She looked as though she didn’t believe him. He smiled reassuringly. She didn’t return it.
Abigail showed him out. ‘I did warn you.’
‘Do you know who she’s talking about?’
‘I’ve no idea. What she sees is the past mixed up with the present and sometimes what she might have imagined as a child or young woman.’
Maybe, but Marvik was convinced she was talking about someone real. And he was growing even more certain that the ‘devil’ Mary saw was the same one that Shale saw. Abigail’s words reverberated around his head, the past mixed up with the present. Mary had seen ‘the devil’ in the past and she’d also seen him recently, otherwise why was she so agitated and frightened?
Marvik pulled up the collar of his jacket against the rain and instead of heading for the bay he detoured through the sodden streets towards the church where the funeral service for the phoney Bradley Pulford had been held. Within ten minutes he was retracing his footsteps of eight days ago. What was it that Mary had kept saying in the pub – something about the dead rising up? Had she seen someone she believed was dead? Had Mary seen someone from the past standing in the distance, at the lychgate perhaps? But Marvik was certain there had been no one except the Killbecks, himself and the vicar in the churchyard, unless he counted the undertakers and he didn’t think any of them was Mary’s devil. He studied the gravestones. Many of them were ancient. But behind the church, just as there had been in Steepleridge, there were more recent ones including that of Leonard Killbeck who, as Matthew had told him, had died in 1995. There was also a headstone for Albert and Lillian Killbeck and, looking at the dates, Marvik knew they were Matthew and Leonard’s parents.
He turned and made for Swanage Bay and the lifeboat station. His mission mobile phone rang on the way. It was Strathen. Marvik could hear the wind down the line, which meant Strathen was in the cockpit or on the shore.
‘Bryony’s gone,’ he said without preamble.
‘When?’ Marvik asked sharply.
‘Twenty minutes ago. She went to the marina shower block. I kept my eyes peeled on her but after a few minutes she didn’t come out. I asked the marina staff to check the showers. Empty. She didn’t go out the front but there’s a door at the rear that gives on to the refuse area. It’s kept locked only this time it wasn’t. It had been forced open. I’ve checked the marina CCTV – the cameras don’t extend to the rear but they picked up a black van leaving the marina at the same time as when Bryony was inside. The registration number was obscured. I fobbed off the staff, saying she was my girlfriend and we’d rowed.’
‘So he’s finally got her.’
‘Looks that way. I also called Crowder after our earlier discussion and your idea that Bradley Pulford might have seen Matthew and Leonard Killbeck along the coast in 1979 engaged in some illegal activity which was why he’d thought he’d found a safe billet with them in 1989. I asked him if Matthew, Leonard or Adam Killbeck had a police record. Matthew Killbeck has one for violent assault in 1971. He was in a pub brawl. Nothing since.’
‘If Mary really believes she saw someone who she thought was dead then it could be Pulford who has returned and the body discovered in January which was cremated is Joshua Nunton, as you said earlier. I don’t think Leonard Killbeck has returned from the dead unless his headstone is a fake.’
‘I’ll check if he really is dead.’
‘And with Bryony missing it might be a good idea if you moved the boat.’
‘Already have. I’m at sea heading towards Swanage. I’ll anchor off the pier.’
It wouldn’t be a very pleasant journey in the rain and wind but Strathen was experienced enough to easily handle it. Marvik said he was heading there now in the hope of seeing the Killbecks. They might have called an earlier halt to their fishing because of the weather and he could have missed them.
The fishing boat was on the shore along with the pick-up truck but there was no sign of either Adam or Matthew. Marvik made to cross to it but as he did he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He tensed and spun round in time to see a figure lunge at him. In an instant Marvik grabbed the upraised arm and in one fluid movement twisted it up high, locked his foot around Adam Killbeck’s ankles and brought him crashing down on to the hard concrete, almost wrenching Adam’s arm from its socket. Adam screamed in pain and Marvik, wasting no time, grabbed him roughly by his dark jacket and hauled him up. He made to smash his fist into the face when a cry rang out from behind him.
‘No!’
