Death Surge (5 page)

Suddenly, he was conscious that Emma was wriggling. He set her down, running his hand over her hair and enjoying the feel of it.

‘Are you having fun, sweetheart?’ he asked,
and without me
, he thought with anguish, recalling all the years he had been part of this and now no longer was. He so wanted her to say that she missed him or that it wasn’t the same without him, but he knew she wouldn’t remember much of what they had shared at previous Cowes Weeks, just as that memory of him with his mother evaded him. He didn’t want his daughter to be miserable and lonely without him, but part of him couldn’t help wishing that she felt at least a little sorry he wasn’t there.

‘We’ve been out on the boat every day,’ she chattered away enthusiastically. ‘Grandad’s teaching me to sail.’

Sod Grandad. It should be him! Not stiff and pompous Toby Kempton who hated Horton with a vengeance. Struggling to keep a tight rein on his bitterness, he said, ‘And you can show me how good you are when we go out again on my boat.’ He’d only managed to take her out once since he and Catherine had split up.

‘When can we go, Daddy? Before the end of school holidays?’

‘Definitely.’

‘Goody.’

‘Emma.’

Horton looked up to see Catherine heading towards them wearing a short printed summer dress that showed off one of her best assets to perfection: her legs. Her face was made-up, and she was wearing what looked to him to be expensive silver or white gold jewellery, her blonde highlighted shoulder-length hair was expertly cut.

Emma broke into an excited chatter as her mother drew level. ‘Daddy’s going to take me out on his boat before I go back to school and I can show him what Grandad’s taught me.’

Catherine’s blue eyes darted up at Horton, full of spite. He bristled. Why the hell shouldn’t he be with his daughter? What right had Catherine to prevent him?

‘There might not be time,’ she said sternly.

‘Of course there’ll be time,’ Horton said with an effort at sounding relaxed – he certainly didn’t feel it, but he didn’t want to upset Emma, or give Catherine the satisfaction of seeing he was piqued by her attitude. ‘School doesn’t start until the beginning of September.’

‘There are things to do, uniforms to buy, and don’t forget we’re going to Auntie Geraldine’s for a week,’ Catherine said to Emma, whose bottom lip pouted. Emma reached out and took Horton’s hand. He felt like saying bugger Aunt Geraldine, but Emma said it for him in her own way.

‘I don’t like Aunt Geraldine. She smells. I want to go sailing with Daddy.’

‘And you will, darling,’ he said.

‘Promise.’

‘Promise.’

‘You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep,’ Catherine said stiffly, eyeing him like he was something that had just crawled out from under a stone.

‘I don’t, Catherine,’ he evenly replied, holding her stare and feeling a minor victory when she glanced away. Then addressing Emma he said, ‘We’ll go sailing, just the two of us.’

‘You can come with us tomorrow, can’t he?’ Emma looked pleadingly up at her mother.

If only he could, but that would never happen. He saved Catherine from answering. ‘No sweetheart, I can’t. I’m working.’

Her face crumpled.

Quickly, he said, ‘But I’ll make up for it when we go sailing together. You look very pretty in your dress,’ he added, anything to delay her leaving him, and she did look gorgeous in the pink and blue patterned summer dress.

‘It’s new. We’re going to have dinner with Peter and Grandma and Grandad.’

‘Peter?’ He flashed a glance at Catherine.

‘Come on, Emma, we’ll be late.’ Catherine reached out her hand.

‘He’s Mummy’s friend. He’s quite nice, but I wish you were with us instead.’

Yes, victory at last.
Clearly, this Peter was Catherine’s new boyfriend. The last one had been a slob with a penchant for hardcore porn and sadomasochistic tendencies. He’d soon made sure to kick him out of his daughter’s life. He hoped Catherine had chosen a more suitable bed companion this time. ‘Peter who?’ he asked, but Catherine had sussed out his motives.

‘That’s enough, Emma,’ she snapped. ‘Our taxi’s arrived.’

Horton watched as it drew up at the marina entrance where Toby and Iris Kempton appeared. Their horror-stricken expressions as their eyes fell on him clearly showed he was not welcome.

Emma refused to budge though. She said, ‘Peter’s got a big motorboat. We’ve been on it a few times.’

