It was quite a sleek pub as pubs come, with a lot of white and black, accentuated by the crimson of the booths. They had been lucky to find a quieter spot in the far corner of the pub. As she had expressed she favoured red wine he had boldly ordered a bottle of the ‘Henri Nordoc La Boussole Pinot Noir’ with two glasses, which he found very acceptably priced at twenty-five quid. A nice choice, she had remarked. The waiter had brought a bottle and he had tasted it, although he did not know the first thing about wines. Moira had then commented on how bright cherry-red its colour was. And what a pleasant and aromatic nose of bright candied cherries with hints of vanilla and coffee. Light red-fruit flavours with a medium body and a lively acidity, she had grinned. He had sat there a little dumb struck and she had told him she had been taking an online sommelier course. But she had said it in a way that had not sounded conceited at all. It was just a hobby, she had shrugged. She sailed to France every summer and had hopped down the Biscay coastline with friends. She had also covered pretty much of the Mediterranean.
The evening passed very quickly with talk of sailing and how she had grown up in a small town in County Mayo, Ireland, on the coast and had come to England after her fiancée, a local Mayo boy, had disappeared at sea in a gale. She had started work at Brighton Marina as help to the then harbour master and when he had resigned, she had been offered the job. It was funny, she had said, how people still tended to associate that position with masculinity even though there were very few physical requirements for the job.
She had asked him why he had joined the police and he had tried to explain how he had always had an innate sense of justice and wanting to do what is right and create a safer environment for everyone. And he had talked about his mother that he had been caring for ever since his father had passed and he had not felt embarrassed at all at telling her how he still lived at home and that he was worried about his mother liking the drink a bit too much.
They had not discussed the case. In fact, he had much appreciated Moira not having brought it up even once, although he had assumed she must be curious. In any case, she had said all she had known about Bert Devos to Ianthe already she had claimed. Actually, she had been hoping to take part in The Royal Escape race with him on his boat, as they got along quite well, and he seemed not to be taking other people. Which was odd, as it was a very friendly sort of rally where it did not matter all that much who came first or second. Most people participated because of the atmosphere both in Brighton and Fecamp in France where the race ended. With all these crossings, she thought Bert must have been particularly good buddies in the meantime with the harbour master in Fecamp and probably knew all the good restaurants, as he had been quite a wine buff, too, she had learned. In fact, he had been the one telling her about the online sommelier course.
They had left the pub at eleven and he had walked her gallantly to her apartment around the corner, but she had not invited him in. He had had the briefing to think of anyway. He had gone back to the Marina and roared home, arriving at eleven thirty. His mother had gone to bed already, so he had settled on the couch with a dram of Jura Origin single malt. He must have fallen into a light sleep, but now he was wide awake. He was thinking about what Moira had said about the harbour master of Fecamp. They had not been in touch with him, had they? He must have a pilot book of the French coast here somewhere. He should look up the details of that port. And when precisely was The Royal Escape rally and which route exactly did it take? He had some work to do, he thought.
It would be a while before he slept tonight.
CHAPTER 18
“Good morning, team, and thanks for coming in on a Saturday morning. This is the special weekend edition of our briefing on Operation Blackbird, the inquiry into the murder of Bert Devos of Lewes,” DCI Ianthe Seymour started with a smile at eight am sharp on Saturday 16 May.
She did not feel like smiling though. She had not slept a wink. At four am she had finally given up on sleep. She had risen and had left for the gym. Her habit was to do her routine in the gym for forty-five minutes and then return home to shower and dress for the day. Today however she had decided to shower in the gym, put on her work clothes there and leave for Lewes from there as well. She really had not wanted to run into Tony this morning as she had too much to think about with regards to the case, she reasoned with herself and could not allow herself to be distracted by her own mess of a life. Not that there would have been too much of a risk of finding him up and about on a Saturday morning at five. Fortunately, she had had the foresight of laying out her clothes for the day in the bathroom the day before, so at least she was wearing fresh underwear, her old black University of Glasgow hoodie, the inevitable Levi’s blue jeans and her ancient black Nike sneakers.
That early on a Saturday morning there had been next to no traffic and at five thirty-four am she had used her pass to enter Sussex Police HQ in Lewes. She had gone up straight to the conference room, had dropped her stuff there and had tried to get the machine to make her coffee, which it had refused to do. In frustration she had kicked it. She had not been able to buy coffee en-route at that time of the morning and she desperately needed a caffeine shot. Fortunately, she had remembered that Pooh Bear kept a Nespresso machine in his office, which actually was not quite according to the rules on safety. She had gone down to his office which mercifully she had found unlocked, had helped herself to a few capsules and had made herself the coffee she had been longing for. She had taken it up to the conference room where she had opened up her computer, had scanned the serials, had reread her policy book and notes on Operation Blackbird and had prepared for the briefing. Her team had started to trickle in before eight. Ben had been first, looking wary and unrested, obviously not surprised at all of seeing her already there. Then Ajanta had come in, immaculately dressed as always in an Armani business suit but with her makeup slightly less carefully applied than usual, Ianthe had noted. John had been the third one to enter, looking rather happy, Ianthe had thought, but tired, too. It had been obvious he had wanted to offer some thoughts, but she had had to tell him he should wait until everyone was there. The Analyst, Anne Baker, had come in at nine to eight. Vik, true to his nature, had made a point of joining them last, with just one minute to spare. At least, Ianthe had thought, she had been able to get him already so far as being on time.
