EQMM, December 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Now you're talking like a grown-up Joachim, it suits you,” said Bente Vinger Dale.

  The housekeeper entered and motioned towards the table set next to the large fireplace, where the fire was consuming dry birch logs.

  "Please be seated, it is served."

  * * * *

  Carl Vinger seemed rested and relaxed, and he took a generous helping of the marzipan cake. At regular intervals he raised his glass of cloudberry liqueur for a toast. To start off he had talked about everything and nothing, but suddenly his face darkened and eyes sharpened.

  "Dear children. I'm convinced you had a heartfelt and fulfilling conversation after dinner. And I'm just as sure that the one of you who killed me in no way let this be known. Well, I'm not surprised. But allow me to draw your attention to the beautiful object at the centre of the table. I'm sure you can guess what it is."

  The three heirs focused on the elegant bluish-white metal container positioned between two flower arrangements.

  "Oh my God, it ... it's the urn,” said Bente Vinger Dale with a shaking voice. “This is ... this is more than I can take."

  "The urn indeed,” echoed Carl Vinger. “With my mortal remains. As you know, my final place of rest shall be here at Carlsbo."

  Arild Vinger's face was increasingly crimson and his eyes were glazed. Joachim Vinger's forehead perspired. “This joke has gone too far,” he mumbled, and stared at the others with wandering, distant eyes.

  "And now,” said Carl Vinger, “it's time for you to know how I died. Graff, you do the honours."

  The attorney, who was also seated at the coffee table, extracted a sheet of paper from a file and started to read:

  "The deceased was found on the twenty-sixth of July, nineteen eighty-nine, floating in the lake just off the jetty on his own property of Carlsbo. The cause of death was drowning. The corpse had lesions in the forehead area of the cranium. It would seem that an accident had occurred, that the deceased had dived from the jetty into shallow water with a rocky bottom. The injury to the head was not in itself deadly, but rather the reason for a loss of consciousness and subsequent drowning."

  Graff replaced the sheet in the file and stared towards the screen. Carl Vinger sat still for a while. “I see. That was how I died. And don't believe for a moment that the causes were natural. If this were the case, you would not be held responsible. But now I wish to show you some authentic photographs of the last phase of the tragedy. And if you wonder how and why these scenes were photographed, I can inform you that I had a standing agreement with one of my best and most trusted cameramen of many years. If anything should happen to me, he was to be told immediately so that he could capture the necessary footage. That was the agreement, now let's look at the result."

  An unfamiliar voice commented on the subsequent images. The first displayed the Carlsbo property from a distance. Then there were closeups of several people on the beach. New closeups showed Carl Vinger, dressed only in his bathing suit, lying on a stretcher with a deathly pale face, tousled grey hair, and a nasty crimson wound on his wide forehead.

  "Dearest, kindly Father.” Bente Vinger Dale's voice was girlish and verging on tears. She snuffled and buried her face in her hands. Arild Vinger held his hand before his mouth and swallowed, as if he were about to throw up. Joachim Vinger had turned ashen and suddenly appeared to be ten years older.

  "No,” he mumbled. “It isn't possible."

  His half-brother eyed him sceptically. “What isn't possible?"

  "That he died a natural death. He never used to dive. Don't you remember that?"

  Carl Vinger broke the charged silence. “Now is the time for the guilty party to confess. If that doesn't happen, Graff will present the case to the police for a full investigation. All previous attempts on my life will be fully exposed. I can assure you that Graff is a tenacious character who will take care of my interests. You will all face a most unpleasant time. You will be in the public eye, and the guilty one amongst you will be punished in accordance with the law. A confession here and now will prevent this. The guilty one will not be punished, but will be disinherited. As you may have guessed, there are several versions of my will. The one that will apply obviously depends on who killed me."

  Carl Vinger leaned back and lit a cigar. Silence reigned for a long while. Arild Vinger finally broke it. He spoke quietly and intensely.

