Body Line

SIXTEEN

Jewel Carriageway

‘Is she for sale?’ Slider asked neutrally.

‘Wouldn’t wonder,’ the man commented, the cigarette wagging with his words. He unpeeled it from his lip and spat politely sideways away from them into the water.

Atherton was about to speak, and Slider froze him with a lightning glance and a hidden elbow nudge. Keeping silence invited confidences. In the absence of questions, a man eager to impart had to make his own timing. Eventually the man had to speak. A casual glance behind him showed Slider that there were others of the local fishing community, messing about by their huts or laying out fish on their stalls, equally uninterested in Slider, Atherton, Windhover and their new friend. You could tell they weren’t interested by the way they were pointedly not looking at them, while their attention was out on stalks. It was the country way, as Slider, a country boy, knew well.

‘Ent bin down this week, th’ole doc. Never misses.’

After a pause to show lack of interest, Slider said, ‘She’s a nice-looking craft.’

The man grunted agreement, and then became positively loquacious. ‘Fairline Milennium Seahawk, Mark II. Special job. Marine allyminimum hull. Twin three thousand ’orsepower diesels plus a gas turban. She’ll do sixty knots in any sea. Carries more’n seven thousand gallons o’ fuel. Range like that, she’ll take you to Norway an’ back on one tank. Lovely ole gal, th’ole Wendover.’

He pronounced it like the Buckinghamshire town. Slider reckoned he probably would have pronounced the right name the same way, and wondered whether the makers of the dodgers had realized that and taken the line of least resistance.

‘She’s a lady, all right,’ he said.

‘That is,’ the man agreed.

‘So you think she might be for sale?’ Slider said.

The man looked sidelong at him, and snorted with faint amusement. ‘Coppers, ent yer.’ It was not really a question.

Slider shrugged non-committally. He wasn’t giving the farm away. He looked to the left, towards the river mouth, and said, ‘Tide’s turning.’

‘Slack water,’ the man said, and the agreement seemed to create a bond between them. He took a last drag on his cigarette, threw it down and ground it out, shoved his hands back in his pockets and said, ‘Knew he’d be in trouble sooner or later, that ole doc.’

‘I’m afraid he’s dead,’ Slider said.

The man nodded as if he’d expected that. ‘Never missed. Went out Wensdy night, come in early hours Thursdy mornin’. Sport fishin’,’ he concluded derisively.

‘Just an excuse?’ Slider hazarded.

‘Man like that, boat like that, don’t go fishin’ alone! Never had no parties in ’er. No drink, no girls.’

‘So what did he do?’

He watched a burgee fill and crack straight in a brief, sudden air. ‘Sometimes he’d go out same time as us. Set off ’ell for leather. Never see where he fished. Sometimes he’d come in same time as us. Come off with a big ole cool box o’ fish every week. “Had a bit o’ luck,” he’d say. “Got some big ones,” he’d say.’ He snorted. ‘Any fish he had, I reckon he bought at Macfisheries.’ He seemed amused at his own wit.

‘Did he ever show you his catch?’

‘Never showed no one. Never saw what he ’ad in that box. “Got some beauties,” he’d say. That went straight in ’is car, and off away, out o’ town, quick as you like.’

Slider was having trouble with the cool box – that thing wasn’t designed to be portable. ‘That refrigerated box in the cockpit—’

‘Not that one. Portable job. Kept th’electric one on-board.’

Slider had an image of Rogers coming in, tying up, emerging with his cool box on to an apparently indifferent harbourside, blissfully unaware of the dozens of eyes clocking his every movement. But if no one ever said anything, what harm?

‘Dead, eh?’ the old man mused at last, staring at the swirl of slack-tide on the brown-grey water.

‘He was up to something,’ Slider said indifferently to a passing seagull.

