The Boathouse Killer

by Keith Finney

  Yes, got it!

  Ant let out a triumphant cry and clapped his hands.

  Lyn jumped at the sudden noise.

  "What on earth’s the matter with you. Have you gone mad?"

  Ant beamed at her.

  "You said it."

  "Said what, Ant?"

  "A hiding place."

  He could see Lyn was none the wiser.

  "Rufus, remember? He said Geoff had been very particular about wanting concealed storage in his new boat."

  "And?"

  "Well, if he wanted that kind of stuff in the new boat, it makes sense he’s got one or two hidey-holes in this one. Don’t you see?"

  Lyn’s changing body language told Ant his theory had clicked.

  "So maybe he hid something in the cabin that his murderer wanted?"

  Ant’s smile broadened.

  "Absolutely. All we have to do now is find it."

  "If it's still here, Ant—whatever 'it' is."

  Ten minutes passed. The banging of doors and knocking on timber panels became louder as their frustration grew.

  "This is a waste of time," said Lyn as she knocked her knee on the corner of the dining table for the umpteenth time. "I’ve had enough; let’s see if Jakub has anything else to say for himself. Perhaps he’s been here?"

  Just one more thing to try.

  "Wait a minute." Ant pushed a narrow strip of wood under a low shelf, recessed to the point it was hidden from view. Straining to get a firm hold of the narrow facia, Ant first pressed then pulled the strip of teak. Nothing moved. In a final effort to prove his theory, Ant pushed the strip of wood upwards toward the shelf it was supposed to be supporting. Ant was rewarded by a satisfying "click."

  "Yes."

  "Have you found something, Ant?"

  Now that the wood strip was free, he gently pulled it toward him.

  "You can say that again."

  Ant pulled the panel back to reveal a concealed compartment around three inches high and twelve inches deep.

  "What’s that?" asked Lyn as Ant removed a spiral-bound document of around fifty pages and glanced through the index page before quickly turning several pages, until he came across a table of figures.

  "The reason Geoff Singleton was murdered, I suspect." He spoke slowly as he digested the mass of information.

  Lyn strained to see what Ant was so engrossed in.

  "Let me have a look."

  Ant handed it over allowing Lyn to also scrutinise the figures. She shook her head, trying to make sense of the numbers.

  "It's a new type of marine electric propulsion system, according to the title," said Lyn, "but it’s not making any sense to me."

  Ant moved closer so that they could both see the table of figures.

  "Nor me. But Geoff certainly understood. See, look at his notes here, and here." Ant pointed to the pencil markings in the page margin.

  "I think he discovered that whoever undertook the research into the new battery technology knew it didn’t work then tried to massage the research results to hide the evidence."

  It’s as if his notes were meant for us.

  "Perhaps he was about to go public."

  Ant nodded at Lyn.

  "Remember Rufus saying how Geoff always insisted on an ethical approach to business and his investment fund, Ant? What if these results compromised his reputation in some way?"

  Ant’s face lit up. Lyn’s assessment sparked an idea.

  "Who wrote the report?"

  Ant gestured for Lyn to close the document and reveal the author’s name on the front cover.

  "Some outfit called EMGEN, Ant. And you know what? I’ve come across that name before."

  15

  Nose Trouble

  The centre of Stanton Parva was unusually quiet for a Saturday afternoon as Ant and Lyn sat on an old bench by the village pond. On the far side of the water, the Wherry Arms pub welcomed the occasional visitor, while the newsagent next door had to content itself with a delivery of soft drinks.

  "I was reading the village magazine the other week. It seems we’re not supposed to feed the ducks with bread," said Ant as he tossed the last of his wholemeal sandwich to a gaggle of wildfowl. The prospect of a free meal resulted in a terrific din as the birds scurried towards him to nab the best position.

  "I read that too," replied Lyn as she watched the ducks being cheated of their treat by half a dozen seagulls, swooping down from the roof of a nearby thatched cottage. "I hate those things. If Phyllis Abbott and Betty didn’t insist on feeding the things each day, they’d disappear back to the coast in a jiffy."

