‘It was about nine forty.’ Julie Preston’s concerned brown eyes studied Horton behind her square-framed modern spectacles. Her tanned, attractive face looked worried rather than upset, which suggested that she hadn’t known Spalding that well. But then there was no reason why she should have known him. She was in her late twenties, dressed in tight-fitting navy blue trousers and a pretty white, blue and pink flowered low-neck blouse that showed the outline of her white bra beneath it and a cleavage above it. They were sitting in her roomy, extremely untidy and cluttered office on the first floor of the naval museum that made Horton’s look poky and positively tidy. In the small window behind her Horton caught a glimpse of the Gosport skyline on the other side of Portsmouth harbour. According to her evidence that left just under an hour before Spalding’s body had been found.
‘Had everyone left by then?’ he asked.
‘Yes. The caterers left at nine thirty.’
That tallied with the signing-out lists Horton had seen.
Julie Preston added, ‘There was only me and Dr Spalding left. I didn’t expect him to stay that long but then he had been collared by Mr Meadows and he didn’t leave until the caterers did at nine thirty.’
Again that tied in with the signing-out log.
‘I didn’t think Mr Meadows was ever going to go, you know how insensitive some people are to time and hints. I tried to steer him away but eventually I had to be quite forceful and tell him we were closing. He must have bored Dr Spalding to death . . . Oh God, I didn’t mean that.’ She pushed a slender hand through her mahogany-highlighted poker-straight long hair.
‘What happened after Mr Meadows left?’
‘We both breathed a sigh of relief.’ She gave a small and sad smile as she obviously recollected the moment, before adding, ‘Dr Spalding did look tired though and he was rubbing his forehead as though he had a headache, which wasn’t surprising after the lecture and being pestered by Mr Meadows.’
Horton was getting a very distinct picture of Ivor Meadows. His suspicious mind wondered if there had been any friction between Meadows and Spalding that could have led to an altercation between them outside. But if it had then either the timing of them leaving the museum was wrong, or Meadows had fabricated his signing-out time on the log and Newton, the security guard, had missed it.
‘You know Mr Meadows well?’ he fished.
She gave a wry smile. ‘He’s often in the museum, telling us how we should organize the exhibits or giving the staff a history lecture, and he regularly visits the naval museum library. It’s in the naval area of the dockyard just before you reach this building,’ she explained.
It didn’t take much for Horton to see that Meadows was a pain in the arse. ‘Did Dr Spalding know him?’
‘I don’t know. He might have met him in the naval museum library, I guess.’
‘So how well did you know Dr Spalding?’
‘I didn’t, not really. I obviously liaised with him over the arrangements for last night but that was all. I can’t believe he could have killed himself.’
So that’s what Gideon had told her. It was the logical assumption, and might still be the right one.
‘Perhaps I could see where the talk took place.’
‘Of course.’ She stood up.
As Horton followed her along the narrow corridor he asked her about the arrangements for the previous night.
‘There was a drinks reception on board HMS Victory from seven o’clock until seven thirty, which the caterers handled. Then Neil Gideon walked the guests over here. I met them at the entrance on the ground floor. We escorted them up to the first floor. Here.’ She pushed open the door and they stepped into the wide landing with a wooden floor so ancient that it looked as though it had been lifted off one of Henry VIII’s ships. ‘A few people used the lift.’ She indicated the glass-encased cubicle totally at odds with the historic brick building. ‘The rest came up the stairs. They hung their coats up on the stand to the right of the lift and I showed them into the Princess Royal Gallery.’
As she’d been speaking they’d crossed to a set of double doors just beyond the lift. Pushing them open Horton entered a spacious, carpeted and well-lit room, broken up by cream-coloured steel pillars. Chairs were laid out in rows, theatre style, with a wide aisle through the centre and at either side of the room. At the far end, opposite them, was a large projector screen, to its right a lectern with a microphone on it and next to that a small empty low table. ‘Is this how it was set up last night?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What equipment did Dr Spalding use?’
‘The lectern and microphone, and one of our laptop computers.’
‘So he didn’t bring his own?’
‘He might have done but he had his presentation on a memory stick, which I put into the computer.’
He asked if Spalding had been carrying a briefcase.
‘Yes, a tan leather old-fashioned one. It looked very battered. Why do you ask?’
‘He left carrying it?’
‘Yes.’
So where was it? ‘And you gave the memory stick back to him?’
‘No. He must have taken it out of the computer himself.’
‘Did you check?’
‘Er no.’ Her face flushed.
He asked her to do so now. She left the room and Horton gazed around it looking for some indication as to why, after giving his lecture here to an audience of forty-six people, Douglas Spalding had ended up dead in Number One Dock. He was none the wiser when she returned a few minutes later.
