All Quiet on Arrival (13 page)

‘Very much so. That and helping out at a charity shop twice a week. She got involved in a lot of charity work. Oh, and she belonged to the Women's Institute when we lived in Wiltshire. Took a great interest in organising the annual WI flower competition while we were there.' Horton took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. As an afterthought he offered one to Dave and me, but we both declined. ‘I suppose the best way to describe her was domesticated.'

This was an entirely new slant on the character of the adulterous, fun-loving Diana Barton. I hesitated before posing my next question.

‘Were you aware of any extra-marital affairs Diana might have had?'

‘Affairs?' Horton laughed scornfully. ‘Who, Diana? Good heavens no. Whatever makes you ask that?'

I outlined what we had learned about Diana's sexual activities, including the affair on the cruise, and the one with Gaston Potier, although I didn't mention the names of either of her paramours. Neither did I tell Horton what we'd heard had taken place at the kitchen party.

‘Well, I have to say I'm surprised. This doesn't sound at all like the woman I was married to. Are you sure we're talking about the same person, Inspector?'

‘It's
chief
inspector, sir.' I was always irritated by TV detective chief inspectors who not only allowed themselves to be addressed as inspector, but sometimes introduced themselves as such. There is quite a difference: about eight grand a year, in fact.

‘Oh, I'm sorry, Chief Inspector,' said Horton, but his slight smile gave the impression that he didn't think it all that important.

It crossed my mind that Diana might have had affairs during her first marriage, but had been sufficiently devious to keep them from Horton.

Dave produced a copy of a studio portrait of Diana Barton that we'd recovered from James Barton's smoke-filled study on the first floor of the house at Tavona Street. ‘Is that her?' he asked, handing the print to Horton.

Horton glanced at it. ‘Yes, that's the Diana I was married to.' He shook his head. ‘Unbelievable. She wasn't the slightest bit interested in sex,' he said suddenly. ‘That was another of our problems.'

I'm glad Horton had said that. It wasn't the sort of intrusive question that I'd been prepared to ask, but it was useful to know, even though it conflicted with what we knew of the woman. Or thought we knew.

Horton paused for a moment. ‘I understand that she married again. We've not kept in touch, you see.'

‘Yes, she did, to a James Barton. He was murdered last Thursday.'

‘Good God!' Horton shook his head, as though trying to come to terms with what I'd told him. ‘It's not the James Barton who was involved in hotels, is it?'

‘Yes. Did you know him?'

‘Not all that well,' said Horton. ‘Our paths did cross occasionally. I'm a venture capitalist, you see.' He gave a diffident smile, and waved a hand in the air. ‘As you can see from this house, I've been rather successful at it.' He paused to stub out his cigarette. ‘Do you think the same person was responsible for both murders?'

‘We don't know at this stage,' I said, although the DNA evidence seemed to point to it. But I had no intention of telling Horton that.

There was a sound of a car approaching the house, and the crunching of gravel. I glanced out of the window in time to see a woman alighting from a white Lexus that she'd parked next to the Mercedes. Moments later, the front door slammed, and a woman's voice called out ‘Hello, darling.'

‘Ah, that'll be my wife,' said Horton as the sitting room door opened.

The woman who entered was obviously much younger than Maurice Horton; in fact, we knew there to be a difference of fifteen years in their ages. She had cropped blonde hair, and was stylishly dressed in an elegant trouser suit. It looked expensive, and I'm sure my girlfriend would've been able to put an exact price on it. Mrs Horton carried two large bags bearing the names of well-known West End fashion houses.

All three of us stood up, and she gazed at Dave and me. ‘I see we have company, darling. I didn't recognize the car on the drive.'

‘These gentlemen are from the police, Faye.' Horton turned to us. ‘This is my wife Faye,' he said.

‘Are we in trouble?' Faye Horton shot an engaging smile in our direction, put her shopping bags on the floor near the door, and sat down in an armchair opposite her husband.

But it was Maurice Horton who replied. ‘They're enquiring about Diana. She's been murdered.'

‘Your first wife, you mean?'

‘Yes, and her husband has been murdered as well.'

