by Will North
“I am Max. Max Marchenko,” he said. “I work for Connor.”
IT WAS NEARLY nine, Friday night, first June, when DC Terry Bates made it back from the Lake District to the Bodmin Operational Hub. She sat down and trolled, once again, through the slim HOLMES II file on the Hansen case looking for anything that might lead to an opening. She’d read through the files twice before something caught her eye. She punched Morgan’s number into her mobile.
“It’s late,” Morgan answered.
“Just a question, ma’am.”
“It’s Morgan. How many times…”
“Sorry. Sorry.”
“What is it, then?”
“It’s about the treasure the Boden woman from the Royal Cornwall Museum tried to investigate—that search that went nowhere, the treasure Bobby Tregareth says he knows nothing about…”
“So…?”
“So, let’s say they are both being completely honest. Yeah? And let’s accept that Hansen would never have called Bonhams if he hadn’t found something valuable he then wanted to sell…?”
“I’m waiting, Terry.”
“So all we know for certain is that Hansen found something and tried to flog it.”
“Why do you think we searched Hansen’s farm Wednesday, Terry?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. But there’s a problem. If Tregareth and the museum lady are telling the truth, the only one left is Charlotte Johns. Our forensic pathologist says Hansen was drugged. Heavily. Lorazepam. How does someone as petite as Charlotte Johns drag an unconscious Hansen from wherever he was, stuff him into a vehicle, carry him to a boatyard or someplace, load him into a boat, take him out five miles, dump him overboard, and return all on her own?”
“She doesn’t."
“That’s my point.”
“Accomplice.”
“Yes, ma’am…Morgan. If she was involved, and that’s not been determined, she could not have pulled it off alone.”
“So, someone else to do the heavy lifting.”
“I should think so, yes.”
“I hate you.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“And probably will do again, but you, too, have missed something which has just occurred to me: Lorazepam. Where’d it come from? Our girl Charlotte works at the Helston community hospital.”
“I’d go with that, Morgan. And search her own house.”
“You would? Oh, thank you detective constable…”
“YOU NEED ME, Mr. Dicky,” Max Marchenko said, stroking his automatic pistol as if it were a beloved cat, “because Reg Connor has put a mark on you.”
“A mark?”
“You’re a dead man, Dicky. Connor’s sure you’re fiddling him with this treasure thing. He wants you taken out…but ‘elegantly,’ and the treasure delivered to him. So he calls me, because I do it elegantly. Always.”
Dicky was barely breathing, though his heart raced. He stared out the windscreen: This is not where I thought I would die…in a narrow lane in Cornwall, in the middle of nowhere.
“Only, I have code, yes?” Marchenko continued. “Maybe you think this odd in Eastern European killer?”
Dicky eyed the gun. “I don’t know what to think…Max.”
Max waved his free hand in the air. “Look,” he said, “you and Connor, you work together for how long? Twenty years maybe? Loyal soldier for boss, yes? I hear the stories. Whatever Reg needs you to become, you are genius at that, yes? I respect this. But are you not also like his slave? Well paid, sure you are, just like me, but still under the old man’s thumb. Am I right?”
Dicky nodded in assent. He didn’t know what else to do with someone with a pistol on his lap.
“So maybe you come across someone who has something of great value the boss wants. And maybe you are a little…maybe private about it? Yes, private. That is right word, I think.”
Dicky sat in his aging Ford trying not to tremble.
“And boss is not happy. No matter how long you work for him, no matter how rich you make him, he wants more. Always. But now he wants you taken out. This is terrible shame. This is no way to treat loyal soldier.”
Dicky forced a smile: “I couldn’t agree more.”
“But Dicky, I cannot kill a good soldier. Old Reg is losing it and he knows it. His time has passed but still he protects his—what do you call it here?—turf. Yes, turf. How strange, to protect grass! He will do anything. He will kill his closest allies. I cannot be a part of that. So you and I must come to agreement…”
“Agreement?”
“Revenue sharing agreement.”
“Go on.”
