Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Afterword
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Also by A. J. MacKenzie
The Body on the Doorstep
The Body in the Ice
To Heather and Mike, with thanks for their
unstinting help and support
1
Ships in the Night
On a moonless night in high summer, a small boat lay drifting in the English Channel, rising and falling slowly on the long, low swells. A single man sat on the rowing bench, hands resting on the oars. The boat, its oarlocks stuffed with rags to stifle their sound, was almost silent as it glided over the black water. Every so often he dug the oars into the water and rowed a few strokes, keeping the boat on station against the current. Mostly, though, the man simply sat, and waited.
The night sky was clear and beautiful. Stars flamed in their thousands, flickering against the deep blue of midnight. In their midst the Milky Way glowed like the vault of heaven, arching from horizon to horizon. There was no other light save for the faint spark of Dungeness lighthouse, shining four miles to the south. A light wind blew gently from the north, rippling the surface of the water.
The man in the boat paid no attention to the stars. He sat staring east, listening and watching, his attention focused on the dark sea. They must come soon, he thought. In a few hours, dawn would arrive, and the cloak of night that hid him and his boat would be dispelled.
In the shadows to the east there was a flicker of movement. The man stirred. He pulled a small spyglass from his coat pocket, raised it to his eye and focused. There, black against the blackness, was a small ship, a cutter creeping along under a single jib. The man puffed out his cheeks and exhaled with relief. About bloody time, he thought.
The cutter drew closer. The man in the boat cupped his hands and gave a soft hail. ‘Finny! Say voo?’
A moment, and then a voice sounded low over the water from the ship. ‘C’est moi, bien sûr. Où êtes-vous?’
‘Heave to. I’ll come to you.’ He dug in the oars again. A few minutes later the smaller boat was alongside the cutter, hulls bumping together in the long swells.
‘Yorkshire Tom,’ said a shadowy figure in the cutter. He spoke good English, though with a rasping north French accent. ‘It is good to see you, my friend. All is well?’
‘All quiet, Finny. Are we on?’
‘As agreed, in two days’ time. We’ll come a little before high tide, as usual. Here are the manifests.’
An oilcloth packet was passed over. Inside it, the man called Yorkshire Tom knew, were lists of the consignments that would be smuggled across the Channel: tubs of gin, casks and bottles of brandy, bolts of silk and lace, chests of tobacco – comforts and luxuries that were heavily taxed in England.
‘You have the downpayment, of course,’ Finny added.
Yorkshire Tom reached into the boat and pulled out a heavy canvas bag that clinked a little. ‘Twenty per cent,’ he said, handing the bag across to the cutter, where eager hands grasped it. ‘Rest to follow on receipt of the goods.’
‘Bon. I will inform Le Passeur. The location is the same? St Mary’s Bay?’
‘Yes. Look for the usual signals.’
‘And the Preventive men?’
‘The revenue cruiser went down the Channel yesterday. She’ll be down Brighton way until next week. We’ve arranged a distraction for the land guard, but if they do come near us, Clubber will have enough men to deal with them.’
‘Then all is well.’
Yorkshire Tom nodded in the dark. ‘Le Passeur will be in charge of the boats. What about Bertrand? Will he be there?’
The man called Finny chuckled. ‘Bertrand does not want to see you. Does he still owe you the money?’
‘He does,’ said Yorkshire Tom.
Finny chuckled again. All the smuggling communities on both sides of the Channel knew that Bertrand owed this debt, and why.
‘I saw Bertrand’s lugger this evening,’ said Finny, conversationally. ‘He set out from Wimereux just after sunset, shaping a course west. On that heading, I reckon he was making for Dungeness.’
Yorkshire Tom swore. ‘What’s that blasted lubber up to now?’
‘I have no idea. We do not see each other socially.’ Finny was from Ambleteuse, while Bertrand was from Wimereux; the French smugglers, just like the English ones, had their local rivalries.
‘I must go,’ said the Frenchman. ‘It will be light soon. Au revoir, Tom.’
