'She was hit violently over the head. Of course that might not be what killed her,' Price said, divesting himself of his life jacket and scene suit. Horton noticed he was looking rather green around the gills and guessed it was being on water that fazed him rather than examining bodies, because he'd never seen Price turn a hair before at even the most grisly of deaths.
Price continued. 'Rigor mortis and lividity are well established so I would say she's been dead for about six to nine hours, though it's a bugger to tell in these conditions. You'll need to get her on the mortuary slab to check that.'
Horton said, 'That would make it between ten p.m. and one a.m. Was there anything on her to give us an ID?'
'Only this.' Uckfield took the scrap of paper that Price held out and dropped it into a plastic evidence bag. He scrutinized it, frowned and then handed it to Horton. It was a betting slip, and it was blank. Horton turned it over. On the back was written in a long thin scrawl. 'Have you forgotten ME?'
Had the victim written this note? Or had someone given it to her? Either way it didn't give him any clue as to the victim's identity. It did, however, give him a starting point. He said, 'The betting shop is Vinnakers in Commercial Road.'
'Then you'd better get down there and start asking some questions,' Uckfield said crisply.
'I'm on the team then?' Horton's heart lifted.
'For now,' Uckfield replied coldly and looked away.
Those words and the slight nuance in tone made Horton tense. 'But not for good, is that what you're trying to say?'
'We've got a job to do here, Inspector.'
Horton knew then why Uckfield wouldn't look him in the eye. And why his manner was so hostile. 'You're appointing someone else as your DI,' he said calmly, though his guts were churning and he felt the bitter and sickening blow of disappointment.
Uckfield didn't answer. 'I'll take a look at her,' he said.
Horton watched the bulky figure climb on to the mulberry. He saw Uckfield stiffen as he gazed down on the corpse. Why had he had such a change of heart in the last seven weeks? Uckfield had spent much of that time, since his promotion to superintendent, on courses and conferences. What had made him break his promise? Who had got at him? Horton was guessing that he had been overlooked because of his past. And, although he had been completely exonerated of charges of rape, when you trod in shit it took a long time to get the stench from your shoes, and that smell around him obviously didn't suit Uckfield's ambitions. Well, sod him!
Uckfield returned to the launch, Horton noted, not without some difficulty. Once Uckfield had been as fit as him. They had worked out together in the gym. Not so long ago Uckfield would have vaulted over the side of the boat without any trouble. Perhaps that was what promotion and responsibility did for you, that and make you shed your loyalties to your friends.
He watched as Uckfield punched a digit on his mobile phone. The colour on his fleshy face was high; his grey eyes keen. Horton could feel the tension and excitement radiating from Uckfield at the prospect of heading his first major investigation since his appointment and he felt angry and betrayed.
Crisply Uckfield commanded the mobilization of the major incident suite at the station and the mobile units to the Portsmouth side of the Hayling Ferry, with instructions to ask DI Lorraine Bliss to get hers down to the Hayling side.
Dr Price interjected, 'If you don't mind I'd like to get back on terra firma.'
'The inspector and I will come with you. A car will collect us from the Portsmouth pontoon.' Uckfield left a parting shot for Taylor. 'I want a report on this one quick, understand?'
Taylor nodded, but Horton knew that whatever was said the thin and thorough Taylor would work at his own pace, steadily and methodically.
They returned to the shore in silence. The doctor sat on one of the boulders in the car park, trying, Horton guessed, to settle his stomach, and wishing for a brandy. Calculating he was out of earshot, Horton took his chance.
'I think you owe me an explanation, Steve,' he said quietly and firmly.
Uckfield kept his eyes on the road, scanning it for his car. 'We've got a murdered woman and you have an investigation to undertake,' he snapped.
'Vinnakers isn't open yet. There's time. We've known one another long enough to be honest. If you don't think I'm suitable for your team then I'd like to know why.'
Uckfield spun round. He was a policeman; he had been schooled in the art of not showing his feelings. Horton saw nothing, not even a trace of their friendship. It was as if the past between them had been obliterated, which was what Horton guessed Uckfield had mentally done.
