Murder on the Mary Jane

  Murder on the Mary Jane

  A Clara Fitzgerald Mystery

  Book 12

  By

  Evelyn James

  Red Raven Publications

  2018

  © Evelyn James 2018

  First published 2018

  Red Raven Publications

  The right of Evelyn James to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the permission in writing from the author

  Murder on the Mary Jane is the twelfth book in the Clara Fitzgerald series

  Other titles in the Series:

  Memories of the Dead

  Flight of Fancy

  Murder in Mink

  Carnival of Criminals

  Mistletoe and Murder

  The Poisoned Pen

  Grave Suspicions of Murder

  The Woman Died Thrice

  Murder and Mascara

  The Green Jade Dragon

  The Monster at the Window

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter One

  New Year’s Eve 1921. The clouds were thick over the moon and there was a hint of rain in the air, but aboard the Mary Jane the atmosphere was electric. The old passenger liner had been tarted-up for the last day of the old year. She bore lights all along her rigging, illuminating her presence like some giant star on the ocean. The light fell on the waves and gilded them with an orange tint.

  The music was loud. A full band was strumming out number after number, fuelled by a steady stream of champagne provided by uniformed waiters. People danced and laughed and drank. Saying goodbye to the last year, with all its good and ill, and preparing to welcome in a brand-new year, full of promise and excitement. Everyone was a little tight and a little high.

  In the background the Mary Jane’s crew kept the vessel on a steady course. She would sail in a large circle all night to keep the old engines ticking over. She was a relic from another age, a number of her crew had not been born when she was built. As majestic as she was, (the wise old lady of the sea, as her captain referred to her) she was well past her time as a sailing vessel. There was an anticipation among those who knew her well that this would be her last voyage, the next trip would be to the scrapyard. Her engines were largely held together by the willpower of her engineers and there were so many leaks and cracks throughout her hull that everyone had stopped keeping track. She was a grand old girl on the outside, but on the inside she was dying.

  Some said the thought that this was the last time Mary Jane would sail had made the captain maudlin. He was still circulating with the party guests in his dress uniform, as he was supposed to, yet there was a hint of melancholy in his stride and his smile was forced. It was also whispered he had drank rather a lot of champagne, more than he normally would, anyway.

  Mary Jane heaved through the sea, gently creaking, cutting her path as she had always done. The sea was where she was meant to be; twenty years serving the shipping lanes between England and Belgium, taking passengers back and forth in comfort and style, before the war had interrupted her career and passenger trips had been mothballed. For those four terrible years she had turned into a military transport, carrying soldiers to war rather than civilians to their holidays. All the time she had been captained by the same man, Frederick Pevsner, and when war had ceased, with Mary Jane not incurring so much as a scratch, a new future stretched out before them. Mary Jane was no longer fit for the daily journey between home and the Continent, but she could do coastal cruises and special events, such as the New Year’s Eve celebrations. She was also popular for weddings at sea. Captain Pevsner had found a new lease of life for them both.

  Imagining that all to soon be at an end was slowly killing him.

  Captain Pevsner glanced seawards, a slight sway to his feet. He saw something he didn’t like. Walking to the rail of his vessel he picked up a strand of lights that had gone out – one of the bulbs must be faulty. He grumbled to himself as he twisted each dead bulb in its socket in turn, trying to find the culprit. A sound caught his attention, a tentative scrape at the hull. He glanced down, almost idly, his mind on the bulbs. What he saw gently bobbing against the hull of his old ship made the colour drain from his face.

  Dropping the dead bulbs he hastened to find his first mate, who was somewhere among the party-goers. Alfred Cinch was almost as old as his captain, but he had foregone skippering his own ship to remain on the Mary Jane. He was feeling as morose as his captain that night.

  “Cinch!” Captain Pevsner hissed at him, catching Cinch by the arm and moving him away from the crowd of passengers. “We have to evacuate the ship!”

  “Captain?” Cinch looked at him in bafflement.

