Time and Tide: A DC Smith Investigation Read online

  She could, then, leave the envelope until tomorrow – it didn’t have to be opened on her first day in this job. Technically, it should have gone to his line manager but she understood why Smith hadn’t done that; it was no way to welcome your new DI, and under the circumstances Simon Terek might have taken it personally. And it was right that he, Smith, should let her know himself – morally right if not procedurally so.

  Yes, she could leave it until tomorrow. Then she picked it up again, left-handed, and the little sword was in her right. Part of her – she wasn’t sure which part – wanted to know what he had written, of course. Was it just the single sentence required to signal the end of a thirty-year career? Probably, knowing Smith, but there might be more. He might have addressed her personally, have written something that would touch her, even make her cry. He could do that – he could always surprise you.

  The internal phone began to buzz before she could insert the tip of the letter-opener, and she took that as a sign. Dealing with his resignation would be her first job tomorrow morning.

  Superintendent Allen said, ‘Quiet first day, Detective Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I was just thinking the same thing,’ but her thought at that moment had been to wonder what Allen would say if he knew what she was holding in her other hand.

  ‘Well, that’s over now. We’ve been without a DCI for so long they’ve all got into the habit of contacting me directly but this is where you come in, as they say. So, here you go, Alison. Forget about the weekend riots for a moment. Uniform have got a body up at Barnham Staithe.’

  To reach DI Terek’s office, the one that had until so recently been her own, she had to pass room 17, the space shared by Smith’s and Wilson’s teams. She paused and looked in, and it seemed that they were all there, heads down, busy at their screens. Smith sat with his back to her, with Waters at another table to his right and John Murray to his left. It was Serena Butler on the fourth side of the rectangle of desks who noticed her and smiled, and Reeve felt a pang then because that smile was across a greater distance than it would have been only a week ago. She returned it briefly, professionally, and moved away before any of the others noticed her.

  The door to the detective inspector’s office was closed, and Reeve took a moment to organise her thoughts. This was where it could get difficult, at least to begin with. She did not want to tell Terek whom he should send up to Barnham Staithe – that was an operational decision that he should take but he would not know that the harbour was no more than ten miles as the seagull flies from where Smith had his caravan. Would he view being told that as interference or welcome assistance? Reeve had no idea.

  The answer was neither.

  ‘You say he has a caravan, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A caravan on a caravan site?’

  ‘Yes, he does.’

  Terek seemed to find the idea of a policeman spending his leisure time in such a way extraordinary. She could tell him about Sheila, of course, and try to explain why they had wanted somewhere close to home, somewhere quiet but near to the sea and the dunes, but then it would all become very personal. Doing so would only underline to the new inspector that he was an outsider, a stranger who could never be a part of these lives in the way that Reeve herself was, and so, in the end, all she added was, ‘DC knows the area well. If it’s routine, he’ll clear it up quickly.’

  ‘If it’s routine?’

  ‘We get a drowning or two every year. They usually are.’

  ‘I see.’

  Reeve wondered about that. Terek wore spectacles that were small in size but quite thick in the glass, as if he had more problems with his sight than one might expect a police officer to have. One effect was that unless he was looking directly at you, he seemed to be looking very directly somewhere else. And another odd thing that Reeve had noticed already was that the new detective inspector felt under no obligation to keep a conversation going, not even with his line manager on their first day in post.

  After a few moments wondering what it was Terek might be seeing, Reeve said, ‘Yes… So, as we must send at least one detective whenever there is a body involved, we might as well send one who knows the area well.’

  Surely she wouldn’t need to go any further than that.

  Terek looked at his watch and said ‘It’s after three o’clock. This could involve overtime, ma’am.’

  Understandable, perhaps – his not wanting to presume too much on his first case, and different police forces have very different cultures as well as economies where the matter of overtime is concerned.

  Reeve said, ‘You’ll find most of our officers are flexible, Simon. There’s plenty of give and take. Someone like DC wouldn’t even ask unless it was part of a planned operation.’

  Terek didn’t know about the resignation, of course. Should she tell him now and get it over with? Then she reflected that she ought at least to have opened the letter before doing so.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am. That’s useful to know. I think I’ll go myself in this case. I need to familiarise myself with the area and this is a good opportunity. I’ll take Sergeant Smith with me. We can chat along the way.’

  Good idea, she thought, as she walked away from his office – and in my ideal world I’d wire your car before you go and listen in to that conversation. What I wouldn’t give to have a recording of your little chat along the way.

  Chapter Three

  Detective Inspector Reeve would have been disappointed. She might even have wondered whether the device she had placed in the inspector’s car was working properly because of the long intervals of silence. It wasn’t as if these two men had nothing to talk about – far from it. They already had a most unusual history; last year, one of them had almost arrested the other, and now they might be about to work on a case together.

