The wailing police siren sliced through the rain-washed night. Horton quickly checked the mirrors of his Harley and dropped his speed but the police car sped past him on the motorway, heading towards Portsmouth city centre, its blue light pulsating like a homing beam for a lost alien. Swiftly he calculated the time. It had been eight when he’d been ejected from the London School of Economics Reading Room because it was closing. And it had been just after nine thirty when he’d left the nearby pub after a meal and two Diet Cokes, an hour from London say, the roads being relatively traffic-free, so it must be some time between ten thirty and eleven at the latest. About right for the drunks to start rolling out of the pubs looking for trouble. It wasn’t his concern. He was off duty until tomorrow morning when he’d probably return to find his desk in CID buckling under the weight of his six-day absence.
It hadn’t been much of a holiday, he thought despondently, as he negotiated the roundabouts into the city centre. The one day he’d spent with his daughter had been the highlight of it, and even that had been tainted by the fact that Catherine, his estranged wife, had promised him two, but had yet again found an excuse to whisk Emma away. God only knew when he’d get to see her again.
He pulled up at the traffic lights trying not to feel disgruntled and frustrated. But the day he’d just spent searching an archive file for a clue as to the identity of six men in a photograph that he believed were somehow connected with the disappearance of his mother just over thirty years ago hadn’t helped to lighten his mood. His research had yielded nothing except stiff shoulders and bleary eyes. Maybe he was looking in the wrong place. He’d been convinced, however, that the date on the reverse of the picture, written in black ink – 13 March 1967 – was linked to the sit-in protest by students at the London School of Economics. There was nothing else significant about that day that he could find. But perhaps the date meant nothing. The photograph could have been taken anywhere. There was also nothing to indicate its location, no slogans, no buildings or scenery, just six men sitting on the floor, their arms linked around one another with a small group of people in the background. Even the clothes provided no clues as to the whereabouts and the occasion of the black and white snapshot, except that the men were wearing the fashions of the late 1960s and their haircuts and, in two cases, beards bore that out.
He squinted through the rain of his visor watching the police vehicle stop at the end of the road in front of the Hard. They’d probably been called to a fight at one of the pubs there. He should go home, but as the lights changed he found himself swinging right instead of heading straight ahead, home to his boat. He must be mad; the days when he needed to restrain drunken fighting yobs were over but he found himself rather relishing the prospect of getting stuck in. He needed a distraction from his maudlin thoughts and he needed activity to release some of the frustration he felt over yet another day wasted in the search for the truth behind his mother’s disappearance.
It was with a sense of disappointment then that he pulled in behind the police vehicle straddling the closed double wooden doors of the Historic Dockyard and silenced the Harley. There was no fight and no drunks; just PCs Bailey and Johnson talking to two security officers at the side gate. Removing his helmet Horton asked what was going on.
‘Suspicious death, sir,’ Johnson answered.
‘Inside?’ Horton asked, troubled as he dismounted.
The younger and stouter of the two security officers answered him. ‘We think it’s Dr Douglas Spalding. He gave a public lecture here tonight and he hasn’t signed out.’
Horton caught the brief exchange of glances between him and his colleague, a man in his mid-fifties, lean with a haggard face and nervous manner. It didn’t take a mind reader to see that someone had made a balls-up.
‘He’s in Number One Dock,’ the younger of the two security officers continued.
That meant nothing to Horton except that docks were very deep and sometimes full of water – or was that a basin? Perhaps they were one and the same thing. ‘He’s in the water?’ he asked, suppressing a shiver as he visualized the body floating face down in a dark, icy pool of stagnant water. He’d wished for action but not this kind. He hadn’t wanted anyone dead.
‘No, it’s a dry dock. The last one at the end of the Historic Dockyard before you hit Portsmouth Harbour.’
Horton wasn’t sure that conjured up a better picture. ‘You can confirm that he is dead?’
A worried expression crossed the security officer’s round face. ‘No, but I’ve seen enough dead men to know,’ he said somewhat defensively.
‘Ex army?’
