Lost Voyage

by Pauline Rowson

  He felt the sticky, warm blood run down on to the collar of his jacket. ‘There’s the online backup that Gavin made of his own research along with Jemma’s remote backup, which he managed to trace and access. Didn’t you know she had backed up everything with an online provider? Yes, even then in 2003, plus the letter he wrote to GCHQ giving them the log-in details and the encrypted password revealing everything you did.’ It was a lie but Elmsley didn’t know that and he was beginning to look agitated; beginning to wonder if his true identity would be exposed and he would be traced and apprehended. ‘You’d better start thinking up a new name,’ Marvik pressed. ‘And quick.’

  ‘I can leave the country easily. No one except you knows I’m here and you won’t be around to tell anyone. I came by boat and I’ll leave by boat.’

  The rain was spitting off the deck and the boat rolling and bucking alarmingly. Marvik said, ‘Is that the boat you hired as Colin Prior which you transported Gavin’s body on before you dumped him under Bailey Hill with weights so his body would be found?’

  ‘Out,’ ordered Elmsley, waving the gun at Marvik. He obeyed, his mind racing, his eyes keenly peeled in the dark, sodden night on the burly figure at the aft lowering the tender into the swollen sea. It fell with a splash. Elmsley ordered Marvik forward and Paynton to climb in and to start the outboard motor. Marvik knew that he wouldn’t be allowed to reach the shore. Elmsley would shoot him at very close range, which meant he would get blood and brain all over himself but he wasn’t worried about that. He and Paynton would be able to wash it off and destroy their clothes. Elmsley would hold the gun to Marvik’s head and press the trigger. The blood splatter in the rubber dinghy would be consistent with Marvik firing the gun at his head and his body falling back into the sea, left to wash up somewhere, if it ever did. The dinghy would be found drifting. Helen would be shot with the same gun on the shore. She might already be on the shore with another of Elmsley’s accomplices. Strathen might not have reached them. If he had, Marvik was convinced he’d have handled any of Elmsley’s operatives, unless there had been two or three of them. Marvik knew that once he was in the tender there was no way out.

  He tensed and prepared to seize the spilt-second moment between life and death. He was gambling on the fact that Paynton wasn’t armed. Paynton stepped down on to the platform. The tender was bobbing about violently in the dark, swirling sea beneath Marvik, the engine running, the wind roaring around them, the waves kicking up spray over the edge, clashing with the rain and soaking them. Elmsley was behind Marvik. He could feel Elmsley’s breath on his neck and the barrel of the gun pressed against his skin. But Elmsley wouldn’t shoot him in the neck – suicides don’t usually aim for that part of the body, although it wasn’t completely unknown.

  The boat was pitching violently. Marvik scoured the sea, his heart racing, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, the inside of his mouth dry and the taste of salt on his lips. There wasn’t much time, just a second, maybe two. Would the sea oblige him? Would it give up what he wanted? Would Elmsley, a man of the sea, know what he was going to do? Would he counter his move?

  Marvik watched the black, swollen wave roll towards them. His timing had to be perfect. As the tender and his boat rose alarmingly with the swell of the sea, Marvik rolled back into Elmsley, who swayed and lost his balance. In an instant, Marvik spun round and gave a vicious karate blow to Elmsley’s wrist, which sent the gun flying and sliding on to the wet platform. Marvik kicked it into the sea and swiftly rammed a powerful fist into Elmsley’s midriff. As he doubled over, winded, Marvik, his hands locked in a vice, struck them down in a violent blow on the back of Elmsley’s neck. His body sank heavily on to the platform and the waves crashed over it, threatening to sweep him overboard, while Marvik registered Paynton rise from the tender and make for him, but the sea state was too turbulent for him to do so. He was caught off balance; a wave swamped him. He struggled up, coughing up salt water. Marvik swiftly reached for a lifebelt and line on the rear of his boat, thrust the first over Elmsley’s head and wrapped the line tautly around the unconscious Elmsley to prevent him from falling into the sea. The sound of a powerful launch broke through the night. Elmsley’s henchman rose again, coughing and spluttering. He dashed a glance at Elmsley’s body and turned back towards the engine in the tender. Marvik leapt into the tender.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t.’ He raised his fist and punched it full force against the man’s jaw. His head reeled back, blood spouting from his mouth and nose. He fell back in the tender. Marvik made to strike him again but the sound of the launch was drawing closer. The man eyed Marvik, then, twisting, leapt over the side and into the sea.

