Juliet nodded ruefully. “I’d rather have had another three quarters of an hour in bed,” she said.
“Likewise, but at least we haven’t missed him. I doubt very much whether he’d be the type to hang around waiting for us if we’d been late.”
They found a table at the airport’s Costa Coffee shop where they could sit and nurse their giant cappuccinos (Tim’s choice). Juliet took the opportunity to talk more about the task ahead of them.
“Did Superintendent Thornton give de Vries our names?”
“I believe so. Which means that he’s expecting us, at least. I wish I had more idea about exactly what Thornton said to him. I know that de Vries was very shirty when Thornton said we’d have to ask him to cut short his holiday. Thornton doesn’t stand up to people he thinks are influential. If de Vries was uppity and Thornton didn’t show him who was boss, that’s going to make our job more difficult.”
“We’re not arresting him, though, are we?”
“Not as such. We’re going to ask him to come with us voluntarily. We’ll drive him and his wife back to Sutterton. We’ll show him where we found the passports and listen to his story. Depending on what he says and how convincing he is, we may want him to accompany us to the station to charge him. On the other hand, we may just ask him to stay in the area until we’ve got to the bottom of it. Either way, he’s bound to want to involve his solicitor.”
“Did Superintendent Thornton ask Mrs de Vries to return with her husband?”
“I don’t know. I’m guessing he didn’t, as he probably thinks it’s unlikely that she’s involved in the forgery. Apparently she’s been an invalid for some time. But she wouldn’t want to finish the holiday on her own, would she?”
“She may do. I think we’ll find that they weren’t just taking their ordinary annual leave. De Vries is in the process of setting up a new business venture. For some years he’s owned a small fleet of ships to import bananas from the Windward Islands. He’s now decided to get more mileage out of it by offering a kind of upmarket package holiday that consists of a luxury cruise on each ship’s outward journey, followed by a stay in a four-star hotel in St Lucia and the flight home. Along with some business acquaintances, Kevan de Vries and his wife were testing the outward cruise, so it was a business trip as well as a holiday for them. If they were looking after guests, Mrs de Vries may feel that she has to stay with them.”
Juliet opened her shoulder-bag and took out a neatly-folded sheet of newsprint torn from the Spalding Guardian. She smoothed it out and passed it to Tim. Kevan de Vries takes a busman’s holiday, the headline proclaimed. Beneath it were a short article explaining what Juliet had just outlined and a grainy picture of Kevan de Vries shaking hands with the captain of the Tulip, one of the de Vries vessels. The newspaper was dated the previous Thursday.
“They’d only been gone for five days when the burglary happened,” said Tim. “They must only just have arrived in St Lucia.”
“Don’t tell me you’re beginning to feel sorry for them! I got the distinct feeling that Kevan de Vries was going to be one of those people you’d decided you didn’t like before you’d even met him!”
Tim put down the wooden stick-spoon with which he’d been trying to scoop up the foam from his coffee and gave her a look of lingering mock incredulity.
“Surely I’m not as prejudiced as all that?” he said. Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “I wasn’t really thinking about their holiday at all. I was thinking that anyone, including the burglars, could have seen that article and known they were away. The same goes for the people who had legitimate access to the house. Servants and employees wouldn’t have needed to read the papers to find out, though. They’d have known anyway.”
“Meaning you think it likely the passports were planted and Kevan de Vries is innocent?”
“Meaning, whether he’s innocent or not, he and his lawyer can make a good case for his having known nothing about them, unless we can find a completely foolproof link between them and him. They were clean of prints, as you know.” Tim looked at the news clipping again. “Short bloke, isn’t he, unless the captain’s a giant? Thornton gave me a photo of him – quite a good one, I think – but it’s only of his head and shoulders. Somehow I’d assumed he was much taller. He seems to be quite powerfully built.”
