Sabrina & The Secret of The Severn Sea

by Guy Sheppard

  ‘You can tell me. It’ll be all right.’

  Barbara wrinkled her nose.

  ‘It can’t be, though, can it? It was Mary who came across Reverend Lyons down by the river. His hair and clothes were all wet. There was something wrong about the way he staggered about on the muddy foreshore, she said, which had a very great effect on her. She saw how white his hands were. The other most prominent aspect of his appearance was the pallor of his face. Its bloodlessness indicated to her that he was already a ghost.’

  ‘Was she sure it was him?’

  ‘Absolutely. It was a full moon.’

  He ignored the cup of tea on the table. Inhaled sharply. No priest worth his salt believed in that sort of premonition. Rationally, he resisted. Irrationally, he yielded.

  ‘What was Mary Brenner doing at the riverside after dark?’

  Barbara looked defensive.

  ‘She was walking her dog.’

  ‘And Reverend Lyons? What was he doing?’

  ‘He was frantically digging for something in the mud.’

  His cup had a crack in it, Jorge noted with dismay.

  ‘Can we trust her?’

  ‘Trust me,’ replied Barbara in a voice which came across as oddly confiding, as if it were very important that he believed every last thing she told him. ‘That night Mary was shaking all over. Terrified she was, because she always said that a river will give up its dead.’

  ‘Where can I find her?’

  ‘You can’t unless you know how to talk to ghosts, too. She was found floating face down in the Severn at Whirls End shortly after Reverend Lyons went missing. Some say she fell into the water but that’s not right. She wasn’t that irresponsible. Ros heard Mary’s dog barking frantically. It took her straight to the place where it happened. Then again, people say a lot of strange things about the river round here.’

  ‘And Ros is?’

  ‘Ian Grey’s daughter. Runs the Pumpkin Bridal Shop in Berkeley.’

  ‘Can we be absolutely sure that Reverend Lyons was searching for something that night?’

  ‘And other nights, by all accounts.’

  ‘I see.’

  Barbara’s grey eyebrows twitched with each blink of her eyelids. Off their lashes rolled a tear. It might have been sorrow or something else.

  ‘Can you keep a secret, Inspector? If you ask me, Reverend Lyons ran off because of that damned redhead. She put him up to it, at the very least. Everything was fine until she showed up. After that, he lost all interest in Church matters. It’s as if his congregation ceased to exist. Had eyes only for her. That’s why I submitted a written complaint to the diocese. I wasn’t the only one to fear her manipulative ways, I know that for a fact.’

  ‘This redhead have a name?’

  ‘Why, it’s Sabrina ap Loegres, of course.’

  ‘Were they lovers?’

  ‘Huh!’

  ‘So when they met how did you feel?’

  ‘Concerned.’

  ‘You imagined he was in danger and then he was gone?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Just to recap, why was Sabrina so interested in Reverend Lyons, in your opinion?’

  ‘Because she can’t resist making waves.’

  ‘You never heard of anything that lives in the River Severn, at all?’

  Barbara’s face paled.

  ‘Lives? No.’

  ‘But people say strange things about it?’

  ‘Did I say that? Whatever next?’

  ‘It just seems odd that Reverend Lyons, Stephen Rivers and Mary Brenner have all come to a bad end in the water within such a short space of time, as if they were taken by something.’

  ‘My mother warned me never to go near the estuary because its mood can change in an instant. I’ve always been scared of its tidal currents.’

  ‘Me, too. You smoke cigars, at all?’

  Barbara looked indignant.

  ‘I should think not, Inspector.’

  ‘Someone does. Looks like the end off a Montecristo,’ said Jorge, using a tissue to retrieve the shrivelled evidence from the corner of the hearth where Sasha had been sniffing.

  Such a Parejo had an open foot for lighting and needed to be cut before smoking. From its diameter it had originally been five to six inches long, which made it a Montecristo.

  Probably a number 3, he thought, a trifle wistfully.

  And to think he’d given up smoking for the sake of his health. Hence the weight.

  ‘I really don’t know what you mean, Inspector.’

  ‘Here’s a thing. I know for certain that you were upset when you spoke to Reverend Lyons in the vicarage gardens on the day he disappeared because Sam Rooke told me. Were you and Luke arguing about his infatuation with Sabrina, by any chance?’

