Death in Shetland Waters

by Marsali Taylor

  Families. My cousin Sean was using me as bait. If my Granny Bridget was looking down from heaven, I thought wildly, she’d have a few things to say to him when he got up there.

  Now I knew what was happening it was easier to visualise. Bezrukov had got out of the lighthouse, and was strolling casually towards the Big Fish, gun at the ready, while everyone was watching the parade …

  … and then, suddenly, he was on me, bursting around the fish’s nose in a swirl of black like a striking raven, gun levelled, and I flung myself to the ground and somersaulted between its under-fin and tail and came up on the other side, to find the young mother, two of the camera watchers and the pinstriped men spreading out around the fish. The young mother was quickest around, firing as she went; three shots, with only one answering. I dragged myself up, trembling all over. I’d had enough of this kind of thing. I backed away from the fish, eyes on these spread-out stalking professionals, tensing myself to run again.

  Then it was all over. The pinstriped men straightened and became ordinary office workers. They walked briskly to the lighthouse and trundled it away. The camera-watchers remained, one at each end of the fish, leaning casually against it, enjoying the parade from there. A white van appeared from nowhere, and curved to a halt in the cleared space. Two men leapt out with a stretcher, went round the fish’s nose, returned around its tail with a blanket-covered burden and bundled it into the van, which slid smoothly away. I heard the crackle of a hand-held radio, then the young mother came out from behind the fish and nodded at me. ‘Well done.’

  The sling was still around her neck. ‘You wouldn’t risk a real baby,’ I said, stupidly.

  She shook her head and laughed. ‘A doll. Excellent camouflage. Back to the parade, or do you need a drink?’

  I needed a bloody strong drink, but I was still on duty. I gestured at the parade marching past. ‘I’ll just rejoin my shipmates.’

  I was halfway up the parade, weaving my way in and out of the crews and crowd, heart still racing like an out-of-gear engine at full throttle, when I met Gavin coming towards me. He caught me to him and held me tight. His jacket smelt of wool, Imperial Leather soap, security. I fought back the impulse to burst into tears on his chest. I clung to him for a moment, then got a grip on myself, pulled him around and began towing him towards the head of the parade.

  ‘You’ve missed the excitement,’ I told him, my voice Oscar-winning steady.

  ‘There wasn’t any. That’s official.’

  ‘It was a very neat operation. I’ll give my cousin Sean that.’

  His mouth was grim. ‘If ever I meet your cousin Sean again, there’s a lot I’d like to say.’

  ‘My Granny Bridget said it all, a dozen times.’ I curled my fingers round his. ‘It had no effect whatsoever, so I wouldn’t waste your breath. What was he anyway? Special branch? MI5?’

  Gavin shook his head. ‘Above my level of knowledge. I’d just switched my phone on and found your messages when I got a phone call from a young woman saying you were safe and rejoining the parade. Then word came through that Bezrukov had been disposed of, news blackout, no paperwork, and the extra security for the speeches at the stadium could be stood down.’

  ‘Incident closed.’ I could see the green costumes of Alexander von Humboldt ahead of us now. ‘Nearly there.’

  Another five minutes of brisk dodging and we were home, among my own crew once more. I gave Agnetha a thumbs up. We filed together through the gates and found ourselves almost right in front of the stage, facing a house-high battery of speakers. A wired-looking presenter with one of those upward-pointing wedge haircuts was bouncing about on the stage.

  ‘Right,’ Gavin said. ‘You’re back on duty. All your watch is there, ready to enjoy the speeches and whatever else is lined up, but my trained police instincts tell me that all your fellow officers are slipping to the side, to get away from the music. Shall we join them?’

  I didn’t argue. We squirmed sideways and took up our stations on the low wall around the building where the crew party would be held. Jazz music was curling from inside it already – no, it was coming from higher up the steps, where the three players on stilts who’d come on board Sørlandet for the party had installed themselves. I watched them swaying on their grasshopper legs, and remembered what I’d noticed without seeing it.

