paintwork yellow rather than cream. She led them through an untidy kitchen that hadn't seen an upgrade for years judging by its solid oak cabinets and Aga, and into a ramshackle conservatory crammed with fuchsia plants.
'Please.' She waved them into seats and Horton picked up a pile of magazines, placed them on the wicker table and lowered himself warily on to a wooden chair that looked as if it could hardly cope with the weight of a child let alone twelve and a half stone of solid muscle.
Although the rather grubby blinds were half drawn and the door open the heat was intense and within seconds Horton could feel his shirt sticking to his back. Cantelli's dark curly hair looked wet with sweat and he wriggled uncomfortably easing his jacket open. Horton was glad he had left his in the car. Mrs Thurlow seemed immune to the clawing heat; there wasn't a single bead of sweat on her brow.
'I suppose you've come about Roger,' she said offhandedly. Horton thought she might just have well have been speaking about an old umbrella she'd left on a bus rather than her husband.
'I understand that you haven't seen him since Friday morning, is that correct?'
'Yes, he went sailing straight from work.'
'And he hasn't called you since then?'
'No. Here, Bellman.' She clicked her fingers and the dog left the bowl of water he'd been slurping from and trotted around to her side where he flopped on to the quarry-tiled floor, panting heavily.
Horton saw Cantelli give the dog an envious look before retrieving the small, stubby pen from behind his right ear and a notebook from his jacket pocket. He wouldn't have minded a drink himself but clearly they weren't going to be offered one.
'Is that usual?' Cantelli asked.
Mrs Thurlow looked at him blankly for a moment and Horton elaborated. 'He doesn't call you when he's away on his boat?'
'Oh, no.' She sounded surprised as if he'd suggested something improper.
'When were you expecting him back?' he asked, he hoped reassuringly. He needn't have bothered; it was wasted on her.
She shrugged. 'When he showed up. I'm not my husband's keeper and he's not mine.'
'Surely he gave some indication?' Horton injected an element of incredulity into his voice. She flushed slightly. Her eyes darted between him and Cantelli, betraying the first sign of unease.
'Look, I really didn't want to bother you, inspector, but Mrs Stephens, his secretary, insisted. I am sure there's a perfectly good reason why my husband has not returned. Mrs Stephens is a little overprotective when it comes to Roger.' And you're not, thought Horton watching her closely. She held his eyes. If she read his thoughts and was embarrassed by them she didn't show it. She lifted the coffee cup in front of her and took a sip, then pulled a face. Horton guessed it had grown cold.
'You don't go out on the boat with him?' he asked, lightly.
She answered as if he'd personally insulted her. 'Certainly not.'
He wondered if her terseness was a cover for shyness, or guilt perhaps? He got the impression she didn't really care that much for her husband but that didn't mean she had killed him. Their body might not be Thurlow at all, although in a way he hoped it was. It would give him a head start in the investigation.
He'd seen both a radio and television in her kitchen; sooner or later she was bound to hear the news and might make the connection, better if he told her now. That way he could get something of Thurlow's and make a quick identification. Time was critical and he didn't mean purely in terms of tracking down the killer while the trail was still warm. He couldn't see her going into hysterics. She wasn't the type. Self-contained was perhaps how he might describe her; cold is what others might say. It was a description that had been levelled at him but self- containment, he knew, was a protection against being hurt.
'Don't you like sailing?' he asked.
'No I don't, inspector. I can't think of anything more awful than being stuck on a boat in the middle of the sea for hours on end with people I find utterly boring.'
Including your husband, thought Horton. 'I take it gardening is more to your taste.' He indicated the magazines on the table and the plants crowding the conservatory. Uckfield's wife, Alison, was into flowers; he wondered if she knew Mrs Thurlow.
Her face brightened making her look at least five years younger. 'Yes. I specialise in fuchsias. Do you know they grow to a height of twenty feet in Brazil?'
'They always remind me of fairies,' Cantelli interjected. 'My wife likes them. We've got a couple of bushes in our garden but nothing like this.'
She positively beamed at him. 'Then I must let you have some cuttings, sergeant.' She shifted to the edge of her seat as if she was about to leap up and fetch them at that moment.
'Do you know if your husband went sailing with anyone last Friday?' Horton said.
The frown was back; she hovered over the chair. 'He didn't say. Someone at the yacht club might know: that's at Horsea Marina, where he keeps his boat. Now if…'
Time to be a bit more brutal. Her lack of concern was irritating him. 'Mrs Thurlow, earlier this morning the coastguards found your husband's boat in the Solent, but I'm sorry to say that your husband wasn't on board.'
If he thought he was going to shock her into some kind of reaction, concerned or otherwise, then he was quickly disappointed.
'Then where is he?' she said, matter-of-factly.
'That's what we're trying to find out.' He tried not to sound too cynical. 'Has he had any health problems lately?'
'Not that I'm aware of.'
'What about business or financial difficulties?'
'I don't know anything about the business. You'd have to ask at the office,' she answered impatiently. 'If you're thinking he could have deliberately thrown himself overboard then you're wrong.'
Why? He wondered. Time to turn up the heat. This would tell him how much she cared. 'There is something else that you should know, Mrs Thurlow. This morning a man fitting your husband's description was found on the beach at Portsmouth.'
'You mean dead?'
'Yes.' He held her gaze. Her surprise was genuine, but he saw no grief, even though she had immediately grasped his meaning. 'You think it's Roger and it's not an accident?'
'He wasn't carrying any identification and we would like to rule out the possibility that it might be your husband. Do you have something of your husband's that will help us to identify him, a comb or brush perhaps, and a recent photograph?'
'But how was he killed?'
'It's too early to say yet, Mrs Thurlow.'
'You don't want me to identify him?'
'That won't be necessary. We'll be able to check from fingerprints and DNA.'
She scrutinised him as if trying to see inside his thoughts. He kept his expression neutral. Other women might have gone into shock, or had hysterics, but Mrs Thurlow simply nodded, lifted her chin, and squaring her shoulders set off with Bellman trailing her.
Horton rose, plucking at his shirt sticking to his back.
'Stiff upper lip type,' Cantelli muttered, pulling at his tie and undoing his top button. 'Either that or she's made of stone.'
'Take a quick look round the kitchen, Barney.'
Horton stepped outside to get a breath of air. It was almost as hot outside as it had been in the conservatory. Here, as at the front of the house, the garden was beautifully tended and landscaped with curved borders and isolated flowerbeds bursting with fuchsias. Under a small clump of trees to his right was a teak garden table and chairs whilst to his left a large greenhouse brimming with colour.
There was no breeze and the sun was steadily climbing in a milky blue sky. In the distance, covered in a haze, he could see the gentle rising slopes of the South Downs and hear the soft rumble of traffic from the A27 three miles away to the south. Uckfield's house was further down on the edge of the village, a fairly new small and select development of executive styled houses built about eight years ago. Try as he might Horton couldn't prevent his thoughts turning to his own house just outside Petersfield. He'd always hoped to return to it but he guessed that
