He dived again, thrust himself away from it, away from the dark hulk of the blazing motor cruiser, out to open sea.
The first precious bubbles of air escaped his lungs. More would follow. He could not hold on much longer. Maybe this was for the best. Maybe it was time. Time to join Trish.
“No, Felix. It’s not time.”
Her voice rang in his head. Logic seeped into his dulling consciousness. There were no such things as ghosts. It was a trick. A trick of his dying mind. A trick of his failing memory. The survival instinct finding a way of getting its message across.
Darkness approached.
“It’s no trick, Felix. I’m with you. I’ll always be with you.”
Somewhere above, a dark shape moved slowly along the surface.
“It’s Millie,” said Trish. “She needs you, Felix.”
He rolled and kicked feebly for the surface.
***
“Where the hell is he?” Tears streamed down Millie’s cheeks. “I saw him go over the side.” She turned to Emma. “You saw him, too. Didn’t you? Tell me you saw him.”
“I… I’m not sure. I thought I saw something, but…” The young woman trailed off. “Maybe we saw what we wanted to see.”
Millie turned and scanned the surface again. Thirty yards to her right, Marion 34 blazed brightly, surrounded by a ring of fire. The body of William Prather, slumped against the side, burned with it. She didn’t care. She wanted Croft. She could not leave him to drown here. Not when they had come so far.
“There.” One of the crewmen called out and pointed to a head bobbing up just this side of the blazing cruiser.
“Bring us round,” Millie ordered.
“The fuel tank on that tub could go up any minute,” the helmsman complained.
“Get him out of the water,” Millie screamed.
“Cut in, skipper,” one of the crewmen urged. “If it’s chancy, we’ll get a line on him and drag him away from it.”
The helmsman brought the tiny raft about and alongside Croft. The two crewmen, wary eyes on the flames coming from Marion 34, leaned over, grabbed his belt and hauled him into the dinghy and the helmsman sped off, away from the burning cruiser. They were a hundred yards away when the fuel tank exploded, a dull boom echoing from the cliffs and through the morning air, an orange and black fireball rising into the sky.
Millie didn’t care. Her thoughts were concentrated on Croft, and the work the crewmen were carrying out on him, cutting off his shirt and jeans, wrapping him in rough, woollen blankets.
“At least he’s alive,” one said, “but we need to land him and get him to the hospital, PDQ.”
43
That is the whole sorry story. As I write this final, brief chapter, the manuscript is almost complete.
There is one more item to prepare as a foreword to the book. I know, however, that I am unlikely to survive long enough to judge its success. I also know that when he takes delivery of it, Gerald will want The Deep Secret for himself, and Franz Walter and Julius Reiniger insisted it should not be shared other than with those who can be trusted to keep it. Gerald will have to work to get it. That work will do him good. It will distract him from some of his terrible thinking.
I have been in this hell hole for over three years now and he has not carried out his threatened revenge on James Croft. I believe the promise of The Deep Secret has already worked its magic on the boy.
My health is failing. The angina is getting worse and the cold, damp conditions in this Victorian building do me no favours. My only hope is that my son will live to fulfil the promise I did not and that he will not fall by the wayside of sexual deviancy and financial greed.
44
All he knew was darkness; a black deeper than the darkest night.
Was this it? Death? That unfathomable realm upon which so many had speculated throughout history. Was this all that there was? A darkness combined with awareness. And yet, in that awareness, there was no pleasure, no pain, no joy, no sadness. It just was.
And into the darkness came a female voice.
“He was treated in Helecombe cottage hospital, sir, but his injuries were too much for their limited resources, so once they dressed them, they moved him here.”
Was it Trish? It didn’t sound like Trish. And whom would Trish be addressing as ‘sir’? His father?
“Barnstaple, sir.”
Couldn’t be Trish. She never deferred to anyone other than judges and only then because judicial protocols demanded it.
“Well, I’d like to stay on for a day or two, if that’s all right. Until he’s ready to come home.”
