He made good time. As he motored past the bleak stony shores of the West Beach to the entrance of the River Arun he radioed up Littlehampton Marina to say he was approaching and asked if they could accommodate him for one night, possibly two. They could. Marvik had assumed there’d be no trouble with that. At this time of the year the marina wouldn’t be full.
Several times on the way he had wondered if he was wasting his time. This might be the one weekend Ross wasn’t working on his boat. He might be on an investigation or on holiday. But if Marvik read between the lines he was certain that Crowder had meant him to come here now. Ross wouldn’t show until tomorrow but that gave Marvik a night to reconnoitre the area. He’d had no need to return to the cottage. He had everything he required on board, and what he didn’t he could buy in Littlehampton.
There was no sign of Ross, or anyone else, on the pontoons of the small marina. But Marvik located an old classic wooden boat that was most probably Ross’s.
He reported to the marina office, where he paid a fee for one night, and then struck out along the road away from the marina, past a handful of small light industrial units on his right and a mobile home park on his left on the river side. After half a mile he turned left at the crossroads and walked briskly over the narrow footbridge that spanned the River Arun. There was a pub on each side but Marvik ignored both and made for the town centre wishing he could see Ross today rather than hanging about until tomorrow or possibly Sunday. It was time he could ill afford. Every minute counted in the search for Charlotte and he was frustrated at having to kick his heels waiting around. Despite what Crowder had said about the police looking for Charlotte he thought he couldn’t rely on them.
He stopped at the Lifeboat Centre and stared across the river at the masts of the yachts moored opposite across the grey ebbing river. Two missing people in two days and in the same area, with him as the common factor. But he had no connection with Ashley Palmer. He’d never even met him – but could Charlotte and Palmer be connected? Was the common thread between them Terence Blackerman? He didn’t see how it could be but he reached for his phone and called Strathen. He asked first if there was any news of Palmer.
‘Nothing. None of the taxi drivers at the Cowes terminal on the Isle of Wight claim to have picked him up. The police have circulated his photograph to the bus drivers but as we said before I can’t see him boarding a bus to Rocken End, if there is one, or a bus to anywhere else come to it. They’ve also circulated photos to the marinas at both East and West Cowes.’
‘Did he take any clothes with him?’
‘The police don’t know, because neither they nor any of us know what was in his wardrobe. I gave them a description of the bag he usually carries and that’s not been found in his house, and neither is there a passport. I’m going through my contacts at the Border Agency to see if he’s shown up abroad.’
‘Aren’t the police doing that?’
‘Probably, but I can’t leave everything to them,’ Strathen answered sarcastically, mirroring Marvik’s thoughts. ‘They’ve also searched that coastguard cottage and the area around it and drawn a blank.’
As Marvik knew they would. He said, ‘Do you remember Charlotte Churley?’
‘Of course I do, she nursed me when I first got flown to the hospital from Camp Bastion. Didn’t you go out with her?’
‘Yes. She’s missing.’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘As in AWOL?’
‘Yes. She came to see me Wednesday night after I’d returned from looking for Palmer. I dropped her off at the Town Quay yesterday morning. She didn’t show up for duty at the hospital. She never arrived in Birmingham. The police are involved but like you said, Shaun, we can’t leave everything to them. I need you to check her Internet profile, see if she’s posted anything about coming to see me. And I need you to see if there is a connection between her and Ashley Palmer. I can’t explain now, it’s too complicated, but I’ll give you all the details tomorrow.’ Marvik suddenly realized he’d spoken on his own phone and not the pay-as-you-go Crowder had given him. Had someone really tapped his mobile phone? If so he’d given little away except that he’d drawn Strathen into this.
‘Don’t call me. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
There was a second’s pause before Strathen replied. ‘OK.’
He found a supermarket and stocked up on provisions. He had intended eating on the boat but as he reached the footbridge he turned into The Arun View and ordered a beer and a meal and took a seat in the window overlooking the river. The pub was relatively quiet, it being early evening, but later he suspected it would be crowded with the first of the weekend revellers. From where he was sitting he had a good view up the river towards the marina and of the caravans and mobile homes that bordered the waterfront. He turned his attention to the pub. There were two families with young children on tables to his right and a few couples in the bar. There was also a man in his fifties reading a newspaper and another in his early thirties doing something with his phone. Towards the entrance there were another two men, both in their thirties and both well built. Cops? Marvik wasn’t sure this time. Were they on duty? And if so were they watching him? But why should they be – unless Crowder didn’t trust him, or wanted to keep tabs on him.
