Body Line

away. The old man remained where he was, staring up the river, to show he hadn’t been talking to them at all.

The coastguard on duty, Steve Wilderspin, was a fatherly-looking middle-aged man whose firm face suggested a core of steel and whose level, noticing eyes wouldn’t have been out of place on a policeman. He reminded Slider of Dave Bright. He examined Slider’s and Atherton’s warrant cards with professional swiftness, and showed no surprise when Slider asked him about the Windhover.

‘We’ve been watching her for a while,’ he said. ‘We thought it was a bit odd the doc berthed her here, instead of the marina at Lowestoft. Nothing strange about a rich London consultant wanting a place in Southwold,’ he was quick to add. ‘We’ve got a few of that sort, I can tell you. Barristers, hedge fund managers, all sorts of top people. It’s that kind of place. But Windhover’s a showy craft, the sort people like to show off when they’ve sunk that much money into it. And Doc Rogers wasn’t showing her off to anyone. No parties, no pals down from London for weekend cruises. He didn’t even join the Yacht Club. A man doesn’t buy a super speed cruiser like that and then not talk to anyone about it.’ His eyes crinkled with amusement at the thought. ‘There was only half a dozen Mark IIs ever made, and four of them are in the States. Who ever heard of an owner not wanting to boast about that sort of thing?’

‘You’re right,’ Slider said.

‘And she’s fast,’ Wilderspin went on, ‘and built for the open seas. What was he doing poodling about coastal waters with his once-a-week fishing trips? But on the other hand, a man can spend his money on anything he likes. It’s a free country. If he wants to waste a power-craft like that, it’s his business.’ He looked at Slider. ‘There’s plenty of rich people with Maseratis and nowhere to let ’em out, am I right? And driving bloody great off-roaders around Kensington and Chelsea.’

‘Exactly,’ said Slider.

‘So we just kept an eye on him. And we’ve never seen him bringing anything bulky off the Windhover. So unless he was smuggling diamonds—’ He shrugged.

‘You didn’t ever try to inspect his luggage?’

Wilderspin’s sea-faded eyes opened a fraction. ‘Can’t do that. Especially not to a respectable Southwold resident. No evidence against him.’

‘What if you knew he was meeting another craft out at sea?’

‘Ah,’ Wilderspin said with satisfaction. ‘That’d be different. Have you got something?’

Slider said, ‘The one time he took someone with him he had a close encounter with a boat called Havik.’ He spelled it. ‘From a Dutch port beginning with “I”.’

‘IJmuiden,’ Wilderspin said at once. ‘Lay you any money. IJmuiden port and marina – practically the first place you come to if you sail straight from Southwold to Holland.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘That gives us something to work with. It could be diamonds, in that case. IJmuiden’s only a stone’s throw from Amsterdam, which is the biggest centre for diamond distribution on the continent.’ He looked consideringly at Slider and Atherton. ‘To find out anything more, I’m going to have to refer this upwards, to get co-operation with the Dutch coastguards. Is that going to mess up your case?’

‘Can you hold off for a bit?’ Slider said. ‘I’m going to have to refer upwards as well. And if there is a big operation going on, we don’t want to spook them before we’ve laid our hands on the murderer.’

‘Fair enough,’ Wilderspin said. ‘Can’t have people murdering our citizens with impunity.’

‘Funny thing is,’ Atherton said when they left, ‘I’m pretty sure he meant Southwold citizens, not British citizens.’

‘Wouldn’t surprise me a bit,’ said Slider from the depth of furious thinking.

Mackay was duty officer, and Hollis was there, doing a bit of office-managering on his own account, because he wasn’t getting on with his second wife and liked to get out of the house when he could. Porson had arrived by the time Slider and Atherton got back, and they all gathered round him in the CID room, as he sat on the edge of Atherton’s desk (always the tidiest) and fiddled with a biro, clicking the end in and out like Edmundo Ros on speed.

‘Smuggling, eh?’ he said thoughtfully, when they had told the whole story of the boat.

