Doggerland (Sam Applewhite Book 2)

by Heide Goody

  “Hey, not fair,” said Rich. “Marvin?”

  Marvin thought deeply and waggled the name Greta Thunberg childishly. “Am I a man?”

  “At last a sensible question,” said Sam. “No.”

  “A lady of the female persuasion then? Am I a singer?”

  “One question each,” said Rich. “Now, let me think.”

  “We should instigate a drink-while-you-think rule,” said Sam. Rich took that as a direct instruction.

  Thirty minutes and a whole bottle of wine later none of them were any closer to guessing who they were.

  “Right,” said Sam, struggling to recall. “I’m a man. A real man, not fictional. I’m not a celebrity and I don’t do sport and I’m famous because I’ve done something that’s made me rich but that’s not anything creative or to do with the internet. I’m definitely not Bill Gates or that Amazon guy.” She shrugged. “Am I Russian?”

  Marvin blew out his lips. “I can see it and even I don’t know who you are.”

  “Oh, that’s no use then,” she said and impulsively ripped the paper off her head. “Jim Ratcliffe? Who’s that?”

  “Come on,” said Rich. “Jim Ratcliffe. Chemicals and finance. He’s a billionaire! Possibly the richest man in Britain.”

  “Not a clue,” said Sam.

  Rich huffed and in response tore his own off. “Nana who?”

  “Mouskouri,” said Marvin.

  “That’s a Greek dish, isn’t it?”

  “She certainly was,” said Marvin with an uncharacteristic leer. “Possibly still is, although she must be eighty something now.”

  “If she’s alive,” said Sam.

  “Oh, those Greeks,” said Marvin with the self-assured wisdom that only drunks could summon. “All that olive oil and tomatoes and whatnot. Very long lived.” He sniffed and pointed at the Greta Thunberg label on his head. “I’m female and Swedish and, apparently, some people don’t like me. But I’m not Agnetha from ABBA?”

  “No.”

  He mushed his lips. “And I’m not Ingrid Bergman or Greta Garbo.” He saw the twitch on Rich’s face. “I’m not Greta Garbo, but I’m like her? Another Greta?”

  “Yes,” said Sam.

  “Another Greta? But not Greta Garbo?”

  “You’re like the most famous Greta in the world,” said Sam.

  He stared blankly, then took his name down. “Not a clue,” he said frankly.

  “The girl with pigtails trying to save the planet?” said Sam. “Sailing round the world, getting angry at the politicians? That Greta!”

  Marvin shook his head. “Is this a TV series or something? You know I don’t do Netflix.”

  Sam sighed and emptied the last of the bottle into the tumblers. “You know what our mistake was. We each came up with famous people who we knew but not ones that everyone should know.”

  “It’s not my fault you’re not up to date with business news,” said Rich.

  “We didn’t have a chance, did we?”

  She groaned as she picked herself up off the floor where she’d been sat. No windows in the rig meant no natural light, but something told her that it was well past nightfall. She blearily sought out a clock on a wall and saw that she was right. She could feel the room spinning slightly, but didn’t think it had anything to do with Storm Wendy.

  “I might have to go to bed,” she said.

  “With such palatial rooms, they’re hard to resist,” said Marvin.

  Sam laughed, but it was forced. She was tired and had her fill of life on a tiny gas platform. “Rich, please tell me we’re being picked up tomorrow.”

  “Depends on the weather report,” he said. “But if Peninsula can get a chopper out to us, he will.”

  “He’d better,” she said and wandered off in search of a bunkbed to call her own. She had plenty to pick from.

  75

  “Right!” declared Ragnar in a drunken shout that woke many of the Odinson folk who were bedded down for the night in the longship’s hull. “’Tis time to launch this beauty!”

  Hilde sat up and made an unhappy noise.

  The Odinson Yule celebrations had been going on for a full day and two nights. There might have been some brief intervals on Christmas Day when people returned to their caravans to find fresh sustenance or make use of toilet facilities, but there was a storm howling outside. The community had spent the last thirty-plus hours feasting and carousing in the longship; it was now ankle-deep in party detritus and goat poop.

