LITMIR.BIZ

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there was the pub, its lights shining on the wet road. It was as though some fairy godmother had waved her wand and conjured a safe haven.

      The landlord had been welcoming. She’d liked his look, his blazer and cravat reminded her of Gramps, the grandfather she had been close to as she grew up, as did the twinkle in his eye. He’d come over the moment she’d entered the bar. He’d taken her case from her, helped her out of the wet coat, and supplied a whisky-mac. ‘It’s what you need, m’dear,’ he’d said, handing the glass over and waving her towards a seat beside the happily burning fire. She’d been the only customer.

      He’d shaken out her drenched coat and said, ‘Not my idea of a waterproof.’ And on the spot he’d found an old Barbour hanging from a hook in the bar and presented it to her. Shabby, but it did keep the rain out, and Amy still wore it. Not really the style for someone her age, but then she’d never been that bothered about fashion.

      The bedroom Fitz had shown her to later that night had a cosily sloping ceiling, a fat old-fashioned eiderdown on a brass bedstead, and a deeply comfortable armchair. More comfortable, in fact, than the bed. But she’d been exhausted, and had slept right through to morning. Then she found that her room had a view of the sea, all a-sparkle with the sun shining as though it didn’t know what grey, rainy days were. A low windowsill meant she could sit in the chair and look at the dancing waves advancing over a beach where sand gave way to pebbles as it approached the waterline. Small boats were drawn up, their anchors buried safely in the shingle.

      They were the same boats she was looking at now, three years later, the moonlight coating them with magic. Beyond them, towards Amy’s cottage, well above the tide line, stood three tents. Tents, in chilly March? Then she remembered that Greta Knox, the Girl Guide leader, had said that her troop was going to sample the delights of camping. ‘Overnight?’ Amy had asked when they had met a few days before in the village shop. ‘I thought your girls were too fond of their comforts to mimic Arctic explorers.’

      ‘We’ll see,’ Greta had said, her tone full of the determination that had corralled every teenage girl for miles around to join her Guide troop. She gave a huffing laugh. ‘The girls can surprise one.’

      Amy thought now that she would be amazed if any of the tents contained sleeping teenagers. None of them were zipped up, and there was no sound. They must be empty. She looked around. There seemed to be the remains of a campfire, with a discarded scrunch of tin foil suggesting potatoes had been baked in it. Greta must have overlooked that, she was a terror over litter. Nothing else provided clues to the evening’s activities. No doubt the Girl Guides were all now safely at home in their warm and comfortable beds.

      As if to hasten her in the direction of her own bed, a nasty gust of wind tugged at Amy’s hair. She had forgotten her beanie. She took a last look at the light silvering the rapacious tide as it surged in towards the shore and then retreated to gather strength for another attack. It was the only movement in the whole scene. She was alone on the beach.

      Afterwards she couldn’t say why her attention had been caught by one of the drawn-up boats. Perhaps it was the moonlight shining on the stuck-on silver letters on its stern, identifying it as The Admiral, Fitz’s dinghy. But it shouldn’t be there. Its usual place was in the other direction. When had it been moved? She remembered seeing it earlier in the day, safely where she’d expect it to be.

      Had the Admiral moved it this afternoon? But when would he have had the time, and why would he want to? Or had he gone out into the moonlight after ordering the last round and brought it here? If so, why?

      Maybe someone else had moved it. The Admiral was known to be highly selective about who he allowed on his beloved dinghy. Never anyone without him, and only allowed to take the tiller after they had proved themselves seaworthy, as he called it. Once some pranksters had taken the boat out and then left it swinging drunkenly from its anchor in the far reaches of the bay. The Admiral had not been amused.

      Amy reached the anchor and checked the way it had been set in the shingle. Right and tight it looked. The chain stretched down to the boat itself, now beginning to wallow drunkenly on the incoming tide. There was something not quite right about its movement. The beach shelved steeply down from where she was standing, so that it was almost possible to see inside the craft. Amy caught her breath. It looked as though… But surely it couldn’t be…

      Without hesitating, and heedless of her sensible shoes, she ran down the beach and through the water to the dinghy. As she got closer, she saw that the waterproof cover had been rolled back and stuffed into the prow.

      The boat was half-full of water – that was why it was wallowing. But there was more than water in there. Amy took hold of the dinghy’s side, forcing it towards her so that she could scramble aboard. With horrible squelches she managed to find a steady footing. A man was slumped on his front in the bottom of the boat, his face beneath the water. Supporting herself on the gunwales, Amy shuffled her way alongside the collapsed figure to the boat’s stern. Then she bent and slipped her hands beneath the shoulders and tried to pull whoever it was up far enough to bring his head above the water that slopped about as the boat veered from side to side with her movements, threatening to capsize.

      In her heart Amy knew her efforts were hopeless, but still she struggled, lifting and pulling the shoulders, cursing her weakness, looking along the shoreline for help. But the beach was empty. With a final effort, using unexpected reserves of strength, she managed to pull the heavy body up, then to turn it so that the drowned man sat supported by the mast, his feet caught up in the oars that lay along the boat’s bottom.

      For a moment she stood holding onto the mast, gasping, her eyes closed as she tried to recover from her efforts. Then she opened them and looked at the sorry remains of the man who had been lying in the bottom of the boat.

      The grey hair was soaked, plastered to the skull, the eyes that had been so bright such a little time ago were staring sightlessly. All personality had been stripped away by death. Only the blazer with its brass buttons proclaimed the corpse’s identity.

      Exhausted by her efforts, struggling not to fall as the dinghy moved with the rapid surges of the incoming tide, Amy looked at the body of her boss. What on earth had the old man been up to? What could have made him move the dinghy so late at night? And just how had he managed to fall and drown himself in his beloved boat?

       CHAPTER FOUR

      Amy was surprised by the tears running down her cheeks. She knew it wasn’t just shock at discovering the body. It was an overwhelming sadness at the thought that she’d never hear the Admiral’s voice again. Maybe, somewhere deep down in her psyche, she had felt love for the old bastard.

      She decided, rather than ringing the police from her cottage, she would have to go back to the pub and prepare herself for a long night of disruption and probably questioning.

      Her basic knowledge of police procedure, gleaned from endless television cop shows, told her that she should touch as little as possible at a crime scene, but when she looked closer at the boat she saw something white, stuffed into the folds of the crumpled boat cover.

      An envelope. Printed on it the words: ‘TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN’.

      Sod not touching anything at a crime scene. No power could have stopped her from opening that envelope. Fortunately the flap was just tucked in, so she didn’t have to tear it.

      She read what was written on the folded sheet inside.

      I’m sorry. All the pressures were just getting too much. I’ve had my Last Hurrah and it’s better to go out on a high. Apologies to anyone who’s going to be upset by my death (though I don’t think there’ll be many).

      Fitz

      The text was not handwritten. It had been typed and printed. Possibly using the computer in the Admiral Byng’s downstairs office.

      In other words, whoever had composed the suicide note, it certainly hadn’t been the computer-illiterate

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