Those Who Feel Nothing (29 page)

‘Fabergé pieces?' Gilchrist said, remembering some had been looted.

‘I only buy what I feel I can live with and what improves my collection,' he said.

‘How soon are you leaving?' Watts said, out of the blue but getting to the point.

‘Soon,' Windsor said.

‘Then perhaps you could allow us to see the tunnels beneath your property now?' Gilchrist said. ‘As we're here.'

Windsor smiled. ‘I'd love to oblige but perhaps it would be better if we did that strictly by the book. Those warrants we spoke of?'

‘Of course,' Gilchrist said. ‘Absolutely. When we have them perhaps you'd be good enough to ensure that your major-domo is here to answer our questions. What is his name?'

‘His name is Rogers. William Rogers.' Windsor gave a little bow. ‘If that is all?'

Gilchrist smiled. ‘More than enough for now, Mr Windsor. More than enough.'

‘R
ight,' said Gilchrist into her phone as she and Watts hurried through the Lanes. ‘I want Windsor's boat located – I assume it's in the Marina – and a watch put on it. I want a watch on this house. I don't want this bird to fly.'

‘Yes, ma'am.' Donaldson sounded bored. ‘But we can't stop him, ma'am, as we have nothing to charge him with.'

‘At least I want to keep track of his movements. I also want work on clearing that tunnel to go on full steam ahead. I want to see where it leads.'

‘Ma'am. There's other news, however.'

Gilchrist thought she'd lost the signal when nothing followed. ‘You still there, Detective Sergeant Donaldson?'

‘Ma'am.'

‘Well, spit it out. What kind of news?'

‘The nancy boy nutter is dead.'

‘The nancy boy nutter?' Gilchrist said, glancing at Watts and raising her eyes. ‘Is that a technical expression?'

‘Yeah. I don't think we're going to get any answers from him.'

‘Detective Sergeant, I have no idea who you're talking about.'

‘Not that we ever would have got answers from him. Excuse me, ma'am, but some people you just have to give up on, recognising that they are inexplicable.'

‘And how do you choose who they are?'

‘Well, you start with Bernard Rafferty and work your way down. Digging up skeletons – seems an open and shut case of a nut.'

‘I'm sure you're right.' She jerked to a halt. ‘Is he the nancy boy nutter you are referring to?'

‘He's dead,' Donaldson said. ‘Your trick cyclist went round to interview him and found the front door wide open and Rafferty hanging in the hallway in a pair of bloomers.'

Watts had walked a few yards ahead, his own phone glued to his ear.

‘Bloomers?' Gilchrist said.

‘Apparently so.'

Fuck the fuck. Gilchrist slapped her hand against the nearest wall and then wished she hadn't. It hurt. Watts looked over.

‘OK,' she said into her phone. ‘Well, I need you to do something urgently. Forget just watching the boat – I need it securing at Brighton Marina. We need a search warrant and for Windsor's house.'

‘The grounds?'

‘Smuggling.'

You enter the Lanes from the back-end so you can go into the Bath Arms without passing the antiques shop. However, you walk straight into Bob Watts and Sarah Gilchrist, loitering in the narrow lane between the two. Gilchrist seems stiff with Bob, which is a shame as you think they'd make a good couple. They see you and both look surprised.

Watts embraces you, drowning you in his long-armed hug. Gilchrist knows you less well and contents herself with a kiss on each cheek.

‘What are you doing here?' you say.

‘Deciding what to do next,' Gilchrist says shortly.

‘We may as well wait in the Bath Arms until we hear back from people,' Watts says. He indicates the antiques shop across the road. ‘Keep an eye on that.'

‘That's the shop?' you say.

Watts nods. He looks you up and down. ‘You look well,' he says, a nervous grin on his face.

‘I look like shit,' you say. Which is true. Haggard and ravaged.

‘Rum and pep?' Watts says.

‘When in Brighton …' you say. You want to sound cheerful but you think you sound dead.

‘Sarah?' Watts says.

She shakes her head. ‘We should be doing something.'

‘Such as?' Watts says. ‘We're stymied without warrants. Where's your boy Heap?'

‘He's gone to see Youk's mother, Prak Chang.'

‘Come on then,' Watts says. ‘Have a coffee at least.'

