by Keith Nixon
“Try again. Think in terms of shooting down a plane.”
Gray reloaded. “Pull!” He tracked the gun slightly ahead of the clay and fired. The pellets clipped the edge. It was a hit and therefore a point, but Gray was disappointed. The next he blew apart.
“You’re getting the hang of it,” said Carslake. He took Gray’s position on the shooting platform, nestled the shotgun tight into his shoulder and stared down at the sight. “Pull!”
His shot blasted the circle into smithereens. Gray sighed.
Half an hour later, the course completed, Carslake and Gray were in the bar. Gray carried the drinks over to the corner table where Carslake was seated.
Gray raised his glass in salute to the winner.
Carslake bowed. “It’s good doing this again, Sol.”
“Yes,” agreed Gray. And it was. In fact, Gray felt great. He and Carslake used to come here regularly after work, rather than taking a day off as they had on this occasion. They’d been fiercely competitive, Gray the slightly better of the pair back then. Spending time together outside work socially. Gray with other people. It seemed familiar, yet odd.
“Same time next week? One evening, maybe?”
“Definitely.”
“Won’t be long before you’ll be giving me a run for my money.”
“Who knows, I may practise when I’m off-shift.”
Carslake laughed. Gray fidgeted; he had a question burning in his mind.
“Did you hear any more from your contact?” asked Gray. “About Tom?”
“As a matter of fact, I did.” Carslake put his glass down. “Today, actually.”
Gray leaned forward. “Was it him? Was it Tom at the ferry port?”
“Maybe.”
“How can it be a ‘maybe’? Either it was Tom or it wasn’t?”
“A decade’s a long time for someone’s memory to falter. Christ, a witness can be unreliable within minutes, never mind years! You know that.”
Gray rubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry, it’s just bloody frustrating.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Why has all this only just come to light?”
“It seems some case material was lost.”
“What material?” Gray went cold, he’d possessed every piece of documentation relating to his son’s disappearance and now it appeared the collection had been incomplete. Ten years of searching knocked off track because of a missing piece of paper.
“A witness statement. The man my contact spoke to is retired now but still lives in Dover. He definitely recalled seeing a boy, possibly matching Tom’s description, in the back of a car as it was driving onto the ferry. He remembered it because the boy had looked petrified. I drove there myself and showed him Tom’s photograph. He’s pretty sure it was him. It seems Tom was being taken to France.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Jeff?” Gray was stunned by the revelation. “I could have spoken to him myself. He may have given me something vital!” Gray was almost shouting. People in the bar were turning to stare.
“For God’s sake, Sol. Keep your voice down.”
“I don’t give a shit what anyone else here thinks,” said Gray, but lowered his tone. “This is my son we’re talking about.”
“Your response is exactly why I kept this from you, Sol. If the lead had come to nothing how would you have felt then?”
Numb, thought Gray. Like always. He said, “Where does the witness live? I want to meet him.”
“Just outside Dover, in St. Margaret’s – and I’ll arrange it, of course.”
“As soon as you can.”
“Of course. Look, Sol. This is a really good development. You should be pleased. It’s more than you’ve had for years.”
“Sorry, Jeff. I’m delighted.”
“I haven’t stopped pursuing this either. The search continues in France. The trouble is, from there he could have been moved anywhere. The haystack just got a lot, lot bigger.”
“Thanks, Jeff.” He felt guilty now for going off at Carslake.
“No need to thank me. That’s what friends are for.”
Gray’s mobile rang. His hands were shaking with emotion as he pressed the green key. He listened briefly to the caller before disconnecting.
“What?” asked Carslake.
“There’s a body on the beach.”
Gray’s day off was over.
Three
The body lay face down, its weight creating a depression in the wet sand. One brown arm was flung out, the other tucked beneath the torso. Both shoes were missing; bare feet on show. The toes were crushed together, overlapping one another, Gray guessed, from being squeezed into footwear several sizes too small over a long period of time. The clothes were still sodden, the waves breaking a few feet away, the tide retreating.
