Death Lies Beneath (16 page)

‘The wreck on top of the munitions barge was recovered from the harbour. I remember its engine failed and it was towed in. There was an old man on board. I expected him to come back for it but he never did. It was left just off the quayside, slowly rotting, and it broke its mooring in a storm and sank over the barge.’

‘When?’ asked Eames.

Foxbury shrugged. ‘Late eighties, early nineties.’

And was the elderly man their bones? If so then perhaps the bracelet they’d found had no connection with the human remains after all. Horton said, ‘Weren’t you curious why he didn’t return? Didn’t you contact him and ask him to move the yacht?’

Foxbury eyed him as though he were mad. ‘Why should I? I dealt in old boats, and wrecked boats. It didn’t bother me it being there. It was just one of many. If the owner wanted it he had only to return and take it away.’

And had he returned and accidentally drowned while trying to recover it? Or had he been killed because he’d returned and witnessed something illegal? And could that be linked to Stapleton or Foxbury? Foxbury didn’t look uneasy, though.

‘Do you have his contact details, sir?’ asked Eames.

Foxbury eyed her as though she’d just asked him to explain quantum theory. ‘You must be kidding, love.’

‘What was the boat called?’

‘No idea and before you ask we didn’t keep records, or rather we did but only those for the tax man,’ he added somewhat hastily, throwing a glance at Horton.

Yeah, I bet.
‘And the other wreck on top of that?’

‘That was towed around for scrap in 2002. We took off anything that we could sell and we were going to break up the hull when the next morning we found she’d sunk, so we just left her there. And don’t ask me who owned that either because I don’t remember. And I haven’t got any paperwork.’

‘You said “we”, who worked with you?’ asked Eames, her pen poised.

‘They came and went, love. I can’t remember their names.’

Convenient.
‘Didn’t you keep records of employees?’ Horton asked.

‘When I needed to but I wouldn’t have them from back then.’

The law didn’t require anyone to keep records beyond six years. And Horton was guessing that Foxbury employed casual labour and much of that was cash in hand avoiding paying tax and national insurance and all the hassle that went with employing staff. There didn’t seem much more they could learn from Foxbury, but Horton wasn’t ruling him out of the investigation yet. He slid along the seat so that he could stand at the opposite end of the table to where Foxbury was sitting. Eames could slide along after him. He decided not to mention the bones. They’d save that for another time. Taking the hint, Eames put away her notebook and followed suit.

‘Is that it?’ Foxbury asked, somewhat surprised. Horton wondered what he had expected.

‘If you remember the name of the yachts or the people who owned them would you let me know?’ Horton stretched out a business card. Foxbury took it.

‘We’ll find our own way off.’

Foxbury shrugged but at the bottom of the steps up to the deck Horton paused. ‘Can you tell us where you were on Tuesday night, Mr Foxbury, just a formality,’ he added smoothly at Foxbury’s frown.

‘Here.’

‘All night?’

‘No. I came back from the Isle of Wight late Tuesday evening.’

‘With your wife?’

There was a moment’s hesitation and an avoidance of eye contact before he answered. ‘No. Alone.’

‘So no one can confirm this,’ Horton asked lightly.

‘Do they have to?’ Foxbury’s expression hardened.

‘What time did you get into the marina?’

‘What’s this got to do with that woman’s death?’ he replied brusquely.

‘You might have seen something at the boatyard.’

‘Well I didn’t. It was dark. I got in about nine thirty and got home around eleven thirty.’

Horton thanked him. As he stepped off the boat he caught sight of a sleek yacht heading towards the pontoon. On it was the lean figure of his father-in-law. That had been a close thing.

Eames said, ‘There was a woman with him on that boat on Tuesday. It could have been Salacia.’

‘Not if it was the same woman who’s been on the boat with him today.’

‘You mean the perfume. He could have broken a bottle of Salacia’s perfume while trying to get rid of her things, which he could have thrown overboard while out on the boat today. Perhaps he took it out hoping to get rid of the smell before his wife goes on board.’

That was possible.

‘And he’s drinking white wine,’ Eames added. ‘A Grand Cru Chablis, I
noticed.’

‘Hardly conclusive evidence.’

