Nemesis of the Dead (17 page)

‘I saw Ambrose this morning,’ said Corrie. ‘He was sitting here at the table, writing more of his threatening letters. Haven’t seen him since, though.’

‘He wasn’t here when I came back from town this afternoon and I haven’t seen Marjorie all day.’ Jack’s face creased with concern as it did most of the time now. He hadn’t been in St Sophia, he’d been deploying his all-seeing eyes somewhere quite different for most of the day but whilst he’d seen a number of interesting things, he still hadn’t found what he was looking for and none of his all-seeing eyes had spotted the Dobsons.

‘I expect they went for a hill walk and lost track of the time,’ offered Diana. ‘Or maybe he’s taken Marjorie out for a special anniversary meal at the taverna in St Sophia.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed Corrie. ‘I remember Marjorie telling me. Today is their thirtieth anniversary. They could be out celebrating.’

‘Leave off,’ said Sid scathingly. ‘Old Misery Guts celebrating? Can you see him spending money on a meal when dinner’s already paid for here? And he’s far too tubby to go hill walking. Besides, he never stays out after it starts to get dark. No, I reckon they were having a nap in their room and lost track of the time.’ He stood up, dabbing his oily chin with his napkin. ‘Excuse me, folks, I’ll just go up and knock on their door. Let Marjie know grub’s up.’

Maria came in at the end of this conversation, carrying a dish of fresh fruit and a bowl of yogurt. She shook her head. ‘Mr and Mrs Dobson are not in their room, they are still out,’ she declared firmly. ‘Their key is on its hook behind the desk. I checked before I served dinner.’

‘There you go, Sid.’ Diana prodded him in the ribs. ‘What did I tell ya? The old creep has taken Marjorie out to dinner, like I said.’

In the olive grove nearest to the hotel Professor Gordon turned off the lamp on his helmet and crept stealthily across the stony approach to the pergola. For a while he lurked in the gathering shadows, unable to identify exactly who was seated down at the end of the table hidden by the encroaching vines. He was surprised to see anyone there at all and he certainly hadn’t expected them to be sitting, calmly eating dinner. He edged closer until he could see more clearly, then cursed silently to himself. Eventually he emerged from the shadows and blustered across to the table, removing his helmet.

‘Good evening, everyone.’ The professor sat down, helped himself to food and began to tear off pieces of bread, dipping them in the oily lemon sauce. He looked at Diana, lovingly. ‘Which old creep were you talking about, my darling?’

‘Ambrose Dobson,’ she replied, shortly. ‘Nobody’s seen him since this morning.’

He looked at her, puzzled. ‘But surely you saw him at lunchtime, angel? He agreed to row out to your cave with the picnic basket you left behind.’

Sid and Diana exchanged glances, realizing now who had taken the other boat and sabotaged their date.

‘Well, he never turned up.’ Diana pulled a face. ‘The old guy didn’t like me much so he probably ate my lunch himself out of spite. How petty can a man get?’

Jack turned to the professor. ‘Was Marjorie with him?’

‘Not when I spoke to him, old boy. He was on his own when I left.’

Yanni, who had come out to corkscrew more wine, overheard the gist of the discussion and attempted to assist. ‘I see Mrs Dobson from the … er …’ He pointed upwards, struggling for the English, then, deciding it would be quicker, he spoke rapidly in Greek to Maria. She translated.

‘Yanni says he was up on the roof, cementing the statues to make them safe, and he saw Mr Dobson already in the boat and Mrs Dobson on the quay, talking to him. Yanni thinks they may have been arguing. Then she too climbed in the boat and Mr Dobson rowed away.’

‘What time was this?’ Jack was in full-on interrogation mode.

Yanni thought for a bit. ‘Eleven o’clock – I think,
kírie
.’

Corrie looked at her watch. ‘That was over nine hours ago. Oh, my God, Jack, they can’t still be out there, can they?’

‘Something’s up,’ said Sid. ‘I don’t reckon Old Misery Guts should have been rowing a boat in the first place with his dicky ticker.’

‘Has anyone checked to see if their boat’s back yet?’ asked Corrie, squinting down to the shore. Tendrils of mist were drifting in from the sea, obscuring the view of the landing stage.

Jack stood up, wondering why he hadn’t thought of that. ‘Come on, Sid. I’ll fetch my torch and we’ll go and look. You three stay here in case one or other of them turns up.’ As he passed her chair, he bent and put his mouth close to Corrie’s cheek as if to kiss her goodbye but instead, whispered in her ear. ‘Keep your eye on Diana.’