I bet you have.
And again, in his memory, he was back on that pontoon with his mother and the man on the boat. It too had been huge, or perhaps it hadn’t been that big but had only appeared that way to a child. He couldn’t remember going out to sea on it, but he did remember playing with the wheel at the helm while his mother and this man talked. Was it Edward Ballard? It could have been.

‘Come along, Emma. We’ll be late for dinner, and Daddy’s got to work.’

Catherine made it sound as though work was something only idiots and the lower classes did, even though she worked herself as Sales and Marketing Director for her father’s marine engineering company. But Horton knew what she was implying – that she was moving in much more elevated circles than those of the lower and middle ranks of the police force. She had been ambitious for him once, but that had been before his suspension had scuppered his promotion chances.

Brightly, although he felt anything but bright, he addressed his daughter. ‘Have a lovely time, poppet, and enjoy your sailing.’ He hugged and kissed her then swiftly turned and didn’t look back.

His fury was churning inside him as he made for the police station but it slowly turned to bitterness and then regret. Feeling the dark cloud of depression threatening to settle on him he took a breath and with an effort pushed thoughts of Emma behind him. He knew that thinking about what he’d lost would poison him and the only person to suffer would be him. He had a job to do, and that was to help his closest friend find his nephew. Bewailing his past certainly wasn’t going to achieve that.

H
orton settled himself at a spare desk and computer in the small police station and was soon engrossed in his work. An hour later he had the information he needed, which he’d gleaned not only from interrogating the Internet for flights from Sardinia to England but from Sophia, who had called him on Xander Andreadis’s instructions ten minutes after he’d arrived at the station. She had apologized for not having all the details at her fingertips because she was away from her office, however her memory was excellent. He relayed what she’d told him and his findings to Cantelli over the phone.

‘Johnnie flew from Alghero to Rome, economy class, leaving Alghero at seven a.m. last Wednesday. I checked online, and the flight was scheduled to arrive in Rome at five minutes past eight. He then caught the onward flight from Rome to London Heathrow which got in at eleven thirty a.m. I put a call into the Border Agency who rang back and confirmed he was on that plane and was checked through.’

Cantelli said, ‘He didn’t tell anyone in the family that he was staying over. His line’s still dead. I tried it before you rang. I’d like to apply for access to his mobile phone records.’

Bliss wouldn’t sanction it because Johnnie’s disappearance was ranked low priority, but sod that. He’d get that changed. He agreed. Cantelli wouldn’t be able to apply for the phone records until Monday though, and if they were able to gain access to them it would still take some time first for them to come through and then to be analysed.

He said, ‘Sophia says she booked him on the London Waterloo to Portsmouth train, to arrive at Portsmouth Hard at seven minutes past four. Scott Masefield said they were due to pick him up at Oyster Quays at four thirty, so that time fits.’

‘I’ll get down to the railway station now; someone might have seen him alight.’

Horton understood Cantelli’s need for action and his sense of urgency. He was just as keen himself, but it was eight thirty and he didn’t think it would do much good because the staff who would have been on duty during the weekday might not be there now. He said as much, but Cantelli replied, ‘I still think it’s worth a try.’ He didn’t need to add
and I have to do something
because Horton knew that was what Cantelli was thinking.

He told him about the photograph Sarah Conway had given him and said he’d send it to Cantelli’s phone. Cantelli said he would also check if the railway station had the footage from the security cameras for last Wednesday and find out who the guard on Johnnie’s train had been. ‘He might remember seeing him as he walked through the carriages checking the tickets.’

Horton doubted it but he wasn’t going to discourage Cantelli. He said he would sail back to Portsmouth in the morning. ‘I’ll call in at the marina office at Oyster Quays to check if Johnnie showed up early or late and missed Masefield. There’ll be no one there now,’ he added, pre-empting Cantelli volunteering to do so after he’d been to the railway station. ‘I’ll see if the control room has a copy of the CCTV coverage for the boardwalk for Wednesday afternoon.’

‘I can do that tonight.’

Horton relented. ‘OK.’ He knew that if they had it then Cantelli would spend the night scouring the video for signs of Johnnie. But then he’d have done the same if it had been his nephew.

Cantelli added, ‘I’ll also check with the city office to see if they still have the recordings for along the Hard.’

