Shroud of Evil (29 page)

‘Were you there, Mike?’ Horton asked.

‘No. I had two men with Chas and of course Geoff was with him.’

Geoff was the big guy standing on the pontoon keeping watch, for what Horton wasn’t quite sure. There were no marauding fans in the remote marina on a mid-October afternoon nor anyone destined to assassinate or kidnap the wealthy pop tycoon. Geoff, built like Mr T in the 1980s hit television series
The A-Team
, had been introduced as Foxton’s chauffeur, but was also obviously his bodyguard.

‘What did you talk about?’ asked Horton.

‘Can’t say I remember. I wasn’t really taking any notice. Truth is I just wanted shot of him.’

‘Didn’t you like him?’ asked Cantelli.

‘He was OK.’

‘But?’ Cantelli pressed.

‘But I’ve moved on since those days. Look, when you get to be as powerful as I am you get all sorts of people after you touting for jobs, asking for money, sidling up to you for contacts, favours … I thought Jasper wanted some of that.’

‘But he didn’t?’ asked Horton.

‘No. He just said it’s a long time, you’ve done really well, I’m pleased for you, that stuff and how are the rest of the boys in the band? I said that apart from Gary who’s made it big in property investment I have no idea – oh, except Nigel who’s a poncey actor in those all-action movies and we joked about how he’d even tremble if he saw a spider run across the floor. The others I’ve not heard from in years. I knew that Stuart was dead and that Mason had freaked out in an art gallery and booked himself into detox. Sam probably blew his mind years ago.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Yeah, big time. Coke, Heroin, LSD, the lot.’

Mr T stepped on to the boat, which bucked violently at his weight and alarmed Cantelli.

Foxton eased his portly body out from behind the table with a series of grunts. ‘I’ve got a plane to catch. I’m sorry he’s dead but like I said we weren’t close.’

Horton slid out of the seat. As the large man heaved his blubber up to the cockpit, Horton said, ‘Did you have any cause to think Kenton was ripping you off?’

‘Everyone was ripping us off,’ Foxton tossed over his shoulder. ‘I can’t see why Kenton would have been any different. He was a whizz at computers so he could have been doing anything behind our backs and creaming off money. We were earning it so fast it was impossible to keep track of it.’ He stood in the cockpit. ‘But if he did make money then he must have spent it because he didn’t look like he’d made mega bucks.’ To Cantelli he said, ‘I’ll make sure you get those autographs.’

Danby showed him off the boat, which swayed and bucked again, causing Cantelli to turn pale. ‘Did Kenton engineer that meeting?’ he asked as they watched the three men walk down the pontoon.

‘Sounds like it,’ Horton replied.

‘Perhaps he wanted to remind Foxton that he could find him if he wanted to.’

‘To put the wind up him you mean? If Kenton was putting pressure on Foxton I’m certain Foxton would have seen to it.’

‘Perhaps he did, by killing Kenton or having him killed.’ Cantelli voiced what had been going through Horton’s mind earlier. ‘Perhaps Kenton met Foxton on his boat or a boat at Oyster Quays.’

‘Not according to the marina staff.’ Horton had shown Kenton’s photograph there and drawn a blank.

‘Then here and he moved Kenton’s car into the Admiralty Towers car park when he discovered that Kenton was investigating Brett Veerman. He could have got that information from Kenton’s computer.’

‘But would Foxton be able to do that? Kenton must have set up a password.’

‘Perhaps he got it from him before killing him.’

There had been no evidence of torture on the body but it didn’t have to be physical; maybe the threat of it was enough for Kenton to tell all.

Cantelli said, ‘It would be a good way of pointing the finger at someone else. And Foxton could have had help.’

‘If Mr T parked Kenton’s car he’d stand out a mile despite any blurry video images. But Foxton could have got someone else to do his dirty work. As he said he’s a very rich man.’ Horton watched Danby shake Foxton’s hand. He headed back towards them as the two men crossed to the Bentley Continental.

‘He’s not your killer,’ Danby said, joining them on the pontoon. ‘His boat
is
in Monaco. I can give the name and details if you want to check, and he doesn’t have another boat here and neither did he borrow mine. He was at a concert in London on Thursday night until the early hours of the morning with me and there are hundreds of people who can confirm that. I had a meeting with him in the Savoy, London, in the morning where he and a couple of the acts stayed on Thursday night.’