‘Free trade, thass what we call it,’ the old man said at the conclusion of some thought process. ‘Suppose to be in th’ole Europeen Union, ent we? Suppose to be free movement o’ goods. So how come a man can’t bring in a foo bits an’ bobs for hisself an’ his mates without th’ole Customs and Excise persecootin’ him?’

‘Beats me,’ Slider said. ‘That’s not my department.’

‘Huh!’ the man snorted, but it was aimed at the Customs and Excise, not Slider, who was still, as a man who could tell when the tide was turning, the acceptable face of the law.

‘So the doctor was a free-trader,’ Slider mused, not making it a question.

‘He weren’t sport fishin’, thass for sure,’ his new friend agreed, and then, as a final, huge concession, actually looked at Slider and said, ‘Coastguard bin watchin’ him. You go and talk to coastguard.’

‘Thanks,’ Slider said. After a suitable pause, he nodded farewell and he and Atherton moved nonchalantly away. The old man remained where he was, staring up the river, to show he hadn’t been talking to them at all.

The coastguard on duty, Steve Wilderspin, was a fatherly-looking middle-aged man whose firm face suggested a core of steel and whose level, noticing eyes wouldn’t have been out of place on a policeman. He reminded Slider of Dave Bright. He examined Slider’s and Atherton’s warrant cards with professional swiftness, and showed no surprise when Slider asked him about the Windhover.

‘We’ve been watching her for a while,’ he said. ‘We thought it was a bit odd the doc berthed her here, instead of the marina at Lowestoft. Nothing strange about a rich London consultant wanting a place in Southwold,’ he was quick to add. ‘We’ve got a few of that sort, I can tell you. Barristers, hedge fund managers, all sorts of top people. It’s that kind of place. But Windhover’s a showy craft, the sort people like to show off when they’ve sunk that much money into it. And Doc Rogers wasn’t showing her off to anyone. No parties, no pals down from London for weekend cruises. He didn’t even join the Yacht Club. A man doesn’t buy a super speed cruiser like that and then not talk to anyone about it.’ His eyes crinkled with amusement at the thought. ‘There was only half a dozen Mark IIs ever made, and four of them are in the States. Who ever heard of an owner not wanting to boast about that sort of thing?’

‘You’re right,’ Slider said.

‘And she’s fast,’ Wilderspin went on, ‘and built for the open seas. What was he doing poodling about coastal waters with his once-a-week fishing trips? But on the other hand, a man can spend his money on anything he likes. It’s a free country. If he wants to waste a power-craft like that, it’s his business.’ He looked at Slider. ‘There’s plenty of rich people with Maseratis and nowhere to let ’em out, am I right? And driving bloody great off-roaders around Kensington and Chelsea.’

‘Exactly,’ said Slider.

‘So we just kept an eye on him. And we’ve never seen him bringing anything bulky off the Windhover. So unless he was smuggling diamonds—’ He shrugged.

‘You didn’t ever try to inspect his luggage?’

Wilderspin’s sea-faded eyes opened a fraction. ‘Can’t do that. Especially not to a respectable Southwold resident. No evidence against him.’

‘What if you knew he was meeting another craft out at sea?’

‘Ah,’ Wilderspin said with satisfaction. ‘That’d be different. Have you got something?’

Slider said, ‘The one time he took someone with him he had a close encounter with a boat called Havik.’ He spelled it. ‘From a Dutch port beginning with “I”.’

‘IJmuiden,’ Wilderspin said at once. ‘Lay you any money. IJmuiden port and marina – practically the first place you come to if you sail straight from Southwold to Holland.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘That gives us something to work with. It could be diamonds, in that case. IJmuiden’s only a stone’s throw from Amsterdam, which is the biggest centre for diamond distribution on the continent.’ He looked consideringly at Slider and Atherton. ‘To find out anything more, I’m going to have to refer this upwards, to get co-operation with the Dutch coastguards. Is that going to mess up your case?’

‘Can you hold off for a bit?’ Slider said. ‘I’m going to have to refer upwards as well. And if there is a big operation going on, we don’t want to spook them before we’ve laid our hands on the murderer.’

