A Death at South Gare Read online

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapters

  One

  Eleven

  Twenty-one

  Thirty-one

  Two

  Twelve

  Twenty-two

  Thirty-two

  Three

  Thirteen

  Twenty-three

  Thirty-three

  Four

  Fourteen

  Twenty-four

  Thirty-four

  Five

  Fifteen

  Twenty-five

  Thirty-five

  Six

  Sixteen

  Twenty-six

  Thirty-six

  Seven

  Seventeen

  Twenty-seven

  Thirty-seven

  Eight

  Eighteen

  Twenty-eight

  Thirty-eight

  Nine

  Nineteen

  Twenty-nine

  Ten

  Twenty

  Thirty

  By the same author

  Copyright

  This one is for John

  Chapter One

  There was only the one vehicle on top of the breakwater at the mouth of the Tees that day. It was a big pickup truck, parked hard against the high steel fence that stopped vehicles going any further. I walked past the truck and down some steps to the next level of the breakwater. Three men were walking towards me from the far end. They didn’t look like sea anglers.

  They were bunched together and they carried neither rods nor the usual clutter of bags, baskets and bait buckets. Dressed in heavy-duty industrial jackets, trousers and boots, they had their heads ducked down out of the wind and spray until they noticed me. I nodded to the one nearest me as we passed. He blanked me with a hard stare. So did the other two. Tough guys, eh? I thought with a rueful smile. I walked on.

  I sensed them stopping and turning round to look after me, but I kept going. They might have a problem, but I certainly didn’t. I didn’t have a problem in the world. Not that day. Not yet anyway.

  Early March. Mid-week, mid-afternoon. Sunny, but bitterly cold in the strong wind. I was anticipating a raging high tide, a spring tide at that. Earth, sun and moon all in line, and the pull of gravity to match. The prediction for today was 5.9 metres, which would be close to the highest level ever recorded here of 6 metres.

  I felt exhilarated as I saw the sheets of spray sweeping through the air at the far end of the South Gare, the big ones reaching up to dash against the lighthouse on the top level. The tumble of huge concrete blocks protecting the end and the sides of the breakwater were doing their best to break up the sea’s onslaught, but they were engulfed by a tumult of white water and were scarcely even visible today.

  My pace faltered as the sea came foaming over the end and swept along the broad platform of rough concrete towards me. I scrambled a few feet up the sloping wall to get out of the way and took to the narrow ledge that runs round the end of the breakwater, just below the lighthouse. But I didn’t go much further. The end of the Gare was out of bounds to sensible people on a day like this.

  For a few moments, I stood still and savoured the power and beauty of the sea in all its fury. The roaring and pounding was overwhelming. Clouds of spray swept over me, icy sheets of hissing sea mist that soaked as they touched and made me wince and shut my eyes. I opened them again and prepared to retreat.

  That was when I saw a flash of something yellow tossed up in a wave, about ten metres out. I watched and saw it rise to a height and crash back down again, to disappear in the cauldron of foaming, churning sea.

  The yellow object reappeared half a minute later. I could see what it was then. For a brief moment that lasted a hundred years I saw that it was a man, a man in a yellow high-visibility jacket, his mouth open as if crying for help or screaming with terror. Then he was gone. I waited, nerves on edge, shocked beyond belief, but I didn’t see him again.

  There was nothing to be done. Not by me anyway, and not by anybody else in this world. Feeling sick, I worked my way back from my ridiculously exposed vantage point and climbed up to the safety of the top level of the breakwater, just below the lighthouse. Then I stood for a moment and processed what I had seen. A man. No doubt about it. A man beyond help in this life.

  The three tough guys who had passed me were gone, as was the vehicle that must have brought them. There was no-one else in sight either when I jogged back.

  I guessed I was probably the only person here now. The lighthouse had operated automatically for many years, and there was no longer a coastguard post or a lifeboat at the South Gare. There might have been someone in the old pilot station, I suppose, some sort of volunteer perhaps, but it seemed unlikely. That had been downgraded or abandoned, too. The pilot cutters operated from a base further up the river these days.

  I hurried along, although in truth there was no need to hurry. None at all. There was nothing to be done now but pick up the pieces.

  Back at the Land Rover, I ducked gratefully out of the wind and started the engine, turning the heater full on. Then I phoned Bill Peart, my detective pal on the Cleveland Force. It wasn’t a detective that was needed right now but I couldn’t face going through all the hoops you encounter when you phone the emergency number. All that giving of information and personal details first to some civilian support person – who probably doesn’t know the location you’re talking about, and is just operating from a crib sheet – before you can even get to say why you called.

  ‘What can I do for you, Frank?’

  ‘Are you having a good day?’

  There was a pause before he said, ‘I was. What do you want?’

  ‘I’m at the South Gare.’

  ‘In this weather? You must be mad. You’re . . .’

  ‘You’re right. I must be. I’ve just seen a man in the sea, Bill. Off the end.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘What do you think on a day like this? Just before I saw him, I passed three hard cases coming away from the end of the breakwater. They were the only people around, and they must have known and seen what had happened. There’s even a possibility they put the man there.’

