Читать книгу Lock Me In - Kate Simants - Страница 21

Jupp’s boatyard was only a couple of miles away, so Mae borrowed one of the force pushbikes. It was late afternoon, the light was sparse through a heavy ceiling of cloud. Spotting the marina entrance, he swung a leg over the crossbar and sailed it standing on one pedal, then hopped down and secured it in a single practised movement against a lamppost.

Mae had discovered the wharf earlier that summer, when he’d talked Bear into a walk along the towpath. He’d pointed out where he’d dealt with a burglary at one of the warehouses that backed straight onto the river, and he’d seen the boats on the towpath that extended from the yard. That was back when it had been warm enough for the residents to still be sitting out on their decks as the sun went down, drinking and barbequing. Different story now, at the arse-end of November. He smelled the smoke of the little log burners they used, the diesel emissions. There was the rumble of generators, punctuated by the honking of a pair of Canada geese. Scraps of laughter from outside a nearby pub lifted and cracked in the air.

He took the steps built into the sloping wall down to where a shabby prefab cube of an office sat precariously levelled on bricks. He knocked and went in. Cheap, functional furniture was laden with papers, notes scribbled on envelopes, and a jumble of polystyrene cups. Behind the desk, a fat guy in a shirt made for a thinner one.

Mae put out a hand. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Mae. We spoke on the phone.’

‘Jupp,’ the man said. He was puffy and goutish, the kind of clean-shaver who should have considered a beard. Waving a hand vaguely behind him, he said, ‘My yard.’ Strong Bristol accent. He didn’t get up, and only shook the hand reluctantly when it became clear Mae wasn’t going to put it away unshaken.

Jupp listened while Mae gave him the basics, then rummaged in a drawer and brought out a key. ‘Take you down to his boat, shall I?’

Standing, Jupp was short enough for Mae to see the shiny top of his head, lit up with the reflection of the flickering single-bar strip light. Then again, everyone was short, to Mae.

Outside, a half-hearted drizzle had started to fall, blown across them by a brisk wind. A tang of lager and used nappies was emanating from three overfilled wheelie bins. They stopped at a gate where Jupp paused to key in the code, angling his thickly padded shoulders to block Mae’s view of the keypad. Mae saw it anyway: 2580, all four numbers in a vertical line down the middle. Nice one, Mae thought: unbreakable. The gate buzzed and clunked open.

They went down the sloping pontoon towards the water, Jupp confirming on the way that he hadn’t seen Matt since the morning of the day before.

‘Said he was going to go down to the pump-out.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Mile or so.’ Jupp indicated with his arm: downriver, east.

‘Did you see him go?’

Jupp shrugged. ‘Nope. But he came back, didn’t he? Must have come back last night on the big tide. Boat was in place when I did my patrol.’

‘But you haven’t seen him today?’

‘It’s not a prison.’ Jupp eyed Mae with obvious dislike as they approached the bottom of the slope. ‘They come and go as they please. Lot of us boaters just want leaving alone, tell the truth, not so keen on people coming round, poking their noses—’

‘Left or right?’ Mae asked with a smile, aware that life was short and he wasn’t getting any younger.

Jupp sniffed and turned, leading Mae left along the metal gridding.

‘How does it work then, mooring here?’ Mae asked. ‘Your tenants pay in advance?’

‘Invoice them on the twentieth, payment due first of the month. Month’s notice either way.’

The first of the month was coming up in a few days. ‘People rent these boats then, or own them?’

‘Bit of both. Matt rents his off my brother.’

Mae followed Jupp along a floating pontoon stretching maybe thirty, forty metres along the river. The walkway dipped and bounced as they moved along it, their footsteps causing the sections to clank together.

‘Watch your step, boy,’ Jupp said, glancing at Mae. ‘Dangerous if you’re used to nice safe driveways.’

‘Don’t worry about me. Spent my childhood fishing.’

Jupp frowned. ‘Din’t know your lot fished.’

‘Police?’

‘Chinese.’

Mae blinked. ‘Korean.’

He shrugged. ‘Same difference. Thought it was snooker. Gambling.’

‘OK, yeah. We’re all ninjas, too.’

Jupp frowned, but Mae raised a hand to dismiss it. Just could not be arsed.

The pontoon bouncing under their feet, they passed an assortment of boats. Traditional narrowboats; flimsy-looking fibreglass cruisers; wide, curvy-bottomed things with wheelhouses and Dutch-sounding names painted along their bows. Twee Gebroeders, Derkje, Ziet Op U Zelve.

‘Mr Corsham been here long? Regular with the rent? Any problems?’

‘Moved down from Scotland somewhere a few months ago. Pays on time.’

‘No wild parties, anything out of the usual?’

Jupp cast a look over his shoulder. ‘People call us gypsies, you get that? Pikies, river scum.’

Mae waited, unsure where this was going.

‘We get it in the neck, is what I’m saying. Brick brigade making their judgements. So we stick together, yeah? You’re not going to get us dishing dirt on each other.’

‘I’m not after dirt. I’m checking on his safety.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Jupp stopped, flipping through a bunch of small keys. ‘This one.’

Matthew Corsham’s boat was a red and green narrowboat, last on the stretch, past a mains hook-up board. Reasonable nick from the outside. Through a window in the front end – the fore? – the place looked tidy, nothing immediately suggesting forced entry. Moving along he tried the next window when the boat suddenly listed, the water slapping underneath the pontoon. Jupp had grabbed the thin handrail running along the edge of the roof and was hauling himself up, keys in hand. But after an extended fumble with a circular padlock, he grunted and gave up, huffing and stepping down clumsily from the gunwales.

‘Changed the bloody locks. Supposed to supply the management with a working key at all times.’ So much for the Anarchists’ Manifesto of three minutes previously. ‘You can have a look through the windows, but I’m not breaking the door without my brother’s say-so.’

Jupp turned to head back the way they’d come.

‘Do you have CCTV here?’ Mae called after him.

‘No. And I’ve got jobs to do.’ He paused to light a cigarette, then stumped off back towards his office.

Mae stepped up onto the deck. The smooth metal was slippery under his feet as he braced to shove back the hatch. It wouldn’t give, so he ducked down to the level of the two tiny doors that came up no higher than his thighs. Cupping his hands between his forehead and the glass, he peered inside.

Bear would have given her thumbs to live in there. Not that there was enough money in the world to pay him to endure what looked like several inches of negative headroom, but the attraction of the cosy, simple lifestyle in evidence there wasn’t hard to imagine. Shallow shelves tucked under the windows held books and a few video games, secured against the inevitable rocking with taut lengths of curtain wire. A crocheted blanket was stretched neatly over the back of a sofa, and the few feet of wall space between the single-glazed windows were covered in mismatched picture frames holding photographs.

He was about to leave when something caught his eye. A single sheet of paper on the table opposite the wood burner and a pen next to it. Mae went along to the window next to the table, to get a better look. Carefully bending into a crouch on the narrow ledge beneath the glass, he wiped the rain from his eyes and squinted in.

It was a list. Toothpaste, toothbrush, razor. Blue holdall, phone, charger, wallet, tickets. Camera, film, batteries. All the items on it crossed off.

He read to the end. Footsteps approached, and he waved Jupp away with his free hand as he brought himself up to standing. ‘All right, I’m coming.’

But when he turned, Mae saw that Jupp was long gone. The person who had passed him, who was now on the back deck and unlocking the door with her keys, was Ellie Power.