Blackwater (DI Nick Lowry) (22 page)

Sparks was irritated by Lowry’s lack of comment. As the cold night air punched his lungs outside on the cobbled street, he said, ‘Was that “modern” enough for you?’

-42-

6.30 p.m., Tuesday, Queen Street

Lowry said goodnight to Sparks on the station steps. He watched his superior march off at a brisk pace in a swirl of snow and disappear round the back, towards the car park. Sparks’s slapping about of the trumpet player was his second violent display in under a week. Lowry was not averse to violence here and there, where necessary, but he couldn’t help but think that Sparks’s behaviour was unwarranted. Neither the musician nor Corporal Quinn had deserved it, and both were easy targets. Maybe the chief was beginning to feel his age, and irrational bursts here and there were a means to reassert his authority before it was too late.

‘Maybe it’s not me who’s having a mid-life crisis,’ he said to the shadows.

Still, they had made progress, tactics notwithstanding. It appeared that Derek Stone
was
small time. He’d gone to score on New Year’s Eve, and ten grams of speed was hardly a major haul requiring a beach landing. No, he was of little interest – even less now he was dead – whereas Ted Nugent was suddenly very much back in the frame, having seen Stone the night before he was murdered. He doubted there could be two people with the same moniker. The trouble with crims on parole was that they could never seem to untangle themselves from the fraternity net . . .

Sparks’s Rover pulled out from the side of the building and a pale palm waved from inside. Lowry crossed the road and made his way up towards the high street. He thought back to Kenton, grumbling at Sparks’s remark, when he first started, that he looked like Dennis Waterman (which had offended Kenton deeply) – and, ironically, how Sparks’s conduct at the Candyman had been a beautiful reenactment of 1970s policing, as portrayed in
The Sweeney
. He’d have to bung Pink a score to compensate for lost clientele: a bunch of students had witnessed the whole thing and fled in horror . . .

As he walked down East Hill, his thoughts turned to his next destination: Aristos nightclub. He’d considered telling Sparks about Jacqui’s involvement in the case but had decided against it after his little outburst in the jazz club. It would only cloud the issue further. And, anyway, as Lowry kept telling himself, the scarf was found in the garden, which meant she may never have even entered the house.

The club was not open tonight, but he’d called ahead and requested that the staff who’d been on duty on Saturday night open up for him. Two sirens shot past as he walked into the reception of the Colne Hotel, beneath which sat Aristos. A clerk guided him through some double doors and downstairs to the club, where a curly-haired man in a black open-necked shirt greeted him and flicked on all the lights.

‘Of course, the main entrance is outside the hotel. The way you came in is strictly for VIP guests,’ the manager, Stu, said. ‘Over there’s the main bar.’ He pointed towards a raised oval bar on the other side of the dance floor. The bar, shrouded in darkness, was ringed by chrome barstools. Nightclubs were not the sort of place Lowry frequented, but even to his untrained eye, this place was straight out of 1977. ‘So, the guys you’re talking about were sat there, right in the middle. It was pretty early. They were, like, some of the first in.’

‘Was this them?’ He held up pictures of Jason Boyd and Felix Cowley.

‘That’s them. There was another dude who came on his own, chatted, then split. Much later.’

‘This him?’ Lowry held up a picture of Stone.

‘Not sure . . . It was dark, and, like I say, he wasn’t here long.’

‘Look at it closely?’

‘Wait a sec. I know this guy – he plays horn at the Candyman?’

‘He did. Was he here?’

‘Yeah, yeah, he was here later, after the birds had joined them.’ Lowry baulked at the description, knowing it included Jacqui.

‘And what sort of mindset were the men in?’

‘They were loaded, all right.’

‘How did they behave?’

‘Like people off their faces do: really chatty, arms waving everywhere – not out of control, though; sort of hyper-excited.’

‘Any aggressive behaviour?’

‘No.’

‘What were they up to? Mixing with the crowd when it filled up?’

‘Nah, they kept to themselves. Just sat there yakking at each other until these birds turned up.’

So, not actively selling, just using, thought Lowry.

‘So, they just sat there?’

‘They were rooted to the spot until the ladies dragged them up on to the dance floor.’

‘And then?’

‘I watched them briefly. The men were all over the place – almost comical – completely on a different planet. The chicks were in time. There was this cute, dark one who was quite a mover. But then I lost them as the place started to fill up.’

