‘He’s been dead about two or three hours but that’s only an estimate. Rigor’s present in the jaw and the neck.’ Dr Sharman straightened up and pulled off his latex gloves. Arc lights illuminated the gruesome scene. The wind buffeted the canvas tent which had been erected to protect them and the body. It howled in through the gaps as the rain lashed against it.
Horton turned to Uckfield. ‘That puts it sometime between eight and ten. It was reported just after ten by Lionel Packman.’
‘Are we sure he’s not the killer?’ Uckfield grunted nasally under the scene-suit mask. His cold sounded to be in full force. That, the weather and being called out in it were all causing him to be grouchier than usual.
‘He seems to be on the level and he wasn’t covered in blood. I take it there would have been blood on the killer.’ Horton addressed the doctor.
‘Probably,’ Sharman answered cautiously.
Was he afraid of committing himself, wondered Horton, but then Sharman was only a GP and only there to confirm officially that the victim was dead. He wasn’t a forensic pathologist like Gaye Clayton. Uckfield hadn’t suggested they call her. Maybe he would after Sharman had left but there wasn’t a great deal she could do here in these conditions and Uckfield probably wanted to get back to his nice warm home as soon as he could.
Grumpily Uckfield said, ‘Packman could have stashed his blood-stained clothes somewhere or threw them out there.’ He waved vaguely in the direction of the sea. ‘And why the hell was he here in this godawful weather when any sane person would be at home sipping whisky and watching the box?’
Which was probably what Uckfield had been doing when Horton had called him – the drinking whisky bit, anyway – because he could smell it on Uckfield’s breath. He’d had the sense, though, to summon a car to bring him here.
Horton relayed what Seaton had told him about Packman. ‘He was worried about his houseboat in this storm. He inherited it from his mother in September and he’s been painstakingly restoring it since. He’s a retired carpenter. We’ve got his details and we’ve asked him to come into the station tomorrow to make a statement.’
‘Which houseboat is his?’
‘The one to our left.’
‘Convenient, it being next door.’
Horton didn’t think Packman was the killer because from what he’d seen of the man he’d been genuinely shocked. Still, Horton wouldn’t rule him out yet, not until they had more information about the dead man. For all Horton knew Packman could be the best actor since Sir John Gielgud. He said, ‘He says there were no cars parked here when he arrived and he didn’t see or hear anyone leave.’
Uckfield grunted and addressed the doctor. ‘How did he die?’
‘No idea.’
‘You did go to medical school, I take it?’
‘They didn’t teach us second sight,’ snapped Sharman, a long, thin man in his forties. ‘For all I know he could have died of heart failure and someone came along and threw a bucket of blood over him.’ He picked up his case, nodded at Horton and left.
In a voice that carried, Uckfield said, ‘Think I preferred Dr Price even if he stank of booze and turned up pissed. Smell any alcohol on him? The dead man, that is, not Dr Sharman. I can’t smell a damn thing with this ruddy cold.’
Horton said he couldn’t. ‘And there are no beer cans or spirit bottles lying around. There aren’t any carrier bags of personal belongings either, which is unusual for a tramp. He would have had some even if it was just a few sorry items.’
‘Perhaps the killer stole them.’
Horton raised his eyebrows, causing Uckfield to add, ‘Yeah, I know, a vagrant would hardly have anything of value on him. But someone thought it worth shooting the poor sod because although I might have a bunged-up nose and I didn’t go to medical school I’ve got eyes enough to see that’s a bullet wound in his chest. If it’s not I’ll kiss the assistant chief constable’s arse and, talking of the devil …’ He shot a glance at his watch under the scene suit, ‘… it’s about time I called Wonder Boy. Get the team in, Inspector.’
Horton knew the Super would take great pleasure in spoiling ACC Dean’s night. It was almost eleven twenty, so the chances were he had retired to bed. Uckfield was probably hoping Dean had already sunk into a very deep sleep.
Climbing clumsily out of his scene suit, Uckfield handed it to Beth Tremaine, a scene of crime officer, before dashing out into the sheeting rain to the police vehicle that had brought him here. Horton remained where he was and nodded Phil Taylor, the head of the crime-scene team, into the tent. He gave instructions to Jim Clarke, the forensic photographer, to take pictures of the shore behind the houseboats and the pontoons down by the Hayling Island ferry when he’d finished photographing the body. Clarke would use specialist night equipment. He’d also return in daylight to take further shots. It wouldn’t be light until eight and the first commuters would be on the little ferry from Hayling to Portsmouth at seven a.m.
