‘There were forensic indicators on the boat suggesting foul play, which is why the CID has been involved and an inquiry team has been put together. At this stage we do not have any confirmed names of those who might have been aboard. But we do know the boat was berthed at a marina in Eastbourne.

  ‘We are asking the general public – particularly those living along the south coast of England – if they have concerns about missing family members, if they own a yacht, or know someone who owns one by that name, to call the inquiry line number.’ He looked up from his notes. ‘I’ll take one or two questions now.’

  The conference room seated fifty, the chairs arranged in rows of eight to ten. Only the first two rows were occupied, and a solitary BBC cameraman stood at the back. With the spotlights from the spar above shining down on him, it reminded Boyd of a really shitty open-mic night.

  A few hands went up. Boyd picked one on the front row.

  ‘There are rumours that this boat encountered a distressed migrant dinghy and was swarmed by them. Can you comment on that?’

  Boyd sighed. Not this again.

  ‘Rumours? Really? From where?’ he shot back. Rumours were the bane of his bloody life. The journalist might as well have said: ‘In my opinion…’ or ‘I read on Facebook that…’

  The young journalist’s face blotched a rosy pink. He’d obviously not been expecting to have to back it up. ‘Various sources,’ he muttered.

  Boyd shook his head and tutted. ‘No. There’s no evidence at all that something like that occurred.’ He looked around for another raised hand.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s –’

  Don’t say ‘rumours’.

  ‘– word that the boat may have been drifting for quite some time? Can you say how long?’

  ‘Well, we’re not talking the Mary Celeste here,’ Boyd deadpanned to the silent room, ‘but… we have an indication that it departed from Eastbourne last November. Whether it has been drifting or berthed somewhere for that time, we don’t yet know.’

  He took another question.

  ‘You suggested foul play. Do you mean murder?’

  ‘We don’t have enough information to comment on that at this time.’

  Pinky Face in the front row had raised his hand again. Boyd decided to be magnanimous and give him the opportunity to look less like a prat.

  ‘Do you believe the boat may have been used in trafficking? Migrants? Drugs?’

  ‘It’s not something we’ve ruled out, but at this stage it’s certainly not our leading theory.’

  ‘What is then?’ he asked, before Boyd could move on. ‘What is your leading theory?’

  Boyd mentally eye-rolled. He couldn’t believe he’d used that word. Theories tended to have a habit of circling around and biting you in the arse. He gave Pinky Face a forced smile. ‘When we have more information, we’ll update you.’

  Moving on, he pointed at a raised hand at the back. ‘Yup?’

  ‘There are reports of lots of blood on the boat. Can you confirm that?’

  For fuck’s sake. With great effort, Boyd kept his poker face on. ‘At this stage I’m not going to comment on any forensics until we have the scene-of-crime report. Thank you.’

  ‘The term bloodbath was used,’ called a voice from the back.

  This shitshow was really beginning to piss him off now.

  Some arse on the team had obviously been talking to someone. Minter and Okeke seemed smart enough not to gossip. But the two younger lads? He would definitely be keeping an eye on them.

  ‘Bloodbath?’ Pinky Face was quick to latch on to that. ‘Is that phrase in the forensics report?’

  ‘No!’ snapped Boyd, grabbing his statement and turning to go, ‘but it’s the kind of language I’d expect from a tabloid hack or some twat on Twitter.’

  The room fell completely silent.

  DSI Sutherland, with his cheery Penfold face smiling full-beam, stepped hastily forward to wrap up the press briefing with the standard ‘That’s all, folks. Nothing to see here!’

  Five minutes later they were back in Sutherland’s glass-walled office.

  ‘Interesting choice of word there, Boyd.’

  Boyd grimaced apologetically. ‘I meant twit. I actually meant to say twit. It got tangled with Twitter and… honestly… anyway, I’m sorry, sir.’

  Sutherland nodded. ‘That’s okay. Just be mindful that the journos can be utter arseholes and write whatever rubbish they want… but let’s not give them something like that that they can actually quote, eh?’

