Hilary Bonner - When the Dead Cry Out

Either way, suddenly they were dealing with facts. With evidence. With reality. And it was a blunt and brutal reality. Clara’s body had been found. It had been wrapped in a tarpaulin, bound in chains, and dumped at sea. Almost certainly the bodies of her children had been dumped along with hers. It was equally likely that they would never be found, that they had already been destroyed by the ravages of time and tide. Only freak circumstances had kept Clara’s remains in any discernible condition.

Clara was dead. The only logical conclusion any police officer could have drawn from the case had finally been proven correct.

They were on their way to a result. A much-longed-for result. But when she actually thought about the young woman whose tragic fate had cast a shadow over Karen’s entire career and that of so many others, her sense of anticipation left her. As did the triumph she had felt earlier.

This case was about the destruction of young lives. About the most horrible kind of murder.

They arrived at Heron View Marina in Poole at about two in the afternoon, pulling off the main road and driving into the impressive marina complex in the exclusive Sandbanks area, where houses with harbour views invariably sold for two million pounds or so. Looking around her at the waterside hotel and the blocks of luxury flats overlooking rows of moored boats, almost all of which absolutely screamed money, Karen reflected that it seemed Richard Marshall had fallen on his feet yet again. She planned to do her best to change all that.

The sun was shining, and the water also shone, as did the sleek vessels slotted neatly around an extensive framework of jetties.

The girl in the marina office, next to the chandlery on the far side of the hotel, seemed rather startled by their arrival, perhaps understandably enough.

“We’re looking for Ricky Maxwell,” announced Karen, using Marshall’s assumed name.

“Ricky?” The girl appeared to have been stunned into a kind of stupidity.

“Yes, Ricky Maxwell,” replied Karen curtly. “That is what I said.”

“Ricky?” the girl repeated. “Oh. Y-yes. Yes. He’s out there.”

She gestured towards the far end of the framework of jetties. Karen narrowed her eyes and peered into the distance. The sun was shining directly into her face. She could not see anybody where the girl was pointing.

“He’s fitting a new battery on Wessex Lady ,” said the girl then, as if that explained everything.

“ Wessex Lady ,” she repeated almost impatiently. “The big Fairline at the end. You probably can’t see him from here.”

Karen nodded and turned to leave the office. At least it did not seem that Richard Marshall had attempted to do a runner yet. But then, she would not really have expected him to. Not yet, anyway. Not a cool customer like him.

“Can I help at all?” asked the girl rather forlornly.

“No thanks, love.” It was Phil Cooper who bothered to reply. Karen was now focused on one thing, and one thing only.

“Phil, come with me,” she said. “And you, Tompkins. And you, Richardson,” she instructed, nodding towards the larger of the two young police constables whose services Cooper had acquired. Then she spoke to the second uniformed man: “You stay here with the car, Brownlow, just in case, and Smiley, you stay here too. Just watch and wait. Take no chances. Right?”

Without waiting for any response, and in anticipation of instant obedience, she took off along one of the jetties, her little entourage following in her wake. Once on her way out across the marina Karen was quickly able to spot Wessex Lady . The blue-and-white motor yacht was moored at the very end of the last jetty, as the girl in the office had indicated. But as they neared the vessel there was still no sign of anybody about. However, the boat’s canvas hood had been opened and partly pulled to one side, there was a toolbox on the cockpit floor and the trapdoor to the engine compartment stood open.

Then, just as Karen was taking all this in, the top half of a big grey-haired man emerged from the engine compartment. He was directly facing Karen and her team and he saw them at once. He was carrying a large battery in both arms. Karen stared him straight in the face and was aware of a trapped expression flashing across his eyes, but it was gone so quickly that she was not even sure whether or not she may have been mistaken.

“Richard Marshall?” she began formally.

“Maxwell,” the man replied, his voice laconic. “My name is Ricky Maxwell.”

Karen studied him for a moment, aware at once that the horrible fascination she had always had in him was still there. She had not actually met Marshall since her childhood, since she was fourteen, in fact, when he had finally moved away from Parkview with his girlfriend. Fleetingly, she wondered if he would recognize her. She had recognized him at once. But it was different that way round. He had been a grown man in his late thirties when she had last seen him, while she had been just a young teenager. Also, his photograph had frequently been in various newspapers, and she had seen it often enough in police files to be reminded regularly of his appearance.

Not that she really needed any reminding. Richard Marshall’s face was engraved upon her soul. She continued to stare at him levelly. He returned the stare without blinking. He had always been a cool customer, she thought.

She knew that he must by now be well into his mid-sixties, but he still looked good, she reflected grudgingly. His hair was iron-grey but remained thick and curly, his skin tanned and healthy, his tall broad physique trim and well-preserved. His face, although generally regarded as handsome, had always been jowly, but had altered remarkably little with the passing of the years. Nothing about him suggested that he had ever been troubled much by guilt or remorse, but Karen was well enough aware that this was a man who had never displayed any kind of conscience.

Marshall even had about him still that self-satisfied expression she had always found so infuriating. It was more than self-satisfied. It was smug. Even at that moment, surely already aware that the small group confronting him were police officers, he contrived to look smug. It was unbelievable. More than anything Karen wanted to wipe that smug look off his face. By God, she did.

“Call yourself what you like,” she responded sharply. “I’m Detective Superintendent Karen Meadows of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. You will always be Richard Marshall in my nick, and I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder.”

To her immense satisfaction the Marshall mask slipped. Finally. And Karen knew from Bill Talbot, and indeed from her own childhood memories, just how unusual that was. For once, he no longer looked smug at all. It occurred to her that watching his facial expression change that way might well be the only good moment experienced by any police officer in the whole Marshall investigation, spanning almost thirty years. Obliquely Karen thought that she would quite like to meet up with Bill Talbot now. She couldn’t wait to tell Bill about this moment.

A look of panic began to spread across Marshall’s face, which Karen found even more gratifying. He took another step up from the engine compartment, still holding the battery in both hands. He was towering above Karen now. Suddenly he lifted the heavy battery so that it was almost level with his chin. Involuntarily Karen flinched. It seemed that he might be about to throw the thing at her.

She sensed Phil Cooper moving forward to her right, while PC Richardson, on her left, leaned forward and grabbed hold of the railing around the boat. Karen realized that Richardson was about to attempt to jump aboard. In spite of her initial sense of fear concerning what Marshall might do, she used both hands to indicate to the men that she wanted them to hold back.