Death Toll

by Jim Kelly

  ‘How many rooms?’ asked Shaw.

  Kath stopped, considering the question seriously, looking at her thin fingers. ‘Four doubles, three singles. And there’s a chalet room in the garden – that’s popular, and takes four. Full house is fifteen, but we’ve had eighteen, with cots and stuff.’

  ‘And who else works here?’

  She talked as she climbed, following a twisting staircase which Shaw could see would take them up into the tower room. ‘I cook when Ian’s not here – he does two nights a week. We take non-residents. Two women clean, another one does the beds. There’s a couple of handymen – gardeners, odd jobs, that kind of thing. I’m here full time – take the bookings, fuss about, wait at table. Bea used to but, you know, she deserves a rest.’

  They reached a landing, then climbed again, another short curved flight, and then another until they stepped out into the circular room beneath the witch’s hat roof. The room was an observatory, with an all-round view provided by a series of large windows.

  Bea Garrison was standing looking seawards, where the fog seemed lighter. She wore a grey dress, woollen, a silver pin in her short grey hair. ‘I thought you’d like to see this,’ she said. ‘Most people are curious.’ She sought the window ledge with one hand, a slightly unsteady action, as if she might fall. ‘Thanks, Kath.’

  It was like looking out of an aircraft at passing cloud, the mist swirling, dragging past the tower, and then a rip opened up in the fog, a rent through which sunshine poured and which then widened, tearing the sky in half to reveal another day beyond: the intricate channels of the marsh like a cross-section of the brain, the distant blue sea stitched with white breaking waves, and a sky of high snow clouds. It was a stunning transformation which had taken less than thirty seconds to complete.

  Bea stood smiling at the view, then she felt behind her for a wicker chair and sat down. Shaw and Valentine sat on the cushioned seats on the curving window ledge. ‘This room, and the tower, were derelict until a few years ago – the people before used it for storage because the roof leaked and the windows needed replacing. We put the money in – a master stroke, and Ian’s idea, by the way. We put a picture of this view in the magazines – Birdwatch, Birdwatcher’s Digest, that kind of thing; the Saga magazine, too. We’ve been full ever since.’

  She touched her hair, rearranging it unnecessarily. Shaw thought she looked older than the last time he’d seen her, or perhaps just less sure of herself, less in control, which was odd, considering she was in her own home.

  ‘It’s a long way from the Flask,’ said Shaw, aware that, like his own life, the life of this family was torn between the urban, claustrophobic seediness of South Lynn and this: the wide skies of the north Norfolk coast.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank God.’

  She smiled again, appearing to forget they were even there. Shaw watched her closely and realized that it wasn’t the distant sea that held her attention, but the street below, the quayside, leading back into town.

  ‘Personally,’ she said, ‘and you’ll keep this to yourself, I find birds rather boring. No – stultifyingly boring. And that’s the problem with twitchers: they have no idea what it’s like not to find the sight of two black-backed marsh warblers twice as exciting as one. Ian’s better – he can talk to the punters. I just nod and agree, then make a hasty exit, otherwise I’d scream the place down. Still, if it gets really bad I just think of the cheques.’ But that wasn’t right, and she seemed uncomfortable with the idea that all this was for money. ‘And what they’ll buy,’ she added.

  Shaw noted again the lingering lilt of the Midwestern accent, oddly exotic in this quintessentially English setting. He was struck by how open this woman was to the world, how frank, and what a sharp contrast that was with her niece, Lizzie. He saw them as a curious contrast – a woman who’d broken away from her past and one who was still a prisoner of it.

  ‘Pat was your only child?’ asked Valentine, nosing the tip of his left shoe into the thick-pile carpet.

  She gave him a cool look. ‘Yes. So this will all be Ian’s one day. My only grandchild. He cooks here sometimes – did Kath say? He’s very good. That’s the plan, you see.’ She intertwined her fingers, which bulged slightly at the joints, and rubbed at one of the silver rings, burnishing it. ‘A restaurant. Something really good. Something with one of those Michelin stars.’ Her eyes caught the light, excited by the future she could imagine for her grandson.

