Death in Shetland Waters

by Marsali Taylor

  Anders nudged me. ‘You’re not allowed the cat o’nine tails for last down the rigging.’

  ‘Was I looking that grim?’

  ‘I’m glad I’m not on your watch.’

  ‘Rope training,’ I said. ‘Rig practice.’

  Captain Gunnar nodded approvingly, and my heart lightened. ‘She could carry sail now.’

  I took that as an order, and headed out. My watch was beginning to muster, and I could tell straight off that the captain’s hopes of keeping Olav’s death quiet didn’t have a chance of being fulfilled. The youngsters were buzzing with tensed-up excitement, and even the older people were exchanging grave-faced gossip, with the occasional sideways glance at the empty sea around us. A spot of yard-shifting and mast-climbing would do everyone good.

  The ABs of Nils’s watch headed below to round their trainees upwards, and once the whole crew was lined up in their three sides of a square on the main deck, Captain Gunnar came out and talked to us all. He did it well: it was a regrettable and unusual accident which stressed the need for care aboard the ship at all times. He had sent the sympathy of the whole crew to Olav’s family.

  Eight bells chimed above our heads. Our watch had begun.

  I was determined to keep everyone busy. I got Erik to start with a bit of rope-learning. Mike came up for a moment, said, ‘Good idea,’ checked our course, then returned below. I hoped that meant I was back in command. I was leaning at the rail watching the trainees racing round the main deck to lay hand on the correct halyard, brace or sheet when Anders came up beside me.

  ‘I had a thought,’ he said.

  I turned my head to look enquiringly at him.

  He looked around to check that the helm and standby were properly focused on their duties, and the safety watch was off on his round. ‘You know the captain caught you down in the galley.’

  I didn’t need reminding. I made a face.

  ‘Well, what was he doing there?’ He gave a pause for that to sink in. ‘He told you off good and proper, and said it was the galley girls’ territory. So what was he doing poking around down there?’

  My mouth fell open. I’d been so busy worrying about keeping my job that it had never occurred to me.

  ‘For example,’ Anders continued, ‘had he perhaps seen you go down and followed you? But that in itself would be suspicious. Why should you not go below?’

  I shook my head at that. ‘I’d been down a good while before he arrived. He might have seen me go down and wondered why I hadn’t come back – but you’re right, why should he follow me?’

  ‘And to tell you off so severely. Does that not suggest he wanted to distract you from what he was doing down there?’

  ‘There was the gun,’ I conceded. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you want your crew wandering about with.’

  ‘You were carrying a loaded Glock in a plastic bucket.’ Anders’ voice curled with affectionate scorn. I remembered that he’d spent his teenage years helping his uncle hunt bears. ‘It was obvious it was not your gun. Nobody who’d ever shot would do so stupid a thing.’

  ‘I don’t like guns,’ I retorted.

  ‘I know. Anyway,’ Anders said, ‘you have been warned off good and proper, and you’re on duty besides. I’m not on duty. I’m going to go down and get myself some biscuits and cheese to have with my morning coffee. Was there anything particular you noticed down there?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Nothing in the galley?’

  ‘But everyone’s down there all the time. The girls, Henrik, the trainees. It would be a lousy place to hide anything.’

  ‘The Purloined Letter,’ Anders said. ‘It is a story about a letter which is hidden from the police among all the other letters. Hidden in plain sight.’

  ‘You mean there’s something hidden down there – inside a herring tub, or a tin that’s been opened and sealed again?’ I tried to remember if it had been the herring tub that Captain Gunnar had reacted to. No. He’d opened the pantry door, and almost walked straight into me. He’d only noticed the tub as he was dismissing me. ‘But what could it be? Do you think Captain Gunnar is involved in anything underhand … smuggling – well, drugs, or something?’ I tried to envisage it and shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘No,’ Anders agreed, ‘but I am sure there is something. What did he do when first he saw you?’

  I tried to remember. ‘He looked over my shoulder, around the cold store.’

  ‘Not at the freezer?’

  ‘No. Behind me.’ I frowned. ‘He did seem to look down in the far corner. The starboard aft corner. There were these four boxes, about this by this’ – I indicated with my hands – ‘I tried to lift one up to see what it was. Expanded foam, painted white. By the weight, and the feel, it was empty.’

