by F. G. Cottam
‘No rest for the wicked,’ Carrick said.
‘What?’
‘Never mind, love.’
He hung up. Lucy smiled wanly to herself. She was reminded of her own joke, taken by him as a compliment, that James had never knowingly entertained a thought that wasn’t a cliché.
Break a leg, she thought. She would try not to trip and do so climbing the stairs on her way to bed.
Jane put the song on again. In other circumstances, she thought that she would have been very taken with Kate Rusby’s singing. There was this poignancy to the way she interpreted a lyric and her voice had a tender, melancholic quality Jane didn’t think she had heard in any other singer’s delivery before. Maybe it was a folk thing, but she didn’t think so. It was a quality particular to the petite woman they called the Barnsley Nightingale. She was genuinely talented. The song, The Recruited Collier, was affecting and sad. Or it would have been, had Jane not become aware of it in so troubling a way.
She had met Edith in her dormitory and they had walked through the grounds because the day was so beautiful and the walk a part of the ritual they always indulged when Jane visited and it didn’t happen to be pouring with rain. Her first thought on properly seeing her daughter, once their embrace of greeting had broken, was of how well she looked. She seemed to have grown a bit and her eyes held a bright sparkle and her complexion glowed with health.
She could be cold with her mother. The break-up between her parents, the isolation it inflicted, had left her eventually with a capacity for objectivity most people only achieved in adulthood. School had further increased her independence. She was generally loving and open but never came across as needy, Jane supposed because she did not want to risk further disappointment.
Edith didn’t look to her parents for what she no longer expected them to be able to provide. The divorce had shaken her faith in them. This made Jane sad, but she thought it was better for her than it was for David. Edith blamed her father for the failure of her parents’ marriage and she hadn’t forgiven him and Jane thought it unlikely now that she ever would.
‘I’ve just finished speaking to Mrs Sullivan.’
‘But she wasn’t the reason you came.’
‘No. She wasn’t.’
‘You came because of New Hope Island.’
They had been walking, arm in arm. Jane stopped and so Edith stopped too. She smiled at her mother and Jane realised with a shock that their eye level shared parity. They were now the same height. Her daughter would soon grow taller than she was.
‘I read the article in the paper, mum, that one written by Lucy Church?’
Jane opened her mouth to chastise Edith for up-speak, but thought better of doing so straight away. They all did it. ‘What did you think?’
‘She was well impressed with you. Lucy Church thinks you’re seriously cool.’
‘I meant, what did you think of my going. What do you think?’
‘I think you have to go. Come on, it’s not even a question. Everyone here’s buzzing with it already. The whole world will be watching and you’ll be there. How cool is that? I just wish I was coming with you. Karl Cooper’s going. Jesse Kale’s going. For an old guy, he’s pretty cool.’
‘Other adjectives are available, darling.’
Edith smiled. ‘Next you’ll tell me how much it costs to send me here.’
‘Sorry. It will mean you spending the summer with your father.’
They had resumed their stroll. Edith didn’t answer for a moment. Then she said, ‘I’ve been kind of off with dad, haven’t I.’
‘I’ve known warmer nuclear winters,’ Jane said.
‘What’s a nuclear winter?’
‘Honestly. Do you know what it costs to send you here?’
‘Relax, mum. I know what a nuclear winter is. We did the Cuban Missile Crisis in history last term. When the world was nearly destroyed by atomic war?’
‘So you’ve been thinking about your father.’
‘I’ve been unkind to him.’
Jane didn’t say anything. She thought what Edith had actually been was indifferent to her dad, which was worse.
‘I’ll probably even have fun.’
‘If he thinks you’re having fun with him, he will be happy. And then you really will have fun with him.’
‘Do you still love dad?’
‘No.’
‘Not even a teensy-weensy-‘
‘No. Mrs Sullivan is worried about these dreams, Edie. That’s what I talked to her about. And having spoken to her, I’m worried too. It’s a bit weird, to say the least. Tell me about them.’
