“I said, will you let me past, please?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in at present.”
She was staring at the Red Serge. “Are you really a Mountie? What’s happened?
Is there some kind of trouble down there? Listen, if you’ve found drugs I
know nothing about it. I hardly know those people.”
“What people?” Professional curiosity took over.
“Never mind what people. What’s all this about?”
Devoran took out his notebook. It was something to shelter behind. “Name,
please?”
“Susi Sutcliffe. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Miss Sutcliffe, I’d like a word with you. Not here.” He needed a more private
place. A row of faces watched him from the office window, his mother-in-law’s
warty countenance prominent among them. “Maybe in my car.”
She looked suspicious, but she accompanied him without comment until it became
clear they were headed for the mud-brown Toyota.
“That’s not a police car.”
“No. It’s my car.”
“My condolences.”
“She goes like a bomb,” he said as he opened the door for her and cringed at
the tactlessness of the simile. He watched as she seated herself, and felt ashamed of the
litter on the front shelf: the old car park tickets, the scattered Sinatra tapes, the unidentiFoul
Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 56
fiable plastic components that had fallen from under the dash at various times, the halfroll
of mints with the long, twisted tag end. He walked around the car and got in, and
immediately became aware of the smell. He could guess what the cause was. That irresponsible
young jerk Bill had borrowed the car illegally last night and left McDonald’s
wrappings under the seat. The greasy aroma of day-old World Famous Fries was unmistakable.
Susi Sutcliffe turned toward him, now looking apprehensive. “Well?”
“I…. I have bad news.” How the hell do you say it? Good grief, Dobbin
should be doing this! It was a woman’s work. But it was too late now. “Lionel Slade
was a friend of yours, was he?” He’d used the past tense! Oh, God, what had happened
to his sensitivity?
“Was?” The blue eyes were intense. “ Was?”
“There’s been an accident. I’m so sorry, Susi.”
“Accident? What do you mean, an accident?”
“A boating accident.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he? That’s what you’re trying to say.” Her head was down
and she was staring at her knees. She wore a short denim skirt under the coat; her
thighs were much in evidence. The black hair fell past her face but he could see her
eyes, oddly intent.
“I’m afraid so. I’m sorry. I really am. Listen, if there’s anything I can do—”
“You can’t make him alive.” She swung round suddenly to face him. No tears
had fallen; perhaps they were all in her eyes, waiting for her to blink. He thought: that’s
an odd response. She should be asking how it happened, did he suffer, all that kind of
thing. Instead she’d spoken in a resigned tone, almost as though she’d been expecting
Slade’s death all along, and now she had to work out how to get on with her life.
“You lived together on the boat?” he asked, taking refuge in an official line of
questioning, notebook open. He couldn’t handle the level of emotion in the confines of
the car.
“Of course, why not? I love him, for God’s sake. Loved him. We were going
to cruise the Pacific together. Not that it’s any business of yours. The intonation was
rising; then she made a visible effort to control herself. She blinked, but still there were
no tears on her perfect cheeks. “What happened, then?”
“There was an explosion on the boat.”
“Oh.” She turned away, looking out of the window. “Oh.” he followed her gaze.
The tide was dropping and the docks were now below the level of the car park but the
masts of the Ocean Dream were unmistakable: heavier and taller than any of the slender
aluminum spars around. Now they were leaning at an angle.
“She’s sunk, isn’t she?” Susi said. “I can see from here. She’s underwater, all
blown apart.” She swung back to face him. “Isn’t she?”
“We don’t know how much damage there is.”
“It… was quick, was it? He didn’t suffer?”
He said, “He wouldn’t have felt a thing. Really.”
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 57
“I’ve been shopping,” she said quietly, almost whispering. “Not much use now
anyway, is it?”
“Listen, I have to ask you a few questions.” Again he took refuge in standard
procedure. “Is that all right?”
“Go ahead. It doesn’t make any difference now. Nothing makes any difference,
does it?”
“I have to ask you about Mr. Slade. We can do all this later, if you like.”
“No, it’s OK. Let’s get it over with.”
“If you’re quite sure. Uh.... How long have you known him?”
