sea creatures, the same way shipwrecks were for lobsters and moray eels farther out.

  ‘The locals wanted it moved,’ John continued, ‘but it serves as both a warning and as a navigation tool. We’ll see a few of these on the way to the island. The world’s full of fools who think they can race the tide.’

  Poe stepped forwards to take a closer look.

  ‘I’d stop there if I was you,’ John said. ‘See that sign beside the van? The white one encased in erosion-resistant concrete?’

  ‘I see it.’

  ‘That’s telling you there’s quicksand in that area. Get stuck in that and you’re in trouble.’

  Poe shuddered. Since he was a child he’d had an irrational fear of drowning in quicksand, a legacy of too many cheesy westerns in which the struggling cowboy sinks, leaving only his hat behind. He’d mentioned it to Bradshaw once who, true to form, had explained the science behind it. Something to do with reduced friction between sand particles, meaning it couldn’t support the weight of a human. She’d said it was a myth that you could drown, though – eventually the particles would rearrange themselves.

  ‘I thought you couldn’t drown in quicksand,’ Poe said.

  ‘You can’t. But it will trap you until the tide comes in. How long can you hold your breath, Sergeant Poe?’’

  Poe rejoined the small group.

  After forty minutes they skirted past Piel Island. Despite the encroaching gloom, the ruins of the fourteenth-century castle, built by the Abbot of Furness to guard Barrow against pirates, were clearly visible. Another slice of Cumbria’s impressive history.

  Nightingale said, ‘Jesus, that’s bleak.’

  He turned to where she was looking.

  Montague Island, hidden until then by Piel Island and the inclement weather, was now visible.

  Poe stared at the place Atkinson had chosen for a home. Nightingale was right: it was bleak.

  Chapter 60

  Montague Island, half a mile from the southern tip of Walney Island, sat outside the protective windbreak that Walney afforded Barrow and everything inside the channel.

  Poe reckoned if Montague had been sand and soil based like the others it would have eroded away eons ago. Instead it was a craggy outcrop, steep-sided and aggressive looking. It was the type of island that deserved a lighthouse even if there was no strategic need for one. A less hospitable coastline Poe couldn’t have imagined. Jagged fingers of barnacle-covered rock, jutting out in no discernible pattern, greeted them in the same way defensive spikes greeted advancing cavalry in medieval times. The pier that the marine unit had docked against the night before extended into the sea on mussel-encrusted stilts. It cast an ominous silhouette in the early morning light.

  There was a small beach to the right of the pier and the rocks. Half a dozen small boats had been hauled onto the dunes to ensure they didn’t float away when the tide returned. Poe assumed it was how the islanders coped with their isolation. Rather than rely on deliveries, some of the islanders sailed to the mainland for their provisions.

  Steps had been carved into the rocks beside the pier and the party headed towards them. John the guide had been right: despite the tide being fully out, a ring of shallow water formed a natural moat all the way around the island, and although it
was no more than a foot deep, no one stepped onto the island with dry feet.

  ‘Montague Island, ladies and gents,’ John said, after they’d helped each other up the treacherously slippery rock steps and onto drier land. ‘The pier and the land up to that boundary fence’ – he pointed to a sun-bleached structure made of crudely assembled driftwood – ‘is public land. Everything else is privately owned and you’ll need permission to enter. The people on the far side of the island have right of way so I suppose you’ll be OK passing through to visit the man you want.’

  The area designated as public land included the outline of what had been the isolation hospital. Poe wandered over to have a look. He suspected it had been dismantled and the stone used to build the island’s homes. What remained looked like rows of broken teeth.

  On the way back he glanced in the boats that had been pulled onto the small beach. The one on the end had a lobster pot tucked under the seat. Shaped like a miniature Nissen hut, it had a oneway ‘funnel’ entrance and was lined with rocks so it wouldn’t blow away. All the other boats were empty.

  He rejoined Nightingale.

