Chapter 13
Itza finally tracked down Charlotte’s ‘investment dividends’, and not surprisingly despite what she had been told her payments originated from an account set up less than a year prior to her receiving her first payment, and it had originally been funded by a ‘Certified Cheque’ issued by Franklins bank, although his team had been meeting serious difficulties finding out any further information about its origin, until another ‘Certified Cheque’, issued by another Bank arrived into the account, giving Charlotte regular payments (and quite a few lump sums) for many years to come, and Itza finally had his first real clues to work on, both cheques were made out by different banks – but from the same banking group, and they were for amounts that were fractionally below amounts that would automatically trigger alarms in certain types of accounts. That was the good news, the bad news was that the group was one of the largest in the banking world, truly global, if whoever was behind this went international they would be impossible to track down, irrespective of the amount of funds that he had at his disposal. Fishing around, not always 100% kosher, he then found a cash withdrawal that had taken place several months before Halcyon came out of the water, from a branch in Birmingham for a very similar amount, and again a ‘Certified Cheque’ had been used. It had been done ‘by appointment’, and not surprisingly the branches entire video system had gone down ‘for routine maintenance’ that very same day, so there was no video images of the transaction, although they did have a name, Mr Michael Leigh. He had produced his Passport to obtain the cash but had declined to let them photocopy it, infringement of his civil & personal liberties – as covered by section X, paragraph Y, Line Z in the Banks own rules and regulations.
David and Charlie were on a flyer, they still did not have a lot to go on, and they may well be chasing two sets of individuals going about their own business, but the origins of Charlotte’s payments were no above board, and they suspected highly illegal, the route by which she received them told them that. The actual payments to her did originate from the investment group, but they doubted that any legitimate person within the group actually knew anything about them, it was all being done electronically, and they also suspected that the ‘very nice gentleman’ had at least one contact very close to the receptionists. ‘Although’, Itza said ‘through some very fancy computer work Charlotte was not doing anything illegal’, she had all the correct paperwork, (computer generated by the company), was declaring the payments to the tax man and to all intent and purposes everything was above board, the setup verily impressed Itza and his crew.
‘Right’ said David, ‘ready for a road trip?’
‘At last’ Charlie said, he had never unpacked.
Caroline and Maria were left to hold the fort, and to chase up any leads that they may generate, and they both thought that David was looking better than he had done in a long time.
They started at the beginning of the trail, at the Marina in Great Yarmouth, and at first the owner was a bit reluctant to answer any questions, but after Detective Sargent Smythers produced his warrant card and explained that they were on the ‘cold case’ section at the ‘local nick’ he became more helpful, and to help smooth the way they then ripped that ‘other Detective’ to bits for a few minutes – it was a ‘man thing’, ‘she had been a right snotty cow’, the owner said.
‘Still is’ Charlie – oops D.S. Smythers said, and then out came the notebooks, but not for long. He confirmed everything that had happened pre and post refit, confirmed the physical description of the boat, agreed that all their photos – of the Halcyon, Shaun and Frankie were accurate images of them, except that the Halcyon now had ‘that’ very small 2 stroke outboard on her stern. ‘Old’ he said ‘it was an actual an antique, mid 1930’s 3.3 ‘horse’ Johnson. Beautifully restored and very ‘in keeping’ with the age of the boat, but I had to have a serious chat with them, it was OK to be ‘historically accurate’ on the broads, but if they were thinking of going out into the North Sea, in anything but flat calm conditions, it was woefully lacking in the power department - ‘it was more than likely a contributing factor in what happened to them’. ‘The only thing that spoiled it for me was that huge hydraulic mounting bracket that it was clamped to – very twenty-first Century, I think you could clamp an actual ‘horse’ to it, and ‘no he didn’t see any extra supplies being loaded on board’, but he did admit that he had been in his local at the time that ‘that other one’ had estimated that they might have arrived. ‘I always am’ he said, with not the slightest hint of embracement.
‘His liver’ David thought, and glad to see that though they may both be ‘brainiacs’, they were still capable of making the simplest of mistakes.
Climbing back into their rental car they joined the traffic on the A12 and made their way over the water, and then quickly branched off onto the A143 and found a place to park close to Breydon Water, and this is where their flight into the realms of make believe started. They had all ‘hypothesised’ until the cows came home, but finally they started to convince themselves that how ‘they would have done it’ was:-
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Leave the marina in broad daylight, making sure not to raise any suspicions.
Disguise the Halcyon.
Prepare her for a long sea voyage.
Cross the North Sea and English Channel making for the French Waterways.
When in the Mediterranean traverse the Suez Canal then Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, fighting off pirates as they went.
Arrive in Maldives and set up home.
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‘Easy peesy lemon squeezie’, Charlie had said, ‘I’ll go and give Thomas Cook a ring’, but they both knew that they were on a wing and a prayer, the whole thing was a long shot at best.
