70

WE TOOK TYE HAMMOND TO AN ALL-NIGHT DINER AND ordered food he didn’t seem too interested in. We’d found him, as Joesbury had predicted, in the warehouse, another Victorian building on the riverbank at Woolwich, and had persuaded him to come with us for a short chat. I sat with him at a Formica table, together with Tulloch and Mizon. Not wanting to intimidate him with numbers, Helen and the three blokes sat a few tables away.

‘Am I under arrest?’ he said, grabbing the sugar bowl and spooning grimy white powder into his mug. Tulloch nodded at me to reply.

‘No,’ I said. ‘We just want to ask you about something that happened a few years ago. There was a fire on a houseboat, at Deptford Creek, do you remember?’

He began stirring his tea. ‘What if I do?’ he asked his spoon.

‘People died,’ I said. ‘Either in the smoke or drowned in the river. You were the only one who survived.’

He shrugged. ‘Got lucky, didn’t I?’

‘How?’ I asked him. ‘How did you get lucky?’

He didn’t reply, just wrapped his hands around the mug and looked over at the sugar bowl. He’d half emptied it. He still hadn’t looked me in the eyes.

‘Tye,’ I said, ‘nobody here wants to take you down the station to talk to you formally. But we will if we have to. Why don’t you—’

He looked up then. ‘You think I’m scared of that?’ he said. ‘They’ll have to feed me in the nick. It’ll be warm. There’ll be a proper bog I can use.’

‘We don’t have to give you smack, though,’ I said. ‘Is that what you’re on? In fact, we’ll have to wait till you come down off whatever it is and get the DTs out of your system. Could be twelve hours or more. Won’t be much fun.’

Tye’s eyes went back down to his tea. He picked up his fork and began pushing beans around on his plate.

‘OK, let’s go,’ said Tulloch, pushing back her chair.

‘Wait.’ Tye was holding up one hand. ‘There was a – what do you call it? – an inquiry?’

‘An inquest?’ I suggested.

He nodded. ‘In court,’ he went on. ‘I told them everything I knew. I can’t tell you anything else.’

‘Tell us how it happened,’ I said. ‘How did the boat get away from its moorings?’

‘The rope was cut,’ he said. ‘That’s why I was on deck. This girl, Cathy, she called me up. Someone had cut the rope and we were drifting.’

I could sense Tulloch and Mizon sharing a look. I kept my eyes on Tye.

‘Cathy?’ I said. ‘Cathy who?’

He shook his head. ‘Just Cathy. We didn’t use second names. Not even real first ones, most of us.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘We were well away from the bank by this stage. It’s serious shit, you know, being loose in the river, especially at night. We knew we were in trouble. Then Cathy said there was a fire.’

‘On the boat?’

He nodded. ‘I didn’t see it, but she ran up the front. Then there was a huge flash and a couple of seconds later, I’m under the water. I must have fallen in.’

‘Were you rescued?’ I asked, remembering the light shining down on me from the RIB, the moment I’d known I would live.

He shook his head. ‘No, I managed to swim to a pier. I caught hold of one of those wooden columns and made my way to the shore.’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tulloch gesturing to the other table.

‘You were very lucky,’ I said. ‘Tye, how many people were on the boat with you that night?’

For a second, Tye looked uncertain. His brows contracted, his lips pressed tighter together, as though he was trying to remember something. Then he shook his head. ‘There was six of us,’ he said. ‘Five people died and I survived.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what the inquest report said,’ I replied. ‘Three men, including you, and three women, including Catherine Llewellyn. Is that right?’

He shrugged. He supposed that was right. Over my shoulder, someone handed a photograph to Tulloch. She put it down on the table in front of Tye. It was the snapshot of the Llewellyn sisters.

‘Do you recognize either of these girls?’ she asked him.

He pointed to the younger of the two. ‘That’s her,’ he said. ‘That’s Cathy.’

I watched Tye’s eyes start to glint as he looked down at the photograph. ‘Was she your girlfriend?’ I asked him, sensing someone from the other table closing in.

He shook his head.

‘But you’d have liked her to be?’ I asked. Joesbury had approached our table. He crouched down, so that his head was on a level with ours.

‘Do you recognize the other girl in the photograph?’ he asked. ‘Did you ever see her with Cathy?’

Tye looked at the photograph again. He glanced up at me, then back down again. He shook his head.

‘When you knew Cathy,’ Joesbury said, ‘did you ever have the feeling that she thought someone might be looking for her?’

‘We’ve all got someone looking for us,’ Tye answered. ‘Filth, Social Services, families who can’t take no for an answer,’ he went on. ‘Toe rags who think we owe them money. No one gives us any peace.’

‘But Cathy specifically. Was someone looking for her?’

Tye looked at his plate for a second, then nodded.

‘Did she say who?’ Tulloch asked.

He shook his head.

Joesbury reached into his pocket and pulled out two twenty-pound notes. He put them on the table and laid his hand on top of them. ‘I don’t hand over money for bullshit, Tye,’ he said, ‘so don’t waste your time. Tell me something useful and I’ll leave this behind when I go.’

Tye’s eyes were on the money, working out what it would buy him and, somehow, I didn’t think he was planning a trip to the nearest Tesco Metro to stock up on salad and live yogurt.

‘Was she afraid?’ asked Joesbury.

Tye shrugged, gave a weak, half-hearted nod, shrugged again. ‘I know she didn’t want to be found,’ he said. ‘She would never move north of the river. I think that’s where this bloke – she never said it was a bloke, I just sort of assumed – I think that’s where he was. I think she knew he was north of the river and that’s why she wanted to stay this side.’

My three colleagues were exchanging glances. I kept my eyes on the young man directly opposite.

‘Did she ever mention a sister, Tye?’ I asked him. He looked at me vacantly for a second, then shook his head. ‘Do you think he found her?’ he asked me. ‘Do you think he cut the rope that night? Set the boat on fire?’ Tye took his eyes away from me to look at the others. ‘Do you think whoever did that to us was the one Cathy was scared of?’ he asked them.

Joesbury was looking at me. ‘Anything’s possible,’ he said and pushed himself to his feet.