Death Surge (10 page)

Disappointment was fast becoming a regular feature in their search for Johnnie, although he reminded himself they’d had one break today, the taxi driver. He called Sarah Conway, thinking she wouldn’t answer because she’d be out photographing the racing, so he was pleasantly surprised when she did.

‘That finished three hours ago,’ she said, when he expressed this.

Was it that late already? He saw that it was after six. He asked her if she could email him a photograph of Scott Masefield’s yacht and the crew. He’d get the officers to show that around here tomorrow.

‘Of course. I’ll do it later tonight. I’m just off to photograph the presentations to today’s race winners.’

‘How did Masefield get on?’

‘Came in first.’

‘And Crawford?’

‘Third.’

‘I don’t expect that pleased him.’ But it did Horton.

‘They’re obviously missing Hattie,’ Sarah said. ‘Roland Stevington told me she was helping you try to find Johnnie Oslow. He raced in her place. Probably a case of two many skippers and not enough skivvies. Rupert likes being in charge, and Roland is used to being his own boss. Any progress on finding Oslow?’

‘Some. Not much though.’

She didn’t ask why he wanted a photograph of Masefield’s yacht and his crew, and for that he was grateful … and a little bit curious. But then Sarah Conway was only interested in one thing, and that was her photography.

Horton returned to the station where he updated Cantelli on his lack of progress. He asked Cantelli how he’d got on checking the Wightlink vehicles.

‘The majority come from outside Hampshire. There’s some from Yorkshire, Kent, Devon, several from Surrey, Berkshire and London.’

That was to be expected. The Island was a popular holiday destination.

Cantelli added, ‘Some of the owners have convictions for petty crimes and speeding offences, but nothing major and nothing that on the surface of it connects with Johnnie. I don’t recognize any names.’

And short of interviewing them all, which was impossible without the assistance of many other police forces across the country, Horton didn’t think this was going to get them far.

Seaton phoned to say there was no record of Johnnie Oslow having travelled on the hovercraft last Wednesday, but he’d left his photograph and asked that Horton be contacted if anyone remembered seeing him. And Harriet Eames rang to say the same of the sixteenth of July. No record of Johnnie having travelled from Cowes or Ryde that day on any of the ferries.

‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked.

‘Get the investigation upgraded and continue with our inquiries.’

‘Let me know if there’s anything else I can do,’ she added before ringing off.

Rupert Crawford would be pleased to have her back on the team tomorrow.

It seemed they’d come to a dead end. Reluctantly, Horton had to call it a day.

Cantelli went home to spend another night worrying and speculating and Horton returned to his boat, troubled and with a terrible feeling in his gut that this was going to end badly. Tomorrow they would have Johnnie’s bank details and be able to put a trace on his credit and debit cards, and tomorrow the railway company might be able to confirm that Johnnie’s ticket had been surrendered at the Hard, which would back up the taxi driver’s evidence. And, as he’d told Harriet Eames, he’d request that the investigation be upgraded, and if it wasn’t then he’d simply go over Bliss’s head and enlist the full cooperation of Sergeant Warren’s uniformed officers. He’d also contact Leanne Payne, the crime reporter at the local newspaper, and give her the story and Johnnie’s photograph. That should get things moving. But still the gloom refused to budge.

He took his coffee up on deck, and as he watched the sun slowly set and the twilight give way to darkness he ran through what they had – which was precious little, except that according to one man’s evidence Johnnie had arrived in Portsmouth as planned.

Harriet Eames’ words again returned to torment him –
he was easily led astray once, he could have been again
– and this time Horton considered them in the context of Johnnie’s former partners in crime. He didn’t want to believe that Johnnie had resumed contact with any of them (in fact, there was no reason why he should have done) but perhaps he’d accidentally run into one of them. Sardinia was, after all, a popular holiday destination. Could Johnnie have come across one of them there? Perhaps not the exclusive Costa Smerelda, but at Stintino or Olbia. Johnnie could have been coerced into becoming involved in something that he hadn’t realized would turn out to be illegal and potentially dangerous. Or perhaps he’d willingly got involved. Jesus, he hoped it wasn’t acting as a mule, carrying in drugs. And although he told himself it was unlikely the idea refused to budge. It had to be checked and hopefully eliminated, and there was only one way to do that. Tomorrow he and Cantelli would interview the other lads who had committed that arson attack with Johnnie, and they’d start with the man who had the highest number of criminal convictions: Ryan Spencer.

