The Boathouse Killer

by Keith Finney

  The Boathouse Killer

  Norfolk Cozy Mysteries

  Keith Finney

  Contents

  An Invitation

  1. Afternoon Drinks

  2. A Policeman Calls

  3. Castle Ahead

  4. An Unscheduled Stop

  5. Monday Blues

  6. Body of Evidence

  7. Odd Man Out

  8. True Friends

  9. Burnt Out

  10. Cold Comfort

  11. Parallel Universe

  12. Old MacDonald

  13. Numbers

  14. No Hiding Place

  15. Nose Trouble

  16. Flight of Fancy

  Glossary

  Did You Enjoy the Boathouse Killer?

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  Acknowledgments

  Also by Keith Finney

  An Invitation

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  1

  Afternoon Drinks

  Anthony Stanton’s little-boy act tested Lyn Blackthorn's patience to the limit.

  "What’s not to like? You’ve got a pint of Fen Bodger, the sun’s out, and the chicken burger didn’t cost you a penny."

  "Call yourself my best mate? You know I hate BBQs. Anyway, it isn’t free. The tickets were twenty-five quid apiece."

  Lyn shook her head and frowned as she scanned the lively scene in the beer garden of her favourite waterside pub, The New Tavern.

  "I’ll pay for the stupid tickets if it pains you so much, you tight devil. Anyone would think you were seven years old, not thirty-two."

  She gave Ant her best head-teacher look, reserved for only the most testing of pupils.

  "That’s not the point. Just because you're three months older doesn't mean you can treat me like a child. I—"

  Before he could finish, Lyn turned to welcome Fitch, an old friend of the pair and owner of Fitch's Automotive Services.

  "Don’t tell me, he’s moaning about spending money again, isn’t he?"

  Ant frowned.

  Lyn raised an eyebrow and shook her head.

  "I suppose it’s inbred into aristocrats like Lord Anthony Stanton here, or should I call you by your ancestral name. What is it—Norton-D'Arcy? You know what they're like, Fitch. Steal from the poor and get them to pay for your chicken burgers."

  She watched as Ant refused to take the bait, stiffened his posture, and tilted his head upwards.

  "Then you two should know your place in the pecking order, should you not?"

  As if, thought Lyn.

  Ant’s cheeky reply cut no ice, and both friends dissolved into a fit of laughter.

  "Oh, yes. We know our place all right, don't we, Fitch? More to the point, my lord, just at this moment your place is at the bar because the drinks are on you."

  Lyn stifled Ant’s protest with another of her head-teacher looks together with a forefinger pointing straight at the tavern's rear entrance.

  "I’ll have a large white wine with ice and a slice. Pint of Thatcher’s Itch, Fitch?"

  He nodded.

  "You can have a shandy, Ant. Remember, you have a boat to sail home, and we all recall what happened the last time you had a skinful."

  Lyn got the reaction she expected.

  "I beg to differ. The cause of that run-in with Maynard's wreck of a boat was a faulty tiller, not Fen Bodger pale ale."

  Lyn shrugged her shoulders. Fitch shook his head.

  "Well, it certainly ended up a wreck when you'd finished with it. Anyway, off to the bar you go because we're gasping for some liquid refreshment."

  Shamed into paying for the round, Ant did an about turn and began to weave his way through the crowd.

  Lyn caught Fitch's eye and broke out into a fit of the giggles.

  "Did you sail down on Fieldsurfer?"

  Happy as she was to continue enjoying Ant's discomfort, Lyn thought better of it and focussed on Fitch's attempt to move the conversation on.

  "Yes. I took a chocolate cake to his parents. Ant suggested it might be easier to sail down Stanton Broad rather than driving through Butler's Chase. You know what it can be like at the weekend during the tourist season. Anyway, she's moored just over there."

  Lyn pointed at the Earl of Stanton's, clinker-built wherry resting majestically on the Broad, standing out as she did from a line of modern fibreglass tourist hire boats.

  Ant's lucky his father lets him loose with Fieldsurfer.

  Just then, Lyn became aware of someone crying. Turning, she saw two women. One trying to console the other.

  "None of our business, Lyn."

  Men.

  "Occupational habit, I'm afraid. My ears are autotuned to that particular sound."

  She ambled toward the couple and sensed Fitch was close behind acting like an unhappy sibling following their mother to the dentist.

  She recognised one of the women. Newly married, she’d only recently moved to the village.

  "Hannah, isn't it? Can I help?"

  Lyn spoke in a soft tone, making sure she gave each woman equal eye contact.

  "It’s fine, thank you. My friend will be okay."

  She's Polish?

  Lyn ignored the well-meant rebuttal and instead focused her attention on the tearful one.

  "You’re Hannah Singleton?"

  The woman wiped a tear from her cheek.

  Be careful. Don't push too hard, thought Lyn.

  "Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just a nosy teacher. But it does mean I get to hear what’s going on in the village." Lyn smiled in a calculated move to put the woman at ease.

  Hannah looked at her companion and gave a slight nod. Turning back to Lyn, she hesitated for a few seconds.

  "You run the little school, yes? People have told me about you."

