“A deckhand on Beausale goes by the name of Guy Cliffe, with an e.”
“Wow!” Skye tried, unsuccessfully, to hide her excitement.
Fergal nodded again.
“So this Guy Cliffe has to be connected to everything. Is that what you’re saying?”
Fergal nodded again before adding cautiously, “We mustn’t get carried away. There may be any number of explanations. Warwick may have known this Guy chap and given him a job because of some sort of local connection. There doesn’t have to be anything sinister. And there is, of course, another possibility.”
“Such as?”
“Someone on this crew may have had a connection to Diane.”
“You mean someone she looked after? Someone who stayed with her?”
“Exactly. I’m just about to call Anne to see if she can give us a list. One of the crew’s names may mean something. While I’m on is there anything else you want me to ask her?”
“How about ‘what is the real reason you sent us down here?’ Anyway, did she get back to you about yesterday’s questions?”
Skye listened to Fergal’s side of the conversation as he explained to Anne Hill the link they had found between Diane and the yacht and asked her for a list of names. She could see his disappointment when it was obvious she could do no such thing.
As he ended the call he shook his head. “Other than to say no, she doesn’t have a car, relies on taxis and public transport apparently, and has for years, Anne was no help.”
“Do they want us to find her or not?”
“If they do they don’t seem to be helping very much.”
“We could call Pat Bush. She was quite helpful, in the end anyway, when we were looking for Alex last summer. I’m thinking she did the same as Diane, she looked after people Gordon’s department wanted out of sight for a while, didn’t she? She may know a way to find out some names, back channels and all that. You never know.”
“It’s certainly worth a try. You call her, you got on better with her than I did back in July. I don’t think she liked me much.”
It was Fergal’s turn to watch and listen, imagining the other half of the conversation, as Skye talked to Pat. After a few minutes of small talk Skye asked the same question he had asked Anne and she got similar answers.
“How about I read you some names. Could you say whether any of them are familiar or have links to someone Diane may have come across in any way at all?”
Skye gestured for him to pass over the crew list and she read out the surnames pausing slightly after each one: Scott, Williams, O’Donnell, Mack, Thompson, Dodd, Santa Maria, Cliffe, Somerset, Rutherford, Bahadur, Collins. When she had finished the list she shook her head and after a few moments more of small talk ended the call.
“Nope, she didn’t admit to recognising any of those names.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“I just got the impression she did know something and just wasn’t saying.”
“Any particular name?”
“Not really.”
“A dead end then?”
“Not necessarily. Look, we have suspicions about this Guy Cliffe, haven’t we? The Warwickshire connection? So let’s do what we do best and find out more about him and his family.”
For two hours Skye and Fergal pursued their own investigations into Guy Cliffe’s life. By using different approaches, they hoped to find different information.
Skye was the first to break the silence. “That’s interesting, very interesting.”
“What is?” Fergal asked.
“No doubt you’ve done all the usual stuff, birth certificates etcetera…”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’ve been looking at social media.”
“And?”
“His school, in Canterbury if you hadn’t got that far, did a project in 2012 about family histories and lots of them posted their results on the school’s page.”
“Guy?”
“Yes, Guy did. And it makes quite interesting reading.”
“Go on.”
“He starts by saying about how his mother and father met at work. His father was a lorry driver and he worked with his mother’s brother, who introduced them. He says his mother’s family had always lived in the area but she had nothing to do with her parents after she got married as they disapproved of his father, Brian.” Skye paused dramatically, hoping that the name would have the same effect on Fergal as it had had on her when she had first seen it.
“Brian?”
“Exactly, Brian. Now that’s too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
Fergal nodded thoughtfully as Skye continued.
“There’s more. He writes about how his father was born in Canada but was adopted. Brian knew, or said he knew, nothing about his birth parents. He lived with his adoptive parents, the Cliffes, in Toronto until they were killed in a car crash in 1990, when he was twenty-two. That was when he came to England and got a job driving lorries in Canterbury.”
“So?”
“After his three pages of writing Guy ends saying, This is all a load of bullshit. I know it’s all lies but he’s sticking to his story.”
“Interesting.”
“Isn’t it? Diane searched for Barford Eden and Brian Cliffe at the same time, didn’t she? And Brian Cliffe allegedly came to England in 1990 which was the year Barford Eden died, or at least was supposed to have died. And all that about being adopted and his adoptive parents being, very conveniently, both dead, it just all looks like a false identity.”
“You’re a very long way from having any evidence for that let alone proving it.”
“I know. But what if Guy found out who his father really was—”
“You’re making a very, very big assumption if you’re saying Brian is Barford.”
“I know. But think about it. What if while he was doing this project somehow Guy discovered who his father really was? He would also have discovered his uncle was Warwick, a very rich and completely horrible man.”
