Sabrina & The Secret of The Severn Sea

by Guy Sheppard

  ‘Whatever’s wrong?’

  ‘Please, reverend. Can you help me?’

  ‘You hurt, at all?’

  ‘If I could just come in and warm up a bit…’

  ‘You alone?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  There came from the direction of the River Severn the noise of distant dogs along the shore.

  ‘Tell me, how is it you’re in such a state?’ asked Luke, beckoning the caller quickly indoors.

  It prompted Sasha to prick up her ears briefly at something, too.

  ‘Just give me a moment, reverend…’

  ‘Come from the estuary, have you?’

  ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  Their unexpected visitor stared anxiously all about him. He shivered as he walked, dripping, into the reception room. Panted. Held his sides in pain. He appeared too breathless from his exertions to talk any more.

  Black hair stuck to his wet scalp and his bare feet were cut to ribbons.

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Richard Lambert. I work as a guide at the castle…’

  ‘Okay Richard, first we need to get you warm and dry.’

  They moved in the direction of the chairs by the fire.

  ‘Please reverend, you won’t tell them I’m here, will you?’

  ‘Who’s they?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake keep your voice down.’

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘You’re not going to believe it.’

  ‘Sorry. What?’

  ‘As a man of God you should know all about it.’

  Luke fetched blankets and towels.

  ‘So tell me, was it some skinny dip with friends?’

  Richard began to rub himself dry then went to the window to peep out between its shutters.

  ‘Never you mind, reverend.’

  ‘You look as if you’ve been running for your life. Why would you do that?’

  ‘Give me a minute.’

  ‘At least let me pour you a whisky.’

  ‘That would be helpful.’

  ‘Take your time. Start at the beginning.’

  Instead, the young man adopted a stubborn silence as he stared at the woman’s face carved into the fireplace’s gilded overmantel. He studied her with peculiar fascination. And horror.

  He could only assume that it had something to do with being utterly exhausted.

  The drink did little to loosen Richard’s tongue.

  ‘Should I ring the police?’ asked Luke.

  The fugitive would have none of it.

  Next minute, men’s shouts grew louder and louder, as did the sound of dogs, outside the house. The latter was somewhat chilling and confusing because it was not barking that could be heard exactly.

  Those noises coming up the driveway were much more deafening – they were howls.

  ‘Okay, damn it! I’m coming,’ Luke shouted as fists rained down again on the vicarage’s front door. ‘What’s your hurry?’

  Even as he began to leave the room Richard touched his arm in a panic.

  ‘I was never here, reverend.’

  *

  A very tall, very muscular individual filled the vicarage’s porch.

  ‘Have you any idea what time it is?’ said Luke. ‘Who are you and what are you doing at Hill House?’

  His summoner smelt of rain and river. He was dressed in an olive shooting jacket with its collar turned up high, khaki tweed breeks and Wellington boots.

  ‘Where’s Father James? I must speak to him. Is he still here?’

  ‘Should he be?’

  ‘You a friend of his?’

  ‘As of Tuesday I’m the new vicar at St. Mary’s. I’m Reverend Luke Lyons.’

  ‘Sorry reverend. My name is Andy Bridgeman. I work at the castle kennels.’

  ‘So, please, can you tell me what’s wrong?’

  Andy glared. Hard grey eyes struck Luke as suspicious and antagonistic. His entire posture he had to accept was nothing short of disconcertingly menacing.

  ‘Stand aside, reverend.’

  ‘You haven’t stated what it is you’re after.’

  ‘You seen a young man tonight?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sure about that, reverend?’

  ‘As I said, it’s late.’

  ‘If I can just see inside with my own eyes?’

  ‘You want to search my house this minute?’

  ‘Please, reverend, it won’t take long.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘That’s sensible.’

