Drowned Lives

37

When the phone rang that evening, I was surprised to hear the hesitant voice of Mrs Wentworth.

‘Mr Buckley?’

‘Hello, Mrs Wentworth. What can I do for you?’

‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I thought I ought to let somebody know. I can’t get hold of Caroline, you see.’

‘Is something wrong?’

‘I’ve rung the police twice now, and a car came past earlier on, but I’m still worried.’

‘Worried about what?’

‘I’m probably being silly. But I keep thinking there’s someone hanging around Ash Lodge. Well, when a house is empty like that, it attracts attention, doesn’t it?’

‘Have you seen somebody?’

‘I thought I did the first time, but it was already going dark. Then there was a noise. I had a look at the house, but I can’t see that anybody’s got in. It’s more of a feeling now, and I daren’t ring the police again. They would think I was neurotic. But I’m worried. I’m frightened to go out again.’

‘It’s Caroline’s affair really. The house is nothing to do with me.’

‘Oh, I know, but I thought... you seemed to be concerned before. You said you were a relative. And since I can’t get hold of Caroline... There is nobody else but you.’

Her words were such a close echo to what Great-Uncle Samuel had said to me, that I could almost hear his voice repeating it. There had been only me, and I’d let him down.

‘All right. I’ll come over and take a look.’

On the way to Whittington, I passed the barracks of the Staffordshire Regiment. There was a double row of barbed wire round the perimeter of the camp, and the Escort’s headlights picked out the signs along the shooting ranges, which said ‘Danger — keep clear when red flags are flying’.

There were two likely looking pubs in Whittington, and it was the time of the evening when they were starting to get lively. They both looked tempting as the light from their windows began to spill out into the darkness. I might treat myself to a pint after I’d done my duty. But they’d have to wait until later.

The driveway at Ash Lodge looked a little more untidy, the shrubs a bit more overgrown. The house had a general air of neglect, despite the fact that it had been empty for less than three weeks. It seemed to know that it had been abandoned, not just left for a week or two while its owner went on holiday. I could see that Mrs Wentworth was right about it attracting the attention of burglars and vandals, or even drug addicts and squatters — if they got as far as Whittington. Or maybe it was merely a question of a wild animal trying to find somewhere to escape the cold.

I saw the lady herself watching for me from her window, and I gave her a reassuring wave as I got out of the car. I’d taken the precaution of bringing a torch with working batteries, and I was glad I had, because I’d forgotten quite how total the darkness would be. Though I was only a few yards from the street lights, the yew tree and the tall shrubs shielded the garden and driveway from most of the light. With the house itself in darkness, I could barely see where I was putting my feet as I walked up to the front door.

I went through the motions, shining my torch through all the windows I could reach and checking the doors and a scattering of outbuildings at the back. I checked particularly carefully on the little side windows. They were very much the size of mine back home, which had only just been repaired. But there was no sign of any break-in at Ash Lodge, of course. All I saw was a glimpse of the interior of Samuel’s house — an opportunity that had been denied me so far.

Belatedly, I remembered Mr Elsworth’s offer to allow me access to the house to look for more papers relevant to The Three Keys. From what I could see in the torchlight, it looked as though I was too late to get any sense of my great-uncle’s life. The downstairs rooms were stripped almost bare, apart from a few items of dark, heavy furniture. There were pale rectangles on the walls where pictures had been taken down, and patches of brighter colour on the carpets where rugs had been rolled up and removed. There were no clocks, no mirrors, no coats hanging in the hall, no personal items on the mantelpiece or in the empty display cabinets. Samuel’s presence had been erased.

I could easily picture Caroline Longden going through the house like a hurricane, no doubt with a small army of helpers at her command, clearing out the memories of her father and preparing the house for sale so she could add its value to her suddenly burgeoning fortune. It seemed a desecration.

Or was I misjudging her? True, our first meeting hadn’t been a friendly one, but the circumstances had been difficult, to say the least. Then I thought of her fiancé, Simon Monks. That was certainly a black mark against her. I couldn’t trust anybody who’d chosen him as her future husband.

The cold was beginning to strike through my clothes now, and my fingers and toes were going numb. I waved my torch around the garden for a few more minutes, then walked round to The Laurels and knocked on the door.

‘All clear, Mrs Wentworth. There’s no sign of anybody around.’

‘Oh, I’m so glad you came, Mr Buckley. I suppose you think I was imagining things. I’m sure the police do.’

‘Not at all. It’s best to be sure.’

I thought it was a good idea not to tell her about my own break-in and the assault on my neighbour. The poor woman would never sleep at night.

‘You’ve just been round the house and garden, have you?’ she said.

‘And the outbuildings.’

‘I did think I saw something moving about in the back garden, near the path.’

‘It might have been a cat, mightn’t it?’

