“It’s balderdash, I can assure you. Ray’s just working off a grudge against Barney Tozer. Although he probably drinks enough to believe his own fantasies. I’ll give him that. I daresay he’s convinced himself by now that Barney really did murder Kerry.”
“But he didn’t?”
“No. He may have neglected to check the equipment he and Kerry were using as thoroughly as he should have. That’s certainly what the coroner implied. So, you could argue he was partly responsible for what happened, although Kerry made things worse for herself by entering the wreck, but at the end of the day… it was just bad luck.”
“Where are we going?” Harding glanced round at the high-hedged fields of daffodils to either side of the road. His grasp of the island’s geography was just sufficient to tell him that they were not heading for Hugh Town, where Metherell lived.
“I thought a word with our skipper that day might put your mind at rest.”
“Alf Martyn?”
“Correct. He and his brother Fred grow daffodils when they aren’t ferrying tourists round the islands.”
“And they were both on board?”
“They were. This is their place just coming up. Pregowther Farm.”
Metherell turned right into a hedge-screened farmyard. A four-square granite and slate farmhouse stood in front of them, flanked by corrugated-iron-roofed outbuildings in various stages of disrepair. Broken ladders, gates, fencerails and rusty harrows filled one corner, while chickens were pecking and bobbing in the long grass that encroached at another. A track led out of the yard into a daffodil field, beyond which several more daffodil fields sloped down and away towards the sea. A crudely written sign declaring bulbs for sale had been propped against the doorpost of one of the barns. But of sales staff there was no sign.
“The Martyns are one of Scilly’s oldest families,” Metherell remarked as he turned off the engine and they climbed out. “A Robert Martyn settled here in the fourteenth century.”
“Ray mentioned you’re something of an historian.”
“Hard not to be, living here. Everything’s closer on a small island. Even the past.” Then he added, apparently as an afterthought: “Perhaps especially the past.”
They walked to the front door of the farmhouse. A drift of pop music, distorted by a slightly off-signal radio, reached them from within. It cut off as soon as Metherell rapped the knocker.
The door was answered a few seconds later by a frizzy-haired, moon-faced, scarlet-cheeked young woman dressed in cropped trousers and a smock top stretched round a distended stomach. She looked at least six months’ pregnant and was breathing heavily.
“Hello, Josie,” said Metherell.
“Hi, Mr. Metherell,” Josie panted cheerily in reply.
“Alf in? Or the father-to-be?”
“No. They’re both at the boatyard. They lavish more care on the Jonquil than they ever do on me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“You ask Fred and see if he doesn’t blush when he denies it.”
“Maybe I will.”
Josie laughed. “Well, if you want to catch them, they’ll likely be there till tea-time.”
“OK. Thanks. Mind if we leave my car here and walk down through your fields to the beach?”
“Be my guest.”
“There’s something on the beach I want to show you before we drive over to the boatyard,” Metherell explained as he led the way at an ambling pace along the track that formed the edge of the Martyns’ daffodil fields. It led down through a succession of open gateways towards a broad and rocky bay, into which the sea was rolling and foaming. “You might as well see it while we have the chance.”
“It’s the video I was really interested in,” Harding tentatively objected, fearing that he was being ever so subtly sidetracked.
“What did Ray tell you about the Association?” Metherell pressed on.
“That it sank among the Western Rocks in, er… 1707.”
“Correct. The bay ahead of us is Porth Hellick, where a lot of the bodies were washed up.”
“Really?”
“Including that of Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell. I’m writing a book on the disaster.”
“So Ray said.”
“It’s as good as finished. Due out in October of next year, for the tercentenary It’s a tricky business, though, judging when you can safely sign off on a project like that. There’s always the possibility that some new discovery might be made.”
“After three hundred years?”
“That’s the thing with the Association story. It seems to have tendrils that keep on growing. Shovell was in command of a fleet of twenty-one men-of-war returning to Portsmouth from operations in the Mediterranean. It was the primitive navigational methods of the time that did it in for him. Principally the impossibility of accurately measuring longitude at sea. Three other ships went down that night. About fourteen hundred men were drowned and a fortune in gold and silver coin was lost. The disaster prompted the Government to put up a prize for a solution to the longitude problem.”