  Hilde looked at her watch in the dim light of the burning lamps. “It’s the middle of the night, farfar.”

  “And I feel a stirring in me that says Odin wants us to tek the ship to the beach to greet the dawn,” said Ragnar.

  Sigurd rolled over, looking a little green around the gills. “Something’s stirring in me,” he muttered, “and it ain’t bloody Odin.”

  “I’ve gone blind,” slurred Yngve.

  “Tha bandana’s slipped, tha daft apeth,” said Sigurd, pushing the bandana back up his kin’s forehead.

  “Come on, come on!” shouted Ragnar, clapping his hands and kicking the boots of the drunk and dozy.

  “The kiddies need their sleep, you fool,” said his wife, comforting a grubby toddler who was not happy at being awoken.

  “Aye, aye,” nodded Ragnar astutely. “Womenfolk, get tha babbies to bed. This is not work for women and children.”

  Astrid snorted. Hilde stood up sharply.

  “No one is taking this vessel anywhere unless it’s under my strict instructions.”

  “Is tha denying my authority?” said Ragnar.

  “Not at all, farfar,” she said sweetly. “But I suspect you might need a little help removing that wall so we can get the longship out of here. Then across a caravan park, a road and a hundred metres of dunes before we actually get to the sea.”

  “Aye. Fair enough. Lads, tha’s to listen to Hilde here, who is acting under my guidance. Now, get the kiddies out of here. And can someone take away this flamin’ goat that’s trying to butt me shins!”

  While many of the young uns shuffled off towards their beds, certain they had the better part of the deal, Hilde supervised the moving of the longship. With the aid of the burliest and most sober of the family, she directed the removal of the eastern wall. There were many strong young Vikings to do the heavy lifting, but she was the one who would stop the roof falling in by insisting upon dull but essential details, like the installation of roof props.

  There were several dozen men ready to carry the vessel, but it was made from oak and it was tough work. Together, they eased the ship up and out into the compound.

  Ragnar was doing none of the carrying. He stood alongside Hilde, wearing his ceremonial robes, which affirmed his position of authority. They were grand robes indeed, only a little spoiled by the mead stains around the bottom half, and the squished mince pie stuck to his elbow. He was ready to begin the celebrations that would accompany the launch of the longship. He knew it would be prudent to get the riskier parts of the job out of the way before mead was consumed, although Hilde guessed he would also insist several of the remaining barrels of mead be carried to the shore.

  “We need to get this part into the saga,” he said. “Where’s Gunnolf? He’s in charge of t’ saga. What do you reckon sounds better, that the sky shone fair upon the warrior Vikings, or that stormy skies loomed over the upcoming raid?”

  Hilde looked up to the sky, which was black, what with it being night and all.

  “I reckon you can tell it however you like farfar,” she said. “But pay attention everyone! We’re coming up to the tricky part now. If we can get clear of the buildings without breaking anything, that would be wonderful.”

  “Leave it to me,” said Ragnar. He addressed the Viking warriors who were carrying the ship, hefting the enormous wooden structure upon their shoulders, gripping the hull as Hilde had shown them. “There will be mead before launching. Mind, we must do this right. There is to be a steady processio
n behind me, so we can make sure Odin blesses our sacred raid upon Cleethorpes.”

  “Cleethorpes?” said one voice, hidden behind the ship.

  “Yes. Cleethorpes.”

  “Why Cleethorpes? Skegness is nearer.”

  “Aye, but Cleethorpes town is full of them hoity-toity folks, and they deserve a good raiding.”

  “Do they have decent pubs in Cleethorpes?” asked another voice.

  “They’ve got a miniature railway.”

  “Aye,” said Ragnar, leaping upon the comment. “And Hilde needs some new engine parts. So we’re gonna raid them and steal their miniature locomotive and—"

  “They’ve got that new fish and chip place on the end of the pier,” threw in another voice. This drew some oohs and aahs.

  “Right! Right!” shouted Ragnar. “And we’ll get us some fish and chips an’ all. Now quit tha mithering and let’s go.”

