The Causeway

Book 579: Murder Room

by P.M. Hubbard

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Peter Grant, sailing his boat in unfamiliar waters, is forced ashore on an island connected with the mainland by a causeway uncovered only at low tide. There is a house on the opposite shore lived in by two secretive people. His involvement in their affairs, begun by his sea-chance, becomes deeper and more dangerous as the tides ebb and flow over the causeway, until he finds himself face-to-face first with love - and then with terror and violent death. 'A sensitive, absorbing tale' Sunday Times

Release date: July 14, 2013

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 256

Sample

I am no more than a small-boat sailor at best, and do not reckon to blind anyone with nautical technicalities. But if I say that I lost my rudder a hundred yards off a lee
shore, most people will understand that it meant trouble. A rudder, they will surely know, is what you steer a boat with, and a lee shore, they will probably remember, is a shore with the wind
blowing on to it. If you cannot steer your boat, it will just get pushed along in the direction the wind is blowing, and if the wind is blowing on shore, it will get pushed on shore. That is what
happened to me that Saturday afternoon early in September.

There was no danger to me in the thing, or not in any way I could anticipate then. It was a mild day with a moderate breeze from the south. In these rather shallow waters even a moderate breeze
can raise a short, steep little sea, which may break even before it comes ashore, but so far as I myself was concerned, I could have gone overboard there and then and swum ashore without the least
difficulty. It was the boat I was worried about. It was a good solid old wooden boat. I was very fond of it, and if I had lost it, I should have been hard put to it to get another anything like it
at current prices. If it had been driven on to rocks, with that sea and the tide still making, it would have been in real danger of breaking up altogether, and even if I had gone ashore with it,
there would have been very little I could do. A beach would be a different matter, but from where I was I could not see any beach, only a steep-to shore with black up-ended rocks under it and that
short, rolling sea breaking among them.

And the trouble was, I did not know where I was, or not in any detail. I know that sounds nonsense. You do not sail uncharted seas in a fourteen-foot sailing dinghy. Of course I knew where I was
to a mile or so on the map. I was sailing from Vance Bay, where I had my moorings, round to Canty Port, where I was going to spend the night with the Marlings. I was not navigating, I was just
sailing by sight, as you walk across country from one place to another. There would be no mistaking Canty Port when I came to it, and in these conditions the thing was just a pleasure trip with a
mild spice of adventure in it. It feels good arriving anywhere by sea.

But I was new to these parts, and did not know much about the coastline in between. I had reckoned to stay clear of it until I started to make in towards the Port. But I was going so well,
sailing smoothly across that steady southerly breeze, that I edged in a bit close round what looked like a small bare headland and it was just there that the thing happened. Not that a hundred
yards is very close by small-boat standards, but it was close enough to call for pretty quick action, and I was not at all sure what action I could take.

The boat of course turned up into the wind and hung there, yawing about with the sails flapping in that rolling sea, while I tried to see what the trouble was. I had not lost the rudder
altogether. It was still there on the end of the tiller, which came in through a slot in the top of the transom, but it was no longer fixed to the boat. It had nothing to swivel on, and was as
useless and awkward as a door off its hinges. From what I could see in those few hectic seconds, the top eye had carried away, and the pintle, which is the vertical pin the bottom of the rudder
swivels on, had slewed over sideways. At any rate, I could see there was no possibility of getting the rudder back into proper use, and when I looked up again, I was already perceptibly nearer to
the rocks.

Once I had made sure that the rudder could not carry away altogether, I left the tiller and went forward and got the mainsail down. I got it down in any sort of order along the middle of the
boat. This took the wind pressure off and cut down our rate of drift to leeward. I left the foresail as it was, with enough sheet to sail across the wind. With a good rudder, you can make
surprising progress on the foresail alone. The question was whether I could somehow get enough work out of the rudder, as it was, to make the boat pay off again and go across the wind at least
until I could see somewhere where there was a chance of getting her ashore without too much damage. She was going ashore sooner or later whatever I did. The best I could hope for was some choice of
where she did it.