‘I suppose so,’ she said cautiously. ‘But the path leads down to the canal.’

‘Yes?’

‘I was thinking about the boat.’

‘Kestrel?’

‘It’s not unknown for people to break into boats on the canal. It’s very quiet down there. There’s a couple who live on their boat a bit further along, but that’s all.’

I pictured the deserted canalside, too far from any streetlights to be safe at this time of night. I was no hero. That kind of job should be left to the police.

‘Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything worth stealing,’ I said.

Mrs Wentworth gripped my sleeve. Her hand was trembling with anxiety. ‘You never know. It would be such a reassurance to an old lady. Would you, please—?’

I sighed, realising I’d have to spend a few more minutes on this nonsense before I could go to the pub. ‘All right, I’ll go and check.’

‘Thank you. I do appreciate it. And I’m sure Caroline will, when I tell her how concerned you were.’

‘Don’t hold your breath.’ But I said it entirely to myself as I walked down the path between the two gardens towards the Coventry Canal.

Mrs Wentworth was absolutely right — it was deathly quiet on the canalside. All I could hear was the soft movement of water against the bank, and somewhere nearby a tawny owl calling that eerie cry that sounds like an animal screaming in terror.

The surface of the canal collected a little of what light was available from the overcast sky, and I could just make out the outline of Kestrel moored against the bank. In fact, I could smell it better than I could see it, because as I got closer the scents of bitumen and varnished wood mingled with the dankness of the water in the cold air.

Careful to avoid unseen mooring lines, I walked along the length of the boat, shining my torch onto the steel shutters that covered the windows. Everything seemed secure. The stern and fore-end lines were firmly fixed, and the small door that opened onto the fore deck was tightly locked. I began to wonder what the inside of the boat was like. For years, this had been Samuel Longden’s favourite plaything. He’d travelled many miles in it, according to the boaters I’d met at his funeral. And even after he’d grown too old, he’d spent a lot of time down here. Mrs Wentworth herself had told me that.

The hull was bituminised, with a thick coat of gloss paint to protect it from the weather, though in places it was starting to wear thin. All the exterior fittings looked solid and new, and I wondered what had made anybody doubt that it was in useable condition.

Now that I looked closely at the metal plate bolted to the side of the stern cabin, I realised that it was not a restored narrowboat, but a modern one made in traditional style at a well-known boatyard near Tamworth, where there was said to be a twelve-month waiting list of potential boat owners. From what I’d seen in the waterways magazines, a sixty-foot boat with something like a Beta BD3 Tug engine from that particular boatyard would cost in the region of £80,000. And Kestrel was the full narrowboat length of seventy feet. That represented quite an investment by Great-Uncle Samuel. But then, he could afford to indulge himself.

Returning to the stern, I examined the double doors on the back cabin. They were fitted with a Yale lock, and a sizeable padlock on a hasp across the middle. There were small windows in the upper part of the doors, but these too were shuttered, so that the interior was invisible. I tried to shine my torch through a narrow crack between the shutter and the window frame, but I could see nothing except a few patches of wooden panelling and the occasional gleam of brass. The light reflected off the shutter, and I could see my own breath in a cloud before me.

Everything seemed to be secure. With that in mind, I almost turned back towards the house and the safety of streetlights. But something stopped me. Examining the exterior of the boat so closely had made me feel differently about it. It sat there now taunting me, as one more mystery to be solved.

Suddenly, I was consumed with a desire to see inside the boat. I felt sure it could tell me a lot about Samuel’s life and character. Then it occurred to me that it might tell me even more than that. What more logical place for him to conceal some documents than on his boat, where no one ever went but himself? What had Mrs Wentworth said that day? ‘He still spent a lot of time down there. Tinkering about, I suppose. As men do.’

Surely if Samuel had been here with me now, he would have been delighted to have shown me round his boat. So it wouldn’t be disrespectful for me to take a look now that he was dead. I pulled at the handle of the door and rattled the padlock, but neither of them shifted.

Frustrated, I switched off my torch and shoved my frozen hands into my coat pockets, ready to return to the house. My fingers encountered something metallic in one pocket, and I’d already walked a few paces back along the towpath before I realised what they were. Keys. Not my own car keys — I always kept them on a leather fob in my trouser pocket. So what—? Of course. These were the keys Godfrey Wheeldon had given me, which had lain in my pocket since the previous Sunday. It had been obvious that neither of them fit the canal owners’ box, and so I’d forgotten about them until now.

I shone my torch on them. One key was a gold-coloured Yale, the other a silver key with a square end. I hurried back to the boat and clambered back onto the stern hatches, steadying myself on the gunwale as the boat rocked slightly. Sure enough, the silver key slipped in effortlessly and the padlock sprang open with a click. Then the Yale key went into the door lock.

‘Eureka!’ I almost gave a little skip. Samuel was here helping me after all.