  I knew who’d killed Mike.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The prize-giving was pretty much like every other one I’d been to. The wired presenter got the crews to shout at him, then brought on some politicians and bigwigs who all welcomed the crews, praised Belfast’s proud ship-building tradition, spoke at length of the international harmony promoted by sailing and thanked everyone involved. After that there were the actual prizes – not race prizes, for this had been a cruising leg, but for colourful showing in the parade, eco-awareness, spreading the word that tall ships are fun, that kind of thing.

  It passed by me in a blur. I was thinking everything through, and trying to persuade myself I’d come to the wrong conclusion.

  Mike and Agnetha: that was where it began. Everyone knows, Anders had said. That hadn’t been important, except to them; shipboard affairs were officially discouraged, just like office affairs, but they weren’t uncommon. Usually they resolved themselves without fuss. A wedding, a divorce followed by a wedding, or one of the two involved moving to another ship.

  Mike and Agnetha had threatened to be different. I remembered what I’d overheard. I won’t have it, Agnetha had said. You can’t force me. I hadn’t heard Mike’s reply, but Agnetha’s retort had been Do that, and I’ll go to the captain. From which, I’d concluded, he was threatening to take her to court to prevent her aborting his baby. Then Agnetha had threatened him in return: You’re my senior officer. Fifteen years older than me. You’ll never work on a tall ship again. I’d heard his rejoinder: Nor will you.

  It had all the makings of a nasty mess. I could just see the headlines: Senior ship’s officer accused of grooming. Affair on the high seas. Tall ship’s mate takes former lover to court. ‘I won’t let her kill my baby!’ Woman fights for right to choose. Above it all, blaring, Scandal aboard Norwegian tall ship Sørlandet.

  I’d been thinking too hard about the personal, when it was about money. Tall ships were always news. The damage done to her reputation would be immense. The foundation about to turn her into an academy for two years would pull out; they would have to, because of all the issues around child protection, if there was any suggestion that there had been sexual irregularities aboard. Losing this new venture would be disastrous financially; tall ships gobbled money, and being an academy would keep her secure for the immediate future.

  They’d spoken sharply enough for me to hear. They could have been heard in the corridor by someone taking a morning cup of tea from the kitchen back to his cabin; someone who’d loved the ship for forty years, whose life revolved around her. Someone who was only of medium height, though his upright bearing made him taller, who could easily have reached around my door to catch up my jacket and hat while I was on watch; someone who knew the ship’s routines, and what noises would make me turn and look. We never saw him in sailing overalls, because he didn’t stand long watches with the rest of us. The man who studied his crew, and knew how absorbed in the ship I’d be if I took the wheel. The man who could easily ask Mike for a word and lead him aft, walking past me with his head turned away, but a slightly stiff gait because he’d left his giveaway cane below. That was what the stilt-walkers had reminded me of. I’d noticed it without seeing. The ship’s officer who’d been a science teacher, with a skeleton hanging in his classroom. He’d have known where to strike. The man who’d done firefighting training. The captain who wanted to leave his ship in safe hands when he retired, ready to take up her new career as a floating academy.

  I thought of Captain Gunnar’s kindly face. It took more than bonhomie to captain a tall ship. It took the ability to make hard decisions, quickly. He’d heard the argument in t
he morning, and decided action had to be taken. I’d already made the fuss about the stowaway; that had made me stand out, when nothing had been found. A good scapegoat. Only he and I knew about the loaded gun. He’d mentioned it to someone else, and the word had spread. He’d taken my jacket and hat to make himself look like me. Then, to make sure, he’d come into my cabin at night; except that I hadn’t mentioned that to anyone. Only the person who’d been there could have spread that story, and the only reason for spreading it would be to make me look as if I was dramatising things. He’d been standing in just the place to reach out with the handle end of his cane and catch at my ankle. Forcing a card, Gavin had called it. He had been going to throw me to the police, relying on Gavin to hush everything up, and let the ship sail away.

