Dead Calm (A Dylan Scott Mystery)

by Wells, Shirley

  “Isn’t this—” it took Bev a moment to decide what it was, “—fantastic! It’s so relaxing having nothing to do, no one wanting or needing anything. I could spend the rest of my life on holiday.”

  She couldn’t. Like Dylan, she’d be bored to death within a fortnight. All the same, he was finding it a welcome change from investigating insurance claims or watching two-timing spouses. It would be even more refreshing if he could convince himself that Hanna Larsen died peacefully in her sleep.

  Earlier, Dylan had managed a meeting with the ship’s captain, a gruff middle-aged Norwegian who went by the name of Lars Melgarde. Most Norwegians Dylan had come across had a fine grasp of the English language. Not Melgarde. Or if he had, he wasn’t going to demonstrate it to an Englishman. It took him four attempts to get Dylan’s name right and that wasn’t rocket science.

  They’d met in a small room that boasted a single chair. Melgarde had made it clear the chair was his. He’d swivelled on that chair with an amused smile on his face while Dylan tried to explain that he had reason to think Hanna Larsen’s death was suspicious.

  “You have a dream, yes?” Melgarde said in his painfully slow English.

  “No. I heard someone leaving her cabin at three in the morning.”

  “You—tell me again.”

  And so it had gone on.

  “I tell police—yes?”

  “Yes,” Dylan said with more hope than expectation. “Tell the police I heard someone leave her cabin. Make sure whoever is performing the postmortem knows this.”

  Melgarde had chuckled. “I think you have a dream, Mr. Scott.”

  He almost managed to convince Dylan of that but, no, he’d been wide-awake when he heard those noises. He was sure that Hanna Larsen—the same Hanna Larsen who’d refused to sell her valuable land to a profit-hungry chemical company—had received a visitor in the early hours of the morning.

  The other worry was that Hanna’s visitor might have expected to find the very wealthy Ruby Jackson tucked up in her bed.

  “You’re not thinking about that blasted woman again, are you?” Bev said. “Honestly, Dylan, I wish you’d give it a rest. She was old. She died. All sad and tragic, but nothing to do with you.”

  Bev was right. It was none of his business. It wasn’t as if Hanna had been a likeable woman. But if he’d been murdered in his bed, he’d like the culprit to get his just deserts.

  After flitting from shop to shop, they spent an hour in an art gallery. A few decent paintings of the landscape—sea, mountains, snow and the swirling northern lights—shared space with daubs of colour that could have been anything. Dylan wondered if a couple had been hung upside down.

  “That would look wonderful in our sitting room.” Bev pointed to a large blue-and-green canvas.

  “What is it?”

  “The northern lights.” She rolled her eyes. “What did you think it was?”

  “An honest answer?”

  She looked around at people viewing the paintings. “No.”

  “I’ll do you an identical one when we get home,” he promised. “It’ll take me ten minutes tops.”

  “Philistine!”

  “I just like paintings to look like whatever they’re supposed to be.”

  “You have cameras for that.”

  A book on art was being sold by the gallery and, before Dylan could object, Bev had handed over two hundred and seventy-five krone.

  “That’s about thirty quid,” he said. “For one book.”

  “Is it? Yes, I suppose it is.” She shrugged. “If that’s how much it costs, that’s how much it costs.”

  “No. If that’s how much it costs, you leave it where it is.”

  Laughing, she tucked her arm through his. “Come on, Scrooge. It’s time you bought me lunch.”

  They trekked for what seemed like miles before Bev finally found the perfect restaurant on a quiet narrow street. Welcome warmth hit them as soon as they stepped inside and dozens of flickering candles added to the cosy atmosphere.

  The most important thing as far as Dylan was concerned was the food and it didn’t disappoint.

  It was tempting to linger in the warmth over another glass of wine but Bev had a lot more to see yet so Dylan paid the bill and they stepped out into the cold. Darkness was descending quickly, bringing with it a stiff breeze.

  Somewhere nearby, a car’s engine was idling. Dylan was listening to Bev when that engine hit full revs. There was a scream of spinning wheels. He instinctively grabbed Bev’s arm as he turned. Racing straight at them was a big dark car. All that registered as he pushed Bev out of its path and into a doorway was that it had no lights.

  It missed them by inches and disappeared round the corner and into the dusk.

  Dylan’s heart was racing. Bev’s face was hidden behind her hands. Before either of them could speak, the door he’d pushed Bev against opened and a small lady spoke in a torrent of Norwegian. It didn’t take her long to realise they didn’t have a clue what she was saying and, thankfully, she spoke more calmly in English.

  “You poor things. You must come inside. Come. Come.” She ushered them along a hallway and into a cluttered sitting room. “Are you all right? I call the police, yes?”

  “There’s no need,” Dylan said. What he meant was “there’s no point.” “We’re fine. Thank you.”

