Dying Inside (DI Nick Dixon Crime) Read online

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I tell you what is a bit odd, although it’s probably nothing.’ Taylor hesitated. ‘There are no hard and fast rules, but an east to west Atlantic crossing is usually made starting November time. You head south to the Canaries, getting across the Bay of Biscay before winter sets in, and then have a nice jolly across to the Caribbean on the trade winds. You come back via the Azores, so what they were doing out there in March is anyone’s guess.’

  ‘So it could have been drugs?’

  ‘I still don’t see how. The captain gave a position via email on the evening of the eighteenth and three PLBs activated further to the south-west, which means they were sailing away from the UK the whole time. Even a couple of hours transferring drugs to the Sunset Boulevard and they couldn’t have got to that position.’

  ‘What’s a PLB?’

  ‘Personal locator beacon; it’s an emergency radio beacon. It emits a GPS signal too. You attach it to your life jacket and activate it if you go into the water; nice and easy, pull up the aerial, remove a tamper seal and press “on”. They all had the RescueMe PLB1 with a seven year battery life on it.’

  ‘Have you concluded your investigation?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ replied Taylor. ‘We’re just looking at a manslaughter prosecution at the moment; waiting to hear from the Crown Prosecution Service.’

  ‘And the cause of the accident?’

  ‘Gross negligence; failure to maintain; unsafe operation. The bolts failed – no doubt stressed by age and multiple groundings – and the keel detached, resulting in a sudden capsize and the loss of four crew.’

  ‘No trace of them was ever found?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘They didn’t even have a chance to get the life raft out.’ Taylor sighed down the phone line. ‘The search was called off after three days; they’d have survived eight hours max in that water temperature.’

  ‘Just one last question.’ Dixon was watching Charlesworth walking along the landing. He’d lose sight of him beyond the canteen; discomforting to say the least. ‘Has anyone from our organised crime unit been in touch with you about the suggestion that drugs were on board Sunset Boulevard?’

  ‘No.’ He could almost hear Taylor’s frown. ‘What’s your interest in it then, if not the drugs?’

  ‘I’m making preliminary enquiries into the murder of Godfrey Collins.’

  ‘Collins is dead? When did this happen?’

  ‘Three days ago.’

  ‘Three days? When the bloody hell was someone going to tell us?’

  Light the blue touch paper; stand well back.

  The knock on the door was pure politeness; Charlesworth could see him sitting at his desk through the glass partition. In fact it was more of a goldfish bowl than an office, and Dixon still regarded it as Peter Lewis’s anyway. ‘Dead man’s shoes’ was a punch in the stomach when the deceased had been more of a friend than a colleague.

  ‘Settling in?’

  ‘No.’ Suitably blunt.

  ‘You can take down his pictures, surely, Nick?’ Charlesworth was looking at the photographs on the wall to either side of the only window: Greek island holiday snaps. ‘Doesn’t his wife want them back?’

  ‘I offered, but she said she couldn’t face it yet.’

  The view out of the window wasn’t much to write home about either – of the large caged enclosure at the back of the custody suite, the familiar sound of the rear doors of a prison van parked inside the cage slamming shut.

  ‘More happy customers.’ Charlesworth had his back to Dixon as he watched the scene unfold below. ‘I’m assuming that was the Marine Accident Investigation Branch you were on the phone to earlier?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’ Dixon had learned early on that it was best to come clean straight away when it was obvious the interrogator knew the answer to the question anyway. It had been his first term at school when his housemaster had seen him in town after lights out, and he remembered the conversation well: ‘I reckon you were in the White Hart, the Rising Sun or the Forrester’s Arms, now how am I doing?’ Dixon had opted for the honest answer: ‘All three, Sir,’ and had got off lightly, spending a day of his half term holiday painting the corridor.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ It clearly took the wind out of Charlesworth’s sails too. ‘Well, at least you didn’t try to deny it.’

  ‘There were no drugs on Sunset Boulevard.’ Dixon turned his computer to face Charlesworth and pointed to the screen. ‘These are photos of the inside taken by the French Coastguard the day before it sank, and everything’s stowed away where it should be. You tell me, where the hell are you going to hide two hundred and sixty kilos of cocaine in there?’