His meal arrived. He ordered another beer and ate slowly without tasting the food, making sure to appear relaxed and at ease while acutely aware of the two men near the entrance who seemed to be making a pint of beer last a very long time. The man reading the newspaper left and the one on his phone was still playing with it while looking out of sorts. The children were growing noisier and the pub was filling up. The river was now in darkness and lights were on in the mobile homes opposite. It was time for Marvik to leave.
He returned to the boat, walking slowly up the long wide road that led to the marina. The only turning was to his right into the caravan and mobile home park and the road terminated at the marina. He’d hear any vehicle approaching. But nobody passed him by car and nobody followed him on foot.
He was keen for action but there was a waiting game to be played and, although impatient, he’d learned that preparation and waiting were part of the success of an operation. Well he could wait but his preparation for this operation was sadly lacking because the information he had was so meagre.
As he lay on his bunk he listened to the sounds of the night, acutely aware of anything that sounded suspicious, fully prepared in case he needed to act. He slept the kind of half-waking sleep that could be shaken off in an instant and replaced by action if required. But none was. The cawing seagulls announced the dawn and he rose to find a grey light slowly filling the sky to the east. He changed and went for a run. His head was clear, his muscles screaming for more exercise, his eyes alert to his surroundings, his ears attuned for any danger. He took a circuitous route. He would have liked to run along the river’s edge into the flat marshy countryside but he chose the road, his eyes scanning the parked cars. Surely the police wouldn’t be stupid enough to be sitting in their car, and they weren’t. If those guys in the pub had been cops then they would have known he’d come by boat and could up anchor and leave at any time. He noted the cameras over the marina and along the road. The police wouldn’t have to physically watch him, they could be sitting behind a console in a nice warm operations room.
By the time he returned to the boat the morning was bright and breezy with a wind from the north-east that brought an edge of sharpness with it. He watched two swans head further up the river towards the small historic town of Arundel before he made for the marina showers. After breakfast he took a stroll around the pontoons. It was a little after nine thirty but he’d already seen a slender, balding man about early-fifties arrive with a Border Collie. The cover was off the old classic yacht and the dog was lying on the pontoon in front of it. Good. It was easy to strike up a conver-sation with a person who had a dog but even if Ross hadn’t had a pet the yacht would have been a good enough topic. Marvik halted in front of the boat and bent down to ruffle the dog’s fur. It hauled itself up like an old man and sniffed around Marvik’s leg, thumping its tail.
‘You’ve made a friend,’ a voice hailed him and Marvik looked up to see a man’s head poking out of the cabin. The rest of him followed. He climbed up into the cockpit wiping his hands on an oily rag. ‘But then he’s everyone’s friend.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Rune. It’s a letter from an ancient Germanic alphabet. I looked it up. It’s related to the Roman alphabet. It’s a mark or letter of mysterious or magical significance, a secret.’
Very apt, thought Marvik, wondering what secret Blackerman harboured that had kept him in prison for so many years.
‘But there’s nothing mystical about that old boy,’ the man continued, nodding at his dog who once again flopped down beside Marvik’s feet.
Marvik smiled. He didn’t know for certain this was Duncan Ross but he’d bet on it.
‘You staying in the marina?’ the man asked.
‘Came in yesterday.’
‘From?’
‘The Isle of Wight,’ Marvik lied.
‘Lovely place. Sailed there many times. Not on this. On the boat I had before. This was meant to be my retirement project but I’ve had more time on my hands lately than I anticipated.’
‘You’ve been made redundant.’ Perhaps he’d got it wrong, or Crowder had, and this wasn’t Ross.
‘No. My wife left me.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Why should you be? I’m not. Hazard of the job.’ Marvik looked blankly at him, hoping he’d elaborate. He did. ‘I’m a police officer.’
So it was Duncan Ross.
‘I’m amazed we stayed together for so long,’ Ross continued. ‘But with retirement looming in April we both came to the conclusion six months ago that we didn’t want to spend the rest of our days looking at one another and not knowing what the hell to talk about.’
Marvik smiled. ‘Will you miss the job?’
