Blood on the Sand (27 page)

   Sharply he said, 'So what happened in Tripoli?'

   Nelson's lips twitched in a kind of smile and Horton saw at once that Nelson had been trying to sidetrack him with that mental health committee stuff.

   'Before I answer that, tell me one thing.'

   Horton nodded though he had no intention of bargaining or keeping his promise. He was getting rather fed up with Nelson.

   'What did Christopher's will say?'

   Horton narrowed his eyes. 'Why do you want to know that?'

   'I'll tell you if you answer my question.' Nelson tossed back the remainder of his sherry, keeping his eyes on Horton all the while.

   Horton didn't see any need for secrecy. The will would probably be public knowledge soon anyway. But why was Nelson interested in Sir Christopher's will and not Arina's?

   'He left most of his estate to Arina with generous bequests to charities and hospitals.'

   'Not to any particular individual?'

   'No.'
Not unless you count Roy Danesbrook
, Horton thought, growing more curious.

   Nelson nodded slowly. Carefully he set his glass down on the small table beside him.
Here it comes
, thought Horton, with a flutter of anticipation. He only hoped it had been worth waiting for.

   'I shall of course deny what I am about to tell you, Inspector, if asked to repeat it.'

   
Not another one acting like bloody Smiley in a John Le Carre novel
, thought Horton exasperated, but he nodded. He would have agreed to sell the Elgin Marbles to the biggest crook this side of the English Channel if it meant he'd get some fresh information to help solve this case.

   Nelson said, 'In September 1958, Sir Christopher Sutton was found in bed with a nurse.'

   Jesus! Was that it? Horton could hardly contain his frustration but then he told himself that 1958 standards of propriety were a million miles away from where they were now. Even his own illegitimacy had been something to be ashamed of when he was a child, and that wasn't so long ago. He knew that his mother had probably been disowned by her family when they had discovered she was pregnant because he had never seen, heard or spoken to any of them.

   Nelson said, 'That sort of behaviour was not expected of nurses.'

   'And what about doctors?' said Horton scornfully.

   'Ah, those were the days.' Nelson smiled. 'We were unchallenged. Gods. We could do as we liked.'

   'So the nurse got the sack, or dishonourable discharge, and Sutton got posted away,' Horton declared, seeing the picture.

   'Spot on.'

   Bit hard on the poor bloody nurse. This then was the gap in Sutton's career which Trueman had discovered. 'Where did Sutton go?'

   'I don't know.'

   'Oh, come on, you must have swapped tales when you met up again.'

   'We didn't. As I said, Christopher was not one to reminisce.'

   'And it never came up in all the years you knew him?'

   'No. I don't know where he went after Tripoli or what he did.'

   Horton didn't believe him. Nelson was closing ranks even now after Sutton's death just as they would all be doing. He could take Nelson in for further questioning but he had no real cause to and he doubted Nelson would say more. In fact he'd say less, as he'd already intimated.

   'Three people dead,' Horton declared coldly, 'five if we include Helen and Lars Carlsson. Don't you think the time for secrecy is past?'

   'I can't see how their deaths can have anything to do with where Christopher was during his time on National Service.'

   'Then let me explain.' And Horton did. He told Nelson that Sutton could have been working for the government during that missing year on something secret and in 1990 was seen talking to someone whom Helen Carlsson, because of her job photographing many of the trouble spots around the world, recognized and photographed. So she and her husband were killed. Then the dying Sir Christopher confided something to Arina, setting up a chain reaction of more murders.

   Nelson's expression remained studiously neutral. So much so that Horton felt like shaking him. Anyone else and he might have shoved the photographs of the deceased under his nose. But a doctor wasn't going to be fazed by pictures of dead bodies or of a post-mortem. He wondered if Gaye Clayton might be able to find out more about Sutton's missing year. Perhaps her father, the eminent Home Office pathologist Dr Ryedon, might help.

   'I think your imagination is running away with you, Inspector. There must be a far more logical explanation for these deaths. The Carlssons were killed in a road accident, Christopher died of natural causes and Arina in a tragic accident.'

