by Ted Tayler
Silent Terror
(The eighth case from ‘The Freeman Files’ series)
By
Ted Tayler
Copyright © 2020 by Ted Tayler
This ebook is licensed for your enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please buy an additional copy for each recipient.
All rights are reserved. You may not reproduce this work, in part or its entirety, without the express written permission of the author.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Cover design: - www.thecovercollection.com
A Harmsworth House publication 2020
Other books by Ted Tayler
We’d Like To Do A Number Now (2011)
The Final Straw (2013)
A Sting In The Tale (2013)
Unfinished Business (2014)
The Olympus Project (2014)
Gold, Silver, and Bombs (2015)
Conception (2015)
Nothing Is Ever Forever (2015)
In The Lap of The Gods (2016)
The Price of Treachery (2016)
A New Dawn (2017)
Something Wicked Draws Near (2017)
Evil Always Finds A Way (2017)
Revenge Comes in Many Colours (2017)
Three Weeks in September (2018)
A Frequent Peal Of Bells (2018)
Larcombe Manor (2018)
Fatal Decision (2019)
Last Orders (2020)
Pressure Point (2020)
Deadly Formula (2020)
Final Deal (2020)
Barking Mad (2020)
Creature Discomforts (2020)
Where to find him
Website & Blog: – http://tedtayler.co.uk
Facebook Author Page: – https://facebook.com/AuthorTedTayler
Twitter: – https://twitter.com/ted_tayler
Instagram: - https://instagram.com/tedtayler1775
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Table Of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About The Author
PROLOGUE
Wednesday, 27th June 2018
Growing up in Dundee, Lydia Logan’s childhood was a happy one. She always knew she was adopted but didn't give it much thought. Her mother, Eleanor Scott, was eighteen when she gave birth to a seven pounds eleven-ounce daughter. The record for her father showed him merely as a Nigerian sailor from Lagos.
Lydia’s parents agreed to a closed adoption, which meant few details were made available. Her parents hadn't even known her birth mother's name. When Lydia left school at eighteen, she wanted to be an actress and worked several jobs to fund her classes at Drama school in Glasgow.
Lydia spent years badgering the adoption agency and adoption support groups. While she studied, she spent countless hours in libraries searching the internet. Alex Hardy knew it must have been a tough time for both Lydia and her parents. Despite the loving childhood the Logan’s provided, he appreciated Lydia’s desire to meet the man and woman who brought her into the world.
Lydia had stayed in digs in term time in Glasgow while she studied, returning home during the holidays. When she reached twenty-one, she moved out for good. The only way Lydia could continue to finance her studies was to work year-round, even if it was part-time. There was no animosity with her parents. Lydia knew she could give them a ring and her bed would be ready before she’d made the ninety-minute trip back to Dundee.
While she sat in the Mitchell Library searching for a way to find her father, she wondered which occupation might offer the most access to information impossible to unlock online. Lydia hunted for books on forensic psychology and read them to fill in time between internet searches for her father without raising red flags.
Lydia switched her focus to an MSc in Forensic Psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University once she decided this leg of the hunt for her father required a more structured approach.
There were bound to have been pressures on both sides. At the outset, Lydia did not understand why the young Eleanor Scott gave her daughter up for adoption. Was it just the economic impact of caring for a baby alone? The father had disappeared within days of that first meeting, never to be heard from again. Inevitably, he never learned he’d fathered a child. Would Eleanor welcome her daughter getting in touch? If the pair formed a relationship, how would that impact upon the Logan family?
Lydia’s persistence got its reward in time. The adoption agency wrote to tell her she was now entitled to learn her birth name. Eleanor Scott had named her Lisa Marie. Armed with this extra knowledge, Lydia then questioned her motives for wanting to continue the hunt.
What if she contacted Eleanor and her mother didn't want to meet her? When Lydia finally plucked up the courage to make that call to Eleanor, it was through a mediator. Lydia stressed that she wasn't asking for anything from Eleanor but was curious to learn more about her. They talked from time to time on the phone for several months before either was ready to meet in person. When they did meet face-to-face, they found it easier to behave as friends rather than attempt to force an instant bond.
When Alex and Lydia got together, she told him what had happened at that first meeting and the information she gained.
The eighteen-year-old Eleanor Scott worked in a gift shop in George Street, Edinburgh. She started there straight from school. Lydia learned that her father was Chidozie Barre, aged twenty-one, from Yaba, near Lagos.
Chidozie had arrived in the port of Leith two days before he met Eleanor. He was on shore leave for five days and entered the gift shop searching for a memory of Scotland to take home to his mother. The young sailor asked Eleanor to meet him later that evening.
