Presumption of Guilt

by Jeffries, Roderic

  The large metal locker was to port of the ladder. There were provisions for a padlock — to be used in port — but none was fitted and the lid was secured only by clamps. As he released the first of these, he heard from ahead the single blast of a foghorn. The helmsman on the oncoming boat was reminding him to keep to his side of the channel: tide and single screw were having more effect than he’d judged… He released the last clamp and threw open the lid which crashed back against the rails. The inside of the locker was too dark for him to make out what was there, but when he put his hands inside he felt something that had to be a pump. As he brought it out, a box fell and spilled its contents and some of these rolled against his right hand. Keeping hold of the pump in his left hand — and careless how the rubber hose coiled itself into confusion — he reached back into the locker and brought out three of the tubular objects. They were flares.

  He raced back up the ladder and into the wheelhouse. The oncoming craft sounded its hooter twice to show it was making an emergency turn to port, the only way in which a collision could now be avoided. Sterne steered further to port and the two craft passed each other with less than six feet between them. From the other craft there came a blasphemous commentary on Sterne’s navigational abilities, his seamanship, and his ancestry.

  The two speedboats had fallen back and were no longer visible to him although it was likely that he was still visible to them since he was outlined by the newly risen moon. It was now or never. He increased revs and steered into the mouth of one of the creeks.

  When he’d been young, there’d been a machine in the penny arcades in which a model car was suspended above a road imprinted on a drum which revolved: such had been the speed of the drum that there’d been no chance of correctly following the road and the car had pursued a crazy path across pavements and through houses… He rounded the first bend and reduced speed. Ahead, the channel divided into three, each channel slightly narrower than the one he was in. It was a complete lottery so he steered for the right-hand one. Almost immediately, that divided into two. He again chose the right-hand one. The mud banks closed until it seemed they must entrap him, but then they drew apart again and the keel remained free… Another division and this time he chose to go left: They’d be able to see his mast and superstructure above the mudflats, but since the channels twisted and turned to the point where it was impossible to know in which direction they were really heading, that wouldn’t tell them immediately which way to steer.

  He reduced speed still further until he was doing no more than breasting the ebbing water. Now, the bows would almost certainly swing one way or the other and ground, but grounding couldn’t affect the success or failure of what he was going to do. He left the wheelhouse and began to search the decks, looking for a fuel tank filler cap. He found the starboard one as the trawler yacht shuddered slightly as she went aground. The cap had a bar centre, but when he tried to turn this, the cap remained fast. He cursed as he used the heel of his shoe to kick it and either the curse or the blow worked because the cap eased free and he was able to unscrew it. He fed the hose down the lead and just before he came to the end of this he felt it meet the bottom of the tank. He began to pump. For a while nothing happened, then the pumping became harder and he heard the irregular sounds of liquid splashing into the water. He smelled the coarse, pungent stench of diesel oil.

  In the moonlight, by now quite strong, he could see the rainbow sheen of the oil spreading and drifting with the water. He heard the powerboats’ engines come close, then they became more distant. If they’d made a wrong turn, they’d soon realise it when his mast drew too far away for the cause to be solely the twists of the channel. With their manoeuvrability, it wouldn’t be difficult to retrace their course and find the right channel. And they wouldn’t be worried. If he stayed on the yacht, they’d soon have him, if he took to the mudflats, those would soon have him — every year, wildfowlers were drowned when they were only a short way out from land and now he was over half a mile away. He increased the rate of pumping.

  The sound of the engines came closer and this time did not fade. Holding the pump with his knees, he used his free hand to bring out one of the flares from his pocket. It was six inches long, an inch and a half in diameter, brown in colour, and the cap and tab were silver.

  The nearest bend was a hundred yards away. The first powerboat slowly rounded it. Someone aboard shouted; there was an echoing call from the second boat.

  He stopped pumping and pulled off the tab of the flare. Flame and thick orange smoke spurted out. Keeping the flare in his left hand, he played the flame on the oily water while resuming pumping with his right hand. The smoke, drifting with the wind, was forming billows and these rolled towards the powerboats, dropping a curtain between him and them. There were shouts of anger and guns were fired: a couple of yards out from the hull, the water suddenly erupted as several pellets hit it.