‘Marines. And nobody falls from that height and gets up to tell the tale.’ Horton cocked a quizzical eyebrow. The security officer added, ‘The dock is nearly thirty feet deep.’
Then he was right; it was unlikely that Dr Spalding was still alive. He’d be a mess of blood and bone. But there was always a chance. ‘Have you called the fire service and paramedics?’
‘I’ve only just called you lot,’ he answered somewhat tetchily.
Horton swiftly gave instructions for PC Bailey to do both. The emergency services would enter the Historic Dockyard via the gate at the naval base entrance, which was nearer the city centre, and permanently manned with a security office. He told Bailey to stay with the police vehicle because they were already beginning to draw a crowd, despite the heavy rain, and Horton didn’t fancy anyone making off with his Harley or a police car. The security officer introduced himself as Neil Gideon and the tall, older, worried-looking man as Matt Newton. As Horton gave instructions for Newton to remain at the gate with Bailey and for Johnson to accompany him and Gideon, a blue Ford drew up behind Horton’s Harley and Sergeant Cantelli climbed out. His dark, lean-featured face registered surprise at seeing Horton.
‘Thought you were on holiday,’ he said, zapping the car locked.
‘I am.’
‘Yeah, can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be on a wet August night in a perishing wind than looking at a dead body.’
Horton gave a brief smile, introduced Neil Gideon and refused a piece of chewing gum from the packet Cantelli offered him. Swiftly he relayed to Cantelli what Gideon had told him as they made their way down the wide and deserted thoroughfare of the Historic Dockyard. Raising his voice against the wind whistling between the ancient buildings and boathouses he said to Gideon, ‘Apart from Dr Spalding not signing out, why do you think it’s him?’
‘Can’t see who else it can be. Besides, the clothes match those Dr Spalding was wearing: navy jacket, khaki trousers.’
‘You saw him earlier this evening then?’
‘Yes. Before the lecture there was a drinks reception on board HMS Victory at seven.’ Gideon jerked his head at the illuminated three-masted flagship to their right. Hard to believe that it had been in active service until 1812, which included her most famous moment, the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, thought Horton admiringly as Gideon continued. ‘I walked Dr Spalding and his guests over to the National Museum of the Royal Navy at seven thirty.’ He waved his torch at the long three-storey brick building on their left. ‘That’s where the lecture was held.’
‘And it finished when?’
‘Not sure of the exact time, you’ll need to check that with Julie Preston, the event organizer, but she was the last to leave the museum at ten minutes past ten. I walked her to her car, which was parked in the street just before you get to HMS Victory, and she drove out by way of the naval base exit at Unicorn Gate. It was only when I returned to the side gate at the Victory entrance that I checked the log and saw that one of the other guest’s signatures had sprawled over two lines.’
‘Who was on the gate when that happened?’
‘Newton. He claimed he didn’t notice it. I thought that either Spalding had slipped through without signing out—’
‘Not very good security.’
‘No, or that he was still on site. Newton couldn’t remember seeing him but then he wasn’t on duty when Dr Spalding arrived and neither was I, but as I said I walked his party across to the museum. I returned here and began to look around thinking that maybe Spalding had been taken ill. I found him in the dock.’
They drew up in front of a waist-high, yellow steel re-enforced mesh fence that completely encircled the oblong gaping concrete hole. Peering down into the gloomy depths Horton saw a very old grey and white naval vessel well over 170 feet long.
‘It’s a Monitor,’ Gideon explained. ‘Built in 1915.’
That didn’t mean a lot to Horton but he nodded knowingly. Quickly he surveyed the area. To his left the dock gave on to the narrow entrance into Portsmouth Harbour and beyond it he could see the lights in the tower blocks of Gosport blinking in the slanting rain. To his right and slightly behind them was HMS Victory and straight ahead, across the other side of the dock and an expanse of quayside, Portsmouth Harbour broadened out west towards Fareham. The rain was barrelling off the sea.
Gideon said, ‘He’s lying at the port bow.’
