Suffocating Sea (19 page)

Uckfield said, ‘A trip on one of those, with a forty-knot top speed, to Guernsey would be a doddle, but our killer can’t be Sebastian Gilmore.’

‘You mean you’d like it not to be him.’

‘Damn sure I wouldn’t.’ Uckfield ran his hands through his short cropped hair.

‘What time was this?’

Uckfield glared at Horton and said tautly, ‘Just before two o’clock. I was checking over the boat. I thought I might take it out over Christmas if the weather improves.’

Horton knew a lie when he heard one. Since when had Uckfield taken time off from work to check out his boat?

He said, ‘Did it return to the marina, or go out again?’

‘I called the lock keeper. She says it didn’t return until Wednesday morning at ten fifteen. I know what you’re thinking, Andy.’ Uckfield sprang from his seat and began to pace the small office. ‘But I’m telling you, just because Sebastian Gilmore has a boat that doesn’t make him a killer.

Why should he kill Brundall, Sherbourne and Anne Schofield?

And I refuse to believe he poisoned his brother.’

Horton recalled to mind the giant of a man and agreed with Uckfield. Poison wouldn’t be Sebastian Gilmore’s cup of tea, but he could have a motive if he thought his comfortable life was being threatened in some way.

‘If he was involved in whatever it was Brundall and Gilmore did wrong, which could be killing our body left in the air-raid shelter, then Sebastian Gilmore wouldn’t want it revealed.

He has a great deal to lose.’

Before Uckfield could reply there was a knock on the door and without waiting for an answer an immaculately made-up woman in her thirties, with dark hair and wearing a smart trouser suit, swept in. Completely ignoring Horton, her eyes alighted on Uckfield. Horton saw Uckfield start before he leapt up with an irritated frown. Suddenly all was revealed to Horton. Now he knew why Uckfield was uneasy and why he had withheld this information, choosing to bring it to Horton’s door when everyone else had gone home. That look told him who Steve’s latest mistress was. What was more, Horton recognized her immediately; standing before him was the woman who had been in the crowd on the night of Brundall’s death.

He also knew now why Uckfield had arrived so quickly on the scene; they’d been together on Uckfield’s boat and it didn’t take a great stretch of imagination to guess what they had been doing then and on the Tuesday Uckfield had seen Sebastian Gilmore go out on his boat.

After a quick and pointed glance at her watch she addressed Uckfield directly.

‘Superintendent, are you ready? I haven’t got much time.’

‘I’m giving another press conference tomorrow morning,’

Uckfield explained to Horton. ‘This is Madeleine Dewbury, our new public relations officer. We need to go through the statement.’

‘Ah.’

She held Horton’s stare with a haughty contempt before spinning round and striding out.

‘Do you need me there?’ Horton asked, knowing full well Steve didn’t.

‘You just concentrate on the case.’

The door slammed behind him.

Horton sat back, frowning. Did Alison Uckfield know about her husband’s latest affair? Maybe she did and didn’t mind.

Steve was a bloody fool to sacrifice so much for a bit of sex, but then he never could resist women, and it made Horton cross that Uckfield got away with it, and kept his marriage intact, when his own had been destroyed on a false allegation. He had never once been unfaithful to Catherine, but he couldn’t help wondering if she had been unfaithful to him.

Well now he could play the field to his heart’s content. He thought of Gaye Clayton and wondered . . . No, even if it was possible that she fancied him, it was too close to home for an affair, and besides he liked and respected her too much for a casual fling. A serious relationship then? He wasn’t sure if he was ready for one of those yet. It meant commitment and whilst he wouldn’t have said no to a bit of female company he didn’t want complications, or anything that might stand in the way of gaining regular access to Emma. It shouldn’t do, but the trouble was he didn’t trust Catherine. If she got a sniff of anything she didn’t like then she’d seize on him like a bloody jackal and tear him to pieces. Perhaps once their divorce had come through . . .

Tomorrow he would interview Sebastian Gilmore. And he was looking forward to it. He had sensed that there was something the giant of a man was holding back, and he cursed Uckfield for not coming forward earlier. He had delayed an investigation by withholding information, but then, thought Horton, pushing a hand through his hair, so had he.

