Death on Lindisfarne (11 page)

“Over there,” said the woman at the radio. “To your left.”

Lucy could just make out two small figures along the beach. The Land Rover rocked over the hillocks down on to gently shelving sand. Lucy could see them more clearly now, just above the high-tide line. Aidan and Peter. Waiting.

She tried not to look too hard at the dark thing that lay inert on the sand between them.

The Land Rover drew up in front of Aidan and Peter. Aidan watched a grey-haired man in blue overalls get out on one side. A taller, younger man followed. Lucy jumped down from the other side. The fair-haired driver stayed, with a middle-aged woman talking into a radio handset beside him.

He was startled to see how pale and tired Lucy looked. She had seemed so fresh-faced and fit when they met. He should not underestimate the depth of her shock.

She stood now, hands in pockets, looking down at Rachel's still face.

“May light perpetual shine upon her,” she murmured.

Words Aidan remembered from Jenny's funeral service.

“Amen,” he whispered.

The older of the coastguards held out a hand to Aidan. “John. I assume you've tried CPR?”

“As well as I know how.”

The younger man knelt down. He held Rachel's nostrils and blew into her mouth several times. Then he began chest compressions, more strongly, even brutally, than Aidan had dared to. Mouth to mouth again. Then more compressions.

Time stretched out. Aidan felt that none of them really expected a miracle to happen.

At last the man sat back, exhausted. As Aidan had done earlier.

“No joy, I'm afraid. She's gone.”

He got to his feet and turned to look along the coast, eastwards. There the sand flats ran out into a rocky headland.

“Funny, that. You could understand if she'd gone out on the rocks and slipped. Or got trapped when the tide turned. But how does she get to drown on the open beach?”

The grey-haired John turned his grave face to Lucy. “I'm sorry to ask this, love, but is there any reason to think she might have been suicidal?”

Lucy winced. Then she raised her eyes and looked steadily at him.

“She'd had a bad time. In care as a child. Mother a druggie. She'd been using drugs herself. But she was pulling herself out of it. Getting her life together.”

“Still, it happens, doesn't it? They get a bad day. The black dog on their back. And suddenly it all seems too much to go on.”

“Yes,” Lucy almost whispered.

Dan, his hair whipping in the breeze, came back and knelt beside the body. He felt the pockets of her black coat.

“If they're set on drowning, they usually weight their pockets with stones, walk out into the sea and just keep going. Or throw themselves off a rock.”

“She was in the water when we found her,” Peter said. “At least, in the shallows. The waves were sort of rolling her up the beach.”

“How long had she been missing?” John still had his eyes on Lucy.

“It was after half-past ten when any of us last saw her. At the priory.”

The coastguards looked at each other thoughtfully.

“So, suppose she goes out to Snipe Point. Jumps off. How could the incoming tide carry her here?”

The older John shook his head. “No chance. She'd have been washed back onto the rocks. Or the current would have taken her east.”

“So, she drowns on a flat sandy beach. And she's obviously not been swimming.”

“I'm sorry, love,” the senior officer said to Lucy. “It can't be very pleasant, listening to us discussing this. But the police will ask the same questions. We know this coast. They'll want our opinion.”

“Yes, I know.” Lucy's voice was firmer now. “Would you give me a moment with her?”

There was a brief hesitation before they understood her. Then, Dan flushing a little, the two coastguards stepped back. Aidan and Peter looked at each other. Then they too drew back, leaving a private space around Lucy and Rachel.

The young minister knelt on the sand and stroked the hair from the girl's face. She clasped her hands in prayer. From a distance, Aidan heard only the murmur of her voice.

Then Lucy stood. Aidan saw her straighten her shoulders in that familiar gesture. She was in charge of herself again.

The rush of the breeze was swallowed up in a louder roar. The senior coastguard shaded his eyes.

“Jean's done her stuff on the radio. They've sent in the cavalry, I see. Air ambulance.”

J
EAN, THE RADIO OPERATOR
, leaned from her window. “Where do you want it?”

“Should be room in that little car park behind us. Not likely to be cars there this late in the day.”

