Silent Running

by Pauline Rowson

  The boat rocked and a few seconds later Helen appeared in the doorway of his cabin, still fully dressed but without her boots. She was carrying her duvet.

  ‘I’m freezing.’

  He switched on the cabin light. ‘You can have this one,’ he said, sitting up and holding out his duvet for her.

  ‘But you’ll freeze to death.’

  ‘I’ve survived worse.’

  She entered the cabin and climbed in beside him. ‘No point in us both being cold. But no funny business, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  She spread her duvet over the top of his and lay down beside him. Marvik turned off the light. The wind was slapping the water against the boat. He was used to the sound but Helen wasn’t and he wondered if she’d be able to sleep. After a while she said, ‘What was Esther scared of?’

  Despite all her quips Marvik knew she was frightened. He didn’t blame her. Charlotte too had been scared.

  ‘That’s what I intend to find out.’ He just hoped he would be in time to save Charlotte’s life.

  ‘But will the police believe you when you do find out the truth?’

  He liked the way she said when rather than if. ‘That’s a different question.’

  She said nothing. He thought she might try and get some sleep but some minutes later she said, ‘For years I’ve wished that man dead. I’ve thought of him with nothing but hatred, and all this time my hatred has been focused on the wrong man. Who is this killer? Why did he kill her? Why did he let another man go to prison for it?’

  ‘Try and get some sleep.’

  ‘Will you?’ But she answered her own question. ‘No, I don’t expect you will. What happens tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’

  NINE

  Monday

  ‘Not bloody likely,’ she said, sitting bolt upright in bed in his cabin. It wasn’t yet daylight but the anger in her eyes blazed brighter than the glow of the cabin light. It was just after four thirty a.m. ‘You’re not dumping me,’ she insisted.

  ‘It’s not safe for you to be with me,’ Marvik repeated.

  ‘It’s not safe for me to be on my own either. My house was trashed in case you’ve forgotten. And, if what you say is true and they did plant a bug on me, even though you got rid of it, I reckon they’ll still find me.’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘Oh yeah, you sure about that?’ she said with heavy scepticism.

  No, he wasn’t, and that was the trouble. He didn’t like the idea of leaving her in a hotel any more than she fancied being dumped in one but there was an alternative and that meant he needed to talk to Crowder.

  She added, ‘I don’t want to end up like my sister, or your girlfriend Charlotte. I’m sticking to you like glue.’

  ‘It’s dangerous, Helen.’

  ‘Yes and that goes for whether I’m with you or alone. And Esther was my sister.’

  Marvik held her determined gaze. He could see she was resolute and he didn’t have time to argue. There were dark circles under her eyes which were bloodshot and her make-up had smeared. She’d slept. He’d heard her steady breathing next to him but it had been a fragmented troubled sleep, like his. He knew they were safe from intruders out here in the middle of the river but that didn’t stop him being alert to any. During the early hours of the morning his thoughts had veered from Charlotte’s whereabouts to Blackerman’s claims of innocence and then back to Esther and the woman sleeping beside him. But no matter how many times he ran through what he had learned, which was precious little, he could get no closer to who had taken Charlotte and where she might be.

  She said, ‘People will answer my questions because Esther was my sister. I could help you.’

  There was that. He’d considered it himself. ‘OK, but you do everything I tell you to.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Pack your things and the food we bought yesterday into that holdall,’ he said as he headed for the helm.

  He started the engine and pressed the switch to release the anchor. He’d decided during the night that he would transfer to his boat. He was curious to know if his cottage and boat were being watched. He’d have preferred to have been alone so that he’d have the chance to confront whoever was waiting – if they were waiting. He didn’t like the fact he also had to take care of Helen, but she was right. She could help him get to the truth much more quickly. He was turning the boat around when she appeared on deck huddled in Strathen’s jacket, yawning, Strathen’s holdall beside her.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘Further up the river.’

  She must have sensed that conversation was out of bounds. She said no more. The dark was to their advantage. That and the unexpectedness of his return, if someone was waiting for them.

