Fear of Drowning

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘I’ll remember this pub.’ Hennessey took his knife and fork from the paper napkin.

  ‘So, Williams … yes, he definitely had private means, but so do my other officers. You can’t afford the lifestyle that is expected of you on the salary a junior officer is paid … expected to put in appearances at every party, expected to contribute to parties you know you won’t be attending…’

  ‘Not my lifestyle. Too hectic.’

  ‘The services are a way of life. It’s either for you or it isn’t.’

  ‘I did two years in the navy.’

  ‘Did you?’ Timmins beamed. ‘National Service?’

  ‘How did you guess? Saw the world as far as Portsmouth. Didn’t enjoy it but I survived. Got my ear burned for returning a salute … I was on duty standing at the stern of the ship, two officers came aboard and saluted in my direction.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Fraid so…’ Hennessey smiled. ‘So I dutifully returned the salute and got my ear burned.’

  ‘As you would have done.’

  ‘What officer in what navy salutes a rating! They were saluting the ensign, of course … but he let it go at that … half-witted National Serviceman…’

  ‘We were not unhappy when conscription was abolished. We’re much happier as a volunteer force … one volunteer is worth twelve pressed men … so what else can I tell you about Lieutenant Williams?’

  ‘Anything and everything. He’s not a suspect, but in cases like this, we like to obtain as broad a picture as possible. We have two suspects in the frame but we need to know more about the family … hence my interest in Lieutenant Williams.’

  ‘Two suspects? Good for you, that’s speedy work.’

  ‘It can be the way of it, but only can be. Some cases are solved only years later … if at all.’

  ‘Well, Lieutenant Williams … not a popular man, not popular with his men, not popular with his brother – and sister – officers either. We now have SVPs in the navy.’

  ‘SVPs?’

  ‘Squeaky Voiced Persons – had women ashore for a long time, now they’re at sea as well. Getting more numerous ashore lately … so he’s not popular with his brother and sister officers. Not popular with his men either. If you’re an officer, you can bully people into following you, or you can make them want to follow you by virtue of your leadership skills … we like the second sort, Williams is the first sort, the sort that slip through the vetting procedure. Daresay it’s the same in the police force?’

  ‘It is. Sadly.’

  ‘Williams came to us under a cloud. He had command of a minesweeper, still in his twenties … destined for great things in the navy. If you’re given a command of a small ship when young, you’re being fast-tracked for big ship command in your forties … I mean aircraft carrier, that short of big ship. Then a rating assaulted him. Punched him, broke his nose, in fact.’

  ‘Oh dear…’ Hennessey shuddered and recalled the weight of naval discipline … he recalled that striking an officer was second only to selling secrets to a foreign power in terms of magnitude of offence.

  ‘Yes. The rating got a hundred and twenty days’ detention and was dismissed from the service.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘It was a lenient sentence and thereby hangs the tale. Turned out that the rating was the ship’s cook and Williams was given to bringing his girlfriend back to the ship at two a.m. or thereabouts and having said rating turned out of his bunk to cook a three-course dinner for Williams and femme. After he’d cleaned the utensils and washed up the plates he wasn’t able to get back to his bunk until five a.m., and had to be up at six-thirty or seven to cook the ship’s breakfast. He wasn’t getting enough sleep and was working with large amounts of hot and boiling-hot food and water. Williams coming back so late and demanding the three-star treatment wasn’t a one-off, it was a regular thing. Anyway, the rating snapped, made a mighty fist and Williams went sprawling. The rating opted for a full court martial, which made the affair public and the navy hates that sort of thing, really hates it. Terrible press. Anyway, in the light of the wider circumstances, the rating got his lenient sentence and Williams was “transferred shore”.’

  ‘A vote of censure.’