‘Fair enough,’ Wilderspin said. ‘Can’t have people murdering our citizens with impunity.’

‘Funny thing is,’ Atherton said when they left, ‘I’m pretty sure he meant Southwold citizens, not British citizens.’

‘Wouldn’t surprise me a bit,’ said Slider from the depth of furious thinking.

Mackay was duty officer, and Hollis was there, doing a bit of office-managering on his own account, because he wasn’t getting on with his second wife and liked to get out of the house when he could. Porson had arrived by the time Slider and Atherton got back, and they all gathered round him in the CID room, as he sat on the edge of Atherton’s desk (always the tidiest) and fiddled with a biro, clicking the end in and out like Edmundo Ros on speed.

‘Smuggling, eh?’ he said thoughtfully, when they had told the whole story of the boat.

‘Windhover being the name of the organization that was paying his salary, unless Rogers was just being clever about it, it’s tempting to think they also bought him the boat, or owned it and lent it to him for the purpose,’ Slider said.

‘That would make it a criminal organization,’ Hollis said. ‘A diamond smuggling ring. They paid him a retainer through his bank and then a cash bonus on top whenever he did a job.’

‘That works all right,’ Mackay said. ‘Explains why he had all the cash, and not too much on his credit card. But who were the jokers he was wining and dining?’

‘Customers for the diamonds,’ Hollis said. ‘Rich Arabs and Indians and suchlike – the kind of people that do buy diamonds.’

‘It explains Southwold and it explains the secrecy,’ Atherton said. ‘He’s not going to tell his female conquests that he’s a smuggler. Important secret work sounds much better for wifey, and consultant will do for anyone he’s not going to know for long.’

‘Talking of consultants, why did Sir Bernard Webber say he hadn’t seen Rogers in years?’ Slider said. ‘Helen Aldous says Rogers dropped in from time to time at Cloisterwood to see Webber.’

Porson said, ‘Aldous left Cloisterwood in – what was it, ’04? You don’t know that Rogers went there after that. That’s years.’

‘True,’ Slider said. ‘It’s just that Webber seemed keen to dissociate himself.’

‘If he thought Rogers was a bad hat,’ Hollis said, ‘that’s not surprising, is it, guv? He’d want to keep the reputation of his hospital spotless. And he did get him a job.’

‘And he got one for Aldous,’ Porson remarked. ‘Bit of a night of shining ardour, if you ask me.’

‘The consultant with the heart of gold. Can’t be many of them around,’ Atherton said.

‘Don’t be cynical,’ Slider berated him.

‘I wasn’t really,’ Atherton said. ‘But what with Aldous saying Rogers was a fluffy white bunny rabbit, I’m just longing for a real baddy to turn up.’

‘Sturgess,’ Mackay said. ‘Pin your hopes on her, Jimbo.’

‘Ah yes, the Rosa Klebb of our story. But how do we tie her in with diamond smuggling? Can you see her as the Moriarty, squatting at the centre of a vast criminal web?’

‘Not exactly living in the lap, is she?’ Porson said.

‘We do know she lied to us, that she had recent contact with Rogers,’ Slider said. ‘And that she had more money than we can account for – investing in the stables and the agency. And just because she isn’t smothered in furs, it doesn’t mean she’s not spending. She could be using it for the benefit of others.’

‘Giving it all to charity?’ Porson barked, as though it was a ludicrous idea. Then he modified it. ‘Well, maybe. Alterism can turn into an obsession. Doesn’t do to misunderestimate these do-gooders.’

‘The Bob Geldof syndrome,’ Atherton said.

Porson nodded. ‘They can be as capacious as anyone spending it on themselves.’ He lapsed into thought, bending the biro now between his large, strong hands.

‘Just have to wait and see what Norma comes up with,’ Hollis said.

‘Angela Fraser did say Sturgess is out networking all the time,’ Atherton remembered. ‘Supposed to be fund-raising, but who knows? Could be fund-spending. Or Moriartying.’

