Lock 13

by Peter Helton

  ‘God, I need a piss,’ said the drunker one, not unexpectedly. Next to my face, the door latch lifted.

  ‘Don’t use the head!’ said Nick. ‘The cassette is brimming, you’ll just flood us with piss. Go over the side, for God’s sake.’ The door latch fell and the grumbling drunk clambered out of the cabin on deck. ‘And don’t fall in, because I’m not going to pull you out,’ he added more quietly.

  To remind myself that I was stuck in the toilet of not just any sort of drunks but of two rogue police officers, I called them DC Mark and DC Nick in my mind. The boat started swaying a little as DC Mark aimed his stream over the side. By the sound of his swearing, it was not going to plan. He was also talking again but it was indistinguishable.

  ‘On second thoughts, please do fall in,’ said his colleague, grunting and sighing as he made lying-down noises.

  Mark clattered back into the cabin. ‘Moon’s out. Makes everything look pretty,’ he announced.

  ‘Not you, you ugly old git. Shut up and get in your bunk; I’m tired.’

  Not having a wristwatch and with my phone’s battery flat, I had no way of knowing how long I had sat there since both had retired to their bunks. The darkness of a stranger’s toilet offers no help in marking the passage of time. You may quote me on that. It was worse than life drawing. I thought it had been ages, but had it? What if it was really five minutes and one or both were still awake?

  It seemed an absolute age until eventually I heard faint snoring noises. At least one of them was asleep. I put my ear to the door. Was it one snore or two snores? After another age there was sudden loud snoring. The problem was that now I could no longer hear the soft snoring. Was the loud snoring of the one masking the soft snoring of the other? Or had the soft snorer moved and now snored more loudly? What if the loud snorer had woken the soft snorer with his snoring? Should I wait a bit longer? But what if the snoring stopped? I would be back to square one and could end up being faced with two sleepless DCs. Was one snorer better than none? I thought I was still getting drunker and was now worried I’d fall asleep. And start snoring myself.

  Eventually, and to make matters worse, I felt the urge to use the toilet myself but couldn’t, even though I was sitting on one. This was the clincher: I just had to get out of there. If they woke up, it would be dark and they couldn’t see who I was; I would make a run for it. I felt for the latch on the door. Still wearing socks on my hands, my fingers were less than sensitive and I knocked against it, provoking what sounded to me like a loud click. I was now beyond worrying about fingerprints and took them off. The movement of lifting the latch on the door took a full minute. Very, very slowly, I opened the narrow door, millimetre by millimetre. Having been in complete darkness, the inside of the cabin, illuminated faintly by what moonlight filtered through the curtains, did not seem so dark. I could make out the shape of DC Nick (lower bunk) right in front of me. He breathed steadily in my direction. The loud snoring came from DC Mark (upper bunk), of whom I could see one pale foot, dangling over the side. Both, I judged, were asleep. So were my legs, from having sat motionless in the cramped cubicle. I did not notice this until I tried to stand up and nearly keeled over. I braced myself against the creaking doorframe of the cubicle. It was like having frozen rocks for feet and splintered bamboo canes for legs. When eventually a semblance of feeling returned, it was not a pleasant sensation. I wriggled my toes. PC Nick grumbled. I lifted one monstrous lump and flung it in the direction of the exit, then the other, but I couldn’t keep my balance. I swayed and then tilted forward until I caught myself against the bulkhead. PC Nick snuffled, grumbled and turned his back on me. I stood, frozen like a lean-to, fluttery of heart and wriggly of toes, until I had regained full command of my limbs, then opened the door in super slo-mo. Cold night air rushed in to replace the fug in the cabin and a shaft of moonlight fell across the floor. I squeezed myself through the narrowest opening I could manage. Pulling the door shut behind me produced a loud snap. I hadn’t taken two tentative steps towards the guard rail when the lights came on inside the boat. I put one foot on the railing and jumped on to the towpath, sending the boat rocking and swaying. Behind me, the cabin door opened and I heard swearing and fumbling as I plunged into the vegetation beside the path and fought my way through to the field beyond. Keeping low, I loped away towards the pub, taking advantage of the time it would take them to put on clothes and boots before they could pursue me, allowing me to put distance between me and the Spiriters. It was very quiet out there and I was drunk and the noisiest thing around, but I did not stop running and stumbling and swearing until I had found Dreamcatcher and locked the door behind me. Sitting by an open window, I listened out for anyone approaching but heard nothing but tiny night noises until I fell asleep where I sat.