She resumed the study of her knees. “Four or five months, I reckon.”
“How did you get to know him?”
Her voice was quite steady, low and musical. “We met in Victoria some time
before Christmas at Fisherman’s Wharf. I was walking along the dock and I saw this
lovely boat, so I went around to the stern to see her name. Ocean Dream, it was.
There was this man standing in a dinghy with a pot of gold paint, picking out the lettering.
I said, ‘You must be cold. Mind you don’t fall in.’” She spoke quietly, almost
reverently, as though recounting a religious experience. Devoran didn’t need to prompt
her. He had the feeling she’d been wanting to tell this story to someone for a long time,
simply because it held such a great significance for her. It had nothing to do with the
recent tragedy; she just wanted to share its beauty. Maybe to hang onto the past for a
bit longer. “He was real nice-looking. He looked up at me and smiled. ‘Nice boat’, I
said. ‘She needs a lot of work on her yet,’ he said. ‘But next year I’m hoping she’ll take
me across the Pacific.’ ‘That’ll be nice,’ I said. ‘Be even nicer if you come along,’ he
said. Just like that. I’d never have believed anything like that could happen to me. But
it did.”
Visions of palm-fringed beaches were in Devoran’s mind’s eye too. “Jesus, I’m
sorry,” he said.
“See, I should have known it was too good to be true. Nothing like that ever
happened to me. Actually, I did know it was too good to be true. Funny things have
been going on and I’ve been waiting for it all to fall apart the closer we got to leaving
here. So I’m not surprised it has. I’m not cut out to have good luck. Just tell me how
it happened, eh?”
Devoran had difficulty in controlling his own voice. “Just terrible luck. Gasoline
fumes, maybe. Always a risk.” He tried to switch from the emotional to the practical.
“She has a diesel engine.”
“Propane, maybe?”
“Could be. She has a propane stove. It can be tricky stuff, propane.”
“So… Do you happen to know Mr. Slade’s, uh, next of kin?”
“He was from the Lower Mainland somewhere.” Her voice had become
wooden. She seemed to have gained a kind of control, living from one moment to the
next. “I think his parents were dead. He once mentioned a cousin in Burnaby. Maybe
there’ll be something among his things. There’s a box of stuff on the boat. There’s a lot
of my stuff in there, too. Money, too, for the voyage.”
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 58
“I… wouldn’t rely on things being undamaged.”
She gave him an odd look. “It was a good strong box, watertight, locked.
Stowed well up forward. It should be OK.”
Was she warning him to keep prying fingers off it? Feeling slightly insulted, he
changed the subject. “What did he do for a living?”
“I guess you’d say he was retired. He’d been a kind of stockbroker. He was
closing everything up, passing his clients on to someone else.”
“Where did he bank?”
“He used to bank at the Royal in Victoria but he said he’d closed everything out
ready for sailing off. Listen, excuse me. Put that notebook away, eh? I don’t think I
can take any more questions.”
She wasn’t the only one glad to end the interview. “We can’t do much more
until we raise the boat tomorrow. We’ll talk again then. And… I’m afraid, there’s the
matter of identifying the… If we can’t find any relatives. Well… thanks for your help.”
Devoran got out of the car and opened the door for her. “Where will you be staying?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere close by, I guess. Not the Globe. I stayed there
with Li last night. I couldn’t face it now. A B&B, maybe.” She stepped out of the car,
slammed the door and stood motionless, staring blankly down the inlet. “What am I going
to do, now? What the hell am I going to do with my goddamned life, eh?”
He joined her. He shrugged miserably. “What did you do before?”
“You want to know what I did before?” She stared into his eyes as though
gauging his reaction. “I was a goddamned masseuse, that’s what!”
“Oh, I see.”
“Yeah, I bet you do.” There was a world of bitter skepticism in her voice.
“Well, sort of. You’ll stick around for a few days until we get this cleared up,
will you?”
She was still staring into the distance. “I guess so. I’ve got nothing better to do,
now.”
