Undercurrent (9 page)

‘Yes. It’s at the top of the house. I haven’t been able to enter it since . . .’

‘We’d like to take a look around it with your permission,’ he said. ‘It might help us to understand more about your husband and why he’d want to take his own life.’

She flinched as though he’d physically assaulted her. Her head came up sharply and her pain-racked eyes locked with his. Cantelli had already broken the news to her about the results of the autopsy, saying that her husband’s death had been caused by the fall. He hadn’t mentioned the word ‘suicide’ as they’d agreed between them on the way here. Horton hadn’t wanted to sound so cruel but he needed to be blunt in order to provoke a reaction and he got one.

‘You’re wrong. Douglas would never kill himself,’ she declared with a flash of anger, repeating what she’d previously told Cantelli.

‘Why are you so sure about that?’ Horton asked gently. He knew her denial was a natural reaction but he wanted to see if her conviction was based on something more solid than instinct and disbelief.

‘He was a very determined man, clever, confident. He was also very successful and had so much to live for.’

‘Perhaps behind his confidence there was something bothering him.’

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I would have known if there were. He wasn’t worried or depressed, quite the opposite. He was very happy.’

Horton didn’t know how much store he could set by that. Spalding could easily have disguised his true feelings from his wife. ‘Did he talk to you about his work?’

‘His research you mean?’

Horton thought not necessarily, Spalding also taught, but then perhaps research was his primary work activity. He nodded.

‘No. He made it a rule never to speak about it. He didn’t want to bore me, not that I would have been bored, but he said that talking about it took away the pleasure and the thrill of ferreting out the facts.’

‘Was he troubled about anything at work? At the university?’

‘No, everything was fine.’

He saw her fingers tighten in her lap and her body stiffen. She was desperately trying to keep hold of her emotions. The woman police officer with them, PC Kerry Fry, sitting next to Cantelli on the large leather sofa, threw her a sympathetic look.

‘Had your husband’s behaviour changed in recent days?’ he asked gently.

She turned her sorrowful soft brown eyes on him. ‘No. He seemed fine, his usual self. He simply wouldn’t do that to me and the children. He had so much to live for. It must have been some kind of terrible accident.’

But it wasn’t, because the fence was secure and the gates to the dock hadn’t been tampered with. And Spalding had been in good health.

‘Did your husband use that computer?’ he asked, indicating the one on the desk in the window.

‘No, that’s mine. Douglas only ever used his laptop.’

‘Knowing that is your computer, is it possible he could have left you a message on it?’ he asked as gently as he could but no matter how considerately he spoke he knew the words would hurt.

Her skin paled. She looked frightened. Horton left a silence. He didn’t need to ask her to check it because now that he had sewn a seed of doubt she would have to anyway. He said, ‘Would you mind if we took a look at his study?’

‘I’ll show you where it is.’ She half rose but Horton forestalled her.

‘It’s OK, we can find it ourselves.’

Gratefully she sank down into the chair. With a silent gesture Horton indicated for PC Kerry Fry to stay with Mrs Spalding. He heard her ask Mrs Spalding if she would like a cup of tea as they left the room.

They climbed the stairs to the top floor in silence. Horton sensed Cantelli’s sadness and knew his thoughts were for the children being raised without their father. But at least they had a mother, thought Horton with a flash of anger, glimpsing into what was clearly the main bedroom, again well decorated and maintained and extremely tidy. And they had a grandfather. He’d had no one.

He stepped into a large attic room, pushing his personal feelings to the back of his mind. The room was light, airy and spacious and had clearly once been two smaller rooms now knocked into one. It was neutrally decorated and, like the other rooms he’d seen, it was very orderly and clean. It was also kitted out with modern furniture, a large sofa, coffee table, wide-screen television on a stand, and expensive hi-fi with headphones. Neat book shelves lined the wall opposite the door and in front of two sash windows was a desk which Cantelli crossed to. Horton turned his attention to the bookshelves where there were several silver-framed photographs of the children and Jacqueline Spalding and one of Douglas Spalding in naval uniform. Horton picked it up. Spalding looked an intelligent, friendly man with a broad smile, good teeth and laughing eyes, well built and fit. Horton guessed women would have found him handsome in a young Sean Connery kind of way. By the braiding on his uniform he had reached the rank of Lieutenant. The photograph had been taken on board a naval ship and judging by the fact that Spalding was wearing summer uniform and the sky was azure blue it had been taken overseas. Meadows’ comment about Spalding never having been to sea was just sour grapes. The little man had probably been angry at being snubbed by Spalding. Horton turned his attention to the books. There were several on the Navy, a great many biographies including those on explorers, sportsmen and politicians, and other factual books on various countries.