  It was very late in the morning when I woke, with a crick in my neck, where I had fallen asleep sitting on the sofa. Out there it was another sunny day as our Indian summer luck was holding; in here I could hardly straighten my neck and my head protested at the slightest movement in no uncertain terms. My insides were threatening to become my outsides. A classic hangover demands a classic cure and robust handling. On my last shopping excursion I had stocked up on tubs of pickled herring and now was the time to break them out and send them into battle: bread, thickly smothered in salted butter, sprinkled with rings of pickled onion slices, a herring fillet bedded down on top, strong tea and three paracetamol is the Honeysett-endorsed breakfast for the morning after too much free spirit. This is not a miracle cure, but it restored my brain to working order, and I had a lot to think about.

  I also had a painting to do and deliver; with half the day already over, I had to work fast. For fast work, pen and ink and watercolour is the perfect medium. I pitched up in the middle of the beer garden with my camping stool and travelling easel and dashed off a wild drawing of the scene, with the amendments John the manager had requested. When I showed it to him, he was delighted. ‘It’s going to be good, I can see that. Moules marinière on the specials menu today. It’s nearly lunchtime. I’ll bring you some out; you can tell me what you think.’

  Great, I thought and went to work. The mussels arrived just as I had finished the faint pencil sketch. I managed to eat them without dribbling any juice on my sketch, declared them very authentic and then went back to work. This time, as I splashed watercolour about, I had more of an audience. I concentrated hard on my painting but out of the corner of my eye I did see the Moonglow crew watching, easily spotted because both wore sunglasses even when the sun went in. People came and went to take a look over my shoulder; some stayed for a bit, sometimes making admiring remarks to their friends, then leaving again, but one or the other of the Moonglow crew was always there for the two and a half hours it took me to finish the painting, which made me increasingly nervous. When I closed my paint box and rinsed my brushes, I looked up and they were gone.

  While I had been painting, I’d had time to consider my situation – and Verity’s. If DCs Mark and Nick were using me to get at her, then me looking for her could only put her in danger unless I managed to lose Free Spirit. I didn’t even have a plan for the Moonglow crew. I had seen nothing of the Free Spiriters, but I knew they were there somewhere.

  The painting was duly delivered to John who came out of the kitchen wiping his hands on a tea towel, then took me by the arm to stand outside so he could compare it to the real thing. ‘Helen is going to love it. It’s very good. I have called a framing workshop in Pewsey and they promised to have it framed by tomorrow afternoon.’

  I walked back to Dreamcatcher with my fee in cash in my pocket, feeling reasonably happy. When I got to the boat, however, I saw that the stern door had been forced and stood wide open.

  TWELVE

  My reasonable happiness evaporated when I saw the door wide open and the wood around the lock splintered. While I had been earning an almost honest dollar sitting in the beer garden, someone had been on the boat. And it looked as if they had taken their time tra
shing the place. Floorboards had been taken up in several places and wood panels on the bulkheads loosened, presumably to insert an inspection camera to search any cavities. My bed’s mattress had been slashed in three places and the engine cover on the stern deck had been opened and not closed again properly. The lock to the gas locker on the front deck had been broken. I had in my time seen several places that had been ransacked, some by cops and some by robbers, but neither cops nor robbers had ever conducted such a bizarre search in which drawers remain unrifled and cupboards unemptied; not a book on the shelves or a garment in the little wardrobe looked as if it had been moved. In the galley I opened the cutlery drawer and my revolver lay, dull, heavy and deadly, among the knives and spoons. What self-respecting criminal would have left it behind? And what police officer, however corrupt, would not have confiscated it, if only to throw it over the side? My headache threatened to return as I sat and pondered what could have provoked such strange behaviour on the part of my burglars. Something Jake had said about Neil, the previous owner, swam back into my mind. Sitting outside on the railing for a better signal, I called Jake. It was answered with angle-grinder noises so I knew I had the right number, but I could only hear what he was saying once he had walked away from it, presumably outside the workshop. ‘… to be a huge job. But it’s ready now.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right but I have no idea what you just said.’

