The Sea Detective Read online

  Mark Douglas-Home is a successful journalist turned author. He was editor of Scotland’s leading daily newspaper, The Herald, for five years and editor of The Sunday Times Scotland. He has also held senior roles with The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday. When he was Scottish correspondent of The Independent he reported on both the Lockerbie and Piper Alpha disasters. His career began as a student in South Africa where he edited the newspaper at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. After the apartheid government banned a number of editions, he was deported from the country. He is married with two children and lives in Edinburgh. The Sea Detective is his first novel.

  ‘There comes a time when a novel raises the bar for a particular genre, and Mark Douglas-Home’s debut The Sea Detective does just that for Scottish crime fiction. Elegantly written and compelling, it introduces a new, thoroughly modern hero into the crime-fighting canon.’

  Jen Bowden, The Scotsman

  ‘The Sea Detective is extremely moreish, as much for its calm, open prose – a hard trick to pull off – as for its solid storytelling.’

  Chris Dolan, The Herald

  ‘Douglas-Home expertly balances the introduction of a new kind of eco-sleuth, the awful realities of the sex-slave trade and an intriguing case of yesterday’s crimes rising to the surface like doom-laden driftwood.’

  Christian House, The Spectator

  ‘This is a fictional debut whose plot grips like the grasp of the icy ocean that acts as a backdrop to the story.’

  Scottish Field

  ‘This is a real page-turner where you can hear the characters, see the landscape and keep reading late into the night; you can’t ask for much more from a thriller.’

  Rosamund de la Hey, The Southern Reporter

  ‘The Sea Detective is artfully plotted and a highly readable novel. I will not be surprised to find Cal McGill and detective Helen Jamieson between the covers of another novel in the future. In the mean time, enjoy their debut, and come away better informed about some important global environmental and human rights issues.’

  Mandy Haggith, Northwords Now

  ‘Douglas-Home is as good at capturing location as he is at making the intricacies of oceanographic science understandable to the layman as McGill follows his investigations from Edinburgh to rugged west coast islands … An unusual background for a thriller and an unusually good debut to boot.’

  Inverness Courier

  ‘Cal’s plausibility and contemporary edge make him a likeable and engaging protagonist. Combined with the intricate and fascinating storyline, employed with originality and creativity, this makes for a highly successful debut for Mark Douglas-Home.’

  Gemma Cresswell, Mouth London

  THE SEA DETECTIVE

  Mark Douglas-Home

  First published in Great Britain by

  Sandstone Press Ltd

  PO Box 5725

  One High Street

  Dingwall

  Ross-shire

  IV15 9WJ

  Scotland.

  www.sandstonepress.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored or transmitted in any form without the express

  written permission of the publisher.

  Editor: Moira Forsyth

  © Mark Douglas-Home 2011

  The moral right of Mark Douglas-Home to be recognised as

  the author of this work has been asserted in accordance

  with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988.

  The publisher acknowledges subsidy from

  Creative Scotland towards publication of this volume.

  ISBN (e): 978-1-905207-83-1

  Cover design by Raspberryhmac, Edinburgh.

  Ebook by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore.

  For Colette, Rebecca and Rory

  For this book I have invented an island and two settlements on the north coast of Scotland to avoid imposing a fictional story on an existing island or communities which have rich histories of their own.

  I owe a debt of gratitude to Toby Sherwin, UHI Professor of Oceanography at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, for his time and advice. If there are errors in any of the passages dealing with the movement of the sea they are mine alone.

  My thanks also go to Maggie Pearlstine, my agent, for all her support and guidance; to Colette, my wife, Rebecca and Rory, my children, for reading the drafts and for their suggestions and encouragement; and to everyone at Sandstone Press who made it happen.

  I should also acknowledge the research of Anuja Agrawal in her book Chaste Wives & Prostitute Sisters: Patriarchy and Prostitution among the Bedias of India which provided context and detail not available in the published journalism on the subject.

  Chapter 1

  The cold wind made the girl shiver. She flared her nostrils, inhaling with short bursts, sniffing for clues, trying to fix the smell. Was it the sea? Her heart began to beat faster. Was this the path to the sea? Was this the way home? She stopped struggling and trembled again, now with excitement.

  The woman carrying her, scolding her, tightened her grip. One arm was clamped around the girl’s back, the other behind her knees. The girl’s tongue pushed at the rag in her mouth, trying to force it out, to gulp a lungful of fresh air, to test whether it tasted as it smelled, of freedom. She’d all but abandoned hope of that. She was young and time had passed slowly for her. Hadn’t her father been right? Be obedient, Preeti, and be patient, he’d said.

  After the money had changed hands, her father had seen the sudden little-girl-lost panic in her eyes. ‘He’ll return you to us, Preeti, in a week or two. It’s the custom,’ he whispered to her, adding, ‘when he tires of you.’

  She’d said, ‘What if he doesn’t tire of me, father?’

  He’d given her an indulgent look, the one he sometimes gave to let her know the depth of his experience in these matters. ‘He will.’

  ‘Even a man who has paid 60,000 rupees?’

  Nobody had ever paid 60,000 rupees for a girl from her village. The previous record had been 40,000.