Could robbery have been the motive? Horton wondered. Had there been something of value on the victim that the killer had wanted? Something he’d kept all the time he’d been on the road, or something he’d found or which someone had given him? Horton would have suspected a fellow vagrant of killing the man except for the fact he’d been shot and he couldn’t see a vagrant owning a gun. It wasn’t impossible, though. And neither was it impossible for the victim to have been forced to hand over something at gunpoint.
Horton squinted through the rain at the black expanse of Eastney Lake stretching across to the lights of the houses on the Milton shore opposite. It had been high tide half an hour ago. He could hear the waves washing on to the shingle shore. Behind him on the opposite shore, which faced the Solent, the waves would be crashing on to the beach, but here the harbour afforded some shelter from the worst of the storm. Not much, though. To the north of the houses he could see the dark space that was Milton Common, a nature reserve that bordered Langstone Harbour on its western side. This was a strange place for a vagrant to come. There were no pubs, no supermarkets, no off-licences to sell alcohol and very few places to shelter except under one of the houseboats or upturned dinghies. By the position of the body, he hadn’t crawled under there to sleep. He wasn’t curled up and he hadn’t been shot in his sleep, not unless he slept lying on his back and didn’t mind the lower part of his torso and legs getting wet. But he couldn’t have been shot standing up and fallen back because he’d have hit his head on the houseboat and either fallen forwards or slid down to land outside the houseboat, not partially under it. Dr Clayton would be able to enlighten them on that score.
He turned to PC Johnson who, along with Seaton, was huddled just inside the awning beside the blue-and-white police tape that was flapping alarmingly in the gale-force wind which showed no signs of easing.
‘Did Mr Packman mention hearing a boat?’ Horton raised his voice above the wind.
‘He didn’t say.’
Which meant Johnson hadn’t asked him. Horton didn’t blame him for that. In this weather, who would have been mad enough to arrive by boat? A killer, could be the answer. But why should he just so that he could kill a tramp?
Clarke’s lanky figure unfurled itself from the tent. He discarded his scene suit and threw the hood of his waterproof jacket over his head before heading for the shore. Horton stepped back inside. Dr Sharman had gone through the pockets of the victim’s coat but not his trousers. Horton didn’t relish the job but he did it nonetheless. Both were empty. There might be something in the back pockets or in the pocket of his shirt but he’d leave that to the mortuary attendant.
‘Anything?’ he asked Taylor.
‘Some blood spatters. We’ll bag up the stones around the body and underneath. There’s no sign of any weapon.’
In the morning Sergeant Trueman would mobilize the major incident suite, organize a fingertip search of the area and find out who owned the houseboat. Perhaps it was the victim’s or belonged to a relative. Lionel Packman said he didn’t know who the owner was and he’d never seen anyone in it.
Horton rang through to Warren and asked him to call the undertakers.
Uckfield returned with a grin on his craggy face, which meant he had woken the assistant chief constable.
‘I’ve told Dean I’ll call a press conference for nine. By then the news will probably be all over the Internet and Leanne Payne from the local rag will be badgering me for a press statement.’
News travelled rapidly in the Internet age and Horton, like Uckfield, knew this would be big if the media got hold of the fact the victim had been shot. Gun crimes were still thankfully rare in the UK and Uckfield would keep that nugget of information from them. How long for, though, was another matter. Horton wouldn’t like to bet on it being very long. Someone was bound to leak it.
‘Found any ID?’ asked Uckfield, taking a large white handkerchief from the pocket of his sailing jacket and blowing his nose loudly.
‘No. Do you want me to call Dr Clayton?’
‘First thing in the morning will do. No point in disturbing her beauty sleep. There’s sod all we can do tonight and it doesn’t look as if there will be a grieving relative for this poor soul.’
Not like Rowan Lyster who, Guilbert had said, was due to formerly identify his mother, Evelyn, tomorrow on his arrival in Guernsey.
If there was no ID in the rest of the victim’s clothes then tomorrow, with the aid of one of Clarke’s photographs, officers would do the rounds of the hostels, which wouldn’t take long, there only being one in the city, but they’d circulate his photograph to other hostels in the outlying towns and start asking on the streets if anyone had known the dead man.
‘I’ll give a briefing at eight,’ Uckfield said, sniffing strenuously and pushing the handkerchief back in his pocket. ‘Make sure you and your team are there.’
‘Shall I inform DCI Bliss or will you?’
‘You can. I’m going home.’
Horton was tempted to call her now and disturb her beauty sleep as Uckfield had done his boss’s but decided against it, not because he thought Bliss needed all the beauty sleep she could get but he didn’t fancy having to listen to her firing questions at him so late in the day. And it had been a long one.
