It had been a long nightshift and Tamsyn had already attended six incidents while she’d been double-crewing with Mitch Rogers. At 32, he was one of the older men on E-team. He was slightly shorter than Tamsyn, but with the build of a rugby prop and the demeanour of a man who’d heard it all and seen it all – the kind man you knew you could rely on.
Starting at midnight, they’d gone straight to the first of their six call-outs, all involving excessive alcohol, leading to a couple of fights, one suspicion of vandalism, loud music at 3am, and two domestic incidents.
Tamsyn had watched and learned as Mitch managed to de-escalate each situation with a few well-chosen words and a friendly but professional demeanour. No one had been arrested, no one cautioned.
The seventh incident came in two hours before the end of the shift.
“Right, Tamsyn,” said Mitch. “We’ve had a call about a vulnerable man suffering from Alzheimer’s, gone missing from his daughter’s home. Let’s go.”
The daughter had phoned 999, frantic with worry because her father was obsessed with a nineteenth-century mineshaft near their home. Apparently, he’d been a tin miner at South Crofty before it closed more than twenty-five years earlier, and his daughter was afraid that he might try to climb over the flimsy fencing and fall in. She couldn’t go and look for him herself because she was baby-sitting her granddaughter.
They drove slowly through the deserted streets that led to the old mineshaft, looking at every front garden, under every tree and along every driveway.
They’d gone nearly a mile, without seeing anything when Mitch finally spotted him.
“Over there,” he said, pointing at an elderly man who was standing on a grassy roundabout, clearly lost and distressed.
“He must be freezing,” Tamsyn murmured, taking in the man’s pyjama bottoms and bedroom slippers, his naked chest concave, his shoulders hunched with cold and fear, the world a vast and confusing place.
“It’s a good thing that it’s early in the morning and there isn’t much traffic on the road yet,” said Mitch. “The old boy could easily have been knocked over and killed before making it off the roundabout. Right, let’s go and check on him – get him into the patrol car and warm him up.”
“Do we need paramedics?”
“Let’s just get him in the car first,” said Mitch, already climbing out.
But when the elderly man saw them, his distress increased. He stared at Mitch, then started moaning, shaking his head and rocking on his feet.
“You try,” Mitch said, backing off a few paces and handing Tamsyn a blanket that he’d pulled out of the boot. “Just keep talking to him quietly. See if you can get him over to the car.”
She remembered what Sergeant Terwillis had told her about appearing non-threatening and decided to leave her hat in the patrol car.
“Hello, are you Alec? I’m Tamsyn. Your daughter Helen has been very worried about you.”
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, and the man started shouting but she couldn’t understand the words.
“Are you cold? Would you like to borrow my blanket? I know it’s spring now, but it’s still chilly.”
Slowly, so slowly, she drew nearer, talking to him quietly, saying anything that came into her head, telling him all about fishing at Newlyn, all about Morwenna and the mischief she got up to, until finally she was able to wrap the blanket around his thin shoulders and get him calm enough to sit in the back of the patrol car so they could take him home.
The daughter flung the door open as they pulled up and was yelling before she’d taken a step.
“Where the hell have you been, Dad? I’ve been so worried! You’ve got to stop doing this! It’s doing my head in.”
The old man cowered and the woman burst into tears.
They were both surprised when the father put his arms around his daughter and said, “There, there, Hells Bells. There, there.”
Mitch ushered them all inside and finally the woman was calm enough to thank them for finding him.
Mitch gave her the dementia helpline number for the Alzheimer’s Society, and then they quietly left her to her own despair.
As they drove back towards the station, Tamsyn remained silent and Mitch glanced across at her.
“I know. We can’t solve their problems but we stopped that old boy from getting hurt tonight. Count it as a win.”
Tamsyn nodded slowly. “Do you think she’ll call that helpline?”
“She might. We’ll probably never know.”
Tamsyn thought of her own grandparents, fit and healthy in their early seventies, but they wouldn’t always be that way. Time caught up with everyone eventually.
It had been upsetting to see that old man so scared and confused, but at least it had been the last call of the night, so after that they were able to go back to the station to type up their reports – and something else for Tamsyn to put in her student portfolio.
As she changed out of her uniform, she felt lightheaded because she hadn’t eaten and her body was sagging with exhaustion.
