Fatal Catch

by Pauline Rowson

  Where was Antony Dormand now? Had he thrown himself overboard from the small boat Horton had watched the dark night swallow up in October? No body had been recovered. Or had Dormand made it to another boat ready to take him to the continent?

  Horton turned his mind to Sawyer and his quest to find Zeus, the master criminal. Horton couldn’t see Sawyer using Carolyn to obtain information from him about Jennifer’s disappearance, not unless Carolyn was a copper. Horton stiffened as the idea took root. He’d wondered if she worked for the intelligence services so why not consider her to be a police officer working under cover for Sawyer and Intelligence Directorate. The case was still active and Sawyer was pursuing it. Perhaps the man Horton had seen Carolyn with was also a cop.

  His phone rang. It was Stride with the news that the vehicle was registered in the name of Dr Rufus Anstey whose address was Chichester, a small Cathedral city in the neighbouring county of West Sussex, some twenty miles east of Portsmouth. He also relayed that there were several Melvin Coopers. Horton asked if any of them lived in Portsmouth.

  ‘Yes, one, just off Clive Road. Aged fifty-seven.’

  That sounded like the right man. Stride gave him the address.

  Tomorrow he’d conduct some research on Dr Rufus Anstey. And tomorrow he hoped to find Melvin Cooper at home. Whether he’d obtain another piece of the fragmented and sparse jigsaw that would give him the answer to Jennifer’s disappearance was another matter entirely.

  SIXTEEN

  Sunday

  ‘Yes, I remember Jennifer Horton,’ Melvin Cooper said, taking Horton by surprise, he’d been so used to denials and disappointments that he could hardly believe what he was hearing.

  Horton eyed the dishevelled man who had opened the door of the narrow terraced house to him. He was wearing a navy-blue heavy towelling dressing gown over a pair of paisley pyjamas and rundown slippers on his bare feet. Horton had aroused him from his Sunday morning lie-in. He’d apologized for the early timing of his call and with a flash of his warrant card said he was making enquiries about a woman who had worked at George Warner’s casino on the seafront in 1978, a Jennifer Horton, and from viewing Mr Cooper’s website, and seeing he was something of an expert, Horton hoped that he could help.

  Cooper had been flattered as Horton had intended and had invited him inside making no comment about the similarity in name, maybe because he’d forgotten Horton’s already, people often did immediately on introduction and especially if followed up quickly by a question. Even if Cooper made the connection Horton was ready to say, ‘no relation’, there were other Hortons in the UK, his name wasn’t unique, unless he’d get more from Cooper by telling the truth, but he’d reserve judgement on that until he could hear what the man had to say. He’d also made no mention of Jennifer having gone missing.

  ‘Perhaps you could tell me what you remember of her?’ asked Horton as he was shown into a tiny kitchen at the rear of the house made even smaller by the amount of clutter in it. But he wasn’t here to pass judgement on the décor or the cleaning habits of Melvin Cooper. Horton refused the offer of a tea or coffee and remained standing, mainly because there was nowhere to sit. Cooper flicked on the kettle and threw a tea bag into a large mug. He bore very little resemblance to the man Horton had seen in the photograph on the casino wall and on the website. The long wavy dark hair and moustache had gone, along with the laughing brown eyes and wide smile. Now his hair was short, thinning and grey and his eyes hollowed out in a lean face grown sharper over the years, along with an expression that had grown wearier.

  ‘The punters loved her. Nice figure, blue eyes and long blonde hair. A real looker.’

  Horton felt choked as he listened to the description of his mother and one in such glowing terms. For so long too many people had spoken of her as a slut.

  ‘Any particular punter?’

  Cooper shrugged. ‘We weren’t allowed to fraternize with the customers. George Warner was a bit of a tyrant. Even though we’re all smiling in that picture that’s because we were told to or else. You did what George wanted or you were out.’

  Horton wondered if Melvin Cooper had tried it on with Jennifer. ‘Did she speak of her background?’

  ‘Might have done. I don’t remember and you don’t always listen. It was a long time ago.’

  He looked wistful and Horton reckoned Cooper spent more hours looking back to a time when he thought he had been happy than looking forward to a time when he knew he wouldn’t be. Horton wasn’t getting very far.

  ‘Did she mention having any children?’ He held his breath as he waited for the answer.

  Cooper looked taken aback for a moment then said with conviction, ‘She couldn’t have done. Not in those days with that job, working until the early hours of the morning, and no husband. George didn’t employ married women and if you lived with someone and weren’t married that was frowned upon then, bloody hard to believe now.’ He poured the hot water on to his tea bag.

  His words bore out the flimsy content of the statements Stanley had taken. Neither Warner nor Irene Ebury had claimed to know of a child, and perhaps Jennifer had kept silent about his existence for fear of losing her job.

  ‘Jennifer’s not in the picture, why?’

  Cooper squeezed out the tea bag with his fingers, and left it on the side of the scratched and stained sink along with the others that had dried and shrivelled up. ‘Probably her night off,’ he said, sloshing some milk in the mug and heaping in four spoons of sugar. He picked it up and gestured Horton to follow him into a musty-smelling, cramped living room. ‘Or she could have been off sick.’ Cooper sat down and Horton perched on the faded seat opposite.

