The Funeral Boat (11 page)

quickly. ‘Hardly at all. They came with the house and they’re a bit

of a liability.’ She attempted a smile.

‘How often have you seen this prowler?’

‘My husband says he’s been there a few nights. I thought it was

his imagination at first, then I looked out last night and caught a

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glimpse of him. If he was a burglar he would have done something by now, wouldn’t he?’ There was a note of panic in Gwen Wentwood’s voice. She was more worried than she was letting on.

10hnson began to search the ground. It certainly looked as if someone had stood here for a long time. The grass was flattened and scuffed in places, as if someone had waited there, shifting from foot to foot.

‘And he’s only been seen at night?’

‘Yes.’

‘And does he run away or…’

‘It was dark, hard to see exactly where he went, but he seems to disappear down towards Longhouse Cottage … it’s a smallholding just down the hill.’

10hnson bent down again to examine the ground. He had not been mistaken: there were definite signs that someone had been standing there. ‘Have you any idea why anyone should be watching your house, Mrs Wentwood?,

‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, her mind racing. ‘It’s a complete mystery.’

Sven Larsen felt hot and sticky. He longed for a shower. He looked at his watch. Ten 0’ clock. He had set off early from Heathrow in the hire car and now he took the room key gratefully from the pretty girl on the reception desk at the Tower Hotel, too tired to exchange flirtatious pleasantries. He made for his room and locked the door carefully behind him.

As he stood beneath the refreshing waters of the shower he contemplated his next move. He was worried.ˇ .. very worried. It wasn’t like Ingeborg to do something like this. She was such a capable woman - flirtatious and vivacious but always in control. Disappearing without a word in this theatrical manner wasn’t Ingeborg’s style at all. And the police had sounded concerned on the phone, which meant they feared the worst. He had an appointment with an Inspector Heffernan at eleven. And he dreaded what the inspector might say.

Sven dressed again and began opening the drawers and cupboards of the room, putting his neatly folded clothes away, filling in time until his appointment. He noticed the local telephone directory lying in a top drawer and pulled it out, idly flicking through the pages until he came to a name he recognised.

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He stared at it for a couple of minutes: perhaps he should ring; it would do no harm surely. Ingeborg could be headstrong, impulsive. But surely she wouldn’t have been so foolish as to contact him again after all these years. Sven had warned strongly against it. Some things were better left alone … best forgotten.

He picked up the telephone, and dialled the number. A couple of minutes later he replaced the receiver, feeling a little better after what he had heard. He wouldn’t tell the police: he had been asked not to and it was best not to involve them. This was something he must deal with alone.

‘Larsen’s late.’ Gerry Heffernan sat back in his seat and took a sip of the coffee so eagerly provided by WPC Walton. ‘1 thought he’d be here at eleven.’

‘He has had a long way to come. If he’s had to hire a car at the airport and … ‘

‘Yeah, Wes, you’re right. I don’t suppose Tradmouth is the easiest place to get to, is it … not by land,’ added the sailing enthusiast wistfully.

Wesley passed the inspector a sheet of official-looking paper covered in appalling handwriting. ‘Have a look at this, sir. All the houses have been visited near to where Ingeborg Larsen’s car turned up. Here’s one of the house-to-house reports … the statement of a Mrs Jerworth of Honeysuckle House, about a mile down the road from where the car was found. Makes interesting reading.’

Gerry Heffernan screwed up his eyes in an effort to decipher the writing. After.a few minutes he flung the report onto the desk and leaned forward. ‘Well, well, well. This changes things a bit. We’d all assumed that our Ingeborg got lost trying to take a short cut down the lanes on her way back from Neston. But this…’

Wesley picked up the statement and read. ‘ “I was dusting in the front room at about three o’clock on Monday afternoon when I saw a white car draw up outside the front door. Nobody got out of the car for a while and I watched, standing back a bit so the occupant of the car couldn’t see me. It was a woman, and she was sitting in a white car, watching the house. It must have been five minutes before she got out. She came to the front door, rang the bell, and I opened the door. She was a very attractive lady with fair hair, aged about thirty-five with a foreign accent, but she

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spoke perfect English. She looked nervous, then puzzled when she saw me. I asked her who she wanted and she seemed confused. She said she was very sorry but she must have come to the wrong house. She kept apologising; and said she was sorry to have bothered me. Then she got into her car and drove off. I watched her go then I went back into the house. I got the impression that another car passed as I was closing the door but I can’t be certain.’ What do you make of it, sir?’