  He motored slowly ahead. There were no lights here. The darkness of the shore enveloped them. She threw him an apprehensive glance. He’d already decided not to enter the cottage. He could buy what he needed elsewhere and he had clothes and toiletries on his boat. The pontoon was twenty-five yards from the house but it would take him time to moor alongside it, tie off the boat and make it up before transferring to his own boat. If the killer wanted to strike he’d have plenty of time to do so.

  After a few minutes he said, ‘There’s a pontoon just a little ahead and to the left. We’re going to moor this boat up and take the boat on the pontoon, but we need to do it quickly. As I come alongside, jump off with that line up forward. Hold on to it while I shut off the engine. I’ll throw you your bag. While I tie off run to my boat and get the cover off. If anyone comes along or they start shooting—’

  ‘Shooting?’ she cried, alarmed.

  ‘Run away from the house and pontoon, not towards it, get down and stay down and call the police. Take my phone. Don’t come back to see how I am or what I’m doing. Understood?’

  ‘You said it would be dangerous, but you didn’t say … you don’t think …’

  ‘Just do it and let’s hope we’re quicker than they are, if they’re there.’

  She swallowed and nodded, her face ashen, her eyes full of fear, but he recognized determination when he saw it. It reminded him for a moment of Charlotte before he quickly blotted it out.

  Marvik scanned the dark horizon as he swung the cruiser in; they were too exposed and there was too much time. They could be killed at any second.

  She did exactly as he had told her. His eyes were trained eagerly on the horizon and his ears strained for the slightest sound. As swiftly as he could he made the transition, all the while his eyes darting around him but there was nothing and no one. They were safe. Soon they were heading out into the Solent. She was trembling.

  ‘There’s drink below.’

  ‘I’ll make some tea.’

  He hadn’t meant that and she knew it. But tea would be good.

  Marvik watched the grey horizon gradually grow lighter as his mind worked out his game plan.

  Helen appeared on deck five minutes later and handed him a mug of tea. She seemed to have recovered. ‘It’s not as posh as that last boat, but I like it. It’s got more character. It has a lived-in appeal. Is it yours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘We head for Southampton.’

  ‘About Esther …’

  But he sharply interjected: ‘We’ll talk about that later.’

  Her puzzlement quickly turned to disbelief as she caught his meaning. And the shadow of fear was back in her eyes. He needed to check out the boat. Crowder had been on board it on Thursday and Duncan Ross or the person Ross had telephoned could have got on board on Saturday while he’d been in Littlehampton library. It had also been lying unguarded on his pontoon since Sunday afternoon. No one had needed to physically watch his cottage when they could do it – and probably were doing it – electronically. He’d deal with that at Southampton.

  They fell silent as they crossed the Solent. They had the grey sea almost to themselves apart from a
container ship heading out of Southampton and a Red Jet ferry.

  It was light when they made the marina where only a few days ago he’d been talking to Crowder. Helen went off to the showers carrying a towel he kept on the boat. There was a shower on board but it wasn’t anything like as efficient as the ones in the marina.

  Marvik began his sweep of the boat, starting with the cockpit. He found the tracking device at the helm. He descended into the cabin. The listening device was under the galley table where Crowder had placed it. There were no other devices on board that he could find but it was possible one or more were carefully hidden and he was meant to find the two that were strategically placed where he would locate them.

  He threw a change of clothes into his holdall along with shower gel and a razor and locked the boat. He took his time walking down the pontoon studying the boats around him. His was the only one on the visitors’ berth and the marina was too large, with over three hundred yachts, to remember all of the boats moored in it, but he noted those around him and the fact there was no one on board.

  He needed to call Strathen but in order to do so he needed a public pay phone. That wouldn’t be tapped but as he’d said to Strathen his phone could be. He entered the marina office and paid the visitor’s fee to the receptionist, a woman in her mid-twenties with blonde hair scraped back in a pony tail off her round, friendly face.