C
antelli pulled up outside the shabby terraced council house. Horton eyed it with weary resignation. He knew what to expect. He’d been to many such properties in his police career. He couldn’t see how Johnnie could once again have become involved with Ryan Spencer, and the thought that they were wasting their time crossed his mind as they stepped around an assortment of abandoned broken toys in the small front garden that wouldn’t have known a blade of grass if it had had the gall to poke up from between the rusting child’s bicycle, dirty pushchair, old rotting sofa and split bags of litter that the urban foxes and magpies had pecked at. He felt sorry for the neighbours, whose gardens were neat and well tended and whose windows gleamed and sported crisp clean curtains and blinds.

He had called Cantelli and had asked him to get in early. He knew that wouldn’t be a problem for the sergeant, who had probably spent a very restless night. The heavy circles under his dark worried eyes bore testimony to that. Horton hadn’t exactly had a blissful night’s sleep either. His mind had refused to stop whirling for some time after he had stretched out on his bunk, and when he did sleep his dreams had been a mixed-up mash of Johnnie and Jennifer leaving him to wake with a dull headache of the sort he used to experience when he’d drunk too much booze.

He’d stopped in his office long enough to email DC Walters the photographs that Sarah Conway had sent to him late last night. There were some good close-up shots of Masefield and his crew and two of the yacht, one from the side looking up at it and the other front on. She might have shot them on a long lens, but however she had taken them Horton knew it would have involved the risk of being thrown overboard from that RIB. On their way to Paulsgrove Horton had called Walters and brought him up to speed with events.

‘Wondered why it was like the haunted house in here,’ Walters had said. ‘That’s a bit of a bummer the sarge’s nephew missing.’

Horton had given him instructions to get down to the Wightlink ferry terminal at midday to interview the marshalling staff. ‘You’ll have to go on-board the twelve thirty and one o’clock sailings and ask the load master, crew and the catering staff if they remember seeing Johnnie, but for goodness’ sake try not to get caught on-board when the bloody ship sails. Is Bliss in?’

‘Hang on, I’ll check.’

Horton had heard him put down the phone and clatter across to the window.

‘She’s just pulled in to the car park.’

Horton had instructed him to liaise with Sergeant Warren and get some officers down to the Camber to show the pictures of Masefield’s yacht and those of Johnnie. He’d then called Bliss on her office number. Swiftly, he’d told her that he and Cantelli were following up a couple of leads on a missing person’s inquiry and relayed the details.

‘Does it need both of you?’ she’d demanded curtly.

He told her that the person in question was Cantelli’s nephew.

‘Then I would have thought it best to send another officer. One who wouldn’t be emotionally compromised.’

‘They wouldn’t have the background knowledge that I and Sergeant Cantelli have,’ he had answered, without saying anything about Johnnie and his mates’ convictions for arson, adding, ‘and there wasn’t time to brief anyone this morning.’

He heard her sniff derisively. ‘I want to see you the moment you return, Inspector, and I mean immediately.’ The line went dead.

An expression of empathy might not have gone amiss, he thought as Cantelli rapped loudly on the battered and scratched door of Ryan Spencer’s house, but that was just wishful thinking. He had about as much chance of getting empathy from the ice maiden as he did of being knighted by the Queen.

‘What the bloody hell do you want?’ an obese woman in her early twenties, with straggly dyed black hair hanging around a sullen pale spotty face, demanded as she wrenched open the door and eyed them with open hostility. In her fat tattooed arms she held a child of about a year wearing only a soiled nappy with a snotty nose and a chocolate stained mouth.

‘Ryan Spencer?’ Cantelli answered, raising his voice above the noise of a television blaring out.

‘Yeah, and who the fuck are you?’

Tight-lipped, Cantelli showed his warrant card.

‘Might have guessed.’ She turned and screeched up the stairs, ‘It’s the pigs for you,’ before turning into a room on her left.

