Cold Justice (27 page)

They walked across to the café. As they approached they could see a thin-faced man in his thirties looking at them through the glass – he looked like he would rather shut the shop than let them in.

‘Hello,’ he said, as they opened the door; his eyes didn’t smile.

‘Hi,’ said Carter. ‘Are you the owner of this café?’

‘Yes. My name’s Cam. I heard you were the officers investigating the little boy’s disappearance.’

‘That’s right, do you know the Forbes-Wright family?’

‘Well, I know of them. I’d met Jeremy Forbes-Wright a few times. You couldn’t really avoid him in this town.’

‘I see. Coffees, please, one cappuccino, extra everything, and one black double espresso.’ Willis was choosing a cake. ‘I gather you weren’t that keen on him then?’ asked Carter.

Cam got on with the coffees; he glanced back over his shoulder and gave a noncommittal shrug. ‘I didn’t really have an opinion.’

‘And you didn’t you go to the funeral in London?’

‘I went up that day but I didn’t actually go to it.’

‘Okay – why was that?’

‘I just fancied a day in London. It was going to be so quiet here anyway – I thought, what the hell – I’ll cadge a lift and go.’

‘Sounds fair enough,’ Carter replied. ‘Who did you go with?’

‘In the end, I decided to catch the train there and back.’

‘Are you open every day?’

‘Not for the whole day. There’s no point when there’s no one around. Weekends are busy.’

They picked up their order and walked down the beach towards the water’s edge.

Willis had a coffee in one hand and a
pain au chocolat
in the other.

‘Okay, well that’s another suspect added to the list then. How many more people thought they’d cadge a lift but not actually go to the funeral and then not actually cadge a lift?’

‘We need to pull his story apart when we finish with Jago,’ answered Carter. ‘I want to make sure we don’t miss him. I want to ask him about the beach party. Then we’ll go back and talk to Cam. Christ, where did that go?’ Carter turned round to see her stuffing the last of the pastry into her mouth. He picked at a blueberry muffin and then put it back into the bag. Willis pointed to a group of surfers only now visible as the waves subsided a little.

‘They seem to be just sitting out there.’

‘Yeah.’ Carter stood looking at the surfers lying on their boards. ‘That’s Jago coming in now, I think.’

‘When I met him he was a little too cocky and thought a lot of himself.’

‘I saw him the same night at the bar, definitely likes to think he’s a cut above the average here.’

They watched him ride a wave and paddle his board towards the shore. He got out shaking the sea-water from his ears, holding his board under his arm. He grinned at them.

‘Hello, you’ll have to take it in turns but you can borrow my board – the wet suit should fit.’ He smiled. Carter grinned and shook his head.

‘Hardly worth it if it’s messy like that, is it?’ Willis was impressed – Carter had been swatting up on surf lingo.

‘Ah . . . always worth it, just to get in the water.’

‘Hello again; you’ve met my colleague, DC Ebony Willis here?’ Carter introduced her.

‘Yes, but not properly. Jago. Jago Trebethin.’ He shook her hand with a firm, freezing grip, making sure he maintained eye contact as he did so. He was Carter’s height – five nine.

‘Now, will you excuse me, I need to get out of this wet suit.’

‘Of course. Mind if we chat to you while you do it?’ asked Carter.

‘No, my van is parked up there on the edge of the beach.’

He started walking towards it. When they reached the van he peeled his wet suit down to the waist and slid back the side door of the old VW Camper. He reached in for a towel and dried his blond, sun-bleached shaggy hair. He was lean and muscled.

‘I hear you used to live in London?’ said Carter, trying to get over his abs-envy. Robbo had got hold of Jago’s CV. Carter had read it – Jago hadn’t stayed more than two years in a job. He’d been in recruitment in central London with three different companies.

‘Yes, till recently. I got done-over work-wise, thought I was embarking on this great career, but it didn’t happen – so I decided to head home and have a rethink.’

‘You’re a local then?’ Willis asked. She took the top off her coffee and finished it, looked around for a bin.

‘I suppose I am, but I’m not thought of as one. I was sent away to school in Bristol and then I went away to uni and left straight after. I am back now, of course, but most people my age have never left and . . . I don’t intend to stay long.’