A runner out in the early morning March sunlight had spotted the body. At that point, the mud-coloured water had only released the upper third of its prize. By the time Detective Sergeant Solomon Gray arrived, all was revealed.
What made the corpse stand out against the dull background was the fluorescent yellow buoyancy aid, straps over the shoulders and a belt tied around the waist. The “life” jacket had proved useless at its one and only task.
Experienced sailors spent good money on reputable brands – the flotation devices literally could be the difference between survival and death. Novices, like weekend kayakers, usually went cheap. Fine if the shore was within spitting distance and the water a millpond.
Further along the shore, stranded on seaweed-strewn chalk and flint rocks, was a deflated dinghy. It lay like a banana skin, discarded, battered, and bruised.
The wind had whipped Gray’s clifftop flat last night, stopped him getting to sleep. It had been breezy all day. These days he lived not much more than a mile from here, a stretch of beach about midway between the resorts of Broadstairs and Ramsgate. Gray expected the dinghy had been pitched over by high waves, or had suffered a puncture. Whichever, the end result was a washed-up corpse.
Centuries ago, this area of coastline had been the covert port of entry for contraband smugglers, bringing ashore alcohol and tobacco at an out-of-the-way place to avoid customs tax. The entrances to caves and tunnels, cut into the soft chalk, still existed. These days the illegal “cargo” was people.
The bay could only be reached when the tide was low. After a hike from the nearest break in the cliffs, it was popular with tourists, offering a café and toilets where Gray had descended a footpath. Most people rarely made it this far, choosing to stay close to the amenities, but Gray had walked this route many times on his way to Ramsgate. It was the perfect landing spot if you didn’t want to be seen. At night nobody came here.
“Another bloody immigrant.” Detective Sergeant Mike Fowler stood beside Gray, a foot shorter in height and broader in the chest; powerfully built. Fowler sported a porn-star moustache — a relic from an annual charity event — and a sneer.
Gray suspected Fowler was right, though silently thought it’s refugee, not immigrant, you idiot. Incidences of trafficking had soared over the last few years. They were so close to the European continent, France and Belgium could be seen on a clear day.
In times of austerity and high unemployment, people-smuggling was one of the few growth industries; a classic scenario where demand dramatically outstripped supply, where desperation and hope were ruthlessly exploited. Money changed hands, risks were taken, people died.
Still, even if Fowler was probably right, Gray wasn’t going to say so.
“Another bloody person, you mean.”
Fowler was no more than a colleague to Gray these days, their friendship stretched and strained through years of conflict that just never quite seemed to go away.
“No, I really don’t. I mean, who goes out in a dinghy at the dead of night otherwise?”
Gray could see his point, but where were the rest? Trafficked people were always brought ashore in groups.
“Show some compassion, m
an.”
“For what? They’re like bugs. One disappears; three more materialise in their place. We’re overrun. It can’t carry on.”
Gray’s heartburn flared up again. Periodically, he experienced a discomfort in his chest cavity, a pressure within, often when Fowler was around and his stress levels rose. Usually a drink of milk calmed it, but there was none to hand out here.
“You all right?” asked Fowler.
“Fine, thanks.” Gray swallowed repeatedly which helped a little.
“Good, don’t want you dying on me. I’ve enough paperwork to deal with.”
Fowler squatted down to get a closer look at the cadaver, habitually stroking his nicotine-stained moustache as he ran his eyes over the man. Fowler wouldn’t really be interested in what he saw; it was simply a mechanism to break the conversation. Not that Gray cared. He and Fowler were at opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to immigration. However, xenophobia was like a virus, more and more people catching the disease, openly voicing views similar to Fowler’s.
