The Skeleton Room (25 page)

Steve said nothing. Next time he’d keep his big mouth shut.

At Gerry Heffernan’s suggestion Wesley drove Harry Marchbank to Old Coastguard Cottage. Marchbank had expressed a desire to
search the property for evidence and the chief inspector had reckoned that somebody responsible should go along with him to
see everything was done properly. He had assured Wesley that it wouldn’t take long.

The only thing that had stopped Wesley from making his excuses and seeing to his paperwork was the cottage’s proxim ity to
Neil’s shipwreck. He hadn’t seen Neil for a few days and a quick visit to the beach after the business at the cottage was
over wouldn’t take up much time.

Marchbank hardly said a word as they drove out to Millicombe. Wesley had thought him a big man when they had first met; a
man over-fond of fatty food and alcohol. But now he seemed to have shrunk almost visibly, his cocky swagger replaced by a
shuffling stoop. There were no racist jibes; no sneering wisecracks – he didn’t look as though he had the energy.

Wesley took the opportunity to ask about the case Marchbank had mentioned to Steve, the death that appeared to be similar
to Sally Gilbert’s, but Marchbank just shook his head, unwilling to talk. Perhaps Steve had been letting his imagination run
away with him.

They reached the front door of the cottage and Wesley opened it with Carrington’s key.

‘I’ll do upstairs if you like.’

Marchbank shrugged as though he didn’t care what they did.

Wesley hesitated, wondering whether to say something about Carrington’s revelations, but he could think of no words that seemed
appropriate. He left Marchbank alone and climbed the stairs leading to the two small bedrooms,
both rendered smaller by the owner’s choice of over-busy floral wallpaper. The curtains of both bedrooms were closed, but
this made little difference as the sun had no problem penetrating the thin flowered cotton.

Fortunately Robin Carrington had been a tidy man. He had treated his temporary home like a hotel, leaving most of his clothes
still packed in a large suitcase on the floor beneath the window. But then Wesley remembered that he had been prepared for
flight, ready to join Harriet in France as soon as his business here was finished.

He found nothing of interest. A photograph of a young woman, dark and attractive with a determined mouth: Harriet probably.
Wesley stared at the picture for a while and thought he could detect a likeness to Harry Marchbank around the eyes. Marchbank’s
daughter – the woman who had no qualms about murdering for financial gain. If Carrington had been telling the truth – it was
still possible that he had instigated the whole project and he was laying the blame on the person who wasn’t there to defend
herself. Although the French police had now been alerted and it was only a matter of time before Harriet was picked up.

He went downstairs, feeling uneasy, wondering what he’d find. He didn’t know Harry – and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to
know him – and he had no idea how the man would react in the present rather strange situation.

He found Harry sitting on the sofa, his head in his hands, and for a moment he hesitated in the doorway. He cleared his throat
and Harry stood up and faced him. ‘You finished up there?’ He spoke roughly, still the hard man.

‘Yes. Are you all right?’

‘’Course I’m bloody all right. Why shouldn’t I be?’

Wesley stepped into the room, looking around. ‘Have you found anything?’

Marchbank grunted. ‘Nothing much. There’s his laptop and a load of history stuff on the sideboard – Carrington was into all
that. Ran a business through the Internet. Bloody daft, if you ask me.’

Wesley strolled to the sideboard and leafed through the pile of papers. There were several handwritten family trees; sheets
of paper with notes on and photocopies of entries in registers of births, marriages and deaths. On top of them all lay an
old book. Wesley picked it up. It smelled musty and its pages were foxed and browned with age. He looked at the date it had
been printed: 1789 – the year of the French Revolution, when poor mad George III was on the throne of England and America
was enjoying her recent independence from the British crown. He glanced at the book’s title –
An Account of the Dreadful and Wicked Crimes of the Wreckers of Chadleigh
by the Reverend Octavius Mount.

Wesley felt an urge to open the book and find out more. But whatever the ‘dreadful and wicked crimes’ were, they wouldn’t
figure in his division’s crime statistics so there was no time for such indulgences.

‘We might as well leave all this stuff here for now until we know what’s to be done with it.’

Marchbank said nothing and made for the door.

‘What about Carrington’s car?’ Wesley asked. ‘It’s in the garage. We ought to take a look.’

