All Quiet on Arrival (23 page)

‘I've never seen her. I told you before that my son emigrated to Australia shortly after my divorce from Diana, and has never returned. He married some Australian girl, and I've not met her. I've not been in touch with either of them. There, is that clear enough for you?' Horton put his writing pad on a table, slipped his pen into his shirt pocket and thrust his hands into his trouser pockets.

‘We've had a report from the Border Agency,' began Dave mildly, ‘that Elizabeth Horton arrived in this country on the seventeenth of July this year. She stated to the immigration officer who dealt with her at Heathrow Airport that she'd been invited to stay with you. The immigration officer said that he telephoned you to confirm this arrangement, and you agreed that this was the case.'

‘That's stuff and nonsense.' However, Horton's reaction indicated that he'd been wrong-footed by the thoroughness of our enquiries.

‘Are you saying that you did not receive such a telephone call?' persisted Dave. ‘I have to point out that serious offences might have been committed if you or your daughter-in-law made false statements to the authorities. The penalties are quite severe.'

‘Yes, Sergeant, it's true, but it came to nothing.' In the face of Dave's implied threat, Horton capitulated and sat down, indicating with a wave of his hand that we should do so as well. ‘I did receive such a phone call. I have to say that her arrival came as a complete surprise to me. I had no idea that she was coming here, and I'd certainly not heard from her in advance. No letter, no email, no phone call, nothing. But as she was married to my son, I could hardly refuse. Apart from anything else, I was interested to meet the girl who Gregory had married.'

‘When did she arrive here, Mr Horton?' I asked. ‘At this house.'

But it was Faye Horton, now more conciliatory than before, who answered. ‘She never did arrive, Chief Inspector. We're not all that far from Heathrow, as I'm sure you appreciate – fifteen miles or so – and we'd anticipated that she'd be here within an hour at the most. If we'd known in advance, one of us could have driven over to collect her. I arranged for Katya to prepare a room for her, but Elizabeth never turned up. We didn't hear from her, or of her, again. We've no idea where she went, or where she is now.'

‘Did this official at the airport mention my son, Chief Inspector?' asked Horton wearily, his mood having changed to one of contrition. ‘Was he not with her?'

‘No, he wasn't, and we've no idea whether he's in this country or still in Australia. As I told you last time we were here, he's not been seen in Blair since about the middle of July.'

‘Why are you so anxious to speak to Elizabeth, then?' asked Horton.

‘We've reason to believe that she was having an affair with Bruce Metcalfe, the man who was found murdered last Wednesday, and whom we believe murdered Diana and James Barton. We've been told by the Australian police that she and Metcalfe had a sexual relationship in Australia, although how long it lasted, if in fact it did, we don't know.' I based that statement on the information I'd received from Steve Granger.

‘A sexual relationship?'

‘I don't know why you're so surprised, Mr Horton,' I said. ‘The last time we were here, Inspector Ebdon told you that Elizabeth had a reputation in Blair as a part-time prostitute.'

‘And now you're suggesting that she came to this country to continue the affair with this Metcalfe here as well as in Australia. After she was married to my son.' Suddenly the appalling truth struck Horton. His mouth opened, and for a moment he stared at me uncomprehending. ‘Do you think it likely that she could have had something to do with Metcalfe's murder?' he asked eventually.

‘It is a possibility I'm bound to consider,' I said. ‘Scientific tests are still being carried out.'

‘Good God! But what possible reason could she have had?' Horton glanced at his wife, but Faye just shrugged, as though such a prospect came as no surprise to her. And Faye's reaction made me wonder whether Beth Horton
had
been here. Why else should Horton have lied initially? Were he and his wife covering up for Elizabeth?

‘That is something I can only resolve by speaking to her, Mr Horton. In the circumstances, I must ask you to let me know if she does contact you.' I handed him one of my cards.

Horton stared vacantly at the card, and thrust it into his pocket. ‘Of course,' he said. And then another thought occurred to him. ‘D'you think something might've happened to Gregory, Mr Brock?'

