Deadly Waters (25 page)

‘I gave you what you wanted,’ Mickey said sulking.

‘We need to check you’re not lying, don’t we? Now get dressed.’

Mickey pulled himself up by the banister, and as the sound of wailing children continued, he shouted, ‘At least I’ll get some peace in the nick, not like this bloody place.’

A police car took Mickey to the station and another followed Horton and Cantelli to Wilmslow Gardens in Southsea.

‘Wayne’s been in and out of trouble since he was fourteen,’

Cantelli said. ‘Petty thieving, drunk and disorderly. He must be sixteen now.’

That explained why Horton wasn’t aware of the youth. For the last two years he’d been working in specialist investigations.

Number 36 Wilmslow Gardens was a dismal street just off the seafront. Horton knew this to be student and social security land. He stared at the filthy curtains at the ground-floor windows and the faded blinds pulled across the gritty windowpanes further up the building and silently vowed that if he were ever to make a home for Emma then it would never be a bedsit, no matter where it was in the city.

There wasn’t a back entrance so Horton asked the two uniformed officers to accompany him and Cantelli. He warned them of Wayne’s athletic prowess. The youth wasn’t going to escape him this time.

Johnson hadn’t said which flat Wayne lived in, but Horton found a letter on the stairs from the social security people, which told him it was on the top floor.

Cantelli thumped on the door and shouted, ‘Open up, Wayne.

It’s the police.’

There was no reply and neither was there any sound from inside. Cantelli threw Horton a look. ‘Probably asleep.’

‘Let’s wake him up then.’

Horton nodded at the PC who thrust the ram at the door.

It shot open. Cantelli and the other PC rushed in. There was only one room and Wayne was in bed. He sat up surprised, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, saw them, swore, and jumped out of bed. But the PC had restrained the boy before he could reach the door.

‘What do you want?’ Wayne said angrily, trying to pull his arm away from the constable’s grasp.

Horton looked the lad over before replying. Wayne was tall and slender with hunched shoulders and a surly expression on his otherwise good-looking face. He wore no T-shirt or pyjama top. His skin was smooth and white.

‘I hope you’re going to co-operate, Wayne.’ Horton walked slowly round the room, taking in the clothes strewn about the floor, the discarded take-away food containers and empty lager cans. ‘You see, Mickey Johnson’s told us you were with him on the antiques thefts.’

‘Scumbag.’

‘And a man has been killed. The one who gave you your orders, and you are currently in the frame for it.’

‘I haven’t killed anyone,’ Wayne said, alarmed.

‘Then you’d better tell us all about your little antiques raiding jaunts or you might find yourself going down for murder.’

After a few sniffs Wayne grunted an agreement. Horton nodded at the officer to let him go. Wayne sat down on the bed and found a packet of cigarettes on the bedside table.

He lit up and inhaled deeply before saying: ‘This man approached me in the amusement arcade, and asked me if I’d like to earn some money. I thought he was gay at first, but he said he was straight. He wore nice suits and a Rolex and I thought, yeah why not, I could do with a bit of that.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Bond.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No. Why?’ Wayne looked confused.

‘Nothing.’ It was Boston all right. Just one of his little jokes.

Horton said, ‘Did you know him?’

‘Nah, never seen him before.’

‘What school did you go to, Wayne?’

‘The Wilberforce, why?’

Boston had been working at the Sir Wilberforce for a year according to his records, and Wayne would have left the school by the time Boston started there, so there was no reason for him to know Boston.

‘Apart from the nice suit and Rolex what did he look like?’

Wayne shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

Horton could see that he would be wasting his time trying to get a description from Wayne that matched Boston, instead he asked, ‘How often did you meet?’

‘Only once. He called me on my mobile the rest of the time to tell me when a job was on. Didn’t give us much notice, just said tonight and then he told me how.’

‘Go on?’ Horton encouraged as Wayne paused.

The youth inhaled, and then dribbling the smoke out through his nostrils, he said, ‘He told me which house or flat to go to, how to switch off the alarm and what to take—’

‘How did you get the key? The properties weren’t broken into,’ Cantelli interjected.

