Footsteps on the Shore

all flash.’

‘Still valuable in the right market, though,’ growled Uckfield.

Unfortunately he was right.

Dennings smirked. ‘There’s a huge black market for boats and outboard motors in Eastern Europe. The victim could have seen or heard the thieves stealing the boat, rushed out to stop them and got killed for her pains.’

But Horton shook his head. ‘You can’t see the boat from the house and I doubt she would have heard the engine being started.’ The latter was a possibility, but Horton would rather have his teeth pulled than admit it.

Uckfield turned away from the shore and as the three of them headed towards the tent now covering the body, he said, ‘She could have been on the boat when the thieves arrived.’

Horton wondered if she might have been. High tide had been at 12.49 a.m. Here, on the upper reaches of Portsmouth Harbour, it meant anyone could have access to the slipway, by boat, two hours either side of high tide, giving them a window of between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. He doubted if Venetia Trotman would have been preparing to go sailing then, but she could have been on the boat for some other reason, though what, he couldn’t imagine. And maybe she had left her sailing jacket there in her haste to escape the boat thieves, who had run after her and silenced her. He put forward his theory.

‘We need to find that boat,’ Uckfield snapped, pulling a toothpick from his coat pocket and working it into his mouth.

‘There’s four ways it could have gone,’ said Horton. ‘Horsea Marina to the east, Fareham Creek to the west, Gosport Marina across the channel, or south out through Portsmouth Harbour, and if it went that way then it could be anywhere. It might even be in France or the Channel Islands by now. Sergeant Elkins will need help to find it and we need to ask the harbour masters, Customs and the Royal Navy Fishery Protection Squadron if they’ve seen it.’

‘See to that, Dennings,’ Uckfield commanded, drawing up at the tent. ‘What’s it called?’

‘Shorena.’

Dennings said, ‘Her killer or killers could have come by vehicle knowing the boat was moored here. They robbed her, killed her, and one of them stole the boat, the other drove away with the loot.’

It was feasible, especially given the advertisement for the boat in the newsagent’s window. Horton had seen no vehicle tyre tracks, but that was hardly surprising given the tarmacked road, though SOCO might find traces. Unfortunately, because the lane was so remote, there weren’t any nosy neighbours to ask. And if the thieves had come by boat, late at night, no one would have seen them. He said as much.

Uckfield nodded and turned to Dennings. ‘Ask Trueman to mobilize the incident suite. I want him working on Venetia Trotman’s background. And I want a team inside the house and combing this garden. Marsden can oversee that.’ Addressing Horton crisply, Uckfield said, ‘Make sure Trueman gets a copy of that anonymous telephone call. We’ll get the experts to analyse it. And write your report up as soon as you get back to the station, and let Trueman have it.’

Horton tensed as he saw Dennings’ smug smile, but he wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing he was annoyed at being excluded, and angry at Uckfield’s curt dismissal. OK, so the Venetia Trotman murder wasn’t his case, but there was no need for Uckfield to dismiss him as though he was a PC.

‘Not wanted on voyage,’ Cantelli said, obviously reading the situation and Horton’s expression as he zapped open the car. ‘It’s a film starring the great Fabia Drake, about-’

‘Not now,’ Horton said testily. Cantelli could wax lyrical on old movies for hours and Horton wasn’t in the mood.

Undeterred, Cantelli continued, ‘That film’s been running through my mind ever since we went inside the house. I guess it’s because the victim lived by the sea. It’s a British comedy about a jewel theft on board an ocean voyage. Jewels — Venetia Trotman — sea.’

‘I get the connection. Did Marsden express an opinion about the house? He’s meant to be bright,’ Horton added caustically. Jake Marsden was Uckfield’s fast track graduate whizz-kid, destined for dizzy heights.

‘He thought it looked like theft. But unless we can get someone to tell us what was in that bedroom to begin with, we’re not going to know there was any jewellery to steal, are we? She could have sold it. And I thought of that, not Marsden.’

