Hell's Mouth

by BATEMAN, A P

  “You read the letter. It’s Acting Detective Superintendent, actually.”

  “Let me see that letter again.”

  O’Bryan handed him the envelope. Trevithick took it and read it once more. He handed it to DS Hosking. “Get that photocopied, Becky.”

  O’Bryan swiped it back. She was reading it, her eyebrow raised. “No. Sorry, no copies allowed. Orders.” He perched back against a desk. “I need a coffee.”

  Trevithick cocked a head towards DS Hosking. “See to that, Becky.”

  She made to move, but O’Bryan caught her arm. He looked back at the two detectives standing by the whiteboard. “Everyone a DS here?”

  The overweight man shook his head. “Detective Constable Pengelly, Sir.”

  “Great. I’ll have a black coffee, no sugar, thanks.”

  DS Hosking smiled at O’Bryan. She turned and placed the sheaf of papers on an empty desk behind her.

  DCI Trevithick’s face was flushing red with anger. He shrugged and nodded towards his office. “In here, if you please, Acting Superintendent O’Bryan.”

  O’Bryan walked into the office in front of him and moved behind the desk. He pulled out DCI Trevithick’s leather swivel chair and sat down, beckoning the man to sit on the plain wooden chair. “I want to talk about the Elmaleh family. I have read the reports, and it would seem that the police report is pretty vague. Downright shoddy, in fact.”

  Trevithick looked like he was about to implode. He pulled out the chair reserved for his own visitors and sat down heavily. There was a knock on the door and DC Pengelly opened it carrying a cup of coffee. He stared at O’Bryan behind his chief’s desk, tried and failed to regain composure, act like it was no big deal, and placed the coffee in front of O’Bryan. He walked back out and closed the door behind him. The office was designed with a large glass wall. O’Bryan remembered when this had become the norm, it made cases of sexual harassment and bullying in the work place as transparent as the window itself. O’Bryan glanced to his right and saw all three detectives and two uniformed officers, who had just dropped in to see the show, looking directly at him. Trevithick side glanced too, he looked back at O’Bryan, thoroughly humiliated. “Vague?” he said, his tone hostile.

  “I believe I ended on shoddy,” O’Bryan corrected him.

  “They drowned whilst illegally entering the country.”

  “You don’t get many illegal immigrants down here,” O’Bryan mused.

  “What? We’re bloody awash with them!”

  “Really?”

  “Half the workers on the farms are bloody Polish!”

  “So legal, then.”

  “Immigrants!” Trevithick snarled. “Catering, factories, agriculture… You name the job and there’s an immigrant in it…”

  “DCI Trevithick, you are referring to legal workers from an EU member country,” O’Bryan said calmly. He could see the man was boiling. “They’re as legal as you and I.”

  “Not for long! We’re heading out of the European Union.”

  “I’m sure the polish will always be welcome.”

  “If you say so…”

  “So you’re not keen on immigrants?”

  Trevithick stopped himself. He looked at O’Bryan coldly, but his eyes were dark brown, so he just looked mad. O’Bryan’s were grey-blue, and he’d seen enough in life to take the shine out of them. He returned a narrow glare, glacier-cold and unwavering. Unsettling. Trevithick looked away first, as O’Bryan knew he would. “Look, I get it. You’re here with a fancy letter and a new promotion, but I’ve got to work here,” he said. “There’s nothing amiss with the reports on that family. They came over in a shitty little rubber boat and drowned when it either capsized or ripped.”

  O’Bryan nodded. “Sad. A whole family, the last of their line, wiped out.”

  “But the case is closed.”

  “I’m not happy with the findings.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Why do you say it like that?”

  “Well, you’ve been sent by someone else. You’re staying in Mike Anderson’s place at Barlooe. Coincidence? I think not…”

  “You know Mike?”

  He snorted. “Of sorts. We were at Hendon together. He was fast-tracked before there even was such a programme.”

  “You were friends?”

  “No.”

  “But you knew him?”

  “I remember him.”

