Death Ship

by Jim Kelly

  Below, a bell marked feeding time, and they heard a chorus of seal barks.

  ‘You’re a bit of a fraud, Ms Roos,’ said Shaw lightheartedly. ‘An environmental campaigner bankrolled by the unacceptable face of the seaside resort.’

  ‘There’s a dynamic equilibrium between the two,’ she said, but the easy smile was forced.

  ‘Is that what you tell yourself? I’m not really interested in self-justification. I’m intrigued to discover that you have two reasons to stop the pier being built: to protect your precious rock-pool coast and to safeguard the future of your income, and your mother’s income, because the new pier includes plans for a Water Wonderland – direct competition for Marine World. That makes you my prime suspect, Ms Roos. No wonder you wanted to help run the STP campaign. Does Mr Coram know about your interests?’

  ‘Ask him,’ she said, almost spitting out the words.

  They were enveloped in the smell of frying onions and the sweet cloying scent of candyfloss.

  ‘All of that amounts to a very sharp motive to try to stop the pier. The question is how far were you prepared to go – and how far was Joe Lester prepared to go? Graffiti, vandalism, criminal damage, arson, murder?’

  She laughed, but the smile slid off her face too quickly.

  ‘He doesn’t know, does he, Ms Roos? About all this? Was he the cat’s paw? Egged on by one of his heroes, I suppose – the campaigning Ms Roos. Defender of the rock-pool coast. Or did you pay him? I’m sure the resources are available. Perhaps you paid others. It’s been dirty work – why soil your own hands?’

  Roos replaced her dark glasses. ‘Resources buy lawyers, too, Inspector. I think I should call mine.’ The crisp, clear voice told Shaw the answer to one question: that there was no sense in which this young woman was conflicted within herself between the two worlds she sought to inhabit.

  ‘Good idea. We have your fingerprints; we’d like a saliva test too. There’s indications that we might have skin fragments on the control panel of the decompression chamber out on the rig.’ This was largely fictitious, but Shaw was thrilled to see the blood drain from her face. ‘Are you a good swimmer, Ms Roos?’

  ‘Adequate.’

  ‘Also, I’d like to ask you a few questions, under caution at St James’, about the two emails you exchanged with Dirk Hartog. That’s the Dutchman you professed never to have met.’

  She stood, neatly folding down the material of her shorts, ‘The Dutchman? I remember now. He wanted to know if I’d ever seen wreckage from a ship – the Caledonian? Something like that. Or maybe not. Joe told him I walk the beach too. I couldn’t help. I forgot.’

  ‘You agreed to meet him on the beach the day before he disappeared. We have the email.’

  ‘He was persistent. I’m polite. You’ll hear from my lawyers.’

  ‘Did he tell you why he was looking for the ship?’

  ‘No,’ she said, and for the first time in the entire interview he was sure she was lying.

  ‘Did he mention another ship? A tug, called the Lagan?’

  ‘Never.’ She’d said it too quickly. Her lips struggled to rework her answer, but then she gave the effort up and turned on her bare heels.

  THIRTY-SIX

  It was Paul Twine, fittingly, who returned to the mystery of the Leander Club watches. Within the tight-knit squad that was the serious crime unit, Twine had a reputation as Mr Accessorize; there was the Mont Blanc pen, the latest iPhone with personalized case, the Gucci glasses, the Ask the Missus leather shoes with red soles, and his own watch, a stylish Italian Fila. So when he saw Tom Hadden with the watches laid out in the forensic suite, he gave the problem some thought, turning one of the timepieces in his hand, admiring the elegant script.

  Twine’s easy familiarity with accessories came from an aborted career in retailing. He’d left university and joined the graduate training scheme at John Lewis. Crisp, clean-cut, smart, he’d thrived, if underwhelmed privately by the generally gormless inquiries of the great British public. He’d quickly advanced from the retail frontline to head office. His degree had been in maths, so he’d particularly enjoyed the complex, free-flow world of buying and selling in wholesale quantities, because his brain was fast enough to spot a lucrative margin. His employer reference, when called in by the West Norfolk Constabulary, described him as a born salesman.

