Undercurrent (6 page)

‘Being at sea is no place for women,’ Meadows declared with authority. ‘Of course, I don’t deny that women have a role to play in the services.’

‘That’s generous of you,’ Horton said politely, knowing Meadows would miss the irony.

‘They’re good at the admin stuff,’ Meadows acquiesced, ‘but when it comes down to the rough and dangerous work, and the technical stuff, it has to be the men.’

Horton didn’t waste his breath or energy highlighting the dangerous roles many women had undertaken in conflicts down the ages, and still did, or their technical capabilities; he recognized a bigot and chauvinist when he met one. Still, Meadows didn’t have the monopoly on that. He wondered if Julie Preston had overheard any of the conversation but even if she had she wouldn’t have argued with him, not because she couldn’t but because Meadows was a guest at the lecture and best to smile politely and then wave him on his way. And that was probably what Horton should do now, but Meadows was still wittering on.

‘Oh, Spalding said he’d been in the Navy and he had, but not the real Navy,’ Meadows dismissed with a snort.

‘You mean he was in the Merchant Navy?’

‘No, of course not. Dr Spalding got himself a degree at the Royal Naval Engineering College in 1994 and left the Navy in 2000. I doubt he ever went to sea.’

Had Meadows got Spalding’s background from the man himself or had he checked naval records? Perhaps Walters had already ferreted out this information, not that it threw any light on his death.

‘And I’m sorry to say his lecture was interesting but lightweight,’ Meadows claimed dismissively.

‘An hour isn’t very long to go into much detail,’ Horton suggested.

‘I expected more, although I suppose he had to make it popular for the audience.’ And by the sneer in Meadows’ voice he clearly considered himself above the other guests there.

Before Meadows could continue spouting his views Horton hastily broke in. ‘Can you confirm what time you left last night, sir?’

‘It’ll be on the security log,’ he replied abruptly before smiling knowingly. ‘But I can see that you’re testing my evidence. I’d do the same in your position. Now let me be precise, Inspector.’ He steepled his fat fingers together and sat back in his chair. ‘I said good night to Dr Spalding at nine twenty-seven and was shown out by that young girl who’d been organizing the event at nine thirty. I checked my watch. There was no one around. It was raining and blowing a gale. I hurried down the main drag to the gate where I signed out at nine thirty-two. The security officer’s mobile phone rang, while I was signing, and he turned away to answer it.’ Which explained why Newton hadn’t noticed Meadows’ signature sprawling over two rows, thought Horton. Had Meadows done that deliberately? But why should he?

Meadows was saying, ‘I then walked briskly home. I arrived here at nine fifty-five.’

‘You live alone?’

‘Yes. So there’s no one to corroborate that. But I can assure you I didn’t kill Dr Spalding,’ he said cockily and half-jokingly.

‘I didn’t say that he had been
killed
,’ Horton rejoined sharply. But Meadows didn’t take offence; he was too thick-skinned for that.

Leaning back in his seat and crossing his fat little arms over his pot belly he said, smiling smugly, ‘No, but there must be something suspect about his death otherwise you wouldn’t be here, Inspector. And I can’t believe Spalding committed suicide. I would have noticed that something was troubling him.’

Horton very much doubted that. Meadows wouldn’t have noticed anything short of Spalding collapsing in front of him. He was one of life’s talkers, or pontificators, rather than an observer.

Meadows said, ‘I’m presuming everyone checked out.’

‘Did anything untoward or unusual happen during the evening, anything you felt perhaps a little strange? Was there any bad feeling, awkward questions, anyone causing a fuss?’

‘No. It was all good-natured and Spalding seemed to be in good spirits. Bit excitable though, which I find surprising for an academic, but I suppose that’s why the public liked his lectures.’

Horton noted that Meadows had slipped into using Spalding’s surname, dropping his form of address. And clearly Meadows considered ‘excitable’ to be a negative quality. Horton wondered if ‘animated’ might have been a better description though he had nothing to confirm that Dr Spalding had been that.

‘You’ve attended his lectures before?’

