The Sunshine Cruise Company

by John Niven

  ‘Oh, that bloody bastard,’ Susan said reflexively, while doubting the validity of Julie’s hopes here. Her Barry, who knew a thing or two about this stuff, reckoned there was more chance ‘of her winning the lottery than seeing a penny of that back’. Barry had looked at the case. Thomas had been a co-signatory on the business accounts – perfectly entitled to take money out. If Julie hadn’t been keeping an eye on what he was up to then that was her lookout. ‘Three white wines and an orange juice please, Kevin,’ Susan said.

  Julie sighed. ‘You never get smart about it, do you? Love. Men.’

  Behind them, unseen by either woman, two uniformed policemen – a sergeant in his forties and a constable of what looked to be primary-school age – had entered the party and were talking to Frank the director. Frank was pointing over towards Susan and Julie.

  ‘Well, you’ve picked a few in your time, Jules. No two ways about that.’

  ‘They weren’t all bad …’

  As Susan took the first two glasses of lukewarm Chardonnay she noticed that Kevin the barman (and sometime lighting technician) was looking past her, just behind her, a concerned expression on his face. She turned round – straight into the uniformed bulk of the police sergeant.

  ‘Mrs Susan Frobisher?’ he asked, the whole party looking on now.

  ‘Yes.’ A clammy spasm of fear hit her. Their Tom: a road traffic accident. A mugging. London.

  ‘I’m Sergeant Black. I’m afraid I need to talk to you in private.’

  ‘Is … is it bad news?’

  The sergeant just looked at her. ‘Is there somewhere private we can talk?’

  Susan felt her legs going. She clutched at Julie’s arm.

  ‘Can … can I come with her?’ Julie asked.

  ‘That’s up to Mrs Frobisher.’

  Susan nodded, biting her cheek, fighting to keep the tears out of her eyes.

  How long does it take to change a life entirely?

  A little over three seconds was the answer. The amount of time it took Sergeant Black to say the words, ‘I’m afraid we think your husband is dead.’

  Susan burst into tears.

  They were in the theatre manager’s office, windowless. Two desks, two chairs. The walls covered with posters for past productions by the Wroxham Players. Susan was sitting on one of the chairs, a black faux-leather swivel job, with Julie standing beside her, holding her hand, Sergeant Black towering over them. The young constable, Julie noticed, hovered in the background, going extremely red in the face. Was this the first time he’d done something like this? ‘Oh God … oh no …’ Susan sobbed. Then, catching herself, finding something to cling onto, she said, ‘You think?’

  ‘You’re married to Mr Barry Frobisher?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of 1B Wellington Street, Wroxham?’

  ‘No!’ Oh thank God. Thank God. They had the wrong man. ‘We live in a house. 23 Beecham Crescent.’

  The two policemen exchanged a look. Susan and Julie stared at them. ‘Excuse me a moment please, ladies,’ the sergeant said. He left the room, taking out his radio as he went. As the door closed behind him they heard the squawk and hiss and Black saying, ‘Control?’

  ‘So … what … what’s happening?’ Susan asked, wiping tears. ‘Is it my husband?’ They looked at the young constable, who, in turn, was looking like his head might explode.

  ‘I … think … we’d best wait for the sergeant …’

  Silence. Susan looked at Julie. Julie looked at the constable. The constable scanned the posters on the walls. ‘Oh look,’ he said after a moment. ‘The Pirates of Penzance. My auntie was in that.’

  Before Julie could ask what the fuck that had to do with anything the door was opening again and Sergeant Black was coming back in. ‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Frobisher, but there does seem to be some confusion. I’ve been told to ask you to accompany me to the scene, to provide a positive ID. Or otherwise.’

  ‘The scene?’ Susan repeated.

  ‘The crime scene.’

  ‘Right,’ Julie said. ‘What on earth is going on?’

