The truth, p.14
The Truth, page 14
Archer said, ‘This is something you can do, Mr Hills. Make a list of those corporate clients and give examples of how you develop relationships with them. Be specific as to names, dates and places if you can. The more detail, the better. If we can show your relationship with Mr Othonos was not unusual, that will help our case. We should meet again this week. Can you have that information to hand by then?’
He knew what she was doing – giving him something to do – but what she was saying made sense.
‘And Mr Hills? If this comes to Crown Court, the prosecution must make the jury believe beyond reasonable doubt that you knew there was cocaine on the boat. At present we have seen nothing they can use to achieve that. Frankly, I am still surprised they have gone ahead with charges at this point. The key word is “knowingly” – we do not have to prove that you did not know, they have to prove that you did.’
The voice in mid-air continued, ‘And Annie? One more thing. We should let Diver and Diver know what has happened. Give them a ring, please.’
Annie said, ‘Do you mean their office? Or…’
‘Oh, well… No, give their David Smith a call. His number is in the case notes.’
‘OK, I will. Do we have any specific instructions now?’
There was a short pause before Archer said, ‘No. Just say we’re keeping him in the loop. As a professional courtesy.’
Chapter Fifteen
Their David Smith was less than five minutes away from his destination when the call from Annie Cater illuminated the phone symbol on the dashboard. An old hand now, he slowed down as he answered it. There were trees to the left and a convenient layby. He pulled into this while she waited, and down the slope to the right he could see the narrow, winding waters of the Creek river, as pretty as the proverbial picture.
After Annie told him what had happened that morning, he thanked her and she said, ‘Christine asked me to call you, and let you know.’
Did she, indeed? Directly and without delay. Perhaps they had more of an understanding than he’d realised. He said to Annie, ‘Well, this ups the ante a little, doesn’t it? How is Anthony?’
She answered in that lilting voice, ‘Oh, he was taken aback, there’s no denyin’ it. I think we all were – even Christine.’
The investigative side of his brain had, meanwhile, been busy, and now it interrupted the pleasantries. He said, ‘So, who exactly arrested him at Central?’
There was a pause while she checked her facts, and then, ‘A DCI – Cara Freeman. I’d not met her before.’
Smith said, ‘Ah… And what did you make of DCI Freeman?’
Annie said, ‘You know her, then?’
‘Yes. We have met. It’s all right, you can answer the question. We’re not close.’
She laughed a little and he felt that momentary pang of loss for those early days in Belfast – no girls anywhere laugh like the girls of Northern Ireland. Annie said, ‘Bit of a hard case, maybe. But she was only carryin’ out orders as far as I could see. She’s not the SIO, and we had a bit of a to-do about that. In the end she did give me a name, but I haven’t checked it out as yet.’
She told him the name when he asked, but ‘Marcus Revell’ only rang the faintest of bells; the Tina Fellowes story again, maybe. Another odd coincidence if that was the case. He thanked Annie for the call, and then brought it to a close – the visit he was about to make had taken on more significance now.
He had changed trousers more than once in a vehicle – there is no need to go into the details – but this was a quiet spot and doing so in the wood to his left would be easier. From the backseat he took the bag which contained the change of clothes and followed a path into the shade beneath the trees. He swapped the grey slacks for a pair of faded denim jeans, and the collar and tie for a blue short-sleeved T shirt. Trainers for the black leather shoes completed the transformation. For good measure he had included a sailor-style peaked cap but he left it in the bag – no sense in over-egging the pudding, as his mother used to say, bless her heart…
The directions the woman in the office had given him two days ago took him to the right place at the first attempt. He had a pleasant stroll past lots of smaller sailing dinghies and motor boats, heading downstream towards the pontoons which jutted out into the river, giving more depth for the larger craft moored there. The final pontoon held the largest boats, including several sea-going yachts similar to the Galene. Ahead, Smith could see a middle-aged couple washing one of these down, but no sign of the man he had come to see – the overweight character swilling the decks was no surfer of anything other than the internet. As he passed them he said good morning, anticipating that he might need their help shortly.
