A Burial at Sea Read online

  It was the surgeon who finally spoke. “Why did you write that note? Or roll the shot?”

  A look of disdain came into Billings’s eyes. “This charlatan’s story is true, as far as it goes. The Lucy was to be Halifax’s. I was trying to send Martin a message.”

  “Once you’ve admitted that, haven’t you admitted everything?” said Carrow. His eyes were pained, but no longer incredulous.

  “No. I never would have raised a hand in violence to either of them. Why would I have killed Mr. Martin?”

  “The captain?” said Lenox. “You went back and asked him specifically, after Halifax had died, whether your prospects had changed. A few glasses more of whisky gone from the bottle. When he denied you again, you had to kill him.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  Carrow interjected. “But the penknife, your opportunity, my medallion, your surgical training—surely there can be no other answer?”

  “I never thought you would betray me.”

  “I wish you had never betrayed us.”

  Billings smirked. “Prove it, then. You cannot, because it’s not true. The mutiny, yes. But not the murders.”

  “So this is to be your stratagem?” Lenox said. “Save yourself the gallows?”

  “There’s no proof that I murdered Halifax or Martin, damn you.”

  “It was a deuced awkward thing of you to do, Billings, even if it was only the mutiny,” said Lee.

  “Oh, shut up, Lee, and stow your asinine home county accent.”

  “Oh, I say!” cried Lee, moved more than he had been at any point heretofore in the proceedings. “I say, you go too far!”

  Lenox nearly laughed. “You speak of proof. I wonder, Mr. Tradescant, about your patient.”

  “Which one?”

  “Your long-term patient. What was his name?”

  “Costigan.”

  “You told me several days ago that he was awake?”

  “Yes. But fractious, and anxious.”

  “And muttering all manner of things, you told me? About what?”

  “It’s nigh on impossible to understand him.”

  “How long will it be before he could speak, should you stop giving him his sedative now.”

  “A matter of an hour or two. But why?”

  “What was his initial injury?”

  “A blunt trauma across the back of the head, from a beam, we presumed.”

  “I think he may have witnessed our murder, this unfortunate Costigan, or known of Billings’s plans. Billings, is that true?”

  It was this that finally did Billings in. He sat there insolently, grinning, a dazed look in his eyes. He said nothing.

  “When was he brought to your surgery?”

  “Not half an hour before we discovered Halifax,” said Tradescant wonderingly.

  “And Mr. Carrow,” said Lenox, “where did Costigan work?”

  “He was a flier, a topman.”

  “Then he might have had cause to go up the—”

  “Mizzenmast, yes. Oh, Billings.”

  They all turned to him, and the same distant grin was fixed on his face.

  “We shall have to speak to him,” said the surgeon gravely.

  “There’s only one thing left,” said Lenox. “Admit that you killed them, Billings. You, and you alone.”

  Their eyes were all focused on Billings, and so none of them saw the man who had slipped in. He spoke, and they turned together with a cry of surprise.

  “In fact we killed them together,” the voice said. “Both of them.”

  It was Butterworth, Billings’s steward. He was carrying a gun.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  “Known Mr. Billings since he were a boy in trousers, I have,” said Butterworth. “And it won’t be any of you sees to him. Uncuff him now, Lennots, do it.”

  Hands raised, Lenox walked over to Billings and uncuffed him.

  Billings stood and looked down the wardroom table, a warm, polished red, full of flickering light from the windows, and spat. “None of you is worth a damn. I killed ’em; I’d do it again.”

  “You helped, Butterworth?” said Lenox quietly.

  “Shut up.”

  “How long have you been helping him?” Lenox asked. “Has he always been … this way?”

  A pained look appeared on Butterworth’s face, but he only said, “Shut up,” again, and poked his gun into Lenox’s stomach. He looked at Carrow. “Get us up to a jolly boat, hey. We’ll take the Bumblebee. Else this one gets a bullet through him.”

  Billings’s face was demonic. “Or I could get my penknife, Mr. Lenox. Can we make time for that anyhow, Butterworth?”