‘No. Everything’s changed. It’s all paperwork, public relations, targets and human rights. We think more of the villains now than of the victims.’
‘Will you take up another job?’
‘I’ve been offered a couple – security, private investigation. I could even go back into the force in a civilian role, there are a lot of posts that are now being done by civilians. They’re even recruiting civilian investigators and superintendents. But I’ve done my bit.’
‘I’m thinking of joining the police,’ Marvik said, taking the opening presented to him. ‘The Met. I’m a former Royal Marine, Commandos.’
‘Tough job.’
‘So’s the police.’
Ross shrugged and looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I was in the Met. But the wife wanted to move out of London. Said it was getting too crowded, dirty and noisy. So we came to the seaside in 2000 and I transferred to the Sussex Police.’
‘A bit quieter on the crime front, I should imagine.’
‘A bit.’
‘You must have had some interesting cases in London.’
‘A few,’ he answered, smiling wistfully. But Marvik thought he caught an edge of bitterness in those two words. Perhaps Ross had regretted leaving London and the Met. And now that his wife had upped sticks and deserted him, he resented it, and her, even more. Marvik thought he’d plunge in and see where it took him, especially as Ross seemed the friendly, talkative type.
‘I heard about a murder that happened at the services club in London, the Union Services Club, in 1997, when I was staying there some time ago now. One of the bar stewards told me a young woman had been killed, were you on that?’ He kept his tone light but eager. He hoped that Ross would be flattered into talking to a possible new recruit, demonstrating the range and depth of his career. In Marvik’s experience, showing a keen interest in someone’s job never failed to elicit information and confidences. And he wasn’t wrong now.
‘I was. DI Bryan Grainger was the guv’nor. He became Detective Chief Inspector Grainger after it. I was only a detective sergeant then.’
Marvik’s interested deepened. There had been something in the way Ross had spoken that alerted him.
‘You mean he got promoted because of the success of the case.’
‘Probably.’
‘But you’re not sure it was deserved.’
Ross studied Marvik critically. He wondered if he’d pushed too fast and too hard. Perhaps he had sounded too eager.
But Ross said, smiling, ‘You’ll make a good police officer.’
Marvik returned the smile. ‘Because I’m nosy.’
‘You need to be.’
‘The case also caught my attention because I was told the man who was convicted was a navy chaplain and I’ve known a few chaplains and I can’t imagine any of them killing.’
‘That’s what they all say,’ Ross answered cynically, then seemed to acquiesce. ‘But you’re right. It was one of those cases where everything fitted and yet your gut told you it was wrong. It was too neat and I remember when I saw Terence Blackerman being sentenced, it didn’t seem right. He didn’t seem right.’
‘You think he was innocent?’
‘No. Everything pointed to him being the killer but I was convinced there was something he was holding back, something that might have made a difference to the life sentence he got. He didn’t look shocked at the sentence, just sorrowful and I don’t know …’ Ross rubbed a hand over his chin. The dog looked up and gave a small whine as though sensing something in his master’s demeanour. Marvik could see Ross was recalling the incident and thinking back down the years.
‘It was as though he was steeling himself to shoulder the punishment, not because he was guilty, which is what Grainger said when I voiced my views to him, but because there was something he knew only he wasn’t telling.’
His words echoed what Crowder had told him. ‘You think he was protecting someone who could have been involved in this woman’s death.’ Marvik almost said her name then.
‘There was no one else involved. There was only his DNA and fingerprints in the room, aside that was from the cleaner who was at home with her family at the time Esther Shannon was killed, and the previous occupant’s DNA and she was sixty miles away at the time of the murder. Anyway it was a long time ago. Terence Blackerman’s probably out by now.’
Again Marvik bit his tongue, though something inside him was telling him to come clean with Ross. Maybe he would, later. He hadn’t expected him to be quite so open but perhaps now Ross was nearing retirement he’d already slipped into the habit of reliving his past glories, and was ready to regale them to anyone prepared to listen and even those who weren’t.
‘Perhaps you should write your memoirs when you retire, about your most interesting cases,’ Marvik encouraged.
‘It would bore the pants off everyone. Don’t they say never look back.’
They do, Marvik thought with conviction. ‘Perhaps Grainger will write his memoirs.’
