by LJ Ross
“How would you have described Iain Tucker?”
Her eyebrows raised briefly, then fell into a soft frown as she thought of the man she had known.
“I suppose I just saw him as another punter,” she confessed, with an apologetic smile. “Better than most. He was always polite, never broke anything or upset any of the other customers. A bit miserly with the tips but, hey, that’s almost everyone. He kept himself mostly to himself, except for the odd bit of chit-chat at the bar or when he was ordering dinner.”
“I see.” Ryan nodded, while Phillips made brief notes in an ancient, dog-eared notepad. “I understand he was a keen diver.”
“One of the best,” she told him. “It was his profession and he knew the sea like the back of his hand. Everyone knew Iain and he’s worked with most of the other serious divers around here, on one project or another.”
Ryan nodded.
“Would you be able to give us a list of their names?”
“Happy to,” she said. “But I warn you, my knowledge is a bit out of date. I hardly ever go down, now, so I couldn’t really tell you who Iain spent most of his underwater time with. Josh would know all about the diving scene, nowadays,” she added.
“We understand; just tell us what you can,” Ryan reassured her. “To your knowledge, had Iain ever run into any trouble over the years?”
Gemma took a thoughtful gulp of tea.
“Not in all the time I’d known him, and I would probably have heard. It’s a small place.”
“How about issues on land?” Phillips asked. “Did he ever mention any trouble he was having with anyone?”
Her face registered mild shock.
“No, not at all. As far as I’m aware, everyone liked Iain. He was well-known in diving circles and well-respected. Amateur shipwreck divers would sometimes bend his ear to go over their charts or join them on an expedition.”
“What about on the personal front?” Ryan prodded, although he had a feeling he already knew the answer. “Did Iain mention any personal troubles or worries he was having? Financial concerns?”
Gemma cradled her cup in her hands, warming her fingers as a cold draught seeped through the cracks in the old building.
“I get a lot of people telling me their woes,” she said. “The younger ones look up to me as a surrogate mum and the older ones look for a bit of fun, or a way to forget their normal lives. I’ve never been interested in any of that,” she said, firmly. “But it doesn’t stop them trying. I’ll be honest and tell you that Iain tried it on, just once, after he and his wife divorced. He took it on the chin when I knocked him back, but he was going through a hard time. That’s all I can really think of.”
“I see,” Ryan murmured, and supposed she would be a beacon for all kinds of male attention. It was hard to see it, when he was so much in love with another woman, but if he looked with detachment, he imagined Gemma Dawson had enjoyed her fair share of admirers over the years.
“People get lonely,” she continued, softly. “That night, Iain had had one too many drinks and I suppose he thought he knew me well enough to give it a try. He was a lovely guy and would’ve been a great catch for a lot of women, and I told him as much. It softened the blow a bit.”
Phillips remembered his own pain after his first wife had died following a long battle with cancer. It was a different kind of struggle he’d gone through, but he felt a kinship with Iain Tucker and the kind of loneliness that came with loss of any kind.
He cleared his throat.
“How about yesterday?” he asked. “Can you tell us Iain’s movements, to the best of your knowledge?”
Gemma shuffled in her chair, as if changing gears in her mind.
“Yes, I’ll try. He was a creature of habit, so I can say that he was up with the larks at around six-fifteen to have an early breakfast and get a start on the day. That was his way,” she explained. “When Iain was on a diving trip, he liked to make the most of the daylight.”
“What did he do after breakfast?”
“I assume he went out on the water,” she replied. “I didn’t ask him, but I’d assume that was where he went. He headed out at around seven.”
That tallied with the logs they had from the Harbour Master, Ryan thought.
“And when did you next see him?”
“Oh, gosh. It would have been around five, maybe ten-past five? It was already dark, and the early dinner crowd was starting to get busy so perhaps it could have been half-past. Anyway, Iain burst into the dining area dripping with rain and dragging half the sea in with him,” she said, blinking away unexpected tears. Iain had been eccentric, she thought, but she’d miss him. “He told us he’d found a Viking wreck. Practically shouted it from the rooftops.”
“Told who?”
She looked between them.
“The whole dining area,” she said. “Probably the bar area too, since his voice carried. In fact, Hutch warned him he should keep it down a bit. Not because he was rowdy, but because…well, people have been known to poach a wreck, if they think it’s worth their while.”
“Anyone in particular?” Ryan asked.
But a shutter seemed to come down across her eyes and she was, once more, the polite hostess.
“Nobody that springs to mind.”
“Alright,” Ryan said, deciding to play along, for now. “Could you write us a list of all the people you remember being in the dining area when Iain made his announcement?”
She frowned.
“Yes, but you don’t think—you can’t possibly think one of the locals would hurt him?” she said. “Poaching a wreck is one thing, but nobody in their right mind would kill for that. Especially not Iain; he was like one of us.”
“Whoever said we were looking for somebody in their right mind?” Ryan murmured, after Gemma left the room to hurry along their next interviewee. “I wonder if they know Iain Tucker contacted the Receiver of Wreck before he died?”