  ‘I think you’d better leave now, Inspector.’

  ‘You didn’t kill him, did you, Barbara, in a jealous rage?’

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did.’

  ‘I’m no murderer.’

  ‘Perhaps you didn’t see it coming?’

  ‘Get out, damn you!’

  ‘Okay, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Sorry Sasha, we lose.’

  Sasha growled. She gave a withering look. Bared her teeth at the angry perpetrator of their rude eviction.

  Barbara jumped up and clawed frantically for her walking stick. Then, frightened by her own frightfulness, she made strange shooing noises.

  ‘Better hope the dead don’t come for you as well, Inspector. Better hope they stay where they belong.’

  ‘That makes no sense at all.’

  ‘Tell yourself that, Inspector.’

  Yet fooling about Barbara was not, as she stationed herself in the porch. She watched them go down the garden path all the way to the gate. She waved her walking stick at them as if she would annihilate them both.

  He could only guess what had passed between her and Luke on the day of his disappearance, but he deduced one thing at least from the way she behaved. Whoever had left the end of their Montecristo in her house had made a big impression on her. Someone had done more than ask her a few awkward questions, they had implied some terrible threat to her life, character and reputation.

  They were hard on the heels of a dead man, too.

  25

  ‘You steal it, or what?’ said Ellie with a laugh.

  Luke wobbled to a halt in the stable yard at Floodgates Farm on his squeaky black bicycle.

  ‘No, but I’m kind of grateful I found it.’

  ‘You look ridiculous.’

  ‘Can’t believe you just said that.’

  Ellie was leading Molly by the mane.

  ‘I could do with a bike to meet Randal from school every day. So how did you come by it?’

  Luke propped the antiquated machine by its basket against the farmhouse wall and smoothed his long black coat.

  ‘I found it in a shed in the vicarage garden.’

  Ellie had him hold the gate open for her into the field.

  ‘Hill House? That old place? They say it’s haunted.’

  ‘They’re not far wrong.’

  ‘You met its ghost already?’

  ‘What if I have?’

  ‘I take it that’s a ‘yes’, then?’

  ‘You don’t want to know anything about it.’

  ‘Has something happened? You look drained. When was the last time you slept properly?’

  ‘The place gives me the creeps, that’s all.’

  Ellie watched Molly trot into the field and put her head down to graze.

  ‘Would it surprise you to know that monks built a monastery there in the twelfth century?’

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘At fifty metres above sea level Hill House has always been somewhere to go to avoid floods of biblical proportions. It still has the air of being a natural refuge.’

  Luke cast his eye over the flat landscape in the l
ee of the castle.

  ‘So much of what we see round here really belongs to the river, let’s face it.’

  ‘Trust me, brother, were it not for the seawall these fields that we’re standing in right now would be invaded every year. In 1607 a tsunami killed two thousand people all along the Severn estuary as far north as Gloucester. You should have been here when the floods came again in 2007. We all thought that we were going to be washed out to the Atlantic.’

  He shut the gate to the meadow as the pony’s hot breath blew like dragons’ smoke from her snorting nostrils.

  ‘Really, twelfth century?’

  ‘Older, probably. Hill House marks the place where ancient Britons worshipped the Severn. That’s because its tides once flowed past the foot of the hill from which Queen Estrildis and her daughter Habren were thrown to their deaths by the rival Queen Gwendolen.’

  ‘You don’t say?’

  ‘She ordered that the river be forever named after the innocent Habren in tribute. She did it out of guilt, I suppose. That’s Habren or Hafren in Welsh, Sabrina in Latin and Severn in English. Sabrina became the presiding deity of the water and rules it still. But you know all that already, don’t you?’

  ‘Or maybe the fact that everyone wants it to be true says everything?’

  ‘No, it can’t be. Can it?’

  ‘Honestly, I can’t imagine why people cling to these old legends. There’s lots to love in such outlandish tales but not that much.’

  ‘Seriously, Luke, you don’t want to believe?’

  ‘I did once, but everyone knows it’s mere superstition.’

  Ellie raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Because you are, like, now a man of God?’

