The Funeral Boat (19 page)

Then she heard the door close. She was alone again. Maggie sat back and took a deep breath. She couldn’t keep this up for much longer.

A few minutes later Carl burst in with the bubbling enthusiasm of one half his age. ‘He said they were worth a bit, Mum. He said the coins were the same age as that other one. And the pottery’s Anglo-Saxon, he said. And he said that long thing 1 found was a stylus, a sort of pen … and he said they were usually only found in monasteries. He told me to keep’ em safe.’

‘He’s not coming back, is he?’

‘He said he would.’

Maggie Palister turned on her son, exasperated. ‘You’re a bloody idiot, Carl. His mate’s a bloody detective sergeant…’

‘I never brought him in the house. I wasn’t that daft.’

Maggie shook her head, despairing of Carl’s naIve confidence. ‘Just keep him out of here, that’s all.’

‘So I shouldn’t call the police, then?’

‘What?’ She looked up at him, wide-eyed with disbelief.

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‘That car they were interested in … the black one. The one that might belong to that prowler up at Waters House. It’ s there again with someone sitting in it and Neil’ s mate said to ring if I saw it … ‘ He drew the card Wesley had given him out of the pocket of his shorts.

Maggie grabbed the card and tore it in half. ‘Leave it, Carl. Just leave it.’

‘But he said it might be that prowler … ‘

‘It’s none of our business, Carl. Just leave it.’ Her voice was hoarse with emotion. .

‘Okay, Mum,’ said Carl, touching her thin shoulder gently.

Wesley had tried his home number several times, but there was no answer. He wondered fleetingly what went on at these Viking re-enactments.

The telephone on his desk emitted a series of electronic squeals and he picked it up with a sigh of resignation. More crime. More work. Somewhere at the other end of the office he could hear Gerry Heffernan singing softly but melodiously as he sorted through a pile of forensic reports that had just come in:. ‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one,’ he crooned appropriately.

‘Wes? Is that you?’ Pam’s voice on the other end of the line sounded breathless and urgent. ‘I’ve only just got home. I tried to get to a phone before but I couldn’t.’

‘What is it?’ Something was wrong. He could tell.

‘I went to the rehearsal today and I accidentally opened this hold~all … and there was something that looked like a gun inside but I didn’t get a proper look. It was just in the room where we changed, pushed under a desk.’

‘Who did it belong to? Do you know?’

‘I can’t be sure.’ She wondered whether she should mention Odin. She had assumed that the hold-all was his … but she had no real proof. Besides, she felt foolish when she thought of him. There were some things it was best not to tell your husband.

But, she told herself, if Odin did own the hold-all, why should she shield him? She owed him no loyalty; she owed him nothing. ‘The leader of the Viking group came in and I just had the impression … But it could have belonged to anybody.’ She tried to imagine Odin threatening someone with a sawn-off shotgun - those cold blue eyes in that handsome face watching a terrified victim - and, reluctantly, she succeeded.

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‘What’s this man’s name?’

‘He calls himself Odin but I assume that’s not his real name. I tried to ring you from the school but the phone was out of order. He went off in his car at the end ofthe session … a big four-wheel-drive.’

‘Did you get the number?’

Pam hesitated. ‘Er, yes.’ She had written the number down in the back of her diary, taking care that nobody saw her do it. Suddenly she felt a pang of awkward guilt.

‘Well done. What is it?’ Pam recited the number; it was too late to back out now. Wesley tapped the registration number into the computer on his desk. ‘Did he take the hold-all with him?’ he asked, hoping the answer was no.

‘Well, it was gone when I looked.’

‘Does this Odin have a local accent, by any chance?’

‘No. Slight London if anything.’

Wesley thought for a while. Rachel had said the man who spoke was local. Proudy was Yorkshire; this one from London. How many of them were there? Perhaps armed robbery was becoming a summer pastime like barbecues or cricket.

He glanced over at Gerry Heffeman, who had just answered the telephone on Rachel’s desk. He watched as his boss’s face lit up with excitement. oWes,’ Heffeman called across cheerfully. ‘Come over here. Quick.’

Wesley said goodbye to his wife, impressed by her contribution to the fight against crime. There
ere times, he thought guiltily, when he underestimated Pam … when he took her for granted.

