Paying the Ferryman

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘I’ll do everything I can,’ Steel said.

  SEVEN

  The tide was out when Alec approached Ferrymouth. The road wove narrowly between open fields and marsh which, some distance away, gave way to mud flats and narrow beach and then estuary.

  ‘It’s going to rain again,’ he told Naomi. ‘The sky is damn near black.’

  ‘What’s the view like?’

  ‘Flat and muddy. Beached boats waiting for the tide to come in. It’s all marshland between here and the sea, cut across with dykes and run-offs. I think it’s some kind of bird sanctuary, if I remember right. I’ve not been here for a long time.’

  Back the way they had come the land rose, cliffs faced out to sea, rich farmland beyond, but for this brief stretch the topography slid downward, flattened out, marinated itself in mud and peat and salt. Someone had once told Alec that this had been forested land a few thousand years before and you could still find semi-fossilized trees in amongst the peat. It had never been more than sparsely inhabited; you couldn’t farm the land and the fishing was scant and hard. The small town of Ferrymouth had grown up because of the need of folk to cross the estuary. The ferry was long gone, replaced a century or more before by a narrow road bridge some miles further down the river and more recently by a suspension bridge that Alec could see even though he knew it to be ten miles or so away, the land was so flat here.

  They had arranged to go to the incident room set up in the town and Alec had been given the post code for a place called St Barts church that was apparently being used. He soon realized that they needn’t have worried about being lost; Ferrymouth was just one main street with a plethora of smaller ones leading off. A market square in the centre with what looked like a town hall occupying one complete side. St Barts was on the way out of town. Red brick, Victorian, the building looked functional, fitting into a street of Victorian terraced houses and a couple of little shops.

  Alec pulled up in front of the church, not sure where he should park. Naomi had called ahead a few minutes before when they’d first entered the town and told Sergeant Willis where they were. Alec guessed that the woman waiting for them at the church door was probably her.

  ‘Well?’ Naomi asked.

  Alec laughed. His wife had him well schooled. We reach a place and you describe it to me.

  ‘Terraced street,’ he said. ‘Though wider than most. It’s a continuation of the main road. The rest of the road is cordoned off and there are access only signs and a couple of uniforms. Red brick church, mid-nineteenth century, I’d say, and what looks like it might have been a school behind. There are separate entrances for boys and girls. Our guide – at least I’m guessing that’s what she is – is about thirtyish, pretty, black and very slim.’

  ‘Best pull the stomach in, then,’ Naomi teased.

  As they got out of the car the young woman came to meet them. ‘You must be Alec and Naomi? I’m DS Sophie Willis. Thank you very much for coming. The boss has just gone to the hospital. Sarah Griffin woke up a while ago.’

  ‘She’ll be all right?’ Alec asked. ‘I mean, as much as she can be.’

  ‘As all right as she can be. Yes. Come along inside.’

  It had begun to rain again.

  She led them through into what Alec realized must have been the school house. The church itself had been taken over by officers in uniform. The investigation had set up shop anywhere they could fit a table and a couple of chairs, and local people sat in the pews waiting to make statements while others milled around grasping mugs and chatting in slightly hushed tones. Someone laughed and the sound ricocheted around the nave. Conversation was suspended as everyone turned to look.

  ‘We’re using the old school as the major incident area,’ Willis said. ‘The hall is our assembly point.’ She pointed through a door as they passed and Alec gained a swift impression of maps and more people. ‘We’re using that space to organize search teams and collate anything they find.’

  ‘Will there be much to find?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘Probably not, but people want to be involved. You know what it’s like. And you never know, we’re woefully short of personnel, and extra bodies are very welcome just now.’

  Naomi nodded.

  ‘We’ve been promised more officers this afternoon, but this morning we had to make do with anyone we could rustle up from the local constabulary and the TA. We’re a rural force, low crime rate, scanty population.’ Willis shrugged. ‘Actually, all the reasons I like being out here, but when you do need the extra manpower, it can take a bit of time to arrive.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Naomi said. ‘So how can we help you?’

