Death Ship

by Jim Kelly

  The solicitor then read Coram’s account, explaining that the prisoner had been advised by his doctor to remain silent, as he was suffering from stress. Coram sat in a wheelchair behind the dock, blind eyes looking down into his lap.

  The narrative sounded, to Shaw at least, curiously objective, as if Coram was merely the storyteller, not the prime mover. Perhaps it was by this gift of distancing himself from his own guilt that he had survived the intervening years, unlike his crew. Shaw considered the contrast with Ring, who had been unable to tell the entire truth, even in a private confession to his own son.

  Coram’s statement took them rapidly to the point where the two ships had come alongside that night. Ring had indeed been left aboard the tug while Coram and Craig, both armed, had boarded the Calabria. And the original plan had, as Ring stated, been to secure a line and force the crew to accept the offer of salvage, towing the ship into the nearest port. But events aboard the ship moved too quickly for the plan to hold. Beck, the captain, had a gun up on the bridge, but he had not, in fact, armed the crew – they were below decks struggling to fix the pumps. Coram and Craig were fired on and took refuge below, where they overcame the other two crew members and, using their prisoners as hostages, forced Beck to hand over his gun.

  The problem was that while Coram and Craig were below decks they were witness to the desperate situation of the ship. Water cascaded into the hold, visibly rising. Coram devised a change of plan: they would secure a line, tow the Calabria into the sheltered waters off Roaring Island, while stowing the crew below deck on the Lagan. Salvage was still possible – but only if they could get the coaster beached. They bundled Beck, Hartog and Spaans over the side and into the tug’s hold, securely bound, and, in at least one case, chained by cables. They then managed to secure the tow line. The Calabria, however, was losing its battle with the storm, listing alarmingly, and beginning to wallow in the swell. To save their own lives, they were forced to drop the line and let the storm blow them south.

  Coram, ever resourceful, reformulated the plan. They would now ‘save’ the crew. The tug set out for Lynn, but was staved in by a railway sleeper. But she didn’t sink out at sea. Their pumps did work, and they fully expected to make it to shore, but within a thousand yards of the South Beach the rudder broke away, and they were dashed against the pier superstructure, where the Lagan sank. The crew had seconds to save themselves: Craig managed to get the dinghy overboard, but then all three of them were swept into the sea and had to swim for dry land. It was only later, after the discovery of the dinghy on the beach, that they were able to agree a version of events that cleared them of all blame and obscured the position of the wrecked tug.

  ‘In the chaos of the moment there had been no time to release the Dutchmen from the hold,’ read the solicitor; a profound silence greeting this blunt statement.

  The chairman of the bench intervened. ‘Is the prisoner really unable to articulate any part of this statement himself?’

  Solicitor and prisoner traded whispers. ‘I’m afraid so,’ was the answer.

  An audible hiss came from the body of the court.

  The solicitor continued. In the years following the loss of the ships, Coram discreetly surveyed the spot. There was no sign of the wreck from the pier itself. The usually murky waters of the North Sea had drawn a veil over the superstructure, until the ship was, presumably, buried by the encroaching sands. In the late seventies, fire destroyed the pier, making it even less likely the wreck would ever be found. The stormy winter, had, however, remade the sandscape, and, at this very point in time, Blue Square had secured funding to rebuild the pier directly over the grave of the Lagan.

  A single shout of ‘Shame!’ came from the relatives as Coram was pushed in his wheelchair down the wooden incline from the dock and out of the court to the cells.

  Local TV reported that evening that the prisoner had been taken directly to North Sea Camp, an open prison a mile from the sea near Boston, in the north fens, where he would await his scheduled appearance in October. Shaw imagined him trying to sleep that night, his ears searching the silence for the gentle whisper of the distant surf.

  FIFTY-THREE

  After dark the Ark’s former identity, as a Methodist chapel, seemed to creep out of the stonework and haunt the echoing interior. There was something spiritual about the peaceful gloom of the interior. A single desk lamp played down on a desktop in Hadden’s forensic laboratory, reflected in the glass wall that separated it from the autopsy suite beyond.

