by Heide Goody
Ragnar peered towards the compound. “Saxon alert, lads.”
There was a car parked by the chain gate of their compound and a woman stood next to it. The car, whilst not exactly old or battered, had a well-worn look to it. It was a car that had either been loved to bits or not loved enough. The young-ish Saxon woman had a similar air about her, tired yet bright-eyed.
“Ay up, lass,” said Ragnar as the wood laden truck stopped at the gate.
Several of the Odinson men tried without success to stand in such a way as to conceal the huge cargo of stolen oak.
The woman smiled nervously. “It’s Ragnar, isn’t it?”
“Aye. And who are you?”
“It’s that woman with the shop,” said Hilde.
“Delia,” said the woman. “And I was wondering if I could ask…” She gestured at Hilde. “I wanted to ask Hilde about some work she might do for me.”
Ragnar wasn’t sure what was going on here. Strangers didn’t turn up at the Odinson compound – police, yes, social workers, yes, other representatives of the Saxon authorities with their demands and questions, yes, but not ordinary Saxon folk. He was immediately suspicious and stroked his beard as he stared.
The woman, Delia, tried another smile. “My, that’s a lot of wood you’ve got on your truck there.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Sigurd automatically, leaning against a chunk of tree trunk as though to normalise it and make it vanish.
“Isn’t it?” said Delia.
“Perfectly normal amount of wood,” said Yngve.
“Oh. Right.”
“Not even worth mentioning,” said Torsten.
Hilde jumped over the side of the truck and onto the muddy ground. “What work?”
“I’ve got a mammoth’s belly that won’t stay on and I think I need to construct a supporting framework. Maybe out of light metal.”
Hermod had moved the chain barrier. As the truck rumbled forward, Ragnar pushed his way to the rear and jumped off. No way was his granddaughter going to discuss any sort of deal without her farfar to look after her.
“Hilde’s services don’t come cheap,” he said.
“Well, I don’t have much in the way of funds,” said Delia. “But I don’t have much time, either.”
“Then she’s not interested.”
“I thought you could come down to the shop. I’ve probably got all the tools you’d need in the workshop.”
“As I said, she’s not interested—” said Ragnar.
Hilde stepped in front of him. “Workshop, you say?”
“Yes.”
Hilde frowned. “Are you talking about an actual job?”
Ragnar quivered a little inside. The Odinsons worked, after a fashion. Indeed, after a fashion they were very hard working workers. But an actual job? The Odinsons pretty much prided themselves on the fact none of them had real jobs. They were free Viking folk, not Saxon peasants.
“As I say,” said Delia. “You could come take a look, if your family can spare you while they unload all that wood.”
Ragnar looked to the compound. Hermod and Gunnolf were already bickering about how to unload the wood.
“Aye, aye,” said Ragnar. “Maybe just go and have a look with her. While we just get on with our general business.”
Hilde first gave him a firm look, then Delia. “I’ll take a look and then I’ll decide. No promises.”
“Super,” said Delia and gestured for her to get in the car.
43
Sam poured Detective Constable Camara a coffee from her cafetière.
“Nice … cosy,” he said, politely.
Sam flicked the bobble on the coffee pot’s hat. “You think so?”
He considered it. “Not really.”
Across the kitchen at the counter, Marvin chuckled, but didn’t look up from the stage dummy he was oiling. “Orville had a hat like that.”
“Orville?” said Camara.
“Keith Harris’s duck.”
Camara was frowning.
“Orville the Duck?” said Marvin. “Cuddles the Monkey? Keith Harris? Ventriloquist? We did panto together at the Sunderland Empire in eighty six. Lovely chap. No? Never heard of him?”
Camara gave an apologetic shrug.
“And so stage ventriloquism dies,” sighed Marvin and twisted the dummy’s head. “Disgraceful,” he squeaked in a poor attempt to give the dummy voice.
“You have to forgive my dad,” said Sam. “Toast?”
“I’ve had breakfast. If I may…?” He took out his notepad. Camara, an elongated figure of a man, had equally elongated fingers and there was a certain grace to the way he handled pen and pad. “I need to get a clearer picture for this investigation.”
Sam’s hand paused in the act of reaching for toast from the rack. “Investigation? You no longer think it was an accident?”
He pulled a face. “We need to cover all the angles.”
“You don’t think it was an accident.”
“Be careful, constable,” said Marvin. “My girl can be a sharp one. Takes a while for her to get up to speed but…”
“Thanks, dad.”
“If you could just go over the events of the day you last saw Mr Mandyke, then the day you found— You went to his house.”
With DC Camara occasionally prompting or asking for clarification, Sam went over the day of the community payback session at Otterside.
“Odinson?” he said when she mentioned Hilde and the Odinson van that had come to collect her. “They were there at the same time as Mandyke?”
She did not need to ask if Camara was aware of the Odinsons. The family had a reputation which permeated the local area like an urban legend. In Skegness, mothers didn’t tell naughty children the bogeyman would get them; it would be the Odinsons stealing them in the night.