  Out at sea a yacht with a red sail cut in towards Brancaster. On the distant beach they could see horses galloping and a stunt kite twirling, like a hawk on a gyre. The sands were speckled with snow and dotted with people and dogs, circling their owners like satellites. Shaw was always amazed at how quickly a beach filled when the weather turned. He stood and began to place the forensic items they’d checked out of the Ark on the round coffee table that stood near the window, each in a sealed bag.

  ‘We recovered these from around Pat’s body on the night we opened Nora’s grave. I’m sorry to distress you with this, but we believe that one of these items was very important to his killer. So important that he tried to get it back recently, by digging up the grave. They were disturbed midway through, so we’re presuming that whatever they wanted is still here.’

  ‘Someone tried to dig up the grave?’

  ‘In June, we think,’ said Shaw.

  She let her eyes slide over the objects, then pointed at a cabinet in the corner. ‘Sergeant,’ she said. ‘There’s a bottle of whiskey in there – could you pour me one, please – no water. Do help yourself – it’s bourbon.’ Valentine poured just the one glass. He’d never liked spirits, because he knew what they did to him. Once she had the drink in her hand Bea Garrison moved the wicker chair closer to the table and began to pick up the plastic evidence bags.

  She held up the wallet. ‘This is Pat’s – he was very proud of money, and having his own. He got that characteristic from his father – like so many other things.’ She laughed as she picked up the penknife. ‘And he literally got this from his father – it’s Latrell’s knife, from the war. He always said he got it on D-Day plus one, from a German in a ditch by the road.’ She looked out at the sunshine which was making the mud in the creeks look silver. ‘Oddly, he knew his name – Jasper Hanke. I suppose the German had something else on him, a letter maybe. I think one of the reasons Latrell gave it to Pat was to get rid of it – to break the link.’

  And then the small copy of the sketch. She held it lightly in her hands.

  ‘Just this?’ she asked, and Shaw noted that her voice – hard and gritty – had acquired an edge.

  ‘No – there were about a dozen pieces like that, all with ink marks, but we can’t make out the pictures. We presumed it was hangman – but it’s not a game, because there are no letters …’

  She held a hand against her lips as if she might cough, and for the first time Shaw thought that – at last – the true significance of these objects had struck home: that her only son had been murdered, and these few things in his pockets were all that remained. But she gathered herself and went on, although Shaw sensed now that she needed the glass in her hand.

  ‘No. It’s not a game. That’s the last thing it is.’ She drank the bourbon in one swig and held it out for a refill without looking at Valentine, without taking her eyes off the little childish scribble. Shaw thought that she was a woman who’d managed to free her life from the support of men.

  ‘It’s a warning,’ she said. ‘A series of them, probably. You can see that, can’t you? The first piece just a line on paper. Then two lines, then the gibbet appears, then the hanging man.’

  She looked Shaw in his good eye. ‘It’s a lynching – the coward’s way. Pat didn’t say what was happening, he just said some of the “low life” – his words, the “low life” – at the pub were trying to scare him, trying to get him to go home, back where he came from.’ She over-articulated the words, to make it clear they weren’t hers. ‘I got the cold shoulder
too, the odd remark, but nothing like this.’ She held up the envelope, studying the sketch. ‘This is sick.’

  ‘And this …hounding – when did it begin?’

  ‘After a few weeks. Early summer. He’d get them at college – in his pigeon-hole. It went on for months before he disappeared. In the end he thought it was amusing, I think. That’s the arrogance, of course – the idea that he didn’t need to fear anyone, or anything. It’s what children think, isn’t it? That they’re not going to die. He was still a child in some ways.’

  Shaw heard a creak of a wooden stair. He wondered if Kath Robinson was on the landing below, just within earshot. Bea Garrison actually flinched at the noise, then seemed to force herself to relax, sinking into the wicker chair. Shaw thought it was as if she was waiting for something: a visitor?

  Finally, she picked up the billhook.

  ‘Yes – well, this is Alby’s,’ she said, sipping at the drink now.

