This Thing of Darkness (30 page)
I don’t know. I don’t know how physical attraction works for most people. Whether it’s a thing that leaps out on them with a roar of surprise, or if ordinary people just know these things, the way they see a tomato and know that it’s red, bish bosh, just like that.
I wonder about that. If there’s someone I could ask.
Then my attention moves on. Rocks and seawater. The two halves of Zorro’s tangled equation. We have the Stonemonkey in our sights now. His arrest will solve one half of the equation. And the other? The
Isobel Baker
?
I realise I need to get Watkins down to Milford Haven as soon as possible. Our window for effective is closing fast. Too fast. If I’m to close this case police-style, it’s now or never.
With care, and aflutter with feelings I can’t describe, I turn slowly onto the Newport Road, heading for work.
Milford Haven. The Heart of Oak, Lower Hill Street.
We’re in Penry’s room. A perfectly nice room which he’s already managed to turn halfway into a shithole. Dirty clothes, including underwear, strewn on the bed and floor. A damp towel coiled on the only spare chair. Scattered between bed and window sill: three empty beer cans, two dirty coffee cups, some fast-food wrappers and a half-eaten Pot Noodle. The room smells of male sweat, of yeast extract and monosodium glutamate, of whatever damp towel smells of after incubating for two or three days.
Watkins stops in the doorway. Eyes revolving.
She takes in not only Penry’s carefully staged shittery, but also the net curtain on the window. The tripod holding a camera and four hundred quids’ worth of newly acquired zoom lens. The laptop on the bed. The spare battery pack for the camera, plus charger, red lamp glowing. The notebook with chewed biro. The night-vision monocular.
Penry is at his post in the window. Without properly looking round, he says, ‘Hey, Rhiannon. All right?’
The two of them have met only once before, when Penry was in hospital, having been attacked in prison. He acted the prick with Watkins then, for no reason except that he can’t help himself, and Watkins – rigorous, severe, female, uptight – brings out the worst in him.
‘Brian,’ she says, tautly.
No one says anything to that. Penry doesn’t move. Doesn’t even shift his feet from the window sill or make more than the most cursory of efforts to turn his head to the door.
I do nothing. I was the one who brought Watkins here, but I can’t see that it’s my job to look after two adults, each of whom is old enough to be my parent, so I just scoop some of Penry’s clothes off the bed and sit on it.
Watkins says, ‘That’s the boat over there?’
‘Ship,’ says Penry. ‘It’s a ship. The
Isobel Baker
.’
Watkins navigates the floor over to the window. Penry – melodramatic sigh – heaves himself out of his chair, gives Watkins access to the viewfinder.
She stares out over two hundred yards or so of flat water to the dockside opposite.
Water the colour of stone, of a wet twilight.
Water the colour of storms and fish bellies.
Watkins takes her time to examine the ship. The lens is long enough that, on maximum zoom, you can’t get the whole craft into the viewfinder at once, and it takes time to learn just how much you need to adjust the angle to get the part you want to look at.
Watkins sits, tight-faced, managing the camera.
It’s a view I’ve seen a couple of times now. Familiar.
The white-painted gantry, flaking with rust beneath the arch. Trawl winches. Steel cable. Blue hull. Hoists for handling catch. The blocky white bridge in the ship’s bow.
Steel and rust and paint and seawater.
A ship that seems only half at place here, in these silent waters. It needs Atlantic waves, a fierce wind, a bawl of men. Those things, and a sodden net streaming with water. Bulging with its black and silver catch.
I let Watkins sit with the camera till she’s had enough.
‘Photos on there?’ she asks, nodding at the laptop.
Penry says nothing, but jiggles the thing awake. Pushes it over.
‘Personnel?’
Penry says, ‘Folder marked
People
. Three hundred and some photos so far.’
To me, she says: ‘You’ve seen these?’
‘Most of them, yes. We think we’ve got a crew of six. Multiple shots of each. A lot of the shots are crap, but Brydon’s guy isn’t there.’
Watkins wants to look at the e-fit which Buzz created, but feels uncomfortable doing that with Penry – a former prisoner, not retained by the inquiry, not bound by any written confidentiality undertaking – in the room.
I cut through her reservations. ‘Brydon’s guy is here.’ Bring up the e-fit.
Watkins fires through the photos, comparing them against Brydon’s image.
