He returned to the contents of the SOC report. As he read through Sully’s observations of the Nix house, peering closely at the evidence photos and location images, he felt as though he was beginning to get a better understanding of Gerald Nix.

  The house was thoroughly stamped with his masculine personality. Any sign that he’d shared, or ever shared, this place with a woman had been wiped clean. Purged. Nothing current and nothing that even nodded to the twenty-odd years he’d lived with Jo.

  There was a picture of Nix holding a certificate for something or other on the wall in his study. He had dark hair, wore glasses and had what a casting agent would call a weak chin. He had a Bill Gates-ish look to him – slightly nerdy and slightly gawky, but then appearances, as Boyd well knew, meant nothing. Ted Bundy, for Christ’s sake, had looked like the kind of lovely young man you’d want to bring home to meet your nan.

  The Nix lounge was large, open-plan. It was all modern leather-and-chrome furniture with, of course, several pieces of expensive ‘art’, no doubt curated and sourced on his behalf by some interior designer. There was an expensive Bose sound system and a large TV screen secured to a wall.

  The kitchen was used. But that was because whoever’d been lurking in that house, the guy who’d jumped Boyd, had been making himself at home – for several days, it seemed. The pantry and freezer had cleared of ready meals, the dirty packaging piled up on the side.

  Upstairs there was a master bedroom and two guest bedrooms, all en suite. The master was, again, very masculine, very minimalist. A wardrobe that ran along the entirety of one wall was hidden by sliding, mirrored doors.

  Boyd presumed that Mr Nix enjoyed getting a good look at himself in bed.

  Speaking of which…

  There was no sign of his alleged trophy girlfriend – this Zophie, if that was even her proper name. Jo had seemed quite certain that the young woman had moved in with Nix, spraying her ‘this is mine’ pheromones all over the house that she’d called ‘home’ for so many years, like a feral cat. At least that’s what Jo had said.

  However, the photographs gave little evidence of that. If this young woman had moved in, she’d done it very minimally. The only evidence that was a few female toiletries in the bathroom and some clothes in a couple of wheeled suitcases.

  She also appeared to have been sleeping in a guest bedroom. So, Boyd asked himself, what does that suggest? That Nix preferred his own room, his own space, but a little action down the hallway to call upon when the mood took him? Or perhaps she was calling the shots?

  Maybe he was being too cynical here. There was always the boring alternative that she’d only partially moved in and they were just taking their time. One step at a time and all that.

  In terms of clues about the nature of Nix’s departure from his home, there were no apparent signs of a struggle, other than those caused by Boyd yesterday. Nothing broken or dislodged, no scuff marks or drag marks anywhere. But then, if the mysterious guest who’d been making himself at home there had been ransacking the house, pulling things out, looking for spoils, any potential evidence would probably be long gone.

  Nix’s study was very much the financial man’s home office. A huge rosewood desk with a leather chesterfield armchair, neither of which would have looked out of place in the White House, sat next to a fully stocked, faux-cartographer’s globe drinks cabinet. The only thing missing seemed to be Nix’s computer. A rat’s nest of detached cables splayed out from beneath the desk, suggesting Sully’s team had taken it before the photos were taken. Boyd checked the addendum and saw that DC Warren, his exhibits officer, had dutifully logged Nix’s computer as being bagged and tagged for forensic analysis.

  Boyd found some margin-space in which to scribble.

  Motive/narrative?

  1. Nix does a runner with gf – why? Avoid debts? Liabilities?

  2. Nix and gf forced onto boat – Why? Kidnapping? Extortion?

  There was definitely a third party in the CCTV footage. Just a pair of legs, but that pair of legs that was very much with the other two. Another thought occurred to Boyd.

  3. Jo Bambridge – revenge? The 3rd person a hitman?

  Not that Jo Bambridge seemed to be the type to be well-acquainted with Sussex’s criminal underworld, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have found someone. And, to be fair, she had reason to want revenge.

  4. Rigby. Was he somehow caught up in this?

  Maybe he’d decided to get his money back from Nix. Or hired someone else to do it.

  ‘Kidnapping?’ DSI Sutherland repeated the word slowly like it was a charming new colloquialism he’d never heard before.