‘He had this boat, see, down at the Camber.
Soap Opera
it was called. On board I’d find the key to the house, the alarm code and a list of things to steal, there was a description of them and a plan of where they were. Load of old junk if you ask me, but he was willing to pay us for it. Mickey and I did the job, and then took the stuff back to
Soap Opera
where we’d collect our money. He was never there, but the money always was.’

There was their confirmation that Boston was their antiques thief. But it meant his theory about Langley recognizing Boston on a job was shot to pieces unless, of course, she had come across him on
Soap Opera,
which was possible.

‘So why weren’t you on
Soap Opera
on this last job, when we caught Mickey Johnson?’ Horton asked.

Wayne sniffed, stubbed out his cigarette, and instantly shook another from the packet. ‘Don’t know. Bond just told me there’d been a change of plan. I should have guessed something was wrong. I was already jumpy because he put the job back. We usually did it at midnight but he rang me to say it would be one o’clock.’

‘What time did he call you?’ Horton asked, feeling that this was important.

‘About nine o’clock that night.’

Why had Boston done that? The anonymous caller to CID, who Horton guessed had been Boston, had said the police would catch their antiques thieves after midnight, but had given no specific time. Boston had changed his plans at nine p.m. or just after. Was that because by then he had killed Jessica Langley and he needed more time to dispose of her body?

Horton scrutinized the youth. ‘Are you sure you didn’t get pissed off when you discovered Bond had fitted you up and you killed him?’

‘I did a house, that’s all,’ Wayne protested. ‘I was with me mates; you can ask them. I was in the pub all night. The Shearer Arms.’

‘With Mickey Johnson.’

‘Yeah.’

If Wayne had pushed Boston off the pontoon, then Horton knew he would have run off with Boston’s sailing bag and flogged the contents. They would check with the pub landlord, but Horton thought the boy was telling the truth. He hadn’t killed anyone.

‘Get dressed, Wayne.’

‘You arresting me?’

‘Too right we are. For theft.’

Wayne looked almost relieved.

Back at the station Horton checked Wayne in with the custody clerk and then decamped to the canteen with Cantelli.

‘Let him stew in a cell for a while,’ he said.

‘We’ve also got Mickey Johnson waiting to make his statement.’

‘Then he can wait until we’ve had our lunch.’

‘Sounds OK to me.’

‘It looks as though Boston killed Langley before Wayne and Mickey did the antiques theft,’ Cantelli said, tucking into a shepherd’s pie.

Cantelli had come to the same conclusion as himself, yet Horton was uneasy with it. There was still too much un-explained. He poked at his lasagne, his mind mulling over the problem. Why had Boston decided at the last minute to put the job back? What had made Boston change his plans?

Horton looked up to see Marsden hailing him.

‘Morville’s navy record’s just come through, sir.’

Horton pushed his thoughts of Boston aside and focused instead on the alcoholic in Corton Court. He waved Marsden into a seat at the table, as Cantelli cleared his plate.

Marsden continued, ‘Morville had a fairly straightforward career as an able seaman. He kept his nose clean. He was however given compassionate leave twenty-seven years ago and sent home from Malta to Portsmouth because of a death in the family. That wasn’t strictly true. It was his partner’s daughter who killed herself, not Morville’s. She was only fifteen. Her name was Michelle Egmont.’

Twenty-seven years ago Jessica Langley would have been fifteen. The same age as Michelle Egmont.

‘What school did she attend?’ Horton asked.
Was this the
missing link?
He didn’t see how it could be, and yet there was something here that niggled at the back of his mind.

‘I don’t know, sir,’ was Marsden’s rather disappointing answer. Horton had expected more of the bright young DC.

‘Then find out. And get me Michelle’s mother’s address, and a copy of the coroner’s report on Michelle Egmont’s death.’

Marsden hurried away.

Horton scraped back his chair. ‘Barney, take Mickey and Wayne’s statements.’

Horton returned to his office and tackled his ever-growing pile of paperwork. After a couple of hours he considered he’d given Dr Clayton enough time to complete the post-mortem on Boston.

‘Uckfield’s made up his mind that Boston slipped and drowned,’ Horton said, as Gaye came on the line. ‘What’s your opinion, doctor?’

