This Thing of Darkness (79 page)

I say something to that effect, and Jackson nods in agreement, but there’s one further conjecture, which I don’t choose to share.

That conjecture is this. Evans was certainly the figurehead, the public face, of Idris Gawr, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was in ultimate command of the operation. Perhaps the Voice was the real leader, the one calling the shots. And his own financial interests were carefully kept behind many walls of secrecy in the Caymans and elsewhere: walls we’ve been unable to surmount.

Simply put, if the operation succeeded, the Voice would make a fortune. And if it failed – well, hell, it would be Galton Evans paying the price, not him.

‘Any case,’ says Jackson. ‘They decided to proceed as planned, but with a bit of extra protection. They re-registered the
Isobel Baker
as a Cypriot ship. Made sure that the ROV only came on board well out at sea. Same thing with the underwater specialists. All those things only came together at the last possible moment and only when the ship was far out in international waters.’

‘Yes.’

And there it is, I think. The whole story. The picture of this case from beginning to end.

And Galton Evans on a charge of murder
. We’ll have to make that stick, of course, but from what Jackson has said so far, I can’t foresee too many difficulties.

The corpses I’ve lived with for so long – Moon, Livesey, Jazz MacClure – start to release themselves. Unstick from me. I’ll be sorry to see them go, but it’s what I do. Justice is the gift I bring them, in exchange for the peace they bring me.

As I’m thinking those thoughts, Jackson is pausing and I realise he’s not yet done.

‘Fiona, you haven’t asked me what happened to the
Isobel Baker
.’

‘Oh. What happened to the
Isobel Baker
, sir?’

‘It sank.’

‘Oh.’

‘No loss of life, fortunately.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Nine men rescued. One woman.’

‘Oh.’

‘This woman.’

He throws a photograph at me. CCTV from the Police Nationale station in Brest. They didn’t take a formal photo, because I wasn’t suspected of any crime. Jackson pushes some other pictures towards me. Some taken at Milford Haven, when I boarded the ship. Other stills from the station in Brest. None of them are much good. The Milford Haven ones show almost nothing, because I had my back to the cameras and was wearing a hood. And CCTV is never all that good. You can rule people out – men, anyone with dark skin, anyone of obviously the wrong height, weight or age – but after that you just don’t really know. Alizée’s fancy make-up and baseball cap don’t amount to a disguise exactly, but they do confuse any identification.

The woman in the photos could be me or could be someone else.

I say, ‘Do we know this person?’

‘I don’t know. Do we?’ Jackson flicks the photo that best shows my bandaged hand. ‘Remind me, Fiona. You “splidged” your hand?’

‘In a car door, sir. I know “splidge” isn’t a real word.’

‘Odd though. The same injury.’

‘
Not
the same injury. She’s hurt her right hand.
My
right hand is just fine.’

I hold out my right hand, wiggling it to demonstrate its just fineness.

Jackson doesn’t say anything, ask anything, do anything.

I wonder if this was his interrogation technique when he was a mere DI. Take that man down to the cells and hit him with two hours of silence. If he survives that, give him another two, and another two after that. Stay silent and do nothing till he begs for mercy.

I sit with Jackson, doing and saying nothing in a companionable way. Then, when I think we’ve done enough, I say, ‘May I borrow your computer, sir?’

He nods. Revolves the screen. Pushes the keyboard towards me.

I go to my bank’s website. Log on.

Pull up a list of recent transactions. All of them Portuguese. Restaurants. Supermercados. Bars. A couple of clothes shops.

Swivel the screen back.

Jackson scrutinises the list. Rubs his face.

‘Must have been nice. Pretty place, the Algarve.’

‘Yes, my first time. I loved it.’

‘Take any pictures?’

I get out my phone. Tap through to my photos. I’m no expert on these things, but I’ve done enough to remove any obvious time-and-date stamps on the files.

Jackson is still less of an expert. He flips through photos. Sees lots of pictures. Me. My sister. Me and my sister. Different outfits, different places, different times of day.

‘How do I get a call log on this thing?’

I show him, sulkily.

He pokes around till he gets what he needs. Phone calls from Portugal to Wales and back again. He doesn’t give me my phone back though. Doesn’t close the screen with my banking records.

He says, ‘The
Isobel Baker
. Its captain seems to be just a regular fisherman. Alexander Honnold. Scottish. Experienced trawlerman.’

I shrug. I don’t know where Jackson is going with this, but I wish he’d give me back my phone.