And Trish would not ask anyone’s permission to be anywhere. She would say she was staying. And where was Helecombe? Where was Barnstaple? Where was the damned light?
“Thank you, sir. I’ll keep in touch.”
Grey filtered through the impossible blackness, gradually increasing to a white, a bright white, an antiseptic white.
His vision cleared. He focused on a wall clock reading a few minutes to three. All around him were the same white walls. The smell of hospital assaulted his nostrils, and the feel of crisp, cotton sheets tucked tightly around him. His left arm hurt, his burns stung, and his back felt sore. As his vision cleared further, he took in the plaster cast on his arm, and felt the presence of other dressings. From somewhere behind came the steady blip of a monitor keeping track of his vital signs. Almost on cue, a blood pressure cuff inflated around his right arm. It hurt, and it seemed to take forever to deflate.
Dim memories assailed him. The fight, the fire, hitting the water… Trish. He had vague recollections of a team of medics surrounding him, cutting away the rest of his clothing, of being wrapped in foil, voices, some barking orders, others responding with information. The interior of an ambulance, tight straps securing him to a trolley, a saline bag swinging somewhere above him.
He turned his head to the right and looked into Millie’s smiling face.
“Hiya,” she greeted. “How you doing?”
He winced. “I hurt.” His voice sounded croaky, gravelly, uncertain.
Millie leaned forward and gently patted his arm. “Fractured radius or ulna, can’t remember which. Various burns here there and everywhere. Water doesn’t do much good against an oil based fire, and your clobber caught light when the boat blew up. Luckily, when you went under the water, it put the flames out. You’re concussed, a bit of oxygen starvation and the cold of the water was getting to you by the time we dragged you out. Helecombe tarted you up while they waited for an ambulance to bring you here.”
“Barnstaple?”
“The very place.” She smiled again.
The memories flooded in on him. “The young woman?”
“Emma? In deep shock. She’d been raped a couple of times during the night, seen her husband thrown overboard to drown and, of course, until you climbed aboard, she was held at gunpoint. She’s physically unharmed, but she’ll probably need years of therapy before they mend her mind. She did say she’ll recommend you for a medal for the way you got her out of Prather’s clutches.”
“And talking of Prather?”
Millie gave a disinterest shrug and sigh. “Dead. He was burning when we got to you. Soon after that the fuel tanks went up. It took a few hours to get the fireboat out to it. Last I heard from the local commander, they dragged one blackened corpse from it. Post mortem will confirm that it’s Prather, but unless there was anyone else on board, I think we can take it that he’s a goner.”
“I’ll wait for the post mortem,” Croft said grimly. “Was that Shannon you were talking to?”
“Hmm,” she nodded. “He wants a full report by Monday morning. I told him it won’t happen. I reckon it’ll be Tuesday before they let you out of here, and I’m not going home without you.” Millie let out a sigh. “Dunno whether I want to go back to ordinary, boring policing after all this excitement.”
“Pounding the beat? Interviewing burglars?” Croft looked down at h
er handbag. “Or would you feel naked and defenceless without your gun?”
She laughed. “Hardly.” The smile faded and she sounded more wistful. “It’s crackers when I think about it, you know. I got my firearms authorisation years ago and I go for a refresher every twelve months, but this is the first time I’ve ever had to draw a weapon, and I still haven’t fired it in anger.”
“Good,” Croft said. “Let’s hope you never have to.”
A nurse entered, and fussed over him, making notes of his signs, checking his temperature, and then left, promising to return with a cup of tea.
While she busied herself, Croft concentrated on his memories.
Alone again, he said to Millie, “She came to me, you know. Trish. While I was underwater. I was happy to stay there, to be with her, but she told me to come back. She said you would need me.”
Millie blushed. “I don’t know about need, but…”
Croft saved her from having to find the words. “I don’t believe in ghosts. It was probably my subconscious telling me something and using its capacity for storytelling to get the message across.” He took her hand. “I just want you to know that I’ll be there. Always.”
