‘So? How can you connect this awful stuff with Jay?’
‘Just that I spent a bit of time on the telex yesterday, via London. Not often I get a chance to do that, not abroad. Know who I got hold of?’
Hal nodded resignedly. ‘The Rayner campus police –’
‘Right. And the local sheriff’s office. And they told me a few things about your Mr Colby that might even surprise you. Did you know he’s a known drug user?’
Hal groaned. ‘Oh, Ridley, you do not understand, that is just pot, attitudes are different over there! Half the faculty are afloat on the stuff – not me, but then I do not even drink much –’
‘We’re talking about over here, Prof. The good word is that that gang of his’ve been getting their paws on drugs, pot, some cocaine, maybe other things. They’re enough of a handful without that. And I’ve every reason to believe Mr Jay bloody Colby’s their source –’
A sudden wild screech made Hal jump. Swearing, the inspector reached for the dashboard handset. ‘Ridley? Aye – where then? Has it, by God – all right, cover it up, we’ll get forensic boys to take a shufti as soon as we can spare them. Ridley out.’ He turned to Hal. ‘Well! What d’you make of that?’
‘Not much. The local accent still defeats me at times.’
‘Oh aye, I forget. C’mon, I’d better be getting you on up to the Museum.’ He started the car, slipped into gear and did a highly illegal U-turn round the war memorial, tyres splashing and lapping on the wet surface. ‘They’ve found the guard’s boat, a mile or two down the coast – at Oddsness. Not washed up, though – beached.’
‘Beached?’ Hal thought furiously. ‘But then – it was used, not just set adrift. They must have planned to use it. That does not sound like somebody on Angel Dust to me – more like treasure-hunters …’
‘You’ve got a point there, Prof,’ conceded Ridley sourly. ‘But then how come they didn’t use the boat that landed them? I don’t know what the hell to make of it. Oddsness? If you ask me, the whole bloody place should be called Odd …’
Hal smiled. ‘You find the name funny? You are not a local man, then?’
‘Nope, I’m a southerner. Been here eighteen years, but that’s nothing, bloody blink of an eye. That’s a local type of name then, is it?’
‘Oh yes – a very old one, in fact from our special period. It probably means the ness, the peninsula, where Oddi had his farm. Oddi was quite a common Scandinavian name, you see. I believe it still crops up in Yorkshire as a surname –’
‘That’s right, there’s a fella on TV called Oddie. Funny – you read about the temple and the Viking town and that in the paper, but you don’t think you’re actually living in it …’
Hal smiled wryly. ‘So much for our publicity! That is just what we have tried to get across to local people – why we mounted the display at the Museum. This was the heart of the Danelaw, the great Viking colony in England – an independent kingdom, even, with its capital at York. But that did not last; the settlers soon blended in with the locals – they were good at that. They took on English laws, left their old gods for Christianity. In the end the English were able to throw out the last Viking king, a man called Erik Bloodaxe. It was one of his local gauleiters who built the temple here. He must have been a real religious fanatic, wanting to draw – or force – people back to worshipping Odin.’ Hal looked out at the rain-lashed roads. The car was climbing sharply through the winding streets towards the outskirts of town, moving out among the rows of high Victorian terraces in the lee of the cliffs. ‘It was bound to fail, of course. Most Vikings were not religious fanatics; they tended to be tolerant, and Christ was a friendlier sort of god than Old One-Eye. It seems the temple came to a bloody end –’
The car surged round and onto the gravel drive that led up between the Museum’s high black gates, glistening with the damp. Ridley looped it around the forecourt towards the end of the east wing, then swerved sharply to avoid the ambulance parked there. He looked at the three policemen and one ambulanceman who were carrying something over to it in a black plastic sheet, something limp, lolling, shapeless. ‘Some things do,’ he said quietly.
Hal Hansen’s door was open before the car stopped, and he set off across the gravel towards the Museum’s main door. Ridley called him back. ‘You won’t need to go in that way,’ he said, a little sadly. Hal looked at him, then plunged around the corner of the new extension.