  ‘I really think it’d be best if you just came with us, ladies …’

  NINE

  SUSAN HAD NEVER been in a police car before. (Julie had. A long story – one unknown to Susan.) She was surprised by how much stuff seemed to be crammed into the front of it. How much technology: computers and radios and equipment and whatnot. And the constant chatter of the radio – could all this really be going on in Wroxham? Sleepy Wroxham with its Victorian marketplace and its corn exchange and its carpet factory? She was aware of Julie holding her hand as she looked at the orange street lights passing without saying a word, her other trembling hand clamped over her brow. What had happened? Nothing? Was it the wrong man? Or an accident? Or an attack? And ‘attack’ was starting to loom larger in her mind now, as they came off the dual carriageway and started heading into the Mansfield Estate, one of the rougher parts of town. But, at the same time, some cause for optimism: what the hell would Barry have been doing around here? He had a few rough clients, down at the accountancy firm. A few local characters who Susan suspected skirted the fringes of the HMRC’s approved practices, but no real criminals surely? God, she felt sick.

  Julie watched her friend out of the corner of her eye and tried to stay calm and practical, tried to play the next few moves out in her head.

  Suppose they’re right and Barry’s dead? What would happen then? Susan would go into shock. She’d be a wreck. I’d have to take her home and spend the night with her. Maybe even the next few nights. When would Tom get here? Who would tell Tom? Would Susan be capable of calling her son and telling him that his father was dead? Would the police take care of that if she couldn’t? Would I have to do it? And then the funeral arrangements. Who would –

  Julie stopped herself, ashamed. Her best friend’s husband of nearly forty years was very possibly dead. Barry Frobisher. They’d all known each other since they were kids. True, Julie and Boring Barry had never been one another’s favourite people but she’d have to be there for Susan.

  The car was stopping. The policemen were getting out and opening the rear doors for them. There was a police van and another car parked in front of them. Two constables stood on the street in front of the house. Neighbours were leaning from casement windows and standing staring on doorsteps.

  Julie was on the pavement side. She got out and looked up: a crumbling Edwardian town house loomed above them in the street light. Once grand, the place had long since been subdivided into flats and bedsits. Julie had lived in a fair few places like this herself over the years. Her current place wasn’t much grander. And for a moment she allowed herself to think what Susan had thought when they headed into the estate: this is a mistake. A stupid mistake. What on earth would Barry Frobisher, Chartered Accountant, be doing around here?

  ‘This way please,’ Sergeant Black was saying, opening the gate that led down some steps to a basement entrance. He turned and blocked their path momentarily. ‘Now, I have to warn you. This is going to be very difficult for you. It’s not a pretty scene …’

  Susan clutched at Julie’s arm again as they went down the few steps, towards an open basement door and into a hallway, an eerie soft blue light seeming to glow at the end of it.

  They followed the huge, black back of the sergeant down towards that blue light, the blue being displaced suddenly by a phosphorescent sheet of white and the raaap and whine of a camera. Someone was taking photographs. Susan glanced to her left into what was presumably the living room: old furniture and every available surface covered in boxes and crates with files spilling out of them, stacks of papers everywhere.

  Sergeant Black stopped in the doorway in front of them and, yes, just like in the movies, lifted up the yellow-and-black tape stamped with ‘POLICE, CRIME SCENE, DO NOT CROSS’. He lowered his gaze as first Julie, then Susan went under the tape and into the room.

  Julie’s first reaction was: Is this all the pornography in the
world? Because the walls were just covered in the stuff. And the ceiling. All five available flat surfaces. She caught a few random images, you couldn’t help it, there was nowhere else to look. And this was strong stuff. This was not petrol-station issue. A man dressed as a Nazi taking what looked like a nun from behind. A … was that an Alsatian? Yes. An Alsatian with a woman dressed as a cheerleader. Another woman strung in a harness beneath a horse. And what were all those things on the shelves? Around the walls? Were those …? Christ. She’d never seen so many dildos. A forest of dildos.

  Susan straightened up and stuffed a knuckle into her mouth to stifle a scream.

  There he was, kind of kneeling on a table, partially suspended from the ceiling.

  Barry.

  Naked.

  Dead.

  Behind him was the source of that eerie blue lighting, the word ‘RAPIST’ in three-foot-high neon tubing, like it was the name of a bar, or a nightclub.

  Someone, a man in plain clothes, was coming towards them out of the blue-tinted semi-darkness. He was saying, ‘Mrs Frobisher, is this your husband.?’

