Twenty

Instead of heading down into the city and work, Horton turned left out of the hospital and climbed the hill that overlooked Portsmouth where he pulled into a layby and silenced the Harley. He gazed down on the city shrouded in a fog. Removing his helmet, he caught the sound of the foghorns out to sea booming over the rooftops and the tower blocks of the densely populated city.

His head was spinning with what he and Gaye had discussed. Was he right about Halliwell being Gordon Eames? He had no proof of anything, only a feeling and suppositions, and they weren't nearly enough. Even now he began to doubt his earlier conviction. Gordon had died, his body had been identified by his brother, flown home and put in the family vault on their estate in Wiltshire.

Just because Ben had burn scars and so too did Halliwell, it didn't mean either man had got them in that fire at the Goldsmith Psychiatric hospital. He just wanted the pieces to fit. In fact, the more he thought about it the more uncertain he became.

Gaye said she would put the scarring in her report but there would be no mention of what they had discussed. It was all conjecture anyway. And she was correct. The landslip corpse wasn't conjecture though. He had been murdered, but his killer might never be brought to justice because he was already dead, either Ben or Paignton, or perhaps they had both conspired to kill him.

He returned to the station and the incident suite wondering how Cantelli was getting on in Southampton on the trail of Jerry Carswell. Horton crossed to Trueman. Bliss was in the office next to Uckfield's and on the phone.

'At least she hasn't taken over the Super's office,' Trueman muttered.

Trueman said he was checking with the Red Jet car ferry to see if Carswell had booked on a Southampton to Cowes ferry in his own name or the alias of Caws. 'He doesn't hold a driver's licence in either name. Nor is there any vehicle registered to him. Norris's officers are still trying to find the taxi company and driver who took him and Paignton to Wight Barn Wines. How's the Super?'

'Then let's hope he's soon out of hospital and back here,' Trueman said with feeling and a nod in Bliss's direction. 'At least Uckfield lets you get on with it. She's like a jack in the box, popping out every few minutes to see if anything new has come in on either case, the landslip corpse and the Trehams robbery.'

'And has it on the latter?'

Trueman shook his head. 'Dennings and Marsden are re-interviewing Victoria Treham, hoping to prise out more information.'

'Has anyone checked with experts that those two items which Victoria Treham claims to be paste really are paste?'

'Yes. No one recognizes them but without actually handling them they say it's difficult to confirm if they are real diamonds and sapphires, but why would the Trehams lie about them only being costume jewellery?'

'Why didn't the dogs bark? OK, so they were allegedly drugged.'

'You think they weren't?' Bliss said sharply.

Horton started and spun round. He hadn't seen her emerge, and Trueman hadn't either otherwise he would have indicated by a nod or raise of eyebrows that she was on the loose. His expression now said, see didn't I tell you. Horton thought Bliss was getting very stealthy.

'I don't know. I'm not on the case but it doesn't smell right.'

Bliss opened her mouth, probably to retort that his sense of smell had nothing to do with collecting evidence and capturing the culprits, but Horton swiftly continued, 'I said to Superintendent Uckfield and DI Dennings that it might be an inside job, and I still think that's possible. The paste jewellery was either there because of its sentimental value and nothing to do with the robbery or…' He paused as a few thoughts jolted into place, not just about the Trehams jewellery but about Jennifer's brooch.

'It was what the thieves were really after.'

'That doesn't make sense,' she snapped.

'It does if those two items were more valuable than the Trehams thought. Or they might have considerable value to someone other than the Trehams.' Just like Jennifer's brooch, thought Horton. PC Stanley had stolen it without any idea of its value, either monetary or sentimental, but someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure the brooch and all evidence of its existence had vanished.

He said, 'We should ask a real expert.'

'We already have,' Bliss smartly rejoined.

'I mean one on the inside. Oliver Vernon. He's one of the country's leading jewellery historians.'

'Only he's not around.'

'Winchester Prison isn't far and, as I put him there a year ago, I'd like to ask him what he thinks of the Trehams collection.' And of a certain brooch, he added silently.

Bliss looked dubious.

Horton pressed on, 'It could give us a new lead or at least some new ides to explore that Superintendent Uckfield hadn't considered.' Horton knew that would win her over. Her eyes flashed at the thought that she might get a breakthrough in a case she'd only just taken over.

After she left, Trueman muttered, 'You wouldn't like me to go with you, I suppose? I can ride pillion on your Harley.'

Horton smiled and hurried out before Bliss could change her mind.