‘Smuggling,’ Porson pondered again, staring at nothing. The biro gave up and snapped in two with a sharp sound. He put the pieces down absently and said, looking at Slider, ‘Diamonds are all very well, diamonds makes sense up to a point, but week in week out, year after year? That sounds more like something perishable. Something that gets used up so you need more of it. Get me?’

Slider nodded. ‘I did wonder about that. There is something else Holland is famous for.’

‘Drugs.’ Mackay got there. ‘And he worked for a drug company, didn’t he?’

‘Not the same kind of drugs,’ Atherton said, as to an idiot.

Mackay looked indignant. ‘I know that, but pharmaceutical drugs can get smuggled as well, can’t they, new ones, or expensive ones not available on the NHS?’

‘Recreational drugs make more sense,’ Atherton said.

‘Well,’ Porson said, apparently coming to a decision and climbing off the desk, ‘there’s nothing more for you lot to do until I’ve spoken to Mr Wetherspoon and we’ve had a chat with the Excise boys. Their counterpoints in Holland might have something on this Havik boat. If they don’t, we’ll have to think again. Because –’ with a sharp look at Slider – ‘you only know Rogers met it once, and that was supposed to be an accident, which it could well have been. There’s been a lot of leaping to conclusions going on, when for all you or I or the man on the Clapham omnibus knows, Rogers could have been out sport fishing after all.’

Slider’s unhappy look said he knew that.

Atherton felt compelled to rescue his boss. ‘Except that he was murdered, sir,’ he pointed out.

‘Yes, well,’ Porson allowed graciously, ‘except for that.’

Joanna came down to the kitchen early on Monday morning with George in her arms. A thin sunshine was mucking about with the stainless steel pots on the high shelf by the stove, and her missing husband was standing staring at nothing while the kettle emptied itself in steam over the ceiling.

‘We need to get an electric one,’ she said, reaching over and turning off the gas.

‘Uh?’ Slider said, jerking back to reality.

‘Blue!’ said George, holding out his arms with a beam of delight. It was a great thing in any life, Slider thought, accepting the surprisingly solid bulk into his own arms, to have someone who was always so unequivocally glad to see you. He looked at Joanna. ‘I’m sorry I woke you up. I tried to get out of bed carefully.’

‘I know you did. But I always know when you’ve gone. You having tea?’

‘Please.’

‘Peas,’ George said. He took a good grip on Slider’s ear so he could lean over his shoulder and watch his mother getting out mugs and tea bags. ‘More!’ he said urgently, pointing with his other hand, moist pink forefinger energetically poking from the dimpled fist. He had recently discovered the joys of pointing and did it assiduously.

Joanna held up his feeder cup. ‘Do you want some milk, George?’

‘Mum-mum-mum-mum-mum,’ George said.

‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ She set about the twin tasks of tea and milk and said gently to her spouse, ‘Didn’t sleep well?’

‘Not much. Sorry. Was I restless? I tried to keep still.’

‘I could feel you trying. The case, is it?’

‘Yes. There are things I can’t quite get to grips with.’

‘You will, Oscar,’ Joanna said with calm certainty. ‘You look tired, though. Why don’t you go back to bed for a bit? Maybe you’ll sleep.’

Slider smiled. ‘Not a chance. My brain’s spinning like a teetotal, as Porson would say. I might as well use it to good purpose and go in early. If I read back over all the notes something might click.’

Joanna tested a spot of milk on her hand, licked it off and held out the cup to George, who became urgent with morning hunger.

‘Orbal! Blue! Ahmah!’ he cried.

‘This child has a remarkable vocabulary,’ Slider remarked.

‘Thank you,’ Joanna said as she relinquished the cup – no harm in trying early for manners.

‘Fank,’ George said, beamed at his accomplishment, and rammed the spout into his mouth, sucking greedily.

