Murder at High Tide (The Ralph Chalmers Mysteries Book 4)

by P. J. Thurbin

  “Okay, okay. Are there any references to a rendezvous with his alleged lady friend?” Ralph asked with a laugh.

  “Okay you’ve had your fun. I’m going in to take a quick shower and put on something suitable for an evening in the pub, and then we’re off," said Katie.

  “Right. I’ll lock the place up just in case the bad guys decide to take a look around while we’re out.”

  It was quite a strenuous walk but fortunately there was plenty of scenery to distract them from their exertions. Ralph startled Katie with a sudden outburst which she recognized vaguely from her English literature classes at school.

  “Suddenly a hot gleam of sunlight fell upon the white cottages, with their grey steaming roofs and little scraps of garden courtyard, and lighting up the wings of the gorgeous butterflies which fluttered from the woodland down to the garden. That’s how Kingsley described Clovelly over 150 years ago, but not much has changed; it could have been written today.”

  “I knew there was a poet lurking in there somewhere,” Katie teased while Ralph tried to hide his embarrassment at being caught out by a rare display of sentimentality.

  After scrambling down a stone strewn pathway they were glad to arrive at what could have been the Inn mentioned in Treasure Island or where press gangs for whaling ships went in search of a new crew. It was appropriately called The Packhorse, an association with the donkeys that are still used to carry goods up the steep cobblestone streets to and from the harbour. Pushing open a heavy oak door they felt that they were stepping back into the 18th Century and would not have been surprised to see Robert Louis Stevenson’s Long John Silver and his motley crew of pirates standing at the bar. It only needed a parrot squawking -- ‘pieces of eight’ -- ‘pieces of eight’ -- to complete the scene. Instead they were greeted by a tall good looking man in a light beige suit with a bright blue shirt which was opened at the neck. Katie couldn’t help noticing that he looked as though he would be better suited to adorning the deck of a yacht in Monte Carlo than standing in a pub in a sleepy Devon village.

  “Hallo chaps. You must be the couple everyone is talking about in the village. Professor Chalmers, if I’m not mistaken; and you must be his attractive wife who wants to go riding up at Bay View Farm. I’m Miles Willard. I own what the locals refer to as that posh restaurant down in Hartland, Chez Liz. It’s named for my wife,” he laughed. “I just pop in here to keep friendly with the villagers, don’t you know.” He winked at them and touched the end of his nose. “But I’m forgetting my manners. Let me get you a drink.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Ralph replied, shaking Miles’ hand. This is Katie.”

  Katie noticed that Ralph didn’t correct Miles about their relationship and wondered how they would wriggle out of that one now that it was probably all over the village. She noticed that for all his bravado and panache, Miles Willard was extremely nervous.

  “We had quite a walk down the cliff path to get here and I think a cold beer for me and some water with a twist of lemon for Katie would hit the spot.”

  Katie knew that this was not the normal way that Ralph responded to strangers. His insecurities stemming from his working class roots always surfaced when confronted by anyone like Miles who was obviously from a more privileged background.

  “Good choice old man. Let me get you fixed up. Then I’m afraid I have to toddle off. My wife wreaks havoc if I’m not there to welcome our guests. We’re completely booked all this month and so we must be doing something right, but it means that it takes both of us to keep things running smoothly. It’s still a far cry from the restaurant we owned near Bordeaux, but at least we are able to bring something from the continent to the Devon countryside. The British may not embrace everything about French culture but they seem to have taken to their cooking with a vengeance. You must admit, The French know a thing or two about the culinary arts.”

  Without waiting for a reply he ordered their drinks from the publican and with a ‘cheerio’ he was gone.

  The publican put their beers on a table at the other end of the bar and said, “Sorry you got waylaid by Miles. He’s not a bad bloke but he can go on a bit.”

  “No, that’s all right,” said Ralph as he introduced himself and Katie. “We’re interested in what’s happening locally now that we’ve bought this cottage at the top of the cliffs.”