Lowry surveyed the club. It had an expansive floor space with a capacity of several hundred. He started to picture Jacqui gyrating in the middle with another man, but stopped himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her on a dance floor – probably a Masonic do such as the one Sparks was attending tonight – although he had no doubt she was the woman the barman was referring to.

‘Was Stone a regular?’

‘Nah – not his scene. And neither were the other two you showed me; this place wasn’t their sort of groove. And they weren’t exactly choice clientele either.’ He flicked a tiny piece of lint from the sleeve of his pristine shirt. ‘We’d just relaxed the dress code to drum up a bit of business, otherwise these chancers would never have got through the door.’

Lowry moved on to the empty dance floor.

‘How late were they here until?’

‘I couldn’t tell you, but the lights come on at ten to two.’

‘You shut at two.’

‘Two, that’s right, else we have your mob down on us – but the dregs can still be in here at twenty past.’

Dregs, Lowry thought with a heavy heart. A fragment of a scene twirled in his head: Jacqui draping her scarf around the neck of now-dead Jason Boyd. He snapped his mind shut.

‘Thank you, you’ve been more than helpful,’ he said, and left, hoping not to have to enter the club again for a long time.

7.45 p.m., Abberton village hall, south of Colchester

Lowry arrived late for the lecture and sat at the back of the draughty village hall. He tried to shut out all the events of the last few days and engage with what the man standing at the front was saying about peregrine falcons.

‘Of course, it could be dismissed as nature’s strange irony that such a powerful hunter should have the most fragile of eggs. But no, this is not nature’s doing, it is man’s. Agricultural pesticides continue to kill and damage our wildlife. DDT has been banned for nearly ten years in the United States, yet here it is still widely used.’

Doug Young, the park ranger, spoke eloquently about the challenging circumstances Britain’s raptors faced. A slide of a magnificent falcon with its grey, noble head was replaced by a chart showing a complex table of chemicals. Lowry shifted in his seat. He had come here to find beauty and peace, but instead it was turning into a forensics lecture.

Afterwards, Young came over to him as he was leafing through a collection of RSPB leaflets by the hall entrance.

‘Detective Inspector Lowry, I’m so glad you could make it. How did you find the talk?’

‘Unfortunately, I was late, Mr Young, and caught only the science.’

‘Ah, yes. It is rather depressing.’ He held his hands before him, fingers crossed, like a man of the church. ‘But it’s important to get the message out.’

‘Absolutely.’ He smiled. ‘But I’ve yet to see a peregrine and was hoping for some tips, rather than to discover that farmers are destroying their chances of rearing young.’

‘Of course. And you shall.’ He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. ‘We have a breeding pair not ten miles from here.’

‘Really? Where?’

‘Fingringhoe.’

‘I was there yesterday,’ said Lowry, surprised.

‘But not on the marshes, I’ll bet.’

‘No, the village. So, presumably, the marshes are out of danger, being away from farmland?’

‘Hmm . . . They’re not entirely hazard-free for the birds. As I’m sure you know, most of the vast area of marshland is part of the ranges.’

‘Yes, of course, the firing ranges – the army uses the land for shooting practice.’

‘Exactly.’

‘What do you do? Wait for the red flag to be lowered before entering?’

‘Not necessary. The range sergeant is a decent sort; he’ll call if they spot the birds making an appearance during operations, and at other times he lets us use the command hut – makes a perfect hide.’

‘A telephone call from the ranges?’

‘Yes, they have a line even out there.’

‘Is that so? Thank you, Mr Young.’

Wednesday, 5 January, 1983

-43-

9 a.m., Wednesday, interview room one, Queen Street HQ

Lowry looked at the pitiful excuse for a man sitting behind a worn wooden table in the otherwise empty interview room. He knew instinctively that this sorry specimen was not responsible for the mayhem over the last few days. Cowley sat, teeth chattering, in the same filthy clothes he’d been wearing when they pulled him out of the water yesterday morning. When quizzed, the duty PC assured Lowry that the heater had been on full blast throughout the night.

In the far corner of the interview room, a bucket sat collecting droplets from a leaking pipe that ran overhead across the back wall. Sparks refused to have it attended to, presumably enjoying the idea that the dripping was a form of torture for suspects.