Cantelli flashed Horton a pained look as they stepped inside. Horton knew his thoughts. How could Johnnie ever have associated with people like this? He closed the door behind him and eyed the dirty narrow hallway with filthy clothes and toys littering the threadbare carpet. The smell of urine, dirt and fried food was cloying.

Ryan Spencer appeared at the top of the stairs in low-slung jogging pants and a baggy, dirty, grey T-shirt over his skinny frame. He shuffled down the stairs, eyeing them with alarm. ‘I ain’t done nothing,’ he whined.

‘We’d just like a word,’ Cantelli answered, having to raise his voice above the sound of the television. ‘Shall we go in here?’ He indicated the scuffed and yellowing door on his left.

Cantelli stepped inside while Horton followed the skinny anaemic-looking Ryan into the dirty room that stank of nicotine and soiled nappies. Horton caught sight of one poking out behind the sagging old settee and quickly turned his attention from it to the widescreen gigantic plasma television set that dominated the room, almost blocking out what little light managed to break through the grime on the window behind it. In front of it, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was a boy of about four. Horton feared for his eyesight, not to mention his hearing. Horton asked the mound of tattooed flesh to turn down the volume. She looked as though she was about to tell him to sod off or worse, but holding her gaze she must have seen something in his expression that made her obey, albeit grudgingly. The instant the sound decreased minimally the boy looked up, startled, and began to cry, and the baby decided to join in.

‘Now look what you’ve done,’ the mountain of flesh declared, glaring at Horton with real hatred. She grabbed the boy by the arm, violently wrenching him up from the floor so that he wailed even louder. Cantelli looked as though he was going to scream. Horton addressed Ryan Spencer, who seemed oblivious to the commotion.

‘Outside,’ he curtly commanded.

Ryan Spencer sniffed, grabbed a packet of cigarettes from the mantelpiece and shuffled out. They followed him.

‘When did you last see Johnnie Oslow?’ Horton commanded sharply as soon as they were standing in the littered front garden. The quicker they got this over with the better. He registered a flicker of surprise in Ryan Spencer’s shifty eyes.

‘Not for years.’ Ryan lit his cigarette, adding, ‘Why, what’s he done? Set fire to something again?’

Horton felt Cantelli tense. He wasn’t a violent man, but extenuating circumstances might provoke him, and this looked like being one of them. Horton quickly interjected: ‘Has he been in touch by phone, text or email?’

‘No.’

‘Never?’

‘No.’

‘Where were you last week?’

‘Eh?’ Ryan eyed Horton as though he’d just asked him to explain Newton’s theory of relativity.

‘Your life that exciting that you don’t remember?’ Horton said facetiously.

Ryan wiped a hand across his nose and drew on his cigarette. Horton could hear the children crying inside the house and Ms Tattoo shouting at them to shut the fuck up. Poor little blighters didn’t stand a chance.

‘OK, then let me be more precise,’ Horton continued. ‘What were you were doing on Wednesday?’

‘Signing on.’

The answer came so promptly that Horton knew it must be the highlight of his week. ‘All day?’ he sneered.

‘Nah, course not.’

‘So after signing on …’ This was like pulling teeth.

‘I went down the town, hung around the shops a bit, then went for a drink.’

‘Where?’

Ryan flinched at the sharpness of Horton’s tone. ‘The White Swan. Guildhall Walk.’

That wasn’t far from the town centre, but it was a fair distance from the harbour. ‘How long were you there?’ Horton asked as Cantelli took notes.

‘Dunno. A few hours.’

‘When, exactly?’ Horton felt like shaking him.

‘Didn’t look at the clock.’

‘What time did you get there?’

‘Look, what is this? The third degree?’

Horton leaned forward and fixed his cold stare on the little weasel. ‘Yes. And if you don’t feel like answering my questions here then perhaps you’ll feel more like it at the station.’

‘All right, keep your hair on. I had something to eat and was in there all afternoon.’

‘Anyone vouch for that?’

‘A few of me mates and the barman.’

They could check, but Horton was beginning to think there was no need. But to make sure he said, ‘Ever been abroad on holiday?’

Ryan looked so shocked at the question that Horton knew the answer before he spoke, and that it was genuine.

‘No.’

‘Do you own a car or a motorbike or scooter?’

‘No.’