  “Not now, young master. Now we must go. You come with us, Lennots. You’re to be our hostage. The rest of you sit on your bottoms and don’t breathe a word, or I’ll shoot this great toff.”

  The walk to the deck seemed to take forever. Butterworth had the gun shoved into Lenox’s back, and the detective prayed that the man knew how to use it properly. An accidental shot would mean the end of his life.

  “Cut the rudder,” whispered Butterworth to Billings. “Order the men away and do it.”

  “I will. You have the provisions?”

  “They’re with the Bumblebee.”

  Billings raced ahead.

  “You planned for this?” Lenox muttered, as all around them men went on with their work, oblivious.

  “Ever since Master Billings rushed in, sleeves covered in blood,” whispered Butterworth. “Old Mr. Billings gave me a responsibility. Knew the boy wasn’t right.”

  They were on the quarterdeck, only the two of them, seemingly in conversation, though a few men who passed by, seeing Butterworth in this unaccustomed place, gave him quizzical glances.

  “You don’t have to protect him. You didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Might as well have. Knew what he was capable of,” said Butterworth. He paused, then went on again, as if he felt a compulsion to explain. “The old Mr. Billings was like a father to me, you see.” He turned and looked Lenox in the eyes. “You may as well know, in fact. He was my father. I was a bastard born on the local whore. Dovie is my brother.”

  Lenox’s eyes widened. “That’s why you were protecting him, then? Is that why you told me Martin was in all the cabins? And wrote on the picture Evers sent? You wanted me to come see you—so that you could mislead me!”

  First Tradescant, and now Butterworth; it was the navy, he supposed, a convenient manner of disposition for unwanted children. Friends of his with bastards often put them into the guards, too.

  Butterworth didn’t say anything. Suddenly the ship gave a great lurch.

  “We’ve lost the rudder!” a voice shouted. “Captain!”

  “Captain?” another said.

  Billings was hacking off the ropes that lashed the Bumblebee to her gunwale, impatient to be off the ship. He turned toward the men on the decks, his eyes wild, breathless from exertion.

  “We’re leaving now!” he said. “The three of us, aren’t we? The Lucy won’t move, and if any of you follow us in the boats we’ll shoot old Lenox here!”

  There were gasps all over the deck, and then the Bumblebee fell heavily into the water. Lenox saw Carrow edging onto deck, gathering men around him.

  “You first, your honourable,” said Billings, and shoved Lenox toward the gunwale. “Hope you like to row.”

  They followed him down the outside of the Lucy. He had a terrible, alert feeling in his stomach, a knowledge that he might soon be dead regardless of whether he followed their directions.

  They got into the Bumblebee and Billings thrust the oars at Lenox, who began to row slowly toward the direction of Africa.

  Billings had a manic, wild energy now. His gentle, quiet manner had vanished. He kept looking back at the Lucy, whose rail was lined with bluejackets and officers.

  It was Carrow who cried out, “Let him go! Bring him back! You can go!”

  “Not likely!” Billings shouted back. He laughed. “T
hey’ll be hours on that rudder, the fools.”

  Butterworth, less delighted, merely nodded.

  “You’ve been with the family a long time?” Lenox asked as he rowed, trying to keep his voice composed.

  “Yes,” said Butterworth shortly.

  “Why did you cut them open, Mr. Billings?” said Lenox.

  “Can I put my penknife in him, Butterworth?”

  “No, Master Billings,” said the steward quietly.

  “Let me.”

  “No. Your father wouldn’t like it.”

  “Did it start early?” Lenox asked. “Small animals? Then bigger ones?”

  Butterworth was silent, but Billings, whose personality had received a kind of electric jolt from his exposure, was happy to speak. “You think you know my history, Mr. Lenox?”

  “I cannot think why you cut Martin and Halifax open as you did, unless deliberate cruelty gives you pleasure.”