  Ant did his best to wave the seagulls away. They were having none of it. In protest, one left a chalky deposit on the shoulder of his coat.

  "You’re not the only one, I’d shoot the damn things if there wasn’t a law against it. All I can say is, whichever civil servant in London came up with the ban has never had their clothes bleached by guano."

  Ant glanced at Lyn just as what looked like a sympathetic smile dissolved into laugher.

  "Oh, very funny," said Ant as he dabbed the glutinous white liquid from his coat.

  "Don’t be such a baby. It’s a waxed jacket, isn’t it? It’ll wipe off easily enough."

  Ant muttered a string of invective better suited to the army.

  "Language, Ant."

  He muttered some more as he focussed on the glint in Lyn's eye.

  "That’s not the point," he moaned as he gathered up the last of the guano with a paper tissue.

  Ant watched as Lyn's smile turned to disdain.

  "What?'

  "What indeed, Ant. The tissue?"

  Ant followed the tip of her index finger which was pointing at the scrunched-up mass in his right hand. He thought better of dropping the soggy tissue between the wooden slats of the bench. Instead, he trudged to a nearby waste bin before resuming his seat and glowering at the seagulls as they waited for the next titbit with a menacing look in their eyes.

  "So," said Lyn as she encouraged a plain-coloured hen and its ducklings to move closer, while a more brightly coloured drake observed from a distance, "have you discovered anything else from the EMGEN report we found this morning?"

  Ant stretched out his legs as if relaxing. In truth it was a tactic to discourage the wildfowl from getting any closer to him. Lyn's withering look soon made him change his mind.

  "As a matter of fact, I think I have. It was something Dad said over lunch. He still dabbles in the stock market and has been tracking the performance of Geoff Singleton’s investment fund; seems it specialised in investment for new technologies in the marine industry, which my father is still crazy about."

  "Has he invested in Geoff?"

  Ant shook his head.

  "Now that would be a coincidence too far. No, it’s just a hobby of his. Anyway, it turns out the report we found yesterday is the third in a series of updates produced for investors. Dad reckons that each time an update is released, which is, apparently, always more positive than the previous iteration, more people invest in his fund."

  Lyn bent down to feed the hen. Ant wanted to shift the animal aside but decided discretion was the better part of valour.

  "Let me guess, Ant. Once you’ve hyped the results once, you have to keep doing it. A small fib becomes a big lie, and so on."

  Ant nodded.

  "My guess is that once Geoff cottoned on to what was happening, it put him in a heck of a dilemma. Go public to save his reputation, or stay quiet and try to fix the problem—and keep his fortune."

  Lyn shrugged her shoulders.

  "Risky whichever way he jumped. Could the stress have brought on that heart attack?"

  Ant raised an eyebrow.

  "It’s possible. But I guess if he was going to tell anyone he was in trouble, it would have been Hannah."

  Lyn watched as the wildfowl deserted them for a new snack offered by a couple and their young child on the other side of the pond.

  "I suppose she had a lot t
o lose as well. You know, brought up in poverty but enjoying all the trappings of wealth since meeting Geoff. Posh cars, fancy clothes, and the rest of it. I guess it would have been easy enough for her to bamboozle Jakub into bumping Geoff off before her world crashed?"

  Ant rummaged in his jacket pocket as he digested Lyn’s theory.

  "Don’t expect me to understand the workings of a woman’s mind. I suppose the same might have applied to Geoff last Saturday. Perhaps he told her they were facing ruin. She hit the roof, so Geoff kept out of her way by re-varnishing his boat?"

  Ant produced a tatty paper bag half full of manky-looking boiled sweets.

  Lyn flinched as she peered into the discoloured bag.

  "Just how long have you had those things in your pocket?"

  Ant failed to understand the fuss she was making.

  "Pear drops don’t have a ‘use-by’ date. The trick is to keep them dry and away from daylight. Anyway, do you want one or not?"

  Some people are really hard to please.

