Touch (9 page)

‘I wish I was a tumble dryer, I’d run my program through,’ The soft, husky voice came from DC Kate Simbeck and she smiled as she continued the song. ‘I wish I was a tumble dryer, I’d dry your clothes for you.’

Simbeck didn’t look too keen to get out of the car either, but apart from her hair with its long pony tail, which she wore on the outside of her over-sized Musto, at least she’d stayed dry. As they sat contemplating the rain the windows began to steam up and Tatershall drew a quick stick figure on the windscreen, completing the drawing with a hangman game gallows.

‘That DI Peters?’ Simbeck said.

‘Yuppee doodah. Can’t draw what I’d really like to do to him or we’d have the obscene publications law to deal with.’

Simbeck giggled and the noise and the way her cute little nose wrinkled caused butterflies in Tatershall’s stomach. He wished they had parked somewhere a little more remote and he wasn’t married with three kids. Maybe then she would say ‘yes’ if he asked her for a shag.

Driving somewhere remote wouldn’t be a problem. Within five minutes they could be out of town. Within fifteen Tatershall knew dozens of places quiet enough. The wife and kids were more of an issue though, and the chance of a pretty twenty-something girl saying ‘yes’ to an early fifties guy like him were in the arena of lottery fantasy. Of course, if he’d won the lottery he wouldn’t be on some stupid mispers goose chase involving an elderly couple DI Peters had chosen to push his way. No, he’d be on a golden beach somewhere hot, rubbing suntan oil into Kate’s glorious–

‘Kevin?’ Simbeck pointed out through a patch of window where she had smeared a circular hole in the condensation. A well-filled uniform stood some way up the street looking wet, miserable and not a little angry.

‘Bugger.’ Tatershall sounded the horn, wound down the window and waved at the PC. ‘Over here mate.’

The PC jogged down the pavement, dodging umbrellas, baby buggies and a group of disgruntled tourists. The latter glowered at him as if the local police were responsible for the weather as well as crime. The officer arrived at the car puffing and leaned in, dripping rain and a palpable hostility.

‘You’re late. I was told half past.’

‘You got the keys?’ Tatershall ignored the jibe. ‘Only I’d hate to have made a wasted journey.’

He heard Simbeck stifle a laugh which the PC didn’t catch. The PC nodded and explained he had managed to track down a spare set held by a neighbour in case of emergency. The couple owned a gallery with a flat above, and it only became apparent they’d gone missing when the water company needed access to the rear of the property.

‘I’d noticed the gallery was closed in July,’ the PC said, ‘which I thought a bit odd considering we were at the height of the season. I forgot about it until yesterday when the neighbour called about the water people. I went in with the neighbour to check the flat just in case. Nobody. Fridge empty, place clean, nothing untoward. Well, they have been gone four months now so I thought–’

‘To call in the experts?’ Tatershall heard Simbeck snigger again. ‘You did right, lad. This sort of investigation can be incredibly complicated, but never fear, the Simbeck House Investigation Team Squad are here.’

The PC stared in the window, bemused, but Simbeck had abandoned any semblance of decorum and was laughing her head off.

Tatershall and Simbeck got out of the car and the three of them walked up the road to the gallery front. Tatershall glanced in, noting the usual watercolour rubbish typical of galleries all over the West Country.

‘Shall we?’ The PC opened a door next to the gallery entrance and went into a small lobby, beyond which stairs led up to the flat. A fan of mail lay spread on the doormat and Tatershall told Simbeck to grab the letters and bring them up.

With the gallery below Tatershall had been expecting the flat to be something one step up from the grotty spaces often found above shops, but he was surprised by the luxury as he broached the top of the stairs. The interior of the place had been gutted to make a huge open plan area like something out of one of those TV makeover programmes. A floor-to-ceiling window in the rear wall of the property looked out over the town to Porthmeor Bay and even on a miserable day like today the view was stunning. The furnishings were expensive and low and the style more swish London riverside flat than an old couple’s retirement home.

‘In their seventies?’ Tatershall said, shaking his head.

‘Yes. From London. With money.’ The words came out with resentment attached and Tatershall was tempted to stir the PC up some more, but Simbeck had arrived with the stack of letters.

