A Killing Coast

‘What is it?’

Horton quickly brought him up to speed with the interview at the solicitor’s office and what Cantelli had found in the files. He said nothing about his jaunt to Hazleton’s house, and his reconnaissance of the coastline there.

‘You don’t mean we have to waste time sifting through that!’ cried Dennings incredulously. ‘Just because Lisle wanted to check up on some old paperwork.’

Horton shrugged. ‘Please yourself. It’s your investigation.’ Horton turned to leave, prompting Dennings to say, ‘Where are you going?’

‘Back to Portsmouth.’

‘There’s work to be done here.’

‘Not by me and Sergeant Cantelli, there isn’t. We were asked to interview Wallingford and Chandler and we did, with that result.’ Horton jerked his head at the box.

Dennings made to reply but his phone rang. He glared at it as though he could silence it by sheer willpower but it refused to obey him. As he grabbed it Marsden entered the room followed by two uniformed officers, one of whom was Claire Skinner. Horton returned her smile as he heard Dennings’ end of the conversation. ‘Look, I can’t get there now, I’m busy.’ There was a moment’s silence while the person at the other end replied. Then Dennings said, ‘Tell me what you’ve got. . I don’t want a report; I want you to tell me now how Hazleton died. . I know it’s complex, it’s a murder case,’ Dennings sneered. Horton silently winced. It didn’t need many guesses to know who the caller was. It had to be Dr Clayton, and Horton didn’t think she was going to be very pleased with the DI’s attitude. Dennings’ mobile rang. He snatched it up from his desk and, seeing who it was, said abruptly into his landline, ‘Email me the key points,’ before he rang off and turned his attention to his mobile.

Horton slowly shook his head and made to leave as he heard Dennings say, ‘No, Guv. . Yes. . It’s been mad here. . I. . Yes, she says she’s finished. I can’t. . Yes he’s here. Horton,’ Dennings called out, then into his mobile. ‘OK. . but. . Yes, Guv.’ To Horton he growled, ‘You’re to go to the mortuary. The Super’s orders.’

‘Hope he squares it with my boss, then.’

Horton didn’t wait to hear Dennings’ reply. He was secretly pleased with the way it had played out, but he wasn’t going to admit that to Dennings. He noted that Cantelli had already beaten a hasty retreat. Horton knew why. Even the smell of the mortuary was better than being stuck in an overheated room with a bad-tempered DI, and a cacophony of phones that would need to be politely answered.

Outside, Cantelli said, ‘I almost feel sorry for Dennings.’

Horton threw him the car keys and an astonished look.

‘I said almost. I wouldn’t have eaten those sandwiches if I’d known where we were going.’

‘You could go back and volunteer to man the phones.’

‘Think I’ll risk throwing up.’

And Dr Clayton’s bad temper, thought Horton. But hopefully she’d have recovered her good humour by the time they arrived.

SIXTEEN

‘I’m glad it’s you,’ Gaye said, ‘because I might not have been responsible for my actions if I’d come face to face with that oaf who’s supposed to be a detective. Surgery with a sharp knife on some vital parts might have been called for. Want to see the victim?’

‘Might as well, now we’re here,’ Horton answered, hoping the body would look better than when he’d last seen it. It didn’t. In fact, it looked marginally worse, with great ugly stitches across its forehead and up its chest where the mortuary attendant had sewn it back together again after Dr Clayton’s rummaging around inside. Horton tried to equate the body on the slab with the little man he’d seen in the observatory and couldn’t.

The skin was white and smelt just as awful as when the boot of the car had been opened and the gruesome sight exposed, but he again noted that the sea life hadn’t eaten much into the flesh, the result of being in the boot and not in the sea for long.

Dr Clayton said, ‘If you’ve seen enough I suggest we discuss it in more comfortable surroundings, for you that is.’

With relief, Horton and Cantelli followed her into a room off the main mortuary, where Gaye nodded them towards an antibacterial hand wash, while she headed for a sink. ‘Have you traced the next of kin?’ she asked, wiping her wet hands on a paper towel before tossing it in a bin.

‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone,’ Horton answered, eyeing her casually dressed slender figure and finding himself comparing it with Avril’s more shapely and more expensively dressed one. Annoyed with letting lustful thoughts intrude amid two horrific murders, he followed Gaye Clayton into the cubbyhole of an office, where she took the seat behind the desk and gestured them into the two opposite. Sitting back she eyed them keenly and crossed her jean-clad legs.

‘It’s difficult to give you an accurate time of death but in my opinion he was killed late Tuesday night or possibly in the early hours of Wednesday morning. I’d say between eight p.m. and one a.m.’

Which tallied with Hazleton’s call to him on Tuesday evening at twenty-one thirty-five. ‘Was he alive when he was put in the car?’ he asked.

‘The initial evidence suggests not.’

‘Thank God for that,’ Horton replied with feeling.

Gaye added, ‘There is evidence of silt and sea in his mouth, and I need to fully analyse the contents of the stomach to see if it contains large quantities of water and debris, but it’s my belief he died from a severe trauma to the cranium. There’s been heavy internal bleeding and he was struck more than once. In fact, three times, and violently, with something heavy and quite narrow, about two inches in diameter. I can’t say what though. That, along with the fact it’s doubtful he’d fall into the boot of the car, slam it shut and drive it into the sea makes it homicide.’

‘There would have been blood then?’

‘Yes, on the killer and in the location where he was struck.’

And no blood had been found in Hazleton’s house or on the driveway. He could have been killed in the garden but the officer-in-charge of the search hadn’t found any bloodstained weapon while Horton had been there, and if he had after Horton had left then Dennings would have known about it. It was possible that the killer had disposed of the weapon and the rain had washed away traces of blood. Either that or Hazleton could have been killed in one of the bays. Only it had to be a bay with access to a road for the body to have been placed in the car, and Horton hadn’t seen any road leading back from the shore on his exploratory expedition. He hadn’t seen any tyre tracks either. He supposed that Hazleton’s body could have been transported to the Morris Minor, which was some distance away, in something such as a wheelbarrow, but lifting and pushing a lifeless form would take some strength.

‘The forensic examination of the victim’s clothes might help you,’ Gaye said. ‘You might be able to identify seeds, soil or gravel on them which match with the locale. Was there any forensic on the dress found on Yately that could give you an idea of where he might have been killed?’

‘Some sand and gravel but it’ll take at least a couple of days before we get the full results of the analysis. And so far we’ve found no evidence to suggest the dress belonged to either the late Mrs Lisle or Yately’s former wife.’

‘It’s of excellent quality, and the stitching and design indicate it wasn’t bought from any chain store. I’ve had another look at the notes we made of it at the time Tom removed it. I’d say it belonged to a woman the equivalent of UK dress size fourteen, and judging by its length a woman who was about five feet six inches tall.’

And from what Horton remembered of the photographs he’d seen on the mantelpiece in the Lisle household, and the height given for Arthur Lisle, it didn’t sound as though the dress belonged to Abigail Lisle. She was a good deal shorter than her husband, who’d been described as being five-eleven, and Lisle’s GP had confirmed that. They’d check Abigail’s height of course.

Gaye added, ‘As you know there was a faded label on the dress and I managed to enhance a photograph of it. It’s difficult to make it out completely but I did get some letters.’