Death Surge (29 page)

So who had Johnnie met on the Wednesday afternoon he’d disappeared? Again, Horton considered if the taxi driver could have been mistaken or lying. They’d relied a lot on his evidence. If he was mistaken then Johnnie could have headed anywhere, as they’d already hypothesized – perhaps to the centre of town where he’d met Ryan. But if the taxi driver was telling the truth and Johnnie had asked for Hayling, then he’d been instructed to do so by the killer. Why? To implicate him in a death, of course.

He sat up, alarmed, as the small fragments of information from the taxi driver clicked into place with what he’d seen recently – a long expanse of lawn that led down to an inlet of Chichester Harbour and the small sailing yachts off Hayling Island Sailing Club.

‘Stuart Jayston!’ he exclaimed, leaping up.

‘Eh?’

‘I know where he is or where his body will be.’ He sincerely hoped it wasn’t the latter, but he was very much afraid it would be. ‘He’s in the small boat house at the house on Hayling Island where I interviewed him, and that’s why Johnnie was told to ask someone the fare there. To make us think he killed him.’

‘But the workmen would have found him.’

Horton remembered what Gordon Jayston had told him. ‘They’re not working on the house. A delivery of wood hadn’t arrived, and Gordon Jayston said he’d pulled them off and put them on another project. They had too much work for the workers to be idle.’

‘The killer couldn’t have known that.’

‘He could if he contacted Stuart.’ And Horton remembered Stuart being on the phone when he’d arrived. ‘Or perhaps the killer thought he’d take a chance. He dumped his body there last night, either before or after dumping Tyler’s at the moat.’ And he could so easily have done that by boat, motoring around from Langstone Harbour into Chichester Harbour and to the house on Hayling. But perhaps Stuart had never left the area. He recalled the neighbouring property fronting on to the waste ground. ‘The house Stuart was working on at Hayling is empty. The owners work and live in London. It’s their weekend and holiday place. We’ll probably find Stuart’s van close by, and I think I know where.’ He told him about the derelict house next door to the Hayling property. Uckfield was already on his phone ordering a unit over there immediately. Havant police, the nearest, would attend and call Uckfield as soon as they had news; it would take them, what, five minutes to get there on blue lights, as Uckfield instructed.

Horton’s brain was teeming with thoughts. ‘If Stuart is there, then obviously Johnnie’s death is next and the last and it has to be made to look like suicide, even though we won’t believe it. The coroner will give an open verdict, the press will speculate, and some will say that Johnnie did it to stop his old former schoolmates from telling the sailing world he had a conviction.’

‘But everyone knows about that.’

‘Not everyone, Steve, only Andreadis, and he was good enough to give the lad another chance, just as Don Winscom was.
We
know that’s not the real reason why these men have been killed, so there’s another, and as Dr Needham said it’s either revenge or some kind of warped justice against Cantelli or …’ But Horton stalled. Was that just another blind alley? ‘Or to stop Johnnie and the others from telling something they know.’

‘If that’s the case then they’ve had seven years to do it and seven years to be silenced. I can’t see it being that.’

Uckfield must be right. Horton said, as though to himself, ‘Where and how will the killer make it look like suicide?’

‘A hose from the exhaust into a car?’

‘Johnnie hasn’t got a car.’

‘The killer could steal one and make it look as though Johnnie had stolen it.’

‘Possibly.’

‘Drugs and drink administered to him under duress,’ Uckfield said.

‘Or put in his food and drink. Then he’ll be taken out to sea, his shoes and some clothing, or perhaps most of his clothing, removed and his body thrown overboard. If his body is washed up along the shore the assumption will be that, disturbed by what he’d done, he got drunk, took some drugs and drowned himself.’

Even if his body was never washed up it would throw up enough questions and speculations to damage the Cantelli family. Had he killed himself? Did he kill the others? Where was his body? It would be a living hell. It would destroy them, and Horton wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

‘It’s likely to be done tonight or tomorrow night, so where is he being kept? Where could the person who met him at the Camber have taken him by boat?’ Horton said.

‘It can’t be the Hilsea bastions because he’d know we’d seal it off with the second death. We’re still searching it. The killer won’t be able to get Johnnie out of there if he’s kept him hidden somewhere inside those tunnels.’ Uckfield’s phone rang, making them both start. Uckfield snatched it up, listened and then said, ‘Seal it off. No one, and I mean no one, is to enter even the outer cordon until I get there. And if anyone speaks to the press I’ll roast their balls over a slow fire.’