Cantelli looked blank. Horton explained. ‘The front of the ship on the left-hand side.’ Which was why they couldn’t see the body from where they were standing.
They headed towards it, walking around the dock. As they went Horton studied the strong yellow fence. ‘Doesn’t look as though it’s been breached,’ he said to Cantelli.
‘And the gate’s still intact.’
Horton noted that the bolt across the gate in the corner was secure. There was another gate in the corresponding corner of the dock with which they now drew level. That too hadn’t been tampered with. Cantelli rattled it. ‘Locked. Do you have a key?’ he asked Gideon.
‘No.’
Horton stared into the gloom. He could see why Gideon hadn’t risked climbing down. With only the light of a torch the security officer might have fallen on the steep and slippery concrete steps and injured or possibly killed himself. Horton would have thought that Gideon, as a former marine, might have taken the risk, foolish though it might have been, if there was a slim chance of saving the man’s life. Horton himself would have done so and he was no ex-marine. Perhaps Gideon considered it was more than his job’s worth now that he was a civilian.
The rain seemed colder and more vicious here, sweeping off the sea behind them. As if to echo his thoughts Cantelli stamped his feet and rammed his hands deeper into the pockets of his rain jacket. Gideon’s torch picked out the recumbent figure. It was lying face down, sprawled out. Horton tensed at the grisly sight but before he could comment the sound of vehicles approaching drew his attention and he looked up to see a fire engine and behind it the yellow and green paramedic’s car. Within minutes the fire fighters had the dock bathed in light and the lock on the gate had been cut.
‘Fancy a trip?’ one of them asked Horton.
He didn’t; he hated confined spaces, and although the dock was large and there was no possibility of him being locked in, it was also very deep and the steep concrete walls would give it the illusion of being closed in. He steeled himself to keep a lid on the panic that usually accompanied his phobia. He had no choice. He wouldn’t duck out of doing his job.
‘Do you need me?’ Gideon asked, clearly not keen himself – perhaps he also suffered from cleithrophobia.
‘Not much point,’ Horton answered, noting Gideon’s relief. ‘I doubt you’ll be able to identify him from his face.’ It was going to be a mess. Cantelli’s increasingly active gum-chewing signalled to Horton that he was preparing himself to view the shattered and broken body but he sensed no heightening of tension in the fireman or the paramedic. Horton knew they had their own way of dealing with this kind of thing and worse. Even before they reached the bottom it was clear to Horton that Gideon was right; the man was clearly dead. A pool of purple blood had seeped out from under the head. A bloodshot eye on the right hand side of the face stared sightlessly up at them in a deathly grey face. Horton couldn’t see the left hand side of the face but he knew it would be a bruised and bloody mess. The body was intact though, the right arm exposed and stretched out slightly to the side, the left arm lay crumpled under the body, the legs straddled unevenly, no bones protruding. The paramedic confirmed life extinct. Horton asked how long.
‘A couple of hours, possibly less. Do you want to me check his pockets?’
That was a task Horton was only too willing to delegate. ‘The ones that are exposed, yes.’ He didn’t want the body moved until after the police doctor had seen him and photographs had been taken.
The jacket pocket was empty but the back trouser pocket revealed a wallet. Foolish place to keep it, thought Horton, taking it from the paramedic. Ideal for pickpockets, but theft was clearly not a motive here. Inside he found a credit and debit card in the name of Dr Douglas Spalding, forty pounds, a driving licence and a pass for Portsmouth University. There was also a photograph of an attractive dark-haired woman of about thirty-five with two young children, a boy of about ten and a girl of about seven or eight, the same age as his own daughter, Emma. Horton’s heart constricted at the memory of the day they’d spent together sailing. It had gone too quickly. He handed the picture to Cantelli, turning his thoughts to the dead man’s two children who would never see their father again, thinking grimly that he hadn’t even known his. Cantelli shook his head sadly, no doubt thinking of his wife, Charlotte, and their five children and how they would feel if anything happened to him.