Tim reached into his inside pocket and drew out a brown manila envelope with Kevan de Vries inscribed on it in Superintendent Thornton’s large, flowing hand. Juliet took it from him and studied the picture inside carefully. It was of a man in his early- to mid-forties. He had broad, almost Slavic features and a high colour. His receding blond hair had been allowed to grow quite long at the front, and was swept sideways across his forehead. As Tim had noted, he had broad shoulders. His white shirt collar seemed to be almost painfully tight, his neck bulging slightly above the dark tie. His expression was not exactly disdainful; rather, it suggested a kind of supercilious amusement.
“Where did this come from, sir?”
“Thornton got it from the Rotary Club, I think. His social pretensions come in useful on occasion.”
Juliet grinned. “At least it saves us from the indignity of having to stand at the barrier waving a piece of cardboard with ‘Kevan de Vries’ printed on it.”
“Yes. I doubt if he’d have liked that, any more than we would.”
Four
The parting with Joanna is tough. I expect her to cling to me in tears and beg me to take her with me, but, after some initial pleading, she decides to punish me with silence. Not complete silence: Joanna is far too adult and generous-spirited to sulk like a child, but we have no real conversation after she’s accepted I’ll travel back to Lincolnshire alone. She makes me promise several times to call Archie and arrange to visit him as soon as I land. She retires to bed some time before I am ready to leave. I listen at her door for several minutes while Derek hovers in the hall, waiting to take me to the airport. I’d hoped to creep in to see her face in repose, perhaps to kiss her, but I can hear her breathing regularly in what must be an unfeigned deep sleep and decide it will be selfish to risk waking her. I know that sleep alone gives her respite from the pain.
The first class section of the plane is almost empty. I decline all food and drink and tell the stewardess not to disturb me. I accept her offer of a blanket and try to sleep. I must have dozed off fitfully, because I am awoken by the plane’s speaker system. It is the captain, relaying a message about a slight delay.
I’m sitting up now, fully awake. For me sleep is an effective analgesic, if only a temporary one. At first awakening, I am troubled with no specific cares, just a vague feeling of tension and anxiety. Then all the old problems crowd in to populate my thoughts, all the weary heartache associated with Joanna’s illness and Archie’s disabilities, all the grinding weight of running de Vries Industries and the irritations of having to deal day in, day out, with unsavoury characters like Sentance. And finally, this new set of difficulties sitting on top of them. It’s the first time I’ve had any kind of brush with the law. What the hell has been going on? Whatever it is, it sounds unlikely that it was precipitated by Joanna’s and my absence. I can believe that the burglars knew we were away and saw their opportunity, but whoever was responsible for the passports must have been working on them for months. Whether or not they’ve been dumped in the cellar recently, whatever racket they represent must have been carefully planned. I wonder if Sentance is involved in some way, and dismiss the idea. He has too many irons in his own grubby little fire, all of them dead certs as far as he is concerned, for him to be willing to jeopardise his cowardly hide for a riskier scam, dancing his grisly attendance on Joanna as he does.
I release the seat-belt and stand up briefly to brush down my suit, which is horribly crumpled. I long for a shower and a shave. I’ve eaten and drunk nothing since leaving St Lucia and I have no need to visit the lavatory. My mouth feels dry an
d there’s an unpleasant metallic taste that seems to come from the back of my throat. The stewardess, who has been nodding off on her seat at the top of the gangway – it faces the first class passengers – snaps her eyes into life and smiles at me glassily.
“Are you all right, sir? You may have heard that there’s been a bit of a delay. We should land in Gatwick in about forty-five minutes, even so. May I bring you a breakfast tray?”
I wave my hand impatiently.
“No food,” I say, “but I’d like some coffee, if you don’t mind. And some water.”
“Of course.”
