Monday, 16 March
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Cantelli said.
Horton stared across the moat at the flint walls of the Roman castle and agreed. It was.
‘We brought the kids here last summer,’ Cantelli added, falling into step beside Horton as they headed eastwards towards the shore, keeping the castle wall on their right. ‘Marie was doing the Romans at school. Did you know that the earliest Roman fortification was built here between 285 and 290 AD and the first Norman castle in 1086?’
‘I’m more interested in what Luke Felton was doing here last Tuesday,’ Horton replied.
‘Philistine,’ Cantelli joked. ‘Have you no feel for history?’
Too much, Horton thought, but of his own rather than any Roman soldier stationed here in a perishing north-easterly watching for marauders in Portsmouth Harbour. To his left was a picnic area and beyond that a path that led northwards along the shore. He could hear the drone of the cars on the motorway, about four miles to the north, even though the wind was in the opposite direction.
Cantelli continued. ‘Being so close to the harbour the castle was also a great favourite of the medieval kings. King John was a regular visitor, Henry the First stayed here before travelling to France and Henry the Second made several visits in 1163 and 1164.’
‘I didn’t know you were a historian,’ Horton rejoined with a hint of sarcasm.
‘I have hidden depths. For example, I also know that Henry the Fifth sailed from Portchester Castle in 1415 for the Battle of Agincourt, and Queen Elizabeth the First was a guest at the castle in 1601.’
Horton threw him a pitying glance. Cantelli grinned. ‘I know, not the kind of useful background you had in mind. Still, you never know when it might come in handy.’
‘I doubt Luke Felton came here to soak up the castle’s history.’ But what did he come for? Was it more than a coincidence that Luke had wanted to be taken to the same location as where the murdered woman lived?
Cantelli slipped a fresh piece of chewing gum into his mouth before turning up his jacket collar against a stiff breeze that was blowing up Portsmouth Harbour. ‘Must have been a bit draughty for those Roman soldiers in their skirts and sandals.’
Horton smiled fleetingly and gazed across a choppy sea at the boats bobbing about on their moorings. Opposite he could see the boats in Horsea Marina. ‘According to Shawford’s evidence he dropped Luke here at about six thirty. Let’s see if Felton could have reached Venetia Trotman’s house on foot.’
They turned right, heading in the direction of Willow Bank. Soon they had left the castle behind them and were walking along the footpath before it petered out and they stepped down on to the shore. Horton told Cantelli about his visit to Catherine, and Shawford’s sexual tastes. Cantelli looked concerned. ‘Surely Catherine wouldn’t put Emma at risk,’ he said.
‘Maybe not, but that boarding school suddenly looks a very attractive option.’ For a start, neither Catherine nor her father would be there to poison his daughter against him, and he might even get to see Emma over some weekends and in the holidays. All he had to do was persuade her it was for the best, and that might not be easy. He wasn’t going to force her into it though. If she really hated the place, and the thought of being away from her mother, then he’d have to think of something else. He couldn’t expect Catherine to stay celibate until Emma reached eighteen.
They drew up at the bottom of the concrete slipway where Shorena had been moored.
‘It’s not much of a walk,’ Cantelli said.
Horton glanced at his watch. It had taken them just under half an hour. ‘If Felton did come this way on Tuesday it would have been dark, and he must have known the house was here because there’s no sign of it from where we’re standing.’
Horton raised his eyes to the tangle of bushes and trees hiding the house. He climbed up the slipway, with Cantelli following. Locating the gate and beyond it the blue and white scene-of-crime tape flapping in the breeze, he nodded at PC Allen who was standing guard inside the garden.
‘Found anything?’
‘Not even a dog bone. Just calling it off now, sir.’
Horton stared at the house. ‘If Luke came here with the intention of meeting and killing Venetia Trotman, then why wait until the early hours of Friday morning to do so when he could have killed her on Tuesday night? And why allow Shawford to give him a lift when it would have been safer to have no witnesses?’
‘Perhaps he’d arranged to meet someone at the sailing club, or the pub back down the road.’
‘Ask them, Barney.’ They headed back to the castle where Cantelli departed for the nearby pub. Horton continued on the shore path northwards. Ahead he could see the red and black funnel he’d noticed yesterday from Horsea Marina.
His thoughts this time turned towards his graffiti artist. There had been no more messages pinned to his yacht or scratched on his Harley and no sign of anyone watching him. Perhaps whoever it was had grown tired of his little game and had decided to torment someone else. Horton hoped that might be the case, but he wasn’t counting on it.
He drew up at a junction in the footpath; to his left it led into a car park and a small industrial estate beyond, ahead to a boatyard, boatshed and basins. He doubted Luke would have come this way, because why not ask Shawford to drop him at the industrial estate instead of the castle? Unless, of course, he deliberately wanted to hide the location of a rendezvous.