  ‘Peter,’ said Hadden’s voice from the shadows, as Shaw entered through the original west doors. ‘Thanks for coming. I thought you’d like to know …’ The forensic scientist was at his desk, but leaning back, balancing his chair on the two back legs. ‘I always think it is our job to secure the truth, not take someone’s word for it. Especially someone as manipulative as Edward Coram.’

  Shaw was instantly grateful for Hadden’s unhurried scientific methods. The whole of the team had felt the speed of events had slightly overwhelmed the inquiry, and there were always lingering doubts in such situations that they’d missed some vital clue or made a disastrous assumption.

  On the desk, brilliantly lit, lay a plastic forensic evidence bag containing a single bone – the proximal phalange, explained Hadden, indicating that section of the index finger below the second joint.

  ‘With the families in Harlingen so keen to help, it seemed like too good a chance to miss,’ said Hadden, rubbing the sallow freckled skin of his cheeks. ‘So we got the bureau in Amsterdam to take DNA swabs. This little chap’s from the Lagan – the skeleton by the porthole. We asked the Home Office lab to extract a sample and attempt a match.’

  Touching the space bar on a wide-screen computer, he lit up an image of what appeared to be two supermarket bar codes. ‘The unknown remains from the tug are on the left; Captain Beck’s grand-daughter’s DNA profile is on the right. If I slide them together, you can see the degree to which they are a nice, tight fit. I won’t bore you with the maths, but let’s say if this degree of concurrence occurred by a process of random coincidence, it would represent a chance of one in thirty million. Add to that Coram’s confession, which places Beck in the hold of the Lagan, and I’d be happy to stand up in court and say there was no doubt.’

  Hadden stood, straightening out his back in a series of plastic clicks. ‘The families approached the coroner about exhuming the remains and taking them back to Harlingen for burial. Unfortunately, the last few weeks of high surf have shifted the sands. The local sub-aqua club says there’s about ten foot of the stuff over the spot right now. It could be years before it remerges. The relatives will be disappointed – they wanted to take them home – but the coroner feels it’s appropriate to leave them in peace. And it’s her call.

  ‘It’s what? Sixty-three years ago that these men died. The spot will be designated a grave, so that should keep any organized dives away. One unintended consequence may fall to Blue Square. They’ll have to build over the spot, and that raises issues. Talking to Beck’s grand-daughter, she said the company had been in touch with the relatives, and they wanted a meeting, so maybe there’s a way forward. Or maybe not.’

  Three of Hadden’s team returned from the canteen, and the lab’s various hot desks began to light up, screens full of data.

  Shaw reactivated his phone and noted a missed international call from Lena. Seeking some privacy, he pushed through the heavy plastic strip curtain into the autopsy suite. Of the three aluminium tables, only one held a corpse, shrouded in a zippered white bag. The old chapel’s single angel was lost in the shadows thrown by the roof beams.

  For a few seconds Shaw listened to the phone signal bouncing from one exchange to another, making its way, no doubt, out of Kingston and along the coast towards Black River. He took his phone to one of the old lancet windows through which the street light shone in dull amber.

  ‘Peter?’ Lena’s voice was light, even joyful, and remarkably clear.

&n
bsp; ‘It’s a good line.’

  ‘It won’t last. I’ll get the boring stuff out of the way. We’re back Sunday, arriving early morning, so we’ll see you by noon. Can you be home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The case is over?’

  ‘Yes. A result. I’m pleased. You?’

  ‘A result …’ In the background he heard laughter and recognized Fran. ‘She wants to say something. But first, my news.’

  He heard Fran’s light laugh again and then a darker, softer voice, at a much lower tone.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘It’s my father, Peter.’

  Shaw let a few seconds pass. ‘Your father died when you were ten.’

  ‘Apparently not. His name’s Isaac. Isaac Greenidge. I’ll send you a picture. It’s imagination, of course, to some extent, and maybe wishful thinking, but you can see Fran – in the arc of the eyes, and the cheekbones.’

