Text: Murder: Book One of the Rialto Trilogy

By George G A Wensley

Who would want to kill a beautiful young German model? When her body is found washed up in a harbour near Eastbourne, England, two characters tasked with solving the murder clash as they work together.
One is Inspector Carpenter, an Englishman who is outwardly cool but full of self-doubt. The second is straight off the weekly extradition plane from Poland Lieutenant (soon to become DS) Kaminska, a very religious but efficient policewoman.
Carpenter cant even guess the right drinks to order in social situations, but he can listen, tell a lie from the truth, and plod through the leads until he hits the right one.
Kaminska is fluent in several languages, but her English isnt that good. Like most continental police, she can use a gun.
It is a clash of cultures and personalities.
By chance, Carpenters laptop is stolen, but in an odd way this helps with solving the murder. Carpenter and Kaminska crash through the Kent countryside and London, trying to get a working relationship together. They follow leads that take them to the island of Sark. They concentrate on the forensic information given by a flash mobile phone.
The story climaxes at Eastbourne, where Serena Williams is making her comeback. Carpenter and Kaminska corner the hit man but will they be able to catch them alive?

www.rialtotriology.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467010948

George G A Wensley

George has for a long time done amateur photography concentrating on landscape photography, any people that appear in his photographs are there by chance. He enjoys poetry and short stories. Having achieved a certificate in creative writing he has learnt that some of the great novelists also wrote short stories and poetry as well. He admires people like HG Wells, Henning Mankell, Roald Dahl, Tolkien, Raymond Chandler, Ernest Hemingway, Kathy Reichs and Anne Lamott. Some of their shorter works give an insight to the larger ones. George likes to go visit the places that appear in his novels and write about them in detail, then like Ernest Hemingway's tips of the Ice burgs include a small detail in the full scale novel. The Isle of Thanet appears in his second novel, while doing research for the second book 'Devil's Gate and his work for the certificate, he went to the Turner Gallery at Margate and wrote a piece called the Dreamlands (he had read The waste lands by T, S Eliot) to get the description out of him. There is also a piece called 'Venice in the Rain,' which he wrote because he was struggling with the end of the book and what was happening in the third. He wishes that he could say that he lives with cats but because he likes to travel it would be difficult to keep them, but he does like his small flat with a court yard garden in a market town in Kent.

Book preview

Prologue

The feeling of innocence had gone; a brief amount of knowledge had done that to her. She felt like Peter Pan, who did not want to grow up. However, her body desired adult pleasures.

The man in front of her was old enough to be her father. He reminded her of a man she had met in London—the accent was somewhat English, but not quite entirely so. The look of suppressed anger was the same, though, as she said no. She made to leave, turned around. A gun appeared in his hand.

Was this it? She looked at the full moon and the string of lights on the beach promenade. The lights reminded her of her first photo shoot that day. Her hair was golden red, like a phoenix rising from broken ashes, blown back and dancing in a wind from a machine. For a moment, she didn’t feel worthless; she felt at one with the world, past tense. Then, instead of using the energy, she wanted to celebrate, to escape the strictures of life. She went to the in-house dealer, wanting a German wine, and then she started to spiral. The gun pointed at her.

Scheisse was her last word to the world.

The scene was not far from the location of one of the great seaborne invasions of history, the Norman invasion of England—Pevonsey Bay, to be precise. It was a bright dawn. Juvenile light brought definition to the modern designer flats, versions of which could be seen all over the country. They surrounded a basin of water that was a haven to vessels in a storm.

An angler fetched his tackle and bait from his car and walked to his preferred pitch. It was a weekly ritual. It was his time while the children were still small, a time to forget his job and his responsibilities. What would he catch today? In a way it didn’t matter, but he hoped he would catch something for the table. Mackerel—no problem catching them. But if he could catch a sea bass, perhaps he could sell it to a local hotel.

Seagulls soared and mewed. One in particular caught his eye as it glided into the wind, hovering, and looked down. Some titbit caught its eye, and it dived.

Something was in the water, bobbing against the shore: a Baltic blue coat, long blonde hair, bloody red water. The fisherman dialled three nines.

Lieutenant Lilka Kaminska sat on the aisle side of the Polish transport plane that came to the UK every two weeks to pick up Polish offenders and extradite them back to Poland. The offences were many and varied, ranging from being drunk on a bicycle, to murder. Poles knew that if they committed an offence in Poland, they would be hunted wherever they ran to.

