The Man by the Sea (The Slim Hardy Mystery Series Book 1)

by Jack Benton

  ‘It’s a mess for sure.’

  Slim rubbed his eyes, squeezed them tightly shut, then looked up at Arthur. ‘Tell me something. What do you get out of this? For me, it was supposed to be about money. Whether I’ll ever see any now is debatable. But you, Carnwell’s chief of police, you could reopen the investigation at any time. You don’t need to rely on an internet hack like me.’

  Arthur smiled. ‘To understand, you need to understand the people round here. The original local people, they’re hardy northern types who lived off the land and the sea. They say what they mean. They live frugal but honest lives, and their way of life gives pride. To have what is essentially a serial killer in their midst would bring shame to the town. They don’t want to know. The sea, it’s a wild, untamed thing, and for it to claim a few lives, that’s justifiable, but if one among them is committing atrocities, they want to wash their hands of it. I’m not from Carnwell, but too many on my team are.’

  ‘So why help me? I’m already in deeper than I want to be. I was hired to find out if a man was having an affair. This investigation was not what I signed up for.’

  ‘Then why not walk away?’

  Slim sighed. ‘Curiosity.’

  ‘You have your answer.’

  ‘So what do we do? You know that we need to speak to Ted. If there are answers to be found, he has them.’

  ‘When interviewed about the car fire, he was aggressive with his denial. I fear that he could clam up, and if he does, that’s your best lead gone.’

  ‘But what if Joanna Bramwell really is out there, and she’s planning far worse for next time than torching someone’s car? This woman could be responsible for three deaths already.’

  ‘There is a way we might be able to find out,’ Arthur said. ‘But it involves a bit of digging.’

  ‘You don’t mean what I think you do?’

  Arthur nodded. ‘The case file has the location of her grave. I can drive us up there.’

  Slim gave Arthur a slow nod. ‘I need a drink,’ he said.

  24

  A TRAFFIC ACCIDENT required Arthur’s attention for the rest of the day. Slim didn’t want to stay at home with the pictures in their manila envelope on the table so he took a drive into Carnwell to visit the second-hand bookseller.

  Michael Smeeth was an overweight, retired fisherman with a Captain Birdseye beard. His wife’s father had died unexpectedly, leaving him the second-hand bookshop on the corner just two doors down from Carnwell’s best sandwich shop, which not only provided him with a decent overflow clientele but a hearty lunch each day. Not originally a reader himself, when an accident with the winding mechanism of his main trawl net had forced an early retirement, he had found that limping among the stuffed shelves was quite to his liking, and a sofa in a back room a perfectly pleasant place to slump with a carefully chosen book on a quiet afternoon.

  Michael told all this to Slim while waiting for a pot of coffee to brew, coffee he claimed only half-jokingly was ‘the best stuff, contraband from an old trawler mate, over on the boat from France, no excise on this beauty.’

  Slim smiled and agreed, even though it tasted like any other high street brand.

  ‘I know it must be strange my coming here,’ Slim said, trying and failing to fake a London accent. ‘You see, I’m a collector of particular types of books. I had my assistant call around to ask about a certain copy, and you were kind enough to say that you had recently sold one.’

  ‘Yes, well, it was an unusual sale; that’s why I remembered it.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, if you say you’re a collector, then the gentleman was surely an enthusiast. The delight he took from finding that book was a little surprising. But then, what do I know? Five years ago I was knee-deep in fish guts for a living.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you caught his name?’

  ‘I believe it was Eddie, Eddie Douglas. He said he was from Carnwell, but I have no other details. I’m sure you can find him in the phone book.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Slim said, struggling to keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘Out of interest, did he tell you why he wanted the book so badly?’

  Michael nodded. ‘Oh, yeah. He said he had some trouble in his life, some ghost from his past, and the book was what he needed to get rid of it. To be honest, he came across as a bit of a nutter. I mean, it’s just a book, right?’

  ‘Just a book,’ Slim agreed. ‘But the human mind is a powerful thing, wouldn’t you say? Perhaps the book was a crutch he needed to overcome some hurdle.’