Horton thanked the paramedic and sent him on his way. His job was to help save the living, not linger over the dead. He instructed the fireman to cover the body with a tarpaulin and await further instructions. Glancing around the dock he felt relieved that the area where they were standing was bathed in light but the dark shadows further to his right seemed to be creeping closer as he glanced at them, sending his heart into overdrive and threatening to overpower him with memories of being locked in a dark, dank, decaying place in one of those God-awful children’s homes. He snatched his head away and forced himself not to look up at the walls; instead he scoured the area around the body, but couldn’t see anything that looked as though it shouldn’t be there, except the body, and certainly no murder weapon. Not that he thought this was homicide – or did he?
‘Pushed, fell or jumped?’ Cantelli said, voicing Horton’s thoughts.
‘If he jumped he must have climbed onto that fence and then thrown himself off.’
‘His lecture couldn’t have gone that badly.’
Horton gave a brief smile. Black humour was all they often had to relieve the tension. Why would a successful man throw himself into a concrete dock? But then who knew what had been going through his mind at the time. He could have had problems of a personal, financial or professional nature, or all three. Enough to make him want to kill himself? Possibly. Strange though that he’d gone to the trouble of delivering a lecture and then committed suicide. He voiced his thoughts to Cantelli.
‘Perhaps it was his swansong, his final gesture.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And he knew he’d be alone. No tourists at this time of night.’ Cantelli looked up and frowned. ‘Could he have been thrown over?’
Horton didn’t follow Cantelli’s glance. It would remind him too powerfully that he was standing in a deep hole. Instead he studied the body, frowning. ‘He’s well built; it would have taken some doing.’
‘Maybe he was caught off guard. A powerful shove might have been enough to send him toppling over while he was peering down into the dock.’
Horton recoiled at the thought of what might have been going through the dead man’s mind as he’d pitched forward. ‘But why would he be peering down into the dock in the pouring rain at night?’ Cantelli shrugged. Horton added, ‘It looks like suicide, but we’ll reserve judgement until we get more facts. Call Dr Price and the Scene of Crime Officers. I’ll report it to the Major Crime Team.’
‘Superintendent Uckfield might be out celebrating. They’ve got the man who attacked that Asian shopkeeper in Southampton.’
Horton had heard on the news that the shopkeeper had died a day after the vicious assault. ‘Then the celebration’s well deserved. No signal,’ he added, glancing at his phone.
‘Me neither.’
‘We’ll try at the top.’
The climb was steep and the concrete wet, so they had to take their time. Horton tried to concentrate his mind on speculations about the dead man but soon found his thoughts veering back to that photograph burning a hole in his pocket. Why had it been left on his boat by a man called Edward Ballard? If he could have found Ballard he’d have asked him but Ballard had disappeared. In fact he’d never existed, according to all the databases Horton had consulted. Ballard had given no indication that he knew him when Horton had gone to his aid following an alleged assault at the marina in early June, and neither had he mentioned the photograph when he’d come to thank Horton for his help. It had been only after Ballard had left that Horton had discovered it stashed under a seat cushion where the man in his mid-sixties had sat and sipped at a drink. So who was he? And why leave the photograph behind? Questions he’d asked a thousand times in the last six weeks since encountering Ballard and which he’d probably ask another thousand without getting the answers. There was, however, one small glimmer of hope, he thought, reaching the top of the dock: perhaps the professor who had pulled together the archive project on the student sit-in protest might remember seeing one of the men in another photograph, which hadn’t been included in the archives. The librarian hadn’t had a contact number for Professor Thurstan Madeley but Horton would be able to find that. The name struck a chord with him but he couldn’t place it.
Turning his mind back to the job he told Cantelli to ask Gideon if he’d alerted the Ministry of Defence and Navy police. ‘I don’t want them crashing in here with the heavy artillery thinking the Third World War’s been declared.’
As Cantelli crossed to a worried-looking Gideon, Horton retrieved his phone and rang Steve Uckfield’s mobile number.