  Then Erik had died. I remembered the way Captain Gunnar’s face had changed when I told him about Micaela and the gang blackmailing. Now he had a better scapegoat, one who had nothing to do with the ship. Erik was dead, and there really had been a Russian hidden aboard who was responsible. Why not blame him for everything else too?

  Yes, I knew now. But what was I to do with my knowledge?

  I remembered the loss of the American replica ship Bounty, which had foundered in a hurricane a few years back. The captain and one crew member had been lost, and the rest saved by helicopter. They’d all had to testify in the enquiry, and in spite of what they’d lived through in those boiling waters, not one had spoken against the captain who’d taken them out into the storm. The captain was the ship’s heart. If you couldn’t give him unswerving loyalty, you needed to find another ship.

  Captain Gunnar was my captain. When I was seventeen, he’d encouraged me as a trainee. He’d let me return to the ship year after year. He’d taken me back after college, and given me these gold stripes on my shoulders. He’d taken a wrong decision for the good of his ship – I couldn’t try to persuade myself that it was right, or that it was equivalent to shooting a crew member who’d gone mad and was threatening the safety of the rest of us. The decision was wrong, but he’d taken it.

  But what was I to do now? The loudspeakers blared in my ears. I looked up and saw the lines of crews had been edged back by a crowd of youngsters pressing forwards to the stage. The wired presenter jumped up and down, shouting the name ‘Bailey!’ and the girls at the stage-front began to clap. Then, in a chorus of screams, a boy strolled onto the stage, a guitar in his hands. I blinked. He couldn’t be older than his early teens.

  Gavin caught my thought, and leant his head to mine. ‘I’m getting old. This is their big star, and he looks about twelve.’

  ‘Might be as much as fourteen,’ I agreed. The SØRLANDET noticeboard began to edge away from the speaker blare, and our T-shirted crew with it. We officers rose and went to meet them, then queued together at the counter within the building.

  ‘Food,’ Agnetha said. I felt a sudden rush of gladness that I didn’t need to suspect her any more, and tucked an arm into hers.

  ‘Burgers, most likely.’

  It was burgers or wraps, washed down by Heineken or a variety of fizzy stuff. I went for a cheeseburger and Heineken, as the least worst. Behind us, the dance area was already pulsing with light. I eased myself into a table beside Anders. His shoulder was warm against mine. My shipmate; but I couldn’t tell him either, though he would understand as Gavin could not. I put my burger down, set my drink beside it, and announced, ‘They’ve caught the stowaway, the Russian.’

  Beside me, Gavin made a movement, as if to hush me, then leant back, waiting.

  Agnetha lowered her burger back to the table, and let her breath out in a long sigh. I looked round the faces, and saw the same relief on every one. It was over.

  ‘This is important, though,’ I told them. ‘He wasn’t on board, nothing happened, it’s all to be hushed up.’

  ‘Mike’s death, and Erik’s?’ Agnetha said.

  I shrugged. ‘They’ll deal with it somehow.’

  We thought about that in silence for a moment.

  ‘I suppose,’ Nils said slowly, ‘that it will be better for the ship if there is no more publicity.’

  ‘I don’t see how they can hush up Erik’s death,’ Petter objected. ‘There were far too many people there.’ He shuddered. ‘They won’t forget it.’

  None of us would; but if there was no press coverage, it would recede. It would become unreal in the telling, a Grand Guignol set piece. If Micaela ever surfaced, she wouldn’t tell anyone. Olav’s family had already been told that his death had been an accident. Mike’s wife would be told the same. She would never need to know anything about Agnetha. At the end of August, we’d raise glasses of smuggled whisky to Captain Gunnar, and wish him well in his retirement, and then Sørlandet would sail for America, under Captain Sigurd, setting her gold-striped prow to the Atlantic and hoisting her white sails to catch the trade winds.

  She would sail under another command. Captain Gunnar would have to watch her go, without him. His new life would be retirement ashore. He would be too proud to haunt the offices, or make a nuisance of himself on the management committee; no, his contact with her would be on lonely evenings, watching her dot move across a map of the oceans on his computer screen.