But Eames was not to be put off. ‘He met Salacia at the airport, took her to the crematorium where she arranged a meeting with Reggie Thomas, or another of Woodley’s mourners, for later. Then he took her back to his boat, where they were for the remainder of the afternoon and evening and where she left her things. He could easily have deposited Salacia at the quayside for her meeting, or alighted with her, stabbed her and tossed her into the sea, before returning here, and without anyone from the sailing club seeing or hearing him. He might be lying about the time he returned here.’

‘He probably is.’ And Horton had another variation on Eames’s theory, which tied in with what he’d said to Uckfield yesterday, that Salacia could have flown into a private airfield on the Isle of Wight, where Foxbury had met her and brought her across on his boat in time for the funeral, or rather in time to meet her contact after it. But theories weren’t hard facts. And he still wasn’t happy with the idea of Foxbury using his former boatyard to dispose of Salacia.

He said, ‘There’s a lot of money sloshing around him and that bothers me. Find out how much he was paid for that land and see what else you can dig up on him. Tax and employment records, associates, property, cars . . .’ His words tailed off as a car he recognized pulled up two rows behind theirs.

‘Anything wrong, sir?’

Only my estranged wife’s arrival.
Horton said, ‘Find out if the lockmaster knows what time Foxbury left the marina on Tuesday morning and when he returned. Take the car. I’ll wait here.’

With a slight rise of those perfectly shaped eyebrows Eames did as she was told. Horton saw Catherine’s enquiring and slightly hostile gaze follow her before she headed for him.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said waspishly.

‘How is Emma?’ He didn’t see why he should explain anything to her.

‘She’s fine. I—’

‘When is the parents’ evening?’

‘What?’

‘At the school.’

She flicked back a strand of blonde hair. ‘I don’t know.’

Horton laughed lightly and without mirth. ‘You used to be better at lying than that, Catherine. I’ll call the school.’

‘It doesn’t concern you,’ Catherine snarled.

She was referring to the fact that he didn’t pay Emma’s school fees, because her father had insisted on doing so, most probably to cut him out of the family. That would have to be sorted. If anyone was paying for Emma’s education it was going to be him. But he knew what Catherine was doing. It had taken him a while but he’d finally got the measure of her. She was deliberately goading him so that he would lose his temper, and then she’d use that against him, to try and prevent him from seeing his daughter. He’d fallen for it before, he wasn’t going to again. And an idea had occurred to him about how he could get to see more of Emma, without putting her in too much danger from Zeus, or one of his henchmen. It wouldn’t be foolproof and he would need to be vigilant but if he attended the parents’ evenings and other activities his daughter was involved in where parents and guardians were admitted, then he’d at least get to see her.

He said, ‘I’ll see you at the parents’ evening.’ He marched towards the road before Catherine could reply. Only when there did he look back. Catherine was halfway down the pontoon. As though aware of his gaze she halted and turned round. Their eyes connected for a moment before he turned away and began walking towards the marina office to wait for Eames.

T
he daytime lockmaster remembered Foxbury’s boat leaving the marina about mid-morning on Tuesday but he couldn’t be specific about the time or when it had returned. He also claimed he hadn’t seen a woman on board but Horton knew she could have been in the cabin below and well out of sight until they were through the lock.

In the incident suite, Eames called the night lockmaster at his home, while Horton updated a weary, hot and cross Uckfield, who was pacing the floor.

‘Anything from Joliffe?’ Horton asked hopefully, glancing at the photographs of the bracelet on the crime board, though judging by Uckfield’s grim expression he already knew the answer would be negative.

Trueman shook his head.

Uckfield said, ‘And the bugger’s gone home.’

Trueman rubbed a hand over his chin as if to say, Think we should too, but he said, ‘We’ve got some information on Victor Riley. He was convicted of armed robbery on a bank in London in 1994. A clerk was shot and paralysed. Riley got twenty years. The Met and the Serious Organised Crime Agency had been after him for years for extortion, robbery, violent assault but he’d been too well protected, until the bank job. He wasn’t on it but he was the organizer. One man grassed on him and gave the Met everything they needed to put him away.’

‘Bet he was popular,’ Horton replied.

‘He went under the witness protection scheme, and there’s no record of who he was and where he is now, or if there is they’re not telling us.’

