by LJ Ross
“I think we’d both appreciate it if you’d keep your sly little innuendos to yourself. Doctor Taylor-Ryan is a very good, very married friend of mine. I’m proud to call her husband a friend, too.”
“Alex—”
She laid a hand on his arm and tried to tell him he was wasting his breath on a man like Jasper, but he was already in full flow.
“You need to grow up, mate, before you really offend someone. In other circumstances, I’d be flattered that you think she’d even look twice, but there’s one thing you’re forgetting.”
Vaughn’s face was flushed with embarrassment, but he chose to brazen it out.
“Oh? And what’s that?”
Walker came to stand directly in front of him, almost toe to toe. He smiled slowly, put his hand on the man’s chest and affected a suggestive whisper.
“I’m gay, sweetheart.”
Their laughter rang in Jasper Vaughn’s ears as he stormed back inside the office, fuelled by homophobic outrage and humiliation. Nobody laughed at his expense and got away with it.
Nobody.
They’d see who had the last laugh.
* * *
Back at the Cockle, Paul Hutchinson was seated inside a small, windowless cubby-hole which passed for an office, hidden behind a door marked ‘PRIVATE’. It contained only a small desk and chair, floor-to-ceiling shelving, and the remaining wall space was plastered with photographs and memorabilia. He paused in the act of going through a stack of invoices and studied them, transporting himself back in time for a few precious moments.
Where had all the years gone? he wondered.
His eyes skimmed over faded colour photographs of Gemma and Josh, splashing about on the beach twenty years ago. He remembered capturing the moment of mother and son together before he’d whisked the little boy up and onto his shoulders and pretended to be a horse, clacking his teeth as his nephew giggled and begged for more. He remembered her laughter, the light that had shone briefly in her eyes, before it had faded again like waves retreating from the shore.
There were very few of the three of them captured together but his favourite rested in an expensive silver frame on his desk, so he could look at it often. It showed him and Gemma at the hospital just after Josh was born; she, cradling the tiny baby in her arms, while he kneeled beside her beaming like a new father.
Except, of course, he was not the boy’s father.
How many times he had wanted to adopt Josh as his own and to make Gemma his wife. He would have shouted his love from the rooftops of the village, cherished her for the rest of their days, if only she would let him.
But then, he had never really asked. He’d never found the courage to say the words, to speak them aloud and let his fate be decided.
Just in case she said ‘no’.
Coward, his mind whispered.
They lived in a strange purgatory, he and Gemma, moving around one another as if in a tango. Their fingers brushed, their hands touched, but never for long. She was warm and welcoming with everyone and that was one of the many reasons he loved her.
And yet, also one of the reasons he was frustrated by her.
She must know how he felt. Gemma was a woman, not a girl. She knew when a man looked at her the way he did, knew the depth of emotion written in his eyes.
Softly, his mind cautioned. Gently.
Hutch took a deep, shaky breath and wondered again how twenty-three years had slipped by. It was written on his face when he looked in the mirror every morning, the unmistakable evidence that life continued to march onward, unstoppable. He wished he could make it stand still, or even turn back so that he could start all over again. He thought of all the things he would say, all the things he would do.
And of all the things he wouldn’t do.
With a trembling hand, Hutch reached for a small wooden box on one of the higher shelves. It was dusty from lack of use but, when he flipped open the lid, the photographs inside were as fresh as the last time he’d plucked up the courage to look. He sat there for long minutes staring down at the laughing face of his younger brother, whose features so resembled his son that it was becoming an effort to look Josh in the eye.
A moment later, he slammed the box shut and shoved it back on the shelf.
Thief, his mind whispered.
* * *
When Ryan and Phillips tracked him down, Hutch was happily engrossed in the task of balancing his books. A low-hanging pendant light in a fashionable, vintage style—another one of Gemma’s acquisitions—shone a moody light over his greying head and an ancient golden retriever was curled in a basket by his feet, snoring softly.
“Mind if we disturb you for a minute?”
He looked up at the sound of Ryan’s voice and removed a pair of cheap magnifiers he’d bought at the local pharmacy.
“Sure, do you want a coffee in the main bar? Or I think you can both just about squeeze in here if you’d rather.”
“Here’s fine,” Ryan assured him, and then immediately regretted it. Standing a couple of inches over six feet put him at a disadvantage in the confined space with its sloping ceilings and exposed beams.
“Nice photos,” Phillips said, taking a good look around. “It’s like a treasure trove in here.”
Hutch smiled, never more conscious that the majority of his gallery was devoted to Gemma and Josh, as if they were his own.
“I suppose you need to ask me about Iain?”
“Yes, if it’s a convenient moment?”
He linked his fingers.
“Now’s as good a time as any.”
“Thanks. Can you start by telling us how long you’d known Iain Tucker?”
Hutch’s chair squeaked as he leaned back against the wood.
“Oh, God. Must be over twenty years,” he said. “Iain used to rent a holiday cottage down by the fire station when he was younger, but he’d still come in here for a drink or a bar meal. That was before we gave the place a bit of a facelift.”
“We understand he started staying here regularly around ten years ago?”
Hutch nodded.
