Footsteps on the Shore (8 page)

‘
Your
business?’ interjected the caller with hostility, misinterpreting what Horton had been about to say. ‘Find her killer.’

The line went dead, leaving an ‘or else’ vibrating in the air.

Horton punched in Mrs Trotman’s number, drumming his fingers impatiently on the desk, recalling the gentle, dark-haired, attractive woman in her mid-thirties. No answer. Shit. Lifting his coat from the stand he hurried into the CID office.

‘Cantelli, you’re with me. Walters, send a car to Willow Bank, Shore Road, Portchester. Someone’s just reported a murder, and I hope to God he’s wrong.’

SIX

H
orton stared with disbelief at the body lying on the grass of the windswept garden and felt a deep weariness settle over him. Two corpses in one day were enough to sadden and sicken any copper, but the body in the mud – horrific though it was – was far less upsetting than this. This death he took personally and with complete bewilderment; who on earth could have wanted the slender woman with the lean face and sad, deep brown eyes dead?

Yesterday he’d smiled and spoken to Venetia Trotman, now she was lying with the right-hand side of what was left of her barely recognizable and battered face pressed against the wet grass. Her right arm was crumpled under her body, her left arm outstretched, slim fingers clenched. She was wearing the same clothes he’d seen her dressed in yesterday: a navy blue cardigan over a white jumper, navy blue trousers, socks and blue deck shoes. But no coat. Yesterday, when he had left her just after five thirty, she had been wearing a red and blue sailing jacket.

She was facing her home; a substantial brick and tiled period house that Horton knew by its design had to be at least two hundred years old. Had she been returning there from the boat, which was moored at the bottom of a concrete slipway at the end of this extensive garden, when her assailant had attacked her? He couldn’t see the boat from where he was standing because the house and garden were on a raised bank above the shore, which was screened by a tangle of trees and bushes. Or had she gone into the garden from the house to investigate a noise or someone suspicious lurking in the shrubbery and surprised her attacker? But why no coat? Perhaps she’d been in too much of a hurry to investigate the disturbance to put it on, though it had been a cold night. And depending on her time of death she would also have got wet. It had started raining at about 5 a.m. He’d laid on his bunk, after yet another fitful night’s sleep, listening to it hitting the deck.

Dr Clayton and SOCO might be able to tell them more, or rather tell Superintendent Uckfield because this was definitely murder, unlike the body in the harbour, which could be suicide or an accidental death. Horton had already rung the head of the major crime team. Soon Uckfield and the great useless hulk, DI Dennings, would be clodhopping all over the place. Horton had asked for a tent and arc lights, the day was drawing in and in less than an hour it would be sunset. Cantelli had called Dr Price who was on his way.

‘This place must be the best-kept secret this side of the Solent,’ Cantelli said, as Horton stepped aside to let two officers cordon off the area around the body. Another two were sealing off the road to the house: a narrow, winding no through lane with no other dwellings situated along its stretch of roughly a mile. The only neighbours were rabbits in the surrounding fields to the north and west, and ghosts that haunted the ruins of the Roman fort of nearby Portchester Castle to the east, which faced on to Paulsgrove Lake, a wide expanse of sea feeding into Portsmouth Harbour.

‘I didn’t know it existed until yesterday,’ Horton admitted, glad to turn away from the body and falling into step beside Cantelli, with a heavy heart, as they headed towards the house.

‘I’m amazed property developers haven’t been banging on their door, it’s just ripe for marina flats and houses,’ Cantelli said. ‘The Trotmans could have sold this land for a fortune.’

‘Perhaps they valued their privacy.’ And the price of that privacy might just have cost Venetia Trotman her life, thought Horton.

‘Did she have any relatives?’

‘I only spoke to her about the boat.’

‘And you call yourself a detective.’

