‘All right if I turn her over?’ Dr Carston looked up from where he was crouched over the body in the cabin. It was lying face down in the confined space between the twin beds.
Guilbert nodded and waved in one of the two crime-scene officers who were standing beside Horton in the narrow, thickly carpeted corridor. Carefully but with some difficulty they manoeuvred the body and Horton found himself studying the blank eyes and purple flesh of a woman he thought to be in her fifties. There were some expensive rings on her fingers, and her clothes – black trousers and a jade jacket – looked to be of good quality. Her hair was cut short and highlighted blonde. Above the smell of death he caught the scent of her spicy perfume.
Guilbert gave a shake of his head. ‘She’s not known to me.’
Horton didn’t recognize her either but then there was no reason why he should. Although she had travelled from Portsmouth it didn’t mean she had originated or lived there. And even if she did the Portsmouth population of over two hundred thousand meant he might never come across her.
Carston addressed them from his crouched position. ‘Rigor is well established, as is lividity in what we can see of the body. It doesn’t disappear when I press it.’ He demonstrated this on the neck. ‘Therefore I estimate she’s been dead between seven to ten hours.’
Horton rapidly made some mental calculations. That put the time of death somewhere between nine and eleven that morning, not long after the ferry had sailed from Portsmouth. Had she come straight to her cabin and stayed here, he wondered, or had she gone on deck and watched the ancient fortifications of Old Portsmouth slip past her on her left and the shores of Gosport on her right as the ferry sailed out of the narrow entrance of Portsmouth Harbour into the Solent? If so, had anyone seen or spoken to her?
‘No obvious signs of cause of death,’ Carston continued, straightening up. ‘I can’t detect any smell on the breath. It looks like natural causes or possibly suicide to me.’
Horton originally thought she would have been lying on the bed if she had committed suicide. But perhaps she had decided at the last moment to try to summon help. She’d risen but the drugs she’d swallowed had begun to work, she’d staggered as she made for the cabin door, had fallen and died. He had already noted that there was no sign of any luggage in the cabin, only a red handbag on one of the beds beside a short black raincoat. That, and the fact she’d bought a single ticket, seemed to back up the doctor’s theory of this being a possible suicide. There was also a silver and black thermal cup flask on the little table between the beds, which he thought might have contained a drug, self-administered, and which she might have drank in the privacy of the cabin.
Guilbert thanked the doctor and waved in the two SOCOs. He stepped back into the corridor with Horton where a fair-haired woman in a red waterproof jacket who Guilbert introduced as Detective Sergeant Trisha Martell was waiting. ‘None of the crew remembers seeing her on the deck or in the restaurant or lounges,’ Martell crisply reported. ‘And there were no passengers booked in any of the cabins in this corridor. There are only fifteen passengers left on board for the onward sailing to Jersey.’
Which was now delayed, thought Horton.
‘We haven’t spoken to them yet. The Guernsey passengers had already disembarked before her body was found. I’m getting a list of them, and of the crew.’
Horton wasn’t certain that Guilbert would need to question them but it was Guilbert’s call, not his.
Guilbert turned as one of the SOCOs approached them. ‘No suicide note in the pockets of her coat, trousers or her handbag, sir,’ she said.
Horton knew that suicides didn’t always leave notes – in fact, few of them did.
She handed over two plastic evidence bags. In one Horton could see the dead woman’s handbag; in the other the contents of that bag. There was a small bottle of antiseptic hand gel, some tissues, a bottle of perfume – which he recognized from his time spent married to Catherine to be a very expensive brand – a small cosmetics bag and a pair of sunglasses, hardly needed in January. In another small evidence bag was a set of keys, of which there were five on a silver key ring with a ruby-coloured stone in the middle, a purse and a mobile phone.
With latex-covered fingers, Guilbert opened the purse. ‘No address, no driver’s licence. No ticket either. She must have thrown that away after boarding. Some coins and three twenty-pound notes. Credit and debit card in the name of Mrs Evelyn Lyster.’ He addressed Martell. ‘Run her name through the Police National Computer and check if she has a driver’s licence.’ As Martell headed down the corridor to the stairwell with her mobile phone pressed to her ear, Guilbert retrieved Evelyn Lyster’s mobile phone from the evidence bag.
‘Last call was made Saturday at eleven fifty-three a.m. to a mobile number. No name but it might be in her address book.’
Horton knew that Guilbert wouldn’t call it. It could be a husband, son or daughter and relaying the tragic news over the phone wasn’t the most sensitive way of doing things. If her address was Portsmouth then Horton would call it in and get an officer round.
He said, ‘Any numbers in her address book with a Guernsey telephone code?’