Penry smirks at me. He isn’t actually as much of a slob as this room makes him appear. The look was carefully designed to provoke Watkins, who would have gone ballistic had any of her officers presented themselves in this way. Watkins is a shrewd detective, but she can’t tell that Penry is deliberately riling her, which means she’s even more riled.
I kick Penry’s legs and say, ‘We’ve driven from Cardiff and I’m thirsty.’
He’s about to make a smart-arse response, but he’s on my payroll, I haven’t yet paid him for the lens and my face is wearing a ‘Don’t be a dick’ warning. So he fills the room’s little kettle from the bathroom sink and flicks it on, grinning all the while to reassure himself that his penis hasn’t fallen off.
Peppermint tea for me: I carry spare in my bag. The ordinary stuff for Watkins and Penry.
Penry is physiologically incapable of simply making nice so instead he takes the piss by fussing absurdly over Watkins’s tea. ‘How strong? That about right? I didn’t ask if you liked milk in first. It’s OK this way, is it? I can get more milk if you need. Sugar? There’s brown and white. Or sweetener if you prefer? That’s all right, is it? That’s OK?’
Watkins takes her cup. Finishes with the photos, the e-fit image.
‘He’s not there,’ she says. ‘Not unless he’s keeping himself hidden.’
‘Or if the ship isn’t yet fully crewed,’ I say.
She stares at me.
I don’t, in fact, think that Brydon’s guy – the second Rhayader goon, the one who ended up beating his buddy’s head in – will show up anywhere close to the
Isobel Baker
. He’d risk his own safety and that of the ship. Far better to lie low and let others handle this next phase.
I say something to that effect.
‘Do we have any names?’ Watkins asks, meaning the crew members.
I shake my head. I could probably have got the names, if I was acting entirely solo, but the whole point of this venture was always to create something I could pass over. So I’ve done nothing illegal, nothing I couldn’t take to Watkins.
I say, ‘The Harbourmaster will have them.’
‘OK.’
She takes a document from her case. A copy of Lowe’s email, which I received on Monday night and forwarded. Some semi-formal blah-blah about the nature of my request. Then the meat:
Gantry
The gantry is of sufficient height and width to launch/retrieve a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) but, as originally configured, the gantry’s positioning would have risked collisions between any ROV and the existing stern ramp, thereby potentially damaging ROV. Gantry has been visibly adapted to locate suitable handling equipment farther aft, including an A-frame style pulley system which is not required for ordinary fishing purposes. Note also cabling to stern winch mounting, implying possible existence of a tether management system (TMS) which would not be required by a stern trawler of this type. Fixings on cable joints are ‘clean’, with little or no at-sea use visible. In addition . . .
Four more pages in the same vein, plus eighteen photo attachments with red arrows highlighting features that Lowe regards as suspect or non-standard.
His report also notes:
Days in port
This consultant is not highly familiar with the UK fishing industry, but I note that the
Isobel Baker
is of a size and specification to manage significant spells at sea. Her skipper and crew would typically expect a 3–4 day stopover in port, to allow for unloading, maintenance, cleaning, refueling and restocking, in addition to rest and family time for the crew. In this instance, however, the
Isobel Baker
docked on June 25 and has not yet shown any signs of putting out to sea. No major maintenance works have been reported. It is suggested that the length of the stopover would be uneconomical for an ordinary fishing vessel.
Lowe also includes his CV. I don’t understand most of the things he’s listed, except it’s clearly one of those fuck-off-don’t-doubt-me things we use in court to establish the quality of expert witnesses.
Watkins returns to the camera and looks from ship to email and back again, trying to establish Lowe’s points for herself.
I’ve tried to do the same. A few of his observations are easy to check. Some are just baffling. Others might be obvious, if only we had a clearer view. In any case, though, I don’t know what the
Isobel Baker
ought to look like, what equipment ships of her type normally need. Watkins the same.
She spends twenty minutes with the camera and document. Reaches for Penry’s notebook – the place where he’s logged and dated any on-ship movements or activity. Reads through that, then straightens. Drinks her tea, which is now cold.
Rubs her face.
‘This is a lot of work. You’ve done a good job.’
That sort of thing would elicit a prim little ‘thank you, ma’am,’ if it had been aimed at me. But it was Penry’s gift mostly, and he accepts it with a little shrug.