‘I don’t know. Her behaviour was a bit strange. If she’d gone to the wrong house you’d think she’d just ask for directions to the house she wanted … after all, her English is good. Has anyone talked to the other people who live on that road? There can’t be many of them. It’s only a country lane with the odd house or cottage dotted here and there … hardly a high-rise estate.’

‘As soon as I saw Mrs Jerworth’s statement I asked a couple of PCs to go back and double-check. There are several houses and cottages on that road but nobody else saw her that day. Nobody saw anything suspicious and nobody had ever heard of Ingeborg Larsen. Some of them noticed the white Opel parked in the lay-by but hadn’t thought to investigate. But they all say she definitely didn’t call on them on Monday afternoon. Mind you, most of them were at work.’

Gerry Heffernan sat for a minute, deep in thought. ‘I don’t like this, Wes. I don’t like it at all. This Mrs Jerworth heard a car passing when she was closing the door. Do you reckon someone was following Ingeborg?’

‘It’s very possible. But if Ingeborg was frightened, why didn’t she tell Mrs Jerworth? Why didn’t she ask her to call the police?’

‘She might not have known she was being followed. And she’d probably got the wrong road … taken a wrong turning. She’d just have felt embarrassed when she arrived at the wrong house.’

‘So we widen the house-to-house enquiry … see if anybody around that area saw Ingeborg or was expecting her that day.’

Heffernan shrugged. ‘Can’t do any harm.’ He sat back, contemplating the case. ‘What have we got so far? A woman is probably abducted. She’s been to this part of the world before but we’ve no idea when or if she still knows anybody here. She has a minor prang in her car with an unsavoury character staying at Rachel’s farm, but he claims it was all sorted out … no hard feelings. On the day she disappears she goes into Neston and heads back to

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Tradmouth along the network of lanes. It’s a short cut if you’re local but a stranger can get hopelessly lost. She stops at Honeysuckle House, watches the house for a bit, then she knocks on the door, says she’s come to the wrong house and hurries off, possibly followed by another car … or not as the case may be. Is that all we’ve got so far?’

Wesley nodded. ‘That’s just about it. Not much, is it?’

‘And what about the farm robberies? Any developments?’

‘No … except that we’ve had a report from PC Johnson that a prowler’s been watching a house near Stoke Beeching. It’s that big place on the hill just above Longhouse Cottage.’

Heffernan sat up, suddenly interested. ‘Waters House?’

Wesley nodded, thinking it strange that the name Waters House, once home to Jeremiah Peacock of museum fame, should crop up again that day.

‘That’s the place Jock Palister bought when he came into money. Then when he scarpered, Maggie sold it and most of the land and moved down the hill to Longhouse Cottage. It can’t be a coincidence. First skeletons and now prowlers. It’s all go, isn’t it?’

A shy knock on the door heralded the arrival of Trish Walton. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she began deferentially, ‘Mr Larsen is down in reception. Shall I bring him up?’

‘Yes, Trish,’ said the inspector, licking his lips. ‘You do that.’ He turned to Wesley. ‘Right then, Wes. How’s your Danish?’

‘My sister and her husband divorced six months ago. I let Bjorn know I was coming over here, of course. He is very concerned.’ Sven Larsen took a sip of police station coffee and wrinkled his nose in barely disguised disgust. He was a tall man with neatly cut fair hair. Wesley recognised him from the photograph he’d found in Ingeborg’s room. His clothes were elegantly casual-a pair of pristine jeans, an open-necked shirt and a tailored linen jacket. He made Gerry Heffernan feel positively scruffy; but then so did most people.

‘So her ex-husband’s at home in Copenhagen?’ Wesley felt he had to make sure of this basic fact.

‘Yes, Sergeant. That’s right. I understand the police in Copenhagen confirmed that he could have had nothing to do with Ingeborg’s disappearance. I know you always investigate the

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spouse first in such cases, but I can assure you that Bjom and my sister parted amicably. And besides, Bjom has not left Denmark in the last year … except for a brief trip on my boat last September when we sailed up the coast of Sweden. Sailing is a great interest of mine, you understand.’