I took the tiller in one hand and leaned over the transom and got hold of the top of the rudder with the other. I flapped it in the water until the boat’s head came round and the wind came
into the starboard side of the sail. Then I wrestled wildly to hold her off the wind, and we began to creep eastwards again. My right side was strained across the top of the transom, and my right
arm, at full stretch downwards, took all the pull of the wind on the boat. The rolling made it worse. It was desperate work, and I did not know how long I could keep it up. At times we seemed to be
holding a good line, and I thought we should clear the point, though I could not tell how far the rocks ran out under water. At others we seemed to make more leeway than headway, and I thought we
had no chance at all. What there was on the other side of the point I did not know, but at least, if it was a point, there must be more searoom to leeward. That was the limit of my ambition.

The bottom had begun shelving up under us, and the seas were getting steeper. It was not only the wind that was pushing the boat ashore now, it was the water itself, and all the time she was
getting more and more difficult to handle. We were dead to windward of the point, and not more than thirty yards out, when a violent roll broke the resistance of my weakening muscles, and she came
right up into the wind again, pitching now instead of rolling, and drifting steadily stern-first on to the black rocks. It is curious, looking back, to remember the depth of my desperation at that
moment, when I was, I repeat, in no sort of danger myself at all. There were times later when I quite certainly was, and I am sure I never experienced the same panic. I suppose the small-boat
sailor, no less than the captain of a ship, identifies himself with his craft as you do with no other means of transport, except perhaps a small boy with his first bicycle and a few grown men I
have known with their cars.

I wrenched at that damned rudder and got her head round for the last time, and just as she started to edge forward across the wind again, I looked up and saw salvation ahead. The rocks broke off
suddenly in a sort of small cliff, and beyond it, between that and another sloping saw-edge of black rock, there was a narrow inlet running in to a shingle beach. I held her, somehow, until I
thought the rocks were no longer under our lee, and then I let the rudder go and scrambled to get the centre-plate up before it caught the bottom and turned us over in the surf.

Everything happened very quickly after that. The sea took hold of us and we slewed broadside on to it. She bumped once, not too hard, on what must have been a mercifully rounded rock under
water, and then, with only yards to spare between our bows and stern and the rocks on either side, we rolled sideways on to the beach. I jumped out into waist-high water, nearly lost my footing
when the boat tried to roll on top of me, got my balance again just in time, grabbed the transom with its dangling useless rudder and pulled her stern-first on to the shingle. I was calm again now.
I stood there with the water washing round my knees, and as each successive wave lifted her, I threw all my weight back and dragged her a little further up the beach. She was out of danger now. She
must have lost a bit of paint off her bottom, but that was the limit of the damage. I pulled my sodden guernsey sleeve back from my wrist and looked at my watch. It was full high water. In that
respect at least the thing could not have timed itself better. I had only to hold her steady for a bit against the odd bigger wave, and the sea would leave her, comfortably beached at the head of
the tiny bay. Disaster had been averted, and for the moment all was well. Only I still had not the faintest idea where I was.

I suppose it was that that turned my mind to the next stage of what I had to do, and, with no wave immediately threatening the boat, I turned for a moment, still holding the transom with both
hands, and looked over my shoulder inland. The rocks which formed the sides of the little bay ran back in high ridges under turf and heather, but between them, at the top of the beach, a narrow
cleft climbed less steeply to the bare skyline. There were no trees to speak of, but the cleft was blocked from side to side with a dense thorn scrub, with what looked like an animal track
wandering through it. Then a wave caught the boat and heaved the bow up, and I turned quickly to steady her. It was just as I turned that I saw what I thought was a man watching me. It was only a
head and shoulders on the skyline, a bit off to one side, and I saw it only out of the corner of my eye as I turned, but I did not think I could have been mistaken. For all my comparative calm, a
great sense of relief welled up in me. I had, after all, to get help of one sort or another, and to find help so close at hand was another big step forward out of my predicament. I concentrated on
the boat for a moment or two, and then turned round again to make sure of him, but he was no longer there.

