‘Have you eaten?’ he asked.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You’ll eat and then you can tell me what’s troubling you,’ he said firmly.
She was too worried and weary to argue.
He cut off some large chunks of bread, then heated up some soup he’d made yesterday, realizing that it was hours since he’d last eaten and then only a snatched sandwich before Strathen’s call and his trip to the eastern coast of the island in search of Ashley Palmer. He switched off his phone. Strathen could wait. Charlotte was far more important.
He watched her tuck in to the soup, realizing she was hungry after all. Occasionally she’d start at a sound outside and look nervously towards the window. There were no blinds because there was no one within three miles of him except the birds and wildlife. He caught the sounds that seemed to scare her but he was used to them. It was just the wind catching the reeds and shrubs. They ate in silence and when they had finished he opened a bottle of red wine and poured them both a glass. The colour was back in her cheeks and she had relaxed considerably, although there was still an edginess about her.
She pushed her fair hair off her face and smiled at him, and in that smile Marvik saw something of the old Charlotte emerge. He recalled the days and nights they’d spent together after he’d been declared fit for duty. Their romance hadn’t lasted longer than a couple of weeks but it had been pleasant. The decision to end it had been mutual.
‘I’m sorry for being so weak,’ she said with an attempt at lightness. ‘What a baby you must think I am.’
‘Hardly,’ he answered quietly and seriously, remembering she’d been part of the Commando Forward Surgical Team working in danger zones with them and seeing to the men’s injuries without a murmur. Christ, she was as brave as the Marines he’d known. She’d been deployed in Afghanistan and on the primary casualty reception ship RFA Argus, as part of a rapid reaction surgical team, and she’d been on board other RFA vessels. He wondered if she’d seen too much action, too much pain and suffering, and it had finally got to her.
‘I had to speak to him. I didn’t know if he’d agree to see me at first but he did,’ she said, nursing her glass of wine in both hands.
Marvik couldn’t make any sense of what she was saying but he said nothing as she took a breath and clearly made an effort to mentally gather and rearrange her thoughts into some kind of order. She took a long swallow of her wine before continuing.
‘I’m stationed at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, critical care unit.’
Marvik knew it well, having spent some time there after receiving his head wound. Strathen had been there for four months before being transferred to the military rehabilitation centre at Headley Court in Surrey.
‘Just before Christmas a Marine with 40 Commando, Paul Williamson, got badly wounded in Afghanistan. An IED detonated while he was on patrol. It killed two men with him. He was treated at Camp Bastion before being flown back to Birmingham. He died three weeks ago.’
And clearly she’d been close to him, just as she had been to Marvik, only he’d survived.
‘He was twenty-three. He’d saved the lives of two men on previous occasions. His colleagues said he was fearless and he was, but it wasn’t just training and instinct that made him that way; he had something to prove to himself. There was a great anger inside him.’ She took a swallow of wine and a deep breath before continuing.
‘Just before he died he told me something that he said he’d never told anyone. I learned that his father had murdered a woman in 1997 and had been imprisoned for life. Paul barely remembers his father. He was only six at the time. His mother and he left the UK to live in Spain before returning and settling in Wales. She never spoke about his father except to say that he had left them and was probably dead. Paul soon stopped asking about him. It was only when he came to enlist in 2010 and his background was thoroughly vetted that he discovered the truth. He couldn’t ask his mother about it because she had died shortly before he decided to join the Marines. It was a great shock to him. He felt ashamed of what his father had done and he needed to prove to himself that he wasn’t like him.’
She took another sip of wine. ‘Paul said he’d been told his father was still alive and serving his prison sentence. But Paul didn’t want to know anything about him and he didn’t name him as his next of kin. That was a distant cousin of his mother’s. I spoke to the cousin, a Colin Bell, at the funeral, but he said he didn’t know anything about Paul’s father and that he didn’t even know Paul. He’d been amazed to be named as next of kin. He also said he didn’t know that Maggie, Paul’s mother, had died. Apart from Colin Bell there was no family at the funeral, only the nursing staff and his colleagues.’
