A Viking's Shadow Read online

  As well as the bedroom and bathroom, Florence had a compact galley and comfortable living area. Shadow lit the small wood burner opposite the large, squashy sofa, then went in search of something to eat. The contents of his fridge could, at best, be described as sparse. There was, however, some leftover Sorrento ham and a loaf in the bread bin that was just on the right side of stale. He sighed. It wasn’t the pollo farcito he’d been hoping for, but it would have to do.

  His thoughts drifted back to Luisa. She had been an amazing cook. She could open a cupboard or fridge and, no matter what she found there, would create the most amazing dishes. He’d watch her simply throw ingredients into a pan, then ask her how she knew what she was doing without a recipe. She laughed at him, as she often did and said simply, instinct. It didn’t matter how many Italian restaurants he visited, nobody cooked like Luisa.

  Shadow poured himself a large glass of Chianti, put on his favourite Frank Sinatra CD, and settled down on to the sofa. With his sandwich on one side and his unfinished Yorkshire Post crossword on the other, he could finally begin to unwind. He took a sip of wine and swilled it around his mouth then swallowed it with a satisfied sigh. Finally, the lingering, sickly sweet taste of the mead was banished. He decided to relax and leave it a couple of hours before heading back, by then the madness should have died down.

  A little while later, the crossword was complete, Frank had finished singing “How About You” for the second time, and the fire had died away to a few glowing embers. Shadow pulled his old battered wax jacket back on and ventured outside to the deck. He strained his ears and eyes, but all seemed quiet.

  He cast off from the riverbank, turned Florence around and headed back to the city. The moon was shining brightly in the clear sky and his breath formed clouds in the cool night air as Florence quietly glided back under Millennium Bridge. Shadow tutted to himself as he spotted floating debris from the race. An extinguished torch, abandoned shield, even a false beard floated by.

  He approached Skeldergate Bridge with some trepidation. Although the boat race might be over, he was sure the Viking festivities would continue long into the night. However, as the bridge came into view, it wasn’t the warm glow of burning torches that greeted him, but bright blue flashing lights.

  A tall thin figure in a black leather jacket was jogging down the towpath in his direction. Shadow steered towards the bank and threw him the mooring rope.

  “I take it there’s a problem, Sergeant?”

  “We’ve got a body, Chief,” replied Jimmy as he tied a knot in the rope, tightly securing Florence’s position.

  Shadow ducked inside to put his jacket and tie back on. He couldn’t say he felt especially surprised at Jimmy’s news. The more he’d thought about it, the more the whole staging of tonight’s event seemed to him utter folly.

  “Drowned or burnt?” he enquired as he stepped off the boat and on to the towpath.

  “Neither, Chief. A stabbing. Someone has stuck a thirty-inch sword right through King Ragnar.”

  Chapter Two

  Down 6 (5 letters)

  Ulfberht’s sharp words are etched here

  King Ragnar was in reality Alfred Campbell. He was one of York’s wealthiest and most well-known businessmen. His photograph was often featured in the local press, which was why he had seemed so familiar to Shadow. About twenty-five years ago, he had discovered a hoard of Viking treasure on farmland he owned, on the outskirts of Fulford.

  His share was worth millions and he became rich overnight, selling most of the treasure to museums and collectors. He had, however, kept a few choice pieces and using his new fortune set up various Viking-themed ventures in the city. Along with the annual festival, there was the Daneholm museum with a shop that catered to tourists and school parties. He had also opened Asgard’s bar and even a night club, called Valhalla, both named after the Viking idea of heaven.

  As the two policemen made their way back over the bridge, Jimmy filled Shadow in on what had happened. After the longboat race had finished, King Ragnar, or Alfred, was due to present the victorious crew with a trophy, but he was nowhere to be seen. Edward Bennington, the secretary of the festival, had gone in search of him and discovered his body in “King Ragnar’s Palace” and called the emergency services immediately.

  “Is Sophie with the body?” asked Shadow.

  Jimmy shook his head. “No, she’s not on duty tonight. We’d just left at the end of the race when I got the call and came straight back.”