  Billings shrugged. “There were animals. I remember when I was five, and my father was trying to make a proper gentleman of me, I saw the fox torn apart. The excitement of it—the thrill of it—there were animals, you could say there were animals. Little buggers. Got them with my penknife, didn’t I?” He was jabbering. “Cut them tidily, made them neat. Got them right. My father knew. Tried to beat me for wickedness, oh, ever so hard, when he drank. Sent me to sea, hoping to fix me. I’m still the same, though. You never change.”

  “Are these the first humans you’ve killed, Billings?” said Lenox, slowing the pace at which he rowed. The Lucy was getting smaller. His heart was hammering in his chest.

  “Except in battle. Wasn’t any different than the cats and dogs and squirrels,” said Billings with another shrug.

  “And Butterworth? You can tolerate this?”

  “I can tolerate anything in my family, Mr. Lenox,” said Butterworth. “Row faster. Master Billings, water?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why must you call him master? He’s a man grown.”

  Nobody spoke, until Butterworth said, “Faster, I told you faster. Here, give me one of the oars.”

  They sat and rowed, all exchanging looks, for ten, fifteen minutes. Lenox tried to speak and Billings raised the gun. Ten more minutes, fifteen. The Lucy was getting farther and farther now, Lenox realized with a surge of panic.

  “Was it because they passed you over as captain?” Lenox finally said, increasing his pace slightly.

  A transformation took place in Billings. The manic liveliness of the past hour gave way to the self-possession of the first lieutenant Lenox had thought he knew. “It was a damned travesty, I can tell you that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Halifax wasn’t a bad sort in the wardroom. Genial enough. He had no place at the helm of a ship, however.”

  “And yet he had great interest.”

  Billings laughed bitterly, but he still seemed to be the better Billings, the professional man. “You might say that. His grandmother gave birth to, oh, forty admirals or thereabouts.”

  “The system is unfair.”

  Suddenly the mad version of Billings returned. “Let me put my penknife in him,” he said to Butterworth. “Let me, Father.”

  “No,” said Butterworth. “You, row.”

  Lenox rowed on. The Lucy continued to recede from view, until he could no longer distinguish between the people on board her deck.

  Some part of him wanted to plead for his life now; but another, resistant part forbade it. Foolishness, if it got him killed, but then men lived and died all the time by the peculiarities of their soul, which they could never expect one another to understand.

  All he could manage was, “You really ought to let me go.”

  “We’re going to keep you, deal with you on land,” said Billings, eyes demonic, purposeful.

  Butterworth gave him an appraising glance. “You say that now.”

  “You have my word, you will not be followed,” said Lenox.

  “Let me put my penknife in him!” said Billings.

  “No!” roared Butterworth. “Give us your shoes and your coat, Lenox. They look comfortable.”

  “Please don’t kill me,” he managed to choke out.

  Butterworth shook his head, and then gave Lenox a tremendous shove into the water.

  As he emerged, he heard Butterworth say, “If you can make it back, you can live. It’s a fairer bargain than many a sailor I know has had.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  There was the cold, sharp shock of the water, and then the brilliance of the sky and sun. He kept himself afloat and turned, turned, panic in his heart, looking for the Lucy, until at last he spotted her.

  He started to swim.

  His arms were already tired from oaring, and after twenty feet or so of swimming they burned. Should’ve kept up more regular exercise, he thought, but then Parliament tended to be a sedentary place, full of late-night meals at committee meetings. How many months had it been since he took his scull on the Thames? Now, with the current against him, he wished dearly he had kept in better fitness.

  He swam for what felt like an hour, more, and then permitted himself to look up. To his despair the Lucy was no closer, although the Bumblebee was by now a landward speck. He rested on his back for a while. Thanked God that it was the middle of the day, and warm enough.

  He kicked off his socks, his trousers, and swam on.

  In the next four hours there were times when he thought he might give up. He had thrown up, had swallowed seawater and thrown that up too. He would have promised to walk from Mayfair to John O’Groats for a drop of fresh water, after two hours. After three the seabed seemed a comforting thought. His friend Halifax was there.

