Walking into the Ocean (27 page)

“What do you think is left of the husband's romantic plans for his new life?” Sarah asked.

“I wager that he understands that he blew it,” Peter said. “I'm counting on him coming home out of remorse. He won't turn himself in. He hasn't given up on his plan totally. Maybe he'll make a grand gesture. Maybe just a visit to Anna's grave. Then he can leave again.”

Jerry appeared startled, and Peter knew what he was thinking. Jerry understood that Peter was manipulating the release of Anna Lasker's body for burial by her family. The Regional Lab was holding it, even though most, if not all, the pathology work was complete. Jerry guessed that Anna's mother in Iasi and her cousins in Britain were already complaining that it was unseemly, even irreligious, to refuse to release the body and give them access to the rotting house. Peter would effect the release of both only when he judged that the husband was desperate to come back to Whittlesun, prepared to search out her grave and confront the painful consequences of her self-destruction.

Peter's splinted finger made him clumsy. He took out his handkerchief to wipe his brow and André Lasker's gold band came with it. Sarah recognized the ring but said nothing; Jerry faked disinterest. Peter supposed he should have logged it into evidence at the lab earlier, but he had forgotten. He left it on the table for the moment.

“What does ‘Kidd's Reach' mean, Jerry?”

“It's a spot along the cliffs.”

“In Dorset?”

“Not quite. Still in Devon.”

“It sounds like a bantam-weight prize fighter.”

“Nope. Named after Captain Kidd, the pirate. There's a story that he hid treasure along the coast. It's unlikely of course. The story probably reflects the fact there used to be a lot of smuggling and violations of the excise laws, shall we say, all along the Channel.”

“Now it's refugees and drugs,” Peter suggested.

“And perceived terrorists. Tell me about it.” He sighed.

“Is there any possibility that Kidd's Reach is precisely six kilometres from the spot where Molly Jonas turned up?”

“Possibly. I'll check.”

They gave up the shop talk to order, and Sarah entertained them with stories of her adventures around the coasts of England and Wales. The next hour passed quickly.

The waitress cleared the table and when she had retreated, Jerry looked at the ring. “That your wedding ring?”

“No. It's André Lasker's.”

“You are a strange man, Peter.”

The restaurant had turned quiet, with only one other table still occupied. A young man, whom Peter remembered as a desk clerk, came over and handed Peter a business card. It was Wendie Merwyn's. Peter read the scribble on the back: “Chief Inspector, I am in the bar?” Peter noted how much she liked question marks.

“You might want to leave the back way, Jerry.”

“Ah, the press?”

Peter nodded. Sarah looked distressed for her father. “Jerry, can you see Sarah home?”

“Of course.”

“Is this trouble?” she asked. Peter couldn't tell if her sudden fear was based on shrewd instinct, or a more general anxiety for him.

“It's not a problem, dear. Just local media. I'll be at the cottage tomorrow afternoon. Are you planning on a visit soon?”

She sat forward and reached across the table for his hand. “I'll call Mum tonight, let her know you're okay. Maybe I can get there later in the week.”

Peter restrained his fatherly impulse to warn her about the many dangers along the cliffs and beaches. But Sarah knew the tides better than he ever would, and he was the one who had fallen from the cliff face into the churning sea.

As for the Rover, he was preoccupied with younger women.

Wendie Merwyn was sitting in a corner of the bar drinking Perrier and thumbing through a notebook when Peter approached her table. She offered him her reporter's smile; she looked fresh and unmarred by studio makeup.

“Chief Inspector Cammon?”

Peter had a funny feeling that he was about to relive the previous conversation with Jerry Plaskow.

“I'm Wendie Merwyn. We've sort of met.”

Peter sat down. He was relaxed. “You asked me the right question at the right time.”

“I was so startled I forgot to ask the logical follow-ups. Bad journalism.”

“That's okay. I wouldn't have responded anyway. How did your broadcast go tonight?”