  O’Bryan nodded. He couldn’t honestly say whether he would have been friends with Anderson, had the man not been his mentor and boss. There was always the barrier of seniority and respect. The man had commanded a lot of respect. Much of what was claimed of his achievements was bullshit. But he had ridden that particular wave and created a legend within the police. The commander of Special Branch, the finger on the pulse of terrorism. The man who ran the department that backed up MI5’s intelligence work with hard arrests. It hadn’t hurt that towards the end of the Northern Ireland troubles, Anderson had picked up a wounded police officer’s weapon and killed an IRA terrorist before he could detonate an IED at a packed tube station. That had secured his status, cleared his path for the top. A legend had been born.

  “So you think it was just a case of drowning?”

  “Of course!”

  “And the vandalism to their grave?”

  Trevithick shrugged. “Muslim haters.”

  “There are other targets. Community centres and mosques. A family’s grave is low even for narrow minded racists.”

  “Then Muslim immigrant haters.”

  “Tell me about the boat.”

  “The boat?”

  O’Bryan sipped the coffee. It can’t have been too hot when it was made, so he drank it down in one tepid gulp. It was budget supermarket instant. It didn’t hurt to keep the man waiting. He placed the cup down on a letter that was on the desk. There was no signature on it yet, but it had been signed off in Trevithick’s name. The cup made a wet ring. O’Bryan lifted it up, placed it down again to make another. He looked up at Trevithick, enjoyed the colour of the man’s cheeks. He knew he could be a bastard, and now Trevithick knew it too. “The boat. Tell me about it.”

  “It was a fucking rubber boat. It ripped or capsized. They drowned. What more do you want?”

  “It must have been quite a journey. I’m assuming they came in from France, but it’s not the English Channel. This is the mouth of the Atlantic. Hundreds of miles in a rubber row boat?”

  “They were desperate.”

  O’Bryan shrugged. “I’m sure they were. No doubt about it.”

  “So?”

  “So a guy in his mid-forties and a woman knocking forty rowed over from France after walking across Europe from Syria with their three children, all of them under twelve?”

  “Perhaps all that walking got them fit?”

  O’Bryan stared at him. Trevithick already knew he wouldn’t win staring back, so he glanced at his team, who were still looking at the show, and did not even try to busy themselves when he looked at them. “There are two facts here. As sure as day leads to night. One, is that you’re a prick. Not a hard, useful prick, but more of a short, thin, flaccid prick of no particular use to anyone. In fact, you’re not even a prick. You’re a cunt.” O’Bryan leaned back in the swivel chair, put his hands behind his head. “The second fact is that the boat did not come over from France. I looked it up. It was a make and model produced in a town called Kuwuwing in the Yunan Provence of China. It wasn’t a bad boat, a quarter the price of American and European offerings of the same specification, but not the sort of boat you use as a tender to your Four Winds, Bayliner or Regal on the weekends. Not what you want to be seen in at the yacht club. This was the sort of boat a well-meaning dad buys on a whim and comes back to the wrath of his more level-headed wife. It doesn’t look as good, but it’s a bit of family fun for a week’s wages. It can even take a small outboard. I reckon that would be a necessity on a crossing like that. You couldn’t hope to row the channel, let
alone a crossing all the way to Cornwall. The company made this particular model as a package with an engine, two-piece oars, a fuel tank and four life-jackets. So you can’t buy the boat on its own. Other than dads wanting to terrify their families and with their lack of seamanship knowledge, these boats suit cash-strapped fishermen. They don’t care what the label on the boat says, or that it looks ten-years-old fresh out of the box…”

  “I take it this is going somewhere?”