  He smiled at that. ‘The size of a twelve-bottle box. The captain’s private stock of drink.’

  ‘Four boxes. Forty-eight bottles.’ I was used to France. I thought about the bottles of wine that stood on the table at every meal in my cousin Thierry’s house. ‘That wouldn’t go far.’

  ‘He would have to declare it on our arrival back in Norway, and pay tax.’

  Sailing friends on the English coast regularly brought supermarket trolleys of wine back into the UK. I knew nothing about the Norwegian alcohol import laws. ‘How much are you allowed to bring in?’

  ‘Oh, nothing like that. One bottle of spirits or six bottles of wine, I think, and some beer, but you can’t use the beer quota for more wine. You can only change downwards: spirits to wine, wine to beer.’ He pushed himself off the rail. ‘I’m off to look. Do you want a biscuit?’

  I didn’t usually eat biscuits at this time of day, but I suddenly felt a ginger snap would go down well. ‘A handful of ginger nuts, please. Pepperkaker.’

  ‘I know. The ones you break into three using your elbow.’ He headed down the steps. I watched his silver-gilt head cross the deck and disappear into the darkness of the banjer stairwell, and hoped he wasn’t heading into trouble.

  The trainees had finished their rope drill and were taking a breather. I nodded down to Erik. ‘Let’s set one yard, then put them in teams to square the rest up, a team to each mast.’

  I checked our course and then, while the trainees drank their coffee, Erik, Petter and Mona shifted the top yard on each mast until it was at roughly the right angle for sails to catch the wind. My hands itched to help them, to stand shoulder to shoulder again, hauling the rope round, but it wasn’t my place. I stood with my palms on the satin-smooth handrail, watching, and nodded when I reckoned it was right.

  Then it was all hands to the ropes. Soon the aft deck was a mass of hauling bodies. The higher, lighter yards were easy enough, and they tended to swing them round too far, then have to work them back; the lowest yards were great telegraph poles that took a dozen people to shift, even with a system of blocks on each rope.

  They were in the middle of doing that when Anders reappeared. He swung up the steps and pressed a handful of ginger nuts into my hand. I gave him two back and crunched, looking at him expectantly. He shook his head.

  ‘There was nothing like the boxes you described in the cold store, nor in the pantry. So I had a small snoop around. Nothing. Whatever they were for, they have been moved. In the starboard corner, aft, there was a plastic crate of watermelons.’

  I stopped crunching to stare at him. ‘Not there?’

  ‘No.’

  Our eyes met.

  ‘Odd,’ he said. ‘Don’t you go back down there to check. Take my word for it.’

  ‘I am.’ We’d sailed together, Anders and I. If he said they weren’t there, then they weren’t. But why move empty boxes, and fill the space they’d been in? Because word had gone round the ship that Cass, the policeman’s girlfriend, had been snooping around down there …?

  ‘I must go to our engine.’

  He swung back off down the steps, leaving me thinking. The captain’s private wine store … I didn’t see it. But maybe someone el
se was taking advantage of the cover a tall ship gave to smuggle drink into Norway.

  The heaving backs around me stopped, straightened. I tilted my head back and looked up. For a first shot, it was pretty good; the outward end of each yard was within a foot of a straight line from the topmost one down to the sea. Now it was rig time, to drop the sails we were going to set, and then back to the ropes, for the deck crew to pull them tight, followed by a last trimming to the wind by shifting the yards again until each sail bellied out in a perfect curve.

  As I’d hoped, it took all their attention. The tension slipped from the young faces, and by the time they mustered for the end of watch, flushed from exertion, Olav’s death had been accepted as a regrettable accident that was now over.

  I tried to forget the morning’s discovery as I handed over to Agnetha. There was more colour in her cheeks than there had been this morning. Her lips were set in a determined line as she climbed the steps, but she smiled as she came up to me. ‘All sails, Cass?’

  I nodded. ‘I’ve left your watch to finish them.’ I touched the nav screen. ‘And we’re nicely on course for the Pentland Firth.’