“Sounds about right.”
“Would you say you two were pally, then?” Phillips asked, and dragged his eyes away from a large photograph of Gemma as a younger woman, dressed only in swimwear.
“Yeah, I suppose I would,” Hutch agreed, shifting uncomfortably as he followed Phillips’ line of sight. “Iain was a decent bloke, always had a smile on his face, you know? I wouldn’t say he was chatty but, whenever Iain was feeling talkative, he only ever had something interesting to say.”
“Did he ever get chatty about the Viking wreck?” Ryan asked.
Hutch shook his head.
“He told me there was one in particular he wanted to find, one he was sure was down there. He said he’d been piecing things together for years but, to be honest, I never really asked him about it. History was never my strong point,” he said, apologetically. “I’m more interested in the wildlife.”
“Oh? You a bird man, then?” Phillips said.
Hutch let out a short laugh.
“That’s one way of putting it,” he said. “I volunteer sometimes with waste collection to keep the beaches clean and I’ve helped Gemma and Josh run seal trips once or twice, but this place takes up most of my time. If you want a bird fanatic, you should see Janine.”
“Janine?”
Hutch nodded, scratching the side of his jaw.
“Janine Richardson. Works for National Heritage and lives on Inner Farne, like Saint Cuthbert,” he said, with a note of admiration. “She makes sure nobody trespasses or lands a boat without permission. Takes a certain personality to spend most of their life surrounded by thousands of birds, day and night.”
Phillips immediately thought of the famous Hitchcock film and gave an involuntary shiver.
“Aye,” he said. “Wouldn’t fancy it, myself.”
“Takes all sorts,” Hutch said easily. “There’s nothing she couldn’t tell you about th
e Farnes.”
That caught Ryan’s attention.
“She lives there all year round?”
“Apart from the odd trip to the mainland for supplies and whatnot, yes.”
Ryan made a mental note to take a detour to Inner Farne on their boat trip the next day.
“Thanks for the tip. Coming back to what happened yesterday, do you remember anything about Iain’s behaviour that concerned you? Did he seem worried, at all?”
“Exactly the opposite,” Hutch said, confirming what everyone else had told them. “I’d never seen him happier.”
“That’s a hat-trick,” Phillips murmured.
“Tell me, who occupied the room next to Iain’s?”
“ST. OSWALD, you mean? Nobody had that room, last night. We only had Iain and another couple and their kids staying with us.”
“How many guest bedrooms do you have here, in total?”
“Ten,” Hutch replied. “Three were in use last night, including Iain’s. The Shaeffer family had two connecting doubles on the top floor.”
“We already know that Gemma and Josh share an apartment on the first floor. Do you live here too?”
Hutch gave a tight smile. He understood how it looked to the outside world, their unusual living arrangements. He knew what they must be thinking, wondering…
He thought he saw pity reflected in their eyes, and hated them for it.
“Mr Hutchinson?”
He gave himself a mental shake and sat up in his chair.
“Yes, I have a couple of rooms on the top floor, too. Directly above Gemma and Josh, as it happens.”
“Finally, could you tell us where the CCTV cameras are, in the inn?”
“Well, we only have a couple. There’re two on either side of the bar overlooking both cash registers—one on the dining room side and one in the main bar. There’s another overlooking the car park and one at the main entrance.”
Ryan thought of at least two other side doors; a back door leading out to the beer garden and another side door leading down to the main road, on the opposite side to the car park, neither of which were covered by CCTV.
“Mind if we take a look at the footage?”
“Be my guest.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Ryan’s suspicions were confirmed. While the camera overlooking the main entrance had picked up Iain Tucker’s return to the inn at five-twenty-seven the previous evening, there was no record of him leaving again sometime later, never to return.
“If he was in the habit of using the main entrance, why the hell would he have used the side entrance, all of a sudden?” Ryan muttered. “Unless somebody else suggested it.”
Phillips let out a grunt as they made their way along the harbour road towards the Coastguard’s Office.
“Seems everyone was struck deaf or blind, n’all,” he added. “Everybody heard Tucker say he’d found a wreck, but nobody remembers a thing, after that.”
“The Shaeffer family thought they heard a tapping sound on the floor below, sometime around nine,” Ryan said. “Could have been someone knocking on Tucker’s door.”
“Aye, but it could just as easily have been old plumbing or floorboards.”
Ryan knew it.
“Even if they did hear something, it only confirms what we already know, which is that Iain left the inn—but with who? There was a roomful of people sitting in the dining room when he spilled his guts about the wreck, most of whom he would have known, and no camera to capture which one of them slipped away to knock on his door later on.”
He blew against his chilly hands. The temperature had dropped significantly as night drew in, and the wind had begun to howl, rushing past their ears as another storm swept up fallen leaves and other debris from the pavement.
“Looks like we’re in for another miserable night,” Phillips said, reading his thoughts. “We know one thing, guv. Whoever led him astray must have been someone Iain trusted.”
“And that could have been anyone,” Ryan said. “Iain was well-known around the area, that’s something everyone agrees on.”
