Blood on the Strand

by Chris O'Donoghue

  Salle swallowed and when he spoke his voice was husky. ‘Who showed them to you?’

  Pike smiled, showing crooked stained teeth. ‘Ah, that would be telling.’ He looked down again at the statuette. ‘I’m not in the habit of giving away my sources.’ A noise made him look up again. The smile quickly faded when he saw the gun that Salle was pointing at him.

  ‘I said… Who showed you them?’ His hand was steady, his voice steely.

  Pike carefully laid down the glass and the statuette and held his hands up in submission. ‘There, there. There’s no need for that.’

  The voice became a growl. ‘I want to know… now.’

  ‘Well if that’s the case, I’ll tell you.’ Beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead. He swallowed, his prominent Adams apple bobbing in his scrawny throat. ‘But first, would you mind not pointing that gun at me?’ Salle lowered the weapon but only by a fraction. ‘All I know is that the fellow’s name is Duncan.’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  ‘He came here.’

  ‘I presume he has his own place?’

  ‘He’s got a warehouse in Collinghurst. Round the back of the hospital, I think.’

  ‘Where did he get the pieces from?’

  ‘That I don’t know.’

  Salle leaned forward and before Pike could react, he had gripped the lapel of the man’s coat and pressed the barrel of the gun against his head. ‘Don’t play games with me,’ he hissed. ‘I do not have time for your nonsense.’

  The sweat started trickling down Pike’s face, leaving pale streaks on his grimy cheeks. ‘I think it was from a couple of fishermen.’

  The gun was pressed harder against his skin. ‘Names?’

  ‘I really don’t know.’ Pike was shaking now.

  Salle let go of the coat collar and slapped him hard. ‘I said NAMES!’

  ‘Truly! I don’t know.’

  ‘Try Crabbe and Stump!’

  ‘Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. He never told me. He didn’t even say it was fishermen, I just guessed…’

  Salle slipped the gun back into his pocket. ‘You had better be telling the truth. If I find you have been lying…’ The words hung in the air between them.

  -0-

  ‘That’s the one, sir,’ WPC Sharpe said, pointing towards the ruined building. Weeks stopped the Wolseley outside the warehouse and Lewis, in the Morris J type van, pulled up behind them. They got out of the car. The wooden doors of the warehouse were battered and scarred; traces of flaking paint clung to the worn woodwork. They were firmly closed with a heavy padlock securing them. Russell shook it hard and it fell open. He looked at Sharpe. She blushed. ‘Sorry, sir, we should have checked.’

  ‘Not to worry. We’re here now.’ Weeks was about to drag one of the doors open when Lewis grabbed his arm. ‘Hang on, there may be fingerprints.’ He looked at Russell. ‘Better hang on to Aggie, too.’

  ‘Oh – right.’

  Lewis put on a pair of gloves and carefully pulled the door open far enough so he could slide in. ‘You stay here while I look around. We want as little disturbance as possible, if we’re going to find anything.’

  Keeping to the walls of the interior the forensics expert made a careful, visual examination. Tyre tracks were clearly visible in the dust and dirt on the brick floor, along with scuffed footprints. But what caught his attention was a pile of broken sticks, a tangle of rope and a dark stain on the floor near the bottom of a wooden staircase. Moving cautiously forward he crouched and looked more closely. ‘Well I’ll be…’ he muttered.

  Russell stuck his head round the door opening. ‘Found anything?’

  ‘I certainly have,’ Lewis said, standing up. ‘If I’m not mistaken, something nasty has happened here. Just a minute and I’ll join you.’ He made his cautious way out of the warehouse.

  ‘Tell us what you found.’

  Lewis explained about the sticks and rope. ‘I reckon that’s the remains of a chair and someone was tied to it. And… he may have come to a sticky end, judging by the bloodstains.’

  ‘Well, well, well. I’ll leave you to get on with your examination. You don’t need us tramping round, ruining any evidence. Nettie, you stay here. I don’t want any idle passer by nosing around. Johnny, you and I are going to pay the pathologist a visit. I want to see what Crooks has turned up.’

