Lost Voyage Page 10

  ‘Get the garage key,’ Marvik commanded. Landguard made to switch on the hall light but Marvik quickly added, ‘Use your torch and keep it low.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Just do it.’

  While Landguard went to the rear of the house, Marvik searched the two rooms in the front, keeping his torch low and screened with his hand, his ears attuned for any sounds from outside. There was no sign of any disturbance in either the living room or the dining room opposite it across the hall. And no sign of Meryl Landguard. There were also no photographs of her late husband, but then Marvik hadn’t expected to see any – not after what Stephen and Karen had told him. There were a couple of pictures of the baby and one of Karen, Stephen and the baby.

  Landguard returned with the keys. ‘She’s not in the kitchen,’ he whispered anxiously.

  ‘Are there any other rooms at the rear of the house?’

  ‘No, the kitchen runs into the breakfast room and utility room and mum’s not there or in the cloakroom. She must have gone outside and had an accident. We should—’

  ‘Let’s check upstairs first.’

  He ordered Landguard to climb the stairs ahead of him. Marvik paused briefly to glance out of the landing window which gave on to the front of the property. There was still nobody in sight. All was quiet, apart from the weather.

  ‘Take your mother’s room. I’ll do the others.’

  It didn’t take long to discover that Meryl Landguard wasn’t in the house. None of the rooms had been disturbed. Meeting Landguard in the hall, Marvik asked if anything of his mother’s was missing – clothes, toiletries.

  ‘I didn’t look.’

  Marvik returned with him to her bedroom. It gave on to a bathroom and dressing room. There were two suitcases on a shelf in the dressing room, which indicated she hadn’t taken anything, unless she’d packed just the bare essentials in an overnight bag, but it didn’t look that way to him because there were toiletries and make-up in the shower room and jewellery in the bedroom. This had all the signs of an abduction. And that confirmed to him that she and Bradshaw must have been in league with someone else. Someone who knew exactly what had happened to the Mary Jo and who was involved in Bradshaw and Yardly’s deaths.

  ‘Where does she keep her passport?’

  ‘In the safe in the dining room. I don’t know the combination to it. Why would she want that?’

  Marvik ignored the question. The dining room hadn’t been disturbed but she could have been forced to open the safe and then close it. Not for her passport, though, but for any incriminating papers about the Mary Jo if she’d kept them.

  Landguard’s forehead was creased with concern. ‘She must have gone outside and had a fall or a heart attack.’

  Marvik shut the front door behind him after ensuring that Landguard had a key. Swiftly, he unlocked the garage. Meryl Landguard wasn’t in it, unconscious or dead.

  ‘Right, we check the garden.’ Marvik didn’t want to leave Landguard alone by his car, not because he thought he might drive off and abandon him but if anyone came they would easily get the better of him. With Landguard trotting at his heels, Marvik made a swift and thorough search of the garden. It didn’t take long because there wasn’t much of it. Most of the land was to the front of the house and Meryl Landguard wasn’t there.

  ‘She must have gone to a friend.’

  ‘Do you know who that might be?’

  ‘Not really,’ Landguard said miserably. ‘I could call her.’ He reached for his phone but Marvik stilled him. ‘Not yet.’ He’d already told Landguard to switch it off after allowing him to call his wife on their way here. Karen had left two messages and a text demanding to know where he was. He told her he was at his mother’s and would be home soon, and had hastily rung off before she could ask more questions.

  ‘What time would Karen have collected your son from here today?’

  ‘Six o’clock.’

  ‘And you haven’t called or heard from your mother today?’

  ‘No. Should I call the police?’

  ‘In a moment.’ Marvik wanted to be away from here when Stephen Landguard called them. He couldn’t afford the time to hang around. And time was marching on. If the property was being watched then maybe they didn’t have long before they were intercepted.

  ‘Get in the car,’ Marvik commanded, climbing into the driver’s seat.

