Lost Voyage

by Pauline Rowson

  ‘Do we search it?’ Marvik asked, nodding at Gavin’s flat where the curtains were still drawn across the window. The police would have done so but they would have been looking for evidence of Yardly’s guilt over Bradshaw’s murder and not his investigations into the secrets of the Mary Jo. ‘Could Gavin have hidden a backup somewhere in the flat containing his findings?’

  ‘It’s far more likely he backed up using an online provider but if this killer is as clever as we think he is, and we know he’s ruthless, then he might have got that information out of Gavin before killing him, along with his encrypted password.’

  ‘According to Crowder, Gavin wasn’t tortured but the threat of torture could have been enough. Perhaps the killer threatened to throw him off the cliff, or more likely off a boat unless he coughed up. And he’d have kept him alive until he checked it out.’

  ‘But Gavin wrote a good old-fashioned letter to GCHQ so perhaps he also recorded in long hand what he’d discovered and stored that in a safe place off the premises. It might not even have crossed the killer’s mind that there could be written evidence of Gavin’s investigations, so he never asked him and Gavin never volunteered the information.’

  Marvik’s thoughts flicked to his father’s notebook and the disk taped to it, wondering where else his father and mother had recorded information which hadn’t been found. He didn’t have time to consider that now.

  Strathen was saying, ‘Perhaps Gavin’s visit to the library, which Helen witnessed, was to take his backed-up USB with him and use one of the library’s computers to send it to an online provider so that he left no trace of it on his own computer’s hard drive for the killer to find.’

  ‘Now that we’re here, we might as well look it over.’ They’d also search for surveillance devices but Marvik thought if any had been planted by the killer then he or his accomplice would have removed them just before or after killing Bradshaw. Marvik voiced this to Strathen.

  ‘Unless the killer wants to see who comes knocking.’

  ‘Then let’s give him a floor show.’

  ‘I’ll do the soft shoe shuffle; you can do the conjuring.’

  Marvik smiled. He still had Helen’s keys which would get them into the building but not into Gavin’s flat, the door of which was secured with a bolt and padlock, the work of the locksmith called by the police after they had affected an entry. Strathen kept watch as Marvik manipulated the lock and pushed open the door. No one stirred and the only sound was the baby crying again in the basement flat.

  The large, high-ceilinged room was what Marvik had expected from what he’d seen of Helen’s flat and from Karen’s description. It was furnished with cheap plywood furniture that looked as though it might collapse if used, a grey corded carpet that needed cleaning and cheap rust-coloured curtains at the windows, which allowed enough light for them to search. Their torches would get into dimmer parts. To the right was the small kitchenette with off-white units, a black Formica-type worktop and the usual kitchen appliances, a kettle and toaster. There was a fridge and an electric cooker; the fridge had been emptied. The flat was very neat. The police might have tidied the place after they had finished with it but Marvik thought that perhaps Gavin had been meticulous in his habits. There was nothing of a personal nature – no photographs, letters or documents. If they had existed the police had taken them. Gavin’s clothes remained. They were cheap and worn. Marvik went through them, not expecting to find anything because the police would have gone through them. Strathen was checking all the nooks and crannies and the ceiling for the usual places to plant a listening or surveillance device, and with a shake of his head declared the place clean. There was nothing taped to the back of the drawers or under the bedframe. No hidden disk, notebooks or anything else remotely connected to the Mary Jo. Marvik hadn’t really expected to find anything.

  He pulled back the curtain a fraction. No one appeared to be watching the flat but he could see that the killer would have had a good view of the street in both directions and would certainly have seen Helen approach along the road and leave by the side alleyway, and he’d have seen Bradshaw arrive. Gavin also had a view of the cycle shop which was further down to Marvik’s left on the opposite side of the road.

  He crossed the room and looked out into the hall. No one was about. The baby was still crying and there was music coming from upstairs. He relocked the padlock.

  Outside, Strathen said, ‘Breakfast?’