She frowned. “Okay. Will you respond now? On or off the record?”

“In my experience,” Peter said, “there is no such thing as off the record.”

She closed her notebook. “I interviewed Detective Hamm, albeit briefly. He called your actions heroic.”

“Hardly. When you think about it, that search along the cliffs was probably foolhardy.”

“It brought some comfort to the family of Molly Jonas.”

“Did it? I hope so.”

“But you're not the investigator of record on the Rover case,” she said. Peter could tell that she was a smoker, but he didn't suggest they go outside.

“That would be Chief Inspector McElroy, Chairman of the Task Force.”

“At the Whittlesun end of things, I meant.”

“That would be Inspector Maris.”

“It does raise the question of what brings you to Whittlesun, why you were on the cliffs.”

“Let me help you out on that,” Peter said, tiring of what was threatening to become a tennis match. “I am an official liaison with the Task Force for New Scotland Yard. One of two. Detective Bracher is the other.”

“Why were you the one up on the cliffs with a local detective who himself was out of his jurisdiction?”

“I was not outside
my
jurisdiction, since the Yard has a national mandate, although we try not to go where we are not wanted. As for Mr. Hamm, he was under the direction of Inspector Maris, who is a full member of the Task Force. In fact, he's acting chair.”

“It sounds to me that he was operating under your supervision.”

“No.”

“No?”

It struck Peter that the women in this case were the only ones asking penetrating questions. Gwen. Sarah. Joan. Include Mayta in there.

“Can we go off the record?” Peter said.

“No. This is getting good,” she said, impishly.

“For thirty seconds?”

“Okay.”

“I was assisting him. We both had the same hunch. It seemed like a long shot at the time.”

“You went off the record merely for that?”

“I'm hoping that you won't publicize my part in it. The Yard is not asserting lead responsibility in the Rover matter. I have no desire to embarrass, and certainly not pre-empt, either Inspector Maris or Chief Inspector McElroy.”

“Not yet,” she riposted. “But if the public doesn't see some progress soon, they'll rise up and likely demand that you move in.”

“With some urging from the press?”

“Maybe so.”

“Until then . . .” he said.

“Are we negotiating here, Inspector?”

Peter sat back out of the light. He signalled the bartender for an ice water, which was brought over immediately. “What do you know about ‘Kidd's Reach'?” he said. “You mentioned it in your note.”

“I had a brief discussion with Mr. Finter, Chief Inspector McElroy's aide-de-camp. He let slip that the four attacks occurred six kilometres apart.” She paused to grin at him. “Add six more kilometres on my handy map, and that gets you to Kidd's Reach. Are you surveilling Kidd's Reach, Inspector?”

“Lord knows,” Peter replied, “I can't do everything.”

So surprised was the woman that an ancient Yard detective with a tight little grey moustache would tell a joke that she spurted her drink onto the table and burst out laughing. But she quickly became serious again.

“You're a complicated man, Inspector. I came here to talk about André and Anna Lasker, and we haven't done that yet.”

“The Lasker investigation is my primary assignment. You see why I don't want to be strongly associated with the Rover business. It might be confusing.”

“It might be embarrassing to Inspector Maris if you cracked both cases, you mean.”

“Not likely. I was just helping out Mr. Hamm up on the cliffs. He's also on the Lasker case.”

“But Anna Lasker committed suicide, you're sure.”

“Yes. And I'd better be.”

“Is the husband alive?”

“Now we truly have to go off the record.”

“It's a deal.”

Peter held back, but only for a few seconds. “Yes, I think he's alive. I have no idea where he is, but I am hopeful he'll surface.”

“So to speak.”

“So to speak.”

She stared right at him. “And I can't publish that?”

He held her gaze. “No, but you can call me for updates, from time to time. We'll see what develops.”

“Can you give me a number where I can reach you?'

“Why?”

“Because I am guessing you're leaving town tomorrow.
Persona non grata?
”

The waitress from the restaurant came over to the table and handed him André Lasker's ring.