“Chi-Chi, his friends called him,” Eleanor had told Lydia. “He was tall and handsome. His smile lit up the shop. I wasn’t seeing anyone else, so I thought, why not? When I left work, he waited for me outside. His friends had returned to the ship. We walked to the George IV pub, Chi-Chi bought us a drink, and then we went to the cinema. Don’t ask me what was showing, I can’t remember. I told him I needed to get home because my parents didn’t know I was staying in the city after work. He was a gentleman. Chi-Chi walked me to the bus stop, and we met the next evening. I came outside the shop at half-past five, and there he was with a single red rose. We revisited the pub and stayed longer this time. I wasn’t a big drinker, so my head was spinning when we came outside. We went to Princes Street Gardens. That was when it happened. I knew he was leaving the next day and we wouldn’t have another night together. It was the first time for both of us. I caught the last bus home and cried myself to sleep. Not because of what we did, or because we didn’t use protection. It was because I realised that I’d never see him again. My heart sank when I missed that first period. What could I do? I knew his name, but where did he go after he left Leith? What was the name of the ship? It never seemed important to ask. My family didn’t want to know. It would have been bad enough if it had been Geordie McEwan from next door. He’d always kept asking for a date, but I couldn’t stand the sight of him. But when my Dad heard tha
t it was a black man, that was it. I was out the door with my belongings and looking for digs.”
Lydia had asked her mother how she’d coped and why she chose the name, Lisa Marie.
“The gift shop manager was smashing. She had a cousin with a room for rent, and I carried on working behind the counter until I grew too big and had to stop. Giving you a name was the only thing I could do before you got taken away from me. Elvis’s daughter was pregnant at the time, and I saw her name in the newspaper that day. I didn’t think I would ever see you again, but if I looked for a Lisa Marie, how hard could it be?”
Lydia explained to Eleanor how her adoptive parents came to name her Lydia. Not that they didn’t approve of her given name of Lisa Marie, or they wanted to prevent Eleanor from finding her if she came looking. Lydia was her adoptive father’s mother’s name. It was as simple as that.
So, Eleanor and Lydia kept in touch, mostly by phone. After she completed her MSc, Lydia had travelled south for an interview at London Road. She returned to Dundee to visit her parents while she awaited the verdict. They were over the moon when the ACC rang with the news that Wiltshire Police wanted Lydia to start work on April the ninth. Her parents stood on the doorstep with tears in their eyes when Lydia drove away in her red Mini. Lydia was tearful too because all three of them accepted that things would never be the same.
When she stepped from her Dundee home on Thursday, the fifth of April, Lydia had just informed her parents she was now Lydia Logan Barre. She drove south to collect the keys to her new rented accommodation near Chippenham, eager to join the newly formed Crime Review Team on Monday. Little did she know that within a few weeks, one of her teammates would become so important to her.
Lydia took the train to Edinburgh on Thursday the tenth of May and spent the weekend with Eleanor at her place in Craigmillar. Eleanor had lived in that vibrant part of the city for ten years. They spent the time sightseeing and shopping and got on fine.
Lydia didn’t want to spoil the mood. She told Eleanor of her new love, Alex, and how much she enjoyed working with Gus Freeman, even if he criticised her choice of clothing occasionally. As she travelled south on a gruelling train journey on Sunday, she thought about what she hadn’t shared with her mother.
She didn’t tell Eleanor of her attempts to trace her father. Eleanor hadn’t forgotten her first love, but she’d moved on. Lydia planned to continue the search for Chidozie Barre with Alex’s help. Her father might not want to see her. If he did and asked after Eleanor, then that was the right time to ask Eleanor if she wished Chidozie to get in touch. She would leave it to Eleanor to decide.
Lydia and Alex had discussed the next steps they needed to take. They had to find the ship he arrived on, and where it went when it left the Port of Leith. It was something Lydia said she had to do. She couldn’t rest until she found him. It was essential for Lydia to know the man who made her the person she was today.
Alex warned her she wouldn’t find it easy to trace Chidozie through Police records unless he now lived the UK and had committed an offence. Without a valid reason, Lydia couldn’t just log on and start searching. Someone would notice.
Lydia knew that Alex would do everything he could to help her in her quest. She was glad he was with her today to encourage her to keep going but making sure she did nothing illegal in her haste to find answers.
They had driven to London last night and staying in a hotel near Greenwich. The Tube journeys on the Jubilee Line to the National Maritime Museum took them twenty minutes. The person she was talking to was knowledgeable, but the more she listened, the more Lydia realised how tough this task might prove to be.
“How do I trace a ship?” Lydia had asked the Maritime Museum assistant.
“Sometimes the only way to trace a record of a seaman is to trace the records of the ships on which he sailed. You can use the Crew List Index Project website to trace a ship by its name and port of registration. That can help locate merchant seamen in service up to the last decades of the twentieth century.”
“Do the seamen have to be British to appear?” asked Lydia.