‘Why?’ mouthed Corrie, but she didn’t get an answer.

As Jack feared, only one boat was tied up at the tiny landing stage belonging to Hotel Stasinopoulos and that was the one in which Diana had returned. As Sid pointed out, she had left her straw hat and sun cream in it.

‘OK, DI Dawes. What do we do now?’

Jack smiled grimly. ‘For one barmy moment, I was about to say we call out the coastguard.’ He looked at the deep-purple sky. ‘It’ll be dark soon and it gets black as hell here at night. I’m not sure there’s much we
can
do until morning.’

‘We can’t just do nothing,’ said Sid. ‘Poor old Marjie could be out there, drifting, with Old Misery Guts too ill to row or something. There’s still a bit of light left and …’ he coughed, awkwardly, ‘… I know the route to Di’s cave pretty well. That’s where they were headed. What say we have a bit of a row about, see if we can see their boat?’

Jack hesitated briefly, trying to see how this latest crisis fitted in with what he already knew. It didn’t. ‘Yes, all right, Sid. The sea’s calm and we can hug the coast. You row and I’ll flash my torch all along the beaches and caves. Maybe they’ll see it if they’re stranded somewhere.’

They were three-quarters of the way to the Cave of Nymphs and Sid was pulling smoothly but purposefully on the oars. He’d never tried this rowing lark before he came to Katastrophos and now he was getting really good at it. Amazing what you can do, he thought, with the right incentive.

‘Look, there!’ Jack shone his torch. In the failing, misty light, they both spotted the dim outline of the second boat. Someone had dragged it part-way up the steep beach, apparently with some difficulty as it was just barely clear of the water. Sidney stopped rowing and manoeuvred his craft around and into the shore. They both jumped out into the water and towed it up on to dry land. Then they raced over to the other boat, unsure of what they would find but nursing some vague, idiotic hope that Ambrose and Marjorie would still be sitting in it. Of course, they weren’t. It was completely empty and there was a gaping hole in the bottom of the hull.

Jack looked at it with growing anxiety. ‘Christ, they’ve holed it. Where the hell are they?’ Irrationally, he turned and looked back out to sea as if expecting to see their bodies floating there.

Sid tugged his arm. ‘They must be here on dry land somewhere, mate. You don’t drown having first conscientiously pulled your sinking boat out of the drink.’

Sid and Jack began to explore the cove, calling the Dobsons’ names. Then they beat about in the coastal scrubland and delved amongst the olive trees, but with no success. The encroaching sea mist did not help. Surely the couple hadn’t tried to
walk
back home across the island, after their boat was holed. It was perfectly feasible if you were young and fit but not if you were middle-aged and portly with a heart condition.

‘Over here!’ Jack had disappeared behind a clump of dense cypress, the dark-green foliage made black by the approaching night. Sid raced after him. There was a cave, a spacious one, its mouth concealed behind the trees. He followed Jack inside. It smelled of the sea, dank and fetid from rotting seaweed and the decay of stranded marine creatures, and cutting across that was the sickly stench of oil. Jack shone his flashlight in a wide arc around the cave. In the far corner, a long, flat, altar-shaped rock had stubs of dead candles ranged along its length. A picture of a saint was festooned with charms and rosaries and beside it was an overturned lamp, explaining the taint of oil on the air. This, thought Sidney, must be the sacred grotto of St Sophia, alleviator of all ills from erupting volcanoes to athlete’s foot.

Jack trained the torch beam wider and the dim circle of light picked up the bloated figure of Ambrose Dobson, sitting on the sandy floor with his back propped against the cave wall and his fat little legs sticking out in front of him. He was soaked to the skin, very pale and his mouth was tinged with blue. Sid knelt down beside him.

‘What’s up, mate? Are you ill?’

‘No, he isn’t ill.’ Marjorie’s voice, calm and controlled, came from somewhere behind them. They swung around, the torchlight dancing wildly on the walls of the cave. She was sitting on a rock, her hair wet and tangled, her soggy cardigan clinging to her shoulders. There was an angry red weal down the left side of her face as if she had been hit with something solid. She looked at them, quite composed, and for long moments, nobody spoke. Then she said, ‘Ambrose isn’t ill – he’s dead.’