  Michael nodded. ‘Oh, for sure, for sure.’

  ‘Did he say anything else?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘Not that I recall. He just seemed so relieved to have found the book he wanted, that we exchanged pleasantries for a while and then he left.’

  Slim was still mulling this over when Michael asked, ‘If you don’t mind me asking, what’s so interesting about this particular book?’

  Slim smiled, preparing his best lie. ‘I’m an occult investigator,’ he said. ‘You might say a ghost hunter. That book is known for its incantations supposed to contact the dead.’

  Michael nodded. ‘Oh, aye, sounds fascinating. I guess there are plenty of those around here. All the old buildings and everything.’

  ‘Actually, I’m researching a documentary about a particular haunting and several related deaths.’

  Michael nodded. ‘Ah, you mean Cramer Cove.’

  Slim tried to control his surprise. ‘You know of it?’

  ‘Of course. Ask any old seaman, and he’ll tell you about that place. Haunted, so they say. We used to hate going past there at night. Used to swing back out to deep water if it was a bit choppy, just to avoid it. I mean, no one ever got wrecked, but you didn’t want to be the first. Not with her about.’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘Joanna Bramwell. If you’re looking for ghosts around Cramer Cove, you must have heard of her. I mean, there’s a whole bunch, but if they have a ringleader, it’s her.’

  ‘What do you know about her?’

  ‘She died down at Cramer Cove but didn’t want to stay dead. Bit of a bee in her bonnet about anyone on her beach. We used to see her all the time.’

  ‘See her?’

  ‘Out on the rocks. You see, in autumn, the basking sharks come past, and even though they’re not predators, their presence in the water drives the cod shoals into shallow water, close to the bays. Rich pickings south of here, so we’d pass Cramer on our way back to the port at Carnwell. She’d be out there watching us.’

  Slim felt a familiar shiver down his neck. ‘You saw a woman? You saw Joanna Bramwell?’

  Michael smiled, as though recalling a fond memory. ‘We saw a figure. We were never close enough to see her clearly, but there she was, out on the rocks far beyond where you could get safely from the beach, and far later at night than even a good swimmer would have attempted.’

  ‘At night? Then how did you know what you saw?’

  ‘Trawlers work through the day and night, returning at daybreak with the catch. We’d see her, three, four, five in the morning.’

  ‘But at that time, how could you be sure what you saw?’

  ‘Because of her light. She always carried a lantern. We liked to think she was warning us off the reef out there, but after that first girl turned up dead, we wondered if perhaps she wasn’t trying to draw us in. Cramer Cove’s very own siren, like.’

  Slim could barely contain his excitement enough to line the questions up straight.

  ‘So you knew there was a connection between the dead girl and Joanna Bramwell?’

  Michael shrugged. ‘Joanna didn’t want nobody on her beach, is my guess.’

  ‘Did you go to the police?’

  ‘And tell them what? No one thought of it at the time, not after it was ruled an accidental death. And anyway, the tired dawn eyes of a trawler man aren’t much to be trusted. Tired eyes are liar’s eyes, isn’t that what they say?’

 
‘But Joanna Bramwell might have been a suspect.’

  ‘Joanna Bramwell is dead and buried,’ Michael said, with a sudden note of authority that made Slim start. ‘What we used to see out on those rocks deep into the night could have been anything.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘I told you an old trawlerman’s tale. All I know is what I saw, but that light could have been anything, couldn’t it? Because what I saw didn’t make much sense at the time, I have little hope of it making sense now. If you’re done with your browsing, Mr Hardy, I’ll bid you good day. I have some boxes to unpack out in the back room.’

  Michael’s tone had changed. Slim was reminded of new recruits clamming up when asked to report on patrols through enemy territory. The well of initial enthusiasm had run dry, polluted by a creeping fear, and before Michael turned away, Slim caught a glimpse of it in his eyes.

  ‘Thanks for the chat,’ Slim said, and headed out, feeling only that he’d added more questions to his growing list.

