Ozzie Poldhu was waiting in the reception area at Camborne police station when Rego went to bring him down to the interview room. The old man looked like a character from a previous century with his white beard, bushy eyebrows and heavy knitted sweater. His face was tanned and creased like an ancient atlas, and there was something almost biblical in his watchful silence. Only the strong aroma of diesel and pipe tobacco that clung to his clothes brought him into the twenty-first century. His arms were crossed defensively across his body, and he scowled at anyone who looked his way. The bright blue eyes that seemed to run in the Poldhu family, glittered with anger and humiliation.
“Mr Poldhu, I’m Detective Inspector Robert Rego and this is Detective Sergeant Tom Stevens. Thank you for coming in. First of all, I want to ensure that you understand this is a voluntary interview.”
“Is it now?” he growled, his Cornish vowels as long as the southwest peninsula, the consonants almost completely swallowed. “I was under the impression there was nothing voluntary about it.”
“No, you’re not under arrest and are free to leave at any time.”
“Right, that’s me off then! Wasting my time, as if I haven’t got enough to do.”
“Mr Poldhu,” Rego said quickly. “We will be interviewing other users of Newlyn Harbour who match the criteria for our inquiries, and it will be much better in the long run if you talk to us here and now today. I arranged for your interview to be at Camborne instead of Penzance in consideration of your granddaughter.”
That was stretching the truth slightly, but he could see the old man wavering. Rego knew that he was being disingenuous for using Tamsyn to get her grandfather to talk to him.
“Can I offer you anything to drink?” Tom Stevens asked politely. “While we wait for your solicitor.”
“Not much of a choice, is it?” the old man said angrily. “I’ll have tea. Strong – don’t just show it the teabag, let it brew.”
“No problem. Milk? Sugar?”
“Splash o’ milk,” he said grumpily. Then he looked up and met Rego’s gaze. “And I won’t be needing no bleddy useless solicitor neither.”
Rego was surprised. It had been a while since he’d had anyone come to a police interview without a solicitor.
“We can appoint one for you if you don’t have your own.”
Ozzie waved him away.
“Let’s just get on with it so I can get out of here and back to work.”
“Are you sure? You want to do an interview without a solicitor?”
“I’ve already told you, boy.”
“Well, if at any time you want us to stop and get a solicitor, we will.”
“How many times have I said no? Reckon you must like the sound of your own voice.”
Rego nodded and led the way to the custody suite where the interview would be recorded.
Tamsyn’s grandfather sat heavily in a chair and waited, his white eyebrows pulled together in a fierce frown.
“Mr Poldhu, I need to caution you,” said Rego and proceeded to read out the legal requirement. “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”
The old man scowled at him, his frown deepening, the anger apparent on his face. Angry enough to kill somebody?
“Mr Poldhu, do you recognise the woman in this photograph? I am showing Mr Poldhu a photograph of Saemira Ruçi, also known as Jowita Wojciechowski.”
“Yes, I seen her.”
“Where was that?”
“Outside the Mack Shack a couple of times. I told Tammy this a’ready,” he growled, “and that other fella you sent to talk to me. I never saw her inside, always out, and always late at night. I never spoke to her, never knew her name. Saw her with some scruffy layabout. I don’t know ‘is name neither.”
“Did you ever see this woman at the harbour?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Iffn you’s going to repeat everything, we’ll be here till Christmas. Get on with it, Mr Inspector.”
“I have to tell you that Jowita was murdered.”
The old man didn’t react.
“Mr Poldhu?”
“I guessed as much.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because,” Ozzie replied, “you wouldn’t make this much fuss over an ordinary drowning.”
He said it with such certainty, such grim finality that Rego suddenly remembered that Poldhu’s own son, Tamsyn’s father, had drowned. It was sad, but he needed to move the interview on.
“Are you aware of how Jowita died?”
“I assumed she was thrown overboard left to drown,” he said, sounding puzzled.
“She did drown, Mr Poldhu, but not in the sea. Her tongue was cut out and she drowned in her own blood.”
This time Rego did get a reaction. It was hard to tell, but he thought the old man looked shocked.
“My question, Mr Poldhu, is about whether or not Jowita’s tongue was cut out with a fish filleting knife?”
The old man’s face contorted with disgust, and finally he spat out the words.
“I wouldn’t know, boy.” He shook his head, his voice so quiet it was hard to hear him. “I can’t believe it. Not here, not Newlyn. This is my home.”
It struck Rego that this interview may have set in motion an event where Tamsyn’s grandfather would want to speak with or meet the person who was involved in either drug trafficking or Jowita’s murder. Rego thought that if Ozzie Poldhu was involved, he’d be calling that person or persons after this interview. Rego really loved phone intel – although he still wanted to be wrong about Tamsyn’s grandfather. But he had a duty to explore all reasonable lines of inquiry.
Rego changed tack and produced another photograph.
“Is this your boat?”
“Yes, that’s the Daniel Day.”
“Did you go out fishing on Friday 20th January? I’m showing Mr Poldhu a CCTV image of his boat leaving the harbour at 4am that morning.”
