by Iain Cameron
‘I’m a private investigator. I’ve been asking around, talking to vineyard owners and trying to find out if any of their neighbours are acting out of character; buying up lots of land, building expensive facilities or driving new vehicles. They’ll always tell me if they know something; it’s simple human jealousy.’
‘Ok.’
‘I’d been hitting a brick wall for a couple of weeks when I hear about this château in Blaye, outside Bordeaux, a small producer with big, smart, buildings, fancy cars, a new warehouse; the whole kit and caboodle. I hang around for a bit, wait for some of the employees to finish work and I go talk to them. Cutting to the chase, I met a guy who works at a place called Château Osanne. I think it’s the same Chris Fletcher you’ve got in your morgue.’
Henderson had been sipping his pint but stopped when he heard this.
‘You talked to Chris?’
‘Yep, a couple of times. One day he doesn’t show up to an arranged meet and when I ask at the château, they say he’s gone back to England. I do a bit of snooping around the place later that night and I get beaten up for my trouble.’
‘The reason why you ended up in hospital?’
‘Yep, and forced to read every goddamn English newspaper I can lay my hands on. All the books here are in French.’
Henderson had so many questions, but the crowd had thinned and Rachel was looking at her watch and pointing upstairs. With the phone clamped to his ear, they climbed the stairs up to the circle. They’d missed the warm-up band, but judging by the racket they could hear downstairs in the bar, they didn’t miss much.
‘I’ll need to call this conversation to a halt soon, Mr Miller, as I’m walking into a concert hall and it’s all set to get loud.’
‘Lucky you. It will be a day or two before I can walk again.’
‘I think it would be sensible for us to meet.’
‘I was about to suggest the same thing.’
‘The problem for me is I can’t travel to France; budget constraints and all that.’
‘Tell me about it. Everybody thinks Uncle Sam’s got bottomless pockets, but with Republicans in Congress and the Senate, they spend all their time trying to slash public spending. Where are you based?’
By force of habit, Henderson said, ‘Brighton, East Sussex, in the South of England.’
‘I don’t know where Brighton is but hey, I can read a map and it will give me something else to do. This is Monday; assuming I get out tomorrow, I’ll come straight over to the UK on the high speed train. I ain’t staying in this place any longer than I need to. I know when I’m not wanted.’
‘Smart move if the people who beat you up are still around.’
Henderson sat down. The seats in the circle were all full and downstairs, where it was standing room only, it looked packed. Many of the young people he’d seen in the bar were down there talking to their friends, hands clamped firmly around beer glasses. He wondered where the liquid and the glasses would end up when the band started and they all began to jump around. Perhaps they would be so joyous or drunk they wouldn’t notice.
‘I’ll book into a hotel in your town and we can arrange to meet from there. How does that sound?’
‘Excellent, Mr Miller. I’ll look forward to it.’
‘Me too. Hey, you take care.’
‘You too, bye.’
A few minutes later, the lights dimmed, a roar rose from the crowd and the Maccabees came on stage. They grabbed their instruments and with barely a ‘hello’ launched into the first song. They were halfway through it when Rachel leaned over and pulled his arm.
‘Mr H, what was the important thing you wanted to tell me about?’
Henderson braced himself. This was perhaps the first test of how they would get on as a couple living together. Rachel worked regular hours with weekends in the summer often spent at country shows, but he had a habit of cancelling well-established plans when a major crime suddenly hit his desk.
‘The trip we were planning to Scotland to see my folks and do a bit of touring?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I think we’ll have to postpone it for a couple of weeks. That phone call sounded like progress in my floater case when I thought it was going nowhere.’
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Strange, he expected a slap.
‘I guessed as much,’ she said smiling. ‘Now give your voice a rest and listen to the band.’
NINE
The on-coming traffic cleared and DC Sally Graham floored the accelerator of the Vauxhall Astra pool car. Nothing much happened, causing DC Deepak Sunderam in the passenger seat beside her to grip the door handle when he saw another car coming towards them.