It took him slightly longer than he anticipated to reach Winchester as the fog had caused two traffic accidents on the motorway. At the prison he went through the routine security checks and was shown into a bland private room that smelt of disinfectant and paint. He tried to shut out the sound of doors locking and his fear of being shut in, a legacy of a bitter and cruel experience at one of the shitholes of a children's home in which he'd been incarcerated. He concentrated on why he was here.

The door opened, and a man in his mid-forties was ushered in by a prison officer who nodded at Horton and closed the door behind him. Horton knew they were on camera.

Vernon was thinner than Horton recalled from the last time he'd seen him in the dock, although he'd never run to fat. The once intelligent and friendly blue eyes were now mistrustful and dull. The close-cropped fair beard had gone, revealing a pointed chin, making his face narrower, longer and gaunter, but Horton had no sympathy to spare for a killer and a crook.

'I've come for advice,' he said.

'Try Sotheby's or Christies,' Vernon replied, taking the seat opposite Horton across the table.

'Already have, and Bonhams, but this stuff is special and you are an expert in historic art, jewellery and gemstones.'

'Was, Detective Inspector Horton. Amazingly there's no call for such talent in these salubrious surroundings.' He waved his thin arm around the bland beige room. His voice was slightly camp. Horton knew it was an act.

'The Treham robbery.'

A light flickered behind Vernon's eyes, although his expression gave nothing away.

'You've heard about it?' Horton asked.

That was a lie. Horton extracted his mobile and scrolled to the photographs of the stolen items. The Trehams had been advised by their insurance company to catalogue the jewellery in that way, with the exception of two; the costume jewellery. That photograph was of Victoria Treham wearing them, which Trueman had cropped so as not to show the wearer. It was the same pictures Horton had seen on the crime board.

'These are some of the items which were stolen,' Horton said, thinking, now let's see how good you are.

Vernon's eyes flicked down and then up. 'Why should I help you?'

'Because I'm asking nicely.'

'And I've brought you these.' Horton reached down and put the items on the table.

'I don't smoke, and I don't eat chocolate.'

'But you can trade both.'

'Is that all I get?'

'Depends how good you are at providing information. Tell me about these.' He indicated the picture of a necklace and a stunning brooch.

Vernon shrugged his narrow shoulders. 'An emerald and diamond pendant necklace and a diamond clip brooch, circa 1930, both by Hennell.'

'Who's he?' Horton asked. He'd seen the name on the crime board along with the estimated value but knew little else.

'Hennell of Bond Street founded by David Hennell in 1736 originally made fashionable silverware for the nobility and landed gentry. His son, Robert, turned to jewellery-making in the late eighteenth century. By the twentieth century Hennells was the British jeweller. During the Art Deco period, Hennell was known for jewels of superlative quality, like those. The brooch should fetch anything in the region of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and the necklace about two hundred thousand, probably more. Am I right?'

'Spot on. But then you must have heard these have been stolen.'

'No. I'm just good at my job – my old job. Even without seeing the real thing I know what they are.'

And that was just what Horton wanted to hear. 'And this diamond bracelet?' He showed another photograph.

'A Harry Winstone piece,' Vernon answered with only a glance at it. 'Harry Winstone died in 1978, aged 82. Some of the World's most important gems passed through his hands, including an emerald cut diamond sourced for the Duchess of Windsor, and a 241-carat rough that became the 69.42-carat Taylor-Burton diamond. Difficult to say how much that would fetch at auction, if it was legally auctioned. Hundreds of thousands of pounds.'

'And if illegally bought?'

Vernon again shrugged. 'Possibly the same, maybe even more. Depends who wants it and how badly they want it. That is an Art Deco jade ring,' he said, as Horton showed him the next picture. 'The price depends on the rarity and quality of the jade. Possibly forty thousand pounds, if it's good.'

Horton thought so too.

'A Breguet marine date watch, eighteen-carat white gold on a wave motive. Value about twenty thousand pounds.'

Horton wondered if Chilcott had got rid of the Tag Heuer he'd stolen from Halliwell's estate after their recent interview. Vernon's assessment and valuation of the items was almost spot on with the expert from the auction house who had also valued the pieces for insurance purposes eighteen months ago. Now for the items Horton was really interested in and which the Trehams claimed was paste.

