Dead in the Water

by Wilfred Jules

  “So, there is no way someone can come in by sea unnoticed and slip away unseen.”

  “Nope. Unless of course they come in without anyone here noticing and sail off again before there is anyone here. But what would be the point in that as they would not be able to use any of the facilities. Of course, except if they come in for an overnight stay just to escape storm conditions or so. Which is fine by us. That’s a service that every port or marina offers to seafarers.”

  “That’s very instructive,” Ianthe said. “But if you wanted to know if someone had come in during the night for such a reason, would it be possible for you to find out who that had been?”

  “There is CCTV at the harbour entrance actually. On that we can see which ships have come in and which go out.”

  “Have you provided us with those tapes yet?”

  “I don’t think so. No one thought of asking us I guess, and we didn’t think of offering either, I’m afraid.”

  “All right. Can you please send them over asap?”

  Promising to do that immediately, Theo Griffiths rang off.

  “One last thing,” Ianthe said. “Mr Devos chose to park his car on the parking lot of the ASDA. As a boat owner though I believe he would have access to the East parking lot, which is much closer to Polaris. Any thoughts about why he would have done that?”

  “That’s easy,” Moira Kelly answered. “There is some work being done on the East parking lot entrance and it is currently closed at night. He could have parked in the West one rather than in the ASDA parking lot, I guess, but most people I know tend to avoid that place at night. Too many dark and smelly corners I’m afraid. Besides, the lot of the ASDA is almost as close to the jetties.”

  Moira Kelly’s handheld VHF burst into life with a call in very accentuated English from the boat from France she was expecting. She waved to Ianthe in apology as she replied to the caller, while Ianthe made her way out and started to walk back to her car.

  It made sense that the killer had come in from the sea, she thought. In particular if the murder was related to trafficking narcotics over sea. He or she could then easily have generated the alarm on Polaris and laid in waiting for Bert Devos to appear, kill him and sail out again. She should have thought of that one earlier. It was six past eight, she saw. Time to go home.

  *

  At seven twenty pm DI Vik Gorti lowered his car window and pushed the bell button. There was no sound and no immediate reaction, but he knew that was normal and he was being scrutinized by the security cameras on top of the gatepost. After about fifteen seconds the cast iron gates of the secluded mansion on Whitdean Road started to open. He waited until they were fully open, then steered his car up the drive that was lined with elm trees. In his rear-view mirror he saw the gates close again. He did not see anyone but knew he continued to be watched.

  The drive opened up to a parking lot in front of a mock Tudor villa. He parked his Vauxhall Corsa next to a sparkling charcoal Bentley Mulsanne and got out. Enviously he looked at the cars in the lot. Next to the Bentley sat a navy-blue Audi A8 and a maroon Range Rover Velar. His lime coloured Corsa was the ugly duckling in the row. The house was magnificent as well. There were two floors visible, but Vik knew that the owner at enormous cost had had two subterranean floors constructed which could not be noticed from the outside. Whitdean Road was home to some of the most expensive places in Brighton, which could compete with London prices, and this villa even before the additional work done had already been one in the top segment. But then the business the owner was in was supposed to be very lucrative. Ricky Rowlands’ narcotics territory was assumed to cover Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Kent. He basically controlled all traffic coming in through the main ports of Portsmouth, Southampton and Dover. His organization’s specialty was moving the drugs that came in by container mainly from South America to the narcotic barons that actually had ordered them in Colombia. He did that by bribing workers at the container ports to unload the drugs at night and put them in other containers, or by simply swapping container numbers, or having custom officers look the other way. As far as Vik knew he stayed away from actually supplying drugs himself to end-users. He was just an expert at playing the middleman role. And of course, he knew everyone in the trade. He had attended Brighton College together with Vik and actually had been his neighbour in class for almost six years. Vik being a bright but not a very diligent student had saved Ricky’s arse many times over by helping with or simply doing his homework for him. When there were tests to be done, they had even figured out a complicated sign language to communicate without alerting the teachers. They had never lost touch even though they had gone vastly different ways. When Vik had received his law degree, Ricky had thrown a party for him that was attended by the best and finest of the Brighton underworld. Ricky had of course encouraged Vik to join Sussex police and his ascent through the ranks had partially been made possible by Ricky throwing him a bone now and then, tipping him off about a smaller shipment that he could afford to lose. In lieu Vik told Ricky about the ins and outs of Sussex police, being careful however never to give him information that could impact an ongoing investigation and that could potentially be traced back to him. Ricky respected that and never tried to probe further when Vik made it obvious he did not want to offer more information. Even though he was often tempted to do exactly that, envious of the lavish lifestyle of his former schoolmate. No one in the force knew of their connection and Vik intended to keep it that way.