“Not necessarily, they recorded seamen serving on British registered vessels, but the men themselves need not have been British to appear in the records. Your father visited Leith in the early Nineties, you say?”
“In late ninety-two, that’s right.”
“It might be better to check the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. That records seamen after 1972. If he was only employed temporarily or was an apprentice, he may not have had a British Seaman’s Identity Card, in which case he’s unlikely to appear in either register.”
“I can still look, though. I want to find my Dad.”
“Access to full details of seamen born less than one hundred years ago may be restricted.”
“The CLIP catalogues are arranged alphabetically in ranges of surnames. The registers are in eight parts according to the nationality or origin of the seamen and other criteria. It allows for more targeted browsing. You can drill down to what’s often referred to as the seaman’s docket book. The docket book will show their date and place of birth, rank, or rating. A list of ships and their official numbers with date and place of engagement. It should highlight whether the engagement was for a Foreign or Home trade voyage. Finally, it will include the date and place of discharge from the ship.”
Lydia left the Help desk and returned to find Alex.
“Any luck?” he asked.
“It’s a shame Gus wants us back at work on Monday,” she sighed. “It’s a far bigger job than I hoped.”
“I’m here to help,” said Alex. “We can make a start between now and Friday. If we have to spend our weekends hunting your Dad, that’s what we’ll do. I know it’s important to you.”
“You’re right,” said Lydia, “I’ve waited twenty-five years to speak to him. Another few weeks won’t make that much difference.”
Armed with the information Lydia gleaned the pair set to work on the National ArcHubs. Hours passed, and when the Museum was closing, they realised they needed to return in the morning.
Despite a few too many drinks in the West End the previous night, Alex and Lydia returned to resume their search by ten the next morning.
“It’s like peeling away the layers of an onion one at a time, isn’t it?” said Lydia.
“You’re not kidding,” said Alex. “What does your Dad’s name mean, anyway, do you know?”
“I looked it up, like an obedient daughter,” said Lydia. “May God fix it and make it good for you.”
“Right,” said Alex, “well, I might have found something. Perhaps he’s fixed it for us. Did you know that refrigerated cargo made up twelve per cent of the goods carried on the seas back in 1992?”
“Before my time,” said Lydia.
“Harsh,” said Alex, “I was at school, but I wasn’t studying economics. Seaborne trade continued to expand despite the downward path of the world economy at the start of the Nineties. One of the major shipping nations back then was Greece, and they remain in the Top Five today. I’ve found a ship they term a Reefer which transports perishable commodities which require temperature-controlled transportation, such as fruit, meat, fish, vegetables, and dairy products.”
“Let me see,” said Lydia.
“Don’t get too excited,” said Alex, “this only gets us part of the way to your father. A Greek ship, sailing under a foreign flag, docked in the Port of Leith between the days your mother mentioned. That reefer was six years old.”
“What does it mean, sailing under a foreign flag?” asked Lydia.
“It’s complicated, and it doesn’t affect the aim of your search. In simple terms, most merchant ships flying a foreign flag belong to foreign owners who wish to avoid the stricter marine regulations imposed by their own countries. A foreign flag can offer easier registration and the ability to use cheaper foreign labour. Furthermore, foreign owners pay no income taxes.”
“What was this ship called?” asked
Lydia.
“It carried an Automatic Identification System, name of CB3 Reefer, for location and identification. They built it in 1986 and was one hundred and thirty-four metres in length, twenty metres wide. Its call sign was 4FKS8.”
“Oh, I hoped it had a romantic name such as Ocean Warrior.”
“I think the day they started making ships that were longer than a football pitch, the romance went out of sailing,” said Alex.
“How many crew members did it have?”
“It depended on the cargo,” said Alex, “but looking at these records, then my guess is twenty-five to thirty.”
“So, we’re certain that Chidozie Barre was in the Port of Leith in October 1992, and was working on this CB3 Reefer?”
“It’s the only ship listed as being there on those specific dates,” said Alex, “So, if the story he gave your mother was correct, then the seamen who visited that gift shop came from that ship.”
“Eleanor said he was a gentleman,” said Lydia. “He wouldn’t have lied to her.”
Alex hoped Lydia was right.
“Does that mean their next port of call was Rotterdam?” asked Lydia, pointing at the record on-screen.
“Edinburgh to Rotterdam represents at least eighteen hours sailing time,” said Alex, “if my maths is correct.”
“Where did it go next?” asked Lydia.
“That will be another search, I’m afraid. There’s no guarantee that your Dad stayed with the ship after Rotterdam. He might have switched to another vessel owned by the same company. I vote we contact the company he worked for on that trip and see if he’s still registered with them. He’s only ten years older than me, at forty-seven. Chidozie should still be in employment somewhere.”
“I looked him up on Facebook,” said Lydia, “as soon as I discovered his name. There’s nobody with that name who fits the age, place of birth, and description that Eleanor gave.”
