Dead in the Water

by Wilfred Jules

  Ianthe wend down the pontoon to Polaris. SOCO had put up a tent on the pontoon and had tried to put another tent over the cockpit, which was not easy. She was met in the tent by Geoff Simmons, the senior SOCO officer, who looked like the mad professor in the old “Back to the Future” movies, all dressed in the white overall of SOCO.

  “Morning, Ianthe,” he greeted her.

  “Morning, Geoff. What do we have here on this gloomy day?”

  “Well, obviously we have to wait for the doctor, but he is definitely dead I would say,” Geoff said rather cheerily. “Care to have a look?”

  Ianthe suited up quickly and stepped on board.

  “Careful now. The rain has made the deck quite slippery.”

  Ianthe moved warily over the teak deck to the cockpit. Through the hatch she saw a body lying at the foot of the steps, dressed in black Musto wet gear. Making certain not to disturb anything she went downstairs holding herself with one hand. An advantage of not being too tall, she thought. Not that she ever sailed.

  Even though the boat was quite sizeable, it was rather cramped downstairs, with three SOCO officers all about dusting for prints and other traces. Ianthe bent down and carefully removed the cap that was partially covering the dead person’s head. The face of a man in his early fifties, bald, his glasses askew because of his fall. A pool of congealed blood around his head. She noticed there was some blood on the edge of the chart table just above him. Geoff saw her noticing that.

  “It’s possible he slipped and simply banged his head against the chart table all right. Perhaps it is just an accident. The pathologist can hopefully sort that out.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” she answered, “But I am a little doubtful about that. I think a normally fit person would go down the ladder moving forward, not backwards. So, it’s sort of impossible I think that he slipped while coming down and then banged the back of his head into the chart table. He would have slipped while being down here to fall in that direction. Of course, he could already have been downstairs and suffered a heart attack or so that made him fall against the table. Astrid will know.”

  Geoff shrugged.

  “There she is now. With your sergeant I believe.”

  Astrid McManus was the pathologist on duty. A rather striking young lady of Eurasian descent. Ianthe had always meant to ask her what made a young doctor choose pathology but had not yet come around that. She knew Astrid was married to Andrew Brown, who was the divisional HR manager for Sussex Police. She was walking towards the boat with her gear and accompanied by a very tall young black man, Detective Sergeant Ben Armstrong, who had been working with Ianthe on several cases over the past year. They made a rather odd pair when seen together, as she was quite small compared to his 6ft4. Ben, named after a famous American point guard for the Chicago Bulls, was a 26 year old former professional volleyball player with the Brighton Jaguars, who had actually even made the national team and had been preparing for the Olympics when a knee injury decided otherwise and finished his professional sports career. He had joined the force soon after that and was now a taciturn but clever Detective Sergeant. As a Brighton native who was quite well known because of his volleyball career, he had been able to tap lots of people for information on various cases they had been working on. Ianthe had noticed he seemed to be particularly well introduced to the thriving nightclub scene.

  “So,” Ben asked Geoff and herself after he had a quick peek through the hatch, “what are you guys thinking? Accident?”

  “I would like to treat it as a suspicious death for now,” Ianthe responded. Until Astrid can determine the exact cause of death. When do you think you have time for the autopsy?” she asked Astrid who was just disappearing into the hatch.

  “Probably early this afternoon. Say 1 PM if you can make it then?”

  Both detectives bagged their crime-scene kit again and started to make their way back up the jetty. It was now 6:30 AM and Ianthe marvelled at the rosy sheen the rising sun painted on the white cliffs Brighton Marina was set against.

  At the gate, they were met by a noticeably young Detective Constable, Tanya Richards. After having given her a quick rundown of what had happened, Ianthe said:

  “Hey Tanya, if you can get a few PCs to start knocking on the doors of these apartments,” she pointed at the apartment buildings along the walkway that were facing the marina. “Someone might just have seen something odd in the night. Then perhaps you can get a list of all boat owners, particularly those with a berth on this jetty. We will also need all the CCTV you can get.”

