Death on a Longship

by Marsali Taylor

‘And Elizabeth? What did she do?’

  ‘Went to the party for half an hour. Found the ouija board stuff very childish and went to bed. Alone.’ He paused for emphasis. ‘The net’s closing, Ms Lynch, with only a few fish left in it. Your father, the missing Maree, Mr Johansen, and you.’

  Elizabeth, in love with Ted. Gibbie Matthewson, with his obsessive hatreds. Kenneth, to stop the wind-farm. There were more fish than he knew, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  He let the silence hang, then, when I said nothing, stood up. ‘I’d better see how they’re getting on.’

  Khalida rocked gently as he climbed aboard. I’d been right about him being used to boats; he went over the guard rail without fumbling. Sergeant Peterson came out to sit beside me, curling her legs underneath her like the Copenhagen statue of the little mermaid.

  ‘You keep your boat very tidy,’ she said.

  ‘I have to,’ I said. ‘When you’re at sea the boat’s liable to be lying on its side at any moment.’

  ‘I’ve finally managed to buy my own place,’ she said, with good cop friendliness, ‘but it’s absolutely tiny. I had to weed out everything. One casserole dish, one pan, one frying pan. As for my clothes –’

  ‘But it’s yours,’ I said.

  ‘No landlord on my back saying I can’t do this, can’t do the other.’ She re-settled herself, keeping her polished shoes well above the salt-stain waves. ‘Funny thing is, now I don’t want to cover the walls with posters any more. I went to a car boot sale and bought framed pictures, and a bedspread.’

  ‘Nowhere to put a bedspread on Khalida,’ I said cheerfully. ‘She’s not one of these aft cabin island bed jobs.’

  ‘It looked cosy, your bed,’ the Sergeant said. ‘If you’re away on your own, though, how do you sleep and keep a lookout for cargo ships running you down?’

  ‘I cat-nap and pray,’ I said. ‘It’s a big ocean. They’ll probably miss me.’

  Overhead, the terns swooped and screamed. The water lapped at Khalida’s side as the men moved around in her. I could see the search in my head. They’d take the covers from my bed, lift the mattress, and see that there was nothing but water-tank and fuel lines underneath. They’d inspect the engine cavity with a flashlight: the prop shaft stretching into darkness. The next compartment, under the chart table: spare clothes, in a polythene bag. One of them was at the cooker. I could hear the clatter as he lifted out the pans from beneath it. Another would be taking out the books from the starboard shelf, checking there was nothing behind them, then going down to the compartments: tins, packets, cold store with butter, cheese, yoghurt, and fruit. There was a clunk as someone shut the sink stop-cock. I supposed they’d take samples to make sure no murderer had washed off blood in it. The forepeak would be last, with Anders’ sleeping bag and gear and the anchor chain in its locker. There was a rattle as someone lifted the tool-box. Hand-sized, more like a stone …

  Tool box. Gibbie. I turned to Sergeant Peterson. ‘When will we be allowed back on board Stormfugl?’

  ‘When forensics have finished. It takes as long as it takes.’

  ‘Will you be leaving someone aboard overnight?’

  Her brows rose. ‘Do you think that’s necessary?’

  I shrugged. ‘I just wondered.’

  She gave me a narrow-eyed look. ‘I’ll tell the officers on patrol to keep their attention on her.’

  Gibbie. He’d have come in the darkness, not at 4 a.m. ‘Did Favelle die straight after she was hit?’

  I got the glare again. ‘Why do you ask?’

  I remembered touching the still neck. It had been chilly, not cold; the life-warmth not completely gone from it. ‘She wasn’t long dead when I found her, but I saw no sign of anyone around.’

  There was a pause, then a sideways glint from the green eyes, hard as glass. She threw another sprat to catch a whale. ‘She was struck on the back of the head, and the blow didn’t kill her immediately.’

  I didn’t ask how long she’d lain there on the half-deck, dying. I didn’t want to think about it.

  DI Macrae came out again at last. ‘Thank you, Ms Lynch.’ He gave me back the key, with its monkey’s fist ring that Alain had made. ‘A clean bill of health.’

  ‘No blood-boltered weapons,’ I agreed.

  ‘We’ve set aside some clothing we’d like to go to forensics.’

