Suffocating Sea (26 page)

A walker on Rhossili Down had spotted the clothes and seen a woman in the sea. He had immediately alerted the rescue services, but by the time they reached her she was gone. What remained of her body was washed up two weeks later. The verdict was that she took her own life whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed.

He asked Marsden to take over Cantelli’s task of looking into any possible connection between Rowland Gilmore and Anne Schofield, pleased to see that the files from the Dean’s office had finally arrived, and was about to leave for his office when Trueman called him back.

‘Andy, I might have something for you. Peters rang the coroner to ask for the report on Hassingham’s death and managed to get some information over the telephone. There’s a sister.’

Now, why hadn’t Sebastian mentioned her? Maybe she was dead? But Trueman had said
is
. So perhaps she had emigrated, or was living in Scotland, and Sebastian hadn’t thought it worthwhile bringing her up. Horton swiftly recalled the interview with Gilmore. Gilmore had interrupted him when he had expressed his surprise at Hassingham being buried at sea. ‘His
mother’s
wishes,’ Gilmore had said, not his
family’s.
And Mrs Hassingham had died eight months after the tragedy. Because of that Horton hadn’t probed to find out if there was anyone else. He should have asked, though he didn’t think she would be able to add anything to the case.

‘Do you have an address?’ he asked, not very hopeful.

‘Not yet, but I know where you can find her.’

Something in Trueman’s tone alerted Horton. Narrowing his eyes he peered at the sergeant. ‘Where?’

‘You asked me to do a company search on Gilmore before the economic crime unit took it over. A copy of his latest accounts are on their way to us, but I got a summary of them online. They all look perfectly above aboard . . .’

‘And?’ Horton asked impatiently, waiting for the punch line and thinking this had better be good.

‘Janice Hassingham works for Sebastian Gilmore. She’s his financial director.’

Was she indeed! That was twice Sebastian Gilmore had kept silent about the Hassingham connection: why? Horton was deeply interested, very curious and highly suspicious.

And he guessed it was time to find out why Sebastian hadn’t thought to mention her in their earlier interview.

Nineteen

Monday: 4.45 p.m.

‘Why this interest in Warwick, Inspector?’ Janice Hassingham eyed him warily, as she nodded him into the seat opposite her untidy desk piled high with files and paper.

‘My brother’s been dead for thirty years.’

She wasn’t what Horton had expected. Instead of being slim, smart and businesslike she was a short, shapeless, middle-aged woman in dull unfashionable clothes. Her straight, cropped grey hair accentuated the determined cast of her coarse-featured face and was marked with the scars of teenage acne and the lines of late middle age.

Her rather small office was crammed with box files and grey, dented filing cabinets – the kind that could be bought cheap from any ex-government surplus auction – and it over-looked the harbour. Beyond her he could see the cranes reaching over the quayside, and from the open window came the bleeping of a forklift truck below.

Sebastian Gilmore wasn’t there and Horton was rather glad about that. He didn’t want to explain why he had come to see Janice Hassingham, not until he had some more information.

And he wanted to delay the moment when Sebastian realized he’d not been roasted alive. The security man at the reception desk had told Horton that Sebastian was at a conference in London with the Department of the Environment, Fishery and Rural Affairs. Horton had great difficulty envisaging Sebastian Gilmore stuck in an air-conditioned hotel conference room sipping mineral water and listening to officials waffle on about quotas.

Selina’s Mercedes wasn’t in the car park either; the security man said she was at a meeting and wasn’t expected back until the afternoon. So that left him with a clear field.

Watching Janice Hassingham closely, he said, ‘You may have heard about the death of a man at Horsea Marina, Tom Brundall.’

He noticed a slight reaction, which she covered by shifting some papers on her desk. Was it nerves or did that gesture hide some deeper emotion, he wondered. ‘And, of course, the Reverend Rowland Gilmore’s death, Sebastian’s brother . . .’

Her eyes flashed up at him and quickly away again. ‘You’re interested because at one time they all worked together.’