‘Not much in here,’ Cantelli said, indicating the open drawers. ‘Just bits of stationery. No letters or household bills. And no suicide note.’

There was nowhere else in the room where Spalding could have left a note and nothing more they could glean from it, but Horton came away with the impression of an organized, tidy man, self assured and comfortable with himself. And nothing in that or what he’d seen and heard so far equated with a man so distraught and depressed that he’d end it all by pitching himself thirty feet into that dark concrete hole.

Returning to the drawing room they found Jacqueline Spalding standing by the window staring out. She spun round as they entered, her face drawn. Anxiously she scoured their expressions. The computer beside her was on.

‘Did you find anything?’ she asked, her voice trembling with apprehension.

Cantelli shook his head. ‘No.’

Relief flooded her face. ‘Neither did I.’ Horton knew that she would never accept her husband had killed himself. As Cantelli explained that PC Fry would keep her informed and that the Coroner’s office would liaise with her about the inquest Horton studied the photograph on the desk. He recalled what Dr Deacon had told him about Spalding being a terrified flyer, but he’d flown somewhere recently hence the travel sickness pills and antidepressants and he’d obviously flown to wherever that picture had been taken, judging by the scenery. He made to turn away when something, he didn’t know what, prompted him to say, ‘A recent holiday?’

She looked at the picture with a bemused air as though it couldn’t possibly be of her and her late husband. ‘No. That was taken the February before last and the last time I managed to get Douglas on an aeroplane.’

Horton’s nape hairs prickled. He resisted throwing Cantelli a glance. ‘Your husband didn’t like flying then,’ he asked, not betraying that he’d already been told this by Deacon.

‘He was terrified of it. We used to travel everywhere by train and boat.’ Her voice faltered as clearly she thought
not any more
.

Horton had just a couple more questions. ‘Had your husband been away recently?’

‘Only to a conference in Birmingham at the beginning of July.’

And that tied in with when he had visited Dr Deacon at the end of June. ‘How did he travel there?’

‘By train. He preferred that to driving, said he could work on a train.’

‘How long was he away for?’

‘Three days.’

‘Have you got the dates?’

‘Somewhere,’ she said vaguely.

Horton was reluctant to press her but he felt this was significant. He had to know. ‘Could you check?’ He glanced at Cantelli and could see he was thinking along the same lines. PC Fry was looking at them curiously.

Jacqueline Spalding opened one of the desk drawers and lifted out a diary. Flicking through it she came to the page and looked up. ‘It was July the fourth, fifth and sixth.’

‘Do you know who organized this conference?’ Horton asked lightly, hoping she wouldn’t ask him why he wanted the information.

She didn’t. She was still in a state of shock. ‘It was something to do with his old college or rather I should say university, Kings College London.’

Horton didn’t see the need to probe any deeper at this stage. When they were in the car he told Cantelli to head for the seafront. Cantelli didn’t need to ask why. They’d known each other long enough to understand how each worked and Horton wanted time outside the station to think over what they’d just learnt.

After a few minutes Cantelli pulled into one of the diagonal bays near to a cafe that bore the Cantelli name. ‘Good choice,’ Horton said, climbing out, heading towards it. ‘At least we’re guaranteed proper Italian coffee.’