He joined Gerry Heffeman, who was grinning widely as he always did when a breakthrough was imminent.

‘They’ve got Proudy,’ he announced, excitedly. ‘Couple of our lads out on patrol spotted his car and pulled him up in Morbay. He hadn’t gone back up to London after all. He probably told his lady friend that to get her off his back. Anyway, the Morbay lads have found the lock-up. And two stolen Range Rovers and six quad bikes. He was giving the Range Rovers new number plates and logbooks and selling them on to a London dealer he knows. He’s passed a couple on already.’

‘What about the rest of the gang?’

‘He’s not telling. He said he just did the driving and disposed of the stolen vehicles. He doesn’t know anything about the guns or the other stuff they nicked. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it.’

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Wesley told his boss about Pam’s phone call and Heffernan rubbed his hands together with glee. ‘We’ve got ‘em, Wes. Shall we pull this Odin in aQd ask him a few questions?’

‘According to the computer his car’s registered in the name of Cecil Mitchelson. No wonder he calls himself Odin. His address is in London and he’s got no criminal record. Trouble is we don’t know where he’s staying round here.’ Wesley smiled. ‘But if we turn up at the Viking Festival tomorrow he’ll be there … leading his merry band of Vikings.’

‘Nice one, Wesley.’ Heffernan gave his sergeant a hearty slap on the back. ‘Here.’ He thrust a sheet of paper into Wesley’s hand. ‘This forensic report’sjustcome in. Have a look at that, will you. Unidentified fingerprints on Dan Wexer’s Land Rover … won’t be unidentified for long, eh?’ He chuckled. ‘And two of Proudy’s prints on the bar-rel of the gun they abandoned at Little Barton Farm. No other prints, though. It’s my guess that the others wore gloves but Proudy handled the gun at some time and forgot to wipe his prints off. Silly mistake … but where would we be if the criminals all used their brains, eh?’

The office doors swung open and Trish Walton staggered in carrying a couple of heavy carrier bags, looking as though she’d just spent a fortune in the local supermarket. Steve followed sulkily behind, like a man forced to accompany his wife on a shopping trip.

Trish deposited the bags on her desk and flexed her arms. ‘We visited all the likely shops and we’ve got most of the surveillanCe videos for Monday. There were a few who’d already recorded over them but…’

:Well done,’ said W esley. ‘Did you speak to anyone who remembered Ingeborg?’

‘No. They said Monday was a busy day … lots of holidaymakers about. Nobody remembered seeing her. Sorry,’ she added, as if Neston’ s collective failure of memory had been her fault.

‘Well, tomorrow you can start looking through them. If she was shopping in Neston it’s my bet she’ll appear on them somewhere.’

Gerry Heffernan noticed Steve glowering in the background. ‘And you can give her a hand and all, Detective Constable Carstairs. They may not be pornographic videos, but concentrate on them as though they are, will you?’ Steve shuffled his feet moodily as Trish stifled a smirk.

The inspector looked at his watch. It was five 0’ clock. ‘I’m going over to Morbay to have a word with Proudy before choir practice.’

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Wesley remembered it was Friday night: the night when Gerry Heffernan exercised his voice inpreparation for Sunday morning’s service at St Margaret’ s. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘No, Wes. You go and interrogate your wife … there might be something else she remembers. And tell her I’m looking forward to seeing her doing a spot of pillaging tomorrow.’

‘I’ll tell her,’ said Wesley as he prepared to head for home.

Laurence Proudy was cooperation itself. He knew when he was beaten. But for all his anxiety to confess his part in the farm robberies, he still refused to name his accomplices. He was no grass, he kept assuring the officers present, before he entered his cell in the bowels of Morbay police station with the same reluctant resignation as a schoolboy enters a classroom for a maths lesson. And he hadn’t seen Ingeborg Larsen since she had bumped into his car. He swore that on his mother’s life, his grandmother’s life, and anybody else’s life he could think of. There was no way he had anything to do with her disappearance.

Gerry Heffeman heard all this but said nothing. He would see what progress they made with the elusive Odin before he questioned Proudy further … if, indeed, Odin was the owner of the red hold-all: there was always the chance that it belonged to someone else entirely.

