Horton made for the sea. It was the only place where he could really think straight. At Old Portsmouth he climbed the ancient walls until he was staring over the battlements across the narrow harbour entrance. There was a stiff moist breeze. He hoped it might help to clear his addled brain. Below him, in the dark, the sea looked like black treacle slurping on to the pebbled beach. With the lights of Gosport to his right, he put himself in Cantelli's shoes. Where the hell had he gone? What was he up to?
His mobile rang. At last. It must be Cantelli. But it wasn't.
'Peter Ebury's blood test,' Dr Clayton announced. 'I found traces of heroin and I can tell you quite categorically that there were no signs in the autopsy of him taking or injecting heroin or any other substance, which means he must have taken it orally.'
Or someone pushed it in his mouth, Horton thought, with a shudder and a rush of adrenalin as he recalled the fight Ebury had had with the prisoner, Ludlow.
'It wouldn't have been a large quantity,' Gaye continued, 'but if it was raw it would have affected the respiratory system enough to kill him, which only a blood analysis will reveal.'
And Horton guessed that the Intelligence Directorate and the prison authorities had been hoping to keep that quiet. No wonder Geoff Welton, the governor, had looked so ill. He must have known that Peter Ebury's death was not a natural one, and heroin smuggling inside a prison was the end of the line as far as his career went.
'Has Cantelli contacted you?'
'No.' She sounded surprised.
'You've not told him or anyone else this?' he asked keenly.
'No. Why? What's wrong? Is Cantelli OK?'
He heard the concern in her voice. 'I hope so,' he said anxiously, but he didn't know.
He rang off promising to keep her posted and then called Trueman.
'Phone the prison and ask if Cantelli's been there, or is still there. Call me back.'
Trueman obeyed without a murmur, as Horton knew he would. While he waited, the anxious knot in his gut tightened. He made his way back to the Harley, his mind jumping about like a cartload of mischievous monkeys. Peter Ebury had been murdered inside prison. So had Irene also been killed? He wouldn't mind betting so, though proving it would be nigh on impossible. The question was why kill them? And had Cantelli found the key to that secret? Had Irene said something at the time of her son's arrest or at the trial that had alerted Cantelli? But Cantelli hadn't recalled her even though he had a memory like an elephant. Or had Peter Ebury said something about his mother back then that, when Cantelli checked his notebooks, still puzzled him?
His phone rang as he reached the Harley and he snatched it up before it could ring twice.
'Cantelli was at the prison,' Trueman said. 'He spoke to Anston, the deputy governor, and Ludlow, the prisoner who attacked Peter Ebury and left just over an hour ago.'
'Did he say where he was going?'
'No.'
Horton cursed. 'Did Anston say what Cantelli wanted?'
'Only that Cantelli knew that the fight had something to do with Ebury's mother. But whatever it was, Ludlow was too scared to confirm or deny it.'
Horton had been half right. And that meant there was only one other place Cantelli could be — the Rest Haven Nursing Home.
He headed along the seafront with Steven Kingsway's words, spoken earlier that morning, ringing in his ears: they all live in the past. And it was Irene's past that was the key to unlocking her and her son's deaths. Where had she been and what had she been doing from 1963 to 1973 when she had returned to Portsmouth pregnant with Peter? Could Peter Ebury have been fathered by someone wanted by the police? Had Irene been paid off when she became pregnant or had she been running scared when she returned to Portsmouth in 1973? If so she'd had ample time to betray someone powerful, so if his theory was correct, Peter's father hadn't known about his son's existence until quite recently. Irene had kept that secret safe for many years until someone in the Rest Haven had heard her talking about it and this time had believed her. Could that someone have been Daniel Collins? If so, that meant their wreck theory was shot to pieces, or at least as far as Daniel Collins's death was concerned. And that meant that Farnsworth could have been killed by Gary Manners for revenge or Perry Jackson because he was sick of his co presenter.
He pulled up outside the Rest Haven and scanned the street. If Cantelli was here then where was his car? Perhaps he'd only just missed him, he thought hopefully, pressing the bell. Cantelli could already be heading for home.
