Dangerous Cargo Page 3

  ‘He never said where he was going?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And no one’s seen him or been in contact with him since?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about his family?’

  ‘He doesn’t have any. That’s all I can tell you,’ and the door closed firmly on Marvik.

  He headed back to town mulling over what he’d learned. It didn’t seem much. He couldn’t even trust the answers Matthew had given him or the information Pulford had supposedly revealed to the Killbecks. Would a man say so little about himself and his past? Probably if he was ashamed of it or running from it. Marvik never spoke of his past and he didn’t mean his service in the Marines, which he wasn’t permitted to speak about and didn’t want to anyway, but the years before he had joined up were locked inside him. They were no one’s business but his and anyone enquiring about his parents’ expeditions, their papers or their past was referred to his solicitor. Perhaps Pulford had been in the services. He might even have been in intelligence on an assignment here and had adopted the cover of a fisherman with the Killbecks. That would certainly fit. Once his mission had been completed, he’d left. Or possibly he’d been in danger or about to be exposed, hence the rapid departure. It had been too risky for him to return until January. And even then someone had targeted him. But what in 1989 and 1990 could possibly have been happening here, in this quiet seaside town in England that could have warranted an undercover assignment? And why take the name of Bradley Pulford?

  He rang Strathen and relayed the outcome of his conversation with Matthew. ‘Bradley could easily have lied about his age to Stacey. But if he didn’t that puts him as being born in 1957, which makes his age not far off the pathologist’s estimate of the dead man’s. Not that that gets us anywhere.’ He said nothing about his theory of Pulford possibly working undercover. He would but when he had greater privacy – not that anyone was listening in or following him as he entered the bustling High Street. ‘It’s strange that two men connected with the Killbecks both took off at the same time,’ he added.

  ‘And I’ve got another coincidence for you. The real Bradley Pulford – or rather the one who died in 1959 – is buried in the church graveyard at Steepleridge.’

  Marvik expressed surprise but maybe it wasn’t so unexpected. Steepleridge was only nine miles to the west. ‘So the Pulford of 1989 could have come from around here.’

  ‘Or he just saw the name in the graveyard and picked it at random.’

  That fitted too because according to Matthew Killbeck he never saw any of Pulford’s identity papers. Except that Steepleridge was only a hamlet and hardly on the route to anywhere unless you counted the coastal path and the neighbouring army range. Did that tie in with his recent thinking that Pulford could have been working undercover? Could he have been army intelligence?

  The Ministry of Defence owned vast tracts of land to the west of Steepleridge including the lost village of Tyneham, so-called because its occupants had been evacuated in 1943 when the area had been used for the D-Day preparations in the Second World War. They’d never returned. The empty village, the scattered ruined buildings and land around it were used for armed forces training and only accessible to the public at certain times. Both he and Strathen had been involved on exercises there.

  ‘How did you discover he was buried at Steepleridge?’ Marvik asked, catching the sound of a motorbike but it was a different one from that of yesterday. He weaved his way around two mothers with pushchairs.

  ‘There are databases that give the details of where individuals are buried. I started with a search of the Dorset coast beginning with Swanage, given that’s where the phoney one showed up in 1989, and then worked out westwards. I didn’t expect to find a Bradley Pulford but there he is. Someone brought him back from Singapore and deposited him there but there’s no one registered with that name living in Steepleridge, or in the surrounding district, either now or back in 1959 when he died. And no other Pulfords listed as being buried or cremated around there.’

  ‘I’ll head there now.’

  ‘And I’ll see what I can get on Joshua Nunton.’

  Marvik wasn’t sure what a gravestone could tell him – very little, he thought – but someone in the hamlet might remember the Bradley Pulford buried beneath it. Even if they did, he knew it might not have any bearing on their mission, just that the man washed up on the Isle of Wight beach in January had taken a fancy to that name on his way to Swanage to work as a fisherman for the Killbecks.