Horton gave a brief smile, knowing that sometimes humour helped to handle the brutality of a situation. ‘If I’d known she was going to be murdered I’d have asked,’ he replied, thinking sometimes this job was shit. No, correction, most times it was. But the thought of getting the scum who had bashed her head in, and making a strong enough case against him that not even the CPS or a jury could drive a truck through, sustained him. Except for two things, he considered dejectedly: it wouldn’t be his case, and just as with Luke Felton, the bastard would either get a lenient sentence or be let out on licence to do it again . . . and again. Could Luke Felton have done this? he wondered with a jolt. Not if he was the body in the harbour. And Horton could see no reason why Luke Felton would have been here. But then there was no reason why he had been on the Hayling Coastal Path either, not unless he had known Natalie Raymonds. Maybe he had known Venetia Trotman.

Horton gazed up at the house. There were two windows either side of the rear door and two above them with a small, narrow window squeezed in between on the first floor, above the door. The red brickwork was old, the house beautifully proportioned and maintained. He could sense what Cantelli was thinking; the next of kin could be in for a substantial inheritance, unless the place was mortgaged to the hilt. And perhaps that was the real reason Venetia Trotman had been selling her late husband’s boat – she needed the money to pay the mortgage and household bills, perhaps even her husband’s debts.

Stretching his fingers into latex gloves, he eyed the sturdy oak door. ‘No sign of a break-in.’ It would take some considerable effort to break into this. He tentatively tried the handle and the door opened to his touch, which wasn’t surprising if she’d rushed out to investigate intruders, though such a thing was brave and foolish.

They stepped inside a small utility room as it began to rain again. The space also clearly doubled as a cloakroom. But there was no sign of the red and blue sailing jacket, only a green waxed jacket and a Burberry raincoat, along with a pair of sturdy walking shoes and green wellington boots; Hunters, he noted. There was also a small empty hook beside the door, which looked as though its function was to hold keys.

Horton studied the rear of the door. Heavy bolts were fixed top and bottom and there was a strong lock on it, with the key still in it. He’d also noted the alarm, which had obviously been deactivated because there was no wailing noise as they entered. But had her killer disabled it? Or perhaps Venetia Trotman had never set it.

Yesterday she had met him at the side of the house and shown him straight down to the boat, waiting on the shore while he’d looked it over. She hadn’t asked him for any form of identification, and he hadn’t volunteered it. But then why should she ask when she had been expecting him? He’d answered an advertisement placed in the window of a newsagent’s shop in the nearby village of Portchester offering a boat for sale. Maybe her killer had done the same and, finding her alone and vulnerable, had returned to rob and kill her. That was a far more likely scenario than laying this at Luke Felton’s door. But who was the anonymous caller? He’d obviously found Horton’s card on the victim’s body.

Forensic would analyse the voice and try to pinpoint the accent, but discovering who it belonged to was about as likely as discovering a destitute banker. And Horton knew that even if they were able to trace where the call had been made, he doubted if it would tell them
who
had made it. He didn’t think it was her killer, because he would hardly have gone to the trouble to report the death. Horton hadn’t seen anyone while he was here yesterday and there had been no vehicles parked. A car could have been in the garage though.

He bent down to remove his shoes. Doing the same, Cantelli said, ‘No children’s coats or shoes and no men’s either. How long did you say her husband had been dead?’

‘She said three months.’

‘Time enough, I guess.’

For some, Horton thought, interpreting the meaning behind Cantelli’s solemn tone. The sergeant’s father had died of a heart attack shortly before Christmas, and Horton knew that for many, like Cantelli, no time would ever be enough.

He pushed open a door to his right and stepped into a spacious modern kitchen with gleaming white cabinets, a tan-coloured tiled floor, and a large modern range. Cantelli shivered. Horton placed his hand on the radiator. ‘Stone cold.’ It felt as though the house had been shut up for a long time.

‘There’s a central heating clock here,’ Cantelli said, peering at a device under a wall-mounted gas boiler. ‘It’s not set on a timer. Perhaps she switched the heating off on the first of March. Spring and all that, according to the Met Office,’ he added, opening cupboards. ‘Don’t think Charlotte would agree with that. Spring to her begins on the first of May at the earliest. She was very tidy, your Mrs Trotman. I don’t think a child has ever graced this house, leastways not like any of my five.’

Horton agreed. There were no kitchen implements on display, no letters propped up on the work surface and no pin board with reminders and important telephone numbers on it. He found the dishwasher empty. Ditto the washing machine. He sniffed. ‘Disinfectant and furniture polish. Someone’s done a thorough cleaning job.’

