Death Surge (8 page)

Johnnie had instantly confessed. Horton could still see Cantelli’s horrified and stricken countenance at discovering the news that his nephew was an arsonist, and he could see Johnnie’s terrified expression when he realized what serious trouble he was in. Tyler Godfray and Stuart Jayston had very quickly owned up, but Ryan Spencer, with previous convictions for theft and being drunk and disorderly, and Kyle Proctor, with convictions for vandalism, theft and assault, were harder to crack … although not that hard.

In the Magistrates’ Court Horton had watched Johnnie trying valiantly to hold back the tears, torn between wanting to look at his mother for comfort and reassurance and avoiding her glance for fear it might cause him to break down completely. Isabella, stiff and upright, had sat immobile, as though lack of movement might anaesthetize her to the pain she was feeling for her only child.

Although neither Stuart, Tyler nor Johnnie had criminal records, Horton, like Cantelli, suspected that each had committed petty criminal offences before; they’d just not been caught. They were given community sentences and ordered to work on the community payback scheme, while Ryan was given a detention and training order of one year, spending six months in the secure centre for young offenders and six months serving in the community, and Kyle, with his more serious previous convictions, was given a custodial sentence and sent to a secure centre for young offenders for eighteen months.

Horton looked up to see Cantelli return from the canteen with a sandwich and large paper cup of tea. Johnnie’s community payback had been to clean graffiti off the underpasses in Portsmouth, a soul-destroying task made shameful by the fluorescent vest he and others had to wear, advertising to the world their criminal background. The lad had been ashamed and humiliated, his confidence shattered, his grief at his father’s death deepened. He had let everyone down, his family, his dead father, himself and his mother. He had become withdrawn, he’d stopped eating and Isabella, clearly distraught at her son’s descent into depression, had gone to her brother at her wits’ end. Cantelli had tried talking to Johnnie, but nothing had any effect. Horton had thought back to his own long days of misery before his foster parents, Bernard and Eileen Litchfield, had given him love, stability and trust. But Bernard had also given him the idea of becoming a police officer like him, and it was in the police force that Horton had his first taste of sailing. It had transformed his life. He’d thought it might do the same for Johnnie.

Go About, a sailing charity run by Don Winscome, had changed Johnnie’s life completely and, despite what Harriet Eames had said about Johnnie possibly being led astray again, Horton just couldn’t see him returning to crime after that bitter and shattering early experience. But the others? He couldn’t recall coming across them recently, so perhaps they’d stayed clean.

He keyed the names into the Police National Computer and discovered that Kyle Proctor had been killed in a car accident on the M27 on Fareham Hill, along with one other person, a man, who had been standing beside his broken down vehicle on the hard shoulder awaiting assistance. The autopsy on Proctor had shown he had been well over the drink legal limit for driving and witnesses claimed he’d been texting on his mobile phone immediately before the incident. A fact that was borne out from the telephone records. What a bloody fool, and what a waste of two lives.

Tyler Godfray and Stuart Jayston had no further convictions. Ryan Spencer, however, had two more petty offences to his name. The last one committed a year ago for which he’d escaped with a community sentence. According to their records Spencer was living in Paulsgrove, a large council estate to the north of Portsmouth, while Godfray lived in Gosport, across the harbour from Oyster Quays, and Jayston at Havant, a town to the east of Portsmouth. Maybe they should check if Johnnie had been in touch with any of them.

His mobile rang. It was Harriet Eames.

‘Johnnie Oslow was here in July,’ she announced without preamble. ‘He was working on-board
Calista
.’

‘You’ve spoken to Andreadis?’ Horton asked surprised.

‘Yes.’

Then why hadn’t he returned Horton’s call? Because
he
wasn’t a personal friend. And perhaps he didn’t think he needed to now.

Eames continued: ‘Xander returned to Sardinia on
Calista
on the eighteenth of July with Johnnie on-board. He had business to get back to and couldn’t make Cowes Week. The
Medussa
and its team, minus Xander, aren’t at Cowes either now. After the Cowes to St Malo race they left for St Tropez. They’re competing in Les Voiles de St Tropez in September and Xander is joining them there.’

That didn’t surprise Horton. St Tropez, on the French Riviera, was famous for its millionaires.

‘Why didn’t Johnnie race on the
Medussa
?’

