Doggerland
Heide Goody
Iain Grant
Copyright © 2021 by Heide Goody and Iain Grant
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Three months later…
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Afterword
About the Authors
Also by Heide Goody and Iain Grant
1
“It’s trite but true that distance gives you a whole new perspective on things.”
It was night. From six miles out at sea, Skegness was a long and blurred strip of light — white, orange, red and blue. A bulge in the strip might have been the fairground, might have been the pier. Slightly nearer, an uneven line of giant wind turbines loomed from the black North Sea, warning lights winking at their bases.
The sports cruiser rocked freely on the rolling waves. The pilot of the boat had to hold the rear rail to stay upright, whereas Bob Ackroyd was more securely seated in a wheelchair, parking brake on, a thick seatbelt holding him in. His eyes darted between the view and the pilot but he didn’t speak, on account of the carpet tape across his mouth. He could only listen as the pilot kept up a one-sided conversation.
“Eventually, you get to a point in life — I’m sure you have, Bob — where you look back at all the things you thought were important in your youth, and you regard them with utter bafflement. The little pleasures you denied yourself, the acts you wouldn’t permit. What only seemed right and proper back then seems mad in hindsight. Hmmm?”
The pilot sat down and fitted a pressurised gas tank nozzle into the neck of a weather balloon. The hiss of helium was just audible above the noise of the waves and the low thrum of the nearest turbines.
“When Pat bought a share in this boat, I thought it a ludicrous extravagance. Who’d want a power boat, a cruiser? Very indulgent. And worse still, a power boat round here? It’s not exactly Monte Carlo or Cannes.” A mist of freezing sea spray washed over them, as though in agreement. “No marina round here to moor up and sip champagne while the sun goes down. I saw it as a foolish dream. Now —” A heavy sigh. “Maybe Pat had it right, enjoying life while one could, making hay while the sun shines. It was mostly for fishing or just messing about on the water. There’s a parasailing chute in that box there. Parasailing. Flying above the waves.” A laugh. “Can you image Pat doing that? Or me?”
A length of cord secured the neck of the weather balloon. It rose a dozen feet, tugging itself out of the pilot’s hand. The line tied to the harness around Bob’s chest went taut. He grunted at the sudden pull.
“Of course, you’ll be going much higher.”
There were four balloons up there now, pulled back and forth by the wind and the boat’s movement. The tension around Bob’s chest harness was strong now. It occurred to the pilot that it would not do for Bob to be asphyxiated before he took his maiden flight. The pilot leaned forward and ripped the tape from Bob’s lips. Bob gasped.
“You all right?” said the pilot. “Hanging in there?”
“Stop this, please. It’s madness.”
The pilot gave this due thought. “I’m not really a boat person, it’s true. That was always Pat’s thing, not mine. I would have sold the boat after Pat died, but it’s jointly owned and it seemed more trouble than it was worth. But I got us out here okay, didn’t I?”
Bob stared. Frightened, yes, but gobsmacked, unable to believe the situation. “This is crazy.”
The pilot looked at the weather balloons above and started to fill a fifth one. “Of course it’s crazy. As methods of murder go—”
Bob began to cry, producing a weak keening sound, like a creaky door that would not stop.
The pilot put a hand on his knee to comfort him, to stop him. Bob flinched and flailed with his hands, but they were also bound together with several feet of carpet tape. It was a decidedly pathetic gesture, but at least the noise stopped.
“As methods of murder go, it’s ridiculous,” continued the pilot and gestured upwards. “Do you know how much that quantity of helium costs? It is not cheap.”
“You’ll be seen!” blurted Bob.
“And there’s that. Even at night, someone might spot half a dozen weather balloons shooting up into the sky. Do the RAF watch the coast round here? I’ve no idea. But it’s that thing about distance and perspective. I hope you were listening. It’s not something I care about anymore.”
The fifth balloon was attached to the harness. Bob gasped at the additional pull.
“Last one now,” said the pilot and crouched to fill the balloon. The sound of the gas was a thought-erasing, thought-freeing white noise. “Joint ownership. Joint enterprise. You do know why you have to die, don’t you, Bob?”