I
t was an awkward silence. Diana and Corrie sat at one end of the big oval table with Professor Gordon down at the other. Jack and Sid had not returned, so Corrie assumed they had gone off to search further for Ambrose and Marjorie. She would have preferred to wait for Jack down on the landing stage but he had told her to keep an eye on Diana and that’s what she was doing. It was a pity he hadn’t told her why – she might have made a better job of it. He really was irritating sometimes. He never tired of telling her how he was unable to discuss any details of his murder cases with her. They were always hush-hush and could only be disclosed to special individuals on a need-to-know basis because leaked information jeopardized convictions blah, blah, blah. It was the usual load of policeman’s balls. But it didn’t stop him from using her to keep an eye on people and listen for information when it suited him and without giving her the smallest clue why she was doing it. It was hardly surprising that she ended up having to work things out for herself, and naturally the law of averages decreed that occasionally – just occasionally, mind you – she got it a bit wrong.

They sat for a very long time, not speaking. The professor had finished eating and was scribbling notes on the back of his napkin with a gold, diamond-studded Caran d’Ache pen he had bought on his last trip to Geneva. Corrie sipped her wine and peered through the gathering gloom at the jetty. It was too dark to see whether Jack and Sid had taken the other boat out but she thought she had heard the slip-slap of the oars in the stillness.

Diana was bored without Sid. She yawned. ‘It doesn’t look like the guys are coming back for a bit. I think I’ll hit the sack. Wake me if there’s any news.’

‘Oh, is that a good idea?’ asked Corrie quickly. ‘Don’t you think we should all stay here until they come back?’

‘Why?’ Professor Gordon looked up from the arcane doodlings on his napkin.

‘Well – er – in case they need help.’

‘What kind of help?’

‘Erm – well, I don’t know.’ Corrie thought fast. ‘Maybe they’ll need us to form an official search party.’

‘I hardly think so, Coriander, my dear. For a start, I doubt very much whether even that imbecile Dobson is capable of losing himself just paddling quietly around the coast – unless of course he’s attempting to row back to the mainland. He’s quite stupid enough to try it, I suppose. But even if he has, there’s little we can do before morning.’ He stood up. ‘Come along, Diana, my darling. I’ll turn in with you. I’ve had a long – and I might add – most unsatisfactory day.’

Corrie breathed a private sigh of relief. Whatever it was that Jack was worried about when he’d told her to watch Diana, she was hardly likely to get up to any mischief in bed with her husband. She picked up her glass and the wine bottle and went down to the quay to sit and wait for Jack.

Jack performed a cursory examination on Ambrose, looking for vital signs but with little hope. Marjorie was right, he was quite dead, and had been for some hours in Jack’s opinion.

‘Oh Marjie, love, what a terrible thing to happen. And on your anniversary, too. He should never have tried to row a boat, not with his dodgy heart. It was asking for trouble.’ Sidney squatted down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re soaking wet, Marjie, and that’s a really nasty swelling on your face. What happened? Did the boat hit a rock and sink or something?’

She didn’t answer. Jack left Ambrose’s body and came across with his torch. Although she had sounded normal, Marjorie was unnaturally still and didn’t seem to be feeling or hearing anything. Jack recognized the fairly classic symptoms of trauma. In his experience, people reacted differently to a distressing experience. Some panicked and had hysterics, others became emotionally detached, dissociating themselves from the painful memory. Marjorie was preoccupied and distant. This ‘numbing out’ was frequently followed by confusion and memory problems, so he suspected she might never be able to tell them exactly what happened. It hardly mattered. Dobson had been under strict medication for a congested heart and he had brought on a fatal attack by over exerting himself. Natural causes in anybody’s book. Spending several hours alone in a stinking cave with the body of your dead husband was horrific enough without having to answer a barrage of questions. He edged Sid away so he could speak privately out of her hearing – if indeed she was hearing anything.

‘Don’t ask her any more questions just now, Sid. She’ll tell us what she can when she’s got over the shock. What we have to decide now is how we’re going to get her and – er …’ he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the corpse, ‘back to the hotel.’

‘Couldn’t we leave his nibs here till the morning? I mean, he isn’t going anywhere, is he?’

Jack was doubtful. ‘I don’t think so. Crabs and things might have a go at him during the night. I don’t expect Marjorie would be happy about it when she found out.’