  “There is a mine, Cinch! A mine tapping at our hull! We abandon ship or we get blown up to Heaven!”

  ~~~*~~~

  Clara Fitzgerald pressed a wet cloth to her forehead and took an uncertain breath. She was lying on the bunk in her cabin. Every one of the guests had been assigned a cabin where they could place their belongings and change from day clothes to evening clothes. Clara had retreated to hers unexpectedly early when she had discovered that the combination of a gently bobbing ship and cheap champagne did diabolical things to her stomach.

  Sitting beside her was Captain John O’Harris, ex-air force, rather than sea captain. O’Harris and Clara were working on becoming something more than just friends, but it was proving a tentative process, each reserved for their own reasons. Fortunately, neither was in a hurry.

  Captain O’Harris was smirking slightly as he watched Clara.

  “This is not amusing,” Clara growled, opening an eye and peering from beneath the cloth. “I can tell you are smirking with my eyes closed.”

  “Sorry,” O’Harris said, “but it was very amusing the way you suddenly went green and ran to the ship rail.”

  “I fail to appreciate the humour,” Clara huffed.

  “Do you want any more of the bicarb and water?” O’Harris proffered a glass containing a cloudy liquid full of bubbles, the product of mixing bicarbonate of soda with water. The mixture was soothing for the stomach and, on a night such as this when everyone expected to drink and eat too much, the ship’s doctor had stocked up. When Clara had first become ill O’Harris had hastened to fetch her some.

  “I don’t think I can bear any more of that stuff,” Clara cringed as she eyed the glass. “My stomach feels better.”

  “Want to try swallowing the seasickness pill the doctor gave me?” O’Harris offered as an alternative.


  “I’ve never been seasick before,” Clara grumped, embarrassed now the worst had passed.

  “He said it would help,” O’Harris cajoled.

  Clara sighed and slowly sat up. She dropped the damp cloth from her forehead and took the pill with a fresh glass of water. It tasted chalky on her tongue and felt the size of a cricket ball as she endeavoured to swallow it, but it went down alright.

  “Not quite how I expected our evening to go,” O’Harris was smirking again.

  “I fully intend to be back on deck for the chiming of midnight,” Clara told him firmly. “I shall not let you down.”

  “I never doubted you,” O’Harris said playfully. “I guess we won’t be toasting the New Year in with champagne, however.”

  The look Clara gave him had him laughing.

  “Sorry, old girl, couldn’t resist. I am very glad you are feeling better though.”

  Clara softened.

  “I’ll stick to lemonade in the future,” she replied, before pausing. “What’s that?”

  Over their heads, on the deck above, there was the noise of feet stampeding; as if someone else was in a desperate rush for their cabin.

  “Maybe another guest found the champagne disagreeable?” O’Harris suggested. “Though, how anyone can call what they were serving us tonight champagne beggars belief. If I was French I would be ashamed.”

  The first set of running footsteps were now followed by several more. Clara frowned.

  “I can’t believe everyone found the champagne that disagreeable,” she said.

  There were shouts now, and a scraping sound of something heavy being moved. Captain O’Harris stood up, his eyes focused on the ceiling as if he could look through it and see what was going on. Clara was looking up too, baffled. They both jumped when someone knocked on their cabin door.

  “Ship’s steward!” A voice called out.

  Captain O’Harris opened the door and they both saw a red-faced man in the corridor outside.

  “The captain apologises, but we must ask you to evacuate the ship. If you can make your way calmly, but swiftly, to the upper deck you will be placed in a lifeboat,” the man said in a rush, before moving off to the next cabin.

  “Evacuate the ship?” Clara had jumped up from her bunk, but the man was already gone.

  She and Captain O’Harris stepped out into the corridor and noted that a number of crewmen were hammering on the doors of each cabin to see if they were occupied and, if they were, informing the occupants to abandon ship. Clara looked at O’Harris in astonishment. The ship was cruising just off the coast of Brighton. The weather was calm and there should be no other ships out here to potentially cause a collision. What could possibly have gone wrong.

  “Do you want to take your bags?” O’Harris asked Clara, ducking back into the cabin.

  “Just my handbag,” Clara said. He picked it up and tossed it to her. “We best get into a lifeboat!”

  They made their way up on deck where the only signs of a problem were the hysterics of various passengers who had taken the news of the evacuation badly. Some were panicking for no better reason than that they could. Since there was no obvious sign of fire, or of the ship sinking, it seemed ridiculous to lose your head. Not that that would help if there was a fire or the ship was sinking, anyway. Most of the passengers were milling about, waiting to be assigned to a lifeboat. Looking gloomy at having their celebrations cancelled, rather than scared.

  Clara and O’Harris joined the others and were rapidly handed lifejackets by a passing crewman.

  “What has happened?” Clara tried to ask him, but he scuttled past without speaking.

  No one seemed to know what was going on. After about fifteen minutes of waiting around for the first lifeboat to be loaded and launched, the initial fright at the word ‘evacuate’ was diminishing and people were growing restless. Some wanted to go back to the sun deck where the band was still playing on, by the order of the captain. Others were proving belligerent, especially with several glasses of champagne under their belt. The crew was having a hard time keeping order.

  Just as matters seemed to be getting out of hand, Captain Pevsner appeared on the balcony of his bridge and looked down on the assembled passengers. Calmly and clearly he addressed them all.