SUNDAY EVENING: THE LIVEABOARDS
Devoran was no expert on boats but he knew ugly when he saw it. The Serendipity
consisted mainly of a lumpy concrete hull some forty feet long. Smothered in black tar,
it put him in mind of a dead whale. The hull was clearly the failed backyard project of a
do-it-yourself dreamer, hauled to the sea to be scuttled as the cheapest way of disposing
of such an abomination.
But then, according to Red Duffy, Rasha and Royboy had stepped in, scenting
cheap accommodation. They’d acquired the hull for a song, erected a rudimentary
plywood superstructure and run out of enthusiasm. All holes were covered with transparent
plastic sheeting, flapping and crackling in the light breeze. The name Serendipity
had been spray-painted in fluorescent pink along the side of the hull. The color of the
paint and the style of lettering bore a strong resemblance to graffiti he’d noticed on the
stone wall beside the community hall, although in that case it read SAVE KINGFoul
Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 59
COMBE WOOD. Every square foot of deck space was occupied by gasoline and oil
cans, paint cans, old refrigerators and other time-expired household appliances, and
pots of struggling seedlings. Two bicycles dangled from the unvarnished mast like
hanged mutineers.
“Looking for someone?”
A woman climbed up into the cockpit from the bowels of the vessel, pushing
aside a sheet of plastic. She was almost painfully thin, black hair drawn back severely
from a gaunt face, giving her the look of a starving ballerina. She wore a faded multicolored
skirt. A dirty white T-shirt bearing the single word CARMANAH was tucked
into the waist. She looked about forty but was probably younger.
“I’m a police officer.”
“I can see that.” A flicker of alarm had enlivened her dull brown eyes.
Devoran was used to flickers of alarm. Most people had something to hide, and even if
they didn’t, they had loved ones they didn’t want to hear bad news about. “Oh, I guess
you want to talk about Li Slade, eh?” she said. “Not much I can tell you there.”
“You saw the explosion?”
She considered. “No. We were below. But we heard it. I guess the whole village
heard it.”
“Any idea what might have caused it?”
“Propane leak. Li had a propane stove; I’ve seen him wheeling fresh cylinders
to the boat. You can’t trust propane.”
“It’s heavier than air, see?” This from an equally skeletal male, poking his head
around the side of the plastic sheet. “Hi, there.” His hair was fair, tied in a pony tail.
His face was long and pale and lantern-jawed, his eyes bright and intelligent. “Propane
sinks to the bottom of the cabin and stays there until you strike a match.”
The cool spring day was drawing to a close; the plastic sheeting around the
Serendipity glowed orange from the light inside the cabin. Devoran shivered. “My
name’s Devoran, by the way,” he said belatedly. “Staff Sergeant Devoran.” The
thought of a comfortable evening at home was uppermost; he’d done all he could here
until the boat was raised.
“I’m Royboy and this is Rasha.”
“You probably know Lionel Slade is dead. You wouldn’t happen to have spoken
to him when he arrived this morning, would you?”
Royboy smiled a wide guileless smile. “Yeah, we did. We kind of keep an eye
on things for him, see? He stopped by here before he went aboard. Shouted Hi down
into the cabin, we were still in bed, like. We said Hi back.”
“What time would that have been?”
“Jeez, man, we were half asleep. Who bothers about time on a Sunday morning?”
“Nothing more was said?”
Rasha said, “The client.”
“Oh, yeah. He asked if we’d seen anyone hanging around waiting for him. ‘I’m
expecting a client,’ he said. But then he often says that, and I haven’t seen a client yet.”
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 60
“What did he do for a living, exactly? What would a client be seeing him about
on a Sunday morning?”
“Search me,” said Rasha.
It was not a palatable offer. Devoran stamped his feet; they were getting cold.
So what had happened to the client? Was he or she among the names taken at the
dock? Or was client a euphemism for somebody Slade was trying to avoid? “You’ll be
around for a few days, will you?”
“A few days, a few years, who knows?”
He was about to leave them when a thought struck him. “By the way, who’s
that man you were talking to earlier, Rasha? Dark blue bomber jacket?”
She considered. “No idea who he is. He’s been hanging around a couple days
now.”
