spread evil tales. Fury surged through him, which he controlled, calling on the techniques that he'd perfected over the years spent in children's homes.
'What are you doing here?' Catherine demanded, hurrying towards him.
Uckfield answered. 'He's on duty.'
'I'm not actually, but I am on a case,' Horton corrected. He held Catherine's icy cold stare and told himself it didn't matter, but he felt a hard knot of pain inside his stomach.
Alison Uckfield's pale-skinned face puckered up with concern as she said, 'This doesn't mean you've got to leave, does it, Steve?'
Fat lot of good Uckfield would be.
Horton said, 'There's not much that can be done tonight, Alison.'
She looked startled at being addressed in so familiar a manner, and dashed a look at her husband, but Horton was buggered if he was going to stand on ceremony with a woman he had danced and laughed with, seen drunk, and kissed.
Taking his wife's arm and with a backward glance at Horton, Uckfield said, 'I'll clear it with Chief Superintendent Chievely tomorrow. You're on the case.'
Horton turned to Catherine. 'How's Emma?'
'Looking forward to seeing you on Christmas Eve. Don't disappoint her, Andy.'
Horton forced himself to remain calm, though he was thinking how dare she say that when he had never disappointed his daughter in her life. 'Who's looking after her tonight?'
She hesitated. Her eyes flickered to the function room. He knew instantly why.
'Your mother and father are here too.'
'Yes. I've got a babysitter.'
'Who?' His stomach clenched at the thought of Emma being abandoned to a stranger.
'A girl from the village called Michelle. She's highly reliable,' Catherine replied defensively.
He had to trust her he told himself. No matter what Catherine did to him he knew she wouldn't endanger Emma, but part of him was thinking that she could have stayed with him. Yet how could she on his boat? It was totally inadequate for a child. It was inadequate for him. And then there was his job. He didn't need to be here working at midnight, but how could he have got away by seven or eight o'clock, which was probably when Catherine had wanted to leave for her function?
Admitting defeat, he said, 'Enjoy your evening,' and walked away. It wasn't until he had reached reception that he paused and turned back. Catherine had vanished but he caught sight of another familiar face and he felt a tiny flicker of jealousy inside him. Staring up at an elegantly dressed dark-haired man in his late thirties was Frances Greywell. She didn't look as though she was going to protest either when he placed his arm across her naked shoulders.
Outside Horton breathed in the night air hoping to banish his acute sensation of isolation, but the fog was as suffocating as ever. He climbed on his Harley and rode home carefully and slowly. His route took him along the mist-shrouded seafront where the sound of the booming foghorns filled the air. There were young people milling around outside the nightclubs, and a police wagon was parked in front of the pier. Later, when club land spewed its contents on to the pavements, there would be drunken young people and scantily clad girls everywhere. He wondered if this would be Emma's fate. God, he hoped not. He wanted to play a part in her upbringing, and he knew deep in his heart that it had to be more than just a once-a-week visit.
Would the sleek, sophisticated Frances get him what he wanted? Or did she think him a loser? Had she spoken to Catherine at that dinner and dance? If so, what kind of picture had his estranged wife painted of him? With something akin to despair he climbed on board Nutmeg and gazed around it: two bunks, a small stove and portable toilet. It wasn't much to show for a lifetime's slog.
He lay back in the darkness, resting his hands behind his head, trying to blot out that picture at the hotel, of people laughing and drinking, of Catherine and Edward Shawford. It wasn't that he enjoyed that sort of event himself; on the contrary he'd loathed those parties and dances. But he was expected to attend the police dinner and dance which always took place in January and was seen as a bonding exercise by higher brass between all the units and stations across Portsmouth. Who was he going to take this year? He had thought briefly about asking Frances, but now that idea was scuppered. Once again he felt like the outsider and memories of his childhood came flooding back, the child standing alone. It churned his guts.
Mentally he pulled himself together. There was still work, and with an effort he turned his thoughts instead to that burnt body. There were many questions bothering him but one more than all the others stood out: why had someone wanted to kill a man who was already dying of cancer?
Pauline Rowson
The Suffocating Sea
Three
Thursday: 7.45 a.m.
T he question was still troubling him the next morning when he fetched a coffee from the machine and weaved his way through the crowded incident room. Of course, one answer had sprung to mind last night and that was perhaps the murderer didn't know that Brundall had cancer.
Uckfield had mobilized the troops quicker than Horton had believed physically possible. But when you're wining and dining with the chief constable anything was feasible, like his secondment to the major crime team, which Bliss had told him about that morning through gritted teeth. She said that Walters had called in sick (probably suffering from a hangover or an excess of sexual activity) and that Cantelli was to run the CID office. But Bliss had added that she still expected Horton to oversee it, handle his paperwork, and make sure the mugging case was properly investigated. Some secondment, he thought cynically. Perhaps he should have eaten spinach for breakfast!
Uckfield's office blinds were shut, which meant he was either in conference or having a nap after a boozy late night, and Horton guessed it was the former.
'Brundall's GP has confirmed he had cancer,' Trueman said. 'It was at a very advanced stage. Inspector Guilbert called the doctor early this morning and rang through the information five minutes ago. Guilbert's applying for Brundall's full medical details but it looks as though he's our victim.'
Horton reckoned so. He picked up a printed photograph on Sergeant Trueman's desk. It showed a small gathering of people on board a large luxury yacht.
'That's Tom Brundall in 1996,' Trueman added over his shoulder whilst scrawling the information on the GP's confirmation of cancer on the crime board.
'Which one?'
'Him.' Trueman pointed to a slim man, in his mid fifties with an angular face and light brown hair. He seemed surprised — or even startled — at having his picture taken. Horton got the impression he wasn't too pleased about it either. He felt a brief frisson of excitement as if there was something important in what he'd just seen. Had he recognized Brundall? He didn't think so. It must be something else, but try as he might he couldn't think what it was. It had gone.
Brundall was dressed in light-coloured trousers and an open-neck checked shirt. Beside him, reclining on the sunlounger, was a casually but well-dressed man in his mid thirties with fair hair, sunglasses on his head and a glass of champagne in his hand, smiling into camera. The other people in the photograph were behind them and slightly out of focus. Horton tried to banish the memory of the shrivelled blackened corpse on the pontoon and replace it with this one of Brundall. He thought Brundall looked a fairly innocuous sort of man, instantly forgettable, the kind you might expect to meet in a bank or an accountant's office.
Trueman continued. 'It's the only photograph that the Guernsey police can find of him. They got it from the local newspaper archives, along with this cutting.'
Horton took the piece of paper on to which the press cutting had been scanned and then e-mailed from Guernsey. 'Top banker claims times are good,' said the headline and they certainly looked it, if the size of that boat was anything to go by. It must have cost at least a million back in 1996.
He read the article with the practised skill of a thousand-words-a-minute man. The banker referred to wasn't Brundall, but the head of a private Guernsey bank, a man called Russell Newton who was entertaining guests aboard his yacht, including financier Tom Brundall. So that's what the dead man had done for a living. Was Newton the man on the sunlounger? Horton guessed so.