‘If he does they’ll be worth a few bob because they’ll come from the other side. He was killed in a hit and run nine months after retiring in 2004. Car came out of nowhere as he was crossing the road in Brighton.’
So that was why his name wasn’t in the meagre file Crowder had left him. ‘That’s tough for his family.’
‘He was divorced years ago, no kids.’
Marvik left a moment’s pause before saying, ‘Why did Terence Blackerman kill this woman, Esther Shannon?’
Ross shrugged. ‘Perhaps she wouldn’t let him have sex the way he wanted it. Maybe he went in for bondage and she wasn’t playing. Or maybe he could only get aroused if he was violent.’
‘Did he admit that?’
‘No, and there was no evidence she was beaten up. He denied any kind of sexual pressure or quirks. As you said, he was a naval chaplain, with an exemplary record, well liked, married with a kid. No hint of any marital tension or stories that he liked the women or that he’d ever been violent before.’
‘But he would have seen violence,’ Marvik insisted thoughtfully. ‘He’d have gone into battle with his men. He’d have served in the Gulf War, perhaps even the Falklands War in 1982.’
‘Not the Falklands, but Esther Shannon’s father was killed in the Falklands War.’
‘Blackerman would still have seen conflict. Perhaps he was suffering from post-traumatic stress.’
‘Not according to the medical reports.’
So he had been medically examined. Marvik wondered what they’d found. ‘Whoever examined him might have been incompetent.’
‘Possibly.’
‘Was Esther Shannon in the services? Perhaps they’d met some time before and had an affair?’
But Ross was shaking his head. ‘We found no evidence of that or that he knew Esther’s father. She was in London for the Remembrance Service and so was Blackerman.’
‘So they met at the Albert Hall.’
‘No, at the Union Services Club, in the lift.’
Marvik’s ears pricked up at this new information.
‘It got stuck. They were trapped in it and struck up a friendship.’
‘How long for?’ Marvik prayed silently that Ross would continue to be talkative. He half expected him to ask, ‘Why all the questions?’ But he didn’t.
‘Eighteen minutes. He went back to her room and into her bed. That’s pretty quick work for anyone.’
And especially a chaplain, thought Marvik, and yet he remembered Charlotte’s words on Wednesday night. I don’t want to be alone. Had Esther Shannon said the same to Blackerman? Had she been frightened? Had she told Blackerman why she was afraid? Was that why she was killed?
Ross was saying, ‘Blackerman returned to Portsmouth early the next morning before her body was discovered by the chambermaid. When Esther Shannon didn’t hand in her key, the maid went in to investigate and found the poor woman dead. Blackerman claimed he left her room at one thirty a.m.’
So not so scared that she didn’t ask him to stay the night. Why not? The case had obviously stuck in Ross’s mind, probably because, as he’d revealed, he’d had doubts about the conviction. ‘Did she attend the Remembrance Service every year?’
‘No, that was the first time according to her sister, Helen, and obviously her last.’
But her father had been dead for fifteen years so why not go before? Enquiring about that might be one question too far. Ross had already been surprisingly forthcoming. And perhaps tomorrow he could ask him a few more. ‘You must have had lots of interesting cases.’
‘I have, and disturbing ones. But not for much longer,’ he finished brightly. ‘How long are you staying?’
‘Just for tonight.’
‘Well, good luck with your application.’
That was Ross’s way of getting shot of him and it sounded as though he didn’t intend being here tomorrow. Marvik patted the dog and headed up the pontoon towards the Boathouse Café where he bought a coffee and sat close to the window but not directly in it.
Sipping his coffee he kept his eyes on the pontoons. From here he could see Ross’s boat. He watched him emerge from the cabin with a mobile phone pressed to his ear. Nothing wrong or unusual in that. Perhaps he’d got a call from work or a family member. Marvik wished he could lip read because there was something about the man’s posture and his serious expression that told him it wasn’t a social call. He frowned, puzzled. There was also something different about Ross’s demeanour. His body language was more assertive. He looked more like a man in charge, in fact a Detective Chief Inspector, rather than a man with an oily rag tinkering with an engine inclined to talk about the old days. Or rather the one old case Marvik had pumped him about.