“You don’t have to do this,” he sobbed. “A good joke. It was a good joke. I get it. I’ll go. I’ll leave Otterside.”
“At quite a rate of knots,” the pilot agreed. “You didn’t keep up your end of the bargain, Bob. We did yours for you and then you refused to carry out your duty. You got cold feet.”
&nbs
p; “I didn’t know…”
“What? You thought it was all a big game of make-believe? No. You owed a debt and refused to pay. You owed us a life, and when you threatened to go to the police. Well.”
The sixth balloon was tied to Bob. If the pilot’s calculations were right, that was a hundred and eighty pounds of lifting power around his chest. Bob was a man in his late seventies and had lost a lot of weight in recent years. Lifting Bob in his younger years might have required a seventh or even eighth balloon.
The pilot checked the knots. “There. All secured.”
Tears and snot were running freely down Bob’s face.
“These balloons can reach heights of twenty-four miles,” the pilot explained conversationally. “From about six miles up, there really isn’t enough oxygen. It will be jolly cold up there too.”
“Please. Please, please, please.” With the plosive ‘p’ of each sobbed “Please”, flecks of snot were cast out into the sea.
“Have you ever seen the film Up?” asked the pilot.
“What?” said Bob.
“It’s really quite heart-warming. A man is widowed in later life and ties hundreds of balloons to his house and flies it away to … South America I think.” The pilot held up a finger to test the wind. “It’s northern Europe for you, I reckon. Might get as far as Sweden.”
The pilot reached for the seatbelt clip at Bob’s waist. Bob fought with his bound hands, pushing away, managing a shove that sent the pilot up against the rear rail.
“Bob!” The pilot’s tone was disapproving rather than angry. “None of that silliness!”
“I won’t let you,” Bob whimpered. He would have been slumped in the chair but for the half dozen balloons hauling him up.
“This is not the way to behave! Now move your hands!” The boat rocked in a swell; the wheelchair slid sideways a foot. The pilot crouched beside the wheelchair. “Lift your hands away.” It was said more gently this time.
“I don’t want to.”
“You’re going to. There’s nothing else to be done.”
Bob didn’t move, but the hesitation was evident.
“Anyway, the house sails away,” said the pilot.
“What house?”
“In the film. Up. It sails away. Quite serenely. Through the blue. And when it comes down, it’s in paradise.” The pilot gently raised Bob’s hands. He didn’t resist. “It’ll be like that.”
“No, it won’t,” whispered Bob.
The pilot released the seatbelt clip. “No,” the pilot agreed, “it won’t.”
Bob rose, not at speed but with an unarguable certainty, hoisted by the forces of physics. A gasp of shock stole his initial scream. By the time he’d found his breath he was only visible as a series of grey orbs against the night, and an indistinctly wriggling figure. His screams were little more than whispers on the wind.
The pilot continued to watch even when Bob had vanished into the night. Eventually the pilot drove the boat back to shore.
Three months later…
Polly Gilpin arrived at Otterside Retirement Village in the back of Erin’s car. Erin’s husband, Cesar, stepped out to open the rear door for Polly, making her feel a bit like the queen, but not enough.
Otterside Retirement Village, a mile to the north of Skegness and on the seaward side of the coast road, was centred around a three storey horseshoe of apartments that dropped to a flat-roofed single storey at the southern end. It was expensive as retirement villages went. Erin had been very clear on that point.
“There should be someone here to meet us,” said Erin, taking the opportunity to puff on her e-cig vaping thing. Polly’s niece wore a terse, put-out look on her face. Erin was a doctor, a very busy woman – she generally looked terse and put-out. Vaping didn’t seem to help her mood, just making her look like a terse and put-out dragon, ready to flame.
Erin walked into reception in search of the expected reception party while Cesar went to unload the luggage from the boot. When Polly tried to assist him, he waved her away with his soft pudgy hands.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. I can manage these.” He was right. There were only two cases.
