‘I’d be only too glad to help with Project Neptune,’ Stanley said, settling himself opposite. ‘It would give me a reason for peering through the binoculars without being accused of being a peeping Tom. The things people get up to you’d be surprised, or rather you would if you weren’t a copper.’ He put his coffee on a coaster strategically positioned on the table between them and eyed Horton curiously. ‘But that’s not why you’re here. You said on the phone that you’d like to talk to me about a missing person case from 1978. You mean Jennifer Horton, don’t you?’
Horton’s heart jolted at the sound of his mother’s name. He so seldom heard it spoken because only a handful of people knew about her and the fact she’d abandoned him when he was ten. Catherine, his estranged wife, was one, along with Sergeant Cantelli who was the closest friend he had in a lifetime spent shutting people out for fear of being hurt. Detective Superintendent Steve Uckfield, now head of the Major Crime Unit, and once a close friend was another. Their relationship had been tested over the last year when Uckfield had believed him capable of both rape and murder, the former of which had cost Horton his marriage despite him being exonerated and had wrecked his chances of raising his young daughter, Emma, who had now been banished to a boarding school by Catherine. Admittedly it was a good one and she’d wanted to go. He’d also agreed, but he couldn’t help feeling anxious that she might be experiencing the same loneliness he had felt at his mother’s desertion.
‘You’re the little boy she left behind,’ Stanley said, his sharp grey eyes studying Horton carefully.
It hadn’t been difficult for Stanley to put two and two together. Horton steeled himself. ‘Do you remember the case, sir?’ he asked evenly, pushing away the painful memories of his lonely and angry childhood, trying to sound as if he didn’t care. He was also trying not to raise his hopes that Stanley might be able to tell him something that would help him discover what had happened to Jennifer. When Stanley remained silent, Horton prompted, ‘You filed the missing person’s report and spoke to Jennifer’s neighbour, Mrs Cobden, at Jensen House. Jennifer was last seen leaving the flat at about one o’clock on the thirtieth of November 1978 wearing her best clothes and make-up, and was in good spirits. No one knows what happened to her next or where she was going, only that she didn’t turn up for work that evening at the casino. I wondered if there was anything that stuck in your mind, anything different or unusual that might help me to trace her movements.’
Horton’s mind flashed back. It hadn’t been the first time he’d been left alone at night. Often he’d come home from school, open the letterbox and pull out a piece of string with the key attached on the end, get himself a drink from the fridge and a chunk of bread and jam, sit in front of the television and go to bed alone. But he’d always wake up to find his mother there. Except on the first of December she hadn’t been. He felt the ache in the pit of his stomach as the memory haunted him.
‘It was a long time ago,’ Stanley said frowning.
But Horton wasn’t going to accept that. ‘Can you recall anything being mentioned about Jennifer’s parents? Did anyone question them?’ Horton knew the answer but he wanted to see just how much Stanley had forgotten.
‘They were dead.’
Horton saw a slight narrowing of Stanley’s eyes. The ex-copper knew Horton was testing him. Maybe Stanley could have gone higher in the ranks but perhaps, like Cantelli, he’d been happy to stay a sergeant. From what Horton had read about him, Stanley had also been brave and had earned himself the rare award of the Queen’s Gallantry Medal in 1980 when he and another officer had gone in pursuit of armed robbers and had come under intense fire.
He said, ‘Do you know how Jennifer’s parents died and when?’
‘No, but you can easily check that yourself, if you haven’t already done so.’
Horton hadn’t. He didn’t have their death certificates but he could obtain copies. And he no longer had a copy of his mother’s birth certificate, which, along with the only photograph he’d had of her, had gone up in flames when his previous yacht,
He said, ‘Why weren’t her friends questioned?’
‘I spoke to the woman next door, and Jennifer’s boss, George Warner. He owned a string of amusement arcades, nightclubs and the casino at Southsea where Jennifer worked. He said she was a bubbly, good-looking woman and had started working for him early in 1977.’
And that tied with what Horton already knew.
Stanley frowned in recollection of the case. ‘There was another woman I seem to remember who said that Jennifer was seeing a man.’
‘Irene Ebury. She’s dead.’ Horton had been called to an investigation in a nursing home in January and had discovered that Irene Ebury had been a resident there, and that her belongings had mysteriously gone missing. It had brought him into contact with Detective Chief Superintendent Sawyer, Head of the Intelligence Directorate, and the knowledge that Sawyer was interested in Jennifer’s disappearance because he believed she could have been linked to a master criminal the Intelligence Directorate called Zeus. Was that the man Jennifer had run away with? Sawyer seemed to think so and he wanted to enlist Horton’s help in finding him. But Horton had declined for fear of putting Emma’s life in danger, though now that Emma was at Northover School Horton hoped she was safe from nutters and villains like this Zeus was reputed to be. By visiting Stanley, Horton knew he had publicly declared his interest in finding his mother and he wondered how long it would take for the lean, silver-haired chief superintendent to approach him. Not long was his guess.
He brought his mind back to George Warner and the casino where his mother had worked. The casino was now flats and George Warner and his empire long since gone. Trying to track down and speak to anyone who might have worked there and who would remember Jennifer, or know anything about this man she might have associated with, would take for ever and probably result in zilch. It was a dead end.
Stanley said, ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but there’s not much I can tell you, and it’s all on file. No one hinted at foul play.’
‘Did you keep any of your notebooks where you might have jotted down something?’
‘No.’
Horton wasn’t sure if he believed him. It sounded like the truth and Stanley maintained eye contact, but then he had been a copper. ‘What was the word on the street, the gossip about her and her disappearance? There must have been some.’ Horton could hear the desperation in his voice and hated himself for it. When Stanley looked uncomfortable Horton wished he hadn’t asked. He braced himself to hear what others had already told him over the years.
‘There wasn’t much. She probably got bored with being trapped inside a poky flat with a kid and wanted a good time, but that was only rumour.’
‘What do
‘It could have been true.’
Horton eyed the former policeman closely and saw only his concerned expression, and yet he felt there was something more. Perhaps Stanley was being economical with the truth to spare his feelings. Horton knew there had been two men in his mother’s life in 1977 and that neither of them had been upstanding citizens, in fact, quite the opposite; villains to the core, and both were now dead. Jennifer’s track record of choosing lovers wasn’t exactly healthy, which made Horton consider briefly who his father was. But that was a road he certainly didn’t want to travel down.
He said, ‘Do you know what happened to her belongings?’
But Stanley shook his head.
‘You went into the flat I take it?’
Horton thought Stanley looked uneasy. ‘No. I spoke to the neighbour, to George Warner and a couple of his staff, and that was it.’
Horton wasn’t convinced. Sensing this Stanley quickly added, ‘I was a PC, told to talk to anyone who knew Jennifer Horton, and they were the only people I came up with. She didn’t seem to have any friends outside work.’