Eames came off the phone. ‘The night lockmaster didn’t see Foxbury’s boat leave the marina or return. He says the lock was on free flow from between three forty-four a.m. and four thirty-four a.m. so any boat could have gone out or come in during that time without being noticed, but the timing’s wrong for Salacia’s death.’

‘Everything’s wrong in this investigation,’ grumbled Uckfield. He addressed Horton. ‘The divers have recovered all the remains, so see what Dr Clayton can give us tomorrow while I swan off to Swansea, and I won’t be singing in the valleys unless Stapleton decides to join the choir, which is about as likely as Wales winning the World Cup.’

Dismissed, Eames went home and Horton did the same after dropping by his office to find an email from Bliss saying that Walters would be working with her on the possible vehicle fraud operation and the Mason’s Electricals robbery, which she believed Sholby and Hobbs were responsible for. As if he hadn’t told her! There was no mention of the metal thefts, which clearly Bliss had shelved at the scent of a new and more high-profile investigation. If she could get some vital information out of Sholby and Hobbs that could assist in an arrest in the Woodley investigation she’d be ACC Dean’s pet and the Chief’s blue-eyed girl, despite her eyes being green. And that would really hack Uckfield off.

Horton turned to his voicemail, where he found a message from Sergeant Elkins.

‘There’s no sign of any of Woodley’s known associates owning a boat. They still might though because that lot would rather risk a fine if they were caught in the harbour than bother to register it. Nothing new to report on assaults on boat owners or anyone acting suspiciously in Langstone Harbour and no new metal thefts.’

Tomorrow, Horton would ask Elkins to see if he could find any sightings of Foxbury’s boat at any of the marinas on the Isle of Wight for Tuesday.

There was, thankfully, no sign of Sawyer or his car in the marina when Horton reached it, or any unexpected visitor sitting in the cockpit of his yacht, but he’d only been on board a couple of minutes when someone hailed him and he looked out to find Edward Ballard on the pontoon.

‘I wanted to thank you for your help last night,’ Ballard said.

Was that only last night? It seemed like ages ago.
Ballard was sporting a clean plaster on his forehead and seemed to have fully recovered from his ordeal. He looked tanned and relaxed in shorts and a polo shirt, and Horton again noted the tautness of his muscles.

‘Think nothing of it. Would you like a drink?’ he asked surprising himself. He rarely went in for company and although he was tired, he suddenly thought that talking to Ballard might free his mind from thoughts of Zeus, the case and Catherine. He didn’t expect Ballard to accept, but he did with alacrity.

‘I won’t stop long, though,’ Ballard added, climbing on board. ‘It’s late and you must be tired. I saw on the news about the murder of that woman at the boatyard and Eddie in the marina office said you were working on the investigation.’

Ballard’s words brought him up sharply. Ballard, like Foxbury, had a powerful motor cruiser, with a tender on it. Where had Ballard sprung from last night? Did he know Salacia? Had he really come here to thank him or was it to pump him for information? But if he was involved then why hang around after killing Salacia, and if he had come into this marina to pump him for information then how had he known that he was on the case and where he lived? No, he was way off beam with that one. He was beginning to feel the effects of the long day and the heat. His brain felt ragged. He, like Uckfield, was simply desperate for some answers and he’d seized on this poor man as hopefully being able to give them a lead on the case. Next he’d be suspecting every passing yachtsman of murder.

Horton offered him a choice of drinks and handed over a Coke before grabbing one himself. He found himself saying, ‘What we don’t understand is why she was at the old boatyard at Tipner. Do you know it?’

‘No. I’ve seen it on the charts though when sailing into the harbour. Do you know why she was killed?’

Horton gave his stock policeman’s answer, ‘We’re following up a couple of possible lines of inquiry.’ He gestured Ballard into a seat and sank down heavily opposite, across the table.

‘On the news that police officer said you’re trying to establish her identity. You’d think someone would have missed her, a mother, husband, lover, father?’

‘Perhaps there isn’t anyone.’

‘Not even children? A daughter or son?’

There had been one according to Dr Clayton, but as Eames had suggested the child could have been given up for adoption, or died. ‘Perhaps they don’t know that she’s missing.’