Death Surge (15 page)

Horton’s eyes quickly flicked over the two crime boards that DI Dennings was standing between like a bouncer at a nightclub. On one were details and photographs of the remains of the body found in the fire, and on the other was the smiling handsome face of Johnnie along with details of his disappearance. It was horrific to think the two were connected. This was bad enough for him. It must be torture for Cantelli. Horton’s glance at Dr Clayton didn’t lift his spirits either; she eyed him solemnly and seriously with sympathy in her green eyes. He prepared himself for the worse possible news, which clearly was what Cantelli was doing.

‘Glad you could make it,’ Uckfield said sarcastically, before nodding at Dr Clayton to begin.

Crisply, she said, ‘I can confirm that the victim is male and white. From studying what I have of the skeletal remains, the size of the prostate gland, the jaw and teeth, he was a young man somewhere between the age of twenty and twenty-five, certainly no older than twenty-six.’

Horton tensed. This didn’t sound good at all. Cantelli went whiter, and the room was so quiet Horton could hear the sound of Uckfield’s clock in his office, and that was digital!

‘The post-mortem height is a little difficult to determine because of the shrinkage of tissues and contractures caused by the fire, but I believe he was approximately five foot ten, five eleven.’

Quietly, Cantelli said, ‘Johnnie is five foot eleven.’

Dennings wrote it on both boards. No one spoke as the felt pen scratched the surface. Horton took a breath.

Dr Clayton continued: ‘Inhalation of soot particles from fire damages the airways, but I found no evidence of soot in the mouth, nares, trachea, or bronchi of the victim and nothing below the level of the vocal cords. If it’s any consolation he was dead before the fire was started.’

It wasn’t. ‘How long before?’ Horton asked.

‘Difficult to accurately determine. Could have been hours or minutes.’

Which didn’t help them much in establishing if the victim was alive on arrival at the Hilsea Lines.

‘I was unable to get any blood or urine samples, but I’ve taken samples from the skeletal muscle and bile which might tell us if he imbibed alcohol or drugs prior to death. There are no bullet wounds, no knife left in the body or traces of it against the remaining tissue and bones. But there is damage to the thyroid cartilage, the Adam’s apple, and to the cricoid cartilage and the hyoid bone just above the Adam’s apple. The victim was asphyxiated.’

‘Strangled?’ asked Eames.

‘Yes, but the body is too damaged to ascertain if this was by manual throttling or if a ligature was used. I’ve sent bone fragments for analysis, and we might pick up traces of a fibre if a ligature was used.’

Horton thought that the victim must have been strangled at the site where his body was found.

‘There’s no evidence of the victim having had any surgery such as removal of tonsils, appendix, gall bladder, and I can’t give you the colour of his eyes or hair, but I looked for tattoos, which can still be visible despite the burned skin because tattoo pigment lies encapsulated deep in the skin and is therefore not easily destroyed. I found very small traces of a tattoo on his right arm.’

‘Does Johnnie have one?’ Horton swiftly asked Cantelli before anyone else did.

‘Not that I’m aware of,’ he said hesitantly.

Eagerly, Bliss piped up, ‘He could have had one done without your knowledge, and recently.’

I think we could all have worked that out, Horton felt like snapping. Instead he gave her an icy stare, but it made no impression. ‘Do you know what it’s of?’ he asked Gaye Clayton.

‘It’s not easy to say. It looks as though it was some kind of bird. I’ll send over some photographs.’

Harriet Eames said, ‘I’ll contact Nat Boulton, the skipper of
Calista
, and ask him if he or any of the crew know if Johnnie had a tattoo.’

Gaye added, ‘I’ve taken a sample from the femur and the teeth which will give us DNA, and—’

Uckfield broke in: ‘Dental records?’

Gaye answered: ‘We’ve taken post-mortem dental radiographs. The Forensic Odontologist will be able to compare them against any you have.’

Cantelli pulled himself up with an effort. ‘I’ll get Johnnie’s dental records to you, Dr Clayton.’

‘Thank you.’ She looked as though she wanted to add some words of comfort but, before she could, Uckfield thanked her, making it obvious he wanted her to leave. She did so, throwing a sympathetic glance at Cantelli on her way out and another at Horton, which he interpreted as
keep me posted
.