  He watched as Lyn retrieved the cleanest-looking sweet she could find then spent several seconds picking it clean of fluff and bits of paper tissue.

  Ant didn’t bother to check the condition of his selection. He sniffed the essence of the sweet by holding it close to his nostrils before popping the treat between his lips and sucking hard. His nostrils started to itch.

  "For goodness' sake. What is it with you and those silly sweets? First you have a finger up your nose standing over Geoff at the boathouse, then you almost crash your precious Morgan scratching your snout."

  Ignoring Lyn’s protests, Ant wallowed in the fleeting pleasure of easing his itch, acutely aware of the pain which would follow.

  Something clicked. It was if a light bulb had gone off in his head.

  "What did you say?"

  She gave him a puzzled look.

  "Not to talk with your mouth full."

  Ant shook his head, took the sweet from his mouth, and placed the sticky lozenge into his jacket pocket.

  Lyn gave him a look that meant he was for the naughty chair had he been one of her pupils.

  "No, no. You said body and crash."

  Judging by the funny "ugh" sound Lyn was making, he knew she was still focussing on his eating habits.

  "I think, Ant, that there were some other words in between those two that made my sentence grammatically correct, which is more than I can say for your conversational skills these days."

  Ant’s face lit up at his epiphany.

  "And there we have it, Lyn."

  "Have what?"

  "How they did it and then skedaddled. Very clever. That is if my schoolboy chemistry is any good."

  Lyn’s bafflement continued as Ant sprang to his feet.

  "I’m off to the boathouse. There’s a couple of things I need you to check while I have another shufti around. Give me a ring in about an hour, Lyn."

  Ant stood in the eerie silence of the boathouse, with only the gentle wash of water audible as an occasional pleasure boat passed in front of the old wooden building. He knew exactly what he was looking for. Making his way into the cabin of Geoff’s boat, he pulled open one of two exquisitely veneered cupboard doors beneath the stainless-steel sink.

  Knew I’d seen it.

  Ant retrieved a small paint brush. Opening the second door, his face lit up with a quiet sense of satisfaction as a bright steel tin, with its contents written on a lozenge-shaped, green paper label came into view:

  Water-based Yacht Varnish

  Wash brushes out in warm, clean water

  He even used environmentally friendly varnish.

  Ant imagined Geoff Singleton purposely making the decision to use the slower-drying liquid rather than a solvent-based alternative.

  Picking up a dish cloth from the worktop, he lifted the tin from the cupboard and placed it onto the draining board.

  Better keep my fingerprints off this.

  Carefully, he levered the lid off the tin with a blunt knife and immediately felt his nostrils go into spasm.

  An overpowering smell of pear drops filled the tiny cabin. It was too much. Ant quickly replaced the lid and ran for the open doors of the boathouse.

  No water-based varnish gives off a vapour like that.

  He gulped fresh oxygen like a blue whale scooping up krill. Just as his breathing began to settle, his mobile rang. He recognised the number as Lyn's.

  "I’ve remembered where I saw the name EMGEN the other day. It was at Hannah’s. I tried to get to her, but one of the neighbours said she’d seen her leave with Annabelle. Seems they drove away like a bat out of hell."

  Ant wasted no time in responding.

  "I’m certain now how Geoff was murdered. She’s been very clever. Listen, stay there, and I’ll pick you up on my way."

  The line fell silent for a few seconds.

  "To where?"

  "See you in ten minutes. And ring Fitch for me, will you?" added Ant before briefing her on what to say to him. "And don’t take no for an answer. Tell him there’s two pints of Thatcher’s Itch pale ale on me every night for a week, if he comes up trumps."

  16

  Flight of Fancy

  Ant's Morgan roared down the A11 out of Norwich towards Cambridge taking little account of the speed limit.

  "For goodness' sake, man, is she worth killing us both?"

  Ant wasn’t listening. His eyes focussed on a familiar shape in the distance as he pushed the sports car close to its limit. He couldn’t make out the colour, but he knew it was a Range Rover 4 x 4.

