The Cold North Sea Read online

  ‘You know, Good Queen Bess was supposed to have stayed here,’ said Finch. ‘Shakespeare too…’

  He pointed to an imaginary upper floor.

  ‘…They say he wrote Twelfth Night in—’

  ‘You tell me that every time we come here.’

  He sat down next to Maude and produced a hip flask. He offered it to her first. She rolled her eyes but took a sip. She declined a Navy Cut, but when he lit one for himself she prised it from his fingers and took a drag.

  ‘Ingo?’

  He hated his name.

  ‘What?’

  He took back the flask and swigged.

  ‘I was serious back there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She passed the cigarette back.

  ‘Outside the school gates.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’ll be twenty-seven years old soon. If I don’t…’

  She was right in every way, he knew. The second woman of the day to have got the measure of him.

  ‘It’s just… why me?… You could have anyone,’ he said, examining the glowing ash.

  ‘I don’t want “anyone”.’

  He stood up again. She grew sterner. She shivered. Nerves or cold, he couldn’t tell.

  ‘This is life, Ingo – the real thing, not a rehearsal. If you have a desire for a family… kids…’

  He swigged again.

  ‘Your birthday,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’

  ‘Next week.’

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘Then this weekend… Saturday… I’ll take you up to London. We’ll make a day of it. The Stieglitz photographic exhibition. Dinner in the evening…’

  ‘Why Ingo?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes why…?’ Her voice was raised now. ‘So you can sleep with me when you get home. Use smoke and mirrors to conjure away all questions about the future?’

  He affected that it was all just light-hearted, just banter.

  ‘Why not just concentrate on today? Look at all this…’

  He swung his arm around the sweep of the vista – the rolling hills, the knolls of trees, the road curling down to the old, half-buried Roman amphitheatre and the grand abbey beyond.

  ‘It was you who was just talking about Saturday.’

  He stretched out his hands; she took them. He pulled her to her feet. He passed her the flask. She took another sip.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’ll be my treat.’

  Minutes later they were freewheeling down the hill, Maude forgoing her usual scream of delight as they hurtled at a ridiculous speed, Finch taking his feet off the pedals in a poor demonstration of his daring. And then he heard it, despite the rushing wind: the automotive drone that shifted through the gears and rose in pitch as it got nearer. Louder, louder…

  As they rounded the fence by a large wooden barn, the machine met them head-on, and only a last-minute swerve by both parties and a furious screech of brakes kept Finch and Maude upright, not plunging off into the ditch. They stopped and turned as the driver of the yellow Spyker waved and parped his horn, shifting down to take on the hill.

  Maude swore with the force and creativity of a navvy.

  ‘And that’s why I like you, Maude.’

  ‘Like me?’

  She sighed and wrangled her skirts. Then she set off again.

  ‘You’re a bastard,’ she called out.

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  It was getting chilly, the wind whipping up from the east. In catharsis, Maude pedalled like the devil. Finch struggled to keep up, the pain in his knee now compensating for the lack of one in his head. They rode on for half a mile and then…

  She gave a yelp.

  ‘What?’ he called ahead.

  ‘A flat. I’ve got a flat… A puncture.’

  She slowed down and got off. She crouched to examine the wheel.

  ‘Two flats…’

  Finch was catching up, about to dismount when…

  Bang!

  …his own front tyre burst. He wobbled, pulled his brakes and hopped off.

  ‘But these were brand new pneumatics,’ he protested. ‘Dunlops. It doesn’t make…’

  ‘Nor does this,’ she said.

  With her kid-gloved hands she was brandishing a shiny new brass tack, about a quarter of an inch long with a round, flat head. He could see the glinting cap of another poking from the tread of his own front tyre. There were several studding her rear wheel.

  He grunted, ‘What the…?’

  Behind them there were tacks strewn right across the road.

  A rustle in the hedgerow made them both turn. A small, slight man burst forth, trailing sprigs of hawthorn.

  ‘Pickersgill?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir… Dr Finch…’

  He turned to Maude and touched his peak.

  ‘…Miss.’

  ‘You did this?’ snarled Finch. ‘The tacks?’

  ‘It was the only way.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, man. What the hell are you playing at?’

  ‘You know him?’ asked Maude.

  ‘It seems so. Regrettably,’ said Finch.

  Pickersgill came forward, arms out. He was dressed in the same attire: the cap, the muffler, the threadbare jacket patched at the elbows, the worry etched into his face.

  ‘I try t’find you today, Dr Finch, as the Good Lord’s my witness. Come to your practice like you say. Only you be closed…’

  ‘Out of my way, Pickersgill.’

  Finch pushed his bike forward. Pickersgill blocked him. He clasped his hands together, pleading, almost in prayer.

  ‘Please, sir. You have t’listen to me. There are people out a-do me harm.’

  A brusque Maude shoved her bike forward and began wheeling it in earnest.

  ‘Come on, Ingo.’

  ‘Please, sir!’

  ‘I think you’ve done enough damage here, Pickersgill.’

  Pickersgill turned and looked down the lane, the direction in which Maude was headed. He was suddenly startled, spooked by something.

