by Guy Sheppard
Luke hastily divested himself of his coat.
Right now, the wide, extensive riverscape offered a fine, striking prospect as its water goddess held out her hand, dripping in jewels. He had none of the luxury of a wetsuit or drysuit. No latex seals at his neck, wrist and feet sealed the water from his cold body, only a little white clerical collar on his shiny black shirt. He listened eagerly while the golden hubs that lubricated the chariot’s spinning wheels trod water as their charioteer tightened her grip upon the horses’ reins. This reckless surfer was either witch or wonder, or both.
He went to take a step and immediately the river surged past his ankles.
Critics would argue afterwards whether, in his ill-founded role as a man of the cloth, he dared to observe some natural phenomenon as yet undefined by laws of the land. Were not such laws meant to place God reassuringly above Nature? As to that, others would have to decide. Necessity knew no law, which was why he was in no position to refuse. His sceptics would say that what he sought to see could not be found anyway. But what was to anyone else wholly nebulous was at this moment absolutely certain to him.
He tossed aside his hat.
‘Wait for me, Sabrina. I’m coming.’
The estuary swelled with cold sea from the Atlantic. He had the promise of sufficient salvation to let it take him in. The water would sweep him away after another few paces, he knew for certain. He had to do it before Sasha returned. What he was about to do could not be considered sinful. He was not, even in the words of the Church of England’s own code of law, about to commit suicide, only about to lay violent hands upon himself.
‘Wait! Wait for me!’
Luke looked over his shoulder, surprised. At the nearby seawall stood an elderly woman whose grey hair blew about in the breeze and whose dressing gown fell open over her flimsy pink nightdress and cardigan.
She held out both arms to him urgently. Her sudden appearance was too illogical to be ignored.
‘Gwendolen? Is that you?’
Shocking as her intervention was at that moment, he stopped wading deeper into the tide.
She stared at him with astonishment.
‘Take me with you.’
So saying, Gwendolen climbed atop the seawall. She had, from there, nowhere else to go except into the river but that was no disincentive to her. Luke saw that her face was unusually animated for someone who was normally dismissed as so ill.
‘For God’s sake stay there, gran. Don’t come any further. It’s not safe.’
He crossed the few feet of foreshore even as the waves licked at his heels. He caught her in his arms. Held her tightly.
As she did him.
‘Sean, my love.’
‘Let me help you, Gwendolen. You’re confused.’
He set her down on the wall and sat beside her. He took both her hands in his as if he would say a prayer with her to get her attention.
‘What are you doing here, exactly, gran?’
Gwendolen squeezed his cold fingers and smiled.
‘Whatever it takes, Sean, I’m with you now.’
‘Now?’
She paused, then blinked rapidly at him.
‘It’s book club night, right?’
‘I guess it is.’
She hung on to his arm and leaned her head on his shoulder. She still wore her wedding ring, Luke confirmed, even though legally it meant nothing.
‘If only Mary and Barbara hadn’t walked in on us in the kitchen.’
‘You never did lock your door on Sundays, remember.’
‘I left it open for you to return.’
‘That’s nice, in a way, to know.’
‘Mary and Barbara thought you were a ghost but I knew different.’
‘Sounds about right.’
‘I could hardly make any sense of what you said, you were so excited.’
‘Remind me. What did I say?’
‘Never mind all that now.’
‘What, then, do you want?’ Luke asked as he led her safely away from the shore.
‘Why, to ask your forgiveness, of course.’
‘Forgiveness for what exactly?’
‘If it wasn’t for me you’d still be alive.’
‘Please, Gwendolen, what did happen in 1981?’
‘I’m feeling very tired.’
‘You’re right. Let’s get you home.’
‘Chapel Cottage?’
‘There’s no going back there, I’m afraid.’
‘You mustn’t talk like that. You must have faith.’
Luke gave a shudder and looked behind him. Serpentine bends of water swelled as they grew wider and wider. The course of the tide was positively writhing and twisting like a great monster, although the bore and its chariot and its frothing seahorses were long gone. A dark, silent highway stretched behind them now, fit only for those already dead or damned. Into this underworld and its fathomless depths he tossed his phone.
55
If faddish diets were the new faith, then they were also sheer purgatory, thought Jorge. Consuming cabbage soup by the gallon had definitely challenged his impure thoughts, but still he needed to be cleansed of his sin of craving food. Nutritionists (the new confessors) might say he could eat vibrant and healthy meals that were fun and delicious but that was just another level of temptation. His contrition, unshrinking in theory, was elastic in practice. One act of self-mortification, such as giving up doughnuts, was soon balanced by a Cajun steak with a very healthy herb and lime slaw as an act of penance.
Right now, though, he straightened his shoulders and strode resolutely along the quays of Gloucester Docks. Not for him their contemporary all-day European dining, Italian café, or even the more casual pizza and pasta place with its funny name. The devil in his head was very persuasive: ‘Study the proteins on offer and order a smaller portion,’ was its subtle seduction of his self-control. ‘Try the superb Thai cooking – it’s not so fattening,’ were similar weasel words.