  So he rang WaveCrest and asked for the name and number of the rep who’d sold Tad Atkins the fifty-one watches, and then he rang him, pretending to be from the council, interested in ordering a hundred watches for the sports staff of the local authority’s fifteen secondary schools, with the council’s own brand image – a seagull – included on the face. Twine said twice he knew Tad Atkins and that the Leander Club watches had been a big hit.

  Darren Forbes, the salesman, was quick with numbers too. ‘Right. So if we go for the sports model, with the local authority logo, I can do that at eighty-eight fifty a go. That’s for the hundred. No returns, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Right. Well, it’s not my call, of course,’ said Twine. ‘I have to put it to the committee chairman, although I know he’ll take my advice on this. It’s still fairly pricey. Like, I love the look of it – the online image – but I’d think twice about laying that much out just for a watch. My wife says nobody needs a watch anymore, what with the phone and stuff.’

  Twine let the silence stretch.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. You want a hundred, right?’

  Twine heard pages being turned, a muffled conversation off stage.

  ‘Here’s the thing,’ said Forbes. ‘I can do seventy-nine ninety-nine – final price. And as you’ve been so helpful, I’m happy to send you a free one, complete with the logo, just as a way of showing our appreciation for the business. Nothing on paper – that’s just between you and me. How does that work?’

  ‘Oh. That works just fine, Mr Forbes. I’ll be right back to you.’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Valentine had been planning Esther Keeble’s first – and possibly only – appearance in court for some days. A prison van would collect her from Bedford Prison at noon and transport her the ninety-two miles to King’s Lynn Magistrates’ Court. The van, with a single frosted window, slowing down for the last fifty yards before entering the secure underground entry, would afford enterprising newspaper and TV photographers the chance to grab a flashlight picture before she disappeared from sight. BBC Look East and ITV Anglia had both indicated they would have live reports from the scene. The ‘sweetie killer’ tag had secured Keeble a national profile.

  She would be held in an underground cell, one of ten in a Victorian suite of cold, whitewashed cubicles, each with a grilled basement window, again in frosted glass. It occurred to Valentine that this was how she might well see out the rest of her life: through opaque glass, occasionally reinforced with wire. Her appearance at Lynn would be to confirm her details, extend her custody, and deny bail, but principally to set a date for her trial at Crown Court. She had not uttered a single word in explanation of her crimes but had indicated – to her allocated defence solicitor – on several occasions that she intended to plead guilty.

  By three o’clock she was in her cell. A lowering sun was shining down Queen Street, and straight in through the sub-basement window, so that the box-like white room was radiant with light. Valentine took her a cup of tea. In a strangely intimate sense he’d got to like Esther Keeble, possibly as a subconscious compensation for the life she’d had to lead, caring for a wheelchair-bound husband, surviving only as a shadowy presence on the edge of a bustling, burgeoning family.

  He leant his back against the cell door as she sipped her tea. ‘I’d understand it if you’d tried to kill Alice,’ he said.

  She shook her head, a mannerism he’d come to recognize, and checked the clock on the wall. In Bedford, during her first twenty-four hours in custody, the woman PC assigned to provide surveillance had remarked on the number of times she consulted watches and clocks, and her habit of double-checking the date wit
h her jailers each morning.

  ‘What are you waiting for, Esther?’ asked Valentine.

  ‘To go up,’ she said, and used a paper napkin to dry her bottom lip.

  ‘It’s a formality,’ said Valentine. ‘Even the Crown Court case will be over in hours. Pleading guilty tends to take the wind out of the legal process. Not speaking – not explaining – won’t help with the sentence. They’ve explained that? They’ll not be in the mood to sympathize. After all, there’s Roach’s family to consider – they don’t know, do they, why he died, why he had to end his life like that.’

  She nodded.

  ‘You said, that first time we interviewed you, that you were sorry – that you didn’t want it to end like this. What did you mean, Esther? What’s ended like this?’