‘Well, you haven't seen her since the divorce, have you?' There was an element of suspicion, accusation even, in the glance Faye Horton gave her husband. But apart from that the news had no impact on her.

‘Of course not. I didn't even know where she lived until these officers told me.'

We had learned a little more of the enigma that was Diana Barton, but it didn't help very much.

‘Thank you, Mr Horton,' I said, as Dave and I stood up.

‘D'you know where and when the funeral will be held?' asked Horton.

‘Not at the moment.'

‘You're not thinking of going, surely?' asked Faye Horton sharply. It sounded like an order.

‘Er, no, not really, darling.'

I got the impression that all was not well in the Horton marriage, and wondered whether Maurice Horton had had a different reason for divorcing Diana. A reason he'd not furnished. But that was of no concern to me or my enquiry. Maybe.

‘Thank you, Mr Horton,' I said, as Dave and I stood up. ‘I don't think either of you can help us further.' But in that I was wrong.

‘D'
you remember the two people that Potier said were at the party?' I asked, as Dave and I drove back to Curtis Green. ‘The ones that no one else mentioned: a young woman and a much older guy.'

‘Bernie and Samantha,' replied Dave promptly. ‘Are you thinking what I'm thinking, guv? That they might've been Maurice Horton and Katya?' he suggested. ‘She's a good-looking girl, and that wife of Horton's looks to be one very cold bitch. I wouldn't blame him if he was having a fling with Katya.'

‘I must admit that the same thought occurred to me, Dave. It's a pity we didn't ask Potier whether the girl called Samantha spoke with a foreign accent.'

‘I'll give him a bell,' said Dave. ‘Of course, if he didn't speak to her, we shan't know.'

‘No, but Hendry or Pincher might remember them.' I waited until Dave had negotiated a tricky roundabout. ‘I agree with you about Faye Horton. I formed the opinion that she was a bit of a tartar.'

‘And some,' said Dave. ‘I reckon she leads Maurice a dog's life. And if those shopping bags were anything to go by she hits his bank account something rotten.'

It was getting on for six o'clock by the time we got back to the office, and I checked the incident room to see if anything of consequence had occurred in our absence. Nothing had.

‘I think we'll call it a day, Dave,' I said. ‘In fact, there's nothing more we can do until Monday. Is Madeleine working tomorrow?'

‘No, sir,' said Dave. ‘Ballet dancers don't dance on Sundays as a rule.' There was an element of restrained sarcasm in his reply.

‘Take the day off, then.'

It was nearly half past seven when I knocked at Gail's door.

‘Hello, stranger,' she said, as she invited me in.

‘I thought I'd take you out to dinner, darling.' I'm incredibly generous when the mood takes me. ‘There's a new place opened in Kingston that I think might be worth a try. By the way,' I added, handing her a small package, ‘my cleaning lady, Mrs Gurney, has washed your thong.'

Gail took the package with a smile, but without comment. ‘Come in and help yourself to a drink,' she said. ‘I'll just go up and get changed. Perhaps you'd bring me a gin and tonic in a minute.'

‘Why d'you need to get changed?'

‘I can't go out looking like this, my love. I'll just find something casual to put on.'

Gail was wearing ‘something casual' now: jeans, a white tunic and a wide black leather belt. And she looked really good.

‘I don't see anything wrong with what you've got on,' I said.

‘No, you wouldn't, Harry,' said Gail cuttingly. ‘Won't be a moment.'

Ten minutes later, I delivered her G and T, but she'd made little progress other than spreading a variety of clothes on the bed.

The ‘moment' she'd said it would take turned out to be half an hour, but it was worth the wait. She looked terrific in a white trouser suit with a silver circle suspended on a slender chain around her neck, and for once her long blonde hair, usually held back in a ponytail, was worn loose around her shoulders.

‘I thought we'd walk,' I said.

We crossed the Portsmouth Road and strolled along Queen's Promenade for the mile or so into Kingston town centre. Other couples were walking along the river bank enjoying the sunny weather of early August, and I noticed how many of the men shot admiring glances in Gail's direction. It's good for a man's ego to have his girlfriend admired, provided that's as far as it goes.