Gerry Heffeman looked up eagerly. ‘Me too. I keep a twenty-seven-foot sloop here on the river. In a right state when I bought her … did her up myself. Having a spot of trouble with the engine at the moment. She’s in the boat yard over at Queenswear … or I’d have taken you out on her.’

Sven Larsen smiled. He hadn’t put this large, dishevelled inspector down as a sailing man. ‘That is very kind of you, Inspector. I was thinking of hiring a boat while I was here. I think sailing is so good for the spirit. Good for the stresses oflife.’

The two policemen nodded in agreement. All Gerry Heffeman’s talk of phrase books had been unnecessary. Sven Larsen had a better command of the English language than many people WesIey had come across in the course of his police career.

‘Did your sister say why she was coming to Devon?’ said Wesley, steering the coriversation away from nautical matters. ‘I believe she’d been here before.’

‘She said she needed a holiday … to get away from routine. It was a sudden decision to come to Devon … an impulse. 1 believe she did visit this part of the world before when she was very young - a teenager. I’m three years younger than Ingeborg, you understand. 1 didn’t take much interest in my sister’s life at that time. I think she stayed with a family here as an au pair to learn English … such arrangements are common, 1 believe.’

‘Do you know the name of this family?’

‘I must have heard it but I’m afraid I don’t remember. She didn’t keep in touch with them,’ he added, a hint of anxiety in his voice.

‘And did anything happen during her stay … anything, er, unusual?’

‘I remember her telling our parents that the family were very dull and that she didn’t like their children. But that is all. I remember nothing more,’ Larsen said convincingly.

‘And how old was she when she came to stay here?’

‘Eighteen, I think. It was before she started at the university.’

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‘So as far as you knew she was just coming over here for a holiday?’

‘That’s right, Sergeant. She remembered that your scenery and towns are very … er, how do you say it, picturesque. Many people take holidays here. Yes?’

‘Yes.’ Gerry Heffernan raised his head. ‘You’re right there. So she brought her car over on the ferry, did she, and drove down?’

‘Yes. I warned her that the roads were busier here than in Denmark, but she thought it best. Is her car damaged at all?’

Wesley glanced at his boss. It was now time for the painful truths the Copenhagen police had probably not revealed. ‘A slight bump at the back but nothing serious. But I’m afraid there’s every indication that chloroform was used to render your sister unconscious. We’re treating it as a case of abduction.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry if it comes as a shock but…’

Sven Larsen took a deep breath, avoiding Wesley’s eyes. ‘I know you’re doing everything you can, Sergeant.’ He looked up at Wesley. ‘I have no idea who would want to do this to Ingeborg. We are not a wealthy family … there is no point in kidnapping somebody who has no money.’

‘There have been a number of armed robberies in the area recently. It’s just possible that somehow Ingeborg stumbled on the criminals and they abducted her to silence her. What kind of a woman was she? Would she have tackled anybody she thought was doing wrong?’

‘It is possible, Sergeant. My sister was very … er, confident, outspoken sometimes. It is possible this led her into danger.’

‘Can you think of anything that might help us … anything your sister talked about, anywhere she planned to go while she was over here, anyone she mentioned? Anything?’ Wesley was beginning to feel helpless in the face of all the possibilities … and their lack of clear leads.

Sven Larsen shook his head. ‘Nothing. I’m sorry. There is nothing,’ he mumbled, avoiding Wesley’s eyes. He looked at Gerry Heffernan, who was leaning back, playing with his ballpoint pen. ‘Can you recommend somewhere where I may hire a boat? As you are also a sailor I … ‘

‘Of course.’ Heffernan reeled off an address and instructions to mention his name. Tradmouth’s boating fraternity were a cIose-knit lot.

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Sven stood up to go. ‘If that is all I should like to make arrangements to hire a boat. If 1 can be of any more help … ‘

‘We’ll keep in touch … let you know of any developments. Tower Hotel all right, is it?’

‘Very good, thank you, Inspector. Most satisfactory.’

‘I hope we’ll have better news soon,’ said Wesley with some sincerity as Larsen left, Gerry Heffernan following behind to see his fellow sailor off the premises.