Time and Tide: A DC Smith Investigation

by Peter Grainger

  Wilson looked around at his team and nodded; a chance to get closer with the new DI, while Smith’s lot went out to collect water samples and knock on doors, doing the donkey work.

  ‘DC’s team will follow up on what has come out of the autopsy so far. We know Dr Robinson needs samples. DC, can you double-check on that so we don’t miss anything and end up going back? When that’s done, let’s start looking for signs of him in the obvious places. Hotels, guest-houses… Sea-front shops? Any unfamiliar vehicles that have been parked up and not moved since the weekend. And another thing, DC, we should get formal statements from those boat-people we spoke to about the discovery of the body. This is probably a murder investigation now.’

  They took two cars, Smith’s and Murray’s, because nothing that needed to be done in Barnham Staithe, Deepford and Overy could possibly require the presence of four detectives at once – even the arrival of two cars simultaneously might cause a jam on the winding single track roads that led out to them across the saltmarshes. Smith took Waters with him, and Murray took Serena Butler.

  The visit to the mortuary to double-check had been useful. Dr Robinson had made it clear that the water samples, to be of the slightest use, had to be taken from quite different locations; one could be dipped out of the creek at the Staithe but the open water sample would need to be collected from exactly what it would say on the label – the open water, the sea beyond the marshes. Smith had been secretly hoping that at some point today a boat-trip might be in order, and here was the perfect excuse. Before they left, he went back to Terek to confirm that the police would pay for Sam Cole’s time and fuel.

  The detective inspector had said, ‘I suppose so… Does it have to be the same man, though?’

  ‘Sir, in my opinion that would be helpful. He can show us exactly where the body was found. Why shouldn’t it be the same chap?’

  Terek didn’t answer immediately and Smith noticed something then – he noticed that these awkward pauses and displays of diffidence were in some way related to himself. In the meeting Terek had spoken freely enough, and with growing confidence once he was over the initial nerves; now we were back to the uncertainty, the one-too-many blinks, the uncomfortable pauses.

  ‘I wonder whether a little distance might be in order, DC. I’m not implying that the man is any way involved, naturally, but… And also, the fact these people are known to you? That’s what I mean by distance. Keeping our objectivity is important. Not that I’m suggesting…’

  Smith could have left him dangling there, squirming on the hook of his own making, but life these days often seemed too short, especially when there was the prospect of getting out of this stuffy building and up to the coast.

  ‘To be frank, sir, if I’m going to have to avoid talking to people that I know during investigations, you might as well stick me in the custody suite or make me the office manager. I’ve been working this patch for a long time and one consequence of that is that I know a lot of people. It comes in handy occasionally.’

  And as Terek thought it over some more, Smith had thoughts of his own. These went approximately along the lines of for God’s sake, man, either apologise for the grilling you gave me last year or tell me that you still think I’m the mastermind behind the murder of Lucky Everett and the importation of a shipload of cocaine – I don’t particularly care which it is, so long as we can move on afterwards.

  But the upshot of it all was that Sam Cole could make his expenses claim, provided that it was submitted within three months and in triplicate. When Smith then asked if he could requisition four of the nice white plastic suits as they would be doing the work of scenes of crime officers this afternoon, Terek thought that over as well before replying in all seriousness that four pairs of wellington boots should suffice.

  Chapter Nine

  Sam Cole stepped out into the sunshine, narrowed his weather-beaten gaze and fixed it on the two young people sitting on the low wall that runs along the oldest part of the staithe. They looked like any other young couple, and save for the fact that the boy – for that’s how Sam viewed him – had an iPad balanced across his knee, no-one would ever have guessed that they were watching a statement being taken by the police.

  Cole did his best to look like a concerned uncle and then, holding that expression, he turned it to the detective sergeant at his side.

  Smith said, ‘He’s perfectly safe, Sam. He responds to the whistle – I can call him off at any moment.’

  Then they both watched Waters and Janie Cole for a little while longer. Midday – sunshine – distant seagulls crying over the shining creeks – the scent of sea-lavender on a westerly breeze. Something timeless in the air.

  Smith said, ‘Janie’s turned out well.’

  ‘Aye. She’s a good girl.’

  Waters had noticed the two men watching. He put the iPad away, or at least made a show of doing so, but the girl was still talking to him and he made no attempt to get off the wall by the water.

  Cole looked at the rising tide beyond them and said, ‘We’ll have enough water in about half an hour if you want to do this today.’

  ‘Is that going to cost you customers as well as fuel, Sam? If so-’

  ‘No, we’ve only got half the boat booked, and so has Arthur. I can put them onto his. We often shuffle them around this time of year. Hang about and we’ll get it done now.’

  Hang about then, waiting for the tide… Why not start getting used to that? No time like the present, Smith. Surely, if time exists at all it is only in the present, anyway.

  Sam Cole said, ‘Just show me that picture again.’

  Smith didn’t ask why – he took out his phone, found the image surprisingly quickly and then put it into Cole’s outstretched palm. Shading his eyes, Cole peered down as well as he could without his reading glasses at the face of Bernard Sokoloff. He looked for quite a long time because this was a matter of life and death, and then he gave the phone back.