They’d put a call through to the Receiver’s office less than twenty minutes ago, only to be informed the man was already en route to Seahouses and would be there within the hour. Professor Iain Tucker’s reputation for marine archaeology preceded him, it seemed, and the Receiver had caught the first available flight from Southampton to come and see the discovery. Unfortunately, Tucker hadn’t told them the coordinates of the wreckage, since he’d planned to unveil it himself. Nobody had imagined his life would be cut short in the space of a few short hours.
“Question is whether anybody’ll find the wreck before the authorities get here,” Phillips said.
Ryan stood up abruptly, moving to the window to stare out at the water and the boats bobbing across it, and wondered which of their masters had been at the inn to hear Tucker’s declaration, the night before.
“If only we knew the coordinates,” he said. “We could watch the area and see who goes down.”
But they didn’t. So far, all they had was supposition and hearsay.
“You think it’s definitely murder, then?”
Ryan glanced back over his shoulder with serious grey eyes.
“Well, I definitely don’t think the guy left here and decided to throw himself overboard, that’s for sure.”
CHAPTER 9
While Ryan and Phillips talked of murder, Anna made her way to the Coastguard’s Office where she had been summoned to attend a meeting. It was located a short distance from the harbour, inside an unremarkable one-storey pre-fab that might have been found in any seaside town across the land. Two large, all-terrain vehicles were parked on the forecourt next to an even larger high-spec SUV, which looked distinctly out of place alongside such an inauspicious building.
Stepping inside, Anna passed through a small foyer papered with leaflets and posters advertising local charity ventures, before entering the main workspace.
“Doctor Taylor, I’m glad you could join us.”
The greeting came from a tall, smartly-dressed man in his late forties who might easily have been ten y
ears younger. She recognised Jasper Vaughn immediately as a colleague of the late Iain Tucker, hailing from the Department of Marine Archaeology at Durham. Now that the latter was dead, she found herself wondering whether the younger man would be a strong contender to become Acting Head of Department.
“It’s Taylor-Ryan,” she corrected automatically, and shook his outstretched hand. “Good to see you again, Jasper.”
She might belong to a different university faculty, but they still worked together from time to time and it was Anna’s policy to treat everyone as a potential ally, unless circumstances proved otherwise. Unfortunately, most of the interactions she’d had with Jasper Vaughn had thus far ranged from the bizarre to the ridiculous, owing to the man’s enormous ego.
“Likewise,” he said, then turned to introduce the other people hovering a short distance away. “I believe you already know the Coastal Area Commander, Alex Walker? He tells me you’re old friends.”
There was a question in his eyes, Anna thought, and an impertinent one she had no intention of answering. Luckily, Vaughn didn’t wait for any reply before moving on to his next introduction.
“This is Hector Sayer, Her Majesty’s Receiver of Wreck, who’s flown all the way up from the south coast. Finally, Ursula Tan, from the Marine Archaeology Sea Trust,” he added, clearly as an afterthought.
Interesting.
After the obligatory round of hand-shaking, they were shown into the tiny break room where a Formica table had been set up to accommodate their meeting.
“I want to thank you all for coming at short notice,” Sayer began, taking his rightful place as chairman. Anna judged him to be somewhere in his fifties with the ruddy complexion of one who either spent much of his time outdoors, drank to excess, or both.
“I received a phone call from Professor Iain Tucker at about five o’clock last night, informing me of a major discovery of treasure in the form of artefacts and an intact Viking longboat located off the coast of the Farne Islands.”
He paused to let that sink in.
“Since Professor Tucker refused to disclose any further particulars over the telephone, I agreed to travel and accompany him to the site in person,” he continued, fiddling with a half-chewed biro lying on the table. “Unfortunately, while in transit, I received a call from the police informing me that Tucker passed away overnight and they are treating his death as suspicious.”
He spread his hands.
“This is an unusual scenario, as I’m sure you will appreciate. During my tenure as Receiver of Wreck, I’ve never been called upon to report a wreck in circumstances where the registrant has died prior to my arrival. Additionally, I’m facing the problem of not being able to confirm the status of the wreck, since I haven’t been provided with any coordinates for its location. That being the case, I felt it prudent to ask you to join me, today, so we can pool our collective resources and determine whether to proceed with a salvage investigation.”
“I’m not really sure how I can help you,” Anna felt obliged to say. “Marine archaeology isn’t my field, nor am I an experienced diver—”
“Yes, but I understand you were a colleague of the late Professor Tucker, one he obviously trusted enough to call. Perhaps you might be able to help us locate the find, given your knowledge of the local area?”
It was possible, she thought.
Still…
“How does it work, in terms of registering the finder of a wreck?” Vaughn asked suddenly, from his position at the other end of the table. “Does Tucker’s name still go on the paperwork, even though he hasn’t technically provided you with the location of the wreck? Anybody could claim to have found treasure, but surely only the person who fully registers the details ought to be listed as its rightful discoverer.”
“I hardly think it’s the time to quibble over the paperwork, do you, Jasper?”
Anna’s softly-spoken voice held a thread of steel. It was remarkable, she thought, how quickly the vultures began to circle.