‘Get him a blanket, for Christ’s sake,’ Lowry muttered crossly to the WPC on the door. The first-floor room was bitterly cold – he himself had kept his scarf on.

He sighed and flipped open the buff folder which contained a medical record for Felix Simon Cowley. The individual before him was not a well man, by any stretch, and at first glance didn’t look capable of tying his own shoelaces. And judging by the paperwork in front of him, that might not be all he wasn’t capable of, for the medical report was from Severalls, the asylum to the north of the town, up on the Essex plains. However, Cowley did have some awareness of the situation: Gabriel had told Lowry the day before that the lad had confessed to smuggling drugs on to the mainland. He was vague on detail: from whom, and what, was still a mystery; all he could confirm was that they’d landed with two army rucksacks containing ‘stuff’ and a change of clothes. No mention of the two dead men had been made. They were middlemen, couriers.

‘Th-thank you,’ Cowley said, glancing up with wide, dark eyes at the WPC, who’d draped a coarse blanket across his shoulders.

‘Can you tell me why you’re here, Felix?’ Lowry asked, sliding a pack of Player’s across the stained table.

‘Where’s Jason?’

‘Jason? Was he with you?’

‘Yes. We went out on the boat, then
—
’ He stopped himself, hand over his mouth.

‘No, no, it’s okay to talk – we won’t hurt you. To help us find Jason, it’s better that you tell us all you know.’

Cowley took a cigarette with a filth-streaked hand. Lowry reached over to light it. Barely twenty years old, the wretch looked haggard and worn out. He drew deeply on the cigarette and then looked at the glowing tip and nodded towards the buff folder. ‘They never let me have them in there.’

‘No, I’m not surprised,’ Lowry said.

‘I don’t want to go back. I want to go home.’

‘Is that what you were doing in Fingringhoe? Trying to call home?’ They’d matched some prints from the phone box to Cowley, who must’ve been under their very nose when Lowry had tried to get into the tower.

‘I don’t know who I called,’ he replied, puzzled.

‘How could you not know who you called?’ This was going to be painful. Felix Cowley had been sectioned at the age of sixteen with severe psychological disorders, not helped by the fact that he’d seen his mother burn alive in a cottage in St Osyth. If anyone should avoid dabbling with recreational drugs, it was this lad. God knows what was going on inside that head.

‘I want to go home.’ Cowley’s eyes were glazed like those of an alcoholic twice his age: slightly bulbous and held in place by a jelly-like film. Home would be Brightlingsea. The file indicated next of kin to be a father and a brother.

‘We’ll see about that,’ Lowry said diplomatically, ‘but first let’s get these questions answered, to help find Jason.’

‘I want the lady.’

‘What lady?’

‘The police lady what give me the blanket.’

Lowry turned, surprised, to look at the stout, silent WPC on the door. ‘What, her?’

‘No – the one on the boat. She gave me a blanket, too, but the man with bad breath and a beard took it away.’

Gabriel and Barnes.

‘Constable, see if WPC Gabriel is available,’ Lowry said over his shoulder.

‘Tell me, while we wait for the lady to come, about being at sea in the dark. Must have been scary?’

Cowley frowned and tried to roll his eyes, but couldn’t for some reason and blinked rapidly instead. ‘Jason was so cross. We’d got lost in the fog and it was so cold. Soooo cold. And then the mud! We had to walk forever, carrying the stuff across the mud.’

‘I’d have thought a couple of local lads like yourselves would know the way from Brightlingsea . . .’

‘We started out from Brightlingsea, out of the estuary – where we met, well, you know, out in the sea, a bigger boat. I don’t know nothing about it, though.’

‘I believe you, honestly,’ Lowry said, watching the boy squeeze his cigarette tightly between thumb and forefinger. This lad was an innocent, just a mule, he was sure of it, but he was all they had. ‘But c’mon, how can you tell me you made a telephone call and didn’t know who you were calling – did you just have a number?’

Cowley fumbled inside his denim jacket. A wallet? Somebody had slipped up on the front desk. From inside the leather pouch, which had certainly seen better days, he pulled a creased slip of paper, carefully unfolded it and passed it to Lowry. Two numbers. One Colchester – Greenstead, probably – and one longer number with a code Lowry didn’t recognize. ‘Saturday’ was scrawled across the top.