  Lyn blushed.

  "Oh dear, that bad?"

  Hannah looked confused.

  "No, sorry. I mean—"

  Oops.

  Fitch filled the awkward gap.

  "No need to apologise. She’s well known for being a busybody. Teachers are all the same, aren’t they?"

  Lyn relaxed in the knowledge Fitch’s icebreaker had worked.

  "This is my friend, Annabelle. We grew up in the same town. We are, how you say, best mates?"

  "Just like Fitch and me."

  "Am I really, Lyn?"

  His smile gave the game away.

  Lyn turned back to Hannah.

  "I hope we yokels haven’t done anything to upset you?"

  Lyn’s attempt at humour had the opposite effect.

  Well, I got that wrong.

  She watched as Hannah once more began to cry. This time, people standing nearby started to stare.

  "Oh, it's not what you have said. You see, they have had their first serious argument as husband and wife, and now he is gone."

  Lyn frowned, struggling to make sense of Annabelle's explanation.

  "Gone? Gone where?"

  Fitch fidgeted and busied himself checking his wristwatch. Lyn knew her friend didn't do emotional angst, much preferring the objectivity of cars, which either did, or did not, work. Lyn was also conscious that talk of her husband intensified Hannah’s state of distress.

  "I do not know what is wrong with him. Geoff said he had to go to the boathouse. I offered to go with him, but he shouted at me and rushed out of our home."

  Lyn stepped closer as Hannah's voice trembled with emotion.

  "Now he does not answer his mobile."

  Annabelle gently placed a reassuri
ng hand on her friend's shoulder.

  "It is true. Geoff is always so patient and never loses his temper. Something is troubling him. I have noticed this for several weeks now."

  That sort of talk isn’t doing Hannah any good at all.

  "Who’s worried about what?"

  The voice coming closer interrupted Annabelle's flow.

  Lyn recognised it immediately.

  "This brute is Anthony Stanton. You’ll get used to him."

  Lyn waved an arm in Ant's general direction as she introduced him. She noticed Hannah's lack of reaction, whereas Annabelle gave him a broad smile.

  You're flirting with him!

  "Your surname is the same as the village. Are you the earl's—"

  Ant smiled.

  "For my sins, yes."

  Lyn gatecrashed the exchange.

  "Always one for flattery, eh, my lord? If that head of yours gets any bigger, it’ll explode."

  "Boom."

  Lyn had placed a hand on either temple to emphasise the point.

  Ant looked distinctly unimpressed.

  "Mock me if you wish. I care not."

  The three friends giggled before Lyn turned back to Hannah, who was still crying despite their efforts to lighten the mood.

  Time to sort this.

  "Hannah, you bought old Kimberly’s boathouse, didn’t you?"

  Hannah nodded.

  "Ant’s boat is just over there." She pointed to the wherry. "It’s only ten minutes along the Broad. We can sail there to see if we can catch your husband, if you like?"

  Lyn noted Ant's confused looked as she relieved him of the drinks tray and watched both men mourn the loss of their beer as if they were about to have an arm cut off.

  "But—"

  "But nothing, Ant. Let’s get going."

  Her tone was not one that anticipated being contradicted.

  "Don't worry, your pale ale will still be here when we get back."

  Ant took one last peek at his pint.

  Hannah started to move towards them.

  "No, Hannah. You stay here with Fitch and Annabelle. Don't worry, we’ll be back in a jiffy."

  "Don't worry, Ant. I'll keep your Fen Bodger safe."

  From the look on Fitch's face, Lyn doubted that would be the case.

  "Well, it looks peaceful enough," said Lyn as Fieldsurfer neared the boathouse.

  "Not so sure that’s a good sign, Lyn."

  Ant brought the vessel to a smooth stop alongside a pair of wide double doors of the old wooden structure that allowed access to and from the Broad. Leaning over the side of the boat, Ant attempted to turn a large, round door handle on one of the doors. It failed to move. He then tried pressing his weight against the heavy doors. Still they stood firm.

  "It’s a rum do, Lyn. Push us down a bit, will you?"

  She retrieved a long wooden pole from the deck and walked to the stern of Fieldsurfer and lowered one end into the water until it hit bottom. Using her body weight against the other end, and simultaneously pushing forward, made the wherry move just enough so that it glided without a sound six feet farther down the bank.

  Ant secured Fieldsurfer against a thick wooden mooring post standing tall from a lush bed of Norfolk reed.

  "You go to the right, Lyn. I’ll go this way. Shout if you see anything."

  The pair jumped from the craft and made their way around opposite sides of the old structure. Coming across a rickety set of doors that punctured an otherwise featureless façade, Ant turned an ancient Bakelite doorknob.

  "Wow, what a space."

  Ant stood aside allowing Lyn to pass into the cavernous interior. He watched as the loose-fitting timber-wall planks, altered by decades of neglect, allowed pencil-thin shafts of light to penetrate the otherwise darkened interior. Ant placed one foot in front of the other as if passing through a minefield, such was the building's poor state of repair. In the near distance, a gleaming vessel bobbed gently in the water.