  Vik walked up the granite steps to the porch where the reinforced oak door, flanked by two black marble hunched lions, opened and he was met by a tall young man with a blonde crew cut.

  “Good afternoon, inspector. Mr Rowlands is in his office. I will take you there.”

  Vik nodded back and they proceeded across the marble tiles towards the elevator at the back. Vik could hear the laughter of young children somewhere in the house. Ricky had two children, a boy and a girl, he knew, with his first wife whom he had recently divorced. When they were inside the elevator. His guide pressed the minus two button. The doors closed and the elevator descended quietly into the bowel of the house. At the bottom the elevator doors opened into a brightly lit reception area. Two man mountains, impeccably dressed in dark suits and not making any attempt at hiding their handguns in their shoulder holsters were waiting for them and waved them through. They went left down a carpeted corridor to a double cherrywood door. The young man knocked politely and opened the door, not waiting for a response. He stood aside and let Vik pass while he remained outside and closed the door beside him. Vik found himself in a spacious office that was sparsely decorated. A long teak conference table in the middle with twelve chrome chairs around it took up much of the space. At the far end there was a big equally mahogany desk behind which Ricky Rowlands was sitting. Vik knew that Ricky had created this underground office with the express intent to make it impossible for anyone to eavesdrop on his conversations. The room was totally soundproof and electronic proof. He did not look at his phone because he knew already there would not be a signal. Communication was only possible through Ricky’s secure network. Electronic signal blockers were operational all the time. And every night the room was swooped for bugs. Ricky employed a couple of former MI5 officers to secure the premises. As soon as Vik entered the room, Ricky rose and came to meet him, hand outstretched and with a smile on his face.

  “An unexpected pleasure, Vik. Business or social?”

  “A bit of both I guess, Ricky. Always good to see you.”

  Ricky led Vik to a small sitting area with three Chesterfields around a table where a crystal carafe and two glasses were waiting for them. Without asking for permission, Ricky poured two glasses of whisky, adding one cube of ice to each of them.

  “Forty-year-old Macallan,” Ricky said while he handed Vik one glass.

  Vik nodded appreciatively and tasted.

  “Excellent taste as always, Ricky.”

  They both sat back in their chairs.r />
  “What can I do for you today, Vik,” Ricky asked.

  Vik gave him a quick summary of Operation Blackbird. At the end he said: “So, basically, we want to know if Bert Devos was involved in narcotics trafficking and if he may have crossed someone else in the business badly enough to get him killed. And if Brandon Nicholson has anything to do with that.”

  Ricky looked pensively at him.

  “Bert Devos from Lewes, huh?”

  “You know the name?”

  “I do know that name, Vik. But not quite in a professional way, you could say.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, you are putting me in a bit of an awkward situation here. But I guess there is no harm in telling you. I had a bit of a fling with his wife Josephine.”

  “Josephine Devos? And you? She is quite a bit older than you are, isn’t she?!”