  Marvik left him and pointed his tender in the direction of the shore.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘What kept you?’ Strathen said.

  Marvik noted Strathen’s light tone and saw his smile. Helen was safe. Marvik felt a great sense of relief. ‘We were engrossed in such a nice little chat on board that I could barely tear myself away. I didn’t fancy a swim either but someone did.’

  ‘Elmsley?’

  ‘No. His henchman, Paynton. Maybe Crowder’s team will pick him out of the sea.’ Marvik didn’t particularly care if they didn’t. He could see the powerful lights of the police launch heading for his boat and ahead of it a RIB which was making towards them on the shore.

  Marvik turned and looked up to the houses shrouded in the rain on the clifftop. ‘Which one is she in?’

  ‘The one on the far end. The others are all empty. I broke into them and checked. No one around to hear her shouts for help. She’s not bound or gagged. She’s OK, Art. I could see her pacing about the room. There’s a crack in the shutters. She’s probably cursing. Knowing Helen, she must have tried to get out but the door is locked and bolted. She’s in a room on the ground floor. There’s no one with her so whoever Elmsley instructed to bring her here and leave her was also told to get out.’

  Paynton would have fetched her from the cottage and either he or Elmsley would have shot her. Elmsley hadn’t wanted any other witnesses to that, and the two of them had probably executed all the other deaths. Elmsley hadn’t drugged her because it would have shown up in her blood, and he wanted the police to believe that Marvik had shot her and then himself. He knew that Strathen couldn’t have freed her because he couldn’t risk Helen being with him on the shore in case he hadn’t overpowered Elmsley and Paynton. Marvik wondered if Helen had known there was a third tracking device sewn into the hem of her skirt. He hoped so because then she wouldn’t have been so afraid, and he didn’t want her to be fearful.

  Marvik caught the sound of a police siren in the distance. ‘Sounds like reinforcements are on their way. They can have the pleasure of breaking down the door.’

  ‘There’s a car parked two hundred yards down the road out of sight, obviously the one that Elmsley and his mate were planning on using to get away after killing you and Helen. Good thing he never found the tracking and surveillance device on your boat.’

  ‘Or the listening device. You heard some of it.’

  ‘Enough.’

  It couldn’t be used as evidence in a court of law but Marvik didn’t think Crowder would need it to be able to bring a case against Elmsley. He’d be able to get sufficient on which to charge him and Marvik suspected that Paynton would cough.

  Strathen had called Crowder the moment Marvik’s boat had left Newhaven Marina and had briefed him, as Marvik had known he would. Crowder would have tracked it by satellite, having dispatched the launch and RIB, keeping a safe distance until Marvik’s boat had stopped. The mission had always revolved around this area and Crowder would have been somewhere close by in readiness. Marvik suspected Brighton because he’d witnessed nothing of Crowder in Eastbourne or Newhaven marinas and Crowder would have been able to summon up police officers more easily from the large coastal town of Brighton, where they had launches and RIBs at their disposal.

  Marvik wiped the blood from his face. The cut
had almost stopped bleeding. His wet hair was plastered to his skull, as was Strathen’s, and their sodden clothes were clinging to them. Marvik’s head throbbed with pain but he pushed that aside as the RIB came on to the shore and Crowder climbed off.

  ‘Did you pick up the man in the sea?’ asked Marvik.

  Crowder nodded.

  ‘He’ll tell you where the Landguards are but I think you’ll find them back at Meryl Landguard’s house. Whether they’re alive, though, is another matter,’ Marvik said solemnly. Then added: ‘I’m not sure about Karen Landguard and her son.’

  ‘They’re at her mother’s. Safe and well.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  Crowder gave instructions to one of the two uniformed officers with him to send a unit to Meryl Landguard’s house. He turned to Strathen. ‘Is Helen Shannon in one of those cottages?’