  -0-

  Crooks had the naked body of the fisherman laid out on the examination table when the two detectives walked in. ‘We’ve got a rum do here, Sonny,’ he said as he straightened up from bending over the table. He arched his back pushing out his ample belly and exhaled noisily. Russell was not a slim man but he looked positively skinny next to the pathologist.

  ‘Why do you say that, John?’ Russell took off his trilby and brushed his hand over his hair.

  ‘At first I thought it was just a case of some poor soul falling overboard – drunk probably – and drowning – then having the misfortune to get scooped up by that dredger.’

  ‘And it’s not…?’

  ‘Far from it. For a start, he didn’t drown.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. If he had I would have expected his lungs to be full of water, but they were dry. Well, they didn’t contain any seawater, at least.’

  ‘So how did he die?’

  ‘That’s the puzzle – I’m not entirely sure.’ He beckoned to the policemen. ‘Come and look at this.’ Russell and Weeks moved closer to the table. ‘See these marks?’ The man’s chest was striped with red weals. Although some were deep the surface of the skin hadn’t been broken – but the wounds looked swollen and angry.

  Weeks gasped. ‘Is that what the buckets on the dredger did to him?’

  ‘That’s what I thought – at first. But look here.’ Crooks lifted the man’s arm and turned it to show them the inside of his wrist. It too had deep red weals. ‘If it had been the dredger these marks would have been all up his arms, more randomly placed, not just on the wrists.’

  ‘So what did it?

  ‘I think he was tied up, pre-mortem.’ The two policemen looked at each other. ‘But there’s something else.’

  ‘What’s that, John?’ Russell asked.

  ‘Splinters.’

  ‘Splinters?’

  ‘Wood splinters. Let me show you.’ Crooks beckoned to his assistant. ‘Give me a hand to turn him over.’ Together they rolled the man on to his front. His back had bruising in vertical stripes. ‘See here.’ Russell leaned forward, over the prone figure. Crooks pointed to a deep bruise. Russell leaned in even closer. The pathologist reached forward with a pair of surgical tweezers. Pushing the point into the bruise, he closed the delicate jaws and withdrew a splinter of wood, no more than half an inch long and a fraction of an inch at its widest. He held it up, triumphantly. ‘There. What do you make of that?’

  ‘I think he was tied to a chair.’

  Crooks raised his eyebrows. ‘Really?’ He appeared to deliberate for a moment. ‘That would certainly explain the bruising. I thought the marks on his chest and wrists were caused by ropes but I hadn’t considered a chair.’ He paused, thinking, his chin sunk on his chest, as far as his multiple chins would allow. He looked up. ‘But there’s more...’

  ‘Russell tipped his head to one side. ‘There is?’

  ‘I won’t know until I’ve finished examining him but the body is very badly bruised – much more than I would expect from being tied up. Plus there are cuts and abrasions on the face and, a missing tooth.’

  ‘But surely that was caused when the dredger scooped him up?’

  ‘Not so. All this damage was caused, as I said, pre – not post – mortem. It looks like he was perhaps beaten, then thrown violently to the ground, still tied up.’

  ‘Poor bugger.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll have to inform next of kin – we’ll need a positive identification.’

  ‘Ah. There’s a slight problem there,’ Weeks said. ‘We know his name was Ted Stump. Apparently he had been mar
ried – twice. The first wife died, the other one left him – no one knows where she is. No children or near relatives either. It seems his closest friend, Nipper Crabbe, would be the one to identify him, but he hasn’t been seen for a few days.’

  ‘Well when you do find him. Send him here.’

  Chapter 9

  A Judas Gate is a small door set in a larger one which can be stepped through without the inconvenience of opening the bigger door. In a Victorian painting, Judas is seen stepping through one on his way to betray Christ, hence the name.