Vernon remained silent as he studied the intricate and delicate diamond and sapphire bracelet and the heart-shaped diamond sapphire ring in the picture. A flush suffused his pale prison cheeks. Footsteps echoed in the corridor. A door slammed, and keys rattled. Horton took a breath. He felt the sweat beginning to prick his back but thankfully not his brow. He didn't want his discomfort to show for Vernon to gloat over but, as he watched the former jewellery historian study the pictures, he concluded that Vernon wouldn't have noticed if he'd been in the throes of a heart attack, so completely focused was he on the jewellery. The silence seemed to stretch on forever, and when Horton thought he might have to break it, Vernon looked up. His eyes gleamed.

'They're part of the collection of the Princess Catherine Yourievsky, the daughter of Tsar Alexander II. She fled Russia before the communist revolution with her second husband, Prince Serge Obolensky.'

Horton was surprised and sceptical. He knew the princess's story because she had ended up living on Hayling Island a few miles east of Portsmouth across Langstone Harbour. She had been buried in St Peter's churchyard in 1959. 'Are you sure? I thought she died penniless.'

'Apparently she did. And I'm sure.'

'It's not every day I get the chance to look at something so beautiful, and exciting.'

'More so than the other items you've just seen?'

'Infinitely.' Then cockily he said, 'Your experts didn't identify them?'

No. 'They might be fake.'

'They might, but I doubt it.'

Horton didn't believe Vernon was lying, in fact he was more convinced than ever that he had come to the right source. It would take someone like Vernon, who knew everything there was to know about historic pieces of jewellery, discovered and missing, and what the jewellery acquiring underworld were after, to recognize something like this. Had the robbers known it too?

'You said part of the princess's collection. She sold other items?'

'A diamond and sapphire necklace, a tiara and a diamond brooch.'

'I wasn't around then,' he said somewhat cynically.

Horton raised his eyebrows. 'But you'll know nevertheless.'

'All I know is that the collection was split. The tiara, necklace and brooch were sold to an unnamed collector and have never been seen since.'

'But the auction house will have records of who bought them.'

'If they sold them, which I doubt. The princess and her husband could have negotiated a private deal, as they obviously did with these. How did they end up in the Trehams collection?'

Horton told him that an aunt had given them to Victoria Treham five months ago, shortly before her death.

'So no provenance from the aunt, unless they're keeping quiet about that. Not that it would bother some,' Vernon said.

Just like the wine in Beachwood House and the paintings. They would find buyers with or without provenance. 'How valuable are they?' Horton asked.

'More than all these other things put together.'

That made Horton even more certain this must have been what the thieves were after. Several theories were running through his mind. 'Who would want them?' he asked.

'Perhaps a Russian would like them back?'

'Take your pick. Any of the Russian oligarchs.'

It was a thought, and one Horton didn't think Uckfield would be pleased to hear, only he wouldn't hear it now on his sick bed.

'But if I was you, Inspector, I'd look closer to home for your robbers.'

'Meaning?' Horton knew exactly what Vernon was alluding to.

'Perhaps someone is not as well off as they purport to be.'

'They are. We've looked into it.'

'Then perhaps one of them, Mr or Mrs Treham, wants to provide a secret income for later.'

One of the theories that had already struck Horton. 'Divorce?'

'A nice little nest egg tucked away, not part of the divorce settlement, to sell on later. Those items will fetch a lot even when sold underground.'

Horton pushed the cigarettes and chocolates across the table. As Vernon reached out for them, Horton held on to them. He hesitated for just a fraction. 'What do you know about a brooch, blue diamond centre, pink diamond beneath it and white diamonds surrounding it, like petals?'

Vernon's brow furrowed. 'Is it also part of the Trehams robbery?'

'Stop hedging, Vernon,' Horton snapped, his pulse racing a little faster. He could see that Vernon had recognized the description. 'Tell me what you know.'

'In exchange for what? And don't say more chocolates and cigarettes. I want more than that.'

'Unlimited and private access to the internet, and permission to write my book.'

'The lost historic jewellery of the world.'

Horton raised his eyebrows. 'Such as the princess's pieces?'

Horton felt a frisson of excitement. 'The brooch I've just described?'

'Possibly,' Vernon replied slyly.

Horton scraped back his chair. 'I'm not here to bargain with you.'

'The Portsmouth Blue.'

Horton remained still. 'And?'

'Do I get what I requested?'

'I'll put in a word.'

'I think you owe me more than that, seeing as I've also given you information on the princess's jewellery.'

Horton gave a curt nod and waited almost breathlessly. Would Vernon tell or would he hold out until he had what he demanded? But from the glimmer in his eyes, Horton could see that Vernon couldn't resist displaying his knowledge.