She disappears behind the curtain that leads to her pretend galley. I smooth my trousers and sit down once more, re-engaging the seat-belt. I close my eyes again briefly. I realise that I have been dreaming about Joanna and the first time we met. Childhood sweethearts, almost. Opa had over-ruled my mother and insisted that I should attend Spalding Grammar School, rather than be sent away to one of the grander boarding schools that she’d favoured. Joanna was a High School girl. When we met, we were both in the Sixth Form. Her mother was a widow; her father, before he died, had been a farm labourer. I knew that Mother never liked Joanna, though I only caught her out in showing it very occasionally. I suspect it was because she thought Joanna’s background too humble for me. Opa loved her, though, if anything because of her origins rather than despite them. He said that her family had come from the soil, the same as our own, and that it was something in which we should all take pride.
We met at a social event arranged by her school. It was a bit pretentious, truth be told. She and I belonged to that heady period when teachers thought that to provide a generation with enough learning to get them into university would transform the world into their oyster. Some also realised that the new cadre of working-class undergraduates they were creating would require coaching in the social skills and, accordingly, they organised occasions contrived to provide them. I had no need of such aid, because both Opa and my mother encouraged the South Lincs county set to come to bridge rubbers, swimming parties and tennis parties at Laurieston, so by the time I reached the sixth form I’d had more than my share of exposure to pretentious small talk. I’d gone along to the wine and cheese evening organised by one of the teachers at the High School, even so. I’d just split up with my girlfriend and thought that the High School do would be as good a place as any to find another; and if not, I could take advantage of the free wine.
Joanna had been standing near the door with a little gaggle of her friends, all prefects. They weren’t wearing school uniform, but all still sported their red prefects’ sashes, wrapped around their wrists so that their authority could be recognised. She was standing slightly outside the circle that they’d formed, so she was the first to see me when I came in. She had long, blonde hair and an elfin face, with huge blue eyes. Her colouring was Dutch, but she was too willowy to be a Dutch girl. She took my ticket, smiling. I realised that she was just about the same height as I was myself. The wine and cheese party was being held in the gym at the High School. A disc jockey had been hired and a small square dance area created in the centre of the parquet flooring. The music wasn’t loud: in fact, it was rather schmaltzy and plaintive for such an event – I seem to remember that Simon and Garfunkel tunes were played for most of the evening. The wine was adequate rather than plentiful, but none of us was used to drinking it, so it made us feel heady quite quickly. However, there were so many teachers dotted about, observing everyone carefully, that it would have been impossible to get properly drunk. It was evidently intended to be a very decorous occasion.
A few pairs of girls and one couple – I recognised Nigel Asher, from the year below me – were dancing desultorily on the parquet square.
“Dance?” I said to Joanna.
She shrugged and allowed me to lead her to join the other dancers. Neither of us was good at dancing, and when the tempo increased she drew away from me, laughing, and shouted that she’d had enough. I followed her to the far side of the room, where one of the refreshments tables had been laid out, and there we stayed, sipping wine and talking. I spent the whole evening with her.
The arrival of the stewardess bearing coffee and water on a small tray dispels my reverie. She hands it to me carefully and I thank her.
“Not a problem,” she says, in that irritatingly chirpy way that people in the service industries have recently adopted. I think it’s supposed to indicate that they’re there solely for their clients’ convenience, but to me it suggests the exact opposite. “We should be landing quite soon, now. The captain has managed to make up some of the time that we lost.”
I nod thanks to avoid exposure to more of her semi-reflex comments. I sip the coffee, which is both bitter and weak and scaldingly hot, as if it has just been re-heated. Suddenly, I feel apprehensive. Somehow I have to summon the energy to deal with the police enquiry. I’m quite aware that this DI Yates is likely to take some convincing that I know nothing about the wretched passports. What I have to do at all costs is to stop him prying further into my affairs. If I co-operate in every respect, perhaps he’ll confine himself to the passport matter. If not, I have the option of trying to make Thornton dance for his supper, I suppose, though I feel about as well-disposed towards him as I do towards Sentance. I know that I’m going to have to put up with quite a lot of Sentance over the next few days.
I sigh and look bleakly out of my porthole window. I’m surprised to see that we’re diving fast towards the runway: the plane is on the point of landing. It hits the tarmac with the slightest of thuds and I feel the pilot apply the brakes. The stewardess begins to broadcast her routine patter through the speaker system.
