Footsteps on the Shore (9 page)

‘Just like the bathroom then. I can’t see her killer bleaching and polishing the place before making his getaway.’ There was also no sign of any of her late husband’s clothes or belongings, or even a photograph of him. Was it a case of out of sight, out of mind? Had she been glad to get him out of her life? Or perhaps she was so upset she couldn’t bear to be reminded of him. On the other hand, he thought, hearing a van approaching, perhaps she simply didn’t like clutter.

Peering out of the front window, through the rain, he watched the SOCO van swing into the driveway. They were certainly keeping Taylor and Dr Price busy. And this would be another autopsy for Dr Clayton, and a more urgent one, he guessed, than the body found in the harbour.

He glanced at the three perfume bottles on the dressing table – again the expensive variety – and called to mind with sorrow the soft floral scent of the quietly spoken lady. Her make-up was here too, and yet he couldn’t recall Venetia Trotman as being ‘made-up’. There was also not one single photograph of her. He said as much to Cantelli as they headed down the stairs, adding, ‘There’s not a book in the house either, and nothing personal that tells us what Venetia Trotman was like.’

‘The shoes and boots in the cloakroom suggest she must have liked walking, as well as cleaning.’

‘And perhaps gardening,’ Horton added, stepping outside and surveying the neat and tidy landscape, which was shrouded in rain. ‘As well as sailing,’ he added. ‘Let’s check the boat out before Uckfield arrives.’

Horton didn’t think they would find any revealing papers on it, unless they had been placed there since his visit yesterday, but they might find her jacket. And he wanted another look at the yacht knowing now that it could never be his. He didn’t much care for it reminding him of the gentle Venetia Trotman’s brutal ending. And, besides, it would take time to get the next of kin’s permission to purchase it, and they might even wish to keep the yacht themselves. No, he thought, heading across the garden, best to begin his search again.

He chewed over what he and Cantelli had discovered in the house, which was precious little, and it dawned on him why the place had made him feel so uncomfortable. It reminded him too much of the children’s homes he’d been consigned to as a boy. Not that they had been as tastefully and luxuriously decorated as Venetia Trotman’s house – on the contrary, they’d been shabby – but even with the central heating full on they’d still been cold and empty, because they had lacked a special kind of love. And that was how Venetia Trotman’s house had felt to him. There was pride there, yes, but love, no.

In the gathering dark he located the ramshackle gate wedged in among the bushes, which led to a steep slipway and down to the shore. It was low tide and the yacht would be resting on the mud. A stiff March wind was blowing directly off the shore, bringing with it the angry rain, which ran off Horton’s cropped hair and dripped down the upturned collar of his sailing jacket. His shoes and feet were soaked for the second time that morning and the rain had again seeped through his trousers.

Cantelli sniffed and rammed his hands deep in his pockets. ‘Think I’ve had enough sea air and rain for one day.’

Horton was beginning to think so too. With a forceful tug the gate gave way. Horton stepped on to the bank and drew up with a start.

With a puzzled frown, Cantelli said, ‘I thought you said there was a boat?’

‘There was, yesterday.’ Now as Horton peered at the concrete slipway there was nothing, not even a single rope. Just a big empty space, the wind and rain, and the dark mud of the harbour beyond.

SEVEN

‘
S
o where is it?’ Superintendent Uckfield demanded, feet splayed, camel coat flapping open in the wind, staring across the dark harbour – like bloody Nelson without the eye patch and arm in a sling, thought Horton. He refrained from replying that if he knew that he would have said. He was used to Uckfield’s short temper.

Thankfully it had stopped raining in the time that had elapsed between their discovery of the empty mooring and the superintendent’s arrival, but for how long Horton didn’t know. The air was cold and damp, like him. Cantelli had taken refuge in the victim’s house, where he was showing DC Marsden what they’d discovered; that shouldn’t take him long, and Horton doubted Cantelli would thaw out inside that refrigerator.

Before Uckfield’s arrival, Horton had asked Sergeant Elkins to start a search for the missing yacht. Not that there was much they could do in the dark except ask the marina managers along the coast if it had turned up there, which Horton doubted. He’d quickly briefed Uckfield about his visit here yesterday, the anonymous telephone call and his and Cantelli’s quick search of the house, along with what he knew of Venetia Trotman and her dead husband, which was hardly anything at all.

