by Peter James
‘Do we know where this email’s come from?’
‘I don’t, sir, no. I’m not an expert in these things. Perhaps someone from the High Tech Crime Unit could tell us.’
Grace stared at the cartoon again, and a chill rippled through him. Beneath its childlike simplicity, there was something deeply sinister about it. He hit the command to print the email and attachment.
As the printer chuntered into noisy action he asked, ‘Do we know if they’ve set off yet?’
‘Ms Westwood says she tried phoning her parents, knowing they were making an early start. She got a very crackly signal, and briefly heard her mother’s voice saying they were going out of phone range.’
‘So they’re at sea?’
‘Sounds like it, sir.’
Grace thought for a moment. ‘How long will they be at sea for?’
‘Ms Westwood tells me, depending on whether they are using just wind or motor-sailing, about six hours.’
Grace made a mental note about Spofford’s efficiency. The constable was sharp and smart. A possible future member of his team. ‘What’s the name of the yacht?’
‘Red Margot, sir. Named after the two daughters. I understand her father’s rather seriously into wine.’
Yes, and possibly into history, Grace nearly said grimly. ‘We can’t run the risk of anything happening. We need to get them off the boat right away. Does Ms Westwood have any means of communication with them?’
‘They have ship-to-shore radio on board, she told me. But they’re not necessarily going to be listening to it.’
Roy Grace had gone on a flotilla sailing holiday with Sandy, around the Greek islands, many years back. From memory, the radio would be down in the cabin. If you were up on deck, you would never hear it – and that was assuming it was even switched on. He was feeling panicky. He stared at the cartoon again. Shit. If it was for real, how long did they have? Minutes? Hours? If it wasn’t already too late.
He sprinted along the corridor, entered MIR-1, apologizing to Glenn for interrupting, and thrust the printout at Ray Packham. ‘Drop everything you’re doing and see if you can find out where this was sent from.’ Then he turned to his team. ‘Does anyone have any ocean sailing experience?’
Dave Green, the Crime Scene Manager, said, ‘Superintendent Nick Sloan does – he has a yacht master’s certificate.’
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s gone to Serious and Organized Crime in London.’
‘Try to get hold of him and put him through to me. This is an emergency.’
Asking Glenn to come with him, Grace hurried back to his office, briefing him on the way, and picked up his landline phone, put it on loudspeaker, and dialled Inspector Andy Kille, the duty Ops-1 Controller in the Haywards Heath Control Room.
He quickly apprised Kille of the situation. ‘We need to find that boat, fast, and get them off it, Andy. They must have a life raft or dinghy – we’ve either got to get them into that or airlift them off. Is NPAS 15 available?’
The National Police Air Service helicopter that served Sussex was based at Redhill, having been recently moved from Shoreham.
‘It would take them twenty-five minutes to get here, sir,’ Kille replied. ‘That’s if they are available. I think we’d be better off using the Coastguard – their helicopter’s down in Lee-on-Solent; they’d be faster and would have winching facilities to get them off the boat. And they’d probably be better able to find them, too. There’s a low cloud ceiling over the Channel at the moment, making visibility poor.’
‘Okay, get them up.’
‘How much information do we have on Red Margot’s whereabouts, sir?’
‘Very little.’
‘Do we have a description of the yacht?’
‘One moment.’ Grace covered the mouthpiece and turned to Glenn. ‘Get Ms Westwood on the line. We need a full description of the boat and the numbers on the sails. It’s best you ring because she knows you.’
Branson nodded.
‘I’ll get you that in a few minutes.’
‘Okay, good,’ Kille said. ‘I ran an operation last year trying to track a boat suspected of carrying drugs. The UK Border Agency Maritime Division were very helpful. I dealt with their Commander, James Hodge. I’ll give you their number.’
‘Okay, you get the Coastguard moving and I’ll come back to you.’
Grace wrote the number down, hung up, told Glenn to pull up a map of the south coast from Chichester Harbour to Brighton Marina on the computer screen, and then dialled the number.
It took several minutes before James Hodge came on the line, while Grace anxiously drummed on his desk, staring at the map that was now on the screen in front of him. Hodge was a quietly efficient-sounding man. ‘How can I assist?’ he asked.
‘We urgently need to locate a thirty-two-foot yacht sailing between Chichester Harbour and Brighton Marina, with two persons on board who may be in imminent danger from a bomb on the vessel, and get them off. Can you assist?’
‘How much information do you have on its whereabouts?’
‘Only what I’ve told you. I would not imagine it’s been at sea very long.’
‘Vessels over three hundred tons at sea, anywhere in the world, have to carry and keep switched on at all times their AIS – automatic identification system. Those under that weight – which is what this yacht would be – sometimes carry AIS, but it would be unusual for them to leave it on in the daytime, except in fog, because of the drain on the batteries. I guess you’ve no way of knowing if it’s fitted or not?’
‘I don’t.’
Hodge thought for some moments. ‘Sailing from Chichester to Brighton, they would normally take the Looe Channel, about two miles offshore – unless they’re attempting to evade detection.’
‘I don’t think they would have any reason to do that. They’re a respectable retired couple.’