“I agree,” Sayer nodded. “My immediate concern is in confirming the existence of a find of the magnitude Tucker described, not merely in the interests of my office but to assist the police in their ongoing investigations, alongside the Coastguard. We can argue semantics later.”
Walker took his cue and leaned forward, folding a pair of muscular forearms on the table.
“We still haven’t located Tucker’s diving boat, the Viking Princess, although we’ve managed to trace the dinghy which had become detached from the main boat. It carried a Personal Locator Beacon on board, which allowed us to find it quickly. We’ll be turning over the dinghy to the police and their CSIs but, from our perspective, it doesn’t reveal anything further about the location of Tucker’s find.”
“Why not?” Anna said. “Can’t you look at the surrounding area where the dinghy was recovered?”
“Not really,” Walker replied. “It had probably been floating throughout the night, carried on the tide. It could have started out anywhere in a ten or even fifteen-mile radius of the harbour.”
“What about notes, records?” asked Ursula. “Surely, the professor kept detailed charts?”
“I can look in his office, when I return to the university,” Vaughn offered, with a studied nonchalance Anna found vaguely insulting to their collective intelligence.
“The police will conduct a search of his office and possessions,” she told him. “If there’s anything that proves helpful, I’m sure they’ll pass it on.”
“I suppose it’s too much to hope that he told you the coordinates?”
Anna shook her head.
“No such luck,” she said. “Iain contacted me primarily, I think, because of my knowledge of early Christian history in the region, including the Viking era as it applies to the North-East. I believe he wanted to verify his own suspicions about what he’d found and to talk it over.”
“We’ve been conducting a longitudinal study of the waters around the Farnes,” Ursula interjected, a bit defensively. “We would know if there was any wreckage of the kind Tucker described. It would have been found long before now.”
Vaughn gave a haughty laugh.
“Ah, yes, I forgot. Marine archaeologists from MAST are the only ones who are capable of finding or excavating early shipwrecks,” he sneered. “Of course, my department would argue otherwise, considering the large number of new wrecks we’ve discovered in the past ten years—”
“You’ve always had a chip on your shoulder, Jasper. The fact is, National Heritage commissioned MAST to conduct a study of the area, rather than your team at the university. We asked if you wanted to be a consultant but playing second fiddle wasn’t good enough for you—”
Anna rubbed a tired hand across her eyes.
“This isn’t the time to decide who’s got the bigger dick,” she muttered, and watched jaws drop around the table with the notable exception of Alex Walker, who let out a hoot of laughter instead.
“I hardly think it’s helpful to start name-calling,” Jasper began, self-righteously.
“It’s hardly helpful to start picking over the bloke’s legacy, either,” Alex shot back. “Iain Tucker isn’t even in his grave yet.”
Anna sucked in a deep breath.
“All I mean is, we need to pull together if we’re going to find Iain’s wreck. It doesn’t help to argue over whose team is the most qualified to do that.”
“Hear, hear,” Sayer said, in a booming tone reminiscent of Father Christmas. “Let’s concentrate on whether we believe there’s anything to find. There doesn’t appear to be any evidence to support a Viking wreck, nothing that’s survived.”
Anna opened her mouth to speak, but Vaughn cut across her.
“Logically, for there to have been a wreck of the kind of age Tucker was talking about, and for it to have been intact as he described, we should be searching deep water where the water is largely deoxygenated,” he offered, lazily. “There’s no way that the timber would have survived, otherwis
e.”
“That’s a good starting point,” Sayer said, and turned to the coastguard. “Do you have a chart showing water depths in the area?”
In answer, Walker pushed away from his chair and walked across to a large map that hung on the wall.
“The deepest diving waters around the Farnes are generally up to thirty-five metres,” he explained, tapping a finger against several well-known diving spots. “Anything deeper and Tucker would have needed more specialist equipment than just a set of tanks and his flippers.”
“What if it isn’t depth we’re looking for, but mud, or silt? Anaerobic conditions found in something like an underwater bog?” Anna thought aloud.
Not so long ago, Ryan had investigated the case of a mummified body that had lain beneath the bed of a reservoir for years. Why not a ship?
“Hardly likely,” Vaughn scoffed, but she could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. “Besides, as Ursula has already pointed out, that sort of thing would have been discovered before now.”
“Not necessarily,” Sayer put in. “There are frequent shifts in tide and current that alter the state of the seabed, sometimes only for short periods. Perhaps something has been uncovered that we’re not aware of.”
“You mean like the Bamburgh Wreck?” Ursula said. “That was a major discovery a few years ago, an old ship lying on its side on the beach but only visible at certain times of the day. The rest of the time, you’d never know it was there.”
“It’s possible,” Vaughn acknowledged, grudgingly. “But we still have no idea where to look.”
“I’ll ask around,” Walker suggested. “See if any of the fishermen saw Iain out and about while he was staying here. Maybe one of them will know where to look. I’ll have a word with the volunteers here—maybe somebody saw Iain in the same area, more than once.”
“And maybe it’ll be a complete waste of time,” Ursula replied, with an air of impatience. “I’m not here to help with some kind of wild goose chase, I have real work to be getting on with.”
“Feel free to leave anytime you like,” Vaughn said, with an oily smile. “We can handle things here without you.”