‘He says it’s a song a woman should sing. He sings it, but that’s the reason he says he taught it to me.’
‘Who did?’
‘His name is Jacob Parr. He’s from the olden days. He smokes a clay pipe and his teeth are totally gross. He’s kind and patient though.’
‘You know the song. You can even play it. Why are you still dreaming about him?’
‘He says he has important things to tell me but the time isn’t yet right. I think the song was a sort of test.’
‘Testing what?’
‘That he’s not dealing with a total moron, when the time comes to tell me the important stuff.’
‘Are you afraid of Jacob Parr?’
‘No.’
‘How friendly is friendly?’
‘He doesn’t come on to me, mum. They’re not those types of dreams.’
‘They still sound a bit sinister.’
‘They’re not. He’s Jacob Parr. He’s just a guy from the olden days. He’s not exactly Freddy Krueger or Jigsaw.’
‘How do you know about Freddy Krueger?’
‘Some of the girls on the dorm are totally into horror.’
‘Who’s Jigsaw?’
‘You don’t even want to know.’
‘Do you watch horror DVD’s?’
‘No. I’m not into any of that stuff. Really I’m not.’
‘Promise me this, Edie. You’ll tell your father about the dreams?’
‘There isn’t much to tell.’
‘Promise me anyway.’
‘Okay.’ She smiled. ‘I love you, mum.’
‘And I love you, Edie Chambers. With all my heart, I do.’
Now, as bedtime approached, Jane listened to Kate Rusby sing the closing couplet of the song and pondered on what she had discovered about Jacob Parr.
Parr was a common enough English surname and Jacob was a once popular Christian name again enjoying a vogue among middle-class English parents. The Recruited Collier had been a popular song at around the time of the establishment of the New Hope Island settlement. So Jane, who had a scientist’s intolerance when it came to belief in coincidence, began to look for a Jacob Parr with a New Hope Island connection. If she did this on a hunch, it was a virologist’s hunch; the strong intuition of someone who believed in causal chains.
And eventually she found her connection. A man called Jacob Parr had been among the crew aboard Ballantyne’s slave vessel, the Andromeda. He had been a second mate and he had been twice flogged for drunkenness and eventually dismissed the ship’s company. After that, he disappeared from recorded history. He was certainly not among the men, women and children who founded the Island settlement in the Hebrides in the years following his dismissal. Probably he drank himself into the grave. Perhaps he sang well enough to earn coppers for doing so in the taverns where he drank.
Jane did not really believe in ghosts. But someone had taught her daughter that song in a recurring dream she had. He had said his name was Jacob Parr. And her daughter insisted that the man had important information he would pass on to her as soon as the time was right.
She didn’t think that the dreams put Edith in any danger. Jane couldn’t remember having seen her daughter in a happier or more relaxed frame of mind. But she did think that Parr’s intervention made her own impending trip seem somehow much more ominous than it had seemed prior to her visit
to the school.
She wouldn’t discuss the dreams with her ex-husband. Edith had promised to do that herself when the time came, so she had no need. She wanted to tell somebody, however. She needed to. And though it seemed ridiculous to confide in a journalist, she thought that the person she most wanted to discuss this strange development with was that sympathetic features writer from their expedition sponsoring paper, Lucy Church. She thought that her daughter had rightly judged that Lucy liked her. She needed to confide in someone who would not simply laugh in her face.
Lassiter arrived at Alice Lang’s house at lunchtime the following day. He was surprised, really, that she’d agreed to see him with so little apparent reluctance. The David Shanks business had been an ordeal for her. Her attitude towards her gift was a complex one. She chastised herself for the things it made her feel. She interpreted the physical symptoms as weaknesses. If anything, Lassiter saw her willingness to endure them as proof of enormous strength. He had never liked nor admired a woman more.
She’d prepared food, which was a welcome surprise. When he gave in to the urge to drink heavily, he was pretty indifferent to food. But sober, on his own tight leash, he had a healthy appetite and breakfast had been a rushed business interrupted by a surprise call from McIntyre. His butter and Marmite had congealed on his toast as McIntyre thundered on and the bread hardened. He’d ended up sliding it uneaten from his plate into the kitchen bin.
