A Case of Crime

by Marsali Taylor

  With a long sigh and still-trembling hands, de Lacy began to dig.

  Meteors and Myths

  Marsali Taylor

  I was sailing in the meteor-crater of St Magnus Bay when I heard the woman’s Mayday.

  Now, the solution to this murder doesn’t depend on some esoteric point of my Doppler self-steering system, so you don’t need to know how it works. The tiller’s pulled by cords attached to a plywood vane, and it’s spot-on upwind, when the sails are close to the boat’s centre-line; I’d gone all the way to Norway with it. The problem is when the wind’s behind you. Quick adjustments are needed to avoid a gybe, that turn of the boat’s stern across the wind that brings the boom crashing over from all the way out on one side to all the way out on the other. An unexpected gybe in a blow can bring the mast down, so I was keen to get the Doppler tuned; the Trade winds to America come from behind you.

  So there I was, heading diagonally north-east from the Vementry guns to Eshaness in a steady force 3 southerly, tightening and loosening cords, shifting the little pulleys they ran through, keeping a weather eye on a grey Dacron sail coming towards me from the Drongs, and occasionally ducking as I felt that moment of hesitation just before the boom came swinging over. I’d got it all working nicely, and was having a mug of drinking chocolate and contemplating the tiller moving by itself when the radio crackled into life.

  ‘Help – I need help – my husband’s gone overboard – please – ’

  Anita’s voice cut over her. ‘Caller, this is Shetland coastguard. Can you give us your position?’

  ‘We were on our way to Brae – there are those sea stacks not far behind us –’

  The boat ahead? I reached for my binoculars.

  ‘Is there anyone else on the boat?’

  ‘I’m on my own, I don’t know how to sail – there’s a steering thing – I don’t know how to stop it –’

  Anita spoke slowly. ‘Stand in the middle of the boat and look ahead. Are you likely to hit anything?’

  I used the pause to cut in. ‘Shetland Coastguard, this is yacht Khalida, off Nibon. I see a yacht to the north. I’m on my way.’

  Over the engine starting noise, I heard Anita passing on the reassurance. ‘A yacht’s coming to help you. Just stay calm.’

  It took seven minutes to get to her. The boat was a 35-foot Westerly, slicing her way upwind towards the Muckle Roe light. I turned Khalida so that our noses were facing the same way, looped a rope around the midship cleat, and climbed up.

  The woman was huddled in the cockpit. She was in her mid-fifties, ash-blonde, dressed in nautical chic. Her fashionably gaunt face was flushed and tear-stained, and the second I came aboard she grabbed my arm with both hands. She’d had time to work herself into near hysterics.

  ‘He sank – he went over and down, just like that – just there. We need to go back –’

  ‘The lifeboat’ll search.’ I patted her shoulder in what I hoped was a reassuring fashion. ‘Now, you go below and make us a cup of tea. I’ll get this boat stopped.’

  I shifted a well-worn lifejacket to start the engine, unhooked the self-steering, and furled the sails. By the time I’d done that, the lifeboat was beside us, and I was able to leave the hot, sweet tea process to our fatherly coxswain and head home to Brae.

  ‘So,’ DI Gavin Macrae said, ‘given the body had totally vanished, and given she gets enough insurance money to buy several mink coats, the procurator fiscal said to ask a sailing expert.’

  He was driving me over the Camel’s Back towards Aith, where the lifeboat had towed the Westerly. He was a good driver on this testing road, slowing for corners and accelerating round them, seeing the one passing car a mile before and curving smoothly into the passing place to let it go by. He drove two handed, long fingers steady on the wheel.

  It was just after nine, and the sun had already climbed above the west Kames and was dazzling on the water. As we came up around Gonfirth Loch the bonniest view in Shetland lay before us, hill after hill, Vementry covered in chocolate-brown heather, the green of the Isle beyond it, then the cliffs of West Burrafirth, fading back into the blue of Sandness hill, with the long line of Papa Stour grey behind that, and at last, thirty, forty miles away, the three shelves of Foula floating on the wide Atlantic. After that, nothing but sea and sky until America.

