Six

Uckfield gave his permission after Horton had reported back to him two hours later. The scene of crime team had lifted prints and hairs from Ben's cabin, but there had been no sign of flesh or blood. Horton had also brought Sergeant Norris up to speed before leaving the island, and requested he contact the planning department to see if anyone had ever applied for permission for the cabin to be erected in the bay.

Trueman had set up a crime board and Clarke's photographs were already on it. There was another crime board close to DI Dennings' office detailing the Trehams robbery but, judging by the lack of activity in the incident suite, that investigation looked to be at stalemate, which Sergeant Trueman confirmed. He also said there had been no reports of missing persons that could fit the landslip corpse, but once they had a more detailed description from Dr Clayton and possibly fingerprints and DNA, they could run a match.

Horton handed over the passport photograph of Halliwell. 'It's not brilliant. The passport expires this year, so it's ten years out of date.' He gave a résumé of what Chilcott had told him.

'I'll make some enquiries with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and the Border Agency and see what I can find.'

That done, Horton returned to CID for an update from Cantelli on the sailing club arson, the highway robberies and anything else that the villains and lowlifes of Portsmouth had cared to throw their way during the day.

Cantelli looked frazzled. Horton took the seat next to the sergeant in the empty CID office. 'Don't tell me, the chief's been on the phone.'

'Several times,' Cantelli answered somewhat wearily. 'He's seconded Walters to the Arson Task Force to make, as he calls it, a quick arrest. It would be nice to know who to arrest. Leonard was brave enough to suggest to the chief that it could be a member of the club with a grudge against him, Councillor Levy or Ms Atkinson, but he stoutly rebuffed that as "ridiculous". He's more inclined to go for a staff member or ex-employee with a chip on his shoulder and has ordered that they all be interviewed, hence Walters continued input.'

'He could be right. And the witness who claims she saw the highway robbers, what did Walters get from her?'

Cantelli's dark-featured face lit up. 'A good description of the vehicle but not the registration, the thieves had deliberately obscured that, but we've got the make and the colour of the car, and a description of the woman who held up the witnesses' car. I've circulated details across Hampshire, and to bordering counties, Dorset, West Sussex, Surrey in case they've moved on. How about you? You've had a fun day.'

'Which is more than the poor bugger I fell over had when he was last alive.' Horton told him what he had unearthed.

'No, just lots of questions. Are the three dead men, Halliwell, Ben and the landslip corpse connected? Or is it just a fluke that all have a link with that area? Two have died of natural causes and the third murdered, although Gaye hasn't confirmed that yet. But it looked remarkably like a bullet in the head to me.'

'He could have committed suicide and the gun fell down with all the earth and debris in a landslide.'

'And the damage to the skull?'

'Caused when he fell.'

'It's possible but the skull damage looked too violent for that.' He told Cantelli that Halliwell had left his entire estate – some six million pounds – to the Benedictine monks at the abbey.

'Blimey, they must have been praying hard,' was Cantelli's response. 'It's a powerful motive for murder, but I can't see a monk committing it.'

Cantelli's remark pulled Horton up sharply and made his mind race. Dormand, one of the men in that photograph from 1967, posing as Brother Norman at the abbey, had admitted to being a killer. But Dormand was dead and had been since October, and the landslip corpse looked to be more recent than that, although Dr Clayton would confirm whether that was the case. And besides, why would Dormand want to kill the landslip corpse? Dormand had said he had killed in the name of British Intelligence, and Horton couldn't see what a body under Beachwood House had to do with the intelligence services.

'You being a good Catholic boy, Barney, do you have any ideas as to why Halliwell should leave his fortune to the abbey, aside from the fact he might have been Catholic or a lapsed Catholic?'

'Maybe it was to atone for a sin.'

'It would have to be a pretty big one to warrant that amount.' Horton had briefly wondered if Halliwell might be a criminal or on the run.

'Perhaps he had been raised as a Catholic but had led a wicked life. His wealth could have been made on the back of fraud, embezzlement, murder.'

'Or robbery,' Horton added thoughtfully. If that were the case, then when and who had he robbed? Someone who had sought revenge? 'From what Chilcott told us about Halliwell, all of those sound feasible.' He relayed the gist of it, adding, 'He could have been involved in a crime years ago and, with the proceeds, took off to the Cayman Islands. That was where he ended up before the Isle of Wight, at least.'

'Wonder what made him go to the Isle of Wight. It's not a tax haven like the Channel Islands or the Cayman Islands.'

'He might have some past connection with the abbey.'

'Maybe he hoped to cleanse his money, or his soul, by leaving a massive legacy to the monks. Although you'd think if he had wanted forgiveness, he'd have given the money away before his death.'

'He only returned to the UK in December, according to Chilcott, after having liquidated his overseas assets, so perhaps he intended to but never had the time. Maybe he confessed to those sins.'

'It wouldn't have been to the abbot, because he wouldn't touch the money if it had been illegally acquired.'

'Perhaps he could have been persuaded. Six million pounds can do a lot of good for a lot of people. Perhaps Dom Daniel Briar has been instructed to give it away to the poor and needy, although Chilcott made no mention of it. The abbot could have a letter to that effect which Halliwell gave or posted to him. I'll check that out tomorrow.'

'Just as long as you don't ask me to accompany you.'

Horton smiled. Cantelli got seasick looking at a wave. 'Wouldn't dream of it. Not unless Uckfield orders it.'

'Then I'll volunteer to question every citizen of Portsmouth in connection with the chief's arson.'

'Be careful, he might take you up on that.'

