'What happened? You look bloody awful,' Cantelli said.
'A car cut me up in the fog. I came off my bike.' It was the truth. He didn't see why he should burden Cantelli with his problems when the man looked as though he'd been up all night. 'You don't look so hot yourself.'
'I'm all right,' Cantelli muttered uneasily, but Horton could see he wasn't. He wondered if the nephew he had helped keep out of prison was playing up again. Very little troubled Cantelli but his family were a different matter. 'Family all right, are they?' Horton saw that they weren't. 'Sit down.'
As Cantelli obeyed, Horton pushed open the window as far as it would go, but it only let in more stifling heat and the noise of the traffic. Pulling at his tie he closed the slatted blinds and switched on the fan. 'So what's up?'
'It's Ellen.'
She was the eldest of Cantelli's five children; quickly Horton calculated she must be about fifteen.
Cantelli said, 'She came home late on Tuesday night and very drunk. I laid into her a bit, you know out of relief, I guess. She had me and Charlotte almost out of our minds with worry. I grounded her for the rest of the week and the weekend and now she's not speaking to us.'
'She'll get over it.' Then Horton frowned. He could see there was more. 'And?'
'She lied about where she had been. Oh she doesn't know I know that. But I've checked. Sophie Mayhew told her mother she was on a sleep-over with Ellen at Jaz Cordiner's house. Sophie was out all night. Ellen was on no sleep over, so where the hell was she?'
'She came home though and she's OK, isn't she?' Horton asked, concerned. He didn't like to see Barney worried like this. He knew how he'd feel if it was Emma. He hoped to God he'd still be able to see Emma when she was fifteen and be there for her if she needed him. He rubbed his aching head as the thought conjured up Jarrett and his accident last night. He could be mistaken but he was left with the impression of a dark saloon car and the letters PE. It wasn't much, and certainly not enough to run a vehicle check, but it was better than nothing.
He had hoped his visit to Alpha One would stir things up and it certainly had. He hadn't expected Jarrett to take action so quickly or be so violent. He was lucky to be alive. Jarrett intended to silence him, permanently if necessary. The thought should have worried him but it didn't. It cheered him. Now all he had to do was stay alive long enough
to get evidence. He brought his attention back to his mournful DS.
'Sadie says Ellen's been crying a lot. They share a bedroom. Charlotte tells me that's fairly normal for teenage girls but it breaks my heart to think she's unhappy. If someone's hurt her I'll kill the bastard.'
'It'll be all right, Barney. She probably just needs a bit of time.' What else could he say?
'Yeah.' Cantelli didn't look convinced.
'Let's get on with the case, shall we? Might keep both our minds off our personal problems.'
'Yeah, sorry. You're right.'
'So what's new?' Horton took a long draught of water, crushed the plastic cup with one hand and tossed it in the bin.
'We've managed to eliminate two of the cars seen in the car park. The owners of the Mini Cooper and the Toyota have both come forward. They seem pretty genuine. The Toyota owner is a married man having an affair with his secretary. He asked us to be discreet-.'
Horton rolled his eyes. He wished he had a pound for every time he'd heard that.
'The Mini Cooper's owner is single but was with his girlfriend looking at the view.'
'What view? It was foggy.'
'I don't think that was the view he was talking about. Nothing on the dark Ford and the silver Mercedes.'
Horton's phone rang. As he expected, it was Uckfield summoning him. He left Cantelli and headed down the corridor to the open door next to the CID main office.
Uckfield looked up, his anger swiftly changing to surprise. 'What happened to you?'
'Got knocked off my bike last night.'
'Are you fit enough to be at work?' Uckfield said, concerned. He waved Horton into the seat across his desk.
With a wince Horton eased himself down. 'I'm OK.'
'Where did it happen? Did you see who it was? Have you talked to traffic?'
'No. I didn't see who it was. I was too busy trying to stop myself from being killed. It was just one of those things,' Horton said curtly. There was no way he was going to tell Uckfield about his visit to Alpha One or his suspicions that Jarrett had been driving that car. He saw Uckfield's scowl but quickly he brought him up to date with their murder case. Uckfield listened, frowning, twirling his pen in his large fingers like a majorette's baton.
'Dennings has given me a couple of addresses where caning is a speciality. I'm putting some officers on to checking it but it's a bit slender.'
Uckfield puffed out his cheeks. 'This is just what I don't need now.'
Horton thought the opposite. In fact he was rather grateful to their murdered man. If it hadn't been for him he would never have bumped into Jarrett at the hospital and set in motion a chain of events that, OK, could have ended up with him being killed, but could just help him get to the truth quicker than he had anticipated. Sooner or later he had planned to return to Alpha One and confront Jarrett, and the dead man had just made him do it sooner.
Dismissed, Horton returned to his office. His head wasn't getting any better and it wasn't helped by the questions that kept swirling around it, which had little to do with the case and much to do with his past. He pushed some papers around his desk unable to concentrate and was just about to give up and check with the incident room when Cantelli poked his head round the door.
'A Ms Frances Greywell's just phoned. She's a partner at Framptons Solicitors; says her colleague Michael Culven didn't show up for work yesterday or this morning, and he should have done. He's in the middle of an industrial tribunal case. They've tried calling his home, and his mobile, but there's no response.'
'And?' Horton felt his pulse quicken. A thrill ran through him pricking the hairs on the back of his neck. Could this be the break they needed? 'He fits the description of our victim. Not only that, but he drives a silver Mercedes.'
Barely containing his excitement Horton plucked his jacket from the back of his chair his headache had suddenly improved. 'Where does he live?'
'Horsea Marina. Uniform are picking up Culven's cleaning lady now. She has a key.'
The patrol car was already outside Culven's modern three-storied house when they arrived and a skinny young woman was pacing up and down dragging heavily on a cigarette.
'About time,' she said, throwing the still smouldering stub into the gutter. 'I've left Darlene with a neighbour.'
'We won't keep you long Mrs-'.
'Miss Filey,' she corrected Horton with a toss of her long dark hair and a glare of deep brown heavily made-up eyes. She sported three ear studs up each ear lobe and one on the side of her nose. The index finger of her right hand was stained yellow with nicotine and Horton could smell the cigarette smoke on her. She could have been any age between eighteen and thirty.
'Got in a fight beating up some poor suspect, did you?' She glared at him.
'If you could let us in.'
She scoffed before inserting the key in the lock and pushing back the door. She bent to retrieve the post from the mat, but Horton quickly restrained her, placing his hand on her bare arm. She looked at him with hostility before sighing pointedly and moving aside. Horton stepped in front of her and walked along the narrow passageway into the kitchen at the rear of the house. He then nodded at her to follow him, which she did with an elaborate flounce. As she stepped inside he pulled the door too behind her seeing Cantelli slip down and pick up the letters with latex-covered fingers.
Horton could tell instantly there was no one in the house, dead or alive. Death left a place much colder than this, you could smell it, taste it, and sense it. It crept up your flesh, quickened your breath, and sent your pulse racing to cope with the first shock of meeting it. But this house was empty, just a shell.
'How long have you cleaned for Mr Culven?' He moved to the wide patio doors, which opened onto a small courtyard garden and the marina beyond. It was stifling hot and his eyes quickly scanned the kitchen for a key to open the doors. There wasn't one visible. Culven's house, like many on this development, came complete with a
