In Cold Daylight (16 page)

‘What did you say?’ This was news to me. Why hadn’t Simon told me that father had been unwell for some time? But then what right had I to that information? I had chosen to cut myself off from my family.

‘Sad, isn’t it, when you think of the fine brain he had. Makes you wonder. Life can be so cruel, don’t you agree?’

‘I’m not sure I understand you.’

‘Dementia,’ she nodded sagely, as if an expert on the topic. ‘Poor man didn’t know who I was half the time, let alone your brother. Patience of a saint that man. Used to sit with him in his study for hours. I’m sorry your dad’s gone, but in a way it was a mercy wasn’t it, being taken so quickly. He would have gone into a home soon and they just eat away at the money, don’t they?’

Oh, yes, don’t they, I thought. And Simon wouldn’t want that being the sole benefactor of Father’s considerable will. When had my father cut me out of his will? After Alison and Oxford?

After my breakdown? After I had walked out of this house fifteen years go? Or was it more recent, such as in the last six months during which time Simon had worked on father to change his will.

Damn. I should have stayed longer the first time I’d returned to the house with Simon. I could have seen then when the will was dated and I could have extracted my file.

I pushed against the study door and stepped inside. Stretching out my right hand I flicked on the overhead light and gazed around. My eyes fell on the battered mahogany desk in front of the french windows. I recalled standing before it as a boy, trembling with fear. I remembered that day I had been in here when I shouldn’t have been. I can’t remember why, but I had sneaked in and then been trapped as my mother and father had entered. Hiding behind the curtains I had heard him humiliate her with his harsh words and cruel, sarcastic tongue. There were too many ghosts here and in this house and the sooner I got that file, the sooner I could say goodbye to the place forever.

The room was clammy. I couldn’t quite steel myself to sit at Father’s desk so instead leant over to search the drawers. They weren’t locked but there was nothing of any interest in them except a key, which I removed and crossed to the four-drawer grey and scratched filing cabinet in the far corner of the room. The key opened it and methodically I went through its contents. It contained the usual papers, household insurance and receipts. Then, in the bottom drawer, I found what I had been looking for, a buff-coloured folder that bore the name of the clinic I’d attended after my breakdown. If Simon had got this far then he hadn’t thought the contents of sufficient interest to remove.

I extracted the folder and locked it in the box on the back of my motorbike. Then returning to the house I found Faye.

‘I’m heading home now,’ I lied.

‘All right.’ She didn’t protest or plead with me to stay.

‘Are you staying in town tonight?’

‘You know I am.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow night.’

Maybe Faye would find out tonight what had happened to me at Oxford, if not from Davenham then from Simon. I didn’t care. I knew the time was fast approaching when it would come into the open anyway, but not, I hoped, before I found out who had killed Jack and Ben Lydeway. I was pinning a great deal on this meeting with Greys tomorrow.

I booked myself into a bed and breakfast not far from Victoria Station. It was small, cheap and rather nondescript but it was clean. I threw my bag on the bed, along with my helmet and gauntlets and returned to the bike. I lifted open the box and stared inside it horrified. It was empty. The file had gone.

I rode slowly along the Embankment. The Thames looked sludgy and lethargic, gunmetal grey in the dull morning with only the odd splash of colour caused by the riverboats.

Across the river I could see the London Eye revolving slowly. Weaving my way through the stop go traffic I thought about that missing file, much as I had thought about it for most of the night. Who had taken it and when? I knew why, to use it against me.

The police may have released me in connection with Ben’s death but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t arrest me if they felt they had more evidence. I wasn’t absolutely sure what the psychiatrist reports would say about me, having never read them, I only wish I had, but I guessed it would make for interesting reading: my self recriminations at Alison’s death, my lack of memory. The police could argue that I killed Ben whilst suffering from a black-out.

Who had taken it? Had someone been watching the house, seen me come out with a file, guessed that its contents might be useful and then stolen it? That seemed unlikely. Even if whoever it was knew there was a file documenting my breakdown after Alison’s death how would they have known my father had it and that it would be the one I was carrying. If the police, or Special Branch, wanted information on me surely they could get it simply by obtaining a warrant and taking it from the clinic?