‘And your friends in the water?’ Carter turned to look out at the surfers. ‘They seem determined to stay out even though it’s freezing.’

‘Yeah,’ he laughed. ‘They’re hardy locals. Born and bred. Any surf is good surf. Look, I’m really sorry to hear about the little boy,’ he said as he pulled a T-shirt over his head. ‘It doesn’t make any sense why someone should take him.’

‘How did you spend your day in London after the funeral?’

‘I hung about with Marky for a bit and then I went to do my own thing.’

‘Which was?’

‘I just went shopping for a few hours and caught up with the lads before coming home. We didn’t stay that long.’

‘What did you buy?’ asked Willis.

‘Nothing, in the end. I wanted some new trainers but I couldn’t see any I liked.’

‘Where did you look?’

‘Oxford Street.’

‘Nike Town?’

‘No, one of the small sports shoe shops, I forget which.’

‘And you met up with them again?’

‘We went to a few pubs around town.’

‘Which pubs?’

He shook his head.

‘Sorry – wish I could remember.’

‘Have you talked to Marky today?’

‘No,’ he said, puzzled. He looked very practised at hiding what he was thinking, thought Ebony.

‘Oh, it’s just that I had a very illuminating conversation with him about the fact that you actually left London at five on the day of the funeral,’ said Carter.

‘Did we?’ Jago laughed. ‘Oh well, apologies if my memory isn’t good. I’m obviously a much worse drinker than I realized. Marky would know what time for sure. I remember now – we decided we’d rather see our mates in Exeter instead.’

‘You can see them any time, it’s just up the road, isn’t it?’

‘Well, you’re probably right, but it was just one of those snap decisions, I expect – a few beers and we decided to hit the road.’

‘Funny – I even thought it might be to wind Raymonds up?’

‘What? No way. He’s so regimented about things; but sometimes it just doesn’t work out the way he plans it.’

‘Funny thing was, he was at the motorway services at the same time as you and you didn’t seem to talk to one another.’

‘Really? Bizarre.’

‘You didn’t even get out of the car; what was the point in going into the services?’

‘Um, I think we needed petrol.’

‘So you sat outside the refreshments section.’

‘Well, I have no answer for you, I’m sorry. We pulled over for Marky to have a rest, I expect. He probably had a little snooze in the car. It’s a long way.’

‘We’ve been hearing all about an incident with Kensa and Toby Forbes-Wright that happened after a party on this beach,’ Willis said. ‘What do you know about it?’

Jago stopped drying and stood gawking, shaking his head.

‘On this beach?’

‘We were told you saw what happened?’ Willis continued. ‘You were there.’

‘You mean back when I was a teenager?’

‘Yes, June 2000.’

‘I don’t remember much – I guess you mean the beach party? That’s mostly what I remember – it was the largest beach party I’ve ever seen here. I just happened to be here that night. I don’t know any more than anyone else. Whoever told you that I saw anything is wrong.’

‘So, why did you say you didn’t know what I was talking about?’ asked Willis.

‘I don’t know – it’s such a long time ago. It was just a beach party that got a bit messy.’

‘What do you remember about it?’ Carter asked.

Jago shook his head, splattering water from his hair, and frowned with a hint of ‘What’s your point?’

‘I told you – I know about as much as anyone else.’

‘What do you remember?’

‘I remember it was packed with kids off their faces, they were partying, drinking. They’d lit a couple of fires. There were people swimming, dancing. A bit of stuff going on that shouldn’t have been.’

‘Like?’

‘Sex on the beach. Drugs, skinny dipping – so many of them were wrecked already.’

‘What time was that?’

‘Eleven?’

‘You said they were wrecked. Where did they get the drugs?’

‘Brought them with them, I suppose. Who knows?’

‘There was no local supplier at the time?’

‘Here in Penhal? I don’t think so. I wasn’t home enough to know things like that. It wasn’t my type of thing – I’ve always been heavily into sport. The two don’t mix.’

‘Someone should have told Lance Armstrong that,’ said Carter.

‘I really don’t remember much about that night, sorry – I was the same age as the kids, more or less.’

‘Four years older than Kensa, three years older than Toby – it’s a lot of difference in your teens,’ argued Willis. ‘You must remember going back to Kellis House, where it all kicked off?’