  She turned to Gerry Nichols from security who was still around and showed him the picture she had made of the face of the dead man.

  “Know him?”

  “Sure. That’s Bert Devos. He’s the owner of Polaris. I think he lives up in Lewes with his wife. Nice enough bloke. Spends a lot of time on his boat. Married with a few daughters I believe.”

  “Thanks. Please leave your details with the constable here. We will need you to come to the station when your shift ends to give an official statement. And one more thing. The boats are berthed bow-to. So how did you know the hatch was open?”

  “Right. That’s because I noticed the anchor light was on in the top of the mast and the boat was not connected to shore power, so the light might be draining the battery banks. So, I went around to see if I could switch it off somehow. That’s how I noticed the hatch was actually open and I found him.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She turned to Ben.

  “You and I go bring the bad news to the widow. Guess you came here by car, too?”

  “Nope. Reckoned you would have come by car. So, I took an Uber.”

  “Right. Makes it easier. Then we can go together in my car.”

  “Can I drive though,” he said.

  “It’s MY car.”

  “Yeah but you drive like someone’s grandma.”

  “I drive with care. If everyone drove like me, there would be fewer accidents!”

  “Yeah, only because no one would bother taking the car as they might just as well walk.”

  “Oh, do shut up,” she said. And they walked to the car park where her Audi was waiting.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was just after 7 AM when Ianthe and Ben arrived in Lewes at 6 Prince Edward’s Road. Ben had called from the car to find out what Bert Devos’s details were. It appeared he was a Dutch national who had been living in Lewes for about twenty years with his Brighton-born wife Josephine. She preferred not to drive through the gate into the little yard at the front of the house as there was already a bright yellow Jaguar SUV parked there. Fortunately, there were two parking spaces available at the side of the road. Sussex Police management took a dim view of officers parking their cars irregularly, even on business, except if it was an emergency, which this obviously was not. At least not yet.

  Ben had been rolling his eyes at her driving skills the whole way, sighing under his breath, and ostentatiously looking at her speedometer. She was silently amused by that behaviour and had no intention at all to accelerate. What was it with men and speed anyway, she thought. If she had driven at the maximum allowed speed, they would have arrived perhaps two minutes earlier, not more. So, what was the big deal.

  They opened the doors and Ben unfolded his long frame from the car. Even with the seat set fully back, he still needed to sit with his legs bent at the knee. As Ianthe had to put her seat all the way to the front in order to be able to reach the controls at all, she continuously had to look over her shoulder at him if they wanted to talk.

  They stood in the road looking at Bert Devos’s house. It was a an elegant and obviously spacious Edwardian detached property on the corner of Prince Edward’s Road and King Henry’s Road in the Wallands area of Lewes, Sussex. Lewes is a thriving county town situated within the South Downs National Park with a great range of shops, cafes and supermarkets just about 9 miles to the north-east of the city of Brighton & Hove. There is a railway station with a regular
sixty-five-minute service to London Victoria offered by Southeastern Railways. The South Downs National Park offers great opportunities for walking and recreation in typical rolling landscapes. It is a paradise for hikes with well-maintained long-distance trails like “The South Downs Way” that runs from the Saxon capital of Winchester in Hampshire to Eastbourne in East Sussex, or “The Monarch’s Way” that commemorates the flight of Prince Charles, the later King Charles II in 1651 after the Battle of Worcester. The internationally renowned Glyndebourne Opera House is also only a couple of miles away. There are some good private and public schools in Lewes, and it has easy access to the motorways with only a thirty-minute run to Gatwick Airport. All this makes Lewes quite sought after by commuters who either work in Brighton & Hove or in London. Sussex Police HQ is also in Lewes. As is HM Prison, a Class B prison opened in 1853 but still operational. In fact, Sussex Police HQ was only a five-minute drive away from where Ianthe and Ben were now.

  Bert Devos’s property had a nice driveway with a shiny yellow car in it. Big bay windows on either side of the front door and one on the first floor as well. Another timber sash window on the same level. They could just see a glimpse of the garden behind the house and the period style conservatory. Impressive.