  “What about it?” Ricky answered defensively. “She’s only a few years older than us and I found her looking much younger than her age. And she was fun to be with. I met her at a New Year’s Eve event in the Metropole Hilton a few years ago and we hit it off immediately. She can be very witty you know. And she was bored. She is rather a lot younger than her husband, you know. She told me he just wanted to spend time on his boat where she wasn’t much of a sailor. And you know my marriage was already on the rocks at that time. So, we started to spend time together. At first it was very innocent. We went to visit things together I had never had the time or interest in before, like Winchester Cathedral – no need to look so surprised at me, Vik. Or, when Bert was away on a business trip, I took her to London to see a musical. Bert hated musicals it seems. One thing led to the next, obviously, and we started to meet rather frequently in the presidential suite of the Grand. They can be very discrete there. That went on for two years or so. Anyway, we stopped seeing each other a couple of weeks ago. She thought her daughter had noticed something was going on and she didn’t want to risk her marriage.”

  “And you never involved her in your business?”

  Ricky shook his head.

  “My import export business?” he laughed. And then seriously again:

  “Nope. Never even talked to her about it. That was the nice thing with our affair. We were able to talk about normal subjects, like politics and art, or the children. It gave me a most welcome break from my daily life. Of course, she knew I was very well off, but I doubt she ever realized the exact nature of my import export business. I never brought her here either. She was rather naïve in a very endearing way you know.”

  He smiled at the recollection.

  “And Bert Devos?” he continued. “It’s possible I guess he was setting himself up in the business. But from what Josephine told me about him I would be surprised if it was true. Although it would make a certain sense if he were involved, I do have to admit.”

  “In what way?”

  “It’s evident someone has been trying to open a new corridor for merchandise to come into the country. That’s an annoyance. No one has been able to find out exactly how it’s being done yet. It doesn’t seem to be a major operation right now and it is going straight on the streets here in Brighton, that much I know. Bringing it in through Brighton Marina on a pleasure craft is a possibility of course. You could easily hide a few hundred kilos of merchandise on a yacht. Bert Devos had such a pleasure craft. And the word was that the new guy had links to Holland. But I never made the link with Bert Devos. You know as well as I do that Holland is the centre of the European drug trade. There are lots of Dutch people living in the UK or doing business here, too. And from what you told me he seemed to have a motive if he had lost his job. To some people it sounds like easy money. But if he was involved, he was playing an extremely dangerous game.”

  “How would that have worked in your opinion?”

  Ricky topped up their glasses, added more ice, and leaned back in his Chesterfield again.

  “Well, I am now purely speculating of course,” he said.

  Vik nodded.

  “There are cases where people who have an ocean-going sailing yacht go all the way to South America and pick up a cargo to bring back. You know that every year in November there are literally hundreds of ordinary sailing yachts of all sizes that cross the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean in an organised event called the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. It isn’t a big deal I understand. Even families with children take part. It just takes twenty days or less from the Canary Islands to reach the island of Santa Lucia. They then spend the winter months in the Caribbean and either continue to the Pacific or return to Europe the next spring, after the hurricane season.”

  “I didn’t know you were a keen sailor, Ricky,” Vik interrupted.

  Ricky smiled.

  “Not really. But I had that route professionally investigated. From Santa Lucia it’s only two hundred and forty nautical miles to Isla Margarita, off the Venezuelan coast. In a sailing yacht like Bert Devos’s with good conditions that’s less than forty-eight hours of sailing. In motorboat you could easily do it in a day. Isla Margarita is notoriously lawless. It would be extremely easy to pick up a pre-arranged cargo there. And if you are truly adventurous, you could even sail the additional eight hundred nautical miles to Cartagena in Colombia. But it’s dangerous of course.”

  “The sailing is dangerous?”

  Ricky waved his hand dismissively.

  “No. I understand that is the easy part. What is risky is that you are dealing with some of the most dangerous people on the planet. If you make the right contacts and you store let’s say a ton of coke to bring back to England, and you bring it on the market here directly, you’d make a very handsome profit. But if you’re an amateur, you never know if the people that sold the coke to you would not rat you out to HM Custom officers. You know, to divert attention from more important shipments.”

  Vik knew that only too well.

  “But it would mean that Bert Devos or someone he lent his boat to would have spent a couple of weeks from home on such a trip. Which I don’t think he has,” Vik nodded.