Being medically obese could, frankly, soon turn into a life-sentence. On the other hand it was all about self-perception: no one suffered more than those who hated themselves. Any attempts to fat-shame him were, he thought with a smile, doomed to fail.
‘Stay here, Sasha. Don’t be nervous. I won’t be long.’
To critics one and all he raised a finger.
*
Whereas the docks were largely new shops and apartments it was surprising to find such an odd little place of worship as this. He took off his Inspector’s cap before he stepped through the open door and lodged it respectfully under his arm.
‘Hallo? Is anyone there, at all? Where am I exactly?’
A woman dressed in black fixed her large honey-coloured eyes upon his, for her gaze was no less intense than his own. The unusual length of her narrow face, the unnatural pallor, the blood-red lipstick, gave this person of the cloth the look of a Gothic princess.
‘I’m Gabriela Meireles. You are in the Mariners Chapel and I’m its chaplain.’
‘How do you do? I’m Inspector Jorge Winter from Gloucester Cathedral Police. As I explained on the phone, the Church wishes to deal with the whole matter sensitively and with due respect for the reputation of the individual involved.’
‘You heard about it on the news, then?’
‘Is there even the slightest doubt that it’s him?’
‘Don’t see how. His sister Ellie has identified him already.’
Gabriela shook his hand and led him into the little white church. The interior had very narrow, tall windows that were filled with red and blue stained glass – blue like the sea.
A coffin stood against a wall.
‘No one told me that this place even existed.’
‘This, Inspector, is a proprietary chapel which was originally built solely for the spiritual comfort of sailors and boatmen who visited the port of Gloucester. It’s been here for the last one hundred and sixty-eight years. Spanish seamen brought onions to sell in the neighbouring streets while
escaped slaves from America mixed with Norwegians, Danes, Dutchmen and Germans. I still have some of the religious tracts that my predecessors handed out in all sorts of languages, including Hindustani and Chinese, to benefit their souls.’
‘That why Captain Singleton came straight to you and no one else?’
Gabriela rested one elegant hand on the lid of the chest. It was an ill-fashioned box built from very thin, reused planks, not like a proper coffin at all.
‘Where better to bring it, Inspector?’
‘You mean Captain Singleton was desperate to reach here and have you bless it?’
‘As such it was my duty.’
‘I just have to be sure that’s all there is to the story.’
‘What does it matter now?’
‘Reverend Luke’s last movements have yet to be verified.’
‘Wait, Inspector, where are you going?’
‘To look at the ship.’
‘But his coffin?’
‘So? It’s empty. What use is that to me?’
‘Wait, I’ll come with you.’
Jorge settled his peaked cap on his head.
‘Meet Sasha. She was Reverend Luke’s dog. She’s a bit shy.’
But Sasha had already barked. Wagged her tail. She rushed to lick Gabriela’s hand and face.
‘Don’t worry, Inspector, we’re old friends.’
*
Nielson’s dry dock contained the totally exposed black hull of a familiar, three-masted schooner that was covered in barnacles, Jorge discovered. From its rigging hung dead seaweed. One sail hung in tatters. A painter’s cradle hung off the stern ready to repaint her name in gold: Amatheia.
Sasha ran across a gangplank and began to sniff about on board.
‘Did you know that the ship is named after a Greek sea nymph, Inspector? Amatheia was one of the fifty daughters of Nereus, god of the sea. It was her job to safeguard and preserve young fish. Her name means nourisher.’
‘Where’s she bound for next?’
‘Better ask Sabrina. She owns her.’
‘That’ll be Sabrina ap Loegres, the Welsh shipping magnate?’
‘You’ve heard of her?’
‘I read about her in a magazine but she won’t return my calls.’
‘Then know this, she’s a complete mystery. No one can even say for sure where she lives. Yet according to Captain Singleton there’s nothing about tall ships that Sabrina doesn’t know. It’s she who is paying for the schooner’s repainting and repairs.’
The deserted vessel, with its soaring masts, bare rigging and funnel, appeared strangely constrained by its dry, stone prison. As they trod the creaking wooden deck it felt odd not to be affected by the motions of sea and wind. Yet the ship was held captive but for a moment, it appeared, since a sinister impatience possessed it.
This Death ship wished to unfurl its sails. Light its furnace. Go on its way.
A silvery, green-eyed black cat leapt from hawser to hawser, glaring at Sasha and marking their progress.
‘This was Reverend Luke’s, too,’ said Gabriela, pulling a crucifix by its chain from her pocket. ‘Captain Singleton and his crew were most anxious to give it to me, should his ghost fail to rest in his grave.’
‘Seriously. His ghost?’
‘At the helm is where they saw him last, apparently.’
‘You mean they fled the ship because it’s haunted?’
‘It seems Reverend Luke Lyons was desperate to reach England, dead or alive.’
‘Did he explain to anyone the cause of his terror before he died?’
‘No, but he said his soul depended on it. Uttered a few lines from a poem with his dying breath.’
‘What poem?’
‘I don’t know its origins but the captain did his best to recite it to me:
Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.’
‘It’s from ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Coleridge, but why that somewhat melodramatic verse, I wonder?’