  Susan was nodding, her mouth hanging open. There seemed to be something … behind Barry. Sticking out of him. His head was dangling down and to the side but you could clearly see his face – the eyes bulging, staring, the teeth bared in a mad snarl, his hair matted to his forehead with sweat. His arms still lashed to the ceiling. Someone must have tortured and killed him, Julie was thinking. She kept staring, horribly transfixed, but she was aware that someone was shouting ‘MRS FROBISHER!’ and she turned just in time to see Susan disappearing out of her line of sight, clattering backwards, into the wall as she fainted, her flailing left hand tearing a roll of pornography off the wall, exposing the bare brick behind it.

  Julie looked down, her own legs weak beneath her, and saw her friend unconscious on the floor, Sergeant Black and the plain-clothes detective both bending over now. Susan’s wedding ring glittered on her hand, a hand that clutched a scrap of paper showing a semi-erect penis dangling inches from a greedy mouth.

  TEN

  DETECTIVE SERGEANT HUGH Boscombe tapped the chewed blue biro against his teeth as he flipped through the manila folder on his desk. He let out a low whistle. Twenty-four years on the force, you think you’ve seen it all, and then a doozy like this comes up. The sheer amount of evidence at the scene too – boxes and boxes of it. The uniformed boys were still bringing it in downstairs. Videotapes, DVDs, Polaroids, magazines, sex toys. And a lot of paperwork like the stuff he was looking at now, financial records and so forth. He took the last chunk of pork pie from its waxy paper and munched on it as he kept reading.

  ‘Macros Holdings, Incorporated Netherlands, agrees to loan Mr B. Frobisher the sum of £14,000 sterling at the rate of 0.05% interest against security of his shares in the same to the value of …’

  He yawned. What time was it? Nearly midnight. He’d spent the last couple of hours going through this stuff. Some of the videotapes and photos – Jesus H. Over his head most of this financial stuff though. Make interesting reading for the lads over in fraud no doubt. Exciting though – bona fide murder. Crack this and …

  Christ, he shouldn’t have finished that bastard pie. Boscombe patted his gut. The wife was right. Getting out of control. Comfort eating mostly. Hadn’t been a great couple of years, with that bugger Hannah making detective inspector before him in the last round of promotions. And Davy Bryant the round before that. Bloody Wilson. The chief inspector had it in for him. That was the fact of the matter. Had to stop all this snacking – easing his grievances late at night with the fruit slices or the coffee cake, or the toasted sandwich before bed. You just didn’t burn it off like you used to once you got into your forties. Was wreaking havoc with his bloody bowels too. He glanced into the open bottom drawer of his desk – at the mountain of empty cartons of Rennies, Ex-Lax, the dead Gaviscon bottles.

  ‘Aye-aye, Sarge.’

  Boscombe looked up. ‘Wesley.’ His underling, Detective Constable Alan Wesley, fourteen years his junior. Not a bad lad. College boy, like most of them these days. Just over a year out of uniform though, and still as green as they came sometimes.

  ‘Quite a night, I gather,’ Wesley was saying, pouring himself coffee over at the machine. ‘Some goings-on down at Wellington Street from the looks of the stuff getting brought in downstairs.’

  ‘It is that, son. Double-headed joy boys and all sorts.’

  ‘Yeah, I just had a quick look through some of it. More on heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy Horatio and all that, eh?’

  ‘You what?’ Boscombe said, not looking up.

  ‘Never mind. Is that the fella’s wife down in interview C?’

  ‘It is that.’ Boscome highlighted something on one of the documents he was reading with a yellow pen and moved it to the top of the stack in the manila folder. He stacked the manila one on top of a red folder: some choice pickings from the physical evidence – just enough to make the point. ‘He’s over in the morgue. Should have a COD soon.’

  ‘Nice-looking lady.’

  Boscombe sighed. The kid was young. In any case of spousal murder where did you start? You started with the surviving spouse. ‘Remember, Wesley,’ Boscombe said, getting up, slipping his jacket on and picking up the folders, ‘still waters run deep. Come on then.’

