How to persuade Rebury to talk, however, was another matter. Marvik pondered this as he cast off and made his way out of the marina. If it came to it he would have to use force. Charlotte’s life could still depend on it. How long would it take him to get to Southampton by boat? Too long. Perhaps he should have hired a taxi. Would Rebury have protection? If so Marvik would deal with it. Who was working with Rebury on this? Could it be Witley?
Perhaps Helen and Shaun would find something in Grainger’s meagre belongings that would tell them. Perhaps the police, searching Ross’s house, would discover something that would make them reopen the case and set Blackerman free. But no one wanted that murder in 1997 reopened. Rebury would use his influence to make sure it never was. Marvik had to make sure of the opposite.
His mobile phone pinged and he retrieved it from his jacket pocket to see that Strathen had sent him over two photographs. One of Sir Edgar Rebury, stout with dark hair framing a jowly face in his mid-sixties, and the other photograph, Strathen said, was Roger Witley. In the dim light from the helm Marvik’s heart skipped a beat as he stared down at the rounded face and stocky build of a man in his mid-fifties. It was the same man he’d seen with Nick Drayle on Thursday, the day he’d dropped Charlotte off at the Town Quay. With his mind racing he rang Strathen but there was no answer. He rang the Chesters.
‘He’s not here,’ Amy Chester informed him. ‘He left about ten minutes ago.’
‘To go with Helen to Bognor Regis?’ That didn’t explain why he wasn’t taking calls on his mobile though. Perhaps he couldn’t get a signal.
‘No, Colin’s taken Helen.’
Marvik felt a coldness in his stomach at what her words might imply. ‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘No, but he said that if you called, you’ll know where.’
He did. Southampton.
Marvik glanced anxiously at the clock at the helm. It would take Strathen about an hour to reach Southampton by car. It would take him two hours, or rather another ninety minutes if the weather held, because he’d already been travelling for half an hour. He increased his speed. He could make good time out at sea, but motoring into Southampton he’d have to slow down and abide by the speed limits. Whichever way he looked at it Strathen would get to Rebury before him. Would that matter? Strathen would get the name of Rebury’s accomplice from him and he’d call it through. Or would he? Not if Strathen thought he had a point to prove to himself. That he was still up to the job. He’d go after the killer himself and alone.
The boat rocked and bucked in the waves. Marvik opened up the throttle and sped along the Solent. There was little time to lose. He skirted around a giant container ship and eventually he was heading into Thorn Channel and Calshot Reach towards Southampton but here he had to slow down and keep to the speed restrictions. It felt as though he was travelling backwards.
He consulted his watch as he eased into Ocean Village Marina, anxious and impatient to get to the hotel. Strathen hadn’t called in so perhaps he hadn’t located Rebury. Perhaps Rebury hadn’t shown up at the charity bash: with a chill of dread Marvik wondered if Rebury had already been dealt with. He could tell all. He was a risk. Perhaps that’s what Strathen had realized and had hastened there to protect him. But why not tell him? Marvik wondered with trepidation.
He switched off the engine and reached under the helm. Then, after locking the boat, within minutes he was running through the modern complex and along the main road past the buildings that had once been the offices of the major shipping companies, and the entrance to the port, not daring to think that Strathen had also been dealt with. It was just after eleven. The charity dinner and dance would be in full swing.
At last he reached the hotel, pushed back the glass doors and stepped into the chrome and tiled lobby. He drew a few apprehensive looks. Not that he cared about those. Quickly, consulting the function room boards, he found the location of the charity dinner dance and made for it. The room was crowded, hot and noisy. About a hundred people in evening dress were seated at tables or were on the dance floor. At the top of the room was a long table for the VIPs, he assumed, and there were two spaces on it, one of which had to be Rebury’s. He made towards it when an elegantly dressed woman in her late-forties intersected him.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked pleasantly but warily.
‘I’m looking for Sir Edgar Rebury, it’s important I talk to him.’
‘He had to take an urgent call.’
‘When was this?’
‘About fifteen minutes ago.’
Could Strathen have called him? Perhaps from the lobby of the hotel. But there had been no sign of Rebury or Strathen in the hotel lobby.
He thanked her and hurried out. He was too late. They had already left. But hastily he checked the restaurant and bar, not expecting to find them and he didn’t. He crossed to the reception desk and asked for Rebury’s room number, confident that when he visited it Rebury wouldn’t be there. But Rebury wasn’t booked in. Marvik left anxious and puzzled. He stood in the rain, contemplating his next move, eyeing the expensive motors in the car park. Then his gaze alighted on a vehicle in the far right-hand corner, a Bentley Mulsanne with a personalized registration number, and his heart quickened. If he wasn’t mistaken it belonged to Edgar Rebury.