Unfortunately, Chloe was leaning on the desk in reception when Tamsyn was heading out. She definitely didn’t feel up to a run in with Bitchtits, as she’d privately nicknamed her.
Jamie was there too, looking equally tired, but possibly a tad more energised than Tamsyn because he was taking a moment to appreciate Chloe’s assets – both of them on display in a shirt that gaped open when she leaned forward.
Chloe obviously relished the chance to take another swing at Tamsyn, because her eyes lit up with malice when she saw her.
“Well, well, well – not the station’s sweetheart anymore, are you? I heard that your dodgy Grandad was interviewed and they’re probably going to re-interview him under caution.”
Tamsyn’s anger surfaced quickly. She hadn’t known that piece of information that Chloe seemed to think was juicy gossip.
“Not so whiter than white now, are you?” Chloe sneered. “Although maybe you’ve got a thing for darker meat.”
Tamsyn assumed that was a dig at DI Rego but right now, she only had the energy to care about her family. She continued to stare at Chloe, the anger draining away with the worries that crowded in, worries she’d been able to put out of her head while she’d been crewing with Mitch.
“Give it a rest, Chloe,” said Tamsyn tiredly. “You’re not impressing anyone with your attempt to win bitch of the year.”
Jamie frowned, his gaze flicking between the two women.
“They’re interviewing several of the Newlyn fishermen,” he said, but Chloe shook her head.
“That’s what they’re saying, but her Grandad is the only interviewee entered into HOLMES.” She smirked at Tamsyn. “Things aren’t looking so rosy for you, are they? Perhaps you’d better forget about pretending to be a police officer. Why don’t you go home and polish your surfboard?”
Tamsyn curled her lip.
“You wax a surfboard, not polish it. Dickhead.”
And she walked out of the station.
Jamie rushed after her.
“She was just winding you up. She didn’t mean anything by it.”
Tamsyn gave him a cynical rise of one eyebrow.
“I don’t know what you’ve got against her,” he muttered.
“Me? What I’ve got against her?” Tamsyn shook her head in disbelief.
“I know she can be a bit…” even Jamie struggled to find the right words to describe Chloe. “But she’s alright when you get to know her.”
“Only someone with a penis would think that.”
Jamie’s mouth dropped open, gaping like a grouper fish, and Tamsyn left him standing in the staff car park as she strode home. He seemed like a nice enough guy but so frickin’ clueless.
She walked faster, hoping he wouldn’t try and catch up with her, but the truth was that after her conversation with DI Rego the day before, she was worried. And if Chloe was right about none of the other fishermen being interviewed…
She needed to find out what the hell was going on.
Which was going to be a problem now that she’d been warned off the case.
Tamsyn walked home in a daze, tiredness, concern and confusion all swirling around in her brain, making it impossible to decide what she should do.
She couldn’t even talk to her grandparents about it, and she’d always been able to talk to them about everything.
It almost made her want to avoid going home, but she couldn’t because that wouldn’t be fair to any of them.
But as she reached the cottage, she saw her car. Someone had put a brick through her windscreen and spray-painted the word ‘grass’ across the bonnet.
Tamsyn was furious and then felt sick. She took a photo of the damage and was wondering what to do when her grandmother came running out of the house.
“Oh, Tammy! I was just about to phone you! I came out after breakfast and saw it. We’ve never had any trouble here – it’s a quiet village. Who would do something like this?”
Tamsyn had her suspicions. The graffitied word ‘grass’ was the clue – it was what Ollie had called her when she’d run into him at Camborne station.
And that wasn’t all. Chloe had said herself that she’d been talking to Ollie Garrett. Ollie was connected with Spider and who knew who else – there weren’t many corners of the country where you couldn’t buy some weed or a few wraps these days. It was a growth industry, she thought bitterly.
Besides, Ollie already knew that she lived in Gulval – it wouldn’t have taken more than a two-minute online search to find the Poldhu family.
“Probably just kids,” Tamsyn lied. “They heard I’d joined the police or something. It’s a pain, but don’t worry about it, Gran.”
“But I do worry!” her grandmother cried. “I worry all the time!”
Her grandmother turned and angrily walked into the kitchen, gazing unseeingly as she leaned over the sink.
Mo came trotting over to see Tamsyn, but even she seemed dispirited, her tail drooping. Tamsyn crouched down to give her a back scratch, then scooped the little dog into her arms.