‘Yeah, you’re right.’ Sid scratched his head. ‘Well, we’ve only got the one good boat. Frankly, mate, I don’t think I’d want to risk the four of us in it. Especially at night when you can’t see the rocks. And besides, we can’t ask Marjie to sit in a rowing boat with her dead husband propped up against her.’

‘Exactly what I was thinking. How do you feel about taking Marjorie back on your own? I’ll stay here with the body until you come back, then we can lay him down in the bottom of the boat with a blanket over him and sit one up each end with our legs round him. That should balance us safely and is a reasonably respectful form of transport for the deceased. What d’you say?’

‘’Course. No problem. As long as you don’t mind being left here on your own in the dark with a stiff.’ Sid shuddered. ‘Don’t think I’d fancy it. Still, with you being a copper, I guess you’re used to it. You don’t see many dead bodies in the plumbing trade – mind you, there was one occasion when I was called in to find out what was blocking this bloke’s soak-away, and it turned out he’d—’

‘Sid,’ said Jack hastily. ‘Could we just get on with the job in hand, please?’

‘Sure, Jack. Sorry, mate.’

They went back to Marjorie, who hadn’t moved. She sat looking straight ahead, her eyes blank. Jack and Sid each took an arm and eased her gently to her feet. Sid peeled away her damp cardigan then took off his jacket and threaded her limp arms through the sleeves.

‘Better put this on, Marjie, love. Might be chilly out there. Now, I’m going to row you back to the hotel in my boat, then I’m coming back for Jack and Old Misery … er … Mr Dobson. Is that all right?’

She said nothing, allowing them to lead her out of the cave without any resistance or reluctance to leave her husband’s body. Sid settled her as comfortably as possible in the boat.

‘I’ll see if I can get hold of a blanket and another torch,’ he shouted to Jack, then disappeared into the darkness, leaving just a wake of ebony ripples.

Jack went back inside the cave to wait. If Ambrose had been unprepossessing in life, he was considerably more so in death. Jack sat on the rock where they had found Marjorie, and regarded the body. His face was ghostly white and his lower lip protruded, round and thirsty-looking. His piggy eyes were staring and afraid as if he had seen death coming. There were a couple of speckled patches on the sand close by him, so he’d obviously thrown up prior to death. Jack noticed when he examined him that rigor mortis had already begun to set in. In a warm climate like this, it usually started three to four hours after death so he had probably died between lunchtime and late afternoon. It tended to set in faster in people who were active immediately prior to death, such as rowing a boat as Ambrose had been. Full rigor would take effect after about twelve hours which meant that by the time Sid came back, Dobson would be impossible to manipulate, having died in a sitting position. They might have to prop him upright in the boat after all.

Jack stretched out his long legs and his foot kicked against something. He looked down. It was the fateful picnic basket with Diana’s lunch in it – the apparent reason Ambrose and Marjorie had gone out in the boat in the first place. It was unlike the man to offer to do anyone a good turn, thought Jack wryly, and it was ironic that the first time he did, he ended up dead. Automatically, he took out his handkerchief and covered the handle before he opened it. Now why did I do that? he asked himself. This isn’t the scene of a crime. In fact, this is probably the least suspicious death I’ve attended in years. He looked inside the basket. Most of the food and half the fruit juice had gone. They probably ate it at lunchtime before Ambrose had his heart attack. Not surprising, since they didn’t know how long it would be before they were missed and someone came looking for them. There were a couple of sandwiches left and Jack had missed most of his dinner. He was about to reach in and take one when he thought better of it. Somehow it didn’t seem right, munching away in the presence of a cadaver, although the blokes back in the pathology lab didn’t seemed to have any problems with it. The place always reeked of formaldehyde and pepperoni pizza.

He wished Corrie was with him but was glad she wasn’t. She’d be nattering on about Ambrose really being Poseidon’s
alter ego
and attempting to rape a nymph that didn’t belong to him or some such nonsense, and now he had been punished for it by Zeus. Even so, it was a pretty macabre situation, keeping a corpse company in a sacred grotto in the middle of the night. It could only happen on Katastrophos. The whole trappings of feasts, saints, vengeance and superstition had taken possession of the bloody island. Sometimes Jack found himself nearly believing all this rubbish. There was something about the atmosphere on Katastrophos that made it very easy to get drawn into the quagmire of auto-suggestion and self-delusion that seemed to infect everyone. It was vital that he resisted it and stayed focused on what he had come to do, and with all due respect to the Dobsons, this was just another distraction he could have done without. Only two more days and his chance would be gone.

