The Funeral Boat (24 page)

‘What do they say?’ asked Pam.

‘How’s your Old English? Mine’s not too hot … I couldn’t really understand them.’

Pam’s eyes lit up. She knew her three years at university studying English hadn’t been completely wasted. ‘A bit rusty but not too bad. I must admit that when everyone else on my course was moaning about having to study Beowulf, I actually liked it. I even enjoyed reading it in the original Old English.’

‘Swat,’ muttered Neil with a grin. ‘So you can translate this lot?’

Pam shrugged modestly. ‘I’ll have a go. How long have I got?,

‘Well, I’m taking everything over to the County Museum on Monday, so you’ve got a day or so. You don’t mind if I kidnap your husband and take him for a drink, do you?’

Pam gave her consent, for once without resentment. She looked at the papers with eager anticipation. At the top they bore the words ‘exact copies of parchments found in carved ivory box discovered in floor cavity during structural renovation of Longhouse Cottage, Stoke Beeching, the originals being in very poor condition’. After long months of sleepless nights and nappy-changing, Pam was eager to exercise her brain again. She took a notebook from the sideboard drawer and settled down to work.

Now he was feeling better, Dave was enjoying the attention he was receiving in hospital; enjoying his banter with the prettier nurses, too … although he would never have admitted this to Rachel. .

Rachel sat by the bed, picking at a bunch of grapes absente mindedly, as if her thoughts were somewhere else.

‘Penny for ‘em, Rach.’

She looked up guiltily. ‘What? Oh, sorry, Dave. I was miles away. It’s been quite a day.’

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‘Yeah. Right. Great you’ve got that load of bastards behind bars. Awful to think that Proudy must have been keeping an eye on your place all the time he was staying in the old barn. Still, it’s all over now, eh?’ He touched her hand.

She gave him a slight, sad smile. ‘We reckon one of them’s still on the loose … but they might have headed back to London by now. Apparently the whole thing was arranged-in London using the Viking re-enactment group as a cover, with Jock Palister providing the local knowledge for this series of raids. Proudy had had some dealings with Palister in London, so they brought him in on it because of his garage expertise. That woman hasn’t left yet-Proudy’s girlfriend … Astrid or whatever her name is. I suppose someone’ll have to tell her what’s going on. So much for a free holiday with a bloke you’ve just picked up, eh?’

‘Now she’s a nasty bit of work,’ said Dave unexpectedly. ‘What is it they say? The female of the species is deadlier than the male?’

‘What do you mean?’ Rachel was helping herself to another grape, only half listening.

‘When she threatened him. It was all a bit hazy after I was knocked out, but now it’s coming back. I heard them arguing, her and Proudy, on the evening before the robbery. She told him he was dead meat if he said anything … she sure sounded vicious.’

Rachel stood up, placing the bag of grapes firmly in Dave’s hand. ‘I’ve got to make a phone call,’ she said before rushing out of the ward, hoping Dave’s revelation hadn’t come too late.

At half past nine that Saturday night Astrid Jones was packing her suitcases into her car. The police had swallowed her story whole, and she hadn’t told anyone she was going. It was better that way - to leave quietly, to get out of the area and back to London before any of her associates took it into their heads to betray her;

When two police cars arrived to arrest her she ran off towards the fields, her last desperate attempt at escape guided by the instinct of self-preservation rather than reason.

It wasn’t long before she was caught and led away to the waiting cars, swearing colourfully and cursing the fickle cowardice of men.

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Gerry Heffeman lay awake, the anthem he was to sing with the choir in church the next morning echoing in his head. He wished he could forget it. He wished he could get some sleep. There would be no day of rest for him this coming Sunday.

He had received the call about the arrest of Astrid Jones earlier that evening, and he made a mental note to congratulate Rachel on a good piece of deduction. Astrid had fooled them into thinking she was an .innocent bystander, accidentally involved by the foolish acceptance of the offer of a free holiday. How wrong could they have been?

She was known to the police under the name Astrid Johnstone, a German national who had married - and later divorced - a British serviceman. She had lived in Yorkshire - at Catterick - when she arrived in Britain. There she had first met Lol Proudy, and she had met up with him again when she moved to London. She had been suspected of conspiracy to rob a series of post offices a year ago but had been released owing to lack of evidence. Using Thor’s Hammers as a cover had been her idea, and Jock Palister had given her the idea of robbing isolated farms. She was a good organiser, a clever woman. And she had taken Gerry Heffeman in completely. Perhaps, he thought in the self-doubt of the small hours, he was losing his touch.