  ‘No. Never seen him – certain of it. I’m not saying he didn’t live local but I’ve never come across him. A Londoner, you say?’

  ‘He certainly was, that much I can say.’

  ‘We get plenty of ’em. They’re the only buggers can afford to buy up here now.’

  ‘Yes, I know. It’s possible he had a place nearby. We’ll show his picture around between here and Wells.’

  Waters and the girl were approaching, and when they got close, Waters waved the iPad about as if he needed to explain what he had been doing for the past half an hour.

  Smith said, ‘Have we got enough for a conviction?’

  ‘Yes, DC. Open and shut. She’s confessed to everything.’

  ‘In which case, I’m surprised she isn’t wearing the cuffs. You’re not normally slow to put them onto young ladies.’

  If you took him unawares, it was still possible, just, to make Waters blush a little, and when Janie Cole looked up at him and laughed, he did so.

  Sam Cole said to her, ‘We’re going out to get these ’ere samples in half an hour, soon as there’s enough water. Tell Arthur to make room for our trippers. An’ you might as well get us a sandwich and a cup of tea as it’s an early lunch.’

  Janie said to Smith, ‘Are you joining us? I can get you something from the Old Crabber in the village. They do nice rolls…’

  She was pointedly not looking at Waters, but Sam Cole was pointedly looking at Smith, who after due consideration said, ‘No, thank you, Janie. You sort yourselves out. We’ll be back in half an hour.’

  It was too hot to sit in the car. Fortunately, the car being parked by a saltmarsh of winding creeks in north Norfolk meant that there was an old, upturned dinghy not fifty yards away, and that’s where they sat, waiting for the tide to rise a little more. It was a white fibre-glass ten-footer, half-covered by fine, dry, wind-blown sand – it must be a decade since it had been anywhere near the water. When they first approached it, Smith had seen a small lizard dart away from it and into the marram grass. The ground in
front of the dinghy was worn flat by feet – this was a regular seat for other people, and the lizard was not the only creature to bask there in the sun.

  Waters looked at his phone automatically as young people do, and discovered that he had no signal. He put it away without comment – Smith had warned him earlier that this would be the case, and had even seemed to take a certain pleasure in the fact – and gazed out across the soft purples and blues of the marsh as it shimmered in the heat.

  After a little more gazing, he said, ‘I’d have quite liked a nice roll from the Old Crabber.’

  ‘Yes, I bet you would.’

  ‘And a decent cup of coffee wouldn’t have gone amiss…’

  Crafty little sod, trying to find a weak spot, trying to make Smith feel regret as well as guilt for starving his loyal detective constable.

  ‘And how is Katherine?’

  Against all the conceivable odds, Waters had continued to date the young woman they had first encountered during the investigation into the disappearance of Lucky Everett’s niece. A few months ago, Smith had even feared that an engagement was in the offing, and had made plans with John Murray to kidnap the youngest member of the team, detaining him for his own safety until the madness had passed its peak. Fair enough, the girl was a beauty, striking – in more ways than one, as Waters had discovered on their first encounter – and clever with it, but anyone more unsuitable as a match for an ambitious young detective than an ambitious young private eye was hard to imagine.

  Waters, of course, knew perfectly well why Smith had introduced her name at this moment.

  ‘Yes, she’s good, DC.’

  Smith sighed, just a small, resigned one. It wasn’t only the water out there that was rising – there was also this rising tide of inane idioms to contend with… She’s good. Even worse, people had taken to answering ‘I’m good’ when asked if they would like a cup of tea. What has one’s moral condition to do with whether one would like a drink?

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it. Well, when she stops being good, make sure she’s at least learned to be careful.’

  Waters wasn’t paying him much attention, though. The dinghy, positioned there perhaps by a very high tide long ago, lay right beside the main coastal footpath that crossed the saltmarsh away to their left. That’s where Waters was looking, and, when Smith followed suit, he too could see the lone figure approaching out of the haze.

  A woman of above average height, and slender, upright, holding herself erect and moving with the slow, methodical grace that a few are born with and which the rest spend a lifetime trying to acquire. She wore white trousers that were tight to her thighs and which ended halfway down her sun-tanned calves, and above these, a loose turquoise blouse that somehow stayed in place despite being off both her brown shoulders. A straw sun-hat, mirror sun-glasses and leather sandals so finely cut that they were almost not there completed her ensemble as she neared the two men.

  As she passed by, Smith said, ‘Good afternoon.’

  She didn’t stop, but her head turned towards him a little. There was a smile of sorts as she answered in a voice that became her to perfection, ‘It is indeed.’

  And then she was moving away, crossing the track that ran down towards the boats before finding the coastal path again as it turned a few degrees inland and climbed into the dunes behind the marshes. They watched her go, up and over the first dune, slowly disappearing once more into the heat-haze and then, finally, she was lost to sight altogether.

  Waters turned to Smith and said, ‘A character!’ which was an interesting and a revealing choice of word, because Waters, to his credit, was too much of a young gentleman to say what must have been uppermost in his mind as the woman had come close enough for them to see her properly. She was seventy years old, if she was a day.