‘Quiet couple by all accounts,’ the PC continued. ‘Moved here ten years ago, but not many friends and no one who knows where they might have gone to.’

‘Family?’ Tatershall asked.

‘None that we know of.’

‘OK, you can leave it to us now, Constable, I’ve got the notes you emailed me. We’ll drop the keys back at the station when we’ve finished.’

The PC stared out of the window for a moment before grunting and making his way down the stairs, slamming the door as he left.

‘That was a bit harsh, Kev. He was itching to stay out of the rain.’

‘Yeah? Well, I’ve got to take my frustration out on someone haven’t I? We’ve got plenty of stuff to be getting on with back home without having to come over here.’

‘You wouldn’t be moaning if it was a nice summer’s day!’

‘No, but it isn’t a nice summer’s day. That’s the point and DI Peters knows it. I bet he is sitting back at the station with coffee, a plate full of doughnuts and a bloody big grin on his face.’

‘Well, we are here now so we might as well get on with the job.’

Simbeck began sorting the letters on a white oak sideboard while Tatershall slouched into one of the chairs and took in the impressive view.

‘Anything?’ he said after a while, more out of hope than expectation.

‘I’ve found a bank statement. Joint account.’ Simbeck was leafing through the pages. ‘Three months to the end of September. Regular stuff to start with, a supermarket, some other local shops. Then I’ve got a transaction at Tesco Lee Mill for forty quid exactly. 15th July. Petrol.’

‘Where the hell is Lee Mill?’

‘No idea, but it’s not round here.’

‘Anything else?’ Tatershall asked.

‘A cashpoint withdrawal same day. Fifty pounds. Dartmouth.’

‘Dartmouth? Well that’s this one sussed. They’re on bloody holiday! Case solved, closed, finito. I’ll buy you lunch in the pub and then we can get back, and if you are a good girl I will let you do the paperwork.’ Tatershall struggled to push himself upright from the embrace of the soft leather sofa.

‘I don’t think so, sir. There are a couple more standing orders but no more EPS transactions. The cash withdrawal was over four months ago now. Since then nothing.’

‘They are using the cash.’

‘Fifty quid, boss? You’re joking, right? Think about how far fifty quid would go if you were on holiday here. Can’t see Dartmouth being much different.’

‘Could be they lost the card and are using another bank account or a credit card.’

‘Could be. But why, when you live here, would you go on holiday in Dartmouth? It is a hundred miles away, but not much of a change. And for four months? What would they be doing over there all this time? You are forgetting the gallery too. They wouldn’t leave it unattended.’ Simbeck was looking through the rest of the mail. ‘I don’t buy that. Call it women’s intuition, superior detective ability or whatever you like, but I think something has happened to them. I don’t think this story has got a happy ending. Here, look at this.’

Simbeck had opened another piece of mail and she walked across and handed the letter to Tatershall. At the top the blue NHS logo stood above the address for the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro. Below, the contents of the letter detailed a missed appointment at the Sunrise Centre.

‘What’s the Sunrise Centre?’ He asked Simbeck.

‘My gran was there, it’s oncology. The big “C”. Cancer.’

Tatershall let himself slump back in the sofa and stared out at the view again. Atlantic rollers surged into the bay to crash against the shore and the sandy beach looked nothing like it did in the summer, deserted and strewn with flotsam as it was. Farther out a fog was creeping in across the grey sea and Tatershall felt that the world had got just a little bit grimmer.

*

During a bad winter, snow covered Dartmoor for weeks burying everything but the dark granite tors beneath a rolling expanse of white. The tors stuck out like the proverbial and DS Darius Riley did too. Devon didn’t do black. At first Riley hadn’t much liked Devon either, but he hadn’t had a choice in the matter. Up in London some people fancied burying him, not in snow, but six feet under. He had been undercover for the last year he had been there, deep in the heart of the organised crime gangs and, in the end, in deep shit because he had been blown out by a woman he’d got too close to. Escaping with just two cracked ribs from a nasty beating had been a bonus. After the inquiry into what had gone wrong moving had been the only option offered to him, and Plymouth at least promised something different from what he had been used to. And it was different. Once you ventured outside of the major metropolitan areas black officers were a rarity, and Devon and Cornwall Constabulary followed the pattern. Less than one per cent of the force came from an ethnic minority background. That could make things difficult, but at least he wasn’t in uniform. A black colleague had told him about Saturday nights on patrol in the town centre mopping up the idiots spilling out from the clubs. It didn’t bear thinking about.