  “I suppose you heard about the Mary Ann being found off Hartland Point?” Ralph nodded as he sipped his ice cold beer. For some reason he did not want to mention that he was the one who had alerted the Coast Guard.

  “Well it’s a sad day for the village. I heard from my niece who works down at the police station in Bideford that the bodies of the skipper and his two sons were washed up in one of the coves early this afternoon. It seems it’s a case of murder now. Shot clean through the head; all three of them. Looks like whoever did it must have been up pretty close. It could have been a French fishing boat or they could have come across someone smuggling contraband and got in the way. So far it’s anyone’s guess. I shouldn’t be saying anything about it but I expect it will be all around by now. We are a small community and those boys they killed were like family. There will be trouble if the local fishermen find out who did it and get there before the police.”

  Just then the door of the pub opened and in walked a crowd of what looked like watermen. They gave Ralph and Katie a casual glance as the publican moved off to serve them. It was not long before other couples came in and soon the atmosphere was one that could be found in hundreds of pubs along the Devon coast that night. Ralph ordered their supper from the bar menu and they were soon tucking in to large portions of fresh cod, home cooked chips and French style green peas.

  “The peas and horseradish must be a concession to the tourist market,” Katie remarked.

  “But the fish is nice and fresh. I was never one for mushy peas, no matter how authentic they’re meant to be. And in any event it beats my usual Lean Cuisine in the microwave,” replied Ralph as he tucked in to his meal.

  “Now that chap is out of earshot, Ralph, what do you think about those fishermen? If he’s right, or to be more accurate if his niece is right, then you must have stumbled across a murder scene when you found the Mary Ann.”

  “It certainly appears that way,” Ralph replied as he downed the last of his beer.

  “What with all those newspaper cuttings of Wakely’s and those maps showing the Mary Ann going in and out of the harbour, not to mention Wakely’s accident and what that creep at the riding place shouted out about someone wanting to take a pop at me in Wakely’s car. Shouldn’t we go to the police and tell them about it?”

  “The problem is that officially we don’t know anything about what happened to those fishermen. If we go to the police now we’d be dropping the publican in a mess and his niece would probably get the sack. Besides, what we read in the diaries is all a bit thin. I think we should wait until after it’s in the papers or on the radio, then we can decide what to do.”

  “I guess so. We haven’t much to go on yet and another day or so won’t make any difference to those poor blokes that got shot. Their killers will be long gone by now. So let’s just enjoy the evening and try to look less like tourists than that bunch over there,” Katie whispered as she nodded in the direction of a table occupied by what looked like an extended family on holiday. “Now that we are quasi locals,” she laughed.

  “We had better get started if we don’t want it to be pitch black when we’re navigating that cliff path,” Ralph said as he mopped the last bits of fish from his plate.

  “This seems an unlikely little town to have an active smuggling operation,” Katie said as they picked their way along the path in the fading light. “What if it’s something like cocaine and not just cigarettes and alcohol?”

  “Well at a street value of around 100 million pounds sterling a ton, cocaine is a pretty lucrative business all right. I read about an ocean going yacht that sailed from the Caribbean with cocaine on board and then u
sed his GPS to rendezvous with a smaller yacht in the English Channel to transfer the drugs. I think they called it coopering. The smaller yacht drops the drugs off in a local port as customs rarely bother with a yacht that has been out for less than a day.”

  “You’re just a wealth of knowledge,” Katie said somewhat sarcastically. “But do you think this shooting could have anything to do with drug smuggling?”

  “Maybe, but my guess is that it’s more likely cigarettes. I also read that the IRA use Chinese container ships to smuggle cigarettes into Ireland and then they are repackaged and sent to the UK and mainland Europe. The paper estimated that It costs the UK Government about 2 billion pounds a year in lost revenue.”

  “So it’s not much different than in the old smuggling days when it was rum, silk and tobacco being brought up these cliffs on the backs of those poor donkeys.”