  ‘Annis’s Norton, you nit – it’s ready. How’s the boating? Not broken down, have you? I told you I wouldn’t be able to come and fix it.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. It’s something you said. About Neil – how he had changed. Did you say he was very tidy when you knew him?’

  ‘Tidy like a Zen monk with OCD.’

  ‘But when you saw the boat after his death, it looked like a tip?’

  ‘Yes, stuff flung just anywhere.’

  ‘But you didn’t think it was the police, you know, looking for clues to his death?’

  ‘They weren’t looking for clues; they thought it was an accident. The police officer who led me around it kept saying “bit of a mess he left” and things like that. I got the impression they found it like that.’

  ‘Could it have been the result of someone else’s search? A burglary?’

  ‘That was my suspicion at the time.’

  ‘That was your suspicion? But you didn’t think to mention it to me?’

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you.’

  ‘That’s so thoughtful. Well, I’m a tinsy bit worried now because someone broke into the boat while I was a hundred yards up the towpath painting, and they gave it the once over with a crow bar. You didn’t think Neil died in an accident, did you?’

  ‘I was not convinced.’

  ‘And you thought sending me out on this boat might jog people’s memory or something? Well, I think it has.’

  At the end of our conversation my headache was back. I decided to make it worse by making some Turkish coffee, light a cigarette and call up the voice of reason.

  ‘Hi, hon, how’s your commission going?’ asked Annis. For once it didn’t sound as if she was in the millionaire’s swimming pool.

  ‘Done and dusted.’

  ‘Paid for?’

  ‘Cash in my pocket.’

  ‘You didn’t get paid much, then? Don’t spend it all on balsamic vinegar again.’

  ‘I’ll think about it. Not in the pool?’

  ‘I’m working outside on the colonnaded terrace. Are you coming to visit, now you’re done? I’ve got fresh sheets on my bed.’

  ‘Did the butler change them for you?’

  ‘No, I found out today they’ve actually got a kind of maid; they must have hidden her below stairs up to now. She’s called Aisha and, as far as I can make out, speaks eight words of English and two of those are “no understand”. And she has melancholy brown eyes.’

  ‘If you could see my eyes now, you might call them melancholy too.’ I told Annis my news, starting with me breaking into Free Spirit.

  She called me an idiot and a lunatic. ‘Where were the detectives while you broke in?’

  ‘They had been picked up in a Bentley and wafted away.’

  ‘A Bentley,’ she said flatly. ‘A burgundy-coloured Bentley?’

  ‘Yeeees. You’re spooking me now. How did you know it was dark red?’

  ‘Well, Reuben happens to have a wine-red Bentley. And last night he drove off and came back a couple of hours later with two passengers on the back seat. I’m in the gatehouse and I see what drives in and out, though there are other ways in and out of the estate. But Reuben likes to do a ton on the drive to and from the house to show off. Did you see the driver?’

  ‘Only from a real distance and it was dark.’

  ‘Was he a tall man, would you say?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘No, quite the opposite.’

  ‘Reuben is tiny. Hon?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is getting weird.’

  ‘Does Reuben know you and I are connected?’

  ‘I certainly haven’t mentioned it. He just got my name from Stoneking when he saw my mural in his pool and then looked at my website and rang me. No reason for him to know. But how is he connected with the guys who are tailing you?’

  ‘I’ve had the impression all along that some pretty rich people are involved. Rich and ruthless.’