  "Tell me, Graff, what legal authority do you have to go through with all this?"

  The attorney didn't flinch. “As I have already mentioned, I am following the will of the deceased in every respect."

  "And how many films will we be forced to watch before this macabre show is over?"

  Graff motioned to a row of numbered videotapes in a rack in front of him.

  "That all depends on you. There are numerous options. Carl Vinger was a particularly prescient and visionary man."

  "He was indeed,” agreed Arild Vinger. “But none of us three killed him. The whole display is a terrible affront to his children and heirs. We will not stand it a second longer. We shall..."

  He stopped mid sentence and turned towards the door to the dining room, shock registering on his flushed face. The others heard the same thing he did—a loud, rolling laughter that streamed towards them through the walls and door. Then a voice cried: “Here I am, children!"

  Joachim Vinger had stood up. The legs carrying his stooped body were shaking. “Did you hear that?” he mumbled. “It's Father!"

  Suddenly he raced forward and tore open the door to the dining room. Arild Vinger was hot on his heels, panting with excitement. “I knew it,” he managed to utter. “Father isn't dead, he only put on this show to fool us."

  "Of course,” Joachim Vinger whispered. “We should have guessed it. Thank God, the old bird is alive.” He slapped his half-brother on the back, and for the first time they smiled at one another, joy all over their faces. Then they gazed around the dining room, but there was no one to be seen.

  "Where are you, Father?” cried Joachim Vinger.

  Arild Vinger pointed towards a large cupboard in a corner. “Over there!"

  A few seconds later the cupboard was open, and they stared inside with expressions that slowly changed from anticipation to disappointment and frustration.

  "It ... it's a tape recorder,” Joachim Vinger said tonelessly. “God help me, I can't take much more of this."

  Attorney Graff was just behind them, and spoke gently. “Please, come back to the drawing room. The show is almost over."

  By the coffee table next to the flickering fireplace sat Bente Vinger Dale, white in the face. Graff inserted another tape into the video player. A few seconds later, Carl Vinger's face was back on the screen, this time looking aged, dark, and full of repressed sorrow and bitterness. “So now we know. You murdered me, Bente. And now you have given yourself away. You were the only one who knew I was dead. Where was the joy in your face when you heard me in the dining room? No, there was none. Only shock and anxiety. Because you knew the game was up. However, you are my daughter, and blood is thicker than water. So I'll keep my word. You shall leave Carlsbo a free woman. But not before you have signed papers confirming that you waive any claims to your share of the inheritance. ‘For special reasons,’ as Graff so succinctly has put it. But this is my final offer. You must sign the papers within five minutes. Otherwise the matter will be in the hands of the police. The choice is yours."

  Carl Vinger drew on his cigar. Suddenly his large, staring eyes filled the screen. Bente Vinger Dale held her hand before her face, as if to shield herself. Then she suddenly got up, looked at Graff for a moment, and bent over and signed the paper he was presenting. Then she hurried out of the room without looking back.

  The half-brothers sat staring into space, as if they still hadn't comprehended what had happened. Graff inserted another tape into the player, and Carl Vinger once again appeared on the screen. “Dear Arild and Joachim,” he said in a friendly tone. “I'm sorry I had to put you through all this
. But before I leave you for good, I would like to share a toast of champagne with you. Edna, you may serve us now."

  The housekeeper appeared with a bottle and two glasses on a silver tray. She poured and retreated. Carl Vinger raised his glass. The half-brothers followed suit, respectfully and bleary-eyed.

  "Cheers, my boys. May good fortune follow you for the rest of your lives.” The old man emptied the contents of the glass. Then he put it down. The sharp colour image turned to a blue flicker and disappeared.

  (c) 2008 by Richard Macker; translation (c) 2008 by Runar Fergus

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  Novelette: TAKE DEATH EASY by Peter Turnbull

  Peter Turnbull's latest novel in the Hennessey and Yellich series to which this new story belongs is Turning Point (September 2008, Severn House). The series is set in Yorkshire, the author's home turf, and always rewards the reader with the believability of both place and characters. Mr. Turnbull was a social worker before he began to write full time and in the course of his duties no doubt witnessed many of the same things a policeman encounters.