  Landguard made to protest when a glance from Marvik stilled him. Marvik started up and pulled out of the driveway, scouring the road for any sign of a vehicle following. Instead of heading north he turned south towards the Birling Gap. He caught Landguard’s surprised and nervous glance. He wanted to make sure that Meryl wasn’t there, dead in her car or possibly on the shore with her car parked close to the cliff edge. And he thought it was time he pressed Landguard for what he hadn’t told him. Landguard sat in silence as Marvik drove the short distance. The car park was deserted. Wherever Meryl Landguard was it wasn’t here. Marvik pulled up but kept the engine running and his ears attuned for the sound of any approaching vehicles.

  Watching Stephen Landguard closely, Marvik said, ‘Tell me about your father.’

  ‘But why? This is madness. How can what happened all those years ago matter now? The Mary Jo hit a freak wave and sank.’

  ‘Fine. If that’s what you want to believe and you don’t want your mother found before she ends up like Bradshaw and Yardly, that’s OK by me.’ Marvik made to turn the car round.

  ‘No. Wait,’ Landguard said sharply.

  Marvik stilled the engine.

  Taking a deep breath, Landguard ran a hand over his face. In the dim light of the car, Marvik could see the strain etched on it. He exhaled heavily and said, ‘My father was a very experienced sailor. He loved being at sea. He was a quiet man, thoughtful. He was also a very talented artist. He loved sketching. He did it all the time when he was at sea. He’d sketch the crew, the other ships he saw, the ports he’d put into. He always said it was where I got my artistic talent from.’ A smile touched his tired eyes and vanished in a second. ‘He didn’t like a lot of company or socializing – the complete opposite to mum. She liked to go out and to entertain while he was content to stay around the house. It irritated my mother. I think my parents found it hard to adjust when he came home from sea.’

  ‘They rowed.’

  ‘Not in the shouting kind of way but there was always tension between them. Dad decided to leave working on car carriers and became a salvage master, first working on projects abroad and then at Helmsley. But being closer to home didn’t seem to help them much. I could see that things were never going to be right. I think they were just waiting for me to leave home before splitting up. Then the accident happened. I was nineteen when Dad was lost at sea and about to go to university in the September of that year. I’d spent a gap year working with a design agency in Brighton and was keen to get away.’

  ‘How did she take the news that your father was missing?’

  Marvik saw Landguard consider his answer.

  ‘Stoically I think is how you would describe it. She didn’t break down or act distraught but then that’s not her way.’ There was an edge of bitterness to his voice.

  ‘And how did Ian Bradshaw react?’

  Landguard said somewhat sourly, ‘I don’t know. I saw as little of him as possible.’

  But Marvik was betting it had been the opposite for Meryl Landguard.

  With a spark of spirit, Landguard said, ‘The times when I did see him he was all sympathetic and supposedly cut up but everything was an act with him. He was loud, crass and a bullshitter. I’m not sorry he’s dead.’

  But was his wife? ‘And how did you take the news of your father’s disappearance?’ Marvik asked.

  Landguard exhaled. ‘I couldn’t quite believe that he would never come back. It wasn’t really until the memorial service in November that it hit me.’

  Of course, why hadn’t Marvik thought of that? There had been a memorial service for his p
arents so why not for the lost crew of the Mary Jo? There were no bodies to bury or cremate, no ashes to scatter at sea, but the relatives, colleagues and friends would need to mourn and mark the deaths. He wondered if Strathen had found a reference to it on the Internet. The local media must have covered it and so too must the shipping press.

  ‘Who was there aside from your mother and Bradshaw?’

  ‘I don’t really remember. I didn’t take much notice. I just wanted it over and done with and to get away.’

  Marvik could understand that. He’d hated every minute of his parents’ memorial service, which had been held at the National Oceanographic Centre in Southampton. The room had been packed with their fellow professionals, colleagues and past crew members from all over the world. The memorial for the lost crew of the Mary Jo might throw up someone who could tell him more about Timothy Landguard and his crew. And some of those at his parents’ memorial might be able to tell him where they had kept their back-up computer disks on their research.

  ‘Where was the service held?’ he asked.

  ‘St Michael’s Church in Newhaven.’

  ‘Who organized it?’