  “I see.” Shadow nodded, quietly noting the way Jimmy had said “we’d just left”, but more concerned that this meant he would have to deal with Donaldson, the other, far less amenable pathologist.

  Despite the late hour, there was still a large crowd of Vikings and tourists gathered outside the encampment, trying to see what was going on. Shadow stepped across the cordon. He nodded his thanks to the uniformed officers, who were doing their best to keep control, helped by a few burly security guards in fluorescent jackets.

  The encampment in St George’s Field car park was more elaborate than the one in St Sampson’s Square. Instead of tents, several low wooden structures with roofs almost sloping to the ground had been erected. The largest of these was decorated with animal skulls and had the words King Ragnar’s Palace painted above the door in Nordic-style letters. A young constable held the door open for Shadow and Jimmy as they approached.

  “Thank you, Constable. Don’t let anyone through without my say-so,” ordered Shadow.

  “Certainly not, sir. It’s Tom by the way, sir,” replied the young man eagerly.

  “Thank you, Tom,” said Shadow as he stepped across the threshold.

  *

  Inside the palace, painted shields and more animal skulls and horns covered the walls. Long wooden tables with benches ran along each side and there was a smouldering fire in the centre of the room with the smoke drifting up to a hole in the roof. At the far end were two carved wooden throne-style chairs with a heavy black curtain hanging behind.

  “The body’s through here, Chief,” said Jimmy as he pushed aside the curtain.

  Shadow stepped through into a smaller anteroom. Another fire surrounded by stones was burning on the floor of the room. There was a wooden bed covered in fur throws pushed against the wall. There was also a fur rug on the floor beneath the body. In the centre of the room were two wooden chairs and a table.

  Jimmy began busily using his phone to take photos from various angles. Shadow took in the details of the scene while trying very hard not to look directly at the wound and the copious amount of blood on the floor. Despite a career in the police that spanned over thirty years, Shadow was still incredibly squeamish.

  The dead man’s hands were resting on the hilt of the sword. There was a length of black silky material covering his eyes and tied around the back of his head. On the table was an open bottle of expensive French red wine and two full glasses. No mead in a horn for King Ragnar, thought Shadow. By the way he’d fallen, it looked like Alfred was sitting on the chair with his back to the curtain before the sword had struck him and he’d slumped down on to the floor.

  “What are you thinking, Chief?” asked Jimmy, switching on his electronic notebook, ready to begin taking notes.

  “I’m thinking that for such a brutal death, it’s a remarkably peaceful crime scene. No signs of a struggle. The glasses haven’t been knocked over; there’s not even a single drop of wine spilt.”

  “Wow, you’re right! Do you think he did it to himself? It does look like he’s holding on to the sword handle.”

  “Hilt,” Shadow corrected him automatically. “Suicide is a possibility, I suppose,” he conceded, without much conviction.

  “Or maybe someone entered, threatened him with a gun so he didn’t move or try and fight back, then stuck the sword in him?” Jimmy continued.

  “Then why not use the gun to kill him?” replied Shadow, humouring his sergeant, although privately he was sceptical of the idea. In his experience, guns were rarely a feature of crimes in the city. They were certainly not as readily available as Jimmy might imagine.

  “Too loud?” offered Jimmy.

  “Perhaps,” mused Shadow, but he was distracted by something else. There was a heavy scent of perfume in the air. It was strong enough not to be masked by the wood smoke from the fire. He knew he’d smelt it before, but he couldn’t remember where or when.

  “What about the blindfold? That’s a bit weird isn’t it, Chief?”

  Before Shadow could answer there was a commotion outside and Donaldson came storming through the black curtain, followed by Tom, the harassed-looking young constable.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I couldn’t stop him,” said Tom. Shadow waved away his apology and Tom scuttled back through the curtain.

  “What sort of an operation are you running here, Shadow?” demanded Donaldson. “That young lackey tried to stop me coming in. Aren’t they taught to recognise those people whose presence is vital to an investigation?”

  Shadow raised an eyebrow. Donaldson was one step away from uttering the most pompous question of all: “Don’t you know who I am?”

  “Well, you’re not exactly dressed for the occasion. What have you come as?” asked Shadow.