‘Then you get a gold star.’

‘I’d rather go home.’

Horton didn’t blame him. It had not been the best of days. And he had that runt Rookley to face yet. Still, he might give him a lead on Luke Felton. And if Uckfield hadn’t been in such a hurry to dismiss him, then Horton would have told him about a possible link with the missing prisoner, though he thought the chances of this being laid at Felton’s door were remote. Still, a lead was a lead. . His mind veered back to Venetia Trotman. ‘I suppose she could have sold the jewellery to pay her bills after her husband died.’

‘Well, she didn’t use the money for her central heating, that house is as cold as a Siberian winter. My toes might have dropped off for all I know. I long ago stopped having any feeling in them. If her husband left her penniless then why not sell up and move into a smaller place?’

‘Perhaps she was in the process of doing that, though she didn’t mention it.’ But there was no reason why she should. Just because there wasn’t a ‘For Sale’ board outside the house didn’t mean it wasn’t on the market. They could check the estate agents, and who had handled her late husband’s probate. It’s not your case, he told himself sternly. Uckfield had made that quite clear. And to be fair, he knew that Sergeant Trueman would probably already be on to it without any prompting from Uckfield or Neanderthal Man. But there were several things bothering Horton.

He said, ‘Did anything strike you about her clothes, Barney?’

‘Not enough of them,’ Cantelli replied promptly. ‘In my experience women have wardrobes full of the stuff. Charlotte even bags things up, labels them and sticks them in the loft. I guess the victim could have done that, we didn’t check.’

‘Marsden’s team will.’

‘But somehow I can’t see it. It was as if she’d had a good clear-out, and not only of her husband’s clothes. So maybe she was selling up, and has somewhere else to live, which is why she was also selling the boat.’

Horton agreed it was possible. Whatever the situation with Venetia Trotman, he hoped Uckfield would get to the bottom of it and find her killer, and so too did the anonymous caller, whoever and wherever he was.

Cantelli dropped him off at the station, again offering to accompany him to his meeting with Rookley, which Horton again declined. ‘No point in us both getting colder and wetter,’ he said.

There was no sign of Walters in the CID office, so he’d probably gone home. There was also, thankfully, no sign of Bliss. He wasn’t going to complain about that. As he reached his office his phone rang. It was the front desk. ‘There’s a Mr Neil Danbury here to see you, sir.’

Horton was surprised and hopeful. Danbury must have information on his brother-in-law, Luke Felton; why else would he have taken the trouble to call in, uninvited?

‘Show him into an interview room. I’ll be down in a moment.’

Horton removed his jacket and swiftly checked his desk for messages. There wasn’t one from Walters, which meant he must have drawn a blank on obtaining any further information on Luke Felton. Horton headed downstairs wondering what Neil Danbury could tell him, and hoping that whatever it was it would be significant.

He pushed open the door, but his lips could barely form a smile, let alone manage a greeting, before the well-built man in his mid-forties leapt up, fury contorting his swarthy face and blazing from behind his modern, heavily rimmed spectacles.

‘What gives you the right to force your way into my house and accuse my wife of harbouring a criminal?’ Danbury roared. ‘She has nothing whatsoever to do with that scum of a brother.’

Horton stifled a sigh. He might have known that Friday the thirteenth hadn’t finished with him yet. He noted the immaculate dark suit, crisp white shirt and yellow tie, along with the expensive gold watch.

Wearily he said, ‘I understand your-’

‘No you don’t,’ Danbury roared. ‘Luke’s a killer, a violent, nasty piece of work. Why they let him out God alone knows. I don’t trust him not to kill again. He might already have done so again for all we know.’

Was he referring to Venetia Trotman? If so the news had got out quickly, but then Horton knew it only took a couple of occupants in the houses opposite the entrance to Shore Road, which had been cordoned off, to alert the