Marvik ignored it. Through gritted teeth, he addressed the body on the ground. ‘No motorbike this time – makes it much easier for me,’ he said, and made to strike when the voice again came from behind.
‘It’s not him you want, it’s me.’
Marvik paused. Then he thrust Adam Killbeck back so hard that his head knocked against the concrete. He cried out in pain. Marvik could see that he’d dislocated Adam’s shoulder. Well, tough. He spun round to face Matthew Killbeck. Abigail must have called Matthew on his mobile phone as soon as he’d left the house; they’d cut short their fishing and had laid a trap knowing that he’d return here at some stage to find them. Abigail had probably also told Matthew that Mary had been rambling on about the devil and the dead.
With a worried expression on his weather-beaten, sodden face, Matthew addressed Marvik. ‘I need to get Adam to hospital.’
‘First the truth – no bullshit this time.’
Matthew hesitated. Adam hauled himself up, his face ashen. He looked dazed and he was groaning with pain. Marvik said, ‘The quicker you talk, Matthew, the quicker your son gets medical attention. Who are the dead rising up?’
‘No one. Mary gets confused.’
‘Who did she see in the churchyard at Pulford’s funeral service?’
‘There wasn’t anyone, only us – you know that. She’s got dementia.’ Matthew’s troubled eyes glanced at his son and then back to Marvik.
‘So why did a man pretending to be Bradley Pulford latch on to you and your brother, Leonard, in 1989? What was it he had over you? What did he see you doing in 1979 along the coast?’ Matthew visibly started. His skin paled. Marvik knew he was on the right track. ‘Why would you let him stay with your brother and sleep with your niece?’
Matthew’s fists clenched. His mouth set in a tight line.
Adam groaned. Matthew’s eyes flicked to him and back to Marvik, full of fury.
‘You have a police record for violence. You got caught once but how many times have you got away with it? How many times have you killed?’
‘I haven’t killed anyone.’
‘No? What about Leonard? Maybe he was the killer?’
Adam was moaning with pain as he lay on the wet, hard concrete. Marvik had to hurry. There were no boats anchored in the bay but someone might see them from the pier, although thankfully it was wet and the light was dim.
‘Leonard would never kill anyone,’ Matthew maintained.
‘But you were on the coast in 1979 and Pulford saw you doing something illegal. He threatened to tell.’
‘Dad.’ Adam stirred himself and looked up at his father with pain-wracked, haunted eyes. It was, Marvik interpreted, a plea for him to keep quiet rather than to get him medical help.
‘What happened, Matthew, in the bay below Kingston House?’ Marvik persisted. The last was a guess but not such a wild one given that the Shales were involved in this as far back as Singapore in 1959.
‘Nothing,’ Matthew vehemently declared.
But Marvik knew that at last he had another piece of the puzzle. Whatever it was, it had been enough for Oscar Redburn to return as Bradley Pulford in 1989 and live off the Killbecks, occasionally putting in a day’s fishing when he felt like it.
‘I must get Adam medical help.’
‘Not until I get the truth.’
‘Dad, say nothing,’ Adam groaned, trying to raise himself, but the effort was too much. He slumped back.
Matthew made to
go to him but Marvik blocked the way. He held the elderly man’s hostile and frightened stare. Suddenly Matthew’s body slumped. Marvik held his breath in anticipation.
Matthew addressed Adam. ‘No, son, it’s no use.’ Then to Marvik: ‘I knew you’d find out the moment you came to the funeral. I could see you wouldn’t let it go. I thought at first that you must be working for the police but you didn’t act and talk like a copper. Then I thought you might be related to Joshua except the only relation he had was his mother and she’s dead.’
‘What did Pulford see, Matthew?’ Marvik repeated. He could see Strathen’s boat edging into the bay.
‘The same as me, or rather more than me.’
Marvik eyed him, puzzled.
Matthew continued, ‘I heard it first. The army were on exercise. I was walking along the coast, I was trespassing on army land, but then I often did. I know my way around there enough not to get shot at. I saw the motor boat making out to sea, very fast, and as I drew near to the bay and looked down a man came out from behind the outcrop of rocks on the other side of it and stared after the boat. He turned and looked directly at me. He was as white as a sheet. He scrambled up the cliff towards me in a right state, gabbling on about how this man had been shot on the beach and how his body had been bundled on to the boat. He said he’d been looking for fossils. He knew that it was prohibited there so when he heard someone come down the cliff path and then the boat approach he hid out of sight behind the rocks. He said he had recognized one of the men and knew he was a powerful man with influence and wealth, who had dangerous friends.’
‘Cedric Shale.’
‘I don’t know if it was him. I didn’t see him.’
But he had seen the boat and a man like Matthew would have recognized it if it had been local or if he saw it again.
‘What kind of boat?’
‘I don’t know.’
Oh, but Matthew did. Marvik let that go for now as Matthew continued, ‘He asked me what I was going to do and I said …’ He paused.
‘You said forget about it. That it was none of your business.’
Matthew nodded. ‘It wasn’t that I was afraid, just …’
‘You don’t like the police and you had a record for violence. They might have believed you were the killer.’
‘He said it was for the best. He’d clear out and say nothing. Besides, the man they shot might still be alive. He went west and I headed home in the opposite direction. I forgot about it.’
‘Until 1989 when he showed up on the quayside as Bradley Pulford.’
Matthew nodded, his expression haunted. ‘That’s who he said he was. I didn’t ask for his papers.’
‘Dad.’ Adam’s face was contorted with pain. He looked as though he was going to throw up. Matthew pleaded with Marvik with his eyes but Marvik said, ‘Go on.’
‘He’d come looking for me and asked me to give him a job. He knew I was a fisherman because I must have let it slip on the cliff path and it wouldn’t have taken long for him to find me anyway. He said he needed a job. I took him on.’
‘But he didn’t really want to work.’
‘No.’
‘Did he say why he’d come back?’
‘No.’
‘Or why he was using a false name?’
‘I didn’t know it was false.’
Marvik saw that was the truth. ‘He blackmailed you with what you’d witnessed.’
‘But I’d witnessed nothing.’
Marvik didn’t believe him.
Matthew Killbeck said, ‘Pulford was clever and cunning. He sort of got under our skin. I hadn’t killed anyone – I’d only half witnessed something – but he made me feel as though I’d seen more and been involved in more. He said I’d be charged by the police as an accessory after the fact, or even as a killer – there would be so little evidence left to say otherwise.’
Marvik heard Adam being sick. He was groaning with pain. Matthew reached for his phone. Marvik stepped forward. ‘In a moment.’
Matthew took a breath. ‘What made things worse was that Stacey took a fancy to him and he thought he was in clover. Adam and I lied when we said he was a good worker – he wasn’t. He was a lazy, idle bugger who thought he was better than he was. He was a sponger. Then he asked for a share of the business and I told him to piss off. But he kept on about how the police would think I was a killer, and about my police record. Then Stacey got pregnant. So I agreed. Adam went nuts. He hated Pulford and couldn’t understand why I was always giving in to him. Adam thought Pulford could do no wrong in my eyes and Stacey thought the sun shone out of his backside. He asked for money and I kept bailing him out.’
‘And Joshua Nunton got increasingly jealous and angry.’
‘Yes. Please let me get help for Adam?’
Marvik gave a curt nod. Matthew retrieved his phone, dialled the emergency services and explained that Adam had a head wound and was being sick. He gave their location. When he came off the phone, Marvik said, ‘Joshua Nunton wanted shot of Pulford and so did Adam.’
‘Yes. And I did.’
‘You all conspired to kill him.’
‘We agreed to take him out in the boat and dump him at sea, but when we reached the boat the morning we planned to do it, Joshua was on board, dead. And Pulford had disappeared.’
Marvik wasn’t sure that was the truth. Perhaps they had all gone out on the boat and Pulford had been killed. Joshua, unable to live with what he’d done, had gone on the run and, as he and Strathen had discussed, he’d returned a month ago and ended up dead. Perhaps it had been Joshua Nunton’s DNA that had matched Jensen’s because Stacey had been sleeping with both men. But he’d accept Matthew’s version for now.