Her grandmother turned to face her.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll report it and get in touch with my insurance.” She forced a weary smile. “I might ask the neighbours if they saw or heard anything.”
“It must have happened after Ozzie went out. And I didn’t hear a thing. Anyway, Miss Nellie nextdoor would have been straight on the phone to the police if she had,” her grandmother frowned.
“I’m sure you’re right,” said Tamsyn, deliberately downplaying it.
“I’m sorry, angel. I didn’t even ask! How was your night shift?”
“Yeah, it was fine. Grandad gone to work?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” her grandmother asked stiffly.
Then she dipped her head, her white dandelion hair hiding her eyes.
“I shouldn’t take it out on you, Tammy, but what they’re saying about him! And now your car. It’s so unfair! As if he’d ever even think about…”
“Gran, I can’t talk to you about that,” Tamsyn interrupted. “I could lose my job.”
Her grandmother’s eyes flashed with anger. “You know he’s innocent! You know it’s nonsense what they’re saying about him!”
“Of course I know that,” Tamsyn said quickly. “I just can’t talk about it.”
“Can’t you do something then? Now you’re one o’ them?”
They stared at each other across the kitchen, and Tamsyn didn’t know what to say that would help.
“Let them do their job, Gran,” she replied at last. “They’ll see that Grandad didn’t do anything.”
Then she turned and climbed the narrow staircase, Mo still in her arms.
Shit, I hope I’m right.
A shiver ran through her, and Mo whimpered.
* * *
Chloe had been right about one thing – Ozzie Poldhu was the only fisherman from Newlyn that Rego had interviewed personally, because he was the only one who fit all the criteria. And unfortunately, Poldhu hadn’t been able to give Rego any reason to rule him out of their inquiries – if anything, the opposite was true.
Clint Brady had explained to Rego that all fishing boats were required to have an iVMS, an in-shore vessel monitoring system fitted – a transponder that reported their position every two hours. Problem solved? Not quite, because currently the system only applied to boats over 12m, and Ozzie Poldhu’s boat was smaller than that.
Which put him right in the frame.
It went back to the theory that the problems Ruçi and Moyle were having with supply must mean that whoever was bringing in the drugs, Subject F perhaps, must be using smaller boats – or a smaller boat.
Rego listed out the questions he needed answered:
- Who had killed Saemira Ruçi?
- Did the CCTV show the killer taking her body to Newlyn Harbour, and if so, where had the body been kept?
- Who was ‘Subject F’? Ozzie Poldhu? Jonas Jedna? A third party not yet identified?
- Where was Besnik Domi?
- Was Tamsyn Poldhu involved in any of this?
Rego massaged his temples, something he did habitually when he was thinking, even when he didn’t have a headache.
There was one date that didn’t fit in with Ozzie Poldhu being involved with Saemira Ruçi – and that was the night her body had been dumped. Poldhu had been having trouble with his boat’s spark-plugs and it hadn’t left the harbour that night, nor the following night because he’d wanted to see Tamsyn off to work on her first day. More than one person had commented on his not being there because it was his usual day for selling his catch. Which left three possibilities: Ozzie Poldhu wasn’t involved; another fisherman was involved; or Poldhu was working with someone else.
Somehow, Rego didn’t think it was the last option; he couldn’t imagine that grumpy old geezer working well with anyone else.
Rego wanted Tamsyn’s grandfather to be innocent. Unfortunately, the evidence didn’t rule him out. Poldhu might not be teaming up with anyone – he might simply have taken someone else’s boat that night.
Rego moved on from that question and thought about the other evidence that they’d gathered.
Traces of blood had been found in the victim’s car – AB negative, a rare blood type that was the same as Saemira Ruçi’s. Only 1% of the UK population had AB negative blood, and in Albania it was 0.9% – Rego had checked. The blood still needed to be DNA matched, but Rego was confident that it belonged to the victim.
He reviewed what he knew: Ruçi had been murdered, location unknown; two unidentified suspects had entered the St Ives car park, retrieved Ruçi’s car, taken it to an unknown location, then transported the victim’s body in her own car to Newlyn Harbour, where the body was kept for up to 12 hours before being disposed of at sea.
Then he reviewed what he believed: the body had been shuttled from the murder site to the harbour in the victim’s car; a local fisherman had been working with Ruçi and Domi to distribute drugs in the southwest; Domi had murdered Ruçi to stop her from talking – the symbolic cutting out of her tongue.