  ‘That’s the big question, isn’t it? Look, best thing is to take you over to the Dog and Gun; they’ve opened up a room for you, and Douggie, the landlord, he does good food. We can get a decent cuppa and something to eat and I’ll bring you up to speed. My DI would like to keep your presence under the radar. We’re already starting to fall over journalists every time we move. I’m sure you’d like to avoid that.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Alec said. ‘Lead the way.’

  EIGHT

  ‘You can have a few minutes, no more. She’s deeply distressed and the doctor’s given her a sedative so I doubt she’ll stay awake for long.’

  Steel nodded. ‘I’ve just got a few questions,’ he said. ‘Does she know about her family?’

  ‘That her mother and stepfather are dead, yes. And about her baby brother, though I’m not sure she’s taken it all in. Have the relatives been informed? When can we expect someone to come and be with her?’

  Steel shook his head. ‘So far we’ve been able to find no one,’ he said. ‘The family moved to Ferrymouth only about three years ago, but they seem to have cut themselves off from everyone when they did.’

  ‘And why on earth would they do that?’

  ‘I don’t know, yet,’ Steel told her. ‘She has good friends, though. I said I’d ask if they could visit.’

  ‘Not yet.’ The sister sighed. ‘Poor little girl. Look, you see if you can track down some relatives and I’ll see about letting her see her friends, if she’s ready, maybe tomorrow. She could do with someone she knows.’

  Steel nodded and decided not to push things further. He was determined to get Joey in to see Sarah and figured that Maggie would be willing to come along and ease the way. He liked her instinctively and liked Tel and Joey too, though he sensed that Joey had problems of his own.

  ‘I’ll come in with you,’ the sister told him. ‘At least she knows me.’

  Steel nodded and they pushed through the double doors. A female officer sat beside the bed, Sarah’s hand clasped tight in her own. The girl looked so small, Steel thought, propped up on the pillows with her hair spread out like a curly halo. She had been crying; her eyes were red and sore and she looked exhausted. The nurse hovered at the end of the bed and Steel sat down on the side opposite to the female officer.

  ‘Sarah, my name is Inspector Steel. Ryan Steel.’ He smiled at her and tried to look non-threatening, acutely aware of his height and size and the fact that, as Sophie Willis often said, he looked more Yeti than human.

  Sarah turned her head in his direction. He was struck by the grief and pain in the girl’s eyes.

  ‘Sarah, I’m so terribly sorry about your family.’

  Tears welled again. A box of tissues stood on the bedside table and he grasped a bundle of them and handed them to her. Sarah hesitated and then took them.

  ‘What happened last night? Can you tell me anything?’

  ‘I heard them shouting. Vic and Mum, they didn’t shout. And Jack was crying. I went to him and picked him up. Then I heard … I heard …’

  ‘You heard what, Sarah?’

  ‘Vic must have known I was in Jack’s room. The baby monitor. He’d have heard me talking to Jack. He knew I was up and he shouted to me to run and then I heard the shooting.’

  ‘You knew it was shots?’

  She nodded. ‘I knew.�
��

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I hid. With Jack. I heard him coming up the stairs and I saw him go into Jack’s room and then I took Jack and sneaked down the stairs and out the back. But he must have heard me because he ran down after and as we got through the gate he shot at us. He killed Jack.’

  The flow of tears had become a flood and the nursing sister looked meaningfully in Steel’s direction and jerked her head towards the door. He held up a hand, gesturing for a moment more.

  ‘Sarah, I know this must be terribly hard, but just tell me one more thing. Did you hear the gunman speak? Was there anything distinctive about his voice?’

  He saw the police officer shift in her chair and guessed that Sarah might already have told her something that there’d been no time for her to relay. He raised an eyebrow, but Sarah was ahead of them.

  ‘I know who it was,’ she said, and her voice was fierce. ‘It was him.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘My fucking dad,’ Sarah spat the words. ‘He’d come back, just like he said he would. He came back and he killed them all.’