John leaped into the rear passenger seat and the Land Rover crested the dunes and disappeared. A few moments later, Lucy watched the helicopter settle out of sight, flattening the grass of the dunes as it passed.

She felt emotion draining away from her. She was becoming detached, distant from what was happening around her. She had done all she could, for James, for Rachel. It was out of her hands now. She could leave it to the professionals.

Professionals. Once that would have been her. PC Lucy Pargeter. In a way, she still was one. The dog collar she had worn this morning marked her out to the public as the Reverend Lucy Pargeter. The sort of person people expected to comfort them in grief.

Now she was the one who needed comforting. Or would do, when the reality came back to hit her with full force.

She recognized the detachment that was taking over, making everything seem small and far away, as a symptom of shock.

The professionals were coming back over the ridge. Besides the coastguard John, were a portly man in orange flying overalls and a younger one carrying a stretcher.

They had hardly descended the dunes when another man came striding after them. He wore a Nordic sweater and a waterproof jacket. Lucy flinched at the look of enthusiasm in his youthful face. She had already guessed who he must be.

He advanced towards the group, lifting a hand in acknowledgement to the younger coastguard, who seemed to know him.

“Hi, Len,” Dan called to him. “Hope we're not spoiling your Sunday.”

Len held out his ID to Aidan, assuming, Lucy thought wryly, that he would be their leader. “Detective Constable Leonard Chappell, Northumbria Police. Thought I might get here ahead of the air ambulance, but didn't quite make it. I'm sorry about this. Were you a friend of the deceased? A relative?”

“Detective?” Aidan sounded startled.

“Routine. Unexplained death.”

Aidan motioned him towards Lucy. “This is the Reverend Lucy Pargeter. She's in charge of our group. She'll explain better.”

“Sorry, Miss Pargeter. I mean, Rev.” Her status seemed to embarrass the young detective.

“Lucy will do,” she said, to put him at ease.

“You can identify the body?… Oh, by the way, this is Doctor Forbes.” He waved at the portly man, who was now kneeling beside Rachel's body. “He'll deal with the medical formalities. We need him to pronounce her dead.”

“Yes,” said Lucy, marvelling at her expressionless voice. “Rachel Ince. I've known her for three years. I brought her to Holy Island.” Just for a moment, her voice caught on the words. “I'm running a study holiday here.”

“Who discovered the body?”

“I did.” Peter shambled forward.

Lucy felt a pang of guilt that she had not given enough thought to Peter's grief. She did not think there had been anything sexual between him and Rachel, but he had been a firm and loyal friend to her through the roller-coaster of her struggles with drugs and lack of self-esteem.

“And it was here?”

“No.” Peter waved a large hand towards the advancing sea. “Further down the beach. At the edge of the waves. Like the tide was bringing her in. We carried her up above the high-water line. I know you're supposed to leave a body where it is, but we didn't have a choice.”

“We?”

“Aidan was with me. We were out looking for her.”

The constable had his notebook out. “Why was that?”

“She'd been missing since this morning. We were worried about her.”

The doctor was still kneeling over the body. “Hard to say the time of death. A couple of hours or more ago, I'd guess.” He looked up at the group from St Colman's House. “There's some bruising on her arms. I'd say that's at least a day old. And a tear in her ear. Looks like an earring's been pulled through it.”

DC Chappell raised his eyebrows at Lucy. “Can you explain that?”

It was Aidan who answered for her. “I think I can. As we were coming across the Pilgrims' Way yesterday – ‘we' being me and my daughter – we saw a couple on the shore ahead of us. They seemed to be – I don't know – embracing, or fighting. In some sort of hold. I've got a shot of them on my camera, if you want to see it. And afterwards, when we reached the dry sand, Melangell found an earring. She gave it back to Rachel this morning. It was definitely hers.”

“And the other guy? I take it we're talking about a man.”

“Too far away. It was certainly large enough to make me think it was a man. But I can't swear it wasn't a big woman.”

