by Kate Rhodes
It’s a huge relief when the lifeboat finally arrives, its powerful lights almost blinding me. My respect for the volunteers rises as one of the men leaps into the sea, while the female skipper keeps the vessel steady. I wish I could get Larsson to safety immediately; the big, orange boat looks so inviting, with light beaming from its portholes, promising warmth and shelter. Somehow they manage to rig a rope and pulley to winch Larsson aboard. When they come back for me, I lift Shadow into my arms and abseil from the rock face, while the lifeboat rocks from side to side on the cresting waves.
‘The killer’s still in the cave,’ I tell the skipper. ‘We have to check the fishing boat too, another man may have drowned.’
She looks bemused but sends two of her crew back to check Piper’s Hole. My guess is that the killer’s body won’t be found until morning; currents will pin it there until the tide recedes. Denny’s boat, the Tresco Lass, is bobbing helplessly on the waves, anchored too near the rocks to be left unattended. When the rescue boat swings alongside it, I manage to scramble onto the deck with another lifeboatman behind me. There’s no sign of anyone on board, but a woman’s thin scream reaches me from the galley. I can’t make out who’s crouching there until she turns round. Sylvia Cardew’s yellowy hair is plastered to her skull, her clothes soaking. She’s holding a large fish hook raised above her head like a weapon.
‘I’ll hurt you if you come any closer.’ The hook has a vicious point, sharp enough to gouge out someone’s eye.
‘Put it down, Sylvia. Tell me what’s happened.’
‘This is your fault. Why couldn’t you leave us alone?’ She’s weeping now, tears sliding down her face unnoticed.
‘Where’s Denny?’
She stares out of the porthole. ‘I knew he’d die at sea, but he never listened.’
‘You’re not making sense, Sylvia.’
I’m still struggling to understand as the lifeboatman coaxes the hook from her hand, then leads her up the metal steps. By the time we get her onto the rescue boat she’s slipped into her own world, whispering quietly to herself, her gaze unfocused, while one of the crew wraps a thermal blanket around her shoulders. The picture only becomes clear when another victim is winched to safety. Denny Cardew’s face is badly injured; dark bruises are erupting across his forehead, blood pouring down his cheek. I feel a rush of relief that at least he’s alive, until one of the lifeboat officers explains that he was hiding inside the cave’s entrance. Cardew fought off their attempts to rescue him until they managed to restrain him. When I look more closely, I see the deep wound where my screwdriver gashed the side of his neck. A sense of disbelief hits me as the boat speeds towards St Mary’s. Denny Cardew didn’t sail his boat to the mouth of the cave on a rescue mission: he was waiting inside, to watch us die.
60
It’s the middle of the night when the boat docks in Hugh Town Harbour, and I focus my mind on practicalities. The ambulance on St Mary’s is waiting to take first Ivar Larsson then the Cardews to the island’s hospital. The lifeboat crew have to help Larsson into the van because he’s almost too weak to stand, but at least he can move his legs. Shadow is sitting patiently at my feet; his shivering is so severe that I ask Lawrie Deane to take him back to the station to warm up. Then I have to keep watch over Denny and Sylvia until the ambulance returns, while three lifeboatmen stand guard, as if the couple might run for cover. We sit in a wooden shelter on the quayside in silence. The fisherman is nursing his wounded cheek with his hands, while blood drips from his nose, and by now my own muscles are aching. My left shoulder burns whenever I move, but the pain is dulled by the adrenalin still coursing around my body. When I look up again, Sylvia Cardew’s face is moonlit; her bleached hair appears as glossy and unnatural as the figureheads in the Valhalla Museum. She’s muttering to herself, but her words are too quiet to hear, as if she’s spitting out a mermaid’s curse. When the ambulance returns, it’s a relief to see the pair locked inside.
My legs feel unsteady as I walk east along the quay. My clothes are still saturated, and for a second time during the investigation the sea has baptised me against my wishes. When I pause to catch my breath, my shoulder is still burning, but my mind is causing more pain than my body. I should feel elated that Larsson will soon be reunited with his daughter, but the reasons for Jude Trellon’s death remain unclear.