He shone his torch on his watch. Another half-hour and Sid should be back. Unperturbed by his gruesome companion, he rested his back against the wall and closed his eyes. The susurration of fabric against rock as Ambrose’s dead body toppled slowly sideways in the throes of rigor made Jack leap suddenly to his feet. But it was the long-drawn-out moan as Dobson’s last breath was expelled from his lungs that caused DI Dawes to stride smartly outside to wait for Sid in the fresh night air.

It was nearly eleven o’clock when Sid helped Marjorie out of the rowing boat and on to the landing stage – almost twelve hours since she had left it. Corrie, still waiting patiently, leaped up and put her arms around her.

‘Marjorie, thank goodness you’re safe. Where’s Ambrose?’

Sid shook his head vigorously behind Marjorie’s back and made a chopping motion across his throat.

‘Not … dead?’ mouthed Corrie, incredulously.

Sid nodded. ‘There you go, Marjie, my old duck. Corrie will look after you now. You’ll soon be out of those wet clothes and tucked up in bed, nice and warm. Try and get some sleep, love. We can sort everything out in the morning.’ He turned to Corrie. ‘Get her to have a brandy – she needs it.’

‘What on earth has happened?’ whispered Corrie.

‘Can’t stop now,’ said Sid. ‘Tell you later. I just need to fetch a blanket and a torch then I’m going back for Jack and … er …’ he winked and jerked his head a couple of times. Five minutes later he was back in the boat and rowing hard. He wondered if all this exercise would give him a six-pack.

Everyone had gone to bed and the hotel was silent. Corrie helped Marjorie up the stairs to her room and helped her to undress. Her clothes were still damp and clung to her. Corrie hung them outside on the balcony. She found a nightie and while Marjorie put it on, she went downstairs to pour a large Metaxa. The poor soul was shivering violently, probably a combination of shock and cold, and her face was badly swollen and bruised down one side. Sid was right – she needed a good shot of brandy. When she got back with it, Marjorie was sitting up in bed looking a little better. She took the glass, smiled gratefully at Corrie and drank a good slug. It seemed to thaw out her numbness.

‘Thank you, dear. You’re all very kind – you and Jack and Sidney. I’m so sorry I’m being such a nuisance.’

‘You’re nothing of the kind.’ Corrie was aching to ask what had happened but even with her pathological curiosity, she realized this was not the time for an inquest. In the event, Marjorie came right out with it.

‘He’s dead, you know. Ambrose, I mean.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Corrie, lamely. ‘I’m so sorry. What a terrible thing to happen and on your anniversary, too. I suppose it was his bad heart.’ From the state of Marjorie’s clothes and hair and her injured cheek, Corrie thought perhaps she had fallen overboard and Ambrose had died trying to save her. ‘Was there some kind of accident?’

Marjorie took another gulp of brandy and looked Corrie straight in the eye.

‘Oh no, it wasn’t an accident. Not at all. You see – I killed him.’

For once, Corrie was lost for words. She collapsed on the edge of Marjorie’s bed, open-mouthed.

Marjorie lay down. ‘Naturally, I shall confess everything to your husband in the morning but I think I’d like to go to sleep now, dear, if you don’t mind. I suddenly feel terribly tired.’

‘Of course,’ stammered Corrie. ‘I’ll – er – see you in the morning, then. Goodnight.’ She put out the light and closed the door quietly behind her. Then she went down to the bar, poured another large brandy and knocked it back in one.

It hadn’t been easy getting Ambrose into the boat. He was a dead weight – obviously – and thanks to the advanced rigor mortis, his legs were sticking resolutely out at ninety degrees to his body. Their first task was to get him out of the cave and down to where Sid had beached the boat, having already dismissed the alternative notion of dragging the boat up the steep slope to the corpse and then hauling it back down the shingle to the water’s edge with the body bouncing about inside. As Sid pointed out, ‘his bum’ll be like a bag of rotten plums by the time we get him home’. A fireman’s lift seemed the best option considering the shape Dobson was in, but after several abortive attempts, Jack said he didn’t think his back was up to it. Eventually they devised a makeshift ‘bosun’s chair’, each sliding a hand beneath and behind the corpse and gripping one another’s wrists. In this way they struggled down the beach with him in a sitting position. Even so, he was a heavy man and they had to put him down every few yards for a breather.