  ‘I was hoping to meet a couple of friends but got held up. Can you tell me if they’ve been and gone? Philip Crowder was one of them.’

  She checked the lists in front of her on the counter. ‘Mr Crowder left on Saturday afternoon.’

  After Marvik had been recruited. What guarantee did Marvik have that Charlotte hadn’t been on Crowder’s boat? None. But if she had been then who was Crowder? Was Charlotte’s disappearance a charade, something agreed with the navy and designed to do what? Suck him in and flush out Esther Shannon’s killer? But why? Why not use an undercover cop? And if Crowder was corrupt and had lured Charlotte to that boat with the purpose of silencing her, then he’d do the same with him. But first Crowder wanted something from him – was that Helen? Was he being set up here? Just let him try, thought Marvik with vigour.

  ‘Apart from Mr Crowder there’s only been Mr Duggan who came in from Poole, but he left yesterday.’

  ‘I must have got it wrong. I’ll call Philip. I might not stay here long.’

  ‘Stay as long as you like, Mr Marvik.’

  He smiled his thanks. He hadn’t seen that it would serve any purpose giving a false name, not with a GPS tracking device on the boat. Crowder knew he was here. And Crowder knew he had gone to Littlehampton and returned to the island on Sunday where he’d collected his car. And he was guessing that there had also been a tracking device on the Land Rover, which had probably been planted on the same day someone had entered his house, on Thursday when he had taken Charlotte to Southampton. Crowder had denied that was down to him, but then he would. But Crowder was the only person who had been in the cabin. The boat hadn’t been broken into and entered by anyone else. Marvik was certain on that score.

  Outside he surveyed the car park and those vehicles parked in the Royal Southampton Yacht Club spaces. There was no one loitering, but then there was unlikely to be. However, mentally he stored away what he saw.

  Crossing to the showers he waited for Helen to emerge with a pretence of looking irritated at having to be kept waiting, glancing impatiently at his watch every so often, just in case someone was watching him. As soon as she came out he said, ‘Go back inside and if you can get a signal, call the British Legion and see if you can get hold of John Stisford.’ He handed her the pay-as-you-go mobile phone, wondering if Crowder would be able to listen into her call there. He took the towel from her. It was damp but that didn’t bother him; the smell of her body fresh from the shower did.

  He punched the code into the keypad and pushed open the door to the men’s shower room where he let a hot jet of water cascade over his naked body easing the aches, pains and scars, sloughing off the fatigue. Helen was waiting for him when he stepped outside.

  ‘He’s moved to Weymouth but I managed to speak to him.’

  ‘They gave you his telephone number just like that?’ Marvik asked, surprised and cautious. ‘They’re very trusting.’

  ‘Only because I was speaking to someone I knew, Rosie Chandler. She’s been with the Legion since the year dot – and before you ask, no she didn’t go to the Remembrance Service in 1997. She was in hospital giving birth. John said he’d be at home all afternoon and that he’d be delighted to see me. I didn’t mention you.’

  Marvik quickly weighed up their options. Weymouth was a small seaside town on the Dorset coast about sixty miles west from where they now were. By car, if they’d had one, it would take them about ninety minutes, but Marvik wasn’t going to risk going back to Locks Heath to get Helen’s Fiat or retrieve his Land Rover from behind that abandoned stable block. Hiring a car would be traceable and take too long and taking a taxi meant relying on someone else. They could catch a train from Southampton Central station but there was a much better way to reach Weymouth.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, striking out towards the pontoon.

  ‘We’re going by boat!’ she cried incredulously, hurrying after him.

  ‘Weymouth has a perfectly good marina and it will only take an hour, ninety minutes at the most.’

  ‘But what about breakfast?’

  ‘We’ll grab something on the way.’

  ‘And you expect me to cook it for you!’ she complained.

  ‘Unless you want to pilot the boat. I can show you how.’