  ‘The CCTV footage suggests that Nix and his lady friend could have been forced onto his yacht. There were definitely three of them, and enough people pissed off with him to make it a real possibility.’

  Sutherland pursed his lips. ‘You think maybe Rigby had someone take them out to sea and torture Nix to find where his money was. Then murdered him and the girl.’

  ‘It’s an option.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Sutherland absently tapped his cheek with an outstretched finger. ‘You see, Chief Superintendent Hatcher has a theory that Nix and his lady friend may have encountered another vessel, possibly a migrant dinghy. Sully’s SOC report from the boat mentioned multiple prints all over the deck.’

  ‘Has she read the Nix house report?’ Boyd asked, pointing to the folder on Sutherland’s desk.

  ‘She’s read both reports. She’s very on it, Boyd. This has the potential to get very political, Boyd. Which is why she wants to be kept in the loop.’

  Boyd made a face. ‘There’s too much about Nix that stinks for this to be just some random encounter in the Channel with a boatload of migrants.’

  ‘The Channel’s a busy place. Chief Super thinks it’s likely that the Magpie might have encountered and attempted to assist a struggling migrant vessel, and then ended up being overrun by them.’

  ‘And what? Got tortured and butchered by the very people they’d just rescued? And then the killers hopped back into their shitty dinghy and carried on their merry way? D’you really think that’s likely?’

  Sutherland shrugged. ‘A struggle ensued aboard. The cabin door was clearly smashed in. Perhaps Nix was trying to fend them off for fear he was about to be swarmed. Got badly wounded or killed in the process. Whoever did that would have needed to get rid of the evidence.’

  Swarmed, that word again. Like migrants weren’t people but some malevolent force of nature. As if they were creatures, fit only to be culled. Boyd took a deep breath and willed himself to stay calm.

  ‘Sir, as you can clearly see from the ridiculous-looking dressing on the side of my head, I was jumped and very nearly killed at Nix’s house.’

  ‘Yes. I know. Which begs the question, should you even be back at work?’

  ‘Let me finish, sir – it’s one hell of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say? That somebody was there, in Nix’s house going through his things, with him missing and the boat floating in the Channel in the state it was in?’

  Sutherland shrugged. ‘His house has been sitting empty for, what, three months?’

  Boyd nodded.

  ‘Right. Well, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that some local opportunist noticed that and decided to take advantage of it.’

  Boyd took in another deep breath. He couldn’t believe what he was actually hearing. ‘Yes. I suppose that’s a possibility. But we do have two people with clear motives: Rigby and Bambridge. It makes sense to rule those out before we start going down the road of a random –’

  ‘Boyd,’ Sutherland cut in. ‘Her Madge has made it very clear to me, and so now I have to make it very clear to you, that she believes Nix and his passengers had an encounter out in the middle of the Channel, and that encounter may have been chance, or it may have been intentional.’

  ‘Smuggling?’

  ‘Or migrant trafficking.’ Sutherland shrugged. ‘There’s good money to be made there.’

  ‘And that’s what the Chief Super believes?’

  Sutherland nodded.

  Boyd pressed on with his questions. ‘Why is she steering this investigation?’

  ‘She’s not steering it, Boyd. She’s just offering a fresh pair of eyes, that’s all.’

  ‘She’s interfering.’

  ‘Look, Boyd – she stuck her neck out to keep this in-house rather than hand it over to Border Force.’

  Bloody Border Force. In the space of ten years they’d gone from Theresa May’s cobbled-together version of Thunderbirds to a big brute of an agency. The Home Office had been steadily expanding, and it had grown even larger in the wake of Brexit. With their increased remit, they could easily have taken this case.

  Boyd frowned. ‘And why did she do that?’ he asked.

  Sutherland looked decidedly uncomfortable. ‘Well, that’s an operational matter.’

  ‘And what exactly does that mean, sir?’

  The Detective Superintendent was becoming pink-faced. ‘This is policy-level stuff, Boyd. Which is above your pay grade and mine. She has a direction she wants you to focus on, and if you’re going to be difficult about it, I can juggle DCI Flack’s workload and he can take over. That’s the long and short of it.’

  Boyd got the feeling that Sutherland wasn’t entirely happy with the position he found himself in. He wondered whether Her Madge had had taut words with him in turn.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes, Boyd.’

  ‘Can I ask you about Nix’s home computer? It says in the report that we logged it, but it’s not in the station. Do you know where it is?’

  Sutherland looked surprised. ‘The digital forensics team here should have it.’

  ‘Indeed they should. But they don’t.’ Boyd grabbed the file and flipped to the back of the SOC report. ‘DC Warren signed for it to go to them, but they didn’t receive it.’

  ‘Hmmm…’ Sutherland seemed genuinely puzzled. ‘That’s odd.’

  ‘Well, yes. In fact, I’d go as far as to call it piss-poor evidence logging,’ said Boyd. ‘Unless, of course, somebody else asked for it to be redirected.’

  Sutherland’s expression hardened.

  ‘Keep your mind on the case, Boyd. It’ll turn up. Meanwhile, you take a long hard look at that migrant angle. All right?’ said Sutherland, as he picked up his cold mug of coffee and leant back in his squeaky chair.

  The meeting was over.

  24

  The table in the far corner of the canteen, away from the noisy serving counter and surrounded by comfy padded seats, seemed like a good enough place for an out-of-office meeting.

  Boyd had gathered Minter, Okeke and Sully around the table and had even been generous enough to spring for a round of coffees and Danish pastries.

  ‘I didn’t know Apple airBuds came in that size.’ Sully nodded at the dressing over his ear.

  ‘Yeah, hilarious.’ Boyd rolled his eyes. ‘On any other day I’d be laughing my socks off.’ He tore a sachet of sugar in half over his coffee and stirred it into the frothy milk. ‘It appears,’ he said, gesturing for them to speak quietly, ‘that further up the chain of command they want us to lean towards an encounter with belligerent migrants at sea, alongside –’ he held a hand up to Okeke, who was about to butt in – ‘an unrelated random squatting-cum-assault-of-police-officer as the explanation for this case. Which, I’m sorry –’ he looked at them in turn – ‘strikes me as a load of old bollocks.’

  ‘What? Is that coming from Sutherland or Hatcher?’ asked Sully.

  ‘It’s coming through Sutherland from Hatcher,’ Boyd replied. ‘God knows why she wants to push us in that direction. I suspect it could be some sort of turf-war thing.’

  ‘You’re pushing your luck, aren’t you, Boyd?’ said Sully. ‘You’ve been here at Hastings for all of two minutes and already you’re a squeaky wheel.’

  ‘Trust me when I say I‘d much prefer to have a straightforward case dumped on me for my first effort.’

  ‘There’s too much “coincidence” in Her Madge’s explanation,’ said Minter. ‘And, anyway, where does she think they disappeared to? This dinghy full of blood-soaked, murdering migrants?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Boyd scratched at his increasingly itchy beard. He really could do with finding his damned shaver. ‘So… anyway, she wants us to go with this “migrants did it” thing. Okay, it’s a theory. A bloody stupid one, if you ask me. But, fine, we’ll enter it in the action log as an active line of inquiry. Meanwhile, I think we need to follow through on the Nix house… and concentrate on any leads we get from that.’ He looked back at Sully. ‘The scrote that jumped me… have you had anything back on the DNA swabs yet?’

  ‘There’s no match with anything on the boat, I’m afraid. We got a match for Gerald Nix and his girlfriend from some samples in the house. But passenger number three remains a mystery.’

  ‘Well, it’s good to have that confirmed at least,’ said Boyd. ‘So, we have several things going on here: Nix, who seems to have been a bit of a shit, to put it mildly, merrily making enemies. We’ve got Rigby with a ton of money that Nix seems to have hidden away from him. And we have Jo Bambridge, whose home and business that she helped build up were whipped out from under her feet by some new, younger model.’

  ‘That’s not entirely fair,’ said Okeke. ‘It was Nix who took everything from Jo, not this woman.’

  ‘Right. Yes. Sorry, that’s true.’

  ‘And, let’s not forget, this mystery woman has become collateral damage in all this. Probably dead in a possible revenge act that isn’t actually anything to do with her.’

  Boyd raised a hand in an admission of guilt. ‘The point is,’ he continued, ‘the answers to this will almost certainly be on Nix’s computer, which, between his house and this station, seems to have gone AWOL.’

  ‘DC Warren signed it over to one of my team,’ Sully interjected. ‘Karl, I’m pretty sure.’

  Boyd shook his head. ‘Well, can you ask Karl where the hell it’s gone?’

  ‘I’ll do it right now.’ Sully got up from the table and headed out of the canteen with his phone to his ear.

  Boyd turned to Minter. ‘Can you go and have a chat with DI Grove? He’s been given the Rigby pill factory to look into. Then maybe you and O’Neil can have another go at Rigby to see if there’s anything else we can get from him about his dealings with Nix.’

  Minter rubbed his hands together gleefully. ‘Okay, boss. I’m on it.’

  ‘And, Okeke, I want you to set up another interview with Jo Bambridge.’

  ‘You want me to bring her in, guv?’

  ‘No. Let’s not put her on the defensive. Just make it sound like a follow-up chat. Like a family liaison visit or something. She was married to him for over twenty years – we don’t want to go in too hard.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And see if you can find anything else out from Jo about this other woman. This Zophie. Just probe her a bit and see what gives.

  ‘You want me to see if there’s any meat on the bone for the revenge motive?’

  ‘Exactly. And maybe chat woman-to-woman. Without my ugly mug around, she might open up a little more.’

  ‘Gotcha.’

  Sully returned to the table, pocketing his phone as he sat down. ‘Border Force has got Nix’s computer.’

  ‘Why the hell have they got it?’ Boyd could feel his temper rising. This didn’t sit right with what Sutherland had told him about Her Madge wanting to keep this case in-house. Had someone overruled her?

  Sully shrugged. ‘All I know is what Karl told me. The Chief Super asked him, in person, to redirect it to them to look at. Border Force sent someone to collect it from the station while you were being sewn up in hospital.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ Boyd exploded. ‘I go to A&E for a couple of hours and while my back’s turned –’ He stopped, shook his head and sighed. ‘Right. Fine,’ he said, getting up.

  ‘Where are you going, guv?’ asked Okeke.

  Boyd glanced at the polystyrene ceiling tiles above.

  ‘I think it’s about time I had a little chat with Her Madge.’

  25

  ‘So they met on the internet?’

  Okeke had struck lucky. Jo Bambridge was home in between work shifts. She was due back on the shop floor in a couple of hours.

  ‘He found her on one of those sites where dirty old men look for flirty young tarts. He always had an eye for the younger ones. Don’t all men when they reach that age? They fool themselves they can still attract something half their age,’ said Jo. She squeezed the teabag against the side of the mug, then fished it out. ‘Sugar?’

  ‘No thank you,’ replied Okeke, then she added, ‘Men are fools. It’s in their genes.’

  Jo snorted. ‘And that’s where it should flipping well stay.’

  Okeke laughed at her unintended pun. It was a good job Boyd wasn’t there – he’d have never let her live that one down.

  Jo handed Okeke her tea and led her back into the small lounge. They both sat down on the sofa, cups and saucers carefully balanced on their knees.

  ‘When do you think Gerald first started talking to… is it Zophie?’ asked Okeke.

  ‘Zophie with a “Z”.’ Jo rolled her eyes. ‘I remember thinking how pretentious that was. Pathetic.’ She stirred her tea absently. ‘I don’t know. I don’t imagine it was too long before I caught him out, because girls like that don’t hang about, do they? Once they realise they’ve struck gold, they go in for the kill.’

  ‘You make that sound like he’s not to blame.’

  ‘Of course it’s his fault. He…’ Her voice faltered. ‘He basically cashed in twenty-two years of my life for a better-looking offer. I mean, I suppose I should be grateful to her for showing me what a nasty selfish piece of shit he is while I’m still able to go out there, get a job and help myself – to think I could have been turfed out of my home in my fifties or sixties.’

  Okeke nodded along. ‘You’re still young, Jo.’

  She managed half a smile. ‘I’m not young.’