All Quiet on Arrival (6 page)

‘Just a tick,' said Kim, and addressed herself to her computer once again. ‘Yes, we do. He was a steward on Captain Richards's ship. The same one that Hendry served on, of course.'

‘At the same time?' queried Dave.

‘Yes, and he's still there. Actually, he's on leave while the ship's undergoing a partial refit. Should be ready for sea again in a fortnight's time. Would you like a photograph of him too?'

‘Yes, please, Kim,' said Dave, who'd obviously taken a shine to the girl, and it appeared that she had taken a liking to him. But then he is a six-foot hunk of rippling muscle.

Kim disappeared from the office and, by some arcane process that I couldn't even begin to understand, returned minutes later with copies of the photographs of Thomas Hendry and Carl Morgan.

‘Anything else I can help you with?' asked the helpful Kim.

‘Their home addresses would be useful, Kim,' said Dave.

Armed with photographs and addresses, we returned to Curtis Green.

‘Why did you ask about Carl Morgan, Dave?' I asked.

‘That was the name of the guy who PC Watson spoke to when he was called to the disturbance, guv,' said Dave, as though it was obvious. At the time, I didn't realize why Dave had asked that question, but as I've often said, he thinks of things I don't think of.

‘Ah, so it was. Where do these guys live?'

‘Southampton.'

‘Sod it!' I said.

‘Yes, sir,' said Dave.

‘Give Chelsea nick a ring, Dave, and ask Watson to call in here to have a look at that photograph of Morgan that we got. If it's the same guy, we might be getting somewhere.'

At half past three, Dave bounced into my office. ‘Guess what, guv?'

‘What?'

‘I showed PC Watson the photograph of Carl Morgan, and he said it wasn't the guy who answered the door of twenty-seven Tavona Street.'

‘Why am I not surprised?' I said. I tossed Dave a cigarette, and lit one myself, contrary to all the Commissioner's little regulations, and some ridiculous Act of Parliament.

‘But then I showed him the photograph of Thomas Hendry, and he positively identified the guy as the one who'd answered the door.'

‘But Watson said that he gave the name of Carl Morgan.' I was slowly getting lost.

‘So, he gave a false name, guv,' said Dave. ‘I'd call that guilty knowledge.'

‘Maybe,' I said, ‘or he didn't want to get involved in something that he guessed would turn very nasty. Mind you, if this guy had just topped someone, it takes balls for him to calmly confront a uniformed PC calling at the house.'

‘The only problem now, guv,' said Dave, wrinkling his nose at my split infinitive, ‘is to find Hendry, and I'll bet a pound to a pinch of snuff that he's done a runner.'

‘Well, like it or not, it looks as if we're off to Southampton again.'

‘What, now?' Dave obviously didn't like the sound of that.

I kept him waiting for a moment or two. ‘No, tomorrow morning.'

Leaving Dave to look up train times, I turned to Linda Mitchell's report of the results of her examination of the murder scene.

Her team had found numerous fingerprints, some of which had been put through the system already. One set matched those of the dead woman, others tallied with James Barton whose prints one of Linda's assistants had taken, but the remainder had no match in national fingerprint records. Except one. Thomas Hendry had a previous conviction for theft when he was aged eighteen. He was now thirty-two years of age, and that conviction was ‘spent', otherwise he wouldn't have got a job as a steward on board the cruise ship in which the Bartons had sailed. And Hendry's prints had been found on an empty bottle lying on the sitting room floor. So what? He'd probably poured himself a drink at some time during the evening. PC Watson had mentioned that the man he'd spoken to had been drinking.

But one fourteen-year-old conviction for theft doesn't necessarily lead to murder. In any event, we already knew that the DNA that had been recovered from Mrs Barton did not match any in the database.

However, when the young Thomas Hendry was arrested, fourteen years ago, the police did not take a specimen of his DNA. A DNA database had only been established once the full potential of the science was confirmed as an invaluable aid to criminal investigation.

It was just possible, therefore, that we had discovered our killer. I couldn't wait to arrest Hendry, and get a DNA sample.

But, knowing my luck …

I walked through to the incident room. ‘Dave, I've just had a thought.'