When I gaze back at Hugh Town, the sight is reassuring. It looks as peaceful as it did during my childhood, fishermen’s cottages huddled against the breeze, lobster boats marooned on the harbour’s mud until morning arrives. The sea has retreated for once, the tide calmer than before. On an objective level, the Atlantic looks majestic, but I’m tired of its split personality. Its tranquillity is just a pretence; an hour ago it was battling to take my life.
The hospital is buzzing with activity when I arrive. A relief doctor has been roused from his bed to tend the casualties, and I catch sight of Dr Barrett emerging from one of the treatment rooms. She fiddles with her stethoscope when I ask about Larsson’s condition, as if she’s longing to take my pulse.
‘He’s in shock, but he’ll recover. I’d like a CAT scan on his back in the morning, to check there are no serious injuries, but the numbness in his legs is probably just bruising to his spine.’ A sudden loud noise from along the corridor interrupts the doctor’s explanation; a man bellowing at the top of his voice. ‘Mr Cardew will need facial surgery once we fly him to Penzance. The poor man’s taken a battering, but he’s getting morphine for the pain.’
Dr Barrett listens in silence when I explain that Cardew and his wife are murder suspects; their rooms will have to be guarded overnight. She nods her assent, but the medic’s expression is disbelieving when she walks away. Exhaustion sets in once I’m alone in the corridor, resting on a hard plastic chair. The place is the polar opposite of Piper’s Hole, its tiled floor scrubbed to a high shine, overhead light bouncing from the white walls, the air smelling of room freshener and menthol. Normally I hate hospitals, but tonight its cleanliness and lack of shadows are a welcome relief.
When I get to my feet again, I take a tour down the corridor. Both doctors are busy dealing with Denny Cardew, but when I peer through the window of his wife’s room, Sylvia is bolt upright on the bed, staring at the wall. She doesn’t register my presence when I enter her room, but curiosity is nagging at me, and I’m legally entitled to question her. I read both of them their rights when we were in the lifeboat.
‘What made you do it, Sylvia?’
She doesn’t reply. Her hands are fiddling with the buttons of her cardigan, her gaze unfocused.
‘I bet you visited loads of websites to copy the symptoms of agoraphobia so accurately. You had all of us convinced, and pretending to be ill gave you the perfect cover, but you care more about dogs than humans. It was you that broke into Ivar’s house when Denny was at the wake. Your husband killed Anna for you, didn’t he? Or did you finish her yourself? You blamed her, not Will, for losing your job.’
When her gaze lands on my face, her watery blue stare is furious, but it soon flits away. She carries on staring at the wall, while a low slur of words issues from her mouth. She must be expecting leniency from the courts by pretending to be unstable. I leave her room without bothering to say goodbye; there will be plenty more opportunities to talk in the days to come.
Ivar Larsson is sound asleep when I peer through his door, more colour in his face than when I hauled him from the cave, but it’s Denny Cardew that I really want to see. He’s lying on a mound of pillows in the room next door, and his face has been scrubbed clean of blood, revealing the full extent of his injuries. His cheek is puffy and distorted, a splint taped to his nose and another bandage covering his neck wound. Two bloodshot eyes observe me intently, but the fury in them has burned away. The feelings churning inside my gut include pity, anger and disappointment: the man’s wife is just pretending to be mad, but he must be genuinely ill to commit such crimes.
‘Do you want to talk, Denny? You’ll
be interviewed formally in the morning, but I’ll listen now, if you want to get it off your chest.’
‘You’re just like your father, nothing ever riled him.’ His voice is groggy when he replies. ‘I wish I was the same; everything gets under my skin.’
‘Shall we leave the talk till tomorrow?’