‘Did he just say thanks?’ Slider asked, turning to look at Joanna.

‘He does copy sounds,’ she said. ‘He said “door” the other day. And “ball”.’

‘Stone me, the child’s a genius.’ Slider gaped. ‘He’s barely more than a year old!’

‘He’s sixteen months,’ Joanna said, amused. ‘And that’s what children of that age do. You just don’t remember. Here’s your tea. Give him to me while you drink it.’

He passed George over, started sipping his tea, and noted that Joanna, having hitched the baby on to her left side, was not only drinking her own tea, but was actually starting to make toast as well. So, she could do other things while holding a baby, but a poor imbecile man couldn’t, was that it?

‘Do you want a boiled egg?’ she asked.

‘I take it back. It’s not the child that’s a genius, it’s you,’ Slider said. ‘The domestic octopus. If I could patent you I’d make a fortune.’

‘One egg or two?’ she asked, turning her head with a smile that melted his loins.

‘Voluptuous siren,’ Slider said. And to George, ‘Let’s hear you repeat that, boy.’

George unplugged himself from the cup, fixed his father with his blue gaze and said, ‘Boy!’

‘Close enough for jazz,’ said Slider.

Connolly, first in, poked her head round Slider’s door and said, ‘Oh. I thought I heard someone. Morning, boss.’

‘Must be telepathy,’ he said.

‘Is that right? What?’

‘It was you I wanted,’ Slider said. ‘I have a job for you, but I don’t know how you’ll do it.’ He explained. ‘I thought of you because you’re good at getting people to talk to you.’

She nodded, her eyes far away. ‘I think I can see me way. Don’t worry, boss. It’ll be grand.’

‘And of course – as quickly as possible,’ he added.

Angela Fraser was what Swilley described to herself as ‘wired’ – tense, excited, but elated with it. She met her in Café Rouge, sufficiently far down the parade from the office to avoid being spotted if Amanda should happen to come back.

‘She’s been in a filthy mood since your blokes came in,’ Angela confided, sitting beside Swilley on a banquette, at the back of the restaurant and facing the door. It was part of her new persona as a secret agent: she reckoned she could see anyone coming in before they saw her, and nip into the ladies, which was back here, if necessary. ‘Snapping at everyone, complaining about the coffee. Can’t get anything right for her. She sent back a letter because there was the tiniest little crease in the paper. She even bitched about one of the clients, and they’re like gods to her, normally.’

‘Has she given you any idea why she’s in a bad mood?’ Swilley asked.

‘I’d have said it was grief over David dying if she was anyone else, but I don’t think that woman’s got a heart. I think she’s worried, but I don’t know what about. Unless—’ The wide open eyes searched Norma’s face. ‘You think she had something to do with it, don’t you? The murder.’

‘I don’t think anything,’ Swilley said blandly. ‘I just do as I’m told, and leave the thinking to my boss. He’s good at it.’

‘I liked him,’ Angela said, settling down. ‘He reminded me of this teacher I had at school, Mr Maltby. Maths. He was nice. I was rubbish at maths, but he always made you feel you could do stuff, you know?’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Swilley said. ‘So what have you found out?’

‘Well, there’s a lot of stuff in Amanda’s room, and she leaves it all locked up when she goes out.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve never known an office where so much is locked away. I mean, salaries, yes, and staff files, but not anything else. What could she have to keep secret? We all know all the clients and their backgrounds. But I did get to look at the accounts. Some of it’s in books that Nora keeps, and there’s a lot more on her computer. It’s security locked, but I know her access code.’

Norma was amused. ‘How come?’

‘She’s a dipstick,’ Angela said simply. ‘She wrote it on a sticky label and stuck it on the side of her top right-hand drawer. Thinks no one’ll ever find it there, but I’ve seen her checking it before she logs on. Anyway, I found out the main things you wanted to know. The first thing is that we don’t get a government grant, which really surprised me. I’d have thought that’d be the first thing Amanda would go for, because the government’s dead keen on getting disabled people back to work.’