  The longship wobbled its way across the compound like a tipsy centipede and through the gap in the chain link fence separating the Odinson compound from the rest of the Elysian Fields caravan park.

  76

  Sam woke with a throbbing head and a mouth so foul-tasting she thought it would take a whole tube of toothpaste to put right. She sat up and looked for a glass of water that wasn’t there. As she stood, she realised she was in that rare state of being hungover and still a little drunk.

  Unimpressed with herself, she went in search of a bathroom and a drink. The hard floors were slightly tacky under her bare feet. The living quarters might have been very basic, but they were well-insulated. With the near-Arctic weather conditions just beyond the walls, she was perfectly toasty wandering about in just T-shirt and pants.

  She somehow bypassed the bathrooms and found the kitchen first. Leftover mammoth roast and sloppy rice sat in tins on the cooker hob. She picked out a glass and poured herself some water. She gulped it down and poured herself another. The clock on the wall said it was eight in the morning.

  “There’d better be a helicopter today,” she muttered.

  Stretching, working on her personal and unscientific belief that movement would work the alcohol (and hangover) from her system more quickly, Sam wandered through to the communal area. Marvin and Rich had left it pretty much as it had been all evening. The TV screen was on, still frozen on that clip of Marvin and Polly’s faces. The draughts board was still out, cleared of all red pieces in a pitifully one-sided game. The Cluedo box was open. Had the two men tried to play it? She inspected the cards.

  “Reverend Green in the ballroom with the butt plug,” she nodded. “Thought as much.”

  She sipped water and contemplated her hangover. She wasn’t sure how much she’d drunk. There had definitely been several bottles of wine, and some whisky as well. She didn’t want to go back to bed – the bunks were serviceable but hardly welcoming – but she didn’t particularly want to loiter here, either. She’d only end up tidying the place.

  She should at least turn the video footage off. It was doing neither the TV nor the laptop any harm, but some perversely old-fashioned part of her felt that a frozen image was like a needle stuck in a groove: a thing held unhealthily paused, a car riding on the clutch.

  As she bent to unplug the cables, she glanced at the image. The blur gave the people’s faces a ghostly appearance. Fragments of flying debris scored lines across the image. She could see Marvin’s wand, black and white, and a vaguely bird-like shape in silver.

  Sam unpaused it.

  One of the creatures groaned.

  “Magic!” squealed the little girl in delight.

  “Jesus facking hell!” shouted a man in the audience.

  Sam wound the recording back ten seconds and watched it again. The crash. The smashed table. “Magic!” “Jesus facking hell!”. Sam re-ran it. Crash, smash – she paused it, then went through a frame at a time as the magic show flew apart. A teddy, a cloth, the wand, and that silver item. Two wing-like hoops joined together.

  It was a pair of handcuffs. And Sam knew, with a concrete certainty that the facts didn’t warrant, they would be the same handcuffs later found in the dead drink-driver’s house.

  They flew out of sight. Sam kept the video running, hoping to see more. Her only eyes inside the room were the tiger and bison bodycams. There was applause and confusion, a little shouting, even more confusion as residents were carefully moved out of the room across the glass-strewn floor. The tiger continued to moan and groan. It was interesting to see that the sabre-toothed tiger, played by a young and feisty female actor, seemed to get many more offers of assistance than the bison. On the poor unloved bison’s camera, Sam saw Caribou Cesar run into the room. Sam paused, narrowed the feed down to those three inside cameras, and continued playing.

  “I think I’ve bruised my coccyx,” grunted the tiger.

  “I could take a look for you,” offered an unseen voice.

  The Otterside manager, Chesney, trit-totted over the debris, calling “Mr Marvellous” in worried tones.

  None of the three cameras were looking at where the handcuffs had gone.

  Cesar was with his wife, his bodycam showing nothing but Dr Hackett’s torso and the top of the little girl’s head.

  “That fool of a magician just told her we had moved house,” Dr Hackett hissed.

  “Told who?” said Cesar.

  “Polly! She knows!”

