Undercurrent (31 page)

Horton crossed the road. No lights were showing inside Marine Sciences building, the steel gate was locked and the car park was empty. But in his mind he saw beyond it to the shore where two days ago a small, high-speed boat had headed towards him and Cantelli with Erica Leyton on board. A boat that could have taken Redsall out on Tuesday, and on which, towards the end of the day, she had poisoned him. She must have dropped him off close to Oyster Quays marina, possibly at the Town Camber. She could also have given him the code to get on the pontoons; she’d know it, as having use of the university boat she must have moored up there before and recently. Perhaps she told Redsall that someone would meet him there. That was a weak point in his theory and so too was why Redsall had agreed to take Spalding’s computer, but she was attractive and perhaps Redsall had fallen for her. Perhaps they had known one another when Redsall had worked at the Southampton Institute for Marine Archaeology; their professional paths could have crossed. That didn’t explain why Spalding had gone to Northern Ireland though. But if Erica Leyton
had
killed Douglas Spalding and Daniel Redsall, then she had a motive for doing so and that brought him right back to that question of research.

If Douglas Spalding had lied about his research to Felspur and Meadows then either he had also lied to Erica Leyton, or Erica had lied to them. Perhaps they’d used the
Challenger
research as an excuse to see one another as Cantelli had suggested, so had there been something incriminating on Spalding’s computer that Erica needed? Possibly. But there was still also the possibility that her job had been to lure Spalding to his death, obtain his research and then silence Redsall and if that was the case then the connection between the two men was the Navy and in particular Rear Admiral Jonathan Redsall. Whatever the reasons he needed to talk to Erica Leyton.

He whipped out his phone and called the number she had given him. There was no answer. Damn. It was only just ten but she might have gone out for the evening and would return soon. He called the station and asked for her address. Impatiently he held on while someone called up the various databases they had access to. It was late. He could follow this up tomorrow. And he’d have to do it alone, or at least with Cantelli, because neither Uckfield nor Bliss would sanction it. But he couldn’t wait until tomorrow. He needed to know now. At last he had the address. She lived about ten minutes away. He could wait for her outside her house. He returned to the Harley and was about to alight when the sound of a motorbike approaching halted him. He recognized its engine. He could swear it was the same bike that had appeared out of nowhere when the black Ranger had been intent on running him over. He tensed. Could this be someone from the intelligence services trying again? But how would they know he was here? No one had followed him.

The bike drew closer. Horton waited. He saw it pull up outside the Marine Sciences building. The figure alighted. For a moment he wondered if it was Erica Leyton who’d returned to work late, but the build was too stocky. The rider turned at the sound of Horton’s footsteps as he hurried across the road. Removing his helmet Horton recognized Dr Bradley Marshall.

‘Inspector, what are you doing here?’ Marshall asked, surprised.

‘Hoping to speak to Erica Leyton, but she’s not answering her phone. I wondered if she might be working late.’

‘I’ve been trying her for about the last hour without getting an answer, but the signal’s not always great inside the building so I thought I’d better check. She’s an epileptic and . . . well I was concerned.’ While he’d been speaking Marshall had taken out his pass and swiped it across the electronic release; the steel gate slowly swung open to admit them. ‘I’ll meet you at the main entrance.’

Horton walked to it while Marshall parked his Honda, his words causing Horton to wonder. Could Erica Leyton have taken off for fear of being discovered? Then a chilling thought struck him. Had the intelligence services got to her and silenced her permanently for whatever Spalding’s research had revealed? Or was Erica inside the building destroying the evidence that she’d killed two men?

Within minutes Marshall had the main door open and had disabled the alarm system.

Horton said, ‘She can’t be here, otherwise she’d have switched off the alarm.’

‘She might have reset it and left by the rear. We often do that when we’re working late. She could be on the raft.’

‘At this time of night?’ Horton said surprised.

‘You don’t know Erica, she’s fanatical. Dark, cold, wind, whatever the weather and time of day, if the job demanded it she’ll be out there.’ He was clearly worried as they crossed the reception area to another door where Marshall entered a number on a security pad. ‘But if she is on the raft then I’d have thought she’d have answered her phone.’

