he'd stopped the investigation into Daniel's death. It didn't bear thinking about. They still had Daniel's computer, his car was going to be examined. Walters might return with something from his mud bath and DC Lee could unearth some interesting information from the Rest Haven. He wondered if he'd just seen a pink pig flying overhead. 'For now.'
'Irene Ebury was Miss Southsea in 1957,' Trueman said, following Horton into his office. He handed over a newspaper cutting. Horton gave a soft whistle.
Peering over his shoulder, Cantelli said, 'They made real women in those days.'
'Better not let Charlotte hear you say that.'
But Irene had indeed been good-looking, thought Horton, staring at the curvaceous eighteen-year-old. Her long blonde wavy hair curled on to her shoulders, she was wearing a one piece light-coloured swimsuit, which could have been white, but Horton couldn't tell because it was a black and white photograph, and high-heeled court shoes. She was being crowned by a dark-haired man in his late forties wearing a sharp suit. Reading the caption under the newspaper article, Horton saw he was the actor, Dale
Bourton.
'Ever heard of him, Barney?' Horton asked.
'He was a heart-throb in the fifties and early sixties, labelled the English Gregory Peck. Starred in a couple of British movies, then seemed to disappear from the scene. I'll look him up on the Internet.'
Horton could see that Trueman had more. He gestured for him to continue.
'She left Portsmouth in 1958 and worked in London at a couple of nightclubs until 1963, then there's no record of employment, or address for her, until she showed up back here in 1973, pregnant with Peter. She never married and she lived in Mile End for a while before being given a council flat in Jensen House.'
Horton started. It was where he had lived with his mother. Here was another connection between the two women, not only had they worked together but they'd lived in the same tower block. And that disturbed him. 'What number?' he asked warily.
'Fifteenth floor. Number one hundred and twenty.'
My God! The same floor even and a couple of flats down from his childhood home! He looked again at the picture. He couldn't recall Irene Ebury, but then he'd only been a child and more interested in other things, like football. He'd returned to Jensen House before Christmas, trying to retrieve some memory of the day his mother had disappeared. He hadn't been successful in that, but he had found his neighbour of 1978 still living there. Would Mrs Cobden recognize Irene? It was worth asking. He also wouldn't mind pushing the newspaper cutting underneath Marion Keynes' nose just to show her that Irene hadn't been making it up. And if she hadn't invented that, then maybe Mrs Kingsway hadn't been imagining this intruder either. After what Dr Clayton had told him though, there didn't seem any case to answer. But his copper's sixth sense was twitching worse than a rabbit's nose.
He briefed Trueman on the results of the post-mortems.
'Do you still want me to poke around?' he asked when Horton had finished.
'Only if you haven't got anything better to do.'
Trueman rose. 'Superintendent Uckfield's been out most of the day. I'll squeeze it in when I have time. And it beats wading around in mud.' He jerked his head at the door, smiling. Horton looked up to see a very wet and filthy Walters waddling in carrying a large plastic bag full of what looked like scrap metal, drink cans and food cartons. Walters wasn't waving a mobile phone and neither did he look very happy, so Horton guessed he hadn't found it and turned to Cantelli.
'For God's sake, Barney, stop him from coming any further. The cleaners will have a fit if he trails all that dirt through here.'
'I think they've already probably gone on strike if he's walked through the station like that.'
'Take that bag over to scientific services. Then shoot off home, Barney, and tell Walters to do the same, and quickly.'
Horton called the scientific services department and told them about the bag, but not that every item inside it would be caked in the mud of Langstone Harbour. He wasn't that brave or foolish. They'd soon find out. He checked his desk but there was still no message from Uckfield or Ray Ferris about DC Lee. And there was no case file on the Peter Ebury robbery. That should have been with him by now. He'd get Cantelli to chase it up tomorrow.
He sat back, and as the rain drummed against the window, he let his mind roam through the events of Lee's first day on the team looking for one small thing — a word, a glance, a gesture — anything that told him who she really was and what she was doing here. He could find none.
He sighed. Maybe there was nothing to find, just like Dr Clayton's results showed. But his mind refused to admit that. If the deaths were suspicious, then all the victims had been killed so expertly that it couldn't be detected.
He posed himself some theories. What if Irene's stolen jewellery was a distraction and the real purpose of the theft had been to take her photograph album? Could there have been an incriminating picture in it? He didn't mean pornographic, just something that would expose a secret. Could the missing photographs and letters have any connection with when Irene had lived in London or where she had been between 1963 and 1973?
The outer door swung open and Lee marched in. He beckoned her into his office.
'Well?'
'Daniel Collins was a quiet man. The staff and residents liked him. He didn't socialize with the staff outside work and didn't talk very much about his personal life, except for his marine photography. He only worked days so I didn't think there was any point hanging around to talk to the night staff.'
'Had anyone ever seen Daniel Collins drink alcohol?'
'No. And as far as any of them know Daniel didn't know the owners. They very rarely see them. Everything is left to the manager, Mrs Northwood, to deal with.'
'How did she react when you asked her why she hadn't mentioned Daniel's death to us?'
'She said that she'd been too tired and worried about Mrs Kingsway to think about it. And then there was the shock of finding Irene's belongings missing and dealing with that obstinate inspector of mine and she asked doesn't he ever give up. I told her I hadn't known you for long, but from what I'd seen, I didn't think you were the giving-up type, not as long as there was a sun in the sky, even if it was obscured by rain, fog and cloud.'
Her words brought Horton up sharply. Lee was right. And though he couldn't see exactly what was wrong because it was shrouded by too much happening, he could feel it, sense it and smell it. He couldn't let the matter of Dr Clayton's autopsy reports put him off. And he couldn't let the fact that Lee might not be all she was making out to be stop him. There was something wrong at that nursing home and he was going to find out what it was.
'What about the residents' belongings?' he asked.
'They're all there. Only Irene's are missing.'
It was as Horton had thought. Tomorrow Trueman might get some more information on Irene, and he'd take that press cutting and show it to the old lady in the tower block. There was also the interview with social services.
'You'd better get off home, Lee.'
She rose but hesitated. 'I asked the staff where Daniel could have gone Christmas Eve; almost without fail they said there was only one place, the sub-aqua club at Eastney. I thought I could go there now and have a word with the members. It beats staring at the walls of a hotel bedroom.'
Lee was right. He should have thought of it himself. There was, however, one flaw. If Daniel had been at Eastney, then there would have been no need for him to have been on the dual carriageway and certainly not travelling south into Portsmouth.
Still, if Lee wanted to visit the sub-aqua club whilst off duty, then who was he to stop her? But she wasn't going alone. He rose.
'I'll join you.'
He'd heard the saying that the Chinese were inscrutable, but he wondered if he had just detected a flicker of disappointment in Lee's brown eyes.
EIGHT