  Captain Gunnar came up beside us to watch as the trainees lined up, and nodded approval. My heart lifted. ‘That is good,’ he said. ‘Now they will have lunch, and feel even better.’

  I felt ravenous myself. Lunch was the last of yesterday’s pork with pasta twirls, and the usual wonderful rye bread. I ate heartily and headed up on deck for a few breaths of fresh air. Ah, it was good to be out at sea again, really out at sea, with the horizon a smooth line all around us, and nothing existing in the world but this ship, so large and stable beneath our feet in this calm weather. The sails arched above me, tier after tier; the masts creaked in rhythm with the ship’s slow surging roll. Around us, the sea was the colour the word ‘aquamarine’ was invented for, reaching up to touch the ship’s white sides, then curling away in a shoosh of snowy foam. We were almost in Shetland waters; I was breathing my native air. I stood there for ten minutes, lightly balanced so that I rolled with the ship, just enjoying the salt tang in my face and the glacier colour of the sea, the lace patterns of the foam. A solitary fulmar flew over us, then landed on the water. He fluffed out his feathers and settled himself comfortably, watching us with his beady black eyes.

  I took one last deep breath then headed below. Cat and Rat had made themselves comfortable on my berth, but they were pleased to see me. I gave Cat a brush around his ears, then lay back. I wished I could talk to Gavin. I really wanted his take on what I should do when the Belfast police questioned me; I wanted his endorsement for ‘Tell the truth, even if your job is at risk’.

  Then I heard his voice, clear in my head: Hearsay. I frowned, thinking about that one. Hearsay. Of course, what Petter had told me wasn’t evidence. I was off that hook. Petter himself had to tell the police that Olav had said he’d seen the man in the dark jacket.

  It wasn’t really a huge weight off my mind, because I’d still have to speak out if Petter didn’t, but it felt like it. I shifted Cat and Rat enough to lie down, and let the movement of the ship take me. I was out at sea again …

  I was just dozing off when there was a stir at the door curtains. Cat and Rat vanished down the back of the berth in a flow of black and white and grey fur. I raised myself up and swung my legs over.

  It was Captain Gunnar. The approving look was gone, the white brows drawn together again. He spoke abruptly. ‘Cass, you have not taken your gun back again?’

  I shook my head. I hoped the blank look of surprise I could feel on my face was convincing.

  ‘I locked it in the drawer of my desk,’ Captain Gunnar said. ‘Now it is missing.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  For a moment I couldn’t catch my breath. ‘Missing?’ I repeated stupidly.

  ‘It has been stolen. You know nothing about it?’

  I shook my head, and thought he believed me; and then, at that moment, the memory of Sean stealing away from the all-hands muster that morning came back into my head. Captain Gunnar’s face changed, eyes narrowing. ‘You have thought of something.’

  I rubbed one hand over my face. ‘My cousin, Sean. He was the one I thought hid the gun. He slipped away from this morning’s muster. I didn’t want to go after him, but he was standing at the aft end of his line, so it was this way he came.’

  He used to pick a pretty lock, my cousin Sean. He’d showed me how, but I’d never got the knack of it the way he and Seamus had. A locked drawer in the captain’s desk would be child’s play.

  Captain Gunnar sighed. ‘Cass, why would your cousin be travelling with a loaded gun on board a sail-training ship? What is his job?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I haven’t seen him since we were teenagers.’

  ‘And why would he then steal it back? Why not come to me directly and say, “That is my gun”? No, Cass, it will not do. If you have that gun, I wish it to be returned to my custody immediately.’

  ‘I don’t have it.’ I could hear my voice was sullen as a teenager’s. I tried again. ‘Captain Gunnar, I don’t have it. I didn’t take it. It’s not my gun.’

  His face was closed against me. ‘Please do not put me to the embarrassment of having to search your cabin.’

  It took an effort to keep my voice level. ‘You’re welcome to search, sir. I don’t have that gun.’

  He gave me a last sharp look. ‘Your cousin, he is the tall, dark man on the red watch?’ I nodded. ‘I will talk to him.’

  The curtain swished closed behind him. I slammed my fist into my pillow. Damn, damn. I just hoped Sean would be more open with Captain Gunnar than he had been with me.