‘So where does the income come from?’

‘Well, the companies pay a fee. The big ones have to employ so many disabled by law, so they pay us a retainer to find the right person whenever they need one, and the smaller companies pay on a case by case basis. And then there are donations. I guess that’s what Amanda spends her time doing. It’s mostly from private individuals, and one or two companies – manufacturers of mobility equipment and disability aids mostly – but the biggest donor is the Windhover Trust.’

Swilley looked enquiring. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, to see if Fraser knew.

‘Oh, they’ve been paying us a monthly donation since the beginning,’ Angela said. ‘It’s a medical charity. I asked Nora about it once. Medical research and support, she said. I think they’re something to do with one of the drugs companies,’ she concluded vaguely.

‘What would they get out of it – making such a big donation to you, I mean?’

‘Well, I suppose it’s good for their image,’ Angela hazarded. ‘And don’t they get tax relief or something? I think Nora said companies get their tax reduced for charity donations. And maybe Amanda collects data for them, or sends them customers. I don’t know. That sort of thing would be what’s in her private files, I suppose. Anyway, the Windhover’s a big supporter – we could about survive on what they pay us alone. Oh, and I asked Nora about setting up the agency in the first place, like you asked me, and she said that was Windhover as well – gave Amanda a big lump sum to get the office building adapted and get the whole thing going.’

‘They sound like the good guys,’ Swilley said.

‘Well, I guess they are. It’s nice when you hear all the stories about these big multinational drugs companies, to know there’s one that’s doing something good, giving something back.’

‘I expect lots of them do,’ Swilley said. ‘I expect a lot of these stories are exaggerated.’

Angela looked pleased at the idea of the world being a nicer place. ‘Yeah, I bet you’re right.’

‘So that’s the income,’ Swilley prompted. ‘What about the outgoings?’

‘Oh, yeah, you wanted to know about salaries. Well, Nora gets £1650 a month – gross – which surprised me a bit because it’s not that much more than me. I get £1350.’

Around twenty thousand and sixteen thousand respectively, Norma thought after a quick calculation. ‘Is that about average?’ she asked.

‘I can’t say about Nora – I mean, she’s supposed to be an owner, isn’t she? But mine is a bit above average. When you work for a charity you don’t expect high wages.’

‘And what about Amanda?’

‘There wasn’t anything about her getting a salary, either in the books or on the system – I suppose she’d be bound to keep that private. But in the bank account I did find a regular transfer to another account of ten thousand every month.’ She screwed up her brow. ‘But that couldn’t be her salary, could it? I mean, that would be a hundred and twenty thousand a year. She wouldn’t take that much, when it was a charity, would she? Only, I can’t think what else it could be, because it’s too big to be utilities or rates or anything, and if it was office supplies or something like that it’d be paid when the invoices came in, not monthly.’

‘You’re right,’ Norma said. ‘I wonder if it could be paying off a loan of some sort?’

‘I don’t know. I never heard of any loan – and a loan for what, anyway? Apart from the office and office supplies, we don’t use anything else.’ She shrugged the problem away, being essentially uninterested in it. ‘Anyway, I made a note of the bank account number in case you wanted it. I suppose you’d be able to find out whose it was, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Swilley. ‘If it was important.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘You’ve done very well.’

The last of the elation faded from Angela’s face, and she slumped. ‘Doesn’t make any difference, though, does it? It doesn’t bring David back.’ Her lip trembled and she put her hand over it and pressed for a moment. When she removed it, a certain steeliness had come with further thoughts. ‘If she did have anything to do with it, I hope you get her! It makes me sick to think of her being all pious and smug and all the time she’s done something like that.’

‘Well, we don’t know she’s done anything,’ Swilley said quickly. ‘And you mustn’t let her think you suspect her, whatever you do.’

‘Oh, I won’t,’ Angela said easily. ‘I can be as two-faced as the next person.’