To me: ‘You’ve been paying Mr Penry?’
‘Yes. Daily rate, accommodation, petrol.’
‘And the equipment?’
‘Some he had. Some I bought.’
‘From your own pocket, yes?’
‘Yes.’
Then to Penry: ‘You need to make out a proper invoice. Send it to me. I’ll get it paid, then I need you to repay DC Griffiths. This’ – she waves at the room, the Penrian shitheap – ‘is not the right way to do things.’
True, but since Watkins herself refused to authorise the necessary surveillance resources, it was all we had.
Watkins turns to me. She doesn’t say anything and her expression rides at anchor, immobile as the
Isobel Baker
.
I say, ‘We need to research the crew. Names. Background. Records. Any intelligence from any database. Coastguard and Border Agency, Dyfed-Powys, everything.’
‘Yes.’
I say, ‘Organise surveillance. This isn’t a one-man job and our equipment isn’t up to scratch. We’ve got more than enough already to persuade Dyfed-Powys to spend some money. Plus there’s a killing on their turf, which is linked to all this.’
‘Yes.’
I think that, for perhaps the first time in this whole investigation, Watkins is with me. Seeing things as I see them.
But there’s something wrong. Her gaze travels out of the window, slanting out sideways. Beyond the docks, the marina. Beyond the slope of the hill and the arm of the quay.
Watkins speaks again, and her voice is gravel.
‘Before I came out this morning. I contacted Lloyds. Their shipping
Register
.’
I did that when we first located the ship as being our possible target. The
Register
had nothing of interest, not unless I was missing something big.
Watkins continues, ‘The
Isobel Baker
has just been reflagged. Forty-eight hours ago. She was British, but she’s a Cyprus vessel now. European, so it can fish in these waters, but . . .’
She trails off, but I know what she’s thinking.
The Royal Navy can forcibly board any British-flagged ship, whether it’s sailing in home seas or international waters. But doing the same thing to a foreign vessel? And one sailing outside the twelve mile national limits? That’s not law-enforcement. It’s piracy. An act of war.
Watkins says, ‘I’ll speak to the relevant agencies. Or get Dennis to do it. Use his seniority.’
I nod. My lips move, but nothing much comes out.
Watkins says, ‘The timing. Do we have any guesses . . .?’
I tell her what Whillans told me. Him and Warren.
It’s the 4th July today. The basic line tests are still expected to be complete by 19th July, which means that our guys might attack any time after the 22nd.
Watkins says, ‘We might have enough time. Maybe.’
I say whatever needs to be said. Yes, ma’am. Great, ma’am. Happy to help, ma’am.
But a Cyprus-flagged vessel sailing in European waters? A vessel that looks like a fishing trawler? That
is
a damn trawler, crewed, from the look of it, by a bunch of honest-to-God fishermen. That’s not a ship you can seize by force unless you have some very,
very
damn powerful evidence to back you up – and even then, usually only with the consent of the foreign country involved.
And what have we got? Penry’s pictures. Lowe’s email. My own dark suspicions. Plus we’re talking
Cyprus
. A place awash with Russian cash. A known centre for money-laundering. The sort of place where the right sort of help could be bought for an envelope stuffed with euros.
It won’t be Watkins who makes the decision whether to board the vessel or not. Not even Jackson, or the chief constable, or the Cardiff CPS.
The decision will be made by some maritime lawyer up in London. A moron in a suit. A moron who never once sat in a barn near Rhayader, trying their best to protect a live investigation, while some ski-masked arsehole shot fifty thousand volts into her collapsing body.
I feel funny.
I’m not always quick to work it out, when my feelings go strange. I usually figure it out in the end, but not always before I’ve done something regrettable or comment-inducing or just plain weird. On this occasion, though, I think I get there pretty much straight away.
I’m feeling funny.
Giddy. Spaced out. Dissociating.
Penry looks at me, a don’t-do-it glitter in his eye.
Watkins looks at me too.
I can’t read her expression, but what she says is, ‘Fiona, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t look well.’
‘I’m not well.’
‘Look, if you need—’
‘That guy in London. The psychologist. I can’t see him.’
‘I know. You’ve said that. But if you want a break. Take some time away . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes. I need a break. Some time away.’
‘OK. Take as much as you need. Get a change of scene. Relax.’