‘Yes.’ For a moment he thought there was something vaguely familiar about her. He couldn’t say what it was or why but he had the impression that he knew her from somewhere. ‘I’ve read the report on your brother’s accident. He was a brave man.’

‘No, Inspector, he was a foolish man.’

The bitterness of her reply took him back and at the same time intrigued him. He was confident though he betrayed nothing of his feelings and was assured of this when she continued in the same crisp tone.

‘The rescue helicopter would have reached the other man.

Warwick should have waited, but he always was impulsive.’

She frowned and glanced at her computer screen as the tell-tale pinging of an e-mail message popped into her in-box.

She quickly fiddled with her mouse. He got the impression that she was trying to convey he was interrupting her in something far more important than her brother’s death, but he saw beyond the façade. In front of him was a sad, lonely woman whose only solace he suspected was her work.

‘I won’t keep you long,’ he said. ‘I just need some background. It helps in cases like this.’ He smiled reassuringly, though he needn’t have bothered; Janice Hassingham had become immune to charm and perhaps even to kindness. ‘Do you recall Tom Brundall and Rowland Gilmore?’

‘Of course I do.’ She spoke curtly yet her eyes betrayed her. So that was it! Which of them had she been in love with, Horton wondered.

‘Tell me about them.’ He crossed his legs and settled back in his chair as if he had all day to chat. For a moment he glimpsed irritation before sadness touched her face and he could see that the opportunity to talk about a past love was too great to let pass.

‘Tom was quite a bit older than me. I was twenty when Warwick died, Tom was thirty-five. He was a quiet man and very clever.’ So it was Brundall she had hankered after, but had her passion been reciprocated? Perhaps not. Or had they been lovers and Brundall had ditched her when he’d taken off? ‘Rowley was the youngest of the four. He was three years younger than Sebastian and twenty-four when Warwick died.’

‘You’ve got a good memory for figures.’

‘I should have. I’m the company accountant.’

He smiled but she didn’t return the gesture, not because she was hostile, he thought, but because she was cautious. It was as though she had to hold herself in for fear of saying something that might show her true feelings.

‘Rowley was also quiet but in a reserved way, not like Tom, who was so knowledgeable, yet he never bragged about it.

He had a great head for figures. I remember him once—’ But she stopped as though she was about to confess something important.

‘Yes?’

‘He was very good at forecasting the stock market.’

That wasn’t what she had been about to say, but he let it go.

She added, ‘I understand he made a lot of money after leaving the fishing industry. I’m not surprised.’

And maybe she glimpsed a life that she had missed out on.

Did she blame her brother for that? He guessed so.

‘And Warwick, what was he like?’ Horton prompted, watching her carefully. A shadow crossed her face.

‘Mad, is how I think most people would describe him. But Warwick was never one for doing the safe thing. Even as a child he used to worry our poor mum half to death with his antics. He was always getting into scrapes. Oh, nothing against the law, he just liked adventure – jumping off the end of the pier and risking his life, that kind of thing. But Warwick always got away with it. It was quite in character for him to try and rescue that man in the middle of a storm. It would never have crossed his mind that
he
might be swept overboard and drowned.’

She spoke with bitterness and not sadness. Oh, yes, Warwick had cocked up her life, or at least that was how she saw it.

And if he was that daring, then maybe he was into smuggling drugs, with the others. What had Janice said? ‘
He always got
away with it.
’ On 15 August 1977 he hadn’t.

Horton left a moment’s pause before asking, ‘How did the others take his death?’

She scowled at her papers, glanced fleetingly at him and away again before saying, ‘They were devastated, of course.

It took Sebastian days to get Rowley back on the boat, and even Tom didn’t seem to have the heart for fishing anymore.

He became very withdrawn. I think that was when Rowley first got religious, though the deaths of his daughter and wife were the final blow.’

‘How do you know about that?’

Her head came up and she looked directly at him. ‘Sebastian told me. I suppose religion gave Rowley some kind of crutch.

My mother turned to spiritualism, for all the good it did her.

She died within a year of Warwick’s death. Our father was already dead. It was just before my twenty-first birthday when Warwick died. Not much to celebrate, Inspector.’

