Undercurrent (28 page)

She didn’t sit but paced his office filling it with simmering energy, her actions he felt designed to make him feel tense, apprehensive and insecure. But perhaps that was just him overreacting. His nerves were on edge because of his lack of sleep. He had to get a grip on himself. He sat back, picked up a pencil and twirled it casually while eyeing her. She stopped pacing and scowled at him. Yes, she’d have to do better than that to intimidate him.

‘The mugging by the railway station on the Hard last Thursday night, what have you done about that?’ she demanded. Before he could say he’d been on holiday at the time, she continued. ‘Any similarities with the attack on Meadows?’

So that was the way her mind was working. She thought she might have a lead and clear up both cases, which would look good on her file. ‘None,’ he said firmly.

‘How do you know that?’ she barked.

‘Because Meadows’ death is linked to Spalding’s and Redsall’s.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Spalding committed suicide and Redsall died of Sudden Death Syndrome.’

‘If you say so.’ Horton threw down his pencil.

‘I do. This mugger could have attacked and killed Meadows, it’s not a million miles away from where Meadows’ body was found, which couldn’t have escaped even your attention. The fact that we didn’t catch him after the first attack means a man has now lost his life. I want him caught before he does it again, understood?’

‘Perfectly, Ma’am.’ And before Uckfield’s team finds him, which was what Bliss was really saying. How convenient for the intelligence services to have a scumbag mugger put his hands up to it in return for getting off with a short sentence – or worse, a suspended sentence. He wondered if Bliss had been primed to point him in the wrong direction, perhaps that’s what one or more of those meetings had been about yesterday. Or perhaps that was just his suspicious mind in overdrive. But it would backfire because she’d just given him permission to continue looking into Meadows’ death. Not that he needed it; he would have done so anyway.

‘I’ll get on to it right away.’

‘Keep me fully informed.’

After she marched out, Horton called in Cantelli and waved him into the seat opposite, saying, ‘What have we got on a mugging on the Hard last Thursday week?’

‘Young man, in his mid-twenties, attacked after leaving the pub opposite the Historic Dockyard on his way to the railway station, phone and wallet taken. Uniform interviewed the publican and the customers on Friday night and we checked the CCTV footage. Caught sight of a slim youth with a hoodie, about twenty, seen running off towards Oyster Quays but we couldn’t get a good look at his face unfortunately. The video is being enhanced and uniform are asking around. I’ve got our informers sniffing around too, but nothing so far.’

‘Bliss thinks he’s responsible for killing Meadows.’

‘He could be, I suppose,’ Cantelli reluctantly agreed. ‘But there was no weapon used. The victim, who was rather inebriated, was jumped from behind, knocked to the ground, and kicked. It happened within seconds. From the CCTV footage the suspect is seen earlier outside the pub then moves out of view. I think he was just hanging around waiting to pick out the most likely looking victim.’

‘We’ll release the CCTV footage to the Major Crime Team and send the file over.’

Cantelli eyed him quizzically and with a worried frown. ‘Andy, you look tired. Is anything worrying you, and I don’t mean the case?’

Horton found it almost impossible to confide because of the scars of a childhood which had taught him the hard way not to trust, but he was a heartbeat away from doing so now to the one and only person he counted as a friend. He was tempted to tell Cantelli everything. He badly wanted someone to offload the ideas that were crowding his mind concerning his mother’s disappearance, but how could he put Cantelli’s life at risk? It was unthinkable. Instead he told him his divorce had come through. Cantelli looked sad. Horton knew the sergeant could tell that wasn’t everything troubling him but Cantelli wouldn’t probe any further and neither would he offer up any platitudes about how Horton could make a fresh start and move on with his life, to forget what had happened, because they both knew he couldn’t.

Briskly Horton said, ‘Anything on Meadows or the Crossleys?’

‘Walters is still working on it. But I looked up Rear Admiral Jonathan Redsall in Debrett’s. The son of Vice Admiral Thomas Redsall he was educated at Eton, Trinity College, Cambridge and the Royal Naval College Dartmouth. He served on HMS
Hardy
when it was deployed to counter and carry out surveillance of Russian activities in 1967 during the Cold War and on HMS
Neirne
in the Far East, Singapore in 1969, after which he rose rapidly in the promotion stakes until he ended up as a top adviser to NATO. Promoted to Rear Admiral in 2000.’

