‘You never can tell,’ Uckfield said optimistically, adding to Norris, ‘Call up the nearest patrol car.’
‘Just arriving, sir.’
Horton swivelled in his seat to see the police vehicle pulling in behind them. There were no blue lights or sirens but he fancied more curtains would be twitched in Grove Way.
Climbing out, Uckfield said, ‘We’ll start by being polite and knock.’
Horton obliged, rapping loudly on the front door and then pressing and keeping his finger on the bell to the right of it, but all was silent. He stooped down and peered through the letterbox. ‘No signs of life,’ he said straightening up. Addressing Norris he asked, ‘Is there a rear entrance?’
‘No.’
That made things easier. Uckfield stepped back and nodded at the uniformed officer with the ramrod. Looking at the rather flimsy front door Horton didn’t think it would take much to break it in and he was right. A couple of minutes later he was stepping inside the hall straining his ears for sound. Only the solemn ticking of a clock coming from the room to his left greeted him. Arthur Lisle clearly wasn’t here or if he was he was dead or unconscious, and there was no reason why he should be either of the latter. But it was the excuse Uckfield would give for entering the house without permission and without a search warrant.
Swiftly Horton took in the worn pale-blue carpet that looked as though it had once been of good quality, the wooden balustrade, picture rails and architrave ceiling, before turning to see that a small audience was gathering at the front of the house in the pouring rain. He instructed the uniformed officers to get what information they could on Lisle and his movements, while Uckfield crossed to a telephone on a walnut table under the stairs and with latex- covered fingers lifted the receiver. ‘No answer machine,’ he said, punching in the number to get the last call. ‘Number withheld.’ He nodded Norris upstairs. To Horton he said, ‘I’ll take the kitchen, you do the lounge.’
Horton stepped inside the room on his left. Everything looked in place. It was neat and tidy if a little outdated and worn. There was a television in the corner by the bay window and a hi-fi system opposite it, both several years old. On the mantelpiece was the clock, which Horton had heard on first entering the house, and alongside it several family photographs and a picture of Lisle beside the Morris Minor which Norris had described to them. It looked in good condition and wouldn’t be difficult to spot; classic cars like it were few and far between these days.
Horton studied the photographs. Arthur Lisle looked to be a happily married family man, lean and tall with brown hair turning to grey as the photographs showed him through the passage of the years. In every one he was smiling. In some he was accompanied by young children and a pretty, dark-haired woman. And he was also with the same woman dressed in walking clothes against the backdrop of some mountains, which, to Horton, looked like the Brecon Beacons in Wales. Other photographs were of two couples in their thirties accompanied by babies and toddlers. The Lisle family through the ages, he guessed. Not only did Arthur Lisle not sound like their killer, he didn’t look like one either, although Horton knew that was a very dangerous and foolish assumption for a police officer to make. Yately had seemed an ordinary man but had ended up being brutally murdered. Why?
He reconsidered the third theory he’d expressed to Uckfield, that the dress found on Yately could have belonged to a woman Yately had been involved with. Was that woman connected with Arthur Lisle, Horton wondered, studying the photograph of the dark-haired woman? Had Lisle entered Yately’s flat and taken those notes because they contained a reference to it? But if Lisle had killed Yately and taken the keys off him, why leave the photograph of Hannah Yately behind and why wait until now to visit Yately’s apartment when he could have done so any time since Thursday? And why chance being spotted and recognized? No, Lisle had to be a friend and his visit to Yately’s flat innocent.
He wondered where the Lisle family were now, especially Mrs Lisle. There was no evidence of her in this room, no female magazines, no sewing or knitting, but maybe Lisle liked it that way. Perhaps he was a tyrant, despite the photographs. Some of the vilest bullies Horton had known had looked and behaved to the outside world like pillars of virtue.
He stepped along the hall and into a middle room. He could hear Uckfield opening and closing doors and drawers in the kitchen and Norris’s heavy footsteps overhead. No one had shouted out to say they’d found either Mrs Lisle or her husband, so where were they? wondered Horton, surveying the old-fashioned dining room, which looked as though its current use was as an office. Would they return horrified and angry to find the police in their house?
Uckfield joined him. ‘There’s food in the cupboards and fridge so he wasn’t planning on leaving.’
Horton’s eyes ran over the mahogany table and chairs in the centre of the room, the sideboard opposite the fireplace, the books scattered on the table and on the bookshelves either side of the hearth, before coming back to the table. ‘Where’s the computer?’ He pointed to a cable and charger that led to an electric socket.
‘Perhaps he’s taken it to night classes or is with friends,’ suggested Uckfield.
Horton crossed the room and picked up one of the books. It was on local history and some of the others were on ships, including naval, merchant and passenger. Clearly Lisle and Yately shared the same interests. He glanced out of the narrow window to his right. It was still raining heavily.
‘There’s a shed at the bottom of the garden,’ he said as Norris entered.
‘No sign that Lisle was intending to leave. His passport’s here.’ Norris handed it to Uckfield. Horton looked over the Super’s shoulder. It was the same man as in the photographs on the mantelpiece. There were a few stamps in it to show that Lisle had travelled abroad but nothing for the last six years.
‘Any women’s clothing?’ asked Horton.
‘None, but there’s a photograph of a dark-haired woman beside his bed.’
Not divorced then, thought Horton, because if Lisle had been, that, along with some of the photographs on the mantelpiece, would have been consigned to the bin. Widowed? Possibly.
Peering into the garden Uckfield said, ‘Check the shed, Sergeant.’
Norris made no protest but Horton could tell by his expression he wasn’t best pleased at being sent out in the rain. Uckfield made to reach for his phone when a woman’s voice, raised in anger, reached them from the front of the house. Uckfield threw Horton a questioning glance as they stepped into the passageway.
‘What the devil is going on?’ she demanded, glaring at both of them in turn, her round face flushed, her dark eyes smouldering with fury. ‘What gives you the right to barge in here like this? Where’s my father?’
‘That’s what we’d like to know,’ muttered Uckfield, before stepping forward, flashing his warrant card and introducing himself and Horton. ‘And you are?’
‘Rachel Salter,’ she snapped.
Horton had already recognized her from the photographs on the mantelpiece.
‘What’s happened?’ she again demanded, but this time more warily. Then her face paled. ‘Dad’s had an accident.’
‘Shall we go inside, Mrs Salter.’ Uckfield stood solidly in front of her, stretching an arm towards the lounge so that she had no option but to enter it.
She went under protest and Horton could see she was torn between anger and fear.
‘I think you’d better sit down,’ Uckfield began, but that only made her stand more squarely in the middle of the room.
‘Tell me, what’s happened? He’s not-’
‘We believe your father can help us with our inquiry into the death of Colin Yately,’ Uckfield quickly interjected.
Horton could see that the name meant nothing to her. She stared at Uckfield with a mixture of bewilderment and subdued anger.
Uckfield continued. ‘Colin Yately’s body was found in the Solent yesterday morning and your father was seen entering his apartment this morning. Do you know if he and your father were acquainted?’
‘Obviously they must have been,’ she said tartly. ‘What’s this man’s death got to do with my father? Where is he?’ Her eyes scanned the room as though he might be hiding somewhere. It was an instinctive gesture, Horton knew.
He said, ‘When did you last see your father?’
She swivelled hot angry eyes on him, but the fury was there to mask her concern.
‘Last Tuesday, why?’
‘Have you spoken to him since?’
‘No.’
‘He didn’t call you to say he wouldn’t be in?’ It was a silly question but he had a reason for asking it