  ‘How …’ Shaw swapped a glance with Valentine. ‘How can you know that – it’s just a billhook with the maker’s name.’ As he said it he knew he was wrong, but the truth was just out of reach, buried in his memory.

  She laughed. ‘Yes – that’s an easy mistake to make. They’re an American company – Stanley Tools. Latrell had their stuff always, with the name in black on yellow.’ She held the tool up. ‘Not like this. Stanley isn’t the maker, Inspector. It’s a ship.’

  ‘A ship?’ Shaw repeated, thinking of the tiny model boat in Mary Tilden’s coffin.

  ‘Alby’s ship. The Stanley. I thought you’d know all about that – he was a hero, Alby. That’s why Nora married him I suppose; the reflected glory – that’s what my sister wanted. And she got it for a while. But then it faded rather quickly.’

  She got up and stood at the picture window. Again the quick glance down at the street, where a necklace of lights had begun to glow orange.

  ‘I remember Alby coming home in 1944,’ she said. ‘I was still a toddler, the baby sister. You’ve no idea how exciting war is for children. It’s like being at an endless wedding reception – you know, the adults are too busy to notice the children, as if the rules have been suspended. War’s like that. Nora was the big sister – nearly seventeen. My mother – our mother – used to say that it didn’t matter how plain a girl was, there was always a year when she was beautiful. That was Nora’s year. Cruel? That’s what sisters are for. There’d been boys about, but Nora was wrapped up in the church so I don’t think sex had ever come into it. Prim was the word. A good word. They taught her it was a virtue, that kind of coldness. They tried to teach me too, but I didn’t listen.’

  She took an inch off the level of the bourbon in the glass. ‘Anyway – 1944. I’m really surprised you don’t know this,’ she said, looking at Valentine. ‘This merchant ship – the Stanley – was on a convoy to Murmansk. Lend-lease, taking food and munitions to the Russians. It was torpedoed off Narvik – at night – and everyone abandoned ship. Alby used to tell us about that – about how he’d spent the night trying not to freeze to death, with the sea calm and the lifeboat surrounded by the cargo – cases of bullets and dried milk. When daylight came they still couldn’t see anything because of a fog. They called out but only their lifeboat had survived, they thought. Just six men left.

  ‘Alby said the worst thing was knowing the ship had gone down – they’d all seen the prow sticking up out of the water, then just dropping out of sight. He said they felt so alone. They spent a day in the fog – freezing fog – and two of the men died before nightfall. Alby said he thought he came close to giving up that second night and he was actually surprised to wake up at all. That was when his illness began, of course. Looking back – the fear of the space around him, making him feel so small. It took years to emerge, but that was the seed, that night in the open boat.

  ‘When dawn came the fog had gone. The sea was still calm. And floating fifty yards away was the stern of the Stanley. She’d broken her back – snapped in half – but the bulkheads were still watertight, so she could float. He said it looked like a block of council flats, just floating there, with the bridge above, and the funnel.’

  She laughed, shaking her head, and Shaw wondered how many times she’d been told the story in her childhood.

  ‘Alby was a leading seaman and the senior man left alive. Which was odd, because he’d been an engineer, and spent all his time below, but technically he was in command. So the four of them got back on board – the rope frogging was still hanging down from when they’d been given the order to abandon ship. The electrics had blown, and there was a small fire smouldering which they never really put out, but otherwise she was OK. They got the engines going that night, then headed southwest. An RAF reconnaissance plane picked them up off the Humber a day later. The day after that they found another life raft with most of the officers on board – including the captain.

  ‘Once the War Ministry got hold of it, the story was everywhere – radio, papers. “The ship that wouldn’t die” – that’s what they called it. And it was good for class solidarity as well, how the men below decks had brought the ship back. Or half of it, at least. We went down to the quayside when she came in – large as life. There used to be a picture in the bar at the Flask but Nora had it taken down. They gave Alby the freedom of the city. My dad – Arthur Melville – was running the pub then and he invited the crew to the Flask for a celebration. That’s when Nora met Alby. They married in 1947. I think Alby fell in love that first night too – with the pub.’

