Chapter Twenty-three
‘No! Really?’
Libby stopped dead. George, Bert, and Fran all grinned up at her.
‘Yes, really.’ Fran pulled out the chair next to her. ‘Sit down and we’ll tell you all about it.’
Mavis sent the current girl over to take Libby’s order, and Fran began the story.
‘It was about ten years, ago, wasn’t it?’ George and Bert nodded. ‘And well before the season started, so they went out on a fishing trip.’
‘We got a little ole fishin’ boat, see,’ said Bert. ‘Don’t use it so much now.’
‘Them fish quotas, see,’ said George. ‘Throwin’ it all back. An’ we don’t want to take the bread out o’ they fishermens’ mouths.’
Libby knew how the European Union’s fishing quotas had almost destroyed the small fishing fleets along the south-east coast of Britain.
‘So you were just out for a bit of sport,’ she said. ‘Where did you go?’
‘All along the coast towards Creekmarsh,’ Fran said. ‘How about that?’
Creekmarsh Place was the home of Lewis Osbourne-Walker, the television presenter for whom Adam and his gardener boss Mog worked. Its grounds led to the bank of an inlet, into which fed the little River Wytch, and was only a few hundred metres from the open sea.
‘Bit of a storm blew up, see,’ said Bert, ‘so we popped inter the creek. And there’s this boat, see, driftin’ like.’
‘So we goes up to see iffen they wants some help. And there’s all these girls. Cor.’ George shook his head. ‘Nearly nekked they was. So us called coastguard.’
‘No one was with them?’ asked Libby.
‘Nah,’ said Bert. ‘Couldn’t speak English, either, any of ’em.’
‘So what happened?’
‘We give ’em all the blankets and stuff we had on board and waited for coastguard. They wasn’t long, an’ they took our names. Put someone on board the boat and took ’er in.’
Mavis came to the table with Libby’s tea and ham sandwich. Libby smiled her thanks, and Mavis stomped back to her kitchen.
‘Heart o’ gold, really,’ said George, indicating with his cigarette.
‘So do you know what happened to the girls on the boat?’ asked Libby.
‘We both ’ad policeman come and take a statement, and there was a little bit on the telly. Not much. I reckon they wanted to keep it quiet.’ Bert sucked on his pipe reflectively.
‘We got our blankets back.’ said George. ‘Dunno what happened after that.’
‘You never came across any more?’ said Libby.
‘Girls, or boats?’ Bert threw his head back and guffawed.
‘Nah,’ said George. ‘Customs boats got busier. Border Force now, o’course. An’ we don’t go out at night. ’Appen there’s a few land along there at night. There was them tunnels up at Creekmarsh, wasn’t there?’
‘Yes. Blocked now, though,’ said Fran.
‘Like the one at St Aldeberge,’ said Libby.
‘Oh, ah?’ said George, looking interested. ‘Smugglin’ all over, innit?’
Libby laughed. ‘Seems to be.’
She thought back over the adventures she and Fran had been involved in over the years, and yes. There was a lot of smuggling. But the Kent coast, the nearest to the European continent, was a prime target for smugglers, those taking things out, and those bringing things in. And illegal immigration and people trafficking was on the increase. Even two-way trafficking, where illegal immigrants would be smuggled out of Britain via Dover, taken to Italy where they would claim asylum, then get smuggled back into Britain. If they were repatriated, it would only be as far as Italy, as the last place they had claimed asylum. There were huge organised gangs operating these systems and charging their victims large sums of money.
‘I was thinking,’ she said to Fran as they left George and Bert and wandered back down Harbour Street. ‘The nearest village to Creekmarsh is Cherry Ashton.’
‘Is that relevant?’
‘Well, I wondered if Sally’s father had anything to do with smuggling these girls into the country. It sounds like his sort of thing.’
‘Sally and her mother had both moved away by that time,’ said Fran, ‘so you can’t link Sally with this. Besides, the fact that that boat was found in the creek was pure accident, I expect. Abandoned by the crew as soon as they found a place to get out safely.’
‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’ said Libby, stopping by Lizzie’s ice cream booth. ‘Want one?’
