“Ocean Protection Society,” Mason corrected her. “And we reported safety infractions to the relevant authorities, Andi. How is that harassment?”
“Is someone paying you, Mr Mason?” Andi tried another approach.
Mason smiled and ignored the question.
“You’re missing the bigger picture, Andi. And this surprises me, because I’ve read some of your previous work, and it seems you’ve always been able to maintain some perspective. Until now.”
Andi tried again. “Did you have a relationship with Sarah, Mr Mason?” she asked. “Because you were seen with her just before she disappeared. You’d have been, what . . . thirty-ish? And she was fifteen, right? Is that what you’ve always done, Mr Mason? Take advantage of starry-eyed little girls?”
Mason looked as though he wanted to lean across and grab Andi round the throat.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he practically spat at Andi. “But I’m warning you—”
“Warning me? Or threatening me?” Andi could see that Mason was finally rattled by her questions.
“Everything OK, Andi?” Walter appeared beside the booth.
Andi nodded. “Yes, thanks, all good.” Walter, not convinced, retreated behind the bar and set about polishing beer glasses, not taking his eyes off the booth.
Mason had regained his composure.
“You’re not really bothered about a dead teenager from twenty years ago, are you, Andi? What you want is a good story. A way to redeem yourself — professionally speaking, of course.”
Andi, with difficulty, kept eye contact.
“Maybe that makes two of us, Mr Mason.”
Mason rested his hands on the table. He was silent, but clasped and unclasped his fingers.
Andi felt her heart beat a little quicker, sensing that he was on the brink of divulging some information.
But then the door to the pub swung open, and she heard Walter greet customers at the bar. The moment passed.
Mason smiled at her. “Time for me to leave, Andi. I’m sure we’ll chat again.”
Mason slid out of the booth and turned to leave. He hesitated for a moment.
“Just a reminder though, Andi. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer if you print anything libellous about me.” He strode towards to door.
“The truth is never libellous, Mr Mason,” Andi called after him, but he didn’t look back.
Andi looked down and saw her hands were shaking. The encounter had unnerved her.
“Walter, can I have a glass of wine, please?”
Walter obliged, and Andi sipped it, letting the alcohol dull her heightened senses.
She sat there processing the conversation in her mind. Was Mason really a victim? The locals despised him and his environmental causes — were they blinded by their prejudices?
Then, knowing that she needed to document the new information before she forgot any details, she drained her glass.
She hesitated before she left the bar, fighting a familiar impulse for a moment. Then she purchased a bottle of wine. Forgetting her laundry, she headed back to her apartment.
Chapter Ten
The man was feeling very pleased with himself. This had been a good week. In fact, he reasoned, this could be the start of a new career. He was a natural fixer, he thought. Solving problems for a price.
“A high price,” he laughed to himself. “You get what you pay for.” He acted out a new scene in his head, where people — important people — begged for his services, willing to pay him hundreds . . . no, thousands for his special talents! He savoured his imagined adulation for a moment and took a swig out of a bottle of vodka that he had paid for proudly with his wages.
He’d been disrespected, he thought. Nobody had ever taken him seriously. But all of that would change, he’d show them. He had skills that people needed, people would pay for . . .
He got agitated as another real memory intruded on his fantasies.
“Where’d you get the money?” Walter had asked him suspiciously at the Fat Chicken, where he went to buy his vodka.
The man had paid with a crisp fifty-dollar bill. Walter had held it up to the light and made the man wait.
“I earned it.” The man had tried to sound outraged, but it had come out as a whine.
Walter hadn’t believed him, the man could tell. That fucker. But Walter had sold him the vodka anyway, ushering him out, wanting the stench out of the pub.
“I’ll fuckin’ show ’em all,” he shouted out loud, startling a seagull that was perched on the window of the man’s home.
His living quarters were the old offices on the mezzanine floor of the disused fish plant. He’d been here for a year or so, he reckoned. It was dry, and being up high, the rats didn’t bother him much. There were two entrances — one through the main door and the other upstairs, which was obscured from the view of any casual observer in the back corner of the warehouse. Piles of old packing boxes and fish totes blocked most people from poking around too much. From one office, there was a door to an old metal fire escape that led down to the rotting pier where the fish boats used to tie up and deliver their load. It was dangerous, missing a few rungs, and the man had to be especially careful if he had been drinking, but it was useful if the police came looking for him.
He was blamed unfairly for all the shit that went on, he thought, familiar waves of self-pity engulfing him, which could only be subdued by more vodka.
The man was dirty. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a wash. In the summer, the showers and laundry were open for tourists, and he would occasionally sneak in, until he got caught stealing the change out of the detergent dispenser. He hadn’t bothered since then. His matted hair was scraped back into a straggly ponytail, and a greasy baseball cap hid a bald spot. He’d lost track of the years, but he figured he must be sixty.
Sometimes, he got free coffee from Hephzibah if he told her it was his birthday.
But most people avoided or didn’t notice him.
He didn’t mind.