  "We’d better get Riley on the phone," said Ant, pointing to the mobile sitting in the centre console. Lyn did as he asked, and seconds later, a ringtone sounded through the car's speaker system.

  Riley didn’t bother with the usual pleasantries.

  "And why exactly have you decided to interrupt my Saturday evening?"

  Silence.

  "Are you there? What is it you want?" The detective spoke in a loud, slow voice, articulating each syllable like a British holidaymaker in a foreign country.

  Ant looked across to Lyn, who was glaring back at him.

  "Enough, Ant."

  He smiled.

  "Good evening, Detective Inspector. How are you today?"

  Ant could hear Riley trying to formulate a coherent response and assumed the detective's bad temper prevented him from doing so. Eventually he got the words out.

  "I assume there is a point to your call?"

  Ant dropped a gear as he engaged the car’s right indicator, pressed the accelerator, and propelled the Morgan past a lorry with a full load of sugar beets.

  "As a matter of fact, there is," replied Ant as he settled the Morgan back into the nearside lane.

  Ant briefed him on developments, assisted by Lyn, who leant towards the car’s microphone more than once to add details her co-sleuth had omitted.

  "I didn’t know you were so fond of me," said Ant as Lyn pressed into his side to make herself heard."

  "Be assured that is most definitely not the case, Lord Stanton."

  The two amateur detectives fell into a fit of laughter leaving Riley hanging on the phone until Ant had recovered sufficiently to respond.

  "I’m hurt, Detective Inspector. Have you no feelings for me at all?"

  Riley now knew he was having the rise taken out of him. Instead of trying to match Ant, he got down to the business at hand.

  "So why haven’t you said anything before now? I’ve warned you both before about withholding information from the police."

  He's like a broken record.

  "Because, Detective, until one hour ago, there was nothing to tell you other than a bunch of ideas Lyn and I had. Are you seriously telling me you'd have listened?" Ant’s tone hardened. Gone was his "hail fellow, well met" persona. Now he spoke with the gravitas of a battle-hardened army intelligence officer. "One request, Detective Inspector Riley. Keep your traffic officers in their cages. I have no time to waste being pulled ov
er and booked for speeding."

  Ant didn’t need to ask twice.

  "You don't need to worry about that. Are you sure she’s heading for the old airstrip at Fendham?"

  Some common sense at last.

  "No, but that’s the direction she’s driving in. I can’t think where else she’d be going."

  The mobile fell silent again, then Ant's car speaker rang out with the sound of a door being banged shut.

  "I’m on my way now and about ten minutes behind you."

  So he can make a decision when it suits him.

  Twenty miles and fifteen minutes had elapsed since his call to Riley as Ant thundered along the A11. He could now see the 4 x 4’s distinctive colour scheme, but not its occupants.

  "Better ease back, Ant. We don’t want her to see us."

  Ant nodded and brought the Morgan back within the speed limit.

  "Look out!" squealed Lyn as a roe deer jumped onto the carriageway from the thick field.

  "Hellfire," shouted Ant as he caught a glimpse of the animal as it stopped and turned. Not knowing whether he had hit the beast or not, Ant struggled with the steering wheel to keep the vehicle upright and on the road.

  Shouldn't have tried to avoid the stupid thing.

  In a second it was over. Looking in his rear-view mirror, Ant could see the still outline of the deer as it looked aimlessly at the car from the safety of the grass verge.

  "Damn those things. That was close." Adrenaline still surged through his body.

  Lyn instinctively touched Ant’s left arm and pressed gently to let him know it was okay.

  "There's a lay-by up ahead. I'd better pull in and check for damage—and get my breath back."

  Ant slowed, indicated, and brought the Morgan to a stop.

  "It’s that time of day, Ant. I hate driving early in the morning or sunset. It’s like a scene from Watership Down around here sometimes with so many animals out and about."

  Ant failed to hear Lyn’s assessment of Norfolk wildlife. Instead, he gave the car one last check before clambering back into the Morgan.