Undercurrent (10 page)

Horton acknowledged this, adding, ‘We know he caught the train—’

‘Do we?’

‘No, you’re right, Barney. His lover could have picked him up and driven them to an airport. If they flew to a destination within the UK or Europe there’s a chance they flew from Southampton.’

‘I could make some inquiries. And I could also talk to Alvita Baarda, the black girl Spalding seemed to be friendly with at the lecture. There’s a possibility she could be Spalding’s bit on the side. Perhaps she said something to him yesterday evening that caused him to panic and end it all. An affair with a student would certainly put the kibosh on his career and damage his reputation.’

Horton considered this. ‘OK.’ He finished his coffee and rose. ‘Do it tomorrow, and see if you can have a word with Dr Sandra Menchip, Spalding’s boss. Get Walters to contact Kings College to find out if there really was a conference in Birmingham on July the fourth. Drop me back at the station and then get off home.’

There was no sight, sound or smell of Walters or his food in CID and his jacket had vanished from the back of his chair, which meant he’d sneaked off home. It was thirty minutes past Walters’ usual clocking-off time and there was no major investigation to make him linger longer than he possibly had to.

Horton opened his office window admitting the sound of the rush-hour traffic and eyed his desk with a heavy heart. He could have sworn the pile had grown two inches deeper in his absence. He found a note from Walters on top of Ashton’s list of names. Walters had scrawled, ‘All clean, nothing known.’ Horton called Ashton.

‘What is it, Andy? I’m rather busy at the moment.’

Horton gritted his teeth. ‘I can ring tomorrow. It’s nothing important. Only about those names you gave me,’ he said with heavy sarcasm.

‘Oh that, yeah. And?’

‘There’s nothing on any of them. Do you want me to log the crime?’

‘No. No, leave it. Forget I mentioned it.’ Ashton rang off.

Horton stared at his mobile seething. ‘With pleasure,’ he said, throwing the phone down on his desk. Well at least he’d got lunch out of the selfish, inconsiderate bastard.

For the next two hours he turned his attention to his paperwork and emails, grabbing some sandwiches from the canteen and coffee from the machine outside CID to keep him going. But all the while Spalding’s death niggled at the back of his mind and in particular those three days at the beginning of July. He could
feel
it was significant.

Then there was Jennifer’s disappearance to pursue and the identity of those men in that photograph, which made him remember he still needed to track down Professor Thurstan Madeley. The name was still bugging him. It wasn’t as if it was a common one either. He was convinced he knew it from somewhere. He pushed it aside for another hour and then just after nine thirty he called it a day but before logging off his computer he keyed in Madeley’s name, sat back and swore softly. No wonder the name had seemed familiar. Madeley was not only often a guest lecturer at the police training college, Bramshill, but he also acted as a consultant to various police forces around the country, lecturing and advising on issues such as crime culture, crime and the social classes and crime and the urban environment. God, he was dense not to recognize it earlier. He must have seen it in emails and memos or in articles in the force magazine. He’d probably even heard it mentioned so why hadn’t he made the connection sooner? Probably because he couldn’t believe that the man who might hold the key to some vital information about his mother’s disappearance could be so close.

He logged off. Madeley’s connections with the police made approaching him difficult. He didn’t have to tell Madeley that he was a police officer but he was certain Madeley would ask him what he did for a living and why he wanted to know about the archive project. If he lied or managed to dodge both questions, which was doubtful given Madeley’s background and obviously high intellect, and Madeley subsequently discovered that he was a cop, Madeley could make things awkward for him. It could raise the issue of him using police resources for his own private use. And DCS Sawyer was bound to find out. But perhaps that didn’t matter, thought Horton, switching off the lights, and heading out, because Sawyer knew he was researching the past, and maybe the next time Sawyer approached him he’d accept the offer of secondment to the Intelligence Directorate.

Horton made his way home thinking it over. By the time he parked the Harley in the marina car park he knew that he had no choice in the matter. He had to be straight with Madeley. As he headed down the pontoon the sound of a powerful motorbike caught his attention. There wasn’t usually a lot of traffic and especially at this time of night, because the road didn’t lead anywhere except to Langstone Harbour, but there was the sailing and diving club and the Lifeboat station. He caught sight of the motorbike as it sped towards the harbour and following it was a dark saloon car. Neither came back immediately or seemed interested in him and he hadn’t noticed either following him, but then his thoughts had been distracted and it was dark.