“I don’t think he had any dealings with them,” she said. “And he left Otterside well before them. I saw him go.”
“And would anyone else there have seen him when he departed?”
Sam remembered the childish and deliberate spray of gravel from his car wheels as his Lexus pulled away, and another memory dropped into her mind. “Greg knew or knew of someone who was at Otterside.”
“Who?”
Sam struggled to recall any details. She sighed and bit into her toast. “He gave the impression it was a woman. An old client.”
The DC patted the folder on the table beneath his notepad. “I’ve got some of his business records. If I showed you some names would you be able to tell me?”
“I can look,” she said.
He flicked through his notes and asked her further questions about the days that followed, the fruitless phone calls she’d made. Then he took her through the day she went to Mandyke’s house. This involved a little background information, including her visit to Delia’s to look at the animal costumes.
“This is Delia who also knits hats for ducks?” said Camara.
“Coffee cosies.”
“Sure. But these animal costumes…”
“Are for an escape drill for an Ice Age theme park that’s going to be built at the bottom of the North Sea. Yes.”
“And, just to check,” said Camara. “This is your job?”
“It’s a wide and varied remit,” she admitted.
“I think she makes it all up,” said Marvin. “Earns her money as a high stakes poker player.”
“I wish,” she said.
Camara listened to her account, double-checking facts and rephrasing questions until she feared she was starting to make up extra details just to make him happy. He did indeed seem happy.
“Does that help?” she said.
“It does and it doesn’t.”
“Oh?”
“It matches with what we found at the scene.”
“But…?”
There was a moment’s hesitation. “We still don’t have confirmation that the body is Greg Mandyke, although it seems likely. It’s a male. The hair in the – I’m
going to say water – is a match to photos we have of him. There was water in the lungs. He drowned, ultimately. But there was also an electrical wire leading into the tub.”
“Oh, my,” said Marvin.
“Suicide?” said Sam.
Camara’s graceful finger flexed, a gesture of ambiguity. “The doors to the house were locked. Nothing out of place inside. Forensics haven’t finished, but there’s no obvious signs of an intruder.”
“But…?” Sam repeated.
“There were no keys to the house in Mr Mandyke’s clothes pockets. None at all in the pool area or around it.”
“He was locked out of his own house.”
“Indeed.”
“Which means he either did it accidentally on his way out…”
Camara shook his head. “The back door isn’t on a latch system. It needs a key.”
“So that means someone locked up the back door and front door on their way out.” Sam recalled the front door, the uPVC door lock. No Yale-style latch on that either. “The front door keys?”
“On the door mat.”
“Posted back through the letterbox,” Sam and Marvin said at the same time.
“Is what it looks like,” agreed Camara.
“He was murdered,” said Sam.
“Is a possibility,” Camara conceded. He opened the folder on the table in front of him. “If we’re looking for a suspect, it may be among these people he’s done work for.”
Sam held her hands out to take it. DC Camara slid it over. She leafed through the pages. She didn’t expect to see anything, but on the second page a name leapt out at her.
“Janine Slater.”
“Who?” Camara leaned forward.
“I did some training for a fitness app with her the other day. She’s at Otterside. And…” She frowned.
“What?”
Sam hardly knew how to phrase it. “I saw her behaving oddly the day Drumstick died.”
“Is that slang for something?” said Camara.
44
Jacob appeared in the south lounge with half a tennis ball. “I’ve got it,” he said to Polly and Strawb.
“That’s half a tennis ball,” said Polly.
“It is,” said Jacob, undeniably pleased with himself. “So, we can go now.” He held it like it was the cup of Christ.
Polly looked to Strawb. Strawb shrugged.
“He’s got a tennis ball. Which apparently means we can go.”
He stood and, none the wiser, Polly stood also. “Where are we going?” she said.
“The main drain in Ingoldmells,” said Jacob.
“If that’s a pub name, someone should be fired.”
“It’s a short drive, so we need to use Chesney’s car.”
Polly was vaguely aware that the Otterside site manager had an alleged sideline as a local taxi driver (and as a second rate cabaret act).
“We’re going to pay him in bits of tennis ball?” she said. “Or maybe he already has the other half and this is the final payment.”
Jacob, unable to perceive a facetious remark when he heard one, shook his head. “It’s a well-known fault on the two thousand and two Transport-Es that the exterior lock is connected to the door latch through an airtight tube.”
“Yes?” said Polly who didn’t understand a word, but wanted to be polite.
“Therefore, if a sharp blast of air is applied to the exterior keyhole, the latch inside should pop open.”
“Ah.”
Perhaps her ‘ah’ didn’t express sufficient awe, or perhaps Jacob realised she didn’t understand or wasn’t making enough effort to understand.
“Half a tennis ball against the keyhole of the car,” said Jacob, miming. “And then – whack.” He flexed the tennis ball as though it had been struck. “Sudden rush of air and the lock pops open.”
“Our friend has been watching a lot of YouTube videos,” said Strawb.
“It will definitely work.”
Polly walked with them along the central corridor towards the reception and exit. “So we’re stealing Chesney’s car to go on a drive to Ingoldmells.”