  THREE

  The taxi deposited him at the northern edge of the hamlet of Steepleridge and Marvik set out along the tree-lined country lane to where he could see the square church tower on a slight knoll to the south-west. Behind him rose the Purbeck Downs and around him rolling open farmland was punctuated by the occasional hedgerow, clumps of trees and roaming sheep. Five miles to the south was the sea. He couldn’t see it from here but there was a luminous silver glow in the distance that belied its presence. The lane was deserted, as were many of the grey Purbeck stone cottages, interspersed with the white Portland stoned ones and some thatched whitewashed properties that dated back to the 1600s. The pub was one such building but here, at least, there were signs of life. In front of it were parked several expensive cars. He might strike lucky and find one or more of the older customers propping up the bar who might remember the original Bradley Pulford – it was a small enough place for everyone to know everyone – but he didn’t think anyone would recall a man from 1989 who had passed this way and perhaps stopped to study the grave or ask about its occupant. If he had.

  The twelfth-century church was set back off the road and approached via an ancient lychgate with a sign proclaiming it was the Church of St Michael and that services were held at nine fifteen every Sunday. It was rare that he attended church and then only when on service in the Marines, or to funerals and on a couple of occasions to colleagues’ weddings. His non-attendance didn’t mean he didn’t believe. Part of him would like to. He’d witnessed enough death and carnage to hope that somewhere there was something better than the huge cock-up they all made of their lives but he wasn’t sure, and thinking about it only led him to bouts of unease. David Treagust, the navy chaplain, was the closest Marvik had come to God, and that was without him ever mentioning Him.

  The church was surrounded by gravestones, most of them ancient, ivy-clad, leaning and illegible. He had no idea where the Pulford of 1959 was buried so he began to quarter it methodically. He was alone but even if anyone was watching him they’d think he was looking from idle curiosity or researching family history. There were some large family plots which spanned the generations from the 1800s to the 1960s and there was an elaborate memorial to the Wellmore family who had obviously been the big shots in these parts. The last one he could see having been buried here was in 1933. There was no grave with the name of Bradley Pulford in front of the church or on its eastern flank, so Marvik headed for the rear where he noted the tombstones were more recent.

  He scoured the names and memorials on the headstones and soon found what he was seeking. It was in the second to last row that bordered a field, sandwiched between the grave of Elizabeth Jilley, born 1905 died 1958, and George Gurney, born 1938 died 1959. The grass around all the graves had been cut. There were no flowers on Bradley Pulford’s grave, or the others in the row, but that was hardly surprising given the length of time they’d been dead. Someone, though, had cared for the young man who had died in Singapore in 1959 because his headstone wasn’t the bland basic statement as displayed on his neighbours. Marvik read the inscription with interest.

  ‘Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end.’ And beneath it another: ‘I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.’

  He considered this. So this Bradley Pulford had had an affinity with the sea, like the one who had shown up along the coast in 1989. Perhap
s they were father and son. Had this Pulford been a fisherman like the Killbecks? But he couldn’t have been fishing in Singapore when he died. And it was highly doubtful he’d have been there on holiday in 1959 when only the wealthy took holidays to exotic places, and the Singapore of the fifties had not been on the holiday itinerary with the trouble there had been in Malaya.

  Marvik took a photograph of the headstone with his mobile phone and made his way around to the front of the church where he almost collided with a woman emerging from it. Hastily, he apologized.

  ‘No need.’ She smiled at him. ‘I was miles away. I should have looked where I was going. Have you come to view the church?’

  ‘No, the graveyard.’

  She cocked a quizzical eyebrow at him. She was in her early sixties, smartly dressed in a navy blue coat, with a patterned scarf at her neck. Her hair was short and silver blonde.

  ‘Do you have a relative buried here?’ she enquired politely.

  ‘No, just someone I was told about recently and I was curious,’ he hedged, weighing up how much to tell her. ‘Bradley Pulford. He died in Singapore in 1959.’

  ‘Oh, Bradley, yes.’

  Surprised, he said, ‘You knew him?’

  ‘Of him. I’m not quite that old.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’

  But she smiled and waved aside his apology. ‘I’m Irene Templeton, the church warden.’