And died eight years ago, according to Beatrice Redsall, which Cantelli confirmed, adding that Beatrice Redsall had never taken up paid employment which again bore out what she’d said about assisting her father and then her brother in their careers.

Horton’s phone rang. He gestured at Cantelli to remain when he heard Dr Clayton’s voice.

‘I’ve got the results of the toxicology tests on Redsall and I think you’d better get over here.’

Horton heard the excitement in her voice and his pulse quickened. She’d found something and that could change this case completely. It might even mean Uckfield would have to launch a full-blown investigation. Horton quickly instructed Cantelli to accompany him to the mortuary and Walters to continue with his research. With eager anticipation he speculated silently what she’d discovered – drugs obviously in Redsall’s system, but what kind? As Cantelli pulled into a space outside the mortuary Horton’s mobile phone rang. It was Agent Eames.

‘Beatrice Redsall is a member of the yacht club,’ she announced. ‘But Daniel Redsall isn’t.’

Horton hadn’t thought he would be. But Beatrice Redsall, yes.

Eames added, ‘She last visited here on the twentieth of June.’

So neither she nor her nephew had been there on the day he’d died. Her visit to the yacht club wasn’t relevant to the inquiry and neither was the fact she was still a member.

Eames said, ‘Do you need me to do anything else?’

‘No. Thanks. Enjoy Cowes Week.’ He rang off, wondering what she was thinking and how she felt about him, before telling himself that she’d probably already dismissed him from her mind and gone to meet Rupert Crawford.

They found Dr Clayton in her small office behind the mortuary.

‘Redsall
was
drugged,’ she announced without ceremony. ‘The dose was enough to kill him and it is most certainly the cause of death.’

Horton drew some considerable satisfaction that his suspicions had been justified. Now Uckfield would have to listen to him. But would he? He recalled what Trueman had discovered about Redsall’s nervous breakdown. With a sinking feeling he knew what the outcome would be. They’d claim that Redsall had taken the drug himself. Suicide.

With a grim expression he took the seat opposite Gaye. Cantelli withdrew his notebook and took the vacant chair beside him.

Gaye continued. ‘It isn’t one of the poisons we discussed though, Inspector, a fast-acting one such as nicotine, cyanide or aconite, which reassures me that I didn’t miss anything so obvious and neither did the pathologist who examined Spalding. On the contrary, this poison is one that can take some hours to take effect.’

Would Redsall have used such a poison to kill himself? Horton sat forward eager to know more.

‘It’s hyoscine.’

That meant nothing to Horton but Cantelli looked up from his notebook, ‘Isn’t that what Dr Crippen used to kill his wife?’

‘Spot on, Sergeant, he did. Hyoscine can be detected in the body some considerable time after death even if the body has been buried.’

‘But not if it’s been cremated,’ added Cantelli.

‘No, that would be rather difficult,’ Gaye answered dryly. ‘It’s an alkaloid found in several plants including henbane and thorn apple, both of which grow wild in this part of the country and can also be found in gardens.’

Horton said, ‘So anyone can have easy access to it.’

‘Yes. But for someone to have used it as a poison means they’d need to know what they were doing.’

‘A chemist?’ posed Horton, thinking instantly of Simon Watson, the client that had been on board Ashton’s yacht on Tuesday.

Gaye said, ‘Or someone with medical knowledge: a doctor, nurse, or pharmacist. It could also be someone who has an interest in natural medicine or poisons.’

And that opened up the field. There was Spalding’s GP, Dr Deacon, but Horton couldn’t see him bashing Ivor Meadows over the head, although Meadows’ death had been hastily improvised and not meticulously planned like the others and that meant they were also looking for a planner, someone who was clever and careful. Deacon matched that profile.

He turned his full attention back to Gaye Clayton, who continued. ‘It’s also sometimes known as scopolamine and is used medicinally in very small doses to relieve depression and anxiety.’

Horton’s heart plummeted. That fitted perfectly with Redsall’s profile. He could see by Cantelli’s expression that he was also following the same line of thinking. ‘If Redsall had been suffering from depression could he have been prescribed a drug containing hyoscine and taken an overdose?’