“I know.”
Another silence fell, and the nurse returned, leaving two cups of tea before going about her business.
“So does that mean you’re not going back to Tenerife, or are you going to commute every day between Las Américas and Manchester?” Millie laughed to demonstrate that she was joking.
“I think I may be more use here, in this country,” Croft said. He sipped at his tea and grimaced. “Christ, that’s worse than your canteen tea.” He lowered the cup. “I’m moving out of Oaklands,” he told her.
Millie almost spilled her tea. “What? But…”
“I’ve been thinking about it for the last few days. It’s too big, Millie. For one man alone, even for a couple, it takes up an obscene amount of space. And for me personally, it’s filled with ghosts. I can buy a small detached house somewhere in Scarbeck, or maybe out on the moors. I don’t need a mortgage. I can afford to pay cash for a decent place, and I’d be much happier.”
“And what will happen to Oaklands? I don’t think the council can afford to buy it back from you.”
“I’m going to turn it into a centre for abused women.” Putting his cup down on the bedside cabinet, he stared through the windows at the blaze of summer sun beyond. “I wouldn’t want any woman, no matter how mean or low, to suffer the way Burke, Prather, even Walter, Reiniger and Zepelli, made their victims suffer. I can hand the keys over to any number of organisations. W-A-R: Woman Against Rape, for instance. Charitable outfits like that would be glad of the building, and I can get my accountants to establish a trust so the place can be run properly. Somewhere where threatened women can feel safe. The Sinclair Refuge for Women.” He smiled up at her. “How does that sound?”
Millie beamed back.”I think it’s a wonderful idea.”
“But what about you?” Croft asked. “Wouldn’t you prefer to be with me in my new, detached place? Where you can keep a proper eye on me.”
Millie hesitated. “We’ll see.”
45
“… ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life…”
As he let himself into Oaklands, Croft was aware that the single phrase had rung repeatedly round his head throughout the one-hour drive from Warrington to Scarbeck, while Millie sat in the passenger seat of his Mercedes, chattering away.
Trish’s funeral had not been of his design, but Andrew’s, her surviving brother. Indeed, Croft had only received an invitation at the insistence of sister-in-law, Phillipa. Had Croft been involved, it would have been a secular service, based not on his own agnosticism, but Trish’s atheism.
Throughout the service, he had remained stone-faced, refusing to give way to those emotions churning away under the surface, which threatened to engulf him. The small congregation sang hymns like I Vow To Thee My Country (which he knew Trish had always hated) and the local vicar delivered a trite eulogy; his words a palliative against the awful realisation that Trish was no more. Croft remained tight lipped. Even through the playing of the Romanz from Rodrigo’s Concerto de Aranjuez, the slow, melancholic movement, one of Trish’s favourites, he had reminded himself that he was here to pay respects to her departed body. Her spirit would never die. It would live with him until the day he, too, departed this life.
He called back briefly to Andrew’s house, where the wake was held, to pay his respects. Andrew ignored him, Phillipa uttered a few words of unction. In an effort to exculpate Andrew, Millie quietly reminded Croft that the Sinclairs had two more funerals to come; those of Ted and Belinda. At 2.30am, he and Millie set off home.
Driving his freshly serviced, now roadworthy, Mercedes, with one arm still encased in plaster, was difficult, and, as Millie pointed out, technically illegal, but he refused to ride shotgun in her Vauxhall any more.
The journey afforded her the opportunity to bring him up to date on all that had happened in the week and a bit since their return from North Devon.
“Avon and Somerset found bones under the patio at the Burkes’ old house. A man in his fifties or sixties, they reckon. Head caved in by the proverbial blunt instrument. DNA analysis went off to Germany for comparison with blood samples from World War Two. Accurate results could take months, if they actually have any of Julius Reiniger’s blood. We may never know, but the age of the bones is about right and, according to Scientific Support, they’ve been there nigh on forty years, which fits in with Zepelli’s account of the time Reiniger disappeared.”