Ross rang off and disappeared into the cabin. Marvik swallowed his coffee and ordered another. He took it back to the same seat. There were three people in the café but nobody he recognized or interested in him. Eight minutes later he saw Ross stride up the pontoon with the dog following more slowly at his heels. For a moment Marvik wondered if they were heading towards him. But Ross made for a saloon car in the car park. The dog jumped in the back, Ross climbed in and pulled away. Marvik waited a couple more minutes, then left the café and headed into town.
He found the library in Maltravers Street just off the B2140. Soon he was seated at a computer terminal and searching the Internet for information on the hit-and-run incident that Ross had told him had killed former DCI Bryan Grainger. He was certain the local newspaper must have covered it. They had and in some depth, he was pleased to see.
He read that Grainger, a former Detective Chief Superintendent with the Metropolitan Police, had been killed in Broad Street, the opposite of its name it appeared, because it was described as a narrow one-way street that ran north from St James’s Street to Marine Parade, in the south, the latter being the main A259 running along the seafront not far from the junction with the Sea Life Centre and the pier. It had been dark, raining heavily and very windy. The streets had been deserted. It was shortly after eight thirty p.m. on the twenty-ninth of October. There had been only one witness, a woman called Linda Hannam, who had been visiting her sister who ran a guest house in Broad Street. And she hadn’t seen exactly what had happened. She’d heard a car rev up and shoot off and had turned to see a man’s body on the ground. She thought it had been a large black car but couldn’t say what make or give the registration number. She was in shock. She didn’t even know in which direction it had turned when it reached the junction with Marine Parade. She rushed to see if she could help and had phoned the emergency services but Grainger had been pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Enquiries by the police, Marvik read, hadn’t discovered why Grainger was in that street. He lived alone in Chichester, a cathedral city just over thirty miles to the west of Brighton and about fifteen from Littlehampton. He hadn’t been registered at any of the guest houses and no one could remember seeing him or serving him in any of the bars and pubs in Broad Street or nearby. A house-to-house had unearthed no further witnesses and the CCTV cameras along the seafront had failed to pick out the vehicle. No one had come forward to admit to the crime and as far as Marvik could see no one had been arrested for it.
There was a small piece about Grainger’s career in the Met, but no mention of his cases or the Esther Shannon investigation. According to what Marvik was reading, Grainger had worked for the Serious Organized Crime Agency, and had had an exemplary record. So what had he been doing in Brighton? Taking the night air? Hardly on such a wild night. Visiting or meeting someone? Possibly. But that person had never come forward and that meant he or she didn’t want to be involved. But whether the hit and run was deliberate or the action of a drunk or drugged driver, Marvik didn’t know. And if it was deliberate then it might have nothing to do with Esther Shannon. It could have been connected with another crime Grainger had investigated in the past while working in the Serious Organized Crime Agency. His cases would have involved drug and human trafficking, armed robbery and murder. There would have been enough candidates for the Sussex police to check on in cooperation with their colleagues at the Met – but had they? And if Grainger had been killed because he was about to reveal something about Esther Shannon, then Marvik knew he was also in danger, a fact that Crowder had pointed out. Did Duncan Ross also know the truth behind Esther’s death? Was he in danger? He’d survived for seventeen years after Blackerman had been sentenced, so perhaps he knew nothing.
Marvik left the library, bought some sandwiches and ate them on the waterfront thinking over his conversation with Ross. There was no need for Ross to have lied to him, but equally there had been no need for him to tell him what he had about the Blackerman case. Marvik could put that down to his clever questioning technique and acting skills but surely a copper would know when he was being pumped for information. But perhaps Ross had just told him what he might have been able to find out if he’d applied to see the files under the Freedom of Information Act. He wondered what would be in those files. Perhaps he should make a request to see them, except that it would take far too long, and he didn’t have the luxury of time on his side if he wanted to find Charlotte alive.
He called Strathen using his own mobile phone again. Strathen told him that Charlotte was on the usual clutch of social networks where she’d posted about her work and friends, but there was nothing to give him any indication of where she might be.
‘The police must be checking out her friends and relatives,’ Strathen added, clearly as worried as Marvik judging by his tone. ‘I can’t find her having any connection with Palmer. Can’t you tell me more?’
‘I will tomorrow. I’m heading back.’
‘From where?’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’
He rose. There was nothing more he could glean about Esther Shannon and her death here from Ross because he had the feeling that Ross wasn’t about to return. It was time to talk to Helen Shannon.