“And it’s unlikely to have been one of them at the inn,” Phillips said, following Ryan’s next train of thought with practised ease. “Hutch, Gemma, Josh and Daisy were all still serving at the bar. Daisy says she didn’t knock off work until around eleven-thirty.”
Ryan nodded, feeling his eyes begin to water as a gush of icy sea wind hit him like a fist to the face.
“It had to be someone who knew the layout of the pub, but who also knew they wouldn’t be missed. Let’s run a background check on all of them,” he said.
Phillips nodded, and thought of all the ordinary men and women of the village who carried on with their lives, never suspecting that malice lived and walked amongst them.
Ryan paused with his hand on the door to the Coastguard’s Office and spoke in an undertone.
“This morning, I told Alex Walker the investigation had nothing in common with what happened on the island three years ago,” he said. “But I’m starting to think I was wrong. There are currents, here, Frank. Tensions running beneath the surface and lies woven into the stories they’ve told us. It’s a tight-knit community here and I recognise it.”
“We’ve seen it before,” Phillips agreed. Truth be told, he’d felt the same, nagging concern throughout the course of the day. “You don’t think there’s anything sinister, underneath it?”
“More sinister than murder?” Ryan asked, with a flash of humour. “I have no idea. But I intend to find out.”
With that, he yanked open the door.
CHAPTER 13
Without any clue as to the location of what had come to be known as ‘Iain’s Wreck’, the Receiver, Hector Sayer, had reluctantly come to the decision that there was nothing for him to investigate and informed the remaining members of the makeshift salvage team that he would be returning to Southampton the next day. The news came as no surprise to any of them and, by the time Ryan and Phillips stepped inside the little break room at the Coastguard’s Office, morale was at a low ebb.
Summing up the mood in the room, Ryan injected a little more energy into his own voice.
“Any progress on locating the wreck?” he asked, and moved across to where Anna was seated on a plastic tub chair. One glance told him all he needed to know, and he touched gentle fingers to her pale face, in silent support.
“We don’t have the time or the resources to begin a speculative search,” Ursula Tan explained, as she gathered up her notepad and briefcase. “Even a focused excavation costs thousands of pounds in machinery and resources; you can imagine what it would take to search the Farnes in expanding circles. We’ve spent years already.”
Ryan nodded his understanding.
“The body was found on Outer Farne,” he said. “We had a conversation with the lighthouse keeper earlier today, who confirmed that Iain spent a lot of his time in that section of water. It could be nothing, of course, but it could be something.”
Jasper Vaughn pushed away from the table and snatched his jacket from the back of the chair he’d occupied for the past three hours.
“It’s as I always suspected,” he snapped. “Iain was nothing but a dreamer. You can see it in the wild theories he espouses in his books. History is like a science; it requires rigour, not flights of fantasy.”
“Iain’s reputation is beyond reproach,” Anna shot back, visibly holding her anger in check. “Without his backing, your last project wouldn’t have gone ahead.”
Vaughn turned an unattractive shade of puce.
“That’s utter rubbish,” he blustered. “Iain had nothing to do with my last research project.”
“Speak to the Dean,” she advised him. “Then ask yourself whether you should be showing Iain, and his memory, a bit more respect.”
“It was only out of a sense of obligation that I came here in the first place,” Vaughn said, snidely.
“You hot-footed it down here pretty quick, for someb
ody who isn’t all that bothered,” Phillips said. “Could’ve sent somebody else or waited to hear whether there was anything to look at before you drove all the way out here.”
Ursula let out a tinkling laugh.
“He heard I was coming,” she told them, with a smug expression. “There’s nothing Jasper hates more than missing out on an opportunity—isn’t that right, Jas?”
“I think I’ve heard just about enough for one day,” Vaughn said, and stalked towards the door. “Call me when you actually find anything real.”
Ryan’s voice stopped him at the door.
“We have one or two questions to ask you, Mr Vaughn, whenever you have a moment.”
“Doctor Vaughn.”
Ryan smiled.
“We’ll be in touch.”
As the door slammed shut behind him, Ryan turned to the remaining occupants.
“We believe Iain did find something, or that somebody believed he had found something, and it was enough to kill for. That alone warrants further investigation.”
“I agree,” Sayer said. “But it’s a big ocean out there and I can’t step outside my jurisdiction.”
“What if we manage to find a lead? Would you re-open the matter?”
“Get us some coordinates to work with and we’ll take another look,” Ursula told them. “All we need is a starting point, then we have ways and means—but it will take time either way.”
“Good enough,” Ryan decided, and bade them farewell.
Once the door clicked shut behind the two subsea experts, he cast his eye around the space they had vacated. It wasn’t much to write home about, but it had all they needed, including a blank wall for him to graffiti.
“Can we commandeer this room for a couple of days, Alex?”
The coastguard nodded.
“I’ll clear it. Why?”
“Because we need an Incident Room in the heart of the village, so I can feel its pulse,” Ryan said. “Somebody knows what happened to Iain Tucker, and why. I want them to know we’re here and I want them to feel nervous about it. Nervous people make mistakes.”
“Haven’t heard from the pathologist yet, lad,” Phillips cautioned. “There’s still a chance it was death by misadventure.”