  Gavin was on duty; instead of his usual kilt and the ancient jersey I reckoned his granny had knitted him, both in a suitably manly shade of sludge green, he looked almost unrecognisable in a black kilt jacket with silver buttons, and a scarlet kilt and hose. He seemed remote, profile on; the long, rather flattened nose, the high cheekbones and level mouth, the sea-grey eyes veiled by dark lashes.

  I sensed curtains being twitched and binoculars raised as the police car came around the curve into Aith, past the school, and down to the marina. Gavin already had a key; he clanged the gate open and we walked along the wooden walkway to the end pontoon. I paused to survey the Westerly before climbing aboard. She wasn’t new, but someone had spent a fortune keeping her updated. Her hull had been resprayed recently, and was polished to a blinding gloss. The anchor poised on the bow was a re-styled Danforth. There was a new jib, the mainsail cover was this year’s, her winches were strong enough to hold the Titanic, and even the stern anchor had its own roller, although there was no kedge rigged. I swung on deck and stood behind the wheel. No Heath-Robinson wind-vane of cords and pulleys for this boat; she had all the electronic gadgets to let her follow a pre-plotted course on her own while you slept or made tea or just enjoyed the view.

  ‘What’s the wife’s story?’

  Yesterday must have been rugby day; Gavin winced as he followed me over the guard rail. ‘The classic sailing accident. Boat gybed, boom caught him on the back of the head, he went over, never came up.’

  Now that was interesting. ‘In language that technical?’

  ‘I’m being technical. Her actual words were –’ He flipped out his classic black notebook and went into witness box mode. “The sail came crashing over, and the metal bit at the bottom hit him and he just went over.”’

  That was more like it. I had a quick look in the cockpit locker: warps and fenders on top of the dinghy. ‘Was he an experienced sailor?’

  ‘Very. He’d had the boat for twenty years, sailed her all around Britain, and, according to the wife, spent a fortune on her.’

  ‘I’ll vouch for that.’ The gadgets on board were £20,000 worth, easily. I opened up the washboards and climbed down into the cabin. It was lined in cherrywood, with all the comfortable clutter of liveaboards prepared for sea: books on their shelves, dishes stowed, sleeping bags rolled up, and the paper chart laid out. Above it was the largest size of electronic chart plotter, along with an AIS, a radar and a DSC radio. Even the most complete landlubber would know exactly where she was with this set-up.

  Gavin followed me below. ‘A lot more room than on your Khalida.’

  He was uncomfortably close, in this small space; my heart jerked a quicker rhythm. ‘A third longer, nearly twice as wide. Can I turn this on?’

  ‘Use that pencil, just in case.’

  I switched the chart-plotter on and left it to warm up. ‘How did the wife feel about all the money going on gadgets?’

  ‘She didn’t approve.’ Gavin sat down behind the table and watched me prowl. ‘Another suspicious factor is that she actually came with him this time. She never had before.’

  ‘Why’d she come this time?’

  ‘They’d had a bad patch. She thought it would be good for her to share his interests for once.’ He grimaced. ‘Or a good way to get rid of him. A crack on the head with a bottle, a spanner. Weight his body with something – ’

  I had a look in the forrard locker. There was about thirty metres of chain, and a great coil of warp, but not what I was looking for. ‘There’s a stern roller, but no sign of a stern anchor.’

  Gavin raised his level brows. ‘Oh?’

  ‘10lb of steel, with a rope to tie
round him. Ask his regular crew if he had a kedge.’

  Gavin made a note of it. ‘Kedge. She’s small and slightly built, but a determined small person could heave a large one overboard.’

  ‘I’d use the topping-lift myself, the rope that holds the boom up when there’s no sail on. Loop it through his belt, tie it to, say, the cabin grab-rail, haul him up over the rail, untie the rope, let him fall. That’s assuming she could tie a knot that would come undone under load.’

  ‘She’s a Guide leader. No body, no wound to compare to the shape of the boom; no evidence.’

  ‘No lifejacket?’

  Gavin shrugged. ‘A lot of people won’t wear one.’

  ‘His was lying in the cockpit – I remember shifting it to start the engine.’ It was lying on the couch now, faded with light and spotted black with mould. I passed it over. ‘Exhibit A. This has seen use.’

