‘Christina’s been seen hanging out at the Coco Shack,’ I say pointedly. ‘The barmaid recognised a photo of her on my phone.’
‘Ah! Were you down at the Coco Shack yourself last night?’
Oh God, so now he thinks I planted the sandals!
‘I was going to ask you the same question,’ I say. ‘The barmaid told me the police went down there last night too. At first, she thought it was another police raid but they didn’t arrest anyone. And then she saw an officer talking to Christina in the parking lot.’
He looks uncomfortable.
‘Was it you… or Kramer?’
He shuts the door and pulls out a chair for me at his desk.
I stay standing. ‘The barmaid saw a police officer handing over a package to Christina,’ I say. ‘My guess is one of your men is using his uniform as a cover for dealing drugs and has been supplying them to Christina – either for Damien’s personal use or for resale to raise money to clear his debts. Could this somehow be linked to Katie’s disappearance?’
‘Best you don’t go snooping around at the Shack,’ says Costa, closing me down. ‘It’s got a bad reputation, drinking den of the local dealers. It’s not safe for a young woman like you.’
Well, that’s a bit rich after the way he harassed me yesterday!
‘Well, you should get down there,’ I say. ‘Surely it’s a crime scene now.’
‘Just keep out of it.’ His voice is hard. ‘You seem to forget that I’m the one in charge round here.’ He orders me to sit. Then he opens the blind on the panel screening his office from the control room. ‘OK, let’s get down to business. If you really want to help, I’ve got a job for you.’ He opens a thick file crammed full of papers that’s lying on the desk. ‘Go through this lot and highlight anything you think deserves a second look.’
He leans over my shoulder, uncomfortably close. The smell of his musky aftershave is all too familiar.
‘You’re probably in a better position to spot a likeness than any of my officers in there.’ Through the glass, I see his team lazily setting up for the day with cups of coffee and muffins. ‘If you can’t stop meddling at least you can do something useful.’ He sweeps the clutter to one side. ‘You can work here. I’ll be out all morning. Then you can debrief me over lunch.’
He flips through the file like a deck of cards. ‘There was a time not so long ago, when we were limited to door-to-door enquiries and face-to-face interviews.’ He’s sounding almost paternal now. ‘But in this new age of the Internet and social media, the whole world wants to help. It doesn’t make the job any easier.’
He touches my shoulder and I stiffen.
‘I blame you for this,’ he says sternly. ‘You provoked this deluge with that damned Instagram campaign! Now you can deal with it. We’ve got 518 reported witness sightings… Five hundred and eighteen people who claim to have seen Katie or her abductor. That’s just what came in ‘til midnight yesterday. Email messages, tweets, photographs…’
He nods towards the control room.
‘Your appeal has gone viral. It just keeps on coming. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re putting more files together in there now.’
He straps his pistol into the holster on his hip and swaggers to the door. I stifle a giggle. I can’t take him seriously after our close encounters on the boat – a would-be big shot and bully who thrives on having his ego massaged. But I need to keep in with him if I want to stay on the inside of the investigation, so I smile sweetly.
‘Sure, I’m happy to help.’
‘I’m off to the Shack to check up on the forensics team and make some enquiries. For a start, I want to interview that barmaid.’ He slams the door, then five seconds later he sticks his head round it again. ‘By the way, you were right about the lilos. They weren’t bought on the island. We checked the brand – manufactured and sold in the UK.’
*
I can’t help feeling proud of myself as I skim through the file, scanning scores of photographs and messages sent in to the police in response to the police appeals and my own social media campaign. For the most part the images are of blonde-haired girls, about the same age as Katie – on the beach, in the queue at the airport, lined up to board a ferry, walking in the street, playing with other children, paddling in a pool – sent in by well-meaning members of the public.
The images vary in quality. Some are high definition close-ups, others grainy images taken at long range, some blurred, some cropped, some showing facial features, others shot in profile, some taken from an angle or from the rear.