  25

  WHEN SLIM GOT HOME, there were messages on his answer phone from Arthur requesting a call, but when Slim dialled the number, it went straight to Arthur’s voicemail.

  Emma had gone quiet, so Slim hauled the box of Ted’s papers onto his table and got back to sorting through them, vainly hoping he could maintain his concentration long enough to avoid missing something important.

  There was no chance of hitting a jackpot, like finding a love letter from Ted to Joanna, and apart from Ted’s weekly visits to the beach, there was no other evidence they were even acquainted. Slim’s mind wandered as he stacked old phone bills and receipts into one pile, and anything with handwritten text into another. There was little of interest: a few shopping lists, a couple of poor poems lamenting the beauty of the moors and the hills, a few faded flyers for shows and events—one or two of which had dates and times written over schedules—but trying to find out whether these were long-forgotten dates between Ted and Joanna was a headache Slim didn’t want.

  The Shakespeare company, that was worth a try. If Ted had been a member, perhaps Joanna had, too.

  There was something else of interest that it took Slim a moment to notice. Many of the casual notes—shopping lists, telephone call memos, doctor’s appointment reminders—were written on headed paper that related to a place called Windwood Animal Surgery.

  A search online brought up nothing, but Arthur would probably know about an old veterinarian’s that might have closed down. It could have been a part-time job Ted had. Maybe Joanna had worked there, too.

  His head aching with possibilities, Slim decided to relocate to the pub up the street for a late lunch. By the time he arrived, he’d already drunk a couple of cans of beer from a local mini mart, and his tongue was soft and loose. He sat at the bar instead of a table and found himself chatting to the barman.

  Steven Bennett was greying, overweight, and pale from too long in the pub’s gloomy confines. He had grown up in London, buying the pub at the age of fifty, and relocating to Carnwell just a few years before. He knew nothing of Joanna Bramwell, Ted Douglas, or the Windwood Animal Surgery, but he had been an acquaintance of Elizabeth Tanton, who had sold framed murals hung on display in the family room.

  ‘Nice lady,’ he said, pouring himself a drink. ‘Was shocked when she died. Not the kind of thing you expect to happen.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘In a word? Straightforward. Marches in off the street, tells me where to hang these shell pictures. Tells me she’ll be back in a month to collect profits from any sales, and to provide more if I need them. Writes down on a sheet of paper the name of each picture and how much it’ll cost me, then tells me to add my profit over the top.’ He chuckled. ‘I couldn’t say no. I had no interest in the stupid things, and I probably sold no more than five or six in the couple of years she was showing up, but she was such a character I looked forward to the day she visited each month.’

  ‘She kept regular habits?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Showed up on the first Monday of every month, always at the same time. Parked in the same spot. Always ordered a cup of black coffee with one brown sugar cube.’ Steven chuckled again. ‘Always dropped it in the cup with her left hand, gave it three quick stirs with her right. I remember once I decided to play with her, and said we’d run out of brown and only had sachets of white. You know what she did? Laughed my ass off later. She held up a hand and said, “Hold the coffee this month,” in this posh voice like she was Audrey Hepburn or someone.’

  ‘And what did you think when she drowned?’

  Steven tutted. ‘Load of rubbish. She “just decided” to take a swim?’ He gave a vehement shake of the head. ‘Elizabeth Tanton didn’t “just decide” to do anything. She wasn’t an impulsive person at all.’

  ‘So you think she was murdered?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I mean it’s possible she slipped and knocked herself out, and the tide washed over her and caused her to drown. It’s just not likely. Not for a woman like her. I reckon she was pushed.’

  ‘Murdered then?’

  Steven shrugged. ‘I guess if you want to put it like that. Seems more likely, but what do I know?’

  ‘And her dog?’

  ‘The dog? What about it?’

  ‘I heard it went a little wild after she died.’

  ‘Understandable,’ Steven said. ‘They’ll do that, dogs will. Nice thing, it was. Little spaniel thing—Cocker, maybe, not sure. Used to sit under the bar and drink some water while we talked. Couldn’t believe it bit through its leash.’

  ‘It did what?’