“Won by John Harrison with his marine chronometer.”
“Bravo, Mr. Hardy. You evidently know all about this.”
“Far from it. I read a book about Harrison once. But I must have missed the Association connection.”
“Well, there it is. The disaster was to have historic consequences, little comfort though that would have been to the fourteen hundred who drowned. The wreck of the Association was finally located in 1967. Cue rival teams of divers swarming all over it in search of treasure. Lots of headlines. Lots of interest. Which naturally I’m hoping will be revived next year. New revelations would do my book no harm at all.”
“Do you expect any?”
“You never know, Mr. Hardy. You never know.”
They had reached the last field before the beach. No daffodils were being cultivated here and there was no hedge beyond it to break the wind that met them full in the face. The bay was a deep scoop out of the coast, the surf surging in round craggy black arms of rock.
“Porth Hellick is a natural sump for wreckage blown in on a sou’wester,” said Metherell. “Imagine what it must have looked like here the morning after the disaster, with bloated corpses dotted across the sand. Sir Clowdisley’s among them, of course. There’s a stone marking the spot where he was found.”
Metherell pointed to a rough granite block set on a plinth at the edge of the beach. They walked across to it and Harding looked down at the inscription.
THIS STONE MARKS THE PLACE WHERE
THE BODY OF ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET
SIR CLOWDISLEY SHOVELL WAS WASHED
ASHORE AFTER HIS FLAGSHIP
H.M.S. ASSOCIATION WAS WRECKED
ON THE GILSTONE ROCKS
ON THE NIGHT OF 22ND OCTOBER 1707
“There’s a rather gruesome legend concerning the discovery of Sir Clowdisley’s corpse,” said Metherell.
“Oh yes?”
“The story goes that a local woman was first on the scene. Taking a fancy to a ring the admiral was wearing, she tried to steal it from the body, couldn’t dislodge it and so cut off the finger along with the ring.”
“A ring?” Harding looked round at Metherell, whose smile had suddenly acquired a mischievous tinge.
“Yes. A rather fine emerald ring, apparently. Set with diamonds.”
ELEVEN
Why don’t we put our cards on the table?” Metherell’s smile broadened as he propped one foot on the plinth of the Shovell monument and held Harding’s gaze. “Your name’s Harding, isn’t it, not Hardy? You’re the chap Clive Isbister tells me Barney Tozer’s sent over to buy a cherished family heirloom at tomorrow’s auction. Lot 641. An emerald-and-diamond ring in a starburst box, hallmarked 1704.”
“All right.” Harding summoned some kind of smile himself. “You’ve got me. I’m Tim Harding.”
“The question is: why are you interested in Kerry Foxton?”
“Well,
I, er…”
“Would I be right in surmising you were disturbed by the rumours of foul play that reached your ears in Penzance and decided to find out if there was any substance to them?”
“Yes.” Further denial seemed pointless. “You would be right.”
“I quite understand. Barney might not approve. Hence the alias. Well, don’t worry. He won’t hear of our meeting from me. He’s a man even his friends find hard to trust completely. A bit of a chancer, to be brutally honest. But not a murderer.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“As for the ring, you needn’t worry about that either. I shan’t be bidding against you.”
“Do you really think it’s the same ring that was stolen from Shovell’s body?”
“No. As a matter of fact, I don’t. Put simply, it can’t be. I’ll explain why not as we walk back.”
They began to retrace their steps from the beach along the track through the Martyns’ fields. Harding, feeling as relieved as he was embarrassed, listened humbly as Metherell outlined the history of Admiral Shovell’s ring.
