Time and Tide

by Peter Grainger

  Terek said, ‘You still use a notebook?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Rather quaint, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I suppose it is, these days. It’s served me pretty well, though.’

  Smith’s response had been level and calm when it might have been defensive, but Terek hadn’t done with the subject; for him, perhaps this was an operational matter of practical significance. He still had his phone in his hand, and he held it up as he spoke again.

  ‘The camera cannot lie.’

  ‘No, sir. But the photographer can.’

  ‘What do you mean? I’ve simply taken a picture of a label.’

  As far as Smith was concerned, this was their first proper conversation, and so, with not a little reluctance, he took his attention away from the dead man and gave it to the living one.

  ‘What I mean is, while the camera makes an accurate record of whatever it’s pointed at, the person who points it is acting subjectively and selectively. There is still a human being involved, and all of us are fallible. Until crimes are investigated by robots, that won’t change. And even then, someone will have to program the things. Mind you, I have sometimes wondered whether we already have robots working at the station – whether they’ve slipped a couple in to see whether we notice, sir.’

  And before he responded, Terek thought, he isn’t smiling. Does he mean me? Is he implying something?

  ‘Of course people are fallible – I see that. But the point is, if we ensure that our methods are sound, then we reduce the impact of the fallibility. Criminal investigation needs to follow the scientific method as far as humanly possible, Smith.’

  There was no immediate answer, and after a moment, Terek added, ‘And my camera has captured this particular evidence as scientifically as possible. Whereas you might inadvertently have made an error when writing down the details of the label.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll bear that in mind.’

  It seemed to be a concession of sorts but the detective inspector apparently took little satisfaction from it. The silence that followed was an awkward one. After a time, Terek held up his phone as a catholic priest sometimes holds up a crucifix and said, ‘If I had a signal, I could Google this maker’s name…’

  Smith was truly grateful for the arrival of the other uniformed constable in the doorway; the ironic opportunities offered by the inspector’s last remark were effectively infinite. The constable told them that the ambulance and the doctor had arrived simultaneously, and asked who would be supervising the removal of the body. He was looking at Smith because he recognised him, but Terek let them both know then that until they heard anything to the contrary, he was the senior investigating officer.

  By the time the body was actually on the way to Kings Lake, one could have tossed a coin to decide whether it was late afternoon or early in the evening. The two detectives sat in the senior investigating officer’s car and watched the ambulance depart, and Smith wondered whether they would follow the vehicle, giving it an unofficial police escort; perhaps Terek was so pleased at having an unidentified corpse that he wouldn’t want to let it out of his sight.

  Instead, they continued to sit in the car and in silence for a little while longer. The small crowd that always forms around a death slowly thinned out, drifting away with its hands in its pockets and the usual passing resolution in its thoughts – that life is short and liable to end unexpectedly, better make the most of it. Janie Cole came out of her uncle’s office, shaded her eyes against the sun in the west and saw the two policemen in the car. After a moment, she turned and began to walk away from the quay and back into the village of Barnham Staithe, and Smith thought, I can remember her when she was no more than a little girl.

  Terek said, ‘Is there a coastguard station? They will be the experts when it comes to currents and tides, won’t they? We’re going to need some official data on all that.’

  ‘Yes, there is, sir. There’s a station and a look-out this side of Sheringham. That’s about a twenty-minute drive from here. But as to expert opinion concerning the local waters, I doubt if anyone knows more about that than Sam Cole.’

  ‘I appreciate that this is your patch. You know these people and they obviously know you…’

  Smith waited without impatience for the inevitable ‘but’.

  ‘But we have here at the very least a suspicious death, and potentially a manslaughter or a murder. I cannot stand up in court in several months’ time and present evidence based on what a local chap told us, particularly as he’s the same man who found the body. We need independent, expert opinion about where the body might have travelled from so that we can begin the back-tracking process.’

  Janie Cole had disappeared from view. Two cars arrived together and parked at the far end of the Staithe; Smith half-expected a photographer and a journalist to emerge but instead it was two elderly couples and their numerous dogs – after much changing of shoes and barking and running around in circles, the party set off along the coastal footpath. A herring gull landed on the quay within a few yards of Terek’s car and regarded the occupants with a yellow, speculative eye but it was the wrong time of day for chips or a piece of a ham sandwich.

  ‘As I say then, sir. It’s about a twenty minute drive if you turn left once you’ve gone back through the village.’

  Smith looked at his watch, the Rolex today, and he saw that Terek had noticed it; he was an oddball and awkward with it, but he was not unobservant.

  Smith added, ‘There should still be someone on duty at this time of the year.’

  Terek started the car, and, as unobtrusively as possible, Smith braced himself for the ride. It looked as if it might be an entertaining few weeks. For one thing, Terek had no idea how he wanted to address his new sergeant, and so thus far there had been no term of address at all; would he settle for ‘Smith’, or ‘DC’ or ‘David’? Maybe it would always just be ‘sergeant’. And for another thing, Terek had no idea of how he wanted to be addressed – the choices might include ‘Sir’, always, or ‘Gov’ or ‘Simon’, but Smith had a suspicion that a nickname wouldn’t take too long to arrive.