Horton followed Marshall into a dimly lit corridor either side of which were closed doors. There was no sign of a light shining from any of the rooms.

Marshall said, ‘This is the lab she uses.’ He pushed open the door and flicked on the bright lights. Wherever Erica was it wasn’t in here, thought Horton quickly, surveying the pristine, clinical well-equipped room.

‘I’ll try her number again.’ Horton turned away, and let it ring, but there was still no answer.

Concerned, Marshall said, ‘I’m going to check the raft.’

‘I’ll come with you.’ Horton wondered if he should call in. Stepping from the building onto the shore he said, ‘She can’t be on the raft, the boat is still here.’

‘She might have taken the RIB. It’s got better lights on it.’ He climbed on board the small motor boat. Horton followed suit stifling his growing unease. Marshall said, ‘There are a couple of torches in the locker.’

Horton found them, but didn’t switch them on. It was only a short distance and now a calm night and within two minutes Marshall had pulled alongside the raft silhouetted in the moonlight. Horton couldn’t see any evidence of anyone on board and neither could he see the RIB moored up, although it could be on the other side, hidden by the square shed like structure in the right-hand corner. It was possible Erica Leyton was there too but if so then why hadn’t she stepped out from behind it at the sound of them approaching?

Marshall tied off, took the larger torch leaving Horton with a smaller one, which he stuffed in his pocket as he nimbly climbed over the railing and followed Marshall onboard. On the deck he played the beam of light over the raft. The centre of the deck had been hollowed out and filled with water and across it in sections were ladder-like structures. There was a narrow walkway around the edge of the raft roped off from the hollowed-out section and in the far right-hand corner a platform, again roped off, in front of the square shed-like structure.

There was no sign of Erica Leyton. Across the water on Hayling, Horton could see lights from the Ferry Boat Inn but the harbour appeared as deserted as the raft. Snatches of a conversation flashed into Horton’s mind like the lights on the distant buoys:
we have five aquarium rooms for studying fish biology and non-native organisms; the latter’s my area of specialism . . . seaweeds and phytoplankton
. Marshall’s pet topic. Horton had asked Marshall if he’d known Dr Spalding, and now those pinpricks of light exploded in blinding illumination;
I recommended Erica to him and I used to see him when he visited Erica here.

Evenly, Horton said, ‘How long have you known Spalding’s research involved Daniel Redsall’s father, Rear Admiral Jonathan Redsall?’

He saw Marshall quickly weigh this up, the truth or more lies. Even before he spoke though, Horton knew what his decision would be. The truth, because as far as Marshall was concerned there was no risk in him knowing now. Marshall was confident he could eliminate him just as he’d eliminated Spalding and Redsall. And Erica Leyton? Horton looked down at the water. A cold chill ran through him.

‘Since May,’ Marshall said with simplicity.

‘How did you find out?’ Horton wondered exactly what piece of research Spalding had requested that had triggered the alert to the intelligence services.

‘He came to ask me about it.’

Horton was confused. Why would Spalding approach someone from the intelligence services if his research was highly sensitive? He must have known they’d want it hushed up. And how would he know that Bradley Marshall worked for them? Surely it was the other way around? Marshall would have made himself known to Spalding in order to silence him. But if Marshall was telling the truth and had no connection with the intelligence services then Spalding must have uncovered something that involved or implicated someone from Bradley Marshall’s past and which was connected with Redsall. Something neither man wanted exposed. And something that had led the intelligence services to give orders at the highest level that the deaths of Douglas Spalding and Daniel Redsall were not to be investigated.