  Valentine thought then that she looked impossibly alone: a frail, old woman, sitting on a cell bed, cradling a pea-green cup of lukewarm tea. It was as if she had decided to leave this world – the real world of the cell – and place herself in some kind of purgatory. As soon as Valentine formed the word, he knew the meaning was precisely right, in the sense that she was in a state of waiting, of subservience to some outside force. And the room’s vibrant, celestial light seemed to chime with this sense that, thrillingly, paradise might be close.

  ‘It’s George, really,’ she said. ‘I worry. He needs to take pills, in the right order, at the right time. Confusion can reign,’ she added, and again Valentine noted the spark of life that seemed to revitalize her eyes.

  ‘I think a nurse is calling, twice a day now,’ offered Valentine. ‘It was a scare, the stroke, but apparently there have been others?’ She nodded. ‘But he’s confused. Stressed. We all are. Perhaps he’s waiting for you to explain, Esther. What do you reckon?’

  He put a hand on the whitewashed wall and the damp paint came away on his skin. Outside, at pavement level, they heard a mobile phone tone, and a playful voice in answer.

  And footsteps in the corridor.

  Looking out through the observation portal, Valentine recognized DC Lau. She asked for a minute of his time at the far end of the corridor, her voice light and informal, so they left Esther Keeble with her cup of tea.

  ‘The judge wants to postpone,’ said Lau. ‘Or go later today, maybe last thing …’ Even as she said it, her eyes slid back down the corridor towards Keeble’s cell.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s the husband. He’s dead; looks like suicide. Defence wanted to try to get him to appear – maybe secure bail? Duty solicitor paid a call first thing, couldn’t get an answer, so they rang us. Anyway, he’s dead. Looks like pills. In his wheelchair, apparently; no suspicious circumstances.’

  ‘A note? Letter – anything?’

  ‘I’m heading out there now to check, but the constable on the scene says he was pretty careful to check, and there’s nothing obvious in the room, by the bed, or by the chair. Looks like he just wanted to go.’

  Valentine looked back down the corridor towards the cell. ‘He might have said goodbye.’

  ‘And a message from the boss,’ said Lau. ‘Two things. Twine’s made some kind of breakthrough on the Leander Club watches. They’re bringing the pool manager – Atkins – in for a formal interview tomorrow afternoon. Looks like he might be our swimmer.

  ‘And tonight, a CID briefing on Big Bang Day – half six at the Red House. Three line whip.’ Lau consulted a notebook. ‘Boss says we need to get our ducks in a row. Traffic are reporting roads busy already, and the campsites are bursting. Media’s gone mad; one commercial radio report predicted fifty thousand plus. The airship company needs a flight path – apparently, that’s our job too, but we’ll need to liaise with RAF and Civil Aviation. Uniformed branch is on top of crowd control, but they’ve just cancelled all leave. Chief constable wants to check we’re across keeping the floating demo safely out of the way of bomb disposal; boss is on to that now with the RNLI. Army reports that triggers will be live by eleven tomorrow. Detonation is noon.’

  ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ said Valentine.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Shaw woke early on Big Bang Day to the sound of a distant engine, the rhythmic shock waves pulsing over a sea as flat as mercury. Standing at the café window, swinging it out open wide, he noted the time – one minute past six – and, through the mounted telescope on the stoop, the sight of the jack-up crane hoisting dripping mud and sand from the mudlock on the rig into its waiting flat barge. Blue Square Inc. was clearly back in business.

  Lena’s Italian coffee machine produced a double espresso, which he took outside with a glass of juice and a bowl of cereal. Then he punched Captain Ring’s number into his mobile, and imagined the airborne signal flying out to the Telamon over the creaseless water.

  ‘Shaw. Morning. How can I help?’

  Shaw detected a note of brisk evasion. ‘Busy, I see.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess the owners put some pressure on. We’ve had to up security – metal gates on the landing stages, some CCTV – but it’s all in place. We got the green light an hour ago. Health and safety executive have completed an on-the-spot check. Chief exec of Blue Square’s flying in from Schiphol by helicopter at one, so that’s going to make my day.’

  ‘They couldn’t wait twenty-four hours? It’s provocative, to say the least. There’ll be a hundred boats in this protest off the beach, and you’re making it pretty clear Blue Square’s back in business. Is that smart?’