Kaminska was dressed in border guard uniform—a white shirt with epaulettes on them denoting her rank, a black tie, a dark knee-length shirt, and low-heeled black shoes. The clothes were conservative, but they didn’t hide her looks.

The plane touched down, and Kaminska felt a tap on her shoulder by her boss Kalwalski. He said Come with me—you have been assigned to help the English police.

Would she get to see Christmas in Poland again? Would she again taste carp after midnight mass?

Chapter One

Yes? The word was hollow, a weak echo, and ring-fenced with aggression as Carpenter answered the mobile phone. The voice at the other end of the phone was instantly recognisable, and too cheery for this time of the day.

Good morning, Gordon!

Carpenter’s mind was wide awake now. What’s good about it? You never phone with good news.

The tone in the voice of Carpenter’s employer changed to one of gravel-sliding concern. There’s a job for you.

Great! The last job you gave me almost killed me. Same question: What’s the good news?

The good news is that you still have employment—I could change that if you want. There are plenty of people waiting for promotion, and it’s tough without a job these days.

Carpenter had to admit she had a point there. Okay, okay! What does Chief Inspector Jennifer Gower want?

Chief Inspector Gower of Special Branch laughed a well-educated laugh. A body has been washed from the sea near Eastbourne. She was a German national from somewhere in Thuringen, a part of the former East Germany. To help with your profiling, I have emailed you photos and some background documents about her.

There was a pause. Carpenter hoped his boss would continue, but she didn’t, and he felt compelled to ask something. What’s her name?

Ilse Chemnitz.

Having started to engage in conversation, Carpenter had to continue. Wouldn’t this be better handled by the local police or Interpol? He hastily continued, saying, Glad you agree. As you may have noticed, I need my beauty sleep. Goodbye. Love you!

Carpenter’s boss was experienced at this type of subterfuge. Hold on! You don’t need beauty sleep; you need fucking plastic surgery. Bear with me. We have been specially asked by MI5 to look at this case. Her father is big commercially; he trades with Russia, Eastern Europe, and us.

Past memories caught up with Carpenter. Why was he alive instead of his much stronger colleague? Do we have a file on him, Jen?

Jennifer, not Jen. Of course. Her voice resumed its cheery tone. In fact, we have two: one on a dusty microfiche, and the other on a CD-ROM. Both crackle with age.

Memories stirred deep in his psyche. The raid on the house on Hackney Marshes, where his probationer colleague had died of gunshot wounds—he could feel the pain in his stomach. No hard copies in a pink file? Like the old days, with cabinets and different-coloured folders?

The chief inspector’s voice took on the timbre of a gangster’s. Nah, that crap went out with the eighties. She waited like a cat with a mouse. Gordon… will you take the job?

Time stilled, as if he were in shock. The ante had been raised; it was time to make a call.

You need the nip-tuck surgery; you know you do, Gower said, sensing his hesitation.

The telephone company gained a few more pennies as Carpenter thought about the impending job cuts. Do I have a choice? He grimaced, hoping that he was not under visual surveillance, and then smiled, despite himself. It was a mistake always to assume you were being watched. He knew he was powerless to refuse. Okay. I’ll be on the next train to Eastbourne. Is there anybody available to be my assistant? Not too keen, reliable, but not too taxing on the budget. After all, I have to sort out my face, according to you.

Gower put on the voice of an accountant. For the moment, you have a grade-three budget.

I expect that comes with free linoleum in the office?

That grade does not come with an office. Use the local nick and your hotel room as your personal office. Your assistant will be Lilka Kaminska, a Polish police sergeant, excellent at languages. She will meet you at Eastbourne Station. Is there anything else? Time is taxpayers’ money. The phone went as dead as Carpenter’s life felt.

A Pole; some of his Irish snitches would not like that. And a woman, too—eager to have his job, no doubt!

He looked at the clock; it was dead on seven. Time for breakfast. He got up and went to the kitchen. There was a small lamp standing on the counter separating the mock-granite kitchen and the main room. In its light were model soldiers, a troop of Polish lancers, waiting for the final licks of paint. Opposite the diner, the whole wall was taken up by books that told the history of the Napoleonic wars.