‘Once. In May. But I’ve talked to him often in the library. I’m researching for a book I’m writing on crime and punishment in the Royal Navy in the twentieth century,’ Meadows proudly declared, waving an arm in the vague direction of the computer on a desk close to a door which Horton guessed led into the kitchen. ‘There are over twenty thousand manuscripts held at the museum, including those of the Admiralty Library Manuscript Collection. My research has taken me—’

‘What was Dr Spalding researching?’

‘He said it was something to do with the Navy and prostitution.’

‘You didn’t believe him.’

Meadows sniffed. ‘He got very touchy when I enquired about his source material. I told him his research might tie in with mine and that we could cooperate on it but he dismissed the idea.’

I bet he did. Horton could just imagine an academic’s response to that request and Meadows was one of those people on whom politeness was wasted. Spalding would have needed to be blunt.

Leaning forward Meadows said in a conspiratorial tone, ‘If you ask me I think he was looking into the death of Buster Crabb, the diver killed by the Russians just outside Portsmouth Harbour in 1956. Of course the Navy said Crabb was taking part in trials of underwater apparatus but we all know he was laying a mine on that Russian warship anchored off Stokes Bay, which was carrying the future Soviet president, Nikita Khrushchev.’

Horton knew the story well, and the number of rumours that the headless and handless corpse found in the harbour had inspired over the years. Crabb’s life and exploits were even said to be partly the inspiration behind Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. Horton had no idea what had made Meadows think that Spalding was researching Crabb’s mysterious death but he didn’t think there was any truth in it. And if Spalding had hinted at it then he’d probably done so in an attempt to get Meadows off his back.

‘So apart from Dr Spalding being “excitable”, did you notice anything else about his manner?’

‘He didn’t drink, if that’s what you mean, well certainly not alcohol, so he wasn’t drunk. He stuck to the orange juice at the reception on HMS
Victory
and then water at the buffet, knocking it back a bit too.’

‘Did he talk to any one person more than another?’ Apart from you, Horton added to himself.

‘Only one of the waitresses, long legs, black girl. I think she was one of his students. They seemed to know one another.’

Interesting, thought Horton.

‘Apart from that,’ Meadows added, ‘Spalding circulated amongst the audience, many my age, a few younger, a pretty mixed bag, though mostly men.’

‘Anyone you know?’

‘Only Marcus Felspur, the librarian at the naval museum. He left just before me, about nine twenty. Where was Spalding’s body found?’

Horton felt reluctant to tell him, not because it was confidential – far from it; it would probably be emblazoned over tomorrow’s newspaper – but because he didn’t care for the man. That aside he had a job to do and he saw no need to keep the information from Meadows out of spite. Besides, his reaction might be interesting.

‘In Number One Dock.’

Meadows seemed to reel back a little at the news. His little eyes widened. ‘Where the M33 is. How could he have fallen down there? The area’s fenced off.’

‘You know it then?’

‘Of course I do,’ Meadows said dismissively, then his eyes narrowed as clearly he considered this new piece of information. ‘If he wasn’t killed, and it can’t have been suicide, then I think you’ll find he died of a heart attack, Inspector. Must have been taken ill the moment he stepped outside the museum, staggered about, lost his way and went over into Number One Dock, although he must have been leaning some way over that railing, unless one of the gates wasn’t properly secured.’

It was the same theory that Horton had considered earlier and it now seemed more likely. He didn’t think Meadows could tell him anything more whereas Spalding’s GP might be able to. Horton managed to extricate himself before Meadows could give him a guided tour of the Navy through the ages as witnessed in his numerous photographs. Outside he checked his phone and found a message from Neil Gideon saying that there was no sign of Spalding’s briefcase, or any memory stick, and that he had gone home if Horton needed him further. Then it had to be in the sea. Horton called the marine unit mobile number and while he waited for it to be answered he wondered what Meadows would do next. Probably rush off to the Historic Dockyard to offer his expertise to the security officers. Gideon had had a lucky escape.