Wendie looked at it. “Is that your wedding ring?”

“No, Miss Merwyn, it's André Lasker's.”

She raised one beautifully pencilled eyebrow. “Mr. Cammon, you are a complicated man.”

Peter rang Sam at the garage, even though it was 7:25 a.m. In some way, he hoped Mayta would answer, but Sam picked up on the first ring.

“Inspector, we stayed up to watch you on
TV
last night.”

“Lord, Sam, how did you figure I'd be on
TV
?”

“Psychic. At least, Mayta's psychic. She also watches
TV
. She's sitting right here. You want to talk to her?”

“No, but give her my best . . .”

“She sends her love. The cameras make you look pale. We're drinking tea. We're in the Little Room. What can I do for you? How's the car?”

“I'm leaving town this afternoon. In disgrace.”

“You said the wrong thing to the television?”

“Exactly. But I need to see Martin before I go. Is it too early to call?”

“Inspector, you don't understand. My nephew has called me
four
times. He has never been this happy.” Sam exhaled at the end of the line. “Martin always gets to work early. Just show up.”

“Thank you. I'll have the Subaru back by noon.”

“Whatever . . . Mayta tells me call ahead to Martin, so I will take care of that now.”

“Oh, if an Inspector Verden shows up, tell him I'll be there soon.”

“What's he like?”

“Almost as charming as Mayta.”

“Wow!”

“But not quite.”

“I'll tell her that.”

The Subaru's SatNav led him smoothly to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, Whittlesun Branch, on the edge of town. Six people waited at the locked front door for the office to open at 8:30. Peter locked the Subaru and walked around to the side of the brick building and on to the back, where he found an iron door above a loading bay. He rapped on the door, and in less than thirty seconds it was opened by a fresh-faced twenty-year-old lad. His tie was already askew and his black hair flopped over his forehead. He smiled in recognition, in his enthusiasm not bothering to introduce himself.

“Inspector, it's all in my office.” He led Peter down a short hallway to a nondescript room with a door labelled
Manager
.

“Is this your office, Martin?”

“No, it's Mr. Kerwin's, but he's not here.”

“Where is he?”

“He's never here, mostly. He may actually be on strike. They strike here a lot.”

“Your uncle speaks highly of you. And I'm betting you never join the strike.”

Martin smiled broadly. “Too many fun things to think about doing. If only someone were interested.”

“Show me the material.”

The young man had arrayed the files in three precise stacks along the desk. “The government of the U.K. has always claimed that its domestic laws mesh nicely with the
EU
rules regarding auto exports. That was, shall we say, complacent of them. In practice, the U.K. never much cared what the
EU
systems did. Until computerized registration was centralized in Brussels, the tracking of imported vehicles remained problematic. The result was too many people taking advantage of the rules. Kind of a regulatory arbitrage.”

“Run me through an example,” Peter said.

“Okay. I'm an exporter in Britain. I want to dump my crappy old cars onto the Continental market. I can export them for
parts,
but there's more money if can sell them as
drivable
. But I don't want to pay the expense to bring the vehicles up to standard. Here's what I do. To certify the car as ‘disabled,' I take it to an authorized treatment facility in, say, Dorset. As the owner-seller, I don't have to pay for a licence as long as the vehicle doesn't appear on public roads. Then I apply for a Certificate of Permanent Export, an
EU
-mandated form identifying the car as refurbished and drivable. I count on nobody in Britain or the
EU
destination country noticing the switch.”

“But won't the Customs people in the receiving country notice the discrepancy?” Peter said.

“You'd hope so. But bureaucrats believe the form on the top of the file before they believe their own eyes. As long as the
EU
form lists verifiable
VIN
, cylinder capacity, chassis number and a few other things, they tend to be happy. Here's how the scam worked, until recently. The exporting company would simply fill out the
EU
export application and lie through their teeth about the fitness of the vehicle. They would back it up with a false report from an alleged mechanic stating the car was up to standard.”