Horton acknowledged it with a flicker of his eyes before turning his gaze on Uckfield. Tersely, he said, ‘I take it that, given Agent Eames’ and Detective Chief Superintendent Sawyer’s presence, Johnnie’s disappearance is now high priority and you believe he has either been killed or is in danger and that this has something to do with Xander Andreadis.’

Uckfield eyed Sawyer grimly, who turned his cool gaze first on Horton and then on Cantelli before saying in his mellifluous voice, ‘We have evidence which possibly links Johnnie Oslow to a gang of international jewel thieves.’

Horton started with surprise. Cantelli’s dark eyes widened and he looked so shocked that Horton thought he was going to faint or laugh. He stared at Sawyer open-mouthed. Even Walters looked nonplussed. DC Marsden shuffled his feet, Trueman looked his usual stoical self and Bliss was frowning for England, while Dennings folded his arms across his massive chest and Uckfield glared at Horton.

Was it the truth? Horton didn’t trust Sawyer one iota, but would he lie about this? He flashed a glance at Eames, whose expression belied nothing except the gravity of the situation. God, if it was true, then Johnnie must be dead and that must be his body. But why kill him here? And why at Hilsea Lines?

‘What evidence have you got?’ he asked before Cantelli could recover from his shock.

Sawyer shifted his gaze to Horton, where he held it for a moment before nodding at Harriet Eames, who rose and crossed to the front of the room. Horton saw Bliss’s narrow mouth tighten. She didn’t like being upstaged by anyone but particularly by another female and one of lower rank. She also knew of Agent Eames’ pedigree and probably reckoned that would guarantee her favours in the promotion stakes. The fact that Eames was not stationed in the division would make little difference to Bliss. Fiercely competitive, she’d see Eames’ involvement as a slight on her ability.

Eames began. ‘Over the last several months I’ve been analysing major international jewel thefts that have taken place across Europe, all believed to be carried out by an international and highly sophisticated gang. It’s the investigation which originally brought me to Portsmouth in June.’

But she’d been wrong then, thought Horton, she could be wrong again. The case she and he had worked on in June had had nothing to do with the international robberies. Sawyer had told him in June that he believed the jewellery thefts could be connected with the master criminal, Zeus, who he wanted to apprehend and who he believed Jennifer had known and absconded with. Did Sawyer still believe that, or was he feeding them a line? Sawyer showed no emotion, which was no less than Horton expected, but when their eyes locked Horton wondered if he read something behind them. What, though?

Dennings was scowling. Uckfield sniffed, scratched his crotch and perched his large behind on the edge of a nearby desk. Cantelli looked agitated and white with worry.

Eames continued: ‘Four of these robberies, which have occurred over the last thirteen months, form a different pattern to the others, and on closer analysis we believe they were carried out by a different gang. The first was in an exclusive villa situated near Port De Saint-Tropez on the twenty-ninth of September. The next following the same pattern was in an expensive property close to Grand Harbour, Malta on the twenty-eighth of October, with the third, again in a top-market villa, near Simpson Bay Marina, St Marteen on the twenty-sixth of February. The last one we’ve identified was on the twenty-third of April just outside Falmouth Harbour, Antigua. Until recently each was being treated as a separate incident by the police authorities involved, but because the thefts were of such a high value and from influential individuals they were each notified to Europol and hence Interpol. They have all been at properties close to marinas where Xander Andreadis’s Superyacht
Calista
has been moored. Johnnie Oslow is a constant factor in all the thefts.’

‘But he’s not the only one,’ Cantelli declared hotly.

Eames turned her pale gaze on him. Horton liked to think there was some sympathy in it but he wasn’t sure. There was an aloofness about her now that he hadn’t seen before and a hardness that he found disconcerting.

‘He isn’t,’ she said. ‘But all the victims are known to Xander Andreadis, all have been on-board
Calista
at some stage, and Johnnie went ashore with Xander Andreadis to all the victims’ properties before they were robbed.’

‘And that makes him guilty!’ cried Cantelli indignantly.

Sawyer smoothly interjected: ‘No, Sergeant, but it makes him a possible suspect.’