Recently there had been a change in the smugglers’ strategies. The obvious tactics, like shoving a group of migrants into the back of a lorry and driving it through a major port, such as Dover or Folkestone, was over. These routes were too well monitored. So, starting a few months ago, the process had shifted to using small boats; ferrying handfuls of refugees at a time onto out-of-the-way beaches. It was impossible for the authorities to patrol everywhere.
Gray knew, because he’d looked it up online via the Ordnance Survey, that the UK mainland coast stretched to over 11,000 miles. An impossible task to keep an eye on every potential landing spot, even before the police force had been hacked back by the Tory government’s austerity measures.
But there were easier places to land than Thanet. Like Deal, just along the coast between here and Dover, where there was an extensive stretch of shoreline, miles long, mostly shrouded in darkness, rarely patrolled. And there were no cliffs. It still had a small fishing population, therefore the coming and going of boats at night wasn’t going to raise alarm. It was perfect.
“I’m turning him over,” said Fowler, seeking permission from Gray as the senior of the pair, yet not. Photographs of the body in situ had already been captured by a Scene of Crime Officer. Fowler took out a pair of nitrile gloves from a pocket and pulled them on before he flipped the corpse.
The dead man’s eyes and mouth were open in an apparent scream. Gray had seen enough bodies to know the cause was nothing so melodramatic, simply a slackening of the muscles. He appeared to have Middle Eastern descent, going by his skin colour. The beard was pretty typical too. A search of his pockets by Fowler revealed nothing. He stood, began to say something, but was interrupted.
“Sarge!” A shout from one of the uniforms, jabbing urgently at the diminishing tide line. Gray reacted first, Fowler much slower, far less interested.
A uniform was knee-deep in the surf, holding another corpse; floating, half submerged and face up. He was familiar. Without pause, and careless of a soaking, Gray waded into the sea; his suspicions confirmed as he closed in on the body. He was no immigrant. Gray knew this man and all too well.
“Get him ashore,” said Gray. He pulled his mobile out to make a call.
There was trouble ahead.
***
By the time Detective Inspector Yvonne Hamson arrived, the receding tide had released a third corpse. She brought more cops, more Scenes Of Crime Officers, more activity. She had become the Senior Investigating Officer; the case belonged to her now.
Hamson was nearly six foot. In heels she was almost as tall as Gray. Today she wore trainers. Usually, Hamson was elegant, well dressed, aware of her appearance. But pressures in her private life were taking their toll.
As Hamson walked down the beach, Fowler retreated to the foot of the chalk cliffs. Wafts of white clouds showed he was smoking, taking a break. Hamson and Fowler kept their distance from each other, their relationship to colleagues seemingly frosty, the reality anything but. Only Gray knew Fowler and Hamson were having an affair, as Fowler and his wife had split up but weren’t yet divorced. It was a secret Gray had to keep because Hamson had confided in him and him alone.
The increased importance of the investigation also brought Brian Blake, the Crime Scene Manager, to the locus. The SOCOs were his to command, and Blake never missed a prominent event.
Hamson turned her back on Fowler and Blake, dismissing them. “Are you sure it’s Regan Armitage?”
“He looks a little worse for wear after his immersion, but it’s definitely him.” The body was battered and bruised, various abrasions on his face, clothes ripped. He lay on his back, eyes closed, mouth open.
“What the hell was he doing out here?”
“Dying, clearly.”
“You’ll make a fine detective one day.”
Regan was the tearaway son of prominent and wealthy local businessman, Jake Armitage, a man who divided opinion. Regan was handsome, aloof, arrogant. Popular with a few, disliked by many, just like his old man. Born into privilege and pre-disposed to make sure everyone knew it. As a kid he’d regularly been in trouble and known to the police. Even now, well into his twenties, he remained a familiar face in the cells.
“What about the other two?” asked Hamson.
“One appears to have drowned, one probably not.”
“Why probably not?”
“Best you see.”
Gray led Hamson along the shoreline, bypassed one corpse, stopped at the furthest. He crouched down and pointed.