Horton’s brain raced through what he had learnt and heard over the last few days, desperately trying to connect the threads. Whatever it was that had happened must have been either when Jonathan Redsall was a Rear Admiral or when he was climbing the ranks to the top. What had he done to provoke Marshall into murdering three people and stir up the intelligence services to protect the reputation of someone long since dead? Quentin Amos’s voice suddenly broke through Horton’s swirling thoughts. ‘
Someone’s kept silent for a long time. They might want it to stay that way. You might think the days of spies and the Cold War are over . . . but they’re not . . .
’ And with that came the memory of Cantelli’s report on Rear Admiral Redsall:
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 Jonathan Redsall had served in the Far East, Singapore, after which he had risen rapidly in the promotion stakes. This had nothing to do with terrorism in Northern Ireland, that connection had distracted him for a moment. No, the heart of this lay much further away.

Into Horton’s mind came the deaths of three other men: Zachary Benham, Timothy Wilson and James Royston and with it more of his conversation with Amos. He was beginning to see why Jonathan Redsall’s past could not be allowed to be exposed.

Marshall’s hand came out of his pocket and in it Horton saw a syringe. He must have palmed it when he entered the laboratory ahead of him.

‘Hyoscine?’

‘No. Nicotine. You won’t suffer long.’

‘Unlike Spalding and Redsall.’

‘Redsall’s death was pretty quick.’

Horton tensed but forced his voice to remain even as he said, ‘Seeing as you’re intent on killing me, no harm in telling me why Spalding and Redsall had to die.’ Horton waited, eager to hear the truth while rapidly trying to fathom a way out of this.

After a moment Marshall nodded, as though to himself. ‘In the late 1960s the Royal Navy suffered from a severe bout of homosexuality. Admirals believed that at least half the fleet had committed homosexual acts.’

Horton swiftly recalled what Amos had said about homosexuality being decriminalized for those over the age of twenty-one in England and Wales in 1967 but
Amos had added
, not in Scotland and Northern Ireland or in the armed forces, that came much later.

Marshall was saying, ‘It was not only illegal but it was also considered disgusting and worse a security risk.’

‘Because of the Cold War.’ Horton’s mind flicked to Quentin Amos and quickly back to the man in front of him intent on sticking a syringe into him.

‘Yes. It was in the good old days when anyone who didn’t conform was considered either a Commie bastard or a secret agent. Hard to believe now, isn’t it?’ Marshall sneered.

And Horton was beginning to see exactly why Jonathan Redsall was still being protected by the intelligence services. ‘Redsall had a homosexual affair.’

‘Yes. With my father.’

So that was the connection. ‘What happened to him?’ Horton asked quietly.

‘He was expendable. Redsall was an officer with a public school education and a privileged upbringing. His father was a Vice Admiral. My father was a rating, just a medical orderly. He was dismissed from the Navy and six months later he killed himself and left my mother to bring up a two-year-old child without a pension, without a home and with no money.’

‘But it was more than sex,’ Horton said. And Spalding had unearthed it.

Marshall narrowed his eyes. ‘Yes. Spalding had discovered that a commander on-board the ship on which my father was serving while stationed in Singapore in 1969 was selling vital information to the Russians. This commander had been blackmailed into it because of his escapades in a male brothel. Pictures had been taken and my father, Adrian Goring, had been given copies of these along with the information about the commander by the woman running the brothel because he gave her some drugs which helped to save her life. Adrian probably didn’t care about the commander’s sexual preferences, but he might have baulked at the betrayal of his country, or perhaps he thought the information might give him a leg up in the promotion stakes. I don’t know. He went to the Captain and handed over the photographs believing the matter would be dealt with and it was.’

‘But not in the way your father anticipated.’

‘No. Nothing was done or said about it for some time. Adrian started a homosexual relationship with Jonathan Redsall and MI6 had the perfect scapegoat. My father. They must have been watching him for some time, waiting to get something on him so that they could clear him out of the Navy and make him forget his allegations against the commander who was still serving on-board.’

‘Because the intelligence services were now feeding this commander the wrong information. So he was quite useful to them.’

‘Yes.’

Horton eyed the syringe in Marshall’s hand. If he got closer he might be able to dislodge it, or better still knock the heavy torch from Marshall’s hand and make him react. In that instance he could grab his wrist, force the syringe from his hand and twist his bloody arm up his back. He edged a little closer.