The Borrowing Days Read online

  THE BORROWING DAYS

  A SEAGOING MURDER MYSTERY

  BY

  FRANCES MURRAY

  This one is for dear Barbara:

  two days in Kirkenes

  and

  eight years on E-mail

  The author would like to assure her readers that while the Edvard Grieg is based on one of the larger and most luxurious vessels of the Hurtigrüten fleet, the crew and the passengers have no existence other than in the imagination of the author. She would like also to apologise for some of the liberties taken with the intricate and amazing geography of the northern Norwegian coastline. However, she will make no apology for the weather, her characters chose the wrong time of the year to make this journey.

  During the passage of the Hurtigrüten vessel, Edvard Grieg through the northernmost fjords the best-hated passenger aboard vanishes. His disappearance casts considerable suspicion upon his family, who detest him even more than the other passengers and the crew and with good reason. Because it is late in the year, the weather deteriorates so that the ship has to take shelter in an inaccessible bay on the north coast and the investigation is undertaken by a member of the crew who, making use of all the tools at his disposal, uncovers startling information about the victim, unknown even to his family.

  This might be described as a classic murder mystery, insofar as it has the classic ‘islanded’ setting, with a limited number of suspects and the somewhat claustrophobic atmosphere created by such a setting is exaggerated by the bad weather. By the time the mystery is resolved the suspects have learned a great deal about each other and even more about the victim.

  CHAPTER LIST

  PRELUDE 5

  CHAPTER ONE 14

  “March said to Aperill.......” 14

  CHAPTER TWO 28

  “I see three hoggs on yonder hill...” 28

  CHAPTER THREE 42

  “Gin ye’ll lend me dayes three.....” 42

  CHAPTER FOUR 57

  “I’ll find a way tae gar them dee....” 57

  CHAPTER FIVE 74

  “The first day was wind and weet...” 74

  CHAPTER SIX 90

  “The second day was snaw and sleet....” 90

  CHAPTER SEVEN 105

  “The third day was sic a freeze....” 105

  CHAPTER EIGHT 124

  “ It froze the bird’s nebs tae the trees....” 124

  CHAPTER NINE 140

  “When the three days were past and gane,,,,,” 140

  CHAPTER TEN 155

  “Thae three silly yowes cam’ hirpling hame.” 155

  POSTLUDE 170

  PRELUDE

  It had been a day more like midsummer than the last day of October. The northern sky had been blue and cloudless, the sun shone on the watchful mountains and the sea had sparkled. There had been no wind and passengers on the Edvard Grieg had lain out on the after-deck on the steamer chairs and basked. The ship’s shop had sold out the last of the season’s supply of sunscreen. Now the sun was going down, the temperature was going down with it and the majority of passengers had gone inside and were admiring a spectacular sunset from the warmth of the bars and saloons. All but a few. Harriet Hamilton was still leaning on the rail looking westward into the rose, apricot and azure glory, though how much she actually saw of it was anybody’s guess. The sea was calm and gleamed like hammered gold. The islands and the rocky islets were silhouetted against the glow in the west. Gradually the sea seemed to gather all the light to itself and outshine the darkening sky.

  Harriet stared at the scene and hardly saw it. She was wondering how she could resolve her problem: how could she extricate her mother from the trap she had blundered into, poor silly darling? How could she wrench her father’s life’s work out of the jaws of her stepfather? If she persuaded her mother to leave Penman it would mean her father would be made bankrupt. Penman had bought up all his debts, she knew that now, and knew too, that he would do it, not because he was fond of her mother, she didn’t think he ever had been, it was more that he would not endure to be made to look foolish and to have his wife leave him would do just that. He could destroy the company and sack all the staff out of sheer spite, that went without saying. And he would. That went without saying as well. The team would be broken up and once that happened it would be almost impossible to bring them all together again. Not only would her father be made bankrupt but he would lose the device, his own device, which should make him a comfortable living. And, inevitably, the money Penman had promised to leave her mother would be left elsewhere and they would be penniless. She felt like a mouse in a barrel. She found herself thinking furiously, ‘Oh, if only the old beast would just die!’

  She hit the rail with her clenched fist. Surely that wasn’t such an awful thing to wish, god knew, nobody would miss him; His employees loathed him, Mama was scared of him and with good reason, his son, Paul, the poor sap, might be a bit lost but he would be free of his tyrant, and she, herself, could turn poor Mama back to her father with a sigh of relief and get on with her own life. And there would be money to rebuild ComUnity. Penman’s death would solve everything. She sighed. It was unlikely to be soon. He might be in his eighties but he was still healthy and strong. He might carry a stick but he didn’t use it for walking, nor did he need to. And he was so careful of himself. He never risked catching ‘flu or a cold, never ate anything which would disagree with him, never overexerted himself, took regular exercise and boasted that his heart was like that of a much younger man. Death was not yet waiting in the wings for Henry Penman. By the time he succumbed it could be too late for them all. Harriet sighed and leaned over the rail to watch the golden light playing on the ripples made by the ship’s passage.