Guilbert quickly scrawled through them and shook his head. ‘No. There are hardly any numbers listed. Just a handful.’
‘Any with a Portsmouth telephone code?’
‘Yes.’ He handed the phone to Horton, who had put on the pair of protective gloves Guilbert had given him. The numbers were for the doctor, dentist, a hairdresser and a beauty salon. It was clear that she had lived in Portsmouth. There were also mobile phone numbers for someone called Rowan and a Gina – no surnames. Other than that, nothing, which surprised him. He was even more surprised when he flicked to her log of calls and texts, both those sent and received, and found there weren’t any.
‘She was either very disciplined in clearing her phone or she cleared it before deciding to take her own life,’ he said.
‘If she did,’ Guilbert reiterated.
Horton scrolled to her photographs and received another shock. There weren’t any.
‘Perhaps she didn’t like taking pictures.’ Guilbert took the phone from Horton.
‘Or perhaps she was determined to strip her phone of anything personal before doing the deed. Anything in the flask?’ Horton addressed the other crime-scene officer who was placing it in an evidence bag.
‘No sir, empty. There are no pills anywhere or empty pill bottles or sachets, and no toiletries in the shower room.’
Which meant the drug, if she had taken one, must have been in the flask. But she could have suffered a heart attack, aneurism or a massive stroke.
‘If she did kill herself I wonder why she chose to do so on the way to Guernsey?’ Guilbert mused.
‘Maybe the island held a special memory for her.’
Guilbert shrugged. Then added, ‘Sorry to have dragged you into this, Andy.’
‘You didn’t. I agreed to come.’
‘About dinner tonight—’
‘We’ll do it another time.’ It would have to be on his next visit, whenever that might be.
There was little more for SOCO to do but prints and swabs would be taken. There didn’t seem any need to seal off the cabin or question the remaining passengers.
Martell was heading back towards them. ‘Evelyn Lyster has a clean driving licence but she’s not listed as currently owning a vehicle. She has no previous criminal convictions. Aged fifty-five, lives at Penthouse One, Governors Green, Old Portsmouth.’ She flashed a look at Horton.
‘Expensive. It’s situated in the oldest part of the city overlooking the Solent.’ He wondered if Evelyn Lyster lived alone. Reaching for his phone, he said, ‘I’ll get an officer around to the address.’ It was too late to call Cantelli. He and DC Walters would probably already have left the station for the night. And there was no need to drag out whichever one of them was duty CID. There was also no need to notify DCI Lorraine Bliss, his boss, as this looked in all probability to be suicide or death by natural causes. Horton relayed the details to Sergeant Warren and gave him Inspector Guilbert’s number. Warren would send round two uniformed officers to break the bad news to any relatives and then call Guilbert back.
Guilbert gave instructions to Martell to supervise the removal of the body while he updated the captain. Horton took his leave, saying that he’d call Guilbert in the morning. He was driven back to the terminal where he walked into St Peter Port and found a bistro. There he ordered a Coke and something to eat but when the food arrived he found he had little appetite. Several things troubled him. There was the thought of Evelyn Lyster dying alone and possibly afraid and in despair. There were also his memories of sailing here with Catherine and his daughter, Emma. The last time had been just over two and a half years ago before his world had imploded following that false allegation of rape while working undercover. He’d subsequently been cleared but an eight-month suspension and his drinking bouts during it had sealed what he now knew had been a marriage destined to fail. And he had so badly wanted it not to. His divorce had put paid to sailing trips with his ten-year-old daughter and so much more. Catherine’s stubborn refusal to let him share in Emma’s life was frustrating and needless.
Leaving half of his meal untouched, he stepped outside and made for the esplanade, also disturbed by thoughts connected with his meeting that afternoon with Violet Ducale and his ongoing search for the truth behind his mother’s disappearance. He was certain that Violet Ducale had spoken to and possibly seen her nephew, Andrew, since 1967, but if so why not tell him? Was it because she knew that he had worked for and was possibly still working for British Intelligence? And there had been more troubling her as their conversation had progressed.
He stared across the inky black expanse of sea, lit occasionally by a fleeting moon and the blinking lights of the buoys. The sound of the waves washing on to the sandy beach in the still, cold night were softer, more calming than he was used to in his home town where the sea would crash on to the pebbles and suck the stones under as it rolled back. The light, drizzling rain had ceased.
The trilling of his mobile phone pierced his thoughts. It was Sergeant Warren.
‘Thought you’d like to know, Andy, that there was no response at Evelyn Lyster’s flat but I got the details of her next of kin from her doctor.’ Horton had relayed the number on Evelyn Lyster’s phone earlier. ‘The GP said that she suffered from low blood pressure but otherwise was a very healthy woman. He’s never treated her for depression. She leaves a son, Rowan Lyster.’
