A Killing Coast (7 page)

Horton followed her gaze to a tall man in his early fifties with short dark hair, and an expensive sailing jacket worn over causal clothes. He halted at the top of the pontoons and stared around with a puzzled expression on his aquiline face, before stepping into the small marina office. Avril tossed back the remainder of her vodka and sprang up. Lloyd followed suit. Avril said, ‘Come and meet him.’

Horton wasn’t particularly keen to, but how could he refuse? Dominic Keats smiled as Avril greeted him warmly.

‘This is an old friend of mine, Andy Horton; he’s a police inspector so you’d better watch out,’ she said, laughing.

Keats looked as though he’d just suffered a severe bout of indigestion but he took Horton’s hand in a firm grip and smiled briefly and dismissively. Horton got the sense of an impatient, ambitious man who measured people in terms of their wealth and business potential, and as he clearly had neither, Keats wasn’t going to waste time and energy on him.

‘And here’s Oliver.’ Avril waved at a slim man, about mid forties, with fair hair and a close-cropped fair beard on a narrow but friendly face. He was casually dressed in jeans and jumper under a dark coat, carrying a canvas computer bag slung over his shoulder and trailing a small suitcase.

Oliver Vernon’s grasp wasn’t as firm as Keating’s, but his light-blue eyes were intelligent and friendly.

‘We’ve got some great pieces to auction,’ Oliver Vernon said enthusiastically, after Avril had made the introductions. ‘Thanks to Avril’s persuasive skills.’ Horton could well imagine. ‘Some fine art, antique jewellery, exquisite antique porcelain as well as the usual, holiday for two on a millionaire’s island paradise.’

‘Not Russell’s,’ Avril added, smiling, ‘but we’re donating a four day cruise on the yacht. You could bid for it, Andy.’ she teased. ‘You are coming to the auction, aren’t you? Please say you can make it.’

Horton quickly stifled his surprise and rapidly tried to think of an excuse to refuse. The obvious one was work but he found himself saying, ‘Thanks. That would be nice.’
Nicer still if Glenn wasn’t there.
Still, he was curious to meet the man who had made millions and won Avril’s heart, or at least her devotion, even if she worshipped at the altar of wealth. But who was he to criticize? It was her life. He didn’t know what the new Chief would make of his appearance on board though. Bliss would be sick with envy if she ever found out and so would Uckfield, he guessed. Horton hoped that neither they nor anyone else would. He’d come in for endless ribbing and snide comments.

‘Great.’ She sounded and looked genuinely pleased, but Horton still suspected he was being invited so that she could boast to at least one person who remembered her from her poverty stricken past. ‘Eight thirty. Black tie. Now we’d better go, there’s Russell waiting for us.’

Horton followed the direction of Avril’s gaze and this time had to work hard not to betray his surprise, because Russell Glenn was not how he’d imagined. In fact he was the total opposite. Instead of being tall, good-looking, forceful and well dressed, he was of average height, scruffily dressed, wearing a checked shirt that seemed to be more out than tucked into his low-slung trousers. He had untidy grey hair, wore gold-framed spectacles and appeared to be in his early sixties. He looked anxious, understandably so, what with Avril sporting the crown jewels and a huge glittering superyacht on display in a city that had almost as many villains as it had pebbles on the beach.

Horton’s eyes travelled back to Avril. He caught a shadow of unease on her face before she smiled her goodbye and entered the marina office with her guests. With Lloyd trailing behind them, Horton watched as they made their way towards the superyacht before bringing his eyes back on Glenn, only to find Glenn staring directly at him. He tried to read the expression on Glenn’s face but it was difficult to interpret behind those spectacles and over the distance of several yards. One thing was clear though, Glenn was studying him intently. Perhaps he was jealous of anyone who knew his wife. But Horton didn’t think it was that. It was as though . . .

‘You can’t afford it, Andy?’

Horton swung round to find a broad, tall man in his late forties behind him. Mike Danby, ex-Chief Inspector, had less hair than Horton remembered from eight years ago, but the penetrating green eyes that had terrified many a suspect in the interview room were as piercing as ever, only now they were smiling at Horton.