  Per Berg, third officer of the Edvard Grieg, was on the graveyard shift that week. He had been woken early by the low, bright sun striking into his cabin so he had risen and dressed and come on deck to watch the splendid end of the day. There he had found Harriet, alone on the afterdeck, apparently rapt in admiration, and he rejoiced. From the day she had come aboard at Bergen he had wanted to become better acquainted. This was unusual for Berg. He did not indulge in brief affairs with the female passengers. Those he could like would not want to play that game and, for himself, he found learning his job had needed concentration and energy. Also the women rarely drew his attention. Cruises with the Hurtigrüten along the Norwegian coast seemed to be patronised mainly by the long-married and middle-aged, the downright elderly and the impassioned nature-lovers all hung about with binoculars. However, Harriet he found profoundly attractive even at first sight. For some she might have been too tall, too athletic-seeming but to him she seemed splendid, nearly as tall as he was himself, her hair a coppery colour in a great plait like an anchor cable and a creamy dense skin. Harriet was no fashionably skinny, die-away waif. With one of those he had been all too well acquainted and he wanted no more of that kind. Her face was strong boned and her eyes as blue as his own.

  He stopped beside Harriet, surprised and pleased to find her on her own. Always she seemed to be with her family, that impossibly ill-natured old man, the downtrodden wife and the close-mouthed unsociable son. The old man made no one welcome. Approaches made by other passengers had been countered with unmitigated, contemptuous rudeness. The crew he treated without courtesy or consideration. It was hard to understand why he had come on this trip at all as it was more than clear he did not enjoy it and was set upon making sure than no one else would enjoy it either.

  “So, it is Farewell Summer,” he said after a minute and she jumped. “Sorry. Did I startle you?”

  “A bit. I was miles away.”

  He joined her at the rail and grinned.

  “I just remarked it was Farewell Summer
.”

  “Surely we said that weeks ago,” she returned, “Tonight is Halloween for heaven’s sake!. Tomorrow it will be November.”

  “Halloween?”

  “The eve of All Saints. The feast of the dead. Surely they have it in Norway, it’s really a pagan festival, just sort of sanitised by the church.”

  “I know it. In Catholic Europe everyone cleans up the graves and takes flowers.”

  “In Scotland we cut turnips into lanterns that look like skulls and try to startle people with them. You’re supposed to be able to ask the dead questions about the future because that is the day they come back to see how you’re getting on. And people dress up and go from house to house...well, children do. They don’t observe the All Saints bit.”

  “The Scottish Church doesn’t acknowledge many saints, I understand?”

  “No. That’s true. My father says that lots of places in Europe never became Christian in anything but name and Scotland’s adoption of Presbyterianism was really a return to paganism. Our Halloween certainly isn’t Christian, whatever it is, and till recently they celebrated New Year, Hogmanay, not Christmas.”

  “Now they celebrate both?”

  “Not much that’s Christian about their Christmas, I have to say. Mostly Santa Claus and booze.”

  Per laughed.

  “Same everywhere, I reckon.”

  “My father says that most of the old pagan ceremonies were just taken over by the early church and the ordinary people went on believing in the same things, whatever they were called. Is Farewell Summer the same sort of thing?”

  “No, more meteorological folk lore. Like red sky at night and all that. Round here they say that on the day before winter really starts, summer looks over her shoulder and smiles farewell.”

  “Really? How very picturesque,” she said, smiling and looking round at him for the first time. She saw a young man who might have posed as a model for the mythical Aryan youth beloved of the Nazis. He was tall, fair-haired and his unshaven jaw glinted gold in the last of the sunlight. His eyes were a deep blue and his almost overpowering good looks were redeemed by the fact that he was completely unconscious of them. In the most casual of clothes and down-at-heel espadrilles, unshaven, with uncombed hair he made most current film or pop heroes look flabby and shabby and unwashed. Her casual glance turned into more detailed examination and her eyes widened at the sight of him. He grinned at her.

  “It usually means there is bad weather on the way so Farewell Summer isn’t always welcome in these islands.”

  She turned back to the sunset and leaned over the rail.

  “ I know it isn’t a bit the same thing, but it reminds me of the Borrowing Days.”

  “What are they?” asked Per.

  “When I was small we lived in the Scottish Border country and there they used to say that March borrowed three days from April so that there were three soft, almost summery days early in March and then March repaid them with three winter days at the end of April usually in the middle of lambing. In fact there’s a rhyme about it, something about freezing the birds’ nebs tae the trees. But it’s ages since I heard it.”

  “You’re Scots, then?”

  “My father is.”

  Per was surprised. He would not have thought the old man, what was his name, Penman? to be a Scot. Hard to make out where he belonged. What usually struck any listener about his voice was its harsh staccato quality and the explosive rudeness of the things he said, not his accent. It seemed that Harriet noticed his surprise for she scowled and stared out to sea.

  “Henry Penman,” she said between her teeth, “is not my father. He is my mother’s husband.”

  No love lost there, he thought. Not surprising. Penman was not the type to endear himself to anyone, let along his wretched wife’s daughter. He decided to change the subject.

  “Late in the year to make this trip,” he mentioned. “Except for today you haven’t had the best of weather.”

