by Tim Ellis
‘Capisce.’
‘Excellent.’
‘You’re not going to start smoking cigars, are you?’
‘What’s it to you if I am?’
‘Nothing. I was merely enquiring.’
‘Write. Forensics. We’ve heard nothing from Hefferbitch and her deadbeats. I’ll go up there while you’re on the phone and crack some heads together . . .’
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’
‘Since when has wisdom ever prevented me from doing what I wanted to do?’
‘That’s true. They’ve probably gone home though.’
‘Well, they can fucking well come back again. Don’t worry, I’ll sort those lazy bastards out.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Write. So, in forensics I’ll find out what they’ve discovered about our crime scene, and I’ll also get one of their technocraps onto the Slinky fan and chat sites. The killer must have found his four victims online. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have something to do with grooming them . . .’
‘Like a charismatic cult leader, you mean?’
‘What do you know about leadership, Stickleback?’
‘Absolutely nothing. But I was reading a magazine article about destructive charismatic leaders such as Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Marshall Herff Applewhite, David Koresh . . .’
‘It’s an interesting idea – like the Cult of Slinky?’
‘Mmmm!’
‘Once we find out about Slinky we’ll be in a better position to speculate – write.’
‘I’m writing.’
‘Vice. You need to contact Vice in each area, send them the photographs and names . . . although the girls probably changed their names.’
‘If Slinky can do it, so can they?’
‘Exactly.
‘What about the media? And the jewellery?’
‘I’m sitting on the fence. Let’s see what else we’ve got tomorrow morning. We’ll run everything past the Chief and see what he thinks.’
‘Seems like a plan.’
‘I’m glad you approve.’
‘I’m glad you’re glad.’
‘Write. In fact, if we’re going to put Slinky in protective custody – the cat will probably be out of the bag anyway.’
‘I never understood why the cat was in the bag in the first place.’
‘Write. We’re expecting something from Doc Paine at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I think we’ve been more than generous in waiting for her to pull her finger out, so phone her as well. Tell her . . .’
‘Won’t she have gone home as well?’ Stick glanced at the government-issue clock on the wall. ‘It is five to seven.’
‘Are murders investigated from nine to five, Monday to Friday?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘There’s your answer then. Tell her what we’ve discovered, explain how the concept of time works and then ask her nicely how she’s going to contribute to our investigation.’
‘Okay.’
‘Finally, there’s the industrial unit. I want to know everything about that place. How did he obtain keys to the external and internal doors? Why is he taking the girls back there? Who owns the unit? Has it always been . . . ?’
‘I get the picture.’
‘Good. Right, I’ll go up to forensics and kick some hairy arses, and then I’ll be going home.’
‘Going home?’
‘You expect me to stay here and watch you work?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘So I’ll be going home.’
‘And I’m staying here to do all the work?’
‘Hardly! Work is not just about making a few phone calls and scribbling some notes down on a scrap of paper. Someone has to do the thinking. And I think you’ll readily agree that you’re a doer not a thinker . . .’
‘Readily!’
‘There you are then. I can’t think if you’re working, so I’ll be at home doing the thinking, which constitutes a significant percentage of the work.’
‘Of course.’
‘We’ll meet here again at seven-thirty in the morning.’
‘Seven-thirty?’
‘Do you have somewhere else to be?’
‘Absolutely not. Jenifer’s getting used to sleeping alone.’
‘No doubt she’ll thank me for continuous nights of uninterrupted sleep.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Goodnight, then.’
‘Goodnight.’
***
‘I know what you’re thinking, Chief Inspector.’
‘Oh?’
‘You’re wondering if the Marguerite is still in territorial waters?’
‘And?’
‘Not a chance. They’ve been gone an hour and a quarter. At twenty knots it takes thirty-six minutes to travel twelve nautical miles.’
‘Would I know that?’
‘No, but I would.’
‘I haven’t asked you.’
‘That might be so, but I would have told you anyway.’
‘I’ll take full responsibility.’
‘Tell me you’re not going to board the ship in international waters.’
‘I could tell you that, but it would be a lie. Thanks for your help anyway, Mr Matlock.’ He ended the call before the Harbour Master could try to talk him out of it, and spoke into the microphone attached to the headset. ‘Pilot?’
‘Yes?’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Justin Long.’
He told Long about the clinic; Bronwyn; about losing contact with Jerry; about the five body bags being taken from the clinic to Tilbury docks and about the Colombian-registered container ship on its way to Albania. ‘There are no guarantees, Justin. I could be totally wrong and my wife could be shopping for clothes in Covent Garden. In which case, I’m going to hell in a handcart. I’ll take full responsibility, but you have free will, so I don’t know whether that will be enough to save you.’
‘Do you think it’ll be on the television?’
‘There’s a strong possibility we’ll become a news item.’