He was shown into the manager's room, where he was surprised to see Marion Keynes. Her face registered shock before she frowned with displeasure and irritation.
'Feeling better?' he said with heavy sarcasm.
'What do you want?'
Information, he thought, but asked, 'Has Sergeant Cantelli been here?'
'No.'
She looked as though she was telling the truth, and she had no reason to lie. His concern deepened. Perhaps Cantelli had forgotten to switch on his mobile phone. He'd try him again at home after he'd got what he wanted here. Trying hard to subdue his worries about Cantelli and not quite succeeding, he said, 'Irene Ebury — what did she talk about?'
Keynes looked surprised and irritated. 'I told you it was just ramblings.'
'Find someone who knows,' he said sharply. 'And preferably someone who has worked here since Irene was admitted.'
'You can't be serious.' She obviously saw that he was because she huffed for a while, then finally heaved herself up. Squeezing past him, she snarled, 'I'll fetch Cheryl.'
While he waited, Horton took the opportunity to have a quick poke around the office. There was little of any importance on the desk. He tried the filing cabinet. It should have been locked, but it wasn't. He slid open the drawer and flicked through the folders until he came to 'E'. Irene's file had gone. Horton wasn't really surprised. Either Angela Northwood, the daytime manager, had already archived it, or Lee or one of her colleagues, had got hold of it.
He straightened up at the sound of footsteps, and not having time to return to his seat, he took the one Marion Keynes had vacated. Cheryl breezed in.
'You wanted to see me,' she said, smiling at him.
He liked her immediately. There was warmth in her sparkling brown eyes and a love of life in the laughter lines on her middle-aged face. He waved her into the seat opposite.
'Tell me everything you can about Irene Ebury.'
She smiled sadly for a moment and looked reflective. Horton could see it was no act. He waited for her to ask why he wanted to know, but she didn't.
'I remember when she first came. Poor Irene. She didn't want to be here. She was aggressive and abusive and very adamant that there was nothing wrong with her. She was afraid. I could see that immediately. And who wouldn't be? She was ill and alone.'
Cheryl's words pulled him up with a guilty jolt. He cursed himself for not having spoken to her before. But he had seen Irene as a puzzle to be solved, a key to his mother's disappearance, an old woman with dementia. He hadn't seen the person, the woman, the real Irene Ebury and that was his downfall. In those few sentences uttered by Cheryl, and by her sympathetic expression, Irene had suddenly become a living, breathing person. He knew it was why he'd had so much trouble with this case. Like many before him, he had dismissed the residents as not 'real' people, God help him. He thought of Mrs Kingsway and her claims of an intruder. Something had sparked that idea in her mind. It must have been based on the truth, but was that in the past or more recent?
'I wouldn't have said that Irene was in an advanced state of vascular dementia then,' Cheryl continued. 'And she could have lived with someone, or even on her own with care, for a while, but she would have deteriorated within a year or so and she certainly did, especially when her son was refused his appeal. She had very lucid moments, when she would tell me that Peter was innocent. Oh, she admitted he'd committed crimes in the past, but she didn't believe he could have killed that security guard. She was convinced he would be released. When he wasn't, she went downhill quite quickly. It was as if what little light there was inside her, which her dementia hadn't already extinguished, finally went out. Then she had a couple of small strokes.'
Horton assimilated what she was saying. On what grounds had Peter Ebury appealed? He'd been caught red-handed.
He said, 'I read somewhere that dementia patients often regress to a part of their past life. Not only in speech but also often in behaviour. How did Irene behave?'
Cheryl smiled. 'She was back at the catwalk, pretending to be a model.'
'She was Miss Southsea in 1957.'
'So she said. I think she must also have worked in a nightclub or casino, because she always wanted to serve the drinks and she loved her cards. She would get quite agitated if we wouldn't give her a pack, she kept shuffling them.'
'Did she ever mention anyone from her past?'
'Just the famous people she'd met.'
Which could have been true, Horton thought, if she had worked in a club in London. 'Anyone in particular?'
'Frank Sinatra.'
Horton smiled with Cheryl. Marion Keynes had also mentioned him. He'd rule that out. 'Do you think you could write down the names for me, as and when you remember them? Any names that you can recall, whether famous or not.'