  ‘Never would have expected to feel like a stranger in my own home.’

  ‘Maybe that’s where the drowned still go for refuge?’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘What can I tell you? They say a river will always give up its…’

  ‘Dead? That’s funny, Gwendolen told me the same thing.’

  That he did not elaborate Ellie took for granted. They were still virtually strangers, after all. She thrust her hand into his. Bemused as ever. Then she led him back to the farmhouse with the same disarming scepticism that she had shown him since he had strayed back into her life wearing a dog collar.

  ‘You hungry, brother? You want some breakfast?’

  ‘Please.’

  He called Sasha.

  ‘Must that bitch come into the house?’ said Ellie.

  He frowned.

  Ellie frowned back.

  ‘Stubborn.’

  *

  There was in the farmhouse’s large kitchen an old wooden table. It stood on uneven, stone slabs and was littered with bills and other papers that related to the farm’s business. Yet here was as warm a refuge as the coldest of men could ever wish to find. Luke drew up a chair close by an Aga on which Ellie banged about with a pan to fry them both some bacon.

  Suddenly her phone rang.

  She went off into another room where, very soon, he heard her utter a wail.

  She stormed back into the kitchen a moment later. Swore loudly.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Luke.

  ‘It’s the wedding reception. You won’t fucking believe it. That hotel Jeremy found last week for our reception is a no-go.’

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  ‘No, it’s more than that. The Severn bore burst its banks last night right opposite the hotel and inundated the kitchen. Everything will be out of action for months, all thanks to a freak spring tide. It’s like an act of God. Or Devil? What did I just say about flooding round here? The Severn Sea secretly wants to sink us all.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to hold the reception in Berkeley Castle?’

  ‘I did but they’re fully booked.’

  ‘Okay, it’s just that it might be worth trying them again.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve met someone who can help.’

  This was not firm knowledge. He knew next-to-nothing about the castle, but had not the mysterious Sabrina ap Loegres given him good reason to be hopeful?

  ‘Listen Luke, the castle has no vacancies all summer. I’ve tried begging them to fit me in. It can’t be done. What good will it do me to go through all that again?’

  ‘No, yeah, I don’t know. It is what one might choose to call intuition.’

  Half an hour later, Jeremy walked in.

  ‘Oh there you are,’ said Ellie. ‘Say hi to Luke, my twin brother. Luke, meet Jeremy Lawrence-Hamilton. This is the man I’m going to marry in St. Mary’s.’

  Jeremy stiffened. By the look on his face he was manifestly held in disfavour, thought Luke. How could he disagree? He had forgotten everything to his credit.

  ‘Welcome to the parish, reverend. Sorry I missed you in church on Sunday. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you. It’s high time I got to know the bridegroom.’

  As for Jeremy, his bearing was that of a strong and muscled farmer. He had slate-grey eyes, a round face, ample chin, an untidy mop of blond hair tied in a small ponytail, as well as broad hands. He looked as if he could bang in fence posts all day. He acknowledged his guest while he made himself at home but with none of the warmth of some imminent new relation. They barely shook hands as he slapped his tweed cap on the table.

  ‘We should try to book the wedding reception at Berkeley Castle again,’ said Ellie hopefully.

  ‘The castle? Who says?’

  ‘Luke says.’

  With no audible apology Jeremy ate a slice of bacon off the Aga. He narrowed his eyes and stared straight at him, Luke noted. He had no explanation for the shiver that convulsed him other than it was a tremor of alarm at the discovery of an ex-gangster in the family.

  Next moment he refuted his own silly moroseness and jealousy and began to edge his way to the door with a few feeble excuses. He did his best not to feel too peeved.

  ‘I should be going.’

  Jeremy was a little edgy, too.

  ‘That man been back here? Have you caught him poking about, at all?’

  Ellie shook her head.

  ‘Stop worrying.’

  ‘If he comes again, get my gun.’

  ‘Wow. That’s your plan?’

  ‘It can’t hurt to be prepared.’

  ‘Relax. I’ve told you a hundred times. He only wanted to know if we had any scrap metal lying about on the farm.’

  ‘What did he look like again?’