Shaun and Frankie had successfully completed the first stage, leave the marina. A very ‘under equipped, even for a short trip’ Halcyon and crew had departed from the marina in broad daylight, leaving not a hint of suspicion behind them (apart from the groceries and oversized outboard mounting bracket - but they didn’t know that).
Now they were on to stage two, disguising the Halcyon. Just because they had said they were off into the North Sea it was highly unlikely that they were not, and the entrance to Breydon Water was well out of the view of the marina staff, so no prying eyes would see them disappear down it, but before the storm arrived they had to have changed her appearance, and the quickest way seemed to be to change her colour.
Caroline overnight became an expert on marine varnish and after a surprisingly short time she found out that if you applied a particular brand of quick drying paint directly onto marine varnish, without rubbing it down first, it would start peeling off again within a matter of weeks, so they started to comb the river bank to see if they could ‘get lucky’. They had scoured maps and satellite images of the area and spotted a couple of short strip of bank that ‘they would’ tie up to if they wanted to carry out some ‘out of the way’ maintenance.
At their first stop Charlie ‘got lucky’. He spotted, stuffed well into the bracken a little distance away from the bank, and fortunately for them, but not fortunate for him, surrounded by very sharp thorns, a bundle of faded green canvas, and he remembered that Halcyon, in a few of her photographs had a green canvas main sail cover, faded by time.
He pulled out the rotting, mouldy, slug covered bundle and opened up his treasure trove. Calling David over they gingerly went through the rusty, sodden, very whiffy contents. There was nothing in the trash to say from whom, or where it had come from, but as ‘circumstantial evidence’, it was a gold mine. After a quick phone call back to base everyone agreed that the sail cover had ‘most likely’ come from the Halcyon. It had the right dimensions and had the right fastenings but unfortunately there were most likely thousands of them fitted to similar sized yachts scattered around the world (but not within a couple of miles from Yarmouth they all thought). In the centre the sodden mess was a plastic bag – full of masking tape and brown, paint marked paper, the ty
pe used for covering large areas when painting – and two empty tins of paint that were from the right manufacturer, and again they came to a unanimous decision – if you wanted to stand out in a crowd, PURPLE was a good colour to use. Another colour was Dark Blue, which was printed on a sticker on the polythene bag, which was coincidentally of the right strength and dimensions to have contained a replacement sail cover, which could easily be bought on-line. Another interesting find was a small plastic bag that had attached itself to a clump of the sticky tape, with a manufacturers name on it, along with a parts number. It took Maria ten minutes to find out that its former occupants had been the ‘Mast mounting hardware’ for a very sophisticated, but very lightweight ‘broadband’ Radome. Via a conference call they puzzled over this for a minute until ‘smarty knickers’ Caroline, who was also becoming quite an expert on anything to do with the Folkboat (‘David - when you come back can we get one – pretty please’) said ‘fractional sloop’.
‘Qué’ said Maria, lapsing into her native tongue.
‘The Folkboat’s jib, that small triangular sail in front of the mast, unlike most modern day sloops has a ‘fractional’ jib, it does not go all the way to the top of the mast. In 1942 when the Folkboat had been designed they decided that crew comfort outweighed the slight loss in overall performance (there were no high powered winches in those days), and so it only goes about three-quarters of the way up, above that is the ideal place to locate a modern lightweight ‘broadband’ radome (that was another item on her wish list).
Charlie, who had done his fair share of recreational sailing at the JSSC (joint services sailing centre) at HMS Hornet at Gosport aboard the Armies Nicholson 55’s asked ‘is there any mention of a Bosun’s chair in any of the paperwork?
‘Yes’ came back Maria a few seconds later (apparently everything was still in alphabetical order). ‘One replacement Bosun’s chair’, I wondered why he could have one, but not the rest of the crew?
Charlie explained that a person would sit in the Bosun’s chair then the mainsail halyard (the bit of string that pulled the big main sail up the mast) would be clipped onto it, and then a crew person would winch the first person up the mast (very P.C. everyone else thought), ‘it was definitely the worst ever ‘brown trouser’ experience that I had ever volunteered for’, but then he continued, ‘if you wanted to quickly alter the ‘long range’ silhouette of a boat, fitting a radome would be an easy option, especially if all the screw holes were pre-drilled.
‘Wouldn’t it be very ‘hairy’ going up the mast of a small boat’ David said after he had bid his wife and Maria a fond fair well and hung up, ‘the poor bloke would be swung from pillar to post’.
Charlie started to closely inspect the branches of the only stout tree in the vicinity, ‘there’, he said, pointing to a fork in the branches, ‘see that old scar, ‘if’ a person during a mast refurbishment attached an additional ‘halyard’ to the top of the mast (he doubted that anyone would notice it) then ran it around a stout object i.e. this fork, in this tree, then pulled the whole boat over slightly, it would stop the swing, I’ve watched ‘grotty yachties’ doing it loads of times.
‘But the radar wouldn’t work’ David said, just knowing that he had just said something really stupid, but not quite knowing what.