'DC Lee has already asked me to do that.'
He hid his surprise and cursed silently. 'When?'
'Yesterday.'
So she must have returned here last night because Cheryl wouldn't have been on duty until after six thirty.
He said, 'I'd like you to give the list to me.' But you're on holiday, said his small voice. He ignored it.
'Did anyone visit Irene over the years?'
'No.'
'Did you see her belongings?'
Cheryl looked confused at the question. Horton elaborated. 'Letters, photographs?'
'Oh. Yes. She had a couple of photographs of her son when he was a little boy. He was very good-looking. Fair, with bright blue eyes.'
'Any others?'
Cheryl thought hard. 'It's years since I've seen them, but, yes, there were others. Irene was in a swimsuit on holiday abroad.'
'How do you know it was abroad?'
'Well, it didn't look like Bognor.' She smiled. 'The sea was too blue. Irene must have been in her early thirties. She was beside a swimming pool at a villa and there were a number of people in the picture, but I can't remember what they looked like. Apart from that I don't remember seeing any other photos and there were no letters.'
The door opened and Marion Keynes glowered at him. 'I need Cheryl to help get our residents to bed. Mrs Kingsway's being difficult again.'
'Does she still think she saw an intruder in her bedroom?' Horton addressed Cheryl.
'I'm afraid so. It's why she doesn't want to go to bed. She's frightened that he'll come back and kill her.'
'There was no intruder,' Marion Keynes declared hotly.
Horton said, 'Then why say it?' He turned to Cheryl. 'She couldn't have seen Dr Eastwood because I believe you took Mrs Kingsway from the room before he arrived.'
'Yes. And she was sound asleep when Marion called me into the room.'
He rose, feeling frustrated. He was on the Intelligence Directorate's track, but how far behind them he didn't know. And he'd got no nearer to finding Cantelli.
'I'll show you out,' Cheryl said.
In the corridor Horton could hear an old lady protesting very loudly and forcefully and another person trying to reassure her without success.
'Mrs Kingsway,' Cheryl explained, with an anxious glance at Horton before hurrying to the aid of her colleague, leaving Horton to follow her into the residents' lounge.
Mrs Kingsway was a small and very frail elderly lady and clearly distressed. She was waving her arms about and shouting. Horton couldn't make out what she was saying. She wouldn't let Cheryl or the slight, fair-haired girl in her late twenties touch her. The television was blaring out, ironically he noticed, with a repeat of the Diving in Devon series and there was Nicholas Farnsworth's handsome face glistening with seawater, whilst behind him was the squat, sturdy and studious Jackson.
'It's her favourite programme,' Cheryl tossed over her shoulder at Horton. 'She can't bear it if it's not on the television. We've got a recording of it which we play, but we can't have it on twenty-four hours a day. Now, Marjorie, you're quite safe. No one's going to hurt you.'
Cheryl gently took her arm, but Marjorie Kingsway pulled away from her and at the same time managed to slip out of the sleeve of her cardigan.
Horton stared at an ugly purple stain on the top of Mrs Kingsway's frail arm. If he wasn't mistaken, then it was a bruise.
Following his gaze, Cheryl said, 'Elderly people's skin is very fragile. Mrs Kingsway's had quite a few falls lately.'
But a fall doesn't look like that, thought Horton, staring at what had clearly been inflicted by a hand. He could see where a thumb had pressed into the vulnerable paper thin skin. He wouldn't mind betting she had a matching one on the other arm. It looked as though someone had grabbed her forcibly. Was it the intruder she had told her son about or Marion Keynes perhaps? Maybe Angela Northwood? But it could be any member of staff, though he felt sure it hadn't been Cheryl.
Mrs Kingsway glanced at Horton, then sat down heavily on one of the upright chairs placed around the wall and stared at the television screen.
He asked the other care assistant to leave them for a moment, which she did with a curious backward glance. Turning to Cheryl, Horton said, 'I want you to call a doctor to examine her, but not Dr Eastwood.'
'You can't think any of us have harmed her?' Cheryl cried, horrified.
