Cantelli said, 'How did Farnsworth take your affair with his wife?'
'Ex-wife,' Jackson sniped. 'As I keep saying, he couldn't care less. By then he'd moved on. There were several affairs before Farnsworth took up with Corinna. I told Corinna she was a fool to give up Jason for Nick, but she wouldn't listen.'
'Why didn't you go to the Caribbean with Ms Hill?' Cantelli again.
'Dr Hill,' corrected Jackson. 'Because I was committed to the programme. Now, if you don't mind…'
Horton rose. Taking his cue, Cantelli did the same, slowly putting away his notebook. 'We'll need to talk to you again, sir.'
'Then you'll do so in the presence of my solicitor,' said Jackson.
'Of course,' Cantelli continued cheerfully, as they headed towards the door.
On the threshold, Horton turned. 'When will you be back from London, sir?'
'Late this afternoon. Why?'
'We'll let you know when we need you at the station.' He made it sound like a threat and a forgone conclusion, which was his intention.
Jackson slammed the door on them. Horton hoped that he wouldn't do a disappearing act. Horton had already made one mistake by not taking those threatening telephone calls seriously, although that seemed to have little relevance now to their case. But he didn't want to give Uckfield or Superintendent Reine the slightest cause to ball him out.
He said as much to Cantelli as they took the stairs to the ground floor.
'Jackson's a stuffed shirt but my money's on Nathan Lester,' Cantelli answered. 'He gets Farnsworth's job and the wreck, and he dived with Daniel Collins.'
Yes, thought Horton, and not only that but Lester was small and wiry — the ideal build to climb in and out of car windows.
EIGHTEEN
'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' Cantelli said, peering through the grilled windows of Lester's antiques shop some minutes later.
'Antiques and antiquities,' Horton answered, though antiques was a kind word for the junk he could see in the gloom beyond the grill. The room was crammed with heavy old furniture and bric-a-brac rather than valuable memorabilia from sunken wrecks.
The door was locked and the closed sign displayed. Getting no response from Lester's house, a neighbour had directed them to the shop, which was situated in one of the less fashionable shopping areas of the city, on a busy road running from east to west and not far from the cemetery opposite Mr and Mrs Collins's house. Lester's Emporium was sandwiched between a cheap and grubby cafe and a Chinese takeaway, and shared the street with a charity shop, a newsagent, a pub and a betting shop. Starring in a television programme was a long way from this and Horton reckoned that Lester must have thought his ship had come in.
'Let's try Fort Cumberland. He might be in the marine archaeological offices.' And if he wasn't then Horton would instruct Uniform to force an entry into Lester's home. After all he might be lying ill inside.
There was no car outside the marine archaeological office, but Horton recalled that Lester rode a bicycle. That wasn't here either, and it hadn't been in the forecourt of Lester's terraced house or in the narrow hallway when he'd looked through the letter box.
Cantelli rattled the door but it refused to budge. Peering through the grimy window to its left, Horton saw only a deserted, darkened office. Climbing back in the car, they headed for the main building a few hundred yards further along the road towards the centre of the Fort.
Before Horton could push open the door to the reception area, a slight man with a haggard expression and tired eyes, wearing an anorak over a uniform and carrying a plastic sandwich box stepped out. Horton recognized him instantly as Mr Kingsway from the Rest Haven Nursing Home.
'How's your mother? Has she mentioned the intruder again?' asked Horton, after the usual preliminary greetings were over.
Kingsway looked sheepish. 'I made a bit of a fool of myself, didn't I? But she was so adamant. I called in yesterday to check she was OK and she muttered something about it, but I managed to divert her by talking about the past. That's not difficult,' he added sadly. 'It's where they all live.'
He left a short pause before adding more brightly, 'Anyway, I'd better be going. Need my beauty sleep. I've been on since nine.'
Horton watched him climb into a silver saloon car, sensing that he'd just heard something important but couldn't quite grasp what it was. Never mind, he hoped it would come to him later.
The receptionist told them that no one had seen Nathan Lester since Wednesday. She handed over the key and they made their way back to the marine archaeological offices. Cantelli flicked on the lights in the outer office and began mooching around the desks, whilst Horton headed for the inner office where he'd previously interviewed Jackson.
There was no sign of Lester and nothing that Horton could see to tell them where he was.
After dropping the keys back to reception, Horton said, 'Let's check the sub-aqua club.'
The gates to the car park were locked and bolted, so Lester couldn't be there either.
'He's probably away on an antique-hunting expedition,' Cantelli said.
It was possible and perhaps, thought Horton, his neighbouring shopkeepers could tell them where Lester was and when they'd last seen him.
The consensus was they had no idea and didn't much care either. Not that he was unpopular, just that he kept himself to himself. Stuck up was one woman's rather uncharitable opinion, but then she was voluble about anything and everything. And she didn't have a kind word to say about anyone, least of all the police. The shop was hardly ever open, and she, like the other shopkeepers, reckoned that Lester did most of his business on the Internet and through word of mouth. The last sighting of him was late Thursday afternoon about four p.m.
'I don't much care for this 'word of mouth' stuff,' Cantelli said, stretching the seat belt across him. 'It sounds like he's passing off stolen goods, after buying them in dodgy pubs and backstreet alleys. I think we'll take a good look around Lester's Aladdin's cave. I'll get a warrant.'
'Good idea. And whilst you're looking, you might see if Irene Ebury's stuff has turned up there. I got Lee to check the shops and pawnbrokers in the area where Keynes lives, but not in the area where she works, and the Rest Haven isn't far from here. She could have heard about Lester from Daniel Collins and thought Lester was worth approaching.'
'Unless Daniel stole them and sold them to Lester.'
Horton didn't much like the sound of that. For Mr and Mrs Collins's sake he hoped that wasn't so. But it hadn't escaped his notice that Daniel lived almost on Lester's doorstep. In fact a few streets away. The sooner they got hold of Lester the better. He'd try one more avenue before busting into Lester's home.
Returning to the Queen's Hotel, Horton found Corinna Denton and Jason Kirkwood together in Kirkwood's bedroom but there was no sign of Lester. And neither, they both claimed, had he been in touch with either of them.
Cantelli said, 'Has Mr Lester made any suggestions about where you should dive for this series?'
Horton knew where Cantelli's questions were leading. He was probing a link with the discovery of a wreck.
'Not to me,' Kirkwood said, shuffling some papers around on the bed where both he and Corinna were perched. She'd been crying and clearly had had little sleep. Wearing her customary black she had a large jumper stretched over her knees which she hugged to her chin.
'Have you changed your diving location at all in the last couple of months?' Cantelli persisted.
Corinna looked up and with a puzzled frown said, 'Nick did mention something about switching locations.'
Kirkwood started surprised. 'That's news to me. When?'
'Monday.
