Walking Into the Ocean

by David Whellams

  A telephone rang in the depths of the crypt.

  At first, Peter thought it was the computer announcing its automatic rebooting, but then he knew that it was just his mobile echoing oddly in the hollow chamber. Ron Hamm’s name appeared on the screen. Through a blur of interference, he struggled to make out Hamm’s voice; if there was panic there, Peter couldn’t distinguish it from the static.

  “Inspector, this is Ron Hamm.” Further words were swept away. Peter moved towards the feeble light of the stone stairway, and the reception improved.

  “Where are you, Ron?” he shouted.

  “I can’t hear you too well, Peter. I’m in town.”

  “Did Willet reach you?” He was shouting now.

  “Not to worry. I’m close. Where are you?”

  Close? What does that mean? “Close in what sense?”

  “I have reason to believe that Albrecht Zoren helped Lasker with his plan.” Possible, Peter conceded. “I also know that Zoren killed the bookkeeper, Sally, to keep her from finding out about the cars and the shell companies.” Peter thought this impossible: he had seen Zoren’s face the day of the funeral. “I’m going over to Lasker’s.”

  “Where are you?” Peter called into the line. The signal faded. The wind in from the Channel was audible down in the crypt. It seemed to be building. The door at the top of the stairs slammed shut.

  Peter called out: “Ron?” The phone still worked, but he was losing Hamm. The lights went out in the crypt, leaving merely the lonely screen of his mobile.

  “Don’t hang up, whatever you do!” he shouted. He scrambled to the top of the steps in the dark. He banged his left arm on the rough wall, hitting his recent wound. Finding the door by touch, he pressed against it. It didn’t budge; it didn’t appear to be locked, only jammed shut, but the steep pitch of the staircase made leverage against the inner side of the door difficult, his position on the top step precarious.

  “Are you there, Peter?” Hamm said.

  “Ron, I’m at the Abbey. Stuck in the crypt. The entrance is off the chapel east of the transept. I don’t know if I have much air. Can you come over and open up?” There was no answer at first, but then Peter thought he heard a muffled “Yes.”

  Peter called into the fading line: “Stay away from Zoren.” But he was met by dead air.

  It turned out that he had plenty of oxygen. What he lacked was light and a firm prospect of rescue. He tried to shoulder his way through the door, but it held fast. He found the inner light switch, but it appeared to be dead. Slipping and stumbling down the steps, he paused in the little room to reflect on his options. The glow from his phone was pitiful, but at least the bars showed that his battery had a half charge remaining. He called Hamm back, only to be greeted by the “no reception” lady. Grappling towards the chair next to the desk, he oriented himself to the tiny room and called up his speed-dial list. He even considered trying to reach Verden or Bartleben. Sam’s Auto was promising, he thought. But there was a better choice: he called Constable Willet.

  There was no reception.

  He called Sam, Tommy, Joan, Sarah and the Regional Lab in Whittlesun. He called Vogans. He tried Hamm again. Nothing.

  His telephone light would last no more than two hours. He could try the upper door again, but he wasn’t hopeful. Feeling round the desk, over and under the computer and along the bookshelf, from which he dislodged half the volumes, he touched the on/off switch on the CPU. He flipped it On. The blue screen arrived like a friend. Peter had never participated in what Michael and Sarah called “social media,” other than using email, but now he was faced with choosing his most reliable Best Friend. He considered a quick SOS — filled with exclamation points — to Willet, but that could alert Maris and everyone else on the police network to where he was sending from, and he wasn’t eager to explain. Sam or Vogans risked a heart attack climbing these hills and, besides, at least one of them might have legitimate reservations about breaking into a Roman Catholic church. In the end, he emailed Tommy with directions to the crypt. Tommy was the one most likely to check his inbox at least once an hour, and, most important, he would browbeat the Whittlesun force to send someone out to the Abbey.

  He prayed that the feed to the computer would stay alive. He turned off the mobile and marked the passage of the minutes on the monitor clock. In the spooky blue glow, Peter decided to pass the time by completing his search of Salvez’s possessions. He flipped through the remaining tomes in his library, feeling in the dark beside the desk for the upended volumes. He found a few prayer cards, used as bookmarks. But when he took down a well-thumbed volume of Aquinas, a folded sheet fell out. He opened it and read:

  Dover Beach

  The sea is calm tonight.

  The tide is full. . . .

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  . . . . the cliffs of England stand

  . . . . out in the tranquil bay.

  . . . . the night air

  . . . . the long line of spray

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  . . . . pebbles . . . fling

  . . . . up the high strand

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  The eternal note of sadness

  All of the next stanza was missing, except for the final phrase.

  . . . . the distant northern sea

  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  . . . . the breath

  Of the night wind. . . .

  And we are here as on a darkling plain.

  Peter had hoped that Father Salvez had left behind a message for him, but this wasn’t the sign he craved. Salvez had simply been playing a word game with himself; it wasn’t a puzzle meant for any other reader. He had copied it for solace, or for amusement. He had chopped down Arnold’s poem to the physical details, which happened to match the topography just beyond these Abbey walls. He had borrowed them in order to affirm his reality, his presence here on this hilltop during his final stay. No doubt the fragments of the poem had comforted him. His only concession to mortality was the partial line, “the eternal note of sadness.”

  Yet the truncated poem was written in a fine hand, not unlike an illuminated manuscript, by a practised amateur calligrapher, presumably Salvez himself. It was a beautiful thing in itself. Peter pulled the tiny square of parchment from the side of the monitor and held it in the glow of the screen. He read the words in yellow-orange, ars bene moriendi, and turned it over. On the back, in the same lettering, he found: Th a-K.

  The typeface. The font. He had seen them before. It was a sign-painter’s font. The letters carried modest serifs, with a distinct clerical tone but with a commercial impact too. The font was not derived from the elaborate alphabet of an illuminated manuscript. The colour cinched the debate: the draughtsman of the pious homilies on display in the case at St. Elegias was the craftsman of ars bene moriendi. The parchment had been a token from the painter. Salvez had practised his own journeyman calligraphy on “Dover Beach,” but this gem was the work of a professional.

  He scanned the short bookshelf for Salvez’s copy of Imitation of Christ. He thought that he had the English translation clear but he paged through the chapters until he found the precise reference. Thomas à Kempis had been full of catchy sayings, including “Man proposes, God disposes.” Ars bene moriendi translated effectively as “the art of dying well.” No, Peter concluded, Father Salvez would have spun it another way, as an exhortation to himself: “You must die a good death.”

  In his last days, the old priest had resolved to find that good death.

  Father Salvez had persuaded Father Clarke to place the verse from Luke in the casement for his parishioners, and all the town, to see. He had played on Clarke’s sympathy for a dying man, making a final nuisance of himself. And perhaps it was for André Lasker to see, if he decided to attend the funeral.

  And so Clarke had cut it back. The reference to man’s “escape” from fate had been omitted. Salvez had loved games, even when they
were shaped by apprehension of his imminent death. Salvez knew what the Knights understood. They too had deleted any reference to “escape” — “fugere” — on the final gravestone. The Knights of St. John were convinced that their leader, if he lived a good life and made a good death, would leapfrog the Reaper and land in heaven to stand before the judgment of the Son of man.

  Salvez had sent Peter a message, and a puzzle to ponder. Who was worthy of escape? He was asking Peter to decide the right answer.

  As he rested in the basement gloom, he half dozed and recalled snippets of his dream. Father Salvez was the black figure, flying out over the desert-sea. Had Peter been able to count the blank-faced sheep, he bet the number would have been thirty-three. Thirty-three buttons on the cassock.

  He took the sheet with “Dover Beach” on it, bent it in half and slid the parchment between the folds. A small fossil sat on the shelf, a pyritized ammonite that the priest must have collected down at the shore. He picked up the three items and put them in an envelope from the drawer. Last, he picked up the red rosary and slipped it into his pocket.

  Hamm checked his pistol and inserted it, safety on, in the door slot beside the driver’s seat of the Vauxhall. The man on the phone had been clear about the murderer, and Ron was grateful for clarity. Oh, the caller had sworn him to tight secrecy, and he wasn’t a chap whom Ron would normally be inclined to trust, with his glib manner, but everything he said made sense. It was about goddam time someone nailed it down.

