I nodded.
‘Then he met Klaudina, and he was bowled over by her. He’s like that, Mike.’ Her voice sharpened. ‘Enthusiasms.’ She caught herself up, lips quivering. ‘He was like that. I can’t believe it.’ She shook her head, and resumed. ‘If Klaudina hadn’t been after him it’d have fizzled out – he told me that. Well, she’s not a sailor. She can only share half his life.’
‘Maybe that’s what he wanted,’ I suggested. ‘Two separate lives.’ I understood that too: the exhilaration of being out here, on the waves, and then the security of the marina, with the storms raging past the harbour mouth. A house where there was space, and no knee-high lip at the toilet entrance; a wood-lined cottage by a bay fringed with rowan trees. But, I reminded myself, Mike’s two separate lives had included a woman in each: Klaudina on shore and Agnetha aboard Sørlandet. I wanted to ask Sadie if she’d known about Agnetha, but it wasn’t my secret. Everyone knows, Anders had said. The light in Sadie’s face suggested she’d stayed keen on Mike. I wasn’t going to ask how she’d felt about his having an affair under her nose with somebody else, especially if he was offering that someone else a whole life together, afloat and ashore. Especially if that someone else was turning it down … but in that case, wouldn’t it have been Agnetha who’d died?
Maybe not. What was that old quote about like love to hatred turn’d? I tried to hear the scansion in my head. Revenge hath no spur … something like that. If she’d still cared, and he hadn’t, and made it obvious …
Sadie’s carved face grew bleak again. ‘It doesn’t feel real. He was always so alive.’ Suddenly her mood changed, became brisk, as if she feared she’d said too much. She rustled her papers together. ‘Thanks for the tea, Cass. I need to get back to work.’
‘No problem,’ I said, and gathered up the mugs. ‘See you later.’
The verse jingled in my head as I washed up. Revenge hath no spur … no, that wasn’t right. Captain Gunnar had an Oxford Quotations in his bookshelf, because he knew how irritating it could be to have half a phrase trapped in your head. I put the mugs away and headed for the officers’ mess. It was easily found: Restoration drama, Congreve. Heaven has no rage, that was it: Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, followed by that often-quoted old chestnut: Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned.
I didn’t like the way my thoughts were going. If Sadie and Mike had remained an item on board until Agnetha came along, the real thing, the one he was going to leave his wife for, well, that could well turn love to hatred: to have waited all these years, playing second fiddle in the hope that one day he’d cut free of his shore life and give you everything, only to find out that you were second best after all.
I hadn’t seen Sadie on deck the night Mike died. She didn’t stand watches, so I didn’t often see her in oilskins, but I had a feeling her jacket was scarlet. She could easily have drawn him aside, with a murmured excuse about needing a private word about one of the trainees. She was a nurse, used to lifting people. And if a knife had killed him so silently, surely that suggested some kind of medical training?
I headed up on deck and leant on the rail, looking out gloomily over the dancing water. My opinion of Mike was changing. I’d only looked at the excellent seaman, the enthusiast, good with the trainees, part of the team. Some historical tag was tugging in my brain, brought up by the Congreve quote: someone who’d boasted that he’d never lied to a man nor told the truth to a woman. How did it come about that we were a separate species? Of course, in Congreve’s day they were still arguing about whether women had souls or not, but this was now. We’d had the vote for a century. We had equal rights and some of us even had equal pay. Well, in the developed world, anyway. So how was it that men like Mike, good blokes, all these loving husbands who had affairs, could still, somehow, put their relationships with women into a different box? I didn’t get it.
‘Penny for them,’ Gavin said, appearing suddenly beside me.
I shook my head. ‘Too expensive. I was just brooding on the oddity of the male race.’
His shoulder leant against mine. ‘A propos of the way you held out on Sergeant Peterson?’ He smiled. ‘After doing so well, too.’ His voice teased. ‘You managed more words than I’ve heard you say in all our time together.’
I wanted to respond to his teasing, but my very bones felt weary. ‘Can we pretend you’ve given me the lecture about priorities?’