  ‘How long do we have, John?’ she said.

  Their guide reached into his jacket and handed her a folded document.

  ‘That’s the tide timetable for Piel Island. There isn’t one for Montague as no one comes here. Low tide was at ten past eight and we set off then.’ He checked his watch. ‘It’s taken us an hour and fifteen minutes to get here and the next high tide is at one-forty. We’ll need to leave here by midday to be safe. Any later than that and you’ll have to wait until the next low tide this evening.’

  Poe checked his own watch. It was 9.30 a.m. In two and a half hours they’d have to leave.

  Two and half hours to convince Atkinson that they were there to save his life.

  Montague Island had its own microclimate. Cold air from the Irish Sea was forced up the steep cliffs where it mixed with the island’s warmer air, forming unstable clouds.

  According to Bradshaw, the island was ten acres in size, the same as five football pitches. It was egg-shaped and rose out of the sea like a door wedge. The eastern side, the side with the pier and steps, was the lower side. The west side ended abruptly with sheer cliffs.

  Like Snab Point on Walney Island, it was also a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest, partly because of the grey seals that frequented the western rocks and partly because of the small colony of natterjack toads that had made their home in the dunes on the more sheltered eastern side, the same dunes that housed the islanders’ boats.

  No sheep were allowed on the island but the grass was kept short by the well-established colony of rabbits. Glistening droppings and a series of holes gave away the warren’s location. Poe wondered how deep the burrows were. Not as deep as they’d have liked, he suspected; it looked like they’d only be able to dig a few feet before they’d hit the island’s bedrock. Then again, rabbits were invasive pests and could adapt to all but the harshest environments.

  There were six houses on the island. They were all squat and drab and rain-lashed. According to their guide they were only occupied during the summer months. Atkinson’s building was the oldest. It had originally been the administrative building for the isolation hospital and was situated away from the others on the west-facing side of the island, the opposite side to where they’d landed.

  To get there they had to cross land belonging to two other houses. The boundary of each primitive-looking property was delineated by the remains of a dry stone wall network. With livestock no longer allowed on the island, it seemed it wasn’t just the hospital that had been requisitioned as building material.

  It started to snow but, despite it being cold enough, it wasn’t lying. The ground was far too salty. Poe had expected it to be squelchy and soft but it wasn’t, it was dry and solid – Montague Island was obviously fast draining. The short grass was tough and springy and easy to walk on.

  John stayed on the public land and the two cops got on with ensuring the properties on the eastern side of the island were definitely unoccupied. Poe and Nightingale made their way to the western side where Atkinson lived.

  The complete absence of man-made sound was eerie. Gulls and terns squabbled and squawked and the wind whistled through the rocks and crevasses but otherwise it was peaceful. Poe could see the attraction. He removed his BlackBerry, turned around and snapped a pic. He attached it to a text and sent it to Bradshaw.

  A red exclamation mark appeared beside it. He checked for a signal.

  Nothing. Just a ‘No Service’ message where the bars should have been.

  Nightingale saw him staring at his phone.

  ‘No signal?’

  ‘Not even one bar,’ Poe replied.

  ‘It’s a dead spot apparently. The two clowns who came out last night said exactly the same thing. Their radios barely worked. They said it was why they came back without checking in with me.’

  Bradshaw would worry – she’d read stories of people drowning in the Walney Channel trying to reach the islands – but there was nothing he could do. He doubted Atkinson would have a landline. Doubted it would be possible to even have a landline this far out.

  ‘There it is,’ Nightingale said.

  Poe looked up.

  Chapter 61

  Edward Atkinson lived in a recently extended bungalow of unevenly sized grey stones, the same type as the remnants of the island’s hospital and dry stone walls. It had a slate roof and crouched low in a grassy embankment near the steeply sloping cliffs. Before its extension, it had been shaped like a shoebox. A central door bisected two salt-pocked windows no bigger than a tabloid newspaper. The annex was newer and windowless. It had been constructed with the same stone but it hadn’t yet weathered the elements for one hundred and thirty years. A chimney topped it all, a thin, silver trail of smoke curling from the flue before being whipped away by the wind.