He shakes his head, then winces in pain. ‘It started when Sylvia lost her job. Anna accused her of stealing from the till, but it must have been someone else. My wife’s got too much pride. She was a sly one, that Anna. I started following her around, to find out why she lied. I heard her and Jude having a conversation at the diving school in November, last year. Jude was telling Anna about her dad finding the Minerva. That’s what decided it in the end.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’ve dreamed about that ship all my life. After forty years risking my life at sea, no one deserves the reward more than me. Jude talked about the wreck like it was a bank she could steal from whenever she liked. Everything she took was mine by right.’ There’s a mad fervour in his tone as he finishes his speech.
‘What did you do then?’
‘That evening I followed Anna round the coast. I thought Jude would have told her the wreck’s location, but she pretended not to know. I didn’t mean to kill her; I just gave her a push and she fell on the rocks, so I dragged her into Piper’s Hole and left her there.’
‘Knowing that she’d drown?’
Tears leak from under his bandages. ‘She destroyed my wife’s life. Sylvia loved working in that pub, long before they took over. She gave that place the best years of her life.’
‘Is that when you started leaving messages for Jude?’
‘My wife and I needed that money, but we wouldn’t have damaged the wreck. We’d have reported the location and claimed the finder’s fee. The messages in bottles were Sylvia’s idea: she loved the sea shanties her dad sang when she was a girl. I saw Jude and Jamie Petherton coming back from their dive when I was in my fishing hut. They thought they had the quay to themselves, but I heard every word.’
‘What did they say?’
‘Jude went on about needing a safe hiding place. When they talked about Piper’s Hole, I knew she’d leave things, or collect them, if I waited there each night. That couple from London took the pieces and sold them for her.’
‘The Kinvers?’
‘Ivar sold things too, I’m sure of it. That’s why he goes back to Sweden every few months.’
‘You can’t prove that, Denny. He could just be visiting his family.’
He ignores my reply. ‘Jude had the chance to hand everything over to me, but she refused. When she came to Piper’s Hole, I found that mermaid figurine in her kitbag, and I was sick of her arrogance.’
‘Why did you take Tom Heligan?’
‘That boy must know where the Minerva is, but he wouldn’t say. He’s a tough little bastard.’ His eyes close as he leans back on his pillows, his voice tailing into silence.
‘All right, Denny, you can sleep now. We’ll get everything you told me down on record tomorrow.’
‘What do you mean?’ His blank eyes stare at me. ‘I never said a word.’
There’s every chance that the fisherman will change his story tomorrow, but his statements have an insane logic. He hated Anna Dawlish for denying Sylvia her job, and killing her must have felt like retribution. Then his obsession with the Minerva started to blossom. He was struggling to make ends meet, and believed that a lifetime spent battling the ocean meant that its bounty was his by right. It incensed him that Jude’s family planned to cash in on the Minerva’s treasures, while he struggled to get by.
When I return to the corridor, Dr Barrett is waiting for me, with a determined look on her face.
‘Come to the treatment room now, Inspector. It’s your turn to be examined.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘I don’t agree.’ She points at my hand. ‘That cut needs stitches.’
When I look down, there are splashes of blood at my feet, the cuff of my jacket torn away. My hands are covered in grazes from my efforts to escape the cave, but I’ve been too busy to notice them until now.
There’s something oddly soothing when the medic dresses my wounds, the smell of iodine filling my airways. The doctor recommends an X-ray tomorrow, to check that my shoulder blade is intact, but I draw the line when she suggests spending the night on a gurney. There’s no way I could sleep soundly so close to the Cardews, even though they’re locked in their rooms and Lawrie Deane has arrived to guard them until morning.
I thank the sergeant on my way out and he manages a grudging smile. Shadow is whimpering for food when I get back to the police station, but all I can provide is a bowl of water and an apology.
‘You’ll get a feast tomorrow.’
The dog favours me with an old-fashioned look, tired of my promises, but this time I mean it. Without his call to guide me to the mouth of the cave, I could never have escaped alive. No hotel in Hugh Town will rent me a room with a dog in tow, so we hunker down on the floor of Madron’s office, with only a thin layer of carpet to soften the concrete, but I’m too exhausted to care. Shadow curls up beside me as I shut my eyes and let sleep wipe my memory clean.
