‘When aren’t you? Need any help with that?’ Cantelli gestured at Horton’s littered desk. ‘And I heard what Bliss said.’
‘No. Check if Walters has made any headway on those burglaries and organize extra patrols for the area for the next couple of nights, we might catch them at it. We’ll also need additional officers at Oyster Quays for this charity bash on Friday.’
Horton knuckled down to finishing the reports and clearing his desk of some of the outstanding matters. He was surprised to find it was almost six o’clock when Cantelli knocked to say he was heading home and that Walters had already left. Horton rose and glanced out of his window. Bliss’s car was still there. He’d intended catching the six thirty ferry and if he didn’t leave now he’d miss it. By the time she saw or heard his Harley leave — and the witch had ears like a bat — then he’d be long gone. He emailed the reports Bliss had demanded and shut down his computer. Plucking his leather jacket from the coat stand, he was about to leave when his phone rang.
He cursed. It was bound to be either Bliss checking up on him or the front desk with a report of a crime he’d have to deal with. He should let it ring but with a weary sigh he lifted the receiver.
‘Is that Andy Horton?’ asked a female voice as far removed from Lorraine Bliss’s harsh one as the equator was from the Antarctic.
‘Speaking,’ he answered cautiously, trying to recognize the voice and failing.
‘It’s Avril Glenn. Russell Glenn’s wife, the owner of the yacht at Oyster Quays,’ she added when he didn’t answer.
Horton started, surprised. Why the hell was she phoning him? Then his heart sank, what had that lumbering detective Walters done now? This had to be a complaint. Then he registered her tone. It hadn’t been angry, rather the opposite, quite friendly.
‘You knew me better as Avril Bowyers,’ she said with a smile in her voice before quickly adding more hesitantly, ‘or perhaps you don’t remember me. It was fifteen years ago.’
Avril Bowyers! My God! Their four month affair flashed before his eyes and stirred his loins. It had been before he’d met Catherine. His head reeled with memories of her shapely figure, those seemingly endless legs, her stunning blonde looks and that wicked smile that had matched her sense of humour, not to mention her passion. And now she was Mrs Russell Glenn and living on that ruddy great floating gin palace. What did he say? Haven’t you done well? How are you? But he didn’t need to say anything because she continued, ‘Look, I know this is probably a shock and a cheek of me calling you out of the blue, but I wondered if you could meet me at Oyster Quays in the bar opposite the pontoon.’
‘When?’ he asked, his heart racing.
‘Now, unless you’re busy.’
He thought about that six thirty sailing to the Isle of Wight and Yately’s apartment. He was convinced that Colin Yately was lying stone-cold dead in the mortuary. So did it matter if he delayed visiting the man’s apartment for twelve hours?
He said, ‘I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’
FOUR
Horton located her in the window seat overlooking the harbour. It had stopped raining and the wind had dropped, ushering in a calm, pleasant spring evening that had the strollers and shoppers out in force on the boardwalk. Looking at Avril Glenn, it wasn’t difficult for Horton to rekindle those old feelings of lust and longing, not that they had needed much rekindling; his timber was so dry it could have been lit with half a matchstick, he thought, as she locked eyes with him and smiled. Heading towards her he knew that every male in the bar was thinking the same lustful thoughts as him. But she was married and that was enough to make a grown man cry.
‘Hello, Andy.’
She smiled and it was all he could do not to grin back like some idiot schoolboy. The blood was pounding in his ears and his heart was racing as though he’d just run the London marathon, twice. The blue eyes were as beautiful and bright as he remembered and the mouth as enticing as ever. Her shoulder length blonde hair was more expertly styled and highlighted than he recalled, and her make-up more subtle. Her figure though was as shapely as he remembered, only now it was clad expensively in tight jeans and a long cashmere cardigan over a tight-fitting T-shirt, none of which had come from any department store. There were more lines around her eyes and mouth but who was counting?
‘I don’t remember the leathers,’ she said in the flirtatious voice he recalled from the past. It had sent a thrill through him then, and it was no different now.
‘I didn’t have the Harley then.’ Fifteen years ago he’d been a sergeant. That was no reason not to have a Harley, but he’d been in a rare car phase, which had lasted several years of his marriage to Catherine, until he’d seen the light and annoyed Catherine by selling his car and purchasing the Harley. Catherine had never liked motorbikes and had refused to go on it. She’d also forbidden him to take Emma on it. An order he hoped to disobey in the years ahead.
‘You’re looking good,’ he said.
‘Only good!’
‘Great then.’ He smiled and let his eyes travel to her left hand. The diamond of her engagement ring was big enough to attract a short-sighted thug from fifty yards. And her diamond and ruby encrusted watch would keep Portsmouth Council in funds for a year.
‘It’s OK, I’ve got protection,’ she said, reading his thoughts.
Horton followed her glance to the adjoining table where he saw the man with broad shoulders he’d seen on the deck of the superyacht earlier, and whom Walters had nicknamed Schwarzenegger. How could he have missed those massive shoulders, matching muscles and close-cropped blond hair? Easy: he’d been ogling Avril Glenn. Wearing a black leather bomber jacket over a dark T-shirt and sipping mineral water, Lloyd looked as out of place as a miner at a lighting convention.
‘Who’s protecting your husband?’
‘His security system.’
‘Then I hope all his alarms go off at once.’ She smiled as Horton added, ‘Will your chaperone let me buy you a drink?’
‘His name’s Lloyd, that’s his first name. Lloyd Durham, as in the city, but he’s from Reading.’
‘Not half so nice, though generally warmer.’ And Horton was wishing Lloyd was at either place right now, or on that small cruise liner on the pontoon.
‘Vodka and tonic, please. You don’t have to buy Lloyd a drink.’
Good, because he wasn’t offering. ‘Won’t Mr Glenn mind you being here?’ he asked. He was fishing and she knew he was.
‘Russell is working.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Trying to buy Portsmouth Football Club.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘Yes, though I have been doing my best to persuade him. It might work yet.’
And with Avril doing the persuading, Horton wondered how Glenn could possibly refuse.
Horton went to the bar, nodding at Lloyd on his way and getting a nod in return. While he waited to be served he staved off his disappointment at not seeing Avril alone by wondering about Lloyd’s background. Ex-job? Walters would have said if he were, though knowing Walters he probably hadn’t asked. Ex-services perhaps, he looked fit enough for the marines or commandos. At least Glenn took protecting his wife seriously. Too seriously, he wondered briefly? No. Not if she went around wearing that kind of jewellery. And that made him even more concerned about Friday evening’s reception. If Avril touted that stuff as everyday wear then what the devil would be on show on Friday night?
He returned with her vodka and tonic and a Diet Coke for himself. Taking the glass in her beautifully manicured hand, she managed to brush her fingers against his. His heart stalled and for a moment he wondered if it
