Sabrina & The Secret of The Severn Sea

by Guy Sheppard

  ‘Dunno. But not long afterwards a woman came to the prison and spoke to him, too. I distinctly remember that she wore a dark brown racoon gilet. She kept its furry hood up all the time she was here.’

  ‘She got a name?’

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest idea. Cordell got really agitated as soon as she sat down with just the hard plastic tabletop between them. I really thought he was going to do a runner back to his cell. Instead, he went all defensive. J, I ain’t no fucking grass. Slim Jim could have stopped all such bollocks by telling the truth. I have always been there for you and Rex, but no one’s ever been there for me. We are like family. Help me, because the truth will hurt.’

  ‘That it?’

  Hammond shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know what the issue was between J and Cordell but it seemed to relate to their dealings years ago.’

  Jorge nodded. Two people at least had been interested in Cordell’s return to the real world.

  ‘Whoever forced Frank Cordell to jump off the roof may have viewed him as some sort of traitor? Then again some people are so feral that they think the only way to resolve even a petty misunderstanding is to use violence.’

  ‘You a full-blown detective now, Inspector?’

  ‘Cordell mentioned a woman with his dying breath. He also said that Reverend Luke Lyons did not commit suicide.’

  ‘What can I say? Cordell boasted about all sorts of things. He was a serial offender. Always in and out of clink. But as far as I recall, he was eager to salvage his reputation about something.’

  ‘Could ‘J’ have been a redhead, at all?’

  ‘Like I said, I wasn’t the one who had to comb her hair for drugs on her way into prison. I didn’t get the impression that she was a relative, if that helps? You can always tell the wives and girlfriends. After a while they look as if they’re visiting the dead, but they’re the dead ones. They are single but not single, free but not free, with their relationships on hold for as long as their partner stays inside. She wasn’t the sort to have illicit sex in plain sight, nor was she there to deliver him a ‘Dear John’ letter. It looked like strictly business to me.’

  ‘Thanks for the pictures, Mr Hammond.’

  ‘Cordell was a right piece of shit. You hear me?’

  ‘What do you think he meant when he said he would be rich one day?’

  Hammond’s lips curled in ever greater disgust since that was what he thought all interest in paedophiles merited.

  ‘Wow, you’re persistent.’

  ‘Trust me, I am.’

  ‘Shit. What’s wrong, Inspector?’

  The world had begun to spin as Jorge felt himself go pale.

  ‘You ill, Inspector? Have you considered that you might be in shock after what you saw in Bristol?’

  ‘Do me a favour, don’t tell anyone we had this conversation. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Why the fuss? The man was a fantasist.’

  ‘These ships that Cordell drew are copied from medieval pictures of Spanish treasure ships. Galleon, serpent, gold, they’re all part of a theme – he had you thinking he was madder than he was.’

  ‘You don’t want to bother about all that, Inspector.’

  ‘Drawings can express heartfelt feelings. Only feelings keep one’s soul alive.’

  ‘You suppose?’

  *

  Jorge marched back to the prison chapel. It was 18.30. In half an hour Hammond would lock up and go home and he should, too. Instead, he straightway wiped clean a pew with a tissue. He sat down. Donned his gloves again. Examined Cordell’s pile of pictures on his lap.

  He stared at the red-headed sea-serpent in his hand. It could have been either the embodiment of greed or the retribution it deserved.

  He studied the quotation from Revelation 13: 1. on the back of one of the rolls of paper.

  Sat there undecided for a moment.

  Then, holding the drawing up to his face, Jorge recognised subtle alterations deftly made: And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on ‘her’ horns and blasphemous names on ‘her’ heads.

  To Cordell the beast was semi-human. How could he have been so careless as to have misread it before?

  He turned over a second picture and there, too, was a biblical quotation on its back.

  ‘Bold move, Cordell, but I have to ask myself why, even if I had been as obsessed as you were, would I have chosen Isaiah 45: 3?’

