by Dan Latus
Still, it was an interesting bit of information he’d just given me.
‘How’s he got a big, posh boat in there? The old harbour’s nothing but a demolition site.’
‘He’s fixed it up.’
‘Oh?’
Port Holland had been built in the nineteenth century for ships to load iron ore from a local mine and take it to an ironworks and shipyard on the Tyne. The more modern story was that army engineers had blown the harbour up early in the Second World War to prevent the Germans using it as an invasion platform. It had remained a heap of rubble ever since, to my knowledge. But it was a while since I’d last been to have a look.
Jimmy shook his head and chuckled. ‘He’s spent some money on it! He certainly has. You know what they’re like, these fellows. Some of them buy a football club. This one’s different. He likes the sea.’
I was wondering who he meant by ‘these fellows’, but not enough to be able to ward off fatigue indefinitely. I yawned. The events of the past day and night were catching up on me.
Jimmy looked round as a sudden squall rattled the windows. ‘More sleet. It’s going to be a hard winter, starting as early as this.’
‘Probably.’
‘Them two,’ he added with a sly grin, ‘the burglars? They were looking for something, I reckon, something they wanted badly. Before they came over here they went through my shed. They spoke to me, as well.’
I was astonished. ‘They spoke to you?’
He nodded. ‘They wanted to know if I’d seen a girl, a young woman.’
So I’d been right about what they were looking for. It was the girl they wanted. What the hell was it about?
‘What did you tell them, Jimmy?’
‘I told them no, I hadn’t seen one. I hadn’t been so lucky in a long while. In fact, I told them, it had been so long that I didn’t really want to see one at all now. It’s too late. It would be like winning the football pools after filling them in all your life without success. What good would millions of pounds do me now?’
‘What did they say to that?’
‘Nothing. They just muttered amongst themselves.’
I grinned and looked in the coffee pot. Plenty left. I poured us both some more. It was time I told him something.
‘Jimmy, I have a confession to make.’
He didn’t seem surprised. ‘I wondered about that,’ was all he said.
So I told him about the girl. It wasn’t fair not to, given how he had helped me – and how he might have put himself in jeopardy by doing so. He had a right to know what was going on. As much as I knew, anyway.
He didn’t laugh or make any of the jokes I might reasonably have expected about a naked girl arriving on my doorstep in the middle of the night.
‘So you went out looking for her this morning?’ he said, having heard me out.
‘I did. I didn’t find her, though. To be honest, I was pleased.’ I shrugged and added, ‘It means she’s probably still alive – especially if those two are still looking for her.’
Jimmy was quiet for a while. Then he said, ‘What about the beach? Did you look down there?’
I grimaced and shook my head. ‘I’m going to have to, though, aren’t I?’
‘Aye. I think you’d better.’
We didn’t say much more. Probably neither of us knew much more worth saying. Shortly afterwards, Jimmy went back to his own place. He was a loner. He couldn’t take much company in one go, or any at all for more than a short time. I didn’t mind his going. I needed to do some thinking, and to make some preparations. What I had in mind wasn’t going to be easy, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
7
It was possible to get down from our place to the little beach at the foot of the cliffs, but it wasn’t easy. The path was very rough and steep – part of what was left of a ‘sailors’ trod’. It started just past Jimmy’s cottage and wound its way down to the small bay from which Jimmy and his forebears had always launched their fishing boats. In good, dry weather it wasn’t too bad. In fierce wind and driving sleet, with the rock wet and slimy, it wasn’t something I would normally do voluntarily. But circumstances were far from normal.
Before I departed I checked round the house again, part of me perhaps subconsciously wondering if the girl might still be here, tucked away in a cupboard somewhere. There was nothing to find. So I prepared to leave. Despite the weather, I made a point of opening a small kitchen window slightly on the leeward side of the house. It was still icy cold outside but a bit of necessary ventilation wouldn’t lower the house temperature much. The stove would stay hot for a few hours now I’d closed it down to slumber mode.