Horton didn’t need to be told what the Havant police had found in the boat house on Hayling. Uckfield rang off and immediately punched in another number. Horton heard him relay the news and instructions to DI Dennings to meet him at the boat house and to mobilize the circus.

When Uckfield came off the phone Horton said, ‘Do we know how he was killed?’

‘Looks like strangulation, but they haven’t disturbed the body just checked to make sure he is dead, although there wasn’t any doubt. I’ll call Dean.’

Horton went up on deck and beckoned Elkins and Ripley on to the launch. He told them to head back for Portsmouth. Uckfield had been brought over by a Border Agency RIB.

God knew how Cantelli was going to take this news, but Horton wanted to tell him before he heard it from Bliss or Dennings. He rang him. There was a moment’s stunned silence before Cantelli, his voice tight with emotion and reverberating with desolation, said, ‘I can’t find anyone that fits the profile.’

‘Keep looking, Barney. Elkins will make sure the list Winscom gave me gets to you at the station.’ Elkins would drop Horton back to Haslar Marina where he’d collect the Harley and then the launch would take Uckfield on to Hayling. He was about to ring off when Cantelli said, ‘I’m sorry to hear about Sarah Conway. That must have been tough for you.’

Even frantic with worry, Cantelli could think of someone else’s loss. ‘Not as tough as it is for Farrelly,’ Horton answered. Coming off the line he instructed Elkins to get him a chart of the coast of Portsmouth and Gosport. They went below, where Uckfield stood red faced and tight-lipped. It didn’t look as though his call to Dean had gone well.

‘The bloody gnome thinks I can pull the murderer out of a hat. I’ve told him we need extra resources and bloody quick. He said he’ll see what he can do. See what he can do! Anyone would think I’d asked him for a larger desk.’

Elkins, pretending not to hear this, spread the map out on the table. The three of them studied it as the launch made rapid progress across the Solent. Horton said, ‘If we’re right then the killer has taken Johnnie somewhere within easy distance of the Camber. A place where he is able to keep him hidden, alive, fed and unharmed until the time is right to dispose of him.’

Elkins said, ‘He could have gone further up into Portsmouth Harbour to Horsea Marina, or along the Portchester and Fareham coast.’

‘Not the marina – that would be too restrictive because of the lock, and he’d be seen going in and out. He needs to be somewhere accessible and private.’ Which could mean a house with a mooring, and they’d never be able to search all of them in time unless it was one that was vacant, perhaps on an estate agent’s books. He said as much to Uckfield, who said he’d get Marsden on to it, and added, ‘But if the owners are on holiday and haven’t told the police there’s not much chance of us knowing about it. He could have crossed Portsmouth Harbour into Gosport or Haslar Marina?’

‘Too public,’ answered Horton.

Elkins traced the coast of Portsmouth with his finger saying, ‘Or along Southsea Bay to your marina, Andy, but that would mean he’d be restricted by the Cill and it wouldn’t give him the flexibility he needs to come and go. So he could have gone anywhere along the coast of Langstone Harbour to Broadmarsh at the north where there’s a public slipway, but I don’t think there’s anywhere to hide along there.’

‘There isn’t,’ Horton answered. ‘But there are a few houses with slipways on to Langstone Harbour, both on the Hayling Island side and on the Portsmouth side, not far from where the arson on the sailing club was.’

Uckfield said, ‘I’ll get uniform calling on them.’ He telephoned Trueman and asked him to organize it and make it priority. ‘Bugger what Dean says,’ he added sotto voce to Horton.

Horton went back up on deck. Soon they were heading along Stokes Bay, past the Browndown Battery, which was built in the late 1800s and used by the army for training purposes; past Gilkicker Point, where he’d stood not long ago and had become convinced that Masefield and his accessory were their killers; and then past Fort Monkton, before the launch headed into the harbour and deposited him at the marina. He climbed on his Harley and began the journey back to Portsmouth, his head reeling with all that had happened and reverberating with so many questions that it hurt. Why had three young men died? What was this killer’s motive? Was it revenge on Cantelli and the desire for a warped kind of justice? Or was it something linked to these lads, as he’d suggested to Uckfield? If the latter, the only thing they had in common was that arson attack seven years ago. Perhaps he should start there, and that meant going to the sailing club. He had no idea what he was going to achieve by viewing the scene of that long ago arson, but he headed there with a silent prayer that he’d find inspiration, because if he didn’t the alternative was too horrific to think about.