  The caller confirmed what Symington had guessed at, that Albrecht Zoren had been pivotal to Lasker’s escape plans, helping to conceal cash and complete the paperwork for the off-ledger export scam. It was Hamm’s own deduction that Zoren had eliminated Sally the bookkeeper to prevent her from pointing the way to the gaps in the accounts.

  Ron had been less certain about nailing Zoren as the Rover. The caller had been persuasive, pointing to what Ron already knew, that the mechanic had two previous charges for assault, though no convictions; he had to admire the caller’s research skills. With access to an unlimited supply of cars, Zoren could move fluidly across the road network on the cliffs.

  But perhaps it was the pure momentum that got to Hamm. He had known for a week or more that he was close to the Rover. The attacks on Garvena and Van Loss, as Peter had emphasized, were mistakes that demonstrated a breakdown of discipline. But Ron had been influenced most by the sight of Brenda Van Loss, pale and bruised and luckily rescued no more than a couple of hours away from death by freezing. There was an extra callousness in that one.

  Ron tried to be honest with himself about the rendezvous. He wasn’t out for glory, but he wanted his measure of vengeance. Momentum again — and it had been launched with the Symington confrontation. He had not intended to strike him, but the teacher’s arrogance had been too much. At first he denied his guilt, then threw lines from Shakespeare in Ron’s face. He tried to push all the responsibility onto Zoren.

  Ron approached the side streets and stopped out of sight of Lasker’s Garage. He contemplated the scene ahead. It was possible that he wanted to prove his professionalism to Cammon and Maris, he thought, but really it was the momentum. If he could stop the Rover now, he would forget the torn bodies of Molly and Anna.

  And the caller had been persuasive.

  He had visited the garage once before, when he first interviewed Zoren, and recalled the messy work bays, which extended on to several back rooms. The caller had advised that Zoren slept on a cot in one of these rooms, but had no idea which one. Ron crept to the front entrance, which was recessed from the road, and stopped to listen. No lights were on inside. He needed to be inside before he announced himself, and so he tried the doorknob to the front office. To his surprise, the door swung open and a faint glow from the street established that the room was empty. He entered with his pistol in his right hand, a small torch in his left. He noted the gouge in the reception desk but moved on to the opening that led into the work area. Within, he remarked on the open bonnet of a sedan by a work pit; the garage wasn’t all that busy, he observed, and the whole place gave off a spooky, semi-abandoned feel.

  “Mr. Zoren? This is Detective Hamm, Whittlesun Police.”

  He waited in shadow for a full minute. The noise came from the entry behind him, unexpected. The man walked into the beam of Ron’s torch and smiled. He was utterly self-possessed. Ron’s first one-off reaction was that the man could have been wearing one of the disguises F.R. Symington had conjured up for André, with makeup and hair gel.

  “Thank you for coming, Detective. Have you found Zoren?”

  “Not yet. Do you have reason to think he’s here?”

  “I think so, but I’m glad to have the police find out. Have you checked the back rooms?”

  “Stay here. I’ll do it.”

  Weapon drawn, Ron edged past the cars in the work bays and around the open pits. The room was a dangerous obstacle course. It became necessary to turn on the switch by the doorway leading off the large space into the back, and as the neon tubes flickered on, at once he felt overexposed. It seemed safer to move into the next small room.

  A cot had been set up in the corner, but Albrecht Zoren was not on it. He had propped himself against the opposite wall and now lay slumped to one side. Death had arrived at least twenty-four hours ago, for the body had stiffened and the sallow skin on the man’s face had begun to tighten as the features moved towards full rictus. Ron knelt beside the dead man and immediately discerned the effects of a cocaine overdose. Not only was there white powder on his nostrils and chin, but he had wrapped himself in a panel of canvas for warmth. Cocaine reactions often included the shakes. As Ron examined Zoren, the furnace beneath the garage fired up and hot air began to blow out of the vent right next to the body.

  The man, composed and smiling, was waiting in the big room for Ron Hamm to return.

