Mark Pearson - The Killing Season

Detective Inspector Walsh was leading the briefing, although there were more senior officers present. The media had gone into a feeding frenzy over the story and the small coastal town of Sheringham had been swamped with reporters. It was lucky, I guess, that it wasn’t the height of the summer season. The beach had been closed and the town was practically under police law. To coin a phrase.

A noticeboard stretching across the room had been erected and various photographs, names, dates and timelines were displayed on it. There were probably about fifty people or so in the room.

‘OK, here is what we know,’ Walsh said. ‘Last week a storm brought down part of a cliff, in the process exposing a blocked-up cave. A man had been buried in it and as far as we can determine at this stage that man’s name is David Webb and he was murdered very late in 1941. The salt, soil and chalk conditions have preserved his body so that forensic analysis has been possible to determine the cause of death.

‘Subsequent to an announcement of that discovery and an appeal for help in identifying the body a further murder has taken place.’ He pointed to a photo. ‘Reverend Nigel Holdsworth. Forensic examination shows that he too was killed with a small thin sword. Moreover, it is the same type of weapon that killed our man in the cave seventy-three years ago. Possibly even the same one. The main suspect in his murder, Len Wright, disappeared. He was the main suspect because he discovered that the not-so-Reverend Nigel Holdsworth had been having a sexual liaison with his fiancée. He beat his girlfriend brutally but had an alibi in the case of the second murder.’ Walsh pointed to Nigel Holdsworth’s photo again. ‘Because he was holed up with a prostitute in Norwich at the time and the hotel staff back her alibi statement too.

‘So far, so bloody strange,’ he continued. ‘Now Len Wright, cleared of the Reverend’s murder, turns up. And forensic examination of his remains tells us a few things. He had recent contusions on his body. He had clearly put up a struggle. And from what local knowledge informs us Len Wright is known as a fighting man. So whoever took him was a very strong man. There is evidence of a single puncture wound. We are waiting for confirmation that it is the same weapon as was previously used and therefore whether the two or three murders are linked. Wright was buried up to his neck in the sand at night, with his mouth taped shut but his nostrils open so that he could breathe. Until the tide came in, that was.

‘Moreover, someone scratched out the names of both these men’s relatives from the gravestones at one of the local churches.

‘This is clearly a dangerously deranged individual we are dealing with and to state the bleeding obvious we need to find him soon and shut him down.’

I tuned out as Walsh started listing areas of responsibility, who was doing what, who was coordinating the paperwork, et cetera. Something connected the three men, and that was the connection we needed to find. Maybe the stag night had something to do with it. Had something happened that we didn’t know about? Something before Len Wright went on the rampage?

I had an idea of where to start looking.

Alice Featherton-Brightly was a leading light in the Sheringham Historical Society. She also worked in the local library, which was where I tracked her down the following morning. She was surprised to see me.

‘Jack Delaney — what can I do for you?’

She was a mature lady with an accent of pure polished crystal, but she still managed to put a sexual connotation into the most seemingly innocent sentences.

‘I need to track down the members of a lifeboat crew. During the war.’

‘David Webb’s crew I take it?’

‘Yes.’

‘You should be speaking to Helen Middleton.’

‘I know that he was her brother, but she was seven years old at the time.’

‘She’s writing a book. On Sheringham in the war years. Not fiction.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘She didn’t tell you?’

‘She mentioned that she was writing something.’

‘She’s borrowed the society’s archives. If it was on a piece of paper she should be able to tell you.’

‘Cheers, darlin’,’ I said.

‘You can make it up to me another time,’ Alice Featherton-Brightly replied, smiling and raising one perfectly formed eyebrow.

‘Count on it.’

It was another fine late-autumn day and leaves were still clinging on some of the trees as I took the familiar coast road once again. So familiar that my car could almost have been put on auto-drive.

Helen Middleton was pleased to see me. She showed me through the lounge, into the now warm kitchen and down to the study area that she had made with the addition of a desk, a chair and a filing cabinet or two. Better equipped than mine.

‘Please excuse the mess,’ she said, pointing at the neatly stacked piles of paper on her large wooden desk.

‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘If you saw my office today you would be horrified.’ Which wasn’t entirely true: most of my pending paperwork of reports or quotations was still just that. Pending. Everything else had been put on the back burner.

‘I am not sure if it’s worse knowing that my brother was murdered. I always thought he died a hero’s death.’

‘Maybe he did.’

‘But I am glad we have his body now, at least. We can lay him to rest with a proper ceremony.’

‘We?’ I asked.

‘Oh, there’s only me — my husband died some time ago. He was older than me by several years when we got married. I suppose “we” is me and the puppy dog nowadays,’ she said, pointing to her small dog who was curled up in a big padded pod and resting comfortably. Dreaming of rabbits and sticks and other pleasant things, no doubt, and who could blame him?

Helen pulled a faded newspaper clipping from an old folder.

‘I’ve kept this all these years.’

She handed it to me and I took it gently, laying it down on the table. The gist of the article was that although David Webb had never got to don a uniform and fight for his country overseas, he had died a hero’s death, as his sister had put it. Taken by the cruel sea as he came to the rescue of a stricken craft. There was no mention of whether the attempt had been successful.

‘Did the lifeboat crew manage to rescue the crew of the other craft?’

Helen shook her head. ‘No. At least, they lost track of it. According to reports, the storm battered the lifeboat back — they didn’t even sight the other vessel.’

I was beginning to suspect that maybe there hadn’t been another craft in the first place. Maybe the lifeboat had never been launched.

‘Do you remember why that cave was blocked in?’ I asked.

‘The town council blocked a number of caves on the front at the time. People would shelter there if an air-raid warning sounded while they were on the beach, but they were considered unsafe. A bomb dropping could cause them to collapse.’

Which, I thought, was more or less what had happened. Although it had been a lightning bolt, apparently, and not a bomb delivered by the Luftwaffe.

The two other members of the lifeboat mentioned in the report were a police sergeant named Tony Carter and a local banker called Henry Wilson.

I held up my mobile. ‘Do you mind if I make a call, Helen?’

‘Of course not — would you like to use the landline?’

‘That’s OK — I’ve got a strong signal.’ I pressed speed dial and waited for the call to be answered.

‘What’s up, boss?’ Laura Gomez answered cheerily.

‘I need you to track down some people.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Tony Carter who was a police sergeant hereabouts back in the 1940s and a banker called Henry Wilson, likewise.’