“We are four, yes? You, me, the farmer, the woman. Whatever you get we split four ways. This is not insubstantial fortune, am I right? Everybody happy I think.”
“But you’ve had nothing to do with any of this…”
“Except keep you alive, Mr. Dicky. Except keep you alive…”
Thirty-Four
“SO LET’S REVIEW where we are, shall we?” DCI Arthur Penwarren said. It was not a question. More than two weeks had passed since the discovery of Hansen’s body in the Channel, and they were no closer to naming a suspect. The Major Crime Investigation Team sat at the long conference table in the improvised incident room at the St. Michaels Hotel in Falmouth Monday morning, fourth June, four days after the search of Hansen’s place.
“Look, Guv,” Morgan Davies interrupted. “Let’s not get all official, okay? I’ll tell you where we are. We’re behind. We’re behind someone or some people who are not your usual idiot crooks or murderers. They’re always a step ahead. They act and then cover their tracks. Take Hansen’s house: stripped clean by someone as yet unknown, except for what they wanted us to see. Stuff we know was there before, unofficially of course, is now gone. But they’re not perfect. Calum’s people have found a couple of things.
Penwarren turned to his SOCO chief. “Calum?”
“A couple of blood traces and a shadow on a wall. Blood type same as victim’s. The shadow’s where a small sword or large knife once hung. Could be what maimed Hansen. That suggests Hansen could have been maimed right in his own bedroom. Can’t confirm that, of course.”
“Prints?”
“Hansen’s and Charlotte Johns’s in the bedroom as expected, as they spent weekends together…and such….”
Morgan smiled. Calum seemed almost embarrassed to acknowledge Hansen’s and Johns’s “arrangement.”
“That’s it?”
“Well no, Guv. We have Hansen’s computer and the tech boys up Exeter headquarters are working on it. Then there’s this weird attic room…”
“So I understand…”
“I have it on good authority,” Morgan interjected, “that the books and herbs in this little room are all about black magic and gaining control over people, probably members of his Druid grove. The women. For sex.”
Penwarren lifted his hand to his forehead. “I am not hearing this. I am not hearing that you called in Tamsin Bran.”
“Did I say that?”
Penwarren shook his head, as if to shake off the whole notion of Tamsin Bran. “Morgan, find another authority: an academic in medieval studies or something. Someone with credentials. Someone whose testimony will hold up in court. Okay? Do it. Now, let’s move on. Calum, did your people get prints from the fogou?”
“None on the granite slab that had been winched aside; too crusted with dirt, though the dirt is disturbed, as if someone had lain upon it. Prints on the winch in Hansen’s barn are his; no surprise there. But we got two partials on the empty clay vessel in the hole. Not definitive, but they look to match Hansen’s, though not sufficient for a proof. We took Tregareth’s prints. No match.”
“Way I see it, Guv,” Morgan pressed, “is that we have identified a very few possible persons of interest: Charlotte Johns, Tregareth, and members of the Druid grove. I reckon the next step is to have Calum’s people search Johns’s house.”
Penwarren made a face. “W
e don’t have enough on her to call her a suspect and make a search legal.”
“With respect, Guv. Given the blood type in Hansen’s bedroom and his relationship, or whatever it was, with Johns, who else could have been in that room but her? And where did everything that was in that bedroom go?”
Penwarren shook his head. “I can think of any number of scenarios involving others. Do we have any useful prints at the house?”
“We do,” Calum answered. Two other individuals. Tregareth’s in the kitchen and someone else’s in the spare room. Checking for priors, Guv.”
“Still…” Penwarren said, almost to himself.
“There is something else,” Morgan interrupted. “Something we…or rather I…failed to connect before, Guv.”
“Yes?”
“Lorazepam. What Hansen was drugged with. Terry here helped me make the connection: Johns works part time at the community hospital at Helston. Terry checked with the hospital and they admit they’re missing a quantity of the drug: very embarrassing for them and all, and a danger to their accreditation. But they reckon it’s a nurse or doctor stole it, since the drugs room is locked with a combination only they know. But I’m thinking maybe Johns found a way in.”
