'I want to see Mrs Kingsway's personal file, now,' he snapped.
'It's confidential.'
He leant over the desk, thrusting his face close to hers, and in a low voice said, 'A doctor will be here soon to examine the bruises on Mrs Kingsway's arms and unless you give me her file, I will arrest you for assault.'
'That's a lie. You can't do that!'
He held her gaze. Her indignation was genuine. There was, however, the matter of the prescriptions and Dr Eastwood.
'Then let's try something that's closer to the truth,' he said, easing back and sitting down opposite her. 'Whose idea was it to kill Daniel Collins, yours or your husband's?'
'You're mad!'
She didn't look frightened and neither did she look smug, simply amazed.
Undeterred he continued. 'Daniel discovered that you and Dr Eastwood are working a prescription scam. Eastwood writes false prescriptions using the names of the residents, which you or your husband then sell. Did you get Eastwood to willingly participate or have you got something on him?'
Marion Keynes glared at him, but he detected a slight shift in her body language that told him he was right.
'Perhaps he just wanted to supplement his income. After all doctors aren't that well paid,' he continued with heavy sarcasm. 'Or had Dr Eastwood made a mistake somewhere along the line, or eased a difficult or troublesome patient to his or her death and you discovered it. In return for your silence and understanding you forced him to co- operate?'
Alarm and fear crossed her flabby face. At last he'd got to the truth. So that was how it had started. Christ, what a pair! If Cantelli had been here he'd have exploded. But Cantelli wasn't here.
Clearly Marion Keynes wasn't going to confess yet.
'I believe the prescriptions are for a range of powerful anti-depressants and painkillers. There's a growing market for them, particularly amongst the young,' said Horton. 'They are addicts, just like those addicted to heroin and crack cocaine, and supplying them is a serious crime. Did you want to say something?'
She'd opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to protest or explain, but she snapped it shut again and continue to glare at him through eyes like slits in a battlement.
'If they can't get the quantities they need from their GP, or the Internet, they buy prescriptions on the black market. Daniel discovered your secret and threatened to tell in return for money. You or rather your husband killed him.' He rose. 'Marion Keynes, I am arresting you for the murder of-'
'No, wait.'
Horton eyed her closely, but he didn't resume his seat.
'All right. I admit to the prescription fraud and selling the drugs, but I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about with Daniel. He died in a car accident. We haven't killed anyone,' she insisted. 'That's the truth.'
He wasn't sure if Marion Keynes would know the truth if it jumped out and bit her.
'Then give me Mrs Kingsway's file.'
She rose and wrenched open the filing cabinet. After a moment she handed it across to him and he slipped it inside his jacket.
'About the prescriptions…'
At the door he turned and said, 'I think you'd better find yourself a very good lawyer.'
The fear on her face was a reward in itself. Outside he rang Trueman and told him to get a unit over to the Rest Haven and to Marion Keynes' home immediately. Then, wondering if Marion might already be warning her husband, he asked Trueman to put out a call for Ian Keynes' arrest. He briefly told him what had happened and asked him to alert the Prescription Fraud Team and arrest Dr Eastwood. If they trod on the Intelligence Directorate's toes then tough.
'Any sign of Nathan Lester?'
'No.'
'What about Barney?' Horton felt his heart knock against his ribs.
'He's not phoned in and I've been trying his mobile every ten minutes.'
Horton swore and asked to speak to Lee.
'Where's Sergeant Cantelli?' he rapped when she came on the line.
'I don't know-'
'Cut the crap, Lee. This is no time to play silly buggers. He went to the prison to find out something about Peter Ebury and he got it. So where have you got him?'
Silence. He could almost hear her mind racing. What was she going to do: tell him he was barking mad or admit it?
'I'll call you back.'
Under the glow of the street lamp, Horton quickly skimmed the contents of Marjorie Kingsway's file. It hardly seemed worth taking as there was so little information in it. Mrs Kingsway had been moved into the Rest Haven by social services a year ago from another nursing home on the seafront, which Horton knew to be rather an expensive one, and much more exclusive that the Rest Haven. He guessed her money had run out. Nursing care for the elderly and sick wasn't free in England. Where had Marjorie lived before the expensive nursing home on the seafront? Trueman would find out, of course. So what now? Hang around and wait for Trueman to come back?
Where could Cantelli be? Horton shivered and it wasn't from the cold. He couldn't shake off his feeling of dread and the thought that something might have happened to him.
The door of the Rest Haven opened and Marion Keynes scuttled out. Too late to make her escape, he thought with grim satisfaction, as the patrol car sped round the corner. He watched the panic cross her face. Then her body slumped. She glared at him as he instructed PC Seaton to take her away. He ought to go back inside and explain to Cheryl what had happened, but he detailed PC Allen to do that. Trueman would handle the rest.
But he couldn't just hang around. He had to do something. It was time to confront Kingsway. He'd be at work. Action would help him to stop worrying about Cantelli. But as Horton climbed on the Harley and headed for Fort Cumberland, he knew that nothing on earth would prevent him from doing that.
TWENTY-ONE
The daytime security officer let him through the entry gates. He was too early to speak to Steven Kingsway, he was informed. He wouldn't be on duty for another twenty minutes. Horton felt irritated by the delay. Perhaps it would be better to leave this to Uniform. They could bring Kingsway in and someone else could question him about his assault on his mother. But Horton didn't want to hand this over.
'Has Mr Kingsway worked here long?' he asked.
'Three weeks and that's three too long if you ask me. Good job he's on nights and I don't have to work with him. Thinks he's God's gift to the world that one.'
Horton was surprised to learn Kingsway had only been working there a short time, though he shouldn't have been after what Cheryl had told him.
'Where did he work before?'
'Oil rigs. Earning a fortune, so he says, risking his life to give us all our central heating and petrol for our cars. To hear him talk, you'd have thought he was the only bugger in the world bringing oil out. Says he was a skilled man, an engineer. If he was, then what's he doing guarding a load of old artefacts in an ancient monument?'
The job went some way to explaining Kingsway's absence, but even oil-rig workers got time off, Horton thought. Why had Kingsway suddenly developed a conscience about his mother? Perhaps he'd had no choice but to return home. He could have been made redundant or been sacked.
'Do you want to wait for him?' asked the guard. 'He shouldn't be long.'
Horton hesitated for a fraction before declining. He was too impatient and anxious to hang around here, twiddling his thumbs and listening to the security man talking. He could use the time more productively, he thought, by having a quick poke around the marine archaeological offices. There might be something there that could tell him where Nathan Lester had gone and why Farnsworth had been killed. Daniel Collins, too, if Marion Keynes were to be
