didn't look in too great a shape himself after a sleepless night. 'Get yourself off home, Barney. You look all in.'
'What about the big man?' Cantelli jerked his head at Uckfield's office.
Horton swivelled to gaze in Uckfield's direction. He was about to say, 'Sod the big man,' when Uckfield replaced his telephone and rose, his expression grave. Horton locked eyes with him and knew immediately it was bad news. 'On second thoughts, if you can stand up a bit longer, I think you'd better hang on.'
Cantelli groaned.
Uckfield was pulling on his overcoat. He threw open his door and strode across the incident room. It fell silent and all eyes turned on him. 'We've got another body,' he announced grimly.
Horton's heart skipped a beat. 'Where?'
'Public toilets near the D-Day museum.'
Horton's stomach churned. Was the location and its connection with the mulberry a coincidence? Somehow his instinct told him not.
He threw Cantelli a glance and read in his expression what he was feeling in the pit of his stomach, and that was that they might just have found the deputy head teacher of the Sir Wilberforce Cutler School.
Twelve
Saturday: 7 P.M.
Horton stared at the body lying face down in the pool of crimson water and knew immediately from the build and the dark suit that it was Tom Edney. His breath caught in his throat and he felt a mixture of dismay, anger and guilt. Oh, the stupid man; why hadn't Edney told him what was troubling him? He might have been able to save him. Why hadn't Horton pressed him harder or taken him in for questioning? But Horton knew that ruminating on what might have been wouldn't get him his killer. It had to be Ranson. He was the only one left in the frame, except for Morville, and though Horton disliked the alcoholic he didn't think Morville was the killer.
But could Ranson really have done this? Horton wondered, surveying the scene. The urinals and walls were spattered with blood; a tap was running into one of the washbasins and the water was trickling over on to the tiled floor. Horton recalled the architect's fastidious appearance and supercilious manner. Somehow he just couldn't see him killing Edney in such a messy manner. Ranson would have been covered in blood. Then another thought occurred to Horton: could Edney have taken his own life after once again seeing his precious prize of headship being snatched away?
Dr Price interrupted his thoughts. 'Can't remember when I last had one of these. His throat's been cut. Want me to go through his pockets?'
Horton tensed and stared down at the body, which Price had gently eased over far enough for Horton to see the manner of death, but not so far as to disturb the scene before Taylor and his scene of crime officers went to work. 'No. I know who he is. Could he have done that himself?'
'Hard for me to say without a proper examination, but I doubt it; there's no knife in his hand. It could have slid under one of the cubicles I suppose.' Price straightened up with a grunt. 'I'd say he's been dead about two hours, maybe less. There's only slight rigor in the neck.'
That long! Horton was surprised that nobody had discovered the body before the cleaner had found him just after sunset at six p.m. when he'd been about to lock up. But then the wet and windy weather had probably kept many indoors. Had Edney come straight from the school to meet his killer? Or had Ranson called Edney when he was en route to his home or elsewhere? They would need to check calls to and from the school and Edney's mobile phone.
They stepped outside and Horton nodded Taylor in. Divesting himself of the scene suit Horton took a few deep breaths of the clean sea air trying to rid his lungs of the stench of death. It didn't seem to have much effect; it lingered with him along with the gnawing guilt that he should have prevented this. He was sure that was what Uckfield was thinking; the big man's face was suitably solemn as Dr Price relayed his findings to him. Cantelli was making a valiant effort to interview the cleaner who had discovered Edney's body. A paramedic had draped a blanket around his shoulders. To Horton's eye, Cantelli looked more in need of medical aid than the cleaner.
Cantelli broke off his conversation with the cleaner, and walked slowly towards him, almost as if his body was too heavy to carry. Poor Barney, he should be at home in bed with a hot-water bottle and a stiff whisky, which was where Horton thought he ought to be too recalling how little sleep he'd had over the last few days. Still, sleep would have to wait for just a bit longer because Uckfield was steaming towards him with a face like thunder.
'Well?' he declared before Cantelli could open his mouth. 'Any bright ideas, Inspector?'
Horton told him about Ranson. 'There's one stumbling block though in pinning this second murder on Ranson.' Horton had called the lockmaster at Chichester Marina on his way to the scene of crime to be told that Ranson and his family had gone sailing for the weekend, leaving earlier that morning.
'Ranson could have returned,' Uckfield said, like a drowning man clutching a reed.
Horton had thought of that too. 'Sergeant Elkins of the marine unit is checking that with Oyster Quays, Town Camber, Gosport and Southsea Marina.' They were all places where Ranson could have moored up and either walked or jogged here, except for Gosport Marina, but he could have caught the ferry across to Oyster Quays and then jogged and walked from there; hailing a taxi would have been too dangerous.
Cantelli said, 'I can't see Ranson slitting anyone's throat dressed in that bow tie, but he does have Wellington boots in his car.'
'Hunters,' corrected Horton.
'Whatever.' Cantelli shrugged wearily. 'Perhaps he also has overalls, which he wears on the building site. No one would have looked twice at him going into the toilets wearing overalls and a hard hat. He kills Edney, steps out of the blood spattered overalls and leaves in his smart suit.'
Cantelli had a point.
Horton said, 'Ranson's not the only one with overalls and a hard hat. There are the builders at the school, and that caretaker Neil Cyrus.'
'Cyrus is clean,' Cantelli said, just managing to stifle a yawn. 'I checked; he's got no previous. I haven't managed to speak to his last school yet about any break-ins.'
'Forget the bloody break-ins, we've got a homicidal maniac on the loose and the chief constable wants to know when we're going to catch the bugger,' roared Uckfield. There was a slight hiatus in activity around them at Uckfield's outburst. Horton remained silent, forcing Uckfield to continue in a calmer tone. 'OK, so what would he have done with these overalls?'
Horton said, 'Dumped them in a bin. Put them in his car to get rid of them later. Threw them into the sea along with the murder weapon. After all, he'd only have to run across this field,' Horton gestured at the expanse of green behind the toilets. 'Then it's over that slope and he'd be on the promenade, and down on to the beach, and on a night like this there wouldn't be many dog walkers or joggers about to see him.'
Uckfield groaned. 'So he gets clean away.'
'Unless the CCTV cameras along the seafront have picked him up.'
'Right, get a team to search the field and all the bins along the seafront from Eastney to Old Portsmouth tomorrow. And get me the CCTV tapes now. We'll view them in my office in…' Uckfield consulted his watch, 'half an hour's time.'
'The chief's put a rocket up his backside,' Cantelli said, watching Uckfield climb into his car and drive away.
'Uckfield needs to prove himself to his daddy-in-law,' Horton said without sympathy. 'You get off home, Barney. No, I insist, you're no good to anyone like that, and Charlotte will kill me if I let you work half through the night in your state. I've got one death on my conscience already, I don't need another one.'
'Andy, you weren't to know about this.'
'Yeah. I'll see you when you're fit.'
Cantelli was too tired and too ill to protest. Horton phoned the instructions through regarding the CCTV tapes and stayed at the scene until Dr Clayton arrived. There was little she could add to Price's information except to confirm that she believed Edney had been killed, rather than had taken his own life and that she would do the post mortem tomorrow morning. Taylor told him that there was no knife in the toilets.