‘I’ll see if Shoreham Harbour or Brighton Marina breakwater could confirm its track. In the current wind conditions, the yacht as you describe would be travelling between five and six knots. Do we know when they set off?’
‘Our best guess would be an hour or so ago,’ Grace replied.
‘It should be detectable on radar. There’s a low cloud ceiling today which is not helpful for a helicopter search. But it sounds as if we could narrow the whereabouts of the yacht down to a few miles. How much time do we have?’
‘None,’ Grace said emphatically.
His office phone rang. It was Dave Green, telling him Superintendent Sloan was on a boat somewhere in the Atlantic, and unreachable until he radioed in.
Grace stared back at the cartoon. He was feeling helpless, he realized. Finding a small yacht in the Channel with poor visibility was not going to be straightforward. Please God they had AIS and had it switched on.
If it wasn’t already too late.
His phone rang. It was Inspector Kille, telling him that the Coastguard helicopter was up and would be over Chichester Harbour mouth within ten minutes. It would then track east along the Looe Channel, below the cloud ceiling. A second helicopter would be along in twenty minutes, and two Coastguard vessels were heading to the area at full speed, but the closest would still be up to an hour.
‘An hour?’ Grace said.
‘Hopefully the helicopter will find them well before then.’
‘I’ve also called out RN EOD,’ Kille said. ‘Royal Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal,’ he added. ‘If we rescue the people from the boat, we could be leaving an unattended drifting bomb.’
If they’re not blown to smithereens already, Grace thought, but did not say.
He had a sick feeling of dread in his stomach.
62
Thursday, 31 October
Red arrived at her office shortly after 9 a.m. for an urgent meeting she needed to attend. She was worried out of her wits about her parents. PC Spofford had assured her before she left home that he would keep her updated on the search for their yacht.
But his news that the craft, a potential floating bomb in the narrow shipping lanes of the Channel, was causing a major alert did nothing to cheer her. The Navy, in addition to the Coastguard, were carrying out an air search, and a warning had gone out to all shipping in the vicinity to keep well clear of the vessel if sighted. All efforts to contact them by radio had so far failed.
Her parents were on that boat. They might irritate her at times, but she loved them dearly, and was far closer to them than she was to her sister. They were, effectively, all she had in the world. And now they were on board a floating bomb – if indeed they were still alive – and unaware.
Shit. She felt a wrench in her heart. This was all her fault. She’d brought this monster into her family, and he was now destroying them. If only she’d never placed that damned advertisement. If only she had listened to her mother sooner, and never let the relationship with Bryce get as far as it had. Rain lashed the pavement outside. So much for the forecast being good for their sail, she thought, watching an old lady with a wheeled shopping cart, encased in a see-through plastic mac, head bowed beneath a red umbrella, walking grimly past.
You sick bloody bastard, Bryce, she thought to herself as she peeled off her coat and sat down at her desk. She had a stack of particulars on new instructions to mail out to clients, and she had an appointment to go out later this morning to measure up a new property, a small flat in Poet’s Corner that was coming on the market. Two viewings this afternoon. But she was in no mood to do anything. She just wanted to sit and wait for her phone to ring. For news from Constable Spofford.
As soon as she was out of the meeting, she logged on and checked her email, scanning through and deleting the endless stream of spam that, as ever, had got through the company’s filters and checking for anything that might be from Bryce. To her small relief, there was nothing from him. But really all she could think about was her parents.
Her parents. Her lovely mum and sweet old dad. A hazard to shipping? Just by doing what they loved. Enjoying their retirement.
A floating bomb?
Suddenly, she rushed out of the room, into the ladies’ toilet, pushed the door shut, shoved up the seat, and vomited violently into the bowl. Then she stood up, rinsed out her mouth in the basin, splashed cold water on her face, dried it, then headed back to her desk and rummaged in her bag for some chewing gum. As she did so, her mobile phone rang.
‘Yes?’ she answered instantly, and almost breathlessly.
It was Constable Spofford, and he was sounding sombre. ‘Red, I’ve just heard from DI Branson that your parents’ yacht has been found and its identity confirmed.’
‘Fantastic!’ she said, relief washing through her.
‘Well,’ he said, not sounding as if he shared any of her enthusiasm, ‘I’m afraid there’s a problem.’
63
Thursday, 31 October
The Strawberry Fields bed and breakfast was a narrow, bow-fronted Regency building in a terraced square, with communal gardens in the centre, off the Kemp Town seafront. There was a sign beside the bright red front door bearing a picture of a large strawberry, and inside the theme of vivid red and white ran through the communal areas and each of the small, elegant bedrooms.
Most of the guests were overnighters or weekenders. Either discerning tourists on a budget, who wanted something a cut above the traditional seaside bed and breakfast joint, or lovers down in Brighton for a romantic – and frequently illicit – night; there was also a regular stream of honeymoon couples. But there were a few regulars and a handful of long-stay guests, mostly business people, and these were popular with the owners, Jeremy Ogden and Sharon Callaghan, particularly the ones who remained during the thin winter months. And the longest-stay guest of all, the reclusive Paul Millet, had been there for over four months.