He completed the online request for his mother’s case notes and then went home. His throat was sore, but he’d risk a run; it might help him pull together the many loose threads of this case which reached back into the past, including his own.

When he got back from the shower he found a message on his mobile phone. It was Uckfield. Horton rang him.

‘About Madeleine, she shouldn’t have barged into your office like that,’ Uckfield said quickly. ‘There’s nothing between us.’

So Madeleine had told Uckfield that she’d been in the crowd on the night of Brundall’s death and that Horton must have seen her. And Uckfield was now covering his and her backsides. ‘Steve, it’s up to you what you do on your boat.’

‘Yes, it bloody well is. We were having a meeting on Wednesday night. It was the only time we could both make it, and I had to go on to that damn function. We were discussing the profile of the police during major crimes. OK?’ Uckfield demanded angrily.

‘OK.’ Horton left a brief pause before adding. ‘Have you told Dennings?’

‘Why the hell should I? He wasn’t there.’

‘Sergeant Cantelli was, and he saw Madeleine.’

‘Then he’d better keep his mouth shut.’

‘About your meeting?’ Horton sneered.

Uckfield took a deep breath. ‘Look, Andy, neither Madeleine nor I saw anything, just heard a ruddy great explosion and it wasn’t orgasmic. I went on deck as soon as I . . .

as soon as it happened, but could see there was little point in trying to do anything. The boat was a raging inferno. I heard the fire engines, then saw a police car arrive. I told Madeleine to hang on for a while. I didn’t know the silly cow would stand around gawping at the bloody fire once she left my boat.’

Horton got the impression that Madeleine Dewbury’s days as Uckfield’s lover and their public relations officer were numbered.

‘I called in, got the details and then showed up. Bloody good job I did too, it being a major crime.’

Horton didn’t speak. Uckfield was forced to continue. ‘This doesn’t have to come out. We saw nothing and no one. It has no relevance to the case.’

How many times have I heard that before, thought Horton.

And how many times had Steve sneered at the person saying it?

‘I’ll owe you one,’ Uckfield added brightly.

Something in Uckfield’s tone made the hairs rise on the back of Horton’s neck. Suddenly the answer to many questions that had been bugging Horton for months were answered, such as how did the newly promoted DI Dennings leapfrog Horton to get into the MCT? Why had Uckfield given Dennings the job he had promised to Horton?

I’ll owe you one.

Madeleine Dewbury wasn’t the first of Uckfield’s extra-marital conquests and she wouldn’t be the last. Horton had ignored Uckfield’s philandering in the past, and kept silent over it, but Dennings was a different kettle of fish. He obviously knew of Uckfield’s affairs, or rather an affair, and that could only mean he had discovered it before being promoted and had threatened to tell. In return for keeping his mouth shut Dennings had been rewarded.

Horton rang off, feeling the anger well up in him. But surely there had to be more at stake than a bit of hanky-panky to warrant Uckfield’s appointing Dennings over him?

He sat down and thought back to Operation Extra, the case that had got him suspended because of a false accusation of rape. He and Dennings had been working together. Before Horton had gone undercover he’d been on surveillance watching Alpha One in Oyster Quays, an all-male health club and gym suspected of being a brothel and a cover for the importing and selling of illegal pornography. After a couple of weeks of nothing happening, Horton, on the instructions of his boss, had left the surveillance to Dennings to go undercover. Was that when Dennings had seen Uckfield with someone? It had to be.

Had Dennings caught Uckfield in a compromising position with a girl, on camera, and threatened to tell? Uckfield couldn’t let it come out; due before the promotion board and in with a chance for the plum job as head of the newly formed Major Crime Team, he couldn’t risk any scandal. Uckfield needed Dennings’ silence in return for a favour.

Uckfield was more stupid than Horton thought, and he had compounded that stupidity by getting into debt with a man whose only quality as a police officer was his physical strength.

Despite feeling bitter towards Uckfield for betraying him, Horton nevertheless found himself trying to find a way to get Dennings off Uckfield’s back. Why? Because he hated corruption. But was that all? If he could remove Dennings from Uckfield’s team without dropping the superintendent in it would Uckfield be grateful? Would that gratitude extend to rewarding him with the position as his DI? Wasn’t that just the granting of another favour and corruption too?

‘Sod it.’