‘It says here
Saturday
. You called on Monday.’

‘We got lost.’

‘Okay. Between getting lost on Mersea and the time of the phone call, can you tell me what you were doing, where you were?’

‘’Ouse in Colchester.’

‘When you got there, how many people were at this house?’ Lowry reached across and picked up the wallet. Inside was a familiar-looking green document – a driving licence.

‘One bloke.’

‘Called?’ he prompted. The name on the damp licence was Jason Boyd.

‘Del, or Derek.’

‘That it?’

‘No, later, a geezer in his thirties turned up, called Jamie. That’s when it all started to go wrong.’

Bingo. Kenton had already called Lowry to relay his conversation with the obliging Pond about Jamie Philpott. But just to be sure: ‘This Jamie – light-brown or blondish hair, late thirties, skinny, long sideburns, about five foot ten?’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

‘So, Jamie turns up; then what?’

‘We were waiting to be paid so we could spilt and get home. When the door goes, we think it’s . . . it’s someone with our money. But it’s this Jamie bloke. It’s him that cracked open the gear. We were knackered, too, you know; hardly slept. Bored of waiting.’ He rubbed his filthy forehead. ‘Seemed like a good idea, you know, a little dab. Next thing I know, I’m here.’

‘You must recall something of what happened in between? That’s one hell of a gap, between Saturday afternoon, in a kitchen on the Greenstead Estate, to Tuesday morning, floating in a gale off the North Sea.’

‘I’m telling you, that gear was lethal.’ Cowley looked at the wallet, which seemed to be a trigger. ‘Jason wouldn’t have let ’is guard down if it wasn’t for that nuclear whizz. That’s his wallet.’ Cowley had a faraway look, as if trying to reach into a childhood memory rather than recall a drugs binge on a council estate at the weekend. Then he snapped his head back. ‘Left it behind with me in the curry place. Jason would normally never do that.’

It was unclear whether he meant leave him or the wallet.

‘How did you get left behind? Weren’t you just collecting a takeaway?’

‘Went for a leak. I came out and they’d gawn. The Indian bloke was waving Jace’s wallet at me . . . I couldn’t work out which direction they’d gone in . . . It’s not like I don’t know Colchester – I do, like – but when it’s dark and you’re on stuff, you know . . . you get . . .’

‘Disorientated?’

‘That’s it. Disorientated.’

‘But when was this? Sunday?’ he prompted.

‘Yeah, maybe . . .’ But he looked vacant; he had no idea.

‘You went to a nightclub on Saturday – remember dancing? Under the glitter ball?’

‘Yes! We did, on Saturday – well raring, we were!’ It was as though a switch had been turned on. ‘After doing a couple of lines, Jace gets up and says he’s off for a drink – thirsty, like – and we all pile out with him. Can’t remember much, but you’re right, we ended up in a club . . . yes, and then went back to the house – that would be Saturday, all right.’

‘So, you, Jason, Stone, Philpott, got back to the house in the early hours of Sunday morning?’

‘Yeah, but not Philpott; he peeled off somewhere . . .’ That much was true. Jamie had had his hands full in the high street.

‘So, was it just the three of you, or was there anyone else?’ He knew he was leading the man and cringed as he awaited his response, especially as a WPC was present.

‘There were two birds with us, walking up the road.’ Cowley scrunched up his face. ‘They were making a hell of a racket.’

Lowry tensed; he heard the WPC shift on her feet. He had to ask. ‘These women, were they in any way connected to Stone?’

‘Nah, just a couple of tarts.’

‘They returned to the house with you?’

‘Nah, couple of prick-teasers; got as far the front door, then changed their minds. Stone tried to drag ’em in, there were a bit of a skuffle out the front of the house, then they cleared off.’

‘And what did you do then – go to bed?’

He rubbed his eyes. ‘I wish. Nah, we were up until it got light – then I must’ve conked out. Then . . . then I remember waking up and being starving. Everyone was hungry. But we were knackered, though . . . so we just got straight pissed.’

‘Drinking?’

‘Yeah – booze, to make us sleep. A couple of Special Brews.’

‘Why didn’t you eat?’

‘’Ad nothing, did we? That ’ouse was empty. All the shops was shut, being Sunday . . . so we had to wait for the Indian to open. Later.’

‘So you had nothing at all until then?’