‘I had a good chat with Honnold. A long debriefing session.’

I nod.

‘The guy owned his own vessel. A good skipper. Respected. This guy, Connor, comes to him wanting to charter his boat for a construction project. The money’s good. Fishing isn’t exactly a brilliant business. Honnold would quite like to dig the boat out from under a giant mortgage, so he says yes. In retrospect, that wasn’t a particularly smart move, but there’s nothing illegal about being dumb.’

‘Just as well, sir, really.’

‘Anyway. At the last minute, his cook gets ill or, I don’t know, has a dying aunt. Some bollocks like that. He skips off the boat. This woman’ – pointing to the photos – ‘gets on it. Everything’s fine, give or take the quality of food. Pilchard macaroni, I don’t know. Then Connor and his damn ROV come on board. There’s a storm. All kinds of shenanigans. Then this woman, allegedly, pours fish guts into the engine cooling system. The engine starts to fail. The boat can’t keep its nose into the waves and is about to sink. So everyone piles into a life-raft and awaits rescue.’

I say, in a tone as even as I can manage, ‘Is this woman facing charges? I mean, sinking ships is probably against some law or other.’

‘No. No, she wouldn’t be facing any charge. Not from me anyway. The situation on that boat had turned pretty ugly. It seems like her actions were aimed at bringing about an end to hostilities.’

‘Well, then. Good for her.’

‘Yes, good for her. Unless she happened to be an officer of mine. In which case, she still hasn’t done anything illegal, but she has interfered in an operation under my command without my knowledge or permission.’

Jackson beats my phone thoughtfully against the ball of his hand. Those Welsh hormones again: they just have to hit things.

If Jackson chose to send my phone into the electronics lab at Bridgend, it would take them all of a few minutes to determine that the photos had been taken within one scant eighteen-hour period. It would take a fair bit of work, but doable work, to place me on that ferry from Santander. And of course Honnold and the rest of them could easily confirm that I was on that damn boat.

I’m scared, actually. I think Jackson means his implicit threat. If he really believed I was on that boat, he’d chuck me out of CID.

I say, sulkily, ‘Right. But as you’ve just verified, I was in Portugal. On holiday. In accordance with the strongly expressed wishes of both you and DI Watkins.’

Jackson thinks another few moments.

Then: ‘Sorry, Fiona.’

His voice is very soft. Gentle. And he’s never gentle with me.

He clicks around on his computer. Brings up Skype. Not a program he’s all that familiar with, as he’s slow to click his way through to where he needs to be. But there’s only one name on his call list anyway. Ahonnold62. He clicks the name, makes the call.

That annoying ringing noise.

Two rings, three. Then Honnold answers.

My mouth is dry. This thing has been prearranged, I realise: Honnold is no more part of the Skype generation than Jackson is. I watch and wait as two fifty-something men fiddle with their webcams, their volume controls.

Watch and wait, as the executioner’s cart rumbles clumsily into place. As the blade is sharpened, the rope knotted.

I feel a physical tightening in my throat. Sounds come to me from a long way off.

Jackson, a million miles away, says, ‘Captain, I have a young woman with me here. She’s not facing any charges, nor will she face any, no matter what you may have to tell me now. I just need to know if this woman is the same one who sailed with you on the
Isobel Baker
recently. A simple yes/no answer will be fine. Is that clear?’

From where I’m sitting, I can’t properly see Honnold’s face, but I hear his dry Scots, ‘Aye, Inspector, that’s clear enough.’

Jackson vacates his seat. One of those big, black leather and chrome affairs.. Fitted for Jackson’s height and weight. His head-of-Major-Crimes seniority. The chair rocks back on its springs.

Jackson waves a hand.

At me, at the chair, at the end of my career.

I stand up, of course. There’s nothing else to do. Move towards my doom, but – a funny thing – have this almost literal sense of getting smaller as I approach. A kind of
Alice in Wonderland
experience, in which I find myself shrinking until, by the time I have somehow clambered onto that evilly rocking seat, I feel myself no bigger than a tiny white mouse, nibbling, and twitching, and combing my whiskers.

I face the screen.

Honnold’s face, but I’m so spacey, so gluey with apprehension, that I can read nothing at all in his expression, his tone, his smile.

Somewhere beyond the orbit of Pluto, I hear Jackson say, ‘Can you see all right, Captain?’ Jackson adjusts the webcam at our end and rolls my chair forward. The little rectangle, lower right, that gives the view that Honnold sees, fills with my face.