‘He felt pursued by someone or something, Inspector.’
‘Singing sea-shanties and reciting poems down the pub is many a seaman’s party trick. Perhaps we shouldn’t read too much into it.’
‘Or he turned to poetry at the moment of his greatest distress. So say the crew.’
‘But now they’re afraid to admit it?’
‘In a word, yes.’
‘Doesn’t rule out foul play.’
‘I’d be spooked if a dead man sailed himself home at full speed. Wouldn’t you?’
‘You mustn’t talk like that.’
Clearly unnerved Gabriela was annoyed at herself for showing it.
‘After you, Inspector. Priests are not lucky to have on board, are they? We dress in black and perform funeral services. As such we are a bad omen since we make the crew think of death. Then again, I’m told you should avoid anyone with red hair when going on a long voyage. Redheads can bring bad luck to a ship, too.’
‘So I have to ask you. What do you think actually happened here?’
Jorge trod more dead fish and shells among the seaweed on deck. The thick mass of berry-like air-vessels suggested some rampant invasion. Had the ship sailed the Gulf Stream and escaped entanglement in the Sargasso Sea, only to be savaged by storms on her way home from the Bahamas?
‘According to the crew Reverend Luke was feeling ill when he set sail.’
Gabriela ducked her head down almost vertical steps to a series of cabins below deck. He and Sasha followed.
‘So he died somewhere in mid-Atlantic?’
‘Yes. The crew dismantled a cupboard and built him that crude coffin you saw in the chapel.’
‘No signs of foul play, at all?’
‘A contusion to his forehead.’
‘So, yes.’
‘You think he was murdered?’
‘Which time?’
There were no broken fittings or furniture to suggest a violent struggle and most definitely were there no copious amounts of blood. Meanwhile all of Luke’s newly acquired and very colourful Caribbean clothes hung in wardrobes in his quarters. Two dozen empty packets of paracetamol lay in a waste bin, Jorge noted, but not before he had donned a pair of white plastic gloves from his pocket with which to make close examination.
Gabriela went on to explain.
‘According to the crew, Inspector, they left the Florida coast sixty days ago but ran into bad weather near the Azores. It seems that Reverend Luke became increasingly agitated and his behaviour more erratic. Stumbled about on deck like a drunken man. Complained that he was being chased by some monstrous creature worthy of the Devil itself. Twice the crew had to stop him from climbing the ship’s rail and throwing himself overboard as he cried out that his head was about to burst.’
‘How about the autopsy?’
‘It’s too soon to say.’
‘But the police are mounting a thorough investigation?’
‘Oh yes, all that began when the ship first docked in Bristol’s Floating Harbour some days ago. That’s where the Avon and Somerset Police recovered the body.’
‘Of course.’
Having sniffed a pillow where Luke had slept, Sasha immediately turned her attention to some half open drawers in a bedside cupboard where, disappointingly, she found nothing.
‘Anyone find a phone, laptop or tablet?’ asked Jorge.
Gabriela looked blank.
‘Captain Singleton didn’t see the police take anything away. No personal effects.’
‘No suspicious items in plastic bags?’
‘If they were worried about anything they would not have released the ship so soon.’
‘I suppose.’
Sasha, having redirected her search beneath the bed, rose quickly to her feet and growled.
‘Hallo,’ said Gabriela. ‘It seems someone has found something after all.’
Jorge crouched low.
‘Here, Sasha, let me see.’
From her teeth he prised a black and white sheet of paper.
Gabriela leaned low, too.
‘What is it, Inspector?’
‘It’s a letter from a consultant at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital dated July 2016. It’s all about not eating and drinking prior to admission to the wards. There’s blood on it.’
‘Reverend Luke must have dropped it when he fell.’
‘Wow, what can I say? Our friend was due to have a biopsy done on a possibly malignant brain tumour the day after he disappeared.’
Gabriela frowned.
‘You think he was so scared of the operation that he decided not to show up?’
‘He wouldn’t be the first.’
‘What could he possibly gain by doing that?’
‘Perhaps at the time he considered it his only option?’
Gabriela led their way back up on deck as Jorge again tried to imagine what unexpected turn of events had driven Luke to turn fugitive, only to try to return home less than a year later.
It wasn’t as if any warrant had been issued for his arrest.
‘There’s something else you ought to know, Inspector. It might be irrelevant. Who knows?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Last summer I found Reverend Luke semi-conscious on the floor of my chapel.’
‘Don’t tell me. Two men by the name of Slim Jim Jackson and Mel McAtree attacked him during the Tall Ships Festival.’
‘You know about that?’
‘His sister related the sorry tale to me.’
‘Then know this, Inspector. They threw Sasha into the dock and I had to dive in to rescue her. He loved that dog more than his own soul. So why didn’t he take her with him?’
No sooner had he stepped back on deck than Jorge took a deep breath. He might have considered himself immune to the odd atmosphere in the cabin below but it felt good to shake his head and see daylight again. Sasha did the same.
‘Seriously? You think he came back for his dog?’
‘Even that wasn’t as surprising as some other things he told me, Inspector.’
‘What kind of other things?’