'Someone has.'
Cheryl looked worried. 'She's got a bruise on the other arm in the same place.'
As he'd guessed. 'Why didn't you report it?'
'I did, to the agency nurse, when I came on duty Monday night. I assumed she'd left a note or told Angela in the morning.'
'The bruises weren't there Sunday night?'
'No.'
And Marion Keynes was off sick then, so she couldn't be responsible for them. It could be this agency nurse, he supposed, or had the bruises been inflicted during Monday? He recalled Angela Northwood's harassed expression, but somehow he couldn't see her forcibly grabbing the old lady.
His phone rang. Hoping and praying it was Cantelli, he stepped into the hall to answer it. Again he was disappointed. It was Chalky White.
'Don't know if this is important, Mr Horton, but you said you wanted to know if Ian Keynes or his misses were passing off stuff.'
'What have you got?' Horton snapped impatiently.
'Ian Keynes was talking to some bloke in the gents' toilet of the Black Swan about an hour ago. I was in one of the traps and heard them. I peered over the top of the door, nearly broke my bleeding neck getting down off the pan.'
'For heaven's sake get on with it.'
'Keynes gave this bloke a piece of paper and said, "Here's what you want. Take that to any chemist and you'll get your tablets." This bloke gave him a wodge of money, couldn't see how much, but it looked like a bloody expensive prescription to me. Cheaper to get it on the NHS I would have thought.'
'Not the tablets he wanted I expect,' Horton said, ringing off after telling Chalky White he'd done his bit.
Certain pieces of the puzzle were finally dropping into place: Dr Eastwood's hostility when he and Cantelli had interviewed him in his consulting room; that photograph on Marion Keynes' mantelpiece of Ian Keynes in diving gear; Eastwood's eagerness to respond to an out of hours call taken on his mobile phone so early in the morning — and it wasn't out of duty to his patients.
Returning to Cheryl, he found Mrs Kingsway flinging her arms about.
'She thinks she's swimming,' Cheryl explained. 'She says she used to have a lovely big house in the country, in Surrey, with a swimming pool, but I don't think it's true, after all she wouldn't have been moved here by social services if she had had that much money. And her son's never mentioned it or so the daytime staff have told me. He's worked abroad for years. We didn't even know he existed until early December when he showed up here. I guess they didn't get on. Now he visits her regularly. Shame it's too late for her to recognize him. She does give him a hard time. She thinks more of that diver on the television than she does her poor son.'
Cheryl gazed sadly at the programme where Farnsworth's handsome smiling face filled the screen.
Several thoughts flashed through Horton's mind, but one shone brighter than the others. God, what an idiot he'd been! The outraged son, the alleged intruder story, the bruises on the old lady's arms…No one had spoken to Mrs Kingsway to get her version of the intruder story and even if they had done, she could have claimed that her son was the intruder because in her mind he was a stranger.
What kind of man could hurt his mother like that? Horton wondered. An evil bastard, came the answer, and one angry and frustrated because of his mother's continual rejection. Those bruises clearly weren't the first if Cheryl was to be believed, and he had no reason to doubt her. He hurried down the corridor to Marion Keynes' office.
'I thought you'd gone.' She looked up, annoyed.
'I want to see Mrs Kingsway's personal file, now,' he snapped.
'It's confidential.'
He leant over the desk, thrusting his face close to hers, and in a low voice said, 'A doctor will be here soon to examine the bruises on Mrs Kingsway's arms and unless you give me her file, I will arrest you for assault.'
'That's a lie. You can't do that!'
He held her gaze. Her indignation was genuine. There was, however, the matter of the prescriptions and Dr Eastwood.
'Then let's try something that's closer to the truth,' he said, easing back and sitting down opposite her. 'Whose idea was it to kill Daniel Collins, yours or your husband's?'
'You're mad!'
She didn't look frightened and neither did she look smug, simply amazed.
Undeterred he continued. 'Daniel discovered that you and Dr Eastwood are working a prescription scam. Eastwood writes false prescriptions using the names of the residents, which you or your husband then sell. Did you get Eastwood to willingly participate or have you got something on him?'