‘So what, it’s just to change the look of the boat at this time, not to take them around the world, mind you my guess is that the cable to it had already been inconspicuously pre-installed onto the mast during the refurbishment, and it would only take a second to connect it. Connecting the other end though might be another problem though’.
Taking photographs of the ‘crime scene’ and plainly marking the site they took the ‘evidence’ back to the hired car and sealed it as best they could, but it still stank to high heaven.
They were now onto the third stage, prepare her for a long sea voyage, and they had previously contacted every boat yard and marina with a maintenance facility between Breydon Water and Lowestoft to see if they had worked on any Folkboat, of any colour just before/just after that fateful storm. Most remembered the storm but none had worked on any Folkboat’s around that time, although they could not contact four of them.
They rented a boat (boatyards are meant to be easily accessible by water – but they are usually a nightmare to find by land) and quickly checked out the first one. A telephone number stuck to the gate was quickly contacted and they drew a blank, the second one was empty but a neighbour said the owner had died, that was very inconsiderate of him they thought, and set Maria the task of tracking down any relatives. The third one showed no sign of life, or useful telephone numbers but as they turned to head back to their boat they heard a tool drop in the closed up workshop. Trying the small side door they found it unlocked and inside they found the ex-owner repairing his car. He had finally retired ‘through ill health’ so although he was not open for business he still used the workshop occasionally as it was his, ‘lock stock and barrel’, ‘why, do you want to buy it?’ he asked hopefully.
David described Halcyon, with and without the disguises, and Old Tom, as he introduced himself as, said, ‘you mean ‘Sabre’, lovely little boat, pity about the owner.
As they settled down to a nice cup of tea Old Tom filled in a few cracks, ‘Mr Mycroft, not sure about his first name, booked Sabre ‘in’ in April, over the phone, but said he wasn’t sure when he could bring her down, but it was really important that when he arrived that I could start right away, no excuses about weekends, holidays, family commitments and so on – he said it should be within the next three or four months, and would give me a ‘weekly retainer’ to ensure this, so I agreed, I like getting money every week for doing nothing, and lo and behold every week there was an envelope in the letter box with Sabre on the front of it and a pile of fivers inside, so no need to bother the tax man eh!
Was the envelope hand written? Charlie asked.
‘Nope, typed’.
Charlie was thinking ‘handwriting analysis’ but he doubted if any of the envelopes had survived anyway.
‘Would you like to see them’ he asked, ‘I have a touch of OCD and collect all sorts of odd things’ he added, and looking around they both thought ‘touch???’
‘They were indeed typed, not printed by a computer, and the letter r was twisted on all of them, ‘who on earth typed anything in the world of computers’, David though, then spotted a bank logo in the corner, and he thought ‘banks, for old legal documents’.
‘The evening before he arrived’ Old Tom continued, ‘he phoned me to tell me that he would be arriving about ten o’clock the next morning, that a transit van would be in the car park, and its ignition keys would be in the letter box, very James Bond’ish, would I please unload it and start unpacking what was inside.
‘Can you remember what was in it’ David asked?
‘It was a bloody Aladdin’s cave, it was, and it was all top of the range stuff. A new 9’9 HP Mercury Four stroke outboard, with all the gadgets on it, a state of the art self-righting life raft, Honda generator with flexible exhaust pipe, loads of electronics, you know, sat navs, integrated navigation and auto pilot system, radar, fathometer, radio – even a flat screen television. Then there was new foul weather gear for both of them ….’
‘Both of them’ David asked.
‘Yeh, there was definitely stuff for two, but I never met the other gent – the gear was definitely for two gents’, then he was off again, as if reading from a list, ‘two lots of clothing for each of them - stuff for around here, warm stuff, and stuff for the warmer climates – lucky devils, and god knows what else.
‘It must have weighed a ton’ Charlie said.
‘Not really’ Old Tom said, ‘apart from the new donkey and life raft the rest was all very ‘state of the art’, miniaturised and lightweight, there was even a wireless wind transducer to go on top of the mast.
‘The power consumption for that lot must have been phenomenal’ David interrupted.
; ‘Nope’ it was all the latest low consumption stuff as well, besides they had a pair of those new lithium-ion batteries to keep it all ticking, it fair gave me a heart attack when I saw it all, after all I’m a grease monkey not a computer geek’.
‘Did you have to get any geeks in to help you’ Charlie asked?
‘Nope, that was the funny thing; right in front of me when I opened the van up was a computer printout of what I had to do – literally from unloading the boxes to presenting my invoice. Except for the heavy bits – I used my son, Young Tom to help me with them – I was just following the dotted lines, which incidentally were already marked out when I had to cut anything. Then all I had to do was bung the stuff in, weather proof it, connect the wires and cables that were already there and Bob’s your Uncle - it was ‘plug and play’, lovely bit of stuff, it all was. The hard work was hi pressure hosing the hull down and applying their new ‘warm waters’ anti-fouling, it stank like a skunk as it went on but dark blue was a much better colour than that mucky red undercoat.
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