“I didn’t know you were doing that.”
“Why would I tell you? I thought it would be a wild goose chase even though I did think it was worth looking.”
“And?” Skye carefully put Fergal’s mug on the table by his screen and sat down.
“I’ve found her.”
“Where?”
“It wasn’t easy.” Fergal wanted his wife to fully appreciate how ingenious he had been.
“Okay, okay, who’s a clever boy then. Where?” she smiled.
“Southern Spain. Cartagena to be precise. Parked up, clear as day.”
He turned the screen towards Skye who looked at the yacht. “It hardly seems big enough for that journey.”
“She crossed the Atlantic earlier in the year, remember, so a short trip down across the Bay of Biscay and through the Straits of Gibraltar is hardly going to be a problem. I was worried she’d gone back to the Caribbean, because then we would never have found her. But here she is! Southern Spain, we’ve got her! She’s in Cartagena.”
“And you reckon Diane is on board?”
“She may not be now but she certainly has been. I’m sure of it.”
“How?”
“How am I sure? Simply because there is nowhere else for her to be.”
“Just out of interest,” Skye asked almost as an afterthought, “how far is Cartagena from where Pat lives?”
“Pat? Altea? A couple of hours, I suppose,” Fergal answered as if he hadn’t already checked.
“Will you call her or shall I?”
“That was really odd.” Skye began her report of her conversation with Pat. “At first she was really keen to help. She said she’d drive down and check out the yacht when I told her we believed Diane was on it. Then she asked me if there had been any developments since our last call and I told her about the second murder, Ryan Thingummy. I’m not sure whether she knew about it or not. She sort of clammed up, just saying she couldn’t go down to Cartagena for a day or so but hoped that wouldn’t be a problem. I couldn’t say anything, could I? So I said that would be fine. We couldn’t get there any quicker.”
“And?”
“She’s going down the day after tomorrow, on Thursday. I told her we’d let her know if there was any sign of Peabody Three leaving Cartagena, or being somewhere else for that matter. Anyway, if she doesn’t hear anything from us she’ll go down and phone us when she gets there.”
“I don’t like the delay. Anything could be happening.” Fergal frowned. He would have imagined Pat would want to check on the yacht, and possibly find Diane, as soon as possible.
“We have to wait for Pat. We’ve got no choice.”
“Fair enough. While we’re waiting for her to get her arse into gear and drive the hundred-odd miles down the coast I’ll keep an eye on Peabody and ports surrounding and we can both spend the time finding out what we can about Stratford and Warwick and Barford.”
“And any connections.”
“Yes, connections.”
“Between Guy and this Arjun Patel and Peabody?”
“And between Guy and any of the Edens.”
“Any of the Edens, or Guy, or Arjun Patel, to Cartagena.”
“Or anywhere in Spain really.”
“Any of them to Ryan O’Donnell.”
“Or his father John.”
“Bloody hell, we’ve got our work cut out haven’t we?”
Chapter 14: Pat Bush
Pat Bush was in no hurry to do as Skye and Fergal had asked. She had things to do that were, to her, far more important; and besides, there was no love lost, on either side, between her and Diane Hammill.
When they met, for the first and only time, she had hoped there would have been a bond between them.
They both worked for the section of the Home Office currently administered by Gordon Hamilton, opening their homes to men and women in need of a safe haven in which to recover from mental and physical wounds or simply to hide from the world for a time as their futures were decided. But Pat had been disappointed when Diane had brushed off her attempts at friendship. Although older, by thirteen years, Pat had less experience in the roles they both played and she had hoped to learn something of how she could overcome the problem she found in remaining emotionally detached from her guests.
“I can’t give you any advice about that,” Diane had said.
“Why ever not?”
“Because sometimes there are things in life you just have to find out for yourself.”
They had had no contact since that day so Pat felt no need to hurry to Cartagena.
If Diane had got herself into a mess she would have to get herself out of it.
When she had first driven south along the coast, more than half a century before, the road had been a single carriageway which, as it passed through mountains close to the coast, had been perilous. The main road had passed through the centre of towns just beginning to grow large and prosperous as tourism began to flourish. Fishing had still been the main industry in the towns she passed through. Franco, the Fascist dictator, had still been in power. Evidence of the Civil War was still to be seen in most village squares, the marks of bullets clearly seen on church walls. That drive south to Cartagena in the mid-1960s had taken a day. Fifty years later, driving on European Union-funded motorways, it took Pat just under two hours.
She saw Peabody Three two minutes after walking out of the underground car park into the bright sunshine. She found it interesting that whoever had taken Diane, if that was really what had happened, did not appear to fear being found.
After a pleasant half hour drinking coffee in one of the many marina side bars she saw a man leaving the yacht. Hurriedly placing a few euros on her table she walked towards him, intercepting him before he had a chance to step onto the quay.