Marion Keynes glared at him, but he detected a slight shift in her body language that told him he was right.
'Perhaps he just wanted to supplement his income. After all doctors aren't that well paid,' he continued with heavy sarcasm. 'Or had Dr Eastwood made a mistake somewhere along the line, or eased a difficult or troublesome patient to his or her death and you discovered it. In return for your silence and understanding you forced him to co-operate?'
Alarm and fear crossed her flabby face. At last he'd got to the truth. So that was how it had started. Christ, what a pair! If Cantelli had been here he'd have exploded. But Cantelli wasn't here.
Clearly Marion Keynes wasn't going to confess yet.
'I believe the prescriptions are for a range of powerful anti-depressants and painkillers. There's a growing market for them, particularly amongst the young,' said Horton. 'They are addicts, just like those addicted to heroin and crack cocaine, and supplying them is a serious crime. Did you want to say something?'
She'd opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to protest or explain, but she snapped it shut again and continue to glare at him through eyes like slits in a battlement.
'If they can't get the quantities they need from their GP, or the Internet, they buy prescriptions on the black market. Daniel discovered your secret and threatened to tell in return for money. You or rather your husband killed him.' He rose. 'Marion Keynes, I am arresting you for the murder of-'
'No, wait.'
Horton eyed her closely, but he didn't resume his seat.
'All right. I admit to the prescription fraud and selling the drugs, but I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about with Daniel. He died in a car accident. We haven't killed anyone,' she insisted. 'That's the truth.'
He wasn't sure if Marion Keynes would know the truth if it jumped out and bit her.
'Then give me Mrs Kingsway's file.'
She rose and wrenched open the filing cabinet. After a moment she handed it across to him and he slipped it inside his jacket.
'About the prescriptions…'
At the door he turned and said, 'I think you'd better find yourself a very good lawyer.'
The fear on her face was a reward in itself. Outside he rang Trueman and told him to get a unit over to the Rest Haven and to Marion Keynes' home immediately. Then, wondering if Marion might already be warning her husband, he asked Trueman to put out a call for Ian Keynes' arrest. He briefly told him what had happened and asked him to alert the Prescription Fraud Team and arrest Dr Eastwood. If they trod on the Intelligence Directorate's toes then tough.
'Any sign of Nathan Lester?'
'No.'
'What about Barney?' Horton felt his heart knock against his ribs.
'He's not phoned in and I've been trying his mobile every ten minutes.'
Horton swore and asked to speak to Lee.
'Where's Sergeant Cantelli?' he rapped when she came on the line.
'I don't know-'
'Cut the crap, Lee. This is no time to play silly buggers. He went to the prison to find out something about Peter Ebury and he got it. So where have you got him?'
Silence. He could almost hear her mind racing. What was she going to do: tell him he was barking mad or admit it?
'I'll call you back.'
Under the glow of the street lamp, Horton quickly skimmed the contents of Marjorie Kingsway's file. It hardly seemed worth taking as there was so little information in it. Mrs Kingsway had been moved into the Rest Haven by social services a year ago from another nursing home on the seafront, which Horton knew to be rather an expensive one, and much more exclusive that the Rest Haven. He guessed her money had run out. Nursing care for the elderly and sick wasn't free in England. Where had Marjorie lived before the expensive nursing home on the seafront? Trueman would find out, of course. So what now? Hang around and wait for Trueman to come back?
Where could Cantelli be? Horton shivered and it wasn't from the cold. He couldn't shake off his feeling of dread and the thought that something might have happened to him.
The door of the Rest Haven opened and Marion Keynes scuttled out. Too late to make her escape, he thought with grim satisfaction, as the patrol car sped round the corner. He watched the panic cross her face. Then her body slumped. She glared at him as he instructed PC Seaton to take her away. He ought to go back inside and explain to Cheryl what had happened, but he detailed PC Allen to do that. Trueman would handle the rest.
But he couldn't just hang around. He had to do something. It was time to confront Kingsway. He'd be at work. Action would help him to stop worrying about Cantelli. But as Horton climbed on the Harley and headed for Fort Cumberland, he knew that nothing on earth would prevent him from doing that.