While Etienne paced and ranted some more, I opened a couple of envelopes. One from a medical insurance company wanting to sign us up so they could fleece us into our old age, the other a programme of what was on at the Chichester Festival Theatre which I put to one side for Susie. I preferred the movies, but she was a complete theatre buff, fascinated by the actor’s performances and how they could play a character so unlike themselves so convincingly.
When Etienne calmed, I said, ‘What boat did he sail in? With the drugs?’
‘It was the gang’s boat. They want that back also. It was a nice little boat, twenty-five foot, six berths. Worth fifty grand or so. Your brother fucked off with that too. You see what a mess this is?’
‘What was its name?’
‘Jovita.’
‘You’ve tried to find it?’
‘I’ve asked around, but it’s twelve years ago, Nick. He could have sold it, sailed it to the Caribbean for all I know. The chances of finding it now are zero.’
I mulled things over, vaguely noticing that the Mars bar was doing a reasonably good job of settling my stomach. I ate another, and mulled some more. ‘Etienne… now I’ve spoken to you, I’m wondering if Rob isn’t in some kind of witness protection.’
That brought him up cold. ‘You could be right,’ he said. ‘The fuck. When I get my hands on him I’ll throttle him. I really will.’
‘You’ll have to get in line.’
He gave a long sigh. Ran his hands over his head. ‘I’m sorry, Nick. This must be terrible for you.’
I gave a half-hearted nod and opened the last envelope. This one was A4, quite bulky, addressed in blue felt pen to me, Nick Ashdown. Puzzled, I pulled out a handful of photographs. A paperclip attached them together with a handwritten note in the same blue felt pen.
NOW YOU KNOW THE TRUTH BEHIND WHAT HAPPENED TO TONY.
There were six pictures. They were all in full colour. It took my sluggish hungover brain a few seconds to assimilate what my eyes were seeing. ‘Oh my God.’ I put them down on the worktop. I had to swallow several times to prevent the nausea from rising.
‘What is it?’ Etienne said, and before I could snatch them back he’d picked them up. ‘What the…’ He flipped through them. Looked at me. ‘What the fuck is this?’
I couldn’t answer. My hands were cold. I was having trouble breathing.
‘Are they for real?’ Etienne asked.
‘Yes,’ I managed. ‘I’m pretty sure they are.’
He stared at them. ‘Fuck.’ He put them carefully on the worktop. Stared some more.
Trying to be objective, not think about what I was actually seeing, I looked at them again. Each picture was of a murder scene, taken from varying angles. The victims were in an office. A man and a woman. Both had been shot in the chest. Both had had their faces bludgeoned. Tony Abbott’s face was recognisable but the woman’s was a pulped and bloody mess. It was the young woman I’d seen on the CCTV tape dressed in a plain white shirt with the sleeves pushed up, figure-hugging skirt, stilettos. Sexy but professional. She still wore her skirt, tights and shoes but otherwise, she was naked. She had a black leather studded collar around her neck, nipple clamps on her breasts. A gimp PVC mask with zips forming the eyeholes and a zip where the mouth should be, lay next to her left hand.
Tony wore a leather full body harness. He was spread-eagled on the floor, each wrist handcuffed to the legs of his desk. He’d been ball-gagged. A long whip lay to one side, along with a pair of wet-look gloves and a roll of black bondage tape. There was a Polaroid camera too, and a couple of pictures lay on the floor along with the woman’s shirt.
The blood stood out shockingly against their pale skins. A bright vivid red. The photographs had been taken fairly soon after they’d been killed, I guessed. But then I saw a great smear of blood against the wall. Where had that come from?
‘What’s this, Nick?’ Etienne asked. His voice was hoarse.
In answer, I went and fetched the CCTV tape from the cupboard, and put it into the machine.
‘This was also given to us,’ I told him. I didn’t have to compare the handwriting between the two notes. I already knew they were identical. Whoever had slipped into our house to leave the CCTV footage that day had also sent the photographs of the murder scene.
We watched the recording in silence but when it showed Rob running from the building, tearing after the middle-aged woman, gun in hand, Etienne erupted. ‘He killed them?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Merde.’ He was scrubbing his face with his hands. ‘I cannot believe this. Robert takes down a terrorist in a restaurant, is a hero, and then I see this… my old friend. Did I know him?’ He turned to me. ‘Did you?’
I couldn’t answer. I had no idea.
‘This is all so fucked up!’ He flung his hands in the air. ‘What do I tell La Familia? I cannot tell them he was a spy. I cannot say he seems to have killed two people. Merde. I should never have come.’
I watched him get to his feet. He looked down at me. ‘I think I shall go now.’
I clambered upright. Opened my mouth to say something, I wasn’t sure what, but I didn’t want him to leave. Perhaps I was hoping he might help me, become an ally in my search for Rob, but Etienne didn’t want to hang around.
‘This is the Saint’s son that Robert has killed,’ he said. ‘I want nothing to do with this. I shall return to Spain. I will tell La Familia I found nothing.’ He gave a Gallic shrug. ‘Which is true when you think of it.’
I spent the rest of the day nursing my hangover and on Sunday, when I awoke to a clear bright day with a brisk westerly, I went for a sail. Sailing has always helped clear my head and for a while, I seriously thought that I was going to drop the whole idea of finding Rob, but I was in too deep, the questions burning too furiously, and when I returned to Bosham Harbour, mooring Talisman back onto her buoy, I knew what I had to do.