  ‘Exactly. The navy has a hidden agenda, Mr Hennessey, and the sea service personnel are seen and see themselves as a cut above the shore-based personnel. There’s no inherent shame in being shore-based if you’re an egghead or if you have medical reasons for being unsuitable for sea service, failing eyesight is a common cause for being transferred shore to continue your service. Some personnel have been ashore all their service life and there is no shame, but to be transferred shore after an incident such as the one I described is, as you say, a vote of censure. It’s an invitation to resign. And most officers would have resigned.’

  ‘But not Williams?’

  ‘As you see, he’s still with us, and he has not achieved promotion, he’s constantly passed over. This is all off the record, you understand.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘Hence me being out of uniform, just to emphasize the informality of this chat.’

  ‘Noted.’

  ‘I won’t be making any sort of statement about this.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘I’m doing this to cooperate. I don’t like any of my crew being looked at by the police, especially an officer. I subscribe to the view that the best course of action is to offer full cooperation in such circumstances. To do otherwise only invites suspicion.’

  ‘I could do with meeting more people like you in my professional capacity, Commander.’

  ‘So he came to us, not HMS Halley. By “us”, I mean the concrete fleet. The navy is a close-knit community, and the permanent shore-based officers all know each other and we all felt the smack of Williams being transferred shore in the circumstances that he was transferred, and none of us wanted him as part of our crew. We have a job to do. Do you know that for every sea service man or woman there’s ten people ashore? It takes ten people ashore to keep one person at sea.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘It’s true. The point is that shore-based service is vital, we are not a dumping ground for the bad apples. Such a practice destroys morale. Williams was transferred shore eight years ago, still with us, getting posted from one establishment to another. A year ago he came to the Halley, by then he was one of the oldest lieutenants in the navy.’

  ‘What is he like as an officer?’

  ‘Very repressive. A bully. He just should not have been selected, let alone identified as a fast-track-career officer. Seems to be a man who can mislead the world around him until his true nature is exposed.’

  ‘Repressive, you say?’

  ‘And very dismissive. In an unguarded moment he was overheard referring to the other ranks as “the cretins”. He openly refers to people who make mistakes as “cretins”. “Cretin” is a form of insult he employs, he’s fond of the word. It seems to have some significance for him.’

  ‘My sergeant…’ Hennessey dabbed his lips with the napkin and placed his knife and fork centrally on his plate. ‘My sergeant says that he was very upset about the leniency you showed to the young sailor who was outside the provost marshal’s office when we called the other day.’

  ‘Was he indeed … that’s interesting.’ Timmins too finished his meal. ‘Enjoy it?’

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’

  ‘As I said, I’ll remember this pub.’

  ‘But yes, that incident says a lot about Lieutenant Williams. That lad is close to his mother, there’s just the two of them. Found out she had cancer, just diagnosed – the boy asked Williams for a few days’ compassionate leave and Williams said no, on the grounds that she was not at death’s door. So he went to see her for three days anyway. I can understand that.’

  ‘So can I.’

  ‘He came back, but he shouldn’t have gone like that. There are procedures that can be used to comp
lain, like the rating who felled Williams in the companionway of his ship … he had a legitimate complaint and had access to procedures that would have had his complaint listened to, and in circumstances like that, acted upon. So I fined him three days’ loss of pay and then told him that the navy is his home, and like a home it works for you, and gave him seven days’ compassionate and sent him back to Newcastle – he’s up there now. We’ll also make sure that he doesn’t leave the UK during his mother’s last few months. But if he did go overseas, we could get him home within twenty-four hours if necessary. But Williams wanted Able Seaman Hendry flogged round the fleet … that’s the lad’s name, Hendry. Good lad … he’s got what it takes to go far, he doesn’t need an officer like Williams.’

  ‘Where does Williams live?’

  ‘Here … in this village. You can walk to his accommodation from here. You’ll meet his sister, she’s up from London to help him sort out his parents’ estate. So he told me.’

  ‘What little there is to sort out.’

  The two men stood outside the pub, shielding their eyes against the glare of the sun.