  Charlesworth peered at Dixon over his reading glasses before turning to the screen. ‘Not according to DCS Collyer’s informant.’

  ‘Some crackhead feeding him false information, probably to put him off the scent of something bigger.’

  ‘What about the keel then?’

  Dixon could sense a seed of doubt creeping in. Time to go in for the kill. ‘It’s not even hollow on this model of yacht. And it was sailing away from the UK when it capsized. I accept entirely that Collins has connections, is a “known associate” or whatever phrase you care to use, but it does not automatically follow that his murder was a gangland execution. Zephyr have gone steaming in with their blinkers on, ignoring every other possibility. He was an accountant running tax avoidance schemes, for a start. Then there are the families of the crew lost at sea.’

  Charlesworth was still facing the computer screen, although Dixon could see he was no longer focused on the photographs. When you’ve got someone on the ropes, keep hitting them: it was good advice, but some boxers were better at it than others.

  ‘And then there’s the crossbow broadhead with the circular pattern,’ continued Dixon. ‘It’s on the last lot of sheep, according to Roger Poland.’

  ‘You’ve been to see Dr Poland?’

  ‘It’s on Godfrey Collins too, you can see it plain as day on the post mortem photographs. Roger’s never seen a broadhead like it, and neither has Leo Petersen.’

  Charlesworth folded up his glasses and slid them into his top pocket. ‘So, you’re saying there’s some maniac out there with a crossbow and he’s going to kill again?’

  ‘He’s killed once, that’s all I can say with any degree of certainty, but my gut feeling is this is just the start.’

  ‘You’ve never been wrong before.’ Charlesworth let out a long sigh. ‘What do we do?’

  The question was probably rhetorical, given that he was staring out of the window, but what the hell? ‘Take the case off Zephyr,’ said Dixon, ‘and put a major investigation team in place.’

  ‘We can’t possibly do that.’

  ‘Then you’ll just have to hope he doesn’t kill again before you can do that.’

  He let that one hang in the air, watching Charlesworth mull it over.

  ‘What’s your next move?’

  ‘I’m going to see Craig Pengelly at Leyhill open prison tomorrow,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘And who’s he?’

  ‘The fiancé of one of the crew lost on Sunset Boulevard. He’s doing eighteen months for fraud; he was at the memorial service with a prison escort.’

  ‘I thought you’d be out somewhere with your dog; it is a Saturday.’

  ‘Time is of the essence, Sir. If I’m right.’

  ‘Well,’ Charlesworth said, turning on his heels, ‘Peter Lewis watched your back often enough and now it’s my turn.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  ‘Just keep out of DCS Collyer’s way. You leave him to me.’ Charlesworth stopped in the open doorway, his eyes narrowing. ‘There is a price, Nick.’

  ‘Portishead?’

  ‘Applications close in twelve days.’

  Chapter Eight

  Dixon turned in to the visitors’ car park at HM Prison Leyhill just before nine the following morning. Monty had snored through most of the hour-long journey and Ja
ne had been engrossed in her phone, which gave him plenty of time to think.

  Crucial time had been lost by Zephyr wading in with their size tens. A major investigation team was the proper response to a murder, unless and until a connection with organised crime was proven, not the other way around; but at least Charlesworth was beginning to see sense.

  Monty woke up when Dixon turned off the engine, the patter of rain on the roof the only sound once the diesel engine had stopped rattling.

  Jane glanced up at the windscreen, raindrops running down the glass. ‘Bloody typical, isn’t it. Lovely all week then it pisses down at the weekend.’

  ‘It’ll have stopped by the time I’ve finished here.’

  ‘D’you want me to come in with you?’

  ‘No point in us both losing our jobs.’

  ‘I thought Charlesworth was on side now?’

  ‘He’s no Peter Lewis.’ Dixon dropped the car keys into Jane’s lap with a sigh as he opened the driver’s door. ‘I can’t make up my mind if he’s watching my back, or deciding where to stick the knife.’