The man in the boat waved and dug in his oars, pulling away from the cutter. Dim in the darkness he saw her mainsail run up, and then another jib, before she turned, gathering speed, and vanished into the night.
Yorkshire Tom, who also answered to the name of Joshua Stemp, rested on his oars for a moment, thinking about the man called Bertrand. Six months ago, he had helped the Frenchman escape from an English gaol and recover his ship. The price for this had been clearly agreed; but since then, Bertrand had been elusive.
‘Dungeness,’ Stemp muttered to himself. ‘What would that daft French bugger be doing down at Dungeness?’ If Bertrand had a new English business partner, Stemp wanted to know who it was. He dug in the oars again and bent his back, turning the boat south and rowing steadily across the quiet, rolling sea.
High above, the stars shimmered in their cold, distant glory. The coast of Romney Marsh lay low to his left; he could just make out the tall tower of New Romney church, dark against the starlight. From time to time he stopped and turned to scan the sea ahead through his spyglass.
An hour passed. The gleam of Dungeness lighthouse was brighter now. Dawn must not be far away. Stemp drew in his oars and turned to look ahead once more, letting the boat drift on the gentle sea. Through the glass he could see a shadow against the stars; a dark rectangle, the lugsail of a ship perhaps half a mile away, crawling over the sea in the light breeze. He stared hard at the sail.
That was not Bertrand’s ship. In fact, he was quite certain he had never seen that particular rig before.
Even as he watched, a light flashed from the ship’s deck, a lantern briefly uncovered and then covered again. The signal was repeated. Stemp strained his eyes looking for an answering signal from the shore; he saw none. But the ship’s captain must have been satisfied, for the sail came down. The lugger drifted on the current now, her bare masts and yards dark lines against the faint sky. Cautiously, Stemp dipped his oars and rowed a little closer.
A new sound came to his ears; the creak and splash of oars from another boat, rowing out from shore. Again Stemp peered through the spyglass, watching a silhouette emerge from the night. He studied the other boat, and then went still. All the boats along this coast were of the same design, with high thwarts and pointed prows, but every one was built by hand and each had its own unique character.
This particular boat belonged to man called Noakes, a boatman from Hythe. Like Stemp himself, Noakes was a smuggler; but even in that unruly fraternity, he was regarded as a violent and dangerous man. Stemp suspected him of killing at least three men. He focused
his spyglass on the man at the oars. There: that bulky shape, driving the boat over the water with powerful strokes; that surely is Noakes himself. Instinctively, like a man trying to ward off danger, Stemp crouched lower in the darkness.
The boat moved up alongside the lugger. Voices called quiet greetings. Stemp continued to study the ship. She was broad in the beam, and judging by the way she rolled on the swells, of shallow draught. From the rake of her masts and the angle of her yards, he was certain she was not French. Dutch, perhaps? he wondered. He had seen ships out of Rotterdam in the past, and they looked a little like this.
He looked again. There were gaps in her bulwarks too; gun ports. This ship carried cannon.
Something was lowered carefully into Noakes’s boat, something long and apparently heavy. In the darkness, Stemp could not see clearly what it was. He watched the silhouettes of the men on deck, talking and gesturing to Noakes. Then the lugger hoisted her sails and turned away east, sailing close to the light wind. Noakes watched her go for a moment, and then began to row again, heading straight back to shore.
Cautiously, keeping to a parallel course, Stemp followed. They were not far from Dungeness now, no more than half a mile, the lighthouse a stone finger rising from the empty wastes around it. And now the night was fading. In the east, pink streaks began to flush the sky, the waves below reflecting patterns of rippling pale and shadow.
Fog began to rise feather-white from the water. In minutes the sunrise and the coast were both out of sight. The lighthouse vanished. Visibility fell to perhaps twenty or thirty yards. Cold and clammy, the fog settled on Stemp. Sweating though he was from his exertions, he still felt the chill bite into him. A gull mewed, its cry muffled in the thick air.