  God was addressing Cyrus, the Persian King, whom He was going to help capture Babylon: I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places. The gold of pagans was usually concealed in the darkest of locations. A man would have to go somewhere that was without light, both factually and spiritually, to find it. Might that not be deep under the sea? Or river? In looking for hidden riches in such dark places, could he not expect to anger some guardian angel? Had Frank Cordell?

  The doomed man had, with his dying breath, given him an actual warning; his plea for help had been no less real. Whatever it was, Jorge felt quite sure that he had said it to Rev. Luke Lyons, too.

  *

  He marched out of prison only to discover that someone had pinned a note to the windscreen of his camper van. Any such message could only be bad news?

  Cowardice outstripped courage for a moment.

  What was it going to take to find Rev. Luke Lyons, anyway?

  He had to ask himself whether he was ready for all the discoveries that might lie in store for him?

  Slowly and with great apprehension he eased the piece of paper from beneath its rubber wiper.

  With heart racing, he examined its blood-red words.

  It was a leaflet entitled ‘Live happy with Slimming World’.

  13

  The strangely white morning was as wet as a Scotch mist as Luke took Sasha for a walk by the Severn. Raindrops ran like beads round the rim of his black leather fedora while, with a shiver, he turned up his coat’s furry collar.

  If it was one thing that he had missed during his years away from home, it was this particular stroll along the riverbank.

  Today, however, the drizzle had a peculiar way of misleading him. Like smoke. But for the seawall the fog was thick enough to lure them right into the water – each fresh step stressed the tide’s musical proximity. He was drawn to the sound of its apparent singing, although in no actual singer did the waves result.

  The mist drifted across sand and rocks in a series of castellated clouds. It built some sort of silvery palace. From dark currents rose turrets at whose every window shone a light.

  The harder Luke strained his eyes to penetrate the haze, the more the palace retreated – the less and it returned. Next he became aware of a different chill, even sliminess, on his cheek – a sudden, violent change of feeling, hardly explicable for a moment, but whose touch could have been a scaly, fish-like hand. He rubbed his face with his glove and his alarm diminished – walked on and it returned.

  ‘Am I not simply seeing a reflection of the actual castle at Berkeley?’ he told himself, while he observed the clouds drift by.

  There again, this Fata Morgana was most likely some ship’s navigation lights severally refracted first by the fog and secondly by the water.

  ‘Sash! Come! Time to go home.’

  Someone swathed in a white coat and a scarf stood in Hill House’s curving driveway. Luke could make out a few features, if not all the face featured.

  His chest tightened and his breathing quickened. He felt an uncanny tingling electrify the hairs on the back of his neck.

  Sasha growled and refused to move another inch, only drew attention to the mist that was coiling and uncoiling everywhere around them. Finding someone bar the way like that was confusing.

  ‘Steady, now, Sash.’

  Just because that phantom palace a moment ago had left him unsure whether anything this morning was real or unreal, or just plain wrong, did not mean that he should see more ghosts now, thought Luke. The sp
ectre stayed where it was at his advance. Soon they were not six paces apart.

  Whoever it was had very long red hair. Her face was angular and strikingly chiselled, her eyes very narrow, her cheeks rather bleached as if worn by care or weather. Her black painted lips breathed white snakes which writhed about her in the cold air with a life that was uncannily eel-like.

  She could have been a Greek Hydra who kept two wolfish black hounds on tight leads while, with peculiarly grim and decisive smile, she put out her hand by way of greeting.

  ‘Did I startle you, reverend? I like to walk my dogs early in the morning, too.’

  ‘Oh no, I’m okay. I’m fine,’ replied Luke. ‘Absolutely I am. Do I know you?’

  Hands met briefly glove to glove.

  ‘My name is Sabrina ap Loegres. Don’t worry, Varg and Freya won’t hurt you.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean they didn’t scare the shit out of me the other night.’

  Sasha growled deeper.

  ‘Forgive me, I’ve come to apologize. My companions caught someone poaching in the deer park and chased him down.’

  ‘Doesn’t explain how he came to be wet and naked.’

