by Mark Raven
I had no problem establishing the time of the break in, as someone had considerately ripped the clock from the wall and the batteries had popped out. So I had the time and date: 11.07 pm on the day of the mugging. As I say, thorough. Quick, too. And just a tiny bit careless.
I prodded around for a while, knowing I was not going to find anything, and then tried Janovitz’s flat upstairs. This hadn’t been touched—a strange omission—but I could see nothing of value. A proper search would take a team of four a solid day’s work. I hoped Janovitz was experienced enough not leave anything that close to where he slept. But if he did, it would be small and well hidden. The man was an expert in counter-surveillance, after all.
I went downstairs and closed the street door. I had been over half-an-hour. It was a good job I had not kept the cab waiting, but it meant I had to go and find another. I walked to the train station and took a taxi out to Hayling Island.
Wing Commander Sydney Kenilworth (retired) was waiting for me in the portico of his large redbrick house. It was about five doors down from Sir Simeon Marchant’s place, but in this area that was about half a mile in distance. They were big houses with even bigger gardens. In some parts of the country they would have been referred to as parks, planted as they were with beech and cypresses, anything that would thrive in the sandy soil. As my taxi driver put it, people were not short of a few bob around there.
I gave him an extra £20 and asked him to wait.
‘That’ll keep me till four o’clock, mate. I’ll beep the horn when time’s up.’
‘Thank you so much.’
‘You’re late,’ Wing Commander Kenilworth observed. ‘Is that chap waiting for you? No need. I can run you back into Chichester.’
I went back to the taxi and knocked in the window.
‘Did I give you a twenty?’
‘Yep.’
He held it up. I took it.
‘Thanks very much you can go now. Mate.’
After a few choice words, he spluttered away up the gravel drive. As he turned into Elmore Crescent, he was already on the radio banning me from every taxi in the Chichester area. But it was worth it.
‘You seem to have upset that bugger,’ Wing Commander Kenilworth said. ‘Tea or something stronger?’
I followed him down an ill-lit corridor that opened out onto a conservatory. That word, these days, gives the impression of a small plastic structure glued onto the back end of a suburban semi. This one was not of that ilk. It is best described as an orangery without the orange trees. In fact, there were no plants in there at all. There was, however, a leather four-piece suite—good quality but knackered, Chesterfield perhaps—a 42 inch TV screen perched on the bottom half of a Welsh dresser, and a smoked-glass cocktail cabinet that looked as if it could have been Art Deco—once.
The room had a lived-in feeling and, simultaneously, a sense of decay. Perhaps it was the heat. It must have been thirty degrees in there. I removed my jacket before it melted off my back.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I feel the cold these days. Warfarin, you know. Thins the blood.’
He stood by the cocktail cabinet.
‘What’s your poison, Mr Becket?’
‘Pink gin would be lovely, sir. With tonic.’
‘Excellent choice, Mr Becket. It is early after all.’
He mixed the drinks like a hobbyist, taking delight in each small action. When you reached Wing Commander Kenilworth’s advanced age it wasn’t a bad hobby to have.
‘I barely use the rest of the house, to tell the truth. Sometimes I even sleep down here. Sofa, put one of the rugs over me. Perfectly adequate.’
‘You live alone then.’
He laughed and handed me a half pint of what could have been rosewater. Or the sort of diesel that farmers are only supposed to put in their tractors. I took a sip and felt the heavy warmth chase through me like quicksilver. Wing Commander Kenilworth sat opposite me and crossed his long legs.
‘Chin-chin,’ he said, raising his glass.
I had another sip and decided I’d better ask some questions while I still could.
‘So they took the Cassandra away, then?’
‘Yes, and do you know what? I hear they’ve taken her apart up at Evershed’s yard. All hush-hush, no one allowed anywhere near her. What do you think that is about?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ I lied. ‘Perhaps they suspect foul play?’
‘Who’s they? The police did not go on about foul play. So why would anyone else?’