  ‘Wait!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did y’see him?’

  ‘See who?’ asked Finch.

  Pickersgill darted back into the hedge.

  Finch pushed on to catch up with Maude. They would have to walk the rest of the way.

  Chapter Four

  The noise from the Coronet receded: the rough laughter, the bawdy shanties, the overbearing trill of the wheezing accordion. Outside the sea air was rich, sobering – though not as much as the man would have liked. He was now painfully aware of his own frailty, his human limitations, the very act of walking a challenge.

  He had never known money like it and understood now he should have been more careful. He had bought people drinks… people he didn’t even know… his fists so stuffed with coins he’d been dropping pennies and didn’t even care. And what did it gain him?… Companionship? Respect? Hardly. They had taken his generosity, and yet some still mocked him. Most poured scorn.

  There had been specific warnings given about his sudden good fortune – something beyond his frame of reference. Discretion was its price, he’d been told. Absolute. He would be wise to heed it. But he had tossed aside those patronising cautions.

  Why the hell was it their business? He’d done his job. He’d been paid for his service. He could do as he damn well pleased and hang the consequences. Yes, and if they scoffed at him, belittled him when he bought them ale, it was his privilege… and his alone.

  Out there in the blackness the lights winked – the crab boats going about their work. Their flickers danced like glow-worms, till he managed to regain his focus and bring them under control.

  The wind was picking up. He pulled close his jacket but struggled with the buttons. The tide had begun to recede. He could tell by the sound of the stones – he could still gauge that at least – the deep roar and grind of the incoming wave followed by the slow dragging hiss of the retrea
t.

  But now again, out here, in the dark, there was the menace. He knew it lurked. It had been there ever since that night – that night that they’d put out to sea. The menace waited. The menace loitered. It bided its time… It had claimed the others, he was sure of it. And with a sickening barbarity. It had been absolutely no coincidence.

  Between the seafront lamp-posts, bunting fluttered. The bandstand was empty. Up onto the esplanade and a sheet of newspaper flapped across the empty street, like a skate across the seabed.

  At the Grand Hotel life resumed. Around its entrance, gigs and buggies clopped past – gentlemen, ladies, their servants, off to or from God knows where. Through the open windows of the ballroom, a man finished warbling to the plink of a piano. There was polite clapping, the clink of glasses, the waft of cigar smoke.

  He could not feel it directly, the source of his angst – the dark presence out there – but he knew it would be close… and could strike at any moment. He had glimpsed it that night at the foot of the cliffs… Again by the fishermen’s slope. He thought he had seen the menace… briefly… on the hump of the railway bridge, silhouetted in the gaslight, shrouded in steam as a train passed underneath.

  He needed to get home.

  The shortcut took him across the scrubland behind the Grand. There were bins and rubbish. You could hear the scrabble of rats. At the far end two men, kitchen staff, mooched around, smoking. They laughed at some joke then went back inside. Silence again.

  The ground was patchy gravel with clumps of thistles and dandelions sprouting. The man tripped on a stray brick and wobbled. He was worse than he thought. He tried to steady himself but tumbled like a toddler, stinging and grazing the heels of his palms as he put his hands out to break the fall, taking a painful whack to his knees in the process.

  He lay on his back and stared up at the stars. He hugged his shins. Above him a seagull squawked. It seemed to be mocking him, too.

  There were stables. He heard the rustle of straw and the scrape of hooves. Unsure again, he eased himself up, staggered, and then clung to the rear wall, his back pressed in hard while he regained his breath. His heart thumped so violently he could feel it in his throat.

  He reached into his jacket for his tobacco and papers and rolled himself a cigarette. But he dared not light it. Three, four minutes… he would be behind his own front door. He could do it then. The worst that could happen to him there was a scolding from the wife.

  The wind dipped and he heard people… back in the ballroom. There was further genteel applause. Someone making a speech. He didn’t know why but he found himself suddenly smiling at the absurdity of his own ludicrous lot. And then it swelled – swelled from within into an unrestrained, unburdening guffaw.

  Mocked by a seagull!

  He went ahead and lit his match. Fuck everybody. He drew deep, wiped his tears and concentrated on the mechanics of walking – back onto the lane and that final gaslit stretch. The path was bathed in an amber glow. He was almost in the clear.

  He fumbled for his pocket watch, saw the time and wondered how much trouble he was in. Then he snapped it shut, accidentally jerked the chain out of his buttonhole and the watch clanged to the ground. He bent down… swayed down… and picked it up. It was scratched, a little dented, but he put it to his ear and heard it tick.

  There was a scuffle behind him and he turned. Just a cat. It shot across the road.

  But as he eased himself round to resume his march, he looked up. He felt sick to his stomach, cold to his innards, his lame knees buckling.

  It had found him at last.

  He opened his mouth and screamed – a plea to the men from the kitchen… to anyone. But the fear strangled his throat. On the wind his voice cracked… and was lost…

  Chapter Five

  On Saturday Finch rose late and mooched around the house, readying himself for his day out with Maude. Mrs P-A was away for the weekend visiting friends, so he lounged in the sitting room in his underwear, read The Times, cranked the gramophone and put on a record disc… Offenbach – Orpheus in the Underworld.