Erin came back out, dragging a somewhat bewildered individual with her. He turned out to be the duty manager, a man with the air of someone definitely on their way somewhere else before being roped into being part of the big show of welcoming Polly to her new home.
With Cesar bringing up the rear with the luggage, the manager, Chesney, did a brisk and cheery tour of the facility. The reception area was at the bottom of the horseshoe, with dining hall, various lounges and function rooms branching off from it.
“We have a daily programme of entertainments laid on by management,” said Chesney. “And a very active residents social committee.”
“My aunt is looking for a bit of peace and quiet,” Erin said to Chesney. “She gets confused easily.”
Easily confused. It was a point of burning irritation and shame for Polly. Things had taken a turn for the worse over recent months. There had been moments of confusion, unforgiveable slips of memory. She had shouted at that poor boy at the supermarket and alienated some of the neighbours with what she now recognised as abruptly out of character behaviour. Erin had prescribed her some pills and things had calmed down a little, but the shadows of that confusion and shame remained.
“Dementia-like symptoms,” Erin said to Chesney.
“Ah.” The manager gave her a look of demeaning pity, a look she had seen more and more of late. As though she was some feeble old dear who had lost her marbles. She was only seventy-five – no age at all! – and not deserving of that level of condescension. Not yet, not while she had the eyes and the brain to recognise it for what it was.
However, Otterside itself offered a less patronising attitude. Yes, there were older people everywhere, but it was not the dozing-in-front-of-the-TV brigade she had feared. In the lounge they passed a group of women sitting round a table, talking animatedly as they painted on small canvasses. On the lawn, a dozen people were taking tai chi instructions from a young bald man. In the conservatory area there was loud chatter and raucous laughter from a mixed group.
“There’s a bar,” she noted.
“We have two,” said Chesney cheerily. “Two restaurants also. They’re open to the public, but very popular with residents.”
“You’re not a drinker, Polly,” Erin told her.
“I need a new hobby,” Polly replied.
“And it’s up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire,” said Chesney, gesturing for them to follow him up the stairs. “Although we do have a lift.” He looked back at Cesar. “You okay there, sir?”
“He’s fine,” said Erin without pause for input from Cesar.
“You’re on the second floor,” Chesney explained as they came to the top floor. “It’s quieter and the views are better.”
“You said this room had only become free in the last week,” said Erin.
“That’s right.”
“Had to do a deep clean, yes?”
Chesney gave her a sideways glance.
“When someone dies here,” said Erin, lowering her voice as though people might be listening. “Polly would be pleased to know that you thoroughly cleaned out the—”
“Oh, oh, I see,” said Chesney, grinning. “No, Mr Ackroyd. Bob. He didn’t die. He left.”
“Oh.”
“Several weeks ago. We held onto the room in case he returned.”
“From hospital?”
Chesney gave her an elevated jiggle of the head; a ‘who knows?’ gesture. “A bit of a mystery in all honesty. But it’s all been put in good order for you, Polly. Here we are.”
He unlocked an apartment door and ceremoniously passed Polly the keys.
The apartment was certainly clean, and neatly furnished too. A two-seater sofa in a square fifties style. A small, circular table by the kitchenette. A pendulum cat clock on the kitchenette wall with eyes that ticked from side to side. A modest si
ngle bed in the bedroom. The colour scene was bold primary colours against simple white walls, like a holiday villa. Neat, small, modest, simple.
She had lived in a three bedroom house for the last thirty years of her life. To have it suddenly reduced to this was an abrupt shock. It wasn’t a holiday villa – it was her new home. This was it.
Cesar put the suitcases down. “You’ve got a lot in there, Polly,” he said with a merry puff of his cheeks.
“Not really,” she said, almost to herself. Where were her bookshelves? Where were her plants? Where was her garden? “I had a big house—” she began.
“We’ll leave you to settle in,” said Erin. She was already turning to the door.
“You’re going? Already?”
Erin blinked at her. “Is there something you need? Do you want us to help unpack?”
“No…”
Erin’s mouth twitched, a suggestion of a smile, if only she had time to smile. “We need to get to the bakers in town. Talk about Iris’s birthday cake.”