  “Not much. Especially if you add the wine and beer which the article said loses the UK Government another 2 billion pounds,” said Ralph as he grunted his way up the steep pathway.

  “Well, we made it,” Ralph said as they arrived back at the cottage. “And at least we won’t have to feel guilty about all those fish and chips.”

  “I’m knackered,” Katie said as she headed upstairs toward her bedroom.

  “I’m a bit bashed out myself,” Ralph agreed. “I’ll get stuck into that report first thing in the morning and see if I can’t break the back of it. Then later this week I might go down to Bideford to see if I can speak to the reporter who wrote all those articles that Wakely collected.”

  “I might go back into Hartland and see if I can find out anything about a painting class for you, Ralph. All work and no play make Jack --- and all that. We can’t have you pining away while I’m out enjoying myself.”

  Katie was soon fast asleep and dreaming of galloping across the green countryside.

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  Chapter 6

  A few days later Ralph headed off to the town of Bideford where he had arranged to have lunch with Bob Wyman, the chief reporter at the Bideford Weekly News. He had left Katie at the cottage waiting for a delivery of some plants and bark she had selected from the local nurseryman the day before. She was determined to restore the garden to its former glory and was even considering entering the annual Hartland Village Open Garden competition.

  The roads were clear and the views of the surrounding hills were breathtaking as the road wound through the summer scented countryside. There were sections that passed through valleys where small waterfalls could be seen rushing through the narrow shady gullies in between the overhanging rocks. This might not be such a bad place to live all year round, thought Ralph. Once the summer visitors had gone home the villages would be quiet and the roads clear. Just then a tractor emerged from a gate leading from one of the farms. The driver even gave what Ralph interpreted as a friendly wave. He glanced at his watch as he glided into the car park of the Fox and Hound Pub where he had arranged to meet Bob Wyman. He smiled as he remembered that a reporter was usually the one on the lookout for a story whereas this time the roles were reversed. Ralph was determined to find out more about Richard Wakely’s accident and the likelihood that the fishermen had been killed by a drugs gang.

  Stooping under an overhanging beam as he entered the pub he saw a tall rangy figure in a tweed jacket with one foot on the polished brass bar-rail, downing a beer.

  Sticking out his free hand towards Ralph, he smiled a greeting. “Bob Wyman. You must be Professor Ralph Chalmers?”

  “Am I that recognizable?”

  “Well not really. It’s just that I looked you up on the web and there was this article in the Surrey Comet newspaper about you helping the police to solve a couple of murder cases. So I suppose your reputation precedes you, as they say.”

  “Well thanks. It was just a bit of luck; nothing too clever.”

  “Without luck I would be looking for another job. Most of the time we reporters have to turn the smallest happening into a story, and in a place like Bideford small happenings are about all we can hope for,” he said with a laugh. “But let me get you a drink. The local brew is Bideford Special Ale. It’s not bad, and just right for this weather.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll just order some pie and chips while you’re doing that,” Ralph called over his shoulder as he turned to place their order at the other end of the counter.

  They took their beers out onto a small enclosed cobblestone yard that overlooked the harbour and sat at a beer stained weather worn wooden table and waited for their food to arrive.

  “Thanks for agreeing to meet, Bob. I have to admit that I am hoping to get a story from you, which I suspect is not the way it usually works.”

  “Happy to help if I can, Ralph. What was it you wanted to know?”

  Ralph explained how he had alerted the Coast Guard about the Mary Ann being adrift and finding Wakely’s diaries and the marked-up charts and cuttings in Wakely’s barn. He said nothing about the shooting that the publican at the Pack Horse had told him about as so far he had heard nothing on the radio about it and he was not sure if it had all been rumor and supposition.

  “Well Ralph, you may be on to something,” Bob said, placing a chip carefully onto a large piece of meat pie. “You would have seen from the cuttings that there has been some smuggling along this coast over the past 18 months. The police and customs boys have not had a great deal of success at finding the source. They think that local fishermen are involved and there have been one or two arrests, but so far they haven’t been able to get any convictions. People around here are a pretty close knit lot and no one is going to speak out for fear of repercussions.”

