thinks it’s a man.’
Horton looked after the retreating figure of Rookley.
‘It could be Luke Felton,’ Cantelli pressed. ‘And Seaton says the tide’s coming in fast.’
Horton cursed. Was it Felton? Or was he here, in hiding? Was Rookley meeting him? If it hadn’t been for the question of the tide, Horton wouldn’t have hesitated; he’d have checked Rookley out first. He dashed an irritated glance at his watch. It was less than two hours to high tide, but depending on exactly where the body was, the water could reach it much sooner.
Watching Rookley disappear around the bend of a path, reluctantly Horton said, ‘Tell Seaton we’re on our way.’
THREE
Horton stared down at what was left of the corpse lying in the thick slimy mud of the harbour and wasn’t surprised that PC Johns, standing guard over it, looked green, or that PC Seaton hadn’t been able to say who it was. There wasn’t much left of this poor soul to tell anything and Horton wasn’t about to go through what remained of the clothes searching for an ID. Dr Clayton, or rather her whistling mortuary attendant, Brian, could have that pleasure.
Hunching his shoulders against the cold penetrating rain sweeping off the sea, and desperately trying to control his heaving stomach, Horton forced himself to study what remained of the blackened flesh that hadn’t been eaten by the sea life. There was no hair on the corpse and the rotted clothes were so covered in mud, seaweed, barnacles and sea creatures that Horton couldn’t see if they fitted the description Harmsworth had given them. There were also no shoes on the body.
Cantelli cleared his throat. ‘Think my breakfast’s about to come up.’
Horton was rather glad he hadn’t had any. He’d been too preoccupied with the symbol on his Harley to worry about food. ‘Better not let the gallery see you.’ He nodded up at the elevated road to their left, which led to the railway station and the ferries to Gosport across the harbour, and to the Isle of Wight beyond the Solent.
‘Ghouls,’ muttered Cantelli, pulling a handkerchief from his jacket and making a great pretence of blowing his nose. Horton knew it was to disguise the disgusting smell of the bloated body, which rose sickeningly above the smell of the mud. Even Dr Price, drunk or sober, wouldn’t have difficulty certifying death this time.
‘Would Felton’s body look like that if he’s only been missing since Tuesday night?’ Cantelli voiced the question which had been running through Horton’s mind.
Horton shrugged an answer. That was down to Dr Clayton to tell them, though he hoped Price might have some idea. ‘How tall is Felton?’ he asked.
Cantelli reached into his pocket and pulled out his notepad. ‘Five feet ten inches and of slim build.’
Horton again studied the corpse. ‘The height’s about the same.’ But the body looked large, which, of course, could be the bloating from being in the water. Horton stared out at a grey, turbulent, rainswept harbour; the seagulls cawed and screeched overhead, a black and orange tug boat bucked in the roll of the waves as it headed out against the tide which was rushing in. The water was already in the channel to their right, slapping against one of the historic dockyard’s attractions, the ironclad warship HMS
His eyes flicked back to the shore where officers, including PC Seaton, were helping to keep the growing numbers of tourists and sightseers at bay. Horton thought the rain would have dampened their curiosity, but clearly not. He watched with relief as Dr Price’s battered Volvo pulled up and behind it the van containing Phil Taylor and his scene of crime officers. Horton wished the corpse was covered by a tent, but there wasn’t time for that, and the best they could do was screen it with their bodies. Price would only be minutes. Taylor and his SOCO team of two, longer.
Seaton had told them on their arrival that a Mr Hackett had made the gruesome discovery just before 11 a.m. He’d been preparing his small fishing boat ready to take out into the Solent when the weather cleared, and, as he had put it, he ‘Almost trod on the poor sod.’
Horton turned back to the body, his eyes scanning the area around it, and said, ‘He must have been washed up in the early hours of the morning on or around high tide, which was just before one o’clock.’ And he could guess why no one had spotted it before Mr Hackett; the colour of the corpse blended almost perfectly with the mud, and anyone seeing the clothes would think it was rags brought up with the tide. But where had the body come from? There were hundreds of places, around the Solent and beyond.
Cantelli pulled out a packet of gum and offered it to PC Johns, who took a piece gratefully while Horton refused.
‘Maybe he fell overboard.’
Which meant it was unlikely to be Luke Felton, unless he’d been meeting a drug dealer on a boat. Horton said, ‘Call Sergeant Elkins and ask if he’s come across any drifting or abandoned boats in the last few days.’
Cantelli stepped back along the causeway, nodding a greeting to Dr Price who drew level with Horton. Price’s bloodshot eyes looked warily out to sea before switching their scrutiny to the corpse.
‘Well, he’s definitely dead,’ he declared. ‘I can tell that by his colour. It’s amazing what you learn at medical school.’
Horton sometimes wondered if Dr Price had ever attended one. Maybe the patients in his practice did too. Even though Horton had never heard of any complaints against Price, he was heartily glad he wasn’t registered at his surgery. The rain was dripping off Price’s wide-brimmed waterproof hat, the sort of article Horton wished he was wearing. His hair was plastered to his scalp and running off his face. His trousers sodden.
‘As to cause of death. .’ Price crouched over the body. He seemed oblivious to the stench, but then perhaps the alcohol Horton could smell on him anaesthetized the doctor to that. ‘There are no visible signs and I’m not touching him. I’ll leave that to our delightful pathologist.’
‘Time of death?’ asked Horton hopefully.
‘No idea, but judging by the generalized bloating and the fact the body is greenish-black, I’d say it’s been in the water for sixty to seventy-five hours, possibly more.’
Horton did some rapid calculations. Seventy-five hours took them back to Tuesday morning when Luke Felton had been seen going to work by Harmsworth, and had, as far as they were aware, been at work all day. They would check. But sixty hours took them to 11 p.m. on Tuesday night, and that meant it could be Felton.
Horton said, ‘It is a man then?’
Price shrugged his bony shoulders. ‘Difficult to tell. Even if what is left of his clothes wasn’t covering his private parts, the fish will probably have taken a fancy to them. Dr Clayton will tell you.’ And with a grunt he shambled off slightly unsteadily, waving a hand as he passed Taylor and his two colleagues, Beth Tremaine and the photographer, Jim Clarke.
The sea was getting perilously close. For once Horton was glad of Dr Price’s brevity. To Taylor, he said, ‘You’ve got about twenty minutes before the tide hits here.’
‘There’s not much we can do anyway, except photograph and video the position of the body and take samples from where it lies,’ Taylor replied mournfully, frowning at the sea, obviously annoyed with it for having the gall to interfere with his usual thorough procedure.
Cantelli came off the phone. ‘Elkins says there are no reports of abandoned or drifting boats anywhere in the Solent. And none of a man overboard or reports of a missing seaman.’
‘So if it is foul play he could have been thrown overboard from a boat and left to drown, or been killed or knocked unconscious and then tossed overboard.’
‘Or he could have walked into the sea to commit suicide, or fallen from a cliff on the Isle of Wight.’
‘Call Walters and ask him to check if anyone’s been reported missing in the last seventy-five hours.’
Cantelli threw a worried glance at the advancing tide.
‘You can do it ashore,’ Horton said, swivelling his gaze to Mr Hackett, who was holding court among his buddies outside the timber hut belonging to the Portsmouth Net Fishermen’s Association. ‘And talk to Mr Hackett. See if there’s anything else we should know about.’
With a look of relief, Cantelli hurried down the causeway while PC Johns looked enviously after him, before