“He looked kind of… excited.”
“Yeah. It was the explosion. He wanted to know if anyone was aboard. I told
him Li Slade might be. He was kind of anxious, know what I mean? He kept asking
about police searching the boat, what they’d found.”
“Could he have been Slade’s client?”
“Could be.”
“You told him Slade was dead?”
“Yeah. It didn’t seem to bother him much. In fact it seemed to calm him down,
kind of.”
Now that was interesting. Devoran’s mind began to run along tracks previously
worn smooth by his mother-in-law. The Eastern European’s plot had succeeded; the
bomb, of a design that had proved so successful during the 1968 Czech rebellion, had
done its work. The randy Slade, planning to spend an adulterous day with his ‘client’
— in fact the Eastern European’s wife — had been blown to Kingdom Come. The wife
arrived too late to do any more than weep over the body of her dead lover. Hence the
Eastern European’s relief when told only Slade’s body had been recovered. He still
had a residual love for his wife.
All total garbage, of course. The kind of theory Bill might have dreamed up.
And anyway, none of the women at the dock had been weeping over Slade’s body.
They had not been overly delighted, but Devoran could not in all honesty say they had
wept.
And furthermore, Slade could hardly have planned a day of illicit sex on Ocean
Dream with Susi due to arrive back any time with the shopping.
Back to the drawing board. “Thanks for your help,” he said, and turned away.
“Don’t sail off anywhere, will you?”
Royboy chuckled. “In this tub? We’ve got more sense, thanks.”
Devoran left them to it and strolled along the dock. Across the water, windows
glowed in the cottages along Waterside Road and a scattering of anchor lights glittered
like stars against the black hillsides. A figure stood alone at the end of the dock silhouetted
against the rosy glow of the evening sky.
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 61
He walked slowly, putting his feet down quietly. There was a private tragedy
here, and he didn’t want to break in too crudely.
“What are you going to do?” he asked gently. “You can’t stand here all night.”
Susi turned. Her face was empty of expression. “Just go away, will you?”
“No, I can’t do that. You need a place to stay. I can’t leave you here like this.
I’m supposed to protect the pub lic. Right now, that’s you. Come on, I’ll drive you to
the Globe. ”
“I told you I don’t want to go to the Globe. I can’t even afford a B&B.”
“You must have some money. Credit cards or something.”
She gestured, a backwards flap of the right hand. “I spent all my cash on food
and stuff for the boat. I didn’t take my cards with me in case I got carried away and
overspent. They’re down there in the boat, in that box I told you about. Everything I
own is down there in that box. Even the car’s registered in Li’s name.”
“You’ll have to come with me,” Devoran said. “We’ll fix you up with something
in Noss. ”
SUNDAY EVENING: ARRIVAL OF THE BIMBO
Family responsibilities can weigh heavily on a fifteen-year-old. Seven o’clock
on a Sunday night and still Dad hadn’t come home. Bill had slaved over the hot stove
and created a feast of curried meat balls and pilau rice, and it would be all dried up if
the old guy didn’t show soon. Noss Cove had made the CHEK 6 evening news with
the big bang at Duffy’s Marina. Tragic enough, sure, but peanuts compared to the possible
loss of Dad, victim of a high-speed chase. The GP looked up from the broken
body, face twisted with distress. He’d seen it all before but he could never get
used to it. ‘He’s dead, Jim. He was a good cop. It’s always the best ones, isn’t
that the truth.’
Yup, time to prepare himself for orphanhood. So what did they do with fifteenyear-
old orphans these days? You could bet they didn’t let them make their own way
in the world. It’d be the workhouse for him. The shabby clothes, the frequent birchings,
the gruel. ‘Please sir, can I have some more?’ On the other hand he could become
a street person and sleep in the shop doorways in Victoria, drinking aftershave
and foraging in skips. A bit comfortless, though. No life for a sensitive young intellectual.
To take his mind off his potential tragic loss, Bill fired up the computer and began,
not for the first time, to try to make sense of the family finances. Now he was on
his own he needed to know the full horror. Mammoth expenses appeared on the
screen. Good grief, the old man was spending money like it was going out of style!