“There’s quite a lot we know for certain and a good deal more we can safely infer. The Admiralty sent a man called Edmund Herbert to the islands in 1709 to investigate the possibilities of salvaging the lost vessels. He accomplished little on that score, but his subsequent report did detail the known circumstances of Sir Clowdisley’s death. The ring was certainly missing when the body was found by a search party from one of the surviving ships. Lady Shovell later offered a reward for its return, to no avail. There’s no evidence of an amputated finger, however. The bodies of the captain of the Association and two stepsons of Sir Clowdisley who’d been serving aboard the ship were found nearby. They were buried in Old Town Church, just round the coast from here. But Sir Clowdisley’s body was taken to Plymouth for embalming, then on to London for a full fig state funeral in Westminster Abbey. Nothing more was heard of the ring for nearly thirty years. Then, according to a letter written in the seventeen nineties by Lord Romney, Sir Clowdisley’s grandson, an elderly widow resident on this island confessed on her deathbed to the theft of the ring and asked the parson to return it to the Shovell family, which he duly did. Romney says it was later refashioned as a locket. Its current whereabouts are unknown. But you’ll appreciate it can’t be in that cabinet at Heartsease. And yet the Tozers’ ring does match the description of Sir Clowdisley’s and dates from the right period. It’s quite a conundrum. One which I’ll naturally be exploring in my book.”
“Any idea who the widow was?” Harding asked hesitantly.
“Her name wasn’t Tozer, if that’s what you’re getting at. The Tozers have no Scillonian connections.”
“You’ve checked, have you?”
“Yes. I’ve checked.” They went on in silence for a moment, until the roof of Pregowther Farm came into view ahead of them. Then Metherell added, “It wasn’t Martyn either. In case you’re wondering.”
“How’s Carol?” Metherell asked during the short drive to the boatyard.
“She’s, er… fine,” Harding responded guardedly.
“It surprised me, Barney and her getting together. Not that I knew her very well, but even so…”
“How long did she live on the island?”
“A few years. I used to drop in to her café from time to time. That’s where I first met Kerry. She was very interested in the Association story from the word go. Fatally so, as it turned out.” Metherell sighed. “Some people reckoned Carol taking up with Barney after what happened to Kerry was, well, wrong in some way. You can imagine the gossip. Only after him for his money. Not bothered about her friend. That kind of thing.”
“What did you think?”
“Me? Oh, I took the view that it proved Carol had no doubt it was an accident. She’s hardly likely to have pursued a relationship with Barney if she suspected him of murder, now, is she?”
“I suppose not.”
“The truth is that everyone who was aboard the boat, Ray Trathen apart, is convinced it was an accident. The Martyns will tell you the same. Like a lot of tragedies, there’s no one to blame. It really is as simple as that.”
Several vessels were being worked on in the boatyard. The Jonquil, a handsome blue and white craft propped up on stakes, was receiving attention to its paintwork from two strikingly similar-looking men in dusty boilersuits. The Martyns were both short and broadly built, balding and bearded, with bony, sharp-nosed faces and dark, deep-set eyes. Harding’s impression during Metherell’s round of introductions was that Alf, the greyer and more heavily lined of the two, was the older by quite a few years. He certainly did most of the talking, while Fred stood half a step behind his shoulder and contributed little beyond nods to confirm his brother’s remarks.
Metherell trotted out Harding’s cover story without apparent compunction and Alf expressed their evidently genuine regrets over what had happened.
“First and last time, touch wood, we’ve ever lost a passenger. A real shame. Miss Foxton was a nice girl, really nice. Ain’t that so, Fred?” Fred nodded. “Well, you don’t need me to tell you that, o’ course, you being her friend. Sounds like Mr. Metherell’s given you all the facts. There’s not a lot more to be said. We’d played it by the book. Salvors’ permission. Harbour-master and coastguard notified. Equipment on the boat in good working order. And the weather was as near perfect as you could wish for. The sea was like a millpond that day. Weren’t it, Fred?” Fred nodded. “But it’s when you least expect trouble you get it. We can’t answer for the kit Mr. Tozer brought with him. Divers we know reckon spotting signs of wear and tear on hoses is real tricky. You’ve got to be that particular. Anyhow, worn or not, Miss Foxton’s hose probably snagged on part of the wreck, which she had no business getting into in the first place. We’d have refused to let her dive from our boat with just the one oxygen cylinder if we’d known that was her game. Single air supply inside a wreck is just so risky. Ain’t that right, Fred?” Fred nodded. “You dwell on something like that. Take my word for it. You ask yourself what you could’ve done to stop it going wrong. Not a lot, in this case. That’s the honest answer. But you go on asking yourself. You can’t help it. You can’t ever forget it. Even if you could, there’d be folk to remind you. No offence to you, Mr. Harding. But there it is in a nutshell.”