'The appointment will be announced-'
'Who's got the job, Steve?' insisted Horton, now with an edge of steel to his voice.
'Tony Dennings.'
It felt like a slap in the face. 'He's only just been promoted to inspector!' Horton was hardly able to believe he'd been overlooked in preference for the man he had worked with on the undercover operation that had landed him with that rape charge.
'He will join the major crime team a week today,' Uckfield said curtly. 'If this case is still running you will hand it over to him. Now go home and take a shower, you smell worse than Billingsgate Fish Market. Get Sergeant Cantelli out of bed and find me a killer.'
Horton badly wanted to ask, 'Why Dennings?' He didn't bother. He was hardly likely to get the truth anyway. Besides, Horton knew the answer. Dennings hadn't blotted his copybook.
Horton held Uckfield's eyes for a moment longer before climbing on to his Harley. So that was the way Steve wanted to play it. So be it. Horton was used to betrayal and disappointment in his life, but that didn't mean to say he was hardened to it. Once he would have said that he could rely on Uckfield, and yet in the last two months he'd been given cause to doubt his friendship, first on their last major case together when Uckfield had believed him capable of murder, and now at his lack of openness and honesty.
Horton called Cantelli.
'I've only just got my pyjamas on,' the sergeant protested.
'Good, I'd hate to think that I'd woken you.'
Sleep would have to wait for both of them, and so too would Mickey Johnson and the antiques thefts. He had a killer to find before Dennings could get so much as a toe inside the major incident room, and the trail started at Vinnakers Betting Shop in Commercial Road.
Two
Friday: 9.10 a.m.
Horton followed the manager's swaying hips through to a small office at the back of the betting shop. She waved him into the seat across a narrow desk scratched and scarred with cup rings and cigarette burns while Cantelli leaned against a battered grey filing cabinet to Horton's right. The room was so heavy with the sickly smell of her perfume that Horton wanted to push open the barred window behind her, though judging by the state of it, he doubted it would budge an inch.
Elaine Tolley flashed him a smile as she settled her ample backside on to a creaking leather chair opposite him and crossed her legs. Horton didn't waste any time with preliminaries. He couldn't afford to. He was damned if he was going to hand this case over to Dennings.
'Mrs Tolley, can you confirm if this is one of your betting slips?' He gave her a photocopy. The original had been sent to the forensic lab.
She took hold of it with bejewelled fingers. He saw that they were stained yellow with nicotine. Her vermillion nail varnish was chipped and her nails bitten.
'Yes, why do you want to know?'
'Do you recognize the handwriting on the back?'
Holding it at a distance she squinted at it. Then sighing heavily she picked up a pair of spectacles from her desk, her gold bracelets rattling and clinking as she settled them on her lined and heavily made-up face. 'Sign of old age,' she said with a smile.
Horton didn't contradict her and Cantelli looked too tired to pour on his usual charm. Horton watched for signs of recognition or surprise as she scrutinized the paper. He saw a slight widening of her eyes and after a moment she pulled off her glasses,
and with a puzzled frown said, 'I think it's Eric Morville's writing.'
'Can you tell us where we can find him?' Horton asked.
'At home I guess, though if you wait a couple of hours he'll be along here. What's happened? Why do you want to see him?' She was beginning to look worried.
'Do you know where he lives?'
After a moment's hesitation she said, 'Corton Court, number fourteen.'
That backed on to the ex-forces club, where the break-in had been last night. Not that it had any significance to this case, Horton thought, but it reminded him that he hadn't detailed an officer to go round and interview the steward who had been injured.
Elaine Tolley said, 'Has something happened to Mr Morville?' She fiddled with a pen that had been lying on the desk. By her manner and her wary look, Horton got the impression that she knew this Eric Morville quite well and probably intimately.
'Not that we know of, Mrs Tolley. Does he have any family?'
Her worry frown deepened. 'He's never said.'