  Cesar twisted to look round the lounge, presumably in search of Polly Gilpin. He turned too fast for Sam to get any decent view of the people still in the room. It was all blobs and blurs. The tiger and the bison were making for the exit, a very happy older man providing the tiger with perhaps a little more physical support than necessary.

  “If she starts asking questions about how much that house is worth—” Dr Hackett said, off-screen.

  “How much is Aunt Polly’s house worth?” said the little girl. There was a high-pitched grunt of pain, small and fleeting, maybe a hand sharply squeezed, or an arm roughly shook.

  “The woman’s an embarrassment,” said the doctor and then tutted. “You’re an embarrassment.”

  Cesar turned. Dr Hackett was dragging their daughter from the room. Cesar hurriedly followed.

  Sam stopped the video and exhaled heavily, partly from what she’d just seen, but mostly from the hangover brewing in her head and her gut. She tried to think.

  “The handcuffs at Otterside. That drink-driver dead.” She blinked and frowned. She crossed back to the Cluedo board and shuffled three random counters together into a space. “Alison Hinchliffe with the handcuffs in the dead guy’s garage.”

  She looked at it and moved three more counter together.

  “Janine with the electrical wire in Greg Mandyke’s hot tub. Except…”

  It didn’t work. She persevered and moved three more.

  “Bernard the liar with a wooden plank in Drumstick’s turkey pen.”

  Greg Mandyke had thrown Janine Slater out of her house, but CCTV pretty much proved she couldn’t have killed him. There was even Bernard, who hated Drumstick the murdered turkey, but he wasn’t the one caught on camera sneaking around on the night of the crime. James Huntley was a drunk driver who’d killed Alison Duncliffe’s daughter. What were the chances that her alibi was equally tight?

  “Hang on…” Sam moved a piece. “Janine snuck out the night Drumstick was killed. And if Janine did Bernard’s murder … well, turkey-cide…”

  She shuffled pieces. Was it as simple and as crazy as that? Three murders, three murderers. A three-way swap. No links between murderer and victim.

  It might be right. It might actually be correct.

  “Three murders,” she said and then, gripped by a deeper suspicion, “That we know of.”

  She pushed herself away from the table, a little giddy (spilling drink over ‘Double-D Desiree’ who may or may not have committed murder in the billiards room with a candlestick) and hurried back to the bedrooms. On the fourth attempt she found Rich’s room. He was in the top bun
k, an arm dangling over the side as he slept.

  “Hey, I need your satellite phone,” she said.

  He cleared his throat and opened bleary eyes. “Whut?”

  “I need your help.”

  He blinked. “You coming up here? Not sure if there’s much room.”

  “Your phone! Where is it? I need to call the police.”

  That woke him. “What’s happened?”

  “Phone.”

  He reached under his pillow and pulled out the satellite phone. She snatched it from him and started to dial 999, then stopped. It wasn’t exactly that kind of emergency.

  “Hang on,” she said, went to her own room and found her own phone. It had no signal, but did have a contact number for Skegness police station. She keyed in the number on the satellite phone and heard it ring.

  “I need to get through to Detective Constable Camara,” she said to the operator.

  “Your name please.”

  “Applewhite. Sam Applewhite. I need to speak to DC Camara. I have information regarding a crime.”

  “You wish to report a crime?”

  “No. He’s investigating a murder. Well, a death. But it’s murder. I’m sure of it. All three of them.”

  “What murders would those be?”

  “If you could put me through to DC Camara…”

  “He’s off duty at the moment—”

  “You can’t put me through?”

  “If you’d like to give me some details. Murders, you said.”

  “Yes. Greg Mandyke, Huntley – the man they found in the garage off Beresford Avenue – and Drumstick. Drumstick’s a turkey.”

  “A turkey? That’s been murdered?”

  “That’s not the headline, here,” said Sam.

  “Miss Applewhite, are you drunk?”

  “Only a little. This is not a prank call. Can you tell DC Camara that Alison and Janine and Bernard – they’re all at Otterside – tell him I think they did each other’s murders.”

  “As in?”

  “They swapped them. You know, like that Hitchcock film.”

  “Psycho?”

  “Not Psycho. Can you just tell him?”