He raced towards it noting the two men inside. He could tell by their build that neither of them was Shaun. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps Rebury had sod all to do with this, or perhaps it wasn’t his car. There was a smaller, stouter man in the passenger seat, whose build matched what he’d seen in the photograph of Rebury and beside him a taller, leaner man in the driver’s seat. His chauffeur or bodyguard. Or perhaps someone from the intelligence services who had already silenced Shaun. Whoever it was Marvik would have to deal with him first. As he drew level the door swung open and Marvik halted, his mind rapidly trying to assimilate what and who he was seeing. He stared at the man in his early-sixties wearing a dinner jacket and felt a mixture of wrath and disappointment as several facts slipped into place.
‘Glad you could make it, Art. We didn’t think you were ever going to come.’
‘Where’s Shaun?’ Marvik demanded of Nick Drayle, quickly stifling his shock.
‘You’ll find out soon enough. I suggest you get in.’
He could suggest all he liked; Marvik could get the better of Drayle. He was thirty years younger and far fitter even though the older man kept himself in shape.
‘And if I refuse,’ Marvik said, tensing, in readiness for action.
‘Then I’ll just have to persuade you.’
‘With what?’ But Marvik already knew. This ruthless bastard would use Charlotte’s life as a bargaining tool, if she wasn’t already dead. How could he believe him if he said she wasn’t? But Drayle withdrew a firearm from his jacket pocket, one of many he kept secured on his business premises: guns and ammunition had been his business in the army and were still his business. God, what a fool he’d been. Drayle had the muscle and means to mount a surveillance operation. But Marvik hadn’t known enough about Drayle’s past to put it with Esther Shannon’s murder. Why should he have suspected him? But something Strathen had told him about DRTI resounded in his mind along with some of the other things that had occurred but there wasn’t time to consider that now.
‘Bit public for a shooting,’ Marvik said lightly, calculating how he could get out of this and find Strathen. Where was he?
But Drayle said quietly and evenly, ‘At night? In this weather? In a remote corner of the car park? Hardly. I could shoot you and leave you here and no one will find you until they staggered out of that dance. And Edgar and I would have enough witnesses to say we were inside.’
‘But you both left – and how are you going to explain being wet?’
‘We heard a disturbance while we were discussing an important matter after Edgar received a phone call from Strathen. By the time we got here, you were dead and Strathen had disappeared. I can come up with a number of plausible stories as you should know by now and they’d be believed.’
But would they be believed by Crowder? By then though it would be too late for him and Strathen.
‘Where is he?’ Marvik snapped. Strathen couldn’t be far; there hadn’t been the time for Drayle and Rebury to take him anywhere. ‘I need to know he’s alive.’
‘He is.’
But for how much longer? He and Shaun would be silenced just as this man had ensured Blackerman stayed silent by killing Esther Shannon. He’d also killed Bryan Grainger and Duncan Ross and probably Ashley Palmer or had Witley killed Palmer?
Drayle called to Rebury, who hauled his squat body out of the car and walked hesitantly around the front of the car to stand beside Drayle.
‘Go back inside and if anyone asks where I am say I’ve got called away on business.’
‘But I can’t—’
‘Do it,’ Drayle commanded.
Rebury licked his lips nervously and brushed his wet hair off his sweating forehead before scurrying off. Good, it was just him and Drayle. But Marvik was wrong. As Rebury hastened off another figure loomed out of the darkness behind Drayle. A man closer to Marvik’s age and one he also knew. His stomach churned in anger, his fists balled.
‘Your boat keys, Art,’ Lee Addington said, holding out his hand.
Marvik had no option but to hand them over.
‘Get in,’ Drayle ordered.
Marvik made to climb into the Bentley knowing what was coming next. He steeled himself and tried to dodge the blow but there was nowhere to go and the butt of the gun came down forcibly across the back of his head, wielded by a man who had strength and skill and knew exactly where to hit and how to stun. A lightning flash of pain shot up into his skull obliterating all thoughts before the next blow. Another stab of pain. He could hear voices. He couldn’t make out what they were saying. He was being manhandled into the Bentley and his pockets were being searched. His vision faded. Desperately he tried to focus but the images were blurred. If he could just move. If he could reach out. If he could concentrate, focus, stay conscious, but already he was slipping into darkness. He needed to preserve his strength for the ordeal that was to come. The struggle between life and death. And he needed the energy and presence of mind to be able to take his chance, the best one he had, when he had it, knowing even through the haze of impending unconsciousness and the pain radiating through his head that Drayle was planning a manner of death for him and Strathen that would leave him in the clear. But despite all his resolve and efforts the black abyss opened up and Marvik sank into it.