by Braven
She turned to face the coast, just a grey mass in the distance, and leaned against the iron rails surrounding the deck of the Blue Rose. Whatever anybody might be doing aboard a boat this far out to sea could not be properly seen from the shore, that was for certain, not even with binoculars.
Karen shivered. But not with the cold. Although conditions were still pretty unpleasant, she was warm and dry enough within her oilskins. No. Karen shivered because the trip out to sea had done exactly what she had hoped it would do. It had taken her back to that fateful day twenty-eight years ago when she believed even more fervently than ever that Marshall had disposed of his family in this cold cruel place. But would she ever be able to prove it? Would anyone ever be able to prove it?
They stayed out at the site for about an hour, watching proceedings. There was not much to see. The two dry-suit-clad divers who had been down below when Karen and Cooper had arrived emerged after half an hour or so and that was the big excitement of the visit. They had, however, found nothing pertaining to the body, although they reported the discovery of still more gold jewelry which they had yet to bring to the surface.
Another team of two divers was duly dispatched, but eventually even Karen had to agree, to Phil Cooper’s relief she suspected, that there was no further purpose in the senior investigating officer staying out at sea any longer. She had a big and important operation to run, and she wasn’t going to be able to do so bobbing about off Berry Head, that was for certain.
The rigid inflatable had bumped and bucked its way almost back to Torquay when Brian Stokes came on the portable radio from theBlue Roseasking to speak to Karen.
“The boys have found something,” he said. “A gold watch. Definitely well post-war, we reckon. It was mixed up with the other stuff.”
Karen’s heart rate quickened.
“Let’s get back there,” she commanded.
Standing next to her, Phil Cooper uttered the smallest of moans, virtually imperceptible. Karen heard him, though. She had good ears. She turned to look at him. She had already noticed, to her amusement, that the big man was not actually nearly as at home at sea as might be expected from looking at him. In fact his ruddy complexion had turned quite pale.
“You all right, Phil?”
“Never better, boss,” he replied with a wan smile.
Back at the site the watch had already been safely installed in a transparent plastic evidence bag which Brian Stokes promptly handed to her. There could be no conventional forensic evidence on an item which had been at the bottom of the ocean for one year let alone twenty-eight, if indeed that was the case, but at the very least the watch had to be protected from further deterioration.
Karen studied it closely. If it had been dumped in the ocean at the time, as she suspected, it was in rather better condition than she would have imagined it to be, but then gold lasts for centuries underwater and this appeared to be a solid-gold watch. Indeed, it was a gold watch of a very particular make and style. Karen couldn’t believe it. He heart was really racing now.
“It’s a Rolex, Phil,” she breathed.
Cooper was leaning over her shoulder, peering at this unlikely find which had been retrieved from 50 meters below the surface of the ocean.
“Not again, boss,” he muttered. “That’s extraordinary. Could be just the stroke of luck we need.”
“Yes, well, the only bugger who’s ever had any luck in this case before, is that jammy bastard Marshall.” She thought of Kelly and his last words to her the previous day at the hospital. “It’s time,” she said. “It’s time the luck changed.”
She held the plastic bag up in order to catch the best of the light. A shaft of watery sunlight had broken through a patch in the clouds. The tarnished watch gleamed. Karen willed it to speak to her, to tell her who its owner was, at least.
Phil was right. This could be lucky, very lucky indeed. But was it too much to hope for that history would repeat itself so effectively? For a few seconds Karen reflected on that other case, so familiar to everyone within the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary.
Five years earlier a body had become caught in fishermen’s nets off the South Devon coast and freakishly retrieved virtually before any deterioration had set in. But nobody had a clue who the dead man might be, and therefore DNA was of little help. A Rolex watch was, however, found on the corpse and it turned out that this could be identified positively because each Rolex watch has a unique case number. Rolex were able to supply the name of the German jeweller who had sold the watch. That had not actually taken the matter any further as the jeweller had been unable to tell from his records to whom he had then sold the watch, but Rolex UK then turned serious detective. They had looked inside the watch and found a repair number. This had led directly to the dead man and subsequently to his murderer who had even moved into his house.
Lightly Karen ran a finger over the watch within its plastic protector. She remembered the procedure, even though she had no idea exactly how to do it. You had to look between the lugs inside the watch with the hands at the six o’clock position. There was some corrosion naturally, and she doubted the hands would even turn.
The watch had a date indicator on it. Karen squinted at it. It would have been extremely helpful to have been able to tell the date on which that Rolex finally stopped. But the figures had worn, certainly too much to be ascertained with the naked eye.
Karen handed the watch to Phil Cooper and gave instructions to return to shore. On the way she made a phone call on her mobile. Bill Talbot answered swiftly, his tones as clipped and businesslike as ever. Retirement really did not seem to have changed him very much.
“We’ve found a watch on the sunken U-boat, a gold Rolex,” she began without preamble. “You don’t happen to know if Clara Marshall had one, do you?”