  ‘Particularly a man who has paid 60,000 rupees …’

  Preeti frowned. She did not understand. Hadn’t her father said she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen? Hadn’t the truck drivers stared at her with more longing and desire than at any of the other girls? ‘Why father? Won’t I still be beautiful?’

  ‘Yes, Preeti, you will always be beautiful, but a man like this desires variety. He can afford to buy another beautiful girl and another after her.’

  The woman stumbled on the path and Preeti clung to the coarse cloth of her jacket. Again the woman said something angry which Preeti did not understand. They were going downhill, the woman hurrying, Preeti feeling her urgency. Now they were on steps: the woman descending them sideways, quickly, one at a time. Preeti’s feet banged against a railing, making the skin above her ankles rub painfully against the knot of the rope. She wriggled and the woman squeezed her tighter still. Then they were out of the wind and the woman’s feet crunched on gravel. Ahead was the splashing sound of water washing against a shore. When Preeti had heard it the last time (how many weeks or months ago?) it had filled her with foreboding. Where was she being taken? Why was she tied, gagged and blindfolded? Why had this rich man paid so much for her only to treat her this way?

  Now the lapping water thrilled her. When the woman put her down, Preeti felt the rough wood underneath her and the sway of a boat rocking. Wasn’t this the boat which had brought her here? Wasn’t she going home?

  Her head filled with a kaleidoscope of colours, faces and scents: the pinks, reds and greens of saris, the happy dirty faces of her younger sisters Nita and Meena, the wood-smok
e, the hens scratching in the dirt, the grit and dust from the Jaipur road, the sound of trucks stopping and starting, the smell of diesel in the hot air, men bargaining over girls.

  She had vivid flashes of memory: her mother sitting outside their hut, singing and cooking over a fire of Tamarind branches; her mother’s raindrop tears when Preeti, in her pink sari and jewellery, was taken to the roadside; her mother wrapping her arms round Preeti and saying, out of the hearing of her waiting father, ‘forgive me’ and Preeti saying proudly, hiding her fear, ‘There is nothing to forgive. I am a Bedia girl and this is what Bedia girls do’.

  Sitting in this boat, she made a promise. As soon as she returned home she would take her father aside and ask if she could buy presents for her mother with some of her deflowering money. It was the custom for all of it to be spent on a feast. But wasn’t 60,000 rupees more than enough for the biggest feast the village had ever had?

  How she’d dreamed of the celebration.

  Whenever she’d been with a man she thought of nothing else, her head brimming with its brilliance and noise. She would wear gold jewellery and with her father’s permission she would buy her mother a dark pink sari of Mysore silk as well as cotton saris for wearing every day, a new cooking pot and a mattress for her bed.

  The boat buffeting against a wave suddenly interrupted the girl’s dreaming. She wished the woman would take off the blindfold. She wanted to see the ship that would return her to her family. It would be waiting in deeper water, as it had when she’d been taken ashore. Would she again be locked in an airless cabin? There would be no need on the return journey, Preeti thought. Whoever had bought her no longer had a reason for shutting her away from other men. She wasn’t a virgin any more. Preeti had a better understanding of these things now.

  When the car had slowed at the roadside in her village, shiny black bodywork, blackened windows, a flutter of satisfaction had travelled through her little frame. No car like that had ever stopped for a girl from her village before. She remembered how the truck drivers had ceased their bad-tempered haggling and had stared sullenly at the car knowing this beautiful girl would not be theirs, not then, maybe never if she went to work in New Delhi, Mumbai, or even Dubai. They had heard stories of exotic girls like that who earned many tens of thousands of rupees for their families every year. Preeti had watched as the car window slid open a few centimetres. Her father had approached it uncertainly and spoken through the gap, stooping to it in deference.

  When he returned to her side, she’d asked, ‘Was he handsome, and clean?’ Her father shook his head and smiled like someone who had just been blessed. ‘A man who spends 60,000 rupees on a girl will be clean.’

  ‘60,000 rupees,’ she’d gasped, and her father’s smile broadened into the widest grin.

  ‘Did you see him father? Was he handsome?’

  ‘A man who spends 60,000 rupees on a girl doesn’t drive his own car.’

  That was something she didn’t understand. Why would a man have a Mercedes if he didn’t drive it himself? She didn’t want to show disrespect for her father so, when she was in the car, she said to the driver, ‘Are you the man who has paid for me?’

  He guffawed at the idea. ‘Where would I be able to find 120,000 rupees?’

  ‘But you only gave my father 60,000 rupees.’ (Preeti considered ‘only’ a surprising word in such a context.)

  ‘I did and soon I will give another girl’s father 60,000 rupees. It is another man’s money. I am just his driver.’

  Preeti fell silent, in jealous pique. Was there another Bedia girl so beautiful she could be worth 60,000 rupees also? Hadn’t her father told her she was the most beautiful girl ever born to Bedia parents?

  No more than ten minutes later the car stopped at another village and the driver lowered the front passenger door window a few centimetres, as he had done for Preeti’s father.