  He didn’t miss a beat. Probably he was used to stuff like this in his job.

  ‘Stay where you are, Frank. I’ll get a car there in a few minutes, and I’ll be down myself in fifteen.’

  Then he rang off, not troubling to say good-bye, or thank-you for letting me know. None of that civilized stuff that’s supposed to make us members of the public feel good about reporting ‘incidents’ to the police.

  So I had to stay here, did I? Shit! I wished I’d waited till I’d got home before phoning him.

  As it happened, I couldn’t have left immediately anyway. When I got out of the vehicle to put my wet gear in the back, I noticed I had a completely flat tyre. Now how had that come about?

  Nothing wrong with the tyre, I realized, when I tried to blow it up again. It was just that someone had pulled out the valve and let the air escape. I swore, gritted my teeth and wondered who the hell that could have been.

  The uniforms arrived first, two of them in a Volvo saloon. They couldn’t have been very thrilled about being sent to the South Gare on a day like that, but they were very good about it. Pleasant and respectful, and eager to hear what little I had to tell them. They listened without interrupting. Then they left me sitting in the Land Rover while they drove towards the end of the breakwater, to see if they could see what I’d seen.

  Bill Peart wasn’t very long after them. By then I’d put in a new valve from the repair kit I carry, got the tyre blown back up and was just putting the pump away. He waved me over and I went to join
him in the super-heated atmosphere of his Volvo four-by-four.

  ‘What are you doing here today?’ was his opening remark.

  ‘Not much.’ I shrugged. ‘It was just a spontaneous decision. I remembered there was a high tide today, and came to see how it was getting on.’

  ‘Don’t you have enough of the sea at your place?’

  ‘It’s different here.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. It’s like being in the middle of the North Sea!’

  He shivered and added, ‘Are our lads here yet?’

  I nodded. ‘They drove further on, to see what they can see. Not much, probably.’

  ‘So what did you see?’

  ‘Not much either. Just a brief sighting.’

  ‘You couldn’t have been mistaken?’

  I shook my head. I knew he had to ask questions like that but I was growing weary of it all already. I was beginning to wish I’d seen nothing at all, or not bothered coming here in the first place.

  ‘Wearing a yellow safety jacket, you said?’

  I nodded this time. ‘That’s what it looked like.’

  ‘Not an angler, then?’

  ‘Well . . . it could have been, I suppose. I don’t really know.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else about the body, apart from the yellow jacket?’

  I turned to look directly at him then.

  ‘I saw him trying to scream, Bill. That good enough for you?’

  ‘Jesus, Frank!’ he said, shaking his head.

  We talked a bit more about the weather, the sea and how it was utterly impossible to have done anything about the guy in the water. Even without going to the end of the breakwater, Bill knew what it was like along there. So he didn’t blame me for not jumping in and trying to perform miracles. Even if I had jumped in, the sea would just have thrown me right back out again. I wouldn’t have got anywhere near the man in the water.

  Then I told him again about the three tough guys.

  ‘Connected, you think?’

  I nodded. ‘Like I said, I think they might have put him there.’

  ‘Any evidence?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t see them do it, if that’s what you mean.’

  Bill sighed and said, ‘I really wish you hadn’t phoned me, Frank. I was having such a good day.’

  I ignored that and started up again. I wasn’t prepared to keep all this to myself.

  ‘He could only have been in the water a couple of minutes, at most. And where they were coming from, they must have at least seen him. So even if it was an accident, or a suicide, you would expect them to report it. I take it no-one has?’

  Bill shook his head. ‘Not yet anyway.’

  ‘Plus, someone took the valve out of my tyre and let it down, which meant there was no possibility of me taking off after them even if I’d wanted to.’

  ‘All circumstantial.’

  ‘All the same. . . .’

  ‘All the same,’ he agreed.

  He asked me about the men. I couldn’t tell him a lot. Mid to late-thirties, perhaps. They wore industrial clothing and boots. And they had looked a mean bunch.

  ‘No safety helmets or hats?’

  I shook my head. ‘They could have left them in the vehicle.’

  ‘Tell me about that.’

  ‘A big pick-up. Heavy duty. Double cab. American style, but probably Japanese.’

  ‘Colour, make?’

  ‘Silver. Muddy. I didn’t notice the make. Maybe a Toyota. That’s about it.’

  Bill shut his notebook. Then we sat in silence for a minute or two. I was thinking about the poor bastard in the water. I had no idea what Bill was thinking about. Where to get a cup of coffee, probably. We were a long way from a café.

  ‘It’s not a lot to go on,’ he said eventually.

  I agreed.

  ‘Gangland, a vendetta?’ he added.

  ‘I don’t know, Bill. But pretty bad stuff, whatever it was.’

  ‘Amen to that.’

  The uniforms returned soon afterwards. They said they had seen nothing but a lot of sea. I wasn’t surprised. If they had been anywhere near the end of the breakwater, they were lucky to have got back again. And the tide still wasn’t up to its full height yet.

  Bill told them to stay there and keep an eye on the beach until someone was sent to relieve them. Eventually the body would reappear, he said, probably on the beach after the tide turned.