  Donaldson was stood before them in what appeared to be a Scottish fancy dress costume. He was wearing a tartan kilt, complete with sporran, white frilly shirt, short black jacket and white knee socks. Jimmy failed to stifle a snigger. Donaldson glared at the two detectives and replied haughtily.

  “I’ll have you know this is formal Highland dress. I happen to be the president of York’s Saltire Society. We were enjoying our annual ball at the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall before your ill-timed interruption.”

  He strode over and looked down at the body on the floor.

  “Poor old Alfred, eh? Straight through the liver by the look of things. Not a bad chap, I suppose, if a little rough around the edges.”

  “You knew him?” asked Shadow.

  “I played golf with him once. He and Gillian made up a four with myself and my good lady wife.”

  Shadow rolled his eyes. The pathologist never missed an opportunity to let the chief inspector know that he was on first-name terms with his boss: the chief constable of North Yorkshire. Donaldson was now kneeling next to the body and peering at the wound.

  “I assume even you two don’t need me to tell you the cause of death.” He smirked sarcastically as he opened the neck of Alfred’s shirt, exposing the dead man’s chest and shoulders including a tattoo of a strange pattern of lines and symbols he couldn’t make out. Jimmy bent down to take a photo of it.

  “Do you think it could have been suicide?” he asked.

  Donaldson frowned and elbowed the sergeant out of the way. “I appreciate your faith in my diagnostic skills, Sergeant Chang, but even I can’t ascertain the state of mind of a corpse.”

  “But the wound could have been self-inflicted?” persisted Shadow.

  Donaldson threw a dismissive glance towards the chief inspector before examining the fingers around the hilt of the sword. “It is a possibility, but looking at the position of his hands, I’m not convinced. I’ll know more when I have him on the slab.”

  “And time of death?”

  “Within the last hour,” replied Donaldson as he stood up. He had clearly decided his work there was done.

  A thought suddenly occurred to Shadow. “He wasn’t a member of the Saltire Society, too, was he?” he asked, gesturing to the body.

  An expression of disdain crossed Donaldson’s face. “Hardly! He wasn’t really our type and you know what they say: the only good Campbell is a dead Campbell.”

  With that the pathologist turned and strode back out of the room without bothering to wish the detectives goodnight.

  “That was a bit harsh even for him,” complained Jimmy, then mimicked Donaldson’s voice: “The only good Campbell is a dead Campbell.”

  “Oh, I think it was only clan pride talking,” replied Shadow, then seeing Jimmy’s blank expression: “The Glen Coe Massacre?”

  Jimmy shook his head and Shadow sighed. For someone who had grown up in York, a city virtually dripping in history, his sergeant sometimes displayed a shocking lack of historical knowledge.

  “Campbell soldiers were given shelter by the MacDonald clan in Glen Coe, but instead of being grateful, the next morning the soldiers woke up and killed thirty members of the clan in cold blood. With a name like Donaldson, our charming doctor clearly feels an affinity with the MacDonalds.”

  “Whoa!” exclaimed Jimmy, looking horrified. “When did all this happen?”

  “The late 1600s, I think. There’s been bad blood between the two clans ever since.”

  “Talk about holding a grudge,” murmured Jimmy, shaking his head incredulously. “I didn’t even know Donaldson was Scottish.”

  “He’s not. He was born in Kent. Then again, I doubt many of those marching in the Great Heathen Army had a drop of Scandinavian blood in them either.”

  “That’s why I never really got History, Chief. Leave the past in the past – that’s what I say.”

  Shadow didn’t bother to respond; he was distracted by something he’d seen at the edge of the fire. Fishing out his glasses from his pocket, he knelt down to take a closer look. It looked like a smouldering wallet. Cautiously, using his pen, he nudged it out of the flames and into the ashes to cool. As he was about to stand up, he noticed there was a collection of tiny smashed pieces of glass or plastic next to one of the large stones surrounding the fire and yet nothing in the room seemed to be broken.

  “When forensics get here, ask them to take a look at all this,” he said, pointing to the charred wallet and the fragments. “Where are they anyway?”