They didn’t know who she’d been talking to – because it wasn’t the police or any of the law enforcement agencies, so had she been negotiating with other criminals wanting to take over the business? That would be a very risky strategy, but it could have happened. He decided to run that idea past Vikram, who had a nationwide overview of organised crime gangs.
Rego stared at his computer as if the answers would jump from the screen.
Where had Ruçi been killed? He felt sure that the CCTV Mimi had found showed the body being brought to Newlyn Harbour. But according to the pathologist, there would have been a lot of blood at the murder site, and they hadn’t found it in the boot of the car.
Three drop locations had been mentioned on Ruçi’s burner phone: ‘the water’, ‘the market’, ‘the house’. Where was this house that had been mentioned and who did it belong to?
Somehow Rego couldn’t picture Ruçi parking up outside Tamsyn’s cottage in Gulval – the whole family would have had to be involved. Rego didn’t buy it.
Okay, so someone else – but who? Rego wondered if it would be worth having another go at Spider. The man definitely knew more than he’d said so far.
Rego decided to set that up as soon as possible.
He glanced across at his small team. Tom had gone to the harbour again to ask questions about Ozzie Poldhu’s activities on several other dates of interest and to check his sales for those days. Jen Bolitho was off sick with shingles and no one expected her back for at least a fortnight. The timing couldn’t have been worse when they were already short-staffed. As for DC John Frith who was recovering from having his appendix removed, Rego hadn’t even met him yet, although apparently he was hoping to be back at work in a week.
Rego hoped that this case wouldn’t be running on that long. He felt like they were making progress – and he wanted to nail Domi. It would be a real achievement to get scum like that off the streets. He could share a cosy prison cell with his lowlife brother.
Jack was concentrating on Ruçi’s CDR, Mimi was feeding all the intel into her analysis charts, and support staff from Bodmin, Launceston and Truro were still looking through hundreds of hours of CCTV for sightings of Ruçi and/or Domi.
Information from Ruçi’s burner phone had been prioritised and they’d been able to identify a number of known local druggies who subsidised their own use with some dealing on the side. They were all small-time, but between them it added up to a lot of petty crime. They’d also been able to ‘mirror’ several of the numbers so they’d be able to look for more CCTV footage of where the dealers were meeting. It was tedious but it was that kind of laborious, painstaking work that got results.
Vikram was particularly interested in the overseas numbers Ruçi had used, and Rego was glad to have a substantial amount of intel to pass to his friend.
“Boss,” Mimi gave a quick knock on his open door and immediately stepped inside. “I’ve started on Ruçi’s personal phone and there’s really not much on there. The only overseas number she used frequently belongs to her mother in Albania, but I’ve found hundreds of WhatsApp messages between the victim and the little girl Lucy Pryce – even more than the girl had kept – lots of memes and jokes about the family, messages about when she was picking her up from school.”
“Grooming her?”
Mimi pulled a face.
“I’d say so. Lots of little digs about the mother, lots of affection to Lucy, telling her she’s pretty and smart. I think that little girl would have done just about anything for Ruçi. So yeah, I’d call it grooming – it was only a matter of time before she’d asked her to do something else, something illegal for her friend.”
Rego’s own daughter was only two years younger than Lucy Pryce and his son two years older. He hated the thought that someone might try to use either of them like that. How did you warn kids and keep them safe without scaring them? How did you stop criminals pretending to be their best friends and taking advantage of them, of using them, of grooming them for criminal activity – or worse?
“There’s only one number of real interest,” Mimi continued, “and that was an incoming call at 15.57 on Tuesday 7th February, lasting 34 seconds.”
“Too long to be a wrong number so…” Rego realised that Mimi was grinning at him. “What?”
“Boss, it matches one of the contact numbers on Ruçi’s burner phone – she had the number listed under the name ‘Gaforrja’. I looked it up on Google Translate: it’s Albanian for the astrological sign Cancer. And cancer is…”
“The crab – maybe a fisherman?”
Someone who caught lobster and crabs.
“I think this Gaforrja character could be our Subject F – it’s the only call Ruçi received that fits with what Lucy Pryce told us.”
“We’re putting a lot of faith in the word of a ten year-old girl. What do we know about the number?”