  ‘Art Marvik.’ He returned her smile.

  ‘Steepleridge is a very small place, as you can see, Mr Marvik. Everyone knew everyone in 1959 when Bradley died. I was only five years old. It’s rather different now with so many of our old cottages and outlying houses occupied by second homeowners who come down from London for the occasional weekend, in the summer holidays and at Christmas, which is usually the only time you see them at the church services. The church in 1959 was the lynchpin of the community, like the pub and the village shop, the latter sadly gone, and in the fifties and sixties nearly everyone went to church. There wasn’t a great deal to do on a Sunday except worship and walk. Now there are so many more demands on everyone’s time, and of course so much competition.’

  ‘Do you know how Bradley died?’

  ‘Only that it was an accident on board a ship.’

  ‘He was in the navy?’

  ‘No. It was on a cargo ship. I remember Bradley was evacuated here from London as a baby with his mother in 1940. A year later she returned to London to meet her husband, who had a forty-eight-hour pass, and they were both killed in an air raid. Bradley was adopted by the couple who had billeted him and his mother.’

  ‘Are they still alive?’

  ‘John and Alice Seacombe – no, they died a long time ago. They farmed one of Sir Ambrose Shale’s farms. He used to own a great deal of land around here.’

  Marvik knew the name because the Ministry of Defence land adjoined the Shale estate. ‘What made Bradley go to sea?’

  ‘Adventure? Escape?’ She shrugged.

  There came the impatient tooting of a car horn. Marvik followed her glance to the road where he could see a bulky, balding, cross-looking man in an Audi. Her husband, he assumed.

  ‘Is there anyone I could speak to about Bradley? Anyone who might remember him?’

  ‘Most of them have either died, left the village or have sadly got dementia.’

  The toot sounded again, this time even louder and more frequent. She cast it an anxious and troubled look. ‘I’m sorry – I have to go.’

  So, dead end on that score but then he hadn’t really expected much, although he had learned some new information.

  He headed for the pub, hoping that one of its regulars might recall Bradley Pulford but the moment he entered the hostelry built in 1640, as the stone to the right of the door proclaimed, he knew he’d find no ageing local propping up this bar. The inside had clearly seen several revamps since it was built and, apart from the old flagstone floor and the large inglenook fireplace complete with log fire, its latest reincarnation resembled the trendy bar in Swanage he’d been inside yesterday after the funeral. The clientele looked to be of the same ilk and, judging by their accents and dress, they were what Irene Templeton had referred to as ‘second homeowners’.

  Marvik bought a non-alcoholic beer from a barmaid who looked more like sixteen than eighteen and enquired if they ever got any locals in. ‘Elderly ones, I mean,’ he quickly added when she looked at him askance as if to say who do you think all these people are then? She still didn’t seem to understand the question but fetched the landlord, who proceeded to tell him how he’d spent a fortune on renovating the place, added boutique en-suite bed and breakfast accommodation, recruited a top-class chef and was pleased to say he’d completely turned the place around from the dim hovel it had once been, all horse brasses, hunting pictures, patterned carpets and mahogany. If there were any elderly drinkers left in the hamlet then Marvik thought they must imbibe at home because, at the prices this place charged, he would too.

  Outside, he hesitated before calling a taxi, thinking that he’d prefer to walk back to Swanage and work off some excess energy. But the decision lay with Strathen and what he had unearthed and whether it needed prompt action. Marvik called him and relayed what he’d learned.

  Strathen said, ‘If the accident was on board a British ship then it will be listed in the Registry of Shipping and Seamen. It holds details of deaths at sea from 1939 to 1995, including those that occurred in overseas ports. But I won’t be able to get access to it until Tuesday. The files are held at the National Archives at Kew and they’re closed on Mondays. I can’t access the files via the Internet, but I’ll do a bit of browsing in case someone’s put something out there. I can’t find anything on Joshua Nunton. His death isn’t registered so for all I know he could have been committed to a psychiatric hospital or emigrated. He could even have been killed and his body never discovered. Or he could have died more recently, such as two months ago.’