Cantelli looked about to protest further but Harriet Eames hastily continued, ‘Each robbery was carried out before midnight while the victims were away from the property. On two of these occasions – the one in St Tropez on the twenty-ninth of September and the one on the twenty-third of April in Antigua – the victims were dining on-board
Calista
with Xander Andreadis. On the other two occasions the victims were at a restaurant and casino with Andreadis. The sophisticated alarm systems, all different in each of the properties, were expertly disabled. The thieves knew where the jewels were kept, in safes at each of the properties. Each safe was opened using a small amount of highly sophisticated explosives.’

‘Didn’t any of these victims have security personnel or staff?’ asked Trueman.

‘No is the answer to your first question, and yes to the second, but the staff weren’t working on the nights in question. All the victims were using their holiday villas so hadn’t brought all their staff or valuables with them. However, the haul on each robbery was still considerable, with the amounts totalling two and a half million pounds. There’s no DNA or fingerprints, and it’s our belief that the thieves wore aluminium gloves to avoid leaving traces of DNA and made off with their haul after carefully cleaning the scene with methylated spirits. It was planned to perfection, the timing is precise and there are no signs of panic. They must have had inside information.’

Stung to interject again Cantelli said, ‘Any one of Andreadis’s crew could have given them that. Johnnie might even have overheard this person passing on the information, or he suspected someone, and because of it he’s been killed.’ His eyes spun to the gruesome pictures of the charred body.

‘We don’t know the body is his.’

‘Of course it is. You as good as killed him,’ he shouted at Eames.

‘Sergeant!’ barked Bliss.

Cantelli turned his hurt and angry glare on Bliss and opened his mouth to retort but Horton quickly stepped in. ‘Why weren’t we informed earlier?’ he said, his voice tight with fury. ‘He’s been missing since Wednesday. We could have got on his trail if we’d known then.’

Sawyer answered. ‘We didn’t know that he was missing. Agent Eames has been working on the investigation alongside Interpol and the Intelligence Directorate but she didn’t know about Oslow’s disappearance until you and Sergeant Cantelli showed up on Saturday to question Masefield.’

‘And you expect us to believe that!’ scoffed Horton.

‘You can believe what you like, Inspector,’ Sawyer answered coldly. ‘Interpol tracked Johnnie Oslow to Heathrow. We knew he had a ticket for Portsmouth and that he was to meet Masefield at Oyster Quays. Masefield showed up as arranged, the Border Agency patrol boat confirmed this, and that he left there just after five p.m. on that Wednesday and sailed back to Cowes. What they couldn’t confirm was if Johnnie was on-board. Agent Eames was asked to find out on Thursday, but not to question Masefield or any of his crew. Masefield went out early on Thursday, sailing for the day, when he returned she reported that she hadn’t seen Oslow on-board.’

Cantelli said, ‘Why not tell us
then
? It would have given us an extra two nights and a day to find him.’

Sawyer held Cantelli’s despairing countenance with equanimity. ‘Agent Eames was not aware of the relationship between Oslow and you, Sergeant.’

‘No, but you must have been,’ quipped Horton and got a glare from Bliss, but she could glare and bawl him out all she liked. He didn’t care.

Sawyer, showing no signs of being rattled or fuelled with guilt, smoothly continued as though Horton hadn’t spoken. ‘Just because Agent Eames hadn’t seen Oslow it didn’t mean that he wasn’t on-board. She was ordered to make further inquiries during Friday to see what she could establish but without jeopardizing the operation.’

Stiffly, Horton said, ‘You thought Johnnie was there to report to this gang, and you wanted to see who he made contact with.’

‘If the gang believed we were on to them and running a full-scale investigation into Johnnie Oslow’s disappearance they might panic and go underground.’

Horton felt like saying
bollocks
. Instead, fuming inside, he said, ‘So you thought that rather than make it official you’d wait and see what would happen and if the thieves would betray themselves. You played with a young man’s life.’ He glared at Eames. She didn’t flinch at the anger in his expression. Then Horton suddenly got it. ‘You’ve got someone in mind but you can’t pin anything on them. It’s Masefield and his crew, isn’t it?’

Sawyer answered. ‘We’re not sure who the gang is, Inspector. It could be Masefield and his crew but equally they could be a decoy or innocent.’

‘Then Sergeant Cantelli and I showed up and started asking questions so you had to think again. You ordered Agent Eames to find out from me what we’d gathered and to offer her help in the investigation.’ Horton’s eyes flicked to her. She showed no reaction or emotion.