‘B-but – but that was armoured glass!’ he stammered to Ridley, at his side. ‘With an ultra-violet filter – we ordered it specially from Germany –’
‘Believe in buying British myself,’ said Ridley, contemplating the remains of what had been a wide bronze-tinted picture window. ‘That’s where they got in – all broken inwards, see? But the Forensic boys say it’s pretty strong, that glass. Take more than a sledgehammer?’
‘Certainly! A car might break it –’
‘Or a motorbike?’ Ridley shrugged before Hal could answer. ‘Just a suggestion. The grass is pretty churned up, but we’ve not found any tyre tracks. Well, it’s inside you’re interested in – hey, careful!’
Hal, stepping through the shattered opening, stumbled and almost fell against the jagged edges. But he caught himself, staring unbelieving around the room. ‘Fanden i helved! They have destroyed the place!’
Just behind the window stood a row of display stands the size of a small room. Now they held shattered ruins of painted wood and imitation thatch. Life-size figurines, human and animal, lay splintered and contorted among the debris, sickeningly suggestive of what else had been done. In all the neat semi-circular glass cases that flanked the walls, not one pane was intact. All the round central cases were broken – some had had the whole top smashed off them. Glittering in the soft overhead lighting, the fragmented glass washed across the floor like a flood of ice. And among it, scattered, spilled and trampled, lay the precious things it had protected.
Hal Hansen shambled forward like a man in a dream, shaking his head as if to deny the ruin he was seeing, another devastation of his life’s work. He knelt down to sift through the glass-strewn fragments with careful fingers.
‘Can I touch them?’
‘Be my guest. We’d never get prints or fibres off that stuff.’
He moved through the room, picking up pieces here and there and placing them reverently back in the cases. But after a minute he stopped, thought, then went back to the stands and began pulling the debris about. Then he stood up and turned to the policeman. ‘Ridley – I do not understand …’
‘What was on those stands, then?’
‘Nothing – nothing real, I mean. Just a reconstruction – Viking house interiors, an exhibit about the Fern Farm community. We had almost finished it …’
‘Valuable? Expensive?’
Hal looked at him emptily. ‘Why yes – in terms of time, of hard work by dedicated people, skilled craftsmen. But to a thief, nothing. Absolutely nothing!’ He kicked out at the remains with startling savagery. ‘Nothing worth stealing! So they smashed it instead –’ He stopped abruptly, stared down at the mess, and then around the room. ‘They have taken things from here! Reconstructed chairs, a table, a loom even, with weaving …’ He looked around again in utter bewilderment. ‘Ridley, I cannot make sense of this. They have chosen pieces from all over the display – chosen, yes; the carved bone comb and its case have both gone, though they were not displayed close together. So these people are not just vandals, drunk –’ He paused significantly. ‘Or drugged. But they cannot be professional art thieves either.’
‘Why? Because they’ve gone for less valuable things?’
‘No! Because they have chosen stupid things – look, they have taken much jewellery, gold things, yes – but only the more or less intact pieces. And here there were fragments of a large gold armring, with a brass replica to show how it actually looked. They have just swept aside the fragments, which you can see are gold, and taken the replica – I do not understand. It is what children
might do.’
‘And the caretaker? Some kids. You didn’t see him.’
‘I said I did not understand – I had better look into the lab now. After this it cannot come as a much greater shock.’
But it did, none the less. The first thing he saw was the high window at the far end, shattered like the other. ‘Only outwards this time,’ said Ridley. ‘Must’ve been in a hurry by then.’
The mess in the room itself was appalling, the neat rows of workbenches shoved harshly aside. One or two were toppled right over, another smashed down the centre as if by a heavy weight, their contents strewn over a thick layer of stinking mud spread out from the far corner. ‘The tank!’ hissed Hal. ‘Satans, they have tipped over one of the holding tanks – for preserving the ship timbers – no, the one with that forbandede chest! That’s what they were really after! Look –’
‘Yes, I see,’ said Ridley grimly, looking at the pile of black splintered timbers, some still half held together by a buckled band of metal, one carrying a twisted hasp. ‘Just like on the dam.’
‘I wish to hell we had never found the goddam things!’ snarled Hal. ‘Wilf and his treasure chests –’ He stood for a moment, staring around him, hands clenching and unclenching. ‘Whatever was in the chest has been taken, that is clear –’ He stopped, stooped, came up with a blackened twist of metal the length of his hand. ‘And it probably was something valuable, really valuable – look at this here!’