‘You’re looking prosperous, Mike,’ Horton said, returning the smile while eyeing up the expensive leather jacket. ‘Life outside the force obviously suits you.’

‘It does, especially when you’ve got clients like Russell Glenn.’

Horton raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re providing extra security for this bash on Friday?’

‘You know about it?’ Mike Danby asked, surprised.

‘We know everything in CID.’

‘That’s new then. When I was in CID we knew bugger all until after it happened.’

That was still occasionally true. ‘How many men are you bringing in?’

‘Not sure yet. Why? Are you interested in joining the party? I’ve got a few off duty cops on the payroll for Friday night.’

‘I bet you have.’ Horton could well imagine they were queuing up to earn some extra money.

‘You should have joined me when you had the chance,’ Danby added, smiling.

But Horton knew that life outside the force when it had been offered to him by Danby wasn’t then a possibility. And it wasn’t now. ‘And miss all the bureaucracy and back biting in the station, never,’ Horton said with irony. ‘But I’m glad it’s worked out for you. Have you worked for Glenn before?’

‘No. Have you met him?’

Horton shook his head.
Only seen him
. Glenn had now vanished inside the superyacht along with Avril and her guests. ‘How did he make his money?’

‘Hotels, conferences, magazines, property, you name it he seems to have had the Midas touch. Buying up or taking over failing businesses and making them profitable before selling them off. Started with nothing, came from here too.’

‘Portsmouth?’ Horton asked, surprised. Avril hadn’t mentioned that.

‘Yes, but he left when he was a child. His father died in an accident when Russell was six and his mother moved to London.’

Horton again considered the expression he’d seen on Glenn’s face. Perhaps Glenn had been marvelling at how much had changed in the city over the years. When Glenn had been six Oyster Quays hadn’t existed and the entire area had been part of a thriving dockyard, employing thousands.

‘Do you do much of this sort of thing?’ Horton said, nodding at the superyacht.

‘Specialize in it you might say, high-profile events around the country, sometimes abroad, pop stars at gigs, celebrities who need a little extra protection. I always need good men, if ever you’re tempted . . .’ Danby handed Horton his business card.

‘I’ll let you know,’ Horton answered, pocketing it.

Danby glanced at his expensive watch.

‘You’ll be late for your meeting,’ Horton said.

Danby eyed him shrewdly before reaching out his hand. ‘Good to see you again, Andy.’

‘And you.’ Horton shook it. He watched Danby’s progress down the pontoon, his mind returning to Russell Glenn. Just what had he seen on the man’s face? Unease? Anxiety? Both? Maybe. But there had been something else. Defining what that may have been remained elusive so he abandoned it and consulted his cheap watch. It was almost seven. He hesitated. So what was it to be, a late evening checking out Yately’s apartment, or an evening on his yacht, alone? He often welcomed solitude but after the events of the day, which had brought the past back to him in more ways than he had expected, it felt an especially bleak place to be. He turned and struck out for the ferry.

FIVE

A
n hour later he was pulling up outside a tall Victorian whitewashed house perched high above the small seaside town of Ventnor, nestling under the downs. On the staggered terraces beneath it, leading down into the small bay, Horton could see the lights of the houses in the gathering dusk and beyond them the great black expanse of the English Channel, with a faint light out to sea of a container ship. He climbed the steps to the front door wondering if Mr Hazleton had his eyes peeled to his giant telescope.

Extracting the key Hannah Yately had given them, Horton stepped into a spacious and clean hall with a broad twisting staircase facing him. There were two doors leading off the hall and one further down it past the staircase, but there was no sound from behind any of them and no sign of any of the occupants. His eyes travelled to his left to what looked like a stack of lockers in a sports centre, except these were numbered, up to seven, and each had a wide slit for a postman to slot the mail in. He wished he had Yately’s key to it but it would either have to be forced open or they’d get the key from the landlord tomorrow.

Number seven was, as he had suspected, on the top floor. It was approached via the last flight of steps, much narrower than the others, but carpeted in the same green cord. It was the only flat on the floor and was evidently in the roof space. With a quickening heartbeat he registered there was no sign of a forced entry but then there didn’t need to be if Yately was still inside it with his keys. And if that were so then who was in the mortuary and why had he been carrying Yately’s key ring, minus the keys?

