Death Surge (25 page)

As they approached, Uckfield looked up with a grim expression on his florid face. One of the SOCOs handed them scene suits, which they rapidly donned before entering the inner cordon. The drone of the motorway traffic filled the air, and some short distance from where they were standing and to the left Horton could see the blackened grass and bracken on the bank from the previous fire.

Uckfield came off his phone and nodded a glum greeting at them. In silence they made towards the lifeless heap that lay under the black plastic sheeting. Jim Clarke stepped aside. The stench emanating from the body was overwhelming and sickening. It stuck in Horton’s throat, almost making him want to retch. Cantelli, ashen faced, was rapidly chewing his gum.

‘Ready?’ Horton addressed Cantelli.

Cantelli nodded and tensed.

Uckfield pulled back the sheeting. Horton gave a sharp intake of breath and heard Cantelli do the same. Then he turned away. Horton heard him taking several deep breaths, which would be little comfort because the stench of the corpse was overpowering.

Quietly, Horton said, ‘It’s Tyler Godfray.’

‘You’re sure?’ Uckfield peered at the distorted, dirty and sodden face.

‘Positive.’ Decomposition wasn’t advanced, and the marine life in the salt water moat hadn’t had time to make a meal of the face, but even despite that the whitened skin of the corpse, which was covered with silt and weeds, was disgusting enough to view. There was no doubting it was Tyler Godfray though. They also had a description from Tyler’s foreman, Len, of what Tyler had worn into work on Tuesday morning before putting on his white overalls. They were the same clothes Horton could see now: jeans, a pale-blue T-shirt and white trainers.

Cantelli, clearly fighting to keep control of himself, turned back and confirmed it. There was no obvious sign of cause of death that Horton could see. The skull seemed to be intact, although he couldn’t see the back of the head, and there was no blood on the clothes or any wound to indicate stabbing or shooting. God knew how Karen Godfray was going to take this news. Very badly indeed.

Replacing the protective covering, Uckfield said, ‘Dr Clayton’s on her way.’ They stepped away from the corpse and returned to where Uckfield had been sitting, but they all remained standing. Horton relayed the outcome of his meeting with Dr Needham, drawing first a scowl from Uckfield followed by raised eyebrows and clear disbelief while Cantelli looked on as though in a state of shock.

‘You believe that!’ Uckfield declared, making it clear that he didn’t.

Horton felt like snapping that he didn’t know what the hell to believe any longer, but he said to Cantelli, ‘Anyone spring to mind?’

‘Not immediately.’

To Uckfield, Horton said, ‘I think Sergeant Cantelli should return to the station and review his cases. He should also check with the prison service to see who has been released over the last three years and cross-reference them against his files to see if anyone fits the profile. We should also check if anyone has died in prison during that time, or possibly shortly after being released, who has a relative who might also fit the profile. Steve, we’ve got to consider everything. We might not have much time.’

After a moment Uckfield gave a curt nod. Horton felt relieved that Cantelli would be fully occupied and away from the scene. And Cantelli looked eager to start. He said, ‘If this is being done to get at me, then how did the killer discover that Johnnie was my nephew? It was never mentioned in the newspaper reports at the trial, and he doesn’t even have the same surname.’

Horton rapidly thought. He didn’t think it had been recorded on the paperwork that the sailing charity had either, but he would check. ‘Kyle Proctor was given a custodial sentence for the arson attack and sent to a secure centre for young offenders for eighteen months. Find out who he served with and if anyone has a connection with you, Barney, or your family, or if anyone who was serving time with Kyle has been convicted since and has a link to you. Also check out Kyle Proctor’s family – find out who is alive, where they are and what they’re doing.’

Uckfield scratched his leg and made to speak but Horton quickly continued: ‘It could be someone on the sailing circuit, because that’s how they would have managed to befriend Johnnie,’ and that brought him back to Go About. He added, ‘I still believe that Johnnie was with this person on the sixteenth of July and probably on several other occasions, and that Johnnie has been persuaded into keeping his meetings with this person secret so that the killer could execute his plan.’ He recalled what Dr Needham had said. ‘There could be two of them involved in this. A woman, who has lured Johnnie into a trap, and possibly lured Tyler and Stuart. And a man, to lug these bodies here and deposit them.’