Up ahead more gulls were wailing. Something had disturbed them; Noakes, perhaps, landing his boat. Stemp turned towards the direction of the sound and rowed on, slowly, straining his ears. Now he could hear the sea against the invisible shore, waves breaking with a soft thump, foam hissing on the beach, then the rattle of stones as the receding waves dragged the shingle after them.
Ta-whoom . . . sheeeee . . . ratta-ratta-ratta-ratta-ratta
Ta-whoom . . . sheeeee . . . ratta-ratta-ratta-ratta
The beach loomed out of the mist, a steep bank of shingle in front of him. Stemp ran his boat ashore with a grate of keel on stones and climbed out, dragging the boat up onto the beach. His boots crunched with every step. The fog hung like a grey cloak, hiding everything. Still the sea hissed and rattled.
Ta-whoom . . . sheeeee . . . ratta-ratta-ratta-ratta
Ee-ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Something hurtled, shrieking, out of the mist and nearly hit Stemp’s head before veering off sharply, still wailing in alarm. Stemp started violently, reaching for his knife, before realising it was a gull, lost in the fog like himself. He cursed, then stood working out what to do next.
He thought Noakes might have landed a little way to his left. Slowly, with deliberate steps, he set off down the beach. The wind rose at his back and sent ghostly shapes of fog spinning around him, clutching at him. His heart thudded hard in his chest. He was sweating and cold. The fog reeked of the sea, filling his nostrils. The clumps of sea kale that grew out of the shingle were black in the dull light. Crunch, crunch, crunch went his boots, and the sea continued its hissing rhythm, sinister in the fog.
Ta-whoom . . . sheeeee . . . ratta-ratta-ratta-ratta-ratta
A dark shape in the fog ahead, a low lump on the beach. Stemp crouched down, drawing his knife. A gull cried mournfully overhead, setting his stretched nerves still further on edge. He wiped the water from his face and moved forward, crunching. The outlines of the dark shape hardened and he saw Noakes’s boat, deserted. Indentations in the shingle showed that the boat’s owner had climbed the beach and disappeared inland. Stemp waited for several minutes, listening for any sound of Noakes’s return, but beyond the sea and the nerve-shredding cries of the gulls, all was silent.
He walked forward to the boat. He listened again for a moment, then stooped and drew back the canvas cover.
Lying in the bottom of the boat was a coffin.
Tingling with tension, Stemp studied it. The coffin was plain, of dark wood with carrying handles on either side. The lid was securely nailed down, either to protect the body inside or, more likely, to prevent the smells of corruption from escaping. It had been a little damaged; splinters had been knocked out of one corner. Whose body was inside? he wondered. Where did it come from?
Stemp was not a superstitious man, and the proximity of a corpse would not normally concern him. He had seen the dead before, many times. But here on this lonely fogbound beach, with the sea hissing and rattling and the dark sea kale glowing like devil’s eyes against the pale shingle, the hair stood up on the nape of his neck. He drew the cover back over the boat, concealing the coffin, and backed away. His hands were shaking. He no longer cared who the body in the boat was. He only wanted to get away from this place before he was spotted.
Too late. Crunch, crunch, crunch came to his ears. Invisible overhead, a gull screamed a warning.
Panicked, Stemp turned and ran back towards his boat; but the thing pursuing him ran faster still, drawing closer and closer, the rattle of shingle louder and louder. Cornered, he wheeled, knife in hand, and out of the fog came an immense shape, its size magnified by the dim light, bounding on four legs across the shingle. It was a mastiff, a huge one, black fur matted with damp, jaws dripping long strings of slaver. When it saw him it skidded to a halt and then stalked forward slowly, hackles raised, eyes mad with violence, growling deep in its throat. Then the dog threw up its head and barked loudly, twice.
