been touched since the house had been built and only Rowland Gilmore's bedroom was furnished. Here there was a single brass bed, made up with a lilac eiderdown. Beside it was a painted white bedside table on which were a few women's toiletries, a faded pink lamp with half its tassels missing and a crime novel. He picked it up and skimmed the blurb; appropriately enough it was an ecclesiastical mystery thriller. The faint smell of perfume told him that this must have been Anne Schofield's. He felt repulsed and saddened over her death. If only she hadn't come here she'd be alive today. And maybe another person finding those newspapers wouldn't even have noticed the writing in the margin and the circled articles about him, or if they had they wouldn't have been so curious. Why had Anne Schofield taken the trouble to track him down? He should have thought of that earlier, but the shock of hearing his mother's name mentioned and seeing it written in those newspapers had overwhelmed him. Now, perhaps he'd never know.
Surveying the rest of the sad little room he saw a chest of drawers and a heavy dark wooden wardrobe, the kind that were often on sale in second-hand shops.
He opened the wardrobe. Her clothes weren't inside. Had she baulked then at the thought of hanging them up alongside the dead vicar's? Where were they? He pulled open a drawer in the large chest and found her underwear and blouses neatly folded inside it. There was a suitcase underneath the chest of drawers and he drew it out. Flicking it open, he found inside a couple of pairs of trousers and a skirt. She hadn't brought much with her, hopefully anticipating a short stay and it had certainly been that!
Horton returned his attention to the wardrobe and Rowland Gilmore's clothes. Most of the jackets and trousers were worn and shabby, but then his hand froze as he felt the texture of one of the jackets. This one was different. It felt expensive.
Pulling it out, he noted the Savile Row label and gave a low whistle. It was an old fashioned suit by today's standards, but it still screamed quality. Had this been bought on the proceeds of Gilmore's share of the fishing business? Horton was no fashion expert, and he would check, but judging by its collar and fit, and from what he already knew of Gilmore's life, he guessed it must have been purchased in the late 1970s.
Why had Rowland Gilmore kept this suit, when everything in his wardrobe looked as though it had been bought from a charity shop or jumble sale? What significance did it have for a man who had obviously cared nothing for personal belongings?
Horton's mind raced through what he'd seen here, or rather what he'd not seen. He hadn't found any photographs. So had Anne Schofield already disposed of them, or had Rowland Gilmore destroyed the ones of his wife and child, unable to bear the pain of looking at them? If so, Horton could understand that. This house was the refuge of a lonely man who had substituted the church for his family and, Horton guessed, had still found it lacking. The exhibition of poverty and deprivation Horton saw here had been to Rowland Gilmore's mind atonement for allowing his daughter and wife to die. Horton felt some empathy with him.
Gilmore had tried to kill himself before finding God and the Church and from Horton's experience suicides often killed themselves with a picture of their loved ones in front of them. This was a special suit and if that was so…
He reached inside the jacket pocket and his fingers curled around thick paper. Slowly, holding his breath, Horton drew it out. It was a photograph of a beautiful, dark-haired woman in a printed summer dress, pinched in at the waist with short puffed sleeves and a V-neck collar. She was laughing into the camera, or at the person behind the camera, and beside her was a little girl of about five or six with deep brown eyes, a wide smile and curly brown hair.
Horton felt the breath being sucked from his body. It was as if he was experiencing Gilmore's agony of loss. He sank heavily on to the bed as Gilmore's emotions assailed him: anguish, guilt, desperation…Was it any wonder the poor man had tried to kill himself? Horton tried to imagine the pain of losing a child. He wanted to rush out and find Emma. He wanted to hold her tight for ever, and to never let her go.
A stout knock on the front door finally jolted him out of his thoughts. He stirred himself and hurried down to let Cantelli in. Horton knew at once that there must be something different about him because Cantelli said, 'You look like you've seen a ghost.'
'Maybe I have.' And more than one, he thought. He handed Cantelli the photograph. 'Rowland's wife and daughter.'
Cantelli stared at the picture in silence. His expression softened. After a moment he said, 'What a bloody waste.'
He made to hand it back but Horton said, 'Keep it. Find out everything you can about them and the little girl's death. And bag up the suit I found it in. I want to know when it was made, where it was sold and what it cost.'
Cantelli nodded and turned the photograph over. He read, ''Teresa and Claire. 1979. Oxwich Bay.' Where's that?'
'On the coast of Wales, not far from the Mumbles and Swansea.'
'Anne Schofield was from Wales. It's on her file. I didn't get a chance to go through it in the Dean's office but he's getting someone to copy it, and Rowland Gilmore's, and will send them over later. Do you think she knew him?'
Horton swiftly and mentally recalled his conversation with Anne and her expressions as they had talked. There had been nothing there to hint she had been lying but if she had known Rowland Gilmore, and he had mentioned Jennifer Horton to her, then it would explain why she had bothered to track him down after seeing those articles.
'Possibly. Did you get a photograph of Rowland Gilmore?'
'Yes.' Cantelli handed it across.
With a quickening heartbeat, Horton took it. He was staring at a slight man in his early thirties with straight brown hair thrust forward over a narrow face. It wasn't the man he had seen on the quayside. He was sure he'd never seen Rowland Gilmore in his life, and there wasn't the slightest resemblance between himself and Rowland Gilmore, so he couldn't be his father.
'That was taken on his ordination and kept in his file. The Dean said we could find a more recent photo on the Church's website.'
Horton was cross with himself for omitting to check that. 'What did the Dean tell you about Gilmore?'
They stepped inside the study, and Cantelli drew up in surprise. 'Christ, this house is bloody awful! And it makes me dislike the pompous prat I've just been talking to even more. How could the Church let him live like this?'
'I think it was Rowland's choice.'
'Some choice, eh? I've seen dogs living in better kennels.'
'The Dean?'
'He's executor of Rowland's will along with the Diocesan solicitors. Rowland didn't leave much money, which doesn't surprise me seeing this place.' Cantelli gestured at the room. 'But what he did have he left to St Agnes's, as his brother Sebastian told us. There wasn't much on his file that we don't already know. He was born in Portsmouth, was a fisherman before he was ordained. Widowed in 1980, six months after his daughter died, and that seems to be it. When he entered the Church though, he handed over the sum of just over five hundred thousand pounds.'
'That must have guaranteed his ordination.'
'You bet.' Cantelli had reached the window and was gazing into the garden. 'I…What the heck is-?'
'An air-raid shelter, and no, I haven't looked inside it yet.' Had Anne Schofield though? She said she hadn't.
Heading for the door, Horton said, 'Perhaps it's about time we did.' Better to have Cantelli with him than anyone else if there was something inside the shelter that referred to his mother, and better they should find it than the forensic team.
With Cantelli behind him, Horton stepped into the weed-strewn patch of garden. It was drizzling now and the day was depressingly dark and made darker by the looming dockyard wall with its barbed wire on top.
'I feel like I'm in Colditz,' Cantelli muttered. 'You got a plan for digging a tunnel or going over the wall?'
Despite his unease Horton suppressed a smile and stared at the rusting piece of corrugated iron over the entrance to the arch-shaped air-raid shelter. It looked as though it hadn't been moved in years. He stretched his fingers inside a pair of latex gloves and, taking his cue, Cantelli did the same.
