“Cup of tea?” The jackdaw cawed as Alice turned on the kettle. “Cup of tea?”
“Clever boy.” Alice opened a fresh tin of dog food and emptied some of it into the tray at the bottom of the cage. “It’s a beautiful day, my boy. The bees are going to be in their element today.”
She opened the window as the kettle boiled. The scent of the hollyhocks drifted into the kitchen. She looked outside and her smile disappeared abruptly. There was a gaping trench under the hollyhock bushes and a huge pile of soil on the grass next to them. In her haste to get rid of the body, Alice had forgotten to fill in the hole. She ran outside still in her nightdress and grabbed the shovel still lying on the grass.
“Oh dear.” Eddie Sedgwick’s head appeared above the hedge that divided the two gardens. “Looks like you had a visit from a badger last night. A big one, by the look of things. I wonder what it was looking for.”
Alice had to think quickly. “Probably scouting for somewhere to spend the winter,” she said.
“Do you need some help? I’m pretty handy with a spade, even though I do say so myself.”
“No thanks, Eddie.” Alice began shovelling the loose earth into the hole. “It shouldn’t take long.”
“Lovely day for it, anyway,” Eddie said and went back inside.
Just bugger off, you nosy bastard, Alice thought, but she managed to bite her tongue.
Twenty minutes later, she was finished. She trampled on the last of the soil and stood back to admire her work. It was as if nothing had ever happened. Some soil was still scattered on the grass, but a good downpour would clear that up. Alice went back inside for a well-earned cup of tea.
“Stanley Green,” she raised the teacup in the air, “good riddance.”
She was free of him now. He would no longer haunt her. She wondered where he’d ended up.
Miles out to sea, never to be seen again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Harriet Taylor was about to leave for work when someone knocked at her front door. She opened it and saw DI Jack Killian standing in the doorway, wearing a very grave expression.
“Sir?” Taylor asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m glad I caught you,” Killian said. “Are you all right? You don’t look too well.”
“I’m fine,” she lied. “Did forensics find something?”
“I’m afraid this is about something else entirely. The Milly Lancaster investigation is going to have to be put on hold.”
“Sounds serious.”
“Let’s get going, then.”
“Where are we going?”
“Down to the harbour. And I sincerely hope you’re not the squeamish type.”
* * *
As they drove towards the harbour entrance, Killian told Taylor how someone had rung the station in the early hours of that morning.
“A fishing boat dragged something up in its net,” he said, “and when the net was emptied on the deck, the skipper almost fainted. It was a human body.”
Taylor flinched. “Milly Lancaster?”
“It’s the body of a man. And when I say body, I mean it literally. The legs are missing.”
The nausea from earlier that morning hit Taylor’s stomach again.
“He’s been cut in half,” Killian continued. “The skipper of the boat thinks it may have been a shark attack.”
“A shark?” It sounded unbelievable.
“We do get shark attacks round here every so often.”
“What kind of a shark can bite a man in half?”
“Not many. And you hardly ever get that type in these waters.”
Killian stopped the car by the harbour breakwater. The sheltered marina was abuzz with people. Gulls swarmed overhead. Every now and then, one swooped down to retrieve something from the water.
“It’s worse than I expected,” said Killian. “I thought it might be busy at this time of year, but a shark attack around here is going to cause panic.”
“What do we do?”
“Damage control, for what it’s worth. We’re probably already too late. Word travels quickly in this place.”
He headed towards the wharf where the fishing boats were usually tied up. It was obvious which one had pulled the body up in its nets. A crowd of people had gathered on the wharf next to a blue-and-white boat with the name ‘Serenity’ on the side. Two policemen in uniform were trying to keep the hoard away from it. They seemed to be fighting a losing battle. As they got closer, Taylor saw it was the PCs Eric and Thomas White.
“Morning,” Killian said to Eric. “Where’s the body?”
“Still on the boat, sir. The skipper had the good sense to cover it with a tarpaulin. There’s an ambulance on its way now.”
“Good.”
“Where’s the captain of the boat?” Taylor asked.
“Inside the wheelhouse. He’s in a bit of a state,” Eric said.
“Get these rubberneckers out of here.” Killian pointed to the people gawping at the boat. “I want this whole wharf cleared by the time the ambulance gets here.”
Eric and Thomas set about dispersing the crowds and Killian stepped aboard the boat. The way he skipped from the wharf onto the deck made Taylor think it wasn’t the first time he’d done it. “Come on,” he called.
She leaned over and grabbed the safety rail so tightly that her knuckles turned white, before she managed to scramble on board. Serenity was an old-fashioned trawler with a centre cabin. The tarpaulin she’d heard about lay on the deck at the stern and the boat’s skipper was sipping coffee in the wheelhouse. The stench of rotten fish and diesel didn't help Taylor's delicate stomach.
The captain looked more like a schoolteacher than a sailor. He was slim with thinning hair and rimless spectacles. Only the badly-fitting oilskins identified him as a fisherman.
“You must be the police,” he said. “I’m Gary. Gary Dean. This is my boat.”
“Mr Dean, I’m DI Killian and this is DC Taylor. We need to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course.” Dean put his coffee cup down on the steering console. His hands were shaking badly.
“I covered the body up,” he said. “I couldn’t bear to look at it.”
“It’s all right, Mr Dean,” Taylor told him. “There’s an ambulance on the way to take it away.”
“Have you seen it? Don’t look at it. I can’t get it out of my head. I don’t think I’ll ever get it out of my head.” He looked terrified and sick at the same time.
“What time did you discover it?” Killian came straight to the point.
“It was around six this morning.”
“Where was this?”
“About ten nautical miles out, pretty much as the crow flies, from the harbour.”
“What were you doing out so early?” Taylor said.
Dean looked at her as though she had asked him why his eyes were blue. “I cast off around midnight. At this time of year the best fishing is before dawn.”
“What do you fish for? I thought trawling was illegal.” She’d read an article about the issue in the local paper, and was rather proud that she knew the correct terminology.
“It is. The size of the nets is regulated. I don’t really trawl. Not in the traditional or commercial sense. I just catch enough to sell at the markets. I supply some of the restaurants in town too.”