Uckfield already had the telephone in his hand and was punching in the mortuary number. 'Anything more on those cars?'
They'd had an early break, a man walking his dog had called into the mobile unit to report he'd seen four cars in the car park just after nine thirty: a blue Ford, a Toyota, a silver Mercedes and a Mini Cooper. He hadn't got their registration numbers; that would have been too easy, Horton thought.
'Too early, we've only just given it to the local newspaper. They'll run it in tomorrow's edition but the radio station has been pushing it out since just after midday.'
'What do you mean she's left?' As Uckfield barked into the phone, there was a perfunctory knock on the door, and Cantelli poked his head round it.
'Dr Clayton's here.'
'At last.' Uckfield slammed down the phone. 'I was beginning to think you'd forgotten us, doctor.'
'I'm hardly likely to forget you, chief inspector.' There was a glint in her green eyes as she threw herself into the chair beside Horton without waiting to be asked. Horton nodded at Cantelli to stay.
'I believe this is what you've been waiting for.' With a flourish she held out a buff coloured folder.
Uckfield took it and flicked it open. He gave it a cursory glance. 'OK, so tell me what you've found.'
She thrust her short fingers through her spiky auburn hair and said brightly, 'We're obviously still waiting for all the test results but I can confirm our victim died from asphyxiation and that he was beaten after death but not with a stone. A heavy club was used: a thick stick, something wooden anyway. I found fragments of splinters lodged in his brain and his eye sockets.'
Sitting there with her ankle resting over her knee and dressed in combats and t shirt Horton thought she looked more like a PE teacher than a pathologist. And she sounded as if she was discussing a sports injury rather than a post mortem.
'He'd had a meal; I've sent his stomach contents for analysis, but it was only partially digested and hadn't moved to the small intestine. We're still looking at time of death between nine and ten last night. But that's not all…'
She paused and looked at each of them in turn. Horton saw Uckfield glance impatiently at his watch. He could tell Gaye Clayton had noticed it but she was not to be hurried. In that moment he knew what Cantelli had meant earlier about her not being browbeaten.
'He hadn't had sex before he was killed, either straight or anally. But there is something that suggests he likes his sex a little spicier than maybe your average man,' she went on. Now she had all their attention. Horton looked at her eagerly and he saw Uckfield's interest quicken.
'I couldn't see them at first because they were hidden by the marks on his back and legs where he'd been dragged along on the stones, so I enhanced the images on the computer and took another look at the body. That's why I've taken so long to get back to you. I wanted to be sure. It seems your victim was into flagellation. Of course whoever killed him could have beaten him but the marks were not made directly before his death, and they were only on his buttocks.'
Cantelli whistled softly. 'Any idea what he would have been beaten with?'
'I would hazard a guess at a cane, or stick of some kind.' She jumped up. 'Now I must be going. I'm late already.'
No one asked what for.
'His wife?' Uckfield posed, after she'd gone.
Horton considered it for a moment. 'He could have visited a brothel.'
'Check with Vice. And you'd better run the MO through the ACR system, if the computers are working,' he added sarcastically. 'See if there's been a similar murder committed elsewhere in the country.'
'Already done.' What does he think I've been doing all day? Horton wondered. 'There's nothing that matches the way our victim was laid out. Do you want me to talk to Dr Lydeway at the University?'
'No, psychologists are a waste of time.' His phone rang and he snatched it up. 'About time. What? Then whose are they? Bloody great.'
'No match on the fingerprints I take it?' Horton said, disappointed. It wasn't Thurlow. He'd wasted his time at Briarly House this morning. Roger Thurlow, despite his wife's denial, could either have thrown himself overboard or had an accident. Sooner or later his body would be washed up along the south coast. 'No. Whoever he is no one loves him enough to have reported him missing. He's not on criminal records either, so back to bloody square one.'
'We might get something from the DNA unit but that will take a couple of days. I'll follow up this caning lead until we get something better.'
'Yeah, and it had better be soon.'
'Pre interview nerves,' Horton said, when they were out of Uckfield's hearing.
'Do us all a favour if he gets the job. Get him off our backs.'
Horton said nothing about Uckfield's promise to him. 'You telephone Mrs Thurlow with the good news. I'll go and see what Dennings has to say.'
Sergeant Tony Dennings' fifteen stone of muscle seemed to take up the small Vice Squad office on the second floor. He was alone and watching a portable TV and video. He punched the pause button on the remote control and greeted Horton. 'What can I do for you?'
Horton perched himself on the edge of the desk behind Dennings. 'Flagellation, who's into it these days?'
' Anyone, given enough inducement.' Dennings rubbed his large fingers and thumb together.
'Anyone in particular specialise in it?'
Dennings gave the matter some thought. Horton watched his great round face take on a look of deep concentration. There was no hurrying Dennings. He should know because he'd spent some time with him watching Alpha One.
After a while he replied, 'There's a couple of places at Southsea, set back from the seafront, that could be worth a try. Why? Got a taste for it?'
Horton repressed a retort. Maybe Dennings just meant to be funny but it was a bit too close to the mark for him.
'It seems our victim went in for it,' he said evenly, but felt the tightness in his gut that the memories of Lucy and her accusations always aroused. 'Thought it might be worth calling on them to see if they recognise his description.'
Dennings scoffed. 'The only thing they'd recognise apart from his backside is the colour of his money.'
'We've got bugger all else to go on at the moment.'
'If I hear of anything, I'll let you know.'
And that was it. Horton hesitated. Dennings looked at him enquiringly. Time to ask some questions and take a chance of the consequences. If Dennings wanted to squeal to Uckfield or Superintendent Reine then so be it.
'Has there been any word on the street that Jarrett and his exclusive club aren't as squeaky clean as they appear to be.' Horton watched Dennings' reaction closely, but he gave nothing away only shook his great head slowly.
'Not a fucking dickie bird.'
'You are still looking, aren't you?' Horton raised his eyebrows.
'No. Strictly out of bounds.'
'Who says?'
'Our lord and master, Superintendent Reine.'
Reine was in charge of the Vice Squad. He hadn't backed him up and neither had Superintendent Underwood, his boss in the Special Investigations Department. Both had believed Lucy. Why?
'What about Underwood?'
'Retired in May.'
Of course, he'd forgotten.
'Anyway we've got enough trouble out there without going looking for it.' Dennings jerked his head at the video where a woman in her thirties was bound and chained and in the process, it appeared, of having her nipple pierced, very much against her will. 'Picked that amateur video up from a house in Gosport. And there's more like it, worse in fact.'