“How am I supposed to remember that? That’s my boat, so I reckon I must have.”
“And there’d be a record of your catch at the fish market?”
Ozzie shifted on his seat.
“Yes.” He paused. “Sometimes, I keep some for a few friends.”
“Is that usual?”
“I reckon.”
“I’m showing Mr Poldhu CCTV from Thursday 16th February. Is this your boat?”
“Yes.”
“And do you remember what you caught that day?”
Ozzie stared at him.
“Know much about fishing, do ‘ee?”
“Not really.”
“Lobster season is from June to August, and the best months to catch lobsters are May to October. But then there’s a short run of large females inshore in January and February. So no, I don’t remember what I caught, but I do know that it would have been worth my while to hail the pots.”
“Hail the pots?”
“Bring in the lobster pots and traps.”
“And you sell direct to customers?”
“No, we’re not allowed to do that. Reg’lations.”
Rego tapped his pen on the desk.
“But it happens sometimes?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Could you give me a list of your regular customers?”
“I could.”
“That would be helpful, thank you.”
Tom Stevens passed the old man a notepad and they watched as he slowly wrote a list of restaurants from Land’s End to London who bought from him, his flowing, cursive script heavily incising the sheet of paper.
“Thank you,” said Tom Stevens.
“Now, this is another image of your boat, the Daniel Day, on Sunday 27th March,” said Rego. “Do you remember that?”
“Yes. Do you want to know what I had for breakfast, too?”
“No, that’s not…”
“Four rashers of bacon, two eggs, two slices of fried bread and a cup of tea. Ah, hang on a moment, it may have been two cups of tea.”
Rego let the old man’s irritation die down before he asked his next question.
“Did you take your boat out the two nights before, Friday 24th or Saturday 25th?”
The old man’s bright blue gaze flickered.
“Not the Friday, no, I didn’t. It was roaring like Cudden, wouldna you, sou’-sou’-east – had been for weeks: wind from the east, fishing least; wind from the west, fishing best. But I’ve been having problems with my spark-plugs, see. So I was off the water Saturday as well, so for those two days, there was no catch even though it was coming up to a neap tide.”
Rego paused, wondering about the significance of the fact that Poldhu hadn’t been out either of those nights. The pathologist had been certain that the victim’s body had been dumped on the Saturday night.
“I was worried I wouldn’t get to my pots in time,” the old man mumbled.
“Time for what?” Rego asked.
Poldhu scowled at him.
“Lobsters are the gardeners of the sea, but with your crab in a confined space, they’ll eat anything and everything. When we land ‘em, we snip the claws so they can’t be at each other. I had to get to my traps in time to stop the crabs from trying to eat each other.”
Rego was mentally crossing another type of seafood off his must try list.
“So, for two whole days, you didn’t take your boat out at all?”
Ozzie stared at him inscrutably.
“Reckon you don’t know much about engines either, iff’n you think you can start ‘em without spark-plugs.”
“Did you go out on the Sunday night?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
The old man looked embarrassed, but eventually answered gruffly.
“I wanted to see Tammy off in the morning.”
Rego must have shown his surprise, because Poldhu leaned forward. “You got children, inspector?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know.”
They both leaned back in their seats and Rego considered what he’d learned. He also remembered that the morning the body had been recovered, Tamsyn’s grandfather couldn’t be found at his boat because he’d gone to buy new spark-plugs. He wanted to know if the old man had actually bought any – that would be easy to check.
“Do you have a receipt for the new spark-plugs?”
“’Spec I got it somewhere, but if you think I’m lying, ask Barney over Pirates – he sold ‘em me.”
Rego made a note, then tapped his pen on the desk, wondering where that left the investigation. He glanced up to see the old man staring at him. Was he involved? Was he looking into the eyes of a killer?
He glanced at Tom to see if he had anything to ask, but received a subtle shake of the head.
“Thank you for answering these questions, Mr Poldhu. We may need to re-interview you if new evidence comes to light.”
The old man muttered something under his breath and pushed his chair back.
“I also have to tell you, Mr Poldhu,” Rego said seriously, “that I have already spoken to Tamsyn about this interview.”
The old man’s face darkened, his eyes stormy.
“As a sworn officer, she isn’t allowed to discuss this case with either you or your wife. If we find out that she has been talking to you, she’ll be investigated for gross misconduct, or arrested for perverting the course of justice. That could lead to her being dismissed from the force, and a lifetime ban from the police anywhere in the country.”
Ozzie Poldhu’s eyes blazed with fury.
“Don’t you threaten me with your mealy-mouth lawyer words! Tammy is a good girl, an honest girl! She joined the police to do her bit and you … you…!”
The old man was momentarily lost for words. But then he slammed his gnarled hands down on the table, thrusting his face forwards.
“You do your worst, Inspector Big Mouth, but you leave my granddaughter out of it!”
Then he heaved himself up and stamped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Rego wanted to be wrong about Ozzie Poldhu, and he didn’t want to believe that Tamsyn was involved. He didn’t want to, but he definitely had to consider the possibility.
Rego glanced at Stevens who raised his eyebrows and closed his notebook.