“Ruçi was the only person the user called. And there weren’t many of those, even on the burner: mostly text messages sent at night about setting up meetings. No time given, so maybe they always met at the same time?”
“Maybe.”
“The last text sent by this user was on the Thursday before Ruçi died. We know that it instructed her to meet the next day at ‘the market’. We also know that she read it.”
“You say ‘instructed’: did you get the impression that the user was the one in charge, the boss?”
Mimi thought about this.
“You know, now you mention it, the tone changed over the last three months. At first it was ‘can you’ and ‘will you’, then it changed to a couple of words: ‘the house’ or ‘the water’. Maybe the balance of power was changing.”
“Maybe,” Rego repeated. “Or maybe they just knew each other better.”
“Yeah, but what if this whole thing is about crims falling out?”
Rego nodded. The theory had legs.
“Definitely worth considering, but let’s get all billing and call data for the number attributable to Gaforrja. Get it processed as an ‘Urgent’ – priority one.” He paused. “I’m wondering where ‘the market’ would be. If that was the last text sent on the day before she was murdered, it could well be significant, and it could be the place she was lured to and then killed. It would make sense if they were talking about the fish market at Newlyn.”
“Maybe,” she said, not looking convinced, “but isn’t there a load of CCTV all around the harbour, as well as night-vision cameras? If that was the meeting place, we would have found something by now.”
Rego disagreed.
“At least one person worked out how not to be seen – if that was the victim’s body we saw being carried from the car.”
“Yes, that’s true,” she said, still sounding uncertain.
“So, where else are you thinking? We know that Ruçi had to work in the guest house every morning, so if the fish market is out and a farmer’s market is unlikely due to the timing…”
“They have craft fairs at Porthleven Harbour on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturday afternoons,” Mimi offered.
“Feels too public.”
They both paused, thinking, then Mimi smiled and said, “Marazion! That’s where her car was dumped, right?”
“Marazion has a market?”
“No! Marazion is a market.”
“I’m not following you.”
“It’s what the name means in Cornish – Marghasyewe, Thursday Market!”
Rego nodded but remained sceptical.
“It seems unlikely that Ruçi would have known that.”
“I agree,” said Mimi, “but if we’re right about Subject F being a local, he’d have known it!”
“It’s a possibility,” Rego agreed, “but we want to stay open-minded on this. What else do you know about this number?”
“Burner, and it’s been off since Ruçi was killed.”
“Stay on it, Mimi. I want to know everything about that number for the last year.”
“Already got Jack working on it,” she said.
As she left the office, Rego’s mobile rang.
“Vik, I was going to call you,” he said. “I’ve got some Albanian numbers from Ruçi’s burner phone, as well as Spanish, German and Polish. You want to run them?”
“Definitely! Thanks, Rob. But I’m calling about something else. Not sure if it’s connected with your case but the timing is interesting. We’ve had intelligence that a yacht we’ve been watching for a while has crossed the Bay of Biscay. We attached a beacon to track it, but it only pings a location every ten hours. We thought it would turn east and head for Jersey, but it hasn’t turned up there. It could be that it’s on its way to Ireland, but our friends at Border Force think it could be heading to Cornwall.” He paused. “The yacht’s owner is a person of interest to us, but we don’t believe he’s the one sailing it. So it’s possible it’s an entirely innocent yachtsman who just happens to be connected to a known player, which would make it another of those pesky coincidences that neither of us believe in. My boss is going to ask the Royal Navy for assistance so we can use their long range radar, but we’ll definitely have a Border Force cutter there anyway.”
“When is this yacht estimated to be in British waters?”
“If it has crossed the Channel, it would be with you tonight,” said Vikram. “I’m emailing you the information now. Because of all the attention Newlyn has been getting lately, they don’t think that will be the destination but we’re keeping an open mind on that.”
“They don’t want a patrol car at the harbour?”
“No, too visible. Use an unmarked car for surveillance. If Newlyn is where the yacht’s heading, we’re just going to let it happen. The Fishery Protection Vessel will patrol up the north coast, and we’ve got the Coastguard going east along the south coast. They’re hoping to find out where this yacht is going: watch but no interception – yet. We won’t get another location until 6am tomorrow morning, so it’s going to be a bit of a long shot. This guy is definitely trying to travel under the radar.” He paused. “Mate, do you still get seasick?”
Rego groaned.