  “No,” she agreed. “So much for your splendid, dramatic, mountain scenery. We haven’t seen much more than rain, mist, wet black rocks and the odd sodden seabird.”

  He chuckled.

  “Well, I hope you made the best of today.”

  He had wondered before this what had brought the family on the Hurtigrüten. There were not many ‘there and back’ cruisers at this time of year and most of those aboard had been lured by the cheap fares offered for this ‘end-of-season’ trip. However, the Penmans were not taking advantage of that. Penman and his wife had one of the comfortable mini-suites on Deck 6 and the other two had cabins on the same deck, almost as luxurious. Nor did the old man stint himself in any other way. He drank his expensive whiskies and had wine with his dinner every night. However, he did not seem to be enjoying himself. He had been not been ashore at any of the ports, nor had he encouraged his family to go. He had booked for none of the expeditions. His movements about the ship were punctuated by loud complaints and the crew had come to loathe him even within five days. It was in his mind to ask her why they had come but he changed his mind.

  “This is our last run for this year,” he said. “Once we are back in Bergen the old girl will get a clean-up and a lick of paint and some running repairs and I will get three weeks leave. Then we will cross the Atlantic and do the run to South Georgia.”

  “I thought the ferries ran all through the winter,” she protested. “It says so in the brochure.”

  “Not this ship. She and her sister-ships go south to the Antarctic. They are too big for the winter run here in Norway. There are still plenty of passengers in winter but there are not enough people going pleasure-cruising to justify using the biggest ships.”

  “And do you go with her?”

  He nodded.

  “So, you will miss the winter.”

  “Yes. This will be the third I’ve missed.”

  “Do you think yourself lucky?”

  “Mmmm. Not really.”

  “Why? Most people would think it was an ideal life, nothing but spring and summer.”

  “I suppose you’re right. But I miss the skiing, the skating’ the short bright days, the snow.... coming home to a fire and a hot drink.... I just miss winter, I suppose. Even the long dark. It is very much part of life for a Norwegian, you know.”

  “Not for me. I hate the English winter. Nothing but murky days with the lights on all the time and the raw damp cold and beastly town Christmases with trashy commercial carols blasting everywhere for months. Don’t you hate that? Oh, sorry, I forgot you must be Norwegian. Perhaps it isn’t like that with you. Your English is so good.”

  “My mother was English. Well, Scottish really, from Inverness. She wouldn’t have liked to be called English.”

  “She is dead?”

  “More than three years ago One of these sudden aggressive cancers.”

  “I am sorry. You must miss her.”

  “Oh, we do. Your own father.... is he alive?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  She did not elaborate but drew back from the rail and gave a little shiver.

  “Time to go in, I think. It’s getting really cold.”

  Per nodded agreement and went to hold the heavy door which led into the forward lobby on Deck 5. Inside, it was warm and the lights were bright.

  “This ship is like an oasis,” Harriet said, unwinding her scarf. “A moving oasis in a cold wet desert. Think of being a Viking out there in an open boat.”

  “No wind today. They’d keep warm by rowing. Anyhow, they’d more sense than to go raiding in winter: by this time of the year the boats were hauled up and they would be snug by the fire, drinking hot ale out of horns and telling tall stories about the summer’s adventures.”

  “And letting their wives do all the work of the house and the farm, no doubt,” Harriet said dryly.

  “Certainly, and probably the wives were perfectly happy about it. Think of trying to explain to a sailor how to milk the cow or make butter or harness the oxen.”
r />   She chuckled and he thought how young she looked when she was laughing or smiling and how seldom she either smiled or laughed.

  “Come and have a drink,” he invited her. “There’s time before dinner.”

  He heard himself saying this with a kind of incredulity, ‘... but I never chat up the female passengers,’ he was thinking, ‘I must be out of my tree.’ Though he could not know it Harriet’s mind was running on very much the same lines, ‘I can’t possibly get involved until it’s all over and..... oh, hell, why not? He makes Mel Gibson seem like Rab C. Nesbit. I think he’s OK and harmless enough. And the voyage is nearly half over. Anyway, what’s one drink?’

  She hesitated and then nodded. They went up the staircase to Deck 7 and found the bar deserted and the steward polishing glasses. He was a stocky, sombre, taciturn character with his dark eyes set a little aslant in a long, bony face under a shock of greying blond hair..

  “No customers, Theo?” asked Per.

  “Not yet. After dinner they come when the piano plays. And today there was the accident, so we have not yet picked up the fishery people from Kjellefiord. Then I shall be busy enough.”

  He drew them two beers and they went to the port windows to watch the last of the sun.

  “What accident?” Harriet asked.

  “Where we had to stop for the Russian trawler in the Magerøysundet.”

  “Oh, that. Yes, I saw. I didn’t realise there had been an accident. We sent off a boat, didn’t we? The rubber one down there? I watched that from the window out there on the landing.”

  She took her beer over to the window and pointed down to where the inflatable hung from its davits on Deck 5 and Per nodded.

  “I was off duty so I didn’t see but I gather the trawler was taking water. So, we took off the crew before she sank. Real rust-buckets some of these Russians.”