'Do you know why he should write that on one of your betting slips?'
'No.'
'Do you have a female customer or member of staff about five foot seven, shoulder length dark hair, mid-forties?'
'No.' She looked alarmed.
'Have you ever seen Mr Morville with a woman who fits that description?'
Her eyes widened and her skin paled as she shifted nervously. 'No. What is all this about? Eric Morville just places his bet, reads his newspaper and watches the telly.'
'Big winners?' interjected Cantelli.
'Hardly,' she said caustically, swivelling her gaze to Cantelli. 'The boss wouldn't like that.'
No, thought Horton, recalling his encounters with Charlie Vinnaker. He was a shrewd businessman in his early sixties, the owner of a chain of amusement arcades and casinos, as well as betting shops. Horton knew that he had been involved in some shady deals but he'd never yet been able to prove it.
Horton terminated the interview without giving her any hint of their line of inquiry despite her efforts to extract it from him. There was nothing here, and he was keen to get away and elicit some answers from Eric Morville. He hoped she wouldn't telephone Morville to alert him of their impending arrival.
Letting out the clutch, Cantelli slipped into the heavy traffic by the railway station. 'What's happening about Mickey Johnson?'
For a moment Horton had forgotten all about him. 'I managed to get WPC Somerfield on to the case before Uckfield grabbed all the decent manpower.'
'Kate will enjoy that. She's a good officer. Maybe she can work her feminine charms on Johnson and get him to open his mouth.'
'Isn't it politically incorrect to say that?'
'Is it?' Cantelli sneezed.
'I hope you're not going to go sick.'
'What, and miss all the fun?' Cantelli said with heavy irony.
Horton threw him a sharp look. Had Cantelli heard about Dennings' appointment? If he had then surely he would have mentioned it. Soon it would be all over the station, and the tongues would start wagging. Damn Uckfield. OK, so Dennings was a good undercover cop, with years of experience working in vice and drugs, but a detective on the major crime team? No. Horton, with his background in CID and experience undercover whilst on specialist investigations, would have been far more suitable. But then, he had to keep telling himself it wasn't about suitability.
He saw Uckfield's choice of Dennings as a criticism of his capabilities both as a detective and a police officer, and he felt sure everyone else would see it as the same. But, he told himself, Cantelli was a friend and a loyal colleague and if he couldn't face it out with Cantelli then how was he going to handle the snide comments and sidelong looks that would swirl around the station like dirty dishwater when everyone knew?
Abruptly he gave Cantelli the news. The sergeant threw him a surprised glance before quickly putting his eyes back on the road. 'I thought that was yours.'
'Yeah, so did I.'
'So why the change of heart?'
'Funnily enough Uckfield didn't take me into his confidence,' Horton replied sarcastically, but silently vowed that Uckfield would. He'd make him.
Cantelli sniffed. 'I suppose it was inevitable. Each to his own.'
'What do you mean?' Horton knew Cantelli didn't much care for Uckfield, and that the feeling was mutual.
'He cuts too many corners-'
'So does Uckfield.'
'That's what I mean. That's why Dennings has got the job, even though you're the best man for it.'
Horton felt warmed and encouraged by Cantelli's loyalty. And perhaps he was right. Strangely enough he found himself defending Dennings. 'We've all done it, Barney.'
'Yeah, but there's cutting corners and shaving them off to fit. Pity the poor bloody DCI who has to play piggy in the middle with those two. What will you do?'
'Stay in CID and worry the life out of you. Can't you go any faster?'
'Not unless this car can fly.'
Horton stared out of the window at the traffic queue. Would there be others in the station who would see this appointment as Cantelli did? Perhaps he was being over sensitive in believing everyone would assume he'd been sidelined because he wasn't good enough. And who would be appointed the DCI on Uckfield's team? With his record Horton guessed promotion was a long way off. Perhaps it would never happen and he'd be stuck a DI for the rest of his career. Would he mind? The answer was in the involuntary tensing of his body, and the feeling of anger swiftly followed by despondency. Once he'd had such high hopes.