He checked outside the boat. There was no sign of anyone watching him. He was tired and his conversation with Uckfield had left him feeling weary and depressed. The cold and damp did little to ease the soreness in his throat. He crashed out on his bunk hoping that the pyromaniac killer wouldn’t strike that night, because if he did, Horton knew he might not have the energy to resist.

Fourteen

Horton woke late on Sunday after a heavy, dream-filled sleep, which had him running away from fire and villains brandishing axes whilst Catherine laughed at him. As a result his head felt muggy and he wasn’t in the best of tempers. He cursed the gales that were still roaring through the halyards and causing the boat to rock even in the comparative calm of the marina, and when he ran down to the showers he found that the sleet had once again become driving slashing rain.

It was too dangerous to move
Nutmeg
on the morning’s high tide in this weather and the next high tide would be ten p.m., which meant he would be able to get out of the marina from seven onwards, but by then it would be dark, and
Nutmeg
was too small a boat to risk moving in both the dark and the wind. He’d have to take his chances and stay put. He could, of course, always book into a hotel if he was that worried about this pyromaniac killer coming after him. It wasn’t the expense that prevented him from doing so but the fact that it felt like running away.
Nutmeg
was his home and had been since April. Cold and cramped though she was, he nevertheless loved her.

Half an hour later he was weaving his way through the Sunday Christmas traffic cursing the shoppers snaking their way into the city centre. He’d be glad when it was all over and they could get back to some semblance of normality, though in his job there was no normal.

He thought about his forthcoming interview with Sebastian Gilmore. Had he known Jennifer Horton? Both Rowland Gilmore and Tom Brundall had known his mother, so he wouldn’t mind betting that Sebastian had also. But he’d given no indication of recognizing him or his name.

Horton dropped into the incident suite on the way to his office.

‘Don’t you ever go home?’ he asked, finding Trueman hard at work.

‘Like you, Andy, I just can’t keep away from the place.

Anyway the missus is going Christmas shopping, and I guessed this was the lesser of two evils.’

‘Where’s Superintendent Uckfield?’

‘Said he’d be in later. His daughter’s singing in a carol service at church.’

And that was about the only time you’d get Uckfield inside a church unless a crime had been committed or the chief constable was there, which Horton guessed he would be on this occasion to listen to his granddaughter.

‘Has the Dean sent over those files on Anne Schofield and Rowland Gilmore?’

Trueman shook his head. Horton was irritated. He’d had long enough. ‘Chase them up, will you?’

‘On a Sunday! Won’t the staff be in church?’

‘I don’t care where they are. I want those files.’

Collecting a tired-looking Cantelli, Horton headed for Gilmore’s mansion.

‘Sorry to drag you out on a Sunday and your day off,’

Horton said, his bad temper abating and feeling a little guilty.

‘It’s OK. Charlotte’s taking the children to see Dad this afternoon. He was asking after them yesterday. Hospital’s no place for kids but I guess he should see them just in case . . .’

Horton knew what he was thinking. ‘Look, you shoot off after we’ve seen Sebastian Gilmore. No, I insist. I just wanted you to be with me when I interviewed him, that’s all.’

Poor Cantelli looked too relieved to pick up on Horton’s intonation, which if he had done he would have asked why Horton needed him. Why not DC Marsden or Walters? It was a sign that told Horton, Cantelli was very worried about his father’s health and it made him feel even guiltier. But if anything were to emerge about his mother then Horton only wanted Cantelli to hear it.

Horton hadn’t expected Gilmore to be working on a Sunday and he was proved right. After being admitted to the grounds Cantelli squeezed his Ford between Sebastian Gilmore’s black Porsche Cayenne and Selina’s Mercedes.

‘We’re the poor relations,’ Cantelli said, climbing out. ‘Dad should have taken up fishing when he first came to England instead of selling ice cream.’

As Horton pushed open a door that led into a small vestibule of the Georgian mansion, Selina Gilmore threw open an inner door and greeted them with a frown of irritation. She was wearing a very short, tight skirt, knee-high boots, a tight T-shirt and a good deal of make-up.

‘What do you want?’ she demanded curtly.

Horton repeated what Cantelli had already explained into the intercom at the gates. ‘A word with your father, please.’