‘Apart from beer and then some whizz when we woke up, to get us moving a bit.’

Lowry looked the man in the eyes. He was amazed that he was in one piece. The human constitution at that age was incredible.

‘Time?’

‘I couldn’t tell you, but it was dark by the time we left the ’ouse – must’ve slept most of the day, I s’pose. Had the fear a bit, by then, too . . .’

‘I can imagine. Who else were you with when you went for the curry? Jamie?’

‘No, Jamie had disappeared up to the high street after we tucked into the gear . . . the night before, I think . . .’ He scrunched up his face in thought. ‘Or did he come back . . . ? It’s all so fuzzy.’ He clasped his face with his dirty hands. ‘That shit was weird.’

‘Weird in what way?’

‘I ain’t, like, good with words. But one minute you feel great, like you could climb a mountain, and the next you’re just in a different world . . . or it’s like everybody else is in it and you’re looking in on them. In an instant, like.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Then you get the fear like you’ve never had and just want to hide.’

‘Sounds grim. I
—
’

‘But then someone says something and you’re back on a high – like switching on a light, and you just want to dance and laugh. For a while, before –’ he tapped his head slowly. – ‘before the gaps – like massive black ’oles. In me memory, like. Can’t remember a friggin’ thing.’

Having had the toxicology report from Sparks, Lowry was not surprised to hear this. He asked what had happened after he’d got left at the curry house, and Cowley managed to recall that he’d tried for a taxi to Fingringhoe. For reasons unconfirmed, the taxi had dropped him in the middle of nowhere, possibly near Donyland Woods, where he spent an uncomfortable night – here, his eyes grew wide – with only horrific hallucinations to keep him company. At dawn, he felt safer and thought he might’ve slept for a few hours.

‘But if you live in Brightlingsea, why not get a taxi home?’

He scratched his grubby head. ‘There was only a quid in Jace’s wallet. That wouldn’t get me home, so I reckon I thought I might get to Fingringhoe and take me dad’s old boat across the channel,’ he said uncertainly.

‘In the dark?’ Lowry asked, incredulous.

‘Dunno what I was thinking, do I?’

There was a light rap on the door. Lowry gestured for the WPC to answer it. Gabriel was outside in the corridor. He would leave her with Cowley – she had fished him out of the water; maybe she’d squeeze something more out of him now – while he focused on catching Philpott. It was beginning to seem like all of Colchester’s lowlife knew of this shipment . . . Just how much of this stuff could there be out there?

Lowry explained to Gabriel what he knew so far. He spoke softly in her ear, so close he was almost touching. He felt her twitch. ‘And be cautious. If you play your cards right, you can prise information out of him he doesn’t know he has. Forget the drop, where they picked up the gear – that’ll be over his head – focus on what went on in Greenstead. Play dumb about the murders for now. He knows more than he thinks.’

She nodded.

‘Okay. Easy does it.’

*

Felix looked the blonde woman opposite in the eyes. They were pale blue and couldn’t meet his. Nevertheless, he preferred her to the mod policeman. She mustered a smile and then busied herself with his file. His file: that was a joke. But he’d use it, goddamn it, to save himself getting banged up – rather Severalls than Chelmsford or, worse, fucking Broadmoor.

‘Do you think you’re unwell, Felix?’ the WPC asked kindly.

He knew he wasn’t right, sometimes. ‘Err . . . Well, I’ve taken some funny stuff, which has left me feeling a bit peculiar, miss.’

‘But surely not since you’ve been in here? We pulled you out of the water yesterday afternoon?’

‘It was right odd stuff. Never had the like.’

‘Did you take much?’

‘Can’t rightly remember. Only took it because we were bored waiting for the pick-up.’

‘Do you know who you were waiting for?’

He hugged the blanket tightly. ‘No, I don’t know anything. Jason don’t trust me with important stuff.’ That much was probably true. Even now, in this freezing police station, Cowley marvelled at how little he really knew. They all said in Brightlingsea he wasn’t right in the head since his mother died. Maybe he wasn’t – how would he end up here, like this, otherwise? He wiped his nose on his sleeve. The one thing he knew he mustn’t do was mention Freddie. Jason had said that, and Freddie himself had said that – and, anyway, Freddie said to always do as Jason said. Jason would always look after Felix no matter what . . . But then, where was Jason, and Freddie, for that matter?