‘It’s not there.’
So he must have taken it. ‘Tell me about the lecture?’
She shifted and ran a hand through her hair. ‘It finished at eight thirty then there was ten minutes for questions and the buffet was served outside in the adjoining Woolfson Room, just behind the lift.’
That wasn’t what Horton had asked but it was an easy misunderstanding. ‘I meant the lecture itself.’
‘Oh.’ Her eyes darted away. She was clearly nervous. He was doing his best not to intimidate her but he knew that questioning could make some people incredibly uneasy. ‘It was about women in the Navy,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear all of it because I was in and out making sure everything was OK with the caterers. Marcus Felspur was there though; he’s the naval museum’s librarian. He can give you more details.’
Horton recalled seeing the name on the list. He asked to see the buffet area and followed Julie outside to where long thin tables covered with green cloths were stretched out behind a glass partition wall.
‘The guests helped themselves to the buffet,’ she indicated the tables, ‘although the catering staff were here to assist and they served the drinks, then people milled about and spilled out onto the landing.’
‘How did Dr Spalding appear to you last night when he was giving his lecture?’
‘He seemed OK,’ she answered uncertainly, clearly not sure what he wanted her to say. He’d noted earlier her remark about Spalding looking tired and rubbing his forehead and he was beginning to wonder if he’d been taken ill. Perhaps once outside Spalding had tried to make his way to the quayside to get some air but instead he’d staggered against the railings of Number One Dock and had toppled over.
He said, ‘What happened after everyone had left?’
‘Lewis and I did a security sweep of the museum.’
‘Lewis?’ Horton swiftly tried to recall seeing the name on the list.
‘Lewis Morden. He works for the front-of-house staff and was on duty in the CCTV control room last night until we closed.’
Horton’s hopes rose. That meant they might actually have some footage of Spalding leaving. Did Cantelli know this? If he did he would have said though. Had Gideon told Dennings about the cameras last night? Horton remembered seeing the name Morden on the signing-out log. His was the last entry for the Victory Gate, which meant he hadn’t left by car.
‘Can you show me the control room please?’
They descended to the ground floor where Julie pushed open a door leading into a narrow corridor before knocking on a door to her left and entering. Horton followed her into a small room with a bank of eight monitors, showing different areas of the naval museum, and two of the rear entrance. At the desk in front of the screens sat a large woman in her fifties who swiftly quashed Horton’s hopes of a firm sighting of Dr Spalding outside the museum by telling him that none of the footage was recorded. He’d need to speak to Morden, who would be in shortly. But, Horton thought with disappointment, if Lewis Morden had been conducting his security sweep of the museum with Julie Preston then he wouldn’t have seen anything of Spalding on the CCTV cameras, and in all likelihood had probably switched them off by then.
As they left the control room, Horton asked her about the caterers. ‘They parked at the rear entrance, two vans, and they brought the food up the back stairs and prepared it in the staff room, just along the corridor from my office.’
Horton had glimpsed it earlier. He asked to be shown the rear entrance and Julie went ahead of him a short distance along the corridor where she pushed open one of two big white wooden doors. Horton stepped outside and surveyed the narrow road. To his left it ran between the museum and a two-storey red-brick building whose arched windows had been bricked up long ago for a reason he didn’t know and didn’t need to know. Opposite him was a bike shed with a plastic corrugated roof and three cycles, then another building to his right, this time single storey without windows. The road led towards Number One Dock, which he couldn’t see from where they were standing because it was situated further to the right of a brick building, which faced onto the end of the short road. To the left of this Horton could see the top of a pale grey crane and part of a naval ship moored up on the dockside.
Julie said, ‘The caterers unloaded the drinks and food from here and entered via the back door and stairs further along to our left.’
Horton could see them. ‘You let them in?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, now looking very concerned about his line of questioning.
‘We have to check everything,’ he reassured her with a smile.
She returned it, but hesitantly. Turning back inside, Horton said, ‘This security sweep of the museum – what does it involve?’
‘There’s a set procedure: we start at the top in the attics where various artefacts we haven’t got space to exhibit are stored. Would you like to see it?’
Horton said he would, though he wasn’t sure how it would help him discover what had happened to Dr Spalding. He followed her through the museum shop and up two flights of stairs, admiring her figure and the sway of her hips in those tight-fitting trousers as he went, a pleasant distraction from his thoughts of the mangled body he’d seen in the dock last night.
At the top she turned left and pressed a switch on the wall. The room with its low sloping ceiling became flooded with light and revealed a wealth of naval artefacts: ship memorabilia, lifebelts, ancient rifles, a ship’s bell, a model ship in a glass case – it seemed endless.
‘We check that no one’s here then I move across the landing to the other attic.’
He followed her. More ships in glass cases and here she told him was stored Captain Scott’s skis, as well as fabric and jewellery from Lady Hamilton’s dress.
‘Valuable?’ he asked.
‘I guess so. There’s a market for everything, isn’t there?’
She was right about that. As he followed her down the stairs her mobile phone rang and, snatching it up with a worried frown, she said to Horton, ‘It’s my boss, David Kalmore.’
Horton left her to break the bad news to him and went in search of Lewis Morden. He found him in the museum shop. In his mid-thirties, he was what the medical profession would class as obese, though Horton doubted Morden thought of himself as that. The loose-fitting black museum T-shirt did little to disguise the huge paunch or the fat that hung around the top of his thighs. His face was clean shaven and podgy with no definable chin. Horton asked if he could have a word and they stepped outside. The white SOCO van was parked on the far side of Number One Dock and behind it a blue car. Horton could see two fingerprint officers working on the railings but there was no sign of Taylor or his colleague Beth Tremaine, which meant they were in the dock.
Morden lit up a cigarette and drew heavily on it. ‘So it’s true that Dr Spalding’s dead,’ he said, exhaling, his cockily confident blue eyes widening in his bland chubby face.
‘Did you see him leaving the museum on one of the monitors?’
‘Yes. It was about nine forty. Julie let him out of the front entrance and then came to tell me everyone had left. I shut down the monitors and joined her in a sweep of the museum.’
‘And you left when?’
‘Just before Julie, must have been about ten o’clock.’
‘You signed out at the Victory Gate.’
‘Yes. I come to work on my bicycle. I only live ten minutes away in Southsea.’
At least he got some exercise, Horton thought, though not nearly enough. ‘So you left the museum by the rear entrance?’ That was where Horton had seen the plastic-roofed bike shed.
‘Yes.’
‘In which direction did you cycle?’
Morden looked bewildered for a moment before cottoning on to Horton’s meaning. Inhaling, he said, ‘Not towards Number One Dock.’ He nodded in its direction and, following his glance, Horton saw Neil Gideon heading towards it in the company of a worried, smartly dressed woman in her early forties. He was surprised to see Gideon still on duty.
Morden, letting the smoke trickle out of his nose, added, ‘I went the opposite way, came out just at the end of the museum building, turned into the main drag and up to Victory Gate.’
Shame, thought Horton. ‘Did you see or hear anything that struck you then or now that was unusual, or different?’
‘No, but I didn’t hang around because of the rain.’
It was the answer Horton had expected. He saw Gideon was gesturing towards him. The woman beside him followed his gesture and looked anxiously at her watch. Horton could guess the reason for her concern. He had little idea of the time but he knew that the dockyard opened to the public at ten o’clock. He had just a few more questions to put to Morden.
‘When Dr Spalding left was he carrying anything?’
‘Only a briefcase.’
So that seemed definite. ‘Did you see him while he was giving his lecture?’
‘In the Princess Royal Gallery, yes.’
‘How did he seem?’
‘OK.’ Morden exhaled and stubbed out his cigarette with his foot then bent down to retrieve the stub.
‘And you were in the control room all evening?’
‘Yes, from seven o’clock.’
‘You didn’t leave to go to the toilet?’
‘No.’
Horton eyed him carefully, not sure whether he believed that, but Morden held his gaze and didn’t appear to be lying. Even if he had popped out to relieve himself, Horton couldn’t see that it mattered anyway with the audience ensconced in the Princess Royal Gallery.
‘Are you always in the control room?’
‘No. I generally work in the shop and occasionally take a party around the museum, but I usually volunteer to do the control room when there’s an evening function because it gives me a bit of overtime, and with a wife and three kids to support I need all the money I can get.’
Horton thought of Spalding’s two children.
Morden said, ‘Is it true he threw himself into the dock?’
Horton made no reply but thanked Morden and headed for the SOCO van grateful that at least the storm of the previous night had passed, leaving behind an overcast humid day with little wind. It would have taken Spalding less than two minutes to reach the place where he’d fallen.
A haggard looking Gideon swiftly introduced the woman with him as Karen James, the Communications Manager for the Historic Dockyard. ‘Will we have to close any attractions?’ she asked Horton anxiously.
‘No, that won’t be necessary.’ Spalding hadn’t been inside any of them except for the Victory and the museum and his briefcase hadn’t been left there. It had to be either in the dock, or the surrounding area. But another thought suddenly occurred to Horton, which fitted with his earlier theory of Spalding having been taken ill and trying to get some air by heading for the quayside. Could Spalding have dropped the briefcase into the sea before staggering back here? He’d grabbed the railing around the dock to steady himself but had doubled over and fallen in.