  Gavin scrutinised it, then laid it aside. ‘It still doesn’t mean he was wearing it yesterday.’

  ‘Lifejackets are like car seat-belts,’ I said. ‘You’re either in the habit of wearing them, or not. Have you ever seen me at sea without mine, even in a flat calm? Ask his crew what his habits were.’

  He shook his head. ‘He might have taken it off for some reason, like delving down into a locker.’

  ‘She’d have told you that, if he had.’

  He made another note. ‘I’ll ask her, see what she says.’

  ‘It was a good time for a non-sailor to ditch a body too,’ I said. ‘For a start, there wasn’t much wind, so she wasn’t going to come to any harm alone in the boat. It was far enough from the shore not to be seen, no houses watching, no other boats, except for me, two miles away, and – the clincher – within easy reach of a lifeboat, to tow her in. You could go a good way round Britain before you found that combination.’

  ‘She’s not going to tell us she knew how close to help she was.’

  ‘If she could read a map,’ I said, ‘and I would think a Guide leader could, it’s on the plotter. All she needed to do was touch the “ship to centre” button, there.’ I indicated it with the pencil. ‘A fingerprint on a gadget would tarnish the boat novice image.’

  ‘Good, but not conclusive.’

  ‘Oh, conclusive.’ I reflected for a moment, then sat down on the berth and leant my elbows on the table between us. ‘Gybing accidents are one of the things everyone knows about sailing. The boom comes over and hits you on the head. You go over, knocked out, drowned before help arrives.’

  His grey eyes sharpened. ‘And?’

  ‘If you’re inexperienced, maybe. Otherwise, it’s a myth. You feel it coming. The boat tips, and hesitates, and then the boom comes over, and by then, particularly in a boat you know as well as he knew this one, your head’s down without you even thinking about it. Now, if he’d murdered her that way, you’d never have been able to prove it.’

  ‘I’ll settle for proving she murdered him.’

  ‘Easy.’ I stood up and beckoned him over to the chart plotter. He came to look over my shoulder, his breath warm on my ear. ‘She won’t know it, but somewhere in this nice, expensive GPS system is the track of the boat’s last course. I’ll bet you –’ I paused to consider the state of my finances ‘– a crab stick supper from Frankie’s that it doesn’t show a gybe. Remember the wind direction.’ I scrolled down, zoomed in and pressed the ‘track’ button. The red line sprang up, wavering in zig-zags from Eshaness to halfway down St Magnus Bay, a couple of circles as she was taken under tow, then arrow-straight through the Rona to Aith. ‘You’re looking for a sudden turn where the boat’s stern goes from, say, West Burrafirth to Nibon.’

  ‘The boat’s stern?’ He frowned. ‘But it was pointing in the other direction.’

  ‘Get out your handcuffs.’ I turned my head and smiled at him. ‘And you’d better give up this rugby and come out for another sail. You’re forgetting everything I’d taught you.’

  I switched the plotter off and led him back out into the fresh air.

  ‘The wind was behind me, remember, and they were coming towards me. You can’t get an accidental gybe going into the wind.’

  The Adventure of

  The Dead Wild Bore

  A short story featuring Holmes and Garden

  Andrea Frazer

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Sherman Holmes – a fan of Conan Doyle’s world-famous detective and a private investigator

  John H. Garden – cross-dresser and also a fan of the detective; friend and partner of Sherman Holmes in ‘Holmes & Garden – Private Investigators’

  Joanne – wait and see!

  Members of the Quaker Street Irregulars – a Sherlock Homes appreciation society:

  Antony, Cyril

  Cave, Christopher

  Connor, Ludovic

  Crompton, Stephen

  Dibley, Aaron

  Jordan, Elliot

  Lampard, Peter

  Warwick, Dave

  Wiltshire, Bob

  Wood, Kevin

  – and Sherman Holmes

  Staff of The Sherlock public house:

  Brownlow, Richard ‘Dick’ – barman

  Peake, Suzie – chef

  Richardson, Tony – waiter

  Shields, Michaela ‘Micki’ – barmaid

  Wordsworth, Greg and Tilly – landlord & landlady

  The Officials

  Detective Inspector Streeter of Farlington Market CID

  Detective Sergeant Port, also of the CID

  Part One

  Sherman Holmes put down the telephone handset and stared around him with satisfaction. He was at his desk in the dining room of his apartment, which was furnished and decorated in homage to his fictional hero, the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes.