  Bev nodded. “Yes, we are. But thank you. It’s very kind of you.”

  “Teenagers,” the woman said with a scowl. “They think it’s fun to drive their cars and frighten people out of their lives. Often the cars are stolen.”

  “Teenagers? Does this happen often?”

  She nodded at Dylan. “Teenagers always drive too fast. They find it fun. They play chicken, you know? They see how quick people are to jump out of the way.” She clicked her teeth at such stupidity.

  Dylan longed to believe high-spirited, thrill-seeking idiots were responsible.

  “You like tea.” She made it a statement rather than a question, as if she believed the English drank nothing but tea. “Sit down there and I will make you tea.”

  Before they could accept or decline, she’d gone.

  “You okay?” Dylan asked, and Bev nodded and gave him a weak smile.

  “Yes, but I’d like to get my hands on those morons. I thought London had the monopoly on joy riders and car thieves.” She nodded in the direction of the adjoining room. “But how kind is this? How lovely to be welcomed into a stranger’s home.”

  Over a quick cup of tea, they chatted with their hostess about London and Norway. They couldn’t linger though so they soon said their goodbyes, thanked her for her generosity and, once again, stepped out onto the dark street.

  “It’s time we met up with Vicky and the kids.” Bev put her arm through his and shivered. “It gets dark early, doesn’t it?”

  The residents of Bodø would enjoy their summers, their nights of the midnight sun, but these short days had to be depressing. Lights twinkled merrily from the buildings as if the residents were trying to outwit the darkness.

  They were closer to the harbour than Dylan had thought. His mother and children were nowhere in sight but they had another half hour before they’d agreed to meet. The snow and rain had stopped, but the wind was stronger than ever.

  Dylan saw Bill Carr and his wife strolling along the waterfront. Fortunately, Carr was busy looking at the ships.

  He spotted another face he recognised. “Tom!” he called.

  Jackson had been frowning, looking as tense as ever, but he forced a smile on seeing Dylan.

  “Tom.” Taking Bev with him, he strode across to Jackson. “I couldn’t beg a favour, could I? We’re supposed to be meeting up with my mother, but there’s no sign of her.” He gave Bev’s arm a warning squeeze. “I couldn’t borrow your phone, could I, to give her a quick call? I’ve only just realised that I left my own on the ship.”

  “Of course.” Jackson dived into his pocket and handed Dylan a shiny iPhone.

  “Than
ks.” Dylan tapped in what he hoped was his mother’s number and let it ring briefly. “It must be switched off. No matter, I’m sure she’ll be here in a minute. Thanks, Tom. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  “No problem. See you later.” Jackson returned his phone to his pocket and carried on walking.

  “Okay,” Bev said. “Explain in words of one syllable what that was all about because I know for a fact that your phone’s in your coat pocket.”

  She was trying to look annoyed, probably because she guessed it was connected to Hanna Larsen’s death, but it wasn’t working. Wearing a bright red padded coat that added several inches to her width, thick woollen gloves and a woollen hat decorated in snowflakes, she looked more like a cuddly toy than an angry wife. She was still shaken from their brush with the idiots driving that car too.

  “I was talking to him last night,” Dylan said. “When I mentioned that his mother should have been in Hanna Larsen’s cabin, he seemed—well, I don’t know how he seemed. Irritated perhaps. Annoyed.”

  “Good grief, I’m not surprised. What an awful thing to say to someone. How would you feel if someone said your mum should have been in that cabin. It would be unsettling, to say the least.”

  “Hmm. But no sooner had I mentioned it than he went off and made a phone call. I’m not sure if I prompted that call, but he was annoyed with whoever he was speaking to. I wanted to get hold of his phone and get the number he called, that’s all.”

  “What?” The way she was looking at him, he might have confessed to murdering nuns in the confessional. “You can’t do that.”

  “I can. Damn it, Bev, if Ruby was the intended victim—”

  “For a murder that only exists in your imagination?”

  “If Ruby was the intended victim, Tom Jackson stands to inherit a fortune.”

  “And if you were the intended victim, I’d stand to inherit a fortune. Okay, not a fortune. But peace, quiet and a bloody normal life. It doesn’t mean anything, does it? Everyone inherits something when someone dies, but people don’t go around hurrying proceedings along.”

  “Some people do. Perhaps Tom Jackson did. Obviously, he didn’t do the deed himself, but who’s to say he isn’t in on it? Who’s to say—?”

  “Dylan, get real. Besides, whatever mad theories you have, you can’t go grabbing people’s phones. It’s an invasion of their privacy.”

  “It seems I can’t. He gave me a different phone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The call he made last night was via a flip-out phone—like Luke’s Motorola. He just gave me an iPhone.”

  Bev looked at him long and hard. “What does that mean?”

  “It could mean a number of things,” Dylan said. “Some innocent and some not. For all I know, he could be using a burn phone.”