Hamson, bending at the waist, said, “A stab wound. Puts a different complexion on the situation.”
“Perhaps they fell out on the final leg, got into a fight, ended up overboard?”
“Maybe.”
Blake sauntered over. Crime Scene Manager was a title which aptly fitted his role. An overseer, rather than a do-er. “Delegate” was his middle name. He’d dropped a little weight recently and tidied himself up, but male model he was not.
“We’re pretty much done here,” said Blake. “Not a lot to reveal.” It wasn’t surprising that evidence was thin. Water had a cleansing behaviour when it came to crime. There might be value in a fingertip search of the beach above the tideline, though Gray wasn’t hopeful.
Hamson nodded sharply, keeping communication to an absolute minimum as usual. Blake, job done, gladly retreated.
Gray shoved his hands into his pockets, raised the obvious point. “Jake Armitage will need to be told.”
“I suppose you mean by me.” Nobody liked delivering a death knock.
“By us. Jake is old-school arsehole. He’s not what you’d call a people person. I’ll even drive.”
“You’re all heart.”
“Sure, just don’t tell anyone.”
“Nobody would believe me anyway. I’d better give Carslake an update.” Detective Chief Inspector Jeff Carslake was her immediate boss. Hamson dialled but couldn’t get through. She didn’t seem particularly bothered. “I’ll try again later.”
As they began the long trek back to the car, staff from the coroner’s office arrived to remove the cadavers in readiness for Ben Clough the pathologist’s slice-and-dice post-mortem routine.
Gray would prefer to watch a body being cut up rather than visit Jake Armitage. However, you didn’t always get what you wanted.
Four
A woman with a couple of kids hanging off her legs was standing like an edifice on the corner of the concrete esplanade scrutinising Gray and Hamson as they made their way along the beach.
When they reached the top of the slipway the woman spoke.
“Excuse me, are you with this lot?” She pointed to a disorderly array of police cars and Scene of Crime vans, parked in front of a line of beach huts which followed the curvature of the cliff in the space where deck chairs would usually be located.
“Yes,” said Hamson.
The woman introduced herself as Mrs Fiona Emerson. She was tall and thin wi
th a pinched face and wore a loose-fitting flowery dress. Her greying hair was tied up, and sunglasses rested on her head just beneath the bun. A short, balding man, wearing, of all things, a knitted tank top, hung back. Far enough away to stay out of it; close enough to react should he be called forward. Gray assumed he was the partner.
“We’re investigating a serious incident further down the beach,” said Hamson.
“Oh, I couldn’t care less about that.” Mrs Emerson dismissed someone else’s misfortune with an imperious wave. “I rang you people earlier. We’ve been waiting.”
“What about?”
“We were confronted by a man with a knife.”
Gray immediately pricked his ears up at this. He glanced at Hamson. By her expression she felt the same interest. The call must have got lost in all the recent activity. “When was this?”
“Less than a quarter of an hour ago. We usually arrive early to get a good space on the sand. I found the locks smashed off our beach hut and a man inside sleeping on the floor.” Mrs Emerson pointed towards her hut.
The subject of her concern was a small pile of clothes on the floor. Next to them lay a fluorescent yellow life jacket. It appeared someone had survived the landing.
“Get Blake,” said Hamson unnecessarily. Gray was already digging his mobile out of a pocket to place the call to the Crime Scene Manager. While they waited for him to arrive, Hamson took a closer look inside the hut, leaving Gray with Mrs Emerson.
“Originally from London,” she said. “Moved to Broadstairs for the quiet life.” She delivered the last comment with a distinct tinge of sarcasm, as if the intruder was Gray’s fault.
“What did he look like?” asked Gray.
“A foreigner,” she shrugged.
Gray waited for more. Mrs Emerson obviously felt as if this was enough of a description. “And?”
“What?”
“Height, skin colour, accent? Anything distinguishing?”
“For God’s sake, I don’t know! He was just a man!”