He’d have to have a firm word with him, assuming he was still alive, or the workhouse
would become a reality. And this was only the tip of the iceberg. The shifty old fellow
had got into the habit of hiding credit card slips from him, so the awful truth only
emerged once a month when the statements came. You’d think police training would
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 62
teach a man to be more honest. If you can’t trust a Mountie, who can you trust? All
the symptoms indicated the old man was bent. Jeez! What if they caught up with him?
That sounded like the car door slamming. Footsteps. The front door opened
but nobody came into the living room. “Where the hell have you been, Dad?” Bill
shouted. Then he heard a secretive muttering.
“Who have you got with you?” he called. Surely not some cop pal? That
would mean minuscule portions of meat balls all round and police talk all night. He went
to investigate. Dad was just closing the door of the bathroom on what he would have
described in policebabble as a female individual. Bill caught a glimpse of long black hair
and a childbearing body in sweater and a short skirt that suggested some kind of nocturnal
lifestyle. Good grief, surely poor old Dad was not that hard up!
His father was frighteningly naive about the opposite sex. He didn’t realize
women were not to be trusted. Bill’s own girlfriend Maeve was a prime example of
female duplicity, although that could attributed to her Celtic ancestry. The old man was
a sucker for a pretty face, and had probably been craving female companionship ever
since the death of Mom. He had to be taken in hand. A son-to-father talk was indicated.
Now the old fellow turned away from the door with a furtive expression.
“Who’s the bimbo?” Bill asked.
He noticed a flicker of anger on Dad’s face as he was taken by the arm and
hustled into the kitchen. Dad possessed surprising strength for such a puny frame. He
seemed about to burst into aggressive speech, maybe even brutal action, but then he
noticed Bill outweighed him by a few kilograms. He often forgot that.
“That is not a bimbo,” he snarled. “She is a woman in unfortunate circumstances
for whom I’ve offered to find accommodation because she has nowhere to go.”
“Wow, you’re a true Samaritan, Dad. Does she like curried meat balls, do you
know?”
“That’s immaterial. The point is, she’s suffered a tragic loss and it doesn’t help
if you call her names. She’s a respectable masseuse, and she’s sensitive about that kind
of thing.”
“Sorry. I didn’t realize she had a degree in physiotherapy. What was the tragic
loss?”
They sat down and Devoran filled his son in on events since the big bang. He
liked to keep Bill up to date on police matters; Bill suspected the old man was hoping
he’d follow in his footsteps one day, and it wasn’t a bad idea at that.
It emerged that the bimbo was the boat goddess he’d been admiring for some
weeks. Bill had to admit to a twinge of compassion as the sad story ground to its conclusion.
“That’s a shame, Dad. Rough luck on her. So here she is in our bathroom.
How long will she be in there? Shall we start supper?”
“We’ll wait for the young lady. The least we can do is offer her something to
eat. And afterwards you can phone Miss Drost and fix up a bed for the night.”
“I thought you said she didn’t have any money. Miss Drost likes to receive an
earnest of good faith.”
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 63
“I’m sure we can handle that.”
“I was running over our financial situation just before you came. Any more unwise
investments could bring the bailiffs in.” Worried, Bill collected the supermarket
bags the old man had left beside the front door, swung them onto the kitchen table and
began to probe. A packet of chocolate digestive biscuits, a jumbo bag of tortilla chips,
a giant jar of salsa, a six-pack of beer, a box of Honey-coated Sugar Puffs, a dozen
Tim Horton’s doughnuts, an economy pack of Mars bars, two large frozen pizzas....
All kinds of goodies. He was surprised and touched at the old guy’s thoughtfulness.
Years of campaigning had borne fruit. Real food at last! He started to unpack and
stow away.
“Wait!”
“What do you mean, wait?”
“It’s Susi’s stuff.” The old man actually turned pink as he uttered the name of
the masseuse. “Hers and Lionel Slade’s, that is. The fellow who died. We can’t simply
take their stuff.”
“It’d be like robbing the grave, right?”
