“About tonight?” Rob asked.
“Our first time out in her,” Charlie reminded him. “Might be dangerous.”
Rob took his friend by both shoulders. “It’ll be worth it. Imagine the upside, eh?”
“Right,” Charlie agreed. “I just wanna be sure we’re doing the right thing.”
Rob gave a short laugh. “Course we are, mate. This time tomorrow, all our problems will be over.” He gave Charlie a wink. “Trust me. Tonight at ten, alright? We’ll aim for the deep water and put some miles between us and trouble. It’ll all go fine.”
“Sure it will,” Charlie agreed. “This time tomorrow, eh?”
Graham approached Roach at the reception desk.
“Well, sir?” Roach asked anxiously. “What did Susan say?”
Graham wanted to clap the young man on the back and buy him a slap-up dinner at the Bangkok Palace. But he knew that there were still hurdles to overcome and that they carried the burden of proof.
“You might be onto something,” he said simply.
“Bloody hell,” Roach breathed.
Graham turned to head back into his office but stopped and approached the reception desk. “I meant to commend you for sleuthing out the nicknames in Beth’s journal,” he said quietly. “But I couldn’t help noticing that ‘Bug’ remains unidentified.”
“Yes, sir,” Roach said. “It’s been difficult to piece together the—”
“Constable?” Graham said, yet more quietly.
“Sir?”
“You do know that I sniff out lies, cover-ups, and deception for a living, right?” Graham put to him.
“Lies, sir?” Roach said, his heart thumping. “I don’t think I…”
“It can’t have been easy, seeing your own nickname in her journal after all these years and in these circumstances,” Graham added delicately. “I can only imagine the turmoil you’ve been going through.”
Roach swallowed and then closed his eyes for a moment. “I didn’t want you taking me off the case, sir. You know, for loss of objectivity, or because you couldn’t trust my judgment.”
“Jim, you’re becoming a very able officer, and I’d have wanted you as part of this case, no matter what,” Graham said. “You knew her. You’ve been the only one to make sense of her journal. And now your diligence and persistence have given us a hot new lead. I can’t think of a more valuable resource than you right now.”
“Thank you, sir. I’d do anything to help get to the bottom of this,” Roach said. Harding waited patiently at a distance for Graham to finish this rather mysterious, private conversation with his subordinate.
“But mark this, Constable Roach. If you’ve got evidence, I want to see it. I don’t care if it’s inconvenient, troubling, or emotionally draining. In fact,” Graham continued with a slight smile, “I don’t care if it shows that my old Granny Graham was a ninja assassin. Don’t hide things from me, son. We’ll always be able to work it out. I want you to trust that. Alright?”
Roach met the DI’s gaze. He was grateful beyond words, but he was going through a curious mix of sensations: relief, embarrassment, regret, admiration for his boss, and an ongoing determination not to let anything get in the way of this investigation.
“Alright, sir. Thank you. Honestly.”
“’Honestly’ is the only way I want it, son. Keep doing what you’re doing. And in the meantime, Constable Roach,” Graham said much more loudly, for Harding’s benefit, “you’d better see about organizing some plane tickets for the two of us. Leaving early tomorrow, if you can,” he added.
“To where, sir?” Roach asked, suddenly much more excited.
“Denmark, of course.”
Later that evening with Janice off home and Barnwell out pounding the beat in and around the streets of Gorey, Roach knocked on Graham’s office door. The DI waved him in. Their flights were booked and plans for the trip to Copenhagen had been laid.
Roach sniffed the air. “It smells like a curry house in here, sir.”
“Occupational hazard, Constable. What can I do you for?”
Roach raised an eyebrow. “Constable Barnwell’s on the phone, sir. There’s been a sighting of an unregistered boat acting suspiciously just offshore.”
“Unregistered?” Graham asked through a mouthful of leftover naan bread. “How common is that around here?”
“Not in the slightest, sir. The local sailors and fishermen all know to have their paperwork in order. He reckons something sketchy is going on. The lifeboat’s been called out but he wants permission to get the Coast Guard helicopter from the mainland.”