  ‘Overheard a conversation, going back a few years now. Lad off the forensics team on the local force was having a going-away do. Running his mouth a bit, strangest thing he’d ever seen as a copper and all that. Said they found Elizabeth Tanton’s dog running loose up the top of the beach, head lolling, eyes wild. They actually thought it was rabid, until they found its leash near the water’s edge. Leather. Chewed right through.’

  26

  SLIM PARKED his car beside the tree that had just dented the front bumper and stumbled up the path into the woods to the cabin, where he found Emma waiting.

  She would say nothing at all until they had finished sex, attacking his body with a relish that made Slim a little uncomfortable. He was already starting to tire of her, but she was the best chance he had of getting close to Ted.

  ‘I want to know as much as I can about your husband,’ he said, lying with one arm around her shoulders, his head still spinning. ‘You said he was a poet. I mean, no one earns money from that. How did he get by?’

  Emma shrugged and rolled away from him, apparently not interested. ‘He did what everyone else did, I suppose. He worked part-time jobs. Shops, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Did he ever work at a veterinary clinic?’

  ‘A vet?’

  ‘I found some notepaper with an emblem on it.’

  ‘Oh, that. His mother’s practice.’

  ‘Really? Ted’s mother was a vet?’

  ‘Yeah, Windwood Animal Surgery. It was in the high street. She sold it when she retired, but the new owners screwed up the accounts, went bust, and closed it. Ted’s mother always out-earned his father. The old man resented it until he died.’

  Slim nodded. So that explained the blotting paper. ‘Another thing. Was there a Shakespeare company around here? I found some flyers.’

  Emma was quiet for a few seconds. ‘Not that I recall,’ she said, frowning. ‘I mean, there might have been, but if there was, I don’t know of it. Mind you, a lot of Ted’s life before we met is a mystery. His involvement with this slut, Joanna Bramwell, for example.’

  ‘I’m trying to find out how they might have known each other,’ he said.

  ‘Why not ask him? I think the time for secrecy is about done.’

  ‘I’m worried that he won’t want to talk to me.’

  Emma rolled her eyes. ‘Well, of course he won’t. You’re going
to figure him out, and he’ll know that.’

  ‘Figure him out?’

  ‘Yes. That he’s planning to kill me and set it up like it was done by some ghost, like he didn’t know anything. And then I’ll be mown down like an unwanted dog and no one will suspect a thing.’

  Emma was rambling, looking for sympathy. Slim wondered if she had been drinking too. ‘Why would he want to kill you?’

  ‘Because he wants me out of the way. He hasn’t loved me for years.’

  ‘Why not just divorce?’ Slim patted her stomach. ‘It’s clear you don’t love him too much either.’

  Emma rolled away. ‘You don’t understand.’

  Slim didn’t, but he tried to act like he did. ‘It’s an honour thing for you, isn’t it?’

  Emma sighed. ‘My parents divorced. I promised myself I would never fail like they did. Sometimes, what you see on the surface is different to what lies beneath.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘So, is there anything else?’

  Slim considered what he ought to tell Emma. She had begun to intrigue him, not least because she held various levels of anger and resentment toward her husband, but because he sensed she was hiding something, something that perhaps she wanted to reveal. The few drinks he’d had on the way over made it easier to loosen his tongue.

  ‘I did find something,’ he said. ‘An insurance letter.’

  It wasn’t a lie. He had found a shopping list scribbled on the back of a reminder for a home contents insurance bill.

  He waited. Emma had tensed, and he heard a long expulsion of breath.

  ‘I know what it might look like, but it was just my way of bringing a debate to an end.’

  ‘Go on,’ Slim said, having no idea what Emma was talking about, and praying she didn’t call his bluff. ‘I might need to know.’

  ‘Ted has a habit of investing in some of the firms he deals with. He makes money because he sometimes knows in advance where the market is going. This time he got it wrong, and we almost lost the house. He wanted to gamble, thinking he could cover it. I didn’t trust him. We had a joint insurance policy due to pay out when Ted turns sixty-seven, but he has a heart condition and might not last that long. I forged his signature to cash it in early.’