  As they left Barnham Staithe behind and took the Sheringham road, Smith reflected that in the rational universe of scientific criminal investigation, these trivial things really should not matter as much as they do.

  Chapter Five

  ‘Serena? Are you still OK to do an extra hour this evening? I know you’re already past your time today.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Good. The body has just arrived. I’m on my way to the mortuary now. I’ll meet you there.’

  Detective Chief Inspector Reeve put down the phone and took a fresh bottle of water from the six-pack underneath her new desk – Alpine Breeze spring water, no doubt processed not far from Swindon – and told herself that the headache she already had because she hadn’t consumed any coffee all day would be worth it in the end. One of a number of resolutions made to coincide with the start of her new job, she had calculated that over a year she had been drinking more than fifteen hundred mugs of coffee at a cost of approximately a thousand pounds, and spending one hundred and twenty five hours doing so. That’s the equivalent of 15.625 work-days a year. As a DCI, she had informed herself, that’s time that could be better spent. And besides, they say it’s bad for your complexion.

  As she left the main building and crossed the courtyard, she thought again about Detective Constable Serena Butler. The young woman’s life outside Kings Lake Central was the subject of much light-hearted speculation still, but how much of that was simply left over from the circumstances under which she had arrived more than a year ago? To suggest that she had arrived under a cloud was a meteorological understatement, to say the least – Serena had more resembled a piece of flotsam washed up after a hurricane. Reeve knew that the senior officer with whom she had been involved had got his career back on track – the same could not be said for the girl. Typical.

  And that was why, of cou
rse, or at least one of the reasons why, DC had drawn Reeve’s attention to her again. He had reminded the DCI how effective she had been undercover when they investigated the disappearance of, and subsequently the murder of, James Bell. She’s streetwise and a smart cookie, Smith had said more than once, but more than that, she’s toughened up Waters in the nicest possible way, and John Murray treats her with respect – what more can you ask of a girl than that?

  Alison Reeve could see Serena Butler waiting for her at the mortuary door. She knew well enough why Smith had reintroduced the topic of her promotion to sergeant; he wanted something underway before his own career came to an end. Mentioning it to the new detective inspector would be somewhere between pointless and inappropriate because anyone in that situation would be wanting to assess their new teams and making up their own minds. And Terek might take Smith’s resignation personally, when he finally heard about it, which would not help DC Butler’s prospects at all.

  ‘Hello, Serena. Thanks again. How much do you know about this one?’

  ‘Only what Chris Waters has told me since he spoke to DC.’

  ‘Nothing’s come up on social media, I hope?’

  ‘Not as of five minutes ago, ma’am.’

  ‘Thank God for that! How much have you had to do with bodies in the past?’

  The tiny pause before the detective constable answered was worthy of Smith himself.

  ‘In any particular sense, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes – dead ones, during the day job.’

  ‘I’ve seen a couple at crime scenes. It’s not a problem for me.’

  Serena had anticipated the direction of the questions correctly.

  Reeve went on, ‘Good. But let’s say that it hasn’t been a problem for you yet. From everything that I’ve been told, this will be a full autopsy, sometime this week. I would like you to be the officer present – do you understand what that involves?’

  She did. As well as being a legal witness to the proceedings, she would be expected to participate, to record the details of it, signing the labels that are attached to the bags containing various body parts and samples; it is a role usually given only to trusted, experienced officers of a rank above that of detective constable.

  ‘Yes I do, ma’am. Thank you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The opportunity?’

  ‘Well, let’s hope you feel the same when you get to the contents of the large bowel…’

  ‘Is DI Terek alright with it, ma’am.’

  ‘Impossible to say – he doesn’t know yet. I did try to reach him but he’s in the no-phone zone. The autopsy will be tomorrow if I have my way, and I don’t want any delays if it is.’

  ‘As long as I’m not pinching one of DC’s favourite jobs.’

  Serena Butler had a smile on her face, and Reeve returned it.

  ‘Strangely, he does spend more time over here than most of us. Has he -’ and then she paused and trod more delicately on the thin ice in front of her – ‘said anything to you?’

  ‘About this job, ma’am? I haven’t spoken to him since he went up to the coast.’

  ‘No, I meant more generally. He hasn’t said anything to you about work?’

  A smart cookie, remember – that’s what Smith himself had said. Serena’s grey eyes had narrowed a little as she examined the word ‘work’ – was the DCI referring to her own change of situation, the new DI or to Serena’s own possible promotion at Kings Lake?

  ‘No, ma’am. Other than his usual comments about how we all spend too much time on the computers. His latest theory is that we’ll all be fitted with receivers so that we can be operated wirelessly from a central control room.’

  ‘Which will be fine until we have to send people onto the north coast, I suppose. Alright then, let’s go in and introduce ourselves. If this is happening tomorrow morning, I don’t want that to be your first visit. Ready?’