When Sergeant Elkins came on the line Horton told him what had occurred and asked him to be on the alert in case he came across a floating tan-coloured leather briefcase or it got washed up along the coast, although the chances of that happening this side of the decade could be very remote. The tide could take it anywhere, and even if someone found it, it could be months, years later and they wouldn’t realize the significance of it. Also the laptop computer and anything else inside it would be pulp, damaged irrevocably. Elkins agreed that the chances of finding it were minimal. Perhaps that was why Spalding had ditched it in the sea, thought Horton, heading for the medical surgery only five minutes away. If he’d committed suicide then the briefcase could contain some incriminating evidence that had caused him to take such drastic action and that opened up a different line of enquiry.

He had to wait several minutes in a busy surgery with what seemed an unusually high proportion of people suffering from coughs and colds before being shown into Dr Deacon’s modern consulting room. Deacon, in his mid-forties, casually but smartly dressed, gestured Horton into the seat facing him, saying that Mrs Spalding had telephoned and he was calling round to see her and her father-in-law, also his patient, as soon as surgery finished. The blue-grey eyes that studied Horton were both shrewd and sympathetic. Athletically built Horton conjectured he was a runner and, judging by the strength of his arms, possibly a tennis player. He was too bronzed to be a squash player unless he’d just returned from holidaying abroad. The British summer hadn’t been good enough to cultivate that kind of tan, especially for a GP who spent most of his time in the surgery.

‘I won’t keep you long,’ Horton said, and indeed he’d be glad to get out of the germ-infested place. Doctors might build a resistance to them, but not policemen. Should have sent Walters. ‘I need to know if Dr Spalding consulted you recently.’

Horton settled uneasily on the patient’s chair. Doctors always made him feel uncomfortable. He didn’t trust them, much as he didn’t trust estate agents and car salesmen. But then being a copper he didn’t trust many people at all. A drawback of the job.

Deacon called up his computer screen. ‘He did, six weeks ago, on the twenty-sixth of June, but it wasn’t for anything significant. He was flying to the States the following week and needed something to help him. He was a terrified flyer, anxiety attacks, so I prescribed him a travel sickness medication and some antidepressants.’

‘What type?’ Horton asked with heightened interest.

‘A mild relaxant, not enough to overdose on if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘Even if he took them all at once?’

‘They would have made him drowsy, but that’s all.’

‘And if he’d taken them with alcohol?’ But according to Meadows, Spalding had only drunk orange juice and water, although a lot of both. Had his drinks been laced with alcohol from his own supply, or perhaps given to him at his request by this black girl that Meadows had told him about? Julie Preston hadn’t mentioned smelling alcohol on Spalding’s breath though. Perhaps she didn’t think anything of it, or had been too nervous to mention it. But Meadows would have noticed it and commented on it.

Deacon said, ‘He would have had to drink a copious amount.’

The autopsy would confirm if he had, but Horton thought it unlikely on the evidence he had obtained so far. He asked when was the last time antidepressants and travel sickness pills had been prescribed.

Deacon consulted his computer. ‘February last year.’

That was a long time to hoard drugs if he’d been contemplating suicide. ‘Was his trip to the States a holiday or business?’

‘Business. He told me he was to be a guest lecturer at a series of seminars at the summer school at Franklin Pierce University, New Hampshire. I remember it because my wife and I spent some time travelling around New Hampshire last year.’ Deacon sat back and eyed Horton steadily and shrewdly. Horton had the feeling Deacon was a master at choosing a countenance to suit both patient and circumstance, a bit like coppers he thought. ‘Douglas Spalding never consulted me for depression and there’s no history of it on his record if that helps.’

But Horton knew that many people suffering from depression were often too afraid or too ashamed to admit it and didn’t always consult a doctor. He hadn’t when Catherine had thrown him out; instead he’d sought relief in the bottle and refuge at sea, hoping that one or both would end his pain. It had been the sea and a particularly violent storm that had almost killed him, which had made him realize he didn’t want to die but that he had to fight to clear his name of those rape charges. Had a similar thing happened to Spalding in that his wife had been threatening to leave him? But Cantelli would have noticed the tension.

Deacon was saying, ‘Spalding was a very fit and healthy man. No signs of heart disease or high blood pressure, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have suffered a sudden attack, just that he never came to me complaining of any symptoms.’

‘Did he ever consult you about headaches?’ asked Horton, thinking of Julie Preston’s description of Spalding at the end of the lecture after he’d been talking to Meadows.