DI Dennings had listened with a baffled frown on his pugilistic face. Horton had finished by putting forward his theory that her killer could also have seen the postcard in the newsagent’s window and reconnoitred the house earlier by posing as a prospective buyer, returning late last night to rob it. But if so he was a remarkably tidy burglar.

Horton said, ‘If the yacht had broken its mooring in the early hours of the morning and drifted out with the tide, someone would have seen it by now and reported it.’ He knew that officers in the busy commercial ferry port and the naval dockyard to the south-east wouldn’t have let a drifting yacht within yards of their shores without investigating it. ‘The same applies if her killer cast it loose.’

‘It could be the work of the boat thieves,’ suggested Dennings, glancing at Uckfield. ‘There’s been a spate of them over the last month.’

He’s looking for a brownie point, thought Horton, coldly eyeing Dennings’ fifteen stone of muscle. He thought Dennings slow, dull and devious, an ugly bastard with muscles and no brains. What Dennings thought of him he didn’t even bother to consider, but knew it wouldn’t be complimentary. He wasn’t about to lose sleep over that. Last year he’d spent hours with Dennings on surveillance while working in Specialist Investigations and the man had come out smelling of roses, with a promotion and a place on the major crime team to boot, while he’d been suspended over that false rape allegation. But that was the past, he quickly told himself, knowing that the ghosts of his past never tired of haunting him, and they seemed to be going to town today.

Tersely, he said, ‘It doesn’t fit the pattern of the other boat thefts.’
I’ve done my homework too
. ‘They’ve all been modern motor boats, like yours, Steve,’ Horton directed at Uckfield.
Yes, Dennings, he’s my old buddy, not yours
, even though Uckfield had betrayed him by appointing Dennings to his team when the job had been promised to Horton. ‘This is a classic wooden yacht, not at all flash.’

‘Still valuable in the right market, though,’ growled Uckfield.

Unfortunately he was right.

Dennings smirked. ‘There’s a huge black market for boats and outboard motors in Eastern Europe. The victim could have seen or heard the thieves stealing the boat, rushed out to stop them and got killed for her pains.’

But Horton shook his head. ‘You can’t see the boat from the house and I doubt she would have heard the engine being started.’ The latter was a possibility, but Horton would rather have his teeth pulled than admit it.

Uckfield turned away from the shore and as the three of them headed towards the tent now covering the body, he said, ‘She could have been on the boat when the thieves arrived.’

Horton wondered if she might have been. High tide had been at 12.49 a.m. Here, on the upper reaches of Portsmouth Harbour, it meant anyone could have access to the slipway, by boat, two hours either side of high tide, giving them a window of between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. He doubted if Venetia Trotman would have been preparing to go sailing then, but she could have been on the boat for some other reason, though what, he couldn’t imagine. And maybe she had left her sailing jacket there in her haste to escape the boat thieves, who had run after her and silenced her. He put forward his theory.

‘We need to find that boat,’ Uckfield snapped, pulling a toothpick from his coat pocket and working it into his mouth.

‘There’s four ways it could have gone,’ said Horton. ‘Horsea Marina to the east, Fareham Creek to the west, Gosport Marina across the channel, or south out through Portsmouth Harbour, and if it went that way then it could be anywhere. It might even be in France or the Channel Islands by now. Sergeant Elkins will need help to find it and we need to ask the harbour masters, Customs and the Royal Navy Fishery Protection Squadron if they’ve seen it.’

‘See to that, Dennings,’ Uckfield commanded, drawing up at the tent. ‘What’s it called?’

‘
Shorena
.’

Dennings said, ‘Her killer or killers could have come by vehicle knowing the boat was moored here. They robbed her, killed her, and one of them stole the boat, the other drove away with the loot.’

It was feasible, especially given the advertisement for the boat in the newsagent’s window. Horton had seen no vehicle tyre tracks, but that was hardly surprising given the tarmacked road, though SOCO might find traces. Unfortunately, because the lane was so remote, there weren’t any nosy neighbours to ask. And if the thieves had come by boat, late at night, no one would have seen them. He said as much.