‘I can only repeat what I said before, Mr Horton. The Australian police have no idea where your son is, and to the best of our knowledge he's not been seen since the middle of July. However, enquiries are continuing in the Darwin area in an attempt to discover his present whereabouts.'

I could sense what was going through Horton's mind: if we suspected his daughter-in-law of murdering Metcalfe, she might also have murdered Gregory. There was a large sum of money at stake, eighteen million pounds, and murders have been committed for less of a reason than that.

Faye Horton put it into words. ‘That bitch is after your money, Maurice,' she said. ‘And I doubt that she'd stop at anything to lay her hands on it.'

But that was a conclusion founded on a false premise. If Beth Horton inherited the money, there was no chance that Maurice Horton would receive any of it.

‘Have you any basis for thinking that, Mrs Horton?' I asked.

‘Well, it stands to reason, doesn't it?'

That's exactly the sort of female logic that Gail sometimes came up with, and there was no point in arguing with it.

I decided that there was little to be gained by questioning the Hortons any further, and we took our leave. For the present.

‘Not a very happy pair of bunnies,' said Dave, as we walked back to our car.

And that seemed to encapsulate the Hortons' reaction to the whole affair.

The moment we got into the car, I received a call on my mobile from Colin Wilberforce.

‘Yes, what is it, Colin?'

‘Inspector Granger telephoned, sir, to say that he has some important news for you and it's urgent. He'd be grateful if you could call on him at his office.'

I glanced at my watch. ‘We're just leaving Pinner now, Colin. Ring Mr Granger back and tell him I'll be with him ASAP.'

I was in a mood of some despair by the time Dave and I reached Australia House. The conversation with Maurice and Faye Horton had been largely fruitless. They could've been telling the truth, but there again, they might've been lying through their respective teeth. However, it was patently clear that we would need to find Beth Horton as soon as possible. But where was she?

And the news, momentous though it was, that Steve Granger gave me only served to complicate the issue further.

‘Greg Horton's been found, Harry,' said Steve Granger, the moment Dave and I walked into his office.

‘Has he been interviewed, Steve?'

‘Be a bit difficult, mate,' said Steve with a laugh. ‘He's dead.'

I groaned. ‘That's all I need. What were the circumstances, Steve?' I asked.

‘There's absolutely no doubt that he was murdered, Harry. The post-mortem was a bit difficult by all accounts, because Horton's body had been dumped in the outback not far from Tamorah. It was spotted by a police helicopter on a routine patrol. Apparently the dingoes had been at the remains, but there was enough of him left to make a positive identification, and for the pathologist to come up with an approximate date of death. He reckoned he'd been lying out there for over a month.'

‘It's possible, then, that the time of death was just before Beth Horton arrived in England on the seventeenth of last month.' I said. ‘Was the pathologist able to suggest a cause of death, Steve?'

‘You're going to love this, Harry. His expert medical opinion was that Horton was murdered with a humane killer.'

‘Which is what killed Bruce Metcalfe. It's all beginning to fall into place, Steve,' I said, hoping that I was not reaching an unjustified conclusion. ‘If I remember correctly, you said that Greg and Beth Horton disappeared from Blair during the early part of July. That tends to tie up with the time of Greg's murder, and Beth Horton arrived in the UK a short while later.'

‘There's something else that might interest you,' said Granger. ‘The Northern Territory CIB are investigating the murder, of course, and after Greg Horton's body was found they did a thorough search of his bar premises in Blair. Among the items they discovered was a seven-year-old letter postmarked London, England. It contained a note from Diana Barton, written from Tavona Street, Chelsea, and a copy of her will. The note explained that she had got married again, to a James Barton, a director of a hotel company, who was twenty-seven years older than she was. It went on to explain that in the event of her death, and she made the assumption that it would be after that of her new husband, her entire estate would be left to Greg. Diana Barton also assured her son that, in that event, he would be worth several million pounds.'

‘And that, Steve, has all the hallmarks of a grade-A motive for murder,' I said. ‘What are the latest developments in Australia?'