  ‘You’d better explain …’

  Lena laughed. ‘I’ll send you a picture of the place too. It’s called Long Cove, about a mile from Black River. There’s dunes, and a beach facing west. No café – well, a hut, just like the old one in the pictures of our beach. Isaac lived here, in a shanty town behind the dunes, out of sight. Poor people could hire chalets for a holiday. Isaac and his father did odd jobs, fixed the roofs – stuff like that.’

  Shaw heard the joyful scream of a child in the sea.

  ‘Mum came here in 1982, with the family, for a holiday. I say the family – her dad stayed in Kingston because he was after work. They had one of the huts. She was nineteen, Peter – but a bit of a looker. Milly and the cousins have pictures. Anyway, she fell for Isaac.

  ‘End of the holiday, they all went back to Kingston and Mum’s dad announced he’d got a job, in London, as a hospital porter. So everything changes, and there’s chaos, and in the middle of it she finds out she’s pregnant with me. I was conceived here, Peter. On Isaac’s beach.’

  The lights had begun to go out in the forensic lab, so Shaw went back through the plastic doors, joining the rest as they made their way out into the car park. ‘How did he find you?’

  ‘The funeral. I’ll tell you everything when I see you – but it’s made me think, about how much Mum knew. I shook him by the hand at the church door after the service, and I said, “Did you know Mum?” and he just wouldn’t let go. It explains things, doesn’t it? Why I’m different from Jessie and Marcus.’

  He heard Fran’s voice, clearer and insistent. ‘Mum, you promised. It’s my turn.’

  ‘OK. OK. She wants to tell you about the surf, and the food – my God, the food! Anyway, we went to the spot where she wanted her ashes buried, beyond the wall of the graveyard. Isaac came too. The church is on a hill, Peter, so the view’s for ever. And he pointed and said, “That was our beach.”’

  FIFTY-FOUR

  One year later

  The winning design for the new Hunstanton Pier, to replace the conveyor belt of boxes planned by Blue Square, was based on a joyful, seaside game: ducks and drakes. A flat stone spun horizontally into the water will hop once a long way, twice a little less, a third time perhaps, and then sink. Experts can achieve much more. The Cambridge-based architects who won public support for their vision of the pier made sure the local papers had all the necessary information to fuel the town’s enthusiasm for the ducks-and-drakes concept. The US record for ducks and drakes was eighty-eight skips. The British record, always awarded to the longest throw comprising more than three hops, was set in a disused slate quarry in Scotland and stretched an incredible 169 metres. The architects pointed out that the design had international appeal, in that almost every major world culture had at some time attempted to spin a stone to skip across the surface of water. Shaw’s favourite was the expressive Italian version – rimbalzello – although the Greek, which translated as ‘little frogs’, was Fran’s choice.

  The second stroke of architectural genius was to reverse the pattern, relative to the beach, so that the shortest spans came first, then gathered speed, as it were, as the graceful longer arcs opened out seaward, until the very last span – an eye-watering 280 yards – seemed to leap into the arms of the end-of-pier pavilion, a theatre and cinema venue, with a café and viewing deck. From the far end, ferry boats left each day in season for the distant smudge on the western horizon that was the town’s twin resort of Skegness, the boats propelled, it seemed, by the sheer energetic exuberance of the lengthening spans of the pier itself. Once completed, the delicate tracery of the structure supported a single-line miniature monorail – with a central double-track section allowing two trains to run at the same time – one seawards, one landwards.

  Blue Square’s leaden design had been rescinded by the local council on the grounds that it broke several of the strict stipulations contained in the original planning application, this news coinciding with a decision in Brussels to call in the £77 million grant set aside for the project on the grounds that there was evidence Blue Square had improperly lobbied MEPs to smooth the path of public funding. Given that the caisson was in place – at a cost of £15 million – a decision was taken to launch a public competition for a new design to join the pier head with the beach. The lightweight construction of the ducks and drakes blueprint, alongside its aesthetic grace, made it a clear winner.