  The powerboats came forward, feeling their way through the smoke. Someone called to go more quickly and get in and kill the bastard: someone else said they couldn’t go any quicker in the smoke. The flare came to an end. The smoke rolled over the powerboats, leaving visibility in its wake. As Sterne pulled the other two flares out of his pocket, the nearer powerboat closed. For a couple of seconds he pumped as quickly as he could, then he dropped the pump, pulled the tags off the flares, and directed the flames on to the oily surface. He moved aft, keeping pace with the flow of water so that the flames played on the same area and heated the oil to higher and higher temperatures. An automatic cracked twice, then the shotgun boomed. His shoulder felt as if it had been kicked by a mule and he fell back, dropping the flares. He must have been visible through the smoke because there was a shout of triumph…

  The oil ignited. A wall of flame spread out and raced forward. It reached and engulfed the two powerboats before the occupants had really understood what was happening. They screamed as the flames surrounded and beat down on them and instinctively they tried to jump into the flaming water, desperate to quench the burning agony. But there was one explosion, quickly followed by another, which sent shock waves rolling. The screaming ceased. And when the last of the debris had fallen back the only sounds were those of the water, chuckling as it made its way towards the main channel and the sea.

  Chapter 23

  Afterwards, for Sterne the night was a series of hazy, unchronological memories. There was the horrible sickness of knowing that he’d killed the four men and it made no difference knowing that if he hadn’t killed them, they’d have killed him; the effort it cost him to bypass the port engine switch and start that engine; the impotent, childish anger when she refused to pull free even with both engines going full astern; the pain; the snatches of wild conversation that seemed to come from beyond the boat; the way the boat heeled as the water level dropped; the shooting star which was supposed to foretell good luck, not disaster…

  With daylight, he regained a degree of comprehension and judgement, and when the rising tide was almost at the full, he started the engines once more and went astern. Reluctantly, the boat slowly pulled free of the mud.

  There was just room to swing her and he succeeded in doing this at the cost of twice running aground — each time she pulled free. He chose the correct route back to the buoyed channel even though he had not consciously made a note of the way he’d taken. In the buoyed channel, he headed upstream. He did not collapse until alongside the outboard jetty of the marina.

  *

  The late afternoon was hot and sunny as Sterne sat out in the hospital’s grounds, his arm in a sling. He did not hear or see Young approach and was startled by the words:

  “’Afternoon, so how’s the shoulder?”

  He turned. Young, and a second man, stood a couple of feet away. “It feels as if it’s been through the mincer, but supposedly it’s getting better.”

  “That’s good. You were lucky.”

  “We must have a different definition of ‘lucky’.”

  “Th
e last man I saw who’d been shot with buckshot was on the mortuary slab.” There was a wrought-iron garden chair nearby and Young moved this close to the wooden chair on which Sterne sat. He indicated his companion. “I think you’ve already met Detective-Constable Icks of the local force?”

  Sterne nodded.

  “I came along to tell you how things are. I was called up from Kent to see if I could help and after I read your statements I suggested someone had a much closer look at Morag III.”

  “We’d have got round to that on our own account,” said Icks grittily.

  “Perhaps,” replied Young, showing no desire to be tactful. “They’d searched her and told me she was clean. I said to look again because no one was going to sell me the coincidence that she was down in Cala Survas by chance.”

  “We’d have looked again,” said Icks.

  This time, Young ignored him. “They finally found the locker in the bilges, hidden behind a false wall — or whatever that’s called in a boat. It was empty, but there were enough traces to prove that it had carried heroin — not that the traces have yet been definitively analysed, but there’s no doubt.”

  “She was running drugs?”

  “Dead right.” Young turned to Icks. “It’s a lovely day for a walk, Jim.”

  “My guv’nor told me to stay…”

  “It’s quite all right. Mr Sterne and I have finished with the business and now we’ve a private matter to discuss.” Icks would have liked to call Young a liar, but his respect for rank, even when not of his own force, was too great. He walked away.

  “A good lad, but a sight too serious,” said Young. “I don’t think you’ve really appreciated the significant point of what I’ve just told you.”

  “Isn’t it the obvious one? The boat was carrying drugs.”

  “There’s more to it than that.”

  Sterne was surprised how the underlying suggestion of antagonism which there had once been in Young’s manner was now gone.

  “Tell me what happened on your second visit to Lençon,” continued Young.

  “I’ve only been there the once.”

  “Twice. The second time just before the crash.”

  “I wasn’t in that car crash…”

  “Let me explain something. When the case suddenly became far more serious, I felt entitled to get on to the French police, not to prove that you’d been over there on your brothers passport, but to discover what had happened in the crash. They told me it had been a damned funny one and they’d been unable to come to any firm decision about it. Ralph Sterne’s car had been forced off the road and it seemed certain the other driver had either been trying to kill him or had been drunk. But the lorry driver testified that after the crash the Peugeot was being driven as steady as a rock… They were trying to kill you, weren’t they?”

  It was ridiculous, Sterne thought, to go on denying the obvious fact that he’d been in France. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “God knows.”

  “There has to be a reason. Think. Did you recognise someone at the motel?”

  “No.”

