Dead Calm (A Dylan Scott Mystery) (6 page)

Chapter Nine

Killing someone was easy. There were hundreds of different ways to do it. It was simply a case of choosing the most suitable method.

His first kill had been—no, his first real kill had been the cat. That always made him smile. A neighbour had allowed her mangy tabby to treat their garden as its personal toilet. He’d taken a few shots at it with his air rifle while it was having a shit, but he always missed. So one day he’d caught it, soaked it in petrol and set fire to it. He’d thrown the burned body in the bin and it had been taken away the next morning.

The stupid woman had spent weeks calling it. She’d put notices in shop windows and on lampposts—no reward—asking people to check their sheds and garages. Night and morning, and at hourly intervals in between, she’d called it and rattled a box of cat biscuits to entice the thing home.

He hadn’t told anyone apart from a couple of his mates, but he reckoned his sister had guessed. One day he’d been waiting for her to come out of the bathroom. She spent hours in there and he never knew what she was doing. When she’d finally come out, they’d squared up to each other. He was waiting for her to moan about his standing outside the room, “listening” she always reckoned. Then their neighbour’s voice had drifted through the open window.

“Smoky! Smoky, sweetheart, come to Mummy.”

His sister gave him a knowing smile. “I wonder what’s happened to the shit-machine.”

He’d smiled back and, for a moment, he’d felt close to her. It hadn’t lasted long.

It was years later before he’d killed again and he wasn’t even sure that counted because there’d been four of them, all new recruits to the army. Most of them had got along well, but one bloke, a fucking shirt-lifter they reckoned, had been different. He hadn’t mixed properly. He’d thought himself better than them. He came from a well-to-do family and was always getting fancy parcels in the mail.

One night, after a few hours on the town that had involved too many beers and a couple of hours with cheap prostitutes, they’d had a bit of fun with him. They’d only intended to kick him around. He could still remember the crunch as his boot connected with the faggot’s nose. Four of them had kicked him and four of them had assumed he’d stagger in for breakfast. He never did. He never moved again.

The other three had lost their bottle. For a while, he’d worried that they’d all confess like bloody schoolgirls. They hadn’t, but things hadn’t been the same again. They hardly spoke to each other after that.

He couldn’t see the problem. Okay, so they hadn’t meant to finish him off, but he was no great loss. What did the world want with a fucking pervert like him?

The next—he’d been leaving a bar in Amsterdam, drunk, but not so drunk he didn’t react fast when three blokes pulled a knife on him and asked him to hand over his cash. His own knife was between one of the thugs’ ribs before they could say “Have a nice evening.” The other two had scarpered, leaving their friend bleeding to death in the gutter.

Guns, knives, poisons, baseball bats, rope—the ways of killing someone were endless.

It was easy enough. At least, it came easy to him.

Hanna Larsen—she’d had it easy. He hadn’t blown her brains all over her pillow, sliced through an artery with a gleaming blade or smashed her skull to a pulp. All he’d done was put a pillow over her face. No one could argue with that.

He’d bet it was because she’d been so old that he’d been puking everywhere afterwards. He’d never liked old people. Not only did they look disgusting, very often they stank.

There’d been this old woman he’d been forced to visit as a kid. She was some relation of his grandmother’s but he couldn’t remember exactly what. She must have been a hundred and she always stank of piss. Her skin, deathly white and cold, had reminded him of a frozen chicken. Two budgies had flown around her sitting room, crapping everywhere and occasionally landing on her shoulder. Yellow and blue feathers littered every surface. Even now, feathers gave him the creeps.

“She’s had a stroke,” his mum would say when he complained about the saliva tracking its course down her chin.

He hadn’t killed her, but he wished he had. She’d probably wished it too.

He lay back on his bed and closed his eyes. He needed sleep, needed it badly.

Chapter Ten

A man had bored them at breakfast about the warming properties of the Gulf Stream but, this far north, Dylan had expected snow, ice and freezing temperatures. However, the sun was shining on Trondheim and, according to a sign outside a nearby hotel, the current temperature was thirty-six degrees Fahrenheit.

He and Luke were ambling along the town’s main street. Bev, his mother and Freya were inspecting the shops, and Bev also wanted to see the preserved stave church from Haltdalen in the museum. Dylan suspected they’d be some time.

“I thought there’d be snow everywhere,” Luke said.

“Me too.”

Trondheim was the exact opposite of the dull little town Dylan had expected. The old centre with its narrow streets and wooden buildings was fascinating. It was vibrant too. He’d flicked through Bev’s guidebook and learned that Trondheim was a university town. He’d bet it really came to life in the evenings and he’d love to visit then.