As they passed Manchester Airport, she turned to other matters. “Scarbeck General has opened a full investigation into lapses of its disclosure procedures. They’ll tighten up their belts, and one or two people are likely to be sacked.”
“But not Trench?”
“Shouldn’t think so,” Millie replied. “What was it you said in Bristol about the bulletproof of society? Trench is probably one of them. The same goes for the governors at Hattersley and Ringley nicks, oddly enough. You suggested Inskip might carry the can at Hattersley, but he’s likely to get away with it after an opposition MP brought up the holes in visiting ID checks for lawyers. Home Secretary is reeling a bit, and there will also be some tightening up of the rules regarding the transfer of officers from one prison to another, but that’s all. The gun club your brother-in-law was a member of will take a bit of flak and the rules on holding guns in private houses will be looked at during the next Parliament.”
“Instead of simply banning them altogether,” Croft grumbled. Before Millie could pick him up on the matter, he asked, “What about Chief Superintendent Durbridge?”
“Too early to say for sure, but the grapevine says he’s been invited to resign.”
“Pension intact?”
“Pension intact.”
Croft sighed. “Told you so. Did you get anywhere with MI6 and Folshingham Hall?”
Millie shook her head. “That’s the one blank we drew. The details of Folshingham’s role in World War Two is subject to a hundred and twenty-five-year rule under the Official Secrets Act. They wouldn’t even confirm that the commandant was Colonel Quarmby and they wouldn’t tell us whether Reiniger was housed there or even if Burke was stationed there. As far as I’m concerned, that’s enough to confirm Zepelli’s tale.” Millie fell silent for a moment, then opened up again. “Oh. Did I tell you that the body on the boat has been positively confirmed as that of Billy Prather?”
“Two days ago,” Croft said, drifting from the M56 and following the signs for the M60 East & North.
“Blood and DNA make it definite,” she said as if she had not heard his response.
As they sped past the outskirts of Stockport, and the motorway arched north towards the Pennines and a build up of heavy, summer cloud, she announced, “Ernie’s going.”
“I remember he mentioned it. Definite is it?”
Millie nodded. “He has to give three months’ notice, but come October/November he’ll be running that flower stall on Scarbeck market.”
“So who’ll take over as head of CID? You?”
Millie grunted. “Could be, but I can’t be promoted to Superintendent. Not yet. I should get my Chief Inspector’s ticket, though, and it’s not unusual for a small town force to be headed by a Chief Inspector. The Chief Super would still have overall command, just like he does with Ernie. So, yes, I could end up in charge.” She laughed. “It should be enough to make Dave Thurrock break out in a sweat.” She turned her head and bestowed a loving gaze on him. “That’s it for me. You got any news?”
“Yes, but I can’t make up my mind whether it’s good or bad. I spoke to the dean, yesterday. The university are happy for me to pick up my researches where I left off last year.”
“So what’s bad about that?” Millie asked.
“They’re not going to bother paying me.”
She laughed again. “You can afford it. Hey, and you’ll have The Deep Secret to work with once you crack it.” Her laughter subsided. “You did say you knew how to find it, and I assume you will be making the effort, won’t you?”
Croft frowned. “We’ll see.”
It was just after 3.15pm when he pulled up outside her apartment.
“Fancy staying the night?” she invited.
He nodded. “Sure. But I have to go to Oaklands. Bits and pieces to attend to. I’ll pick you up later and we’ll go out for a meal. Okay?”
“Seven o’clock will be just fine.”
From there he had battled with the traffic across town, and now that he was alone, his memories of the funeral came back to him, gaining strength and momentum with each passing mile to Oaklands, so that by the time he turned the key in the lock, it had become a chorus ringing and ringing round his head.
“… ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life…”
The Deep Secret Page 29