It had to be someone inside the house: one of the guests at the wake and the most likely candidate was Simon. Perhaps Simon had seen me take the file and had been afraid it contained something that would ruin his chances of inheriting Father’s estate? Or perhaps he’d taken it to discredit or, worse, blackmail me if I ever decided to contest the will? But if that were so then Simon would have taken it before now.

He’d had ample opportunity.

My head was aching with so many thoughts whirring around inside it as I wound my way past the church of St Clement Danes and the old nursery rhyme popped into my head,
‘Oranges
and lemons say the bells of St Clement’s.’
When I reached the bit about the chopper coming to chop off my head, I shivered and looked behind me. I couldn’t see anyone following me but I had the feeling they were. Someone knew every step I took.

I moved through Fleet Street and up Ludgate Hill. The traffic was heavier than I had anticipated. As I halted at the traffic lights I watched a flock of starlings rise above the great dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. I envied them their freedom. The responsibility of finishing Jack’s quest weighed heavily on my shoulders. But I had to continue with it, no matter where it took me.

At last I turned into Monument Street and then Lower Thames Street where I found Greys Shipping. After waiting ten minutes in the spacious reception area, where I studied rather splendid models of ships owned by Greys, I was shown up in a lift to an office on the third floor by a young, very bored-looking girl who did nothing but chew gum. The woman who greeted me in a large office was very different. She was confident and friendly, with hair the colour of a blackbird’s wing and startlingly blue eyes.

‘I would like to trace some of my uncle’s ex-colleagues to let them know about his death and the funeral arrangements,’ I said, repeating the lie I’d told her secretary on the telephone in order to get the appointment. I felt uncomfortable at deceiving her but I had no choice.

‘Of course.’ She picked up a file from the table in front of her and resting it on her lap she opened it and extracted a piece of paper. ‘I’ve prepared a list of the personnel who sailed with your uncle during his time with the company from 1990 to 1994.’

I was surprised at her efficiency, but I shouldn’t have been after seeing her office. It was so orderly that I felt slightly scruffy sitting in it with my black leather jacket, leggings and heavy boots.

I quickly scanned the names on the list. There were only a half a dozen. ‘I thought there would be more than this?’

She smiled. ‘There are never that many crew members on a container ship. There is so much technology now, and on the size of ship that Mr Honeyman sailed the maximum crew would only have been six. Of course since your uncle sailed with us, sadly some of the crew have died.’

And I’d liked to know from what. I glanced down at the list and saw, with interest, that one of the men lived less than a mile from Albert Honeyman’s nursing home. It was the Master, Captain Frank Rutland.

‘There is something else that you might be able to help me with, Miss Rogers. Do you know if there was ever a fire on board one of the ships in which my uncle was serving?’

She looked surprised at the question but she didn’t probe me about it. She said, ‘I don’t think so but I can check for you.’ She crossed to her desk, her heels clicking on the wooden floor, and began to tap into her computer.

I waited with baited breath glimpsing only briefly at the paintings on the wall of sailing barges on the Thames in the 19th century. I willed her to find something. Surely I hadn’t come all this way for nothing. No file and no fire.

It appeared I had.

‘There’s no record of any fire on any of our ships, Mr Greene.’

I felt more than disappointed, I felt desperate.

‘Could there have been a fire that wasn’t reported?’ I asked hopefully. I registered her surprise.

‘I doubt it. A fire on board a ship is very serious; even if it wasn’t carrying any cargo the captain would still have to report it.’

How could there be nothing? I had to be right, but I didn’t think Miss Rogers was lying. I had wasted my time and my hopes. In the process I had possibly put myself in danger of being arrested for Ben’s death when whoever had stolen my file decided to give it to the police.

I thanked her with little enthusiasm. There was only one more place to go and that was to Captain Frank Rutland. If he couldn’t help me I really didn’t know what to do next.