They ate their lunch in the sunshine on her patio, amid spring blooms tended to by industrious bees, with Ellie Goulding playing from inside the open door on her Ipod dock. Lassiter told Alice about his trip to Liverpool. He told her about his elliptical conversation with the museum’s Keeper of Artefacts. He told her what he’d told McIntyre about Ballantyne’s watch. Then he told her what he’d not told McIntyre, about the warning in the pub given him by a woman he was convinced was the ghost of Elizabeth Burrows.
‘Did you come here to ask me to reach into the life of Elizabeth Burrows?’
‘No. I didn’t.’
‘I’d be disinclined to do it. One suicide is enough in a week, Patrick. I’m not quite over seeing how David Shanks met his end.’
‘That’s not why I’m here. I’m sure enough in my own mind of who the woman in the pub was. She knew my name. And her warning to me was unequivocal.’
‘Are you not frightened by any of this?’
‘Of course I am. But I’m also intrigued. I’d like to discover what happened to the New Hope community, or at least play my part in finding out. If a crime was committed, it ought to be uncovered and solved.’
‘A diabolical crime,’ Alice said, ‘If it was a crime.’
‘An atrocity,’ Lassiter said, ‘on that scale. But the truth should out. The victims deserve it. The perpetrator deserves to be exposed.’
‘A policeman’s instinct.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s a while since I’ve had the right to call myself a policeman.’
‘Do you have any theories?’
‘Not really. I tend to avoid theories until I’ve visited the crime scene and I won’t be going on the expedition. I do think Seamus Ballantyne himself is the key to it, though. And I think there’s much more to find out about him and his life and character somewhere. McIntyre’s right about that.’
‘And you’d still look, after the experience with the chest? After the warning you were given in Liverpool?
‘Yes. I would.’ He smiled. ‘Less like an investigator really, than like a dog with a bone.’
‘Why are you here?’
He looked down at the table, to where his hands rested before his now empty plate. ‘I’m here on McIntyre’s behalf. Simon Hawsley-Smith has suffered a massive stroke. The expedition is a spiritual medium under-strength. McIntyre wants to know if you’d consider taking Hawsley-Smith’s place.’
‘I’m not famous.’ It was her turn to smile. ‘I’m not even infamous.’
‘But your psychic gift is genuine. McIntyre knows about my work with you. He appears to trust my judgement. I told him I didn’t think you’d for one moment seriously consider doing it, but I did promise I’d ask.’
‘Will it affect your position with him if I turn the offer down?’
‘No. I don’t think it will.’
Alice was silent for a moment then she said, ‘I’ll go if you go.’
‘What did you say?’
She rose to her feet. She smoothed the wrinkles from the sun dress she had on with her hands. ‘Stand up,’ she said.
Lassiter stood.
‘Now kiss me.’
He kissed her. He had not kissed a woman properly for a long time. He cupped her shoulders between his hands. He could feel her lips firm on his and the sun warm on his back. Her hair smelled of scented shampoo from her morning shower. She tasted wonderful.
‘There,’ she said when the kiss broke. ‘Was that so difficult?’
‘No,’ he said, truthfully. ‘No, Alice. It wasn’t difficult at all.’
The communications expert accompanying the construction team sent to build the expedition base was a man named Charlie Brennan. Blake didn’t think that he looked very much like a radio geek. He looked like someone who did fell running or maybe canoeing in his spare time. He was fit and sinewy and had an athlete’s alertness. The weather was closing in by the time he sought out Blake, shortly before dusk.
Blake was in the cottage that had once belonged to David Shanks at the western extremity of the Island. It was becoming his habit to go there for a bit of seclusion, a respite from the lumpen presence of the Seasick Four, whenever he got the opportunity. In the field, routine was deadly because it led to ambush and the best way to safeguard your life was to vary your schedule so that your movements could not be accurately predicted. He was not in the field now, however. New Hope Island was not a combat zone. The trespasser whose presence he had sensed was not an assassin or even an enemy, strictly speaking.