  The forensics team were both young and quite new to the city. Privately Shadow referred to them as Laurel and Hardy, as one was tall and skinny and the other short and fat. They tended to talk only in scientific jargon, so he usually left Jimmy to liaise with them.

  “Ollie phoned to say they are on their way, Chief.”

  “Who?” asked Shadow, a little startled.

  “Ollie, the short one with dark hair.”

  “Please tell the other one isn’t called Stan.”

  Jimmy looked puzzled and shook his head.

  “No, he’s Ben. They were both here, so they had to leave and go to fetch all their equipment. Now they’re stuck in traffic.”

  Shadow shook his head. Ben and Ollie might know all the latest scientific procedures, but Shadow sometimes found them lacking when it came the basic skills, like timekeeping.

  There was a small cough outside and Tom put his head through the curtain. “Sorry to interrupt, Chief Inspector Shadow, Sergeant Chang, but Mr Bennington, the gentleman who discovered the body, is waiting outside. Would you like to speak with him tonight or shall I let him go home, sir?”

  “No, ask him to come through by all means, thank you, Constable – I mean Tom.”

  A moment later, a rather nervous-looking Edward Bennington stepped cautiously through the curtain. He was a small, slightly built man with grey thinning hair that he had pulled back into a short ponytail. He had removed his eye patch and the bird on his shoulder had disappeared. His tunic, trousers and cloak were all in earthy green and brown tones. Shadow thought that no doubt they were more authentic, but they lacked the glamour of Alfred’s costume. He stepped forward and shook Edward’s hand.

  “Thank you for waiting, Mr Bennington. I understand you’ve already met Sergeant Chang.”

  “Oh yes, I must say Sergeant Chang got here very quickly after I called.” Edward smiled and gave Jimmy a small wave.

  “And what time was that?” asked Shadow.

  “It must have been a little after nine. I can’t be more exact I’m afraid, Chief Inspector, as I wasn’t wearing my watch. I like to be as true to the Vikings as possible. I even forgo my spectacles. Now that would have been an anachronism!” He gave a little chuckle. “But back to your question. The race was due to finish at nine. We all thought it a bit odd Alfred wasn’t there. Normally, he would have been standing on the bridge, cheering the boats on.

  “As secretary of the festival, it was my job to find him, so the prizes could be awarded. I don’t suppose they shall be now. What a waste,” he lamented, but Shadow couldn’t be sure if he was referring to Alfred or the prize-giving ceremony. He thought Edward didn’t seem particularly perturbed by discovering a dead body, but his eyes did keep flicking over to where the corpse lay. Shadow motioned to Jimmy to cover Alfred. Reluctantly, Jimmy began to unzip his jacket. Edward held up his hand to stop him.

  “Before you do, may I?” He gestured towards the body. “I doubt I’ll get another opportunity. I expect you’ll have to take everything away,” he explained with a sad look on his face.

  “Yes of course, Mr Bennington, but please don’t touch him,” agreed Shadow, thinking perhaps Edward was close to Alfred after all. Grief could affect people in strange ways. Edward knelt next to the body and the two detectives respectfully took a few steps back and lowered their heads. Shadow wondered if he would say a prayer or perhaps wanted to wish Alfred a last goodbye.

  “It’s incredible, such exquisite detail,” they heard him murmur. Jimmy looked up at Shadow and raised an eyebrow. Edward was peering intently at the sword. He didn’t seem to mind that at least half of it had been left buried in someone who, Shadow assumed, was a close acquaintance, if not a friend.

  “Is it a special sword?” he enquired.

  Edward remained transfixed. “It’s an Ulfberht sword, Chief Inspector. Of course, the original is in the Daneholm museum. Nobody can use that. This is only a replica, but a stunning example nonetheless. Alfred had it specially commissioned for the festival.

  “Ulfberht was a master swordsmith of the Viking age. Before him, swords were made of soft iron bars welded together with strips of steel, shaped into a blade then adding a steel edge. Ulfberht was the first to make a sword out of good quality steel, and he improved the design so it was more tapered and better balanced. In those times, it was as significant as inventing the combustion engine. You see these etched markings? They honour Ulfberht and his skill.”