  After thirty odd years in the business, Smith had a few golden rules for newcomers and for anyone who needed a refresher course or a bit of retraining. He thought this over as his new boss drove the car into the maze of narrow, winding roads beyond Hunston, and concluded that, in fact, all the golden rules could be reduced to one – and that was, assume nothing.

  Half an hour ago, Smith had broken his own golden rule, and he didn’t feel bad about this because experience had also taught him that it’s the golden rules that get broken most often. He had, then, assumed that Detective Inspector Terek – odd surname still, and he never had looked it up – must have had an ulterior motive for getting the two of them out of the office and into a car together. That motive, surely, would be to clear the air about last year and the investigation into the death of Lionel Everett in Littlehill Prison. Having to interview a fellow detective about why his mobile number had been found in the cell of a murdered prisoner was, to say the least, a peculiar start to what now had to be a working relationship, if only for the few weeks that Smith was likely to have left in the job.

  But no, it seemed. They had travelled the eleven miles to Hunston in virtual silence, a silence so complete at times that Smith wondered whether it was actually a virtual reality and someone had forgotten to switch on the sound. He had given directions three or four times, and made one brief comment about the fine weather – to which Terek had simply looked at him oddly and nodded.

  In Terek’s position, of course, Smith would have got the other man to drive. This would not have been to save the old Peugeot’s legs so much as to give himself the opportunity to watch the newcomer as he drove. You can learn a great deal from watching others drive – it’s almost another little window into the soul.

  Detective Inspector Terek and his Vauxhall took speed limit signs as instructions, perhaps even as orders. If the sign said ‘30’, he drove at twenty nine miles an hour, and if it said ‘40’, he drove at thirty nine. The missing one mile an hour was probably to avoid not only a fine but also the points on his licence because it would be wrong for a policeman to have points on his licence… Anyway, this had worked out alright as far as
Hunston, but the roads north and east of the town resemble capillaries when viewed on an old-fashioned map like the one under Smith’s passenger seat in the Peugeot; they lead to little villages with comical names and they are rarely straight for more than fifty yards at a time. Unfortunately, however, the speed limit on most of them was sixty miles an hour and Terek was intent on doing fifty nine.

  Equally unfortunate was the fact that the inspector used only his brakes to slow down – the gearbox never got a look in, and so Terek was driving on his brakes almost constantly, so much so that after a mile or two of this, Smith began to feel a little sea-sick; something that never happened to him on a boat.

  He knew the road intimately and could drive from his home to the caravan with barely a touch on the brakes. He also knew which stretches were likely to have the serious, coastal path walkers and which ones would have the day-trippers going for a wander away from the beach; if Terek kept this up, he’d have more than points on his licence, he’d have blood on his bumper. But criticising another man’s driving? Your new boss’s driving?

  ‘There’s a tight bend into Upper Snoring, sir – just up ahead.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Smith took hold of the courtesy handle above the door to counter the centrifugal force that was about to throw him into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Let me know when we reach it, then.’

  ‘We’ve just gone through it, sir.’

  ‘These roads are a nightmare, aren’t they?’

  ‘Absolutely, sir. Fortunately, the crime rate is low. We don’t have to come out here very often.’

  ‘OK, good, more local knowledge imparted. How much further to Barnhouse?’

  ‘Barnham, sir. Just another five miles…’

  The Staithe has a charm all its own. Painters still go there to paint, sailors to sail, walkers to walk along the coastal path, and many others come simply to look at a scene that can have changed little over the centuries once one has left the car-park behind. The saltmarshes through which the many creeks wind are as flat as any horizon can be, interrupted only by the thin, scratchy vertical lines of the masts of many little sailing boats, with their lines that tink and rattle in the sea breezes.

  Smith got out of the car feeling strangely grateful that he had made it one more time to one of Sheila’s favourite places. He took a deep breath of the marsh air, which is subtly different to sea air, and thought, next spring I might finally do it – I might finally buy one of those little dinghies and go paddling about all day. I might live my life ruled by the tide and not by the time on someone else’s clock.

  A pleasant thought, interrupted by Detective Inspector Terek saying, ‘Which of these buildings is the office? Where will we find this Mr Cole?’

  At least Terek hadn’t asked where the body would be. That was perfectly obvious from the squad car parked outside a long, low boatshed down by the nearest creek; a few people were hanging around there, and Smith could see these were locals, the men who run other boats out to the seals, the men who still put in a few lobster pots for old times’ sake and the men who fix other men’s boats. One of the uniformed officers from Hunston was among them, listening, nodding and joining in with the conversation.

  Terek said, ‘All very casual, isn’t it?’

  Smith didn’t respond to that – it was what it was. Out here, things slow down just a little. A detective must attend every scene at which a body is discovered, and that’s why the people were waiting around – they might as well have a chat while they did so. And no-one could say that the detectives hadn’t got here as quickly as possible.

  ‘Mr Cole’s office is in the nearest building, sir. That black shed.’