She looked around the table at her team. They were all looking tired, with the exception of Anne Baker. But Ianthe knew she was living in Lewes anyway and the pressure was least on her to solve the case.
“Bert Devos was murdered almost five days ago,” she said. “And I feel we are really missing something. Perhaps we have been looking at the wrong angle, so we have to try thinking about Operation Blackbird with a fresh mind and try to set aside the assumptions we have taken. For starters, we have all automatically assumed that the perp must have reached Polaris from the landside, but I now believe he may have come from the seaside.”
She continued to explain how she had reached that conclusion the previous evening after her visit to the Marina.
“Theo Griffiths promised me he would at once send us the CCTV of the harbour entrance. I suppose he must have done that, and I will go to the monitoring centre right after this briefing to see if there is something on it. Ben, perhaps you can join me?”
Ben nodded. He commented:
“Sorry about that guv. I had indeed not considered that possibility at all when Ajanta and I talked to the harbour master and security.”
“Yeah, pretty dumb of us,” Ajanta added.
“Not at all,” Ianthe responded. “It was the normal reaction. It reminds us that in every murder inquiry we need to try and think out of the box.”
John put up his hand and Ianthe nodded at him.
“I also had a conversation with Moira Kelly, the harbour master, yesterday, guv. Thought I’d talk to her as I believe I am the only one here who actually sails. From that conversation I started to think that perhaps we should also consider the other end of the
line. And I mean that physically. Moira told me that our victim regularly sailed on his own to France to prepare for The Royal Escape rally. That race ends in a small port called Fecamp in Normandy, just south of Dieppe. If he sailed there often, the local authorities may know about him. At least the Fecamp harbour master should know Mr Devos and Polaris.”
“That’s good thinking, John,” Ianthe replied. “And have you taken any action towards that harbour master?”
She saw John actually blush under her praise.
“Not yet, ma’am. I really only got the idea late last night. I have to admit my French is almost non-existent and I am not certain these people actually speak English.”
“Let’s try to find their phone number right after this meeting and call them together, John. My French is reasonable.”
“I have the contact details already. They are in my pilot.”
“Excellent. But what the hell is a pilot?”
John blushed again.
“Sorry, guv. A pilot is a book used by sailors that describes in detail all the ports you may want to sail to. It tells you how to approach them from seaside, how to reserve a berth, what facilities they have etc etc. There is a pilot for almost every area in Europe. I have a few of them and Fecamp is in the Channel Pilot I have.”
“OK. Good to know. You want to add something to that, Vik?”
“Indeed, Ianthe. I learned last night from my contacts that sailing yachts like Mr Devos’s sometimes are used to smuggle a cargo of narcotics into the country from the Continent. So, if we believe in the drugs angle, it may well be that Mr Devos took on such a cargo in Fecamp. Perhaps we should ask the local authorities indeed if they have knowledge of the port of Fecamp being used for such activities.”
Ianthe nodded and made a note of that.
“All right, Vik. Perhaps you should also stick around for that conversation we will be having with France after this.”
She looked at Ajanta.
“Regarding the narcotics angle and our prime suspect, Brandon Nicholson. I assume you have not yet been able to get the mobile phone details from O2, Ajanta, have you?”
“Actually, ma’am, my contact in O2 came through and has delivered these details to me last night.”
“Wow,” Ianthe exclaimed surprised. “That’s unbelievable. Do you know the CEO or so?”
“My contact is rather high up on the company ladder, all right. It’s a bit of a one-time thing though. And I had to commit to getting them the court order today. I need to have the duty magistrate sign that still.”
“I believe that’s Kavita Mirchandani this weekend. Should not be an issue. Let me know if it is. Have you been able to have a look at them yet?”
“I did find the time last night to look at them, indeed. And I must say the results are quite interesting. The first thing I checked was the location details of the phone of Rowena Nicholson, as she provided the alibi for her son. It appears she lied to us, as her phone was in London until one am. After that you can easily track her way back to Brighton following the various antennas and the phone clocked into the O2 antenna closest to Roedean Way at two-thirty am, meaning that was the time she came home. Times are approximations of course, Ianthe, but I have the exact timings for you here,” she added that hastily, knowing her boss’ obsession with time.
Ianthe frowned and nodded. Everyone sat up in close attention.
“That means our Brandon Nicholson does not have an alibi any longer,” Ianthe commented, her right eyebrow raised as high as it could go.