  I told Annis what I had read in the folder. ‘That’s scary stuff,’ she agreed. ‘But there’s no mention of me. Perhaps they don’t know you that well. Have you considered calling DSI Needham?’

  ‘I have. But …’

  ‘You think he could be involved too?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think anymore. But he’s away, anyway, teaching at Hendon Police College for a couple of weeks; he won’t be back yet.’

  ‘I can’t imagine him being involved, but then nothing is impossible. You can’t tell from looking at them. I think the best thing you can do for Verity – until we know who is doing what to whom – is to stop following her.’

  ‘I’m glad you said “we”.’

  ‘You’d be lost without me. I think you should get out of there, pronto, and make your way up here, park your boat and come visiting. I’ll smuggle you in.’

  ‘I will. I’ll leave here first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Let me know when your ship is parked somewhere and I’ll come and find you.’

  The rest of the evening was spent knocking things on the boat back into shape. The door still closed and locked, but I was appalled at how easy my burglar had found it to get inside. I brooded over this violation of my floating island. It had happened in broad daylight and by the look of things had taken quite a while. Someone had obviously been confident I would not turn up and disturb them, probably because they had an accomplice watching me do a painting of the pub. My sunglass-addicted pair on Moonglow sprang to mind, one of whom had patiently stood and admired my work, probably to warn the other should I nip back to the boat to fetch something. What were they looking for? Had Neil in fact lived off something less harmless than his small army pension? But Jake had said that he had changed suddenly and planned to leave the boat and even the country. What had he got himself into? I stared down the boat, absentmindedly stabbing my fork into a tin of sardines that had become my supper, and wondered what they could have been looking for. Drugs? How would someone who contentedly lived the simple life on the waterways suddenly get into drugs and get himself killed over it? What worried me even more were other questions: Had the people who had broken into Dreamcatcher found what they were looking for or would they come back? And if they had killed Neil for it, would they be willing to kill again?

  Despite rebuilding my early warning system of pots and pans by each door and keeping the lump of the Webley under my pillow, I spent a restless night, waking often, listening, worrying about what might have woken me and imagining the boat surrounded by dark murderous figures, variously carrying crow bars, long knives or petrol cans. My eyes
were wide open to greet the first inklings of dawn in the sky. The morning was cool and fresh, the sky overcast and the air smelled of rain to come. A reluctant dawn chorus was all I could hear. The towpath was empty of people. For breakfast I made do with a mug of coffee which I parked on the roof of the boat, then I hastily cast off and started the engine. Its rattle, clatter and putter sounded apocalyptically noisy in my ears and certainly must have woken up my direct neighbours, but I would try to sneak past the enemy who I hoped had drunk as much as the night before and were not easily roused. Pushing against the bank with my boat hook, I shoved off, steering as close to the opposite bank as I dared to keep as far from the moored boats as possible. It would be idiotic to sneak away only to run aground in full view of the opposition. The ancient Lister engine puttered quietly as I crept away at two miles per hour. I saw dark and sinister Moonglow lying lightless and eventually drew level with Free Spirit, involuntarily holding my breath as I slid past. Until the canal eventually bent right, I kept more than just one eye on the receding line of boats but saw no movement or tell-tale puffs of diesel smoke emitted by hastily started engines. I breathed a deep sigh of relief as I left Honeystreet, the Barge Inn and my shadows behind.

  Naturally, as you may have realized, if I had had any sense, I would have slipped away in the opposite direction and plunged down Caen Hill and run towards Bath at full throttle, but, as you also will have noticed, I do not easily fall victim to sensible ideas. I had found an ancient road atlas on board. It was fifteen years out of date, but I presumed that towns and villages had not been moved since it was printed so it would probably do, and I had indeed located the whereabouts of the hamlet of Ufton, which lay near the deceptively named tiny village of Great Bedwyn. Ufton lay close to the canal and so Bearwood Hall could also not be far away. I was hoping to get there in two days if I stuck to the speed limit and nothing unforeseen occurred.