Marchbank didn’t answer. He stood by the passenger door of Wesley’s car, perfectly still, staring out at the heaving grey-blue
mass of the sea, past caring.

The rotting wooden garage wasn’t locked. The great double doors were almost falling off their hinges, and Wesley had to lift
them gently to get them open. Carrington’s car – a five-year-old silver Nissan – was sitting inside: some instinct must have
told him to keep it out of sight, safe from prying eyes and passing policemen. Wesley felt he had to be thorough and take
a look inside. He would feel stupid if there was a pistol in the glove compartment and he’d not found it.

But the contents of the car proved disappointing from a detective’s point of view. A box of tissues; a road map; a few cassettes
– mostly popular classical; nothing that caught Wesley’s interest.

It wasn’t until he was about to close the door that he noticed a small white card lying on the dashboard. A parking ticket;
the type issued by the council’s pay-and-display machines in public carparks. He leaned over and picked it up.

‘Littlebury. Fourteen thirty. The twentieth of the seventh.’

Wesley stared at it for a few seconds before its significance registered.

Robin Carrington had been near Monks Island at the time Sally Gilbert died. And Robin Carrington was no stranger to murder.

When Harry Marchbank spotted the Wreckers he said he needed a drink. Wesley left him to it. Marchbank wouldn’t want his company
and the feeling was mutual.

He made his way down the steep path to the cove, hoping Neil would be there and not away at some meeting or diving beneath
the sea.

The fine golden sand seeped over the tops of his shoes as he walked towards the disused café. It was a pity, he thought, that
this beach would soon be for the exclusive use of those who could afford the no doubt exorbitant charges of the Chadleigh
Hall Hotel. In Wesley’s opinion there was something almost immoral about keeping such unspoiled beauty only for those who
could pay. But that was the way the world worked. And Dominic Kilburn, once a humble builder who had worked on the hall years
before, was going to do very nicely out of it, thank you.

Neil was in the café, his head buried in a pile of drawings and reports. Paperwork – the scourge of the modern age. He looked
up as Wesley opened the door and a grin spread across his earnest face.

‘Hi, Wes. Like our cannon?’ He pointed to a shapeless blackened lump laid carefully on top of a bench. ‘It’s the third one
we’ve found and there’s bound to be more: they had to carry them to protect themselves from privateers.
It’s going for X-ray and conservation later. Good, isn’t it?’

‘Very nice. How’s it going? Found any of that sunken treasure yet?’

‘Lots of iron bars but no treasure. I reckon it’s just a story that got embellished over the years. People love that sort
of thing – you show me a sunken ship that wasn’t supposed to be carrying treasure.’ He laughed. ‘Kilburn’s bloody furious,
of course. What use is it being the lord of the manor and owning the rights to the wreck when all you get out of it’s a load
of rusty old iron?’ Neil pushed the papers to one side. ‘Pam’s looking better,’ he said unexpectedly.

‘Yes. I heard you had a good lunch.’

‘So is this just a social call or . . .?’

‘No. I’ve been giving a suspect’s house the once-over.’

Neil looked at him enquiringly.

‘That cottage at the top of the cliff. A man called Robin Carrington was staying there. He’s wanted for murder in London.’

Neil’s jaw dropped. ‘I know him. And Pam met him when we had lunch the other day. Bloody hell. Murder?’

‘’Fraid so.’

Neil shook his head, trying to take it in. ‘He’s been making a family tree for some people in the States who are related to
the
Celestina
’s captain . . . or at least that’s what he told me.’ Neil shook his head, shocked. ‘Murder? He didn’t seem the type.’

‘They never do. It’d make my job a lot easier if they had horns and a tail and the word “murderer” tattooed across their foreheads.
But unfortunately they just look like you and me.’

‘Who’s he supposed to have murdered?’

‘A woman.’

‘Crime of passion?’

‘Not exactly.’ Wesley didn’t feel inclined to discuss the details of Robin Carrington’s wrongdoings. Then he remembered something.
‘I saw this book among
Carrington’s possessions. It’s called
An Account of the Dreadful and Wicked Crimes of the Wreckers of Chadleigh
. If I get the chance I’ll ask him if you can have a look at it.’

‘He did mention a book about the Chadleigh wreckers. He said he’d lend it to me.’