I took with me a backpack containing a few sensible things: first-aid kit, survival blanket, a bottle of water and a flask of coffee, some high-energy food bars and a climbing rope plus a couple of karabiners. I hoped I wouldn’t need any of them, especially the climbing gear. I also had a good torch, a whistle and a mobile phone that I knew worked sometimes down there. A dead body was one thing, but another possibility was that I would find a badly injured young woman.
The wind spotted me straight away and screamed in fury, trying to dislodge me from the track. I ducked my head and kept going, trying not to think of much beyond the next few steps. The outcrops of wet sandstone weren’t too bad to negotiate, but in places there was nothing for it but to let go and slide down expanses of the slippery shale that constituted much of the cliff. Jimmy’s ancestors had carved footholds here and there in times past but they weren’t much use when they were covered in sleet and running water. Best – quickest at least – just to slide down the rock, and hope coming back up wouldn’t be a problem.
It was about half-tide. So when I hit the beach there was plenty of sand and shingle exposed. I checked the three fishermen’s huts and hunted along the hundred yard stretch to the southern end of the beach, and found nothing. Just the usual junk you find on the North Sea shoreline: plastic bottles, driftwood and, paradoxically, empty halves of grapefruit from some shipboard breakfast table. They weren’t supposed to dump stuff like that any more, but some ships did still.
Thankfully, there was nothing unusual in sight. I turned when I reached the rocks at the end of the beach and scanned the cliffs. Nothing up there either. No dead body hanging suspended. So far, so good.
Now I had a problem. I couldn’t go north. In that direction, the cliff curved and jutted out into deep water, making it impossible to get round.
At the southern end of the bay I could scramble across rocks and get round the protruding cliff – ‘Wreckers’ Nab’ – but I couldn’t stay on the next little beach for long. There, the sea came right up to the cliff even before high water, and as the tide rose I wouldn’t be able to get back here either.
To try it, or not? I stood still for a moment, bracing myself against the wind shrieking in from the sea, closing my eyes against the needle-tipped sleet, and thinking. I could see her face. She was as real to me as if she had been standing in front of me right then. I knew I had to risk it. I had to go on. I had to know if she was there or not.
Ignoring the pounding sea to my left, as well as the sheets of icy spray and the blasts of sleet, I clambered across the boulders at the southern end of the bay and reached round the small headland into the next cove. Back on firm sand, I took stock. This beach was about half a mile in length. Ten minutes to the far end, say, and ten minutes back should do it. It had better. The tide was coming in fast.
The first danger point would be a shallow depression about a hundred yards from where I was standing. That was where the water got deepest quickest. I would have to be back past that in good time. And I would have to come back because there was no other way off the beach.
Jimmy Mack had once told me there was a way but I’d never seen anything to suggest it. The shale walls were not climbable and there was no way round the headland at the far end. Deep water saw to that. Probably Jimmy’s route had gone with most of the sailors’ trod one day wh
en sections of cliff slid into the sea.
I grimaced and set off, alternating between a fast walk and jogging. As I went I scanned the cliff walls and the beach ahead of me. The sand changed from firm to ultra soft, slowing me down. I ploughed on, breathing hard with the extra effort. My legs began to ache. The tension rose. This was going to take longer than I had allowed but I couldn’t give up. I had to see it through.
I stopped fifty yards short of the rock wall at the far end. That was close enough. She wasn’t here. Not on the beach or spread-eagled halfway down the cliffs either. Time to get back.
Quite soon after I turned round I realized I’d left it a bit late. Ahead of me I could see thin sheets of water spreading across the remaining dry sand faster than I had anticipated. I redoubled my efforts but the sand was so soft that running was impossible. Halfway back I could see that the returning tide was obliterating the footprints I had made on the outward leg. I had to move faster.
I grimaced and urged myself on. Faster! Faster!