The reply came fast. That was Bill Talbot. Karen could hear the excitement in his voice, too. Talbot sensed a breakthrough at last. And Talbot wanted this one desperately, had done for nearly thirty years.
“She did. It was a present from her father. As you know we found almost all of her jewelry, left behind in the house. We asked her father if he could see anything missing, anything distinctive that she might have with her. He told us about this Rolex watch he’d given her. Apparently she never went anywhere without it.”
This was exactly what Karen had wanted to hear, and yet there was an unreality about the whole proceedings. And it was more than that. It was as if Clara Marshall were crying out from the deep, crying out to be heard, to achieve justice at last.
Back at Torquay Police Station Karen immediately picked up the phone in her office to dial Scotland again. This time she completed the call. The man she was trying to reach was Clara Marshall’s father.
She did not even consider sending the Scottish police around to his home, despite the fact that police officers did not normally deliver the kind of news Karen had for Sean MacDonald by telephone. But then the Clara Marshall scenario was rather different from usual.
After all these years Karen knew that MacDonald no longer harboured even the most remote hope that his only daughter was still alive. Karen also knew that the only hope he clung to anymore was for confirmation of her death and perhaps even the possibility of properly burying her remains. Other than that, like her, like Bill Talbot, like so many frustrated men and women, Sean MacDonald just wanted her killer brought to justice.
Karen had got to know him well over the years. Driven by a sense of guilt he could never quite conquer, Sean MacDonald, who had been estranged from his daughter at the time of her disappearance, had visited Torquay twice a year every year for twenty-seven years—once to be there for the anniversary of when she had last been seen at the end of June and once for her birthday. Karen reckoned the visits were a sort of pilgrimage for him, and MacDonald, who never wore his broken heart on his sleeve but instead behaved with dignity and restraint at all times, was much liked and had become accepted in the force. She knew there had been real anger within
him, a cold fury which she had actually once witnessed firsthand as a child, albeit from a safe distance, but that this had been tempered over the years by a kind of grim acceptance. Everybody who knew about the case and about him, which was most of them, still treated the now-old man as a very special visitor. Bill Talbot had nurtured him, spent time with him whenever he could. Karen had inherited Mac from her former boss and had continued the relationship. There really had seemed to be little alternative. And indeed, she had come to actively enjoy the company of the elderly Scotsman, particularly when she discovered that he shared her love of antiques and liked nothing better than to lose days hunting through junk shops looking for lost treasures. Karen had even once travelled to Edinburgh to visit one of the city’s antique fairs with Mac. One way and another she was absolutely sure that Clara Marshall’s father would rather hear what news there was from her than from strangers.
She leaned back in her chair and stretched her long legs, waiting for a reply. Eventually she heard Sean MacDonald’s crisply modulated highland tones, but realized at once that she was just listening to an answerphone.
She waited for the bleep, all the while wondering what kind of message she should leave. But suddenly there was a click and the real Sean MacDonald came on the line.
“It’s Karen,” she announced.
“Karen. How are ye, lass?”
“I’m fine, Mac. You?”
“Och, I’m well enough.”
There was a pause. Karen hesitated. It had been reported in the newspapers and on the news that morning that a body had been found off Berry Head and there had already been considerable speculation over the possible identity of the corpse. The Marshall case had always been big media business. But Mac didn’t sound as if he knew anything. She simply felt that he was waiting for her to go on, to tell him whatever it was she had called to tell him, because fond as she was of the Scotsman, it had been some time since they had spoken, and she knew he had sensed that she was not calling him merely to exchange niceties about his well-being.
“You haven’t seen today’s papers then…” she began tentatively.
“No, I’ve been on a fishing trip. Trying to get away from all that…” Mac’s voice trailed off. She could feel his suspense.
“We’ve found some human remains at sea off Berry Head—” she went on.
Mac interrupted her. He was obviously unable to contain himself.
“Is it her?” he blurted out. “Or one of the children? Can it be, after all this time?”
Karen’s voice was gentle when she spoke again.
“It’s impossible to be sure yet,” she said. “There isn’t a lot to go on—”
Karen had chosen her words carefully, but Sean MacDonald was an intelligent man. He knew what she was getting at well enough. He knew there would be damn-all left of someone thrown into the sea nearly thirty years ago. Indeed, the skeleton they had found had, due to having been wrapped up in the way that it was and protected by its unique resting place, been considerably more intact than might reasonably have been expected. Except for its missing head, of course.
As if reading her mind Sean MacDonald cut in.
“Teeth,” he said. “What about dental records? What sort of state are the teeth in?”
“Actually we have yet to find any teeth. The head was the least intact part of the skeleton.”
Well, it was the truth, she was just being a little economical with it. She didn’t feel the necessity to share with Mac at that instant the brutal details, to tell him that the head had disappeared into the depths of the ocean and the bellies of the marine life to which it was home.
“DNA?” MacDonald asked then. Everybody knew about DNA, but they usually didn’t realize that even DNA could not always deliver.
She explained the mitochondrial DNA scenario to him. “No chance of Clara’s maternal grandmother being alive, I don’t suppose?” she ventured.