“For Chrissake, Bill, do you have to be so dramatic? It’s a simple question of
honesty. The stuff isn’t ours…. Anyway, I think I can hear her coming. So just take
your dirty little hands off those Mars bars and try to behave with some goddamned respect
for a change.”
Footsteps and a tentative knock on the door. Bill gave a quick lift to the edges
of the bags to make it look as though they hadn’t been tampered with, and took a step
away from the table.
“Come on in,” the old man called in a smarmy voice.
The door opened. The boat goddess entered, walking tall and dignified. Good
strong legs. Slim waist. More than acceptable boobs. It was the first time Bill had
seen her without winter wrappings. He levered his gaze up to her face, meeting an encouraging
smile of recognition. Not bad. Not bad at all. Shrewd old Dad had shown
unexpected taste.
This would give Maeve Kennedy something to think about.
SUNDAY EVENING: SUSI’S LIFE HISTORY
Devoran was pleased to see his son’s hostility evaporate even before the curried meat
balls, although from time to time he gave Susi a rather odd glance. He was a good kid,
really. It was quite understandable that he should resent his father’s acquaintanceship
with a beautiful woman; nobody could or should replace Veronica. But now there was
official work to be done. It was already eight p.m. Time to start getting a few facts
down on paper.
“Bill, maybe you can clear the things away and call Miss Drost while I have a
word with Miss Sutcliffe.”
“Are you going to interrogate her?” He was annoyed to see the quick look of
sympathy Bill gave Susi. “Dad’s a great interrogator. He lulls you into this false sense of
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 64
security, see, then suddenly his eyes flash like lasers and he pounces. Has he told you
about the Spackman case yet?”
Devoran hurried Susi into the other room.
This room had no formal name because its purpose was difficult to define. Nobody
wanted to call it by its old name, the family room. With Veronica gone, they
didn’t feel there was a proper family in the house any more; just a couple of guys mucking
in together. It contained the computer, printer, fax machine and a few shelves of
technical books on police work and other topics, and in that sense it was an office. But
it also contained a sofa, a couple of armchairs, the TV, VCR and stereo equipment, and
currently the floor was littered with piles of science fiction and mystery magazines and
CD’s left lying by Bill, the idle young wastrel, which pushed it back toward the family
room concept. So they called it the Other Room, as distinct from the kitchen and the
more formal living room. The latter had remained unused since Veronica’s death. Not
that it was a shrine or anything like that, but Devoran couldn’t remember when it was
last dusted, and it was hardly suitable for entertaining.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asked, scraping the junk aside with his foot.
“Do you have scotch?”
“No problem.” He opened the cabinet in some trepidation and, sure enough,
there was still a mouthful in the bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label. “Ice?”
“Thanks.”
In order to get the ice he had to brave the kitchen and the critical eye of Bill.
“Plying her with strong liquor, Dad?”
“I’m behaving like a normal, polite host, for Chrissake.” He fumbled ice into a
bowl and hurried back into the other room.
“Thanks,” Susi said, sitting down. “Mind if I smoke?”
“That’s OK.” Devoran didn’t particularly care for cigarette smoke, but a bigger
worry was the sofa Susi had chosen. So much food and drink had been spilled on it
over the years that it had developed an atmosphere all its own, as a dog’s basket might.
But Susi’s tip-tilted nose remained unwrinkled and he began to relax.
“Well?” she said after a while.
“Maybe we should start by you telling me about yourself.”
“Do I have to?”
“I can’t force you. But just suppose it turned out the explosion wasn’t an accident,
well, you’d have to tell me then.”
“But it was an accident.”
“So it seems, but I can’t take that for granted. Uh, we have to assume homicide
until all the facts are in.”
“I could be a suspect, you mean?”
“Sort of, yes.”
“All right.” She leaned back against the place where Bill had spilled a bowl of
Lipton’s Cup-o’-Soup only the previous week, sipped her scotch and began. “I was
born in Vancouver twenty-one years ago. Is that a good place to start, or is it going to
get kind of tedious for you?”
Foul Play at Duffy’s Marina – Michael Coney 65
“That’s fine…. Look, do you mind if I just make my notes on the computer? I
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