‘What?’ bellowed Uckfield in his customary manner. Horton could hear glasses clinking and the sound of laughter and shouting in the background. Swiftly he relayed what had happened. Uckfield hesitated, and Horton knew what he was thinking: leave his nice warm jolly party to attend an incident that might not be a major crime, or stay on and send a subordinate? The answer was obvious. It was peeing down; Uckfield was a detective superintendent. He didn’t have to get wet.
‘DI Dennings will be there in five minutes.’
And that was Horton’s cue to leave. That great hulking oaf could get wet. It was bad enough having to put up with Dennings at the station, he didn’t have to suffer the man when he was officially off duty. Horton knew his views were prejudiced because Dennings had secured the job on the Major Crime Team that Horton had wanted and which he’d been promised by Uckfield. It had been denied him because of an undercover operation where he’d been falsely accused of raping a girl. Although he’d been cleared it had been too late to save his marriage or his career. That was hardly Dennings’ fault but it had been Dennings who had accompanied him on that fateful operation at Oyster Quays and who had come out smelling of roses while Horton’s name had been smeared in the same manure that had helped Dennings to bloom. Besides, Dennings simply didn’t have the mental capacity to be a good or an even mediocre detective. But that hadn’t stopped Uckfield appointing him. When Horton had challenged his decision Uckfield had said he’d had no choice; the then chief constable, Uckfield’s father-in-law, had ordered it. And Uckfield’s ambition would always be bigger than his loyalty to old friends.
For Cantelli’s sake, Horton hoped Dennings was sober. He didn’t intend staying around to find out. He broke the news to Cantelli, whose opinion of Neanderthal man, as Dr Gaye Clayton, the pathologist, called Dennings, was identical to his. Cantelli grimaced before shrugging his shoulders. ‘Saves me making decisions. I might even be able to go home.’
‘Which is where I’m heading,’ Horton replied, eyeing the rain, which if anything seemed to be heavier than when he’d arrived. ‘Yeah, I know, ducking out,’ he added, catching Cantelli’s eye, ‘but you did say I didn’t need to be here.’
‘Did I?’ Cantelli teased. ‘No, you go. I’ll let you know what muscle man has to say about Dr Spalding’s death in the morning.’
Horton headed for the exit with a twinge of guilt at leaving Cantelli to it, and for not doing more for the dead man. But what could he do for Douglas Spalding now? Nothing, it seemed. And it didn’t need two DIs on the spot as well as a detective sergeant. He’d just reached the main gate as Dennings’ car drew up. The bulky shaven-headed man climbed out and eyed Horton malevolently.
‘The body’s straight ahead, Tony,’ Horton said. ‘In a dock. That’s a deep concrete hole and inside it is a grey and white boat, which even you can’t miss.’ He didn’t catch Dennings’ reply, if he gave one.
Horton climbed on his Harley and headed for his yacht, thinking that in one way he’d be glad to return to work tomorrow. It would be a welcome distraction from his personal problems. But it would mean having less time to spend on the investigation into the disappearance of his mother. Maybe that was a good thing though. Perhaps he should just forget it, concentrate on getting his life back on track and on tackling Catherine over getting greater access to his daughter. As he let himself in and showered he considered the option but knew in his gut he couldn’t let go. Not yet.
Lying on his bunk, listening to the rain drumming on the deck and waiting for sleep to come he found his thoughts wandering back to the body in the dock and the photograph of the dark-haired woman and the two children. Had Cantelli broken the news to the widow yet? Had she any idea why her husband had killed himself?
He conjured up that gaping concrete dock and the body lying in it. Something tugged at the back of his mind. What was it? Mentally he ran through what he’d seen and heard. There was something wrong, something didn’t add up, but then it wouldn’t yet. Maybe it never would. Suicide left a great big empty hole, bigger than any dock, and a whopping great question mark hanging over the lives of those left behind which could never be answered. It blighted their lives, much as his mother’s disappearance had blighted his.
But was Douglas Spalding’s death suicide? It had all the appearances of being so, and yet something told him otherwise. Why? He closed his eyes and tried to think what it was that was bugging him, but it was no use. Perhaps it would come to him in his sleep. Either that or Cantelli might provide illumination in the morning. He hoped so.