I repeated the mantra more and more urgently, and kept on doing it. I willed my aching thighs to lift higher and press down harder.
A wave bigger than the rest suddenly streamed across the sand in front of me and washed over my boots. Another one followed, reaching up to my knees. Before I knew it, I was into the shallow depression and the water was waist-deep. I got through and kept going. Desperately, I floundered over the last fifty yards of sand and hurled myself onto the rocks, to begin the scramble round the headland.
I was up to my chest now in icy water that swirled all around me in violent spasms. Huge surges threatened to suck me out to sea as they retreated. My feet skidded on wet rock and seaweed. Spray arced over my head. I ducked my face against a shower of hail. Then a wall of water towered over me and crashed down to slam me against a big rock. I wrapped my arms around it and hung on desperately, face pressed hard against the icy, slimy surface. My feet slipped, leaving me hanging on by my arms, stretched full-length.
Mercifully, the water level subsided. But I knew it would only be for a moment. I moved on fast, threshing madly through knee-deep water. Panic was close. Another wave like the last one would do for me.
I made it. I felt shingle under my boots, and then I came out of the water and reached sand. I didn’t stop. Not for a moment. I kept going, past Jimmy’s boat and the little fishermens’ huts, going straight for the foot of the track. I was safe from the sea but I was dangerously wet and cold. I had no time to spare.
The climb back up the track took most of my remaining strength. I took risks on wet rock, and forged on. I couldn’t get home fast enough.
I filled the bath, climbed in and indulged myself in a really long soak in wonderfully hot water. What I’d just done was stupid, plain stupid. It could have been fatal. Jimmy would shake his head when I told him I’d nearly been caught by the tide. His opinion of me wouldn’t be enhanced. No two tides were the same, he would tell me. You couldn’t depend on small margins. I hadn’t allowed enough time. And for what?
I knew all that, but as well as being cold I was relieved and happy. What else could I have done? I’d had to satisfy myself that the beaches and cliff walls in at least the immediate vicinity were not occupied by my mysterious visitor, the girl who had come out of the night.
I could have called it in, I suppose. Contacted Bill Peart even. Despite the girl’s plea, and her obvious fear? Well, yes. Despite that I could have done it.
But it didn’t feel like the right thing to have done, and it was too late for that now anyway. At least I’d satisfied myself. She wasn’t dead on the beach, and she wasn’t lying somewhere nearby badly injured. I could rest more easily.
It took me a while to get warmed up. I loaded the stove with wood. Then I closed the little kitchen window. I’d had more than enough ventilation for one day. But I was more relaxed, and even content. The girl had gone. Good luck to her.
8
Bill Peart turned up again first thing the next morning. This time he came in a big posh Volvo 4 x 4 with yellow and black zig-zag patterns all over it. I went out to meet him.
I inspected the vehicle.
‘What do you think?’ he said.
‘Nice.’
He nodded. ‘We could do with a few more of these.’
‘Pity about the colour scheme.’
He scowled and followed me inside.
‘Coffee?’
‘Yeah.’
I put the kettle on once again. My main task in life these days, it seemed.
‘The chief says he’s trying to get more,’ Bill chuntered on, ‘but every time he asks, the chairman of the Police Authority reminds him how much they cost. Mind you, he also says cracking this case could be worth a couple more of them.’
‘So there’s your incentive.’ I grinned. ‘How are you getting on with it?’
‘Not great.’
That’s what I had assumed. He wouldn’t have come to see me again so soon if everything had been going splendidly.
He peered at my face. ‘What the hell happened to you?’
‘This?’ I fingered my bruises and abrasions. ‘A stone wall hit me.’
He shook his head in disbelief. ‘It did a good job. Maybe you’re not cut out for work as a private eye?’
‘Thanks, Bill. So what have you got on the bodies?’
‘Forensics have come up with some info in the path lab.’
‘And?’
‘Two female bodies. One male.’
‘Well done, them!’
He ignored my sarcasm, probably because he was used to it.