Graham rose. “Put him through. I’ll talk to him. I don’t doubt his judgment, but I’d like a few more details before we do something expensive. It’ll take an hour to get a chopper here, anyway.” He thought for a second. “What’s the boat’s name?”
Roach reached for his notepad once more. “The Sea Witch, sir.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHARLIE GRINNED CONSTANTLY as the boat made steady progress across surprisingly calm waters. Illuminated by the boat’s two powerful lamps and the light of a waxing moon, the English Channel looked inviting and easily navigable, absent the foamy, terrifying swells that would have made this journey impossible. Their luck, so far at least, was definitely in.
“Twelve knots,” Charlie observed as Rob clunked the heavy door of the pilot house closed, returning from a quick look outside. It was only half a dozen degrees above freezing tonight, but the pilot house was warm, thanks to a small space heater that ran off the old boat’s creaking power system.
“How many knots did you say?” Rob asked him.
“Twelve!” Charlie repeated proudly.
“Christ, I never thought the old girl would have it in her. How much cruising time, do you think?”
Charlie checked their GPS and a nautical chart they’d brought as backup. Neither of them was prepared to say how long the electrical system might hold up. “Should be there in about two or three hours,” Charlie announced. “Two AM or a little after, unless we hit trouble.”
“We’ll be fine,” Rob assured him. He patted the wood of the pilot house interior. “She’s got more miles left in her than anyone would guess.”
The Sea Witch had something of a checkered history. Almost broken up for scrap in the early 1970s, the twenty-four foot vessel had come into the possession of Charlie’s grandfather, who had done a creditable repair job and put the Witch to sea as a day-fishing boat. He’d spent most weekends for a few years puttering around the coast of Jersey, but he became notorious locally for his inability to ever actually catch anything.
This notoriety peaked, when on returning home one dark evening, he’d steered the small boat onto submerged rocks. The Witch limped home, its sole crewman required to constantly bail out a worrying amount of seawater. He’d made a decent job of repairing the boat, but within weeks of lowering its patched-up hull back into the water, Charlie’s grandfather had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was gone within the year.
After his death, the boat was hauled onto a ramp and effectively forgotten about, becoming a strange, light-blue relic fossilizing at the bottom of the family garden until Charlie and Rob, propelled by their plan, made it an evening restoration project. They had worked often well into the night, sometimes through the night, but no one ever suspected that the boat might actually float, let alone achieve a princely twelve knots. Now, the Witch was on her most daring adventure. One that had to remain absolutely secret.
“Say that again, would you, Constable? It’s ruddy noisy where you are.”
Barnwell stepped away from the roar of the Caterpillar diesel engine that was warming up. “Sorry, sir. They’re saying it’s an old boat that was registered years ago but not since. Reckoned it had sunk or was scuppered somewhere.”
Graham thought quickly. “So, what’s the idea? That someone is using an unregistered boat to commit a crime?”
Barnwell stepped further away as the lifebo
at’s second diesel lit up. He raised his voice further.
“I’m not sure, sir. But I’ll tell you my first thought, if you’ll allow some speculation.”
“Go for it,” Graham told him, reaching for a pen.
“Is there any reason we can think of,” Barnwell said, “why someone might be moving an object from land to sea, at this particular moment in time?”
Graham was silent for a moment. “What are you thinking, son?”
“That case, sir. The one you’ve all been talking about in the office. Beth Ridley. I mean, sir,” Barnwell continued, the noise behind him becoming fierce, “that if time were of the essence, perhaps because of an ongoing police investigation, then it might be a rather neat way to dispose of evidence, sir.”
Finally, it dawned on Graham what Barnwell was suggesting, and he grinned at the new-found investigative prowess of his constable. “Is this where our two investigations find a meeting point, Barnwell?”
“Like I say, sir, it’s just speculation. But if I knew the location of evidence relating to the Beth Ridley case, and knew that my fingerprints or DNA were all over them, I’d certainly consider asking a friend to dump them in the Channel for me.”