‘Only if you want to turn me into a yes man.’ His voice had a warning edge to it. I thought about that one, and knew I didn’t. The sudden sharp edge to the conversation frightened me. I shook my head and slipped my arm through his.
‘Sorry. I’m so tired. Look, will you give me a chance to think about it?’ I shot a sideways glance at him, and saw his brows were still drawn together, his eyes the dark grey of a winter sea. ‘I’m not putting myself in danger.’ I gave his arm a hug. ‘I promise I won’t make appointments with a possible suspect on the lonely deck at midnight.’
‘There isn’t a lonely deck at midnight, or any other time.’ He looked down at the swarm of trainees, and let the subject drop. ‘Word’s got round about there being a body in the cold store. The young ones are having fun hearing strange knocking noises from inside there, and the folk on galley duty are high as ponies on a windy day. Not wanting to go downstairs alone, that sort of thing.’ He straightened up. ‘Well, I’ll keep on with my watching brief.’
He walked away, leaving me feeling suddenly unprotected, alone. I drew myself up to my full five feet two, and gave myself an indignant scold. I was perfectly capable of looking after myself.
Word’s got round … I looked round the trainees. Yes, that air of unease had returned, the tendency to gather in groups, a slightly higher note to the voices. A faded navy cap caught my eye, one of the trainees from the white watch. Reminded, I looked around, and realised, now I was looking, that there was nothing like the jacket I’d seen. Only one trainee had an obviously new scarlet sailing suit. There were a couple of red jackets, but outdoor jackets, not sailing ones. I strolled across to the banjer door and looked in. There were only a handful of jackets left on the pegs, all variations of dark. If it had been Bezrukov, then he’d stolen a jacket from elsewhere; from a crew cabin. I thought that through. He’d come into the aft corridor. There was Anders’ cabin first: a white sailing suit, like Agnetha’s. The sick bay: locked. The next cabin was mine, with just that combination of scarlet sailing jacket and faded navy hat, hanging inside the curtain, all ready to be snatched up.
The breath left my lungs as if someone had punched me. The clothes the person had worn looked familiar because they were my own.
I needed peace to think about this. I headed for the crew galley and found Anders there, making a cup of tea, Rat on one shoulder. He looked up as I came in. ‘Drinking chocolate?’
‘Please.’
‘I need to go back down to my engine. Come and keep me company.’
I followed him down the narrow ladder, mug in hand. The warmth and the diesel smell were reassuring. Anders gestured at the makeshift settee in one corner. ‘Make yourself at home. I just need to run through these checks.’
I hunkered into the seat while he went along the gauges and fiddled a lever or two, then he came and sat down beside me. His face was grave. ‘So, how’s it going?’
I pulled a face. Anders was a fellow sailor, and definitely above suspicion; at least, the only sure things in life, as Granny Bridget used to say, were death and taxes, but Anders was a newcomer on board, not involved in ship relationships. I could talk to him about it. ‘I think it might have been my own jacket and hat that I saw. That the person who went aft with Mike was wearing. I’ve been looking at all the trainees, and none of them has one like the one I saw, a scarlet jacket with reflective tape on the sleeves. No, Samir has, but it’s shop-new. I’d have noticed that.’
His fair brows rose, then narrowed. ‘Someone – Bezrukov – reached in through the curtain and picked them up from your cabin?’<
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I nodded.
‘You realise how much that narrows things down,’ Anders said.
I gave him a blank look.
He gestured at me with the hand that wasn’t holding his mug. ‘Cass, are you sure you’re well? It’s really not like you to be so slow. You are usually charging ahead like a rogue elk.’
‘A bit under the weather,’ I conceded. I wasn’t going to share my little passenger even with Anders. ‘Go on then, Holmes. Dazzle me.’
He made the gesture again, and I got it. Size. I preferred not to think about being knee-high to a grasshopper, but in this case, I should have. ‘Mine are small men’s,’ I said. Women’s gear seemed to bring out a manufacturers’ obsession with shades of pastel blue, or pretty pink flashing, so I bought the small men’s size and velcro’d the cuffs out of the way.
‘If they were yours, it was not the Russian,’ Anders said. ‘He has shoulders like the side of a house. There is no way he’d have fitted in a small man’s jacket. And that means …’
He looked bleakly across at me, and I nodded. One of us.