  He left his insulin pen and phone with Jane, dropping just door keys and coins in the tray when he went through the security scanner, much to the prison officer’s surprise.

  ‘No phone?’

  ‘I left it in the car.’

  Then he was shown in to an interview room – a table, two chairs, and a camera mounted on the wall just under the ceiling. There was a tape machine too, but he wouldn’t need that.

  It was true what they said, thought Dixon: time passed slowly in prison. He’d checked his watch five or six times before the door finally opened and Craig Pengelly shuffled in and sat down opposite him. The prison officer escorting him gestured to the wall beside the door. ‘D’you want me to . . .’

  ‘Outside’s fine.’ Dixon was watching Craig. ‘Thanks.’

  Craig had looked him up and down when he’d first walked in, and he was now sitting with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on the table in front of him.

  Dixon waited.

  ‘Do I need a solicitor for this?’ Craig spoke without looking up.

  ‘You can have one if you want one,’ Dixon replied. ‘I just wanted to talk to you about Laura, really. I saw you at her memorial service on Thursday.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘How’s it been?’ He slid a packet of cigarettes across the table; the obligatory sweetener, useful currency even if Craig didn’t smoke. ‘Your time.’

  ‘Shite.’ Craig looked up, his bloodshot eyes darting around the room, the pupils dilated; hair cropped with clippers; standard issue light blue top and jogging bottoms. Someone had given him a thick lip too. ‘Five months at Bristol, then here surrounded by nonces. I’m not sure which is worse.’

  ‘How long have you got left?’

  ‘Days, not that it matters. I’ve got nothing left to come out to now.’

  ‘Didn’t I see you sitting with your parents at the church?’

  ‘They’ll not have me back. Not now.’

  ‘Spice?’ Dixon knew the signs only too well; few drugs were more addictive than synthetic cannabis.

  ‘Gets you through the day.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I’ve got a friend in Bristol, so I’ll go there, see what happens.’

  ‘Tell me about the fraud.’ Another packet of cigarettes slid across the table.

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘I’d rather hear it from you.’

  ‘I was a trainee financial adviser.’ Craig started picking at the skin at the base of his thumbnail. ‘How was I to know the whole thing was a scam, for fuck’s sake? Fucking pensions.’ He blinked, tears appearing in the corners of his eyes. ‘Then they all bugger off and I’m left to carry the can. Eighteen bloody months and the judge knew I wasn’t the brains behind it.’

  ‘You serve nine of that, and it’s nearly up, isn’t it?’

  ‘Four of them in here surrounded by perverts.’

  ‘When did you last see Laura?’

  ‘It was before I came here. I’d not long been in Bristol, a couple of months maybe, and she came to see me; told me she’d been offered ten grand to crew a boat down to the Caribbean and back. She said the money would pay off all our debts and we’d be able to start again when I got out.’ Craig was kicking the table leg. ‘Nothing I said made a difference. She was adamant she was going and that was that.’

  ‘What debts?’

  ‘She’d gone to her parents, but we still owed rent on the flat, credit cards, the usual shit. And then there was the spice. It all has to be paid for one way or the other. Cash or credit, and you really don’t want to owe these people anything; they own you when you get out.’

  ‘These people?’

  Craig frowned. ‘You’re not seriously asking me to—?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Dixon waved away the question with the back of his hand. ‘Was Laura a member of the sailing club?’

  ‘Had been since she was a kid. She was good at it too; used to race lasers, they’re the small dinghies. She’d been on bigger boats as well, crossed the Atlantic before so she wasn’t worried.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Not my thing, but I joined to keep her happy, ended up doing a bit of gig rowing.’

  ‘What did she say about the yacht?’

  ‘Not a lot, just that it was plenty big enough for an Atlantic crossing. I begged her not to go.’ His jaw clenched. ‘She never said it was that wreck Sunset Boulevard.’

  ‘She knew the condition of the boat?’

  ‘Everybody did.’ He blinked, releasing the tears from the corners of his eyes. ‘It’s all my fault.’ Flowing freely now. ‘She said we needed the money, otherwise we’d never be free of them. “Here, mate, have some of this,” they said. “It’ll help pass the time”, and before you know it . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry, you can pay us later,’ said Dixon.

  ‘They’ll be waiting for me when I get out.’

  ‘Who gave you the thick lip?’ Dixon asked, changing the subject.

  ‘Just some nonce in the shower. He slipped on a bar of soap and hit his head on the sink; in hospital now, he is, if you catch my drift.’ Craig ran his tongue along his lower lip. ‘It’ll be two or three of them next time and I won’t be so lucky. Unless I get out of here first.’

  ‘When did you hear from Laura last?’

  ‘She emailed her parents and they printed it off and sent it to me,’ Craig replied, sliding a tightly folded piece of paper out of his back pocket. ‘Here it is.’

  Dixon watched him smooth the piece of paper over his thigh and slide it across the table.

  ‘They were just going round Land’s End,’ continued Craig. ‘She says she can see it in the distance.’

  It was short, to the point and read more like a postcard: Weather lovely, favourable winds, can see Land’s End, tell Craig I love him and to look after himself.

  Dixon handed back the email. ‘When did you find out she was pregnant?’

  ‘We knew before Christmas. I was sent down in January so it was a couple of weeks before that, I suppose. We never told anyone else.’

  ‘And you were pleased?’

  ‘She said it gave me something to live for, and it did. She was going to try and hang on so I’d be out for the birth, only it didn’t work out like that, did it?’

  ‘Does the name Godfrey Collins mean anything to you?’

  ‘He’s the bloke who owned the boat.’ Craig folded his arms again. ‘They’re supposed to be investigating him for manslaughter.’

  ‘Would it surprise you to learn that’s he’s dead?’

  ‘Surprise, no; disappoint, yes.’ Craig managed a smile, although it was loaded with contradiction; the eyes gave him away. ‘I had thought it might be fun to catch up with him when I got out.’

  ‘How was he?’ asked Jane, when Dixon opened the driver’s door.

  ‘Off his box on spice and in debt to drug dealers up to his armpits. It’s
why Laura was crewing the yacht – for the money.’

  ‘How much was she being paid?’

  ‘Ten grand.’ He reached into the back as he climbed in, rubbing Monty behind the ears.

  ‘When’s he due out?’

  ‘The next few days, he hasn’t got a date yet. Until then he’s in there, convicted of a fraud he says he knew nothing about and surrounded by sex offenders.’

  ‘Ninety per cent according to the last prison census. I googled it.’

  Dixon sighed. ‘All he’s got to hold on to is an email she sent as they passed Land’s End.’

  ‘And drug dealers waiting for him when he gets out.’ Jane was putting on her seatbelt. ‘Life really stinks sometimes.’

  ‘How about a walk somewhere in the Cotswolds now we’re up here, and lunch in a pub?’ Dixon turned the key and the diesel engine rumbled into life.

  ‘You have forgotten, haven’t you?’ Jane frowned. ‘I knew you would.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re supposed to be picking Lucy up at Temple Meads on the way back. Her train gets in at eleven.’

  Dixon felt his face tighten. It had been a long hot summer and Jane had spent most of it trying to keep tabs on Lucy’s comings and goings, acting more like her mother than her half-sister. That said, neither of them knew who their real father was, so they were full sisters in every way that mattered, or so Lucy insisted, usually when she was trying to borrow money.

  The end of her exams in July had coincided with the confirmation of Dixon’s promotion and he had got home from his first day of management bollocks to find Lucy had moved into the cottage for the summer, bringing her Walking Dead box set with her. She had, at least, enrolled in college to sit her A levels, so there had been that light at the end of the tunnel, and the peace and quiet this week had been blissful. Now it was weekends only, her foster parents dropping her at Manchester Piccadilly for the train home – that was a change that had crept in over the summer too: ‘home during the week and Somerset at weekends’ had morphed into ‘Manchester during the week and home at weekends’.

  Jane was happy, all the same, although Dixon felt sure Lucy was really coming down to see her boyfriend, Billy; there are some things best kept to yourself.