The Christmas traffic was a nightmare. As I weaved my way through Convent Garden I thought of Faye. I had never been to her office and I wasn’t about to go there now. If she knew I had stayed in London, it would only give her more ammunition about moving here. Perhaps if I did I might save my marriage. Was it a sacrifice worth making?

I pulled up at the lights and gazed across the crowded street. It was as if my thoughts had conjured her up. There she was and she wasn’t alone. Faye threw back her head and laughed at something Simon said. He smiled down at her.

I could see so much in that smile. I watched them duck into a restaurant, the traffic began to move, a car hooted angrily at me and I let in the clutch and pulled away.

It was getting dark by the time I reached Hayling Island. At the sign to the boatyard I indicated left and turned into a road that gave way to a track. It wound its way past two Nissen huts, left over from the Second World War, until it opened up into a boatyard. A handful of boats were resting up for the winter in front of the boatsheds on my right and there were a long row of masts stacked above each other on their side.

I asked one of the workmen where I could find Frank Rutland’s boat, and eventually, three people later, managed to track it down. It was lying at the end of the last pontoon.

It was exposed here with nothing ahead but the mud of low tide and the sea. Beyond, across Chichester Harbour, was the flat landscape of Thorney Island, once used by the Royal Air Force in the war and where the army still had a base.

Lights blinked at me in the distance. The wind cut across the channel. The day had grown colder; even the seagulls seemed to have fallen silent as if in anticipation of a storm; I could see them squatting on their narrow legs in the mud facing into the southwest wind. I felt the first lean spits of rain.

I made my way down the rickety pontoon glancing at the variety of boats until I came to Rutland’s. It was older than most of the others, a classic though, a Hillyard 8 ton 30-footer. She was a beauty, or rather had been in her day. It was clear from her neglected air and rotting timbers that those days had long gone, but with a little care and a lot of money she would still be sailing when many modern boats had been consigned to the scrap heap. The hull needed cleaning but she still looked sound.

I called out whilst running my eye over the weathered mahogany deck. Hillyards were solid boats built to last and this one looked as though it had been around for the last forty years or more. It was resting on the mud of low tide. It looked much lived in and used with its off-white sails reefed down and looped around the boom.

A rusting, but still operational bicycle was propped up on the foredeck along with a battered striped deckchair of the kind that used to be seen along the promenade in Southsea occupied by old ladies in crimpolene suits and gents with their trousers rolled up and knotted hankies on their heads.

I called again but still got no reply. I groaned. I hadn’t come all this way just to find the guy out.

Perhaps Rutland didn’t want to see anyone? But if Rutland had gone out then perhaps I could wait for his return.

I climbed on board. The hatchway was open and, calling out, I began to climb below when suddenly I drew up, staring in disbelief and horror at the sight that greeted me. Lying in front of me was a skeletal man of about seventy, with grey frizzled hair and a beard, dressed in a pair of old navy jogging pants and a dirty T-shirt.

There was blood around his nose and mouth, his lips were blue and his scrawny neck was livid with bruises where someone had squeezed the breath from him.

Suddenly, pressing on my eyeballs was the memory of another dead body. I felt a rush of air and heard a thump, a sickening crack; eyes were staring wide and blood was trickling from the smashed skull until it reached my foot. Seeing Rutland had brought back every detail of Alison’s death. Now I remembered it exactly. I had rowed with Alison and then had left the party. As I was walking away she had fallen out of the window and landed right in front of me. I could see the blue dress she was wearing: it had rumpled up to her knees; one sandal was still on, her other foot was bare. I saw the expression on her face and the blood trickling from her mouth.

Forget Alison. Forget what had happened fifteen years ago, I urged myself. Think of now.

I had to get away. I stumbled up the gangway trying to get my breath; my legs trembled so much that they could barely carry me. Christ, Rutland murdered! Who the hell…

I glanced nervously over my shoulder. They had killed Ben Lydeway, Honeyman and now Rutland. Whoever had killed these men could be watching me now.

I climbed on to the bike and roared away. I knew I should have stayed and reported it to the police but that would mean my chances of solving Jack’s murder would be nil.