Many of the images bear a passing resemblance to Katie, a collection of pale-skinned little girls, light hair, blue eyes, pretty smiles. One or two show a striking resemblance – I have to stare at these long and hard to be certain it’s not her. Others are so way off the mark that I wonder if they’ve been sent in as a prank – pictures of dark-haired and dark-skinned little Caribbean girls, pictures of swarthy teenagers, pictures of boys. One joker has even sent in a picture of a dog.
They’ve all been carefully documented, indexed and filed by one of the officers on the team. But no attempt has been made to log the evidential importance of each item. It’s all just been filed in order of receipt. Now I understand why the police operation lacks direction and focus. They’re not short of leads, but the problem is they’re swamped – literally hundreds of possible sightings and potentially interesting lines of enquiry have landed up on Costa’s desk. The challenge now is to evaluate the credibility of each fragment of evidence, eliminating unnecessary diversions and pursuing those leads that warrant further investigation. That’s where I come in!
The positive is that the thickness of the file proves that the locals and tourists are really getting behind the campaign to find Katie. There are scores of witness statements given by islanders and tourists setting out detailed accounts of suspected sightings or encounters with Katie and her abductor. Being something of a cynic, I can’t help thinking that the huge response may have something to do with the fifty-thousand-dollar reward up for grabs for any information leading to her discovery. Costa cautioned against it warning that such a substantial amount would be too tempting and could result in false information being sent in. However, Christina put her foot down and insisted on advertising the reward. The money has been pledged by an anonymous donor from the BLI billionaire banking community who approached the police when my social media campaign was launched. And, yes, I’m proud of that! God knows, if there’s a chance the reward might ‘soften someone’s heart’ then why not? What harm can it do?
I’m on my third espresso and three quarters of the way through the file by the time Costa blusters in carrying two iced beers and a takeaway pizza.
‘Thought you might be getting hungry. We can share.’
He rips off a slice and hands it to me. Not exactly what I had in mind when he spoke of lunch!
‘I don’t drink beer,’ I say.
He shrugs. ‘Too bad. How are you getting on?’
I show him a few grainy shots of girls about the same height and colouring as Katie taken at various locations around the island.
‘I can’t give you a positive ID but these are the ones I can’t rule out 100 per cent.’
He takes them through to the control room.
‘I’ll get Brenda to follow up. She can make enlargements and send someone out to interview witnesses.’ She’s the one with the immaculate purple nails.
‘Oh, and there’s something else I’ve got to show you,’ I say, as he sits down beside me. ‘I’ve saved the best ‘til last.’ I flip to where I’ve propped the file open with my sunglasses. It’s the mugshot of the dog.
He can’t resist a wisecrack.
‘Have you gone barking mad?’ He squeezes my knee.
‘Not the dog, you idiot!’ I say, swinging my leg away. The shaggy, brown mutt featured in the foreground is standing guard with its hackles raised, gaping wild-eyed, open-mouthed at the camera. ‘In the backgro
und, down here right in the corner.’ I point. ‘Look. What can you see?’ A little out of focus, the background consists of a line of over-sized, floating gin-palaces, moored along the quayside. It looks like an exclusive port or marina. ‘There, in the right-hand corner of the photograph. Can you make out the name?’
Costa snaps it with his phone. The name of the boat is painted in black italic letters on the side of the keel. The letters are fuzzy and indistinct but as he enlarges the image on his screen they become legible.
‘P – H – A – N – T – A,’ he spells out. ‘The rest of the name is cut off.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ I say. ‘Just wanted to be sure.’
‘What are you driving at?’ says Costa.
‘The name of the yacht…’
‘Phantom… Phantastic… Phantasm…’ Costa throws out a few possible endings. ‘Phantasy…’
‘That’s it…’ I shout. ‘But with a pun on the word ‘sea’ at the end.’ I thump the palm of his hand in a triumphant high five. The Phantasea. Yep – that’s the name on the rental mooring agreement.’
I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ says Costa.
‘I thought Christina showed it to you the other day,’ I say. ‘An agreement for the rental of a mooring space for a yacht in a marina. She came back for some documents while I was in her bathroom. She said she was taking them in to the police station to show you.’
‘The Phantasea,’ he says softly. ‘No, I’ve never seen the name before. I would have remembered. Christina never showed me those documents.’
If he’s telling the truth then Christina is behaving very suspiciously. It looks as if she’s got something to hide. If she was innocent then surely she would have disclosed the documents. They could be important to the investigation.
He’s beginning to take me seriously now.
‘So you think this photograph could be a tip off?’ he says, nudging the photo with his pen. ‘You think Katie may be on the yacht?’
‘It’s worth checking out at least,’ I say. It’s certainly consistent with my theory. The Black Jack betting record shows that Damien would have had sufficient time to pick up Katie from Crooks’ Bay and ferry her in the motorboat to a yacht waiting out at sea. His movements would have passed unnoticed in these island waters where the leisure yachts of the mega rich are everywhere.
‘It would explain why the trail goes cold at Crooks’ Bay,’ I say. ‘The tracker dogs have nothing further to follow. Once Katie was on the yacht she could have been taken anywhere or she could still be hidden onboard.’
Though he doesn’t admit it, I can tell from the look on Costa’s face that he thinks we might be on to something. He enters the control room and goes over to Brenda. Through the glass I see her pull a face as he puts the photograph on her desk and his arm round her shoulder. But a few minutes later, she comes in looking pleased with herself in a nonchalant kind of way.
‘I checked with the Marine Registry. There is a yacht called The Phantasea on the register. The boat is privately-owned. Registered owner is recorded as J. Hamilton. That’s all they have on the register.’ I watch as she taps her long nails restlessly on the desk.
So now we know the boat exists, we need to find out where it was moored. Costa turns to me.
‘Did you notice the name of the marina on that moorings rental document?’ he says. ‘If not, we should be able to identify the marina from the photograph.’
I close my eyes and try to visualise the sheet of paper which I had found in the stack of papers piled next to Damien’s bed. As I concentrate, an image of Playboy magazine, now stuffed in my bag, comes into my head. ‘That reminds me, I found this under Damien’s bed,’ I say. I’ve been putting off handing it over to Costa because I didn’t want him to see the compromising photo-sequence of me at the back of the magazine. His eyes light up. I drop it on the table face down. By chance my eyes fall on the postage label printed on the back. The magazine is addressed to P. D. Varcoe at an address in Notting Hill.
Suddenly, I get a lightbulb moment. ‘Hand me a pencil,’ I say. ‘Covera – don’t you get it?’ It’s almost too easy – like one of those intelligence tests I used to do in school. I scribble out the letters in a circle on the page, then draw lines between them, to rearrange the order, and cross them out one-by-one as I spell the name,
Varcoe.
‘Got it! Q.E.D. It’s Damien. I’ll bet you a hundred dollars our friend Damien Covera is operating under a false name. His real name is ‘Varcoe’.’
Costa swings into action. He radios the police coastal patrol and orders the launch of patrol boats to search for the vessel. He calls in an assistant to bag up the copy of Playboy for fingerprinting and DNA analysis. Then he orders his team to contact their counterparts in London to do further identity and security checks this time in the name of P. D. Varcoe. ‘The slippery bastard must be using a false ID.’ He straps his pistol onto his hip. ‘Given the time difference, we won’t get the results back from London for at least twenty-four hours,’ says Costa. ‘But in the meantime we can search for the vessel.’
He flashes me a smile. ‘Hey, Scarlett, at last we’re getting somewhere. You did good! Now let’s have another look at that mutt.’
He examines the photograph more closely.
‘Where was it taken? You must recognise the marina,’ I say.
‘That damn dog’s butt is right in the way,’ says Costa ‘Could be one of the ports in the US Leeward Isles.’ He presses the button on his pager. ‘I’ll call in Jack, he deals with the smugglers, knows all the ports this side of the Caribbean. He’ll know.’
*
About half an hour later a burly man in torn denims and a dirty grey T-shirt bursts through the door. ‘Hey man! Thanks for coming over,’ says Costa. ‘Meet the Jackal, meanest drugs buster in town’ he says to me, clapping the man on the shoulder.
As I look him over uncertainly, he says.
‘I try to blend in with the scum.’
‘Talking of scum,’ says Costa, ‘Were you down at the Shack last night?’
The Jackal picks up the photo in his oil-stained hand. ‘Nope, any reason?’
Costa goes over to the coffee machine. ‘Strong, black, two sugars?’
He nods in my direction. ‘Barmaid told my witness she saw a police officer talking to the kid’s mother at the Shack last night – handed over a package.’ I glow inwardly at my promotion from ‘suspect’ to ‘witness’.
The Jackal raises his eyebrows and mouths the word ‘Kramer.’ They exchange a knowing look.
Jack slurps his coffee as he peers at the photo. ‘Yup. I got it,’ he says. ‘Clearwater Marina, up in the north of the island.’ So it is one of the ports on Grand Carmola. ‘Look, there’s the harbour wall.’ The Jackal thrusts the photocopy towards Costa. ‘And the orange buoy over there—’ he points an oily index finger ‘—that’s the warning marker for submerged rocks – site of the 1895 Smugglers’ Shipwreck. It’s an unusual angle. The shot was taken from the west quay, by the dive school, looking out to sea.’
Clearwater Marina – that figures. ‘Can I see it again,’ I say, holding out my hand. In the top corner of the picture is a dark-green awning above a restaurant and I can just read the name of the establishment which must be emblazoned in large white lettering across the fabric.
‘Clamities,’ I say. ‘That’s where Damien and Christina went for dinner last night.’
At that moment, Brenda bursts in with a message.
‘I got through to the harbour master at Clearwater Marina. The Phantasea left her moorings yesterday with clearance for US waters in the St Croix cruising area.’
‘How quickly can you scramble your crew?’ asks Costa.
‘We’ll be on the water within the hour.’ The Jackal makes to leave.
I leap up. ‘I’m coming,’ I say. ‘Take me to St Croix. If there’s any chance that Katie’s onboard, I’ve got to be there.’
‘Covert operations, no plac
e for a lady,’ says the Jackal.
He slams the door as he strides out.
20
Scarlett
Costa turns to me. ‘Jack’s the best man to track The Phantasea. He commands all our covert operations. The US cops know him. We do some joint operations with US sea patrols busting the cartels so they won’t ask any questions. They don’t need to know the true nature of this operation. Not yet. I don’t want them butting in. There’s more chance of getting Katie back unharmed if we get our men on board first. Our US buddies can be trigger happy.’
He walks over to the window. It’s a beautiful, still afternoon.
He turns to face me. ‘You’re having dinner with me tonight at Clamities’.
‘Isn’t your wife expecting you home?’ I ask.
‘Movie night with her girlfriends.’ As I start to protest, he picks up his keys. ‘Strictly business,’ he says. ‘We might pick up some useful intelligence from the harbour master and the restaurant staff.’
While the prospect of another boat trip with Costa makes me anxious, it seems that I’ve been promoted in his estimation from a suspect who must be broken to a trusted confidante. Though this intimate camaraderie is equally unprofessional and inappropriate in the circumstances, I’m happy to go along with it if it means I can be at the heart of the search for Katie. Also, I have to admit to a certain curiosity about seeing where Damien took Christina for dinner last night.
This time, Costa drives me in his official car, blue lights flashing, showing off his driving skills, dodging through the heavy afternoon traffic at speed.
At the harbour we transfer to an unmarked police boat, a sleek, navy blue motor launch, manned by a couple of cheerful young officers from the BLI marine patrol unit dressed in civvies. Looks like they’re giving us a ride round the headland to Clamities.
As we approach Clearwater Marina, Costa gets on the radio to log our arrival with police headquarters. He announces the official version of our mission (enquiries at the marina’s administrative office and at Clamities restaurant), and I hear Brenda’s rich laughter coming over the radio waves.
She's Mine Page 17