But Foxton could have arranged to have Kenton killed as Cantelli and he had just been discussing. Horton asked Danby how Kenton and Swallows had teamed up.

‘Much as Kenton and I did. They met at a security conference. Kenton was looking to go in with someone. His skills and Eunice’s complemented one another. They’d both been working alone. Kenton had been operating in London for about a year and Eunice in Havant for about three years. After they got together Kenton moved down here and they worked for a while from Eunice’s offices in Havant and then moved to the premises in Portsmouth.’

And Horton wondered how much research Kenton had done in deciding who might be his best partner. They left Danby to shut up his boat and headed back to the car.

Cantelli said, ‘Maybe Kenton tracked down Foxton and Mason to see if they or any of the others had discovered his fraud from years ago. He could still be creaming off money from the reissuing of the CDs and DVDs and the royalties from the movie and advertisement music. He wanted to check he was in the clear.’

‘But that doesn’t explain Thelma Veerman’s death.’

‘Perhaps she witnessed Kenton’s killing.’

‘If so then why not tell me on Saturday when I interviewed her?’

‘She might have been too scared.’

‘Or perhaps she was protecting someone. And that brings us back to her husband. Kenton making contact with the band members could be a side issue. Oh, I don’t doubt he was up to something because what we
have
learned about Jasper Kenton is that everything he did was for a purpose, such as buying that boat, and behaving the way he did.’ And Horton knew that was the key to his death. He just had to find out how to use it to get to the truth, which was easier said than done.

As Cantelli pointed the car back to Portsmouth, Horton mentally ran through some of the facts, or rather the things they’d been told about Kenton. Facts they were short of. Except that Kenton
had
travelled to the Isle of Wight the week before he was killed and Kenton
had
been engaged by Thelma Veerman and
had
been investigating her husband. Eunice Swallows had confirmed this and the date when her agency had been appointed. But had Thelma Veerman lied about when she had met Kenton?

‘Barney, find out from the ferry company if Kenton travelled to the island any other times over the last year, and get the dates.’

Something Trueman had said also resonated in the back of Horton’s mind. Thelma Veerman had said that Kenton had trawled the Internet for the conferences and seminars that her husband had attended, but according to Trueman, Kenton had barely got started. If Thelma Veerman had lied about that then had she also lied about researching private investigation agencies on the Internet at the library in Ryde? Was the investigation of her husband a fabrication, a collusion between her and Jasper Kenton? Had Kenton befriended the lonely Thelma Veerman and persuaded her to hire him as a private detective? Why? The obvious answer, according to what they had just learned about the dead man, was because he needed her.

His mind was racing as it tried to pull the pieces together.
‘Everything Jasper did had a purpose and an ulterior motive.’
That’s what Petterson had said and Kenton had befriended Thelma Veerman for a reason. He’d also bought that boat and put on an act for a purpose and Horton was beginning to see what that could be. Quickly, before he could lose the thread, he voiced his thoughts to Cantelli.

‘Kenton was a crook dating back to his schoolboy days if we believe Louise Durridge, and I do. But he was a quiet crook, the kind that was very clever, and very patient. With the growth of computers, then the Internet, he learned how to manipulate information, set up multiple identities and accounts. Patiently and painstakingly he planned and plotted his career, seeking out the right people he could use to get more money from until he could disappear and begin a new life somewhere. And that’s where the boat comes in. He was going to disappear on it.’

Cantelli looked baffled. Horton didn’t blame him; he hadn’t quite worked it all out but he was close.

‘But not to sail off into the sunset.’

Cantelli caught on. ‘He was going to do a Robert Maxwell.’

The media tycoon who had disappeared from his yacht off the Canary Islands leaving behind a business empire with over three billion pounds of debt. ‘Yes, except Kenton’s body would never be found. The boat would be located drifting in the English Channel, everyone would say he’d never owned one before, knew nothing about charts and piloting a boat, and had been too damn cocky. It was a tragedy destined to happen.’

‘He’d assume a new identity.’