  “Zoren is dead,” Ron announced.

  The man held back until Ron Hamm was parallel to the work pit and then reached out and cut the detective across the jugular. Coincidentally, the tool that Albrecht Zoren had threatened Peter with lay on the floor between them; but the Rover had brought his own familiar, sharp knife. He stepped back to avoid the spray.

  As Ronald Hamm toppled to his right into the pit, he heard his mobile chiming its familiar ring.

  CHAPTER 34

  It was a sign of Peter’s fatigue that he was dozing off in the stiff-backed chair, deep in the blue aura of the computer, when Willet began pounding on the door. He was floating in a reverie, making his detective’s lists. Whom did he trust? Well, that answer was constant: he trusted Gwen. She had identified the Electric Man, and he believed in her.

  Peter recalled his list of women. He supposed that the one who still niggled at him was Wendie. She was strong, though not in the way that Gwen was self-assured. It bothered him that she seemed more interested in the Lasker case than the Rover, when surely the biggest, showiest news story was the serial predator. He wondered if she had an undisclosed connection to Lasker. Then again, apropos of the Rover, Wendie had been the one to twig to Kidd’s Reach.

  Still groggy when the second rap came, Peter imagined the gong being rung at the opening of a J. Arthur Rank film, the reverberations sweeping through the crypt from no single direction. He forgot his half-dream as he revived.

  He met the constable at the landing; the door had opened about six inches. The man wore his motorcycle goggles and ancient leathers, and still resembled a flying ace.

  “Thank you, Mr. Willet. How did you know to find me here?”

  “I received two calls, one from Mr. Hamm and a second from Mr. Verden, to the same effect. Stand back for a moment, if you will.” Peter retreated as Willet kicked the door wide.

  “Just a minute, Constable.” Peter trotted down to the room and shut down the computer. He tested the light switch at the top of the steps and it worked fine now; evidently, the lights closed down when the door was closed.

  They made their way back along
the nave and out around the Abbey to the set of steps. Willet’s motorbike was parked below, with an extra helmet on the seat. Peter held back in order to take a couple of deep breaths.

  “What did Hamm say?” Peter asked.

  “He was a bit coy, I must say. Said he’s made a breakthrough. He’d report back later about it. I had started my late shift when he called.”

  Willet ferried him back to the car park by bike, after which they formulated their plan. Willet would lead the way to Lasker’s Garage. He would likely get there faster than Peter in the Land Rover, but he was to park a street or two away and wait for him. Peter had recorded Hamm’s number from the young detective’s incoming call. He now dialled it as he drove down the hill. This time he connected to his voicemail service and left a message: “Ron, stay away from Zoren. It’s a trap.”

  In the Land Rover, he careered down the hill, with the SUV fishtailing on the muddy verge. He was seeing the power of a coastal storm for the first time. Until now, he had only the tourist’s experience of bad weather, encountering the dull fixity of grey mists and drizzle, but now the sleet, fog and cold had rolled in together. Even at this speed, he began to lose Willet’s tail lamp in the distance. He turned the wipers to high, and wondered if it might rain forever.

  He was safe as long as he followed the only passable road to the town limits; from there he would know the way to Lasker’s. He felt, rather than saw, the cloudbank overhead. The storm was moving in from the sea like an invader; it would hover over the land until it completed its assault, leaving wind damage and flooded cellars. Between curtains of rain he glimpsed farmhouse lights. A van with a decal of a satellite dish logo on the side huddled near a farm entrance; the power feed to the area had held so far, but, Peter thought, television service must have become problematic for the entire heights.

  He reached Lasker’s much faster than he expected. He desperately hoped that he was in time. Willet had pulled his machine into a lay-by on the cobbled street that led to the garage; he had removed his helmet. Peter pulled in behind. He dug in the boot for his Smith & Wesson, which was fully loaded, and ignored the sleet that was angling into his face from up the road. They padded side by side to the lot, where only three cars occupied the apron out front. The pull-down garage door next to the parking area was shut and padlocked. They had a clear view of the entire exterior, but that didn’t count for much when any entry to the interior would require blunt force, with the accompanying racket.