‘He’s not used to racing on that class of yacht.’

But Horton recalled what Andreadis had said about it being time to broaden Johnnie’s experience. Then why not let him crew on the
Medussa
?

‘So sending him back to Cowes just three weeks after he’d left was a last-minute decision.’

‘Not necessarily,’ she answered – slightly cagily, he thought.

But it sounded as though Andreadis had had some doubts about Masefield. Again he considered whether a young man of twenty-three was the right person to send to check that out, and again he doubted it.

He said, ‘Find out if Johnnie went ashore while on
Calista
and if so where he went and with whom.’ Clearly, it hadn’t been to see his mother. ‘Unless you’re too busy racing. I was forgetting you’re meant to be on holiday.’ He knew she would hear the scepticism in his voice and wondered how she would react.

‘I said I wanted to help,’ she answered lightly enough, but he thought he detected tension.

‘Good. Then as you have access to Andreadis, and probably his skipper, see if you can find out if Johnnie ever confided in anyone. Was he close to anyone in particular? Did he have any girlfriends? What was his mood like recently?’

‘Right.’

The crispness of her response made him wonder if she was gritting her teeth, biting back the response that she knew how to do her job. Before she could ring off he quickly added, ‘Did Andreadis give Masefield Johnnie’s mobile number?’

‘No.’

‘You asked?’ he said, surprised.

‘No, Xander said you had left a message asking him that.’

‘Why didn’t he give Masefield the number?’

‘He probably didn’t think of it. And I’m not sure that Nat, Xander’s skipper, or Sophia, his secretary, know Scott Masefield. I’ll check,’ she hastily added before he could instruct her to do so.

She rang off. He tried ringing Andreadis’s number but again got his voicemail. So how come Eames had got through when he couldn’t? Had her timing just been luck? Or perhaps she had access to another number for the tycoon – one that was very private, only used by close friends and family.

He joined Cantelli in CID. ‘Anything?’

Cantelli shook his head.

Horton took the seat at the opposite desk. ‘Did you know that Johnnie was here in July?’ Clearly not, judging by the sergeant’s expression. Horton relayed what he’d just learnt.

Frowning as he considered this, Cantelli said, ‘I don’t think he contacted Isabella but I can ask her. He certainly didn’t visit her, otherwise she would have told me.’

‘Leave it for now. We don’t want to add to her worries. Johnnie might simply have been too busy to see his mother. He was working.’

But Horton was getting the distinct impression that Johnnie had been avoiding making contact with his family. Why?

His office phone was ringing. He hesitated about answering it in case the desk clerk had spotted his Harley in the car park and was now summoning him to investigate a new crime. DC Walters was duty CID. Not that he was in the station, but they’d have his number to call him. Andreadis had his mobile number so it couldn’t be him, but it could be someone from Cowes police station with news about Johnnie. He returned to his office and lifted the receiver.

It was PC Seaton. ‘We’ve got a sighting, sir,’ he said excitedly. ‘One of the taxi drivers at the Hard remembers Johnnie.’

Horton’s pulse skipped several beats. This was a breakthrough. He looked at Cantelli in the CID office; he didn’t want to raise his hopes only to have them dashed. ‘He’s sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Where did he take him?’

‘He didn’t. He just says he remembers seeing him and speaking to him.’

‘Is he still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then tell him to stay put; we’re on our way.’

‘I
’ve missed three fares because of you. Hope you’re going to compensate me for that,’ the taxi driver grumbled as he drew heavily on his cigarette. ‘I’ve got a living to make, and hanging about to please you lot costs me time and money.’

Judging by Cantelli’s cold stare Horton thought the type of compensation he had in mind was to book the obese taxi driver for having bad breath and dandruff. Thrusting Johnnie’s photograph at the big beer-bellied man, Cantelli said sharply, ‘Are you sure you saw this man on Wednesday afternoon at approximately four o’clock?’

‘How many more times do I have to say it? Yes, that’s him,’ the taxi driver shouted exasperated and flicked his fag end into the gutter where it sat smouldering like Cantelli’s fury.

‘How are you so sure?’ Cantelli snapped.

‘Because I’ve been in this business more years than a tart can shake her tits at a punter. You build a memory for faces and names and a nose for the toerags who want to puke in your cab and avoid paying the fare. You know when someone’s bullshitting you – you can smell it a mile away, even on an outgoing tide.’