‘Excellent news, sir,' said Dave.

‘Go out to that Bayswater hotel where James Barton is staying, and show him the photograph of Carl Morgan. It's just possible that he might recognize him. I know he said he didn't know any of the other men with whom his wife had a fling, but—'

‘But there's an outside chance that it might just turn up something,' said Dave, completing my sentence for me.

A
t twenty minutes to eight that evening Dave returned from Bayswater, and came straight to my office.

‘There's a problem, guv,' he announced.

‘Not another one,' I said wearily. ‘What is it this time?'

‘James Barton seems to have gone missing.'

I waved Dave to a chair. ‘What's the SP?'

‘I spoke to the receptionist at Barton's hotel and she told me that he was out, and had gone out at about half ten this morning. As far as she knew, he hadn't returned. She said that that was unusual because he'd always taken all his meals in the hotel since he'd arrived last Monday when he booked in.'

‘I suppose he could've been visiting relatives, or attending a business meeting. He does seem to travel all over the place.'

‘I don't think that's what happened on this occasion,' said Dave. ‘In case the receptionist had missed Barton coming in, I checked with the restaurant manager, and he said that Barton was in the habit of speaking to him at breakfast time. He would make a point of ordering lunch and dinner, and specifying what he wanted, whether it was on the menu or not. But being a director, I suppose he could have whatever he liked.'

‘And did he do so this morning?'

‘Yes. But I was right about the receptionist. She had missed him, but that's not surprising particularly when the hotel is busy. Apparently a tour party booked in at about half past twelve, forty of them. It so happened that Barton
did
have lunch in the restaurant, but he didn't show up for dinner. And he always had dinner at seven o'clock on the nail. What we don't know, and neither does the receptionist, is what time he went out again. He certainly wasn't in his room when the duty manager checked for me.'

‘I suppose he could have met someone. Maybe dropped into his club – he seems the sort of guy who would belong to one – and decided to stay there for dinner. I think it's a bit early to start worrying about him.'

‘Yeah, maybe,' said Dave. ‘Anyway, I've asked the hotel manager to ring the incident room if Barton doesn't turn up later on this evening.'

‘It seems rather odd, but I daresay he'll reappear. Frankly, I don't see anything sinister in it. After all, he's not a suspect because we do know that he was in Cyprus trying to buy a hotel at the time his wife was murdered. Well, I suppose we do. That has been verified, hasn't it?'

‘Yes, guv, Miss Ebdon checked it out.'

‘In that case, I don't see that it's relevant, Dave. Showing him the photograph of Morgan's not really going to prove anything. In any case, he's a free agent, not a suspect, and he can do whatever he wants. He might've got held up arranging for his wife's funeral. He could be anywhere, or doing anything. Everyone's got to be somewhere.'

And he was somewhere, but he wasn't doing anything. He was dead.

At ten o'clock, Gavin Creasey, the night-duty incident room sergeant, had received a telephone call from the duty manager at Barton's hotel to say that Barton hadn't returned.

Then, at eleven fifteen, a call came into the incident room from the CID at Paddington reporting that James Barton's body had been found in the gardens in the centre of Sussex Square, just to the north of Bayswater Road. He had been brutally attacked, and stabbed several times. Both the Bartons' names were on the PNC showing me as the officer in the case, and Paddington CID had reported the murder to HSCC as a matter of routine. The commander had been informed, and promptly directed that it was down to me. He came to that decision simply because ‘there seems to be a connection with the Diana Barton case', he told Creasey. I think the commander's got it in for me.

All this was imparted to me at about midnight, an hour after Gail and I had gone to bed.

When my mobile rang, Gail's only comment was: ‘Oh, not again!'

I know how she felt.

Having consumed a couple of whiskies, and half a bottle of wine over dinner, I felt it unwise to drive myself to the scene. The Black Rats, as the traffic boys are affectionately known to those of us of
the
Department, delight in finding a CID officer with a positive breathalyser reading. Instead, I decided to wreak a little revenge. I rang the Yard and arranged for a traffic car to take me to Sussex Square. The crew got me there in about twenty-four minutes. Frightening!