“You’ll soon see plenty of snow,” he said. “It’s all to do with the Gulf Stream, you see.”

Luke snorted with laughter. “Wasn’t that bloke boring? I bet he’s a teacher in real life.”

Dylan wouldn’t be at all surprised. He’d certainly had a pompous overbearing desire to impart knowledge that Dylan could easily have lived without.

Breakfast had been a bleary-eyed affair. Much to Bev’s dismay, he’d been in the ship’s well-equipped conference room using their computers most of yesterday and until three o’clock this morning. When he’d gone to his bed, his mind had been too active to sleep.

He hadn’t learned a lot. In fact,
nothing
might be a more accurate description. He had managed to verify his mother’s story about Jorstad’s chemical company trying to buy land to access its new factory and Hanna Larsen refusing to sell up. As most of the news reports had been in Norwegian though, and as website translation software was a joke, he couldn’t entirely rely on it.

The dining room had been filled with people eating hearty breakfasts before the ship docked at Trondheim but he only recognised a few by sight. All had been clad in thick sweaters, some carried padded coats with them.

He’d checked out photos of Jorstad and his two sons but wasn’t sure if he’d recognise them. All the same, he’d keep looking.

Ever since his mother had mentioned
Murder on the Orient Express,
he’d wondered if Hanna Larsen had received death threats. Perhaps she’d been living on her nerves and the anxiety was responsible for turning her into a cantankerous, moaning old woman. If that was the case, Dylan could almost forgive her rudeness.

They walked on to Mariden Park and sat to watch people ambling beside the River Nidelva. Behind them was Nidaros Cathedral, with its gothic architecture, and they inspected the many photos Luke had taken of the building earlier. Given the blue of the sky, anyone might think they’d holidayed in Egypt or—

“It was death on the blasted Nile.”

“You what?”

“Your gran was talking about a Hercule Poirot film, and I think she meant
Death on the Nile
not
Murder on the Orient Express.
Have you seen it?”

“Don’t think so. Has it got vampires?”

“No.”

Unless a film featured vampires, werewolves or zombies with plenty of blood on show, Luke wasn’t interested. “Is it any good?”

“I can’t remember.” Dylan had watched all those old films but, after a while, they all seemed the same. “I think, although I could be wrong, that a wealthy heiress is murdered on a steamer going up the Nile and practically every passenger has cause to want her dead.”

“Like the old woman who died on our ship?”

“Not really, no.” Dylan smiled at Luke. “Hanna Larsen wasn’t a wealthy heiress. Well, as far as we know. No, someone would have mentioned it. And, as yet, we don’t know of a single passenger who wanted her dead.” Except Jorstad’s sons perhaps.

Maybe there was no crime to solve and Dylan’s overactive imagination was being fuelled by a ship filled with gossipmongers.

“Dad, which do you think is longer? The equator or the Norwegian coastline?”

“The coastline.”

“Correct. And how many times do you think the coastline would stretch round the globe?”

“Two and a half.” Dylan laughed at Luke’s wide-eyed expression. “I heard you telling your gran earlier.”

“Cheat! That’s pretty impressive though, isn’t it? It’s longer than Russia’s coastline and Australia’s. The only country that can beat it is Canada. I’m not surprised really,” Luke said, “because I was looking at that map on the ship. The one with the flashing light that shows you where the ship is. It’s really jagged and some of the inlets are miles long.”

“But what about the islands?” Dylan said. “It’s cheating if you count those.”

“And that’s another thing. Who decides what’s a small rock and what’s an island?”

“Who knows? We just have to accept that it’s very long.”

Grinning, Luke nudged Dylan’s arm and pointed. “Look at this.”

“Oh, for—” It was just possible to see Freya peering out of a buggy piled high with shopping bags. His mother was pushing the buggy and Bev was carrying yet more bags.

“I hope they’ve bought me something,” Luke said.

Dylan sincerely hoped they
hadn’t
bought him anything. He and Luke moved along the bench to make room for the two women.

“My feet are killing me,” Bev said. “These boots are too tight.”

“What have you bought?” Luke asked, rummaging inside bags.

“We’ve got you a lovely jumper.” Not noticing his disappointed expression, she hunted through bags. “I’ll show it to you later, Luke. You’ll love it. And we got this for Freya. Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s for Christmas really.”

She held up a thick red woollen cardigan with a reindeer on the back.

“And we got her some little shoes. I’ll show you when we get back on board.”

“The shoes are gorgeous,” Vicky said.

There were still three big bags unaccounted for. “What else have you bought?” Dylan asked.