“Interesting conjecture, Constable. Whether you’re right or not, get the lifeboat out there, and tell them not to spare the horses. Or, whatever you say when you need a boat to get a serious move on.”
“Yes, sir.” Click.
Graham put the phone down, looked from Harding to Roach and back again. Then he marched straight to the interview room and flung open the door.
“Detective Inspector…” Sutton began, rising in complaint.
“Lyon, I’m going to ask you this straight. If you answer me in a comprehensive fashion, I might try to persuade the judge from handing down the most horrific of jail sentences.”
Sutton blustered, “My client has already asserted his right to remain…”
“Lyon, listen to me,” Graham said, staring hard at the pale, terrified man. “Do you have friends who are at sea tonight?”
Lyon blinked a few times, then shook his head.
“The Sea Witch. A knackered, old fishing boat. They’re out there, right now. Did you hire them?” Graham demanded.
Lyon looked at Graham for almost the first time since his arrest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said quietly.
“Think carefully now, Mr. Lyon,” Graham continued. “Because if we intercept that boat and find something incriminating, you’ll spend the rest of your life in the darkest, most horrible hole in the entire United Kingdom, I personally guarantee you of that.”
“Andrew, I must remind you,” Sutton began once more, “that everything you say in here is part of the record…”
“I have nothing to say,” Lyon said, finally.
The image presented itself to Graham of Lyon’s bruised, battered face, a horrified Sutton screaming at Graham to stop, and Janice Harding dashing into the room to pull her boss off the whimpering, bleeding Andrew Lyon.
Calm down, Graham warned himself.
Janice appeared at the doorway. “Could you come to the phone, sir?” she asked gingerly.
Graham took a long moment to pull himself away from the table. Part of him still wanted to make Lyon bleed. At length, he straightened up, turned away, and headed to the phone, barely in control of his emotions. Another image flashed into his mind: that of his two year-old daughter sitting in her high chair as he blew soapy bubbles over her head, laughing as she tried to catch them, squinting as they burst on her nose. He pushed the image away.
“Graham,” he said distractedly into the receiver.
“Sir, it’s Barnwell again.” The background noise was different now, a rhythmic sloshing as the George Sullivan made its way across the nighttime waves.
“Yes, Constable?” the DI replied, his mind still very much elsewhere.
“I’ve got something on that boat. You remember I put in a report about some shoplifting from the store by the marina?”
Graham’s mind swam slowly back to the present moment. “Shoplifting?” he asked.
“Paint, sir. That special stuff they use on boats, to stop the hulls from…”
“Yes, I remember,” he said. “A few days ago. What of it?”
His boss sounded stressed, so Barnwell cut to the chase. “The description of the boat we’re chasing. The color of the paint, sir. It’s the same color as that on the hull of the Sea Witch.
“I’m not following you, son,” Graham said tersely.
“Sir, the two men who did the shoplifting that day… The men I chased from the marina… This boat. I think they are connected.”
“What?” Graham said.
“The marina thieves, sir,” Barnwell said. “They’re the crew of the Sea Witch. They’ve been nicking gear for weeks. Radar, GPS, maps, paint, all the things you’d need to re-fit an old boat and then navigate to a point only they know where.”
“Navigate?” Graham said, the cogs of his mind only just beginning to revolve usefully again. “Navigate where? And why?”
“I don’t know, sir, but we’re on their tail. We’ll find out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE SOUND ARRIVED unexpectedly, and it was as dreadful as it was worrying.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Charlie spluttered. The steady droning of the engine, which had been a reassuring bass line throughout their journey, was interrupted by a horrendous, metallic clanging, as though an elementary school percussion ensemble had taken delivery of a large bag of hammers.
“Shut it off!” Rob yelled. Charlie’s hands were already at the engine controls, throttling back the ancient diesel and allowing it to stall. “What the hell, man?”
A plume of black smoke arose from the diesel engines, illuminated now by two powerful lamps that Charlie turned toward the stern. He swore colorfully.
