people, which told him it was on the top floor.
Cantelli thumped on the door and shouted, 'Open up, Wayne. It's the police.'
There was no reply and neither was there any sound from inside. Cantelli threw Horton a look. 'Probably asleep.'
'Let's wake him up then.'
Horton nodded at the PC who thrust the ram at the door. It shot open. Cantelli and the other PC rushed in. There was only one room and Wayne was in bed. He sat up surprised, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, saw them, swore, and jumped out of bed. But the PC had restrained the boy before he could reach the door.
'What do you want?' Wayne said angrily, trying to pull his arm away from the constable's grasp.
Horton looked the lad over before replying. Wayne was tall and slender with hunched shoulders and a surly expression on his otherwise good-looking face. He wore no T-shirt or pyjama top. His skin was smooth and white.
'I hope you're going to co-operate, Wayne.' Horton walked slowly round the room, taking in the clothes strewn about the floor, the discarded take-away food containers and empty lager cans. 'You see, Mickey Johnson's told us you were with him on the antiques thefts.'
'Scumbag.'
'And a man has been killed. The one who gave you your orders, and you are currently in the frame for it.'
'I haven't killed anyone,' Wayne said, alarmed.
'Then you'd better tell us all about your little antiques raiding jaunts or you might find yourself going down for murder.'
After a few sniffs Wayne grunted an agreement. Horton nodded at the officer to let him go. Wayne sat down on the bed and found a packet of cigarettes on the bedside table.
He lit up and inhaled deeply before saying: 'This man approached me in the amusement arcade, and asked me if I'd like to earn some money. I thought he was gay at first, but he said he was straight. He wore nice suits and a Rolex and I thought, yeah why not, I could do with a bit of that.'
'What was his name?'
'Bond.'
'You're kidding.'
'No. Why?' Wayne looked confused.
'Nothing.' It was Boston all right. Just one of his little jokes.
Horton said, 'Did you know him?'
'Nah, never seen him before.'
'What school did you go to, Wayne?'
'The Wilberforce, why?'
Boston had been working at the Sir Wilberforce for a year according to his records, and Wayne would have left the school by the time Boston started there, so there was no reason for him to know Boston.
'Apart from the nice suit and Rolex what did he look like?'
Wayne shrugged. 'Dunno.'
Horton could see that he would be wasting his time trying to get a description from Wayne that matched Boston, instead he asked, 'How often did you meet?'
'Only once. He called me on my mobile the rest of the time to tell me when a job was on. Didn't give us much notice, just said tonight and then he told me how.'
'Go on?' Horton encouraged as Wayne paused.
The youth inhaled, and then dribbling the smoke out through his nostrils, he said, 'He told me which house or flat to go to, how to switch off the alarm and what to take-'
'How did you get the key? The properties weren't broken into,' Cantelli interjected.
'He had this boat, see, down at the Camber. Soap Opera it was called. On board I'd find the key to the house, the alarm code and a list of things to steal, there was a description of them and a plan of where they were. Load of old junk if you ask me, but he was willing to pay us for it. Mickey and I did the job, and then took the stuff back to Soap Opera where we'd collect our money. He was never there, but the money always was.'
There was their confirmation that Boston was their antiques thief. But it meant his theory about Langley recognizing Boston on a job was shot to pieces unless, of course, she had come across him on Soap Opera, which was possible.
'So why weren't you on Soap Opera on this last job, when we caught Mickey Johnson?' Horton asked.
Wayne sniffed, stubbed out his cigarette, and instantly shook another from the packet. 'Don't know. Bond just told me there'd been a change of plan. I should have guessed something was wrong. I was already jumpy because he put the job back. We usually did it at midnight but he rang me to say it would be one o'clock.'
'What time did he call you?' Horton asked, feeling that this was important.
'About nine o'clock that night.'
Why had Boston done that? The anonymous caller to CID, who Horton guessed had been Boston, had said the police would catch their antiques thieves after midnight, but had given no specific time. Boston had changed his plans at nine p.m. or just after. Was that because by then he had killed Jessica Langley and he needed more time to dispose of her body?
Horton scrutinized the youth. 'Are you sure you didn't get pissed off when you discovered Bond had fitted you up and you killed him?'
'I did a house, that's all,' Wayne protested. 'I was with me mates; you can ask them. I was in the pub all night. The Shearer Arms.'
'With Mickey Johnson.'
'Yeah.'
If Wayne had pushed Boston off the pontoon, then Horton knew he would have run off with Boston's sailing bag and flogged the contents. They would check with the pub landlord, but Horton thought the boy was telling the truth. He hadn't killed anyone.
'Get dressed, Wayne.'
'You arresting me?'
'Too right we are. For theft.'
Wayne looked almost relieved.
Back at the station Horton checked Wayne in with the custody clerk and then decamped to the canteen with Cantelli. 'Let him stew in a cell for a while,' he said.
'We've also got Mickey Johnson waiting to make his statement.'
'Then he can wait until we've had our lunch.'
'Sounds OK to me.'
'It looks as though Boston killed Langley before Wayne and Mickey did the antiques theft,' Cantelli said, tucking into a shepherd's pie.
Cantelli had come to the same conclusion as himself, yet Horton was uneasy with it. There was still too much unexplained. He poked at his lasagne, his mind mulling over the problem. Why had Boston decided at the last minute to put the job back? What had made Boston change his plans?
Horton looked up to see Marsden hailing him.
'Morville's navy record's just come through, sir.'
Horton pushed his thoughts of Boston aside and focused instead on the alcoholic in Corton Court. He waved Marsden into a seat at the table, as Cantelli cleared his plate.
Marsden continued, 'Morville had a fairly straightforward career as an able seaman. He kept his nose clean. He was however given compassionate leave twenty-seven years ago and sent home from Malta to Portsmouth because of a death in the family. That wasn't strictly true. It was his partner's daughter who killed herself, not Morville's. She was only fifteen. Her name was Michelle Egmont.'
Twenty-seven years ago Jessica Langley would have been fifteen. The same age as Michelle Egmont.
'What school did she attend?' Horton asked. Was this the missing link? He didn't see how it could be, and yet there was something here that niggled at the back of his mind.
'I don't know, sir,' was Marsden's rather disappointing answer. Horton had expected more of the bright young