Anders swirled his mug in both hands, staring gloomily into the coffee. ‘I was hoping that it would all be decided. They would catch this Russian in Belfast, and that would be that.’ He looked across at me. ‘You had no idea who it was? From the height, the walk?’
‘He was clumsy, not like someone used to being on board. None of us would walk like that. Height, not as tall as Mike. Three inches shorter, maybe.’
‘My height or a shade taller.’ Anders considered this. ‘Not Henrik, then, he is six foot, and Erik is tall too. Rolf would be that height, but he’s broad-shouldered. Nils, Petter, either of Agnetha’s ABs, any of them could have worn it. The women, of course, but are you sure about the height?’
‘Pretty sure.’
‘Then Mona would not be tall enough, nor the girl on Nils’s watch. Nor the younger galley girl, what is her name?’
‘Laila. Ruth would be the right height. Jenn as well.’ I’d never seen Sadie standing beside Mike. I tried to think of her standing beside me. Yes, she would be the right height too.
Agnetha. I suddenly realised that I was off the hook. I could go to Sergeant Peterson with this. The relief blazed, dazzling, through me. The forensics lab would take my jacket and hat – that would be a nuisance, bang in the middle of the season – and test them for hairs, or skin cells, or whatever modern forensics could come up with. There could well be hairs on the cap. Fingerprints on the stiff collar of the jacket. If Agnetha had done this, they would find the evidence. If she hadn’t, there would be no scandal aboard the Sørlandet to spoil Captain Gunnar’s last season.
I rose. ‘I’ll go and tell Sergeant Peterson.’
His hand caught my arm. ‘No, wait.’ He frowned across at the engine then turned his eyes to me. ‘Cass, this is not looking good for you. Gavin will not be allowed to tell you, of course, but I don’t like what I’m hearing. Do you realise you’re chief suspect?’
I turned back to him as if I was caught in treacle, moving slowly. My lips framed the word ‘Why?’ Then I realised. I hadn’t recognised my own jacket and cap because I wouldn’t expect to see them on anyone but me. My crewmates would have known them, and assumed it was me inside them.
‘This is what I’ve heard.’ He set his mug aside. I sat down again. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, trying to make sense of it. There were four people who saw the person that you saw, the person in red. Rolf was on the boat deck, and Nils on the aft deck. Henrik was by the galley door.’ I remembered my map, and nodded. ‘Jenn was coming out of her cabin, and saw the person at the end of the passage, going out. She thought it was you, although she didn’t see the face, and when she thought more she wasn’t sure the person was small enough. When she came out, she was looking at the trainees enjoying the dolphins. She did not look for the person. Nils was looking from above as the person went over to Mike. He was certain it was you.’
‘He would be,’ I muttered.
‘He went downstairs then, and did not watch them come up, but Henrik saw them on the deck. He thought that it could be you, except that you looked taller, compared to Mike, than he would have expected. Rolf said he only glanced over, but took it to be you.’
‘So,’ I said slowly, keeping my voice steady, ‘the theory is that I got rid of the helm and standby, nipped down the nav-shack stairs to get my jacket, went out on deck, brought Mike up on some pretext, and killed him while everyone was looking at the dolphins.’
Anders nodded.
‘Leaving the helm,’ I stressed. ‘They thought I would leave the helm unattended?’ In the days of Nelson, I’d have been keelhauled. Nowadays, being confined to quarters until your court martial would cover it.
‘To commit a murder,’ Anders said. It didn’t sound a good enough excuse to me. ‘But I have thought about this. The people who were sure it was you, Nils and Rolf, they are both accustomed to seeing you in your foul-weather gear. You have worn it in the evenings and at night until now. They would have said “Cass” and not looked further.’
It was what I’d said to Sergeant Peterson. I nodded.
‘And Nils, who was the most certain, was immediately above Mike and the person in red. He could not judge relative heights; nor could Rolf – the person was a step behind Mike going up the stairs. But the two who were not sure, Henrik and Jenn’ – he gestured with one hand – ‘they were both on deck, level with the person, and they both thought it was taller than you, relative to Mike.’