  Strathen relayed where she was. ‘She’s not harmed.’

  The police sirens had stopped. They must be close by, thought Marvik. Crowder instructed the second uniformed police officer to rendezvous with those in the patrol car, to break open the door and to bring Helen down to the shore. Marvik was surprised by that. He’d expected Crowder to request that she be taken back to Newhaven police station or to her bedsit in Eastbourne, not that Marvik thought she’d be able to or want to stay there. But what would she do now? Where would she go? He wondered if Strathen was thinking the same. From a glance at him, he knew he was.

  Marvik postponed his thoughts and, in the lights of the police launch, he watched Paynton and Elmsley being escorted on board.

  Within a few minutes, Helen was heading down the cliff towards them guided by the powerful beam of a handheld torch of the accompanying police office and a steadying arm on the slippery, wet path. The hood of her sailing jacket was over her purple hair and she was carrying her rucksack. As she drew nearer, Marvik could see that she looked tired, but as her gaze alighted on them he noted the relief on her face.

  She swivelled her gaze to Crowder. ‘I might have known you’d be mixed up in this,’ she said, addressing him, but her tone was friendly. She and Crowder must have liaised fairly closely over the last couple of months since he and Strathen had apprehended the man who had killed her sister.

  Crowder said, ‘Shall we go or would you prefer to wait for a police car?’

  ‘Boats are fine with me,’ she said firmly and climbed into Marvik’s RIB, as did Strathen and Crowder, leaving his police officers shore-bound to deal with matters. Addressing both Marvik and Strathen, she said, ‘You took your time getting here.’

  Marvik answered, ‘We had a small matter of a few loose ends to tie up.’

  She followed his gaze out to the sea where the police launch was waiting beside Marvik’s boat.

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘A man who was supposed to have died in 2001.’

  No one spoke for the rest of the short and rocky journey to Marvik’s boat. But when they reached it and the police launch beside it, Helen, seeing Elmsley on board wrapped in a silver thermal blanket, exclaimed, ‘That’s Colin Prior.’

  ‘That’s only one of his names.’

  She rounded on Crowder. ‘I hope you’re going to charge him with murder.’

  ‘We will. Will you give evidence?’

  ‘Too bloody right I will if it’ll send that bastard to jail.’

  When safely on board, and after Strathen had fetched some towels to dry them off, he explained to Helen about Jemma Duisky. ‘I knew I was right about her being important in this case,’ she triumphantly declared. ‘So did you and that’s why you shoved me out of the way.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘I bet,’ she replied with feeling. ‘You deliberately let me walk out and then called the police.’ Although angry and frustrated, her voice held no trace of bitterness.

  ‘I didn’t think the police would let you go so quickly.’

  ‘No thanks to your super lawyer, who didn’t show. I could have been killed by that goon who pointed a gun at me and told me to get in the van quietly without fuss. He found your tracking devices but not all of them, obviously. Where’s the third one?’

  Strathen pointed to her wet skirt. She rolled her eyes.

  Marvik started up. The police launch swung round in the direction of Newhaven. Marvik followed. As he did, he relayed to Helen and Crowder the news of the discovery of the murals, Martin Elmsley’s part in it and the catalogue of deaths as a result of Elmsley’s greed.

  ‘Poor Gavin,’ muttered Helen.

  Strathen made them all coffee. The rain was still hitting the deck but the sea state had eased a little, along with the wind.

  Marvik addressed Crowder. ‘Did Gavin really send a letter to GCHQ?’

  ‘Yes. It contained information on the location of the Mary Jo which could only have been accessed by hacking into one of GCHQ’s satellites.’

  As both he and Strathen had said.

  ‘Gavin must have been very good,’ Helen said with admiration.

  ‘He was.’

  ‘So was Jemma,’ Strathen added, ‘to have got hold of sodium azide. It’s a potentially lethal chemical,’ he explained to Helen, who was looking bewildered. ‘It was used to wipe out the crew of the Mary Jo.’

  Crowder said, ‘In his letter, Gavin claimed there were only three bodies on board. We weren’t able to verify that and we still can’t because the Mary Jo has been reclaimed by the ice. But she won’t stay hidden, not now that we know her approximate location.’