  ‘Do you have any other photographs from those days?’

  ‘Only what’s on the website.’

  ‘Would anyone else who worked there at that time have any?’

  ‘I doubt it. We weren’t allowed to take cameras into the casino. There are only the official pictures like that one, and they’re all on the website, apart from the pictures of the casino from the outside and I scanned those in from the local newspaper.’

  Pity, but Cooper’s words rang true. It was a different story these days with photographs being taken in casinos and everywhere else. But the idea made him think of Westerbrook’s death and Horton wondered if it was worth Walters’ time, or someone in the hi-tech unit, trawling the internet and social network sites to see if Westerbrook appeared in anyone’s photographs taken inside Egmont’s casinos. It would be a mammoth task though and probably not worth it.

  Cooper slurped his tea and eyed Horton curiously. ‘Why are you trying to trace her?’ But before Horton could reply, Cooper answered his own question. ‘Don’t tell me a punter from those days has remembered her in his will and left her a fortune. Lucky old thing.’

  Horton just smiled, leaving Cooper to believe that. It was a nice idea and one that hadn’t occurred to Horton but he’d run with it. Not that the police would investigate such an occurrence, that would more likely be the province of a private detective employed by executors of the will, but he wasn’t going to quibble.

  Cooper said, ‘Wish someone would leave me a fortune. I lost my job three years ago and I’m buggered if I can get another one. I’ve tried everything but when you get past fifty you might as well be dead as far as some employers are concerned. I can tell you that despite what you read in the newspapers nobody wants to employ an older man.’

  And Lesley Nugent would probably agree, thought Horton. He too had struggled to get that job at the meat wholesalers and according to Davidson had previously worked in accounts. Horton wondered if liking a flutter had led Nugent to dipping into those accounts.

  ‘Can you remember anyone working at the casino who was particularly close to or friendly with Jennifer?’ Horton didn’t hold out much hope of him coming up with a name unless it was Irene Ebury and she was dead.

  Cooper’s lined forehead creased in the act of trying to remember. ‘Susan Nash was pretty friendly
with Jennifer.’

  Horton’s hopes rose. They soared when Cooper added, ‘I’ve got her contact details, she emailed me after seeing the website. Would you like them?’

  ‘Please.’

  Cooper rose. ‘I’ll get them.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Horton heard him climb the stairs. He rose and crossed to the rain-spattered and dust-laden window. There was no one in the street or in a waiting car. And there had been no sign of anyone watching his boat or following him. He wondered if Rufus Anstey had spent the night with Carolyn. His stomach knotted at the thought which he quickly pushed aside to concentrate on Susan Nash. There was no mention of her in the police file. Horton wondered if Stanley had questioned her.

  ‘Here they are.’

  Horton spun round and took the paper Cooper was holding. He was disappointed to see that Susan Nash lived near Abbotsbury, the other side of Weymouth, about eighty miles to the west of Portsmouth so he couldn’t call on her immediately. But there was an email address and a telephone number.

  ‘Do you know her maiden name?’ he asked, folding the paper into his pocket.

  ‘Kemble.’

  That definitely didn’t ring any bells.

  At the door Horton asked him if the police had ever contacted him about the whereabouts of Jennifer. Melvin Cooper shook his head. Horton added, ‘Has anyone spoken to you about her either recently or over the years?’

  ‘No.’

  Horton thought that was the truth. Outside he made a slow job of returning to his Harley, surveying the area casually as though he was looking for a house number. As he climbed on his Harley he glanced up at Cooper’s house. Cooper was standing in front of the window with his back to Horton. He was on his mobile phone. Was he calling Susan Nash to tell her to expect a call from him? Maybe.

  Horton was very keen to speak to Susan Nash and wondered if he should head to Abbotsbury now. As it was Sunday there was a good chance of finding her at home, and it being Sunday he didn’t think that much would happen with regard to the investigations into Borland or Westerbrook’s death. Besides he wasn’t working on either today. It wouldn’t take him long to reach the Dorset village on the Harley. But he made south for the seafront instead of heading north out of the city. He’d call her first. It would be a wasted journey if she was on holiday or out for the day visiting friends or relations.

  He pulled over just past the pier. Silencing the engine, he removed his helmet and gazed out to sea. He could see a handful of yachts in the Solent and a couple of motorboats heading out past the Bembridge Lifeboat Station around the Isle of Wight, they were probably fishing boats like Westerbrook’s. There were now some gaps in the heavy grey clouds that occasionally brought a glimmer of winter light to the silver grey sea. He reached for his mobile phone and as his eyes alighted on the Wightlink ferries crossing just past Spitbank Fort something nagged at the back of his mind. He felt it was connected with Westerbrook but he couldn’t think what it was. Maybe it would come to him later.

  He tried the number Cooper had given him and was pleased when Susan Nash answered promptly. Horton quickly explained who he was, saying that he was trying to trace the whereabouts of Jennifer Horton, wondering if she would pick up on his name but just as Cooper hadn’t, neither did she. He said that Melvin Cooper had given him her details and that the last known information they had on Jennifer was that she’d worked at the casino until the end of November 1978.