She poured herself another glass of wine and Marvik did the same. The wind was rising outside and rattling around the ancient cottage and the drizzle had turned to an impatient and restless rain that sporadically hurled itself against the small windows. As the wine and confession did their work, Charlotte began to relax.
‘I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I was angry at Paul’s death and that he’d died ashamed of his father when he should have died at peace and proud of what he’d achieved. I thought his father should know how brave his son had been and how he had died. Paul had told me his father’s name so I looked up the newspaper reports on the Internet and found details of the murder and the trial. It attracted a lot of media interest at the time, mainly because Paul’s father, Terence Blackerman, had been a navy chaplain.’
Marvik eyed her, surprised.
‘I know. Paul never said, but he must have known. How could a chaplain have done such a terrible thing? I wondered if he’d suffered from post-traumatic stress, but there was no mention of it in the articles I read. He’d strangled Esther Shannon after making love to her in her room at the forces club in London, the Union Services Club at Waterloo, on Saturday November the eighth 1997.’
‘The day before Remembrance Sunday.’
‘Yes. Terence Blackerman and Esther Shannon were there for the Remembrance Service at the Albert Hall on Saturday. Esther’s father had been killed in the Falklands War in 1982. I contacted HM Prisons via their website and emailed the Prisoner Location Service to find out where Terence Blackerman was serving his sentence. If he was still in custody my details would be passed to him and he would need to agree to disclose his whereabouts.’
‘And he did,’ Marvik said, quickly catching on. ‘Which is why you’re here.’ Blackerman had to be in one of the Isle of Wight prisons, either Albany or Parkhurst, both of which were in the same location, just outside Newport, the small capital town of the island.
‘Yes. He’s in Parkhurst prison.’
‘And you’ve been to see him.’
She nodded and took a gulp of her wine. ‘He’s not how I imagined.’
Marvik considered her words. ‘In what way?’ he asked, curious and deeply interested not only to hear what she had learned but also burrowing away at the back of his mind was still the question of her fear. Blackerman was in prison, so why should she feel afraid of him? Because she had been afraid, and still was. He didn’t believe she’d been spooked by the dark. But again he wondered if nursing Paul had pushed her over the edge. That didn’t account for how she’d tracked him down though.
‘He was a quiet, gentle man. I could see immediately that he’d suffered a great deal and that he hadn’t been told about his son’s death. When I told him, he didn’t look shocked or angry, there was just this tremendous sorrow. It was as though …’ She hesitated in an attempt to find the correct words. ‘As though I was seeing someone who had been physically and brutally abused; the scars were in his eyes and on every line and in every pore of his face. It tore at my heart. I cried. He comforted me. My God, Art, I’d gone there all geared up to be righteous and angry and all I could do was blubber like a baby.’
Had she cried at Paul’s death or at his funeral? Marvik doubted it.
Maybe her grief had caught her unexpectedly. He knew it often happened like that and could be triggered by anything, even the smallest, seemingly insignificant thing.
‘I’d thought telling him about the sacrifice his son had made would make him ashamed. I wanted to hurt him because he’d hurt Paul and so many others through his actions, and I succeeded, but I wish to God I hadn’t. I wish I had never gone there. It was a mistake. When I was leaving he said, “I didn’t kill Esther Shannon but I don’t expect you to believe me any more than anyone else has ever done.”’
Don’t they all say that? thought Marvik.
As if reading his mind she declared with fervour, ‘I swear to you, Art, he’s no killer.’
Maybe he was just very convincing, but again Marvik didn’t express his opinion.
‘I told him where Paul was buried and said that the prison authorities might give him permission to visit his son’s grave on compassionate grounds, but he said, “It’s over.” I asked him what he meant but he just smiled with a sadness that I couldn’t understand. It was as though he didn’t want to leave prison, that he’d given up.’