  The two constables didn’t look thrilled about that but there was nothing else to be done. Bill talked about alerting Search and Rescue and the RNLI as well. That seemed to cheer them up a bit, knowing someone else was going to be involved, but I knew it wasn’t going to shorten their vigil.

  Turning to me, he said, ‘You might as well be on your way, Frank. I’ll look in on you, or give you a call, when I have something.’

  ‘Next year, then?’

  He grinned at last. ‘With what you’ve given me to go on, it might well be next year!’

  Chapter Two

  I called to see Jac Picknett before I went home. She had an art gallery in Middlesbrough, and occasionally we did things together. Slept together mostly. We got on fine but neither of us was the committing kind. Maybe we just hadn’t met the right person yet. In her case, I was certain of it. She deserved better than me, a lot better.

  ‘Well, look at you!’ she said with a particularly lovely smile as I crossed the threshold of her workplace. ‘Just as I was thinking no-one ever visits me these days.’

  ‘I came to see your latest exhibition, actually,’ I told her. ‘What is it this month?’

  ‘This month we feature seascapes by up-and-coming regional painters.’

  I shuddered. ‘I’ve seen enough of the sea for one day. Can we go and eat, or have a coffee or something?’

  ‘Ten minutes, Frank. Just give me ten minutes.’

  I did. I spent the time not looking at the paintings in the exhibition.

  Then we visited an Italian restaurant nearby that seemed to serve as Jac’s dining room, she was there so often.

  ‘I’m very busy,’ she explained, ‘or we could have gone further afield, and then gone on home afterwards.’

  I nodded, disappointed to hear we weren’t going on home afterwards.

  ‘So what are you busy with?’ I asked.

  ‘Our next exhibition. It’s not coming together very well, I’m afraid. Artists,’ she added with a shrug, ‘can be very difficult at times.’

  Probably. But there are worse people in the world than artists. I was still thinking of men in industrial boots.

  ‘How about you, Frank? How are you doing?’

  I shrugged. ‘I need to find another paying client sometime soon, but today that’s been the least of my worries.’

  I told her about my visit to the South Gare, and the body in the water. She frowned and looked thoughtful.

  ‘Not nice,’ she decided. ‘Poor man. Who on earth could it have been, I wonder?’

  I shook my head. ‘They’ll find out eventually, but not necessarily soon. Anyway, it will give Bill Peart something to get his teeth into.’

  ‘Oh, yes! Bill. How is he?’

  ‘The same. He doesn’t change much.’

  Jac smiled, and then laughed. ‘Whenever I think of him,’ she confessed. ‘I see a worried man. Is he always like that?’

  ‘Most of the time. But you should see him when he’s just caught a fish. He’s a different person then.’

  ‘Hmm,’ she mused. ‘I’d like to see that. I really would.’

  That’s what Bill and I did from time to time. Went fishing together. From my place at Risky Point, down the Cleveland coast, it’s an easy thing to do.

  ‘I sometimes think the fishing is the only reason he stays in touch with me,’ I added.

  ‘Surely not? What about all the cases you solve for him, all those little mysteries where he doesn’t make any progress at all until you come along?’

  ‘Sssh! He might hear you. Anyway, this one has nothin
g to do with me – thank God! I’m not going anywhere near it. He’ll have to solve it all by himself.’

  Jac laughed. She threw her head back and laughed, laughed enough to make people at other tables smile and glance at me with envy. And make me ache to lean forward and lick her long, smooth, creamy throat.

  It was late that night when I got back to Risky Point. I climbed out of the car and stopped for a moment to look at the sky. Perfectly clear. No moon, but plenty of starlight. My only neighbour, Jimmy Mack, must have gone to bed. There were no lights on in his cottage, or anywhere else for that matter. The world was at peace. Even the sea was quiet now. Low tide, and all the sea was doing was murmuring somewhere near the foot of the cliffs. A beautiful night. I sighed with contentment and headed for my front door.

  As soon as I got inside I saw the flashing light. There were two messages on my phone system. Bill Peart wanted me to call him urgently. I glanced at my watch and decided it could wait. He wouldn’t thank me for getting him out of bed in the small hours.

  The other message put an end to my contentment. It said, more or less: we know who you are, and what you are; we know you are connected to Cleveland police; we know about Miss Jac Picknett. Our very strong advice to you is to forget everything you saw at the South Gare today. Forget you ever even went there, and get on with the rest of your life.

  That was it.

  No overt warning about consequences. There was no need. The message was clear, and as clearly understood. There was no danger of me mistaking its meaning.

  I thought about it. Somebody had been very busy indeed in the last few hours, checking out who the owner of my car was.

  I listened again, and again after that. The voice was middle-class and educated, the accent sort of southern rather than local. The diction was clear. The man was articulate and authoritative. The tone was menacing; the objective clear. The consequences of non-compliance with the suggestion unstated but obvious.

  I mulled it over. If they could get what they wanted this way, the easy way, they seemed to be saying, they would accept it and draw a line underneath. Probably they didn’t want the fuss that a second murder – this time of a private investigator with personal connections to the police – would inevitably create. But they would, in the end, do whatever was necessary. The choice was mine. It was up to me.