‘Chocolate, please, Lizzie,’ said Fran. ‘Why is that odd?’
‘Eh?’ said Lizzie.
‘Sorry,’ said Libby. ‘We were continuing a conversation. I’ll have a double vanilla, please.’
‘Anyway,’ she continued as they went to sit on the sea wall with their cornets, ‘Odd because the crew should have been the ones to hand over the girls and get paid. Why did they scarper?’
‘Thought they were going to get caught?’
‘But by whom?’ persisted Libby. ‘Why go to all that trouble of bringing the boat over here, presumably all the way from Turkey – how would they have gone? Right through the middle of the Mediterranean, through the Straits of Gibraltar, up the coast of Portugal, northern Spain and France, blimey, it’s a journey.’
‘Yes,’ said Fran thoughtfully, ‘it is. And you’re right. If you’ve brought them all that way, why leave without being paid. And without the boat. Someone would have been wanting that back.’
‘I bet I know.’ Libby waved her ice cream cone. ‘The crew were illegal immigrants! Betcha!’
‘That makes sense,’ said Fran. ‘Careful with that ice cream. If the crew volunteered to bring the boat over, they could have planned to get into the country and not go back. If they’d handed over the girls, the contacts over here would have made sure they left again.’
‘But the contacts here must have tried to find them – and the girls. And they would have reported back to the people in Turkey.’
‘Who were – who? Geoff Croker and his pals?’
‘Well, we don’t know, do we?’ Libby frowned. ‘But I bet that was what happened. And the police would have found a translator so they would have known where the boat set out from.’
‘And where the girls themselves came from. They could have come from anywhere, via one of those dreadful organisations who organise them.’
‘Like the girls from Transnistria.’ Libby shuddered. ‘Poor things.’
Transnistria was a tiny sliver of a country between Moldova and Ukraine with a bad reputation as far as people trafficking was concerned.
‘I suppose ten years ago it would have been easier to get from the bank of the inlet across Creekmarsh’s grounds. You couldn’t do it now,’ said Fran.
‘No – all those security patrols,’ said Libby. ‘I’m glad we saw it before it was fully restored.’
‘And while the tunnels were … ’
‘Still open,’ Libby finished for her. ‘Yes.’
They sat quietly consuming ice cream for a minute, then turned to one another simultaneously.
‘They knew!’
‘Must have done.’ Libby nodded. ‘That Creekmarsh was empty and unprotected.’
‘So someone here was organising it,’ said Fran.
‘That was always the case. It’s obviously one of those gangs.’
‘But someone knew specifically about Creekmarsh. It’s quite hidden away – unless you knew it was here …’
‘And you’d have to know about the inlet, too.’ Libby frowned out at the sea. ‘Why does it always seem to come back here?’ She turned to Fran. ‘Hang on – how did Guy hear about Erzugan in the first place?’
‘What?’ Fran nearly lost her ice cream.
‘Well – did someone mention it? Was it in the paper? We know it has never been a package tour destination, so how did he come across it?’
Fran stared, her mouth open. ‘Do you know, I never thought of that!’ She slid off the w
all. ‘Come on, let’s go and ask him.’
They had to stand outside the shop until they’d finished their ice creams, to Guy’s amusement.
‘What we want to know,’ said Libby, once they’d made it inside.
‘Is how did you first hear about Erzugan?’ said Fran.
‘How …?’ Guy looked bemused. ‘What do you mean?’
Fran explained. ‘So how did you hear about it?’
Guy frowned and sat down behind his counter. ‘I can’t remember. It wasn’t through a travel agent, because I booked everything direct, as we did this time, although it wasn’t as easy then.’ He picked up his phone. ‘I’ll ask Sophie if she remembers.’
Sophie, as so many young people were, was almost surgically attached to her smartphone and answered immediately. Guy asked his question, and listened intently, his face clearing.
‘Oh, of course! I’d completely forgotten that. Thanks, Soph. See you soon.’ He switched off the phone. ‘She remembered.’
‘And?’ said Libby and Fran together.
‘It was Rachinda Sharma.’