Easier to do my work, he thought, and he took another shot of vodka. His work was stealing what he could from the boats and the dock. Most of his theft was wallets and cash left lying on galley tables. He was too well-known in Coffin Cove to sell stolen goods, but he couldn’t help himself sometimes. Stealing was a compulsion. Laptops and electronic devices he mostly tossed in the ocean, but he managed to acquire some useful stuff too. He’d furnished his home with the proceeds of his petty theft. A new-ish sleeping bag lay in one corner, now stained with piss and vomit, and a barbeque that used to be attached to the stern of a yacht was in the other. He loved shiny objects and often added to his collection of “treasures” — jewellery and trinkets he would pull out and croon over, Fagin-like, when he was high or drunk. A pile of empty food containers and booze bottles were piled up against the wall, next to an old bucket that served as his toilet if he was too far gone to shit outside.
In his more lucid moments, he disgusted himself.
But today was a celebration. A new start. Soon those bastards would all be fuckin’—
The man stiffened as an unfamiliar noise stopped his train of thought. He automatically crouched down on the floor, even though he was hidden from view. He’d heard a truck. It was near, he figured, right outside the fish plant. He heard a door bang, and then the sound of another vehicle, then another door and then voices.
Police? He didn’t think so. Those fuckers turned up with lights flashing. But he kept his crouched position and shuffled as near as he dared to the edge of the mezzanine, ready to make a run for it down the fire escape if he had to.
The main door creaked open and let in a streak of grey light. It was twilight outside, and all the man could see was the outline of two men. The door banged shut, the echo reverberating around the deserted warehouse. It was pitch black, and the man heard one voice exclaim in irritation. The door opened again, just a crack, to provide a little light.
The man couldn’t see
faces, but he could make out the shapes of two men. The taller one looked familiar.
Outside, disturbed seagulls were crying, and the man edged forward a little more without being heard.
Information was currency. The man had profited from secrets before, so he strained to hear what the visitors were saying.
It was too muffled. The echoes from the high metal ceiling distorted the sounds, and the man only caught a few words, but he could see that they were arguing. The smaller man was gesturing and doing most of the talking.
It had only been a few seconds, but the man was starting to cramp. Not hearing anything useful and thinking he was best out of sight in his hidey hole, he started to crawl backwards, when he heard one of the men laugh. It wasn’t humorous, as though one of them had said something funny, it was a mocking laugh.
The door slammed again.
The man peered back over the edge. The door was shut tight, but the outline of the remaining visitor was still visible from cracks of light in the dilapidated roof.
The trill of a cell phone made the man jump, high up on the mezzanine, and he let out an involuntary gasp. Frightened that he may have given himself away, he waited and then nervously stuck his head out again.
He needn’t have worried.
The remaining visitor was intent on looking at his cell phone. The blue light from the screen lit up the visitor’s face, and the man immediately recognized him.
Congratulating himself, the man again started to slowly retreat, grinning in the darkness at this new morsel that he could maybe trade away.
He heard the creak of the door. He stopped. He was too far back now to have a full view, but he saw the blue glow of the cell phone wave back and forth. The visitor was startled.
“Wha—?” the man heard, and then a hard crack that echoed and bounced off the roof and wall, followed by a thud. The blue light tilted out of view and disappeared. The man heard the slithering sound of a dropped phone sliding into darkness.
He dared not move. He waited and waited, hearing only a few footsteps that stopped, and then started again, but going in the opposite direction. He heard the door creak and then silence.
The man waited again. No groaning or sounds of movement.
Carefully and quietly as possible, he went down the stairs onto the warehouse floor. His eyes were accustomed enough to the gloom to make out a heap on the floor. The metallic smell of blood mingled with shit told the man all he needed to know.
Not worried about noise now, but knowing that he had to hurry, he skirted around the dead body, not wanting to step in blood and leave footprints. He knelt and felt around the floor at the edge of the warehouse, in the last direction that he had seen the blue light.
It didn’t take long. He soon found the phone, which didn’t seem to be damaged, and shoved it in his back pocket. He quickly stumbled back up the stairs, adrenaline flowing, and stood for a second at the top, catching his breath. He badly wanted more vodka, but he knew that the last thing he needed was a blackout. He thought for a moment, and then gathered up the sleeping bag, the bottle of vodka, and his bag of treasures. He kicked around the empty bottles and garbage. For good measure, he tipped over the shit bucket and watched the putrid sludge seep over the floor.
Not many people would be examining the room too closely now, he figured.
He left, taking the back exit down the fire escape into the night, clutching his filthy possessions and shiny secrets close to his chest.
Chapter Eleven
Andi woke early. As she opened her eyes, the empty wine bottle came into focus first. Andi sighed. She had to stop doing this. She pulled herself out of bed, trying to remember the last time she’d got up feeling clear-headed and energetic.
She blinked in the early morning sun that brightened her apartment, and drank a large glass of water while she brewed coffee.
At least she’d got some work done last night. For the first time since she moved to Coffin Cove, she felt a sense of purpose. A story was within her grasp.
The previous evening, Andi had scribbled down some notes on her encounter with Pierre Mason. She then sat sipping her wine, trying to fit together the pieces of the story she’d discovered so far.