‘So you dumped Joshua’s body in the sea and let everyone think he’d taken off.’
Matthew nodded miserably. He crossed to his son stretched out on the ground.
Marvik caught the sound of the ambulance approaching.
‘Then I came asking about Pulford and a man called Oscar Redburn. Did Adam try to run me down on a motorbike?’
‘No. He hasn’t got a motorbike and he can’t ride one.’
The ambulance drew to a halt and Marvik saw two paramedics jump out. There were just a couple more questions he needed to ask.
‘Did you or Adam kill Sarah Redburn?’
‘No. Why should we? We don’t know her.’
Marvik scrutinized Matthew’s tired and drawn face. ‘You said that Pulford wasn’t in the photograph I showed you of the two men.’ It was the one that Gordon Freynsham had given him.
‘He wasn’t.’
‘Are you certain?’ Marvik looked for the lie and couldn’t see it. But Matthew was distracted by the paramedics attending to Adam. Marvik took out his phone and showed Matthew the photograph that Bryony had given him.
‘Which one is Pulford?’ he asked.
Matthew’s eyes screwed up as he gazed down on it, then he started physically and his eyes widened with surprise. ‘My God! That’s him. That’s Pulford,’ he said.
Marvik stared at where Matthew was pointing. It wasn’t at Oscar Redburn as he’d expected but at a man who had died in 1979. Joseph Cotleigh.
TWENTY
‘Leonard Killbeck is dead,’ Strathen said as they sat in the corner of a pub in the town. ‘Or certainly someone bearing his name was registered as having died of a stroke in 1995.’
Marvik had showered and changed into some dry clothes and they’d gone ashore because Strathen’s connection to the Internet in the bay had been practically non-existent. It was still raining heavily. Marvik said, ‘But Joseph Cotleigh wasn’t dead in 1979 if Matthew can be believed and I’m certain he’s telling the truth, which means either they didn’t bother to check dental records and just assumed it was his body—’
‘Sloppy.’
‘Or it suited someone for it to be Cotleigh washed up in Chale Bay on the Isle of Wight in February 1979 in order to be able to spin that yarn about him running off with unio
n funds. They took a chance on Cotleigh not showing up and saying hey, I’m not dead.’
‘Not much of one if they knew he had been in that bay and had witnessed the shooting. And they knew he’d buggered off. Cedric Shale could have told them.’
‘But who are they? Who is behind the cover-up with Cedric Shale, if it was him in that bay the day of the shooting?’
‘Intelligence? The government? The opposition party?’
Marvik took a swallow of his beer. ‘If Shale was party to the murder, or guilty of committing it, and someone has covered up for him then his motive has to be connected with his father and Malaya in 1959. And the man who actually got shot in Kingston Bay and turned up dead on the Isle of Wight in 1979 has to be Oscar Redburn. It ties in with when he went missing.’
Strathen nodded. ‘Looks that way.’
‘So which of them had the package that Darrow brought back, Cotleigh or Redburn?’
‘Has to be Redburn because he ended up dead.’
‘And the fact he chose that location for a meet means that whatever he had was enough to blackmail Cedric Shale with.’
‘And it might not have been either amber or fossils.’ Strathen took a swig of his lager. His laptop computer was in front of him on the table.
Marvik sat forward. Four men entered the pub and went to the bar.
‘I’ve been looking a bit deeper into Ambrose Shale. He got into Malaya very quickly when the Japanese left there after the war. The country was in a shit state. Ambrose Shale and other British businessmen were eager to exploit the valuable minerals there such as coal, bauxite, tungsten, gold, iron ore, manganese and tin. Also rubber. Malaya became practically owned by British businesses, especially the rubber estates, and after the war the government were very keen to protect their business interests. But they failed to protect the rights of the Chinese in Malaya, who’d already had a raw deal under the Japanese. The government were scared there might be a Chinese revolution in Malaya like the Chinese Revolution of 1949. So an insurgent movement was formed out of the Chinese who, as you probably know, Art, had been trained by the British army during the war because they were the only resistance to the Japanese occupation.’
Dangerous Cargo Page 21