You all go in. Watts goes to the bar and Gilchrist watches you almost warily.

‘Bob has been telling me about your wife and the Cambodian mission,' she says. ‘I'm sorry.'

You smile at her. You think you smile. She doesn't recoil so you assume your smile is an approximation of the right thing.

Watts comes back with the drinks. He looks at you both. ‘What is under discussion?'

‘Cambodia,' you say, raising your glass and taking a sip of your rum and pep. You put the glass down and line your cigarettes and lighter up alongside them.

Gilchrist frowns.

‘Are you chasing these ancient artefacts?' she says to you.

You shake your head. ‘No, but I know what was stolen.'

‘From Angkor Wat?' Watts says.

You shake your head again. ‘From the National Museum in Phnom Penh. I was there when they were stolen.'

‘These things we found in the tunnels.'

‘Possibly – I don't know what you found. I'm referring to three particular things.'

‘The Ganesh?' Gilchrist says.

You frown. ‘Not that I recall.'

‘What then?' Gilchrist says impatiently. Then her phone rings.

Worried about the trajectory Watts had spelled out for Tingley's return to Brighton, Gilchrist had asked Bellamy Heap to check on the story Watts had passed on to her about the 1979 mission.

‘Can you talk, ma'am?' Heap said now.

‘I can listen,' Gilchrist said, consciously not looking at Tingley. Perhaps Tingley sensed something, however, for he gestured to the bathroom and slipped from his seat. She watched him go and gestured to Watts to approach and listen in to the conversation.

‘This story Mr Tingley told,' Heap said. ‘There is no record of the three English sailors nor of anyone called Michelle imprisoned at the time. The records list only one British person, a John D. Dewhirst, aged twenty-six. He'd been invited to go sailing with new friends he'd met in Bangkok – a New Zealander and a Canadian.

‘They drifted into Kampuchean waters. Glass was shot dead during the capture of the boat. Hamill and Dewhirst were taken to SP-21. They signed a number of false confessions during months of torture. Eventually both were executed and their bodies burned. Dewhirst may have been burned alive.'

‘Tingley wouldn't make this stuff up,' Watts said to Gilchrist.

They heard Heap click his tongue.

‘It does say the records for foreign prisoners in SP-21 are incomplete. Seventy-nine foreigners are recorded as being imprisoned but it's assumed that is an underestimate. One of the photographers who recorded the inmates on arrival has said that many photographs and files were destroyed before the Khmer Rouge fled.'

‘There you are then,' Watts said.

‘The more important point is that Jimmy might be attempting something unlawful,' Gilchrist said. ‘We can't allow that.' She looked at Watts. ‘I think we should detain him.'

They both looked to the toilet at the rear of the bar in time to see Tingley exit and head straight for the back door to the pub.

‘Good luck with that,' Watts said.

You have an address in your pocket. Phyllida gave it to you. You take a taxi. The driver is chatty but you don't want to talk to her. You are remembering when you came round, trussed to a tree, in the temple in Angkor Wat. There was something unreal standing before you, pulsating in the moonlight.

‘It's beautiful, isn't it?' a voice said close by. Westbrook, Michelle's father. ‘We can't let it be lost to posterity or destroyed by these barbaric Khmer Rouge.'

‘What is it?' you said.

‘The Buddhist goddess Tara, the bodhisattva of compassion. Gilded bronze, eighth century
AD
. From Sri Lanka originally.'

‘What's it doing in Cambodia?'

‘War booty, tribute – who knows? Nobody probably did know it was here until Francis Garnier came along.'

‘Who's he?' you said, as you tested your bindings.

‘A nineteenth-century explorer, in love with the Mekong. He was convinced the Mekong went all the way to China, and in 1866 he took two paddle-driven gunboats from Saigon upriver through the Mekong Delta to Cambodia. When his expedition reached Phnom Penh he docked the boats and took a small party across country to Angkor Wat. This party returned with a large crate.

‘The crate was loaded on the boat but the monsoons came so they were obliged to proceed up the Mekong in pirogues. Nobody is certain if the crate went with them or what its fate was because Garnier was killed in an ambush by the Black Flag.'

‘The Black Flag?' you said.

‘The Vietnamese resistance to French rule,' Westbrook said. ‘And the crate was never seen again.'