Most people were. I remembered my map again. Erik, Petter and Mona were cleared. Jenn or Rolf had been there, Henrik was too tall. That left Agnetha, Sadie and Nils.
‘Does the ship grapevine have any information about how he was killed?’
Anders nodded. ‘They have been looking for a possible weapon. Rolf told me. They were searching the carpenter’s shop, looking at his smaller chisels. The sergeant had a piece of paper for comparison, which they showed him. It looked, he said, like a shallow diamond. Not like a normal clasp knife, more like a dagger. Naturally she did not say anything more, but there was no blood on the deck, so we’re thinking he was stabbed, perhaps in the back, which would not bleed much.’
Our own knives were personal, recognisable, and attached to us. It would be too incriminating not to be able to produce yours, when asked, and everyone knew these days that the smallest traces of blood would be found. You’d go for something that had no connection with you, that you could replace at your leisure. More like a dagger …
It was those words that did it. I gave an involuntary laugh. Anders turned to stare at me. I took a deep breath. ‘This is crazy. This is too Agatha Christie.’
He raised his brows. ‘Explain.’
‘Captain Gunnar has a silver paper knife. A little dagger, sharp, with a cross-section just like that. He keeps it in the rack above his desk.’ I stood up. ‘I’m going to have to go and talk to Sergeant Peterson.’
‘No,’ Anders said. He pulled me down again. ‘No, I think you should not. Keep your head low; do not go volunteering the weapon. She will find it for herself. If someone is framing you by wearing your clothes, do not give her more evidence against you.’
I tried to think about how it would look if I came forward, suggesting the weapon, and conceded that he was right. ‘All the same, unless it comes on really foul, I’m not going to wear my jacket and hat until they’ve been examined. As far as I know, nobody but me’s worn them. Just one hair that shouldn’t be there …’
‘She will take it for examination soon enough.’ His hand rested on my shoulder, then he rose, and dropped into Shetlandic. ‘Lass, geng du and hae a sleep, until dy brain wakes up.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I met Sergeant Peterson at my door. ‘I was just coming to look for you,’ she said briskly. ‘Would you mind me bagging up your jacket and cap for later examination?’
‘Go you,’ I said, gesturing towards them. I didn’t touch them.
; ‘When did you last wear them?’
‘I wore the jacket three, no, four nights ago; the misty night. I only wear the hat when it’s raining or very windy, so I’ve not had that on since, oh, two weeks ago.’
‘I brought evidence bags. Hang on.’ She rummaged in her briefcase and brought out a pair of blue plastic gloves, then a clear bag, just big enough to hold my hat. Cat watched with interest from the berth as she turned it in her hands. The light from the porthole glinted on two short, silvery-fair hairs. Nils, Rolf and Agnetha were all fair. I thought of Sadie’s long copper hair, and wondered if that cleared her. Sergeant Peterson wrote a label, stuck it on and sealed the top. The jacket, of course, was too big for a bag.
‘I have a dry-cleaner’s bag over my dress jacket,’ I offered.
‘Better than nothing.’
We swapped them around, with Sergeant Peterson holding the jacket gingerly by the shoulder seams, and she took jacket, hat and herself off. I swung myself up into my bunk, feeling suddenly weary. Cat curled up in the crook of my neck, and sighed. ‘You and me both, boy,’ I said. I lay there, listening to the waves slapping at the hull, the padding of feet on deck. A thread of tune from Sindre’s mouth organ drifted on the wind. I dozed for a bit, then got up, refreshed, and went off to find Gavin.
He had no inhibitions about invading the captain’s space, and was happily sitting back on a red velvet settee, drinking tea under the portrait of Queen Sonja. The captain’s cabin door was closed: do not disturb.
‘You’re looking cheerful,’ he greeted me. ‘I looked in as I was making tea, but you were dead to the world.’ He gave me a sideways look. ‘Nothing like confession for clearing the mind.’
It hadn’t quite been confession, but I’d set the wheels in motion to catch the guilty. I leant against him, and was honest. ‘If my jacket gives you the evidence you need, I don’t have to share my suspicions.’
Death in Shetland Waters Page 19