Ridley poked at it vaguely. ‘What is it?’
‘A knife-hilt – with what looks like gold wire ornament. I’d know this if it came from the excavation; it must have been in the chest. With who knows what else?’ He laid it carefully on the edge of a bench, squelched his way over to the window, leaned on the low sill and took several deep breaths. Outside, under the glare of portable searchlights, the wide lawn was roughly marked out with tape into rectangles. Policemen in rain capes were combing the sodden grass, some on hands and knees, picking up objects and putting them into numbered plastic bags. Hal shook his head. ‘It looks like a dig – a ghastly parody.’
‘I never would’ve thought of that,’ grunted Ridley. ‘But I suppose they do have something in common. Any new ideas?’
‘Only one. I could cheerfully kill whoever did this.’
The inspector glared. ‘I hope you’re not serious. I’ve got enough troubles on my hands.’
‘Perhaps I am not. I suppose I should be thankful. Apart from the chests we seem to have lost remarkably little real dig material – more has been spoiled than stolen. Insurance will cover the rest. But – it is like seeing your own home burglarised –’
There was a sudden sharp crackle from Ridley’s battered anorak, and he hauled out a small grey walkie-talkie. ‘Ridley? Yes, I’m here – Museum, north window – got me? Where’re you? And – uh-huh – with you in half-a-mo’! Out.’ He jammed it back in his pocket. ‘Bill Harshaw. They’ve found what might be a trail up the cliff path there, with a few likely-looking odds and sods about. You’d better come confirm the lead –’
With surprising energy Ridley pulled himself up and out through the shattered window. Hal followed, more stiffly, feeling he’d pulled several muscles earlier in the evening. They trotted across the starkly lit patch of lawn, keeping well to one side of the search, and round to a gate in the high hedge beyond; a constable on guard there shone his flashlight at them. Ridley commandeered it; he shone it on the bent gate and shattered lock, and on the metalled path beyond, where perceptible scuffs and smears showed in the glistening mud at the edge. A hail came from above, and they hurried out and up.
‘That is certainly one of our exhibit labels!’ said Hal, examining the torn strip of art board. ‘And this here in the bush is from the spinning and weaving case – wool, authentically dyed. The colour is unmistakable.’
‘I’ll say,’ said Ridley, dubiously examining the garish hank of orange caught in the gorse. ‘Any more, Bill?’
‘T’lads are following the marks higher up –’
‘Hey, Sarge!’ came a voice from the darkness. ‘Coom on up ’ere a minute –’
The track was getting steeper now, and the ground already dropping away to one side. When they rounded the next corner it was actually a part of the cliff face, falling about twenty feet vertically into an overgrown patch behind some Victorian cottage gardens; the rowan tree rooted there rose level with Hal’s feet. The torch beams picked out a patch of violently churned-up mud in the path.
‘Bit of a barney, looks like,’ said one of the younger CID men.
‘A struggle,’ translated Ridley for Hal’s benefit. ‘What’s this here? Scuffmarks – hell’s teeth …’ They led to the verge, the narrow strip of grass between path and cliff – and through, in short straight smears, and over.
‘Summat’s gone over, ey?’
‘Or somebody,’ growled Ridley, shining his light down onto dense obscuring undergrowth. ‘Can’t see a thing. What about a ladder, eh?’
‘We called. They’re bringing one. And for a car to cover t’other end of t’path.’
‘Good. That’s at the clifftop?’
‘Aye, and it’s the only way out – that or falling off. Path’s listed dangerous, that’s why t’gate were locked. If chummy’s still on it somewhere we’ve got ’im.’
‘He won’t be,’ sighed Ridley. ‘He’s had time enough to scarper. Anyway, I’m not risking you lads scrambling up a dangerous path in the dark – ah, the ladder.’
Hal helped lower it slowly down into the shrubbery, and jumped when he felt it hit something softer than ground, something that turned over at the impact. Ridley swore, and twisted the ladder to part the bushes. His flashlight beam shone straight down onto an upturned face, eyes closed, ashy white – except for the livid bruise across it.
‘Jay!’ barked Hal.