Mr Millet – he kept things on a strictly formal basis – came and went at all hours. Sometimes he stayed in his room for days without emerging. On other occasions he would be away for days, and sometimes weeks. But he was punctilious about his payments – always a month in advance. Neither of the owners, nor the Strawberry Fields manager, knew anything about their mysterious but pleasant-natured guest, other than what they saw. They saw a good-looking man in his late thirties, tall, with short black gelled hair, who could have passed as George Clooney’s younger brother. He dressed expensively, greeted any of them with a big smile, displaying flawless white teeth, but never engaged in any conversation. And unlike some of their other single guests, to their knowledge, he had never brought anyone home for a night. One thing was for sure, he was obsessively tidy, making his own bed and washing up his mug and glass each day.
They assumed he was conducting business of some kind in the town – whether legitimate or otherwise, they had no idea, but so long as he continued to be polite, to keep his room immaculately tidy, and to pay, they were not unduly concerned. Brighton was Brighton. They’d seen it all in the years they’d owned this place and, to date, he’d done nothing to alarm them.
He was here today, closeted silently in his room, as normal.
Paul Millet sat at the small desk, the horizontal slats of the Venetian blind making him invisible to anyone outside. But from behind them, he had a clear view across the lawn in the centre of the square and down towards the grey water of the English Channel.
Red’s parents were on that yacht. Mr and Mrs Westwood. Jeremy and Camilla. Boom!
He grinned. Stand on the riverbank for long enough and the bodies of all your enemies will float past. Oh yes, Sun Tzu, that old Chinese warrior, knew a thing or two. Well, this wasn’t exactly a riverbank but it was the next best thing.
Boom!
He grinned, then peered out and down through the slats again. Checking the street directly below him, he had a clear view of anyone who might enter the front door. He had his escape route planned months ago, the day he had first arrived and gone exploring. Up the back staircase, out through the roof hatch, and down the fire escape to the rear of the building.
On the wooden table to his right was a cute little vanity suitcase, printed with strawberries, the lid open, the interior containing two mugs with cupcakes as a motif, an assortment of teabags and coffee sachets, sugar, sweeteners. It was 9.30 a.m. He stood up, filled the jug kettle and then switched it on. As it heated up, he sat back at the desk and opened an email that had just come in from the private detective agency he had engaged. It had been necessary to do this, because there was too much going on now for him to keep track of it all. And he did not want to miss a thing.
No way. Not on such a glorious day as this! It might be overcast outside today, but not in his heart! Today his heart was filled with sunshine. And hang the cost of the agency. What did money matter? In these last few days of his life? Hell, you couldn’t take it with you, so you might as well spend, spend, spend. Have a good time. Enjoy!
Boom!
08.33: Subject leaves property on foot and turns left up Westbourne Terrace towards New Church Road.
08.41: Subject turns right, east, onto New Church Road, south side.
08.53: Subject crosses road and enters Tesco superstore. Purchases a tuna sandwich and an apple, paying £4.10 in cash.
09.03: Subject crosses road and enters offices of estate agents Mishon Mackay.
Paul Millet smiled. Just an ordinary day, babe. But not so ordinary, hey?
He listened, through his headset, hearing the anxiety in her voice. And he liked that. Oh yes, he liked that a lot!
‘A problem?’ he heard Red ask.
‘A Coastguard helicopter has made radio contact with your parents.’
‘They’re okay? They’re safe?’
‘We’ve located them, Red, but we have a problem getting them off the boat. Because of the risk of an explosion, the helicopter cannot get permission to hover overhead to lower a winch. They need your parents to abandon the boat either in a life raft, or to jump overboard and swim clear, then they can winch them to safety. So far they’re refusing to
do either. They are not sure whether your parents are being stubborn or are just too scared.’
‘My mother’s always been scared of water – particularly the sea,’ Red replied. ‘Shit.’
‘But she sails?’ Spofford said.
‘Because my dad loves it, she goes along with it. She always has done.’
‘Red,’ Spofford said, his voice deadly serious. ‘They might die if they stay on the boat. Would she listen to you?’
Red was silent, trying to imagine the scenario. Her parents on the yacht, the helicopter hovering close by. ‘She’s going to bloody have to,’ she said.
Moments later, through a crackly ship-to-shore radio link, Paul Millet heard her mother’s hateful voice. He grinned again.
Boom!
64
Thursday, 31 October
She paid the taxi driver the fare from Heathrow Airport, gave him a generous tip, and climbed out onto the pavement, followed by her ten-year-old son who was neatly dressed in a herringbone overcoat. The driver removed her large overnight bag and her son’s backpack from the boot, carried them to the foot of the steps up to the front door, and asked her if she needed help up the steps with them. But she told him she was fine, and he drove off.
In truth, she needed some moments to adjust to being back here. She breathed in the smell of the sea air, and so many memories flooded in. She felt a tug inside her heart. Her son pulled on her arm. ‘Mama!’ He pointed at a seagull hovering only yards above them. She smiled distantly, then closed her eyes, listening to the cry of the gull and the roar of the traffic.