  “There might be more people with yachts involved of course,” Ricky commented. “And Bert Devos could only be a sort of ‘consultant’ given his sailing experience. Or he could be the organizer, since I am told he travelled the world for Nokia. But beside the direct route there is definitely also the much easier possibility that he got his cargo from Europe. The ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam are the biggest entry points for narcotics into Europe. That is not a secret. He could have sailed there, or he could have arranged to pick it up in France, or even in mid-Channel.”

  “Mid-channel?”

  Ricky nodded.

  “Happens a lot that crew drop bags of coke into the sea at pre-arranged locations. Every bag then has an electronic device that allows to track it. Bringing that cargo then to England is not a big deal. There are simply too many miles of unguarded coastline. And a yacht is made mainly from plastic, so almost invisible to radar. Mind you, no one who is already on the scene in the UK would welcome a new competitor. You understand what that could mean,” he finished ominously.

  “And Brandon Nicholson?” Vik asked. “Does that name ring any bells?”

  “Brandon Nicholson is just a bored kid with too much time and money on his hands. He’s a small-time dealer, basically selling some coke to friends for the kick. No way he is involved in such a big operation. I know off him mainly because Josephine mentioned him to me as he was involved with her daughter for a while. I checked him out at her request and told Josephine he was bad news for Helen. I think they broke up soon after that. Helen is a bit of a wild one I believe.”

  “All right, Ricky. The thing is that I will need a statement from you,” Vik said.

  Ricky started to protest immediately but Vik shushed him.

  “It only needs to contain your statement that you had a relationship with Josephine Devos. No need to include any of the details or what you told me about the things that Bert Devos may have be
en involved in. But you better do that before Josephine Devos remembers your affair and contacts us herself. I’m sure you see that.”

  “Would I need to come to the station to do that?”

  “You can if you like, but we can do it right here and now as well. I have a meeting with my new boss tomorrow morning, and I would like to shove it in her face. I assume you do have an alibi for last Tuesday early morning, right?”

  “Absolutely. Best of alibis. I was at a poker game with some buddies from ten pm Monday till three am Tuesday in the bar of the Metropole Hilton. All right, fine. Let’s do that statement now. How is your new boss, by the way?”

  Vik made a face at that question.

  “Better not to ask, buddy. It’s painful. I just wish she’d go away.”

  Ricky Rowlands nodded pensively.

  *

  At ten past eight DC John Ryan left the ASDA Superstore in the Marina and started to walk back to his Harley carrying his purchases. His mum had called to ask him to stop and buy her some ‘Muscat de Beaume de Venise’, the sweet wine she preferred, along with some Roquefort blue cheese and crackers. He had not found either in the shop but had settled instead for a ‘Niepoort’ port wine and some Stilton, both of which he favoured anyway. Fortunately, his purchases fit into his backpack. His forty-eight special did not have a luggage pack as he found that totally destroyed the bike’s lines. From a distance he spotted his boss purposefully crossing the parking lot towards her white Audi. He waved at her, but she was obviously deep in thought and failed to notice him. He watched her climb into the car and setting off. Damn shame he had not checked out a minute earlier, he thought, as he could have asked her to go for a Friday evening pint in the Wetherspoon’s in the Marina. She probably did not drink pints, he corrected himself. She looked more like a white Chardonnay type of person. Or perhaps cider. Nothing fancy no doubt. Probably very down to earth and straightforward, as plain as she presented herself. His mum would like her, too, he was certain. She liked uncomplicated girls who did not fuss too much over their appearance. Not like DS Ghani. What a ‘Christmas tree’ that girl was! In your face ‘have you seen me’. She seemed so certain of her looks and the effect they had on people. John had to admit that no doubt it did work with some men. But it did not do anything for him. He preferred the ‘what you see is what you get’ look of DCI Ianthe Seymour. Such a pity she was with that clown Tony Zanelatto. OMG, he thought. What the hell am I thinking? She’s your superior, boy, and also quite a few years older than you are. Know your place. She would probably laugh out loud if she knew his thoughts.