Undercurrent (3 page)

Horton said, ‘What time did you get home?’

‘Just after three, and then I might just as well not have bothered. Couldn’t sleep.’ And Horton knew why.

He addressed the other man at the station canteen table. ‘And what excuse have you got, DC Walters, for showing us your tonsils.’

‘Sorry, Guv.’ Walters quickly stifled his yawn by shovelling a fork of baked beans into his mouth. ‘Late night too,’ he mumbled.

‘I gathered that and it certainly wasn’t working.’

‘But I was on the job,’ Walters said with a sly smile.

Horton eyed the fat, sloppily dressed detective constable in the crumpled pale blue shirt that stretched over a wobbling paunch and a tie that didn’t quite do up around his fleshy neck and couldn’t imagine any woman fancying him, but then there was no accounting for taste. He didn’t want to hear about Walters’ love life; that would be enough to put him off his breakfast, lunch and dinner. Addressing Cantelli he said, ‘What did Dr Price say?’

‘Nothing. We got his stand in, Dr Freemantle.’

Horton didn’t know him.

‘Looked as though he should still be at school.’

‘That’s just you getting old.’

‘Tell me about it!’ Cantelli said vehemently. ‘At least he was young, fit and sober. Price would never have managed that climb down into Number One Dock. Dennings didn’t even bother.’

‘Got X-ray eyes now, has he?’ Horton muttered.

‘No, he just waited for the fire service to hoist the body up strapped on their ladder thing and then he looked at it.’

‘What about the scene of crime officers?’ Horton asked. ‘What did Phil Taylor have to say?’

‘Nothing. They didn’t come. Dennings told me to ring them and tell them not to bother. Too wet and not much point for a suicide.’

‘What!’ cried Horton incredulously. It was sloppy procedure and the dead man and his family deserved better than this curt dismissal. He’d noticed that Dennings’ car hadn’t been in the station car park and neither had there been any sign of Uckfield’s BMW. The doctor’s opinion must have persuaded Dennings that the death wasn’t suspicious, but ending up in that dock in the dark was suspicious enough for Horton to have summoned the entire circus. As far as the Major Crime Team were concerned it was clearly the end of the story, but not for him and not for CID.

Cantelli added, ‘I called Clarke though, and made sure we got some photos before the fire boys brought him up. Clarke’s probably emailed them over by now.’

‘Good. So what did Dr Freemantle have to say?’ Horton mopped up his fried egg with a thick wodge of bread and butter. His arteries would have to take a chance on it.

‘There was no evidence that Spalding had been stabbed, shot or strangled, although Freemantle said it was difficult to be one hundred per cent certain because of the conditions.’

‘Hedging his bets?’

‘Yeah, he said his job was to pronounce death and Spalding was clearly that. Think he must have been taking lessons from Dr Price, and he didn’t seem to like getting wet either, just like Price. Freemantle said that the probable cause of death was severe trauma caused by the fall. And as there was no indication that the fence had been breached, Dennings concluded that Spalding had climbed onto or over it and thrown himself off the side of the dock.’

‘And what did his wife say?’

Cantelli pushed away his empty plate and wrapped his hands around his mug of tea as though his fingers were cold, even though the morning was hot and sultry. The rain had finally stopped about two a.m. The crowded canteen was stuffy despite the windows being open and the smell of sweat, probably emanating from Walters opposite him, mingled with that of fried food.

‘She’s a nice woman,’ Cantelli said sorrowfully. ‘Boy of ten, girl of eight. I saw their photographs in the living room. Poor kids.’ He shook his head sadly, his fingers tightened on the mug. Taking a breath, he continued more crisply, ‘She said that her husband had been looking forward to giving the lecture and there were no signs that he was depressed or ill. I asked her why she didn’t go; she said that she never went to his talks. They were part of her husband’s job and he didn’t need her there.’

‘Or didn’t want her there.’ Horton sat back, his breakfast finished. His head felt a little clearer now but the niggle that had tormented him last night about Spalding’s death was still there. So far Cantelli’s report hadn’t provoked it into the daylight.

Cantelli said, ‘I thought that perhaps she has to stay at home because of the children but her widowed father-in-law, Ronald Spalding, lives with them in an apartment in the basement. The house is one of those four-storey Victorian residences just off Southsea seafront, not far from the Canoe Lake. Mrs Spalding was more worried about how he was going to take the news of his son’s death than concerned for herself.’