“Okay, okay. We can fix it, right? We’ve got the tool box, haven’t we?”
They did indeed, but in the dark and with the engine still scorching hot, it would not be an easy task.
Fifteen minutes later, sweating, angry, and in pain from the scorch marks he’d picked up from brushing against hot metal, Rob stood up.
“Try her again,” he cried to Charlie, who was at the controls. Charlie turned the engine over. Nothing. Rob threw down his screwdriver, “Godammit!”
Charlie came outside, and the pair stared at the motor as though demanding that it explain itself. Rob walked to the bow of the small fishing boat. “Let’s face it, Charlie,” he finally said. “It’s over. Time to call for help.”
Charlie stared at Rob, then lurched forward grabbing his friend by the collar of his waterproofs. “Are you serious? What are we going to do? We have too much riding on this to give up now! How the bloody hell are we going to explain what we are doing out here, eh?”
Rob shrugged. “We tell them the truth.”
Charlie snorted. “Oh, great! Terrific! That’s just vintage Robbie, that is. Absolutely classic. Let’s call up the Coast Guard and tell them everything. Maybe ask them to bring the police, too! Make a real party of it!” Charlie gestured wildly at the dark sky. “Maybe just ask them to take us straight to jail and be done with it. Why bother messing around with a trial? Do not pass ‘Go,’ do not collect two hundred pounds, just end up banged up for theft and God knows what else…”
Rob stared impassively in the face of Charlie’s tantrum. “We have no choice unless we want to die out here.”
Charlie took another breath, ready to continue, but the look on his friend’s face stopped him. The breath left him in a long sigh of resignation. “Sorry, Rob, lad. I didn’t mean all that, mate. I’m just, you know, with the…We’ll get crucified.”
“I know. But it’s over, Charlie.” Rob sighed. “Let’s radio for help.” As he turned there was a sloshing sound at his feet. The two youths looked down and then at each other in alarm.
The boat was taking on water.
Sergeant
Janice Harding remained determined to project an air of professionalism throughout this trying night, but she couldn’t help enjoying the Schadenfreude that came from locking a cell door on Andrew Lyon.
“Now, you just keep quiet like a good boy,” she chided, “and once DI Graham is free again, I’m sure he’ll have you brought up for further questioning.” She had already deprived Lyon of his belt, and their recently-installed CCTV system would free her to observe Lyon’s incarceration from the reception area.
She returned there to join Roach, who was helping liaise with the lifeboat dispatcher at St. Helier. The Coast Guard helicopter from Lee-On-Solent was on standby in case of trouble, and the dispatcher told them that there was even a Royal Navy warship that could be there in ninety minutes, complete with a helicopter full of heavily armed Royal Marines, if necessary. Janice didn’t anticipate they would be required, but it was clear that whoever was piloting the Sea Witch for whatever reason, was in for a very rough night.
The phone rang. Janice listened for a few seconds and started taking notes.
“Right, ma’am. I’ll send someone out to you as soon as we can…Yes, ma’am…We will…Thank you…Yes.”
As soon as she put the phone down, she turned to Roach.
“Guess what? Report of a stolen boat.” She ripped off a page from her notebook and handed it to Roach. “Get yourself down there, lad. Might be the one Barnwell is chasing. Let us know what you find out.”
“But, Sarge, I was just about to go home, I’ve got to be on a plane in a few hours.”
“Sorry, Roachie, but this is what real policing’s all about. All hands on deck and that.” She smiled at her own little witticism as Roach slapped on his police cap and made his way outside.
With Janice manning the phones and radio and Constable Roach dispatched to check out the missing boat report, Graham found himself with little more to do than speculate on what on earth might happen next.
“What if it’s Ann Leach making a run for it?” Janice put forth. “You know, she got wind that we’re about to pull the plug on her charity and decided to do a runner with the rest of the money.”
The Case of the Broken Doll (An Inspector David Graham Cozy Mystery Book 4) Page 12