Shrugging, he unlocked the hatch and climbed below, thinking of Zeus, and again wondering if he was one of the men in the photograph. The breeze had stiffened and it had begun to rain. He remembered the train journey to Portsmouth with his mother when he must have been about five. She’d been edgy and silent and after a while he had watched her, worried and fearful. He felt cold now as he sensed her fear. He recalled the small shabby rooms, an old woman, men, a new school with children who treated him with mistrust, fights, his mother’s temper, and finally the flat in the tower block. He would stare out of the window at the ships in the Solent wishing he was on one of them and that he could make his mother happy again. Then it had changed. She changed. She was relaxed and happy. Had someone come back into her life to make her happy? Had that man been Zeus?

He sat drinking a coffee, listening to the wind whistling through the halyards and the rain hitting the deck. He needed to remember more about his time with his mother. Vague snatches were coming back, but he didn’t know how much of it he could trust, for a child’s memory was often distorted. The sound of his mobile made him start. He glanced at the clock wondering who it could be at ten forty-six. Probably work, he thought, because he rarely got personal calls. But why should anyone call him? He wasn’t duty CID. He was surprised and annoyed to see it was Carl Ashton. He was tempted not to answer it. He was under no illusion that Ashton was calling to apologize for his ingratitude; he obviously wanted something. But answer it he did.

‘I need you here now. I’m on the boat at Oyster Quays and for God’s sake hurry.’

Horton heard the panic and fear in Ashton’s voice. ‘What is it? Has the boat been trashed? Are you hurt?’ he asked, sitting up.

‘Worse.’

What could be worse, Horton thought, but before he could ask, Ashton said, ‘He’s dead. Stone bloody cold dead. For God’s sake get here.’ He rang off.

T
he body was lying sprawled face down in the cockpit of Ashton’s yacht, partially under cover of the awning by the hatch. Horton had checked for signs of life knowing instantly that he wouldn’t find any. And he’d checked for any obvious cause of death; no knife wound in the back, no gunshot wound either. The back of the dark-haired head was intact and there wasn’t a speck of blood emanating from under the lean figure. The dead man’s neck showed no signs of strangulation either, from the back view at least. From what Horton could see of the face, which wasn’t much, he judged the deceased to be somewhere in his forties. The right hand and arm was pushed under the body, but the left arm and hand were exposed, the fingers were slender, there was no ring, but resting half over the arm and half on the deck was a navy-blue lightweight rucksack, which looked as though it contained very little.

‘Who is he?’ Horton asked Ashton, who was standing at the helm behind him, hunched over the wheel as though for support.

‘I’ve no bloody idea,’ he cried, running a hand through his wet hair, his feverish anxious eyes skittering around the yacht and the pontoon as though searching for an escape.

On the way here it had crossed Horton’s mind that the dead man might have been mistaken for Carl Ashton and the threats had escalated into murder, but now seeing the corpse Horton was inclined to dismiss that idea. The dead man was leaner and darker. His clothes – faded jeans, stout and worn trainers, and a lightweight navy walking jacket – were also completely unlike Ashton’s smart chinos, deck shoes, and Henri Lloyd sailing jacket.

Ashton said, ‘Look, can we go somewhere? Do I have to keep staring at him?’

Horton had no intention of negotiating their way around the dead man to the cabin below. There was nowhere else to go except on to the pontoon.

‘Let’s get off the boat.’

Ashton hastily climbed off and stood moodily on the pontoon, shoulders hunched against the steady rain, collar of his sailing jacket enveloping his petulant jaw.

Horton said, ‘Tell me what happened.’

Taking a deep breath, Ashton said, ‘I came here shortly before six thirty, had a chat with the clients – we’ve had two on board today, along with Melanie Jacobs, my skipper, and Steve Drummond, crew. We all went up to a restaurant on the boardwalk. I left there just after ten thirty, came back here and found . . . him.’ Ashton jerked his head at the body. ‘I called you. You arrived ten minutes later. Longest bloody ten minutes of my life. Can’t you call an ambulance and move him?’