‘Not much poke in this thing, is there?’ she said as she guided the car back to the safety of the inside. It didn’t elicit a blast of the horn from the on-coming car, but Sunderam still didn’t release his tightly gripped hand.
‘Do you need to drive so fast?’
‘Was I?’
‘You were, it was as if we were in pursuit of another vehicle.’
She laughed. ‘It would help if these pool cars weren’t so knackered. My little car nips in and out of overtaking manoeuvres far better than this heap of rubbish.’
‘It’s a good job then we’re using this and not your car.’
‘Have you found a place to stay yet, or are you still commuting from Guildford?’
‘I’m renting a flat in Hove at the moment, but if my move to Sussex is to be made permanent, I’d like to buy somewhere.’
‘Have you seen house prices in the Brighton and Hove area? You’ll need to share with someone or get help from your folks. It’s hard to afford anything more than a bedsit on a DC’s salary.’
‘My father has offered to assist me.’
‘That’s good. What does he do?’
‘He’s a heart surgeon at St Bart’s Hospital in London.’
‘Ah, that’s why you’re so skinny. You should run classes for some of those fatsos in our building and over at John Street; some of them are walking cardiac cases.’
They reached the outskirts of Newhaven where Graham ignored signs for the town centre and headed towards the docks. She and her car companion had spent the last couple of days reading through transcripts of interviews done by two uniformed officers from Newhaven with the passengers and crew of the ferry from which Chris Fletcher fell. It must have seemed like a thankless job for the two coppers who did the interviews, as they didn’t know where anyone would have been on the ship at the time and how sober or alert they were.
The interviews were all done by telephone, asking if they’d seen Chris or if they had noticed the incident from which he perished, but all professed ignorance. Crew interviews had only been conducted with the captain and a few of the senior officers, but as they were most likely to be on the bridge at the time of Chris’s disappearance, the detectives today also wanted to speak to other members of the crew.
Heading towards the quay, they passed numerous storage warehouses and logistics companies, either working for many of the industrial companies close by, or transporting goods on the huge ferry that loomed in front of them. Graham followed the signs for Car and Foot Passenger Check-in and stopped outside the port offices of Cross-Channel Seaways.
They waited a few minutes for General Manager Stefan Karlsson to appear. DC Graham didn’t mind the wait as a steady trickle of cars were arriving and she knew that the ship, which she could see through slightly clouded windows, wasn’t going anywhere for at least another hour.
‘Ah Detectives Graham and Sunderam,’ a tall blond man said in a loud voice as he strode towards them. He shook their hands. He had deep blue eyes, tanned skin, and the hint of a large gold chain under his shirt. The word ‘charmer’ popped into Sally Graham’s head and this was confirmed when he said, ‘You must have some Scandinavian blood Miss Graham, it is not often I see British girls with naturally blonde hair.’
‘Not as far as I know, Mr Karlsson, my
mother and grandmother both come from Sussex.’
‘Maybe further back, eh? Come. I will introduce you to our captain.’
With a hand on her shoulder to guide her past other passengers, he led them outside and towards the cross-Channel ferry, Brittany. He was a tall man with a long stride and it was difficult keeping up with him. Deepak was having trouble too, but he was probably more annoyed that Karlsson was talking to her and ignoring him.
‘We have 58 sailings to France per day on the south east coast of England over three routes: Newhaven to Dieppe, Dover to Calais and Dover to Dunkirk. This is the Brittany and it is the largest ship we use from Newhaven. It is 142 meters long, it can carry 650 passengers…’
She tuned out. At school, maths was her weakest subject, barely scraping a ‘B’ in her GCSE’s and her eyes would gloss over at the slightest mention of numbers or a stream of statistics. Now if he wanted to talk history, or about the great book he was reading at the moment, he would have her full attention.