The scene of James Barton's murder had been shrouded in a tent, and floodlit with Metrolamps. Henry Mortlock was already there, as was Dave Poole. Linda Mitchell and her forensic technicians were waiting in their vans, now bearing the impressive title ‘Evidence Recovery Unit', for the pathologist to finish his initial examination. A detective inspector from Paddington was also there, together with a detective sergeant. ‘Did anybody search the scene?' I asked.

‘I carried out a brief visual, guv,' said the DS. ‘There was no sign of a weapon, but I didn't want to foul up the scene by going any further.'

Thank God! A CID officer who knew the routine.

‘Probably took it with him and chucked it in the river,' I said. ‘Who identified him?'

‘I did, guv,' said the DI. ‘He had his photo driving licence on him, but there weren't any credit cards or cash, so I s'pose the motive was robbery.'

‘If only it was that simple,' I said, but that was too much of a coincidence in my book. I told the local DI about the murder of James's wife. ‘What about his mobile phone? Did he have that with him?' We knew he had one; he'd told us.

‘No, guv. That was probably nicked as well.'

‘Who found him?'

‘A Traffic Division crew.' The DI waved a hand at two PCs standing beside their car.

Like me, the Paddington DI obviously could not get out of the habit of calling it Traffic Division, but it was now known as the Traffic Operational Command Unit. If you're wondering why, the best people to ask are the boy superintendents who believe that their way to the top is to come up with clever titles, and who staff the funny names and total confusion squad at Scotland Yard. After all, what was wrong with calling it Traffic Division?

‘OK. You might as well get back to the nick. There's nothing more you can do here. It's all down to me now.'

The DI grinned. ‘Be lucky, guv,' he said, and he and his DS departed, no doubt pleased to be shot of what appeared to be a random mugging that had ended up as a murder. And we both knew that they're bloody difficult to solve. But I didn't believe it to be random.

‘What's the verdict, Henry?' I asked, when Mortlock emerged from the tent wherein lay the victim.

‘I'm fairly certain that death was due to multiple stab wounds, Harry, but I'll confirm that once I've cut him open.'

‘Time of death?'

‘You'll have to wait for that. He's been here for some time, I should think.'

I introduced myself to the traffic PCs. ‘What's the SP, lads?'

‘We were on our way back to the garage and passed through here, sir,' said the driver of the car. ‘My mate spotted what seemed to be a bundle of clothing just inside the gardens in the centre of the square.' He waved at the tent. ‘That was at twenty-two fifty hours. But when we took a closer look it turned out to be a body, and he was well dead. It was obvious that he'd been stabbed, because there was blood all over him. That's when I put up a shout to Paddington nick.'

‘Had you patrolled this area previously during this tour of duty?'

‘No, sir. Well, yes, but not since about four this afternoon.'

‘So there's no telling how long the body had been there,' I mused aloud.

‘I suppose not, sir.'

‘It wasn't really a question. Was there any sign of a weapon?' I'd asked the Paddington CID officers, but they acknowledged only to having made a cursory examination, and I like to make sure.

‘No, sir. And we had a good look round while we were waiting for the local lads, but we didn't see one,' said the PC, confirming what the Paddington DS had said.

‘OK. Thanks. DS Poole will take a statement from you, and then you can get back on patrol. Or are you finished?'

‘Should've booked off at eleven, sir,' said the driver's colleague.

‘Oh well, that's a couple of hours overtime.'

‘Be nice to have the time to spend the money,' muttered the driver. He was not pleased.

‘I wonder where Barton was between lunch and when he was found, Dave.'

‘Despite what the restaurant manager said, Barton might've had dinner somewhere else, guv. And if the killer had phoned him, we know that the call would eventually be connected to Barton's mobile. But as far as timing's concerned, I reckon we're up a gum tree.'

And there was no arguing with that. I turned to Linda Mitchell who had now started work on the scene. ‘Anything important, Linda?'

‘We found what looks like a few strands of head hair clasped in the victim's right hand, Mr Brock. With any luck it might belong to his attacker. If there are some roots attached. I'll get it off for DNA analysis.'