  ‘You’re going back some time,’ she said pleasantly.

  ‘Can you remember if she said why she left and if she gave any indication of where she was going?’

  ‘No, because I had no idea she was intending to leave. When she didn’t show up for work I thought she must be sick. The next I heard was that a policeman had come asking if anyone knew where she was.’

  ‘Did the police speak to you?’

  ‘No. They spoke to a girl I worked with though, Irene. She told me this police officer had asked her and Mr Warner questions, just routine the officer said. I thought Jennifer had just got fed up working into the early hours of the morning but I always wondered if she left to be with her boyfriend.’

  ‘There was someone then?’ Horton asked, wishing he had now spoken to Susan Nash face-to-face.

  ‘Not that I knew for definite but she changed so much after that funny turn that I could see she was in love.’

  Horton’s heart was hammering. ‘Tell me about it. It might help us to trace her,’ he quickly added, trying not to sound too keen.

  ‘She’s not in trouble is she?’ Susan Nash asked anxiously, obviously picking up something in his tone.

  ‘No. It’s nothing like that,’ he hastily reassured her, hoping she’d believe him and that she wouldn’t press him. If she did he’d resort to the line that Cooper had assumed. ‘She’d been unwell?’ he prompted, making an effort to keep his voice neutral.

  There was a moment’s brief silence before she answered. ‘It wasn’t long before she left. She was at the gaming tables and she went deathly pale as though she’d seen a ghost. She froze while taking bets. I was serving drinks and I looked across at her and asked if she was alright. I thought she was going to faint. She just left the table. Mr Warner was furious. We all thought she’d get the sack and she would have done if Mr Warner hadn’t been crazy about her. But she wasn’t interested in him. He was married for starters and that was no go as far as Jennifer was concerned, although others weren’t so fussy. I got the feeling she’d been caught out in a relationship with a married man before, which had gone sour, and Jennifer said she wasn’t going to be one of George Warner’s long line of conquests.’

  ‘But she returned to the tables.’

  ‘Yes, about half an hour later. Mr Warner called her into his office and tore into her but because he fancied her he couldn’t stay cross with her for long.’

  Horton wondered if Warner had been the man with the flash car he’d seen outside the flat a couple of times talking to his mother. ‘Do you know who she saw to make her react like that?’

  ‘No, and she never said, although there wasn’t much time to talk about it because this was only about a week or a few days before she left. I think she saw someone she thought she would never see again. Perhaps because he’d thrown her over or told her he was going abroad to live and then there he was back in her life and she picked up with him again and that’s why she left.’

  But there was something more, nagging at the back of Horton’s mind. Susan Nash’s words reeled around his head: she went deathly pale as though she’d seen a ghost not someone who had thrown her over but someone she believed to be dead. There was little more that Susan Nash said she could tell him about Jennifer’s disappearance but Horton thought there was a great deal more about Jennifer as a person, although he’d learned throughout his investigation that Jennifer, like Eileen Litchfield, had been a very private woman. Was that because Jennifer was engaged by the intelligence services? Or perhaps in hiding from them.

  Horton thanked her and rang off. He’d speak to her again but next time it would be face-to-face.

  He stared at the sea, his mind spinning. Whoever Jennifer had seen in that casino had been someone from her past, someone she had known in London. One of those six men in the photograph or the man who had taken the picture who Horton suspected had been Edward Ballard. But he wasn’t dead although Jennifer might have believed him to be so. Before he could progress his thought further his mobile rang. It was Uckfield.

  ‘We have a match on the fingerprints at Borland’s house,’ Uckfield keenly relayed. ‘The prints on the back door and the bannister are Graham Langham’s. Langham was in that house, when though is something the prints can’t tell us. The set of prints under the electric fire are not so clear but they’re working on it.’

  ‘I’d lay money he didn’t set that fire.’ Horton insisted. ‘Or that he dragged Borland’s body over it.’

  ‘Perhaps he assaulted Borland on Monday night and left his body in that room fo
r someone else to drag and place over that fire. He chickened out at the last moment and was killed because he failed to go through with it, and because he knew too much?’

  ‘About what though?’

  ‘How the hell do I know?’ Uckfield growled bad-temperedly.

  ‘It leaves Borland lying there unconscious or dead for a long time.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s not impossible.’

  ‘Perhaps Langham saw who attacked Borland and was killed because of it.’ Horton relayed what he’d got from Larry Egmont last night, which was nothing, and asked Uckfield if someone could email the photographs of Westerbrook and Langham to Egmont for circulating to his staff. Horton said he’d interview Aubrey Davidson. It being Sunday he thought there was a good chance of finding him at the angling club.

  It was just after eleven fifteen when he pulled in beside Davidson’s car. The car park was relatively full and the club house door was open. He found Davidson behind the bar beside a well-built brunette in her late forties showing an expanse of cleavage, a few rolls of fat around her midriff which the tight black sleeveless T-shirt did nothing to hide, and a lot of gold jewellery around her neck and on her fingers.