  It looked like Atkinson had spent a chunk of his settlement money renovating the bungalow before he moved in. Whereas the other houses had grass and weeds pushing up against the walls, Atkinson’s had smooth, wheelchair-friendly paths and ramps. The equipment they’d seen beside all the other houses – equipment Poe recognised from Herdwick Croft: septic tanks, water pumps, gas bottles and the like – were all there but arranged so that they could be managed by someone sitting down.

  Making Herdwick Croft a viable place to live had been a challenge for Poe; he had nothing but admiration for someone who could make a go of it in an even harsher environment while confined to a wheelchair.

  Nightingale rapped her knuckles on the sturdy door. There was no bell and no knocker. There was a keyhole and after waiting a minute she leaned down and looked through it.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Key’s in the door but I can’t hear anything,’ Nightingale said. She sounded concerned.

  ‘You stay here, I’ll have a wander round the back.’ Something didn’t make sense. Everything about the bungalow was wheelchair friendly but the doorframe hadn’t been widened and the keyhole hadn’t been lowered. Why spend all that money only to scrimp where it mattered?

  Unless it didn’t matter …

  Poe skirted around the side of the bungalow, sticking to the smooth tarmac of the path. As he rounded the corner, a rush of sea wind caught him in the face making his eyes water. When they’d cleared, two things were apparent: what they’d assumed was the front of the bungalow was actually the back, and the reason Edward Atkinson hadn’t answered his door was because he wasn’t inside.

  From the back, Atkinson’s house was as drab and unwelcoming as the rest of the houses on the island; from the front it was jaw dropping. The builders he’d hired had excelled themselves.

  A stone terrace, thirty yards by fifteen, ran the length of the bungalow and beyond. It stretched all the way to the cliff edge. Raised, weed-free flowerbeds were set into the low wall that bordered the terrace. Poe had no doubt that come spring they would be a riot of colou
rs and scents. A place to enjoy the breeze, the sun and sea spray.

  At the far end of the terrace a brick barbecue and a pizza oven were fixed into the wall, both at an accessible height for someone in a wheelchair. A neat pile of chopped wood was stacked under a covered lean-to. Poe hadn’t seen any trees on the island and assumed Atkinson had the same problem he had: having to buy in his fuel – a small price to pay to live in such a raw and beautiful environment, though. Terracotta pots containing hardy plants were positioned to catch the sun, but otherwise the terrace was clutter free.

  Wheelchair-sized observation areas had been cut into the wall at regular intervals. Atkinson would be able to admire the view from any direction he wanted. In decent weather the Isle of Man would be visible. Today, though, Poe could only see as far as the Walney Wind Farm. With over one hundred turbines, it was one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world.

  Poe peered over the edge of the terrace wall. The cliffs weren’t as sheer as they had appeared from a distance, and he could see down to the grey seal colony basking on the rocks below and, because the bungalow sat on the top of an inlet, he could also see the land either side. A grim-looking graveyard dominated the bluff on the right. Poe wondered if it was for the islanders or whether it was where the Chinese labourers had been interred. Probably the latter; the gravestones were too uniform to have been spread over a period of time.

  Poe watched a wave crash into the rocks below and, although it bothered the seals about as much as the fat content in sausages bothered him, it did send up a cloud of sea spray that caught the wind. Poe felt it on his face. He wiped it off with the back of his hand.

  Atkinson didn’t move.

  He was in his wheelchair, pushed up against one of the more central viewpoints, his back to the bungalow. Poe wasn’t surprised to see he had a powerful build – he knew how hard he had to work at Herdwick Croft and Atkinson had double the work with probably half the number of working muscles. A weak man couldn’t manage a property like this. Atkinson was probably stronger than he was.