  Nipper Crabbe was worried. Not only that, he was in a bad way. When he’d left the Shipwrights Arms and made his escape from Salle’s grasp, he had run blindly until his lungs were bursting and he felt could go no further. He stopped, and leaning forward, rested his hands on his thighs, breathing heavily. He was about to sit down so he could regain his composure when a noise startled him. Fear gripped his throat. The sound may have been made by an animal but his nerves were so frazzled that he feared it was Salle and his henchman. He pushed blindly on. It was dark and the track he was following was uneven and stony. Several times he stumbled and just saved himself from falling. He kept running, not knowing where he would end up, just knowing that he needed to get away – as far as possible. For several minutes he was lucky, just keeping his balance and just keeping going. Then a particularly deep rut caused him to lose his footing. He tumbled forward, his limbs flailing, but as he fell, his body twisted and he landed heavily on his outstretched arm. There was a crack and a searing pain shot up to his shoulder. He cried out. But fate wasn’t done with him. As he tumbled forward his head connected with the sharp corner of a rock. He saw stars. Then nothing.

  -0-

  Drake was awake well before dawn. He sat up in his bunk. ‘I’ve ’ad enough with staying ’ere now. I don’t know ’ow many times I’ve bashed me ’ead. I’m fed up of stoopin’ bent double.’ Tall and thin, he had found the low cabin ceiling more than challenging and had suffered enough.

  They had been holed up on the boat belonging to Tedham’s mate for two days. They’d found some cans of stew, some hard biscuits in a tin and there was a water butt on the bank, next to a rickety shed so they hadn’t gone hungry or thirsty. But they were starting to get anxious about the sacks that Drake had thrown in the mud.

  ‘I suppose the heat might ’ave died down by now,’ Tedham muttered. ‘But the rozzers are still gonna be after you for thumping that lass.’

  ‘If we go now we can get there before it’s properly light, collect the sacks and be away before anyone notices us.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Tedham said slowly. His furrowed brow showed his reluctance.

  Drake was wide awake now and raring to go. He swung his legs off the bunk and stood up, forgetting the low ceiling. There was a crack as his head connected with a solid wooden beam. He bent over, held his head between his hands and jumped up and down. ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ Tedham couldn’t supress a chuckle at the sight. ‘And you can bugger off, too!’ Drake said, tears in his eyes.

  ‘Sorry! But you looked so funny. Like one o’ them kangyroos.’

  ‘Well I’m glad it gave you a laugh.’ Drake tugged at his red neckerchief and scowled.

  ‘Cheer up mate. We’ll go and get them sacks, if it’ll make you ’appy.’

  They set off across the dunes, Tedham consulting his compass from time to time to check they were on the right track. When they approached Compass Point, all appeared quiet. Cautiously they crossed over the railway line and skirted Mitchell’s boatyard. It was too early for any of Mitch’s men to be in but they weren’t taking any chances. There was no sign of Jack Spratt’s motorcycle combination so they assumed the ferryman wasn’t in his shed, sleeping off a heavy night in the Shipwrights Arms. When they got to the quayside they could just make out the dredger, further up the river on the other bank, sitting low on the mud. Looking down, they could see the incoming tide just beginning to swirl around the mud on their side.

  ‘Right,’ Tedham said. ‘Where’s them sacks?’

  Drake walked a little further along the quayside, his boots crunching on the shingle. ‘’Ere,’ he whispered, ‘this is where I left them.’ He started climbing down the rusty iron ladder. When he reached the lowest dry rung he stopped and reached into the shallow water, feeling for the ropes he’d tied there. His hand found the first one and he pulled, hard. Tedham, standing above him on the quay, saw the mud, a dozen feet out, heave and a slimy sack rise up. Drake pulled it towards him. Tedham leaned down, dragged it up the ladder then cut the rope with his knife. Drake reached down again, found the next rope, pulled, and they repeated the exercise with the second sack. He plunged his hand into the water for the third time and pulled. The rope came up far too fast and he almost lost his balance, twisting away from the ladder but just managing to hold on. He held up the frayed end of the rope.

  ‘What the…!’ Tedham began.

  ‘It’s gone!’ Drake stared at the rope end and shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘But how? Has somebody cut it?’

  ‘No, it’s not been cut – torn more like. How did that happen?’