As soon as the seatbelt sign has been switched off, I rise and take my overnight bag from the locker. I didn’t bring a suitcase: there are plenty of clothes at home. Just a shirt and a change of underwear in case I was delayed; and my laptop, of course.
I’m first off the plane. There’s a short hold-up while I have to wait for some of the passengers from an earlier flight to go through passport control, then I’m through to the barrier where friends and relatives wait. I’ve always found this stage of travelling particularly irksome. People who’ve only been away for a week or ten days on some package holiday are greeted as if they’ve just returned from six months working in a space station or fighting in Helmand Province. There’s a whole gaggle of such greeters here now, their spirits over-buoyed, craning their necks to get the first sight of whoever it is that they’re looking for. Behind them stands a row of chauffeurs and car hire firm operatives, waiting patiently, some holding discreet little cards bearing the name of the person they’re meeting. It occurs to me that I have no method of recognising this DI Yates. I’m assuming that since he’s a detective he won’t be sporting a uniform.
I pass through the barrier and come to a halt to one side of it, looking around me as I do so. A man advances briskly, a woman in his wake. I have no doubt that this is he, though he’s younger than I expected. Not much more than thirty, I’d guess, the woman perhaps a few years older. He’s tall, with thick, curly red hair and an open expression. The woman’s quite dumpy, with well-developed calves and thick ankles. He’s smartly dressed in a lightweight suit, but she’s somewhat lacking in dress sense. She wears a brown chain store dress that’s seen better days, flat shoes and dark tights, despite the heat. Her hair’s curly, too, but dark. It’s shoulder-length, without much styling. And her eyebrows are also heavy and dark. She wears spectacles with thick plastic frames. I can’t see her eyes clearly. A pity, as it would help me to gauge her intelligence. From the way that she’s trailing after him, I’d guess that she doesn’t have too much self-esteem.
The man walks up to me and holds out his hand.
“Mr de Vries? DI Yates, South Lincs police. This is my colleague, DC Juliet Armstrong. Thank you for returning so promptly.”
I take the hand and clasp it. I know my grip i
s strong – I’ve made business colleagues wince on occasion – but DI Yates’s is a match for it. He holds on for some seconds longer than I deem necessary. I try not to scowl at his comment and attempt a pleasantry in reply.
“Hobson’s choice, wouldn’t you agree, Detective Inspector?” I nod at the female, who throws me a brief smile. I deduce that it shouldn’t be too hard to get her on my side.
I hear someone clearing their throat close to my shoulder. I spin round and find myself staring at Sentance’s unctuously insincere countenance. I feel myself prickle with rage. How dare he show up here after I told him not to come?
“Would you like me to take your bag, Mr Kevan?”
“Certainly not. You’re not a lackey, and I have no need of one. What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
I step backwards so that the two detectives and Sentance are all within my range of view. Sentance continues to hover, simpering. The police are looking puzzled, the woman slightly shocked. I realise that I have no option but to introduce him.
“This is Tony Sentance, the Finance Director of de Vries Industries. What he thinks he’s doing here is anybody’s guess.”
Sentance inclines his head briefly in their direction and addresses himself to me.
“I thought you might need me to fetch the car, Mr Kevan. I left it here in case you needed to make a quick business trip, as you instructed. I thought you might feel too tired to drive safely.”
“Very thoughtful, I’m sure, but as you see my travelling arrangements have already been catered for. I think it unlikely that I shall be travelling back to Sutterton with you.”
I turn to DI Yates.
“I assume that you’re expecting me to ride with you and your colleague?”
“That was our intention. But if you wish to accompany Mr Sentance, I’m sure that . . .”
“I don’t wish to accompany Sentance. I will travel with you, as arranged. My time is limited, as I’m sure is yours. We can probably make some progress during the journey – clear up the preliminaries, etcetera.”
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