“You said ‘until recently'?”

“The British government finally operationalized its Changes to Current Vehicle Form to standardize all the details at this end to bring it in line with Brussels. But more important, the British and
EU
form numbers have to match now.”

“Did that make André Lasker change his ways?”

“Certainly slowed him down. I can only discover five deals he made in the last year, two of which were legit. These were kosher exports of certifiably rebuilt cars, one to Portugal, the other to southern Italy. The remaining three were the ones you called me about. Actually, the cars involved may have been accurately characterized, but the export companies are hollow shells. Lasker outsmarted himself a bit on those three.”

“What about before then?” Peter said.

“Sixteen.” He slapped his palm down on the second stack. “All suspicious, using shell companies.”

“Then how did you figure they were Lasker's?”

Martin balked for a moment. His look was somewhere between apprehension at revealing his own methods of inquiry, which were perhaps a bit sketchy in themselves, and the urge to launch a fresh lecture on the mysteries of car registration. He smiled. “Two things. Our system supports data mining of
EU
stats. I ran data sets on companies that sent cars between eight and sixteen years old to secondary markets on the Continent over the past six years. I cross-reffed them against the U.K. Directory of Auto Dealers, Repairers, Wholesalers and Retailers, and if the exporting company listed on the
EU
form wasn't in the directory, I pulled it. You see, that might indicate a shell company running a scam.”

“The second factor?” Peter asked.

“Even with false names all over the form, you have to list a contact telephone number. André Lasker put the legit phone number of his garage on that Portugal export, the kosher one from last year. I simply correlated the phone number against the entire base. Didn't always work, I suspect, but I picked up sixteen cases that likely were Lasker's.”

Martin swept a hand over the documents. “These papers won't tell you the ultimate price of the vehicles, or their true value, but they prove that your man was on the shady side of the export business. Look at this one.”

He slipped a package of forms from the middle of a stack. The export company was Western Auto, but the signature of the authorizing corporate officer read
Stanhope
. “Fake name but it sure looks like André Lasker's handwriting.”

So, thought Peter, Lasker ran an active but secretive sideline in car exporting. He paid cash for old vehicles, minimally fixed them up in his garage and channelled them into the export stream. He often lied about their state of repair, and corporate shells obscured the ownership trail. Lasker potentially faced charges of commercial fraud, tax evasion and conversion under British and European Union criminal statutes. Albrecht Zoren would probably join him in the dock.

But, for the purposes of the active investigation, a crucial question loomed, and Martin was ready for it.

“Can we tell where the cars were shipped to, and if they stayed in the destination country?” Peter said.

Martin smiled. “Sure can. Here's the Country Receiving list.”

He passed Peter a single sheet. Of the sixteen questionable exports, three were bound for Portugal, three for Malta, four for Italy (Bari), two for Poland, two for Slovakia, one for Sweden and another for Greece.

Peter looked at Martin, who was still smiling. Peter offered a responsive grin. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” he said. “It's a pretty eclectic list.”

“Yup. Means two things, for certain. First, he produced cars on order. Second, there was a broker, a middle man involved, with tentacles into all the
EU
countries. I'll try to find him.”

Peter returned the Subaru to Sam's Auto, only to find that Mayta was off doing errands. He had wanted to see her, suspecting that he was saying goodbye to the two of them. In effect, he was in the process of saying goodbye to all of Whittlesun, and, perhaps subconsciously, he yearned for Mayta to snap him out of his self-absorbed gloom. Tommy Verden was already there when Peter arrived and he and Sam were discussing cars, comparing abstruse features of various vehicles they had owned over the decades.

Peter described his meeting with Martin in detail. Sam declared, “He's a bright boy, a bright boy.”

Their farewell was outwardly cheerful but there was a definite mood of abandonment as Peter handed over the keys to the rental. Peter got into the front of the Mercedes and waved to Sam. Verden eased out onto the cobbled street.