‘Could the
Celestina
have been wrecked deliberately?’

Neil shrugged. ‘There’s no way of knowing: she might just have come too far inshore and hit the rocks or she could have been
wrecked deliberately for the insurance – that was quite common. Or perhaps she was lured inshore. That’s what wreckers used
to do. Whole villages would plunder a ship that ran aground. The thing would be stripped before the authorities arrived to
stop it.’

‘And people like the village constable and the vicar – or the lord of the manor – couldn’t they do something?’

Neil laughed. ‘Don’t be so naive, Wes. The whole village would have been in on it. The village constable probably joined in
and the gentry turned a blind eye and took their share of the pickings.’

‘And what about the survivors?’

‘If they were lucky they were rescued before all the cargo was pinched. But if they were unlucky . . .’

‘What?’

‘Well, in maritime law a vessel which is driven ashore isn’t considered to be a wreck if any person or animal is still alive
aboard – and if she’s not a wreck then her cargo is supposed to be restored to her owners. So the way some wreckers interpreted
it, they could pinch whatever they could lay their hands on as long as it was a genuine wreck. So sometimes they’d kill any
survivors and . . .’

‘Thanks, Neil. I came down here for a break from work.’

‘Don’t suppose you’re free for a drink tonight?’

‘No way. I’m taking Pam for a meal at the Tradfield Manor Hotel – there’s a special offer on.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’d
better get back.’

Wesley made his way back up the path to the top of the
cliff. When he reached the road he turned and shielded his eyes against the sun. The water was a clear blue and a shoal of
fish swam in a shifting dark cloud a few metres offshore. He was certain he could make out the vague shape of the wreck near
the jagged grey rocks.

As he walked back to the pub to tell Harry Marchbank it was time to go, he had the feeling that something Neil had said was
relevant to the Sally Gilbert case. But he couldn’t for the life of him think what it was.

When Wesley returned to the CID office Steve Carstairs was waiting for him with a piece of paper clutched in his hand. He
had abandoned his habitual expression of bored resentment and had acquired an air of repressed enthusiasm.

‘Found anything interesting?’ Wesley asked, expecting a negative answer followed by excuses.

But Steve was looking pleased with himself. He placed the paper on the desk in front of him. ‘Yeah. I dug out the details
of the Marion Bowler case: 1998 it was. Then I did some more digging around and I found that every year for the past few years
someone’s died falling off a cliff: always in different places but always in July. Most of the deaths were dealt with by uniform
or other stations . . . just treated as accidents. And there’s no apparent link between them.’

‘Go on,’ Wesley said encouragingly.

Steve looked at the list. ‘In 1997 a woman fell off the cliffs just outside Stoke Beeching but there was no reason to suppose
it wasn’t an accident. In 1998 we’ve got Marion Bowler – suspected murder. Then in 1999 a bloke fell off a cliff near Bloxham
when he’d told his wife he was going to the supermarket. Suicide was suspected at first but his wife said he’d been quite
cheerful when he went out and no note was found so it went down as an accident.’

‘So what have you found out about the Marion Bowler case?’

Steve frowned. ‘It does seem a bit like Sally Gilbert’s
murder. She went out saying she was going to meet someone but she didn’t say who. She fell off a cliff at Little Tradmouth
and there were signs of a struggle on the cliff top above where her body was found. Her boyfriend was the chief suspect but
he always denied it and there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute. He buggered off to Australia not long after he’d got off
the hook but Inspector Jenkins seemed pretty sure that he’d done it.’

Wesley nodded. Stan Jenkins was now enjoying – if that was the word – retirement under the strict eye of Mrs Jenkins. ‘Are
there any others?’

‘Last July a man fell off the cliff path overlooking Coreton Cove – in the grounds of that National Trust place near Queenswear:
that was treated as an accidental death. The cliff path’s dangerous when it’s been raining.’

Wesley scratched his head. ‘Is there anything to suggest that these deaths had anything in common?’

‘Not on the face of it.’ Steve grinned as he anticipated showing off his brilliance. ‘But I’ve been reading through the reports
and there is something peculiar – some of the relatives said the victims seemed excited about something when they went out.
And none of them would say where they were going. It might be nothing but . . . What do you think?’