  Then I was struck by another thought. The captain had threatened to search my cabin. What if the gun had been planted on me? My heart began thumping uncomfortably. If it was found in here, nothing would save me from cabin arrest now, and dismissal the moment we tied up in Belfast.

  I stood up so quickly that my head spun for a moment, then began with the desk, checking each drawer. The bookcase next, looking behind and inside each file. Nothing. My clothes cupboard. My clothes weren’t in such neat piles as Johanna’s, but it was still possible to lift each drawerful out in a lump, and feel the weight. Still nothing. My jacket pockets were empty. There was nothing behind my toiletries, or above the sink. My breathing slowed to normal. I was being paranoid; why should it be planted on me?

  And if it wasn’t here, where the hell was it? It would almost be better to have it here and face the music than to have a loaded gun astray aboard the ship.

  I would have to tackle Sean; except that if Captain Gunnar saw me talking to him, then he’d take it I was asking him to cover for me. Another black mark. It was like one of those nightmares where whichever way you run or hide, the monster with slavering jaws confronts you.

  Two bells rang above my head. One o’clock. I wanted to go somewhere, do something, but I was sailing in a fog. If the man in the dark jacket was still aboard, it definitely wasn’t a good idea for us to try and find him, especially if he was prepared to kill someone just for looking at him too closely. What the captain had said, approaching Stavanger, about not going into dark tunnels, applied even more now; but the captain was determined not to have a mystery man on board.

  I didn’t see my cousin Sean co-operating either. If he was going to admit whatever he was up to, he’d have gone to the captain, explained, and asked for his gun back. Stealing it back meant he wasn’t telling anyone anything.

  There was one thing I could check, though it wasn’t really done. I could look at the crew forms, and see what information he’d given about himself. It would be in Jenn’s office, on the ship’s computer.

  I walked straight into a row between Nils and Mike. I was through the curtain and in Jenn’s office with them before I realised anyone was there. I hadn’t heard any raised voices, but the air was thick with tension, like blown spray hanging over the sea in a gale. Mike was sitting in front of the compute
r, half-turned to face Nils, who was leaning over him, brows drawn together in an angry line, mouth twisted. They both turned and stared as I came in, and I was about to make an excuse and back out when Nils straightened and flung past me.

  There was an awkward silence that seemed to stretch for ever. I took a deep breath. ‘Sorry. I just wanted to check something.’

  Mike swivelled back to the screen. His eyes were black with fury and he was breathing heavily, but he managed a normal voice. ‘Sure, I’m just finished.’ He flicked a glance at me, and closed the window he was looking at. Another click, and Maria’s dark eyes smiled at me from the screen. ‘I was just trying to match names to faces. I’m pretty good on the adults, but I don’t know all the youngsters yet.’

  He had an amazing memory for names and faces, Mike. By ‘pretty good’, he meant that after only two days he could greet each of the adult trainees by name and chat about their home ports with them. Seeing him frowning over the computer gave me an uneasy feeling down my spine. He was looking pale, with worry lines creasing his cheeks. I remembered the row I’d tried not to listen to, and felt a pang of sympathy. Whichever way he went, he’d created trouble for himself, whether he left his wife to be with Agnetha, or left Agnetha to have her abortion and continue her career. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to know that your own child was about to be pulled out of its safe womb to die drowning in the air like a fish. It had to be worse if you already had children, as he did. He’d be imagining how it would have grown up: a baby in his arms, a toddler with gold curls like my friend Peerie Charlie, a little boy going to school, a girl in her first party dress. But it would be just as bad for Agnetha, even though it was her decision; no, perhaps worse, because it was her decision. Surely every year, she’d be remembering her baby would now have been one, two, three; she’d look at the children of others, and be stabbed by the sharp pang of ‘My child would have been like this.’

  Or could Mike overrule her? I had a memory at the back of my mind of a test case in the British courts, where the mother had been determined to have an abortion and the father had wanted to keep the baby. It had gone against him, I thought, but maybe it would be different in Norway. Was that what they were threatening each other over? If he took her to court, she’d tell the captain about their affair?