During our meal, which wasn't as good as I'd hoped, Gail raised the subject, once again, of trying for a part in a forthcoming play in the West End.

‘It's a revival of J.B. Priestley's
An Inspector Calls
,' she said.

‘Which part are you after, the inspector's?' I asked. ‘If they're updating it, you should have a word with Kate Ebdon. She'll tell you how a real woman inspector carries on. Then again, perhaps not,' I added hurriedly, recalling what I'd heard about the reputation Kate had acquired on the Flying Squad.

I got one of those looks. ‘No, it's the wife's part,' said Gail.

My reaction to this was lukewarm. If Gail went back to the stage, I would see even less of her than I saw now. It wasn't as if she needed the money; her father George Sutton, a property developer who lived in Nottingham, gave Gail a substantial allowance. I'd met George a few times. He was a charming man, and his only character flaw was his boring passion for Formula One motor racing and the land speed record, about which he would talk incessantly. Until his wife Sally stopped him.

I put my thoughts into words. ‘Do you have to go back on the stage?' I asked. ‘It'd mean you'd be late turn six days a week, with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday.'

‘Would you give up the police force?' Gail asked. It was her usual irrefutable counter to my objections.

‘That's different,' I said. ‘What else could I do?'

‘You needn't do anything. You could live on my allowance and become a kept man,' said Gail impishly. ‘Then I'd have you all to myself all day.'

‘Except when you were on stage,' I said.

And so we reached our usual impasse. But I hoped that Gail's occasional yearning for a return to the footlights was but a passing fancy, and that she'd forget all about it. Or maybe, I thought selfishly, someone else would get the part.

We spent Saturday night and Sunday at Gail's town house. We rose at eleven, showered and spent a lazy day lounging about listening to CDs and eating when we felt like it.

‘It's time we had a holiday,' said Gail suddenly.

‘I'm in the middle of a complicated murder enquiry,' I said. ‘I shouldn't really be here now. I'm sure there are things waiting for me at the office.'

‘I sometimes think you create work for yourself,' said Gail, who really had no understanding of what a detective's professional life entailed. ‘Why don't we have a week in Paris? We could meet up with your old friend Henri and his wife. That'd be fun.'

I knew exactly what that would mean. As I mentioned earlier, Henri Deshayes is an
inspecteur
in the
Police Judiciaire
with whom I had liaised from time to time. That part of it was all right; all Henri wanted to do was talk about the Job and drink cognac in some pleasant pavement cafe. But his wife Gabrielle, a former dancer at the
Folies-Bergères
, was an ardent clothes shopper, and that spelled trouble. Believe me, there's nothing more taxing for men than following a couple of fashion conscious women around the highly priced haute couture establishments of Paris.

I arrived at the office at nine o'clock on the Monday morning, Gail's suggestion of a week in Paris still unresolved.

Colin Wilberforce had added to the whiteboard the names of Bernie and Samantha, the two partygoers Potier had mentioned. And having read Dave's statement, Colin had also listed Maurice and Faye Horton, and Katya Kaczynski, as ‘persons of interest'. Colin, by some assiduous search of police records, had discovered Katya's surname, and that she was Polish.

On reflection, I didn't think that either the Hortons or Katya were of any real interest. As Dave and I had discussed, it was possible that Maurice Horton was having an affair with the shapely Katya, but that would only concern us provided neither of them was murdered. I always think of these things; Pinner falls within the area for which HSCC West is responsible, and the commander would be bound to see a connection. He loved making connections.

At ten o'clock, Kate Ebdon came into my office.

‘We've discovered where Charlene Hoyle works, guv,' she announced, and handed me a slip of paper with the details. ‘D'you want to interview her?'

I glanced at my watch. ‘Why not?' I said. ‘We'll see her at wherever she works. What does she do there?'

‘She's a receptionist at a hairdressing salon.'

Charlene Hoyle, Barry Pincher's girlfriend, was seated behind a computer, and glanced up with a welcoming smile as Kate and I entered. Judging by the decor and location of the salon, in the heart of London's West End, I guessed that the prices would be astronomical, and the fact that no tariff was exhibited confirmed my suspicions.