Even in CID Riley still encountered times when an undercurrent of racism bubbled to the surface. Just last week an old lady had looked twice at his warrant card before letting him into her house, and when she had made the tea she had brought out a multitude of different biscuits because ‘I didn’t know what kind you coloureds liked’. He supposed most people would have called her behaviour misguided but harmless. In Riley’s view her words showed ignorance at best, blatant prejudice at worst.

On the other hand he didn’t want to return to the Met nor would he have been allowed to. Since the move out west he’d got used to a more relaxed and less dangerous way of life. And, although it sounded clichéd, he sometimes sensed a genuine feeling of community he hadn’t known in London.

At the moment community spirit was working against him and Enders. They were at Tamar Yacht Fitters talking to employees about David Forester and getting nowhere fast. As they wandered about the workshop and strolled along the pontoons they encountered no one willing to say much about Forester, good or bad.

Tamar Yacht Fitters stood on the banks of the river, just opposite Princess Yachts. A hangar with sliding doors big enough to accommodate a twenty five metre boat sat above a wharf with half a dozen pontoons crammed with gleaming white motor yachts. The location was no coincidence because Tamar were specialists at fitting out the huge gin palaces Princess produced. Gavin Redmond, the managing director, had a trim, athletic figure for his fifty something years and his face still glowed with a tan gained from a summer on the water. He explained that for a buyer wanting more than the basics, they were the first choice.

‘HD radar, security systems, underwater lighting, marine computers. You name it, we fit it.’

Redmond had shown them around a huge boat considerably more spacious than Riley’s flat and many times as expensive. Back in Redmond’s office, a smart new prefab in one corner of the yard, Enders seemed to be having a hard time understanding the market.

‘So what you are saying is you spend a couple of million on a boat and then you’ve got to pay more for some extra goodies?’

‘That’s the long and short of it. Think of a boat like your house. You buy a nice new place so you need some nice new things as well, like an HD TV or one of those American-style fridges. The cost is peanuts compared to what you have paid for the house. Same here. Or maybe you have bought a used boat a couple of years old. The equipment may be a bit last generation instead of next and you don’t want your mates to think you are stingy. Basically boys love toys, and we provide those toys. For a price.’

‘David Forester.’ Riley brought the conversation back to the purpose behind their visit. ‘Your employees don’t seem very pleased to be asked questions about him. Any particular reason?’

Redmond sighed. ‘Forester wasn’t a pleasant type of bloke. He was a big hulk of a guy, liked a drink, a bit rough. Nobody wanted to get on the wrong side of him. Funny, when he first came to work here a few years ago he was OK, a bit shy even. However, in the last year he was here he became more difficult, and I must admit I was thinking we might have to let him go.’

‘But you didn’t?’

‘Not at the time. He was good at his job. Not a bright kid, but he knew his way around computers and was a wizard at sorting out the CCTV and video stuff some people want on board. But then we had a little incident.’

‘Go on,’ encouraged Riley.

‘Forester was installing a marine computer on a yacht and setting up the WIFI system. I discovered he had downloaded a porn movie to show to some of the lads here.’

‘So? Looks like a bit of porn is about par for the course.’ Riley pointed out a calendar on the wall with a picture of a big motor yacht and a babe. Bronze flesh lay across moulded GRP and spotless teak and the viewer didn’t have to guess if the girl’s blonde hair was natural.

‘This wasn’t like that,’ Redmond said. ‘That’s marketing. What Forester had downloaded disturbed me.’

‘Kiddie stuff?’

‘No. If it had been I would have sacked him, called you guys too. This was a woman tied up, beer bottle and worse. The content was probably nothing illegal assuming it was consensual, but it wasn’t nice. The thing was, a load of them were watching at lunch time and one of the girls from the office came down to see what they were up to. She wasn’t amused, mentioned the magic word “harassment” and threatened to go to a solicitor. One of those advertising in the local papers.’