‘Rachinda!’ Again, Fran and Libby spoke together. They had met Rachinda and her sister Rachita at the same time they’d met Sally Weston’s father.
‘How did she know about it?’ asked Libby. ‘Those girls were never allowed to go anywhere.’
‘She brought some pictures into school, Sophie says, when they were doing some project or other in geography. I remember now, that Sophie had been very surprised, but Rachinda said she’d found them in her father’s shop. Sophie said how lovely it looked, so I found out about it and off we went. I was busy indulging Sophie’s every whim at the time.’
‘We can hardly ask her now,’ said Fran.
‘Or her father,’ agreed Libby. ‘But it’s rather telling, isn’t it?’
‘Explain,’ said Guy.
‘I was wondering why even this murder seems to come back here to Kent, to our very own area,’ said Libby, ‘and then I realised that you might hold the key. You were the first one to go over there, and if you found out from someone here, it might explain why there were links back here.’
‘I think I follow that,’ said Guy. ‘So you think Rachinda’s father might be connected to – what?’
‘People trafficking,’ said Fran. ‘Oh, probably only a small cog in a bigger wheel, but it’s very suggestive. I think I’d better tell Ian.’
‘But it wouldn’t have been Mr Sharma Justin would have been coming to see,’ protested Libby. ‘Not now.’
‘No, but the link to the area is there, isn’t it?’ Fran pulled out her phone. ‘I’ll just leave a message.’
Libby left Fran with Guy in the shop and walked back up to Cliff Terrace. So that was the link. Rachinda Sharma’s father somehow had connections to Erzugan, so there might be other people in the area who were also part of the trafficking scheme, which could explain why Justin Newcombe was coming to Canterbury.
Despite her seemingly logical reasoning, even Libby realised that this was possibly a leap too far. Yes, Rachinda’s father had been mixed up in something criminal, although it remained shadowy, but there was nothing but coincidence here to link him to any of the events that had begun in Erzugan. Photographs shown to Sophie, found in his shop. No, Libby shook her head. She and Fran were now in danger of building whole buildings out of straw, not just the bricks.
She walked past her car on Cliff Terrace and up to the car park called The Tops, built over what had been empty cliffs, where Libby had walked as a child. The view here was less populated than from Jane’s Peel House, as there was no building below the car park, only rocks. Nowhere to land anything, thought Libby, peering over the railings not like … She stood up straight. Not like the inlet at St Aldeberge.
Chapter Twenty-four
Libby remembered they had already spoken about the surveillance operation at Felling that had been part of a recent murder investigation, the one in which she and Fran had first met Patti Pearson, and in which a small inlet beyond the village had actually played an important part. And where, in fact, illegal immigrants had been landed. She thought back. Could those immigrants have been from Turkey? They were brought in by boat, but Libby had always assumed the boats had come from France. She had not been part of the further investigation into the criminals in the case, except for the unpleasant business of giving evidence in a trial. But that was all over, now, and whoever was organising large-scale illegal immigrations would surely have stopped using that particular landing point.
However, she realised, the landings at St Aldeberge were after George and Bert had come across their boatful of girls. So were the destinations constantly changing? She peered down over the cliff again. There were certainly enough places along this coast for concealed landings. The public didn’t see most of them, because even if they went out on a boat trip with George or Bert, the Dolphin and the Sparkler wouldn’t venture in close to the rocks. Most people thought of the wild coastline of Devon and Cornwall as smugglers’ and wreckers’ territory, but Kent and Sussex had their fair share. Just along from here at Nethergate and beyond Creekmarsh were the marshes, from where wool had been smuggled out and silks, tobacco, and brandy smuggled in.
She turned back to Cliff Terrace and her car. Below her now stood The Alexandria, where in a few weeks the Oast Theatre Company would be performing their End Of The Pier Show. She sighed. She really should be concentrating more on that and less on mysterious murders.
When she got back to Steeple Martin, she called Patti.
‘You remember when the police broke up the smuggling that was landing in the inlet at St Aldeberge?’
‘How could I forget?’ said Patti, a trifle bitterly. Her own congregation had been under suspicion during that investigation.