A
n hour later – it was now late afternoon – he was standing on the shore by the sailing club and staring across Langstone Harbour. The clouds had joined up to form a blanket of oppressive dull greyness which the stiff warm breeze did little to dispel. He could smell rain in the air and feel the cloying dampness on his skin. To his right he could see the masts of the yachts in his own marina. Across the narrow stretch of water on Hayling Island, Uckfield and Dennings had already viewed Stuart’s body. Uckfield had called him a few minutes ago to tell him that Dr Clayton’s initial examination suggested the cause of death had been strangulation with a ligature, the same method as that used on the other two victims. She’d found evidence of it during the autopsy on Tyler Godfray. Stuart Jayston’s estimated time of death she put between twenty-four and twenty-seven hours ago, which suggested to Horton that Stuart had been killed shortly after meeting the killer. Stuart’s van had been found outside the derelict house where he’d been lured, possibly with the promise of a building contract. Taylor and his SOCO team were at the scene of crime on Hayling Island, and the derelict house and van would be examined for forensic evidence, but Horton wasn’t convinced they’d find much.

He visualized the killer making his way to the creek under cover of darkness, showing perhaps just a small light on the boat, and dumping Tyler in the moat. Then he’d motored out of Langstone Harbour, along the Hayling coastline eastwards, and into Chichester Harbour, where he’d collected Stuart’s body, slipped the boat on to the shingle shore and dumped him in the boat house. With just that handful of expensive large houses on one side of the inlet, and fields and horses the other side, no one would have seen anything.

Who had broken the news to Gordon and Jean Jayston? Perhaps someone from Havant police had been sent, or perhaps Uckfield had gone himself. They would obtain Stuart’s mobile phone records, but Horton didn’t hold out much hope of them getting a lead that way, or not before it was too late. His heart hardened as he thought of this cold calculating killer, and he recalled what Dr Needham had told him:
the killer wants to get even.
With whom? If it was with Cantelli then the killer had made his point. But he hadn’t, not yet, not until Johnnie was dead. Should he consult Claire Needham again? Could she give him further information or insights into this evil bastard that might help them apprehend him quickly?

He turned and surveyed the new sailing club building. Through the windows facing on to the harbour he could see a handful of people drinking and chatting, but there weren’t many there; it was low tide and getting late. He had found the secretary though on his arrival and had asked him for a list of the members from seven years ago, hoping it hadn’t been destroyed. He’d been informed the accountant would have it and the secretary would make sure it was emailed to Horton first thing in the morning. That might be too late, Horton thought gloomily, because even if they got it then it would still take time to check out the names, unless one of them meant something to Cantelli.

He called him. ‘Anything?’

‘Nothing,’ Cantelli said mournfully. ‘I’ve come across some scum in my time but I can’t find anyone who would do this. Are you sure it’s not Farrelly? If I pleaded with him would he tell me where Johnnie is?’

Cantelli’s despair and desperation gripped Horton with pain. For a moment he questioned his judgement about Farrelly, but not for long. ‘It’s not him.’ He surveyed the dinghies and the club house behind him. Horton couldn’t see how anyone could kill three people for setting fire to the club, especially when a new, better and bigger one had been constructed in its place. No one had been inside at the time, so no one had been injured or killed. Nobody had lost anything of great value unless you counted a dinghy, but even that would have been insured, and if it hadn’t then replacing it would only have cost a couple of hundred pounds – maybe less, maybe a little more. It wasn’t worth killing three people for. But people did kill for less. They killed for the wrong glance or the mildest insult, especially if they were unbalanced, drugged up or intoxicated. But this was no random murder. This, as Dr Needham had said, had been planned for some time. He recalled her words:
he’s hostile and arrogant with domineering behaviour. He needs to demonstrate his superiority so the kidnapping and killing in this ritualistic way fulfils that need. It all helps to bolster his self image.
That didn’t fit with getting even over losing a dinghy. And why wait seven years? Maybe during that time this madman had brooded on it, it had festered and become a slight of huge proportions, a focus for all his problems and failures in life, just as Dr Needham had said. Cantelli had become that focus for hatred and revenge. And the killer wanted Cantelli to suffer. Well, the bastard was certainly succeeding there. And he wasn’t the only one.