‘We hope to be finished here by the time you open,’ he said.
She looked understandably relieved. ‘Do the press know?’
‘We haven’t informed them, Ms James, but they sometimes have a way of getting hold of this sort of information.’
‘Then I’d better prepare a statement. It would help if I could have a brief comment from you, Inspector.’
He gave her one saying that the deceased was Dr Douglas Spalding and they were currently investigating the circumstances surrounding his death. Let the media ferret out more if they were so inclined and he knew they would be. He hoped he’d be gone by the time they arrived but he’d call Cantelli to tell him to warn Mrs Spalding that the press might be on to her.
As Karen James hurried off, Horton turned to Gideon. ‘Julie Preston says that Dr Spalding had a briefcase with him. Did you see him carrying one when you walked him over from HMS Victory to the museum?’
‘No. But he’d probably left it in the Princess Royal Gallery earlier.’ Gideon dashed a puzzled glance at the dock. ‘I didn’t see a briefcase down there by the body.’
Neither had Horton. He said, ‘Could your officers make a search of the dock, this area and around the outside of the museum? Oh and we need to check the deck of the Monitor in case it landed there. Also if there is any sign of a computer memory stick.’
‘I’ll get on to it now.’
Horton turned to the fingerprinting officers. He asked if they’d got any identifiable traceable prints. Not really was the answer, as he’d expected. He peered down into the dock and saw two white-suited figures at work close to the bow of the Monitor. He surveyed the area and the steep stone steps. There was no sign of a briefcase and neither could he see one on the deck of the old Monitor.
One of the white-suited figures looked up. Taylor, seeing Horton, shook his head. Horton guessed there would be nothing to find except blood, skin and traces of bone fragments, and obviously no sign of a small computer memory stick. His phone rang. It was Cantelli.
‘How did it go?’
‘As you’d expect,’ Cantelli said solemnly, his voice tinged with sadness. ‘Mrs Spalding identified her husband’s body though there wasn’t really any doubt it was him. Tom had done his best to make the face look half decent. Ronald Spalding was very distraught. I thought he was going to keel over. While he stepped outside to get a breath of air she told me that Douglas was an only child and that Ronald lost his wife five years ago. He worshipped the ground his son walked on. Neither of them could think of any reason why Spalding would commit suicide, in fact Ronald was most adamant that his son would never consider it. He was very angry that I’d even suggested it. And Mrs Spalding said her husband was in very good health. Their GP is Dr Deacon, Southsea Medical Centre, and Mrs Spalding said she’d ask him to give us his full cooperation.’
‘And the briefcase?’
‘Tan leather, very well worn, like an old-fashioned school master’s, and he left the house carrying it. She said he took his laptop computer with him.’
Horton relayed his theory about the missing briefcase possibly ending up in the sea and what Julie Preston had told him about Spalding looking as though he had a headache. ‘It’s looking more like an accidental death brought on by an illness. He could have suffered a heart attack, aneurysm or stroke.’
‘Want me to check with the doctor?’
‘No, I’ll do that. See what Walters has got in the way of background and whether he’s had any joy contacting anyone at the university.’
‘Mrs Spalding said her husband’s boss is a Dr Sandra Menchip. She might be away as it’s the holidays but I’ll see if we can track her down. I’ve got Spalding’s mobile phone number, do you want to apply to access his account?’
Horton did. He rang off and checked the time. It was five minutes past ten and ahead he could see the first trickle of tourists beginning to drift in. He hailed Gideon who had emerged from behind the naval museum with a shake of his head.
‘Nothing so far.’
‘Call me after you’ve finished searching.’ Horton relayed his number. ‘Is Matt Newton still on duty?
‘No. He went home hours ago. I can give you his address if you’d like it.’
Horton said he would. He followed Gideon to the security office situated halfway down the main thoroughfare where the security officer jotted down Newton’s address. Handing the piece of paper to Horton he said, ‘His wife’s very ill – cancer.’
‘OK, but we’ll still need to interview him.’
‘He’ll be on duty tonight and so will I if you need anything more. Otherwise you can reach me at home or on my mobile.’ Gideon gave his address which was, like Newton’s, in the north of the city.
Horton asked for the full contact details of all the guests and the caterers. Gideon extracted some papers from a file and ran them through the photocopier. Handing them over he said, ‘We did a security check on all of them before the lecture as a matter of procedure. Nothing showed up and the caterers have been security cleared at a higher level, being regular visitors.’
Horton took his leave, checked the details of one address, then tucking the papers in his pocket headed for Ivor Meadows’ apartment.