  ‘Left from here,’ said Timmins. ‘Then first left again. Narrow lane. Yellow-fronted cottage.’

  ‘Yellow!’

  ‘Don’t know what they call it, “burnt sand”, I suppose, a dull, off-yellow, but it actually seems to fit quite well, since the fields are now yellow with oil seed. Hedgerows and the trees are still green, though, so all isn’t lost.’

  The two men shook hands warmly.

  * * *

  Hennessey left his car in the car park of the Dog and Duck and walked to Williams’s rented cottage following Commander Timmins’s directions. He located it easily, the only yellow-fronted cottage amid whitewashed cottages, or cottages of naked stone. He conceded Timmins was correct, the colour did work well and was not at all intrusive, possibly because it was swamped by the vast carpet of bright yellow behind it, being a field of oil seed. He walked up to the front door of the building and rapped on the metal knocker, twice, with a deliberate pause between each knock. Knock … knock.

  The door was opened quickly, as if the person who opened it had been standing on the other side, immediately so. The person who opened the door was a tall, slender woman with short hair, who looked pale of complexion and a little wide-eyed, as if travelling a route she had never before travelled. She was clearly surprised to see Hennessey, as if she had flung the door wide in the full expectation of greeting a specific person. ‘Oh…’ she said.

  ‘You were expecting someone else?’

  ‘I thought it would be my brother. He said he’d try and get home early … or call in over lunch … one or the other. I’m sorry, you are?’

  ‘Police.’ Hennessey showed the woman his identity card. ‘Chief Inspector Hennessey.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘You seem bothered?’

  ‘No … no … I…’ But her face, already pale, had drained of what little colour it had retained. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘I’d like to talk to you, if I may.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘Your parents.’

  ‘Have you caught the person who did it?’

  ‘Getting there, one or two suspects in the frame.’

  ‘Oh, good … good.’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Sorry … yes.’ The woman stepped aside.

  ‘You’re Nicola Williams, I presume?’ Hennessey stepped into the cottage, finding that, just as in the Dog and Duck, he had to bow his head to avoid low beams.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

  The cottage had a cosy but cramped feel. The floor area was taken up with large cardboard packing cases sealed with scarlet masking tape. ‘Moving home?’ asked Hennessey.

  ‘Well, yes … Please take a seat, you’ll bump your head if you don’t.’

  Hennessey lowered himself gently into an armchair. Nicola Williams sat opposite him.

  ‘Yes … the cottage is proving expensive … I came to be near Rufus and … well, just to be here … I have little to do until needed so I agreed to help Rufus pack his things. He’s moving back onto the base … he doesn’t want to…’ She was nervous, thought Hennessey … avoiding eye contact … false humour … not really meaning that smile … a woman with a secret.

  ‘Well, I won’t take up too much of your time, I really called to ask you a question I asked of your brother, being, do you know of anyone who’d have reason to murder your parents? The murder, incidentally, had all the hallmarks of passion about it.’

  ‘No.’ The shake of her head which accompanied her answer was vigorous. Too vigorous for Hennessey’s liking. ‘What about the people under suspicion?’

  ‘Well, they have motivation, that’s for sure, but we can’t link them solidly enough to charge them. We need more evidence, or we’re looking in the wrong direction. We don’t want to charge the wrong person, that looks bad, especially if it leads to a wrongful conviction. You’ll not want that any more than we do?’

  ‘No … no.’ She forced a smile.

  ‘The cottage is proving expensive, you say?’

  ‘For Rufus, yes.’

  ‘He could move into your parents’ bungalow, it would save him some money while he’s stationed at HMS Halley anyway.’

  ‘He can’t do that.’ She was nervous. She seemed guilty. He liked her for that … a woman with a conscience, and not an accomplished liar.

  ‘Oh?’ Hennessey paused. ‘I know that a tragedy has taken place there, but once we have released it from crime scene status … your brother could move in there.’