   'And Owen Carlsson and Jonathan Anmore? Not to mention that Thea Carlsson, who is missing, is probably dead by now,' Horton snapped, though he was getting the feeling that Nelson might be right. What had sounded so plausible at the station less than two hours ago now, even to him, smacked of that John Le Carre novel. But he wasn't beaten yet.

   'What happened to the nurse?' he asked tersely.

   'I have no idea.'

   Another lie? 'Did Sir Christopher ever talk about her?'

   'No.'

   'What was her name? And don't tell me you don't remember because I won't believe you.'

   Nelson sighed wearily. 'It was all a long time ago and I can't see that it has any bearing on your case.'

   'Maybe not, but you told me to look for a more logical explanation for these deaths and if I discard the Carlssons' car accident as being murder but not Arina's then I'm back to the question you asked me earlier.' Horton drew some satisfaction at Nelson's surprise. Was that because he had remembered what Nelson had said or because Nelson hadn't expected him to reason it out? A little smugly, Horton added, 'You asked if Sir Christopher Sutton had left anything in his will to an individual. You were thinking of an illegitimate son or daughter.'

   Nelson eyed him with interest. After a moment he said, 'Her name was Elizabeth. She was a tall, slim woman with fair hair. I can't remember her surname.'

   'Try,' Horton said harshly.

   'No, it's slipped my mind,' Nelson smiled politely. 'But I'm sure it will come back to me, eventually.'

   'Then I'll just have to wait until it does.' Horton glanced at the clock on the big oak mantelpiece. 'What time did you say your wife would be home?'

   'I didn't,' Nelson said slowly. 'Now I come to think of it, Inspector, maybe I have an old photograph that might jog my memory. She might just be in one of them. If you've got a moment, I'll dig them out.'

   Horton had several moments, though he would have preferred not to spend them in the sitting room listening to that grandfather clock in the hall soberly ticking away the minutes while Nelson went through his old photos and extracted any he didn't want him to see. What's the betting he'd find none of this nurse? But Horton was wrong. In less than three minutes Nelson was back with a triumphant look on his face and with two photographs in his hand.

   'Here's two of a group of us outside the hospital.' He handed them to Horton. 'There's Christopher.' Nelson pointed to a tall, good-looking, dark-haired man with an aristocratic face. 'And here's me.' But Horton wasn't interested in either of them. Instead he was staring at the tall, slender woman whom Sir Christopher had his arm draped around and who was laughing into camera. With a shock he realized he'd seen that face before. He didn't need Nelson to tell him her surname now. He already knew it. And although the passing years had obliterated most of the likeness there was no mistaking the shape of the face, the wide, slightly protruding eyes, because less than six hours ago this woman had smiled down at him from a mantelpiece underneath a painting of what looked like
Manderley.

   Nelson eyed him keenly. 'Her name was Elizabeth Elms. I told you I'd remember. But I can see you already knew that.'

   'Not until you showed me this.'

   'She's alive? You know her?'

   'No, but I know her son.' And he also now knew the reason why Sir Christopher had been so shocked and upset when Gordon Elms had turned up at Scanaford House to research the ghost. Poor old Sutton had just seen one. His illegitimate son.

'I
was just going out,' Elms said, clearly not pleased to receive another visit from the police, and so soon after the first. 'I've got a meeting with my paranormal group.'

   The mind boggled, thought Horton, envisaging spooks, ghouls and ghosties sitting (or should that be floating) in a semi-circle, bemoaning the state of the nation and deciding where best to haunt.

   'This won't take a moment, sir,' he said with a tight smile, stepping into the red and gold room. If Elms was a triple murderer, then he could kiss goodbye to his meeting tonight, and for the next twenty-five years, a good judge and a fair wind willing. But Elms hadn't inherited his late father's fortune, so what other motive could he have for killing Arina Sutton? Revenge on the family that had deserted him and his mother? Yes, that was possible.