  Shaw had watched the construction with a mariner’s eye from the beach in front of Surf!. The series of landward arches, narrowly spaced, were out of sight, hidden by the gentle curve of the cliffs, so that by the time the vaulting structure came into view the spans were already lengthening, like a runner’s legs stretching out for the final lap. Mimicking its Victorian forerunner, the pier was narrow but high, held nearly fifty feet above the sands of low tide by the narrow tracery of curved steel. This allowed Shaw to see through the pier, to the sea beyond, as if the structure itself was no more than a flying arrow, its target the horizon.

  A week after the grand opening, Shaw met Valentine at the pier entrance, a semi-circular platform which supported a café, ice-cream parlour, and various smaller concessions.

  ‘It’s a mile, probably more,’ complained Valentine after Shaw declined the chance to catch the next train to the pier head. ‘You’ve seen that,’ he added, gesturing towards a newspaper billboard by a gift shop: TOWN KILLER DIES IN JAIL.

  ‘Twine rang me earlier,’ said Shaw.

  Edward Coram, who had been unable to stand trial due to ill-health, had died at North Sea Camp, quietly in his sleep. Twine reported that the newspapers had contacted Tom Coram, now retired, for a comment. The son had said simply that he now wished to fulfil his father’s last wish: that his body should be cremated, and the ashes scattered inland, beyond sight of the sea.

  Shaw, shouldering a small rucksack, lengthened his stride. ‘Come on, George. The walk will do you good.’

  After a hundred yards he paused to let his DS catch up, while he considered the receding coastline. This summer had been wild, with hot spells sparking thunderstorms. Over the Norfolk hills he could see a great cloud brewing, its heart a murderous black.

  ‘It’s going to rain,’ said Valentine.

  ‘How’s the new house?’

  ‘She wants a dog now.’

  ‘That’ll want walking,’ said Shaw, setting off again.

  Wooden benches marked the long trek out to sea, each one bearing a silver disc inscribed STP. Tom Coram, cautioned for his bungled attempt to find Tad Atkins’ suicide note, had otherwise been cleared of any involvement in his father’s crimes. So he had been in a position to personally wind up the anti-pier campaign once the new pier’s design and specifications had been agreed. The balance in the fighting fund £196,000, was donated to various schemes related to the new pier – the benches, solar panels on the seaward side of the pavilion roof, and a series of free telescopes, mounted at the halfway station and the end of the pier.

  Shaw used one of the telescopes now at the halfway station to look back at Surf!. On the beach,
sitting with a straight back on one of the café’s wooden chairs, he could see Lena’s father, Isaac. He had been with them a month and would fly back tomorrow. The old man seemed to bring a rare stillness to their lives. Lena, certainly, seemed to thrive in the presence of a man who explained so many of the contradictions in her life. At dusk the night before, around an open fire, they’d even discussed the dream of building a café at Long Cove.

  Shaw and Valentine walked on until he found the plaque set in the wooden boards of the pier.

  Below this spot lie the bodies of Arjen Beck,

  Rafael Spaans and Dirk Hartog,

  trapped within the wreck of the Lagan,

  lost 31st January 1953.

  This plaque was erected by their relatives from

  the Port of Harlingen, on the Frisian coast.

  The only villain is the sea, the cruel sea,

  that man has made more cruel …

  Shaw swung the rucksack down to his feet and slipped out the urn Dirk Hartog had brought to Hunstanton. Its heft, he noted, now included the pebbles he’d added from the beach. A second urn contained Hartog’s ashes and was similarly weighted. He wrapped both in two identical Dutch flags and handed one to Valentine. Leaning over the rail, he repeated the last line of the plaque’s inscription, by way of a blessing – a request made by Hartog’s niece, who had been too ill to travel to the UK for the ceremony – and then they dropped their offerings together. There were two small splashes, and the flags spread out, then floated west on the tide, leaving nothing behind on the surface. Beneath, Shaw glimpsed the grey shadow of a dogfish, gliding over the unseen grave, as if in welcome.