Penwarren nodded. “Okay, this is enough for me. Morgan, take Johns up to the interview suite at Pool. I’ll clear it. She is definitely a person of interest. Calum, search her place. But not just for the drugs. For anything, including this alleged treasure. Inside and out. Upside and down. Use the TAG boys.”
He rose and stretched his long torso: “You have my full authority.”
“Two other things, Guv…”
Penwarren smiled. “Yes, Morgan?”
“First, the text message.”
“Sorry?” Whatever his other strengths as a detective and as a leader, and they were formidable, Penwarren was not a technology expert. It was a generational thing. He left that work to the younger experts who worked for the force. He’d hoped to retire before technology replaced footwork, but it was moving too fast and he knew he was falling behind.
“The only information we have about Hansen’s whereabouts prior to his disappearance is his text to Charlotte Johns saying he was fishing with someone named ‘Charlie.’ Where’d it come from?”
“His phone, I assume.”
Davies struggled not to smile. “No, Guv, I’m asking where he was when he sent Johns that message? At sea? On land? Where?”
“Do we have Hansen’s mobile in evidence?”
“No, Guv. Not yet, at least,” West answered. “But we probably don’t need it. We can examine the message he left on Ms. Johns’s phone.”
“Phones save these messages?”
“Yes, sir, unless they’ve been deliberately overwritten by newer messages.”
Penwarren fished his own mobile from his jacket pocket and looked at it as if it were an alien being.
“The force has a firm under contract which can interrogate her phone,” West said.
“All right. Calum, search Johns’s place and find her phone. Morgan and Terry, take Ms. Johns up to Pool and have a chat. Don’t be gentle.”
“Me, gentle?” Morgan said, smiling.
“Are we done?”
“No Guv, one other thing.”
Penwarren heaved a sigh. There were times he loved sparring with Davies and times he did not. This was one of the latter.
“Yes?”
“I’ll be meeting with Hansen’s executor later today. We are trying to ascertain who would have benefitted from his death.”
Penwarren relaxed. “Thank you, Morgan. Well done, as usual.”
“WE TAKE HIM out in his boat tomorrow, early, and tip him overboard in the Channel, is what I think is the best plan. But far out, where he’s not likely ever to be found,” Charlotte said.
It was Wednesday morning, sixteenth May, and she and Dicky were having breakfast in Hansen’s kitchen. Hansen was still drugged upstairs.
Townsend was trying to come to terms with two opposing emotions. He wanted to be with Charlotte, but her hatred of Hansen stunned him. During the night—another night of long and furious lovemaking—he decided her revenge against Hansen was just one aspect of her passionate personality. She had cried, too, deep heaving sobs at her betrayal. He’d pulled her close. All Townsend knew, and he knew it with certainty, was that he wanted to be with Charlotte. It was almost as if the treasure had become secondary. And that Hansen didn’t matter.
“What’s the boat like?” he asked.
“An open skiff. Fiberglass. With an outboard.”
“Navigation equipment?”
“Just a compass. He was too cheap for anything fancier. Plus, he only ever fished within sight of the coast. The boat’s moored at the little cove at Flushing, near Gillan. Beached at low tide. Hauls it high up on the shingle during winter. A dozen or so others do the same.”
“Can you run the boat, at least a short distance?”
“I know how to start the engine and steer the boat, yes. But not much else, Dicky. On the rare occasions he took me out, I was just a passenger, unless he caught something and needed me to take over the wheel.”
“Good. That solves one problem. But there’s another, bigger one. We need to get him out of the house and to some private spot where the boat can be waiting.”
“I know a place, up Gillan Creek. Overhung with trees it is and close to a narrow lane. No houses nearby.”
MORGAN DAVIES ARRIVED at Borland and Company’s offices in Helston just after noon following the MCIT meeting Monday, fourth June. She showed her warrant card and was ushered through the deeply carpeted reception area to Rothenberg’s inner sanctum, a small, wood-paneled private conference room behind his official office.
“Detective Inspector Davies.”
“You were expecting someone else?”