Walters looked up. ‘Perhaps the old boy’s doolally and she doesn’t trust him to babysit the kids.’

‘I didn’t see him, so maybe he is. Mrs Spalding said she’d break the news to him. She said that her husband usually walked to work at the university unless it was raining and he walked there yesterday morning, leaving the house just after ten o’clock.’

‘Nice hours for some,’ mumbled Walters.

Cantelli said, ‘It’s the holidays; Spalding didn’t need to go into the university but Mrs Spalding said there was some paperwork he wanted to attend to. He told her he would go straight from there to his lecture, which was scheduled to start at seven o’clock with a drinks reception on board HMS
Victory
just as Neil Gideon told us. He was going to get a taxi home. His house keys were zipped up in his inside jacket pocket along with a mobile phone but there wasn’t much left of that.’

‘Did he call her during the day?’

‘No, and she says he didn’t call his father either. They all went for a picnic in the New Forest.’

‘Was it usual for him not to call her?’ Horton swallowed some coffee.

‘Yes. When he was working on a research project he became so engrossed that he often lost track of the time.’

‘And he’s currently working on some research.’

‘According to Mrs Spalding he always is.’

Horton nodded. They would get Spalding’s mobile telephone number and check his calls, texts and emails to see if there was a message explaining why he was ending it all,
if
he was, and Horton wasn’t sure about that. That uncomfortable feeling between his shoulder blades told him this was more than a suicide.

‘So what was this lecture about?’

‘Something to do with women serving in the Royal Navy, but more than that Mrs Spalding said she didn’t know.’

And Horton couldn’t see why it should have any bearing on Spalding’s death. ‘Did Dr Freemantle give any idea of time of death?’

‘Only to say that it had probably occurred within the last two hours because there was no sign of rigor.’

Which bore out what the paramedic had said. ‘Remind me what time the body was discovered?’

Cantelli reached for his notebook from the pocket of his jacket hanging on the back of his chair. Consulting it he said, ‘Gideon found Dr Spalding’s body at ten thirty-five p.m., which according to Dr Freemantle puts Spalding’s death at eight thirty-five but Gideon says Spalding would only have just finished his lecture and must have been in the naval museum at that time, tucking into his prawn vol au vents and making polite conversation with members of the audience who had stayed for the refreshments.’

Walters belched loudly. ‘Don’t like that buffet food, it’s neither here nor there.’

‘No one’s asking you to reconstruct the crime and sample it. Go on, Barney.’

‘Gideon doesn’t know what time Spalding left the museum, we need to check that with Julie Preston, but we can assume he left before she did, which was at ten minutes past ten, and she signed out of the naval base gate at ten fourteen.’ Cantelli took two pieces of paper from his pocket and spread them on the canteen table. ‘This list is the one Newton gave me of those who signed out of the Victory Gate, who left on foot or by bicycle. The other is from the security office at the naval base entrance, Unicorn Gate, of those who left by car.’

Horton glanced down at the latter and saw Julie Preston’s signature.

Cantelli continued. ‘On Newton’s list the last person who signed out at nine thirty is a man called Ivor Meadows and it’s his signature that is sprawled over the row on which Spalding would have signed. So if Spalding left the museum after the last guest, Ivor Meadows, that puts his death between nine thirty and ten thirty-five, when Gideon discovered the body.’

Horton considered this. ‘So it seems more than likely that Spalding went immediately to the dock after leaving the museum and threw himself off.’

‘He might have hung around a bit for a final fag,’ Walters suggested, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin.

Cantelli replied. ‘He didn’t smoke. I asked Mrs Spalding.’

‘Maybe he did but lied to her,’ Walters answered. ‘Or perhaps he needed a cigarette to steady his nerves before throwing himself into the dock.’

Horton said, ‘And as SOCO haven’t been down there we won’t know if there are any cigarette butts lying around.’

But Cantelli was looking puzzled. ‘No cigarette packet was found on the body and I can’t see Spalding flicking his fag into the dock. Surely being a naval historian, he’d have had more respect for a museum piece like that M33.’

‘What’s so special about it?’ Walters asked.

‘It’s a monitor that was used for coastal bombardment. Built in 1915 it saw action at Gallipoli and was then used to help the White Russians in the White Sea in 1919.’

‘Who?’ asked Walters.