“Well, thanks for going over it again,” said Harding.
“You’re welcome.”
“And congratulations.” Harding looked at Fred, who frowned bemusedly back at him. “Your wife. She’s expecting, isn’t she?”
For a moment, Fred did not seem to understand. Then he gave a gap-toothed grin and giggled. “So she is.”
“How long to go?”
“Ten weeks,” Alf replied, apparently more knowledgeable on the subject than the father-to-be.
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” asked Metherell.
“It’ll be a boy” Alf declared. “The Martyns always have sons.”
Mercer House was part of a Georgian terrace facing the public park in the centre of Hugh Town. The Metherells ran it as a high-class b. and b. in the season. Mrs. Metherell was out when they arrived and Metherell showed Harding straight into his study at the rear.
It was a book-lined sanctum looking out onto a walled garden. A large desk supported a computer and a mass of paperwork. A framed antique map of the Scillies was hung above the fireplace, decorated with frolicking mermaids and seahorses. Circled depictions of four wrecked ships immediately drew Harding’s attention. They were, he saw as he peered closer, the Association and the three others that had gone down on the night of 22 October 1707: the Eagle, the Firebrand and the Romney.
“That’s the Gostelo Chart,” Metherell explained. “The original’s in the British Library. Tantalizingly undated, but more or less contemporary with the disaster. The dedication to the Governor of Scilly Sidney, Earl of Godolphin, proves that.” He tapped the elaborately scribed caption. “The governorship was a hereditary per
quisite of the Godolphins. Sidney was the first earl. He died in 1712. So, the chart can’t be later than that.”
“It was a big thing, wasn’t it-the loss of Shovell and the Association?”
“Very. But it’s a more recent and less historic loss you’re interested in, isn’t it? So, let me show you the famous video.”
A TV set, DVD player and VCR were housed in a cabinet in the corner. The video was evidently already in the machine. Metherell sat down at the desk and waved Harding towards an adjacent armchair, then rummaged among his papers, flourished a pair of remotes and aimed them at the TV
“Don’t get too excited,” he cautioned as the screen lit up. “It’s just people on a boat. I’d stopped shooting long before we realized there was a problem.”
It was immediately obvious that Metherell’s description-“just people on a boat”-was exactly right. The first shakily captured footage was of Carol relaxing in the stern with Ray Trathen. Carol was wearing denim shorts, flip-flops and a dramatically low-cut T-shirt. Ray, beer bottle in hand and looking rather more than seven years younger than the man Harding had met over the weekend, was clad in shapeless casuals. He rolled his eyes at the camera when he realized Metherell had caught him ogling Carol’s cleavage. The sea beyond them was, as Alf Martyn had said, millpond flat.
The camera panned slowly, taking in a lighthouse in the middle distance. Then the fo’c’sle of the Jonquil came into view, with Fred Martyn at the wheel and Alf standing beside him in the cockpit, squinting into the lens.
Barney Tozer and Kerry Foxton were standing amidships, between Metherell and the Martyns. They were wearing their wet-suits, but had not yet donned the rest of their diving kit. Kerry had her back to the camera. She was a small, slim, dark-haired young woman, slight enough of stature to be dwarfed by Barney, phocine and massive in black matt rubber. He winked at Metherell and said something to Kerry, gesturing for her to turn round. She obliged, cocking her chin and beaming theatrically as she did so.
Name To a Face Page 7