  ‘Duncan Helmslow and my mother, I guess. I don’t really know.’

  Helmslow was dead and Meryl missing but there would be others who had been there, perhaps who had also helped to arrange it, and those who would have given a reading or an address. He recalled who had done that at his parents’ service. A lean man with eyes and a forehead that reminded him of an eagle; another smaller, stouter man with a voice like chocolate and the look of a badger about him; and a fierce-looking, slight woman with darting movements that reminded him of a bird pecking at the ground. He’d deliberately blanked out their names.

  ‘Were there any relatives of the crew of the Mary Jo?’ Marvik asked.

  Landguard shrugged. ‘If there were I didn’t speak to them. What shall I do about mum missing?’

  ‘Call the police when you arrive back at her house.’

  Marvik made to climb out.

  ‘You’re not coming with me?’ Landguard asked, surprised.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But how will you get back to Eastbourne?’

  ‘Try your mother’s mobile first before you call the police. If she doesn’t answer, leave a message to say you’re at the house and you’ve found the door open, that you’re worried and you’re calling the police. Say if she picks up the message to ring you. Then call the police, tell them you came to see your mother and, after finding the door open, searched the house and gardens for her. Tell them there’s no sign of her, her car’s missing and she’s not answering her mobile.’

  ‘What will they do?’

  ‘I don’t know but don’t mention me, don’t say you were on Bradshaw’s boat and don’t mention Gavin Yardly. If you need to mention your father just imply that your mother could have been thinking of him and has become depressed. OK, so it doesn’t sound like her to you but they don’t know that and they’ll put out a call for her. Give me your number.’

  Marvik punched it into his mobile phone. He climbed out. Looking back into the car, he said, ‘Just stick to what I say and you’ll be OK.’ At least, he sincerely hoped so and that whoever had come for Meryl wouldn’t come for her son. But there was no reason for him to do that because Stephen Landguard hadn’t known Gavin Yardly and he knew nothing about the Mary Jo. But some of those who had been at that memorial service might know. Now all Marvik had to do was find the people Gavin had traced and who he had spoken to.

  TEN

  Thursday

  As soon as Newhaven Library opened at nine thirty, Marvik was requesting access to the newspaper archives, which he was swiftly given. He’d moored up late last night on the visitors’ pontoon in the small marina in the narrow, industrialized harbour of Newhaven opposite the giant scrap yard. His was the only boat on that pontoon, which wasn’t surprising given it was early in the sailing season. He’d called Strathen while sailing to Newhaven after his walk back over the Downs in the rain, wind and dark. The weather hadn’t bothered him. His thoughts of Meryl Landguard’s possible fate had, along with that of his parents’ packed memorial service. He’d tried to conjure up a mental picture of it, but aside from some learned people wittering on he remembered nothing and no names. His photographic recall failed him. He knew it was because he had been mentally determined to block it out in an effort to obliterate the pain, shock and bewilderment surrounding their deaths. With an effort, the vision of it might return. Perhaps if he sought out Hugh Freestone, his guardian of only two months before he had enlisted in the Marines, seeing and speaking to him might re-conjure the long-forgotten memories. But Freestone could be dead. Marvik hadn’t seen or spoken to him for almost twenty years. He supposed a hypnotist might be able to retrieve his memory but he wasn’t certain he wanted to go down that route. Not yet, anyway. And just as he was searching for articles on the memorial service for the crew of the Mary Jo, he knew he could do the same for his parents’ service. There would be photographs with names. And there would probably be details of the service in among his papers in the safe-deposit box in the bank vault in London.

  He’d told Strathen that it looked as though Meryl Landguard had been abducted, adding, ‘I suspect that she and Bradshaw knew something about the disappearance of the Mary Jo along with a third party and it wasn’t only Bradshaw that Meryl telephoned for a meeting but this other person too. She could have plotted with him to kill both Gavin Yardly and Ian Bradshaw and now she’s been taken out.’ Maybe by the same men Helen had overheard using the phrase ‘taken out’ – Colbourne and Marwell.