When he reached the end of the pontoon, Smith stood for a moment and admired the view downriver. It was widening all the time, and smelled more of the sea than fresh water – coastal marsh in the mixture, too, but it was subtly different to his own north Norfolk essence of sea lavender and silt, of salt and sky. How good it is to be alive and to notice these things… Of course, if he hadn’t come away from Marston this morning, he wouldn’t have had this moment, would he? Jo had said, in as many words, you need to get out more, and here he was – out.
One of the yachts moored here was a beauty, and very like the Galene. He began walking back so he could read the name – and then stopped in surprise. The Klymene. Now that, Smith, is a coincidence and a half, isn’t it?
To be certain, he took out his mobile, searched and had the name within a few seconds. As he had guessed, here was a sister water-nymph from those Greek myths and legends. Now, maybe it’s a thing. Maybe there are thousands of boats around the world named after the Nereids – in fact, there probably are because, in boat-naming terms, it’s verging on the cliché – but finding another one here in this exact spot was still one of those curious synchronicities that always troubled him.
It was a quiet and peaceful moment on the Creek river. The only people he could see were the couple working on their boat, and the only sound was of a distant outboard motor somewhere downstream. Smith reached for the camera slung across one shoulder, took a shot of the Klymene and then zoomed in to get the name on her side.
When he was level with them again, Smith stopped and spoke to the people, complimenting them on their yacht – this is by far the quickest way of befriending boat people. He himself was vulnerable when visitors talked kindly of Rebecca Louise. They passed the time of day, and Smith told them this was his first visit to Farmbridge. As he had hoped, they told him they’d had moorings here for years, and knew the area well; if he sailed himself, they could recommend it. Smith said he had been known to potter about but avoided the trap of details – his own craft wasn’t as big as the dinghy this was one was towing behind.
After a couple of minutes he mentioned casually enough that he had come to find Robbie, as if he half knew him anyway. The man pointed towards the downstream bend in the river and said in a broad Birmingham accent, ‘He went down a few minutes ago, said he was going to check on a buoy. That’s his outboard you can hear – he’ll be back shortly.’
Smith asked where Robbie would be likely to moor up when he did so, and was shown a shed with its own wooden jetty – he had walked past it on his way down here. He said good morning to them and left. The temptation to ask about the Galene was an obvious one but he did not do so. Those people might know the owners of the other yachts moored here – he didn’t want to take the risk that they might know some of them very well indeed.
Smith waited beside the shed, which, as an admirer of sheds, he knew was a very good one. It had two small, square windows with curtains, a little veranda with a couple of those fold-up beach chairs, red and pink geraniums in clay pots and a spinning rod leaning against the rail, ready made up with feathers for mackerel. If this was Robbie’s personal shed, Smith already knew things about him.
The young man hadn’t noticed him because he was in shadow and the sun was bright now – he had time to take a couple of pictures as the boat approached the jetty. Enlarged, those shots would give a recognisable image. Robbie looked every inch the way one wants a surfer to look. The hair was tied back in a ponytail – brown but bleached in streaks by the sun and the sea. A short beard covered the lower half of a tanned, good-looking face that would be noticed by all those surfer-chicks – yes, Smith knew some of the ‘in’ terminology. Robbie carried not an ounce of excess weight and sprang easily out of the dinghy and onto the jetty. He tied it up single-handedly, carrying an oar in his other hand. Shorts, T shirt and sandals; the young man was at home in places like this one, and probably a little lost everywhere else.
And he showed no surprise when he discovered someone waiting for him, suggesting people were coming and going here all the time. Smith had made no decision as to how he would handle this – he had waited until he could see the person he wanted to question – but a decision was needed now because the brief greetings were over. He said he was looking for Robbie, and that the office had sent him this way – there was no need to mention that had taken place a couple of days ago when the two of them were some hundreds of miles apart.