He was just drifting off to sleep again when he heard a sound outside his bedroom door. Surely Sam couldn’t be back so late. He got out of bed, pulling up his pyjama trousers to ensure decency, and crept out to the landing, where a series of floorboards creaked musically beneath his feet. He was just in time to see a strange sight - a tall figure dressed in shaggy skins with a pair of alarming horns protruding from its head. The figure disappeared rapidly and soundlessly into Sam’s room.

Heffeman quickly shot back into his bedroom, leaning on the door that he had closed firmly behind him and telling himself that he must be dreaming … or the beer in the Tradmouth Arms wasn’t agreeing with him.

When he finally drifted .off to sleep, Gerry Heffeman dreamed )f strange homed creatures, seven feet tall, driving stolen quad Jikes on the choppy river … and they all had Sven Larsen’s dead,

lisfigured face.

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‘Where’s the boss gone?’ Rachel Tracey asked the next morning. Her manner was guarded, quiet. Wesley could tell her mind was on things other than police work … but in view of the recent events at Little Barton Farm, this was hardly surprising.

‘He’s nipped off to church … the choir can’t function without him, apparently. He should be back soon.’

‘How did the post-mortem go?’

‘Larsen was knocked unconscious then somehow he found his way into the water and drowned. Colin Bowman reckoned he was knocked out with something like a fire extinguisher. He found tiny traces of red paint in the wound. That means someone was out there on the boat with him.’

Wesley and Heffeman had gone to the mortuary early that morning to watch Colin Bowman examine the mortal remains of Sven Larsen. His conclusion was that Sven had been murdered. He had been hit over the head with a blunt instrument, then he had fallen overboard, perhaps in an attempt to escape. The sea had done the rest, and the actual cause of death was drowning. The forensic tests on the yacht concluded that an accelerant of some kind had been used to set it alight - probably the spare fuel stored aboard for the petrol engine. It was no accident. It was murder. And the murderer - on the yacht with Larsen - had used the dinghy to escape after setting fire to the vessel.

The fire suggested that the murderer had thought Larsen dead or deeply unconscious and that his body would be consumed in the flames, along with any other forensic evidence. But somehow Larsen had met his death in the cold waters of the English Channel. There was one question that would have to be answered. Just who had shared Larsen’s last voyage?

Wesley’s thoughts were interrupted by the distant strains of ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’ being sung enthusiastically by a tuneful baritone voice.

‘He’s back,’ said Trish Walton as the singing grew louder.

The inspector burst in, beaming around at his assembled team. He carried on singing as he made his way to his office. Wesley followed him.

‘Very appropriate hymn,’ he said as his boss sat down with a heavy creak. ‘For Sven Larsen, I mean.’

‘You’re right there, Wes. When we sang it this morning I kept thinking about him lying there on Colin’s slab. He was in peril on

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the sea all right … or rather from whoever was out there with him. I talked to Jim from the boat hire company again. He was in church and I caught him after the service. He said Larsen was definitely on his own when he set off.’

‘He must have picked someone up on the way.’

‘Someone he knew … someone he didn’t mind going sailing with. Who?’

‘His sister?’

‘Oh, come on, Wes. She’s been kidnapped … the chloroform.’

‘It was just a thought. After all, it’s his first visit here. He didn’t know anyone in the area. What about fingerprints on the dinghy?’

‘There are loads of them. But nothing that helps us.’ Heffeman sighed. ‘Anyway, with the farm robbers safely banged up we can concentrate on this case. Do you believe that they didn’t do Wexer’s farmT

‘I don’t know what to believe. They’re certainly unanimous that they had nothing to do with that one.’

‘Well, let’s hope they’re lying, eh? Armed robbers aren’t exactly renowned for their open honesty, are they? They’ve just brought Lol Proudy over from Morbay. Shall we have a word about that video of him talking to Ingeborg?’ Heffeman rubbed his hands together with gleeful anticipation. ‘Come on, Wes. Let’s see what Proudy’s got to say for himself.’