  He gazed fondly at the violin mounted on the wall above the fireplace and the row of meerschaum pipes displayed on the mantelpiece. He smiled at his slightly battered leather Chesterfields facing each other across the pathway of the fire’s welcome heat, and he thought about his new, cloaked overcoat, which hung out on the hallstand, a deerstalker hanging above it. He was very pleased indeed with his late Victorian/Edwardian time-warp apartment at 21B Quaker Street, in the relatively quiet town of Farlington Market.

  Holmes was in his mid-fifties, fairly short and plump, and with a fine moustache that was definitely ‘of the era’, and he spent a lot of his time reading Victorian or Edwardian novels and re-reading the fascinating tales that Conan Doyle had related about his genius detective.

  Before he had met his new business partner, John H. Garden, he had led a mundane life as a local government officer. Then fate had intervened, when a large inheritance from a hitherto unknown relative had landed in his lap, and he decided that it was time to change his life before it was too late. The unexpected money had given him the freedom to do just that.

  At that juncture, he had decided to go away for a few days to really mull over his options, and had chosen to stay at The Black Swan Hotel in Hamsley Black Cross, a small town just a few miles away, and his fate was sealed, for he met his new business partner there, and they now had offices just a few steps away from the hotel.

  As he smugly contemplated his cosy residence, his cat, Colin – he of the mercurial temper – strolled in and began to rub his face on the leg of Holmes’ trousers. ‘Hello here, old boy,’ he greeted his pet, not particularly acknowledging what a fine mood the animal was in, as, in his eyes, Colin never suffered from a bad temper and could do no wrong, no matter what house guests told him to the contrary.

  He did not have a busy social life or many visitors, but even his new friend Garden had complained of being ill-treated by this feline, and Holmes believed, contrary to the evidence of his own eyes, that this was merely playfulness on Colin’s part, and that the cat meant no real harm – even when he’d decorated the inside of one of Garden’s shoes in a most unpleasant way.

  ‘He was just putting his mark on it, to show that he likes you,’ Holmes had told Garden, b
ut his partner knew better, and avoided Colin as much as good manners allowed. If it was possible for a feline to look malevolently at a person, then Colin certainly did so with Garden, and Garden wisely kept his distance.

  John H. Garden had received Holmes’ call on a cold, misty, damp November afternoon in his bijou flat above their offices in Hamsley Black Cross, and had been delighted to receive an invitation to accompany him that very evening to a meeting of a local branch of a Sherlock Holmes appreciation society.

  He was as big a fan of Conan Doyle’s detective as his colleague, and was grateful for the opportunity of something to do and some company, for he did not get out much either. The reason for this was also the reason that he had also gone to The Black Swan Hotel, for John H. was a transvestite who was still in the closet. He had also thought that a few days away would help him sort out what he actually wanted to do, and if he dared really be himself, and had booked a bargain break at the very same hotel.

  The threads of fate that had drawn them together, then threw murder in their pathway, and in the light of this, they had made an unlikely alliance, quite quickly gaining offices, due to Holmes’ large windfall, and set themselves up as private investigators.

  At the time they met, John H. was thirty and still living with his mother with whom he did not get on. He had a very unhappy working life with an insurance company, and a huge secret life locked in his bedroom and wardrobes, consisting of frocks, skirts, blouses, ladies’ shoes, wigs, make-up, and costume jewellery, and yet only his mirror had seen his alter ego, Joanne.

  Physically, he was slim and on the tallish side, with wavy brown hair and a predilection to brightly coloured clothing, mostly due to his experience with women’s clothes. Although he always dressed smartly, now he dressed brightly as well, and had been delighted when the office premises they’d leased proved to have a small flat above it, where he now lived a fairly contented existence, especially as Joanne had made her debut public appearance during their first case together.