Frost sat back on his chair, a grin on his face. ‘DCI Cook, you have got it all wrong. I am an innocent man. Successful, I’ll grant you, and tough with those I deal with, but I am an honest and peaceful man, the sort of person who feels sorry for an animal in distress. I even donate to several charities in the area. Ask around, you’ll find that people don’t always like me, but there is respect.’
***
Ainsley Caxton, a man who had learnt the art of saying little in a police interview, knew nothing about boats, especially the type that showed up on echo sounders. One of the boats from the boatyard, equipped with one to show fish shoals, the depth of the water, picked up the unusual shape.
The initial detection was relayed by the river police to Greenwich Police Station and then on to DCI Isaac Cook, the highest-ranking officer attached to the investigation, even though he was operating outside of his area.
It would be two hours before the police divers could be on station at the location. The boat, almost certainly the one of interest, was resting on the river bottom at a depth of twenty feet. The visibility was virtually zero, although one of the two police boats carried a submersible camera. Lowering it over the side, and taking into account the slow-moving tide, the boat moved up and down over the area. On the third run, with the camera at a depth of fifteen feet, an image could be seen on the monitor in the cabin. It was not clear, but it was recent, and it could only be O’Grady’s boat.
The interview with Caxton was halted for six hours, long enough to allow a full investigation of the sunken boat in the River Thames. Caxton had been brought in for murder, so the twenty-four-hour deadline before charging or release did not apply. He could be held for thirty-six hours, subject to the inevitable paperwork being dealt with, long enough for the boat to be brought up from the river bottom and for Gordon Windsor and his team of crime scene investigators to check it out, and to bring in Forensics if needed.
At the penthouse, Gary Frost was being kept up to date on developments. At St Pancras Station, Inspecteur Jules Hougardy was climbing into the back seat of a taxi, and at Greenwich Police Station, Ainsley Caxton sat in a cell calmly eating a pizza, confident that his boss would get him out.
The Lawrence family, especially Ralph, were also being updated, a ploy by Isaac to relax their stance, to make them believe that Frost was more than likely the murderer of Gilbert, or the man behind the murder, and that he had engineered it to allow him to close in on Ralph. Not that Isaac believed it, but he wanted the guilty to feel as though they had got away with the crime. Caxton and O’Grady were known villains, men who had made a career of violence, but they had not killed Gilbert. Frost was not a murderer, just a smart man who used those capable of such crimes to his advantage.
Larry sat with Emily at Greenwich Police Station, anxiously waiting for updates. The inspector who had taken umbrage at her usurping him hovered in the background, coming in close sometimes, attempting to draw Larry away. It did not work. Larry had spent time with Inspector Emily Matson, knew that her lack of experience was offset by her dedication to the job and that she was honest. From what Larry had heard of the other inspector, he did not trust him. The superintendent had come down, introduced himself to Larry, told him that he and Chief Superintendent Goddard were friends from a long time back.
Out on the water, the two river police boats waited. A barge was on its way from upstream, as was a floating crane with straps suitable for lifting the sunken boat. It wasn’t a big boat, no more than twenty-two feet, but it was important that no evidence was destroyed unnecessarily. Typically, a sunken boat would be brought up if it was a hazard to navigation, or if there were extenuating reasons: insurance, valuables on board, a dead body. The first of the divers had been inside the cabin, found no corpse. The second diver had scoured around the immediate vicinity. Both divers were tethered to the surface by lines, another diver on standby up above just in case one of those down below got into trouble, but he was not needed.
Seven hours and twenty-five minutes after the boat had first been located it broke the surface of the River Thames. Even after such a short time, it was covered in mud and a few crabs, some crayfish, as well. It was eased onto the barge and secured. The nearest land where it could be tied up was close to the boatshed it had first set out from.
Isaac was at the dock as the barge tied off. Frost watched from his penthouse, disturbed by what he could see. The instruction to Caxton had been explicit enough, but then the man wasn’t the smartest. He should have known the river that close into Greenwich was not that deep. A more intelligent man would have taken the boat further downstream and into deeper water, but Frost realised that nothing could be done now.
On the boat, now starting to dry out,