  “Have there been any developments about the Mary Ann?”

  “You are right on target there. I went to the County Police HQ this morning to a briefing for West Country TV and the press. Some of the national papers were there so it has become big news, as they say.” He continued to chase the pieces of meat pie around his plate using his knife. “They announced that the skipper of the Mary Ann and his two sons had been shot and they’re treating it as a murder enquiry.”

  “So it may not be a coincidence that Wakely had been watching the Mary Ann going in and out of the harbour and collected the smuggling articles; do you think he was on to something?”

  “Could be. Do you think you could let me make copies of the charts and his diary? I might be able to make a story out of it.”

  “Don’t you think I should turn them over to the police? I mean if they’re connected to a

  murder enquiry I wouldn’t want to be accused of withholding evidence.”

  “You’re probably right. Go ahead and hand the stuff in. I should be able to piece together a story that hints at why the Mary Ann was out that day even without those documents and I might even be able to link it to Wakely’s death. After all, creative writing is the name of the game in this business. We’ll leave the hard evidence to the police and the courts to unravel.”

  Ralph was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable about the whole thing. If Wakely had been watching the Mary Ann he may have found out something about the smuggling or perhaps mentioned it in the local pub. Maybe someone decided to silence him or warn him off and things got out of hand. They might have panicked and gone to search his cottage in case he had left any notes about what he had found out. Maybe they were even the ones who had vandalized the place.

  “For all we know Wakely could have been working undercover for the Customs and Excise people,” Bob said. “If so the national papers would want my story for sure. It could even put our Weekly readership up. That might pull in the advertisers and that’s where we make our money nowadays.”

  Ralph saw that he had to make a stand before things escalated out of control.

  “Look Bob, a lot of this is just speculation and there may be no connection at all. I was probably just getting carried away with the old cloak and dagger thing. For now I’m just going to turn that box of Wa
kely’s over to the police and leave it up to them to give you clearance to publish your article. If Wakely was working undercover then the police could be near to making a big break-through over the smuggling. They would come down on us like a ton of bricks if we screwed up their operation.”

  “Okay. Why don’t we go down to the police station together? I know Detective Inspector Fletcher and I believe he has been assigned to this case. Let me give him a ring. Have you got that chart and the diaries with you by any chance?”

  “They’re in the car outside.”

  “Good man.”

  Bob flipped open his cell phone and called Inspector Fletcher.

  “Yes, we’ll come in right away,” Ralph heard him say just before he snapped the cover shut.

  It was a typical County Constabulary building with 1930’s red brick frontage surrounded by a small lawn and some sparse but well kept flower beds. Ralph noted that the public areas in just about every village were always planted with bright orange and yellow marigolds; probably inexpensive and reliable, just like the constabulary, Ralph thought. They were shown into an office whose windows were stuck closed by generations of enamel paint. The tiny oscillating fan on top of the filing cabinet did little more than stir the stifling hot air.

  “So Bob, what’s all this about Wakely having some connection with the Mary Ann? It better be good. I’m scheduled to play golf this afternoon with the Chief Constable and it’s wise to be on time.”

  Detective Inspector Thomas Fletcher was large and slightly overweight. Only the fact that he was well over 6 feet tall saved him from bordering on the obese, not that anyone would call him that to his face. He had giant hands that gripped like a vice when Bob introduced him to Ralph. Getting your collar felt by this policeman would not be a good experience, he thought.

  Bob made some references to Ralph’s having helped the Metropolitan police in some earlier cases and then explained that Ralph had bought the Wakely cottage near Clovelly and how he had found the box of charts and clippings and a diary in the old barn on the premises. Ralph had been standing there trying to balance the box on the corner of the desk with one hand while the introductions were being conducted and was happy to hand them over to Fletcher. The Inspector flicked through the diaries and peered at the charts.