‘And that’s what he was doing?’ Cantelli stabbed at the picture of Johnnie, his heavy, dark eyebrows knitting in puzzlement.

‘He asked the cost of the fare to Hayling Island, said thank you and pissed off.’

‘Maybe he didn’t like the look of your vehicle,’ Cantelli sniped, running an experienced and suspicious eye over the scratched and battered Vauxhall.

‘There’s nothing wrong with it. You can check my insurance and MOT,’ the taxi driver said hotly, but Horton reckoned Cantelli would put in a call to traffic anyway.

Horton interjected: ‘Whereabouts on Hayling?’

‘Don’t know. He didn’t say, and I’m not a mind reader. What’s he done? Can’t have robbed a bank because he wasn’t flush enough to take a taxi. He walked off, and he didn’t ask any of the other drivers like I thought he would, to try and beat us down on price.’

Cantelli was looking increasingly perplexed. Horton didn’t blame him, he was too. Hayling Island could be reached in two ways: one by a small passenger ferry from the far eastern edge of the city at the end of the road where he lived at the marina, or alternatively by road: north on the M275 out of Portsmouth, then east along the M27 and finally south, crossing a bridge on to the small semi-rural island. But whichever way you got to it, Hayling Island was not Oyster Quays, where Johnnie was supposed to have met Masefield, and neither was it anywhere near Cowes. It confirmed that Johnnie had arrived in Portsmouth, and that was one step forward. But why Hayling? And why ask and then not go?

‘What did he do after that?’ asked Cantelli eagerly.

‘No idea.’ The taxi driver shrugged and took a packet of cigarettes from the top pocket of a crumpled, open-necked checked shirt.

Horton noted the sweaty armpits. ‘In which direction did he walk?’

‘That way.’ He jerked his head in the direction of Oyster Quays.

‘Can you describe what he was wearing?’

Cantelli quickly retrieved his notebook from his jacket pocket and the short stubby pencil from behind his ear.

‘Light coloured trousers, beige, casual, a pale-blue polo shirt.’

‘Any logos on it?’ Horton interjected.

‘Don’t know, didn’t take any notice.’ The taxi driver lit his cigarette and blew out some smoke before continuing. ‘He was carrying a large dark-blue and yellow bag though, like you see the posh yachtie crowd carting when they get off the boats at Horsea Marina. I’ve had enough fares from there to know. He was tanned, dark-haired, young, about twenty-three, didn’t look like your average yobbo, but he must have done something to have you lot sniffing around. I asked the uniformed plod why the interest but he wouldn’t say.’

And neither would Horton, because as far as they knew Johnnie hadn’t done anything. And even if he had he wasn’t going to tell this man. He was thankful that Seaton and Somerfield, who had left to attend a domestic, hadn’t said anything either, but then both were experienced enough to know when to keep silent, and they didn’t have all the facts of the case anyway. Horton said, ‘Thanks for your help.’

‘That’s it?’

‘For now. But we’ll need your details in case we need to come back to you for a statement.’

‘Well, make it when I’m not bloody working.’ Grudgingly, he relayed his full name, address and home telephone number to Cantelli.

‘Not the most public-spirited of citizens,’ Horton said as they watched him waddle back to his cab where a fare was waiting. Horton saw him open the door and take the woman’s suitcase to the boot of the car.

‘No.’ Cantelli turned away, eyeing the busy road in the direction the taxi driver had indicated. ‘Johnnie must have been making for Masefield’s yacht.’

And had never reached there. Or had he, nagged the little voice in the back of Horton’s mind. The marina manager said not; perhaps he was mistaken. He said, ‘Let’s take a walk.’

They set off in the same direction. Cantelli voiced the thought that had already run through Horton’s mind. ‘Why ask for the fare to Hayling Island if he was going to Cowes? If he’d wanted to go to Hayling, why not break up his journey from London and get off the train at Havant? He could have got a cab from there on to the Island. It’s only three miles.’

‘Perhaps he intended going there after Cowes Week. According to Sophia he had a week’s holiday after the racing. Maybe he had arranged to meet or visit someone on Hayling after Masefield dropped him back to Oyster Quays following the racing. He was just finding out in advance how much a taxi would cost instead of catching the train from here to Havant and then taking a cab from there. Does he know anyone on Hayling?’