Robbie said, ‘That’s me. Do you need some help? Have you brought a boat in?’
Local accent but well-spoken – said “brought”, not “bought”. Might be a university drop-out but probably not; he’s still young but he’s been working on that tan for years. Some education though, and a direct look as he waits for answers. Decision made.
Smith said, ‘No. I’m looking for some information about a boat which I’m told was moored here until fairly recently. The Galene.’
Robbie turned away and leaned the oar beside the fishing rod. When he looked back he said, ‘What sort of information?’
There had been no surprise and no attempt to suggest he’d never heard of such a boat. Smith said, ‘When she was last moored here, for a start.’
Again, the young man was in no hurry to answer. He stepped over to the door of the shed and opened it – it had not been locked – and then he propped it ajar with a large white stone which was clearly kept there for that purpose. When he spoke next, it was Smith who was taken by surprise.
‘Are you the fuzz?’
The fuzz? He hadn’t heard that word since the mid-seventies. Robbie must have acquired it from his parents. Maybe he was descended from a long line of surfers. Smith said he was not, making a mental note that this was a question one would need to deal with often were one to enter this line of work on a regular basis. But the more interesting point, of course, was the revealing assumption Robbie had made – that anyone asking questions about that particular yacht was likely to be from a law enforcement agency.
Smith told the same story, and it came easily and convincingly now – the Galene had more than one owner and he was working for one of them, gathering information for a potential insurance claim. Robbie said, ‘OK… But the owners would know where the boat was moored, wouldn’t they? I can’t see why you’re asking about that.’
Cautious – another promising sign. Like a geologist in a cave with a hammer and chisel, Smith had sensed he was close to a rich vein; a tap in the right place would reveal it – a tap in the wrong place and it could be buried and lost forever. He said, ‘Not this chap. He saw the Galene for the first time less than a fortnight ago. Now there’s a problem, and he’s asked me to look into it.’
‘So you’re some sort of private eye, then?’
In the end, if the cap fits, you’ll have to wear it – Smith managed a shrug that said yes. Robbie took a moment to examine his visitor more thoroughly, as if he still needed convincing. Then he stepped towards the edge of the veranda and looked across the river. Two tiny Mirror class sailing dinghies had appeared on the water since Smith arrived. They had the original red sails, and out there they had picked up enough breeze to make way upstream – Smith’s long sight revealed a boy and a girl who knew each other, and he could hear her laughter across the water as she overtook the other boat. What bliss it was to be young, alive and out there, sailing on a morning like this one…
Robbie wasn’t watching them now. He stared downriver, taking in the footpath where Smith had spoken to the couple – who had now disappeared – and then he turned one hundred and eighty degrees to look back at the yacht haven. Smith could not be certain, but the thought came that the boy was either searching for someone or making sure that someone wasn’t around.
Then Robbie said, ‘I’ve got a primus in there. I’ll make some coffee.’
This was his third year at Farmbridge. It was seasonal work, starting in early April and finishing sometime in September, depending on the weather. He did odd jobs, some routine maintenance and acted as security in a general way – just a presence, someone who was always about. It didn’t pay much as a basic wage but the cash-in-hand tips from the regulars more than made up for that; the owners who lived away had his number and they’d ring and say, Hi Robbie, can you make sure she’s ready for the weekend? He could sort out problems with rigging and get most outboards that hadn’t been used in a while to start. Smith said it sounded like Robbie had been around boats most of his life, which was acknowledged without going into personal details.
They were sitting in the two chairs on the veranda. The coffee was of the instant supermarket variety, and it had become stale in a very strange way, thanks perhaps to the sea air; it was a complex and yet awful blend, but Smith could force down another two or three if necessary – he wanted to keep the talk going. He asked what Robbie did after September. ‘This is a good gig but they don’t need me over winter. I go down to the West Country. Got a place we rent cheaply because it’s out of season. We catch the autumn gales – that’s the best surfing of the year, when all the dudes have packed up and gone.’
