Deadly Waters (23 page)

‘And did you get a name and address?’

‘Shit!’

Horton knew it. It confirmed his theory. ‘Don’t worry. It would probably have been false.’

‘We might have recognized him though.’

‘Not this man. He’s a master at disguise.’

‘But why go to all that trouble?’ Cantelli asked, swinging into the car park at Nettleside High School.

‘We’ll ask him, but I wouldn’t mind betting it was for the hell of it, the thrill of the thing or because he thought it would be a good joke to play on us.’

‘He’s quite a card. Can’t wait to meet him.’

Neither could Horton and soon they would.

They were ushered quickly into the head’s office by Thornecombe’s anxious secretary. Horton didn’t waste any time with the preliminaries but came straight to the point. He was too eager to get this bloody killer.

‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but we don’t have a drama teacher.

It’s not on our curriculum.’

Horton’s heart sank. This couldn’t be another dead end, surely? This morning he had told Uckfield his theory and got a sceptical look for his troubles. Uckfield had grumbled something about letting his imagination run wild and that this wasn’t
Book at Bedtime
, but he grudgingly admitted there might be something in it. Those telephone calls to the victims had surely proved he and Cantelli were right.

Horton persisted. ‘But you do hold after-school drama classes.’

‘Yes, on Tuesdays.’

Thank heavens for that.
‘Who takes them?’ Horton asked eagerly.

Thornecombe looked puzzled. ‘Timothy Boston. He’s an excellent teacher.’

Horton hoped he hid his surprise. He flashed Cantelli a look. The sergeant raised his eyebrows slightly as Horton quickly mentally recalled Boston: stockily built, clean cut and handsome, wearing a good suit and placing a comforting hand on Susan Pentlow’s arm. A pompous man who had been concerned about delaying the building of the new drama suite, and who had also omitted to mention that he taught performing arts. Of course! Boston had a foot in both camps.

Cantelli said, ‘But Mr Boston teaches at the Sir Wilberforce Cutler School.’

‘We share resources. I mentioned that before,’ Thornecombe replied. ‘It was one of Ms Langley’s ideas.’

It explained why she would willingly have gone to meet Boston.

Horton heard Cantelli ask: ‘How long has Mr Boston taught drama here?’

Thornecombe addressed Horton. ‘What is this about, Inspector?’

‘I can’t tell you yet, sir.’

‘If it reflects on the reputation of my school then I have a right to know?’ Thornecombe bristled.

Horton said firmly, ‘Can you just answer the question, sir?

How long has Mr Boston taught drama here?’

Thornecombe looked as though he wanted to explode.

Horton saw it was an effort for him to hold on to his temper.

This clearly was a man who was used to being obeyed without question.

Tight-lipped, Thornecombe relied, ‘About six weeks, since the start of term, and he ran a summer school during the holidays.’

So, plenty of time to get close to the kids and find out about their habits and their doting grandparents. What a brain. But why do it and risk a good career? Was it for the money? But teachers weren’t badly paid these days. However, Boston had been wearing an expensive suit and perhaps his tastes were bigger than his wallet.

Thornecombe said, ‘Mr Boston has been cleared by the police and has impeccable references.’

Horton asked, ‘Is he here?’ It was Tuesday after all, and half term at the Sir Wilberforce.

‘He will be later for the classes. They start at four p.m. Am I expected to cancel them? Only at short notice—’

‘Carry on as usual, Dr Thornecombe.’ If they didn’t find Boston by then, at least Horton knew where he’d be later that day. There would be no reason for him not to turn up. Boston couldn’t know they were on to him. The head teacher wouldn’t be pleased at the disruption an arrest would cause him, but that was too bad.

After extracting a promise that Thornecombe wouldn’t say anything to Boston about their visit, if he saw him before they did, Horton and Cantelli left him looking worried and very cross.

Cantelli zapped open the car. ‘Boston never said he taught here. At least I don’t think it’s in his statement.’

‘Why should it be? He wasn’t asked that question, only where he was when Langley was killed.’

‘Which, if I remember correctly, was at home watching
The
Maltese Falcon
. And I thought here’s a man with taste.’

Yes, the kind that needed robberies to fund them. And they were clever robberies at that. So was Boston the drunk on the pontoon? The build was right. Had Boston been the anonymous caller to CID on the morning of the last robbery and so had shopped Johnson and his mate? Horton guessed so.