  The driver passed a roll of money through the gap to a large man with a round face and white, even teeth – Preeti’s mother had taught her that good teeth in a man were a sign of wealth and breeding. Then the car door opened and a girl in a green sari sat on the tan leather seat beside Preeti. She was tall and beautiful with thick lustrous dark hair, wide eyes and full lipstick-red lips. She was crying. Preeti’s jealousy drained from her. She clasped the girl’s hand and asked her name.

  ‘Basanti,’ the girl replied.

  ‘How old are you Basanti?’

  ‘I am 14.’ Her wet eyes stared at Preeti. They were pleading for help.

  Basanti was one year older than Preeti.

  ‘Are you the oldest child?’

  ‘No, I am the youngest of my family.’

  Now Preeti understood her tears. Whereas Preeti, being the oldest girl, had been prepared for the dhanda, the sex trade, Basanti had not, not yet. Basanti’s tears were for the marriage she would never have and for the husband she would never have, for her new life as a dhandewali, a prostitute.

  Preeti hugged her.

  The journey took many hours and Preeti held on to Basanti all the way. At one point Basanti fell asleep on Preeti’s lap. The younger girl stroked the elder’s hair, marvelling at why a man would need two such girls and which he would find more appealing. Basanti was long and slender, with narrow hips, an elegant neck and wide eyes. Preeti was small and graceful like a dancer, with pronounced cheek bones and a finely drawn mouth.

  Preeti thought she had never seen a girl as beautiful as Basanti.

  After they had been driving for what seemed like half the night, Preeti tired of the headlights of approaching cars and trucks. She asked the driver, ‘Are we nearly there?’

  He replied kindly, ‘Try to sleep and the journey will be quicker.’

  Preeti said she could not, but she closed her eyes and awoke with a start when the driver braked sharply before turning into a back street.

  He heard her stir. ‘We have arrived,’ he said stopping outside a warehouse with metal bars on windows blacked out with paint. ‘We are in Mumbai.’

  ‘Is this where the man who bought us lives?’ Preeti asked. Basanti had woken too and tightened her grip on Preeti’s hand.

  The driver shook his head and let the girls out. They preceded him up some stairs to a door with a grille built into it where another man, wearing a white suit, white shoes and sunglasses, was waiting for them.

  ‘Is this the man?’ Basanti whispered to Preeti.

  ‘I think so.’

  Neither of them had seen such expensive clothes before. This man looked as though he could afford 120,000 rupees for two girls.

  Preeti and Basanti were taken along a corridor to a room which had a single bed and a chair. It was lit by an overhead light and the blind was drawn across the window. A woman with a pock-marked face was sitting on the chair waiting for them. She stood up as Preeti and Basanti came into the room, said something Preeti didn’t understand to the man in the white suit. After he’d closed the door, she held their hands: Preeti’s right in her left, Basanti’s left in her right, and regarded them appreciatively. ‘Beautiful girls,’ she said in their dialect and beamed with pleasure. Preeti and Basanti smiled too, though they were uneasy at feeling the rough calluses on her hands. Afterwards, she helped Preeti and Basanti out of their clothes telling them, ‘You must wash …’

  But she saw the worry on the girls’ faces and didn’t continue her sentence.

  ‘Is the man in the white suit the one who has paid for Basanti and me?’ Preeti asked.

  The woman said nothing.

  When they were naked they felt shy with each other.

  Basanti touched Preeti’s arm and said 60,000 rupees was too little money for a girl as lovely as Preeti.

  Preeti said, ‘And too little for a girl as lovely as you …’

  ‘We are worth 70,000 rupees each,’ Basanti said.

  ‘More … 80,000, 90,000, 100,000’ said Preeti.

  Then Preeti talked of the hundreds of thousands of rupees she and Basanti would make for their famil
ies from the dhanda, of the rich men they would still be attracting many years from now. Would any Bedia girls ever have earnings like theirs?

  The woman left the room, shaking her head at these girls who thought only of money, and returned with some water in a bowl. She washed them down, first Preeti, then Basanti, turning them round as she did so. Preeti splashed Basanti and the girls laughed nervously together because they were fearful of what would happen next. The woman went out of the room a second time before bringing food, pav bhaji, and new clothes, western clothes; blue jeans, tee shirts and a choice of gold or silver pumps.

  While they ate and dressed, the woman told stories about Bedia women and their warrior blood, how brave they were, how the dhanda was noble work for girls as beautiful as them. She knew from experience that Bedia girls liked these lies. Weren’t they told them by their good-for-nothing fathers who were descended from bandits, robbers and thieves?

  ‘Have you ever been on a plane before?’ the woman asked.

  Preeti and Basanti shook their heads.

  ‘Or a boat?’

  They shook them again and giggled.

  ‘The men who have bought you live a long way away. You will travel to them when they have paid for you.’

  ‘Haven’t we been paid for?’ Preeti asked. She had seen the money. What did this woman mean?

  The woman didn’t answer but Basanti inquired, ‘Has more than one man paid for Preeti and me?’

  ‘Yes, more than one.’

  ‘Not the man here, the man in the white suit?’

  The woman hesitated. ‘… No.’

  ‘Where are these men? Are they here?’