  “What happened there and who did you speak to?”

  Sterne told him how they’d questioned the manager and the chambermaid and then returned the following morning to question the manager a second time.

  “What did he tell you that was so dangerous for you to know?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything of any consequence.”

  “And the chambermaid?”

  “No help either.”

  “Goddamn it, there must have been something. You didn’t talk to anyone else?”

  “Only the night handyman who’d been given the sack for being a Peeping Tom.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. He used a periscope to see hotel guests having fun and games. I asked him about the night of the twelfth and whether he’d looked in on cabin fifty-two and the Bressonauds. He had, but had not seen anything of interest.”

  “Did he detail what he did see?”

  “Madame Bressonaud in bed. The sight wasn’t one to excite even him, so he moved on.”

  “What about the husband?”

  “He wasn’t around and her clothes were on the second bed. As a matter of fact, I got to wondering if he’d ever actually turned up. After all, you don’t put clothes on a bed that’s going to be used. Funny thing is, though, the chambermaid said both beds had been slept in.”

  “Did you ask who’d booked in?”

  “The wife, for the two of them. The receptionist supposedly remembers seeing him, but I don’t think he really did.”

  “Well I’ll be damned!” Young puffed his cheeks. “Well, I’ll be doubly damned!”

  “All right, you’re thoroughly damned. Why?”

  “Because I’d forgotten how the obvious can become obscure. And the way in which the guilty give themselves away because they invariably believe the innocent think, as they do, in a guilty manner… They tried to kill you in the car in France because you’d discovered there was no husband at the motel. It never occurred to them that you wouldn’t, couldn’t, see the significance of that fact.”

  “They were right; I didn’t, I couldn’t, I still can’t.”

  “Right at the beginning, the point your brother made about the police watch at the Newingreen motel worried me. So when we finally found the container on Morag III, I got to wondering about some other points; why the mob should have bothered to try as well to smuggle a very much smaller quantity of heroin in by car, driven by an innocent; and why the informer, who had to be very close to the centre if he knew not only that a load was hidden in the car you were driving but also what cross-Channel boat you’d be on, hadn’t known about this much larger consignment and grassed on that as well?”

  “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

  “The container in the Mercedes could hold between a third and half a million pounds’ worth of heroin. When that sort of money’s at stake, every possible precaution’s taken to make certain nothing goes wrong and in particular that no one is ever in a position where he or she can take off and disappear with the consignment. So if the container had contained heroin, Mr Bressonaud would have been around to keep an eye on Mrs Bressonaud, just as Mrs Bressonaud would have kept an eye on Mr Bressonaud — and I hope I don’t have to add that they would not, in fact, have been man and wife. That there was only the woman must mean there was no fortune in heroin.”

  Sterne stared at him. “You’re saying… that the container in the Mercedes didn’t contain heroin?”

  “Only sufficient traces to make us believe it must have been full.”

  “But why?”

  “To make us assume — as we did — that a fresh line had been started, using cars from the south of France, so that we’d keep the closest possible watch on that route. And what was the point of that? It’s hard fact that if you have limited manpower and need to concentrate on one particular aspect of your work, other aspects must inevitably suffer. So in this case they were making certain that a boat arriving from Spain would probably not be subjected to more than a cursory search. In other words, you were sucker-bait.”

  “I didn’t smuggle in heroin, either knowingly or unknowingly?”

  “Technically, I can’t answer as to the smuggling — I don’t know whether the traces found constitute a sufficient quantity to fall within the legal definition of smuggling. That you didn’t know what was going on, I now have not the slightest doubt.”

  “Then what happens about my case?”

  “Proceedings were adjourned because of your injury. All fresh evidence will be sent to the DPP who’ll undoubtedly order that at the trial no evidence is submitted by the prosecution and, I imagine, that a statement is made making it quite clear that you were innocent of knowingly trying to import drugs.”

  Sterne found it difficult fully to comprehend that his nightmare was over.

  “You will still be faced with
two proceedings. There’ll be an inquiry into the deaths of the men who were trying to kill you — even if it’s clear that you were justified in what you did — and you’ll be charged with attempting to import a vehicle without paying the appropriate tax.”

  “To hell with that!”

  “I imagine most people will echo those sentiments.”

  Sterne said: “I can return to France?”

  “As soon as I’ve arranged for the handing back of your passport. I think it’ll be best for everyone if you travel on yours next time.” He stood.

  “I owe you a lot.”

  “Do you? It’s probably more accurate to say that really you’ve got yourself to thank — a case of justice unjustly served but justly found… But if you should feel slightly in debt…” He stopped.

  “Yes?”

  “You might tell me how in the hell you got back into this country. I’ve been losing sleep trying to work it out.”