  ‘You think he could be the body washed up at Freshwater Bay on the Isle of Wight?’ asked Marvik, heading back down the village street in the direction of the sea.

  ‘Why not? The DNA matched Jensen’s but how do we know that Jensen is really the phoney Bradley Pulford’s son? He could be Joshua’s kid. Theory one: Stacey was putting it about, keeping both Joshua Nunton and our phoney Pulford happy. Pulford found out, killed Nunton then took off in a panic after burying or disposing of the body. Theory two: Nunton killed Pulford because he was jealous. Then he took off and the DNA proving that Jensen is related to the remains found on the Isle of Wight show that he is in fact related to Joshua Nunton and not Pulford. The Killbecks could even be involved in Pulford’s murder. They hated him muscling in, disturbing the rhythm of their lives. Or perhaps he discovered them smuggling or fiddling their fish quota and threatened to tell. Perhaps they didn’t want an outsider marrying the fair Stacey. They arranged it between them and ditched Pulford’s body in the English Channel. And we’ve only got Crowder’s word that the body washed up on the Isle of Wight is that of a man who went by the name of Bradley Pulford. How does he know that for sure? I doubt any ID the man had been carrying would have survived. And if the Killbecks discovered that Nunton was returning to confess his sins maybe they decided one more murder wouldn’t matter. They didn’t want to be implicated. They could have arranged to meet him and dumped his body overboard from their fishing boat in January.’

  Marvik considered this. ‘The Killbecks are clearly uneasy about something. But that doesn’t make them killers.’ Had Adam Killbeck been the man on the motorbike, though, who had followed him yesterday? ‘I’ll email you the picture of Bradley’s headstone,’ he continued. ‘There’s an interesting inscription on it. Someone thought enough of him to shell out for an expensive memorial – it could have been his adoptive parents, John and Alice Seacombe. The woman I spoke to at the church said they died some time ago but I didn’t get the chance to ask her when – she had an impatient husband waiting for her.’


  ‘I’ll check it out.’

  Marvik rang off and made for the coastal path eastwards back to Swanage. His photographic memory conjured up the inscription word for word. ‘Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end.’ It sounded familiar. He searched his memory for it. He was certain he’d heard it before. Yes, he had. At another funeral – that of a former Marine colleague. It was Shakespeare. He frowned, puzzled. It was a literary quotation, which was perhaps surprising for the Seacombes, a farming couple, although that was a gross presumption because for all he knew they might have had a love of literature and the works of the Bard. And the other inscription on the gravestone: ‘I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.’ Where was that text from? Did it matter?

  Perhaps the sea had been Bradley’s first love; it had certainly been almost his last. Maybe he’d always had a hankering to be on it, as Marvik had. It was in his blood and maybe Bradley’s real father, the one who had died in the Blitz, had been on leave from the navy.

  With athletic ease, Marvik hiked along the top of the hills and then cut down on to the coastal path. It was mid-afternoon and he could see a fishing boat out to sea and a leisure cruiser heading west towards Portland and Weymouth. The sky was overcast and the sea choppy with the rising wind. He marched onwards, thinking over what he and Strathen had gleaned so far, but none of it made any sense. There were too many gaps and they would continue to flounder unless Strathen could throw up some leads or Crowder gave them more information.

  It was just after five when he reached the bay. The Killbecks’ fishing boat was there but there was no sign of them or their pick-up truck. He headed into the town and found a small Italian restaurant. While he waited for his pasta to arrive he thought of the inscription on the headstone and took out his phone, where he entered the text into the search engine. It was the opening lines of a poem entitled ‘Gone from My Sight’ by Henry van Dyke, an American professor, poet and clergyman who had died in 1933. Maybe the Seacombes had got it from a book of funeral poems from the library. Perhaps the works of Van Dyke were a favourite of theirs, as was Shakespeare, or perhaps the vicar had suggested it. Or perhaps the title ‘Gone from My Sight’ was the real message the Seacombes had wanted to convey.