Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(194)

The owner of that business also acted the role of harbour master, a limited line of employment considering the relatively small size of the harbour in question.

Emily and Barbara interrupted Charlie Spencer in the midst of a perusal of the racing forms from Newmarket. “You catch anyone yet?” were his first words when he looked up, saw Emily's identification, and shoved his teeth-gnawed pencil behind one ear. “I can't sit here nights with a shotgun, you know. What's my taxes going for if I can't get service from the local constab. Eh? You tell me.”

“Improve your security, Mr. Spencer,” Emily responded. “I expect you don't leave your house unlocked when you aren't at home.”

“I got a dog takes care of the house,” he retorted.

“Then you need another to take care of your raft.”

“Which one of those is the Shaws?’” Barbara asked the man, indicating the lines of moored boats that lay motionless in the harbour. There were, she saw, very few people about, despite the hour of the day and the heat that encouraged travel to the sea.

“Fighting Lady,” he replied. “The biggest one at the end of Pontoon Six. Shouldn't keep it here, the Shaws, you know. But it's convenient for them and they pay up regular and always have done, so who'm I to complain, eh?”

When they asked him why the Fighting Lady didn't belong in the Balford Marina, he said, “Tide's the problem,” and went on to explain that anyone who wished to use a boat that large would be better served with a mooring that wasn't so dependent on the tide. At high water there wasn't a problem. Plenty of water to keep a large boat afloat. But when the tide went out, the bottom of the cruiser rested in the mud, which wasn't good for it since the cabin and the boat's machinery bore down on the infrastructure. “Shortens the life of the craft,” he explained.

And the tide on Friday night? Barbara asked him. The tide between ten and midnight, for example?

Charlie set aside his racing forms to consult a booklet next to the till. Low, he told them. Fighting Lady—not to mention every other large pleasure craft in the marina—wasn't going anywhere on Friday night. “Each one of them boats needs a good eight foot of water to manoeuvre in,” he explained. “Now, as to my complaint, Inspector …” And he turned to take issue with the DCI on the efficacy of training guard dogs.

Barbara left them in discussion. She went outside and wandered in the direction of Pontoon Six. Fighting Lady was easy enough to spot. It was the largest craft in the marina, gleaming with white paint, its woodwork and its chromium fixtures shrouded in protective blue canvas. When she saw the boat, Barbara realised that even if the tide had been high, there was no way that Theo Shaw or anyone else could have moored the craft anywhere close to shore. Mooring it off the Nez would have meant swimming to the beach, and it didn't seem likely that someone bent upon murder would begin his evening's task with a dip in the sea.

She headed back towards the office, studying the other craft in the harbour. Despite the marina's size, it served as a landing spot for a bit of everything: motor boats, diesel fishing boats, and even one snappy Hawk 31—winched out of the water—that was called the Sea Wizard and looked as if it belonged somewhere along the coast of Florida or Monaco.

In the vicinity of the office, Barbara saw the craft that Charlie hired out. In addition to motor boats and kayaks resting on tiered racks, ten canoes and eight Zodiac inflatables sat on the pontoon. Two of these last were occupied by sea gulls. Other birds circled and called in the air.

Looking at the Zodiacs, Barbara recalled the list of dodgy activities that Belinda Warner had compiled from the police log. Previously, her interest had been directed towards the beach hut break-ins and how they applied to Trevor Ruddock and his alibi for the murder night. But now she saw that the dodgy activities had another point of interest as well.

She walked onto the narrow pontoon and examined the Zodiacs. Each, she saw, was equipped with a set of paddles, but each also could be fixed up with a motor, a set of which were positioned on racks near the end of the pontoon. However, one of the inflatables was already in the water with a motor attached, and when Barbara turned the key to this, she discovered the motor was electric, not gas, and virtually noiseless. She examined the blades hanging into the water. They extended downward less than two feet.

“Right,” she murmured when she made this assessment. “Too bloody right.”

She looked up when the pontoon bobbed. Emily had joined her, one hand shading her eyes. From the expression on her face, Barbara could tell that the DCI had reached the same conclusion as her own.

“What did the police log say?” Barbara asked rhetorically.

Emily responded anyway. “He's had three Zodiacs nicked without his knowledge. All three were later found round the Wade.”

“So how rough a go would it be, Em, pinching a Zodiac at night and manoeuvring it through the shallows? If whoever took it also returned it before morning, no one would be the wiser. And it doesn't look like Charlie's security is much to speak of, does it?”

“Sure as hell doesn't.” Emily turned the direction of her gaze until she was looking northward. “Balford Channel's just on the other side of that spit of land, Barb, just where you can see that fishing hut. Even at low tide there'd be water in the channel. And enough water here in the harbour to get to it as well. Not enough for one of the larger boats. But for an inflatable …? No problem.”