  1.

  MONDAY

  —In which in the sultry month of August in the golden Vale of York, a loathsome man with a loathsome machine makes a loathsome find, and a woman fulfilled becomes a woman haunted.

  His new toy, she thought, said it all. And it said the end—after ten years it was the end, as, eventually, she knew it would be. No more hiding from it, or from him. It astounded Sandra Schofield that it had taken her ten years to “see” her husband, to see that she had been worshipping a myth. They had met at university, both students of English literature. She had immersed herself in her course, entered into the spirit of it, had obtained a great enrichment from it, and had been awarded a lower second. She could have got a 2.1, her tutor said, but her old problem of tending to write unfinished sentences had been her downfall, so a 2.2 it had to be. Gary Schofield, who liked being called “Gaz,” as he had been in primary school, also on the same course, had been awarded a First. She assumed that he had had the same attitude to the course as she, and whilst she had taken a modest 2.2, he on the other hand had taken an impressive First, and you don't get better than that. She could only respect him. She respected him further when with his First he went to teach in an inner-city school, while she had gone to teach in a traditional genteel girls’ grammar school where the pupils want to learn and school discipline is not an issue. The truth emerged slowly, and two children and ten years later it was inescapable. It emerged because of a comment here, an attitude there, and its emergence was hindered by her initial refusal to believe what she was hearing.

  It was, for example, his boast, his boast, that their second-year Shakespeare paper consisted of questions on either King Lear or Julius Caesar, and that Lear being a minefield when it came to examinations, and Caesar being a simple play by comparison, he had gone in knowing nothing at all about Lear, had not even read Lear that year, but had depended solely on his knowledge of Caesar, of which he knew so much. She, on the other hand, had familiarised herself with both plays, read both, read all the critics on both. She had taken the lesser degree. And that's how he had done it: examination technique, not, as she had thought, academic brilliance. Not cheating, by any means, but there was something cynical and exploitative about it. When she realised that, Sandra Schofield realised that, after all, her husband just would not thrill to three words, or even three lines of Shakespeare. And the throwaway remark by which she learned why he had taken a job in the inner-city school: Inner-city schools are not expected to produce good results anyway, so there's less pressure on the teaching staff. So while she stayed up until midnight marking the homework of her pupils who were going to become doctors and lawyers, he spent the evening in front of the television or in the pub in the village, because inner-city children don't do homework. Set as much homework as you like, it won't get done. After ten years settled in the harsh north of England out of devotion to her new husband who would not leave Yorkshire, she realised that her husband was a lazy, cynical, self-centred, emotionally immature individual. She grew to find him loathsome. And his new toy said it all.

  A metal detector.

  She had always found such devices loathsome. Men walking across fields, sweeping the thing from side to side before them; scavenging. If they were birds, they'd be vultures. And here he was still wanting to be called “Gaz” as he had been when six years old, tearing off the wrapping of his new toy, with six weeks of uninterrupted school holidays to play with it in. And while his wife and children wanted attention, and despite his complaining about the tightness of the household budget, he'd flashed his credit card and indulged himself. It was then that Sandra Schofield “saw” her husband, and when she did, her home in Dorset beckoned, and beckoned warmly.

  Gary “Gaz” Schofield, insensitive to his wife's coldness, to her ever increasing emotional distance, not even noticing that she was rummaging in the cupboard where their suitcases were kept, announced that he was going out for the day, but he'd be back for dinner. Without waiting for her reply, he left the house, metal detector, instruction manual, and small spade in hand, and walked to where his gleaming car stood in the driveway.