  Marvik nodded. Leaving the car parked, they walked a short distance along the road before turning south in the direction of the seafront where they found the Italian ice-cream parlour and coffee shop Marvik had noted on his first journey to Harold Road when he’d been with Helen. Forgoing the ice cream, Strathen ordered coffees and breakfast and they found a seat in the corner overlooking the road and the promenade. The sea glistened in the distance. It was just on nine and still quiet, with only one other couple at a table at the opposite end of the café.

  First Strathen searched the Internet for news of Royden’s car accident and shook his head. Marvik knew that didn’t mean he hadn’t been found, just that the police weren’t releasing the news until his pregnant wife had been informed. Perhaps an early morning walker had made the gruesome discovery. If so they hadn’t yet broadcast it over the jungle drums of social media.

  Marvik drank his coffee. ‘Royden mentioned someone called Marcus Kiln, the broker who did the Celeste deal with him and Bradshaw. But he said he hadn’t seen or heard of him since. Stapledon says the same and that Kiln is probably no longer in the shipping business. See if you can find him.’

  Strathen began a search for Marcus Kiln. Their breakfast arrived, delivered by a dark-haired, smiling half-Italian half-English woman in her mid-twenties.

  Marvik ate hungrily while Strathen tapped into his computer and put the occasional fork of food in his mouth.

  ‘Nothing showing up for a Marcus Kiln but I can check him out more thoroughly after I see what I can find on Jemma Duisky. I’ll stay here and overdose on caffeine while you visit the cycle shop.’

  Marvik finished his breakfast before returning to Harold Road. He wished he knew if Karen and her little boy were safe.

  There were five minutes before Wilfred Palgrave officially opened to the cycling public of Eastbourne but, through the grimy windows, Marvik could see a stout, scruffily-dressed man in his sixties with long, thinning grey hair and a straggly grey beard. Not exactly Sir Bradley Wiggins, he thought, knocking loudly on the door. Palgrave ignored him, or perhaps he hadn’t heard. Marvik rapped louder and kept doing so until the man shambled to the door. Looking at his watch, he pointed at the sign in the window.

  ‘I need to talk to you. It’s important,’ Marvik shouted. ‘You open in five minutes anyway.’

  ‘Then you can wait five minutes,’ Palgrave shouted back.

  Palgrave was obviously not raised in the school of customer care. ‘It’s about Jemma Duisky,’ Marvik said, this time keeping the volume of his voice normal. He could see at once that Palgrave had heard or lip-read. He looked taken aback before his flabby, slightly ruddy face creased up with a frown. He unlocked and opened the door.

  Marvik stepped into the shop crammed with cycles, most of which would end up on the pavement where Marvik had seen them on his second visit to the street. Wheels hung from the ceiling; old metal shelves were stacked in a haphazard fashion with cycling accessories: helmets, inner tubes, clothing, bags, bells, bottles and cycle pumps. The air was filled with dirt, grease, dust and cobwebs, and Palgrave’s loose-fitting trousers and pullover contained a great deal of the first three. In his podgy, grimy hands was a very oily rag. He closed the door but didn’t lock it and studied Marvik with open curiosity. Marvik kept a discreet distance, hoping he wouldn’t have to get closer to force information out of the man because his halitosis was almost overpowering – the cause of which was explained by the few teeth Marvik could see, rotten and yellow.

  ‘Why do you want to know about her? Tha
t was years ago,’ Palgrave said warily.

  Perhaps he was wondering if Marvik had come to sue him for causing her death in some way. Marvik introduced himself as a distant relative of Jemma Duisky who had only just heard the news of her death. ‘I wondered if you could tell me about it,’ he said.

  ‘Not much to tell.’ Palgrave looked relieved. ‘Poor kid. It was a bit of a shock to find her like that, dead on the bed. Drugs. She took an overdose. Quiet girl, nicely spoken, didn’t go out much.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because I was here in the shop like I am now and I was most days back then – not on a Sunday, though. I only started opening on Sundays three years ago to keep up with the competition. People expect it now. I rarely saw her. Heard her moving about sometimes. She might have gone out at night, I suppose. And she could have had friends over but I never saw anyone visit her. Spent all day on her computer. Leastways, that’s what I thought she was doing. She was on it when I called on her a couple of times. I asked if I should put my stuff on a computer and she smiled and said I probably wouldn’t know where to find it if I did but she said I could have a website and sell stuff from it. I told her she was nuts but she wasn’t. Look at what they sell on it now – everything and anything. Maybe I would be making more money but who cares.’ He shrugged and his body wobbled.