‘… and it has a panoramic lounge and would you believe, a ship-wide Wi-Fi system.’
‘Very impressive,’ Graham said, grateful her inattention hadn’t come to his notice.
They climbed a narrow staircase and after pushing open a door marked, ‘No Admittance – Crew Only,’ they walked into a room with masses of screens and dials, arranged under a panoramic window with views overlooking the bow.
‘This is the nerve centre for the whole ship. It is steered from here, the engines are monitored from here, and feeds from CCTV cameras tell the crew what is going on in the passenger areas and down in the car deck. I will now leave you in the company of Captain Michael Swanley. It was nice meeting you, detectives.’
‘Thank you, Mr Karlsson,’ she said.
They shook hands with Captain Swanley and sat down. She was expecting to meet an old sea dog with a weather-beaten face, wild white hair and wearing a white and grey spotted polo neck, but this guy was young, no older than mid-thirties. He wore a crisp, white shirt, worn open-necked, and his close-cropped beard and styled black hair made him look more like a marketing executive than the ship’s captain.
‘You are investigating our man overboard, three weeks ago, I understand.’
‘Yes, we are. What can you tell me about him?’
‘Very little I’m afraid. We didn’t find out he’d gone missing until we’d docked at Newhaven.’
‘How did you find out? I don’t imagine you check the names of every passenger as they come on and off.’
‘No, you’re right, we don’t. It was another passenger who informed us. He said he knew him from previous crossings and they’d agreed to meet in the bar for a drink. When he didn’t show up, he searched all round the ship and when he couldn’t find him, he feared the worst and alerted one of the stewards who told me. I had a member of the crew stand with him as the foot passengers got off at Newhaven but he wasn’t there. We then conducted a search of the empty ship.’
‘Can you give me the name of this passenger?’
He reached behind him and handed her a piece of paper. It included the man’s name, Darren Land, and a mobile phone number.
‘Thank you.’
‘How did this friend know he wasn’t travelling in a car?’ Sunderam asked.
‘The victim told him he was on foot.’
‘Is it easy to fall overboard from a boat like this?’ Graham asked.
‘Come over here and I’ll show you.’ They walked to the side of the large room and stood looking through the tall windows. Facing straight ahead she could see all the way up to the bow and out into the Channel, and on the left, over to the ferry port and towards the town.
‘As you can see from the passengers standing there,’ the Captain said pointing down at the deck where several people were gathered and waving at friends on the dock, ‘the rails are roughly waist height. It’s enough to stop boisterous children and an accidental stumble ending in tragedy, but it’s not much of a barrier if someone really wanted to jump off.’
Graham didn’t believe in the suicide theory and neither did anyone else on the team, but DI Henderson had told her their supposition of murder wasn’t public knowledge. She decided not to enlighten the captain.
‘Are those side areas of the ship covered by CCTV?’ Sunderam asked.
‘I’m afraid not, the cameras tend to focus on the busy, public areas such as the bars and gangways leading to exits, and of course, the car deck.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Sunderam said, ‘I’d like to take a look at whatever CCTV pictures you may have.’
‘You’ll have to speak to Mr Karlsson about it. Well, if there’s nothing else, I need to get this ship ready for departure.’
‘We’ll leave you in peace,’ Graham said. ‘Is it ok if we talk to some of the crew?’
‘Be my guest, but when you hear the first blast of a loud whistle, it’s time for you to go ashore, that is if you don’t want to end up in Dieppe,’ he said with a smile.
They stepped out of the Bridge into a fine spring morning. The air had a delightful saltiness to it, tinged with a hint of rotting seaweed, bringing back pleasant memories of holidays in Great Yarmouth. Sally Graham used to travel regularly to France, as her boyfriend at the time bought all his beer and wine there, but they always went Eurotunnel. The next time she vowed she would take a ferry. She liked the idea of breathing clean, sea air, and as a keen photographer and bird watcher, she could take pictures of seabirds and the south coast as it slowly receded from view.