‘I was reading about Andy Warhol saying that “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.” That’s all well-and-good, but it’s my view that if you don’t grab the opportunity when it presents itself then that fifteen minutes isn’t worth a box of rocks. I guess this is my opportunity to become world-famous – count me in.’
‘We’re in as well, Sir,’ Inspector Steve West said. ‘Aren’t we lads?’
There was a chorus of “Yeah” and plenty of head-nodding.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Have we got enough fuel?’ he said to the pilot.
‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ Long replied. ‘As long as I can land on the ship.’
‘Good.’ He turned to West. ‘I don’t envisage a situation where you’d need to use your weapons, West. Of course, I could be wrong, so keep your wits about you.’
West nodded.
It didn’t take them long to find the Marguerite.
Kowalski expected to see a red line in the water identifying the demarcation between territorial and international waters, but there was nothing – not even a line of buoys with notices stating that: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING/LEAVING ENGLISH WATERS. How did people know? He could certainly plead ignorance: ‘I thought we were still in territorial waters, m’lud.’ Although, he knew very well that ignorance was no defence in the eyes of the law.
The light was fading fast as Long descended on the container ship. Kowalski was standing up looking over the pilot’s shoulder at the haphazardly stacked containers. There was a rainbow of container colours – dark-blue, light-blue, white, numerous shades of orange, grey and black. Was Jerry in one of those containers?
‘I was hoping for a nice easy landing on a number of containers stacked together, but it doesn’t look as though lady luck is smiling in our direction today.’
‘What about over there?’ Kowalski pointed at a stack of three containers grouped together forming a flat surface.
‘The rotors will catch those two at the side.’ Long pointed himself. ‘There’s three together there – on the edge. I’ll go for that.’
‘What if . . . ?’
‘Let’s not think about that, Chief Inspector. ‘I can land this jalopy on a pinhead if I have to.’
Kowalski could taste the inner lining of his stomach as it turned itself inside-out and slithered into his mouth when Long took the chopper straight down as if it had been hit by a stray asteroid.
‘Okay, people,’ Long said. ‘I’m going to hover like a hummingbird over the containers. While I’m doing that, I want you all to jump out and get free of the rotors. When you are, I’ll set her down. Okay, we’re going in.’
West already had the side door open.
The noise was deafening, and the icy wind blew straight through Kowalski’s clothes and into the marrow of his bones.
The chopper spotlight on the undercarriage picked out the three containers that Long had identified as a helipad.
‘Go,’ he shouted.
They were at least six feet above the containers. West jumped first, followed one at a time by his men.
The chopper was bobbing from side to side in the wind.
Kowalski wasn’t normally last in line, but since his last heart attack he’d aged, was a bit out of shape, had put on a few extra pounds and . . . He jumped, threw himself into a sideways roll and one of West’s men had to grab his jacket to stop him from shooting off the edge of the container and down a hefty gap.
Crouching as low as a snake’s belly, they scrambled across a mishmash of containers so that they were beyond the reach of the rotors and Long could land the chopper, but it didn’t go well – not well at all.
At the last moment a gust of wind blew the chopper up and sideways. The tail rotor smashed into a container and splinters of metal flew off in all directions like shrapnel from a grenade injuring one of West’s men, and instead of the landing skids setting down cleanly on the top of the containers, one was slightly off the edge. With the tail rotor damaged, there was no way Long could keep the chopper level or take off again and they watched in horror as it slid over the side in slow motion.
‘Get out,’ West shouted to the pilot.
But they all knew there was no way the pilot could get out.
The main rotor blades twisted and buckled as they caught the edge of a container, and just before the chopper hit the water there was a muffled explosion.
‘Jesus!’ West said.
Stunned, they all stared into the darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
Rains led them outside across a covered gantry onto the working side of the platform. They were all wearing hardhats and hi-vis jackets. On the rig, lights turned night into day. Beyond this man-made environment it was dark and the sounds of the wind and sea were constant companions.
‘There are still people working,’ Richards said, as men stopped what they were doing to stare at the visitors.
Rains heard her and stopped. ‘It’s a twenty-four hour operation here, Miss.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Rotating eight-hour shifts. Can’t afford to stop everything, so that people can get some sleep. It’s all about money – like most things in the world these days.’ He shuffled forwards a bit more then stopped. ‘Okay, this was Frank’s downward trajectory.’ He pointed upwards to the gantry on the next level. ‘We’ll go up there in a minute, but I’ll explain in simple terms what happened. He was moving along the higher gantry when the safety barrier gave way . . .’
Parish screwed up his face. ‘Gave way? How could that happen?’
‘Well, the HSE inspector concluded that one of the bolts had probably rusted through . . .’
‘Probably?’
‘They couldn’t find the actual bolt, but there was microscopic evidence of rust on the barrier. I mean, we’re talking three years ago. Safety fencing is all welded together now, but at that time it was fitted together with nuts and bolts like scaffolding. After every accident – especially where fatalities are involved – lessons are learned, changes are made, safety records improve and progress is made.’