You raised your chin at the statue. ‘This was in the crate?'

Westbrook looked at the statue wreathed in moonlight. ‘Rumours of the crate's survival have passed down through the centuries. You know the story of the Maltese Falcon?'

You nod. ‘The jewel-encrusted bird.'

‘And modern treasure seekers have been tracking it down the centuries by sightings and rumours and written accounts.'

‘And that's what has happened with this?'

‘This and what she is wearing on her head.'

You shook your own head. ‘I can't see. What is it?'

‘A helmet. Well, really a ceremonial crown. Emeralds, rubies, lapis and diamonds on hammered silver. Priceless.'

‘And you took both these from the National Museum?'

‘Nobody knew their value except me. So, yes, we took them – and a few Fabergé eggs.'

‘Where's Michelle?' you said.

‘She's safe. She's helping us in return for them not hurting you. The Boy Scout.'

‘So what's going to happen to me?' you said.

‘Nothing bad. We're just going to leave you here. A resourceful fellow like you should be fine.' He raised his voice. ‘You know, I'm lucky to be alive. Tall men always die first in prison camps.'

‘Really?' you said.

‘Sure. We get treated worse by the guards. They are usually shorter and like humiliating us. Plus we have less fat on us so we starve quicker.'

‘Can I speak to Michelle?'

He touched you. Barely.

‘I don't think so. And, Jimmy, probably wisest to think of this as
adieu
. Not
au revoir
.'

Gilchrist was in Watts' car heading for the Marina. Watts had told her Tingley was looking for revenge.

She was on the phone to Bellamy Heap, who was also in transit.

‘Who is this Jimmy Tingley?' Heap said.

‘A lovely man,' Gilchrist said, glancing at Watts. ‘But a lethal one.'

‘We've both dealt with those before, ma'am.'

Gilchrist shook her head. ‘Not someone like Tingley. If you come across him, don't even try.'

‘It's our job, ma'am.'

‘We're not up to it.'

Heap was silent for a moment.

‘He's much, much, much better than us,' she added.

‘Speak for yourself, ma'am.'

Gilchrist sighed.

‘Know your limits, Bellamy.'

‘Ma'am,' he said and she could tell he was grinning.

‘Tell me about Youk's rented flat.'

‘Just a room, ma'am. I'm heading over to his mother's now.'

‘Does she know?'

‘I sent Constable Wade round to tell her.'

‘Sylvia? Good choice. She's good with people.'

And technology. PC Sylvia Wade had been invaluable as part of Gilchrist's recent team investigating black magic goings-on in and around Brighton.

‘OK, Bellamy. Keep in touch.'

‘Ma'am – there is just one curious thing.'

‘We seem to be surrounded by curious things. Go on.'

‘His landlord had a photo of Agent Merivale on his computer. A snatched shot – I would guess taken from inside the Bath Arms.'

‘You recognized it?'

‘I recognized the antique shop he was going into.'

Gilchrist closed her phone and looked at Watts.

‘What?' he said.

‘Windsor's skipper or major-domo or whatever he called him – the one who went into the antique shop today and didn't come out – what does he look like?'

‘Klingman? Big, tanned, my sort of age.'

‘Looks like Jon Hamm?'

‘I don't know who that is.'

‘Crew cut?'

‘Yes.'

He glanced at her when she groaned. ‘Is that the sound of a penny dropping?' he said.

You get out of the taxi at the end of a street in Hove and scope it out. All quiet. You approach the house casually. It is in darkness. It looks shuttered up.

There's a man walking down the street towards you from the other direction. A few inches shorter, which puts him in the category of short-arse. He's observant, you can see. A policeman?

You slow. He's counting house numbers. You're pretty sure you're both heading for the same place. This isn't what you want. Legality isn't going to work for you here.

The man stops in front of the house you're aiming for. You keep walking. He glances at you as you walk by. You're conscious of his eyes on your back.

‘Excuse me, sir.' You walk on. ‘Excuse me, sir.' Louder. Fuck the fucking fuck.

You turn.

‘I was taught very early on in life not to talk to strangers,' you say. The young man is shorter than you but you can see he's in good shape. He has a shyness about him but there's confidence in his eyes.