“So he murdered him? I think that’s a tad far-fetched.”
“Money and sex.”
“Pardon?”
“Money and sex,” explained Skye patiently, “the only two real motives for murder. And Guy certainly had a money motive.”
“Only if he really did believe his father was Warwick Eden’s next of kin and would inherit. And I think you should consider other motives like fear and politics and religion and revenge…”
“Okay okay, you’ve made your point but I still think he’s in the frame.”
“Come on, Skye, there’s so many flaws in your train of thought. We don’t know Guy is a member of the family Diane was searching for; even if he was we don’t know he knew and we certainly don’t know he is greedy enough to risk murder.”
“Then tell me why he was on Warwick Eden’s yacht.”
“That I can’t do. Anyway, we’re not here to solve the murder, we’re here to find out what happened to Diane.”
“Are we? Is that what Gordon sent us here to do when his lot are far better equipped? I think what he really wants us to do is sort out the links between Eden’s murder and Diane’s disappearance.”
Fergal did not want to be convinced. “But Eden’s body wasn’t found until after he phoned us.”
“It wasn’t on the news until afterwards but he would have known well before anything was said publicly, wouldn’t he?”
“I suppose he would.”
“I really think Diane’s disappearance is linked to the yacht and probably to Eden’s murder.”
“You’ve given up on your idea that she’s just having a few days away on her own?”
Skye shrugged. “I never thought that really anyway.”
“So what do you suggest we do?”
“Let’s go down along the Embankment where there are all those little booths selling ice cream and river trips. Those poor people have to sit there all day so one of them may have seen Diane. Perhaps she was just looking closely at the yacht or maybe she was talking to someone or even going on board. You never know.”
“They’ll all be closed now so we’ll head there first thing in the morning. We’ve had a long day. Time for dinner.”
It was at the fifth of the booths that lined the section of the Embankment which would have had the best view of Beausale that they struck lucky.
“Yes, I recognise her.”
“You have a good memory.” Fergal was sceptical.
“I do actually. For faces anyway. Most of the time I work in a bar, you have to have a good memory for people doing that. Why do you want to find her?”
“She’s my aunt,” Skye thinking of a lie more quickly than Fergal could. “We’re worried about her. She’s been very depressed lately and we wondered if she might have…”
“She looked happy enough when I saw her.”
“When was that?”
“Last week. Where are we now? Wednesday? It would have been about a week ago.”
“Last Thursday?” Skye suggested.
“Yes, it would have been Thursday. I saw her chatting to one of the guys off that flash superyacht that was here. I’m not that busy now the season’s coming to an end so I have a lot of time to watch what’s going on.”
“Did she go on board? I can’t think why she would but do you think she might have done?” Skye asked.
“It’s possible. I can’t say for certain one way or the other. Mind you she was wearing a bright yellow shirt and I did see someone with a yellow shirt on board. So yes, she might well have done.”
“Did you see her come back?”
“I don’t think I saw her again. She might have done. But then again she might not have done.”
“Thank you, you have been very helpful.” Fergal brought the conversation to an end. “Come on, Skye, let’s leave this young man in peace. Coffee?”
“I think we have enough, don’t you?” Skye said as she sipped her Americano.
“What for?”
“To tell Anne that Diane was on the Beausale.”
“Which was last seen in Poole.”
“But we can’t say she’s still on board, can we? She may well have got off.”
“And we can’t say whether she was on board willingly, even if she ever was. Just because she was talking to a member of the crew…”
“If that was who she was talking to.”
“Just because she was talking to someone doesn’t mean that she wasn’t forced to go on board.”
“I think we have enough to suggest that Anne gets someone to check out Poole.”
Fergal took out his phone and called Anne. It was a short call.
“How did that go?” Skye asked.
“She was very complimentary. She said leave the rest to them. Job done. We can go back home.”
“Really?”
Fergal nodded. “She said there was no need for us to stay here a day longer.”
As they walked back along the Embankment towards their hotel they saw the flashing blue lights of police cars.
“What’s up now?” Skye asked. “They can’t be back checking where Warwick’s body was found, surely.”
“Not with an ambulance.”
When they got back to their room Fergal checked his phone for information.
“We’re not going anywhere, Skye. This is odd. Anne didn’t say anything about this but she must have known.”
“What didn’t she say that she’d have known?”
“They’ve found another body.”
Chapter 12: Diane Hammill
Diane Hammill stood on her balcony looking down on the river through her binoculars. She was particularly interested in any activity on Beausale and after a few minutes was rewarded by a flurry of activity.
She could see the man she recognised as Warwick Eden clambering in ungainly fashion onto the yacht’s tender and she followed its progress as it weaved through the various canoes, skiffs, ferries and sightseeing boats on the crowded river towards the landing stage.