Carpenter sat on a high stool. He was a coffee addict and had tried many expensive methods of making it: espresso machines, filters into coffee jugs, and cafetières. They worked for a while, until they fell idle with neglect and misuse, gathering dust and growing mouldy. He now used a freshly cleaned plastic jug, one dessertspoon of high-caffeine coffee, two sweeteners, and freshly boiled water made in a travel kettle to save water and electricity. It took only a few shakes to put the grounds into suspension, and then it was poured through a small tea strainer. Perfect bliss—those first sips of coffee made life almost worth living. The steam misted his glasses, but because he was in a better space, that was never a problem.

Then breakfast: two pork-and-leek sausages baked on a small worktop grill. It took twelve long minutes to cook the sausages from frozen. Then the bell pinged, but he did not have time to wait while the sausages, as television chefs say, rested. He burnt his lips and fanned his mouth with his hands.

He washed his hands before switching on his laptop. Carpenter wondered why, however much quicker these machines got, they always seemed to take such a long time to warm up. First he checked his emails, but it was the usual trash. His electricity bill was ready to view. He did not know how to do this, but allegedly it saved money and it was less paper to clutter his small one-bed flat. Then he accessed his bank account—never a good experience. The website looked brilliant, but the content was crap. He shuffled money around and logged off.

It was Carpenter’s practise to keep a travelling bag ready at all times. After dressing he picked it up and tried, half-heartedly, the telekinesis method of tidying his flat; curiously, this failed. He then checked his pockets for keys, wallet, and his two phones, one for work, one for personal use. Finally he left his flat, went down the communal stairs and out onto the street, and walked the short distance to the busy road. He crossed it and went to the station concourse.

Carpenter had an annual season ticket to London from his small, but rapidly growing, village in Kent. People from outside of the village called it sleepy, but it was far from sleepy and had a fair mix of society: different ethnic groups, people in work, people out of work, people who have, those who have not—all close together. One part of an estate got the blame for all the ills of the village, but Carpenter knew that there were some good people there. Others were looking for a magic solution for their lives, but they were looking in the wrong places.

As he had an annual season ticket to London, he got a thirty per cent discount. He made sure to get a receipt. It was part of a police game called claiming expenses, which was so time-consuming and demoralising that it was almost easier to pay for everything and be done with it. You never felt that you had gained.

He made it his practise to go to the station early now. The trains arrived on time—or, even worse, before they were due—unlike the old slam-door trains that you could rely upon to be late. However, he liked the new trains. They had air conditioning, and the carriages were showing signs of wear and tear. When the trains were new, they accelerated smoothly, as one would imagine the Orient Express would as it left the Gare de Lyon. Nowadays the wheel bearings were getting loose, flats were being worn on the wheels, the powder paint on the doors was crinkling like dried-up orange peel, and the track was degrading. Still, the new trains were a lot better than the old ones.

He changed at Ashford International and missed his connecting train. Why? Presumably because it was too early, or whoever controlled the trains thought it would be too easy for the trains to run in sequence. The station was no longer a hub for rail traffic going through the channel tunnel. The long platform opposite him used to resonate with the sound of plastic luggage wheels being dragged over slip-resistant concrete. Now it was empty.

Carpenter went to the cafe. The coffee was hot and tasteless, but the sausage roll would be comforting. He immediately felt remorseful towards his growing waistline.

It was a different train company that took them from Ashford to Eastbourne. Carpenter looked at the flat expanse of Romney Marsh; a lush land with its millions of sheep, the seventh continent. Herons fished in the dykes and the military canal. He liked them, but he knew Jen the chief inspector had several expensive koi carp, so he kept silent about that. He loved marshes; there was that hint of danger of getting lost or being sucked into a quagmire and not being found, a bit like Hackney Marshes. He shivered at the thought.

The scenery sped past, and he watched but did not watch. His memories were absconding with the present again. A shepherd rode on his quad bike, his dog lying down and then nipping the legs of the flock of sheep. Hay was wrapped up in large black-plastic-lined rolls.

The views out of the window blurred and were pushed back in his consciousness as he thought about Ilse Chemnitz: a German national, the daughter of a former East German businessman who was lucky enough to gain a living out of the alien world of capitalism. Carpenter always studied the facts before drawing up a profile; conjecture never sat well in a court of law. It was part of his training, it was part of his instinct, and it was the reason he was still useful. His experience in the job—the painful mistakes, the surprising successes, and the day-to-day exposure—meant that he no longer needed to think so much. It was instinct.

At Eastbourne Terminus, Carpenter alighted and queued at the ticket barrier. In front of him was Lieutenant Lilka Kaminska—or so he assumed, as she had a card with his name on it.