‘I suppose Boston could have injected himself with an over-dose and then slipped off the pontoon. He was certainly alive when he went into the water, but he wouldn’t have been for long—’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Horton was suddenly still, his mind and body like a pointer with a bird in sight and the scent of blood in his nostrils. ‘What’s this about injections?’

‘It’s in my report. Didn’t you read it?’

‘Uckfield’s not confiding in me. He thinks the case is closed.’

There was a pause. He could hear her thinking. ‘And you don’t?’

‘No.’

Again a slight pause before she continued. ‘I found a small puncture mark in Boston’s neck. I’m waiting for the blood analysis from histology. Mind you, it’s a pretty weird place to stick a needle in yourself. He wasn’t a drug user?’

Horton recalled Boston’s apartment. There was nothing in it to suggest he had taken drugs.

‘Could someone have injected him with a drug and then pushed him over the pontoon?’

‘That’s your province, Inspector, not mine.’

Yes, and he thought it sounded far more plausible than him slipping off the pontoon, killing himself or injecting himself with a substance in the neck. A drug-related killing smacked of a professional killer. Could the stolen antiques have been financing a drug-running operation? God, he hoped not.

‘Could you call me when you get the results of the blood analysis?’

‘Of course.’

Horton didn’t confront Uckfield over his failure to tell him about the findings of Boston’s post-mortem. He’d only be told it was none of his business now anyway. He spent another few hours at his desk, and dealing with CID matters, before leaving for home where he changed into his running gear.

Tomorrow, he would have a copy of the coroner’s report on Michelle Egmont’s death. He wondered why the poor girl had committed suicide.

As he ran along Southsea promenade he tried to dismiss the thought and let his mind run free. The patterns of the three deaths, Langley’s Edney’s and Boston’s, slipped and faded into each other; like a kaleidoscope they materialized, joined, broke and altered shape. His trainers pounded the promenade to the rhythm of his thoughts and the sound of the waves breaking on to the shore. He let the thoughts dance their way across his mind without analysing them, knowing that presently they would throw up a pattern that he needed and one which had been eluding him. That was the way his mind worked sometimes. He hoped it would give him results on this occasion.

At the Round Tower at Old Portsmouth nothing new had come to him. He paused to catch his breath. The place was deserted. The sudden quiet soothed him. The darkness was clean and cold. The sea air smelt good. The wind buffeted him, pushing him forwards and then trying to reel him backwards like a bad-tempered dog pulling at his lead. The rain had stopped. Only the crashing of the waves on to the pebbled beach and the dragging of the stones as the sea sucked them back in its wake broke the silence.

He jumped down from the promenade and walked slowly towards the sea, stooping to pick up a stone. Twisting his arm back he threw it and watched it skim along the tumultuous tips of the waves. It bounced twice. In the distance he could see a tanker’s lights.

As he stared into the dark night, and against the rhythm of the sea, his mind replayed the events of the last few days. So much seemed to have happened to him: sidelined out of the major crime team; Uckfield’s treachery; Catherine’s hostility and reluctance to allow him to see Emma . . . Emma’s face and her tears; three deaths . . .

He breathed in the night air slowly and evenly and then turned and ran back. The message on that betting slip was running through his mind: ‘
Have you forgotten ME?
’ He swung into the marina and drew up sharply. There, staring at him, was the sign: Marina Entrance designed with fancy capital letters that stood out, and suddenly it clicked. ME. Of course, what an idiot! Why hadn’t he realized it sooner? Now it seemed so obvious. The scrawled note on that betting slip,

‘
Have you forgotten ME?
’ meant, ‘Have you forgotten Michelle Egmont?’

Horton walked on, his mind was spinning. Morville
had
slipped that betting note to Langley. Why? Because he wanted something from Langley, probably intended to blackmail her.

So there had to be a connection between Langley and Michelle Egmont, and he guessed that Marsden would discover they had attended the same school. Though he didn’t know how that could lead to blackmail, or what it had to do with Langley’s death, Tom Edney’s, and Boston’s. But tomorrow he was damn sure he was going to find out.

Thursday: 10 a.m.

The next morning he asked for Morville to be brought in.

Marsden had left him a copy of the coroner’s report on Michelle Egmont. It made sad reading – the tragic tale of a young girl who had taken her own life. What a waste, he thought, glancing at the photograph of Emma on his desk.