  ‘What happened to her computer and belongings?’

  ‘Don’t know. I don’t think she had much personal stuff. The flat was let fully furnished, as it is now, to a West-Indian, nice man who works for the council. The police sent someone round to clear it out. I think it was a woman from a local charity shop who came. I don’t remember it being a relative. Well, no one came to me and said they were related to her. No, that’s a lie – a woman did come from the Polish Society, asking if Jemma had ever mentioned any relatives. I didn’t know Jemma was Polish – she never spoke with an accent but then the name does sound foreign. The police handed back the key to me and said I could re-let it. Took me an age to do so. Not many people want to live in a place where someone has died, although they’d be hard pushed to find a house or flat, particularly an old one, where someone hasn’t died.’

  ‘Did you attend the funeral?’

  He looked dumbfounded. ‘Of course not.’ But he refrained from adding that she was only a tenant, perhaps because Marvik was eyeing him with slight distaste.

  ‘How long was she here?’ Marvik asked.

  He scratched his head. Marvik could see the flakes of dandruff fall in the dusty air. ‘She took the flat in March 2003 and died in September 2003.’

  ‘And her references checked out.’

  ‘Didn’t take any. She paid six months in advance, cash. Poor girl died just as her rent was due.’

  Marvik’s antennae twitched. Why six months? Why die before any more rent could be paid? Was that because she’d run out of money and was destitute and depressed? Like hell it was. The timing fitted with the period of the Mary Jo’s disappearance.

  Palgrave said, ‘I never had any complaints about her and she never complained about anything to me,’ he added slightly defensively. ‘She was as quiet as a church mouse. There is only the one flat above the shop and she had her own entrance – the door to the left of the shop gives on to the stairs.’ Marvik had seen it.

  ‘Did she say why she came here?’

  ‘No, and I never asked.’

  ‘Did she work?’

  ‘The police said they couldn’t find an employment record for her, not for the last year of her life. She told me she worked freelance on the computer for folk but I don’t know who.’

  The shop bell clanged and a man dressed in luminous orange Lycra with a cycle helmet perched on his large head entered. Palgrave addressed him. ‘Need any help?’

  ‘A puncture kit.’

  Palgrave served him and returned to Marvik after a few minutes. ‘That’s all I know. No one’s been here to ask about her except you … No, again I tell a lie. There was someone.’

  Marvik’s ears pricked up at this.

  ‘Young chap, ginger hair, turned up about a year ago. Said he’d been a friend of hers, at college and had only just heard she’d died.’

  ‘Did he give a name?’ Marvik asked.

  ‘No, or if he did I don’t remember it.’

  But Marvik knew who it was. Gavin Yardly. A year ago. Had that been when he’d started to look into her death and had discovered something mysterious about the Mary Jo, or was it the other way around or no link at all? He dismissed the latter. He was convinced of a connection.

  ‘What did he ask you about her?’

  ‘Just the usual, like you. What happened to her stuff? How long had she been here? I couldn’t tell him any more than I’m telling you, except that she got packages from abroad. I only mention that because he asked me if she’d received anything from overseas, or if anything from abroad had come for her after her death. I told him I’d never sent anything back to the post office or turned away a courier after she died.’

  Marvik felt a frisson of excitement. If Gavin was keen on this then so was he. ‘Did she get any packages?’

  ‘Two that I know of, about the size of a few books. But they weren’t books. She didn’t have any. It was cosmetics or women’s things,’ he said vaguely as though he had no idea what those might be, and Marvik thought that was probably true given his rampant halitosis. Women in Palgrave’s life must be very rare indeed or not particularly fussy.