He stayed until the body had been removed to the mortuary and SOCO had finished. There had been nothing under the dead man except stones, shells and some seaweed, the latter of which Taylor had bagged up. ‘Just in case,’ he’d said. Horton had taken another look at the victim. Under the sodden and blood-soaked coat he’d seen a frayed checked shirt collar and a V-neck green woollen jumper. The victim displayed no body piercings in his nose or ears. Horton hadn’t and wasn’t going to check the tongue and other parts of his anatomy. Gaye and her mortuary assistant could have that dubious pleasure. There was no jewellery on his fingers, which were stubby but clean. The nails hadn’t been bitten down either and they were also remarkably clean. No tattoos were visible. The fact that the victim’s hair wasn’t overlong or matted and he was clean-shaven, plus the condition of his hands meant he couldn’t have been on the road for very long. Horton tried to guess the victim’s age but it was impossible given the death mask and his lined face.
The tent was dismantled, the arc lights switched off and packed away. Only the police tape remained in place in a wide circle around the houseboat and two uniformed officers arrived to take over from Seaton and Johnson, who would need to return to the station and dry out. Their replacements would spend the stormy night in their police vehicle, making sure nobody came stumbling along to disturb the area.
It was just after one a.m. when Horton finally climbed into his bunk. His eyes were scratching his eyelids with weariness but his head was still spinning. He knew it would take some time to get to sleep. It had been a very long and fragmented day. So much seemed to have happened. He tried to let his mind go blank but it refused to cooperate, shifting as it did to the death of the tramp and then to Evelyn Lyster, back to his interview with Violet Ducale and then to thoughts of his mother. Eventually when he drifted into sleep Evelyn Lyster became the vagrant who turned into Andrew Ducale and then to Jennifer, and he woke with a start, shivering but feeling the sweat on his brow. Something in the dream had alarmed him, more so than last night. But just as he had that morning, he couldn’t recall what it was.
He felt stiff. His muscles ached as though he’d run a marathon. He hoped he wasn’t going down with Uckfield’s wretched cold. His head felt heavy through a combination of lack of sleep and an overactive brain throughout the night. It felt as though he’d only slept for twenty minutes so he was surprised to see he’d managed five hours. He didn’t have time for a run, which annoyed him. He made some breakfast, showered, shaved and rang Dr Clayton’s mobile phone just after seven, preparing to leave a message, but she answered.
‘You’ve got a corpse,’ she said, her voice muffled. ‘You never ring me at this hour unless it’s connected with a body.’
He never rang her at all, he thought, unless it was work. Was she hinting that she’d like to take him up on that long-postponed dinner engagement he’d promised her? He apologized for waking her.
‘You didn’t. I’m eating toast.’
Swiftly he relayed what had happened, adding that Trueman would email over the photographs.
She said she’d examine the body as soon as she arrived at work, which would be within the next hour. Horton then called Cantelli. He could hear Cantelli’s children laughing and chattering in the background. He brought Barney up to speed.
‘You think the victim was shot?’ Cantelli said thoughtfully.
‘Yes, why?’ Horton asked, picking up a hint of anxiety in Cantelli’s question.
‘I sent Walters to a burglary yesterday, a house just off the seafront behind the nine-hole golf course, a Mr and Mrs Clements. Antique pistols were stolen.’
‘Working pistols?’
‘Mr Clements claims not. He doesn’t have a firearms licence because they were classified as antiques. I’ve checked with the firearms licensing officer who says that’s correct but there’s no record of Clements consulting him about them, which he should have done.’
The illegal possession of pistols and revolvers under the Firearms Act 1968 carried a minimum custodial sentence of five years. All handguns had been banned in the UK in 1996 after the Dunblane school massacre when a gunman had entered a primary school and killed sixteen children and one adult before turning the gun on himself.
‘Walters has organized a house-to-house. The neighbours might have seen or heard something. Bliss thinks the pistols could have been stolen by a criminal gang who have connections with underground armourers who can manufacture ammunition to make them fire, so she’s notified the National Crime Agency and asked me to circulate details of the weapons to other forces. I’ve also been liaising with the National Ballistics Intelligence Service. They’re checking out the MO of known villains and seeing if the stolen pistols match any others taken in robberies around the country. It doesn’t match any in Hampshire. There have been no gun thefts antique or otherwise that we’re aware of.’
‘And no shootings,’ added Horton, except for one a year ago, and that had been on the Isle of Wight and a rare occurrence. The killer had been apprehended but had drowned before being detained.
Cantelli said, ‘I take it no weapon was found at the scene of the crime?’