‘He was being helpful, right up until the point you asked him about CCTV,’ Graham said.
‘There I go, putting my big foot in it again.’
‘No, it’s not your fault, I was about to ask him the same thing.’
‘It doesn’t really matter, as I think he told us all he knew, which wasn’t much.’
‘He did give us the name of someone who knew Chris, Darren Land. I think uniform missed it as I don’t recall seeing his name in any of the interview statements.’
‘Me neither. So, where’s the best place on this ship to shove someone over?’
Ten minutes later and with Sunderam becoming more nervous at spending the afternoon in France, they arrived at the stern. There, and a couple of sections at the side of the ship, seemed the only outside places where the public could walk. The area was dominated by a restaurant and bar which enjoyed panoramic views through large areas of glass, not an ideal place to commit a crime. The sides looked a better bet.
‘I think it happened at this level,’ Sunderam said.
‘What about the two decks above us?’
‘No way. Someone below might see the body falling.’
‘True, but it was dark, remember. Let’s go into the bar and see if anyone in there saw anything.’
Despite it being a morning sailing, the bar was doing a brisk trade. She hoped it wasn’t a rough crossing, or the liberal downing of pints and shorts which she could tell from the number of empty glasses on some tables, would come to haunt the inebriated.
During a lull, the barman came over to see them. He had been on duty the night Chris Fletcher died and knew all about the man who had fallen overboard. He looked closely at the picture they showed him, but it was a long shot as several weeks had passed, and since then, hundreds of customers had probably been in his bar.
‘Yeah, I’m sure it was him. He told me he’d spent the last year working in a vineyard and wanted a beer; anything but wine.’
The barman, John, smiled at this little joke, revealing uneven, yellowing teeth.
‘It sounds like the same person,’ Graham said. ‘Chris Fletcher used to work in a vineyard, but why would you remember him? I would imagine this is a busy place some nights.’
‘It is, but he came in when it was quiet and we got talking.’
‘How come?’ Sunderam asked. ‘It looks busy enough today.’
‘Don’t let this fool you, it’s often quieter on the way back from France. There’s maybe a good
bargain in fags or booze in one of the hypermarkets and they spend all their money on it. If it’s booze, they sit in the corner and drink one of their bottles, thinking I don’t notice. As I was saying, I was quiet and we got talking. Cut a long story short, we found out we both went to the same school in Camberley.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yeah, different years as he was a bit older than me but we knew the same teachers and all that.’
‘Did you see him leave the bar?’ Sunderam said.
‘Yeah, I did. He was sitting on the stool there and we were chatting, and then after a while he said he fancied some air and went outside.’
‘Was he with someone, or did anyone go out with him?’
‘He wasn’t travelling with anyone. Now you mention it, I noticed two geezers get up soon afterwards and follow him out. I said to René, one of the other barmen I work with, they both must have been feeling a bit Pat and Mick as they left half-finished drinks and other stuff on the table.’
‘How soon afterwards? Was it within a minute, or longer?’
‘Let me think.’ He paused looking into the distance. ‘I would definitely say it was within a couple of minutes. I didn’t really think anything of it at the time, but you know, you look at things more closely when it’s quiet. It gives me something to do.’
‘Did you notice anything else?’
‘No, I didn’t because soon after, a couple of guys with money to burn as they’d been working on a building site in France, came up here and gave me a big order. Tied me up good style for the next ten minutes.’
TEN
DI Henderson strolled through the entrance of the Queens Hotel on Brighton seafront with the confidence of a resident, and took the stairs to the third floor two-at-a-time. Halfway along the corridor he knocked on a door. There was a delay of about a minute before a tall man with untidy white hair and glasses opened it.
‘Detective Inspector Henderson? Good to meet you. Harvey Miller.’
They shook hands.
‘Sorry it took me so long to answer, I still can’t walk as well as I used to.’