‘No.’ Jago’s face dropped.

‘Cam and Ella Simmons were there, Mawgan too. You decided to disrupt their little get-together at the house?’

Jago shook his head and stared at Willis.

‘No idea, sorry.’

‘Okay, well, we’ll be staying here for a few days – if you think of something, get in touch.’

‘Will do.’

‘Don’t forget the surf,’ he called after them, and waved Carter back to him. ‘Anything you need to borrow you can ring me. Wait a tick.’ He left his wet suit under the tap at the edge of the Surfshack and went back to his van, went round to the driver’s seat and leaned in. He emerged with a piece of paper and scribbled his number down before handing it to Carter.

Carter pushed it in his pocket.

‘Thanks.’

‘And you too, of course.’ He looked across and grinned at Willis as he picked up his wet suit and held it up to drip. ‘We’ll get you fitted up with a board and a wet suit no problem. You won’t believe how great it is out there. A real adrenalin rush.’

‘Don’t think so,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘They’ve already tried to kill me once.’

Jago finished rinsing his wet suit. He hung it on the top of his van to drip off the side and then he got into the VW and pulled the door shut; he sat there sweating. After five minutes he climbed over into the front and started it up. He drove up to the Penhal Hotel, parked up on the street in front and ran up the steps. He went straight to the public phone.

‘Marky?’ Marky answered it from home. ‘Trouble. I’ve just had a couple of visitors. We have to move the merchandise. Get rid of it.’

‘Where? Where can we move it to? We can’t shift it now. It’s better where it is.’

‘No, it isn’t. Believe me,’ he hissed into the phone.

‘I’m not moving it. We have to sell it to give them their money. It’s not some fucking game to those guys. We have to come out of this. Just stay calm, stay chilled.’

‘Listen to me. They’re going to have a thousand officers in this place any day. They will find it. Get rid of it. I’m not going to spend ten years in jail just because of a stupid mistake. We messed up. We’ll just have to lie low for a while. Move away, sell up the business and go to Scotland, anywhere, for a year or so. Those guys will be gone by then. An anonymous tip-off to the law and we’ll help put them inside. Man up. We’ll be okay. It was a mistake. Learn from it.’

‘Oh, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned that you just worm your way out of any trouble. I’ll never go into business with you again. I’m moving it today and I’m going to stick to the plan and sell it.’

‘It’s all yours, bro.’

As they went past Cam’s café it had closed. They drove to Kellis House, and Willis asked Carter to pull his car in by the gateway.

‘Do you want me to come in as well?’ Carter asked as she got out of the car.

‘No, it’s okay, I’ll be as quick as I can. I just need to check on Lauren. She was having a rest when I left.’

Inside the cottage Willis could hear Lauren tapping on her keyboard. The sound came from the lounge.

‘Lauren? You okay? Sorry I’ve been so long; we need to try and get around to take a statement from all those people at Jeremy’s funeral. What are you doing, working?’

‘I’m doing what you suggested – I’m researching the land all around here and looking for possible places where Samuel could be. I don’t understand why the search parties are not looking for him down here in the village.’

‘We have helicopters out and searches in the remote areas around the cliff. We are searching, I promise. We need to handle this community with kid gloves, Lauren. The harder we squeeze them, the more tightly knitted they become. But we are making cracks in their armour. They are beginning to turn on one another. We will get the truth.’

‘What about Kensa, what about what she said? She seemed so certain that she’d seen Samuel.’

‘We’re looking into it all. Kensa has been sectioned a few times.’

‘I suspect she never even got counselling for what she went through. Since I found that out about Kensa it explains a lot about Toby. I can see how frightened he is now of being accused of anything. He’ll say anything to get himself out of trouble. He says he blocked it out, that he never remembered it at all. But it makes me feel that I don’t know him at all. If he did that to another human being, could he harm Samuel?’

‘Did you know about his close friendship with his workmate, Gareth?’

She shook her head. ‘I feel like he couldn’t confide anything in me.’

‘Lauren, why don’t you get your coat? You can bring your phone and continue researching. You can get out and have a bit of a walk while we’re talking to people? Bring Russell.’

Outside in the car, Carter was on the phone. He looked at Willis as she came out with Lauren.