“It certainly means that his original alibi has been shot, guv,” Ajanta added. “However, when I looked at his phone details, I was much surprised to see that his phone did not at all register with the O2 antenna closer to home or close to the Marina. The details actually put him slap bang in the middle of Brighton until one fifty-three am. That means he only arrived home slightly before his mother did. But he was not anywhere near the crime scene.”
“But if he wasn’t near the crime scene, why did he not just say where he really was rather than lying about his alibi?” Ben commented.
“Perhaps because he doesn’t want anyone to know his real alibi because it’s worse?” Ianthe offered.
“Actually, boss, I was talking to an ex-girlfriend of mine yesterday evening,” John responded. “She happens to know Brandon Nicholson from uni. She confirmed that Brandon has been dealing XTC and coke and that he was mainly targeting noticeably young girls from Roedean. As you know, Roedean school is next to his house. She gave me the impression he was sexually interested in and involved with underage girls.”
“Then it will actually make sense he does not want anyone to know if he has an unhealthy interest in young girls,” Ianthe allowed. “It’s clear we need to bring both Rowena and Brandon Nicholson in again for questioning. Ajanta and John, perhaps you can take care of that? Make sure you caution Rowena. We will probably need to charge her with obstruction of justice at least.”
“My ex knows Helen Devos quite well,” John added. “She believes Brandon dumped her because he was interested in younger girls. If she told her dad, and he confronted Brandon with that knowledge, that would give Brandon yet another motive, would it not?” John asked.
“With that extenuating detail that his mobile phone seems to indicate quite strongly he actually did not to it,” Ianthe replied. “Great work, Ajanta.”
“Actually, I have more, boss. I also asked for the details of the phones of Bert Devos and Josephine Devos. Nothing incredibly interesting about Mr Devos’s phone details. They seem to confirm what we knew already that most of the time he was on his boat and didn’t go on business trips or to the office or what. His phone was also off for several days, which is probably due to him sailing to France. There are also some phone calls to a burner phone, which don’t help us either. The interesting thing however is the phone log of Josephine Devos. She was at home all right when her husband was murdered. The interesting thing however is that in the weeks preceding the murder she received a number of phone calls from a number that is known to the police as one of the numbers belonging to Ricky Rowlands.”
“THE Ricky Rowlands?” Ianthe exclaimed, clearly baffled. “The king of Sussex Narco?”
Ajanta nodded confirmatively.
“Well perhaps I can shed some light on that,” Vik spoke rather smugly. “I spoke to Ricky Rowlands last night. I wanted to find out if he knew Brandon Nicholson. The more interesting part of the conversation however was about the affair he had with Josephine Devos.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Ianthe asked:
“Ricky Rowlands had an affair with Josephine Devos?”
“That is a big surprise,” Vik replied, “I know. But that seems to be the case. He was quite adamant though that it had stopped a few weeks ago. He told me Josephine didn’t want to risk her marriage and believed her daughter Helen was suspecting something. He may have called her a few times to try and change her mind, which are the phone calls Ajanta has noticed.”
“I guess that would actually give Mr Rowlands something of a motive to do away with our victim. But it’s hard to imagine he would do that in such a way that it could be traced back to him. Is he willing to make a statement about it?”
“He already made an official statement in my presence, in fact. I have it with me.”
“And for how long did that affair last?”
“He told me it lasted for about two years. They had met in the Metropole Hilton Hotel at a New Years Eve event. They started to see each other regularly after that. Mainly at the Grand, or away from Brighton, in London for instance. And I agree it gives Ricky Rowlands something of a motive to take Bert Devos permanently out of the picture. But you will concur with me it gives Josephine Devos a much bigger motive to do exactly that.”
“Indeed. Although you say that she broke up the relationship.”
“That’s what he said, correct.”
“They may be in league on this though,” Ajanta offered. “If
they decided together to get rid of her husband, it would have been wise indeed to put their relationship on hold for a while.”
“But why tell us now about the affair in that case,” John objected.
“Ricky Rowlands is not a fool,” Ajanta replied. He must have sensed we were getting closer with Vik asking questions and him knowing there must be phone data we could track.”
“I assume Mr Rowlands has an alibi for last Monday night?” Ianthe asked.
“Absolutely,” Vik responded. “He stated he was at a poker game with a few buddies at the Metropole Bar until three AM. It checks out with the staff of the bar that I managed to contact still last night. Ricky is quite well known in Brighton, so they had no issue remembering him.”
“Obviously, if Ricky Rowlands is behind the murder, he would never have actually done it himself,” Ben commented. “No doubt he has people to do that sort of unsavoury stuff for him.”
“Correct,” Vik replied. “But even though there is no denying he is involved in some dodgy business to say the least, he seems to stay away from violence. Bad for business is what he told me.”
“His name has never popped up in other murder cases, that much I can say for him,” Ianthe agreed. “Although that may not mean anything. There are plenty of cases that have gone cold and which may be drug related. I assume he didn’t tell you whether Josephine Devos or Bert Devos were in business with him somehow?”
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