  ‘No. I’ll cook breakfast,’ she said hastily. ‘But I’m warning you, don’t make a habit of it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘And if you end up with egg all over your kitchen—’

  ‘Galley,’ he corrected.

  ‘It’s tough shit.’

  ‘Toast and coffee will be fine.’

  ‘Maybe but don’t blame me if I bring it up again.’

  He smiled. ‘You’ve managed all right so far.’

  ‘Yeah, but it looks stormy out there,’ she said warily, climbing on to the boat.

  Marvik studied the dark clouds gathering over a choppy water. The Solent and beyond would be rougher. Still, they could hug the coast as much as possible as far as Bournemouth and Poole, then around the tip of Swanage, along the Dorset coast, and into the sheltered bay of Weymouth.

  ‘Don’t worry, it will be perfectly calm,’ he lied.

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  He set a course for Weymouth Marina while Helen went below. Once out on Southampton Water he called Crowder. He answered promptly. Marvik gave him a sanitized version of events, leaving out the fact that DI Duncan Ross had called someone immediately after his visit to him, and that Marvik believed he had been followed and watched at Littlehampton. He also said nothing about his visit from DI Feeny and DS Howe but he told Crowder about his interview with Helen, the fact that her house had been searched, and that he’d got her out but they’d been followed.

  ‘I shook them off, but they’ll be back,’ Marvik added, hoping she would stay below for a little longer. ‘She’s with me now but she can’t stay with me, it’s not safe for her.’

  ‘You’ve obviously got him worried.’

  ‘Yes, but whoever he is, he has clout enough to have me followed.’

  ‘That’s not surprising, is it?’ Crowder answered.

  Marvik didn’t need to consider that for long. ‘No.’ This man had protected his own back for seventeen years and had managed to threaten Blackerman into keeping quiet. ‘Do you know who he is?’

  ‘No.’

  Was that a lie? Could the killer be a top-level police officer? It would certainly explain Crowder’s caution. But there was another possibility and one that had been buzzing around Marvik’s brain ever since that van had tailed him. It would also explain Crowder’s reluctance to use the official channel
s. This had all the hallmarks of the intelligence services and perhaps they had been detailed to cover up something connected with the navy. Blackerman had been navy and so too was Charlotte.

  ‘We’re getting close,’ Crowder said.

  And close meant the risks increased.

  ‘Has Helen given you any new leads?’ Crowder asked.

  ‘No. Until her house was broken into she firmly believed Blackerman was guilty, but now she’s not so sure and that puts her at risk. I can’t protect her all the time. If the killer comes for me that’s fine but I don’t want her hurt. I want her somewhere safe.’

  ‘I’ll get it sorted.’

  Marvik relayed what he’d discovered about Grainger’s hit and run and what DI Ross had intimated. ‘Maybe Grainger wanted to blow the whistle or was looking for a financial contribution to top up his pension. Is there any mention of Brighton in the Esther case?’

  ‘If there is I don’t know about it. Like I told you I haven’t requested the file, which means I haven’t read it, and you know why that is. And before you say wouldn’t it be quicker and better bringing this out in the open and re-investigating it, remember what I said on Friday and what you’ve just experienced with Helen. The moment there is any hint of this being officially investigated this killer will make sure all routes to him are firmly closed. And he can do it.’

  Marvik squinted at the horizon, frowning. ‘I’d like to talk to Grainger’s next of kin, his sister.’

  ‘Her name is Amelia Snow and she lives at flat twelve Esplanade Mews, Bognor Regis.’

  That was a small seaside town on the coast of West Sussex, fifty miles from London and about a hundred miles to the east of Weymouth. It was also about seven miles to the west of Littlehampton. Marvik didn’t ask how Crowder knew Amelia Snow’s address without reading the file. But then it would have been easy enough for Crowder to have accessed Grainger’s police record under some other pretext.

  ‘Don’t forget we need somewhere safe for Helen.’ Marvik rang off, noting that Crowder hadn’t asked where he was heading. He didn’t need to. He knew.