“Yes,” said Strawb.
“Excellent.”
They went out into the car park to find Margaret sitting at the wheel of a yellow people carrier, engine idling.
Strawb opened the door for Polly. “Hop in.”
Jacob stared at Margaret. “I was going to break in.” He sounded affronted.
“I did it first,” she said.
Jacob held up his half tennis ball.
“I went into the office and borrowed his keys,” she said.
“The tennis ball would have worked.”
“I’m sure it would.”
“It really would.”
“You can show me later if you like.”
“But you’ve already done it,” sulked Jacob. “What would be the point?”
“Scientific curiosity.”
Jacob, dejected, climbed into the front with Margaret. In the back, Polly buckled up.
Margaret drove like a woman who hadn’t driven in ten years but was confident it would all come back to her if she approached the matter with sufficient gusto.
Polly was still unclear where they were going or why, but made the effort to enjoy the drive. The road from Skegness to the seaside village of Ingoldmells – several hundred yards inland from the beach and lined by caravan parks on both sides – was a short one. In summer season, tens of thousands of families would be living, frolicking and feuding in these semi-permanent townships. In winter, most of the caravans were empty shells. Ingoldmells itself felt like a nothing place, a couple of pubs and a supermarket, a placeholder to give some sense of geography to the caravan parks claiming an Ingoldmells address.
“Where are we going again?” she said.
“Just up here,” said Strawb as Margaret indicated and pulled over into a lay-by near a bridge.
“I’ll show Polly,” said Margaret to Strawb. It wasn’t said sternly, but there was the sense of an order being given.
“Then I will watch and marvel while Jacob demonstrates his bladdy tennis ball method.”
“I know it will work,” said Jacob.
Margaret gestured for Polly to walk with her. A cool breeze was blowing in from the direction of the sea. Polly wished she had brought a coat, but said nothing.
“James Huntley,” said Margaret.
It took Polly a good second or two to recognise the name. “The coach driver.”
Margaret nodded. “It was three years ago.”
“When he killed Alison’s daughter?”
Another nod. “Her name was Rachel. She’d been visiting the area and staying at a caravan park some distance up that way. Like our Chesney, Huntley had a sideline as a taxi driver. Lots of people do.”
The bridge was a flat span across a dyke, fifteen feet across. Margaret stood at the green railings and looked out across its still surface. “Rachel had been out with friends in town. Pubs and bars. She was thirty-three I think. Late in the night, she called a taxi to bring her back to the caravan.”
“Huntley.”
“He’d been drinking as well.”
“Oh.”
Margaret pointed along the road back to Skegness. “He came down here. The road was empty as far as anyone knows. No hidden bends. No surprises. And yet…” She drew a line along the road towards where they stood. “He drove through that wooden fence there, cutting across the rear of that grassy bit and…” Her pointing finger went to the dyke. “The car rolled and went into the water upside down. Four feet of water.”
There was a hiss and a shout from back along the road. Strawb was rocking with laughter as Jacob evidently failed to open the car lock.
“Four feet,” said Margaret. “James Huntley got out. I believe he later claimed he’d tried to get Rachel out. People were on the scene within five minutes. Huntley had crawled up the bank and was walking up the road that way. Looking for a phone box, he said.”
“You said he’d been drinking.”
“The police breath test showed thirty seven micrograms of alcohol. The legal limit is thirty five.”
“So he was drunk driving.”
“The second test at the station showed thirty four. When asked about the crash, Huntley said an ‘animal’ had run out in front of them and he’d swerved.” Margaret took a deep breath. Cold winter air misted around her lips. “The police and fire crews got Rachel out quarter of an hour after the initial crash. She’d stopped breathing, but there was still a heartbeat. For a time.”
Back at the people carrier, Jacob gave a little cheer and Strawb starting arguing.
“Recorded time of death was fifty minutes after the initial crash,” said Margaret.
Polly looked down into the water. There was a grey-silver sheen on the surface. “This is terrible. Fascinating too, but definitely terrible. Why are you telling me this?” She gave Margaret a quizzical look. “It’s not exactly a cheery outing.”
Margaret gave a tiny grunt of laughter. “I need to ask you two questions.”
“Okay,” said Polly.
“Do you think a man like James Huntley, who drunkenly drove his vehicle into this dyke and left his passenger to die while he walked away from the nearest houses and telephones, a man who had drink driving convictions before— Do you think a man like James Huntley deserves to live?”
“No,” said Polly simply. “It should have been him that drowned.”
Margaret nodded. “Second question. Please answer honestly and seriously.”
Polly felt a sudden and foolish urge to cross her heart as testament, but that would hardly have been serious. “Okay,” she said.
Margaret faced her properly so she could look her in the eye. “If we asked you to kill him, would you do it?”
An obvious and flippant answer rose to Polly’s lips but she suppressed it. “We?” she said.
Margaret nodded, indicating the two men arguing genially beside the stolen vehicle. “Could you do it?”
Polly looked at Margaret’s face. It seemed the woman was being perfectly serious.
45