I changed the subject. ‘How did the inquest go?’
He paused.
‘It was strange. Well, how would I know what is strange? I have never been to one before. But it was as if no one was really bothered.’
‘They’re often like that,’ I said.
‘Are they? Well I was very disappointed. I had prepared a long speech, but the fellow cut me short. Said I was not there to protect Simeon’s reputation. But I was you see. That was precisely why I was there. I told him that.’
He went on to describe the inquest. It was clear to me that it was in everyone’s interest for it to be death by misadventure. Whether, Prajapati was an experienced sailor or not, the Coroner said, anyone sailing alone on those waters, in those conditions, could get into difficulty. Sir Simeon Marchant was barely referred to and certainly not his demise. No one referred to Mat Janovitz or other private investigators involved in the work. In fact, Wing Commander Kenilworth seemed bemused by my suggestion.
‘Did Sir Simeon say anything to you about his suspicions, sir?’
‘Suspicions? Simeon always had suspicions. He was a suspicious bugger, God rest his soul. There should be more like him.’
‘He was suspicious about the Cassandra being bugged.’
‘Well, he would know all about that. That was his bag after all.’
‘His bag?’
‘Yes, surveillance and all that. He didn’t talk about it much. GCHQ. Hush-hush.’
‘Cheltenham of course! Why else would a navy man live there!’
Wing Commander Kenilworth looked as if he was disappointed in me. I saw his point of view. I was disappointed in me, too.
‘Yes, the obituaries never really referred to it, did they? Talked about Greenwich, but he was really in the heart of it. Naval Section. All sorts of goings on. He used to go up to London quite regularly for reunions with the spooks. That’s what he called them, the spooks. I think he enjoyed their company. Bright sparks, he said. Once he took me to his club. Very kind.’
‘The Army and Navy?’
‘Sorry?’
‘His club?’
‘The Rag? Heavens no! He wasn’t a member there. It was the Oxford and Cambridge. That was his club, always had been. He was a Cambridge man, Simeon, didn’t you know?’
I did know that, but I had not been paying attention. Perhaps the bump on my head had meant that I was not able to put two and two together and get anything at all. An incorrect answer would at least have been something. Instead I had not even thought about it. What is wrong with you, Becket? I asked myself. Wing Commander Kenilworth regarded me sadly.
‘A Cambridge man,’ he repeated and took another slurp of pink gin.
‘Is that why he went up to London that last time? To go to his club?’
‘No, no. I happen to know he had quite another reason. He had to see his solicitor.’
‘What about?’
‘I think it was something to do with her sister’s visa?’
‘Whose sister?’
‘Mrs Breytenbach’s, of course.’
I must have been tipsy because I accepted a lift in Wing Commander Kenilworth’s MG Sprite. We drove along the deserted road at no more than 20 mph but it still felt too fast. The Americans call it DUI, I believe. Driving Under the Influence. But in the case of the Wing Commander ‘influence’ seemed too puny a term for the power alcohol had over his life. As we pulled into Sir Simeon Marchant’s driveway, he said, ‘I don’t even know if she’ll be here.’
But the front door of the Marchant house was open and a young man was loading a small white van. It had ‘JB Plumbing’ on the side, a local address and mobile number. He glanced our way and continued packing. I wrote down the number plate and the phone number.
‘Oh ho,’ the Wing Commander said. ‘The son.’
We parked and walked over to him. He was tall, wiry, probably what people call ‘mixed race’, although he could have been southern European, with his hair cropped close to the skull. His eyes were a lively green, and flickered with resentment. He looked from the old man to me as if challenging us to say something. Anything.
‘Mother around?’ Wing Commander Kenilworth asked.
The young man nodded inside.
