He straightened up and had reached the door before Morville said, 'All right, but can I have a fag and a drink? I'm parched.'
'Get him a cup of tea, Constable.'
'Haven't you got anything stronger?'
'No, and the station is strictly no smoking. So, the sooner you tell me the truth the sooner you can get back to your booze and fags.'
Morville's expression of desperation told Horton he was about to get the truth. 'OK, so I gave her the note.'
'When?'
'Thursday morning, but I didn't kill her!'
'You were going to blackmail her over Michelle Egmont's death.' Horton noticed Morville's hands were shaking but was that nerves or being deprived of alcohol? Horton guessed the latter.
'Why shouldn't I? She as good as killed the poor little cow, and she could afford to pay up.'
The door opened and the constable put a plastic cup of pale brown liquid in front of Morville, which he stared at with disgust. It seemed to hasten his confession though.
'Michelle and Jessica Langley went everywhere together. They slept over at each other's house, though Jessica was mainly at Michelle's, Jessica's aunt didn't approve of such things. Her parents were killed in a road accident. They played records, giggled, washed each other's hair — you know, the sort of things girls do.'
He didn't. He thought of Emma and his heart ached at the thought of missing out on a whole chunk of her life.
Morville said, 'Something came between them. A boy, I think. I don't really know, but Jessica Langley ditched Michelle. She didn't want to see or speak to her. It was as if Michelle had suddenly got the pox or the plague. Poor kid was in a torment.' Morville's eyes misted over. Horton saw that it wasn't an act. He had genuinely felt for her. Enough to kill Langley out of revenge, his copper's brain asked.
Morville continued. 'Next thing we know Michelle topped herself. End of my relationship with her mother — I couldn't handle all that guilt and grief.'
Horton reverted to his original opinion of this man: selfish, stupid and self-centred. 'And her mother died four years later, alone and of cancer,' he said with bitterness.
Morville squirmed. 'Yeah, well, I wasn't to know.'
'No, you had gone back to sea,' Horton said with a sneer.
'Can't help it if I was in the navy, can I? You have to go where and when you're sent.'
'Very convenient,' quipped Horton. 'Did Jessica Langley go to Michelle's funeral?'
'Can't recall seeing her. But she was only a kid, fifteen. Maybe she didn't think of going. Michelle was a quiet girl. She didn't have a lot of confidence. Bright though. Did well at school, and she was pretty. But because she was shy she didn't make friends easily. Then Jessica Langley arrived and everything changed for a year until Langley ditched her. The bitch. Rosemary, Michelle's mother, thought that Jessica had killed her daughter.'
'And that's what you decided to blackmail her with!' Horton scoffed.
Morville glared. 'Why not? The newspapers were saying what a fucking saint she was. If only they knew.'
'I doubt it would have made any impact with them,' Horton dismissed. 'And you've got no evidence that Jessica was the reason for Michelle's death.' Especially, thought Horton, if Morville had been making advances to the girl. Then he saw a glimmer in Morville's eyes. 'There's more?'
'I didn't say that.'
'You didn't have to; it's written all over your ugly face. What is it, Morville?'
'Michelle left a note.'
'And you've got it. That's what you were going to tell Langley. Why didn't you tell the coroner?' Horton's voice was harsher.
'Didn't want to upset Rosemary. She'd already suffered enough.'
Bollocks, thought Horton. 'It might have reassured her.'
'Not this kind of note. I didn't think she'd want to know that her daughter was a lesbian.'
So that was it. 'She was only fifteen.'
'Yeah, well, you should know teenagers. You'd be surprised what fifteen-year-olds can get up to,'
Horton felt Cantelli tense beside him. Horton knew that his eldest daughter, Ellen, was fifteen. And Morville was right; they'd had enough of them through their doors over the years.
Cantelli said crisply, 'So when you read about Langley in the newspaper you thought you would make some money from her.'
'I saw her quite by accident. It was the Thursday morning she was killed. I was waiting to see Dr Stainton and Langley was coming out of one of the consulting rooms. I recognized her. She didn't recognize me. She stopped at the reception counter. I found the betting slip in my pocket and wrote that message on it. As she made to leave I bumped into her and slipped it into her hand. I said I'd be in touch. She climbed into her sports car and drove off. I couldn't follow her because I don't have a car, and I didn't know where she lived.'
Cantelli said, 'You could have contacted her at the school.'
'I could, but I didn't. You showed up the next day and told me she was dead. Now I've told you everything, can I go?' Morville half rose.
'Not until we have the note that Michelle left, and you've made your statement. We can apply for a search warrant and tear your place to pieces looking for it, but it would be easier if you gave us a key and told us where it is.' Horton stood up and held out his hand.
Morville sat down again. He stretched in his pocket and handed across the key to his flat. 'It's in the drawer of the sideboard in the living room.'
'Did you tell Tom Edney any of this or show him the note?'
Morville's surprised expression gave Horton his answer. 'No. Why should I?'
As Horton reached the door Morville said, 'Any chance of some breakfast while I'm here.'
They found the note. It was pathetic and Horton and Cantelli were both shaken. Cantelli said, 'Poor kid. What a bloody waste. I don't feel so sorry for Langley now. Morville must have thought he was sitting on a gold mine; can you imagine what the newspapers would have made of it?'
'It was a long time ago.'
'But the girl killed herself!'
'Yes, that, and the heart-wrenching declarations of love in that note, plus Langley's callous treatment of her friend, would be enough to make a good story. It might even have been enough to make the local education authority think twice about their appointment.'
'Pity Tom Edney didn't know about it.'
Horton thought it would certainly have given him a hold over the head teacher he despised. And yet, as Cantelli went to take Morville's statement, Horton could only visualize Jessica Langley laughing at both Morville and Edney, and wriggling out of the situation somehow. 'When she was bad she was horrid.' Indeed.
She had been an ambitious, driven woman, dedicated to the kids. 'When she was good, she was very, very good…' But she was probably a user of people for her own satisfaction. She would flatter, cajole, bully, bribe, make love to them, whatever it took as long as she got what she wanted. Then she would discard them like an old pair of tights.
She had been a clever, manipulative woman. Horton wondered if she had always been like that. Or perhaps the death of her parents had made her hard inside. Had that been the only way she could cope with the grief and the great gaping hole that her parents' death had left in her life? Somehow he doubted it. He had a feeling that Jessica Langley had been born manipulative.
His phone rang. It was Dr Clayton.
'I've got the toxicology report on Timothy Boston.'
Horton took a breath and waited.
'He was injected with methadone.'
He was right and Uckfield was wrong. Yes! Boston had been murdered.
She said, 'If his clothes hadn't caught on that spike under the pontoon he would probably have drifted into the harbour and might not have been found for some time. We might never have known about the puncture mark or the