The tables in the courtyard facing onto the pebbled beach were crowded and the beach was dotted with some late-afternoon bathers but inside the cool interior there were several empty tables. While Cantelli went to find his sister Isabella in the kitchen, Horton took up position at one of the tables that overlooked the Solent. He gazed out at the yachts sailing in the breeze which had strengthened as the day had worn on. Beyond the white and coloured sails he could pick out the steep streets of Ryde on the Isle of Wight and the rolling hills beyond it. It was so clear he felt he could almost touch it, which didn’t bode well for the weather forecast, local lore had it that the clearer the Island the worse the forthcoming weather. The sea was flecked with white spray and large rollers were crashing onto the beach. He could hear the squeals of the children as they jumped the waves. Bulky white masses of clouds were rapidly sweeping across the sky constantly changing the sea from a shimmering blue into a muddy, murky green.

‘Andy, you’re looking well.’

Horton turned to see the dark-haired, slender Isabella beside Cantelli. He rose, returned the compliment, which he meant, and greeted her warmly planting a kiss on each cheek. ‘How’s Johnnie?’ He’d helped pluck her son from trouble some years ago and put him on the right path by introducing him to sailing.

‘He’s very well, though I don’t see as much of him as I’d like. He’s still skippering for Andreadis, that Greek millionaire. He’ll be here for Cowes Week for the yacht racing.’

‘Taking his uncle out on the sea,’ Horton teased. Cantelli looked green at the thought.

She laughed and fetched their coffees, after both had refused something to eat. Then she left them in peace. Cantelli spoke first.

‘So who did Spalding lie to, his wife or his doctor?’

‘If he lied to his doctor about flying to America then it bears out the theory he could have wanted the travel sickness tablets and antidepressants to help him commit suicide. They wouldn’t have killed him but could have made it easier for him to leap into that dock.’

‘You’d have thought he would have drunk alcohol though, at the reception, to make it even easier but he didn’t.’

‘No. And if he lied to his wife about attending a conference in Birmingham and he did fly off somewhere, hence needing the tablets, then why and where did he go? Three days is not really long enough for a long-haul trip so I don’t think he went to the States like he told Dr Deacon.’

‘I hope to God there’s not another woman,’ Cantelli said with feeling. ‘I’d hate for her to discover that.’

Horton swallowed some coffee. ‘If he did travel by plane then we should be able to find out where he went, or at least which airport he flew from and to.’

‘Do we need to?’

‘No, but you know me.’

‘Yeah, loose ends don’t come into it.’

‘If he was seeing another woman and took her away for an illicit weekend of lust then why didn’t he travel by train or boat?’

‘Perhaps she gets sea sick, like me.’

‘OK, let’s say she does. And let’s say Spalding is having an affair. She wants more, threatens to tell his wife and destroy his career unless he leaves his wife for her. He says buggered if I will. He calls off the affair. Now she has nothing to lose, she starts threatening him, following him. She says she’s going to drag his name through the mud, ruin him. He can’t cope with the shame of it and kills himself after throwing the briefcase in the sea containing his laptop computer which has evidence of emails between them and anything else they might have got up to. His phone is smashed so maybe he thought that meant we wouldn’t be able to trace his calls.’

‘He was cleverer than that.’

‘You’re right, Barney. But maybe he knew we wouldn’t bother checking the telephone company records if it was suicide.’ Horton thought for a moment before continuing. ‘But his death wouldn’t have stopped this woman from bringing out the truth; it might even encourage her if she’s that vindictive. She’d want to rub Jacqueline Spalding’s nose in it and show the university that Spalding wasn’t quite the blue-eyed boy they thought he was,
if
they thought that. And I can’t see Spalding letting her do that. Everything we’ve learnt about him so far says he’d be able to handle this, and his study is so neat that I can’t believe he’d leave a loose cannon of a thwarted woman behind him.’

‘Maybe there’s more to this affair.’

Maybe
. ‘I’d like to know where he went for those three days in July. His passport. Do we know where it is?’

‘It wasn’t in his desk. We could ask Jacqueline Spalding.’

Horton hesitated. He didn’t want to disturb her again ‘No. She might get curious this time and I don’t want to explain our doubts over her husband’s death and worry her unnecessarily. Besides if he was only away for three days and two nights, as we’ve already said, it’s unlikely he flew long haul. My bet is we’re looking at a domestic flight or somewhere within Europe.’

‘He’d still have taken his passport. It could have been in his briefcase.’