waves crashed on to the pebbled beach and exploded in a foaming white mass.
He thought back to his conversation with Uckfield last night. They was no evidence yet that Boston was their antiques thief, but Horton instinctively felt he was. Later that day, and in the days to come, they would go through Boston's affairs with a comb so fine that not even a nit could get through. In the meantime, however, Uckfield had adopted the idea that Horton had originally espoused that Langley had recognized Boston when he was on one of his antiques raids. He'd lured her to his boat at Sparkes Yacht Harbour, punched her, and then suffocated her. He'd placed her on the mulberry, adding the little touch with the money and honey for good measure. After which he'd taken his boat back to Gosport Marina. After Langley's death Edney put two and two together. He had confronted Boston and as a result had to die.
It sounded plausible enough, yet for Horton there were still too many loose ends. Such as why had Boston bothered to put on his drunken act, if he was the drunk? Why had he shopped Mickey Johnson and the athletic youth, or set them up in the first place, if he was the mastermind behind the robberies? Where were Jessica Langley's foul weather clothes: the leggings and jacket she was wearing in the photograph? And where were her laptop, briefcase, jacket and mobile phone? Which brought him to another question — what did the note found in Langley's pocket have to do with her murder?
Uckfield had said, 'It doesn't figure in the case at all. She just picked up a piece of paper and absentmindedly stuffed it in her trouser pocket.'
Horton had disagreed. Why would Langley do that? And why had Boston (if he was the killer) stripped her of all other means of identification, but left that note in her trouser pocket?
Uckfield clearly wasn't interested. He wanted the case wound up.
Horton watched the thin wafers of little black clouds drift in an otherwise clear sky that was growing red with the rising sun. He thought of the weather prophecy: 'Red sky in the morning shepherds' warning.' Well, there weren't any shepherds in Portsmouth anymore, but he'd heed their advice he thought, as he throttled back the Harley and headed for the station. By evening it could be blowing a gale and pouring with rain. October was as unpredictable as March, or April; or, come to that, as any month of the year in Britain. Still, the weather was the least of his concerns. Boston's death was top of the list and despite what Uckfield said, Horton wanted those questions answered.
He asked Marsden to speed up the checks on Morville's background. He was sure there was still something that Morville wasn't telling them. And, although he wanted to bring Morville in for questioning, he curbed his impatience and decided to wait until Marsden came up with more information.
Horton returned to his office with an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. The sounds of the main CID office filtered through to him even though his door was closed: the ringing telephone, the hum of computers, Walters talking to Kate Somerfield… All night he had thought through the case, but he still had more questions than answers. One in particular was bugging him: why had Boston set up Mickey Johnson and his mate and therefore exposed himself to the risk of being caught?
It was time to shake Mickey Johnson's tree and see what fell out. And they might get some conclusive evidence that Boston was the mastermind behind the thefts. With Cantelli, he headed for a small terraced house in Fratton where, after several stout knocks, the door was eventually opened by a skinny, dark-haired woman in her early thirties wearing a tight pair of faded jeans, a body hugging T-shirt, and balancing a crying, food-smeared baby on her bony hip with an equally grubby child clutching her leg.
'Hello, Janey,' Horton greeted Johnson's partner. 'I see Mickey's been keeping you busy since we last met. Is lover boy awake?'
'Mickey, it's the filth. Get your lazy arse down here and see what the buggers want,' she bellowed up the stairs, which were directly behind her.
Cantelli put a finger in his ear and waggled it, wincing. The toddler increased the volume of his screaming. Turning, she swore vehemently at him, then dragging him down the passageway, she stomped into a room on her left and slammed the door on them.
'Poor little blighters,' Cantelli said sorrowfully.
Horton was inclined to agree. In about eight to ten years they'd probably be hauling them up before the juvenile court.
Mickey appeared at the top of the stairs, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. 'I'm on bail,' he grunted.
Horton stared up at the scrawny man with his tousled ginger hair sticking up in tufts from his narrow head. He was wearing grey boxer shorts and Horton thought he detected the emblem of Pompey Football Club on his grubby T-shirt, but he wouldn't swear to it.
'Get your clothes on, Mickey. You're coming with us.'
'No I bleeding ain't.'
Horton sprang up the stairs. He thrust his face close to Mickey's, disguising his disgust at the smell from his unwashed and sleep-fogged body, and said quietly, 'Would you like me to put you in an arm lock and drag you out on the streets like that?'
'You can't arrest me. I ain't done nothing!'
'Tell him, Sergeant.'
They'd worked out their plan in the car on the way there. Now Cantelli intoned, 'Last night, the body of a man was found in Gosport Marina. We believe it to be the man who masterminded the robbery that you committed. Where were you between five p.m. and midnight?'
'Hang on, what you accusing me of? Shut those brats up.' He roared down the stairs, as the crying rose to a crescendo.
'Dress,' ordered Horton.
'I didn't even know the guy.'
Horton reached out an arm to grab Johnson but he sprang back up a couple of stairs and in the process slipped. Crouched on his backside he stared up at Horton. 'I was in the Shearer Arms — you can check — and then I was here.'
'I'm sure your mates will vouch for you, even if you weren't there. And no doubt Janey will swear blind you were tucked up in bed with her, when in reality you were killing the man who set you up, not to mention the head teacher of the Sir Wilberforce Cutler school.' He thought he'd throw that one in for good measure. 'I don't think any clever brief is going to get you off that, or get you bail,' he bluffed. 'You're looking at a long stretch, Mickey.'
'I swear I didn't even know who he was. I never spoke to him, Wayne did.'
His threats had paid off. He'd finally loosened Mickey's tongue. 'Wayne?'
'The bloke that I did the job with. The one you let get away. Wayne Goodall, number thirty-six Wilmslow Gardens.'
'Did you get that, Sergeant?' Horton tossed over his shoulder.
'Yeah. I should have guessed. Wayne can run like the wind.'
Horton said, 'Get dressed, Mickey. We'll send a car to collect you.'
'I gave you what you wanted,' Mickey said sulking.
'We need to check you're not lying, don't we? Now get dressed.'
Mickey pulled himself up by the banister, and as the sound of wailing children continued, he shouted, 'At least I'll get some peace in the nick, not like this bloody place.'
A police car took Mickey to the station and another followed Horton and Cantelli to Wilmslow Gardens in Southsea.
'Wayne's been in and out of trouble since he was fourteen,' Cantelli said. 'Petty thieving, drunk and disorderly. He must be sixteen now.'
That explained why Horton wasn't aware of the youth. For the last two years he'd been working in specialist investigations.
Number 36 Wilmslow Gardens was a dismal street just off the seafront. Horton knew this to be student and social security land. He stared at the filthy curtains at the ground-floor windows and the faded blinds pulled across the gritty windowpanes further up the building and silently vowed that if he were ever to make a home for Emma then it would never be a bedsit, no matter where it was in the city.
There wasn't a back entrance so Horton asked the two uniformed officers to accompany him and Cantelli. He warned them of Wayne's athletic prowess. The youth wasn't going to escape him this time.
Johnson hadn't said which flat Wayne lived in, but Horton found a letter on the stairs from the social security
