She went upstairs, showered, and dressed. There was still no word from Gerry.
She tried telling herself she was worrying unnecessarily. He could be somewhere without a mobile signal, particularly if he were walking along the cliffs. He could have run out of battery. He’d done that before. The worst-case scenario, surely, was a repeat of the previous day, when he had just wanted to be alone and get away from everything and everybody. Including his wife. She hadn’t liked it yesterday. She didn’t like it today. But was it really so difficult to understand? Perhaps she just had to accept that Gerry had been much more deeply affected by what had happened than he’d let on. Possibly more affected than her. She told herself she should not bother him anymore, that she should leave him to get over it all in his own way. Meanwhile she should concentrate on keeping herself occupied, mentally and physically. And that, she determined, was exactly what she would do.
She hadn’t even made the bed. She did so, tidied the bedroom, and cleaned and tidied the bathroom. Then she went downstairs into the kitchen where she emptied the dishwasher and scrubbed and polished the white stone worktop until it shone like opaque glass.
Finally she heard the little bleep from her phone which indicated that she’d been sent a text. The time was eleven forty-seven a.m. The text was from Gerry:
Just to let you know, it’s such a lovely morning, I thought I’d take the boat out for a bit. Take my mind off everything. Gx
Anne was both surprised and alarmed. Gerry had bought his small second-hand, two-berth motor cruiser soon after they’d moved to the North Devon coast from their previous home in the London suburbs, not far from where their daughter and son-in-law still lived. He’d said that he wanted to feel as if he were really part of the seaside community of Instow. And he liked the idea of joining the yacht club.
But it had proved to be pretty much the fad Anne had suspected it might be. Gerry barely used the boat. Virtually never, in fact, except when Ralph and Angela visited. Ralph had learned to sail as a boy, and although rather scathing about Gerry’s motorized ‘gin cottage’ as he called it, enjoyed trips around the estuary when the weather and the tides were right.
So why would Gerry want to take the boat out today? Why on earth today?
Anne glanced anxiously out of the window at the sky. The sun was still shining intermittently, and it had indeed been a glorious morning. But there were definite signs that this was not going to last and that once again some pretty grim weather was blowing in from the Atlantic.
She checked the weather forecast on her phone, the hourly regional BBC one. To her horror she saw that heavy rain and high winds were forecast for early afternoon, and there was a coastal storm warning off Bideford Bay.
Gerry’s little boat, with its planing hull and big but single outboard motor, was only really seaworthy in perfect conditions. Certainly, with a sailor as inexperienced as Gerry at the helm. As far as Anne knew he hadn’t taken it out at all that year, although she was aware that he’d arranged for it to be moved from winter storage to its river mooring, and she wasn’t sure if he had ever before taken the boat out on his own. She wondered when the outboard had last been serviced. Maybe it wouldn’t start. That, she thought, would be the best result. What on earth was Gerry thinking of? This was a kind of madness.
She picked up her phone again and once more tried to call him. Once more she got only voicemail.
She left a message: ‘Gerry, have you not seen the weather coming in? The forecast is terrible. Please don’t take the boat out. Just come home, will you? I know you are still upset. We both are. I think we need to talk properly about what’s happened. Just come home.’
A few minutes later she received a second text:
Sorry. Already aboard. Signal bad. Don’t worry. I shan’t be long Gx.
Anne didn’t like it, she didn’t like it at all. But she told herself the best thing she could do was to keep as calm as possible and continue to busy herself about the house. Gerry hated being fussed over. Particularly by his wife. All the while she kept her eye on the weather, both through the windows, and on the BBC weather app. By two o’clock the gentle sea breeze of earlier was approaching gale force. Rain was falling heavily, and the sky was leaden. The BBC was now predicting a force nine gale with coastal winds in excess of fifty miles per hour. And there had been no further contact from Gerry.
Anne could not wait any longer. First she phoned the yacht club. The barman answered. No, Gerry wasn’t in the bar, and he hadn’t seen him all morning. He had no idea whether or not Gerry had taken his boat out. He would see if he could get somebody to find out and call her back.
Anne paced the floors waiting to hear. She was quite sure now that something terrible had happened to Gerry. What other explanation could there be? Just as she was going to call the club again, her phone rang.
‘Hello, Mrs Barham,’ said a voice she did not recognize. ‘I’m Sid Merton, mate of Gerry’s at the yacht club. I’m the chef at The Boathouse, on the front. When I arrived at work about seven thirty this morning, I saw him heading out towards the estuary. I didn’t think much of it. I thought he was just taking an early turn while the weather was good. But we’ve checked, and the boat isn’t back. No sign of Gerry either. I don’t want to worry you, Mrs Barham, but we’ve already phoned the coastguard and the RNLI. He shouldn’t be on the water in that vessel of his in this weather.’
Anne could hardly believe what she was hearing.
‘Are you sure you saw Gerry?’ she asked lamely.
‘Oh yes, Mrs Barham, I’m really sorry to be giving you such disturbing news, but it was Gerry all right. I know the boat. And we waved to each other. Look, try not to worry. He may have put in somewhere, and be riding out the storm. We’ll be in touch as soon as we hear anything.’
She ended the call and took another look out of the window. The wind was howling now.
Could Gerry really be at sea in his little boat in this weather? It made no sense. And if Sid Merton was correct in what he said he’d seen — and Anne had little doubt that he was, he said they’d waved to each other, for goodness sake — Gerry had been aboard his boat for at least seven hours. He must have left the house far earlier than she’d thought, probably before six, and had surely already decided that he was taking his boat out.
As for putting in somewhere to ride out the storm, well, Anne knew even less about boats and sailing than her husband did, but she had learned a little about the coast where they lived. There wasn’t anywhere to put in once a vessel had left the estuary of the Torridge and the Tor. Not within range of Gerry’s boat, that was for sure. Which led Anne onto yet another frightening train of thought. The boat would surely have run out of fuel by now. In fact, probably some time ago.
Anne started to weep. What was happening? she wondered. Until the night before last she and her husband had been living happily in quiet retirement in a beautiful part of the world. Then came the shock of finding the body of a neighbour who had died in the most awful way. And already their lives seemed to have been turned upside down.
Now Gerry was missing. There seemed little doubt about that. He could be in trouble. He could have drowned. Gerry could be dead.
Anne was distraught. She didn’t know what to do or who to turn to.
Twenty
Earlier that day Saslow and Vogel had arrived at Bideford police station to find the place heaving. Nobby’s Major Crimes Team was still in the process of setting up the incident room.
The forbidding red-brick building, built on higher ground opposite and above the river, has been closed to the public for years, but local CID and uniform still operate on a day-to-day basis behind its closed doors. The only access road is a steep ramp leading up from New Road, and parking is limited. In addition to MCT, extra officers from other stations in the region had been brought in to form a suitably sized team for a murder investigation.