Uckfield said, ‘Unless Ryan and Tyler came here willingly because they thought they were on to a good thing with this woman.’

Horton agreed. ‘I’d like to check the Go About files, to see if Johnnie’s relationship to Cantelli is listed.’

‘You’re still after Masefield for this?’

Horton shrugged. ‘I’ll see if Don will give me a list of everyone who has been through that charity since Johnnie was there, including the service and ex service personnel, and then we can cross-reference it against Cantelli’s list.’

They could apply for a warrant, but that would take time. And so would checking the lists. Horton just hoped they’d get a breakthrough before Stuart Jayston’s or Johnnie’s body showed up. And it wouldn’t be here, because Uckfield would keep this area sealed off. The only problem was they couldn’t keep it sealed off forever.

He looked up to see Dr Clayton heading towards them. Within minutes she was in a scene suit, and after giving them a brief nod and dashing an empathetic glance at Cantelli she began examining the body.

‘Can I move his head?’ she asked, bending down.

‘You can turn him over if you like.’ Uckfield nodded at one of the nearby officers also wearing a scene suit to help. Horton watched as she examined the back of the head and upper torso, and again she studied the victim’s neck. Cantelli chewed his gum and kept his eye focused on the corpse.

‘Where was he found?’ she asked, straightening up.

Uckfield answered, ‘Face down on the bank just in the corner of the moat.’

‘Was the entire body submerged?’

‘No, just the head and upper torso. His lower torso and legs were on the bank. The officer who was first on the scene checked for a pulse in the neck and then called in. Clarke’s got photographs of the original position of the body, which he’ll send over to you. He’s only just been moved and turned over for ID purposes.’

‘You know who he is?’ She flashed a look at Cantelli.

He nodded and, with an edge of sharpness to disguise his pain, said, ‘It’s another of the lads that Johnnie used to associate with.’

‘Just like the first victim.’

Cantelli nodded.

Gaye eyed him sadly before more briskly addressing them all. ‘I can’t give you an exact time of death or the cause but from my initial examination I’d say he’s been dead about twelve to fourteen hours, but that is approximate.’

Which put it some time between five thirty and nine thirty last night. But Tyler had gone missing on Tuesday, so where had he been before showing up here?

Gaye said, ‘Probable cause of death is asphyxiation, similar to your last victim, but this asphyxiation is most probably due to drowning. Until I conduct the autopsy, though, I won’t know that for certain. I’ll do it as soon as I have the body in the mortuary. There are no obvious signs of a struggle and no wounds, but he could have been drugged or intoxicated which would have made it easier for him to drown.’

Uckfield eyed her, frowning. ‘You’re saying he either drank or took drugs or both and then fell in and drowned? Accidental death?’

She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘No, Detective Superintendent Uckfield, that is not what I am saying. I leave that to you to conjecture and investigate. But his killer could have drugged him and then left him to drown. I will give you my findings as soon as I have them later today.’

She again threw a sympathetic gaze at Cantelli before marching off.

Uckfield said, ‘Want another look at him?’

They both declined.

As they divested themselves of their scene suits Horton watched Dr Clayton’s slim, petite figure climb the steps to the top of the bastion. His gaze travelled from her to the large grass bank to the right and the mounds of earth in front of the bricked-up bastions. Something pricked at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t grasp it. His thoughts turned to Karen Godfray. Someone was going to have to break the news to her, and in the circumstances he didn’t think he’d be the best person to do so. With her already blaming him and Cantelli for her son’s disappearance, she was bound to believe they had led him to his death. Uckfield agreed and said he’d send Agent Eames with DC Marsden.

‘Will DCS Sawyer allow that?’ Horton queried as they climbed the steps to the top of the bastion. He suspected that Uckfield wanted Eames out of the way so that Trueman could continue his researches into the jewellery thefts, along with Xander Andreadis and Masefield and his crew, without her knowing.

‘I don’t care what he allows. If she’s part of the investigation then she can bloody well take the rough with the rest of us. All she’s done is sit on her pretty arse and fiddle with her computer.’