“Nice yacht,” she said casually. “Do you work on it or just visiting?”
“I own it,” Arjun replied testily. His annoyance at the old woman’s assumption that he was crew overcame his reluctance to answer her questions.
“I’m so sorry,” Pat replied appearing anything but apologetic. As she tried to think of what else to say she made a vain attempt to look at the yacht more closely, to see if there was any sign of Diane. “I bet you get to go to some lovely places. I’d love to have a closer look.” She pushed past him before he could stop her.
She had time to see a figure through the nearly closed curtains of a cabin. She could not be sure whether it was a man or a woman, and, if a woman, whether it could be Diane. It was a while since they’d met and Skye had told her simply that Diane had been wearing yellow.
“I’m afraid that will not be possible,” Arjun said firmly.
“I am so sorry. I’m just a silly old woman who would love to have had the chance to see how the other half lives.”
The figure in the cabin moved just enough for Pat to see a flash of yellow. She was almost certain it was Diane.
She had seen enough and did not resist as Arjun guided her back towards the quay.
The phone call from Patrick O’Donnell, only hours after Pat had returned from Cartagena, upset her more than, perhaps, it should have done. Of all the men, and women, she had harboured in her house on the Costa Blanca in the years since her Harry had died, Patrick had been the one she had allowed herself to become closest to. It was Patrick who was living with her when she had hoped to talk to Diane about getting too close to a ‘guest’.
He had been badly injured in Iraq in November 1990 and had spent more than a year with her while he gained sufficient control of himself physically and mentally to face the real world again. They had been ‘the two Pats’ to the world, aunt and nephew, in the months he had stayed with her.
She had gone out on a limb to help him. She had fought to get him compensation that would have allowed him a decent life on Civvy Street but a
n anonymous comrade had lied about the circumstances of his injury, for reasons she had never established, and Patrick was awarded the bare minimum in compensation.
In her anger at the authorities and in her frustration she had helped him herself.
After he left her they had kept in touch and she had followed his progress closely.
The money she had given him allowed him to set up a building firm in the West Country and he had done very well for himself. He had married, had two daughters and established himself as a pillar of his local community. On her instruction he had not contacted her for more than ten years.
But then, out of the blue, came his call.
“My brother’s son has been killed. The police say it’s suicide but no way.”
“John’s son?”
“Yes, Ryan. You heard about the second Dartmouth murder? Just a couple of days after that shit Eden was killed.”
Pat agreed quietly that she had.
“That second victim was Ryan. And they’re saying it was suicide. They’re saying he killed himself because he had assassinated Warwick Eden. He’s twenty years old for fuck’s sake! He’s no interest in politics! Why would he have killed that Eden shit? Why would he have killed himself? It makes no sense.”
“No. No sense at all.” Pat found it hard to believe that anyone would be convinced by the story.
“I know. It’s completely ridiculous. Is there anything you can do? You have friends in high places. They can’t bring Ryan back but perhaps they can stop all this shit in the press and all over the internet about him being a suicide and an assassin. Perhaps you can make them find out who really killed Eden and who may then have killed Ryan.”
“I’m so sad for you, Pat. So sad for your family. I’ll do what I can, though of course I can’t promise anything. Twenty, you say? That’s far too young. Far too young.”
After their call ended she sat on her veranda, looking out over the valley below her towards the Mediterranean. It was a view that always made her feel calm.
She had some thinking to do.
A prominent man is murdered. A woman goes missing from the same town. Another body is found, to all intents and purposes solving the first murder. It was all too convenient.
And she was connected to it all, not only because of her, albeit tenuous, connections with both Ryan and Diane.
What she hoped no one would discover was that she also had a connection with the Eden family.
It was some time before she had sorted things out in her mind and she felt it was safe to call Skye.
“I believe Diane is on that yacht.”
“Really! Oh that is good news!”
“Not necessarily. It’s fine if she’s there freely but if she’s being kept against her will it could be that as soon as her captors realise she has been found they will get rid of her.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, Oh.”
“Did you manage to find out anything about the yacht?” Skye asked, chastened at the thought that finding Diane might have unwanted consequences.
“It is, apparently, owned by an Indian, at least a man of Indian heritage; you never know the nationalities of people these days, do you?”
“I suppose not.”
“I discovered from a helpful server at a nearby bar that the yacht arrived two days ago and appears to have just two men on board.”
“Apart from Diane that is.”
“Assuming it was Diane. I have only that flash of yellow to confirm your suspicions. I’m not sure I could swear that it was her.”
“But it’s likely?”
“Probable rather than simply possible, yes.”
“Can you keep an eye on it? Go back tomorrow? Find out who else is on the yacht? There might be a chatty member of the crew.”
“I suppose I could try,” Pat replied with a show of reluctance. “I could double up with a visit to the Civil War Museum, I’ve been meaning to visit it for some time.”
