and similar houses opposite.
Loman surveyed the room as though, Horton thought, he was memorizing it for the last time. ‘Ellie was very tidy. She was no trouble, not as a baby or a teenager, a lovely girl. I’m sorry.’
They let him go. Some moments later they heard him being sick in the bathroom. Somerfield made to go to him but Horton prevented her. ‘Leave him.’
‘Poor man.’
Horton agreed and he’d very much like to catch the bastard who had put him through such heartache. Briskly he said, ‘I’ll take the books; you look through her clothes and jewellery.’
The bedroom was tidy and spotlessly clean. It was decorated in pale lemon with several photographs scattered about the surfaces: on the old-fashioned mantelpiece above an empty grate, on the dressing table and chest of drawers and some on the bookshelves. They were of Ellie as a child with her parents, as a young woman and with girl friends. Perhaps the two friends she had worked with in the Historic Dockyard. And there were some of her with her father fishing, on his boat. Horton picked up the coloured frame on the bookshelf and stared at a small fishing boat with a cuddy. He couldn’t see the name of the boat but he’d get that from Loman before they left and the details of whom he’d sold it to and when. Horton didn’t think it would be relevant to the inquiry, or that Loman had killed his daughter, but it was best to check.
He replaced the photograph and scanned the spines of the books. Ellie’s taste had been for romance novels and clearly she’d been a great fan of Mills amp; Boon. There were stacks of the thin paperbacks, which were well thumbed. He picked a few at random and fanned them, hoping but not expecting to find a note. A thorough search would have been made first time round. He wondered if someone had led her on romantically with the purpose of killing her. He thought of their other victim, Salacia, and what the two women might have had in common. He didn’t see Salacia as a reader of this kind of material, though there was no reason why she shouldn’t have been. He checked for inscriptions on the inside pages but there was nothing.
After a moment, Somerfield said, ‘Her clothes are fashionable for 2001; chain-store stuff: skirts and dresses, a couple of pairs of trousers and jeans. Her jewellery is cheap. No sign of birth pills or condoms.’
Was that mentioned in the case file? It was a good point and Somerfield had done well to think of it. He said as much. She looked pleased at the praise. He’d check with Trueman.
As Horton had expected their search yielded nothing, but it gave him more of a feel of who Ellie Loman had been. They found her father waiting for them in the kitchen with a blank expression on his haggard face. He tried to pull himself up when they entered but it was too much of an effort so he stayed seated.
Horton again sat opposite him. He’d leave him be in a moment. He said, ‘Can you remember exactly what your daughter said when she called up that morning?’
‘I’ve been over it again and again trying to see if there was anything in her words that could help find her but there wasn’t she just said, “I’m off now, Dad. Not sure when I’ll be home but don’t wait up for me.”’
‘So she expected to be out all day and into the night.’
‘I don’t know. I’ve thought since that she might have said it jokingly. But it was why I didn’t call the police until it was just after midnight. She wouldn’t stay out that late without telling us. Oh, I know she was a woman and not a teenager, she didn’t have to clock in, but she never liked us to worry. Ellie was very considerate. She wasn’t one for night clubs. She went to a couple of parties when she was a teenager, friends from school and then college, but she wasn’t interested once she started work.’
‘Did she go to work in the Historic Dockyard straight from college?’
‘Yes. She loved the job. Marie and I were surprised, because Ellie was quite shy and there she was dealing with the public. She did a course in tourism at college and she loved helping people. She liked history so the dockyard appealed to her. She started working there when she was nineteen.’
‘Did she have a weekend job while at college?’ He wondered if she could have met somewhere she’d known from there.
‘No.’
‘How did she sound that last day?’
‘Bright, cheerful. She had a laugh in her voice.’ Loman faltered. He swallowed hard before continuing. ‘She was always like that, though, she was rarely down.’
‘What used to get her down?’
‘Someone being cruel.’
‘To her?’
‘No, to anyone, people, animals. If she read about it or heard it on the news she’d get upset. She couldn’t believe that people could be like that. She always saw the good in people. I guess that must have been her downfall.’ A spark of anger lit his tormented eyes. ‘Some bastard spun her a yarn and she fell for it. Perhaps this Willard pestered her so much and when she finally said no he killed her and then hanged himself because he couldn’t live with what he’d done. May he rot in hell if there is one, which I doubt.’
There was a moment’s silence before Horton said, ‘Do you know if Ellie was on the Pill, or took any other contraceptive measures?’
‘I’ve no idea and I’d rather you didn’t ask Marie. It might upset her. She won’t understand why you want to know.’
‘That’s fine but if you could give us permission to access her medical records that would help.’
‘You have it. Do whatever you need to if it will help to catch the bastard who killed her. Do you know how she was killed?’
‘We’re still waiting test results, but from the initial examination it looks as though it was a blow to the head. There is a possibility that it was an accident and she fell into the sea but we’re treating her death as suspicious until we have evidence to say otherwise.’
Loman nodded.
‘We’ll also need to take a DNA sample from you.’ Horton guessed there might be one on file taken at the time of Ellie’s disappearance from something belonging to her but he’d get Somerfield to take one from Loman before she left. It might save time. ‘We’ll be able to confirm if the remains are Ellie’s by matching the DNA against yours. Just a few more questions, Mr Loman. What was her mood like before that Sunday?’
‘Same as usual,’ Loman answered wearily.
‘Exactly the same,’ pressed Horton. He didn’t want Loman to fabricate something but to really consider if there had been any change in his daughter.
Loman’s face creased with thought as he tried to remember. ‘She just seemed very happy. She was out quite a lot I remember the couple of weeks before she. . before then.’
‘In the evenings?’
‘Yes, but not very late. She came home from work later than normal, about nine o’clock or thereabouts. She said she’d been for a drink and a meal with friends, but she didn’t say who.’
And had anyone confirmed that, wondered Horton. ‘What about the weekends?’
‘When she wasn’t working she went shopping, spent time in her room, nothing different.’
Loman looked in danger of collapse.
Horton wasn’t sure how Loman was going to take the next question but he had to ask it. ‘Can you give us the date when you sold your boat and the buyer’s contact details?’
But Loman was prevented from answering by the appearance of his wife in the doorway. ‘Oh, we’ve got company. Why are the police here, dear?’
‘We’re just going,’ Horton said hastily, forcing a smile. He felt like a heel running away.
Loman pulled himself together with a quick glance at his wife he said, ‘I’ll just show Inspector Horton out.’ He left his wife to PC Somerfield.
At the door Horton said, ‘Would you like Somerfield to stay with you for a while? She can call someone to help you. Your doctor perhaps?’
‘No. I’d rather you use all the resources you have to make sure that it is Ellie you’ve found and to discover why she died and who killed her.’
‘We’ll allocate a police liaison officer to keep you fully informed, Mr Loman, and to help protect you from the press. Sooner or later they’ll get on to it, I’m afraid. Meanwhile if you could give Somerfield the details about your boat that would be helpful.’
Loman didn’t ask why he wanted it. Horton quickly pressed on, ‘If there is anything you recall, anything that