He had decided to silence Langley and put an end to his antiques jaunts by shifting the focus to Johnson and his accomplice.

Horton called Sergeant Trueman as Cantelli pulled out of the school. He got Boston’s address and told Cantelli to head along the seafront to Fort Cumberland Road. Boston lived just a stone’s throw from Horton’s marina.

He stared at the foaming green sea as it broke on to the pebbled beach in a flash of white. The wind was getting up strength ready to fulfil the prophecy of gale warnings later in the week. Ahead, Horton could see the distant shores of Hayling Island. There were still so many gaps in this complex case. He hoped soon they’d be able to get some answers from Boston to fill them.

Cantelli turned into a cul-de-sac that was lined with three-storey houses and apartments, and pulled up halfway down, outside a block of flats. Climbing out, Horton scrutinized the line of bell pushes on the wall, found the one he wanted and pressed his finger on the buzzer. There was no answer.

‘Looks as though we’ll have to come back with a warrant,’ he said, disappointed. Then the front door opened. A thin man in his early fifties wearing a smart suit man stepped out.

Horton glanced at the badge on his lapel and the briefcase in his hand. He was due for some luck and he wondered if this could be it.

‘Are you the managing agent?’ he asked, showing his warrant card.

‘Police? I hope there’s nothing wrong.’

‘Does Mr Boston rent his apartment from you?’

‘Well, yes, he does.’

‘We are concerned about Mr Boston, and he is not answering his bell.’

The thin man paled, and glanced over his shoulder at the entrance to the apartments.

Horton pressed his point. ‘It would save a great deal of time and fuss if we could just take a look inside. Otherwise we’ll have to request a search warrant and that means making it official with several police cars not to mention the press—’

‘He’s on the third floor. ’ The managing agent was steering them inside before Horton finished speaking. He pressed the lift button. ‘I’ve got a viewing on that floor in five minutes.

Do you think you could be quick?’

‘Sergeant Cantelli will go with you in the lift.’

Horton knew that Boston’s apartment was number eighteen.

He leapt up the stairs two at a time until he came to the third floor, and saw with satisfaction at his level of fitness that he’d beaten the lift. He pressed his finger on the bell.

‘Mr Boston, I’d like a word. Police.’ There was no response.

Cantelli and the agent stepped out of the lift.

‘Mr Selsmere has a key,’ Cantelli said, and the agent reached into his briefcase.

Great! When luck was with you, you rode it until you wore it out, thought Horton.

Closing the door on Selsmere, Horton stepped inside a small lobby listening to the silence. It was complete. He gestured at the room on his left and Cantelli slipped into it whilst Horton took the room straight ahead. It was the lounge. There was no sign of Boston.

Cantelli called out. ‘He’s not here.’

No, but was he coming back and if so when? Horton gazed around the lounge; none of the stolen antiques were here, but Horton hadn’t expected them to be. It was expensively decorated: lush cream carpet, glass coffee table between two cream leather sofas which looked as though they had never been sat on; open bookshelves without a single book on display but with a few strategically placed glass objects that would have done justice to an art gallery; and a couple of large giant seascape watercolours on the wall. The room reminded him of Catherine. Her taste was strictly modern: clean lines, no clutter.

He crossed to the large glass doors that gave on to a patio.

Beyond he could see the boats in the marina and there was the wooden mast of
Nutmeg,
his gaff-rigged Winkle Brig: old, cramped, untidy, lived-in and much loved. His. He didn’t want to give her up, but he’d have to if he was to stand any chance of Emma staying with him for the weekend or holidays. His heart skipped a beat at the thought of spending time with his daughter, and for one wild moment he envisaged her living with him permanently, then dismissed the idea as impossible. Catherine would never let her, and how could he raise a child with the demands of his job?

Beyond the marina was Langstone Harbour and from here he could see the mulberry. Had seeing the mulberry from here given Boston the idea of dumping her body there?

Perhaps the nursery rhyme had nothing to do with her death.

Perhaps Boston had never even heard of it.

He turned away as Cantelli called out. ‘Beds made up and he’s got some nice suits in the wardrobe: designer stuff.’

‘How would you know? Most of your clothes are bought from the chain stores.’

‘Hey, nothing wrong with that!’