‘Ages range between twenty-five and thirty-three. They also say they’re all foreign.’
‘Ethnic descent, you mean, or…?’
He shook his head. ‘Foreign. They didn’t grow up here. The male is, or was, Chinese. The females are both from somewhere in Eastern Europe. Ukraine or Poland, probably.’
‘How can they tell?’
‘Something to do with chemicals in the body. You grow up on Teesside, you’ll have bits of steel and slag in your DNA, I expect. Grow up in China, and you have rice grains, and whatnot.’
I shook my head. ‘That right?’
‘Something like that. You’ll have to ask the boffins, if you want to know more.’
‘Boffins, eh? You still have them?’
‘More than ever. What we really need, though, is more boots on the ground.’ He inspected his mug and added, ‘Good coffee, this.’
‘Thanks. It’s good to know I can do something right in your book.’
‘Tch, tch! Such sensitivity.’
I thought about what Bill had just said. So they were truly exotic bodies. Not what you would normally expect to find on the beach in Port Holland. Mind you, the world is on the move as never before. Plane loads of Africans arriving every day. Plane loads of Brits off to Oz and Spain. And that’s without even counting the people going on holiday. I bet if I asked him, Jimmy Mack would say it was madness. And I might even agree with him.
‘Could they have come off a ship?’ I asked. ‘Could forensics tell you that?’
‘Unlikely, I’m told. The bodies had been in the water a while. There were signs of damage from …’ He paused, looked up at me and winced, adding, ‘I don’t think I want to go fishing anywhere near Port Holland again for a while.’
‘But why not off a ship?’
‘That’s more to do with the coastguard than forensics. The currents in the area are all wrong, apparently. Bodies dumped offshore wouldn’t have come into Port Holland. They would have hit the beach a lot further south.’ He shrugged. ‘So they say anyway.’
Bill had been doing his homework. No wonder he looked even more shagged out than usual. Despite what he’d said for openers, he’d made a lot of progress in the past twenty-four hours. I was impressed. He had obviously persuaded various people to drop what they were doing and move this case to the top of their in-trays. Perhaps it was the lure of possible new Volvos that had done it.
‘So what’s your take on this now?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘Early days, Frank. Early days. I take it you know nothing more?’ he added hopefully.
‘Not a thing.’
Was that a lie? I wasn’t sure.
‘It’s probably either drugs trafficking or people trafficking,’ Bill added with a sigh. ‘That’s what I’m thinking. But we’ll have to be a lot further down the road before we can say for sure.’
‘Keep an open mind,’ I advised. ‘It doesn’t have to be either of those possibilities.’
He snorted and shoved his mug across for a refill. ‘OK, big detective. What else could it be?’
‘I don’t know. Arms trafficking?’
‘That’s a point. I hadn’t thought of that one.’ He frowned. ‘Catterick’s not far away, is it?’
It wasn’t. Catterick, in North Yorkshire. The army’s biggest base. It would be full of everything lethal you had ever heard of, and more besides.
‘There was a quartermaster type there that got done for flogging Nato rifles the other year, wasn’t there?’ I mused, ransacking my memory banks.
‘That’s right.’ Bill frowned. ‘You’ve got me really worried now. I’d better have a word with my new North Yorkshire colleagues.’
He didn’t add anything, and I wasn’t particularly interested in pursuing the subject. It was all speculation anyway. He got up to go.
‘Now you’ve warmed your bones and drunk all my coffee, you’re hitting the road, eh?’
‘That’s it.’ Before he left he added, ‘On reflection, it’s probably drugs. I’d put my money on it.’
Maybe, I thought as I watched his big machine drive away. The girl hadn’t seemed like a drug addict, but you didn’t have to be one to be involved in the transportation of drugs. All you had to be was greedy, or in fear of somebody. I didn’t know if she was greedy or not, but the girl had certainly been terrified and desperate. That seemed a good enough qualification to me.