  The arrival of more men clad in waterproof coats, gaiters and boots only stiffened Luke’s resolve. Over one man’s arm rested a 28 inch barrelled, 20-bore game gun while his moody companion carried a bird-decorated 31 inch barrelled pigeon-gun. These men were at the top of their game if they could use such powerful weapons, as opposed to a 12-bore gun – they could use the full nine-pin side-lock and pistol grip stock to their advantage.

  He had to commit Hill House to violent vigilantes if not yet to any violence committed, it seemed.

  Two black hounds followed the hunters. Luke promptly called Sasha to heel. One hound, the male, stood eighteen inches high and weighed fifty to sixty pounds. The other, a bitch, was nearly the same. Definitely hunting hounds. They could have been wolves but for their tightly curled tails set high over their backs.

  Still Luke stood his ground.

  ‘As I said, there’s no one here but me.’

  ‘Okay, Reverend Lyons, we’ll take your word for it, but we still have to check the grounds,’ said Andy. ‘It might look as if we’re intruding but we have our reasons.’

  ‘Is there a thief on the run, or what?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘The way I see it, you’re on Church property.’

  But Andy was no longer listening. Luke saw him suddenly follow the hounds into the gardens. Definitely hunting dogs, they filled his ears with more of their spine-tingling howls. As if some stricken soul called from hell itself. The squarely built animals nosed about with their powerful, wedge-shaped heads along the terrace. Their teeth met in a scissors bite while their wet, double coats bristled with thick, hard fur.

  He was about to protest further when one hound started barking ferociously. It was a signal, evidently.

  Sensing that they had their prey at bay at last, they ran back and forth among the hideously twisted, witch-like trees that grew in the nearby orchard. They saw Richard jump out of a ground floor window.

  Weak at the knees, the fugitive exhibited all the appearance of pathetic and cruel vulnerability as he let himself be caught with only a blanket to cover him.

  Luke ran across the driveway.

  ‘Why him? What’s going on?’

  He was that stubborn.

  ‘Don’t concern yourself, reverend,’ said Andy. ‘He’s a local lad who doesn’t know what’s good for him…’

  ‘I don’t care where he comes from. What has he done?’

  ‘Sorry, reverend. Duty calls.’

  ‘I still don’t get it.’

  ‘We have to go. It’s just a bit of fun.’

  ‘Make sure you treat him right?’

  ‘He’ll get what he deserves. At least the silly bugger didn’t drown.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  At which point Luke realised that his authority counted for nothing. It was little wonder that the previous vicar had resigned in such a hurry, little wonder that nobody had wanted to do his job in this particular parish? Nothing else was expected from him, not even his special pleading. Hounds and guns were too powerful. It literally made him furious. To say of someone’s dog collar that he was now a man of peace was not necessarily very useful. He should have fetched a gun of his own.

  But the laughing and joking captors clapped Richard on the back, as though he had been elevated to the status of some buck or other from the nearby deer park. Was it, then, all a misunderstanding on his part, Luke wondered? Was i
t nothing but a prank from some actual stag party? He followed everyone a few more paces down the lane. Saw them herd the young man back to the river.

  No one mentioned anything about getting married.

  On such a night of odd occurrences, one thing struck him as still odder: Richard might have been naked but someone had strung round his neck a thickly braided garland of seaweed and shells.

  12

  Today was not a good day. Okay, it was a combination of Day 1 and Day 2 of his diet when he could eat as much fruit as he liked along with his cabbage soup, of course, but in that case why was he, Jorge Winter, forbidden to eat any bananas at all? He liked bananas.

  He bit hard into his Granny Smith apple on his way into HMPL…., chewed it all up including its core and pips. Apple seeds contained a cyanide compound which the human body could detoxify in small doses, but in big ones? Such a poison killed by denying blood the ability to carry oxygen. Victims therefore died of asphyxiation because their lungs couldn’t work, rather like drowning. It was always the unexpected that got the better of you, he thought, smiling.

  It was imperative that he study Frank Cordell’s prison record straightaway.

  Multi-faith team leader Hammond disagreed.

  ‘Sorry, Inspector. You know the rules.’

