“Actually, he did say that he never talked business with Josephine. Import/export he likes to call it by the way. He gave me the impression that she essentially gave him the opportunity to take his mind off his business for a while. They went to musicals together and museums, they talked about art, about family etc.. At least that was what he wanted me to understand. And I must say I sort of believe him.”
“You seem to be quite chummy with him, aren’t you?” Ianthe commented drily.
“Please don’t be condescending,” Vik flared briefly. “I’ve known him for quite some time now. And while I agree he is a dangerous customer and a force to be reckoned with in Sussex’ underworld, he always struck me as a businessman first and a gangster only second. I don’t think he would ever allow personal vendettas to endanger his business. Besides, as you said yourself, if he were behind that murder, I doubt very much the outcome would have been that sloppy, even unprofessional. I would rather think in that case we would have a scenario where Bert Devos would have been lost at sea with his yacht and no one would know better.”
“No need to get on the high horse, Vik. I think you’ve done a great job here, but we can’t rule him out completely.”
“I have to agree with Vik, guv,” Ben added. “Violence of a personal nature seems just not his thing. Of course, we can’t rule out he hired someone to do the job for him and that person made a mess of it. He may have been interrupted in the act for instance. But it all sounds a little farfetched to me.”
“Then there still is Josephine Devos. She may have decided by herself to get rid of the hubbie. We only have her word for it that she was at home that night. She would have ample opportunity to fake an alert on the boat, follow him in her car, kill him and drive back. Or she could even have gone with him and taken a taxi back home. Most murders are done by someone who knows the victim quite well after all.”
“The data from the service provider put her phone quite firmly at her house all night though,” Ajanta countered. “Exactly like she said.”
“But what does that really prove?” Ben argued. “She could very well have left her phone at the house in Lewes. It would have been easy for her to clone Bert’s key fob to get access to the pier. As Theo Griffiths told Ianthe that is technically not hard at all. And since they already had an official key fob, it’s probably an accepted practice, too, since boat owners only get one key fob free of charge, but you need one to enter the parking lot as well. So, I’m guessing most boat owners actually make themselves a spare one.”
“Good one, Ben,” Ianthe concurred. “We definitely have to bring in Ms Devos again for an interview to confront her with this information. We also need to find out if the key fob register or database or whatever they call it, gives an indication how often a key fob is being used. Does it actually keep track of when it is being used to enter the pier? That isn’t certain as it may be against privacy rules. Then we also have to check with the major taxi companies if they were called out to pick someone up at the Marina Monday night or Tuesday early morning. If so, if that person corresponds with a description of Josephine Devos. Ben, you and I will do that. Can you go pick up Ms Devos after this meeting and bring her to an interview room? I will join you there.”
“Sure boss. Should I caution her?”
Ianthe hesitated for a second, then decided.
“No. Not immediately. Let’s see if she admits to the affair with Mr Rowlands. If she even hesitates about it, or her account does not concur with his statement, we will caution her.”
“What about Helen Devos?” Vik asked.
Ianthe turned to him.
“What about her, Vik?”
“Well, it’s just that Ricky mentioned to me she is, and I quote, ‘a wild one’. Not sure what he actually meant by it and he didn’t offer more details. But in a way she has a motive, too, of course.”
“Parricide, Vik?” Ianthe said pensively. “I don’t really see it, but I guess we can’t rule that out either. Ajanta, did you get phone details on Helen Devos as well?”
Ajanta shook her head.
“No, guv. She’s a minor and not an official suspect in this case. I didn’t want to make a procedural mistake.”
“Hmm. You were quite right about that. All right. Bring her with you as well, Vik and put her in a separate room. We may want to ask her at least if she knew of the affair her mother was having and then see what effect that may have on her. And ask her if she will allow us to have a look at her phone. Vik, why don’t you have a go at her with Ajanta?”
“Sure, Ianthe.” He definitely looked pleased with that.