“There’s a Civil War museum in Cartagena? I didn’t realise… Was it affected?” Skye asked.
“How ignorant you are, my dear. So knowledgeable about some things and so ignorant of others, perhaps closer to home. Everyone knows about Guernica because of Picasso’s dreadful painting but few remember, or want to remember, the awful destruction in Cartagena.”
“Destruction?”
“They were bombed dreadfully five months earlier. Italian and German planes on the Nationalist side rained bombs on the population of Cartagena. The bombardment went on for months.”
“Why Cartagena?”
“It was the headquarters of the Republican fleet. The Fascists of all nationalities used it all as a dress rehearsal for the war that was to come two years later. Anyway, enough about ancient history, has there been any progress on that convenient second murder?”
“None, none at all,” said Skye.
She wasn’t sure why she lied.
As Pat was speaking to Skye, Arjun lay with Guy on his bed on Peabody Three.
He had been afraid to ask Guy what was going on.
In the days since they had been reunited he had not questioned why he had had to meet Beausale or who the woman was that had been moved from one yacht to the other or what had happened to Sandy, the young man who had seen him safely from Poole to the rendezvous in Torbay. Nor had he questioned why they had spent a week sailing south or why they had settled in Cartagena.
He had been afraid to question Guy because he was afraid to lose him but the conversation with the old woman on the quayside that afternoon had unsettled him.
“Who is she, this woman kept prisoner below?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“Oh, I think I do. This is my yacht. If there’s going to be any problem with any authorities then it will be me that has to answer the questions. Who is she?”
“Her name is Diane Hammill.”
“That does not answer my question. Why have you taken her prisoner?”
“That’s a pretty serious accusation, Arjun. I haven’t taken her prisoner.”
“It pretty much looks like that to me. She isn’t free to leave, is she? She can’t just open the door to her cabin and head up the quay and away, can she?”
Guy shook his head. He had wondered how long it would be before Arjun started asking awkward questions. “Who’s more important, Arjun, that old biddy or me?” He reached out to Arjun, pulled him close and kissed him roughly.
He knew that he could always do as he liked as long as Arjun needed him more than he needed Arjun.
“No, Guy.” Arjun pushed him away, wiping the back of his hand against his mouth. “You have to tell me. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me for months now, but you need to be honest with me. Why the woman? Why Spain? What happened to that money you were going to get hold of?”
Guy lay back against the pillows, pushing the sheet away from his body, posing artfully so that Arjun would be distracted from his interrogation.
“No, Guy, you cannot…”
But Guy could, and it was some time before Arjun could concentrate on getting answers to his questions.
“I won’t tell you about the woman, you are going to have to trust me that it was necessary to take her away from England for a bit.”
“You don’t intend to harm her?”
“Whatever made you think that? If I’d wanted to harm her don’t you think she’d be fish food by now? No, I just mean to keep her out of circulation for a bit. If things change, then it might be different, but for the moment I just need to keep her hidden.”
“And Spain?”
“Don’t you like Spain?” Guy countered without answering the question.
He did not want to say that he had come to Cartagena hoping to find something that would explain the links the man he knew to be his grandfat
her, Stratford Eden, had had with the country where he had made his family’s first million. “I’ve never been before. I thought it might be fun… and warm… No need to wear too many clothes… just like the Caribbean.”
Arjun ran his fingers up and down Guy’s tanned back, lingering on every familiar vertebra. Just as he bent his head Guy moved, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Anyway, where do you want to go now? Farther up the Spanish coast or across to Italy? The South of France? Malta?”
“Have we got to move on?” Arjun asked, disappointed.
“We have. Thanks to you that woman on the quay may have seen our honoured guest.”
“What can two old women do?” Arjun asked, pulling Guy back down onto the bed next to him.
“I suppose that all depends on the old woman,” Guy answered as he did what he had to do to keep Arjun sweet.
Chapter 15: Stratford Eden
“I’ve been looking into Stratford Eden,” Fergal said as Skye ended her second call with Pat.
“Have you found any connections to any of our other players?”
“You mean Guy Cliffe or Arjun Patel?”
“Or Ryan and John O’Donnell. Or any of them to Cartagena, or anywhere in Spain really.”
“Some. Quite a bit really.”
“Really?”
“Stratford was a fascinating man. He had a very interesting life. I’ve found out quite a lot but I’m absolutely certain there’s a whole pile more to discover.”
“I haven’t exactly been twiddling my thumbs either,” Skye said testily.
“And?”
“I’ve been concentrating on his elder son, Barford. He was quite interesting as well.”
“But have you made any of those connections?”
“I might have done,” Skye hinted.
“Me first?”
“Okay. Let’s hear all about Stratford Eden.”
Fergal recognised from the show his wife made of closing her laptop, shifting in her chair, pulling her skirt down over her knees and adopting a look of exaggerated concentration that she had wanted to tell him of her discoveries first.
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