  ‘Yup. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of those.’

  ‘Sworn at a press briefing?’ Sutherland grinned. ‘I’m pretty sure the Beeb will bleep it.’ The DSI steepled his fingers together on the ink blotter in front of him. ‘But best to remember to mind the language in front of the children in future, eh?’

  11

  Boyd was greeted with a ripple of applause from his team when he stepped back into the Incident Room.

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said, raising a hand to shut them up. ‘Twit, twat. It’s just one bloody letter. Could have happened to anyone.’

  They eventually quietened down and got back to work. Boyd realised he’d just banked a few brownie points with his little team. He doubted there was a cop in the country who wouldn’t love to hurl a deliciously vulgar expletive at a room of gutter-press hacks.

  Minter came over to Boyd with a folder tucked tightly between his pecs and a bulging bicep. ‘Hey, guv – we’ve got an update on the corporate owner of the yacht.’

  He put the folder on Boyd’s desk. ‘The company is, as we know, Maguire Mackintosh. They own the yacht and pay its marina bills. Their address is registered in Guernsey as –’

  ‘Oh, well, there you go – a letterbox company.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Letterbox as in “PO Box”. No actual company premises – just a shared address with their PO box number on a cubbyhole. It’s a shell company.’

  ‘Oh, right, yeah.’

  ‘Do we have a director name?’

  ‘Only one.’ Minter opened the folder and screwed up his face as he tried to pronounce the name.

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ Boyd spun the folder round.

  Director : Xin Gi

  He didn’t attempt to try and say it out loud either. ‘Chinese, it looks like.’

  ‘You reckon it’s dodgy money?’ asked Minter.

  ‘Who knows? The UK’s a magnet for it these days.’ It was no big secret that England was the easiest place in the world to register a business under a false name. ‘Let’s put that name into LEDs and see if anything pings up. We might get lucky with a misper.’

  ‘Righto, sir.’ Minter picked the folder up and turned away. ‘O’Neal? Got some more arse-ferreting for you.’

  Arse-ferreting? Boyd shook his head and snorted. He wondered where the hell that term came from. Another Welsh thing? Or was it a local one?

  Bohemia Road led down to White Rock Road and a seaside theatre that overlooked the shingle beach and Hastings Pier. Boyd took advantage of a brief window in the miserable February weather to walk down to the pier to see if he could clear his head and grab some chips for lunch.

  He was disappointed with how little there was on the pier itself. He’d expected wonky rides that flaunted safety regulations, candyfloss, hotdog stands, penny arcades and rows of deckchairs with leathery-looking pensioners on them. There was sod all of that – just a wide minimalist platform that ran out several hundred yards and a few desultory huts perched along the side, with something that looked like a large grey Lego brick two thirds of the way along.

  As he got closer, thunking his heavy-footed way along the decking, he could see the Lego brick was actually a pub. The roof had tables and chairs on it – a rooftop beer garden surrounded by a tall glass windbreak.

  It was all very modern-looking.

  The pub was called the Bier Garden. Bier – as in Pier. Very clever. He walked around it, mildly tempted to wander in and give it a try. But the smell of frying chips and fish in batter that was wafting from the café near the pier’s entrance proved too much of an enticement. He doubled back, picking up his pace, and entered the café.

  It was busy. A queue snaked along the counter, almost to the door. Boyd spotted several uniforms in the line and recognised a few faces from the CID pool.

  It took him the entire length of the queue to decide what he was going to have and at the very last moment he settled for play-it-safe cod ’n’ chips.

  He emerged from the café with a warm polystyrene box and a paper coffee cup, both burning his hands as he headed over to one of the wooden picnic tables on the pier.

  ‘All right, guv?’ It was DC Okeke. She was sitting on her own with an identical meal. ‘You want a seat?’

  ‘Oh, hello.’ He smiled. He’d have preferred his own table and some thinking space but couldn’t think of a polite way to avoid the inevitable. She was already clearing away the paper wrapping and ketchup sachets to make space for him at the table. It would, he supposed, be a good opportunity to learn some more about his team.