The name on her mobile phone. Horton wondered how he’d take the news. ‘Divorced?’
‘Widowed. I’ve sent PCs Somerfield and Johnson round to the son’s and I’ve informed Inspector Guilbert. Do you want me to ring you back and let you know how they get on?’
‘I’m on leave?’
‘Sounds like it.’
Horton rang off, turned away from the sea and began to walk back through the quiet, narrow cobbled streets towards the guest house where he was staying. It was very different here in the height of summer when tourists thronged the little town with its distinctive French feel. He wondered again about Evelyn Lyster, alone, locked in her cabin. Had the fact she suffered from low blood pressure caused her death or had she taken a drug in order to end it?
He recalled his own dark days of despair during his suspension and marital break-up. He’d gone out to sea on his small yacht in a brewing storm and had pitted himself against the elements, daring them to take his life. But his instinct and desire for survival had been too strong. He’d learned his lesson well during the hellish days in the children’s home.
Warren called him just as he stepped out of the shower. ‘Rowan Lyster has no idea why his mother was on the ferry to Guernsey. She’d said nothing to him or his wife, Gina, about going there. The last they saw of her was on Saturday evening at her flat when they had dinner with her. She was in good spirits and there was no sign that she was depressed. The family has no relatives on Guernsey or on any of the other Channel Islands.’
The autopsy would give them some of the answers for her death but if it was suicide then although they might discover the how they might never know the why.
He spent a restless, dream-filled night but on waking couldn’t remember the exact fabric of the dreams. It left him feeling slightly hungover and with a nagging sensation that somewhere buried deep in them was a tiny fragment of information that would help him unlock the past. He’d have liked a run but hadn’t brought his running gear. Instead he set out for a brisk walk, hoping the chilly sea breeze would blow away his muggy head.
He called Guilbert before he set out to see if anything new had come in. It hadn’t. But Guilbert said he had put out an appeal for information about Evelyn Lyster. Maybe someone would come forward to say she had intended staying with them or she’d booked into a hotel on the island. Except she’d had no luggage. Perhaps she’d owned or rented a property on the island which her son and daughter-in-law had known nothing about. Or perhaps she had a lover and her clothes and belongings were at a property they shared. Guilbert said her son was arranging to fly over tomorrow and that the autopsy result would be through by midday.
It was just after two o’clock, though, as Horton was on his way to the airport, that Guilbert called him.
‘Evelyn Lyster died of severe hypovolemic shock. It occurs when low blood volume causes a sudden drop in blood pressure and a reduction in the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues. In effect, her blood pressure dropped so low she died.’
‘Wasn’t she on any medication for it?’
‘Her doctor says not. He’d advised just simple lifestyle changes such as increasing her salt intake, eating small portions several times a day, limiting high-carbohydrate foods and drinking plenty of fluids. There was no underlying cause for the low blood pressure – it was genetic, apparently – and the autopsy findings bear that out because Evelyn Lyster was generally in very good health. There’s still the results of the toxicology tests to come, though, which could reveal she took something to end her life.’
But if she did why do it on the ferry to Guernsey? Maybe Guilbert would get the answer. He’d continue with his enquiries. And Horton with his. Not into the whereabouts of Andrew Ducale, though, because there was nowhere to go with that – unless Violet Ducale had a change of heart – but as the lights of Southampton came through briefly in a break in the clouds beneath him four hours later, he wondered if Richard Eames knew he’d been to Guernsey and that he’d spoken to Violet. Perhaps she was still in touch with him despite her denial and would tell him. Or tell her nephew, who would relay it to Eames. He hadn’t been followed but it would be easy for someone with Eames’ resources to check his movements and discover he had booked a flight to Guernsey. Would Eames be worried that Violet might reveal something of his past? She hadn’t but Horton had come away with the sense that she knew a great deal more than she was prepared to say, not about Jennifer but about Eileen and Andrew’s relationship with Richard Eames.
The aeroplane hit the concrete with a thud and began to sharply decelerate. Horton let out a sigh of relief. He hated flying. It was being confined that he despised, a legacy of having once been locked in a dark, dank basement in the first hellhole of a children’s home as a form of punishment. The home had long since closed. If it hadn’t he’d have burnt the bloody place down himself.
Thirty minutes later he was on his Harley heading east along the motorway to Portsmouth. It was dark and raining heavily. The wind was growing stronger by the minute and by the time he reached the marina just before seven thirty it was howling through the masts and rattling the halyards.