  O’Bryan nodded. “See what happens when you interrupt me again. I dare you,” he leaned forwards and placed his hands on the desk, elbowed the ruined letter and a stapler out of the way. He watched Trevithick’s eyes for a flicker. It was important to watch now, because if he didn’t he wouldn’t get his answer. “There was no equipment found along with the Elmaleh family’s bodies. No lifejackets, no fuel tank, no oars and no outboard.” He reached into his jacket pocket and took out another envelope. He pulled out a series of photographs and dropped them in front of the detective. Trevithick picked them up and studied them one by one. “Although from the photographs you can clearly see from the scuff marks on the plastic transom that an outboard has been attached at some point.” He held up a hand to silence the man before he spoke. “Now, I know you’re going to say it might have come off and sunk. I mean, the sea here is rough most of the time, isn’t it?” He watched Trevithick as the man nodded. “Except that the sea conditions were like a millpond. Not even a shore break. As you well know,” he paused. “The second fact, apart from you being a certain derogatory description of a woman’s genitalia, is that this boat was never sold in France. Nor was it sold in the rest of Europe. No, after its sale throughout Asia and the US, and its subsequent discontinuation, this boat was only ever sold in Britain as the entire package. I suppose they made the package up, got rid of all the extras they manufactured and moved on to making dildos or toilet brushes or parachutes, or whatever niche they could find and undercut. So, this package makes its way to Britain only. And guess where in particular? No, don’t answer that. I dared you after all. You will not interrupt me again. No, this boat was destined to be sold all over the UK, but down here, in darkest Cornwall, one local merchant brought the entire shipment. The boat and package has been discontinued and one supplier, a large independent hardware and maritime depot not three miles from here bought the lot. Now how’s that for research?” He leaned forwards and glared at him as he whispered, “That’s what we call detective work.”

  DCI Trevithick looked at him, then broke away.

  O’Bryan had his answer.

  8

  “So, you were promoted to super for this assignment?” she asked.

  “Acting super, yes,” O’Bryan threaded the Alfa Romeo through the traffic and paused as they passed a McDonalds. He was hungry and hesitated a moment before driving on. He was trying to eat well. Five years of drinking and a few falls off the wagon since he had taken his life back and his liver looked like lightly fried Foie Gras. He had been told by his doctor that the damage was entirely reversible. Prior to the incident at Westminster Bridge and his subsequent break in sobriety, he had been hitting the gym and the pool and eating well. He owed himself something better than a Big Mac and a vanilla shake.

  “But what is the anti-terrorism angle?” DS Hosking asked.

  O’Bryan changed gear, looking at her legs as he drove. She wore a pair of tight jeans, dark and smart. A white figure hugging blouse, her coat draped across her lap. He had requested, or rather demanded she assist him with his inquiries. He needed local knowledge, and he had a feeling she did not like DCI Trevithick after his interview with them last night at the Hemingway House. He thought he might have found an ally. He also thought it may just piss Trevithick off a little more to lose his assistant as well as an entire loss of face.

  “There doesn’t have to be an angle. My boss was concerned with some details. How he came across this is irrelevant. He was in a position to pull some rank, that’s all.”

  She nodded. O’Bryan glanced at her and she smiled. “So this letter you have, it pretty much gives you carte blanche?”

  O’Bryan hesitated before nodding. “Pretty much.”

  “Well, it certainly rattled the DCI.”

  “That was my intention. I suppose I went a bit far really. He’s just racist, sexist and a bigot underneath, I don’t like that. He shouldn’t be in the job.”

  “He speaks highly of you too.”

  “I suppose he must.”

  “He said you falsified evidence and the guy got off because of it.”

  O’Bryan shrugged like it did not matter. But it did. It had become everything, and cost him everything. His rank, his wife and family. The catalyst for so many ruined things, killed-off hopes and dreams. It had been the point to break his sobriety. After two years without alcohol, the failure of the case had left him falling off the wagon and yo-yoing between excess to abstinence. His wife had filed for divorce. He couldn’t blame her. He had trouble looking in the mirror sometimes. He owed her some happiness, even if it was his absence that would give her that. “I didn’t falsify anything,” he said, measuredly.

  “Hey, I don’t need to know,” she said.

  “Yes, you do,” O’Bryan corrected her. “You’re working with me, so I want you to know.”

  “Okay,” she said, but he could tell she wasn’t particularly bothered.

  “We had all the evidence we needed. But there were a few things we couldn’t dot and cross, so I left them out. We had more than enough for a successful prosecution and some serious prison time.” O’Bryan hit the brakes hard as the car in front misjudged a mini-roundabout. “His defence was a young, hot-shit lawyer making a name for himself. He didn’t just pull at the threads of what we, or rather I, omitted, he focused on it and virtually nothing else and by the end of the trial he had put so much doubt in the jury’s mind, it could only really have gone one way.”