Nothing was making much sense. Andi knew what she had to do. When she was consumed by a complex investigation, Andi found it easier to figure out how all the different strands of details came together if she created a visual story wall. It clarified her thoughts and allowed her to see relationships and connections that might have otherwise been lost in the mass of information she collected.
It was a process that served her well, and she remembered with irritation that she had stopped doing this when she was with Gavin. He had teased her about it and called her Nancy Drew. Desperate to impress him, she’d laughed and agreed that it was ridiculous.
And look what happened, she thought. But she didn’t want to wallow in the past. Instead, she put her wine glass down and rearranged the few pieces of furniture in the apartment so she had one clear wall. Then she worked through Jim’s files and her own notes and created a spider’s web on the wall using postcards, pins and string.
A few hours in, and she already had half the wall covered. Jim had been thorough. Andi found notes of interviews with people she hadn’t heard of. He’d spoken to Sarah’s friends and schoolteachers, there were multiple notes about Joe, Sue, Fred and his late wife, Ruth, plus photographs of a much younger Pierre Mason.
By the time she had finished the bottle of wine, she had been through all the files and it was after midnight.
This morning Andi’s story wall prompted more questions than answers. This was usual. It was the beauty of the wall. Eventually, the story would tell itself, Andi theorized, as she drained her coffee cup. She felt better. She threw her notebook and phone in her purse and headed to Hephzibah’s for her second shot of caffeine.
Hephzibah had arranged a few mismatched tables and chairs outside the café for customers to make the most of the morning sunshine. The sun made all the difference to the town, Andi thought. The sky was already a deep blue, and the ocean sparkled as far as she could see. This had to be the prettiest day yet in Coffin Cove, and Andi felt lighter. She felt free. No secrets to keep, no facade to keep up. She promised herself again that she would leave the wine alone for a while and really get to grips with this story.
She realized as she got nearer the café that not everyone was sharing the same positive vibe.
Harry sat at one of Hephzibah’s outside tables, his hand gripping his coffee. A gaggle of fishermen surrounded him. Andi couldn’t hear what they were saying until she got closer, but she could see by their folded arms and hostile demeanour that they were not very cheery at all. She caught snippets of the conversation as she slipped past them into the café.
“It’s all right for you, Harry,” one of them was saying, “but I can’t be tied up for another day.”
Hephzibah was pouring her coffee before Andi got to the service bar.
“What’s going on with those guys?” Andi asked.
“Another day tied at the dock,” Hephzibah answered. “Those protestors called in a bunch of so-called infractions to DFO and they can’t go fishing until they get inspected.”
“Oh, that’s not good.” Andi was beginning to understand what this all meant to the angry men outside.
“You’ll understand more when you sit in at the meeting. Harry wanted you to be here.”
“Really?” Andi thought back to the previous evening. “I’m not sure Harry has a high opinion of reporters.”
“It’s true, he hasn’t had good experiences with the media. But he trusts Jim, and Jim employed you, so he thinks you must be OK.”
Hephzibah smiled at Andi.
“Harry spends too much time on the ocean or with other fishermen. He doesn’t have much practice talking to women these days.”
“He’s not married?” Andi looked outside where Harry was talking animatedly. Not bad looking, she thought.
>
“He was. Divorced, and one daughter. My niece is all grown-up now.”
“Harry’s a lot older than you?”
“Fifteen years. My mother left Ed, my dad, when I was a baby and I went with her. I never knew Harry until my mother died. Harry was married then, but he still took me in. We’re very close now. He’s a good man. Lots of fun when you get to know him.”
“I see.” Andi was curious. Harry wasn’t like any other man she’d met before. But then, she’d never lived anywhere like Coffin Cove either.
“Look over there, the sharks have started circling already.” Hephzibah nodded towards a blonde florid-faced man sat in an armchair at the back of the café. He was sipping tea from a cup and saucer that he perched on his knee.
He was dressed in the same fisherman’s uniform as the men outside but didn’t quite fit in, Andi thought. His hair was neatly combed, and as he bent to take another mouthful of tea, the sunlight glinted on a gold stud in his ear.
He was spotlessly clean. His canvas bib overalls were creased as though he had just unpacked them. He wore white runners and socks. His hands were soft and white, with manicured nails. Andi could see a large pinkie ring on one hand.
This was a guy, Andi thought, who wanted to look like a fisherman. But it wasn’t working.
“Who is that?” Andi asked, lowering her voice, so the man wouldn’t hear.
“I call him Slippery Steve,” Hephzibah whispered back. “It’s Steve something, I can’t remember his real name. He works for Hades Fish Co.”
“Why is he here?”
“To find out what’s going on. These guys,” Hephzibah nodded at Harry’s group outside, “work for Hades. Well, more than that, really — Hades either owns or part-owns their boats and licences. If they don’t deliver herring, a lot of them won’t make their boat payments.”
“I see. He does look . . .” Andi fumbled for a word.
“Slippery,” Hephzibah finished for her. “Right?”
“Can’t Hades help? I mean, with sorting out the infractions or talking to the DFO or something?” Andi asked.
COFFIN COVE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 1) Page 7