He could see how much she resented her brother’s death, and guessed that over the years she had come to blame it (and him) for all her misfortunes. That resentment had spawned bitterness, which had burrowed inside her and taken root so that it had become
her
crutch.

‘How long have you worked for Sebastian Gilmore?’

‘Twenty-seven years. He gave me a job as soon as I qualified as an accountant and I’ve been here ever since.’

‘You like it?’

‘Sebastian has been very good to me, and with the expansion of his business I’ve gained promotion. Yes, I like it.’

‘Do you recall the man they rescued: Peter Croxton?’

‘Not really. He didn’t come to the funeral.’

That more or less confirmed what Sebastian had said. So why hadn’t Croxton attended the funeral of the man who had risked his life for him, and been killed as a result? There seemed only one explanation to Horton and that was he couldn’t afford to be seen in public and with that fishing crew.

There seemed little more Janice could tell him about Warwick’s death but there was something else that he needed to explore.

‘Did your brother have any girlfriends?’

‘A stream of them. They were attracted to him like flies round a dung heap.’

Interesting analogy. People usually said bees round a honey pot. Was that how she saw her brother: he was nothing but a pile of shit and the women ugly flies? Jealousy, bitterness and hatred had eaten away at this woman and looked as if they were still gnawing at her.

‘Was there any particular girlfriend at the time of the tragedy?’ He could feel his heart racing as he asked the question, and waited for her answer.

‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked sharply.

‘Just routine,’ he replied blandly.

She peered at him for a moment longer then, shrugging her shoulders said, ‘There was one, a blonde woman; she was just a bit older than me. I don’t know what happened to her.’

He felt a quickening of his heartbeat as he asked, ‘Can you remember her name?’

‘No. There were so many of them.’

He tried to curb his disappointment. ‘Have you got a photograph of your brother?’

‘No. I destroyed them all after Mum died. His death killed her and I couldn’t bear to look at them.’

Pity. There had to be a picture of Warwick Hassingham somewhere and Horton had an idea of where he might find one.

He left her to her e-mails and her files, and on his way out asked both the security man at reception and the one at the gate if they recalled seeing Sebastian Gilmore on Friday night.

Both confirmed that Mr Gilmore had left the premises at eight thirty. So that put him in the clear for Anne Schofield’s murder.

When Horton suggested that seemed very late, both said it was nothing unusual for the boss to be there half the night, or all of it if he expected the fishing fleet. Interesting. Was he waiting for something special to be delivered over and above fish? Or was Horton just hoping?

He made for the library, where he asked to examine the microfiche records of the local newspaper. He felt certain they would have covered the tragedy at sea. He had just settled down to scroll through them when his mobile phone rang. He was tempted to ignore the call but recognized the number as that of his solicitor. His chest went tight as he answered it.

‘Can you talk?’ Frances Greywell began. Horton heard the uncustomary hesitation in her voice and knew this was bad news. He steeled himself for what he was about to hear.

‘What is it?’

‘I’ve had a call from Catherine’s solicitor.’

The tension inside him hardened into a ball of pain.

‘He says that Catherine is refusing you access to Emma on Wednesday on account of it being too dangerous for her to be with you at the moment. I understand that you’re on a case where someone has tried to kill you by setting fire to your boat. Is it true?’

She sounded concerned but he ignored that, as disappointment and anger overwhelmed him.

‘Hello, are you there?’

He must have grunted because she continued. ‘I insisted that this had all been agreed and that Catherine couldn’t go back on her word but I’m afraid she can if she has a legit-imate reason to think your daughter’s life might be in danger.’

Slowly Horton counted to ten, hoping to quell the anger inside him. It didn’t help. The anger was still there only now he shifted the focus of it. Who the hell had told Catherine? If it was Uckfield, he’d have him by the balls, superintendent or not.

Finally he found his voice and said, ‘Emma will be safe with me.’

‘I said that of course, and told him that whatever case you were working on, it could be over by Wednesday, but, Andy . . .’

It was the first time she had used his Christian name. There was worse to come.