Horton smiled and made his way into a second bedroom, which Boston had made his study, and promptly stopped in his tracks. He gazed in amazement. Hundreds of photographs covered three walls and they were all of Timothy Boston.

Cantelli came up behind him and drew up sharply. ‘Wow!’

Horton couldn’t have put it better himself. In the pictures, Timothy Boston appeared in various guises, and with a variety of actors. These were obviously stills taken from film and television programmes. And there were photographs of Boston, as himself, alongside actors whom Horton recognized, which was quite a feat for him because he rarely watched television and never had time to go to the pictures or theatre.

‘Is Boston famous? Should we know him?’ asked Horton.

‘I wouldn’t unless he was acting in the thirties and forties.’

Horton began to rummage in the desk, which wasn’t locked.

He pulled out a pile of large spiral bounds books. There were six in total. ‘Scrapbooks.’

Horton gave a couple to Cantelli and flicked through the remainder himself. He was staring at pages of press cuttings.

Boston had by all accounts been a successful stunt man before becoming an actor; only he wasn’t called Boston but Timothy Mellows. A headline caught Horton’s attention, quickly he scanned the article: Boston had once been tipped as a possible James Bond, and he’d ended up teaching drama!

What had gone wrong? The press cuttings didn’t say. But Horton was beginning to wonder if Timothy Boston had previous form as Mellows, and that little fact had slipped through his security clearance at the school. Something registered in Horton’s brain. He’d seen the name Mellows before.

With a racing pulse he pulled out his phone and called the station.

‘Dave, check the list of registered boat owners for a Tim Mellows. No, I’ll hold.’

Cantelli said, ‘There’s an article here that says Mellows suffered multiple injuries whilst performing a stunt: broke both legs, his pelvis and arm. After that it says he turned to acting.’

‘And didn’t make it, according to what he’s doing now,’

Horton rejoined, just as Dave Trueman came back on the line.

‘There’s a boat called
Soap Opera
registered to Mr Timothy Mellows and berthed at Gosport Marina.’

Yes! Horton wanted to punch the air with joy. Instead he said, ‘Ask Elkins to check if it’s in the marina, but not to alert Mellows. Call me back.’

Mr Selsmere wasn’t very happy when Cantelli asked to keep the keys and gave him a receipt, but he seemed a little mollified when he heard that an unmarked police car with two plain clothes officers, rather than uniformed officers in a patrol car would keep a watch on the apartment for Boston’s return.

Horton’s phone rang. It was Trueman. ‘Mellows’ boat is in the marina. Sergeant Elkins thinks there might be someone on board.’

‘He’s to do nothing. We’re on our way. Get Elkins to pick us up at the Town Camber.’

It had started raining heavily and the wind was whipping itself into a fury as Cantelli headed back along the seafront to Old Portsmouth and the Town Camber. The sergeant didn’t look very pleased.

As they clambered on board the police launch, Horton tried to reassure Cantelli. ‘You’ll be OK, we’re only going across the harbour.’

‘That’s far enough,’ Cantelli muttered, pulling up his collar and stepping inside the cabin. ‘You wouldn’t want me to have a relapse.’

‘Perish the thought. Charlotte would skin me alive.’

Horton stayed on deck. He didn’t know what to expect, but disappointment featured in it somewhere. It couldn’t be this easy. Boston wouldn’t be sitting on his boat in October, sipping wine, and waiting for them, only to say, ‘It’s a fair cop, guv.’

Horton’s adrenalin began to pump as Elkins pulled into the marina. Horton jumped off and secured the boat to the pontoon. Elkins silenced the engines. With Cantelli, Elkins and PC Ripley following behind him, Horton hurried along the pontoon. The rain was sheeting past him, driving in his face and the wind was rattling the halyards against the masts.

Boston had to be there. Boston was their man. He was the mastermind behind the antiques thefts. And he was a killer.

He’d killed Langley, perhaps it now occurred to Horton, because he was sick of her cruel taunts about how he’d failed as an actor. Both Ranson and Daphne Edney had said how cutting she could be. And he’d killed Edney, because the poor man had suspected him. This couldn’t be another blind alley.

As soon as he turned on to the pontoon Horton could see a light in the cabin. He guessed this was how Boston had taken the stolen antiques out of the country, and he wouldn’t mind betting that on his other robberies he had moored
Soap
Opera
in Town Camber for a quick get-away.