“Oh, mainly cushions.”

“Cushions? We live in London, probably the capital of the cushion world for all I know, and you come all this way to buy cushions?”

“Ah, but these are beautiful. They’ll give our sitting room a quick makeover. Cushions make all the difference to a room, don’t they?”

No, they didn’t. Painting a white room purple made a difference. Building a wall or putting in a window made a difference. Cushions were just minor irritations that got in the way when you wanted to sit and relax.

“You do realise we’ve got to get this lot on the plane?”

“It’ll be fine.”

“That film we were trying to think of, Dylan?” Vicky said. “It wasn’t
Murder on the Orient Express
at all. It was—”

“Death on the Nile.”

“Oh. You knew. But I’m sure Lauren Bacall wasn’t in it.”

Dylan had no idea. He didn’t much care either. Hanna Larsen’s death had nothing to do with any work of fiction. If Dylan were a gambling man, he’d bet his house on Hanna’s refusal to sell her valuable land ending her life.

“We’d better head back to the ship.” He nodded at Bev’s shopping bags. “Have you hired a pack horse for this lot?”

“Yes.” Laughing, she planted a kiss on his cheek. “His name’s Dylan and I love him dearly.”

“Ha.”

They trudged back to the harbour, the two women walking on ahead and pointing out the sights to a gurgling Freya, and him and Luke walking behind them carrying bags.

A lot of passengers were returning to the ship at the same time but the congestion eased as they reached their deck and headed for the cabins. Luke and Vicky went to theirs and Dylan struggled on with the shopping to his and Bev’s. Once inside, he dropped the bags on the bed.

“Who knew cushions could be so heavy?”

Bev shrugged that off. “I bought a couple of other things.”

“I know.” A big box had bruised his leg as he’d walked. “If you’re going to sort this lot out, I’m going to have a wander around.” He wanted to see if he could find Jorstad’s sons. Finding needles in haystacks would probably be easy by comparison.

“I hope you’re not going to spoil our holiday.” Bev faced him, hands on her hips. “A woman’s died, Dylan, and as sad and tragic as that is, it’s nothing to do with you. Okay?”

“I know, I know. I’m just curious, that’s all.”

“Go on then. I’ll meet you in the dining room for dinner.”

He made his escape and strode along the thickly carpeted corridor in the direction of the sun lounge. He hadn’t gone far when he saw a familiar face.

“Hello, Ruby. Have you been enjoying the sights of Trondheim?”

“I have, and what a gorgeous place. I’ve visited it several times but never spent more than a few hours there. I’d love to take time to explore it properly so I might just book a week’s holiday.”

“Good idea. So where are you heading now?”

She was walking in the direction of the cabins yet hers wasn’t even on this deck.

“What?” She slapped a hand to her forehead. “It pains me to admit it but Tom’s right, you know. I
am
going senile.”

“You’re lost?” He smiled. “It’s easily done. This ship’s like a maze.”

“Not lost, but senile. I was going to the cabin I was originally allocated.” She shook her head, amused at her own stupidity. “Tom will have the men in the white coats waiting for me when this ship docks.”

“Wait a minute. You were allocated a different cabin?”

“Yes. There was some mix-up when we boarded and I had to change cabins, probably because our booking was made at the last minute. Foolishly, I can remember the number of the one I was given originally but keep forgetting the one I’m actually in, 924.”

“It wasn’t 836 by any chance?”

“That’s it, yes.”

“Hanna Larsen kicked up a fuss because she believed she’d been given the wrong cabin. She was responsible for the change. She died in 836.”

“She died in my cabin? Oh no.” Ruby took a moment to let this sink in. “Hark at me. It was my cabin for all of half an hour. All the same, what a horrid thought. Goodness, I hope the stress of moving wasn’t responsible.”

“I wouldn’t think so.”

“Well, no, but even so.” She shuddered, then brightened a little. “She was very ill from what I’ve heard. If she was susceptible to stress, I suppose anything could have finished her off.”

Ruby began walking back to the correct deck. Dylan fell into step with her, his mind working overtime. Of course Ruby wasn’t concerned. Why should she be? She believed the woman she’d changed cabins with had suffered a heart attack in the early hours of the morning.

“I really am going mad,” she said. “I used to be able to remember names and faces, but these days—” She pulled a face. “I’m hopeless. I saw you talking to a chap and I know I recognised him. Can I place him? Can I heck.”

“Someone I was talking to? What did he look like?”

She laughed. “That’s just it. He looked average. Don’t worry, it’ll come to me. Eventually. Right, I’m off to my cabin. I’ll see you later, Dylan.”