  Marvik said, ‘Gavin thought the master, Timothy Landguard, was behind the smuggling of sodium azide. Gavin knew nothing about the murals because Jemma was also ignorant of them and there was no reason for Gavin to delve into that. He was trying to find out from Meryl Landguard if she was in contact with her husband. Gavin reasoned if he was right and Landguard was not one of the three bodies on the Mary Jo then he might have been killed and thrown overboard by one of the crew – mercenaries who were told they would be handsomely paid for their services.’

  The throb of the police launch faded into the distance as it sped ahead of them. Marvik was in no hurry. He gratefully took the mug of coffee Strathen handed him. God, he was hungry. And tired. He knew that Strathen felt the same and perhaps his fatigue was also tainted with something else – thoughts of Helen. She sat sipping her coffee, looking tired but none the worse for her ordeal over the last week. Maybe it would hit her later.

  Marvik continued, ‘Gavin thought Bradshaw was behind the smuggling.’

  ‘We won’t know that for certain unless we can find Jemma’s files and access them. And Gavin’s backed-up record of his research and his password to access it.’

  Strathen said, ‘It’ll be a variation on Jemma’s – NaN3, the chemical equation for sodium azide. I’m sure your experts will find both files and crack the passwords to them.’

  ‘It might be quicker if you did. I can give you access to the letter and any other information we have, plus what you know and what we’ll get from Elmsley will help. He might even have been foolish enough to keep hold of Gavin’s computer. It shouldn’t take you long.’

  Strathen’s tired eyes lit up at that. He smiled wearily at the compliment.

  Marvik said, ‘I wonder who Elmsley gave the tampered mask to.’

  ‘We’ll discover that once we find the Mary Jo.’

  With an edge of bitterness, Marvik, thinking of both Gavin Yardly and Stephen Landguard and a child growing up without his father, said, ‘You should have protected Gavin. You could have used his knowledge to help locate that boat and to find Elmsley without all the deaths.’

  ‘You know that by the time we were alerted it was too late. As I told you, Gavin was already dead and so was Ian Bradshaw.’

  Crowder was correct. But Stephen Landguard had still been alive, so too his mother, Alec Royden and Hugh Stapledon. But dwelling on that achieved nothing, as Marvik knew all too well, and yet his mind momentarily flitted to Sarah Redburn. Curtly, he said, ‘The
two men on the pontoon who Helen overheard talking were your officers, weren’t they? You wanted Helen involved.’

  Her eyes widened in amazement and incredulity.

  Crowder said, ‘We wanted you involved.’

  ‘Then why not just give us the mission?’ Marvik said with frustration. ‘Why rope in Helen and put her life in peril? Christ, Elmsley or his mate could have killed her. They very nearly did and would have done if she hadn’t been spooked enough to leave the flat.’

  Crowder turned his gaze on Helen. ‘It was a risk we had to take.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said cynically.

  Crowder continued, ‘You don’t scare easily, and you can reason things out pretty well. We knew that having been involved with Marvik and Strathen before you’d relate to the language my officers used. You’d call one of them.’

  She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘And if I hadn’t?’

  ‘You would,’ Crowder answered confidently. His conviction seemed to please her. Her lips twitched in the ghost of a smile and Marvik noted the gleam in her green eyes. From what he knew of her life she hadn’t had a great many people believing in her.

  She sipped her coffee as Crowder said, ‘Gavin Yardly’s letter finally reached my desk because it was a marine-related intelligence matter. There was no hard evidence to back up what Gavin claimed to have found – toxic chemicals having been smuggled out of the country and used to kill in 2003. I ran a check on him and where he lived and found that one of the tenants in that building was you, Helen. I also discovered that you worked with Gavin Yardly. I detailed someone to follow you on Monday and the officer overheard you arranging to meet on Bradshaw’s boat that night.’

  ‘How? I didn’t see anyone.’

  ‘I’d have been disappointed if you had. I considered it an ideal opportunity to stage something to get you involved and away from danger. We didn’t know that Bradshaw was involved or that he would be killed,’ he hastily added when Strathen looked about to contradict him. ‘I despatched two officers each by boat to the marina.’