‘Aye, that’s fine.’

‘And? Is this the woman?’

There’s a pause.

I’m good with pauses usually. Can pause with the best of them. Keep pace with Jackson’s marathon silences.

But not now. Not this time.

I feel the silence fill with the bones of a thousand winters, the death of galaxies. My limbs are lead. My mouth is glue.

I’m in a state so altered that, although I hear Honnold’s words – ‘No. No, Inspector, that’s not her.’ – it takes me several seconds to make sense of them. There’s a shift in his expression, a twitch in his left eye – a wink? – but I’m already sliding off the seat, away from the screen, making good on this miraculous reprieve.

The two men sign off.

I try to look normal. Find my tongue. Retrieve my scattered wits, the use of my limbs.

Jackson closes the Skype app.

‘Sorry, Fiona. But I needed to know.’

‘Holiday,’ I say, aggrievedly. ‘What do you want from me? I was on holiday.’

‘OK. Good. I’m pleased you enjoyed it. You’re looking very well.’

I nod. A kind of thank-you thing, though whether that’s how Jackson interprets it, I don’t know. He doesn’t say.

‘Hope the hand’s OK.’

‘It’s fine.’

We’re back in pause mode again, but this is one I can handle. No galaxies burning out, just the gentle rock of a little boat against some sunny harbour wall.

Jackson: ‘That other crime. On Chicago.’

‘Yes?’

‘We didn’t manage to gather enough evidence to justify charges. Sorry.’

‘No. I thought, probably . . .’

‘But you may be interested to learn that I had a heart to heart chat with DI Dunwoody, at the conclusion of which he decided he would prefer to pursue a career outside the police service.’

‘Did he?’

‘He did.’

‘Did you actually tear his head off, sir? I always think you’ll tear off mine.’

‘No, his head remained on his shoulders. But’ – a flickering smile – ‘there were moments. There were certainly moments . . .’

I sigh. I wish I could have seen it. I’ll have to seek out Amrita, the queen of office gossip, to see what I can glean from her. Add some merry fuel to that fire. Some highly coloured truths, a few believable lies.

Jackson gives me my moment of sweet delight, then says with a we’re-done-now exhalation, ‘Check in with Rhiannon when she’s back from London. Take a look at that file, the Stonemonkey one. Let me know if anything occurs to you.’

‘Yes, sir.’

I stand. It’s nice, actually, wearing a dress to the office now and again. It’s easy to get all policey in here. Sometimes it’s good to be a bit girly too.

So I stand, smooth my dress, admire my red toes, but don’t quite leave.

Jackson, his rumbly voice: ‘Fiona?’

‘Two things, sir. First, the Spanish police found a T-shirt at the Stonemonkey’s house. A Plas-y-Brenin one. From a climbing centre in North Wales.’

‘Yes?’

‘Is there any chance I could take a look at it, please?’

He nods. ‘I don’t know where that evidence is being held. Rhiannon will know. I’m sure she’ll be happy for you to take a look.’

‘Thank you.’

I don’t say anything further and Jackson has to nudge.

‘Two things, you said.’

‘I’ve got some data I’d like to share. With you. With DI Watkins. And ideally with Adrian Brattenbury too. I think you’ll be interested.’

Adrian Brattenbury: my old sort-of boss from the Serious Organised Crime Agency. A good investigator and one who mostly likes me.

‘I’ll give Adrian a call. Should I tell him what it’s regarding?’

I nod. Yes.

Jackson raises his eyebrows. Big shaggy affairs that take some lifting. ‘Well?’

‘What it’s always about, sir. It’s about nailing the fuckers.’

Jackson grins. Says he’ll call. Says something else nice, to make up for the whole Honnold thing.

I leave. Walk down the corridor to the lifts.

Red toes, clacky sandals. Tanned arms, sleeveless dress.

And Galton Evans in jail.

And Galton Evans in jail.

69

Life is good.

I go swimming with Bev. She admires my tan. I say the right things about her thighs and arms. We drink vegetable smoothies and laugh a lot.

I eat sensibly, remember to sleep. See my family. See friends.

See Lev, even, who drops by for a weekend of dope-smoking and pilchard macaroni, which has become something of a culinary standby for me. He mentions my whole post-Rhayader convalescence only once, asking, ‘You are OK now?’

‘Yes.’

‘No dreams? No bad ones?’

‘No. I mean, not really. Not worse than usual.’

‘These panics?’