Laurence Proudy had had a busy morning. He had been transferred to a cell in Tradmouth police station, where his fellow robbers were being held, and now he was being shown a video by that big Scouse inspector and his posh black sidekick. He couldn’t complain that the police weren’t keeping him entertained.

He had admitted everything about the robberies. And now Astrid, the brains behind the whole operation, had been caught, he had confirmed her part in it all as well. There was too much evidence against them to get away with it. And confession, apparent repentance, was good for the soul, so he’d heard … and always impressed juries. But this … Somehow he had to convince these men that he had had nothing to do with the disappearance of that Danish woman.

He looked at the stilled image on the television screen. Him and [ngeborg. ‘Yeah, okay. I met her. I just bumped into her in Boots. [ told her the insurance was being sorted out … that everything

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was going through. That’s all. Honest. She just asked me when I was getting my car fixed … all polite, like. There wasn’t no aggro. We only talked for a minute. I didn’t mention it before, cause I didn’t want no trouble. I only saw her for a minute. It wasn’t important.’ He looked from Heffernan to Wesley, his piggy eyes pleading for them to believe him.

‘What happened after you left the shop?’ asked Wesley quietly.

‘We just said goodbye. She went off up the hill towards the castle and I went the other way. I’d just gone into Neston to pick up some shopping.’

‘Why not Tradmouth? That’s nearer to Little Barton Farm, surely.’

Proudy looked awkward. ‘Er … I was going to meet up with Jock and Darren in the pub. Astrid was meeting us there and all. Jock and Darren had a Hammers rehearsal that afternoon so it had to be Neston. You can ask them, they’ll tell you,’ he said with confidence.

‘Was anyone else around when you met her?’ asked Wesley. ‘Anyone who might have been following her?’

Proudy thought for a moment. ‘That video … wind it on a bit, will you.’

Wesley obiiged. Proudy stared at the moving figures on the screen, people coming and going. ‘I’m sure a woman came out of the shop at the same time as us. I can’t see her here … no, there she is, just a glimpse, see.’

Wesley froze the video. A woman in a straw sunhat and large dark glasses flashed into the picture and then disappeared.

‘She was sort of hanging about, near where, er … Ingeborg was. Then she left at the same time … nearly bumped into me, that’s why I remember. I told her to look where she was going. Then she hurried off after Ingeborg towards the castle.’

‘Could she have been following Ingeborg?’ asked Wesley, winding the tape back to see if the woman made any other appearances.

‘No idea. That’s your job, isn’t it,’ Proudy said, defiant. He had had enough.

Wesley and Heffeman watched the tape again, but the straw-hatted woman only made fleeting appearances. Her protection from the summer sun made her unrecognisable anyway. But

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Wesley stored it in his mind for future reference and continued with the questioning.

‘Did you ever meet Ingeborg Larsen’s brother, SvenT he asked, searching Proudy’s face for a reaction.

Proudy looked puzzled. ‘Nah … didn’t even know she had a brother. Why?’

‘Because he’s just been found murdered.’

Proudy looked horrified. ‘Well, that’s not down to me. How could it be when 1 didn’t even know he existed?’ Proudy was starting to sound worried. ‘Look, just because 1 put my hand up to robbery doesn’t mean I’m a murderer. We never even used loaded shooters. We said before we started out. No unnecessary violence.’

‘That’s very public-spirited of you,’ said Heffeman sarcastically. ‘Maybe you’ll be in line for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize. But there’s the small question of Daniel Wexer … the farmer who was shot. Why did you abandon his car in NestonT

‘I didn’t abandon no car. What kind was itT

‘You know that, surely. It’s a Land Rover. Brand new.’

‘Well, if I’d nicked it it’d be driving round the M25 with new number plates on by now. That proves it wasn’t us,’ he said with finality.

Heffeman stood up. ‘Right, Mr Proudy. I think that’s all for now.’

Wesley switched off the tape machine and followed his boss from the interview room.

‘Believe him?’ asked the inspector as soon as they were safely out in the corridor.

‘Yes, 1 think 1 do,’ replied Wesley, deep in thought. ‘I don’t think he knows anything about Ingeborg Larsen’ s disappearance.’

‘And Dan WexerT