Smith had to ask – he said, ‘The dudes?’
‘The summer surfers. Living the dream for a long weekend. All the gear and no idea.’
It wasn’t difficult to picture Robbie and his mates then, riding the big waves on the big boards as an Atlantic storm hurled them into some secluded Cornish cove. When Robbie asked if he’d done any surfing himself, Smith laughed and said pottering about in his dinghy in a force 4 was the closest he’d got. Not exactly hardcore, he said, but the fact he had a boat and sailed was something – and it seemed to be enough.
Robbie said, ‘Anyway… The Galene showed up here early last summer. I don’t know the guys much. Some people keep themselves to themselves, and they do. Never been on the boats but I’ve fetched them drums of fuel a couple of times, when they’ve been low.’
The notebook was stowed safely in the rucksack, and it would be staying there – to be seen writing this down would send a dozen wrong signals – but Smith had mentally double-underlined that “boats”. For now, keep it simple and straightforward. He said, ‘So the Galene was here until a couple of weeks ago?’
‘Yeah. Three weekends ago. It was crazy busy with the good weather but I remember noticing she’d gone.’
Smith said, ‘You didn’t see them go?’ and Robbie said no.
‘You don’t know anything about the boat needing a repair?’ and again, a negative answer. As far as Smith could tell, this young man was being open and honest; while Smith could acknowledge that he, that is Smith himself, had considerable personal charm and not a little experience in asking questions, he was wondering why this interview was proceeding so well. Here they sat in the sunshine, sharing coffee and reminiscences of the good ship Galene. There had to be a reason why Robbie was up for this.
Smith said, ‘You said the owners keep themselves to themselves. What sort of people are they?’
Robbie’s answer was, ‘I said “people”. They might own it but I don’t think so. Could be just friends. Or, some owners have someone to crew a boat like that, especially if they’re going across.’
‘Where is “across”?’
‘To the continent. Some of the serious guys sail over from here.’
Did Robbie see it, the tiny nod as a suspicion was confirmed? Smith asked what sort of places the serious people sailed to and was told, Calais, Ostend, Antwerp, Amsterdam, among others. And, as far as Robbie knew, did the Galene go across?
Yes, he knew, and yes, that boat had been to Amsterdam. Perhaps that’s where it was going every time it went out. Smith said, ‘How often does it go out?’
‘Those guys go over maybe once a month during the summer. In the off-season, I don’t know because I’m not around.’
Smith said, ‘Is it always the same people? The same guys going across?’
There was no doubt about it – Robbie was watching the riverside path that ran towards and then away from his sanctuary. Smith was, he knew, asking more probing questions now. Perhaps the young man was wondering whether he’d been told the truth about whom exactly his visitor was employed by. So he said, ‘My boss needs to know who’s been on the boat as well as where it’s been recently. It’s more than an insurance job. He’s in a fair bit of bother.’
Robbie nodded, almost as if he understood why that might be – there’s more to be got here if this is handled properly.
‘There’s a French guy, Pierre. He’s always here whenever they make a trip. He seems to be in charge. The other ones vary. Sometimes one more, sometimes two.’
Smith said, ‘What about someone called Tim?’
That brought a more suspicious look, requiring a quick response.
‘Not anyone I know. But my boss met him on the Galene. I’m just trying to figure out where he fits in.’
Robbie said, ‘Yeah, I know him. He showed up at the end of last season.’
‘And he goes over to Amsterdam?’
A nod, and, ‘I guess so. I’ve seen him on the boat when it leaves. Don’t suppose he jumps off at Clacton.’
Smith ventured another sip of the coffee. It wasn’t improving with age or diminishing temperature. He said, ‘So when they go to Amsterdam, do they sail right around the top? It’s on the other side, isn’t it?’
