They strolled along like tourists, keeping an eye out for the Windhover. Helen Aldous had told them she was white, with dark-blue dodgers with her name on them. ‘They’re new, he only got them a couple of weeks ago, only they misspelled the name. David was furious. Now they say it’ll be six weeks before they can replace them. Not –’ she suddenly remembered – ‘that it matters now, I suppose.’
‘It’s surprising how often that happens,’ Slider said now to Atherton. ‘Our old super, Dickson, had a yachting friend whose boat was called Oenone, and when his dodgers arrived they said Oneone. He always called it the One One after that.’
‘Not a bad name, actually,’ Atherton said.
‘There she is,’ Slider said, spotting her at that moment.
The Windhover was tied up to one of the narrow wooden jetties that stuck out from the wall. This one had missing planks, a chain handrail on one side only, and, since the tide was down, a long drop to the grey, sucking water. Against the dilapidation, the boat rode the ebb-tide serenely, glowing with an almost feral beauty, though her dodgers, indeed, proclaimed to the world that she was called Windover.
Atherton had stopped dead, as though struck by lightning. He was not a yachting man, but he knew a classy item when he saw one. It was big, sleek, sexy, white and powerful, bristling with antennae for every navigational aide and electronic entertainment known to man. ‘That,’ he said in a reverent whisper, ‘is the dog’s bollocks. That is the veritable reproductive organs of the absolute canine. What would you call that? You can’t just call it a boat.’
‘A power yacht, I suppose,’ Slider said, admiring the rake of the superstructure, the fluid lines, the thrust and pointiness of the pointed end. ‘Sixty foot, I’d say,’ he remarked. ‘Twin engines. She looks fast.’
‘She looks like the rich man’s ultimate wet dream,’ Atherton said. ‘We no longer have to wonder why David Rogers had a boat. It’s an answer in itself.’
‘Night fishing, though,’ Slider said. ‘I suppose it was an excuse of sorts. Shall we have a look inside?’
Helen Aldous had provided them with a key. Inside it was immaculate, still smelling new. It was fitted out with tasteful luxury – wood panelling, leather upholstery, brass lamps with acid-embossed glass shades, varnished wooden decks and thick carpet in the staterooms. It was not huge inside, but so well laid-out that it felt roomy. But the beds were not made up and there were no personal belongings stowed anywhere. The cupboards were empty, and apart from soap and toilet paper in the heads, and a tin of biscuits and a bottle of brandy in the galley, it might just have come from the showroom.
‘I suppose he brought everything with him, trip by trip,’ Slider said. ‘She said he went out on Wednesday night and came back Thursday morning, so he didn’t sleep on-board. The galley looks as if it’s never been cooked in.’
‘What a waste,’ Atherton said. ‘It’s hard to believe a man who frequents strip clubs and picks up pole dancers wasn’t having tacky booze-fuelled parties and bonking cruises at every opportunity.’
The only thing of interest was found on the floor on the bridge: an enormous refrigerated cold box of white-painted aluminium, its plug lying next to the socket that would power it. ‘You could get a lot of champagne in that,’ Atherton said. But it was, in fact, empty as well as unplugged. ‘He must have been having parties,’ he complained. ‘Why else all the chiller capacity?’
‘To hold the fish he caught on his night fishing trips,’ Slider said.
‘Yeah, fish.’ They exchanged a look. ‘What contraband needs to be kept cold?’ Atherton mused. ‘Maybe he was smuggling caviar.’
There was nothing else to be gleaned from this ultimate empty vessel, which was sadly making no noise at all that might help them, just a gentle slapping of water against the hull and creaking of rope as she worked her moorings.
They teetered off the end of the rickety jetty on to solid land again, and turned for one last, baffled look at Rogers’s prize. And as if by magic a man materialized beside them: a short, squat man whose weather-pulverized face made it impossible to tell his age. He might have been sixty or eighty or anything in-between. He was hunched into a black donkey-jacket, his hands stuffed in the pockets; a battered and greasy black fisherman’s cap was pulled down hard on his head, and a cigarette drooped from his lip, making him screw up his eyes against the rising smoke. With native politeness he did not meet their eyes, looking instead, with an air of indifference, at the Windhover.
‘Thinking o’ buying her?’ he enquired.
SIXTEEN
Jewel Carriageway
‘Is she for sale?’ Slider asked neutrally.
‘Wouldn’t wonder,’ the man commented, the cigarette wagging with his words. He unpeeled it from his lip and spat politely sideways away from them into the water.
Atherton was about to speak, and Slider froze him with a lightning glance and a hidden elbow nudge. Keeping silence invited confidences. In the absence of questions, a man eager to impart had to make his own timing. Eventually the man had to speak. A casual glance behind him showed Slider that there were others of the local fishing community, messing about by their huts or laying out fish on their stalls, equally uninterested in Slider, Atherton, Windhover and their new friend. You could tell they weren’t interested by the way they were pointedly not looking at them, while their attention was out on stalks. It was the country way, as Slider, a country boy, knew well.
‘Ent bin down this week, th’ole doc. Never misses.’
After a pause to show lack of interest, Slider said, ‘She’s a nice-looking craft.’
The man grunted agreement, and then became positively loquacious. ‘Fairline Milennium Seahawk, Mark II. Special job. Marine allyminimum hull. Twin three thousand ’orsepower diesels plus a gas turban. She’ll do sixty knots in any sea. Carries more’n seven thousand gallons o’ fuel. Range like that, she’ll take you to Norway an’ back on one tank. Lovely ole gal, th’ole Wendover.’
He pronounced it like the Buckinghamshire town. Slider reckoned he probably would have pronounced the right name the same way, and wondered whether the makers of the dodgers had realized that and taken the line of least resistance.
‘She’s a lady, all right,’ he said.
‘That is,’ the man agreed.
‘So you think she might be for sale?’ Slider said.
The man looked sidelong at him, and snorted with faint amusement. ‘Coppers, ent yer.’ It was not really a question.
Slider shrugged non-committally. He wasn’t giving the farm away. He looked to the left, towards the river mouth, and said, ‘Tide’s turning.’
‘Slack water,’ the man said, and the agreement seemed to create a bond between them. He took a last drag on his cigarette, threw it down and ground it out, shoved his hands back in his pockets and said, ‘Knew he’d be in trouble sooner or later, that ole doc.’
‘I’m afraid he’s dead,’ Slider said.
The man nodded as if he’d expected that. ‘Never missed. Went out Wensdy night, come in early hours Thursdy mornin’. Sport fishin’,’ he concluded derisively.
‘Just an excuse?’ Slider hazarded.
‘Man like that, boat like that, don’t go fishin’ alone! Never had no parties in ’er. No drink, no girls.’