  ELEVEN

  ‘OH, FOR GOD’S sake!’ Susan said out loud to the empty room, looking at the clock up there in its little cage. Nearly two hours she’d been in here. She’d come to in the back of the police car, Julie stroking her hair and a police doctor taking her pulse. The same police doctor who’d pronounced her fit to answer some questions. As the first hour here in this drab room – metal table bolted to the floor, some kind of recording equipment set in the wall, caged clock and light bulb, a slab of what she presumed was two-way glass, four institutional plastic chairs – bled into the second hour she found that her emotions were, well, not see-sawing, as that implied a shift back and forward from one emotion to another, but rather pinballing around: from horror, to rage, to weeping sorrow, to boredom, to numb incomprehension. Barry was dead. Someone must have taken him there and tied him up and killed him and why were they holding her? Why weren’t they out trying to find whoever murdered her husband? As Barry often said, hunched over his Telegraph or Daily Mail, you pay your taxes and … she pinballed back up the table and onto the flipper marked ‘anger’.

  Just as she felt this, felt her blood rising, she looked up at the sound of the door opening: two men, plain-clothes police officers, coming into the room, one middle-aged, stout, the other one still in his twenties by the looks of it.

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Frobisher,’ Boscombe said, sitting down opposite her, putting his file on the table. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Boscombe and this is Detective Constable Wesley.’ Wesley smiled pleasantly as he took his chair.

  ‘Sorry?’ Susan said, crossing her arms.

  ‘Sorry?’ Boscombe said.

  ‘“I’m sorry” would be a good start here, Sergeant.’

  ‘I’m not following you,’ Boscombe said.

  ‘I’ve been kept here for two hours without explanation. I mean, I’m a law-abiding, taxpaying citizen who –’

  This fucking woman, who did … Boscombe held up a hand. ‘Excuse me, Mrs Frobisher, this is a murder inquiry. I had to familiarise myself with certain aspects of the case before I was ready to interview you. I’m sure you can understand that.’

  ‘Yes, well.’

  ‘Let me start by asking you where you were tonight.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! I already told the uniformed officers. I was at a rehearsal for a play I’m involved in and then a party afterwards. With about fifty witnesses!’

  ‘Mrs Frobisher –’ Boscombe leaned across the table, elbows resting on it, almost smiling – ‘there’s no point in being hostile with me. I’m just trying to help you.’

  ‘I … I’m sorry. It’s just, if I’m to be asked the
same question over and over again … Shouldn’t you be trying to find whoever killed my husband?’

  ‘Why do you say killed?’

  A silence. Both men looking at her.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, we don’t know the exact cause of death yet, but you seem to be assuming that someone did this to your husband rather than –’

  ‘What? He tied himself up and –? Look, I don’t know what you’re getting at but … I, I mean I have questions of my own, Sergeant! How did you find him? What d—’

  ‘Ah, now that is a good question. If you’ll just hold on a moment.’

  Boscombe got up and crossed to the recording equipment set into the wall, taking a cassette tape from his pocket. The police – about the only people who still used these things. He slipped it into the machine and pressed ‘PLAY’. A hiss of static, then a digitised ‘beep’ and then a man’s voice saying, ‘Emergency. Which service do you require?’

  A woman’s voice, common, frantic, panicked: ‘Ambulance. There’s a man ’ere who’s … ee’s not breav-in. Ee … I fink ee’s had a heart attack.’

  ‘Are you able to check for a pulse?’

  ‘I … ee’s not. Look, I need to –’

  ‘What’s the address there?’

  ‘Flat 1B Wellington Street, the basement. It’s on the Mansfield Estate.’

  ‘OK, help is on its way. If you –’

  ‘You’ll need to hurry. Ee … we was playing a game and … I TOLD HIM EE COULDN’T TAKE IT ALL!’

  ‘What’s your name, Miss?’

  CLICK. Static.

  Boscombe pressed ‘STOP’ and leaned against the wall, arms folded, watching Susan.

  ‘Who was that?’ Susan asked.

  ‘Going on what I’ve looked at so far I’d say a local prostitute.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Call girl. Hooker. Escort.’

  ‘With my Barry?’

  ‘Mrs Frobisher,’ Boscombe said, coming back over, pulling his chair out, ‘judging from the mountain of material we’ve recovered from 1B Wellington Street so far your husband has been indulging in deviant sexual activities for a very long time. Since the early 1980s at least.’