  ‘Be my guest,’ I said. The clothes I’d washed that evening. I was sorry to see my favourite gansey in the plastic bag. Even if I got it back, I didn’t think I’d want to wear it again.

  DI Macrae was just turning away when the white limo came down the gravel track in a spurt of dust and pulled up beside us. Ted leapt out. He had a light blue file under one arm.

  ‘Inspector, I saw what looked like a search of Cass’s boat. Surely she’s not a serious suspect?’

  ‘We have to consider all avenues of investigation,’ DI Macrae said stiffly.

  Ted gave me a warm smile. ‘I don’t believe it.’ He turned back to DI Macrae. ‘Inspector, Cass had no motive to kill my wife.’

  ‘I think the police case,’ I said, ‘is that I mistook her for Maree.’

  He didn’t ask why I should have wanted to kill Maree. Maybe he heard more gossip than I gave him credit for. ‘You couldn’t mistake Favelle for Maree. They looked quite, quite different.’

  No they didn’t, Ted, I thought. You’re protesting too much to protect Favelle’s secret.

  ‘The main difference was in the hair length and colour,’ DI Macrae said. ‘We have found a white beret which I was hoping, sir, you would identify as Favelle’s.’

  Ted’s long eyelashes flew up. ‘Found it? Where?’

  ‘Did your wife wear a white beret, sir? The sort of knitted job a woman might tuck her hair up into?’

  I betted the ‘sort of knitted job’ was a milliner’s creation costing half his monthly salary.

  Ted nodded. ‘She had a beret like that, yes, sir. Although you’d need to show me the actual one.’

  ‘In good time, sir. But you see, if she’d tucked her hair up into it, then she could easily have been mistaken for Maree.’

  Ted shook his head very definitely. ‘No, sir. I’m certain it was Favelle he was after. I shouldda taken him seriously. I wanted to spare her worry –’ He pulled the file out from under his arm, fumbled it open. ‘She’d been receiving anonymous letters.’

  I gave myself a mental gold star.

  DI Macrae took the file from him. ‘How many people have handled these, sir?’

  ‘Just myself,’ Ted replied.

  ‘Not your wife as well?’

  ‘No. That’s what I said – she didn’t know about them.’

  ‘They came by post?’

  ‘The first few, yes. I opened the first one in error, and after that Elizabeth looked out for them. I didn’t want Favelle to know about them. She’s so … she was …’ He closed his eyes for a second, mouth twisting. ‘There were half a dozen of these letters, if I remember aright, but I’ve only got two here. We keep them all from her. She needs – needed – to believe everyone loved her.’

  ‘Is that what you quarrelled with Maree about?’ I asked.

  His head jerked around. ‘How d’ya know about that?’

  ‘I was in Khalida here,’ I said. ‘Sound travels over water.’

  He hesitated for a moment. ‘Yeah,’ he admitted. ‘Maree wanted to tell her. She was afraid Favelle might be in danger. I didn’t agree, but after that rock fell on set I decided I’d take them to the cops. I was gonna come in yesterday, and then …’

  DI Macrae opened the front flap of the file and tilted it to look at the letter inside. I was too far away from him to be able to read any of it. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t keep all the letters, sir. When did the first one come?’

  ‘April, if I remember aright. There was a paragraph in the papers about her coming here, and the first one came shortly after that. There were another couple – no, maybe three, while we were still in LA. I’m pre
tty sure she didn’t receive any in Norway. Then, when we came here, I found one lying on her dressing table; not posted, just put there, and there was another one the next day. That’s what’s in that file. I didn’t like that. Someone here was responsible.’

  ‘You’ve no idea who, sir?’

  Ted shook his head.

  ‘What did the envelopes look like?’ I butted in. DI Macrae gave me a look.

  ‘Have you any reason to ask that, Ms Lynch?’

  ‘She received a letter that last day,’ I said. ‘I wondered if it had upset her. A long, white envelope, typed, official-looking.’

  Ted gave me a surprised look. ‘That was it. A white envelope, and the address typed, like a business letter.’

  ‘Did you keep the envelopes too, sir?’ DI Macrae asked.

  Ted shook his head. ‘The two I found weren’t in envelopes. They’d been printed on one of our office printers – well, that’s what it looks like.’