  ‘But he’s dead for Christ’s sake.’

  Hammond closed the door to the chaplain’s office in a hurry.

  ‘You’ll get nowhere with the governor. Don’t even try.’

  ‘You mean he doesn’t know what to do with me?’

  ‘Okay, I admit it. He wants you to bugger off back to Gloucester. Doesn’t think you have any jurisdiction in his prison.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t wonder why Cordell died.’

  ‘Honestly, who gives a shit about him, Inspector? Leave it to the Avon and Somerset police.’

  ‘Believe me, I won’t.’

  ‘Everyone’s thinking suicide.’

  ‘Oh no it wasn’t.’

  ‘Did you actually see the bastard fall, Inspector?’

  Hammond’s curiosity was blatant, his ghoulish concern for him tinged with relish. Even so he was unwilling to express to anyone his particular confusion of shock and indignation that he felt right now. He hesitated to call it disappointment.

  ‘No, I did not see him fall.’

  ‘Fact is, Inspector, you never should have gone to Bristol at all, you shouldn’t have bothered. The guv got wind of it and he’s NOT HAPPY.’

  It was true. His attempt to see Cordell had met with disaster. It was his own fault, thought Jorge, for clutching at straws. Never was it a good idea to take someone’s offer to help at face value. It was all about what was in it for them.

  ‘Frank drew Reverend Lyons’s attention to a Bible that once belonged to his father, Rex. You know anything about that?’

  ‘Who cares? Everyone in Gloucestershire knows Rex for a callous murderer. If Cordell told you any different it was only to plant some evil snake in your ear for some twisted pleasure of his own. Really, he was not nice at all.’

  ‘Nevertheless I’d like to know what made him tick, in his soul. I need to know if what he told Reverend Lyons influenced his subsequent behaviour in any way.’

  ‘Men like Cordell have no souls, Inspector.’

  ‘Without a soul what are we?’

  Hammond went to pat him on the back as one might pat an upset child.

  ‘You’ll be telling me next that Frank Cordell played some direct part in the reverend’s demise. You think that Bible somehow ‘did’ for him? You do, don’t you, Inspector?’

  ‘Cordell thought he could strike a deal with Luke to do an act of good. When a bad man feels the need to redeem himself, albeit for purely selfish reasons, I am at least prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Only by speaking the truth can we build a bridge between good and evil.’

  ‘What bridge?’

  ‘Of Hope. Now let’s look at everything we have on Cordell’s last stint in prison. I want to know all you do,’ said Jorge.

  Hammond studied red paint lodged under his fingernails.

  ‘As it happens I do have something.’

  They started along the corridor in the direction of the various classrooms. Jorge glanced up at a clock. This time last year Luke would have been going down this very same corridor, but to Bible study classes. Already he was treading in the missing man’s footsteps.

  *

  ‘Art classes are usually held five evenings per week,’ said Hammond. ‘Special reference is made to landscapes but some men opt to specialise in subjects of their own choosing.’

  Jorge let his eye settle on prisoners’ competent but lifeless pictures that hung on the walls. Whether oil or water paints, chalk, pastel or charcoal they could be said to offer a brief window into a man’s inner being. If daubs of paint could ever wholly express the yearning for freedom? Actually, he didn’t know what they did. If not good the pictures were at least a welcome splash of colour in his present surroundings.

  ‘What’s not to like?’ he said, impatiently.

  Hammond opened a drawer and laid rolls of paper on the table.

  ‘I’m surprised Cordell didn’t apply to the Governor to take these home with him.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Take a good look, Inspector.’

  Jorge donned a fresh pair of white plastic gloves from his pocket. He picked a roll and spread it open to reveal a coloured drawing.

  A wooden sailing ship looked ready to sink on a stormy ocean as a towering sea-serpent burst over its deck in a fountain of water. Part human and part redheaded dragon, the beast sought to crush the ship’s fragile wooden hull with ever tighter constrictions of its coiled body. Already three men had been lost off the lee mainyard-arm at the flick of its scaly tail. More sailors had heroically cut away the mizzenmast but the fore stay-sail was split and the headyards braced back to little avail.