“What else did Ricky mention, Vik? Did he say anything about Bert Devos being involved in the business?”
“I asked him, and he thought it was not impossible, but he wasn’t sure. Sailing boats have been used for centuries to smuggle all sorts of contraband from the Continent into England, obviously. The coastline is so long that there are numerous black spots where there is next to no control. Border Force is trying to fill all the holes and have modern technology on their side, but he gave me to understand a relatively small yacht, mainly built from plastic, as they are these days, is still largely invisible if it doesn’t want to be noticed. There are just too many coves a small boat can enter. Mind you, he did say it would be a pretty dangerous thing to do, bringing in narcotics that way. And it was obvious he wasn’t referring to the chances of being caught by the drug squad or Border Force.”
“So how did you get Ricky Rowlands to say all these things to you, Vik?” Ianthe asked. “I’m really curious about that.”
Vik waved his hand dismissively.
“I have had my contacts in that world for a pretty long time, as you know. From before you joined the force, I guess. And the opportunity presented itself to ask these questions. He was sort of expecting it, I guess. That man certainly is not a fool.”
“Did he tell you something worth knowing about Brandon Nicholson, too?”
“Only that our Mr Nicholson is indeed a small-time dealer. An amateur. A kid with too much time on his hands, is what I believe he said.”
“That’s exactly what ‘Dutchy’ Feensma told me last night as well, guv,” Ben added. “Not at all in the big leagues.”
“My my we all have been rather busy last night it appears,” Ianthe said with a smile.
“Anything else worth knowing ‘Dutchy’ told you?”
“Not really.”
Ben consulted his notes.
“Wait. He did say someone else had been asking questions about Brandon Nicholson as well. Someone in the entourage of Ricky Rowlands.”
“Well, thanks for making it even more complex, Ben,” Ianthe said ironically.
“So, we have Brandon Nicholson, who is known by the Devos family as well as by Ricky Rowlands. Who is supposed to be a small-time dealer. Perhaps he was being ambitious and using his girlfriend’s father for that? But then why would he have killed him? And he seems to have an alibi, even if he did lie to us about the first one he offered. Then we have Josephine Devos, who may have wanted to get rid of Bert to continue her affair with Ricky Rowlands. And we have of course Ricky Rowlands himself who might have ordered a hit on Bert Devos for personal reasons. A hit that might have gone awry.”
Ianthe got up and drew those relationships on the whiteboard behind her, with big question marks. She stood back for a second to contemplate the picture in silence. No one said a thing.
“All right, team, we all know what to do. Let’s start doing it and crack this case. First we need to call that harbour master in Fecamp I believe.”
They gathered around the speakerphone which had a central position on the conference table. John took an impressive hardcover book out of his backpack. ‘The Shell Channel Pilot’ published by Imray. He had already put a post-it marker at the relevant page and opened the book at the Fecamp entry.
“The pilot has entries for all of the commonly used ports on both sides of the Channel,” John explained.
“Meaning that some ports cannot be entered at all times?” Ianthe wanted to know.
“Indeed,” John replied. “You see the entry here that says MLWS and 1.2m? That means that at Low Water Springs, the average depth is only 1.2 meters. So, if your boat has more draught than that, you may not be able to enter the port. A bit further down you read in the comments by the author not to approach Fecamp at all in an onshore gale, which is a strong wind from the sea. The interesting item for us right now is the telephone number of the marina that is listed in the notices as well, right here.”
Ianthe looked at the number, picked up the receiver and started to dial. Then she waited. After a few rings a male voice picked up at the other end.
“Bonjour, ici la Capitainerie de Fecamp.” [Hello, this is the office of the harbour master of Fecamp]
Ianthe replied in fluent French.
“Bonjour, ici Ianthe Seymour de la police de Sussex en Angleterre. Je voudrais parler au Capitaine du Port s’il vous plait …. Ah c’est vous? ….” [Hello, this is Ianthe Seymour of Sussex Police in England. I would like to speak to the harbour master please …. Oh that’s you? …]
An entire conversation in fluent French ensued which John nor Vik were able to follow. Finally, Ianthe said:
“Merci beaucoup pour votre cooperation. J’espere que je pourrais vous rappeler si j’aurai plus de questions …” [Thank you very much for your cooperation. I hope I can call you back if I have more questions…]
And she put down the receiver.
She looked at their astonished faces.
“The advantages of partially being raised abroad,” she shrugged. “We had a lot of French at my school.”
“Very impressive,” Vik had to admit.
“Don’t make too much of it. Anyways, it was a remarkably interesting conversation. Not sure how much you understood but the gist is that I spoke to the harbour master, Monsieur Dujardin, and he did not have any recollection of a Bert Devos. He looked in his registration files and as far as he can see Polaris has never berthed there. They have a similar system as Brighton Marina that yachts that stay overnight must register unless they are only running for a gale and stay for just a few hours. But John just told us that Fecamp is dangerous to approach in a gale with the wind coming from the west, which is the prevalent direction. I don’t think that Bert Devos was suicidal, so it is unlikely he ever went there. The question then is, where did he go instead?”
“There must be quite a lot of ports you can reach from Brighton,” Vik mentioned.
“I guess we could call all the ports at approximately the same distance as Fecamp and see if perhaps he checked into other ports that might be all-weather ports,” Ben suggested.
Ianthe made a face.
“That could take quite a while calling all of them. We were lucky here I found the harbour master at his job on a Saturday and there are probably only a limited number of yachts visiting them at any time, so it is not that difficult for them to remember Mr Devos or Polaris. In a port like Dieppe or a major one like Le Havre, which is one of the biggest in Europe, they might not know at all for sure if and when he came in.”
“There actually might be an easier solution, guv,” John suddenly suggested. She looked at him questioningly.
“Go on.”
“Well every modern yacht like Polaris has GPS on board. When I visited her with Moira Kelly yesterday even though we didn’t go below, I did notice he even had a plotter of one of the major brands installed in the cockpit. Those plotters keep track of where the boat sailed. Even if you cannot see it on screen anymore, they tend to keep the track in their memory. If we can read out that memory, we should know exactly which ports in France and England Polaris sailed to.”
“Excellent thinking, John,” Ianthe replied. “To what level of detail could we see her whereabouts in the past couple of weeks?”
“GPS is unbelievably detailed these days, boss. The track is probably correct down to a couple of yards. There are a few so-called dead spots, but as far as I know not in the Channel.”
“Great. Check if there is anyone from IT available today to sort it out. Else, it will need to be Monday, I guess. Talk to Geoff Simmons first to make sure someone goes over to Polaris to get the plotter today. Do you need the whole thing?”
“It depends on the brand, guv. Sometimes you would just need the small SD-card that is plugged into the plotter, much like a USB stick. But I haven’t given it sufficient attention to be able to tell you if that is the case here, or the memory is built in and you need to actually open the plotter to get to it.”
“Understood. Best thing you get the whole thing, I guess. Not sure if SOCO will have much experience dismantling a plotter though.”
“I suggest I will go with SOCO and will ask Moira to join us on Polaris, too. No doubt she will know how to deal with dismantling the plotter.”
“I see you’re on first name basis then, huh?” Ianthe said with a smile, seeing John blush at her words. “Good thinking. Let me know what happens. Vik, I think you should listen into the interview with Josephine Devos. Based on that, you may need to have another chat with Ricky.”
Vik nodded and made a note in his book.