Horton stretched his hands into his latex gloves, and taking the second key he inserted it in the lock and pushed open the door. Silence greeted him and with relief he noted there was no smell of death. He found himself in a small lobby with two doors either side of it and a door directly ahead, which was the bathroom. In it he found a comb, which he dropped into an evidence bag for DNA and fingerprint comparison.

He wasn’t here to search the flat, only to satisfy himself that Colin Yately wasn’t inside it ill or dead, and a swift glance in the room to his left, which revealed a bedroom, and the room on the right, which led into the lounge with the kitchen off, confirmed to him that Yately wasn’t here, and was therefore probably in the mortuary. He turned back into the lobby and re-entered the bedroom.

It was shaped like an inverted ‘L’ with a window on the far side facing him. The room wasn’t very large, only about nine feet wide and about fifteen feet long. It was tidy with no evidence that it had been disturbed in any way. The single bed was made up with a navy-blue counterpane and opposite it was a low chest with several books on it, some about navy ships, others on local history. In front of the window was a telescope, but not like Victor Hazleton’s antique one or his ultra modern white contraption; this one was mounted on a tripod and it was the kind of telescope that Horton was more familiar with.

Without touching it he bent down, and closing one eye, peered through it. It seemed to be pointing at the small marina of Ventnor Haven, which he’d come into earlier that morning on the police launch. Yately probably used it to watch the passing ships. If Horton combined that with the subject matter of some of the books on the chest of drawers did it point to some kind of subversive activity? Hardly, he thought, smiling to himself at his imagination, before another thought struck him: had Yately been recruited to Project Neptune? But if he had Bliss would have recognized his name. But then she hadn’t stopped to ask him about the body, and he’d not had the chance to tell her. He thought it far more likely that while some people went in for trainspotting Yately had been into ship-spotting.

Straightening up, he supposed that Yately could have used the telescope for spying on people in the houses below. Perhaps Yately was a peeping Tom and that was the new hobby he’d hinted at to his daughter. But binoculars would have been more suitable for that activity and there didn’t seem to be any here. The door under the eaves led into a wardrobe. Inside were Yately’s clothes but no dresses. And rifling through the chest of drawers he found only male clothing.

Horton picked up the phone beside Yately’s bed and keyed in 1471 to get the number of the last caller. The call was timed at three minutes past two that day, when Hannah said she had last tried her father before reporting him missing at the police station, and the number checked with that of Hannah Yately’s mobile phone.

In the lounge, just as in the bedroom, there was restricted headroom because of the angle of the roof and Horton had to incline his head to avoid knocking it against the rafters as he crossed to the kitchenette to the right of an old, small wrought iron fireplace. The room was stuffy and felt claustrophobic. He wouldn’t like to be up here in summer. Give him the boat and the open sea any day, he thought, opening the fridge. There was milk and cheese in it, which were beginning to go off. This must have been one of the servant’s rooms years ago, he guessed, probably a large cupboard or perhaps another bedroom where the lowliest of servants had slept.

On the desk underneath the window in the lounge, Horton picked up a silver-framed photograph of Colin Yately with his daughter beside him. It was recent; taken about six months ago he’d say, on the promenade at Ventnor. Horton studied Yately’s smiling features, but just as in the interview room when Hannah had handed him a photograph of her father, he couldn’t equate it with what he’d seen on the slab in the mortuary. This time, though, he noted the receding light-brown hair, the lines around the mouth and the dark-brown eyes, which were like his daughter’s. Yately looked a fairly innocuous sort of man. It was easy to imagine him in the uniform of a postman. But not in a woman’s dress.

Slipping the photograph out of its frame, Horton placed it between the pages of his notebook. He didn’t think Hannah would mind, and even though she’d already given them a photograph he thought this more recent one would be better for circulating to the media if they needed to trace Yately’s last movements. He wondered if there were other photographs or an album about the place. Perhaps in the desk. On it was a large lined notepad with neat, thin handwriting. Horton popped the fountain pen beside it into another bag, again to compare fingerprints with the dead man’s, before his eyes fell on the notes. Yately had written: