Нет возврата

When they reached the spot, the captain held the vessel with her bow into the weather, holding station with an idling engine. The cousin took a long piece of timber, three planks bolted together with crosspieces on the underside and 3 feet wide, and laid it across the starboard rail, smooth side up. The chipped timber rail took the plank almost at the mid-section, like the fulcrum of a seesaw. One half of the planks lay towards the deck, the other jutted out over the heaving sea. As the captain's brother manned the davit motor, the cousin slipped hooks under the coffin's four brass handles.

The engine revved and the davits took the strain. The great coffin lifted off the deck. The winchman held it at a height of 3 feet and the cousin manoeuvred the oaken casket onto the plank. He pointed it headfirst towards the sea and nodded. The winchman let it down so it came to rest directly above the supporting rail. He slackened off and the coffin creaked into position, half in and half out of the trawler. While the cousin held it steady, the winchman descended, cleared away the shackles and helped lift the inboard edge of the planks to the horizontal. There was little weight on them now, for the coffin was evenly balanced. One of the men looked to Pound for guidance and he summoned the chaplain and the Armitages from their shelter.

The six people stood in silence under the lower clouds, occasionally dusted by a misty spray blown from the crest of a passing wave, steadying themselves against the heave and pitch of the deck. To be fair to him, the chaplain kept it as short as decently possible, as well he might, for his white hair and surplice flayed about him in the breeze. Norman Armitage was also bareheaded, looking sick as a parrot and chilled to the bone. What he thought of his late relative, now lying a few feet from him encased in layers of camphor, lead and oak, could only be surmised. Of Mrs Armitage nothing could be seen between fur coat, fur hat and woollen scarf save a pointed, freezing nose.

Martin Pound stared at the sky as the priest droned on. A single gull wheeled on the wind, impervious to wet, cold, and nausea, unknowing of taxes, wills and relatives, self-sufficient in its aerodynamic perfection, independent, free. The solicitor looked back at the coffin and beyond it the ocean. Not bad, he thought, if you are sentimental about such things. Personally he had never been caring about what happened to him after death, and had not known that Hanson had been so concerned. But if you did care, not a bad place to lie. He saw the oak beaded with spray that could not enter. Well, they'll never disturb you here, Timothy old friend, he thought.

.. commend this our brother Timothy John Hanson to Thy everlasting care, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Amen.'

With a start Pound realized it was over. The chaplain was looking at him expectantly. He nodded to the Armitages. One went round each of the fishermen holding the planks steady and placed a hand on the rear of the coffin. Pound nodded to the men. Slowly they eased their end of the planks upwards. The other end dipped to the sea. At last the coffin moved. Both Armitages gave a shove. It scraped once, then slid fast off the other end. The boat rocked. The coffin hit the side of a wave with more of a thud than a splash. And it was gone. Instantly. Pound caught the eye of the skipper in the wheelhouse above. The man raised a hand and pointed back towards the way they had come. Pound nodded again. The engine note rose. The large plank was already inboard and stowed. The Armitages and the chaplain were hurrying for cover. The wind was rising.

It was almost dark when they rounded the corner of the mole at Brixham and the first lights were flickering in the houses behind the quay. The chaplain had his own small car parked nearby and was soon gone. Pound settled with the skipper, who was happy to make as much in an afternoon as in a week after mackerel. The undertaker's men waited with the limousine and a worse-for-wear Tarquin Armitage. Pound elected to let them have the car. He preferred to return to London by train and keep his own company.

'You'll get on with the calculation of the estate immediately,' insisted Mrs Armitage shrilly. 'And the filing of probate. We've had enough of all this play-acting.'

'You may be confident I shall waste no time,' said Pound coldly. 'I shall be in touch.' He raised his hat and walked towards the station. It would not, he surmised, be a long business. He knew already the extent and details of Timothy Hanson's estate. It was bound to be in perfect order. Hanson had been such a very careful man.

It was not until mid-November that Mr Pound felt able to communicate with the Armitages again. Although as sole beneficiary it was only Mrs Armitage who was invited to his office off Gray's Inn Road, she turned up with husband and son none the less.

'I find myself in something of a quandary,' he told her.

'What about?'