  ‘No…’

  ‘But the property is now yours, I assume?’

  ‘No…’ Nicola Williams’s hand went to her head. ‘It wasn’t, my parents have no money. It’s going to be repossessed … we can take the furniture out, that’s all we’ll inherit, a few sticks of furniture … cheap stuff, at that.’

  ‘Is that something of a surprise for you?’

  ‘Well, yes … you see, I thought we had pots of money … they sold an enormous house, the Grange. Mummy and Daddy sold it recently and bought the bungalow. They said they couldn’t cope with the large house … the time taken on its upkeep, not the cost, so they sold it and bought the bungalow. It didn’t fit with what Rufus and I knew of Daddy, appearance means a lot to him … but we went along with it … it’s their house, after all, nothing else we could do. But those poky little bedrooms … this entire cottage could fit into my bedroom at the Grange. It was only at the meal at the Mill last Saturday that we found out what the truth was, that our worst fears were confirmed. We both knew that Daddy wouldn’t sell the Grange unless he had to, and he admitted it over the meal. He was broke. But what made it worse is that he was his usual impossible self … he has this ability to laugh at tragedy … it just didn’t reach him, he was full of “easy come, easy go”. It was such a drop for us … such a fall from grace … downward social mobility isn’t the word, or phrase, or whatever … and it didn’t reach him. Mummy was more down to earth … she looked uncomfortable … she said that this would be our last meal at the Mill together … it was, but not the way she meant it. But Daddy just ordered another bottle of very expensive wine. We had an uncle, Rufus and I, we never knew him but he drowned in the bath at his house and left Daddy a fortune … I mean millions of pounds … that was money for our future, to see Mummy and Daddy out and to secure the future for our family for generations. With careful management that was security for the Williamses, yea even unto the tenth generation, it was the foundation of a dynasty. We could have become one of the families of England … not in my lifetime, or even my children’s lifetime, because these things take time … but my grandchildren might find that doors were beginning to open for them. We thought that that was ahead of us but all the while Daddy was … well, I don’t know what he’d done until … but over the meal at the Mill we found out that we’d bellied up. We couldn’t really afford the meal we were buying.’

  ‘Hard
news.’

  Nicola Williams nodded. ‘My brother and I, we didn’t want to believe what we suspected, but when the news came it came in a single sentence. “We’re broke.” Mummy said it. Two words that shattered our worlds. And Daddy just smiled and said, “Easy come, easy go, let’s have another bottle of the white.” Daddy may not have cared but we did. We were depending on that money … it makes you lazy … Daddy gave us an allowance so neither Rufus nor myself pushed ourselves in our jobs, we didn’t have to.’

  ‘So you thought.’

  Nicola Williams nodded. ‘So we thought. Rufus especially, he was frightened of poverty … he had a phrase, “fear of drowning in poverty”. He often used it. He said a man needs money like a sailor needs a ship.’

  ‘To keep afloat?’

  ‘Yes, that’s how he meant it. A good boat under him at sea and a good bank balance under him on land. We knew Daddy had millions, we thought he was spending the interest … but he was frittering away the principal … all with his devil-may-care attitude.’

  ‘Put a damper on the evening?’

  ‘Did rather.’

  ‘So you went home?’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked sheepish, avoiding eye contact.

  ‘Straight home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Straight to bed?’

  ‘Yes. It was the only thing to do. The atmosphere was tense. You could cut it with a knife. We all went to our rooms and shut ourselves off from each other, and the world. I think Rufus and I hoped we would wake up to find that it was a terrible dream.’

  ‘When did you last see your parents?’

  ‘On the Sunday afternoon. Rufus had left by then. I stayed on for an hour, talking to Mummy, then drove to London.’

  ‘So you were at work on the Monday morning?’

  ‘Yes. I worked hard. For the first time I realized that I needed my job. I also needed the normality.’