“Well, boss, are we back to the cottage then?”

“Not quite, and don't call me boss. Just a short call before we leave Whittlesun behind.” He opened his phone and pressed the numbers left by Salvez in his message from — what, two days ago, or was it just yesterday? He listened to the phone chime three or four times; the answerphone took over. “This is Father Salvez. I am not available at the moment but messages can be left at St. Elegias Catholic Church administration office.” A new telephone number was given. There was no beep; the line cut itself.

He called the church office and got a general message regarding church hours. He asked Tommy to set his SatNav for St. Elegias. This makes no sense, he thought. Why would Salvez employ an answering machine that didn't take messages? He couldn't imagine why Salvez needed to speak with him, but that puzzle was enough to spark his professional instincts.
Had the sick priest remembered something about the Laskers? Or had he seen the Rover?

He tried the church again. “Hello?” an ancient female voice answered, resentful at this interruption.

“Good afternoon. This is Chief Inspector Cammon of New Scotland Yard. May I speak to Father Salvez?”

“He isn't here.”

“I called his house number, but he wasn't there either.”

“He doesn't have a house, it's a flat, and he probably was there. Just wasn't answering.”

Peter had dealt with hundreds of witnesses over the years, but he still hated confronting the recalcitrant ones over the phone. “How can I reach him?”

“You can knock on his door, the best way. You say you're from the police?”

Peter didn't waver. “I need to see him on official police business.”

“I'll give you the address, then.” Peter could hear her riffling some papers in the background. She dictated the address, her voice softening a bit. “Can you pick up his messages on your way, and give them to him? There's been a few people calling. He only lives two streets from the church.”

“Can't he pick them up himself?”

“Not in the condition he's in.”

Twenty minutes on — as Tommy drove — and they were at St. Elegias, which boasted its own graveyard and a small verge of lawn all the way around it. Otherwise, it was a fairly modest Roman Catholic church, its shape not unlike St. George's nearby in Weymouth. There was a seeping frost in the air; Peter got out and looked up at the sky, trying to guess the odds of snow.

A nameplate, which had been riveted to the side door a long time ago, read
Father Robert Clarke
and listed two subordinates in smaller print. Another sign gave the phone number for the administration office; it was the one from Salvez's message. Peter did a full circle of the stone building. Clarke was also identified on the main sign at the entrance. A large encased display on the lawn in front of the church held a statue of the Virgin. Behind it, a sign stencilled in red on parchment paper exhibited the quote of the week:
Have you found your King?

Peter did not at first realize that the house behind St. Elegias was the rectory. It was a compact, cottage-like home, evidently the residence of Father Clarke. A panel on the railing on the front steps confirmed this and requested that visitors call at the church for assistance. Father Salvez most certainly didn't live here.

Peter hailed Tommy, who understood, and killed the ignition. He got out of the car and waited while Peter descended the steps at the side of the building. He found the right office by following the odour of brewed tea. The old receptionist, whose dried-apple face matched the crotchety voice on the phone, appeared to be counting hymnbooks.

“Sixteen . . . seventeen . . . eighteen,” she intoned.

Peter's arrival made her lose count. “Yes?” she snapped.

“Peter Cammon.” He entered the office. He wasn't what she expected in a police officer, and that suited him fine. She seemed impressed by his black suit.

She handed over a sealed envelope. “Please give him these, his messages.” She paused and said, with unexpected warmth, “Say hello to the Father for us.”

“Can I ask you one thing?” Peter said.

“I suppose.”

“Why does Father Salvez's name not appear on the list of priests?”

“Because he's not formally associated with us.”

Formally associated?
Her answer begged the question of why the office continued to function as his mail drop, if little more.

“He's retired,” she went on. “He doesn't work here.”

“Is he somehow formally affiliated with the Abbey?” For every tidbit of information, the dry, pale woman retrenched behind the battlements.