‘None. It could have been taken away or tossed in the sea. The pattern of death doesn’t match the method of a gang though, Barney. Call Walters and tell him to be at the briefing. I’ll call Bliss.’
He did so on his way up the pontoon to the car park. She answered promptly and listened without comment as he relayed the facts of the incident, finishing with the news that Cantelli was calling Walters and both they and he would be at the briefing. She rapidly made the connection between the theft of the antique pistols and the method of murder as Horton knew she would, asking him if he believed one of the stolen guns could have been used. He refrained from saying that he wasn’t medically qualified to comment but instead reminded her that he hadn’t been on duty so didn’t have all the details concerning the gun theft, to which she curtly replied, ‘Then you’d better get up to speed on it, Inspector.’
He rang off, not bothering to reply. There was no point. He had time to take another look at the crime scene. The storm had blown itself out but the morning threatened to be overcast and the wind was still blustery and damp. There was little to see in the early morning gloom, only the bleary-eyed commuters alighting from the small passenger ferry at Portsmouth. It was essentially one-way human traffic, there being very little employment on Hayling Island and certainly not enough to attract a horde of commuters. Some of them seemed cheered to have their routine disturbed by the sight of the police car and flapping crime-scene tape. Horton saw a couple of people taking photographs on their mobile phones. It would be all over the Internet in seconds; it probably was already.
PC Allen in the police vehicle had nothing to report. They’d remain there until relieved. Horton crossed to the houseboat. It was in a sorry state of repair, or rather disrepair. It stood in sharp contrast to its neighbour, Lionel Packman’s houseboat, which was in pristine condition. The external structure hadn’t been touched for years. The wood was rotten and a few strong pulls might cause sections of it to collapse. He was amazed it had withstood last night’s storm and those of previous years. At some stage someone had patched up parts of it by nailing planks of wood across the more rotten sections and the boarded-up windows. God alone knew what it must look like inside. It was probably one of the original houseboats that had been here since the 1930s when there had been many more of them intermingling with fishermen’s huts and railway carriages. They’d spread out all around Eastney Lake and across the other side to the Milton shore opposite. During heavy bombing in the Second World War, many people had flocked here from all over the city to take cover in whatever temporary structures they could find. There had been no plumbing or electricity and no insulation. It must have been bloody freezing in winter, he thought. Many had stayed after the war, having lost their homes in the bombing, until the council had finally re-housed them in 1960 – some in the high-rise tower block where he had lived briefly with his mother.
Horton stared across the tidal lake. It was just over two hours to high water. The huts and houseboats had been cleared on all sides now except this one, and here only this handful survived. How had the victim got here? Had he walked? Probably. But again, Horton considered the possibility that he could have been brought by car or van, possibly already dead and his body dumped. Or perhaps he’d been brought by boat, although given the weather of the previous night Horton thought it highly unlikely. Despite that he rang Sergeant Dai Elkins of the marine unit and asked if he’d heard about the body found by the houseboats. Elkins had.
‘Get the details from Trueman and circulate them to the sailing and diving club. Ask if any of their members were in Ferry Road last night between eight and ten and if they saw anyone. Contact the Langstone Harbour master. Find out if he or any boat owners heard or saw anything unusual in the harbour last night during that time.’
‘In that weather! I doubt anyone was on or near their boat. And I wouldn’t have thought anyone, even a killer, would be suicidal or crazy enough to attempt to land on the shore or the pontoon,’ Elkins rather predictably replied.
‘Someone could have come across Eastney Lake from Milton. It would have been calmer that side of the harbour.’
‘I suppose it’s possible,’ Elkins grudgingly admitted, ‘but it would still have been a nightmare journey. I’ll have a word with Chris Howgate, though. He’s one of the helmsman on the lifeboats. They didn’t have a shout last night but someone might have been at the station.’
Horton knew Howgate. He ran the sailmakers adjacent to the marina.
Horton climbed on his Harley and headed along Ferry Road towards the seafront. If the victim had walked to the houseboat then someone in the houses on Horton’s right might have seen him, although the weather would have kept many people indoors with their curtains drawn and blinds firmly pulled down against the elements. He certainly hadn’t seen or heard anything when he’d arrived at the marina. The wind and the clamour of the rigging had masked the sound of any cars approaching.
At the junction, he considered what Cantelli had told him. Was the vagrant’s death linked to the Clements’ robbery? Their house was about two miles to the west, set back off the seafront. It sounded unlikely, because why steal a gun to shoot a tramp? It didn’t fit the usual pattern. A knifing or a beating, yes. But someone had shot him and, as Horton indicated right and headed for the station, that wasn’t the only thing disturbing him about the vagrant’s death.