She was five feet six inches tall, with a lithe body in proportion to her height that spoke of regular exercise that devoured what she ate. Kaminska wore jeans—not too baggy, not too tight, no tear at the knees. The colour was a monotone dark blue. Above that she wore a lighter blue V-neck jumper, and around her neck was a silver cross on a chain, peeking through a navy raincoat. Her hair was light brown and could do with a makeover, and her eyes were a deep violet, which drew Carpenter’s gaze into them. Beside her was a heavy-looking suitcase.

Kaminska and Carpenter shook hands, all smiles and eye contact now that they were close to each other. However, her body language seemed nervous to Carpenter, and he wondered whether there was some past event that affected her. She’s got a lot of baggage, thought Carpenter. Physical—he looked at the bag—and mental!

He took the lead. I’m Inspector Gordon Carpenter; I work for the Special Branch. Hello—that first difficult word!

‘Hello’ is not so difficult spoken, she said with a smile. My name is Lilka Kaminska. I am Polish, a police border guard, and I know a lot of Slavonic languages.

In this age of cutbacks we have to do more than our job descriptions. Do you know much about this case?

No.

Good. We can develop ideas and facts together. Let us get a taxi to the hotel.

The driver of the cab was mulishly happy as he pointed out local sites, so it seemed to Carpenter. He felt obliged to cheerily exclaim, Keep smiling; the sun always shines on Eastbourne! as Carpenter was paying for the fare with a modest tip—and getting the all-important receipt.

They paused in front of the hotel. It was medium sized and built in the standard Edwardian style, painted chalk-cliff white. Steps led up to a new set of double-glazed doors. An exiled smoker sat drinking, wrapped up against the sea breeze. Because of, or despite, his having given up smoking, Carpenter inwardly hated the smell of cigarettes.

The check-in desk was centrally placed, and a girl in her early to mid-twenties was speaking on the landline in one of the Slavonic languages. Carpenter’s limited patience evaporated like spilt petrol, but he held himself in check for Kaminska’s sake. His counsellor would not be happy; his memory of her restored his petrol tank of patience. It gave him a chance to look at the young lady. She had bright red hair tied back in a ponytail and green eyes that alternated between wonder, fear, laughter, and care as she spoke on the phone. She wore a dark blue jacket over a creamy, lacy top, and a medallion suspended from a golden chain.

She ended the call, and a smiling mask came down like a portcullis. Can I help you?

Carpenter smiled. Yes. My name is Gordon Carpenter… I have two rooms booked here?

The check-in clerk’s defences buckled a little as she looked for the reservation. Ah! Here we are. Your room is four twenty on the fourth floor; Ms Kaminska will have the opposite room, four nineteen. Do you want your luggage carried for you?

Carpenter shook his head, lifting up both his and Kaminska’s suitcases with a sigh.

Chapter Two

The barge pulled up against the cage. It cleared the old River Thames of tonnes and tonnes of plastic cups, fast-food containers, tin cans, plastic bottles, fragments of pallets, storm branches, smashed pieces of furniture, string, old rope, and pieces of discarded clothing. These were the usual items that polluted the river—things that were dropped in the haste of a very large city and its environment.

There were other things that were discarded deliberately, and the police took an interest in these things—such an interest that they put up a bounty for them. The rewards ranged from twenty to forty pounds—large enough to pay for an evening’s worth of drinks—depending on the value of the information received by the police.

So it was with avid interest that the workers watched the rubbish being dumped on the depot’s floor. The workers raked through the rubbish with an enthusiasm they rarely used at work. The rubbish was sometimes soft, sometimes razor-sharp, so they wore rubber boots with iron-laced soles, steel toecaps, and rigger’s gloves. Over their working clothes they wore green waterproof leggings and Day-Glo jackets bearing logos. Consorting with the police did their street cred no good, but money was money, a drink was a drink; it did not matter where it came from.

The haul was not great. The usual amount of hypodermic needles, a few crack pipes, nothing too inspiring or valuable—until, like waiting London buses, they found three mobile phones in quick succession.

One of the workers put the mobile phones on top of a sheet of blue paper rolled out on a table, as though they were suspects on an identity parade. The table was in the relative warmth of a Portakabin. Water oozed from all of the phones. One was scratched, and the rubber buttons worn so much that the numbers could not be read. Perhaps it had been the bearer of bad news and had been