  The vessel was doomed to a watery grave in the high and dangerous waves, apparently.

  ‘Why this scene?’

  Hammond laughed.

  ‘Oh, bloody hell, Inspector, I’m afraid Cordell had a passion for William Falconer’s interminable poem called ‘The Shipwreck’. Always quoting bits by heart:

  The horrid apparition still draws nigh,

  And white with foam the whirling billows fly.’

  ‘Okay, yeah, I get it. Not quite the evidence I was expecting but it’s a start, I suppose.’

  ‘See here. Cordell wrote a verse on the back of every drawing: ‘The swelling stu’n sails now their wings extend…’

  ‘I said I get it. Are the pictures all like this?’

  ‘Shipwrecks, mostly.’

  ‘Sea-serpents, certainly.’

  ‘You any good at deciphering psychotic doodles, Inspector?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘There must be at least a hundred depictions of ‘The Shipwreck’ here. Not all have lines from Falconer. A few quote the Bible. The man was obsessed by something.’

  ‘Or possessed.’

  ‘By what, exactly?’

  ‘By fear of hellish retribution.’

  ‘Really, Inspector?’

  Written in a childish hand on the back of one drawing was the biblical quotation: And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.

  ‘Tell me more about Cordell the prisoner.’

  ‘You really want to know, Inspector? In his last prison everyone lost count of the times he was off his head on legal highs. Once he was caught with homemade hooch. Just before coming to HMPL… he did his best to scratch out the tattoo of a sea nymph on his neck. Said it was trying to choke him in his dreams. Nearly scuppered his chances of coming here. All governors take a dim view of tattooing, don’t they? Not only is it strictly prohibited but it’s also dangerous. Then Reverend Luke Lyons joined us as chaplain. From that moment Cordell said not another bad word. He took up pa
inting. Became a model prisoner. Blabbed a lot about how he’d be rich one day. Bored everyone half to death with tales of treasure. Suddenly people started to visit him, whereas before that there had been no one except his daughter, very occasionally.’

  ‘These people have a name, at all?’

  'Honestly, Inspector, you’d have thought that one of them had decided to rise up from his grave or something.’

  ‘This oldie have a name?’

  ‘Jim Jackson I think it was.’

  ‘Not ‘Slim’ Jim Jackson?’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Damn right I do.’

  ‘Sounds personal.’

  ‘Back in the day Jackson went poaching elvers and salmon on the River Severn.’

  ‘I see you come armed with information, Inspector.’

  Jorge stuck with his line of investigation but felt obliged to explain.

  ‘Reverend Luke Lyons and I grew up together just outside Berkeley. We gravitated to the river because we both liked boats. Luke was the wild one while I was ‘Tubby Jorge’, son of the local vicar. Because Jackson knew Luke’s family he took him fishing and sometimes I tagged along, too. As a boy I thought Jackson was just one of those fishermen who tried to harvest the river’s riches. Never saw him as a hardened criminal, but I was wrong.’

  ‘Jackson was mighty anxious about something, Inspector. He was sweating. I heard him say to Cordell, “If you want us both to live, let alone get what’s due to us, which I do, then you’ve got to tell me…” Cordell’s face was an absolute picture. He went white. Nothing he said calmed Jackson down. The sight of those two talking themselves breathless in the prison’s visiting room like a couple of old pirates was quite comical. Except now, of course, one of them is dead.’

  ‘This visit happened when?’

  ‘Early spring last year.’

  ‘I see.’

  Hammond’s first reaction was to put the pictures back in the drawer.

  ‘Not so fast,’ said Jorge. ‘I’ll take those if I may.’

  ‘As I said, what’s not to like, Inspector?’

  ‘So what else did Jackson have to say to Cordell?’