  As the two of them climbed the steps up to the Sheringham Coastguard and Look-out Station, Smith heard the ping of a mobile phone reconnecting itself to a network. DI Terek took out his phone, stopped and turned on the step above, and said to Smith, ‘At last. One of those few places you were talking about, no doubt.’

  Terek waited and watched for a few more seconds but there was no sudden cascade of delayed texts and missed calls information. Ahead of them, the station’s door was open to let in some of the evening sea breeze, and Smith could hear a familiar voice talking into another phone or maybe the inshore radio; he had wondered whether he would know who happened to be on duty this evening.

  Malcolm Partington, lieutenant-commander, R. N., retired, swung around in the swivel chair when he heard Terek’s knock on the door. He waved them in but continued the conversation with the radio handset – it was about the high pressure system over Europe that wouldn’t break down for several days yet and whether someone would have favourable enough winds to make a crossing to Amsterdam by sail. The coastguard’s opinion seemed to be that they might if they had a week to spare.

  There was a cosiness and a conciseness about the room that told those who understood that it was occupied solely by men who had spent their lives at sea. No space was wasted and it contained no object that at some point would not be needed to navigate the safe return of those in peril. It was a purposeful room, then, and yet also, if need be, a temporary home; in a small side-room Smith noted the two folding camp-beds, a stack of blankets, various utensils, water containers and the cooking equipment needed to produce hot drinks and soup. If and when the lights went out in a winter storm, the coastguards would be remaining at their post.

  When the radio conversation was over, Partington stood up to welcome them. Another man of the sea, another beard – Smith felt his own twelve-hour stubble and wondered whether he should grow one if he bought that dinghy. Sheila would never have approved, of course, but he didn’t know Jo’s thoughts on the matter.

  Terek introduced himself and Smith, and Partington raised a quizzical eyebrow and said nothing to indicate that he knew either of them – this was clearly official business. Terek went on then to explain the nature of that business and the purpose of their visit. To be fair, he did so with clarity and economy, ending not with a formal request for the coastguard’s assistance but a simple question about whether he might be able to help; if the man’s body had been in the water for two days, how far might it have travelled and from where?

  Malcolm Partington had beautiful maritime charts. They were pinned onto both sidewalls of the look-out post, quite low down so that they were easily viewed from the swivel chair. He sat back in it and examined the chart to the right of his desk, with the two detectives standing close behind.

  ‘Generally speaking, the sea moves everything from east to west along the section of coast you’re talking about. Theoretically, everything ends up in The Wash except that when they get there things tend to go round in circles and some objects can then travel up the Lincolnshire coast and back across. But your body couldn’t have come anywhere near as far as that.’

  The coastguard picked up a wooden pointer that resembled a conductor’s baton, so that he could indicate his ideas with more precision.

  ‘This is where we are, and this is Barnham Staithe. All these lines in the water are underwater contours showing the depth – a new line for every one metre increase or decrease. Anyway, you don’t need to know all that. As I said, you need to be thinking east to west. With the tides and winds as they are, I’d say that if you put the body in the water just over there,’ and now he half stood and pointed with the baton out of the observation window, ‘it wouldn’t reach Barnham Staithe in two days.’

  From the window, they could see a stretch of shingle beach dropping quite steeply into the quiet, grey-green sea. It was a tranquil scene and a summer-visiting stranger might wonder why a coastguard look-out was needed here; in a January blow they might wonder why there were not more of them.

  Terek said, ‘What about three days?’

  �
��My answer would still be no. I wouldn’t see the longshore current moving anything like that more than a couple of miles a day – that’s with two tides in twenty four hours. It could take a week from here.’

  Smith had turned his attention back to the chart on the wall.

  ‘Suppose he didn’t go in from the beach. What if he went in from a boat further out?’

  ‘That depends on lots of things. How far out? Did he swim as well? Was he alive when he went in?’

  The last question was not rhetorical, and the coastguard waited for an answer.

  Terek said, ‘We don’t know,’ and Smith thought, true but we can a take a bloody good guess because if ever I saw a drowned man, he’s it.

  Partington said, ‘The funny thing is, the strongest currents are near to the coast here. So, if he went in further out, he’d actually travel an even shorter distance from east to west with each tide, and you’d also have to allow time for the body to wash in towards the coast as well. Either way, I’d have to say he went in west of where we are at present.’

  They were all looking at the chart again.

  Smith said, ‘Your best guess?’

  The pointer moved to a distinct V-shaped indentation in the contours.

  ‘Somewhere between here, which is the harbour at Wells, and here, which is where the sea comes into the marshes at Barnham Staithe. He could have gone in at Barnham and just hung around, if you don’t mind me putting it like that. So many creeks there…’

  Smith said, ‘He could have gone up one without a paddle.’

  The coastguard seemed to find the idea mildly amusing but the detective inspector did not – or at least his face didn’t show it if he did.

  Undeterred, Smith said, ‘Wells to Barnham. I can only think of two places in between which have decent vehicular access. One must be about here,’ pointing, and Partington said, ‘Yes, that’s Overy.’