Horton told Cantelli to go home. Walters had already sloped off, but then it was almost eight o'clock. Horton made for his office where he wrote up his report on the discovery of the body. Marsden was writing up the interview with Chilcott. He answered some emails then headed home. It was nine thirty when he reached the marina and, after eating in the Indian restaurant, he boarded his yacht and made a coffee.

The day's surprising events ran through his mind. If it hadn't been for those fingerprints being identified as those on the card which Lomas had given him in October, he'd never have discovered the body, and the enquiry into Ben's identity would have rested with Sergeant Norris. If he hadn't kept the card in the first place… if he hadn't asked Jane to check the fingerprints… if he had told her to destroy them… but then life was full of ifs. It was just one of those quirks of nature, or rather coincidence. It seemed bizarre, but then coincidences happened more often than many thought. This one had thrown up three men – Ben, Halliwell and the landslip corpse – all surrounded in mystery. All connected? Possibly and possibly to some distant crime. And what of Lomas? Was he also a criminal? Had he killed the landslip corpse? He must have known Ben to have had a card with Ben's prints on it. Unless he had randomly picked it up from somewhere.

He tried to clear his mind of thoughts of the case, but it refused to co-operate. It was too late to go for a run. Besides, running on top of a curry was not the best thing to do. And neither did it seem the best thing to have eaten before retiring. His sleep was fitful and filled with dreams of a skull staring at him, and when it began to laugh, he jolted awake with a shout. He was relieved to see it was close on six thirty. Time for a run along the promenade to blast away those dreams. Two hours later, refreshed, showered, shaved and dressed, he headed for the ferry on his Harley, wondering if Gaye would be on the same sailing. Disappointingly, she wasn't.

On board, he had breakfast, a bacon roll and coffee, and called Cantelli to check if there had been any developments overnight on the sailing club arson and the highway robberies. There hadn't been and, miraculously, it had been a quiet night for crime. It was just after ten when he pulled into the hospital car park. Five minutes later, he was in the mortuary where he found Gaye already suited up, examining the naked remains of the corpse. Maybe he shouldn't have had that bacon roll either.

'Not much of the male anatomy left but enough for even DI Dennings to tell our corpse's gender,' she said by way of greeting.

Gaye, like him, was not a fan of the muscle bound, fifteen stone, plodding detective who she had nicknamed Neanderthal Man.

He smiled as he got his churning stomach under control, and his curiosity began to overcome the nauseating smell that neither Gaye nor the mortuary attendant seemed to notice. But then it went with the job, just as he rarely noticed the stench in the cells.

'And, as you can see, there's hardly any flesh left on his legs, upper arms, around the shoulders, or on his face, but there is some on the lower abdomen and chest,' she pointed out. 'The process of human decomposition is still relatively unknown, despite considerable research and in this case, because of where he was found, there are some additional factors to consider. I've looked at Clarke's photographs of the body in situ, and spoken to Jamie Spring, a forensic geophysicist. The cliffside where the body was found comprises of Greensand.'

'So DC Jake Marsden told us, deposited during the Early Cretaceous Period, which lasted for approximately forty million years.'

'You obviously paid attention,' she said smiling. 'Yes, and Greensand is not the world's best preservative. The sandy composition means the soil and rock will be dry and will oxidize material such as the human body, resulting in fairly rapid decomposition and skeletonization.'

'Which means his death could be quite recent.'

'Yes, but you're looking at weeks not days, and don't ask me how many weeks, not until I've done a little more delving.'

'Can't you give me a guesstimate?' he asked, thinking he could rule out Dormand aka Brother Norman having disposed of the victim. But then he already had.

'Possibly two months. Could be earlier, could be a lot later given what Jamie has told me. Why? Have you some idea of who might have killed him?'

'If it's later than 1 February it rules out Cedric Halliwell, the owner of Beachwood House above the cliff where the body was found. He died of natural causes on 1 February. But the man found dead in the cabin in the bay's a possibility. He died last Thursday, again of natural causes.'

'You have suspicions about that?'

'But I can see you're wavering. I can hear it in your voice.'

'Only because three deaths all so close together in time and location makes me wonder. Although it's not unheard of for two men to die naturally and a third accidentally in close proximity. But I don't think this one,' he nodded at the corpse, 'was accidental.'

'On the face of it, I'm inclined to agree with you. There is considerable trauma to the skull.'

'Could that have been caused in a fall?'

'From the landslip? I doubt it. And no kind of landslip could have caused that neat round hole. I'll tell you more once I've conducted the autopsy.'

'Any idea of his age?'

'Mid-fifties to late sixties. I'll extract DNA and try to get fingerprints but there's not much skin left,' she said, peering at the hands. 'I'll scrape off what skin I can and put it over my own fingers to see if we can get an imprint.'

Horton had seen both Gaye and Jane Ashley, the fingerprint bureau supervisor, do that a few times. It didn't sound pleasant, but it often worked.

'Anything about the clothes or shoes that strike you as unusual or significant?' he asked. They were in large plastic evidence bags on a nearby bench table ready to be despatched to the lab.

'The fabrics are man-made which is why they're still evident. Natural fibres such as silk, cotton and wool rot a lot quicker, and are biodegradable. The shoes were probably leather slip-ons because their remains show no trace of eyelets or laces, although the shoelaces could have been made of cotton and the ends of the laces, usually of plastic or metal, could be buried in the soil, but I'd still expect to see eyelets in the leather. There was nothing on him to give any identification. I'll have more answers for you later. You'll just have to be patient and wait.'