  Gavin’s fingers were warm around mine, but I couldn’t share this with him. I tried to remember what they’d called it in medieval times. Fealty. For now, I was still Captain Gunnar’s liegewoman; but the wrongness of it hung in my throat. Mike deserved justice. The baby I’d known for only half a day should have had its chance to live.

  The fingers tangled in mine tightened. Gavin leant across to me and murmured, ‘Are you keen to dance, or will we get some air?’

  ‘Air.’ The thump-thump beat was already doing my head in. We rose with nods to the others, and threaded our way through the crowds and food stands towards the river. It was a warm night, the breeze blowing softly from the sea, the tide rippling the river backwards. We leant against the railing, elbows and upper arms touching, and looked out at the masts raised into the dimming sky: Santa Maria Manuela, Lord Nelson, Morganster. Above us, Cisne Branco’s sails hung in white festoons. The ebb and flow of the crowd slipped past us, pausing to exclaim, to photograph, to eat a last mouthful of burger or paella before dropping the carton in the bin, then flowing on again.

  Gavin leant against me, and sighed. ‘It’s been a long day. How about a pint in the oldest pub in the city, then an early night?’

  I nodded. ‘A long, long day.’ Micaela’s phone call, the parade, the Big Fish. Good luck, Micaela, I wished her silently. Safe landfall.

  Gavin glanced over his shoulder, as if he was checking that nobody was listening. ‘They’re dropping all of it. They – the big brass – just want nothing more to be said. The Belfast Tall Ships is a resounding success, the stowaway was some illegal immigrant wanting to get to Britain; it was all unfortunate. Any hairs found on your jacket will all be ones that could have got there legitimately – somebody standing beside you, say.’ He scowled out at the water. ‘They may well find one of Bezrukov’s hairs on it. Case closed.’ His voice was bitter. ‘A politician’s justice. Chief Inspector Beattie’s not happy either.’

  I wished I could help him, but I had no evidence to give. I just had to try and forget, make myself believe the official version, so that I could meet Captain Gunnar with a clear gaze. I turned my hand to grasp his. ‘I’m not bothered about the pint. Let’s just go home.’ Suddenly, vividly, I longed for my Khalida. I could see her shabby blue cushions, her blue and yellow curtains, her varnished prop-leg table, and smell that characteristic mix of hot engine oil and damp.

  He turned to look at me. His eyes lightened to the grey of sea polished by low sunlight. I could see he was having an inspiration he couldn’t share with me. Then he gripped my hand, and nodded. ‘Yes, home.’

  CASTING OFF

  Sunday 5th July. 55.910N, 07.541W.

  Racing towards Alesund.

  We had another day in Belfast, getting the ship ready to put
to sea again for the race back to Norway. I felt myself awkward with Captain Gunnar, but he didn’t seem to notice anything, so I supposed I was covering up well enough. Eight more weeks, then I’d be safe. We’d manoeuvred out of the harbour on Sunday morning, and set sails; then the cannon fired, and we were caught up in the excitement of starting the race, forging forwards with the other tall ships around us, sails straining, a sight to lift the heart.

  The wind was from the north-west, a stiff breeze, with the ship slicing through the Atlantic swell. Islay was on starboard now, and the islands on each side of the Minch ahead of us. I could see the green sails of Alexander von Humboldt far off to starboard, and the white ones of Christian Radich just behind. I’d promoted Mona to watch leader, with Petter and Johan as her ABs. Agnetha, Nils and I were working flat out to keep our course the shortest line between two points, and the trainees were an amazing team. Captain Sigurd had joined us in Belfast, and was working as chief officer under Captain Gunnar. According to the Tall Ships website, we were lying third, behind Frederyk Chopin and the Czech La Grace.

  We were standing at the rail, looking out, Gavin’s shoulder against mine. My stopgap jacket was nowhere near as windproof as the one that Sergeant Peterson had taken, but when I’d asked Gavin if he could get it back, he said he’d try, but he couldn’t promise. The wheels of the law ground slowly. I wasn’t sure I’d want to wear it anyway. I’d buy myself another sailing jacket back in Norway.