‘Yes, and with access to God knows how many offshore accounts with goodness knows how much money stashed away, including that from Gracious Grove and probably his former employers. But I’m betting that somewhere, in either this country or abroad, Kenton took lessons on how to handle a motor cruiser and not in his own name. Perhaps he planned to have a private light aeroplane waiting at Sandown or Bembridge airport, or he could have bought himself another large motor boat from elsewhere in the country, using a false ID and from funds in a bank account in a false name, maybe not even the name he intended ending up with. He could have several false identities and accounts set up abroad.’

‘But he ends up dead. So who killed him? Did someone find out he’d stolen from them?’

Probably. But was that enough to kill for? And why kill Thelma? Because they both knew the killer’s identity. And was that killer Brett Veerman? Did Kenton want a share in Veerman’s drugs scam or was it information he was after? Information that he thought Thelma Veerman could give him. Had her husband treated someone that Kenton was very keen to locate? And did that person have a connection with Lord Eames, hence Kenton’s body being dumped there? Was it the beachcomber, Lomas, who had led a quiet undisturbed life roaming the beach looking for flotsam and jetsam, until Kenton had shown up? Then Horton had arrived and soon Thelma was dead. Lomas hadn’t seemed afraid when Horton had met him but if he was correct and Lomas had been living in one of those three stone derelict buildings then he had cleared out pretty quickly. Lomas hadn’t known that Horton was a police officer though, not when they had met, but had someone told him that since, and could that person be Danby or Eames? If he had hindered a murder investigation and if his silence had led to the death of Thelma Veerman then it was time to take up Danby’s offer, if it would still be open after this.

‘I need to talk to Veerman again. It’s OK, Barney, I’ll go alone and I need you to say nothing about it to Uckfield. I can’t explain why yet. I don’t want you to get into trouble.’

‘You’re not going to do anything foolish?’ Cantelli said, horror-stricken.

‘I’m not going to lay one finger on him if that’s what you mean. I need to ask him about Thelma. I’ll tell you after I’ve seen him. Brief Trueman about the interviews. Find out how many times Kenton travelled to the Isle of Wight, and dig up everything you can on Sam Tandy.’

Horton stopped at the station long enough to collect his helmet and leathers from his office and to learn that Walters had identified the fly-boy painter. He’d touted for business at all three of the targeted restaurants and had been back to provide them with a quote. Horton had called out over his shoulder as he swept out of CID, ‘Bring him in for questioning.’ He made it out of the station without being stopped by Uckfield. Bliss’s car wasn’t in the station car park so she was still at the hospital overseeing the questioning of Veerman’s colleagues.

At the ferry terminal Horton dashed across to the ticket office in the heavy rain and hurried back to the Harley just as the ferry was coming into its narrow berth. He held out his ticket and watched as the marshalling steward zapped it with his hand-held electronic device and moved quickly across to the lane where cars were queuing. He seemed in a hurry. Maybe he just wanted to get out of the driving rain. Horton didn’t blame him; he was looking forward to that himself. Then something tugged at the back of his mind. It had been raining on Thursday night when Kenton had been shot. Kenton had been found dead on the Isle of Wight and his car had been discovered over here. His eyes fixed on the steward as he went hurriedly down the line of vehicles. Could it be? Was it possible?

He climbed off the Harley and hurried to the steward, reaching for his warrant card as he went. Showing it he said, ‘Don’t you check the registration number on the ticket against the vehicle?’ The steward looked uneasy and Horton could see him weighing up how much to tell him. ‘Please, it’s important. No one will get into trouble.’

‘We do mostly, but sometimes in the rain and the dark, and when we’re running late, the pressure’s on to load as quickly as we can.’

And that’s what had happened. Sometimes Kenton had used his own name and vehicle licensing number and sometimes not, choosing instead to use one of his false identities, which is what he had done on the night he was shot. Because after that night he was going to disappear. Probably on the Friday or Saturday. That last visit to the island was to make sure that the trail he left immediately before his death couldn’t be traced back there because he had been confident that he would get what he wanted from the person he was seeing, which was either Thelma Veerman or the beachcomber or perhaps both. Thelma’s job was to lure the beachcomber to a rendezvous and once there to leave him with Kenton, not knowing that Kenton would be killed.