‘The NT Police also found a humane killer on the premises that yielded a DNA trace matching that of Greg Horton. There were fingerprints on it, too, and they produced a match with some of the prints found in the bar. They're probably Beth's, but they can't be sure because she doesn't have a record. Yet! However, that didn't stop the NT CIB obtaining a warrant for Beth Horton's arrest, and at their request the Federal Police in Canberra have issued an Interpol red-corner circular. So you can now arrest her, and my government will apply for a fugitive offender's warrant for her return to Aussie. The boys at Federal Police HQ promise they'll fax me all the necessary paperwork as soon as they can.'

‘I'm not surrendering her to you if I can prove she murdered Bruce Metcalfe, Steve. If that's the case, and I get a conviction, you can have her back in about twenty years' time. And that's assuming the judge is lenient.'

‘We couldn't care less either way, Harry,' said Steve, ‘so long as someone succeeds in getting her sent down. But all you've got to do now is find the bitch.'

‘If she's still in the UK,' I said.

‘I doubt she'll have gone back home,' said Steve. ‘She must know that Greg's body would be found sooner or later. Unless she'd hoped the dingoes would consume it completely.'

‘It looks as though she found Diana Barton's will,' I mused aloud, ‘and decided that with Diana and Diana's husband out of the way, she'd benefit from the will. Provided Greg was out of the way, too.'

‘So where does your man Metcalfe fit into it, Harry?'

‘You told me that she and Metcalfe had had a relationship when he worked on her grandparents' farm. And that it possibly continued after she married Greg Horton.'

‘That's the information I got from our man in Darwin.'

‘Well, I reckon she must've discussed Diana Barton's letter with Metcalfe, and that they hatched a plot to dispose of the Bartons and Greg. She probably agreed to split the proceeds with Metcalfe. The next thing that happened was that Metcalfe came over here and murdered Diana and James Barton. But I suspect that the greedy Beth then decided to top Metcalfe so that she'd have all the loot to herself. But I'll bet she never reckoned on it amounting to as much as eighteen million quid. And I daresay she was banking on the two murders in England never being tied up with the one in Australia.'

‘I'll leave you to it, then, Harry,' said Granger. ‘As I said, the AFP in Canberra will forward the paperwork to me, and I'll get the High Commissioner to endorse it and send it across to your authorities. The rest is down to you.'

When Dave and I arrived at Curtis Green, I called Kate into the office and told her the latest information that I'd received from Australia. ‘All we've got to do now is find Beth Horton,' I said.

‘D'you reckon she'll eventually show up at the Hortons' place at Pinner, guv?' asked Kate.

‘Possibly.'

‘I was thinking in terms of an obo,' suggested Kate.

‘An observation would take up a lot of manpower.' As I said it, I was grateful that Kate wasn't one of those feminists who insisted on adding ‘and womanpower'.

‘What about an intercept on the Hortons' telephone, guv?' said Dave.

I considered both proposals. ‘I doubt that Beth Horton will go anywhere near her father-in-law's place,' I said eventually. ‘I'm sure she only said that she'd be staying with Maurice Horton as an excuse to get past the immigration people, and she's lucky he said yes. If she's on the run from the Australian police she'd know that Maurice Horton would be the first person we'd contact. I think we'll let the idea of an obo or an intercept sweat for the time being.' As it turned out, an intercept on the Hortons' telephone might have saved us a little time, but in the end it didn't matter. ‘In the meantime, Dave, get Colin Wilberforce to add to her details on the PNC and in the
Police Gazette
that she's now wanted on a fugitive offender's warrant for murder in Australia. Add the usual caveat: not to be questioned.'

‘What about the shares, guv?' asked Kate.

‘What shares?' I have to admit that this investigation was getting more than a bit complicated, and I wondered, briefly, what Kate was talking about.

‘The shares that Diana Barton held in Maurice Horton's company. Presumably, now that Beth Horton's inherited them, she'll want to put them into her name, otherwise she won't get the dividends.'

‘D'you think she'll bother? She's just become eighteen million pounds richer. Not that she'll ever lay hands on the money if she's convicted of Greg's murder. But she probably doesn't think it'll come to that, and wouldn't know the law anyway.'