He means, I think, panic attacks, but I don’t get those and say as much. He stares at me with those deep brown eyes of his. Then puts on some Russian music and changes the subject. Doesn’t bring it up again. Probably never will.

See Mike. We sleep together a few more times. Have a nice time. Not as magical as our sex in that kingdom of unicorns, but most things aren’t. The relationship doesn’t really feel right here, though. It’s not true me and isn’t true him, so we stop sleeping together but still see each other, off and on. We’re friends, I think, and always will be.

Ed too. See him. Mike’s wildman of the rocks and waves.

It’s odd learning that new thing about this person I thought I knew. A corrective. A guard against error.

I eat Ed’s food – butterflied lamb, cooked on the barbecue, with herbs, lemon and chilli – and try to see Mike’s Ed in the one I know. Trying to fit my suit-and-tied psychologist into the sun-stubbled windsurfer who climbs impossible rocks just for the pleasure of falling into the chattering sea.

I don’t think I connect the two all that well, but even the effort is helpful.

Ed tells me that he’s started meeting people, having dates. ‘No one amazing yet, but it feels good to get out there.’

That makes me feel twingey, I think. Not in a bad way. Just – other people moving on with their lives. Finding partners, settling down. Heading for Forever Married, those broad waters.

Waters whose sunny surface I’m not sure I’ll ever see.

I tell Ed about my time with Mike. Not that it matters really, but I’d rather that if Ed heard it from anyone, he heard it from me.

We eat. Talk. Yawn.

Another evening, I see Penry. Sort out money stuff: him paying me back, because Watkins has settled his fees and expenses directly.

I say thanks. For the money, yes, but more for the help.

He
de nada
s me. Tells me Watkins has given him a stellar reference. That various security jobs are opening up for him. ‘Boring as fuck, to be honest, but proper jobs. Ones I can do without messing up. I’ll be OK.’

Nor do I forget Honnold, the man whose ship I sank and who nevertheless chose to save me when a hundred others wouldn’t. I send him flowers. Send him three bottles of single malt whisky, ones not available through regular shops, but direct from the distillery. Send him also a catering size tin of macaroni cheese plus a six-pack of tinned pilchards, the cheapest brand I can find.

I cannot repay his kindness, but I can make him drunk and I can make him smile. And smiles are precious.

The dead, they matter too. They ask for my attention and I am happy to give it.

I go out to Gower. Moon’s churchyard. Lay flowers there. Don’t see the girl. Don’t feel Moon, not really. He’s gone from me now. I miss him, but it’s a good sort of missing. Sad and sweet like the end of a romantic weepie.

Fly to Virginia again. To Livesey’s memorial service, held in a little white church, under a flagpole, looking out over those wide American seas.

Lowe is there. I give him a short summary of what happened. Thank him for his help. ‘Proud I could be of service,’ he says and is clearly happy that his assessment of the
Isobel Baker
was proved sound. ‘But why did she sink? I don’t see why a ship like that would sink.’

I don’t enlighten him.

Carolyn Sharma is busy, of course. She, together with Livesey’s mother and brother, is at the centre of these solemn proceedings. But we still have time for a private word.

I don’t tell her most of what transpired. She doesn’t need to know. Doesn’t want to, even. But I tell her the bit she does need. The thing that lets her little ship move on, to whatever seas await her next.

In the subdued light of the church porch, a light softened by the God within, the sea without, I tell her, ‘We got the sonsofbitches, Carolyn. The main man and half his people too. We haven’t yet got the others, but we will. The case isn’t closed. It’s still active. And we’ll get them all.’

‘The main man. Your British courts. I don’t know . . .?’

I laugh. ‘We don’t really go in for your kind of sentencing. No death penalties. No life plus ninety-nine years. But a crime like this one? Two murders. Highly premeditated. Plenty of aggravating factors. You’re looking at a forty year minimum term, I’d say, before he can even think of applying for parole. He’s mid-fifties now and prison isn’t kind.’

Sharma plucks at the shoulder of the black suit she’s wearing. A hot thing to wear in this Virginian summer.

‘Thank you. I don’t know why it matters really. But thank you.’

‘It doesn’t matter. That’s the truth. It makes no difference, but we still have to do it.’

People are drifting from the church to a hotel over the road, where I can see waitresses move on a shaded terrace. Awnings and white linen.

Sharma gives me one of her shoulder punches. ‘Officer Griffiths, I think I’m going to go get hammered.’ And we walk together to the hotel.