‘So Frank was just another statistic?’
‘Aren’t we all, Inspector? We’re born, we live, we die. That’s about the size and shape of it.’
‘And you call me jaundiced.’
Rains shrugged. ‘Anyway, Frank fell from that gantry . . .’
‘And there were witnesses?’
‘Not to him actually falling, but what happened on the way down.’
‘Okay.’
‘So Frank fell off the upper gantry and hit things on his way down. One of those things was a pipe, which buckled and broke off. There must have been a spark generated by that ruptured pipe because the next thing anyone knew was a massive explosion which engulfed Frank and barbecued him good and proper. He then continued his fall through three levels and came to rest in a pool of blood and charred skin on the grating of the lower gantry. Of course, it couldn’t happen today.’ He stamped on the grating beneath his feet. ‘A man falls today, he can only fall one level. That’ll be bad enough, but he should still be alive when he hits the grating. Back then, Frank had no chance.’
‘And Frank Cabot was the only casualty?’
‘Yes. Although . . . three other men went missing and were never found. They’re the worst, because they can’t usually be pronounced dead for at least seven years.’
‘Three men went missing?’
‘That’s right. Weren’t you told about them?’
‘No.’
‘The HSE inspector also concluded that the three men were thrown overboard by the force of the explosion because they were working on that level, but as I said – their bodies were never found. The coroner at the inquest eight months later determined that death was probable, but not definitive, and granted probate for the will in all three cases. In other words, they were pronounced dead so that the families could obtain a death certificate and get some closure.’
‘So all three men are officially dead?’
‘Officially – yes. And biologically as well, I’d say after all this time.’
‘The body that was sent back by Caledonian Energy and buried under the name of Frank Cabot wasn’t Frank Cabot.’
Rains stared at Parish. His mouth dropped open as if the sinews, muscles and ligaments holding his jaw together had all snapped at the same time. ‘That can’t be right.’
‘We had the body exhumed and the DNA compared with what was held on file – it wasn’t Frank Cabot in the coffin.’
The Rig Supervisor screwed up his face and scratched behind his ear where the plastic strap from the hardhat had rubbed a livid red mark parallel to the hairline. ‘If it wasn’t Frank, who the hell . . . ? Jesus! It could only be one of the other three men – couldn’t it?’
‘It’s certainly looking that way, Colm.’
‘But . . . Frank was on that upper gantry.’
‘And nobody saw him fall,’ Richards said.
‘No.’
‘You say Frank was on the gantry – did anyone actually see him there?’
‘I didn’t. I don’t know whether any of the others saw him there, but that’s what the work-schedule detailed . . . And now you’re saying it wasn’t him. Shit! Sorry. That changes everything.’
‘Shall we carry on?’ Parish said.
‘Of course.’ Rains led them up a ladder surrounded by a safety cage and onto the upper gantry where Frank Cabot had supposedly been working. There wasn’t much to see – the safety fencing had been replaced. When they looked down, Rains pointed out the pipe that had been ruptured by the falling worker, which now had a metal bar protecting it . . . ‘All been re-painted now. And as I said earlier, three years ago you could look straight down into the sea, but now there’s grates on each level. During the day you can still ma
ke out the sea through the grates, but not like before.’
They made their way back down the ladder to where they’d previously been standing and descended another ladder to the next gantry. ‘This is where two of the men were working – Tony Paynter and Sean Thompson. You’re scheduled to interview them in ten minutes. They were wearing ear-protectors, so by the time they realised what was going on – it was all over.’
On the final gantry they couldn’t see the sea, but they could hear it lashing the stanchions below.
Parish wasn’t superstitious, but if anyone had ever asked him why he’d never joined the Navy, he would have told them that dying at sea terrified him. The whole idea of falling into the water, sinking to unknown depths, Davy Jones’ locker, the darkness, the loneliness, the creatures – it all made him shiver. Of course, he was being ridiculous, but that was how he felt.
‘I have a question,’ Jill Butler said.
Rains nodded. ‘Okay?’
‘The body fell from up there to down here?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You said it landed on the grating?’
‘Yes.’
‘But the grating wasn’t here three years ago.’
‘Very true. Remember, I said that Frank . . . the body hit things on the way down?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Well, because of that it was diverted. The trajectory wasn’t straight down – it ended up just over there where you’re standing.’
Richards’ eyes narrowed. ‘But if the body hadn’t hit anything on the way down it would have fallen straight into the sea?’
‘Not only that, he – whoever it was – would have been classified as missing like the other three. A dead body falls into the sea from the rig and one of two things happen: Either it’s quickly devoured by a variety of creatures that like gourmet food, or the underwater currents whip it away to somewhere cold and dark where nobody can find it. We would never have found the body if it had fallen into the sea.’