She was younger than I expected and darker complexioned. Darker than her son, but with a rash of freckles across the bridge of her nose that made her appear perpetually astonished. Wing Commander Kenilworth had told me she had been Sir Simeon’s housekeeper since he had moved there a decade or so ago. I guessed she was over sixty, but she looked fifty tops, testimony to the fact that honest labour kept you in shape. But she had the drooping shoulders of someone who had not slept in a week, and only ate when someone reminded her to do so.
‘Maike, this is Mr Becket.’
Her name was pronounced ‘My-ker’, with the emphasis in the second syllable. She shook my hand in the disinterested way I had seen many times before. It was the way victims shake your hand, or parents of children killed in a RTA or bundled into a white van as they walked home from school. She was lost. Bereft. Suddenly robbed of something that gave her life shape and substance. She had worked here for many years, Kenilworth had told me, and now she was being thrown out.
‘I know you are working for Mrs Forbes,’ she said in a monotone. ‘She asked me to leave when you came here before.’
There was a hint of a South African accent there, or was it in the rhythm of her speech? She sounded exhausted.
‘Yes, I was working for her, then. I am not now.’
She shrugged that it mattered to her very little one way of the other. Wing Commander Kenilworth studied the wallpaper.
‘Did you know that Sir Simeon contacted me before he died?’
She sat down as if the wind had been knocked out of her. The old man said, ‘What are you talking about, Becket?’
‘I knew he was contacting someone,’ she said. ‘When he was in London. Jacob, he said it to Jacob.’
‘Your son?’
She nodded and started to cry slowly, rhythmically, methodically as if she was pacing herself in her grief. The son came through the front door, looked at us and went on up the stairs, as if we were a tableau he expected to see. The old man tried to comfort her, his frail arm barely touching her shoulder. I went upstairs.
Jacob Breytenbach was not difficult to locate. I followed the noise of empty boxes being thrown around. Whatever he was angry about, a lot of cardboard was paying the price. He scowled at me.
‘Come to make sure we’re not nicking the family silver?’
Again the trace of an accent.
‘Where are you from? South Africa?’
‘What’s it to you?’
I shrugged. ‘Just curious.’
‘Look my address is on the side of the van. It’s genuine. If anything’s missing just tell the police.’
‘You sound worried.’
‘I wouldn’t put anything past that woman.’
‘Mrs Forbes-Marchant?’
‘Yes, soon as Stan died she was right down here, man. Shit off a shovel, she was. Gave mum her marching orders.’
‘Who’s Stan?’
‘Simeon. I called him Stan. Always did.’
His face softened at the memory.
‘He set me up in business you know?’
‘When you got out?’
‘Is it that obvious?’
I picked up a book and put it in the box. It was a romantic novel. He knelt and started to roll a rug.
‘Hard to get a job. Unless you work for yourself. Stan understood. ’
‘Plumbing,’ I said. ‘Good money.’
‘My old mates still laugh at me. Say they can earn in a week what I get in a year.’
‘Crack?’
He didn’t reply, as if it was too obvious.
‘Hold that,’ he said.
I held the rolled rug while he wrapped gaffer tape around it. I asked, ‘Did you ever see a guy up here called Prajapati?’
‘He came here once or twice. He died too. Stan was upset.’
‘Upset?’
‘You know, bothered by it. Really bothered. Got to him, it did.’
‘Did he say why?’
‘Not to me, he didn’t.’
He continued packing, his back to me.
‘You know,’ I said, ‘if you want me to sign an inventory, I could. Might be useful if they say something’s missing.’
He turned and looked up at me. ‘Nah, you’re all right. If they say anything I’ll enjoy going to court and saying a few things myself.’
I offered my hand down to him. It seemed the right thing to do.
‘Nice to meet you...’
He thought about it and then shook hands with me.
‘Jacob,’ he said.
‘Tom,’ I said. ‘Sorry for your loss.’
Downstairs, Wing Commander Kenilworth was sitting alone looking somewhat forlorn. I wondered if he had anyone who cared for him. Perhaps he was just wondering where the next drink was located.
‘She’s gone to her room,’ he said.