He showered and made himself something to eat. His thoughts turned to Emma and the Christmas she had just spent on the Riviera on her mother’s new boyfriend’s luxury motor yacht. No gale-force winds and freezing nights for her, he thought with bitterness. He’d tried to sound pleased when Emma had excitedly told him over the phone about her presents but all he could hear was how cheap his meagre offerings seemed compared to those of Catherine, her parents and lover boy. Emma had chatted on innocently about the Côte d’Azur and the big boats all around them, not realizing how dismal and inadequate it had made him feel. God, how Catherine must have loved it. How she must have sat there sipping her bloody champagne, gloating.
He took a coffee up on deck, despite the weather. Sheltering under the canvas awning watching the rain bounce off the deck, he felt Emma’s words stab at his heart. She was back at her expensive school now, where she was a weekly boarder. He felt he was being driven further and further away from her by Catherine, who refused to let Emma sleep on board his own yacht. It was too small, too cold and Emma was too young to tolerate such primitive conditions, Catherine had said. Any family law court would agree. But he couldn’t rent a flat. He’d feel too hemmed in and, even if he did rent one, he was convinced that Catherine would find another reason to deprive him of his daughter’s company. As it was, he only got access two days a month and that was far too few. But come the spring and summer he’d make certain that Emma stayed with him and he was determined to take her on several sailing trips, maybe even to Guernsey again, just the two of them, if he could persuade Catherine to let Emma stay for longer.
His phone rang. With surprise he saw it was the station. He wasn’t duty CID. In fact, he wasn’t even due back at work until the morning. He considered ignoring it but he didn’t have anything else to do except drink coffee and get maudlin.
‘Thought you might like this, Andy, it’s right up your street,’ Sergeant Warren said cheerfully.
‘You mean Guernsey.’
‘Heard you were flying back today.’
‘News travels fast.’
‘We’ve got a body, male, Caucasian, and as you’re on the spot, so to speak, I thought you’d like to take a look.’
Guilbert had said almost the same yesterday evening.
Warren added, ‘If it’s a suspicious death then you can get the Big Man out of his nice warm house instead of me.’
Warren meant Detective Superintendent Uckfield, head of the Major Crime Team. Horton was already heading below to fetch his jacket and keys. ‘Where?’
‘By one of the houseboats at the end of Ferry Road.’
‘Tell the officers I’m on my way.’
‘Already have.’
Horton gave a grim smile and rang off. He grabbed his powerful torch, shrugged into his waterproof sailing jacket and locked up. There was no need to take the Harley – the handful of houseboats were barely half a mile at the end of the road which culminated in Langstone Harbour. They had been there for as long as he could remember.
He turned left out of the marina and broke into a run. The wind was singing through the masts of the boats on both sides of the spit that extended into Langstone Harbour. There were no houses here, just the marine institute building belonging to the University of Portsmouth on his left and the sailing and diving club on his right facing out on to the Solent. To its left was a narrow strip of beach, then the lifeboat station and opposite that the houseboats and the turning circle for the bus which had stopped running this late. Parked in its space was the police car and, inside it, sheltering from the wind and slanting rain, was PC Johnson. In the back PC Seaton sat with a man Horton didn’t recognize, so he had to be the person who had reported the gruesome find. Seaton climbed out. The wind whipped around them and the stinging rain drove into Horton’s face.
‘The body is partly wedged under the houseboat,’ Seaton said solemnly, leading Horton towards a black-and-white painted wooden structure. It was propped up on stout wooden stilts resting on square concrete blocks which in turn were bedded in the shingle. ‘By his appearance, I’d say he was a vagrant.’
Horton played his torch over the body, swiftly registering the sturdy walking boots, the old and worn trousers that were soaked through, threadbare, patched and dirty, the camel-coloured overcoat tied around the waist with a thin leather belt and the bloody mess around the chest. If he wasn’t mistaken it looked very much like a gunshot wound. There was no question of this death being suicide or natural causes like Evelyn Lyster’s. This clearly was homicide. A brief sweep of the ground around the body with his torch revealed no weapon.
His beam travelled up to the face. It was deeply etched with lines but clean-shaven. The hair was light brown with grey flecks and reached the collar. The eyes were open and looked slightly startled but perhaps that was his imagination.
He turned away and, reaching for his phone, called SOCO. Then he rang through to Warren and requested more officers to seal off the area. Not that they needed to worry about nosy parkers at this time of night and in this weather, but the scene would need to be preserved as best it could. The rain would have destroyed a great deal of evidence if the victim had been killed here but he could have been dumped by car or by boat.
Finally Horton punched in a number on his mobile phone and called Uckfield. It was going to be a long night and he wasn’t the only one who was going to get wet, cold and very little sleep.