So he sheltered in the cottage whenever he could, where the views out over the sea were the most spectacular on the Island and where the holed roof allowed at least some protection from the rain and the sturdy whitewashed walls formed an efficient windbreak.
Privacy was a strong part of the appeal of the cottage. There, he was out of sight of the Seasick Four and Napier. He thought there should be something kept apart in the character of any commander. You lost authority if the men under your leadership knew too much about you. You had to retain your capacity to surprise them to keep them on their toes. It was Blake’s belief that there was something enigmatic about all the best military leaders. He had never taken part in the game, but he thought that if he did, he’d likely prove to be an excellent poker player.
Brennan knocked on the canted door of the cottage just as Blake was swallowing the last of a brew of sweet tea concocted over his Primus stove. He was seated in an oak rocking chair, one of the few pieces of Shanks’ furniture that had not surrendered to the salt and damp of the Island atmosphere and simply rotted away.Brennan did not salute, but there was a formality about his body language as he stood in the doorway that Blake appreciated. It signalled respect. He stood and snapped off a salute of his own, thinking old habits and all that. It did no harm and it felt good.
‘Captain Blake, right?’
‘At your service,’ Blake said.
Brennan had to raise his voice against the howl of the wind and the crash of the surf on the darkening shore to his rear. He wore a poncho and the waterproof fabric snapped wetly in the strength of the gusts, rippling against his torso and arms. ‘I need to speak with you,’ Captain,’ he said. ‘Would you come back with me now?’
‘Sure.’
Blake followed him. The ground was a wet, uneven slog underfoot. Slippery tussocks of grass concealed boggy patches that would swallow a leg to the kneecap with a sudden plunge. Blake and his team had found it easier to travel the perimeter of the island, where the shingle at the edge of the water thinned and packed sand proved a more certain surface t
o walk on. But in severe weather the size and strength of the waves made that too hazardous and after nightfall, it was suicidal. And this weather was severe. And it was worsening.
They walked in silence. The wind as the ground rose at the island’s centre was a banshee howl that made speech impossible. But Brennan was as fit as he looked and as Blake routinely kept himself and their progress was steady enough.
The construction crew had built the camp with impressive speed. It comprised a cluster of one-storey rectangular buildings, each with a rigid outer shell and as he saw when he entered one, an inner lining of some insulating material that retained warmth and deadened exterior sound. He assumed that the frames were built from some high-tensile metal such as titanium. As shelters they were state of the art. He could feel the thrum of a nearby generator providing the camp with electric light.
The communication centre had a table arrayed the length of one wall, bristling with a variety of receivers, speakers and microphones. Bunched cables were cuffed neatly with nylon ties. Needles wobbled across power metres ranged across displays. The consoles, with their complex arrangements of switches and buttons and dials, seemed like very high-end items of apparatus to Blake.
He knew he was looking at hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of gear. When the experts made their definitive findings and this story broke, communications failure was clearly not intended to be a factor in delaying the moment reaching the ears of an inquisitive world.
There was a third person in the hut. He was Troy, the leader of the construction crew, a stocky man with a heavy moustache and someone, to Blake, always characterised by a burly sort of self-confidence. Troy was the can-do type who led by determined and sometimes stubborn example.
Brennan invited Blake to sit in a chair next to that occupied by Troy, facing the comms hardware, where Brennan now sat on a stood pulled up to the table on which all the gear was mounted. Blake nodded a greeting to Troy. To Blake, Brennan said, ‘What kind of call-in system are you guys operating?’
‘We have a VHS two-way in the command tent. There’s no strict call-in time and there’s been nothing so far to call in. McIntyre’s people told us you were coming and then we got a call to say you were on your way. Obviously I check the signal strength each day, and it’s pretty variable. But we haven’t needed to use the rig in anger and I don’t expect that we will.’