  Smith said, ‘So I believe.’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘No. But I know who she is. There’s a pub in Overy called The Queens Arms, and she’s the landlady. I’ve been there once or twice over the years.’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t look much like any pub landlady I’ve seen before. Is it a posh place?’

  ‘Not especially, as I remember it. I never saw her behind the bar, pulling pints. I think she owns it rather than runs it. It’s years since I was in there but she was a model or something. Maybe in show business… There was something on the walls about it. I can’t recall exactly. No doubt she retired up here like so many others.’

  Waters was staring at the empty dunes again, as if he could not quite let go of the image. Age and beauty are strange companions in the eyes and minds of young men. And then they could hear a young woman’s voice calling to them, Janie Cole saying that the boat was ready to go.

  They followed her down to the Lady Ann. Sam Cole had the engine running, the exhaust spitting noisily into the rising, muddy water. He said to Janie, ‘You needn’t come, girl, we’ll only be twenty minutes. See if Arthur needs a hand.’

  But she was already aboard, laughing and making for her place in the bows.

  ‘’S’alright, uncle. I’d better come. You know what a handful some of these tourists can be.’

  Waters took a seat facing her. Smith took one nearer the stern, studiously watching a tern as it flew up the creek with the tide, rather than looking around to see the expression on the boatman’s face. Jo would be able to tell him what sort of tern that was – Sandwich, Common, Arctic?

  Then the engine revved higher and the Lady Ann swung out onto the flowing water.

  The four of them met as agreed, on the quay in Wells at two o’clock. Smith offered to buy them fish and chips but there was some discussion as to whether these should be eaten from plates in the café or from a polystyrene tray whilst sitting on the wall and fending off the seagulls. Smith concluded this by asserting that there was no sauce so fine as fresh air where fish and chips were concerned. There was then a further delay while Serena Butler debated with herself whether a sausage was less fattening than a piece of battered cod, and during this Waters had to go and sit on the wall anyway, claiming that he was about to faint from hunger because he had been deprived of a nice roll from the Old Crabber in Barnham Staithe. It was Murray who eventually brought matters to an end by pointing out that he didn’t know a damned thing about calories but he did know which of Serena’s possibilities had been through an abattoir and a factory, and as he had once been involved in an investigation into the disappearance of a man in an abattoir… Would she like to hear about that?

  No, not before lunch, it seemed, and so Serena compromised by asking Smith to buy for her the smallest piece of battered cod in the shop. He left them sitting on the quay and crossed the road, dodging between the cars, remembering other times here, chips in the cold winter sunshine with Jo, and ice cream in summer last year with Jo and her aunt. And back beyond that, of course, other memories of days with Sheila – memories that were a little greyed out now with the passing of time.

  As they ate, they talked – this was a working lunch, after all. Murray and Serena had visited both Deepford and Overy in the time it had taken for Smith and Waters to collect samples from the creek at Barnham and then from the open sea, as well as Waters having to lean out from the swaying Lady Ann and scrape algae samples from the quay wall whilst Smith shouted encouragement from above.

  Murray said, ‘We got pictures of the jetties at both places, and collected some of the algae but I don’t suppose it’ll be any different to yours. As you said, DC, you can get a car right down to the edge, so if the tide was in and the gates were open, anything could go straight from a boot into the drink.’

  Serena was examining a chip with a blemish. She decided not to eat that one, and threw it onto the concrete of the quay. Before it had come to a halt, half a dozen gulls had begun a squabble to the death, as if it had been a silvery sardine or a fresh herring. Once upon a time, of course, it would have been, before the fishing industry sailed away, and the shoals of tourists had taken its place as the lifeblood of
the town.

  Serena said, ‘There were car parks at both places, and we spoke to the attendants. The one at Deepford is the RSPB’s, and they have a warden on a lot of the time. The one we met wasn’t on at the weekend but he said he’d have a word with whoever was and ask if they remembered anything. We left a number. At Overy, the old dear was on duty last weekend. I think she probably lives in the kiosk actually, and sleeps standing up. We showed her the photo but she didn’t recall anyone like that. Obviously, neither of the car parks had a nice suspicious unattended vehicle or CCTV.’

  Smith said, ‘When you say “a lot of the time”, it isn’t literally true, is it? If someone turned up with an unusual load at two o’clock in the morning, there isn’t going to be an attendant trying to get a couple of quid out of them for an hour’s parking.’

  She nodded in agreement and took a dainty bite out of the smallest piece of fish in the shop – the men had only the skinny, mis-shapen chips left in their trays.

  Murray said, ‘Yes, but both the car parks have gates which looked to me as if they’re used. There were locks on them. I can imagine why – if everyone had access to the jetties twenty four seven these days, you’d have all sorts going on and God knows what going into the water. So, if you arrived when the car parks were closed, you could still stop on the road but you’d have a walk of what, forty or fifty yards to the edge of the jetty?’

  Smith nodded, ‘Which isn’t that far, unless?’

  ‘You’re trying to manoeuvre a big bloke with two broken legs…’