He arrived back at his whitewashed cottage at the end of Baynard’s Quay at seven o’clock, his stomach rumbling with hunger, longing for the fish and chips that lay wrapped in newspaper in his hands, the tempting aroma wafting up to his nostrils.

Sam answered the door with a sheepish expression on his face, and hungrily accepted his father’s offer of a chip, explaining that he’d already heated a pizza from the freezer but, in the way of the young, was still starving.

Even after almost four years, certain things - like a lonely father and son sharing takeaway food - brought memories back, raw and painful. And for a few seconds, Gerry Heffeman felt the acute pain of his wife Kathy’s death. There were times when he was glad that he led a busy life, when he was almost grateful for a little criminal activity to take his mind off his loss.

‘I’m off out to choir practice,’ he said to Sam, who was sitting with his feet up watching Coronation Street intently. ‘Will you be in when I get back?’

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‘No, Dad, I’m … er, out later. Work,’ Sam replied evasively, before returning his attention to the latest goings on at the Rover’s Return. .

Heffernan didn’t enquire further. No doubt Sam would feel the urge to enlighten him about this mysterious new job in due course.

He closed the front door behind him and walked out onto the busy, cobbled quayside, still teeming with holidaymakers and their offspring. And he paused for a moment, looking out at the river, watching the boats scuttling to and fro on the glittering water.

One particular boat caught his eye. It stood out clearly, painted in immaculate blue and white. The police launch chugged purposefully along, towing something behind. Heffernan shielded his eyes from the lowering sun and stared. But it was too far away to see clearly.

He began to run, weaving in and out of the strolling tourists. And by the time he reached the passenger ferry he was breathless, pausing, bent double, on the pavement as passers-by stared. When he had recovered a little he trotted at a more sedate pace down the stone steps and onto the long wooden jetty towards the police launch’s habitual mooring.

The officer on the deck looked up. ‘Hello, sir. Wasn’t expecting to see CID here for a while.’ He glanced at the thing bobbing behind t.he launch. ‘As you can see, we’ve found the dinghy. The coastguard reported it floating out to sea about a mile off Bloxham … must have drifted. Jim’s confirmed it’s the one that went missing from that burned-out yacht. I suppose you’ll want Forensic to give it a going-over.’

‘Do you think they’ll find anything?’ Gerry Heffernan stared at the grey inflatable dinghy, willing it to give up its secrets.

‘I reckon there’s a smear of blood just next to the outboard motor. But only time will tell,’ said the officer philosophically. ‘And there’s no sign of a body. Nothing’s been washed up anywhere that we know of.’

Gerry Heffernan was late for choir practice that evening; and when he finally arrived in the ancient oak choir stalls of St Margaret’s church, he found himself concentrating on a small grey inflatable dinghy adrift in the English Channel rather than the music in front of him. The resulting harmonies were worthy of some discordant avant-garde composer … hardly a fitting requiem for Sven Larsen.

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997

AD

From the cliff top we could see the boats of the evil ones

sailing out to sea. They were most fearsome and their carved

prows reared from the water like monsters of the deep. They

went away round the coast to bring more destruction on our

land. Hilda and I watched them. We lay down so that we were

not seen. She was so near and I could feel the warmth of her

body. I know that many of my brothers at Neston married

discreetly and their wives bore children. But I never knew a

woman.

As I lay beside Hilda I touched her. Then she raised her

face to mine and looked at me with such love. She said she

adored me … that she would be mine always. I kissed her. I

never knew’ such sweetness before. We are but a short way

from Stoke Beeching. How I fear what we shall find at the

house of my mother and father. Rilda’s eompany gives me

comfort… yet I fight my desire for her.

From the chronicle of Brother Edwin

Of all the things Gerry Heffeman found deeply offensive, alarm clocks were at the top of his list. He hated the things, shouting their rude interruptions to well-earned rest. He reached across his bedside table and knocked the clock onto the floor. It gave a disgruntled squeak but carried on ringing. It wasn’t going to give in that easily.

The house was silent as he staggered down the stairs. When Sam had returned home late the previous night he had made straight for his room. Presumably he was still asleep after the