*
After the meeting DCI Ianthe Seymour walked over to the operations building that housed the monitoring centre. Here the ever-growing number of CCTV cameras in Sussex were being monitored continuously. She announced herself and asked if Theo Griffiths had already sent over the video from the entry to Brighton Marina, which he had. Since Brighton Marina was a private area owned by Premier Marinas these CCTV cameras were not being monitored automatically by Sussex Police Operations. Ianthe was shown inside and introduced to Ronnie Henderson, who was one of the duty analysts watching the video streams coming in and being displayed round the clock on the enormous bank of monitors around the room.
“Hello Ronnie,” she said. “This is with regards to Operation Blackbird. I need to see the footing from Brighton Marina entrance from last Monday night 11 May until Tuesday morning 12 May.”
“No problem, ma’am. I have just loaded the video I received from Brighton Marina. It will show on Monitor Five over there.”
He pointed at one of the screens. Then he wound through the video quickly to find the timestamp for Monday 11 May.
“From what time would you like me to display please?”
“We’re looking for a boat that has entered the port most likely after dark Monday and left again before four am Tuesday.”
Ronnie Henderson turned to his browser and quickly googled sunset on 11 May.
“Right. So sunset last Monday was at eight thirty-eight pm, ma’am. But of course, it wasn’t completely dark immediately after that. Typically, twilight lasts for about thirty minutes. If it’s ok with you, ma’am, I will start the video at nine fifteen pm.”
Ianthe nodded and started watching the screen that turned almost black with just some spots of light on the water.
“There is no spotlight pointing at the harbour entrance at that point, I believe,” Ronnie explained. “I think the reason for that is not to confuse seafarers. The light you see mirrored on the waves is the green and the red light that are mounted on the entry to indicate starboard and port. And of course, the light from the buildings lining the Marina. Unfortunately, Monday night was overcast with rain, so there was no moon either. However, incoming boats should have their navigation lights on, so we can look for these.”
“And what would these be?” she asked.
“Depends on the size of boat we’re looking for, but for recreational craft it should be at least a red light on port side and green light on starboard side and a white light at the tail. So, if it’s entering you should see its green light closer to the camera.”
They watched together as Ronnie sped through the video. At times they did not
see anything at all because of the rain. To her dismay, Ianthe saw the timestamp move past eleven forty-five which was the time Josephine Devos had said they had received the alarm from Polaris. After another hour they had gone through the entire footing until the timestamp showed four am. Ronnie Henderson looked at her.
“Do you want me to continue, ma’am, until it’s light?”
She sighed.
“No need for that, Ronnie, thanks. Absolutely nothing seems to have come in that night.”
“That should not be surprising as it was a really bad night to be out at sea, I guess. What I could do is to try enhancing the quality of the video, in particular in those places where we couldn’t see anything because of the rain. That is if you think it might be worthwhile to do that.”
“Absolutely. Please go ahead with that. When you’re ready, give us a shout and I will probably send in DC John Ryan, who is more knowledgeable about maritime things than I am.”
“Sure. I don’t know how urgent this is for you, ma’am, but I am going off shift in ten minutes. Is it all right with you if I do this first thing Monday? Else I need to brief a colleague to do it in my place.”
Ianthe considered for a moment.
“I assume it will be okay for Monday morning, Ronnie. It doesn’t seem all that likely a yacht can have slipped in without us noticing in such a brief timespan. Yachts are pretty slow and big I guess.”
*
Ianthe slowly walked back to the conference room. She assumed she must have been mistaken. The killer had not come in from the sea on Monday night then. It was possible she thought he might have come in earlier during daylight on a yacht that had left again without him. Or even the day before. They should look at all yachts that had arrived and left in the previous couple of days. But if that was the case, then how had he left again? No one had been on any of the boats berthed at the jetty Tuesday morning. Could he have dived out? She should ask Laverne about that. But then he would have taken a great risk coming out of the water. Someone would surely have remembered seeing a diver coming out of the water in the marina that morning. No, everything pointed again at someone having either come with Bert Devos or having followed him in using a clone of his key fob. And then Josephine or Helen Devos were the prime suspects.
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