‘Windhover being the name of the organization that was paying his salary, unless Rogers was just being clever about it, it’s tempting to think they also bought him the boat, or owned it and lent it to him for the purpose,’ Slider said.

‘That would make it a criminal organization,’ Hollis said. ‘A diamond smuggling ring. They paid him a retainer through his bank and then a cash bonus on top whenever he did a job.’

‘That works all right,’ Mackay said. ‘Explains why he had all the cash, and not too much on his credit card. But who were the jokers he was wining and dining?’

‘Customers for the diamonds,’ Hollis said. ‘Rich Arabs and Indians and suchlike – the kind of people that do buy diamonds.’

‘It explains Southwold and it explains the secrecy,’ Atherton said. ‘He’s not going to tell his female conquests that he’s a smuggler. Important secret work sounds much better for wifey, and consultant will do for anyone he’s not going to know for long.’

‘Talking of consultants, why did Sir Bernard Webber say he hadn’t seen Rogers in years?’ Slider said. ‘Helen Aldous says Rogers dropped in from time to time at Cloisterwood to see Webber.’

Porson said, ‘Aldous left Cloisterwood in – what was it, ’04? You don’t know that Rogers went there after that. That’s years.’

‘True,’ Slider said. ‘It’s just that Webber seemed keen to dissociate himself.’

‘If he thought Rogers was a bad hat,’ Hollis said, ‘that’s not surprising, is it, guv? He’d want to keep the reputation of his hospital spotless. And he did get him a job.’

‘And he got one for Aldous,’ Porson remarked. ‘Bit of a night of shining ardour, if you ask me.’

‘The consultant with the heart of gold. Can’t be many of them around,’ Atherton said.

‘Don’t be cynical,’ Slider berated him.

‘I wasn’t really,’ Atherton said. ‘But what with Aldous saying Rogers was a fluffy white bunny rabbit, I’m just longing for a real baddy to turn up.’

‘Sturgess,’ Mackay said. ‘Pin your hopes on her, Jimbo.’

‘Ah yes, the Rosa Klebb of our story. But how do we tie her in with diamond smuggling? Can you see her as the Moriarty, squatting at the centre of a vast criminal web?’

‘Not exactly living in the lap, is she?’ Porson said.

‘We do know she lied to us, that she had recent contact with Rogers,’ Slider said. ‘And that she had more money than we can account for – investing in the stables and the agency. And just because she isn’t smothered in furs, it doesn’t mean she’s not spending. She could be using it for the benefit of others.’

‘Giving it all to charity?’ Porson barked, as though it was a ludicrous idea. Then he modified it. ‘Well, maybe. Alterism can turn into an obsession. Doesn’t do to misunderestimate these do-gooders.’

‘The Bob Geldof syndrome,’ Atherton said.

Porson nodded. ‘They can be as capacious as anyone spending it on themselves.’ He lapsed into thought, bending the biro now between his large, strong hands.

‘Just have to wait and see what Norma comes up with,’ Hollis said.

‘Angela Fraser did say Sturgess is out networking all the time,’ Atherton remembered. ‘Supposed to be fund- raising, but who knows? Could be fund-spending. Or Moriartying.’

‘Smuggling,’ Porson pondered again, staring at nothing. The biro gave up and snapped in two with a sharp sound. He put the pieces down absently and said, looking at Slider, ‘Diamonds are all very well, diamonds makes sense up to a point, but week in week out, year after year? That sounds more like something perishable. Something that gets used up so you need more of it. Get me?’

Slider nodded. ‘I did wonder about that. There is something else Holland is famous for.’

‘Drugs.’ Mackay got there. ‘And he worked for a drug company, didn’t he?’

‘Not the same kind of drugs,’ Atherton said, as to an idiot.

Mackay looked indignant. ‘I know that, but pharmaceutical drugs can get smuggled as well, can’t they, new ones, or expensive ones not available on the NHS?’

‘Recreational drugs make more sense,’ Atherton said.

‘Well,’ Porson said, apparently coming to a decision and climbing off the desk, ‘there’s nothing more for you