The figure of Elspeth in her hefty tweeds passed across Lucy's mind. She shook it away. “I think I can guess who it was. Another of our group, Sue, came to me yesterday afternoon. She was in some agitation. Her friend – boss – James was missing. She wanted to know if I knew where he was.”

“And did you?”

“No, but I've reason to believe he may have taken Rachel off for a talk. Or seen her on her own and joined her.”

“For a
talk
. And what sort of talk would that be? Would it involve some sort of getting close? A clinch? Or a struggle?”

“I don't know. I wasn't there. James is an evangelist. He feels a mission to convert sinners. He thought Rachel was one.”

“I thought you were the Reverend.”

“I am… but I don't work quite the way James does. Not so… in your face.”

“I think we might need to talk to Mr James …?”

“Denholme.”

“Where will I find him?”

“Probably in Berwick Hospital. If the ambulance car's got here.”

She saw Detective Constable Chappell do a double take. His eyes shot to the listening coastguards.

“Sounds like you've had a busy afternoon.”

“Head injury,” said John. “A fair bit of bleeding, by the sound it, and he passed out. The ambulance car was on its way, so we left it to the paramedics.”

DC Chappell began taking photographs of Rachel's body. Doctor Forbes was on his feet again.

“What do you think?” he said to Chappell. “Do we need to leave her here for your scene of crime people to see, given this is not where the body was found, and the find site's underwater now?”

“Above my pay grade,” Len Chappell answered. “I'll radio through and see what they say. I guess, under the circumstances, the body has to be the scene of crime.”

Crime? Lucy's professional training told her he had to think like this. But she resented the enthusiasm she read in his eyes.

The coastguard Dan stood looking out to sea. He cupped his hands against the wind to light a cigarette. The breeze snatched a trail of smoke away. The helicopter blades had clattered to a halt. The beach was still.

Lucy made an effort to pull herself out of the stupor that was threatening to paralyse her.

“Somebody should tell her family.”

“How old was she?” DC Chappell suddenly turned his attention back to her, notebook ready again.

“Eighteen. She wasn't close to her mother. She'd been in care. But Karen needs to know.”

“You know her?”

Lucy sighed. “Slightly. Before Rachel came of age, I tried to get her to help. But she's in need of help herself. Not much of a mother, I'm afraid. And Rachel's father went off years back.”

“Do you have a phone number? Address?”

“Not here, I'm afraid. But I can tell you the social worker who could put you in touch with her. Karen may know how to contact Rachel's father.”

Len Chappell took the details down.

“And this James? The man with the hole in his head. Just how did that happen?”

“No one knows. He just came staggering back dripping blood.”

“About the time your Rachel was washed up dead?”

“It seems so.”

She saw that glint in the constable's eye. Not an accidental drowning. Not a suicide, as Lucy so often feared. She saw his professional hope that he might have landed himself a more interesting criminal case.

He looked at her thoughtfully. Then he snapped the notebook shut.

“Thank you. You've been very helpful, Reverend.” To Aidan: “I'd like to see that photograph, if you've still got it.”

“My camera's back at the house.”

“I'll need to come back with you and take statements from everyone.”

The young detective walked across to talk to the coastguards.

“You guys know the currents round here better than anyone. How do you think the body got here? Did she die here? Was she washed along from somewhere else?”

“That's what's been bothering us…”

They moved away as John and Dan pointed along the shore to the east, where the rocks of Snipe Point stood out as dark sentinels against the increasing twilight.

The beach fell silent. Doctor Forbes was standing beside Rachel's body waiting for a decision. Lucy, Peter and Aidan stood numbed.

Beside her, Aidan reached out and put a light hand on Lucy's shoulder.

“I think we've done all we can. They know where to find us.”

Lucy looked up and saw DC Chappell talking into his radio. He came towards them.

“We're finished here. Permission to move the body to the mortuary.
You can go now. I'll catch up with you. You're not thinking of leaving the island, are you?”

“We're here for the week.”

Lucy had a sudden awareness of the days stretching ahead of her. What should she do with that time now?

The air ambulance crew were lifting Rachel's inert form into a body bag.

Aidan touched Lucy's arm again. “Come on. Let's get you back.”