‘Not your average toerag burglar then,’ Cantelli replied, opening the fridge. ‘Perhaps Mrs Trotman was very house proud. She didn’t eat much. No milk, butter or eggs, just some cheese and a yoghurt. And there’s hardly anything in the food cupboards. Judging by this,’ he added, waving his arm around the clinically neat kitchen, ‘it looks as though she was obsessed with cleanliness.’

Perhaps she was, thought Horton, heading for the hall, which was also spotlessly clean. No muddy footprints on the pale blue carpet, or dirty fingerprints or worse smeared on the cream-painted walls. But why so little food? Maybe she’d intended going shopping that day.

Beyond the front door was a half-glazed porch. Horton looked for the red and blue sailing jacket hanging there but didn’t see it, which meant it had to be on the yacht or upstairs.

Cantelli took the room to the left while Horton entered the one on his right, clearly the sitting room. Everything seemed to be in place. The television set was the latest model and the russet-coloured leather furniture was modern and of good quality, placed on an immaculately kept parquet floor with a large tiger-skin rug underneath an ancient low coffee table devoid of magazines and containing only an empty earthenware bowl. The Adam style fireplace boasted a wood-burning stove of the instant gas variety, and a gilt-edged mirror above it, but that was the only item on the pale-painted walls apart from some uplighters. There were no bookshelves, no photographs, no letters and no dust.

Heavy red curtains draped the ancient windows, which gave on to a front garden and a tall hedge, with evergreen trees hiding the house from the narrow lane beyond. It didn’t look to Horton as though anyone had ever sat in the room, let alone lived in it, and for a moment he found himself wondering how it might have looked when first built and furnished by the original occupant, who might have been attached to the castle close by. Although no connoisseur of period design, staring around him he couldn’t help feeling as though the heart had been ripped out of this house.

Entering, Cantelli said, ‘The dining room’s untouched, just a table and six chairs and a cupboard with some glasses, crockery and cutlery inside it in pristine condition. No booze.’

Horton was getting a bad feeling about this place, but defining exactly how bad and in what way he couldn’t say, apart from the fact it was too clean, too perfect and too impersonal. But there was more than that. As they headed up the stairs, making sure not to touch the banister, Cantelli expressed part of what Horton felt.

‘It’s like something out of an estate agent’s brochure.’

Yes, cold and clinical. And yet the woman he’d met hadn’t struck him that way. She had been friendly, if a little nervous and shy. And did this house fit with what he’d seen of her? No. It was wrong. But then he didn’t know her, so who was he to say. It was just a feeling.

The bedrooms at the rear of the house were in the same immaculate and clinical condition as the downstairs rooms. He opened the fitted wardrobes either side of the small iron fireplaces – empty – and turned over the counterpanes in both rooms, frowning with puzzlement before entering the bathroom wedged between the two rooms. There were no toiletries, only fluffy white towels on a stone cold towel rail matching the gleaming white bathroom suite. None of the rooms showed any sign that anyone had ever visited. The bed linen was as fresh as if it were new. There was also no hint of any next of kin.

Cantelli hailed him. As Horton entered what was clearly the master bedroom he saw here at least there were signs of life. The contents of a couple of drawers from the chest had been upended on the bed and the fitted wardrobe door was standing open. Horton studied the clothes without touching them. There were a couple of pairs of trousers, a dress, three skirts, a selection of tops, jumpers and underwear; all were top quality and some designer label. He hadn’t been married to Catherine for twelve years without learning that much. Peering into the wardrobe he said, puzzled, ‘No suitcases or boxes, and only two pairs of shoes. I thought women had at least thirty.’

Cantelli gave a brief smile. ‘My house is overflowing with them. There’s nothing in the rest of the drawers,’ he added, after gingerly opening them and peering inside. ‘And no jewellery. So was she attacked and robbed?’

‘Looks that way, and by professionals who knew exactly what they were after.’ The advertisement card in the newsagent’s window again sprang to mind.

Nodding his head towards a door that opened off the bedroom Cantelli said, ‘The en suite’s gleaming so bright you’d think it had just auditioned for a television commercial.’