  ‘Sure. Okay. Thanks.’ He sat down and relieved his burning hands. ‘Chips good here?’

  ‘Chips are chips. It’s the fish you got to judge it on,’ she informed him.

  He nodded towards the east end of Hastings where the fisherman’s huts and boats were all crammed together. ‘Which I imagine is fresh?’

  ‘Very likely caught this morning.’

  He tried ripping the corner of his ketchup sachet, but it required a little help with his teeth. He managed to get the corner off and pipe the ketchup out across his chips in zigzag lines.

  ‘Oh, I see you’re a spreader, not a dipper.’

  Boyd looked at Okeke’s meal; the sauce was pooled tidily in one corner.

  ‘It’s a habit from my patrol car days,’ he replied. ‘It’s hard to pursue and dip chips at the same time.’

  She laughed at that, though she wasn’t entirely sure whether he was joking. Then her serious work face returned. ‘Oh, guv… the marina manager called me and said their CCTV archive goes back six months. She’s going to look up the footage from the twenty-seventh of November and drop it on our Lockbox server.’

  ‘Excellent. Hopefully we’ll get something usable from that.’

  He dug his plastic fork into the bloody crime scene of ketchup-spattered chips.

  ‘So how are you finding it, guv? Out here in the primitive wilderness of Sussex?’ asked Okeke.

  ‘Boyd,’ he replied. ‘Off the clock you can ditch “guv” and call me Boyd.’

  ‘Right. In that case, off the clock… it’s Sam.’

  He nodded. ‘Hastings? I like it,’ he said. ‘Loads of character.’ He gestured at East Hill and the fishing huts. ‘That end anyway.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s a town of two halves.’ She speared a chip and dunked it. ‘Not too parochial for you?’

  He laughed softly. ‘Nope. It’s nice – the boats, the huts, the seagulls, the sea. I spent a few summers here actually, when I was a little boy.’ He looked around. ‘I thought I remembered it pretty well, but I suppose I have a kid’s memory of it all. Including the pier apparently. I seem to remember it looking like something out of Willy Wonka.’

  ‘It burned down – that’s why it looks different,’ she replied. ‘Big fire back in the noughties. They completely rebuilt it.’

  ‘Ahhh. Okay. That explains it. He paused. ‘I gave Brighton some thought when relocating, but the property prices are almost London-like. Here, though…’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe how much you can get for your money.’

  ‘That’ll change,’ she said. ‘The DFLs will drive the local prices up, I bet.’

  ‘DFL?’

  ‘Down From London.’

  He smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry about that. Do you own, or do you rent?’

  ‘I rent,’ she replied.

  ‘Ah, I’m really sorry, then.’

  She smiled. ‘Not your fault – just market forces, isn’t it? You’d be dumb not to cash out before London prices start to tank.’

  He stabbed a large chip and blew on it to cool it down. ‘It wasn’t all about the money, to be honest.’

  ‘Fed up with city life?’ she asked.

  ‘I needed a new start,’ he said. ‘A reset button.’

  She frowned, curious. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Didn’t Sutherland mention it?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. What?’

  ‘I’ve been on compassionate leave for a while. I lost my wife and my son not so long ago. Actually –’ he paused – ‘it’s been over two years… Christ, time flies.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. That’s…’ Okeke suddenly looked awkward. ‘So you moved out to Hastings.’

  ‘With Emma, my daughter. That was basically a part of our recovery. A big part, truth be told. I think the distraction of moving and starting again has been good for us.’

  She nodded. ‘Your new start.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘How old is your daughter?’

  ‘Twenty-one,’ he replied. ‘Nope. Correction, twenty-two. She’s been stalling university for the last two years to look after her old man.’

  ‘You don’t look like an old man.’

  ‘Six days of growth and a full head of hair hide a multitude of sins,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’m staring down the barrel of fifty. Well, I will be in a few years.’