‘I just wondered if that could also be connected to our Turkish murders.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Patti slowly. ‘It was only a couple of years ago, but I don’t see …’
‘I’m just trying to pin down a connection between the bloke who was murdered in London and our area,’ said Libby. There must have been connections here apart from the St Aldeberge one and before that over at Creekmarsh.’
‘Creekmarsh?’
Libby explained about George and Bert and the cargo of Turkish girls.
‘And you told me about the other time you found out about the trafficking of girls, didn’t you?’ said Patti. ‘From – where was it?’
‘Transnistria,’ said Libby. ‘It’s a wicked traffic. But I’m just wondering if the links to this area are still here, and some of those girls were shipped from our little village in Turkey.’
‘It begins to look like it, doesn’t it?’ said Patti. ‘It can’t be entirely coincidental that your Sally came from here.’
‘Actually, I think it’s more to do with her family, not her so much,’ said Libby. ‘She’d moved away from Cherry Ashton long before she went to Turkey. Her house here was let.’
‘Well, it sounds very complicated to me,’ said Patti, ‘but it does seem that there is a history of people trafficking along our part of the coast, so it’s quite conceivable that if it’s a regular occurrence some of it should come from Turkey.’
‘By sea,’ said Libby, ‘that’s the thing. Most of them come overland from wherever they’re initially picked up, some are landed along the Italian coastline, for instance, and then taken to Calais. But this way the traffickers aren’t relying on anyone else along the way. They get the girls – or men – onto the boat in Turkey, then off it goes all through the Med, right round Portugal to France and bingo. Mind you, they could land anywhere along the south coast, so I don’t know why they come right round to the Channel, where the Border Force boats are constantly patrolling.’
‘Perhaps because there is already a network in place here?’ said Patti.
‘Maybe,’ said Libby. ‘And before you say it, I know it isn’t any of my business, but I can’t help wondering what’s been going on.’
‘Of course you can’t. You’ve been involved in so many investigations now it’s second nature. And especially as this one touches on things you’ve dealt with in the past.’
‘I haven’t actually dealt with them,’ said Libby. ‘They rather thrust themselves on to me.’
Patti laughed. ‘Well, you’re dealing with this one, and it certainly thrust itself on to you, although finding a body isn’t exactly funny.’
‘You nearly found one in your church,’ said Libby.
‘Yes, but it wasn’t me, and anyway at the time we thought it was a natural death, didn’t we?’
‘Yes, and look where that ended up.’ Libby sighed. ‘Oh, well, I’d better get on with doing something else, I suppose.’
‘You could paint. Don’t forget you promised to do one especially for me, and Fran’s Guy always wants more.’
‘I know, and I’ve got the show to do, too, although that isn’t that much effort. The team at The Alexandria know what we want by now, so I don’t have to worry so much. I’ll keep you posted, Patti. Thanks for listening.’
‘That’s what vicars do,’ said Patti. ‘See you soon.’
Libby wandered into the conservatory and wondered what she ought to paint for Patti. Not the St Aldeberge inlet, with its two isolated houses, one either side on the cliffs, both still standing empty, that was for sure. What else did Patti like? Her lovely friend Anne, of course, but Libby didn’t think a portrait of Anne would go down too well hung on the vicarage wall. The Pink Geranium and the pub, then? Libby brightened. Of course! That was where Patti spent the happiest time of her week with Anne. She would make a start now.
After setting up the easel with a piece of fresh stretched watercolour paper, she frowned. However well she knew her own high street, she’d never really looked at it properly. She could do pictures of Nethergate from her various viewpoints from memory because she painted them in real life so often, but she’d never painted anything in Steeple Martin. She scowled afresh at the easel. And the inhabitants of her own village would be sure to come peering and commenting if she took up a position on the corner of Maltby Close with her easel and she’d never get anything done. So a quick pencil sketch, then, and a photograph for the detail. She unearthed her sketchbook and found her camera, luckily able to download pictures to the computer. She didn’t have a smartphone with all its photographic capabilities, which was a shame at moments like this. Armed with the tools of her trade, she set off down Allhallow’s Lane.
Murder in the Blood Page 16