I thought perhaps he was already on his way down towards me, and I spent some time holding the boat, with the occasional glance over my shoulder, expecting him at any moment to hail me from
somewhere near at hand. When he did not, I began to wonder whether perhaps he had been too much of a landsman to understand the position I was in. So far from being a friendly helper, he might be
the local owner, resentful of what he would see as a wanton and unwelcome intrusion on his property. In either case I wanted to speak to him. It was not till some time later that I began to wonder
whether he really had been there at all. I tried looking over my shoulder at the place where I thought I had seen him, but I could see nothing there which I could, in whatever state of confusion,
have mistaken for a man’s head and shoulders. I could not really believe I had imagined him. I thought he had been there, and had seen me, and had gone away again without making contact. I
could not see why he should have done that, but I thought perhaps in due course I should find out.

The sea had nearly left the boat now, and I had time to see in detail what had happened. The pintle, which had been screwed on to the transom, had pulled out two of its three screws and swung
sideways, releasing the eye of the rudder which swivelled on it. With its bottom freed, the whole rudder had then swung sideways too, wrenching the top eye out of the transom altogether. I still
had the pintle, hanging on by its one remaining screw, and this was lucky, because it would not be easy to replace, and even a temporary substitute would be extraordinarily hard to improvise. The
top eye on the transom, in which the pin of the rudder had engaged, was missing altogether. No doubt it was on the mud a hundred yards out from the end of the rocks, but I did not think the tide
would go out that far, even in these shoal waters, and even if it did, the chance of finding the thing was remote. But a substitute of some sort, good enough to get me back on to my moorings,
should not be too difficult. Even a large eye-bolt might do it. If I could get to an iron-monger’s, or even a farm workshop in these mechanical days, I thought I could make a job of the boat
where she was on the beach.

The sea was still washing round the bows occasionally, but it would not shift the boat now. I could not remember whether the next flood would be bigger or smaller, but in any case I had twelve
hours to do what I had to do and get back to the boat before it happened. It was time I tidied up, and put on some dry trousers, and started my exploration.

I got the sails down and properly stowed, and made all secure on board. Then I got my land trousers and a pair of leather shoes out of my kitbag in the bows. It was a comfort to think that I had
been ship-wrecked on the only occasion, so far as I could remember, when I had ever had a change of clothes on board. I hung the wet trousers and my ropesoles on a thorn-bush to dry as best they
could, but the sun was off the beach already, and I did not think they would dry very quickly. Finally I got out a length of spare line and made one end fast round the centre thwart. I carried the
other end over the transom and up the beach, and made it fast round the roots of the biggest thorn-bush I could find. It takes an enormous amount of horizontal drag to shift the roots of even a
good-sized bush, and there was nothing else to make it fast to. Even if I failed to get back before the next high water, I did not think the boat could take much harm now, or not unless the wind
freshened a lot and stayed southerly, and that seemed a very unlikely combination.

By now it was past five o’clock, and from where I was the sun was over the western skyline. There was plenty of daylight left, but the September evenings are short in these parts, and it
was time I got moving. I looked over everything, could think of nothing more I ought to do, and set out up the track. It was tricky and a little painful, but perfectly negotiable. As I came out on
to the turf slope above the thorn, the tops of the inland hills came up over the skyline ahead of me. They did not look more than a mile or two away, and the farms would be on their lower slopes. I
should not have very far to go. The next thing I saw was the chimneys of a house, just over the skyline and not more than a couple of hundred yards ahead. That was even better, though I wondered if
that was where my watcher had come from, and if so, what sort of reception I should meet when I got there. Anyhow, there was only one way of finding out. I hurried up the last of the slope, came
out over the top of the ridge and stopped dead in my tracks.

There was the house, a solid looking stone building only a short walk ahead. There were the inland hills, with at least one good-sized house less than a quarter of a mile away. But between them,
shining white under the late afternoon sky, a sheet of water, all of two hundred yards wide, stretched right across my front and curved round east and west on either hand. Unmistakably, it was sea
water, rolling steadily in the southerly breeze. I knew then what I had done. It was not a headland I had come ashore on. It was an off-shore island. They happen, of course, on this very broken
coast, but I had not known there was one between Vance Bay and Canty Port. The land came round it on both sides, and it had not looked like an island from out at sea, or at least not from the angle
I had come in on. But there it was. Welcome or unwelcome, I had only the one house to go to.

The ground fell away in front of me now. The house was on the inshore slope of the island. I went on towards it, and the nearer I got, the less I liked the look of it. There were only a few
small outbuildings. . .