I was about to say that I had just come from her room when the truth struck me. Maike Breytenbach was more than Sir Simeon Marchant’s housekeeper. That was why the old man was going up to London to sort out her sister’s visa. For the wedding. Sir Simeon Marchant was going to make an honest woman of Maike Breytenbach.
Chapter Twenty
In the end, I called a cab to take me back to Chichester Station. I thought it was safer that way. Wing Commander Kenilworth was no longer competent to drive; even in a state of sobriety he rarely attained these days. As for me, I was still too tipsy to administer CPR to him if the Sprite collided with another vehicle.
A sound decision, as it turned out. There was a police patrol car waiting at the train station. A young female officer came over to me. Her blonde hair tied back, she looked resplendent in her stab vest.
‘Mr Becket?’
‘That’s me.’
She handed me an A4 envelope.
‘Your statement. DS Singh said you wanted a copy.’
I was about to say something when she cut in, ‘You want to hurry, sir. You’ll miss your train.’
The London train was delayed again at Gatwick, where there was either a bomb alert, an intruder on the line, or the wrong sort of sun on the tracks. It didn’t matter. I was getting off anyway.
I didn’t like Gatwick. It had bad memories for me. One morning five years ago, PC Elliott Quinn of SO18 Aviation Security Command checked in to work, was issued with his Mauser lightweight sub-machine gun as usual, and calmly splattered himself all over the Plexiglas of the smoking area. His commanding officer that morning was Inspector Niall Rosenberg, a small fiercely intelligent man in his early thirties. Rosenberg was a graduate fast tracker who had turned down MI5—I had seen his file—in favour of routine ploddery. He ran the SO18 surveillance section at Gatwick and was, by all accounts, very good at it. Despite the routine interference of our security services, UK Border Agency and Special Branch in his work, he had detected no fewer than five serious terrorist suspects entering the airport in the year before I met him. These were individuals that others had missed. After a period on secondment on the West Bank, he brought in Israeli methods of spotting psychological traits known as ‘giveaways’. He then used UK face recognition software on those identified as possible suspects. All very innovative.
Rosenberg knew that apprehending people at the airport was often the least risky option—
terrorists don’t tend to have weapons with them in Arrivals and the police most certainly do—but sometimes he had to let known operatives through so the spooks could track them. Once or twice, when the direct order had not come through his chain of command, Rosenberg had refused and arrested dangerous individuals that the security forces would have preferred to have at large. In short he was from my school of policing: deal with what is in front of you. It didn’t make him popular with the pen pushers and players of the Great Game in Whitehall and New Scotland Yard.
All this meant that when, that morning five years ago, the very disturbed PC Elliott Quinn blew his own head off, certain people wanted Rosenberg’s too. On a plate.
Becket of the Awkward Squad refused to give it to them. True, Rosenberg was not the strongest of operational commanders, and had very little interest in or understanding of people like Elliott Quinn, but there was no way he could have stopped the man. If anything, Quinn’s direct superior, his sergeant, was to blame for not spotting the ex-soldier’s increasingly erratic behaviour. Or the people who gave him a loaded weapon in the first place, instead of cutting him loose to work for G4S or in his local charity shop.
Whatever, Rosenberg was grateful for me for saving his career—I took most of the flak myself—and had sent me a note late last year when he finally got his promotion.
Dear Becket, he wrote, you were wrong.
He meant that I was wrong in saying he would never get promoted. For once, I was pleased I was wrong.
I could not ring ahead—my new phone had no charge—so I had them page Rosenberg from the Police Information Desk. He met me in a quiet corner of an airport coffee shop, where I was charging my new mobile at the expense of a multi-national—probably the same one that sold me the phone in the first place.
I thought Rosenberg would whisk me off somewhere more prosaic, but we stayed put. Rosenberg put his BlackBerry on the table and spun it around with a finger. It was a characteristic he’d had when I was interviewing him five years ago. It was irritating then, too.