  “Nice place,” Ianthe commented. “What do you reckon this would go for?”

  “Nice detached house like that this side of Lewes? Probably 4 or 5 bedrooms, front and back yard. A million or more I would say,” Ben replied. “Mind you,” in Brighton this would go for twice that much.”

  “Tell me about it,” Ianthe answered. “We’ve been looking at two-bedroom apartments for a while. They cost a fortune there. Still, a million would also be way beyond my reach. Nice car as well.”

  “Yeah, that’s a Jag F-Pace. Probably around 50,000 by itself if it were new.”

  “And he was driving a BMW SUV I understand?”

  “Yup. BMW X-5. Another 50 K.”

  “Plus, the boat. Mr Devos was clearly very well off. Right, let’s do this,” she said, and they walked up to the front door. Ianthe looked at her watch. It was exactly 7:11 AM. She had a habit of timing events and actions to the minute so that later she would be able to reconstruct exactly how she had run the investigation. She was quite fanatical about time. Experience had taught her that a couple of minutes could make a huge difference for an alibi to work out. That is why she was wearing a brutally expensive Seiko Astron watch, which was too big for her wrist, but which synchronized its time everywhere in the world using a GPS signal. It was the ultimate watch for accuracy.

  She took out he warrant card to ready herself and rang the bell.

  *

  She was just about to ring the bell again when the dark blue Edwardian style door was opened and an attractive woman with a nice tan, probably in her early forties, appeared, with a frown on her face.

  “Mrs Josephine Devos?”

  “Yes.”

  Ianthe and Ben showed their warrant cards to her.

  “I am Detective Inspector Ianthe Seymour from Sussex Police and this is my colleague Detective Sergeant William Armstrong. May we have a word with you inside please?”

  Mrs. Devos paled visibly.

  “Oh no. Did Bert have an accident? Is everything all right with him? Where is he? I keep telling him he drives too fast!”

  “It would really be best if we can do this inside, ma’am,” Ianthe said assertively.

  Mrs. Devos stood aside to let them in and showed them into a very modern, recently renovated lounge. Ianthe and Ben sat down on the couch with their back to the window, while Mrs Devos settled for an extremely uncomfortable looking one-seater.

  “Mrs. Devos, I’m afraid we bring bad news. Your husband, Mr. Bert Devos, has met with an unfortunate misadventure and has passed away.” Ianthe knew it was best to be direct in these cases. Not only was it better for those that had to take in the news, but it also made it possible as well to gauge their reaction. Was there genuine surprise, even shock? Or not. Was their grief? Or was the news welcome? People were also most responsive to questions at this moment before they had had the time to really absorb the news and started to think about what to say and perhaps what not to say.

  But surprise and shock were obvious with Mrs Devos. Both her hands flew to her face, and she shook her head.

  “I can’t believe it. Are you sure? Did he have a car crash?”

  “Mr Devos was found dead this morning on his boat in Brighton Marina.”

  “On Polaris? But what happened? Did he suffer a heart attack?”

  “We don’t know yet for sure what caused his death, ma’am. The doctor will sort that out later today. You did know that he was on his boat, right?”

  “Yes, certainly. He had left here late last night as he had received some sort of alarm message from the boat’s security system.”

  “Do you remember what time it was?”

  “Just before midnight. We were about to go to bed.”

  “And he didn’t call you or message you after that?”

  “No, I went to bed straightaway after he had left. He had told me he might stay the night on the boat to sort out the alarm in the morning. Let me see if he messaged me…”

  She got up, went to a designer side-table to pick up her iPhone X and came back.

  “No. No messages at all.”

  “It was a Monday evening last night,” Ben mentioned. “Did he often stay on the boat during the work week, ma’am?”

  “Please call me Josephine. Bert’s office is in Reading, but he can work remotely most of the time. He tells me for his job it doesn’t really matter where he is in the world.”

  “May I ask what Bert’s job was?” Ben added.