  “What’s one of those?”

  “A burn phone? A phone that can’t be traced. They’re used the world over by crooks.”

  Bev said nothing. She looked at him, her eyes reflecting a host of thoughts and questions. She even opened her mouth to speak once, but no words came.

  “My, you two are looking very serious. Has someone died?”

  Dylan turned his attention to his mother and kids. Freya was wearing a new hat that covered most of her head and boasted two felt antlers almost a foot long. Luke was carrying a bag that contained his own purchases.

  “No one’s died.” Bev gave Luke an extra-tight hug that soon had him wriggling free.

  “Except Hanna Larsen.”

  Everyone ignored him and they returned to the ship.

  As they stepped aboard, passengers were still in party mood. To be fair, they had been ever since the momentous occasion of crossing the Arctic Circle. Nothing changed, of course, but Dylan had experienced the same thrill as everyone else. There was something special about being north of that invisible line. It was as if the cruise was only just beginning. People had decided they were sure to see the northern lights now.

  “Hot chocolate, anyone?” Bev asked. “Dylan?”

  “No, thanks. You go ahead. I need to check something. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  Dylan knew where the reception desk was. He simply didn’t know which deck it was on. Bill Carr was right in that it was easy to get lost on the ship. The decks looked the same. After walking round in circles, he found it.

  A young girl was standing behind it looking slim, smart and ultra-efficient in her ship’s uniform.

  “How may I help you?” she asked with only a hint of a Norwegian accent.

  “If I wanted to set up a meeting with someone on this ship,” he said, “how would I go about arranging it?”

  “Simple.” She gave him a beaming smile through perfectly painted pink lips. “We have space adjacent to the conference room. If you tell me when you’d like to book a room, how many delegates and what time, I will make the necessary arrangements.”

  “It’s that easy?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s just that I was talking to—” he dropped his voice to a dignified whisper, “—Hanna Larsen, poor woman. I was talking to her on our first night aboard and she said there had been problems with a meeting she was supposed to have with Sigurd and Mathias Jorstad.”

  “No.” Frowning, she shook her head and tapped away at her computer keyboard. “No, not at all. I think you have misunderstood. Mr. Sigurd Jorstad booked the room and I checked with Mrs. Larsen myself to make sure it was convenient for her to meet them that morning.”

  “Ah. I must have been mistaken. And I have to say that Mrs. Larsen seemed a little confused about the meeting. I gather she planned to sell land to the Jorstads so she was perhaps a little excited.”

  The girl’s expression was blank. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what the meeting was about.”

  “No matter. Thanks for that. I’ll check how many delegates will be attending and come back and see you. Thanks very much for your help.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He headed back to the stairs. Double doors opened and a blast of music escaped. Hadn’t Bev said something about not wanting to miss the evening’s entertainment?

  He forgot the music and thought about the Jorstad brothers. It didn’t make sense. Even if they wanted Hanna Larsen dead, they wouldn’t kill her before they were due to meet her. They would at least listen to what she had to say. For all they knew, she might have decided to sell them her precious land. Also, as Mathias had said, the legal eagles would be dealing with her estate now so they wouldn’t necessarily benefit.

  He’d bet that Hanna Larsen’s daughter would inherit. She lived in Tromsø so it would make sense for her to sell her mother’s property to the Jorstads and have done with it. But that wasn’t necessarily the case.

  Little would have been gained by having Hanna killed.

  He pushed open double doors, walked four paces and was hit by what felt like a brick wall. It was in fact a Welshman. Mike Lloyd had marched straight at him and walloped his right shoulder.

  “Don’t mention it,” Dylan murmured, but Lloyd didn’t hear. He carried on walking, his face like thunder.

  Lloyd vanished through a door marked No Passengers Beyond This Point. The warning was posted in English and Norwegian so Dylan couldn’t claim he’d misunderstood.

  He peered through a square of glass in the door and was in time to see Lloyd knock on another door, tap his foot as he waited for a response, and then march inside.

  Ignoring the notice banning passengers, Dylan entered the crew’s quarters and crept as quietly as he could up to that door. He was about to put his ear to it but there was no need for that. The ship’s captain, Melgarde, was demonstrating his grasp of the finer points of the English language.

  “How the fuck dare you?” Dylan didn’t catch Lloyd’s response if there was one. “You’re on the probation, you fucker. How the fuck dare you?”

  Lloyd’s response was too quiet to hear.

  “I have to tell the police fuckers that
my fucking men make me look like fucking idiot. Why? We have passenger claim someone went to dead woman’s cabin and you don’t think the fuck to tell anyone?” Melgarde’s voice was rising to the point of hysteria. “Now police think I’m the fucking idiot. Idiot to have you on my ship, that’s what I am.”

  Lloyd said something that could have been “I didn’t want to waste your time. After all—”

  “I have to tell police. They want to know why no one mention it before, you fucker.”