  ‘Most likely he tried to ditch the smell of deer on his clothes so that my hounds couldn’t track him.’

  ‘By the look of him he almost drowned.’

  Sabrina’s sea-green eyes flashed silver.

  ‘The Severn can be very unforgiving.’

  ‘You got that right.’

  ‘And whose fault was that?’

  ‘Like it or not, the poor man was terrified.’

  ‘Really he came to very little harm, reverend.’

  The hounds grew restless.

  Luke delayed rather than rush their parting.

  The fear was not for himself but for Sasha’s safety; he did not want her bitten.

  There hung in the air the damp, iodized smell of some unusual perfume. Its aromatic scent of the ocean brought with it a hint of seaweed, rock pools and salt.

  ‘Have we met before by any chance?’

  ‘No, sir, but I’m staying awhile at Berkeley Castle.’

  ‘Then please know that I’m Reverend Luke Lyons. I’m the new vicar for the local parish. I very much hope to officiate at my sister Ellie’s wedding in St. Mary’s Church this summer.’

  ‘Then you will have chosen the castle for the reception?’

  ‘Unfortunately she failed to secure a booking. Can’t be helped, I guess.’

  ‘You should let me put in a good word for you.’

  ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘I don’t know if I can but I have friends who might.’

  ‘I remember now. I saw you at the head of a funeral recently?’

  Sabrina dipped her head to one side…

  Sasha snarled.

  …even as her thick, flowing hair fell forward to expose one ear and its silver serpent.

  Luke had not forgotten her beauty, yet how that beauty astounded him now! Never had such eyes anchored his with such depth of understanding, never before had anyone captivated him as she did, face to face. Thus was he inclined to believe all her blithe talk of poachers.

  ‘That would be Stephen who drowned in the river,’ said Sabrina.

  ‘I saw his name spelt out in flowers. Who was he, exactly?’

  ‘It makes no difference now. Varg. Freya. Come. We must return at once.’

  ‘To the castle?’

  Sasha fretted. She tried again to read his face. Decided how best to react to this stranger. Kept looking to him for her cue, Luke noticed. Or she couldn’t believe that he was being so stupid.

  Sabrina took a step backwards into the mist’s confusing swirls.

  ‘As you say – to the castle.’

  ‘Did I say something wrong?’

  ‘Good day, reverend. Don’t forget. Let me help your sister.’

  ‘Wait, at least tell me the breed of those hounds of yours. I’ve never seen such fine animals.’

  ‘They’re Nordic hunting dogs. These, however, are no ordinary Norwegian Elkhounds but the rarer black ones. It is a lighter, faster dog. They possess great energy, too. Most of all they are loyal by nature, more so than men and make good watchdogs at home. They are more biddable than Alaskan Malamutes, for instance.’

  ‘I love the way they curl their tails forwards over their backs.’

  ‘It is a trait bred into them. It means that at a distance hunters can tell them apart from wolves, since wolves always trail their tails behind their bodies at all times.’

  ‘Do they howl, at all?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I heard a lot of howling last night from the direction of Berkeley Castle’s kennels.’

  ‘Really, reverend, I don’t know what you heard.’

  Sabrina signalled him good morning. She gave him a frown that verged on the abrupt. Perhaps frowns from her were always that spellbinding? Then she led her pack quietly away into the mist. Many a dog had to be restrained firmly from an early age or they could challenge you later. You needed to assert your authority right at the beginning, but she had. They had learned their place in the family hierarchy; they had been taught never to try to displace her at all.

  He resolved to discover more about her as soon as possible if he could.

  ‘Come, Sash. Time to take a drive into town. I don’t know about you, but I need my breakfast.’

  *

  Less than an hour later Luke was sitting in some cosy tearooms just off the High Street in Berkeley, while Sasha sat outside in the cobbled yard where people parked their bicycles. He was eating his bacon and fried egg sandwich when an elderly man looked up from a neighbouring brown wooden table.