“She’d be well over a hundred if she were,” replied Mac flatly. “And Clara’s mother was an only child just like Clara. I’m afraid you’re dead right, Karen, we’ve got no one in the female line to make a comparison with.”
“There is something, though,” said Karen. “Our divers found a Rolex watch out at the site. I understand that you gave—”
“Yes,” Mac interrupted straight away. “I gave Clara a gold Rolex for her twenty-first birthday present. She always wore it. Can you tell if it’s hers?”
“It’s possible. I need to ask you a few questions. Can you remember where you bought the watch?”
“Of course. I don’t spend that sort of money on gifts very often. I am Scots, you know!”
It wasn’t the first time she had heard Mac joke his way through various events surrounding his daughter’s disappearance. It was his major defence mechanism, Karen thought. She waited.
“I bought it in Inverness. There was a famous old jewellers’ there, Gavin of Inverness. Closed down about twelve years ago when old Gavin retired. It was an 18-carat Rolex Oyster. They told me it was the best ladies’ watch money could buy. It certainly should have been. Over five hundred pounds back in 1965. I believe they’re around seven thousand now…”
His voice tailed off.
“Thanks, Mac. We may well be able to prove quite quickly that the watch is the one you bought and gave to Clara.”
“Can you really do that?”
“With a bit of luck,” said Karen, and she explained to him about the previous Rolex watch murder, about case numbers and service records.
“We’ll get on to Mr. Gavin, too,” she said. “In case by any miracle he still has any records.”
“Right,” said Mac. “And if you do prove that it’s Clara, will that be enough to go after Marshall? Will you be able to get him at last?”
“I don’t know yet, Mac. But I’ll give it my best shot, I promise you that.”
“I know you will, lassie.” Mac paused again. “I’m coming down,” he continued. “I’ll get a flight first thing tomorrow. I want to be there. And, and…I want to see her, I want to see my daughter…”
“That’s up to you, Mac. I’d never dream of stopping you. But we are talking about a skeleton that’s been underwater for nearly three decades, if indeed it really does turn out to be Clara—”
Mac interrupted again. “It’s her. I know it’s her, lass. So do you, I reckon. You can feel it, just like I can.”
As he spoke Karen realized that the Scotsman was quite right. She did feel that it was Clara who had been found. She had from the start. Even before she knew that the skeleton was female. It could be just a kind of wishful thinking, though, and she certainly wasn’t going to respond to Mac’s statement.
“Either way,” she continued, still gently but firmly. “It’s not a pretty sight and, well, it’s not intact. I’ve told you.”
“You half-told me, lassie. The head’s missing, I presume.” It was Mac’s turn to make his voice gentle now.
Karen grunted, a muttered affirmative.
“And was it removed before or after her death?”
“Can’t say for sure yet, but we think afterwards and we don’t reckon that had anything to do with cause of death. Almost certainly the sea and all the life it contains was responsible for the disposal of the head.”
“I see.” Mac sounded dispassionate enough. Karen supposed that over the years he had become hardened to whatever eventualities there might be. Probably he just wanted to know. Knowledge can be strangely comforting, even when it is unwelcome. Knowledge can at least give some rest to a tortured soul. And there are few more tortured than the loved ones of someone who seems just to have disappeared off the face of the earth.
Karen was wrong about Sean MacDonald. As he put down the phone he was aware of his whole body trembling. He tried to collect his thoughts. It wasn’t easy. He was, in many ways, no better prepared for learning that his daughter’s body may have been found than he had been when he first realized what may have happened to her. He was not at all di
spassionate. If anything the loss of his daughter and grandchildren had grown more difficult rather than easier to bear as the years had passed. The pain had increased rather than lessened.
For almost three decades he had craved news, wanted desperately to know exactly what had happened to Clara. And for many years now he had indeed sometimes kidded himself that even to know that she was dead would be a relief, her and those two lovely little girls, but it wasn’t a relief at all.
Karen’s phone call had been devastating, and no less so because of the passage of time.
Mac was an old man now, into his early eighties. His once-handsome features bore deeply etched lines, and it was not ageing alone that had been responsible for that. He lowered his head into his hands, closing his fingers over his ears. The wild shock of hair that had not thinned with the years but merely turned totally white fell forward almost like a screen. He might have been grateful for that had there been anyone else in the house to see his face. But there wasn’t. There wasn’t really anybody else left in the world for Sean MacDonald anymore.
He could feel the tears welling up, and he was not a man who wept easily. Indeed, he was the sort who still didn’t really think that men should cry. Inside his head he could still hear Karen Meadows’ words.
“It’s not a pretty sight, it’s not intact, we have yet to find any teeth.”
The picture this conjured up was a vivid one for Sean MacDonald. He had last seen his only daughter almost a year before her disappearance and he remembered it only too well.
Clara had wanted money. Officially to bail out the hotel again. In practice, Mac had been sure, to pay off whatever debts her husband had accumulated in whatever was his latest madcap scheme.