Marvik wondered if perhaps Blackerman had become institutionalized. For some prisoners staying inside was less terrifying than being let loose in a world where you had to fend for yourself. The Marines wasn’t prison, far from it, but they’d taken care of him for fifteen years and he hadn’t fared well since coming out, he thought with bitterness.
‘He thanked me for coming. Said “God bless you”, and that was it. I felt as though I had let both him and Paul down.’
He reassured her she hadn’t.
She shifted uneasily. ‘There’s something else,’ she added, ‘and before you say I’m emotionally overwrought I know I am. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m being followed.’
He studied her with concern, puzzled by her declaration. It would account for her terrified appearance and anxious state when he’d first seen her. ‘Go on,’ he encouraged.
‘I asked the taxi to stop by the woods at Corf Copse. I walked from there.’
That was just over a mile from the Newtown Old Town Hall and the handful of houses close by it. She’d had another two-mile trek to locate his cottage.
‘And was there anyone?’ Marvik asked, gravely.
‘I couldn’t see who it was but I’m certain there was someone.’
And Marvik wouldn’t dismiss that claim. He knew all too well that when in danger you had to trust your instinct, if you had it. And those that did lived longer than the ones who didn’t. His instinct had deserted him with Lee Addington and Harry Salcombe on that private yacht. He rose. ‘I’ll take a look around outside.’
‘Thanks.’
He pulled on his jacket and took his torch. She insisted on clearing away. He instructed her to lock the kitchen door after him and to only let him in when he called her name and knocked four times. ‘Two long and two short. Just a safety precaution. And when you’ve finished, switch off the light and wait at the table for me.’ He could see that his precautions worried but also reassured her. He wasn’t taking any chances.
Outside, he heard her shoot across the bolt. He stood in front of the lit kitchen window. He didn’t think anyone was in the undergrowth with a high-powered rifle aimed at the window or at him, and maybe he was tempting fate by being so visible, but if there was someone then they weren’t after him. But why would they be after Charlotte?
He was relieved when the light was extinguished. In the darkness he walked slowly around the cottage, his ears straining for any unusual sounds, his eyes, which had long grown accustomed to the dark, searching for signs of movement in the shrubs. His senses were again firing on all cylinders, which made twice in one day, and it felt good. Fleetingly he wondered if Strathen was trying to get hold of him.
He surveyed the countryside in the rain, assuming a casual stance so that if anyone was watching they’d simply think it was his usual night-time routine. He could hear the sea washing against his boat. He saw the boat’s outline on the end of the wooden pontoon. There was no sound nor sign of anyone. Yet, as he did his full circuit of the house, he felt that pricking sensation between his shoulder blades that told him someone was out here somewhere. It wasn’t just Charlotte’s imagination or his heightened senses.
Charlotte let him back in as arranged. He smiled reassuringly, hiding his concern. ‘All quiet.’ He showed her where the bathroom and the spare bedroom were and then returned to the kitchen and fired up his laptop. He hadn’t asked her how she knew where to find him, but he would, later.
He could hear her moving about upstairs as he entered the name ‘Terence Blackerman’ into the Internet search engine. Soon he was absorbed in what he was reading from the various newspaper reports of the time, no longer conscious of the sound of creaking floorboards overhead or when they stopped. It was as Charlotte had relayed to him: Esther Shannon had been staying in the Union Services Club, close to Waterloo Station, where Terence Blackerman had also booked a room for the night. The fact that he was a chaplain made the story even more salacious, a man of God who, Marvik read, had slept with Esther Shannon having only just met her and had then brutally strangled her.
The trial had taken place at the Central Criminal Court in London, or the Old Bailey as it was more generally known. Blackerman’s prints and DNA had been found in Esther Shannon’s room, but then Blackerman hadn’t denied having sex with her. Marvik wondered why he had. Mutual attraction? A moment of madness? It was a rather impulsive and uncharacteristic act for a man of the cloth, but then he was human like the rest of them. Perhaps he was simply lonely and feeling down after the Remembrance Service. Perhaps they both were and conversation had turned to comfort, which in turn had led to sex. Not the desperate, frantic, hungry kind of sex but the sharing of tormented emotions, the need to reinforce the belief in life. Or perhaps that was just how it had been with him on certain occasions. Maybe even Charlotte had been one of those occasions.