Horton didn’t think they would unless there had been a fight or theft there that day or night. He told Cantelli to check the log, but he knew that nothing had been reported to CID because he’d have remembered, even though he and Cantelli had been embroiled in a murder investigation last Wednesday.

Cantelli said, ‘PC Allen can’t find any record of Johnnie having been admitted to any of the hospitals in and around London.’

Horton knew that wasn’t necessarily a comfort. Quite the reverse. He said, ‘Call me after you’ve been to the railway station or if anything occurs to you; it doesn’t matter what time it is.’

Cantelli said he would and rang off. Horton sat back with a worried frown. Perhaps Johnnie had never got on that train in London. And if that was the case then God help them because people could vanish without trace in the vast overcrowded city. Just as his mother had vanished in a much smaller city, Portsmouth. But Portsmouth bordered on the Solent and that could hide the dead for years, sometimes forever.

He rose and stretched his back, turning to stare out of the window at the bustling street that led down to the sea. It had grown dark. His mind travelled back to the council tower block he’d lived in with his mother. According to a neighbour Jennifer had left the flat at midday dressed up, wearing make-up and had been happy. It had been too early for her to go to work at the casino. After coming home from school and grabbing something to eat he’d sat in front of the telly and played with some toys until he was tired and it was time to go to bed. He did it often because his mother worked until the early hours of the morning, but when he awoke the next day she wasn’t there.

His stomach lurched and his fists involuntarily clenched as he recalled that night and the many others following it which he’d tried so very hard to obliterate from his memory, with some success. He didn’t want to remember because he didn’t want to feel the hurt and the emptiness of despair. Perhaps that’s what Scott Masefield meant when he said they never discussed the past. It only brought pain.

No one had thought to question why she hadn’t shown up for work that night or the nights after that. The casino owner was dead now and the business closed. Those who had worked there had scattered far and wide and would be highly unlikely to remember her. It would involve too much time tracing them, and for what? Nothing.

He sat down and retrieved the black and white photograph from the pocket of his trousers, recalling Quentin Amos’s words:
The second from the right with a beard is Antony Dormand; next to him again with a beard is Rory Mortimer …
I don’t know what happened to them or where they are now but you’ll probably be able to find out
.

Horton had checked the Police National Computer but neither man had a criminal record. He hadn’t had time to run them through the other databases to establish where they worked or even if they were still alive, but he needed to make time. He sat back frowning in thought. Something was niggling at him. What, though? Was it connected to what Amos had said about the two men or a comment that Lord Eames had made?
She was friendly with one of the men. James Royston, I think his name was.
But Amos had said none of them had been Jennifer’s lovers. Amos had believed there was someone else. Who did Horton believe? Perhaps neither of them.

He fetched a coffee from the machine in the deserted staff room and returned to his desk. He was thankful that the station was quiet and that no one was the slightest bit interested in him, probably because they were all too busy with the crowds outside. That suited him fine.

Drinking his coffee he called up the Internet and soon was reading about the devastating fire that had swept through the second storey wing of the Victorian built Goldsworth Psychiatric Hospital in Surrey in 1968 which had killed Zachary Benham and twenty-three other men. Had Benham been a patient, or had he been working there after he had left or had been expelled from the London School of Economics?

Horton read on. The fire had started in a locked secure ward, housing mainly elderly bedridden men. Zachary Benham must only have been about twenty-three. There was no indication that this was an institution for the criminally insane, and neither had Horton any intelligence that Benham had committed a crime for which he’d been judged insane and locked up – but then, he silently admitted, he had very little intelligence about him or the others. His question was only partly answered when he went on to read that it was normal practice in the 1960s to lock patients in their wards. The poor buggers didn’t stand a chance, he thought, swallowing his coffee.

Had someone had Zachary Benham committed, or had he committed himself? Had he been taking drugs, and had the drugs scrambled his brain? Perhaps the same drugs that Royston had taken and died from a year later? He’d have to do more research, and that would have to wait. It was late. He was exhausted. He shut down the computer and headed through the teeming streets towards his yacht, the happy crowds irritating him and clashing with his sombre mood. He was about to descend into the cabin when a voice on the pontoon hailed him.