   Horton hadn't mentioned Gordon Elms to Uckfield on his way back to the Isle of Wight from Lymington because Cantelli had told him that Uckfield had got an emergency appointment with a chiropractor. His back had got so bad that he could only just about hobble and Cantelli had added, 'You can imagine the temper he's in.'

   Horton could. Best to stay clear. He'd asked Cantelli to meet him outside Elms' house and before knocking had quickly briefed him.

   Elms stood, trying to glare at them, but it just made him look as though his truss had slipped. Clearly he was not going to offer them a seat. Glancing at his watch, Elms said, 'I can only give you a few minutes.'

   
You'll give me a lot more than that, sunshine, if I think you're guilty of murder
, thought Horton, but arranging his features into a suitably civil expression he said, politely, 'Do you own a car, Mr Elms?'

   'Yes. Why?'

   'What kind, sir?' asked Cantelli.

   Elms looked surprised and baffled at the question. 'A Ford. It's taxed and insured and has a current MOT if that's what you're after.'

   'It's colour?'

   'Blue. But what's that got to––?'

   'Where were you on the third of January?' Horton said briskly. Now let's see what the little gnome comes up with as an alibi for the night Arina had been killed.

   'I can't remember.'

   'It was the Saturday after New Year's Day, if that helps,' Horton said.

   Elms bristled at Horton's sarcasm. He looked set to make some smart remark but Cantelli quickly intervened.

   'Perhaps consulting your diary will help, sir?'

   Elms considered this for a moment, then replied stiffly, 'I'll fetch it.'

   'I'll come with you.'

   'There's no need, Sergeant.'

   But Cantelli ignored him.

   As soon as they had left the room, Horton crossed to the mantelpiece and studied the photographs of Elizabeth Elms. Elms had said that his mother had died in 1981. How old had she been then, he wondered, picking up the gold-effect frame and peering more closely at her. She looked to be about forty when this picture was taken with Gordon, and if she had been in her twenties when working as a nurse at the military hospital in Tripoli then she had died young. Certainly before she had reached fifty.

   He could still see traces of the attractive young woman in the photograph that Dr Nelson had shown him, but whether life, betrayal, desertion, disappointment, or all four had made her mouth tighter and her eyes harder he couldn't say and would never know. And neither would he know whether his own mother might look the same if she were still alive, which he doubted. Or maybe he wanted to believe she was dead because that was easier to cope with than acknowledging the fact that he'd been deliberately ignored for years. The only photograph he'd had of her had been burnt when his beloved boat
Nutmeg
had been torched by a mad killer. That reminded him that soon he'd have to give up living on the boat borrowed from Sergeant Elkins' friend and find a new home for himself. It was something he had been putting off in the hope of a reconciliation with Catherine, which was now completely out of the question. New Year, new decisions, he thought, pulling himself up. Get somewhere to live, sort out your life.

   He turned his mind to Elms. Had Elizabeth Elms told her son who his father was? Did Gordon Elms know what his father had been doing during that missing year? Trueman had confirmed that Sutton had bought Scanaford House in 1976 and that his wife had died in 1980. It was possible that Elizabeth Elms had returned to nursing in London where Gordon Elms had told him they had lived. Maybe she had kept her eye on Christopher Sutton's career and, hearing the news that his wife had died in 1980, had come here in 1981 hoping to rekindle some of the passion or love between her and Christopher Sutton but it had never materialized.

   Horton couldn't help his thoughts flitting back to his own mother. Had she done the same on that fateful day in November when she'd left their council flat dressed up in her best clothes, according to the only witness he'd managed to find? Was his father someone like Christopher Sutton, an eminent man, who didn't want his affair acknowledged? Or was he the powerful underworld figure that only recently the Intelligence Directorate had claimed was possible? But perhaps her disappearance had nothing to do with either of these – quite the opposite in fact, and he felt a stirring of excitement that told him he could be right before a reality check said it was more likely he was the result of a one-night stand. He told himself he didn't really care or want to know, but as he heard footsteps in the hall he guessed Gordon Elms had said much the same over the years. And Horton knew it was a lie.