  ‘Oh… okay,’ she chuckled.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he asked.

  ‘I thought you were older than that.’ She chuckled again. ‘One of those blokes who’s managed to age well.’

  Boyd wasn’t entirely sure how to take that. ‘Now what am I meant to say? Thanks or screw you?’

  She laughed. ‘Put my foot in it, I think.’

  ‘Right.’ He popped the now-cool chip into his mouth. ‘None bloody taken, by the way.’ He speared another. ‘Julia – that’s my wife – always said she was in for the long game. That although I was an ugly sprog of a young man, she was banking on me ageing well.’

  Okeke smiled. ‘Like cheese.’

  ‘I was going to say wine actually –’

  ‘Shit! Guv! Watch out!’ Okeke ducked down.

  For Boyd it was a white blur. One second of terrifying chaos.

  A hit-and-run and his battered fish was gone. The whole bloody thing.

  ‘Fuck’s sake!’ He watched the seagull swoop up into the sky with his lunch. ‘Thieving bastard!’ he called out after it.

  ‘They do that here,’ said Okeke, trying not to laugh. ‘Little thugs. Sorry, I should have warned you about that.’

  12

  On their return, Okeke had a call from the Sovereign Harbour Marina – the video files from two different CCTV cameras for 27 November were now uploaded onto their secure public server and ready to view.

  All forty-eight hours of it.

  ‘I guess that’s you sorted for the next few shifts,’ said Boyd.

  DC Okeke rolled her eyes at him and turned towards her desk. ‘Lucky me.’

  ‘Don’t forget to log what you’re doing with Minter,’ he said.

  She pivoted and changed course.

  Boyd had learned from bitter experience to keep the action log up to date. Policing, particularly in the Met, had become very political in recent years. The further up the ranks you got, the more of your time was invested in arse-covering. It paid to have a constantly up-to-date record of actions, just in case a senior officer came looking for a scapegoat or something went wrong. If a suspect escaped arrest, or a piece of evidence became compromised, and the general public or the IPCC came looking for a scalp – as SIO you most definitely needed that logbook explaining the whys and wherefores behind the decisions you’d made.

  Boyd had just sat down with his coffee – frothy, milky and sugary as he preferred it in the afternoon – when a broad shadow spilled across his desk.

  He looked up to see Minter looming over him like a budget Ant Middleton. His dark hair was soaking wet and there were wet patches across his shirt.

  ‘You all right, Minter?’ he asked.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You’re all wet. Is it raining again?’

  Minter shook his head. ‘Just got back from the gym and shower, boss.’

  Boyd nodded. ‘Right. Makes sense. Nothing like punishing your body during lunch break to unwind, eh?’

  Minter raised a brow at Boyd’s first trimester food baby. ‘Wouldn’t do you any harm, sir.’

  ‘Cheeky bastard.’ He pulled his chair forward slightly to hide the pouch. ‘So what’re you loitering over me for. Got some news?’

  ‘I’ve got a list of the misper cases from the last three months.’

  ‘Regional or national?’

  ‘National. Just over twenty thousand of them.’

  Boyd took a slug of his cappuccino. ‘You can farm that out to…’

  ‘Okeke?’

  ‘She’s already busy,’ he replied. ‘Try O’Neal.’

  ‘He’s already busy too, boss.’

  ‘Then Warren.’

  ‘I sent him boat-knocking around the marina, boss.’

  ‘Ah, good call. Well, when O’Neal’s free again and Warren gets back, put the two lads on it. Get them to go through the whole list. Given it’s a corporate boat, I’m going to presume these aren’t young adults or kids. Get them to screen out anyone younger than twenty-five and older than –’ he pulled in a sharp breath – ‘let’s say seventy. That should trim it down a bit.’

  ‘Righto. Will do,’ Minter replied, and headed back to his desk.

  Boyd checked his watch. It was five past two. There were three hours of his working day left. He decided to chase up Sully and his forensics team for that crime scene report. It should have been on his desk by now.