  It's made from mahogany: must have cost a fortune.

  Ant steadied Lyn as she overtook him on the narrow staging. Lyn pointed at the boat.

  "Well, if Geoff is here, he must be aboard."

  Ant stepped onto the craft’s immaculate deck.

  "Or in the water, Lyn. We'd better check. It's sheltered in here, so he wouldn't have floated out into the Broad."

  Ant could tell by her shocked response it wasn't something she wished to contemplate.

  Oops, better take the heat out of this.

  "I'm only joking, Lyn. I'm certain he's wallowing in some hotel or other with a whiskey until he calms down."

  Lyn's frown showed she only half believed him.

  "Well, that may be the case, Ant. But I think we should check below all the same. Don't you?"

  For someone determined not to think the worst, Ant noted Lyn's lack of hesitation in pulling the deck cover back and launching herself down a set of steep steps.

  "Watch your head on the bulkhead… Can you see anything?"

  Silence.

  "Is anything wrong, Lyn?"

  Silence.

  "You could say that."

  He didn't like the pace or speed of Lyn's response.

  Ant descended the steps, turned around, and rubbed his nose.

  Dusty in here.

  He allowed himself a few seconds to gain his bearings in the craft's dim interior.

  Heaven help us.

  In front sat a man of around thirty-five, resting backwards against a richly upholstered bench running along one side of the cabin. He looked in a state of total relaxation with his eyes closed and arms at rest on the table in front of him.

  Poor man looks as though he's just fallen asleep.

  "I’m assuming he’s dead?"

  Ant turned to Lyn having tried to trace a heartbeat.

  "No pulse. And cold."

  Ant asked Lyn to double-check.

  Her look confirmed the awful truth.

  "I assume it's—"

  "Hannah’s husband? Never met him, but who else could it be, Ant?"

  How the hell do we tell his wife?

  2

  A Policeman Calls

  "Perhaps you think I might thank you for bothering to tell us you’d found a body?"

  Nothing if not consistent, Riley.

  Ant expected no less from the detective inspector, who fizzed like a firecracker as he scurried into the boathouse, an open mackintosh billowing in his wake.

  "Isn't it curious that whenever a corpse turns up, the terrible twosome is to be found lurking. Have a fetish for the recently departed, do you?"

  On form today, aren’t we.

  Both stood aside as the irked policeman strutted along the unstable walkway. A police photographer and scenes-of-crime officer followed.

  "And nice to see you again, Detective Inspector. Isn't that so, Lyn."

  She smiled.

  Riley failed to return the gesture. Ant knew the man had rumbled his sarcastic tone and might try his hand at playing the game.

  "I’m surprised to find you here. I thought your sort liked going to the country for the weekend?"

  Ant acknowledged the question with a lofty nod.

  "Good job I'm already in the country, then, Inspector. Actually, I prefer regattas at Henley, but duty calls, and I am obliged to socialise with the working classes. You understand all about duty, don’t you?"

  Ant offered a benign smile.

  Riley scowled.

  Lyn groaned.

  "When you two have stopped biting lumps out of each other, you may wish to give your attention to the dead bloke."

  She pointed at the boat.

  Ant caught her glare, daring him to continue. Her intervention had choked off the torrent of testosterone.

  "You are a pompous ass, sometimes, Ant," she whispered.

  He looked like a schoolboy about to complain that a dog ate his homework.

  Riley shuffled onto the vessel and made for the deck hatch.

  "Mind yo
ur…" said Ant, placing both hands on his head and crouching as if to avert imminent danger.

  Too late.

  The inspector let out a cry as his forehead crashed into the top of the cabin doorframe. The force of the blow knocked him backwards against the steep stairs.

  Ant felt a tug on his arm as Riley tobogganed out of sight down the stairs and into the boat’s interior.

  "For goodness' sake, behave yourself. That must have hurt like hell."

  A quick glance at Lyn told him to leave it be.

  Several minutes passed as camera flashes illuminated the cabin space, and police officers scoured the deck area. Ant could just make out Riley as he bobbed up and down.

  "Watch it, Lyn. Here he comes."

  "Well, no suspicious circumstances concerning the

  gentleman’s demise as far as I'm concerned."

  Ant feigned a yawn to stop himself laughing as Riley dabbed his head with a handkerchief.

  "I’m certain it will comfort you to learn that violent death doesn’t follow you around all the time."

  Don't smirk at me like that, fool.

  Ant turned towards Lyn. He knew she expected him to come out all guns blazing. Instead, he raised an eyebrow at her and nodded.

  Lyn accepted the offer.

  "How can you be so sure, Inspector?"

  Riley checked his forehead again.

  "No obvious injuries. No signs of a struggle, and no damage to the boat. In short, a man sat down, closed his eyes and died: end of story."

  Ant pointed at the detective's head.

  "But your poor bonce. Do you feel as bad as it looks?"

  Riley instinctively recoiled as Ant extended a finger towards the eruption.

  "Can’t be too careful. After all, if a fit young man like that poor chap can cop it minding his own business, then an overweight policeman of a certain age needs to be vigilant when he cracks his skull."