  “He works …. Worked for Nokia in a sales function,” Josephine answered rather vaguely. “To be honest I don’t have a particularly good idea what exactly it is he does. He hardly ever spoke about his job. He was also gone quite often on business trips. He got promoted or so almost two years ago and started to have to spend quite a lot of time abroad. Short trips mostly. One or two nights. France, I think. Not too sure though.”

  “The promotion paid for the boat, I presume?” Ianthe added.

  “Bert bought Polaris right after his promotion, yes. It was a second hand, ten-year old boat that was a bargain in his opinion,” she smiled sadly. “He got a raise and quite a large sales incentive package. Then about a year ago we were able to pay the deposit on this house. Mind you, the house is mortgaged of course. We were lucky. He used Polaris a lot as his office as they have excellent Wi-Fi connections down at the Marina, or so he told me. It was often quieter than here, with the children and visitors and all.”

  “A Police Constable from family liaisons will be here soon to stay with you and help you with the practicalities. We will also need you to go down to Brighton sometime this afternoon to formally identify Bert, I’m afraid. Is there anywhere you would like to go, family member to stay with?”

  “Right … right,” she answered. “But I won’t leave here. The children will be back from school tonight.”

  “You have small children, Josephine, you and Bert?”

  “Not that small any longer,” she smiled sadly. “Our oldest daughter is doing a BA at Sussex Uni and our son attends Brighton College. You just missed them actually. They usually leave at seven.”

  They could hear the bell ring.

  “That must be our PC from family liaison. She will stay with you and drive you to Brighton for the formal identification this afternoon. Anyway, that is quite enough for now. Thank you very much for your time and we are terribly sorry for your loss. We will most definitely keep you updated.”

  They let the woman PC in and briefed her on what was going on, then stepped outside.

  “What do you think, boss?”, Ben asked as they were walking to her car.

  “Well the shock was genuine all right. Whatever it is, I don’t think she has anything to do with it. I am concerned about the obvious display of wealth th
ough. Did you notice the furniture and stuff?”

  “Yes, all brand-new designer items. That and the house, the cars and the boat. Brighton College where their son studies is not exactly cheap either.”

  “Quite. There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. Perhaps he just got lucky in his job or won the lottery. But I agree it seems like a lot.”

  Ianthe’s phone started ringing. She picked up and listened intently, giving short answers. When she put it in her jacket again, she turned to Ben with a smile.

  “That was Astrid. She’s actually able to fit us in at 10 AM already. We can make that easily I would say.”

  “Even with the speed at which you are driving, granny!” he agreed. “Maybe we can go have coffee first?”

  “I wouldn’t say no to that. There’s a Starbucks at Brighton Uni that we will pass,” she said while Ben was folding himself in two again to get into her car.

  CHAPTER 5

  At exactly 10 AM Ianthe drove her Audi through the iron gates of the city mortuary between Gladstone Place and Newmarket Road. They went past the chapel of rest, where families could view the deceased by appointment, and parked in the lot behind the mortuary, then got out and made their way to the main building where the post-mortem examination would take place. A soft drizzle created an appropriately gloomy atmosphere. No one ever enjoyed coming here except, perhaps, the morticians who worked here. Ianthe had had to visit several times already to attend a post-mortem examination and had often wondered what it would be like to work in such a depressing environment. Not every dead person was taken here, of course. Only sudden and unexpected, natural or unnatural deaths that required to be reported to the Coroner would end up at the mortuary, often for a forensic or high-risk post-mortem. The mortuary staff would collect the bodies in their ominous black vans in close cooperation with Sussex Police and bring them here where the assigned pathologist would examine them. You would be forgiven to think that the people employed here would always be grave and serious like undertakers. But Ianthe knew nothing could be further from the truth. The current Senior Anatomical Pathology Technician, aka the Chief Mortician, Nathan Greystone, was a good friend of hers. One of the regulars Tony and she frequented when they had just come to live in Brighton. He had proven himself to be a party animal and a well-known character on the famous Brighton night scene. He always enjoyed shocking people with his chosen profession. After a couple of cosmopolitans, you could see people’s eyes pop when he announced in his daily job he enjoyed working with gruesome deaths. He was also very gay.