‘Oh, Jesus!’ said Ridley, and saw the body stir, the face turning feebly away from the light, an arm coming up to shield the eyes.
Colby was conscious and sitting up by the time the CID men had got down the ladder, and obviously not badly hurt. He insisted on climbing up the ladder himself, reeling and lurching and spreading his massive weight over the gasping men helping him. Hal and the sergeant were barely able to haul him in over the top. ‘And now,’ said Ridley, when he’d recovered his breath. ‘I’ve called you an ambulance, Mr Colby, but since you insist you’re so well, perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining how you came to be down there?’
‘Sure,’ said Colby hoarsely, massaging his neck and one shoulder. ‘I got hit.’
‘You got hit. Who by?’
‘Dunno. Didn’t see – One of those motherfuckin’ treasure-hunters, I guess; it was dark, and – say, you guys know what the fuck happened down at the Museum?’
‘We were hoping you would tell us, Jay!’ said Hal forcefully.
The big man shook his head, winced and clutched his neck, sat for a moment rocking. ‘What’s to tell?’ he said between his teeth. ‘I’d been out having a couple with the guys – but after that bawling-out you gave me, Hal, figured I’d better be a good boy tonight, go home, bed early, maybe stop in at the precinct when I passed and see you, Inspector –’
‘Which you didn’t.’
‘Well, sure I didn’t, I was down there, wasn’t I? I never got back. I’d left the bike ’cause I was drinking, I was walking back, came by the bottom of North Cliff there –’
‘When?’
‘Maybe about half ten, quarter of eleven, I wasn’t looking –’
‘All right. Go on.’
‘So I heard a real loud crash from up this way, maybe a voice shouting, then the alarms. Well hell – after the other night? I just thought treasure-grubbing bastards and came up here at a dead run.’
‘Oh aye? Never a thought of phoning us?’
‘Well … I didn’t think there’d be time –’
‘And you wanted to get your hands right on them, anyway?’ grunted Ridley.
Colby looked sulky. ‘Suppos
e I did? I mean, you tell him, Hal – that stuff’s priceless, it’s history they’re smashing up there. I thought it might be some of those fishermen who’ve been bellyaching about loss of business – incidentally, that’s balls – and I know I can handle them, I could settle them without dragging any fuzz in. So I ran up, I saw two figures come out, cross the lawn –’
‘Two? You’re sure of that?’
‘Two together. Might’ve been more ahead, maybe.’
‘What’d they look like?’
‘Who could see? Jesus, I was half a mile away, it was dark, it was raining – they were just … figures. Not even clear silhouettes, they were carrying piles of stuff.’
‘I see. So you ran after them? You didn’t shout or anything?’
‘No. I was trying to run quietly, surprise them … Don’t think they heard till I was almost on them, too.’
‘What happened then? What’d you do?’
‘They were about here – it was real dark, they were still just shapes. But hey – I guess they must’ve been men, I can say that much –’
‘Why men?’
Colby gave a hoarse chuckle. ‘You seen many chicks my size? Not even Jess, huh, Hal? One was at least my height. Anyhow, all I remember is running up, then – boff! – the ceiling fell in. I guess they hit me. Then threw me over, or I just fell. Stupid.’
‘It may have saved your life, Jay,’ said Hal severely. ‘That was a damn stupid risk you took! You didn’t know, but they’d just murdered the nightwatchman.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ said Colby, tried to sit up too suddenly, and sank back groaning. Ridley shone a torch onto Colby’s face, studied the oval bruise that striped across it, smeared with blood from his nostrils and from lesser scratches. He held his broad flipper of a hand over the bruise for an instant; the shape was the same, but nearly twice as wide.
‘Ambulance is ’ere,’ said a voice in the darkness. ‘Is it a stretcher, or can ’e walk down a bit?’
‘Help him, lads,’ said Ridley. Somebody moaned. ‘Shut up. One of you travel with him, get a statement. He’s to come help us with our inquiries the moment they let him out of hospital – make sure he gets the message, right?’ The three policemen swore and struggled to help the big man onto his feet. Locked together like a group of drunks, they staggered off into the darkness. Ridley tugged at Hal’s sleeve. ‘Way you were talking there, you sounded as if you believe that story of his, straight off.’
The Ice King Page 8