‘Not as simple as that, Carl,’ Horton replied, wondering why Ashton hadn’t done that immediately himself. It’s what many would have done unless they’d felt for a pulse and, realizing there wasn’t one, called the police. Ashton had called him. Horton didn’t think Ashton had checked for a pulse though. And even if he had called an ambulance it would have been no use to this poor man. He said, ‘This is a suspicious death, which means I’ve got to call it in.’

Ashton rounded his angry and troubled eyes on Horton. ‘You mean police, scene of crime and all that bollocks.’

Horton nodded.

‘But the poor bugger probably died of a heart attack!’

Horton stepped a short distance away from Ashton and, reaching for his phone, thought of another poor bugger who had been found lying at the bottom of a dock not very far away. He’d once considered that death as a possible heart attack and now it had been deemed suicide. But this man couldn’t have killed himself – why would he do so on one of Ashton’s corporate yachts? Horton toyed with the idea that he’d been killed and planted here as part of this hate campaign against Ashton in an attempt to frame him and ruin him. That seemed a bit extreme though and although people did weird things he didn’t think it was a workable theory. Could the dead man have been threatening Ashton? He’d come here intent on causing damage to one of Ashton’s yachts, only Ashton had caught him as he was about to break in. They’d quarrelled, Ashton had struck out, the man had suffered a heart attack and died. It was possible, he guessed. So until he had clear evidence that this man had died of natural causes he was treating this as a crime scene, which was why he’d wait before going through the corpse’s pockets to check for identification.

Horton requested uniform assistance, the police doctor, and SOCO. He also asked that the Oyster Quays security team be alerted. The marina office at the top of the bridgehead was closed at this time of night but Horton relayed the touch-pad security number giving access to the pontoons, which Ashton had given him earlier. Taylor and the patrol unit would need it. He could call Cantelli, who was still duty CID officer, and go home, but he didn’t see any need to disturb the sergeant’s night. And at the moment he also saw no need to call Uckfield. He’d wait to see what the doctor had to say.

Ringing off he surveyed the area through the rain sweeping off the sea. There were several boats in the marina but only two moored up on this short pontoon, which was based the furthest away from the marina office, Ashton’s yacht and another large sleek one behind it. There were no signs of life on board but the ensign flying at the rear meant that someone was on board, only judging by the lack of signs of life they were ashore. He didn’t think the dead man had come from that yacht but he could be wrong.

The pontoon turned sharp right where two yachts and one small motor-boat were moored, but again there were no signs of life on board. It was possible that one of the craft could belong to the dead man, although he wasn’t dressed for boating. But that didn’t mean much. Opposite these was a pale blue, unusually shaped motor-boat, which Horton knew from reading the sign on the boardwalk above it many times that it was a motor gun boat built in 1942, an MGB 81, and used to protect the coast during World War Two. If he remembered correctly they had been nicknamed the ‘Spitfires of the Seas’, and inspired by the PT boats of the United States Navy. Another touch of history he thought, recalling the dock and the Monitor lying in it along with Spalding’s body. But then history seeped out of almost every orifice in the city. There was nothing sinister in that.

Returning to Ashton he said, ‘Why did you come back to the yacht?’

‘Because Melanie was going to debrief me on how the day went.’

Horton glanced at his watch. It was just after eleven. ‘Bit late for a debrief,’ he said archly, wondering if Ashton and Melanie had the physical kind of debriefing in mind.

‘I don’t keep office hours and neither do my staff,’ Ashton snapped.

‘Is Melanie coming here as you instructed?’

‘No. I rang and told her not to. I didn’t mention the body.’

Horton wondered how she’d taken that if their meeting had been a romantic assignation. ‘Is she still in the restaurant?’

‘She and Steve were just leaving when I called her. The other two had already left.’

‘Where do Steve and Melanie live?’

‘Why do you want to know that?’ Ashton eyed him suspiciously.

‘Because we’ll need to interview them and your clients.’

‘You can’t be serious!’