  ‘Where were these packages from?’

  ‘No idea. I just saw a load of foreign gibberish on the label.’

  ‘Could it have been Polish?’

  ‘Could have been Klingon for all I’d know.’ He grinned toothlessly – or almost.

  Marvik resisted the impulse to step back. ‘You told this other man that?’

  ‘Yeah. He more or less asked the same as you. Wanted to know how many packages had come here. I told him I hadn’t a clue, only that I took two up to her. The first time the delivery driver might have knocked and she didn’t hear him; the second time I was just turning up at the shop.’

  ‘Why did you think it was cosmetics or feminine products?’

  ‘It was from a laboratory – I saw that on the label. I can’t remember the name, though.’

  ‘But both were from the same laboratory?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Did this ginger-haired young man ask you anything else?’

  ‘No. I saw him about two weeks ago, though, walking along the street. And he looked right through me.’

  And why was that? wondered Marvik as he took his leave of the halitosis cycle shop owner. Because he was being watched or followed? Or because he no longer needed Palgrave’s information to piece together the last days of Jemma Duisky’s life or the reason why she had died.

  He hurried back to the coffee shop, his mind racing with thoughts. Had Jemma Duisky been working for Ian Bradshaw? Had Gavin Yardly suspected Bradshaw of killing her? Maybe Bradshaw had murdered Jemma. Was that why Gavin had wanted to be in one of Bradshaw’s properties and in the road where Jemma had lived and died? But there was more. Gavin had discovered what Jemma had been working on at the time of her death, or rather just before it. And it had something to do with the disappearance of the Mary Jo because aside from knowing one another, attending the same college and both being computer experts, that was what she and Gavin had in common. So what did being an IT specialist have to do with a salvage vessel that had mysteriously vanished before it could reach Newfoundland and the SS Celeste?

  Marvik’s footsteps slowed as his mind mentally raced through what he and Strathen had discovered and what he’d just learned: a crew with no dependents; a clever IT specialist installed in a flat with no neighbours, fellow tenants, friends or visitors and who had paid cash; packages being delivered from a laboratory; a salvage vessel that had disappeared without having time to send out a distress signal; another clever computer specialist, Gavin, who had written to GCHQ saying he had locat
ed it; the dates Jemma had been here – ‘she took the flat in March 2003 and died in September 2003’; his earlier conversation with Strathen about smuggling – ‘drugs, arms, stolen art, artefacts, diamond smuggling … take your pick’; 2003 … And suddenly Marvik had it. He knew exactly what the Mary Jo had been smuggling.

  TWENTY

  ‘It was chemicals,’ Marvik said, keeping his voice low despite his excitement. Swiftly he relayed to Strathen what he’d learned from the cycle shop owner. ‘Palgrave said the packages were from a laboratory. They might also have been sent to a laboratory, a fake one Jemma created with a fake website, and she used the flat address to get deliveries. She was unlikely to be disturbed as there were no nosy neighbours to see the packages arrive. It was just her bad luck that Palgrave intercepted them on two occasions but she soon learned he wasn’t suspicious. I know this is all supposition but it fits, especially if you put it with Gavin’s interest, his letter to GCHQ and the year, 2003.’

  ‘The invasion of Iraq.’

  Marvik nodded and sipped his coffee. It was a year that neither of them would forget. They’d been engaged in combat, working covertly in a conflict that had begun in March 2003 when a combined force of troops from the United States, Great Britain and smaller contingents from several other countries had invaded Iraq and rapidly defeated the Iraqi military and paramilitary forces in April 2003. The first phase of the Iraq War was over by the time the Mary Jo was lost, but the conflict continued with the United States-led occupation of Iraq opposed by an insurgency; an insurgency that would have been only too eager to get their hands on lethal chemical weapons. It wasn’t until 2007 that the violence began to decline and the United States gradually reduced its military presence, withdrawing completely in 2011.

  Marvik continued, ‘I think Bradshaw, and whoever he was working with, was engaged in supplying lethal chemicals to terrorists.’