She watched as Eden, an overweight man in an unseasonal tweed suit, climbed the steps onto the Embankment where he was greeted by two men, both wearing blue blazers. After the three exchanged a few words they were ushered by a liveried chauffeur into the back seat of a black limousine which then drove away.
She turned her binoculars back to the tender which was returning to the yacht. She could clearly see the crew as they went about their business and made sure she would be able to recognise any one of them if she met them in the town.
She was rewarded that lunchtime when she saw a young red-headed man, little older than eighteen she thought, sitting alone in one of the pubs in the town.
“Are you from that big beautiful yacht in the river?” she asked, sitting down, uninvited, next to the boy.
He looked up from his drink.
“I am.”
“We get quite a few big yachts, small cruise ships, but none quite so notorious.” Diane used the word deliberately to engage the boy in conversation.
“Notorious?”
“It belongs to Warwick Eden, doesn’t it? Is he on board? It’s not often a national politician of, shall I say, questionable motives comes to this town.”
“Yes, it’s Mr Eden’s yacht but he’s not on board anymore.”
“No? If I had a yacht like that it’d take an earthquake to get me off.”
“He did plan to stay in the Dart for a week or more. He’s got guests lined up he wants to impress. We’ve got parties planned when he’s going to push himself in front of people with influence; lots of press and bigwigs have been invited.”
“I suppose he wants to push himself to be a main man in these Brexit negotiations?”
“I suppose it’s all about that.”
“I’m Diane by the way.” She held out her hand which he took and shook.
“I’m Ryan.”
“Can I buy you another drink, Ryan?”
When she returned to the table she continued her conversation, chatting as if the answers to her questions were of no importance.
“I’m surprised the yacht’s allowed to stay, what with the Regatta starting next week.”
“Oh we can’t stay. We’ve got to leave this evening.”
“Without Mr Eden?”
“It’s all screwed up. You’re right, Beausale can’t stay in the river because of the Regatta. When he found out he blew his nuts off. He said all the arrangements had been made and he screamed at the captain, in front of us; he sacked him there and then and put the idiot mate in charge.”
“Idiot mate?” Diane quoted back when Ryan didn’t seem to want to say any more.
“His name’s Guy. He’s not much older than me and he only joined the crew a few months ago. He doesn’t seem to have any idea about what he’s doing. I don’t think he’s qualified, not to captain a yacht like Beausale.”
Diane didn’t answer immediately. She took a long sip of her gin and tonic to give herself time to think. Guy. It wasn’t that common a name.
“So why do you think Mr Eden put this Guy in charge?” she eventually asked.
“No idea. Perhaps it was just that he was so angry about having his plans messed up. Anyway, we’re leaving tonight and coming back in ten days’ time to pick Eden up.”
“So what are you going to do between now and then?” Diane asked, she thought not unreasonably.
“He said he didn’t give a shit. He said he was a busy and an important man who could not be bothered with details. As long as Beausale is in the River Dart, spick and span and ready to impress, on the Wednesday after the Bank Ho
liday matie, Guy that is, could take us wherever he wants.”
“Look, Ryan, I’ve got to go. It’s been good to talk to you.”
“You too, ma’am.”
“Here’s my number. Get in touch when you get back next week.”
“I certainly will.”
That evening as she watched through her binoculars as Beausale was carefully manoeuvred out of the estuary she thought perhaps ‘Guy’ knew what he was doing after all.
Diane had followed Warwick’s career as a playboy and then as he entered politics with a mixture of dismay and amusement because she had known his brother, Barford, who had been one of her ‘guests’ more than twenty years before.
When she had learned that the yacht belonged to Warwick Eden she had wondered whether he knew of his brother’s connection to the town but had decided there was no way he could have known. She still felt it worth mentioning in her weekly conversations with Gordon Hamilton. She had refused to make her reports to Anne Hill. She didn’t like the way a second rate police officer from the Isle of Wight had been absorbed into Gordon’s department so swiftly, and been given, far too quickly in her opinion, a position of some responsibility.
“Warwick Eden has been in town,” she reported.
“So I hear.”
“Should I be worried? Would he know about his brother?” She had to ask the question though she suspected she would not get an honest answer.
“I doubt it, but even if he does, what can he hope to achieve?”
“Anyway, he arrived on his yacht last Saturday but has had to leave because of the Regatta.”
“Did you see him meet anyone?”
“Two men with a chauffeured limo.”
“Any idea who they were?”
“None.”
“I believe there are various Devon farmers and politicians he’s buttering up to support him so these were probably connected to them.”
“They looked very London to me.” When Gordon made no reply she continued. “I spoke to a crew member.”
“Which one?”
Diane did not hear the urgency in Gordon’s voice.
Hostage to Fortune Page 12