  ‘Smart. Stupid. What do I know? It’s costing them more than a million a day, Shaw. I don’t think considerations of community relations come into it. I’m a marine engineer. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that it’s designed to be provocative, to show they won’t be scared off. If Brussels puts a stop to this project, Blue Square takes a hit – a billion-euro hit. That’s not acceptable to them. This is a statement of intent. Sorry. I know it doesn’t make your job any easier. I have to go.’

  Shaw sat watching the crane swing its next load over the sea, then sent DC Twine an email telling him to make sure that everyone who should know the rig was back in business did know. Then he checked through the dispositions agreed at the Red House meeting the night before. Big Bang Day was an infuriating diversion, but he had no choice but to apply maximum manpower to the problem to make sure there were no disasters.

  Satisfied he’d done all he could, given the early hour, he ran to the lifeboat at Old Hunstanton, changed, and then walked along the clifftops to Marine Court, where the STP’s giant thermometer had nearly reached its target red bulb. Valentine sat on the whitewashed wall, watching a small crowd of early risers claim their positions at the crash barriers. Below on the sands, three large flags bearing army insignia flew from the pits in which the unexploded Zeppelin bombs lay, wired for destruction. A BBC outside broadcast van had taken pole position on the green, bristling with satellite dishes.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ said Shaw.

  Although Big Bang Day would demand their attention in the hours to come, Shaw’s number-one priority was interviewing Edward Coram, the skipper of the Lagan, the tug that had offered the ill-fated Calabria a line on the night of the 1953 flood. Having slept on the series of discoveries he’d made concerning the last hours of the Calabria, Shaw was more than ever convinced that here lay the heart of the mystery of the murder of Dirk Hartog.

  Leading the way up a steep banistered alleyway, they climbed to the low ridge behind the town on which the Victorians had built Hunstanton’s trademark villas: stately brick mansions adorned with Gothic trinkets – towers and cupolas, grand bay windows with lead roofs, stone friezes depicting shells and tridents, mermaids and whales. It was in one such house, Shaw recalled, that Eustace and Hilda had lived, the protagonists in Hartley’s classic of an Edwardian seaside childhood.

  The Old Lookout, which Tom Coram had pointed out to them from the balcony of Marine Court as the family home, was perhaps the finest of the villas: four floors, each with double balconied bays, and a flagpole rising from the roof, flyi
ng – Shaw noted with surprise – the starred insignia of the European Union.

  Coram junior was sitting on the doorstep, behind him a clear view into the house and a dark interior of polished wood.

  ‘This isn’t necessary,’ he said, by way of welcome. ‘I demand to know why you want to interview my father; he’s in his eighties, for God’s sake. He’s not well – in fact, he’s in pain. If this goes ahead, I’m telling you now I’ll make a formal complaint to the chief constable. In writing.’ He held up a white envelope.

  ‘If we’re unable to interview Mr Coram here, we will require him to report to St James’,’ said Shaw, taking the time to turn his back on Coram and take in the sea view. ‘Your call.’

  Coram’s eyes flitted beyond Shaw to the distant rig, the jack-up crane’s engine grating through the gears.

  ‘You’ll regret this,’ he said, hauling himself up and leading the way into the cool hall. ‘And today of all days. Couldn’t it have waited?’ he asked over his shoulder.

  The interior ticked: two grandmother clocks stood by the staircase, and in one of the living rooms a chime marked the half hour. A lift had been installed in the kitchen, which took them up into what looked like the attic.

  Edward Coram was outside on the balcony. Valentine knew immediately that he’d caught sight of the old man that first morning they’d called at Marine Court, the flash of binoculars glimpsed from the high turreted tower.

  The room itself, which was spacious, was entirely orientated to the view: even the bed, set back, with banked pillows, would have afforded anyone an instant panorama of the Wash, and – over the last few months – Blue Square’s construction rig.

  A wide desk stood cluttered with maps, and Shaw noted a detailed naval architect’s plan of what looked like the MV Telamon. A set of sea charts lay spilt on the floor, and a montage of old photographs had been laid out showing the front at Hunstanton in the 1950s.