  “I apologise for this inconvenience ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “I hope to resolve the matter very swiftly, but for your own safety we must temporarily evacuate you from the ship.”

  “What is going on!” A man from among the passengers yelled.

  “As you all know, the sea lanes around the British coast were a prime hunting ground for the German U-boats during the war. To counter the threat, the sea was salted with thousands of mines. Despite the best efforts of the sweepers after the war, some of these mines remain and the Mary Jane has had the misfortune of encountering one,” there was a collective gasp from the crowd which Captain Pevsner ignored. “The mine, thankfully, has not exploded and, as I have a number of men aboard who once served on minesweepers, I have every hope we can remove the threat and prevent any damage to the ship. However, as a precaution, I am asking you all to go in the lifeboats and wait at a safe distance. My priority is the wellbeing of my guests. I dearly hope to have you all back aboard before midnight.”

  More questions were thrown at the captain from the crowd, but he refused to answer them.

  “Please cooperate with my crew to the best of your ability. This will speed the evacuation and ensure you can all return before midnight. This is but a temporary interruption to our evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your patience.”

  Captain Pevsner walked away and into the bridge cabin, the questions of the passengers still pursuing him to no avail.

  “What a nightmare,” Captain O’Harris reflected. “I didn’t realise there were still mines out here!”

  “Not many,” Clara reassured him. “But the odd one or two. How I understand it, they might have originally sunk too deep and then something occurs to cut their mooring and they resurface. I’ve read stories about fishermen dragging them up in their nets.”

  “What a catch!” O’Harris shook his head.

  The man stood just ahead of them was growing impatient. He was drunk and already in a temper. When a crewman came to ask him to step into a lifeboat he pushed the man away.

  “I ain’t getting in no lifeboat!” He barked.

  He stumbled backwards and spun around to face the other guests.

  “What bloody nonsense! I ain’t getting in no lifeboat!”

  With that he started to stalk off in the direction of the sun deck and the music.

  “Sir!” The crewman went to chase him.

  Another crewman stepped over to the gathered passengers.

  “Would you care to get in the lifeboat?” He asked O’Harris and Clara.

  “Not really,” Clara groaned, looking at the swaying white lifeboat. “I have been watching how you launch the things.”

  The crewman started to look worried, thinking they had another stubborn passenger on their hands. Captain O’Harris patted his shoulder.

  “She doesn’t mean it,” he promised.

  Clara raised an eyebrow.

  “Ask an honest question, get an honest answer,” she replied, stepping forward towards the nearest lifeboat. “I don’t care to get in, but I will.”

  Clara lifted her skirt and managed to get one foot into the lifeboat before it started to rock. She grimaced and screwed up her eyes for a second, the seasickness pill still only just taking effect. Then she swung in her other foot and wobbled for a moment, before rapidly finding a space on one of the benches in the boat. Captain O’Harris joined her, along with several others, then the boat was lowered towards the sea, the process slightly jerky as the winches were turned by hand. The sea seemed to slap the boat as it came down onto the surface. To Clara’s delicate stomach it felt like a blow. The ropes were released and the lifeboat was rowed by a crewman away from the ship to where several others
were already sitting.

  As the Mary Jane fell behind them Clara felt a chill come over her, almost like a premonition something bad was going to happen. She tried to ignore it, but she doubted she was the only one sitting in a lifeboat and waiting in tense anticipation for the sudden explosion of a mine.

  Chapter Two

  “How will they go about removing the mine?” Clara asked the others in her lifeboat.

  Glances were exchanged between the passengers and the crewman who had rowed them out. They had been sitting in the lifeboat for almost half an hour and everyone was becoming cold and agitated. Clara had asked the question as much to distract everybody from their predicament, as out of curiosity. People mumbled among themselves, then an older man sat towards the prow gave a polite cough. Eyes fell on him.

  “I might be able to answer the question,” the man declared modestly. He was dressed in a dinner jacket and purple bowtie. He had the side whiskers of a man from another generation and the twist to his mouth suggested he was used to talking with a pipe clenched in his teeth. “I was with the Royal Naval Reserve during the war. I served on a yacht that did some minesweeping.”

  “They used a yacht for minesweeping!” A woman near Clara remarked with a gasp.

  “They used yachts for a lot of things,” the RNR man explained. “But this one was used for minesweeping. I served aboard her for about six months. When you sweep for mines you use nets, which is why a lot of fishing boats were converted for the purpose. When you snagged a mine in the nets, you would carefully bring it to the surface and then, in general, you shot at it with a rifle to make it explode a safe distance from the vessel.”

  “But this mine is already near the Mary Jane,” Captain O’Harris pointed out.

  “And it hasn’t exploded,” the RNR man raised a finger. “That tells me it is faulty. These mines were designed to go off at the slightest bump. The horns on them were like triggers. Knocking one caused the whole thing to explode. Others were magnetic and would be attracted to a metal hull. You might get away with skimming one if you were a very light craft, but not a passenger liner. I’ve known a fishing boat gently nudge one and be blown sky high.”