‘There’s nothing on his medical records to show that he’s recently been prescribed anything that contains hyoscine.’

That was something at least, but Redsall could have got hold of the drug by some other means, the Internet for example, where it was easy to buy drugs, or he could have got it from a friend.

Gaye said, ‘It’s also prescribed, again in very small doses, to alleviate stomach pains and to overcome travel sickness.’

Now Gaye Clayton was throwing into doubt his theory about Spalding’s death. Could he have been wrong all the time? It was beginning to look that way. Despondently he said, ‘Spalding went to his GP for a prescription for anti-depressants and travel sickness pills.’

‘It wouldn’t have been a high enough dose to kill him.’

‘Unless he’d saved up previous prescriptions.’

‘Possibly, or he might have obtained the drug elsewhere and taken an overdose except that his tests came back clear and as his body was released to the undertakers before I could take further organ samples there’s no way of conducting further tests – except,’ she held up her hand to silence Horton, ‘I managed to track down and purloin the original organ samples. And guess what? Yes, hyoscine shows up. In my opinion it contributed to his cause of death, the fall into the dock. But it doesn’t mean that someone drugged him, just as in Redsall’s case it could have been self-administered.’

She was voicing Horton’s fears. But he wasn’t giving up yet. ‘Except that two deaths shortly after each other and by the same method must be construed as suspicious.’

Gaye sat back in her chair and eyed him thoughtfully. After a moment she said, ‘It’s a strange poison for a killer to choose because it’s not terribly reliable, its reaction on the body is not fully understood and can vary between individuals. As I said before it can take several hours to take effect.’

Horton swiftly considered this, ideas forming in the back of his mind. Eagerly he said, ‘What are the symptoms?’

‘Headache and vertigo.’

He recalled what Julie Preston and Ivor Meadows had said about Spalding at the lecture. Spalding had been frowning and rubbing his head as though he’d had a headache.

‘It also causes extreme thirst, dry sensation of the skin and possible blurred vision,’ added Gaye Clayton.

Cantelli interjected. ‘Alvita Baarda said Spalding kept asking for drinks.’

‘And Meadows confirmed that. He told me Spalding was drinking copious amounts of water. He thought it was because he fancied Alvita Baarda but he must have been reacting against the poison.’

Gaye said, ‘Hyoscine also causes hallucinations.’

Horton threw Cantelli a glance. ‘That fits with Spalding’s death. Spalding, drugged, leaves the naval museum; he’s been gradually feeling the effects of the drug after his lecture. Outside he becomes disorientated, suffering from vertigo he sees everything revolving around him. Because of this he could have believed he was anywhere – he might even have believed he could fly, hence the climb onto that fence and the leap into the dock. And before that he could have staggered towards the sea, lost hold of his briefcase, which ended up in the sea.’

Gaye said, ‘That sounds possible.’

Horton continued. ‘And in Redsall’s case he stumbled onto the yacht, fell into a coma and died. So when were they drugged?’ he asked Gaye eagerly.

‘That’s the difficult bit because with hyoscine there is no exact time of knowing when it was administered. In Spalding’s case it could have been several hours before he died.’

Horton rapidly thought. But before he could speak Gaye added, ‘He was probably given the hyoscine in a drink. The leaves and seeds of henbane could have been put in tea.’

‘Which, given his time of death at about nine thirty p.m., he could have been given anytime between one thirty and three thirty.’

‘Best to say from midday until about four to be on the safe side.’

Cantelli said, ‘We know that Spalding was at the university until just after twelve, but we’ve no idea where he went from there until he showed up at the Historic Dockyard at six that evening.’

And they had no idea who he met, thought Horton, and the same applied to Daniel Redsall. ‘Redsall’s time of death was between seven thirty and nine thirty so he could have drunk this poison between midday and, say, two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon.’

But Gaye was shaking her head. ‘No, Redsall’s dosage was considerably higher. He was almost certainly given it much later with his symptoms manifesting themselves over a shorter space of time.’

‘How short?’ asked Horton.

‘An hour, possibly slightly longer.’

Horton quickly thought. ‘So the earliest would be six thirty and the latest eight thirty if his time of death was nearer to nine thirty.’

‘Yes, give or take thirty minutes or so. As I said it’s difficult to be absolutely correct.’