  ‘And who has access to the printers, sir?’

  ‘Everyone. People are always printing things off, script revisions, timetables, letters, notices.’

  DI Macrae sighed. ‘Very well, sir. Thank you for that. We’ll try fingerprinting them.’ He turned towards the drive by the Boating Club. ‘Thank you for your co-operation, Ms Lynch.’

  ‘Inspector,’ Ted said, ‘we need to get the cameras rolling again. The insurance people are on my back. Last night Michael and I had a look at what we still have to shoot, and we need another day of the longship.’

  ‘You can tell your company, sir, that the ship is under forensic investigation.’

  Ted looked as if he was going to argue that one. The inspector spoke drily. ‘We’ll let you proceed as soon as is possible.’

  Martin held out his hand. ‘Good to see you again, Cass. Listen, are you going up to see Inga?’ He spoke casually, but the tone took me back fifteen years. Martin looking under the jib, watching for the moment to put in a fast tack that would leave our opponents at a loss: Now, Cass.

  I picked up the cue as quickly as I’d flipped the helm over. ‘Yeah, I was thinking I’d call along, tell her what’s going on down here.’

  His smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I was along her last night, but I forgot to take over a thing I had for Peerie Charlie. Can you tell her I’ll be over later?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  I watched them go around the marina and into the clubhouse. I’d have liked to move Khalida to her own berth, take possession once more, but there was no time. Martin wanted me to go to Inga as soon as possible. Something was wrong.

  Inga, Charlie, and the bairns lived in one of the new crofthouses built in the eighties, when the arrival of the oil meant that Shetland became rich. Charlie’s father had built himself a large, open house with a big kitchen-sitting room whose picture windows framed a panoramic view of Busta Voe. Inga couldn’t quite see her childhood home from her married house, but she was close. She could see her primary school, and her secondary school, and the hall where we’d gone to discos through our teenage years, and the garage shop where she’d had her first Saturday job. I looked out at it and saw our history spread before us, and was half glad I’d gone out into the world, and half sorry.

  Inga had bruised circles under her brown eyes, as if she’d not slept for a couple of nights, and her dark hair was scraped back in an untidy bundle. She wore old jeans and a T-shirt, and had a carrier bag in one hand, with a thermos sticking out.

  ‘Hi, Cass. We’re just heading for the hill. Fancy seeing if you can still raise peats?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t actually have to work, just talk. Sorry, but I really have to get these done. The forecast’s for rain come the end of the week.’

  ‘Chocs,’ Charlie stated, as she added a packet of Penguins to her bag.

  ‘Once we’ve done some work,’ Inga said. ‘Come on, boy.’

  We set off at Charlie pace up the gravel track behind the house, and soon arrived at the top of the hill, a stretch of level moorland furrowed with rain-streams and tussocked over with pine-green heather. There was a honey smell as the old stems crunched under our feet. Little birds flitted white tails at us and a Shetland sheep escorted its rust-brown lamb away in a spurt of gravel. The view was breath-taking: the dazzling blue of Busta Voe, with the houses scattered along the shores, and the marina cradled in its rocky arm. Even as I looked, though, I saw reminders of the serpent in Eden, a line of police cars with yellow-flashed roofs heading towards Busta.

  Inga’s peat bank was right on the crown of the hill. The peats hadn’t been long cast; the face of the bank was still smoothly black, oil-shiny, below the chequered wall of cut peats on its head. In front of the sliced bank, in the greff, lay a rummle of bigger peats, the first to be cut. I remembered the greff as being the worst bit, because of the peats being big lumps of moor. That was where you started, though. Inga put the thermos and biscuits down, and we set to.

  It didn’t take long to get back into the rhythm of stooping and swinging, lifting the heavy blocks and setting them upright against each other. My arms and back were soon aching, my bruised ankle protesting``. Inga was quicker than me, planting her feet apart in a circle of peats and bending from the waist to catch up and place the misshapen rectangles. She worked with a suppressed anger that made me wonder if this was her way of smashing mugs, and soon a row of miniature wigwams trailed behind her. Peerie Charlie pottered about peaceably, poking his fingers in the front of the bank and sploshing in the burn. He’d need a complete change when he got home.