  Steel waited outside Sarah’s room until the young officer could extricate herself. Through the glass panels in the doors he could see the nurse trying to comfort the distraught child and the officer gradually easing her hand free of Sarah’s death grip.

  ‘I’ll buy you a coffee,’ he said as she joined him. ‘There’s a café downstairs.’

  ‘I don’t know if I should.’ She glanced anxiously over her shoulder. ‘I said I’d stay with her. There’s a vending machine just down the hall.’

  ‘That will have to do, then. What’s your name, by the way?’

  She laughed. ‘Right. I’m Stacy. DC Stacy Woods. I’m from Cauldwell, came over this morning when you put out the call for backup.’

  Steel nodded. ‘She’d already told you about her father?’

  ‘Just before you arrived. She’s sure it was him.’

  ‘Well, so far as I know, he’s in prison, but … anything else?’

  ‘Not a lot. She woke up, heard arguing downstairs, and Jack was crying. She got out of bed and went to Jack and then realized there was someone else arguing with her parents downstairs.’

  ‘And she’s convinced that someone was her father. She’s sure she recognized the voice?’

  ‘Seems to be, but I wonder if it’s more what the man said. She says it’s been something like six years since she spoke to her real father, so she might have been confused. I don’t know.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘Something about what kind of woman keeps a father from seeing his child,’ Stacy told him. ‘Apparently Vic, the stepdad, then said something like “a mother who wants to protect her kid” and then shortly after that Victor Griffin yells at Sarah to run and then there are the shots.’

  ‘She seemed very quick to realize what had happened,’ Steel observed.

  ‘She said she’d heard gunshots before. I just figured her stepdad must have sounded scared enough that she didn’t question anything, she just took Jack and tried to get the hell out.’

  Steel fed the vending machine with coins and handed hot chocolate to Stacy, deciding to follow her example. Vending machine coffee never tasted of anything much in his opinion; chocolate stood at least a fighting chance of having a flavour. There were chairs nearby and they sat down, Stacy checking her watch to see how long she’d been away.

  ‘Has she mentioned anything else?’

  ‘Only that the rain was cold and the mud made it hard to run. She took Jack into the barn and she said it was really dark, but that she could remember what had been there from before. She’d apparently been inside a few times. She remembered the farm machinery and thought it would be a good hiding place. She said she felt like she was going to pass out and it was a struggle to get to the barn. The doctors had to give her a transfusion; she’d lost a heck of a lot of blood. She crawled into the space and pulled the tarpaulin down over herself and Jack. She’s pretty sure she heard a sound outside, like maybe the gunman had followed them. If so, then she was doubly lucky. If he’d gone inside—’

  ‘Why didn’t he?’ Steel wondered. ‘That’s assuming she did hear something. And if not, why didn’t he follow them? Though presumably he ran because the shots had attracted the neighbours and the lights were coming on. But he didn’t go out the front; the door was still locked.’ Steel shook his head. He needed to go back and look at the house again.

  ‘It was chucking it down with rain last night,’ Stacy said. ‘I came off shift just after midnight and I had my windscreen wipers on full and I still couldn’t see a damn thing.’

  ‘Good point,’ Steel said, then ‘Midnight? So you shouldn’t have been at work at all this morning. Have you had any sleep?’

  She shrugged. ‘The call came in at six, my boss phoned me just after. I’m fine.’

  Steel nodded again and Stacy got up, ready to return to Sarah. ‘I’d best get back.’

  ‘And I’d best get to the school before they finish for the day.’ He handed her his card. ‘If she says anything more or if she wants to talk to me, just call. And I’ll see to it someone comes to relieve you later this afternoon.’

  She shook her head. ‘I can sleep in the chair for now. No rush. Sarah seems to like me and I’d sooner be with her until you find some family to come and be with her.’

  ‘The way things are going, that might take some time,’ Steel said.

  NINE

  ‘But why a croft? I mean, what do you know about farming? Or sheep?’