61
Wednesday 20 May
Madron arrives at 8.30 a.m. Luckily, Shadow is in the yard behind the station, tucking into the fillet steak the butcher sold me long before his shop opened for business. I hope he has the good sense to stay out of sight while the DCI vents his spleen; the man’s expression is so tense it looks like he’s about to fire me instantly for breach of protocol.
‘Start at the beginning, Kitto, I want every detail.’
He listens in silence to the whole story, from Cardew guiding me to Jude Trellon’s body on the first day so he could watch my reactions. The fisherman was a constant presence during the case, pretending to help at every stage, including searching for Tom Heligan. I explain that his wife’s agoraphobia was a ruse to make her seem too vulnerable to step outdoors, let alone harm anyone. Madron’s shrewd eyes observe me while I speak, listening so intently that he doesn’t move a muscle.
‘Denny Cardew admitted all this last night, did he?’
‘Morphine must have loosened his tongue. I’ll interview him again today, but there’s enough proof to convict them both, if he tries to wriggle.’
‘No, you won’t. You’re taking the day off,’ Madron says firmly. ‘What do you plan to do with Stephen and Lorraine Kinver?’
‘There’s enough evidence to try them for smuggling; it looks like they’ve been laundering money along the way. I should sort out court application papers for the CPS.’
‘I’ll get that done; we can manage without you for twenty-four hours. The Cardews are being flown to the mainland later this morning. Denny’s booked for surgery and Sylvia will have a psychiatric assessment, so you can recover at home.’
The DCI remains silent when I get up to leave. I’m halfway out of the door before he speaks again. ‘Congratulations on getting Larsson out of that cave. I’ve never doubted your commitment, Kitto, but your methods leave a lot to be desired.’
The man is so hard to read. It’s impossible to know whether he plans to terminate my contract at my review meeting or provide a ringing endorsement. When I collect Shadow from the yard, my head is too full of the case to let me relax, so I double back into town to buy items I’ll need during the day. The dog is in good spirits after yesterday’s adventure, his tail wagging as we wait for the ferry back to Tresco.
The boat ride eases some of the tension from my system: the water is mirror-smooth today, reflecting miles of summer-holiday blue sky. The tourists that pile into the boat are all middle-aged gardeners, equipped with guidebooks on the exotic plants and trees in the Abbey Gardens. The group set off at a brisk march when we reach the island, while my pace is slow. The hammering I took against the rocks is catching up with me, but I’ve always hated unfinished business.
; My first task is to return to our makeshift incident room, where Eddie is packing files into lockable boxes for transportation back to St Mary’s, to be used during the Cardews’ prosecution. His face glows with excitement when he hears details from last night’s adventure in Piper’s Hole.
‘I can’t believe it was Denny,’ he says, quietly. ‘He always seemed like a decent bloke.’
‘Anyone can flip, Eddie. All it takes is a run of bad luck.’
I stay for another couple of hours, helping him tidy the place, while he begs for more information. There’s something cathartic about getting the events out into the open, so they don’t curdle at the base of my stomach, and Eddie has passed a new milestone. He completes a whole conversation without calling me ‘sir’, which is a welcome relief. I’m glad there’s no sign of Will Dawlish when I return downstairs. I need to regroup before breaking the news that his wife didn’t die from a fall on the beach; she was murdered by a man who blamed her for his wife’s misery.
My next port of call is the Trellons’ large house by Ruin Beach. When I peer through the front window, Frida is curled up on the sofa beside her grandmother, looking at a picture book. Diane’s face lights up when she sees me. Even though there’s been no formal announcement, it’s impossible to keep secrets in a place this small. The whole island must know that the Cardews have been arrested in connection with Jude’s death. Diane doesn’t say a word when she welcomes me inside, her eyes cloudy with tears. I can’t imagine what she’s feeling, but I can take a guess. Knowing who killed her daughter will offer some peace of mind, but it will never replace everything she’s lost.