“No, of course not, but this is somewhat shocking…”
“Murder often is, Mr. Rothenberg.”
“Yes, well, but that is not what I meant: we researched Hansen’s documents and, as regards his Last Will and Testament, it appears he made a new will, quite recently, through one of my colleagues, and named us, his own solicitors, as sole executors of his estate. It is uncommon but not unheard of. Perhaps he trusted no one but us.”
“Which, I gather, means that you, Mr. Rothenberg, have the power to release the particulars of his will to the police.”
“Well, ah, not exactly.”
“What then, exactly?”
“To share that information with you, detective, I must get the approval of the senior partners in Truro.”
Davies could feel her blood pressure rising. “Well, Mr. Rothenberg, then we are in luck, for I see you have a phone on the credenza just behind you. I’ll wait.”
“Written approval, actually.”
Davies slapped her hand on the table so hard the lawyer jumped. “What is it about murder that you don’t understand, Rothenberg?” She loomed above him. “I will be filing an obstruction charge against you and this firm. You can expect Detective Chief Inspector Arthur Penwarren to speak to your superiors this very afternoon."
Now Rothenberg stood. “This is harassment!”
Davies pulled open the conference room door but paused and turned. “Call it what you will, but one more thing: don’t ever make the mistake of having one of your lawyers cross-examine me when I am testifying in Crown Court. I promise you will regret it.”
Thirty-Five
DAVIES AND BATES arrived at Charlotte Johns’s cottage in two cars. PC Novak drove for Bates in an official but unmarked four-door Vauxhall Astra. Novak stayed in the car.
A loud knock brought Charlotte Johns to the door of her cottage. It had just gone eight on Tuesday morning, fifth June, and Johns appeared in a red silk robe with a cup of tea in her hand.
“Inspector Davies! Good morning! An unexpected visit, certainly, but would you like tea? I have a pot just brewed…and good morning to you, too, detective Bates.”
�
�Ms. Johns,” Davies said, “Given your relationship with the late Archibald Hansen, you are a person of interest in our investigation into his death. As a consequence, Devon and Cornwall Police have obtained a warrant to search your premises for any evidence that might help us with our investigation. I’m sure you can understand the importance and relevance of this order, and I am sorry for any imposition this might cause.”
To Davies’s surprise, Johns opened her door wider and said: “Please, you are welcome to search my house for whatever might help find answers to Archie’s disappearance and death.”
It sounded like a prepared speech to Morgan. “Oh, we will not be conducting the search, actually. My colleague, detective sergeant Calum West, will be here shortly with his Scene of Crimes people. They will search your house and property thoroughly, but will attempt to cause no damage.”
“They are welcome, detective,” Johns said, smiling, “though Archie seldom came here, preferring that I come to him.”
Morgan’s instinctive reaction was, that means there is nothing to be found…
“In the meantime,” Morgan continued, “detective constable Bates will escort you to our interview suite just a few minutes north at Pool, if you would be so kind as to get dressed. We have some questions for you. I will join you there shortly, after I coordinate with detective sergeant West.”
“But I have done nothing but cooperate with you, detective Davies…”
“As you say, but we will explore that at Pool. You are not a suspect, Ms. Johns, just a person of interest. There are others. In the meantime, our inspectors will search your property for anything that might be relevant to Archie Hansen’s untimely death. I’m sure you would want to endorse that effort…”
“Of course,” Johns said. “I’ll just change. Will you come inside in the meantime?”
“No, we will wait here.” Morgan did not wish to leave extraneous prints or hairs that might distract Calum’s team.
THE INTERVIEW SUITE at Pool, one of two created within an existing cottage in the village just off the A30, had all the comforts of a cheap suite in a chain hotel for long-stay travelers: two easy chairs, one settee, both rather unforgiving to the human form but meant to last, a coffee table, lamps, generic still life prints in frames on the walls. Instead of a bedroom, however, a control room monitoring state of the art voice recorders and hidden video cameras lay just behind a wall featuring an ornately framed mirror set above a low credenza. The mirror was two-way.