  Strathen had called him back earlier that morning to say that he could find no mention of the memorial service on the Internet and that records in the General Register Office for the crew members on the Mary Jo, with the exception of Landguard, didn’t match the information Crowder had given them regarding the names and ages. Neither could he find any references to Simon Warrendale, Peter Goodhead or Lewis Chale on the Internet, which wasn’t that surprising because their deaths had occurred over ten years ago. But Strathen had said the more he looked the less he found, which puzzled him. ‘You’d have thought someone would have put something out there on the anniversary.’ But then, neither Meryl nor Stephen Landguard had. They had succeeded in forgetting it, until now. Perhaps it was the same for the relatives of the rest of the crew, only Strathen couldn’t find any.

  Marvik turned his attention to the archive files but his thoughts kept flicking back to Stephen Landguard. He felt a little uneasy about him. How would he behave the longer his mother was missing? Would he tell the police about their encounter last night? Would Karen tell her husband that he had been at Meryl’s house yesterday morning? Perhaps Stephen would come to believe that he was involved with Bradshaw’s murder and his mother’s disappearance. Maybe, Marvik thought, he’d played the wrong card in letting Stephen return to his wife and child. Perhaps he should have kept Landguard with him. But how could he progress the mission with him hanging around? He couldn’t. But the more he thought of Stephen Landguard out there on the loose the more troubled he became. Worrying, though, wouldn’t get him any closer to the truth. He concentrated on his search of the newspaper archives.

  It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for – Stephen had given him the month and the year. There was almost a full-page article in the local newspaper, The Argus. The service had been held on 30 November 2003. Along with the article there was a photograph of Meryl Landguard and beside her a very gaunt man who was named as Duncan Helmslow. They were heading into the church. Helmslow looked bereft. Meryl Landguard looked dignified, smart and solemn. There was a group of people behind them. Marvik easily picked out Ian Bradshaw. Despite the intervening years, he hadn’t changed a great deal. He had been bulky back then, with the same jowly features. Marvik couldn’t see Stephen Landguard. He wasn’t beside his mother. There were several other people, all men. Marvik didn’t recognize any of them,
but then he hadn’t expected to. He took a photograph of the article using his mobile phone and sent it over to Strathen.

  Swiftly, Marvik read the article. There was nothing new in it about the actual loss of the Mary Jo but there was a quote from the South Eastern Area Fundraising Director of one of the seafarers’ charities, Seagoing, a Hugh Stapledon, who expressed his sorrow at the loss and said that by holding such a memorial service it not only honoured those who had died but also helped to raise awareness of the hazards for those working at sea, particularly those in the marine salvage industry like the crew of the Mary Jo.

  Marvik called up the charity’s website and saw that their main office was in Southampton. Strathen was closer to it than he was and could call on Stapledon if he still worked for the charity. He could have moved on by now or be dead. But Marvik quickly discovered from scrolling through the events page on the website that Stapledon was not only still employed by the charity but was a lot closer to where he was than to Strathen’s location. He was, in fact, attending a cheque presentation ceremony at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Shoreham Beach, some twenty miles to the west of Newhaven, at eleven a.m. Marvik glanced at his watch. It was ten thirty. He could get the train but a taxi would get him there quicker. He didn’t want to risk missing Stapledon.

  He logged off, thanked the librarian and headed towards the taxi rank at the station in the blustery April day. He soon discouraged any idle chit-chat from the driver and let his thoughts roam as the taxi sped around the outskirts of Brighton and Hove. There was always the chance that this was a waste of his time and Stapledon hadn’t known any of the crew. Maybe he should have tried to reach him by phone, but he was the only person quoted in that newspaper article other than Duncan Helmslow, and he was dead.

  By the time the taxi pulled up outside the church, which was almost on the shingle beach of the seaside town and port in West Sussex, and he’d entered the adjoining hall, he was in time to catch the end of Stapledon’s ‘thank you’ speech. Marvik slipped in at the back and earned himself a few smiles. The audience was predominately women in their sixties and seventies – a few were older, but there were some toddlers with their mothers and a handful of men also over seventy. About fifty people in total.