shoulder as a parting shot.
And bollocks to you too, thought Horton, indicating for Somerfield to follow him outside. In the relative quiet of the corridor, he said, 'Did you check out that car registration I gave you?'
'It belongs to an Edward Shawford. He's the Sales Director at Kempton Marine.'
How bloody convenient. That was where Catherine worked! Had Catherine's affair with her colleague begun when he and Catherine had still been together? Had Horton's suspension given Catherine the perfect excuse to throw him out and assuage her own guilt over her adulterous behaviour? He had a feeling it did. That didn't make things better, only worse.
'Where does he live?'
'Wickham.'
It was growing village just north of Fareham and about ten miles from Portsmouth.
Somerfield continued. 'He's divorced, no children. Aged forty-four. He has two convictions for speeding, apart from that he's clean.'
Shame.
Somerfield added, 'Did you know that Mickey Johnson's been bailed?'
'Who paid it?' Horton asked sharply, wondering if that might give him a lead.
'His live-in partner, Janey Piper. '
It didn't. He wondered though where Janey, who had borne two of Mickey's four children and was on benefit, had got the money. 'OK, leave him for now. I want you to talk to Elaine Tolley at the betting shop in Commercial Road. See what you can get out of her about that note we found on Langley's body.' He hadn't forgotten that.
Uckfield seemed keen to dismiss the note as just one of those things, but Horton knew that in a murder investigation nothing was insignificant. Uckfield ought to know it too but his was always a bull-in-a-china-shop approach. Horton had a feeling that this information was somehow important. Uckfield would have scoffed at that. Only fictional detectives could afford feelings, Horton could hear the big man carping. Well, sod it! No one else was following up the note.
'Find out if she had an affair with Morville,' he continued. 'And keep looking for connections between our robbery victims.'
Horton returned to his office where he stared down at Edward Shawford's details. He couldn't bear to think of Emma being cuddled by that man. He tortured himself with visions of Edward Shawford tickling Emma and making her giggle. If a solicitor's office had been open he would have called that instant. Instead he had to wait until Monday.
He pulled back the blinds and opened the window, letting in an angry wet wind. He took a couple of deep breaths then spun round and played his voicemail. It was the lab, promising to get him the results of the test on the betting slip by midday. The report on Langley's car would also be in later.
He sat down, feeling edgy and pent up. Pictures of Emma's excited and delighted face as she'd greeted him kept flashing before his eyes. He could feel her arms around his neck. Concentrate on the case, damn you, he silently urged himself, picking up a file and flinging it open. But the words merged in a blur of black print as he thought of Emma at ballet classes; was she upset or had she already dismissed him from her child's mind? His door swung open and he was glad to see Cantelli, cold and all, ambling in, clutching a plastic cup of coffee.
'Bloody hell, it's like the North Pole in here. You'll catch your death sitting there in a howling gale. And judging by the state of you I'd say you've been up all night.'
'You don't look so hot yourself.'
'I'll survive.'
Horton sat back as Cantelli plonked himself into the seat opposite. Suddenly Horton was filled with the urge to confide.
'I saw Emma this morning,' he announced abruptly.
Cantelli sat up with a concerned frown on his lean, dark face. 'And?'
'And what?' Horton ran a hand over his head and stood up. 'I had to leave her. Barney, why is Catherine doing this to me?'
'Jealousy.' Cantelli answered so promptly that Horton started.
'Why?'
'Maybe Emma is fonder of her daddy than her mummy, and, well, let's face it, Catherine always did like to be the centre of attention. You should only have had eyes for her. Perhaps your daughter stole your heart from Catherine and she didn't like it.'
Horton considered his words. 'You think I neglected Catherine?'
'I didn't say that. A woman like Catherine needs to be worshipped. Maybe you didn't worship her enough, or stopped doing so when you started paying homage to your daughter.'
'I didn't know you were a psychiatrist,' Horton said sarcastically.
'There's a lot of things people don't know about me. I haven't had five kids without learning a thing or two.' Cantelli winked grotesquely.
Horton smiled despite his heavy heart. Did Emma love him more than her mother? He doubted it but Cantelli's words gave him some comfort.
'Maybe I should have come to you for marriage guidance,' Horton said.
'If I ever get kicked out of the force perhaps I'll give it a whirl. What you need is something to take your mind off it. How about us trying to solve this case?'
Somerfield was following up Elaine Tolley, and although Horton thought it unlikely that Eric Morville was their killer, they hadn't yet checked out his alibi. And no one had investigated the break-in at the ex-forces club. Time to kill two birds with one stone.
Grabbing his jacket, he said, 'Let's go see a man about a break-in.'
Cantelli took a drag at his coffee, pulled a face and said, 'Suits me.'
'About time. I thought you lot had forgotten me,' Barry Dunsley complained after Cantelli had flashed his warrant card. Dunsley lifted a hand to the sticking plaster on the right side of his forehead just above his eye as if to remind them he had been wounded in the course of battle.
Horton took Dunsley's injury seriously but somehow couldn't take the man in the same vein. There was a comic element to the steward's performance, as though he was a good actor hamming it up. There was dandruff on Dunsley's shoulders and his round nondescript flabby face blended into a double chin. He was also clearly a man who liked sampling his wares as much as he liked pulling them, judging by the size of his beer gut. How old was he? Late thirties or early forties? Horton couldn't quite tell.
Before Horton or Cantelli could reply to Dunsley's rather peeved accusation, a clatter of buckets announced the cleaning lady. Horton saw the steward's pale blue eyes flicker with irritation.
'Clean the toilets first, please, Mrs Watrow,' he commanded.
'Suit yourself,' she muttered, collecting her bucket and mop and leaving with the maximum amount of noise possible. No love lost there, Horton guessed. Dunsley wasn't the likeable type.
'Tell us what happened, sir,' Cantelli said.
'After working in the bar all evening, I cleared away and went to bed just on midnight. I'm staying in the flat on the top floor while I'm looking after the club-'
'You're not the usual steward then?' asked Cantelli.
'No. He had to go into hospital for open-heart surgery. He won't be back for about three months. Anyway, I was just falling asleep when I heard this noise. I came down to investigate and found the little bleeders in the storeroom behind the bar here. I said something like, 'What are you doing?' and they ran out. The next thing I know one of them is taking a swing at me. I pulled at his head, tugged off his balaclava, and then he struck me with something. I can't say what it was, and then they were running away.'
'How many were there?' Horton knew already from the statement, but it was always best to ask again.
'Two.'
'And you think you can identify one of them.'
'You just catch him.'
Cantelli said, 'Perhaps we could arrange for you to come down to the station and look at some photographs.'
'My pleasure.'