  He stared back as openly as politeness could dictate. He did it with much slow spreading of marmalade on his toast. He only knew that at nine a.m. someone should be able to eat his meal in peace.

  Instead, his rude scrutineer earned his wife’s admonishments.

  ‘For God’s sake, Sam, stop staring. Your sausages will get cold.’

  ‘I’m telling you, Sheila, it could be him. Look at the nose.’

  Sheila dropped her fork with a clang.

  ‘Don’t be silly. Rex Lyons died years ago.’

  Then the large, red-faced Sam again swivelled his head his way, Luke noted.

  ‘Yeah, well, I dare say, but he is literally his spitting image you have to admit.’

  More tense moments passed. Then Luke rose from his table and walked boldly to the counter. Smiled pleasantly at the waitress.

  ‘Americano, please. Half a shot.’

  ‘We don’t do half shots.’

  But he could be charming.

  ‘Americano. Half a shot only.’

  The whole atmosphere in the room they could all agree was discomfortingly charged. Two other elderly men were seated at a table by the fireplace. They stopped chewing panini. Observed what was going on.

  Luke ran his hand over his oily, slicked black hair. His fists opened and closed several times as he regarded himself in the mirror behind the counter. Then he spun round. What could it cost to come clean if it helped him to be the person that he needed to be from now on?

  ‘My name is Reverend Luke Lyons. I’m your new vicar. You have something to say to me?’

  What occurred in the next few moments was not expressed in words. All four breakfasters, finding they had no more appetite, stood up together. They seized hats and coats. Crossed bare, creaking floorboards in a hurry. Shut the door behind them.

  Clearly his challenge was too scary to be challenged.

  ‘You from around here originally, then?’ asked the waitress, impressed, as she mopped the counter very hard. Her hazel eyes widened his way.

  Luke sipped his coffee.

  ‘It’s been a while.’

  14

  ‘You got a kiss for me then, Luke?’

  From the look on his sister’s face his arrival at Floodgates Farm was all the relief he could ever hope for.

&n
bsp; ‘It’s been too long, or what?’

  Kissing, though, was not something he ever did.

  ‘For God’s sake, brother, let me hold you,’ said Ellie, settling for a hug. ‘I’m glad to say that you look so much less sallow in real life than you do on screen.’

  ‘You on the other hand are just as bonny as I’d hoped. I know I’m late but “Happy Birthday”.’

  So saying, he produced a small, red velvet box from his coat pocket.

  ‘So this is my long lost twin at last,’ said Ellie, laughing.

  ‘No more lectures?’

  ‘It’s so strange to think that last Sunday was your birthday, too.’

  Luke watched her open the box. Saw her examine its silver bracelet engraved with entwined dragons.

  ‘Hope you like it. It’s modelled on something Anglo-Saxon.’

  ‘Not nicked, is it?’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘I’m not really a jewellery sort of person. It soon gets trapped in all the machinery round here. But thanks, it’s very nice. I have an Easter egg for you back at the house. Hope you like dark chocolate?’

  She must have felt very unsure that he would show up at all as she registered the look on his face.

  ‘Don’t tell me. You’re a milk chocolate man?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘But Jeremy, my fiancé, will eat anything.’

  He had a strong sense of literally how childishly her complaint rankled. They might have spoken for weeks via Skype and phone ever since he had tracked her down on social media, but not in the flesh.

  ‘Who’s this with you?’ asked Ellie.

  ‘Meet Sasha. Or Sash, for short.’

  ‘Dogs make me nervous ever since a Great Dane bit me in Spain when I was little.’

  ‘No, yeah, I didn’t know?’

  ‘There’s a lot we both don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t worry, she won’t hurt you.’

  Sasha went off to hunt cats.

  Ellie’s blue-black eyes mirrored his. Again she clawed dark curls across her brow, since she really was very nervous beneath all the bravado. He felt the same. This was not going to be easy but very definitely would he try to enter into the occasion.

  ‘You’re so tall!’

  ‘So are you, brother, but far too thin.’