  ‘I’m just not sure there’s much more to say. There was something a bit odd about him, that’s all, as if he were after something other than a few pieces of rusty metal. Barbara Jennings met him poking about her place, too, in Hill.’

  ‘You weren’t scared, were you?’

  ‘I didn’t like the tattoos across his knuckles,’ said Ellie. ‘They made him look like a real bruiser.’

  That declaration brought Luke to a sudden halt in the doorway.

  ‘You remember what those tattoos were?’ he asked.

  ‘They spelt SLIM on one hand, I know that.’

  ‘Like hell they did.’

  ‘Did I say something wrong?’

  Luke frowned heavily. He tried not to indicate that he was picturing someone he knew.

  Instead he patted Sasha vigorously. She, too, was confused. He had seemingly forgotten that they were leaving.

  Actually, he decided to say nothing. But that mention of tattoos could not be denied.

  Not for the first time Slim Jim Jackson had been caught snooping around since he had set foot back in Berkeley.

  Had Jackson not recently tracked down Ian Grey to a pub in Gloucester?

  Come this evening, at the tin tabernacle, he would demand to know what else was said. And why.

  26

  Jorge sat down next to the enormous, gold-painted chimney piece in the reception room in Hill House and opened his laptop.

  ‘Fact is, Sasha, we have no idea
what has driven Luke to disappear. What secret? Is it love or hate? If so, is it for himself or somebody else?’

  Sasha lay down at his feet and sighed. She already knew him reasonably well. She could share glances or even read his thoughts with the minimum of difficulty.

  His eye fixed on the angel shark, blue skate and spiny butterfly ray lovingly mounted in glass cases along the wall.

  No doubt it was a cast too far, but it struck him forcibly that the most heavily hooked and baited end of any fishing line was the ultimate piece of detective work – it sometimes paid to take a shot in the dark.

  People spoke of Luke changing. But he had changed once already. From criminal to priest. So what made him change his mind again? Was he always secretly downright bad, as Frank Cordell believed? Or perhaps something else wouldn’t let him change for good – something more like the Luke of old, less like the new.

  To know the son you had to know the father, he decided.

  He googled ‘Severn Sea Gang’ and up came the lurid headline, Rex Lyons: Head Of England’s No. 1 Crime Family.

  Rex was, as evidenced in this 1980s prison TV documentary by the BBC, the head of a notorious gang, some of whom he had recruited from a feared traveller community. His lean, closely shaven but slightly haggard face stared out of the screen with an affable expression that nevertheless seemed cheerless in its cheerfulness. There was something forbidding about his dark pupils while his very black, neatly cut hair only served to reveal how pale he looked in reality. There were great shadows under his bold eyes, which, being so watchful, afforded him a certain seriousness, cleverness, even importance. This was someone who was accustomed to getting his own way, who did, curiously enough, think he deserved celebrity status.

  ‘Is it because of you that Luke is dead?’ thought Jorge aloud.

  The Lyons family’s origins in Gloucestershire dated back to 1946 when sixteen-year-old Gwendolen Ryan married twenty-seven-year-old itinerant Irish labourer Sean Lyons, Rex revealed. Together they’d had three children. The first two died, which left him as the only survivor. ‘It was a sad time. My mum nearly died having me. She couldn’t have any more children, she kept miscarrying. By then my father was helping to build the nuclear power station at Berkeley, but we didn’t have a bean. That’s why I started stealing things when I was nine or ten. It was the only way I could see to help put food on the table. Otherwise it was picking fruit for local farmers. Mum and I used to go to the Vale of Evesham. Do you know how many damned black currents you had to pick to earn a shilling in those days? Then they’d dock us sixpence for having too many leaves in our bucket. It was akin to slave labour. Every day my fingers turned blue from the juice. The landowners just saw us as cheap labour. Losing my dad when I was ten made no difference to people like that, not even when they owned so much. Even with a house of our own no one could forget my father’s origins. But it wasn’t us who were abnormal, it was everyone else. It was the same later on. When I got sent to borstal it was full of bullies and weirdoes. They were the ones trying to say I was crazy. They talked as if I was some kind of psychopath just because I would take no shit from no one. Of course I absconded several times. Ever since then people have treated me like a wild animal.’