  Tedham stared up the river to where the dredger was moored, a thin ribbon of grey smoke rising from the funnel. ‘Bet it was that bloody boat.’

  Drake started climbing back up the steps. ‘How come it didn’t get the others?’

  ‘Luck I suppose.’ Tedham reached out and gave his friend a hand over the quay wall. ‘That means someone’s got it.’

  ‘But who? The crew on the dredger?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He stood still, rubbing his hand across the stubble on his chin. ‘Depends how honest they are. Could be with the police.’

  ‘Christ,’ Drake whimpered. ‘Nipper’ll kill us when ’e finds out.’

  ‘Nothin’ we can do about that now.’ Tedham hefted one sack on to his shoulder, the mud oozing down his jersey. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of ’ere.

  -0-

  After some time Crabbe regained consciousness. A painful, groggy consciousness. His head throbbed, a jackhammer beating against his skull. When he tried to move his arm it hurt so badly he nearly passed out again. He moved it more slowly. He gritted his teeth against the pain and looked around. A grey dawn was breaking and he was able to see his surroundings. All about him were sand dunes and scrubby undergrowth. He could hear the sound of the sea to his right and ahead he could make out the distinctive shape of a Martello tower. Gingerly, cradling his arm with the other hand, he got to his feet. Stumbling forward he made slow progress toward the building. When he reached it he saw that there was a crude ramp leading up to the doorway, several feet above the ground. Kids had probably put it there, so they could get inside. Slowly, he made his determined way up the wooden structure, hoping he would be safe, out of sight. The effort took its toll on him and once he’d stepped over the stone threshold he crumpled to the floor and passed out again.

  -0-

  Tedham and Drake shouldered the sacks and swiftly made their exit from the quay, dripping a trail of muddy water behind them as they trotted along the track. ‘Now we’ve got away, what are we going to do with them?’ Drake said. His voice was soft, like the distant calling of a bird.

  ‘We could take them back to the boat but Lou might turn up at any time.’

  ‘What about the van?’

  Tedham was incredulous. ‘You’re joking, ain’t yer? If the cops find it they’ll know it’s us.’

  ‘Where else then?’ His voice became even lighter, his breathing laboured as the weight of the sack bore down on him.

  ‘You ever been in that Martello tower? Where we ’id the van?’ Tedham was less affected by the weight as he strode on.

  ‘Some time ago. Not much in there. Kids go in occasionally.’

  ‘Notice any hidey-holes?’

  Drake stopped and put the sack down, panting. ‘If I remember right, there’s lots of nooks and crannies.’

  Tedham was agitated. ‘Right, that’s all I wanted
to know. Now let’s get going. It’s growing lighter by the minute.’ Since they’d set out from Compass Point, the sun had begun to creep over the horizon, brightening the grey sky.

  When they reached the tower they were both breathing heavily with the effort of carrying the sacks over the rough terrain. They stopped at the foot of the wooden ramp, getting their breath back. Drake suddenly looked up to the doorway. ‘Shh!’ he hissed. ‘Did you hear that?’

  Tedham looked up too. ‘What? I didn’t hear nothin’.’

  ‘Listen!’ They stood quietly for a few moments.

  A bestial groan came from the entrance. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Told you I ’eard something. What is it?’

  ‘I don’t bloody know – sounds like an animal that’s been injured.’

  ‘What’s it doin’ in there?’

  ‘How the ’ell should I know? Perhaps we’d better go an’ look.’

  ‘But it could be dangerous!’ Drake’s voice had drifted into an even higher register, his face creased with anxiety.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid! If you’re scared, I’ll go first.’ Tedham moved gingerly up the ramp, Drake following a little way behind. The groans became louder but Tedham carried steadily on. Reaching the doorway, he stepped over the threshold. The interior was dark and at first he saw nothing. But, as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could pick out a shadowy form, huddled against the wall. He half turned. ‘Quick! Let’s ’ave a light.’ Drake took a box of matches out of his pocket and held it out at arm’s length, his hand shaking so much that the box rattled. Tedham snatched it away from him and soon had a match alight. Holding it above his head he looked towards the strange shape.