  ‘I don’t have to keep sheep. And I don’t intend to farm. I might dig a bit. Grow something. Keep chickens.’

  ‘Now I know you’ve lost it.’ Nathan grinned at his friend. ‘You need something to keep you busy, and I don’t mean feeding chooks or planting carrots.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want anything else. I like it up here.’

  Nathan looked around with a considering eye. True, it was wildly beautiful. The sky had cleared and was crisply blue, though the sea still churned and roiled below the cliff. And it was bitterly cold. ‘No trees,’ he said.

  ‘True. I might miss the trees. I could fish?’

  Nathan wasn’t sure how that observation connected to trees. ‘I’m not sure your boat would like it up here,’ he said. ‘She’s always struck me as a southern sort of girl.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘It’s also bloody cold.’ Nathan shivered and adjusted his scarf and hat. He hated being cold and since he’d been shot last autumn his body didn’t take kindly to the tension that went with such buttock-clenching, belly-tightening chill.

  Gregory looked at his younger friend with concern. ‘We’ll get you back into the warm,’ he said. ‘Get some grub inside us. Then I think I’ll take a walk.’

  Nathan groaned. ‘Well, I hope you don’t mind if I settle in by the fire with a good book. Even a bad book. I’ve been blown off my feet enough for one day.’

  Gregory nodded.

  ‘Food sounds good, though.’

  They walked back to the hotel in companionable silence. Gregory had been very quiet of late, even by Gregory standards, and Nathan was concerned for him. He recognized the sense of dislocation, of not knowing what life could or should bring next, but this trip up to the Scottish Isles in the middle of winter seemed symptomatic of an even more powerful sense of confusion than Nathan had reckoned on.

  Both men had led dangerous lives, though until recently, Nathan Crow, the adopted son of the hugely powerful diplomat and spymaster Gustav Clay, had managed to stay approximately on the right side of the law. His association with the enigmatic hit man Gregory Hess – along with other circumstances – had changed that forever. When Nathan had been shot a few months before, while helping Naomi and Alec rescue a kidnapped mother and child, Gregory had rescued him. And, while Nathan was recovering, Gregory had taken care of him. Kept him safe, brought him back from a very close brush with death.1 As Nathan got back on his feet – literal
ly and figuratively – Gregory had ensured he rested, exercised, ate, kept his mind busy, knowing just how frustrating the long convalescence would be. Nathan was grateful. Gregory had been both father and brother these last months but the truth was, Nathan was better now. Not healed, not back to what he had been before, but well enough now for Gregory to require another outlet, another interest. Something else that could consume his time and energy. Gregory, Nathan had discovered, needed to be needed. He’d spent his life doing. He couldn’t just stop now, no matter what he said. And buying a croft right up in the North of Northness was not the answer.

  The previous year, their friend, Alec Friedman had gone through a similar dilemma. Had found himself sunk into a deep depression when he’d retired from the police force and suddenly felt himself cut adrift and utterly purposeless. Nathan and Gregory might be on a different side of the law to their friend Alec, but Nathan recognized that the problems were identical. If you’d spent most of your adult life with a sense of direction, a purpose, then it was nigh on impossible to settle for a life that had no direction and no perceptible purpose either.

  ‘Maybe, if you want to buy land, you could look at something in East Anglia, or the West Country. Your boat would like it better there. Find a pretty harbour or some exclusive little marina? Seriously, Gregory, I can’t see you living in a house anywhere, if I’m honest.’

  ‘I had a house, once.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘And a cat.’

  ‘That didn’t like you and moved next door.’

  ‘I think it liked me,’ Gregory objected. ‘But I was rarely there. My neighbour fed it when I went away. Being a cat, it just went to where it knew the food was.’

  ‘Why did you get a cat anyway?’

  ‘I was trying to fit in,’ Gregory said. ‘To be normal. So I bought furniture and I bought cushions for the sofa and I bought a cat.’

  Nathan tried not to laugh, then gave in and laughed anyway, stopping only because it hurt his still tender abdomen. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Did it have a name?’