Stemp cursed. He stepped backwards, still facing the dog, waiting for it to attack. One leap and it would throw him backwards and pin him, then rip out his throat. More running steps; the dog’s master coming in response to its call. Stemp continued to back away, his eyes never leaving the dog, until he bumped against his own boat.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. The running footsteps were only a few yards away. Still watching the dog, Stemp heaved his boat into the water, then scrambled in over the thwarts. The mastiff rushed after him, teeth bared and ready for the kill. Stemp stood up in the boat, an oar in his hand. He flailed at the dog, then pushed the oar against the shingle to drive the boat into deeper water. Balked, the mastiff raged at him, dancing up and down the line of the water, snarling and barking. After him out of the drifting fog came a big man with lank, greasy, dark hair, carrying a knife of his own. His seamed face and broken nose were dark with rage.
‘Yorkshire Tom! Get back here, you bastard!’
‘Go to hell, Noakes,’ said Stemp, breathing hard.
Noakes roared at him, baring yellow, gapped teeth. ‘What’re you doing down here? This ain’t your patch!’
‘No more is it yours.’ Stemp sat down on the bench, slammed the oars into their locks and dug into the water, pulling hard.
‘Get back here, I say! Get back here!’ The boat was carried further from the beach and Noakes snarled. ‘Nah, that’s it! Run away, you bloody coward!’
Stemp gritted his teeth and pulled on the oars again.
‘I’m coming after you, Tom!’ Noakes shouted, slashing the air with his knife. ‘I’ll finish you, by God I will! I’ll cut your heart out, you son of a whore!’
‘Go bugger yourself,’ said Stemp. It was not the most original insult, but it was all he had energy for. Then the fog swirled again and the beach was hidden from view, and all he could hear was the complaint of the gulls and the mad snarl of the dog. Weary with relief, he turned the boat north towards home.
2
Magpie Court
Clouds scudded across the sky, flinging the odd splatter of showery rain against the windows of the rectory of St Mary in the Marsh. Between the showers, the sun shone brightly off the bridle of the horse waiting patiently outside the door. Inside, much less patiently, the Reverend Marcus Aurelius Hardcastle, rector of St Mary, s
houted once more for his sister to come downstairs – as quickly as may be, if you please! – so they could finally depart.
At last Calpurnia Vane came wafting down the stairs, smelling of violets, dressed as if for a London salon and trailing scarves. ‘You had best take a coat,’ the rector said. ‘Those scarves won’t keep out the rain when it comes. And it will.’
‘Oh, Marcus, don’t be such a bear.’ A widow, Calpurnia had moved into the rectory last year, ostensibly to find a more congenial atmosphere in which to write, but in reality, the rector believed, to annoy him.
‘You will enjoy the party once you are there,’ she said firmly. ‘You know you love music. No, no, Rodolpho, you cannot come with us.’
This last remark was aimed at a very large, very shaggy wolfhound who was making ready to jump into the dog cart. Hardcastle thought seriously of offering up his place to the dog, then with weary resignation, handed his sister up to the seat and climbed up beside her, taking the reins.
They travelled the ten miles from St Mary up to Shadoxhurst, above Romney Marsh in the rolling woodlands near Ashford. Hardcastle drove as quickly as the horse and his own skills would allow, trying to block out the sound of Calpurnia’s voice as she discussed the private lives of most of those coming to the party, before turning to how she would work them into the plot of her next novel. Just before reaching the village, they turned onto a short avenue and came finally to their destination.
Magpie Court had been built five centuries ago, and added to progressively ever since. As a result, the house was a cheerful jumble of stone, brick and half-timber, with spiral chimneys and tall windows. A range of barns ran to one side, balanced by a walled garden on the other. A big, solidly built man with a pleasant smiling face in a blue coat, fawn breeches and a flamboyant red and gold brocade waistcoat came out of the house and bowed in greeting.
‘Reverend, how very good of you to come. And Mrs Vane, what a pleasure it is to welcome you.’
‘The pleasure is entirely ours, Mr Munro,’ said Hardcastle. Annoyingly, Calpurnia was right; he was starting to look forward to this evening. The owner of Magpie Court, Frederick Maudsley, the local justice of the peace, was an old friend; most years, Hardcastle came to stay for a few days in winter for the shooting. Hector Munro was his son-in-law. ‘And how is the birthday girl?’
The Body in the Boat Page 1