  Terek moved straight away, obviously feeling no need to have a word first; Smith watched him go for a few moments, shrugged and then followed.

  When he got inside, he found Sam Cole standing behind his tiny, paper-smothered desk and staring down at DI Terek. Janie Cole was sitting in the corner with a mug of tea, a look of surprise on her face. Terek had surely not had time to offend anyone but somehow things hadn’t begun as well as they might.

  Cole saw Smith then, and said, ‘Ah, they’ve sent the big guns as well. Hello, sergeant.’

  ‘Hello, Sam. Hello, Janie.’

  The girl said, ‘Hello – long time, no see. Would you like a mug of tea?’

  She seemed pointedly to be addressing only Smith. What on earth had Terek managed to say in the ten seconds he had been in the office before Smith arrived?

  Smith said, ‘Maybe afterwards, Janie. Better get this nasty business out of the way first. Sam, this is Detective Inspector Terek from Kings Lake Central police – Detective Inspector Terek, this is Sam Cole, sole proprietor of Cole’s Seal Adventures, and now Marine Rescue and Recovery Services.’

  Cole took another look at the stranger now, before he said, ‘Detective Inspector? Sorry – thought you were the latest recruit. My mistake.’

  The office was tiny, no bigger than the galley on an inshore trawler, and when Sam Cole held out his large hand towards the inspector, Terek didn’t have to move to take it. He did so, and Smith caught the glance from Janie that said, that’s for your benefit, no-one else’s.

  Smith said then, ‘Right, Sam - tell us what happened this afternoon.’

  At the end of the story, Smith had said to Sam Cole, ‘So where do you think he might have gone in?’ Now the two of them were standing in front of the ancient, faded and tattered chart of the local coastline pinned to a board that was nailed to the wall behind the desk; Terek and the girl stood further back, watching and listening.

  Cole said, ‘Difficult to be precise, as you well know. One thing I can say for certain is, if he didn’t go in here, meaning the Staithe, then he went in somewhere east of us. Everything travels that way unless we’ve had strong northerlies and we haven’t had none of those for months.’

  ‘So he might have gone in here at the Staithe and drifted about for a bit?’

  ‘S’possible. But no-one’s recognised him. We’ve all had a look. No-one remembers him hanging about here.’

  Terek had been silent for some minutes but couldn’t restrain himself at that.

  ‘Mr Cole. The body hasn’t been on show, has it? It’s very important that no-one has touched it or interfered with it in any way.’

  Sam Cole’s mouth worked a little before he said, ‘He’s laid out on a couple of planks across a couple of trestles. Not much of a show, so we haven’t charged for entry but any donations to the Seaman’s Mission will be appreciated. Far as I know, no-one’s had the urge to interfere with the poor sod – we’ll leave that to your lot.’

  Smith said, ‘Sam, any idea how long he might have been in the water?’

  Behind him, Smith sensed Terek’s disapproval but they had to get on; if the inspector managed to get out of here with only wounded sensibilities, he could consider himself lucky. Sam Cole was not a man noted for his patience and forbearance.

  ‘The water’s as warm now as it ever gets, so… Look, I’ve seen a few pulled out over the years, ’specially when I was on the lifeboat. Never before on a seal trip, thank Christ. Your pathologist’ll say to the hour I s’pose but I’d guess he hadn’t been in the water more’n a couple of days.’

  Smith’s attention was back on the chart.

  ‘So if he went in east of here, and if it was about two days ago, how far could he have travelled?’

  Sam Cole took his time, squinting at the map, easing his head back a little because he was, after a lifetime staring at distant objects, a little long-sighted.

  ‘Big tides at the moment, so things tend to go backwards a bit on the ebb. No wind to speak of, so… I wouldn’t think he’s come more’n four or five miles along the coast, ten at the very most. He might’ve gone in somewhere in your neck of the woods, sergeant, assuming you’ve still got that caravan up at Pinewoods.’

  Not everyone can deal with dead bodies. Even among hardened, experienced police officers, some find
it easier than others. Smith had observed in himself a long time ago the ability to be entirely dispassionate about the matter; as a young man, he had stood beside the body of his father in a mortuary and felt mostly surprise that this is how it ends. Death, it seemed. was a series of, a logical sequence of, negatives: the heart is not beating, the lungs are not breathing, the eyes no longer see. It is an absence of positives. When he sat beside Sheila, holding her hand as she died quietly in their own home, he had watched the positives depart, one by one, like migrating birds before the onset of a long winter. Signs of spring had been slow to return after that.

  The little group of men fell silent as the detectives and Sam Cole approached, passed by them and entered the boatshed. Inside, it was unexpectedly dim and cool. There was a light on, suspended over the makeshift table where the body lay, covered in a tarpaulin, and Smith wondered why we do that. The world over, we cover the body. Are we concealing the departed from the eyes of the world or the world from the now sightless eyes of the dead?