  The sun began exert a terrible pressure on his head, in his temples. On he swam, or, more accurately, drifted with some purpose.

  The Lucy came closer, it seemed, but never very close.

  He swam on.

  He had never known such fatigue, or for his body to be in such open rebellion against him: actions he had taken for granted once upon a time, in the life before he was in the water, seemed impossible now. He couldn’t turn his head more than a fraction of an inch. He couldn’t swallow, quite.

  It was when he kicked hard for ten yards and looked up to see that the ship seemed farther away than it had, much farther, that he felt certain he would die.

  It was just as he was drifting out of consciousness, when even the thought of Jane couldn’t make him put one arm in front of the other, that great strong hands pulled him up underneath his arms.

  “We’ve got you, sir,” said a voice that in some distant chamber of his mind Lenox recorded as belonging to McEwan.

  Then he fainted dead away.

  There was a blur of light and hurried voices when he woke, a feeling of being rumbled along over the planks of the deck. A bright light appeared in his eyes, and Tradescant’s anxious face, inspecting him.

  At last he managed to croak a word, “Water!” and immediately, blessedly, received a small sip of the stuff. Instantly he threw up. He took a little more, then, and finally could bear to have half of a glass tipped into his face.

  After that he fell into a sweet, undreaming sleep.

  When he woke up it was to a voice saying, “A middling fever. Don’t think he’ll be delirious.” Lenox opened his eyes and saw Tradescant and Carrow standing five feet off, speaking in low voices. They were in Tradescant’s surgery. The other beds were all empty.

  “Some good news, that,” Lenox managed to croak.

  Carrow turned at the voice and strode over to Lenox, his face filled with worry. “My dear man,” he said, “I can’t tell you the pleasure it gives me to see you awake.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “We pulled you on board twenty hours ago,” said Tradescant.

  “Am I well?”

  “You took a bad sunburn unfortunately.”

  Lenox tried to open his eyes wide and felt his skin fill with fire. Once he had started to feel the su
nburn it was impossible to stop feeling it, and maddening. “Balm,” he said. “My cabin. Jane sent it.”

  Tradescant smiled and held it up. “Mr. McEwan found it for you,” he said. “And is ready with food, should you need it. Your nephew will be beyond happiness—he has been here every fifteen minutes.”

  Despite Tradescant’s jolliness, Carrow still looked unhappy. “Still, we must apologize, Mr. Lenox, both I and my officers and even Her Majesty’s navy.”

  Of course, Lenox thought stupidly. He’s the captain now.

  “No need,” said Lenox. “Glad to be alive. Found Billings?”

  Carrow frowned. “No. We have fixed the rudder. At the moment we are on his path, but I shall leave it to your discretion: shall we follow him or take you to Egypt?”

  “You’re the captain,” said Lenox.

  To Lenox’s surprise Carrow looked as if this were natural enough; he didn’t seem overawed. “We shall follow him on for six more hours, then. After that we will be near enough in sight of land to tell whether we may catch him. Frankly I doubt it, but I would sail to the Arctic to catch him, the fiend.”

  “A dangerous man. I have seen it before.” Lenox coughed then, and his lungs and throat burned, but he went on. “Capable of maintaining a professional life and obeying a private devil simultaneously.”

  “He was always rather peculiar, Billings. Spoke to himself. If anything I would have said he was too gentle for the service, however.”

  “Criminals are unknowable,” said Lenox. “A dissatisfaction I have still yet to learn how to live with.”

  Tradescant came forward. “We must permit Mr. Lenox a respite from our conversation, Captain,” he said.

  “Of course, of course.”

  Lenox thought it foolish—he couldn’t sleep again after all that sleep, surely—and yet when they had gone he sank almost instantly into the same profound rest he had taken before. The last thing he remembered was Fizz, the little terrier, jumping up onto the bed and lumping himself companionably against Lenox’s leg, happy for the warmth. It was a comfort.