  “They’re good at that,” she nodded. “That was a factor of law that I didn’t like. Defence lawyers are the worst, I don’t know how they sleep at night.”

  “You and a lawyer traded blows on a case, right?”

  She nodded. “He screwed me in the courtroom,” she laughed. “He was my boyfriend. I wasn’t letting him screw me in any room after that,” she grinned. “A first class lying bastard. I see the guy he defended sometimes. He’s walking around free while his victim is too scared to go out. He’s a rapist and my ex knows it.”

  O’Bryan nodded. “That’s why I don’t like lawyers.” He smiled. “But they’re not as bad as your boss.”

  “No?”

  “No. He’s a lazy cop. Nothing worse than that. The police are the line between the public and their liberty. When their rights, liberty and welfare are threatened, the police need to do everything in their powers to serve and protect. DCI Trevithick has no love for outsiders or foreigners. Especially immigrants and asylum seekers. His bigotry and xenophobia has cost a family justice.”

  “He’s like a lot of older police down here. They’re gradually getting phased out, retired. It’s getting better, but there are pockets of the police service where time hasn’t caught up. I go to Exeter or Plymouth on a course and it’s fine. Just like going back to Hendon for fast track evaluation. Down in some of the places in Cornwall, the smaller towns and communities, and it’s lost in the past. Some of the old coppers are dinosaurs. They’re guarded and play the game, but after a few drinks and their guard comes down and they loosen up. They’re old school. Like they’re stuck in the seventies. Sexist, racist and homophobic and would still call a black man a nig-nog and a gay man a poofter if they had half the chance.”

  “I take it you’re not from around here?”

  “No. Hampshire. I moved down here when I finished uni.”

  “Usually the other way around, isn’t it? You live here, go away to university, then have to live away to work off the debts and get a career.”

  She nodded. “I was lucky, a job came up and I moved. We
holidayed here as a family at least twice a year. I sort of felt I grew up here. My father is Cornish and we had his side of the family living down here. Cousins, aunts and my grandad. I had my fondest memories here. I got a job down here with the CPS. I was a lawyer.”

  “A lawyer!” O’Bryan couldn’t help himself. “Sorry,” he said, then added, “I’m just not too fond of lawyers.”

  “Nor am I,” she smiled. “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t very good. I certainly wasn’t a natural. I was dating a lawyer who was super good. And he showed that when he took me apart in the trial. When we split up I just found myself wanting something completely different. I didn’t last with the CPS, and couldn’t see myself doing property conveyancing and probate for the rest of my working life. I applied for Devon and Cornwall and got in. My law degree got me fast tracked and I made sergeant not long after my probationary period. I like what I do, and I like it more now I’m with CID,” she paused. “We’re here now. Another fifty-metres on the right.”

  O’Bryan nodded and turned into the site. It was a compound really, with two units on the one site. He could see access to a massive storage yard gated and fenced between the two buildings. He could see one marked tools and hardware and the other marked as marine goods and clothing. There were plenty of spaces and he parked the Alfa as far away from the other cars as possible. DS Hosking opened her door and got out. O’Bryan glanced at her rear as she pushed herself up. He hadn’t intended to, but was pleased he had. She was attractive and had a good figure. She had a comfortable demeanour as well, and he had talked easily with her. He was glad he had chosen her to work with over the overweight detective, or the one with half a Danish pastry in his beard.

  They walked in through the automatic doors and DS Hosking hovered around the counter, but O’Bryan walked on past and down one of the cluttered aisles. She looked unsure for a moment, then followed him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, frowning at him.

  “I like to get a feel for a place first,” he said. “Take it all in a bit.” He carried on walking, perusing some of the shelves, then stopped when he entered an area with marine and maritime equipment and clothing. He could see two boats and a small selection of canoes. They were open types and as he drew near, he noticed that these were inflatable models as well. He tapped the hull of one of them, surprised at how sturdy and rigid it was.