‘The White Russians were an anti-Communist army and opponents of the Red Army,’ Cantelli explained. ‘They fought the Russian Civil War from 1917 until 1921. Britain was one of their supporters. I looked it up this morning,’ he added at Horton’s surprised glance. ‘Well I said I couldn’t sleep.’

Walters looked none the wiser and Horton wasn’t going to elaborate although he knew nothing about the conflict. They didn’t have time for history lessons.

‘What made Gideon look in Number One Dock for Spalding? It’s not the sort of place you’d expect to find someone at that time of night.’

‘Gideon says he was just checking everywhere around the museum and happened to shine his torch into the dock.’

Horton didn’t much care for Gideon’s answer but it was probably true.

‘He claims he didn’t hear a cry or the sound of a body striking the concrete but then he wouldn’t have done because, as we know, it was very wet and windy.’

‘What time did Spalding arrive?’

‘He signed in at six p.m. Mrs Spalding said he always liked to arrive early to give himself plenty of time to prepare for his lectures.’

Horton visualized Spalding getting ready to present his lecture, standing at the lectern, testing the microphone, shuffling his notes. Or perhaps setting up his presentation on a laptop computer. Of course! That’s what had been bugging him. Swiftly he recalled the body in the dock and the area surrounding it. Where was Spalding’s briefcase? Surely he must have had one. Could it be wedged under the Monitor? Or perhaps it had landed on that old ship as Spalding had fallen clasping it. He asked if Cantelli had seen one, knowing the answer must be negative otherwise he’d have mentioned it.

Cantelli confirmed this, adding, ‘And I didn’t think to ask Mrs Spalding whether her husband carried one. I’m taking her to the mortuary at nine thirty for a formal identification of her husband’s body. I’ll ask her on the way.’

Horton rose, picked up his helmet, draped his leather jacket over the same arm and, gripping his breakfast tray with his free hand, slid it into the trolley close by. Another thought struck him: perhaps Spalding hadn’t had a briefcase anyway – maybe he’d simply put his presentation on a memory stick and the museum had provided a laptop to plug it into. No memory stick had been found in his possession but something so small could easily have fallen from Spalding’s pocket as he’d crashed down into the dock. And that meant it could be anywhere.

Heading out of the canteen towards the CID office Horton addressed Cantelli. ‘Get SOCO down to the dockyard and ask the fingerprint bureau to send someone. We might still get some prints from the fence where Spalding fell.’

Walters, waddling behind them, said, ‘You think he was pushed, Guv?’

Did he
? He wasn’t sure but that itch between his shoulder blades continued to irritate him. ‘Get some background on him. Also call the university and find out if there is anyone there we can speak to about him.’ To Cantelli he said, ‘Let me have a copy of those signing-out logs. Did you get anything else on Spalding?’

‘Only that he was forty-one, and had been married fourteen years.’

‘Happily?’

‘Seems so.’

Cantelli’s answer reminded Horton too painfully of his own marriage, which had been officially terminated four days ago. Only when the letter had arrived had it really sunk in that his twelve-year marriage was over and that he was once again single. Some men would have cracked open a bottle of champagne or gone out on the town. He’d gone sailing to Guernsey in search of the last known sighting of Edward Ballard. Apart from meeting up with an old friend, Inspector John Guilbert of the States of Guernsey Police, it had been a fruitless exercise. No one at the marina in St Peter Port had any idea where Ballard had gone or what he’d done while staying there. In fact no one at St Peter Port marina even remembered him.

Leaving Cantelli and Walters to their tasks Horton crossed to his office and pushed open the door. His heart sank at the state of his desk. Piled with paperwork and files, it appeared to have become the dumping ground for every investigation in the county of Hampshire. He reckoned he must have his boss DCI Lorraine Bliss’s share of files too. Thankfully she was on a leadership course at Bramshill, hence his debrief in the canteen, of which she would have heartily disapproved. Tomorrow she’d be back though, no doubt spouting forth some management claptrap she’d learnt on the course and making his life as difficult as possible. His view of policing was as far removed from hers as it could be; he’d never been a desk johnny while Bliss positively cosseted hers. She’d made it clear that as soon as she could rid her team of him and Walters she would do so but government cutbacks and a promotion freeze had thwarted her ambitions to replace them. Cantelli was spared the chop because she needed some continuity, but Walters she deemed stupid and lazy, an opinion with which Horton, reluctantly, couldn’t help but agree.