Marvik recalled the chaplains who had gone into battle with them. They’d trained as commandos, and they were tough, but they didn’t carry arms. There was one in particular, David Treagust, who he’d admired, respected and to whom he owed a great deal. He wondered where he was now. Had Blackerman been like Treagust? Had his officers respected him? What had they thought of this man who had killed a woman after making love to her? And why would he kill her? There was no suggestion of forced sexual activity in the reports that he was reading. And no mention of a marital rift in Blackerman’s life, but he was only reading journalists’ versions of the trial. There was obviously a lot more to the story.
According to the reports the post-mortem had confirmed sexual intercourse before Esther Shannon’s death by strangulation. Blackerman had pleaded not guilty and had strenuously denied the murder charge, claiming he had returned to his own room in the early hours of the morning and had left the club at six o’clock the following morning to catch the train home to his married quarters at HMS Excellent, Gosport, near Portsmouth, without any knowledge of Esther Shannon lying dead in her room. A jury had returned a majority verdict. Marvik didn’t know a lot about the law – and obviously there was more to the trial than he was reading here – but the evidence seemed pretty flimsy to him. Perhaps Blackerman had had a crap lawyer and the prosecution had an ace one. Charlotte was convinced that Blackerman had been genuine when he claimed he hadn’t killed Esther Shannon and she’d probably heard as many confessions as any priest to know when they rang true. The dying don’t lie.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs and he pushed down the lid of the computer and rose as Charlotte entered. Enveloped in a large sweatshirt of his she looked both tired and beautiful. She also looked strained and vulnerable. He put his arms around her to comfort her but soon he was kissing her. He hadn’t meant to but she didn’t push him away. Instead she responded hungrily and clung to him.
After a moment she pulled back. Eyeing him pleadingly she said, ‘I don’t want to be alone.’
‘You don’t have to be.’ And Marvik couldn’t help wondering if those were the very words that Esther Shannon had uttered to Terence Blackerman on the last day of her life seventeen years ago.
TWO
Thursday
He eased himself out of bed, trying not to disturb her. It was just before six and he’d been awake for an hour. Thoughts of Blackerman had plagued him during his fitful night’s sleep and, as he’d lain listening to the birdsong, he’d wondered if Blackerman had appealed against his sentence. Marvik had seen no mention of it in the reports he’d read on the Internet but perhaps the media hadn’t covered that, it being old news. And Marvik knew there was no chance of Blackerman getting parole if he was sticking to his ‘I didn’t do it’ story.
Charlotte stirred and opened her eyes.
‘It’s early, go back to sleep,’ he said but she shifted and propped herself up on one arm.
‘Sorry about last night.’ She squinted up at him bleary-eyed. ‘All that stuff about being followed. I made an idiot of myself. I was tired. That visit to the prison was awful. It smelled of fear and I kept thinking of how Paul had suffered and—’
‘Breakfast,’ he interjected brightly.
Her expression cleared. ‘Good idea. I’m famished.’
He showered and by the time he’d made breakfast, she’d also showered and dressed. ‘How are you getting back to Birmingham?’ he asked, while dishing up her fried egg and bacon.
‘Ferry from East Cowes to Southampton, then train.’
‘I’ll take you over if you like.’
‘You have a boat?’ she asked with delight.
‘Of course.’ Having spent most of his childhood on board his parents’ boat accompanying them on their marine archaeological expeditions, and then years in the Special Boat Services, he couldn’t live without one. He had to go over anyway. He wanted to see Drayle. He also needed to contact Strathen. He’d found three voice messages on his mobile phone from Strathen, each growing tetchier. ‘What are you going to do about Terence Blackerman?’ he asked her.
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