Horton was almost stung to defend her but he knew that would only goad Uckfield into making cheap jibes about him fancying her. Uckfield wasn’t strictly correct, because Horton knew that Trueman and Eames had been logging, analysing and filtering all the incoming enquiries from the house-to-house team, in addition to which she was still directing the investigations at Andreadis’s end and examining evidence from the jewellery robberies … when she wasn’t spending time with Stevington, he thought, roughly pushing that aside. But he knew that Uckfield viewed her as Sawyer’s spy, and he didn’t care for that or for being mistrusted. And Horton didn’t blame him.

At the top of the bastions Horton turned back and surveyed the scene. He could see the undertakers moving towards the body. Suddenly, the thought that had eluded him a moment ago came to him. ‘The bastions below us are bricked up, but perhaps our killer found a way in. If Ryan came here willingly, perhaps Johnnie did too. We need to search inside all the bastions in case he was brought here last Wednesday and is being held here.’

Surely the killer would guess they’d do a search? But they hadn’t after Ryan’s body had been found, and perhaps the killer was counting on the fact they wouldn’t do so again.

Cantelli looked as though he’d like to volunteer for the job, but he said nothing. Horton knew he’d reckon that his time would be better spent tracking back through his cases.

As they began the descent to the car park Uckfield said, ‘I’ll get Dennings on to that and to organize a fingertip search of the area. Bliss can organize another press conference. The media are going to have a field day with this, and they’re bound to make the connection between Ryan Spencer and Tyler Godfray and dig up the past.’ He threw a look at Cantelli.

‘I’ll warn the family,’ he tersely replied.

Horton saw that several of the media had already gathered beyond the cordon, and they began shouting questions at them as they reached the small car park. Uckfield growled that he’d make a statement at midday.

In the car on the way back to the station Horton rang Sergeant Elkins and asked him to find out where Masefield and his team had been last night. ‘All of them,’ he stressed. ‘But try not to make it too obvious that you’re interested.’ He briefed him as to what had happened. ‘I want to know who they mixed with, who they talked to. Find out if anyone went on-board their yacht when they returned from racing.’ He hadn’t seen anyone when he’d been there, but that had only been for a few minutes. Masefield could have given instructions to the killer by phone if this was down to him.

When he came off the phone, Cantelli said, ‘I’ve never had any dealings with Masefield or any of his crew.’

Horton glanced across the creek and the moat to where Ryan and now Tyler’s bodies had been found. He said, ‘Get Walters to help you check through your case files. I’ll call you if I get anything from Don.’

Collecting his Harley, Horton headed for Gosport and Haslar Marina.

D
on Winscom wasn’t in his office, and it was locked. With irritation Horton hoped he wasn’t out sailing or had decided to take a yacht with a team across to Cowes, because that would delay matters and he knew that time was fast running out for both Stuart and Johnnie. Perhaps it had already, just as it had for poor Tyler Godfray. He didn’t envy Harriet Eames the task of breaking such tragic news to Karen Godfray. It wasn’t exactly the news the Jaystons wanted to hear either. Bliss would appoint an officer to liaise with them.

He went in search of Winscom in the marina, heading for the pontoon where he knew the charity’s two sailing yachts were usually kept, mulling over what he’d just witnessed on the bank of the moat. He wondered how Tyler had got to the area. Had his killer picked him up close to the property where he’d been working on Tuesday and taken him somewhere, and once there had kept him drugged until he was ready to kill him and transport him to the Hilsea Lines? Or had the killer arranged to meet Tyler at the place where he had kept him prisoner, which was where Stuart (and possibly Johnnie) were being held until it was time to dispose of them? Could Tyler have met his killer on a boat in the Camber? He rang Trueman and asked him to get a couple of officers down there asking around.

He felt an annoying niggle at the edges of his mind. Why that area? Was it because it was a good place to hide someone? Or did it have some other significance apart from the fact that Cantelli and his brother had played there as children? Could this vendetta against Cantelli go back years? He’d only asked him to look back at his cases for three years. What had Dr Needham said?
This could be years in the hatching.
And if that were the case, Horton didn’t hold out much hope of coming up with the killer in time to save two more lives. He knew the thought was churning up Cantelli.