  His enthusiasm for the day’s excursion was tainted by knowledge that, where Maude was concerned, there remained questions to which he owed answers. He toyed with the idea of an early one in the pub, but instead made a pot of rooibos tea, the supply of which he had arranged via an importer in St James’, adding a tot of Talisker for good measure.

  The Victor gramophone could achieve a reasonable volume. Last summer, when he had the windows open, the neighbours had complained – shocked to find that a doctor (‘of all people!’) could behave with such irresponsibility. (If only they knew, thought Finch. If only they knew.) He turned the sound knob and let the scratchy oompah of the cancan chorus carry him away.

  Upstairs in the bathroom, while the stirring rhythm wafted up, he hummed as he clipped his moustache and pondered the grey that was now sprouting in it. He then lathered his face with his badger brush and went to work with the cutthroat razor.

  He didn’t hear the door at first, but when the rap of the brass knocker came again, he threw on his dressing gown, draped a towel over his shoulder and went downstairs, wandering through the sitting room with its low beams, packed bookshelves and crackling fireplace. He rechecked his watch. He wasn’t due to pick up Maude for another half an hour, though it was not unlike her to be spontaneous. He thought for a moment of Romeo and Juliet and the ‘lovers ever running before the clock’. No… it was The Merchant of Venice.

  He opened the front door but there was no one there. He stepped out onto the terracotta tiles of the porch, cold on bare feet.

  ‘Maude?’

  As he turned to go back in, a figure stepped out from behind the high screen of myrtle.

  Finch sighed.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Pickersgill. Is hiding in bushes a speciality?’

  The man was looking around, going through his usual paranoid routine.

  ‘Again, I’m sorry, sir, but you’re really all I’ve got. My only hope.’

  ‘You keep saying that, but I don’t know what the hell it is you’re talking about. All I know is you owe me two sets of bicycle tyres. And not the cheap ones either – premium Dunlops.’

  Pickersgill looked mournful. He was wet and shivering. It had rained hard during the night, shredded leaves and twigs lay scattered over the small front lawn. A pot on the doorstep in which Finch left notes for the whistling, miserable milkman, was brimming with water.

  The man began coughing. Finch cursed to himself.

  ‘Look, you’d better come in, dry out…’

  He rechecked his watch.

  ‘…But I’ve got to leave in twenty minutes. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He held the door open and ushered Pickersgill inside. He smelled of earth and dampness and with a hint now of the unwashed.

  ‘Thank you most kindly,’ he said.

  ‘No overcoat?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  The door opened pretty much straight into the sitting room. Finch directed him towards the coal fire.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  Finch took a poker to the grate.

  ‘Sleepin’ rough, like I say, sir.’

  He hung the poker back in the holder, alongside the dustpan, the brush and some implement for which he’d never figured out the purpose.

  ‘Good God, man, what on earth for?’

  Pickersgill said nothing. He just pulled off his jacket, his home-knitted green pullover and collarless shirt, and stood there in his undershirt, braces dangling, flapping the wet clothing before the fire. Finch eyed him up and down. He was scrawny, not an ounce of fat. He turned down the volume on the gramophone. There was a blanket on the settee, an old throw. He handed it to Pickersgill, who dropped his wet things on the hearth and bunched it tight around his shoulders.

  ‘You hungry?’

  The coughing returned. It was a phlegm-tinged hacking that went on for some time. Pickersgill grabbed a grey
ing handkerchief from his pocket and clutched it to his mouth.

  ‘I am, sir. Yes.’

  ‘Will you please cut out the “sirs”? It’s most irritating. There’s some fresh bread and butter there…’

  He pointed through to the kitchen.

  ‘…and some bacon on the side. Cooked. Just about warm. Help yourself. I’ve just got to go upstairs and…’

  He gestured to his own lathered face.

  ‘Thank you, sir…’ Pickersgill checked himself. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Make yourself a fresh pot of tea. Pour me a cup while you’re at it.’

  Finch finished shaving, pomaded his hair, donned his finest suit – taupe – and came back down. Pickersgill was in the kitchen, perched on a stool in his full-length underwear, tucking into a bacon sandwich.

  ‘Rooibos tea,’ the man remarked, lofting a cup with a rare attempt at a smile. ‘Haven’t had this since the war. Dint know you could get it here.’

  ‘You have to know where to look.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Pickersgill again. ‘God bless you.’

  The shivering had abated, but there was still the odd tremor. Finch grabbed his whisky bottle.

  ‘Care for a tot?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Brandy?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Of course. I forgot.’

  Finch glanced at his watch again.

  ‘Like I said, we’re on a ticking clock here.’

  It didn’t take long for the agitation to return.

  ‘Come on, man. Out with it.’

  Pickersgill led Finch back into the sitting room where he had placed his jacket on the back of a chair. He reached to an inside pocket.

  ‘First I must show you this…’

  He pulled out a small, battered, black leather-bound book.

  Finch sighed.

  ‘Please God no, Pickersgill…’