Uckfield nodded and turned to Dennings. ‘Ask Trueman to mobilize the incident suite. I want him working on Venetia Trotman’s background. And I want a team inside the house and combing this garden. Marsden can oversee that.’ Addressing Horton crisply, Uckfield said, ‘Make sure Trueman gets a copy of that anonymous telephone call. We’ll get the experts to analyse it. And write your report up as soon as you get back to the station, and let Trueman have it.’

Horton tensed as he saw Dennings’ smug smile, but he wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing he was annoyed at being excluded, and angry at Uckfield’s curt dismissal. OK, so the Venetia Trotman murder wasn’t his case, but there was no need for Uckfield to dismiss him as though he was a PC.

‘Not wanted on voyage,’ Cantelli said, obviously reading the situation and Horton’s expression as he zapped open the car. ‘It’s a film starring the great Fabia Drake, about—’

‘Not now,’ Horton said testily. Cantelli could wax lyrical on old movies for hours and Horton wasn’t in the mood.

Undeterred, Cantelli continued, ‘That film’s been running through my mind ever since we went inside the house. I guess it’s because the victim lived by the sea. It’s a British comedy about a jewel theft on board an ocean voyage. Jewels – Venetia Trotman – sea.’

‘I get the connection. Did Marsden express an opinion about the house? He’s meant to be bright,’ Horton added caustically. Jake Marsden was Uckfield’s fast track graduate whizz-kid, destined for dizzy heights.

‘He thought it looked like theft. But unless we can get someone to tell us what was in that bedroom to begin with, we’re not going to know there was any jewellery to steal, are we? She could have sold it. And I thought of that, not Marsden.’

‘Then you get a gold star.’

‘I’d rather go home.’

Horton didn’t blame him. It had not been the best of days. And he had that runt Rookley to face yet. Still, he might give him a lead on Luke Felton. And if Uckfield hadn’t been in such a hurry to dismiss him, then Horton would have told him about a possible link with the missing prisoner, though he thought the chances of this being laid at Felton’s door were remote. Still, a lead was a lead . . . His mind veered back to Venetia Trotman. ‘I suppose she could have sold the jewellery to pay her bills after her husband died.’

‘Well, she didn’t use the money for her central heating, that house is as cold as a Siberian winter. My toes might have dropped off for all I know. I long ago stopped having any feeling in them. If her husband left her penniless then why not sell up and move into a smaller place?’

‘Perhaps she was in the process of doing that, though she didn’t mention it.’ But there was no reason why she should. Just because there wasn’t a ‘For Sale’ board outside the house didn’t mean it wasn’t on the market. They could check the estate agents, and who had handled her late husband’s probate. It’s not your case, he told himself sternly. Uckfield had made that quite clear. And to be fair, he knew that Sergeant Trueman would probably already be on to it without any prompting from Uckfield or Neanderthal Man. But there were several things bothering Horton.

He said, ‘Did anything strike you about her clothes, Barney?’

‘Not enough of them,’ Cantelli replied promptly. ‘In my experience women have wardrobes full of the stuff. Charlotte even bags things up, labels them and sticks them in the loft. I guess the victim could have done that, we didn’t check.’

‘Marsden’s team will.’

‘But somehow I can’t see it. It was as if she’d had a good clear-out, and not only of her husband’s clothes. So maybe she
was
selling up, and has somewhere else to live, which is why she was also selling the boat.’

Horton agreed it was possible. Whatever the situation with Venetia Trotman, he hoped Uckfield would get to the bottom of it and find her killer, and so too did the anonymous caller, whoever and wherever he was.

Cantelli dropped him off at the station, again offering to accompany him to his meeting with Rookley, which Horton again declined. ‘No point in us both getting colder and wetter,’ he said.

There was no sign of Walters in the CID office, so he’d probably gone home. There was also, thankfully, no sign of Bliss. He wasn’t going to complain about that. As he reached his office his phone rang. It was the front desk. ‘There’s a Mr Neil Danbury here to see you, sir.’

Horton was surprised and hopeful. Danbury must have information on his brother-in-law, Luke Felton; why else would he have taken the trouble to call in, uninvited?