  Inga straightened when we’d done about half the bank. ‘Tea-break.’ I glanced at my watch and was surprised to find only half an hour had gone by. ‘Charlie, do you want a biscuit?’

  ‘Chocs,’ he yelled, and came charging over, feet stumbling on the uneven heather. ‘Mine.’

  ‘Of course yours,’ I agreed, and patted the wiry grass beside me.

  He sat down with little feet sticking straight out, and began to unwrap his biscuit with total concentration. I was given the wrapper, a bit sticky, and he launched into the biscuit.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘what’s wrong?’

  She gave me a hesitant look, weighing something up.

  ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Spit it out. I wouldn’t believe you killed her if you told me so.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Inga said. She paused, then added vehemently, ‘But I felt like it. She was a wicked, wicked woman.’ Her eyes moved to Charlie, intent on covering his face and both hands in chocolate. She lowered her voice. ‘Her lawyer phoned and said she wanted to adopt him.’

  ‘Adopt him!’ I echoed.

  Inga’s dark eyes snapped with anger. ‘That’s what I said. “Adopt him?” I said. “The boy has a father and mother who love him. Of course we’re not going to let her adopt him.” And then the lawyer started on about all the advantages he’d have. Best opportunities, best education, best of everything. Well, I wasn’t having that. “And I suppose,” I said, “along with that goes the celebrity lifestyle and the paparazzi and fear of kidnapping and the drug taking the second he’s a teenager? All the advantage he needs,” I told him, “is to grow up here in the country, where he can run free and have fun, with his own family around him. And as for education,” I told him, “the schools in Shetland are among the best in Scotland, you just look at the league tables in the papers. And we’re never yet had bairns shooting each other.”’

  She paused for breath.

  ‘And then –’ Her voice rose in indignation. Charlie looked around, and she softened it to a vehement hiss. ‘This lawyer had the cheek to tell me I wasn’t bringing Charlie up properly. I’d been seen to use physical violence on the child, he said, and was I aware that could be reported to the authorities? Well. “I’ve brought up three children,” I said, “and nobody’s so much as hinted that any one of them’s been ill-treated. That physical violence Charlie got, as you call it, was a warning to him to behave. I was passing him from the boat into a r
ubber boat, and he was wriggling so hard he was liable to fall in, and if you call it good parenting to let a child of two fall in the open sea, well, I don’t. Furthermore,” I told him, “if you’ve ever seen a child of two that doesn’t have tantrums, you’ve seen a child who gets its own way in everything. No child of mine’s going to be brought up like that.” And then – you’re not going to believe this –’

  I was finding it hard to believe it already. Had Favelle really thought a child was just ask and have? I thought of other celebrity adoptions and supposed that, yes, she did. From her point of view, it was a selfish parent who’d stand in Charlie’s way. She wasn’t a mother; she didn’t understand.

  ‘Then,’ Inga continued, ‘he offered me money. Money. For Charlie. Oh, he didn’t call it that. He oozed on about expenses, and allowances, but that’s what it boiled down to. She thought I’d sell him. I’m telling you, if I’d had her there in front of me, I’d have –’

  She broke off. The fan of red hair in the pool of blood swam across my eyes.

  ‘So,’ Inga finished, ‘I told him he was offering blood money, and we wouldn’t touch it. Even that didn’t stop him. He said he could see the idea was a shock, and he’d write it all down and send it to us. I told him if I heard one more word about it I’d go straight to the papers and tell them Favelle was trying to steal my child.’

  ‘Nice one,’ I said. Charlie finished his biscuit and came over to us, sticky hands held out. Inga fished in her bag for a packet of wipes and sorted him.

  ‘More choc?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘Come and help us raise.’

  We creaked to our feet. ‘So,’ Inga finished, ‘that was the last of him.’

  ‘That’s incredible,’ I said. ‘I know film stars lead sheltered lives, but I can’t believe she thought you’d just give up your child.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Inga said. ‘I know I’m not always fussing over him and cuddling him – well, he’d hate it if I did – but she surely thought I didn’t care at all. Well, she knows now. She’s been told.’

  ‘How do you mean, she’s been told?’ I asked. ‘Did she come herself?’