For a moment his depression seemed to match the dreary October day, but it didn't last long. As they turned into Corton Court, Horton's determination to show Uckfield that he'd picked the wrong man was rekindled. After all, years spent fending for himself after his mother had left him when he was only ten hadn't made him a quitter.
Cantelli said, 'This place gets worse every time I see it.'
Horton agreed. Corton Court exuded a damp aroma of desolation and neglect. It had been built in the sixties and it looked as if it hadn't been touched since. The small communal front garden had long ago given itself up to nature and rubbish. He picked his way through the lager cans and cigarette packets littering the stairs, and could hear the blare of the television long before he reached Eric Morville's front door on the third floor. It took a few stout knocks to get an answer.
From inside came, 'If you're selling something I don't want it, and if you're Jehovah's Witnesses you can bugger off. I'm Catholic.'
'Police. We'd like a word, Mr Morville,' Cantelli shouted.
After a moment Horton could hear shuffling footsteps and the scraping and jingling of a door chain. The door was opened a crack, just wide enough for Cantelli to insert his warrant card.
'What do you want?' came the surly reply.
Did he already know, thought Horton, pushing back the door and saying, 'A word.' Had Elaine Tolley told him? 'I take it you are Mr Eric Morville.' Horton eyed the thin man in his early sixties in a red-and-white striped pyjama jacket and a pair of grubby trousers and wondered if he could be the father or brother of the dead woman on the mulberry. Could he be her killer? Morville didn't look as though he had the strength for it.
'Yeah, that's me. What's it to you?' Morville's anger shifted to wariness. Behind his bloodshot light-brown eyes Horton could see his mind racing as he tried to think what he might have done to bring the law down on him. Horton revised his opinion that Elaine Tolley might be involved with this man. If by some remote chance she was, then she badly needed a new pair of spectacles he thought, taking in the gaunt face, unshaven chin, lank hair and the yellowing telltale skin of a heavy drinker.
'Can we come in?' Cantelli asked, easing past him.
'Looks like you already have,' grunted Morville.
Horton stepped through the small hallway and into a room on his right. He'd seen many flats like this: shabby, dirty, and minimally equipped. The smell of fried food, tobacco and stale sweat clawed
at his throat, making him want to retch. There were two very worn and grubby armchairs in front of a large television screen showing a chat programme, and between them was a stained coffee table, on it a mug of coffee, a half empty bottle of whisky and a tobacco tin. On the wall to the right of the electric fire was a sideboard that looked as if it dated from the same time the flats had been built; like the room it was in it was devoid of photographs and ornaments. Only a rickety lamp and a clock adorned it.
'Had your fill?' Morville asked harshly, crossing to one of the chairs. Lifting the television remote control, he punched down the volume only to let the loud music from below thud up through the floor. 'I suppose you'll tell me what this is about in a moment.'
Cantelli extracted the betting slip from his pocket. 'Is this your handwriting, sir?'
Horton watched Morville carefully as he scrutinized it. The slightest of starts betrayed that it was.
Morville sat down. 'Who wants to know?'
'We do.' Horton forced himself to speak gently despite the fact that he'd taken an instant dislike to Morville. He told himself this man could just have lost his daughter or younger sister. He could, of course, be the killer. 'Did you write that?' he repeated the question Cantelli had asked, but with more force.
Morville picked up his tobacco tin and began to roll a cigarette with hands that were steady, yet he avoided direct eye contact. Horton had the impression of an arrogant man whom alcohol and laziness had made surly and bitter.
'The manager of the betting shop claims it's your writing,' Cantelli persisted, taking out a handkerchief and blowing his nose.
'Does she?' Morville replied airily, still not looking at them.
He was beginning to get on Horton's nerves. 'Perhaps we should conduct this interview at the station. If you'd get dressed-'
'OK, it's my writing. Satisfied?' Morville glanced up.
Far from it, thought Horton. 'Why did you write that note?'
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