  The sun had set, but its rays still radiated from beyond the horizon, catching high pearlescent clouds.

  Shaw picked up the billhook. ‘And this?’

  ‘When Alby left for sea again in the fifties, after they lost Mary, he left his kit from the Stanley in a chest up in his room. Well, it wasn’t just his kit; he’d stolen a fair bit of stuff during the voyage – the ship’s bell, the log, anything he thought would be worth a few dollars down the years, anything with the ship’s name on it. He told Nora it was like a pension: if times got hard, she could sell it. But she never did. I don’t think she wanted to touch anything that had been his because she hated him for leaving. The chest was still there after I came back because I remember opening it with Lizzie to see if there was something in there we could give Ian as a Christening present. Like a keepsake, from his grandfather. There was a tankard – so we gave him that.’

  ‘And that chest had been there since 1944?’

  ‘Yes. In their room – well, it was theirs when they married. Lizzie said that after Alby finally came back they had separate rooms. But it was their room. It’s upstairs – the second floor, under the roof.’

  Shaw thought Alby Tilden had the quality of being permanently elusive, like a smoke ring, unbroken and perfect until you tried to touch it.

  ‘Alby’s still alive, isn’t he?’ he asked, fishing. ‘At least, we think he is. You forward all the mail to some middleman in Retford? Lizzie says she’s had nothing back for a year. What about you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Longer than that, even. We keep writing, but nothing. I know it all sounds crazy but Alby really doesn’t want to see anyone. We all visited in the early years, but it really did upset him. He asked us to stop, so we did – but he knew we’d never be able to leave him be if we had his address. He told us to write care of a friend – I think it’s someone he met in Lincoln. But there’s less and less to say.’ She was going to stop there but pressed on. ‘Which is selfish, isn’t it? He’s right, I know, it would be painful. But mainly for him.’

  Shaw thought about the report they’d received from the local police. That there was no post waiting to be forwarded from Lynn. He wondered whether Bea was lying to make herself feel better about neglecting a difficult elderly relative, or for another reason. Or perhaps she was telling the truth and someone had taken the letters from Retford.

  ‘The sea chest – it’s locked?’ asked Valentine.

  She shrugged. Out at sea the winte
r light had gone and the sky had instantly turned to a dark grey. She shivered and from the chair beside her picked up the vivid blue pashmina she’d been wearing at the Flask when they’d first seen her, draping it around her neck. Happy to answer more questions, she said she’d ask Kath to make some tea, but they said they ought to go.

  Kath Robinson saw them out. On the step Shaw turned to study her face, the blameless eyes avoiding his.

  ‘So Ian’s around a lot?’ he asked, zipping up the RNLI jacket.

  ‘Yes.’ Again that curious innocence, as if the question could hold no ulterior motive.

  ‘Is he like his father?’

  The question was too much for her, so she stepped out from the shadows of the hallway on to the path – to give herself time to frame an answer, Shaw guessed.

  ‘Like Pat? No,’ she said, struggling for the right word. ‘Ian’s good – to Bea, to his mum.’

  ‘But Pat wasn’t good to you, was he?’ Shaw asked.

  She looked out to sea, then stepped back quickly over the threshold. ‘Only once,’ she said, and tried to close the door but Valentine had his foot in the gap.

  ‘I got the signals wrong,’ she said, as if repeating an alibi. ‘I had to stop him going any further.’

  ‘Where?’ pressed Shaw.

  Her face was in darkness. ‘In the cemetery, one night. That summer before the wake. I wanted …’ She covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Him. I shouldn’t have gone down there. I couldn’t do what he wanted me to do. He got angry. That’s all. He said he wouldn’t see me again. And he didn’t.’

  Shaw glanced at Valentine, who slid away his foot, and she closed the door.

  For a moment they all stood, the door between them, and Shaw could see the silhouette of her head through the coloured glass. Then the light in the hallway came on and she was gone, leaving just the picture in the glass: a whale again, a harpoon flying towards it across a stormy stained-glass sea.

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