  He drove to the countryside east of York, to the area of Roman roads and ancient settlements. It was a hot day, flat fields of golden corn or yellow oilseed lay about him, a distant horizon, a vast blue sky. He drove off the main road onto a “B” road, and from the B road he turned up an unmarked track on which he parked the car. From the track he walked up a path to a small wood, one of many small woods which serve to break up the landscape in the Vale of York. As he approached the wood, detector in hand, he saw a sign nailed to a tree at the edge of the wood: Private Wood—Keep Out. He smiled. That sign, he thought, would serve to keep many people out and so with luck, he'd be the first metal-detector owner to use his device in this location.

  He stepped into the shade of the wood, in which many flies swarmed, and saw that the wood with its smooth mossy floor leant itself well to detecting. He put on the headphones, switched on the machine, and began to crisscross the wood, sweeping the machine widely before him. At first he found nothing, but he kept on sweeping because like all who pursue the hobby, he knew that the next sweep could bring about the earthenware pot of coins that had been buried in order to prevent the Romans from looting them, or another such similar discovery: such discoveries being made from time to time in the soil of England.

  Then his headphones buzzed. He took them off and laid down the detector, and began to dig with the small spade. About a foot down he came across a metal torch, about twenty years old. He went down further and came across a rucksack, also of a design which he recalled being popular about twenty years ago—a Terylene sack, still red in colour, on an aluminum frame. Digging further, he struck a hard object, but not metal. He scraped the soil away. He saw it was a skull.

  A human skull.

  * * * *

  Harriet Cooper was a tortured woman. A haunted, tortured woman, and she knew the torture now would be endless. She would take it to her grave. If she had been by herself she would have gone to the police and confessed, but she had a husband to consider, a man of standing, the scandal would ruin him and he knew nothing of what had happened all those years earlier, before they had met. And she had pre-teenage children, both settled in school, both wanting to become doctors like their father.

  The memory, when it returned, came in pieces. It came suddenly, the first bit, while sewing a patch on her son's jeans: the night in the wood, the hole, the smell of freshly turned soil, the scent of summer vegetation, sharpened because of the recent shower of rain ... then all she could do was sit there, wondering whether she had remembered a dream. Two days later she had accepted that it was no dream, but that she really had once helped to bury a body.

  And the body was that of Norbert Parkes. Poor Norbert, little Norbert, university life for him was not a good experience, just another rejection in a life which
had been a series of rejections ... then two days later, the memory of the murder itself. Miles swinging the pickax handle down on Norbert's head from behind ... and the sound of a woman screaming, then realising that she had been the only woman present. And what was it that Miles had said as he looked down on the body ... what was it? Oh yes, “Take death easy, Norbert, take death easy."

  If at the moment either she or Cameron had picked up the phone, and called the police, it would have been all right, not for Norbert, not for Miles, but for them, her and Cameron, because they had no idea what Miles was going to do—even Miles didn't seem to premeditate it. That's what it seemed like. Miles just couldn't contain his contempt for Norbert any longer, and then Norbert's head had been sticking up above the back of the chair and Miles just happened to be walking past with a pickax handle in his hand.... Everything conspired at once to make Norbert's head an irresistible target.

  But Miles had a way of controlling people, and before she knew what she was doing, she was helping Miles and Cameron bundle Norbert's little body into the back of Cameron's old Land Rover to carry it to where Miles knew was a private wood. And there they buried him, possessions and all—cheap, inexpensive possessions. Then they had returned to Miles's parents’ house and collected the rest of Norbert's possessions, his bus ticket, his cheap sleeping bag, the small pile of coins on the bedside cabinet. And when they had finished, Norbert Parkes had never been in the house.

  The very next day Miles's parents had returned from their holiday in Jamaica and thanked Miles and his two university friends for “sitting” the house for them, and hoped that the “three of you” had had a pleasant two weeks in “our house.” After lunch that day, she and Cameron had driven back to York in total silence. At York Station she had gotten out of the Land Rover without a word being spoken or without a backward glance. And that had been the last she had seen of Cameron McKay or Miles Trewlawney.