He rang Walters. ‘Check Kempton’s list of visitors to see if any of them come from the Bromley Industrial Estate.’
While Walters checked, Horton took the path ahead. He was soon picking his way through a number of small sailing dinghies and canoes on the quayside towards a large boatshed on his left and the red and black funnel on his right — which, it emerged, belonged to a derelict paddle steamer, clearly in the process of renovation. A small blue van was parked in front of it on the quayside.
‘There’s no one from the industrial estate on the list,’ Walters said.
Horton eyed the sign on the boatshed. ‘How about the Youth Enterprise Sailing Trust?’ Young people could mean drugs. Had Luke come here to meet with a dealer who supplied the kids?
‘No one from there either. I’ve checked with the council parks department, who claim the last Rookley to be buried in the cemetery was in 1957.’
And Horton doubted Rookley had been visiting whoever it was. But it reminded him about the funeral party he’d seen while tailing Rookley through the tombstones. He asked Walters to find out who the funeral directors had been.
Horton tried the door to the Youth Enterprise Sailing Trust office but found it locked. He turned his attention to the paddle steamer. It was rather a sorry sight with its rusty portholes and paddles, its leaning and collapsed funnels. There was a chain across a sturdy temporary gangplank with a No Entry sign on it but Horton, eyeing the blue van, guessed someone was on board.
Lifting the chain and replacing it behind him, he climbed on board and stepped on to a small area of the deck laid with temporary planks of wood. Surrounding it was the original wood, rotted and riddled with holes, and beyond, rusting anchor chains and piping. Ducking his head he entered a narrow corridor before stepping right into a wide main cabin punctuated by solid iron struts and lined either side with small square windows. The floor had been re-decked but not polished, the windows repaired, the ceiling restored; and a man in white overalls was doing something in the far corner with some cables. In the centre was a long work bench with some new planks of wood on it and a plane, while in the corner were paint pots, more wood and a variety of carpentry tools, which Horton hoped were locked away at night. Horton showed his warrant card and produced a photograph of Luke from his jacket pocket. In answer to his question the man, in his early sixties, shook his head.
‘I haven’t seen him.’
Horton wasn’t surprised. ‘Looks a big job this,’ he commented conversationally, and in genuine interest.
‘You’re not kidding. It’s one of the old Portsmouth to Isle of Wight paddle steamers. Built in 1936, mothballed in the late 1960s, became a restaurant, then a night club, then left to rot until we rescued it. Had to have it lifted on to a barge and brought across the Solent. How we managed it without it collapsing I’m still not sure, but then underneath the rot is a good solid iron hull.’
‘You’re hoping to sail it when it’s restored?’
‘God, no! It’s going to be a floating activity centre, accommodation and lecture room for the youngsters we have here. Specially adapted, of course. They’re all disabled in some way,’ he added in response to Horton’s baffled look. ‘It means we’ll be able to take more kids, and all year round, not just for a limited season like we do now.’
‘You’re a charity then?’
‘Yes, run purely on voluntary donations and legacies. Bloody hard work getting the money but people can be generous. The lease on this place is paid by a local businessman. And thanks to a recent legacy from an old lady, we hope to get this young lady finished a lot sooner than expected. I used to work here when it was Hester’s Shipbuilding, electrical fitter. Now I just help out when I can, like a lot of us volunteers. Butchers, bakers, accountants, lawyers. Policemen,’ he said pointedly.
But Horton had stopped listening after he’d mentioned Hester’s. His mind darted back to the Natalie Raymonds case file and to one of the statements: that of the witness who’d seen Luke on the Hayling Coastal Path, Peter Bailey. If Horton remembered correctly, Bailey had worked for Hester’s. So did a lot of people, he told himself before asking, ‘When did Hester’s close?’
‘Autumn of 2001.’
Horton made his farewell but had only gone a few steps when he turned back. ‘When’s the season?’
‘April to October.’
‘So there are no young people here this time of year?’ He certainly hadn’t seen or heard any.
‘No.’
The theory of Luke dealing drugs here then went up the chute. Having promised to look in again when he wasn’t on duty, he found Cantelli with PC Seaton in the sailing club. Breaking off his conversation with a woman, Cantelli crossed to Horton and Seaton followed.
‘I met Sergeant Cantelli in the pub where I was asking if any of the staff remembered Luke Felton,’ Seaton explained. ‘They didn’t. I’ve also asked in the castle bookshop and cafe, and I showed his picture to some of the dog walkers earlier this morning in case they also walk their dogs here of an evening, but no one remembered seeing Luke. And there wasn’t a service at the church that evening.’
‘No sightings of Luke here either,’ Cantelli added. ‘And no member went sailing into the sunset on Tuesday night because it wasn’t high tide until just after eleven p.m., so no boat could get out until about nine o’clock.’
So, dead end, or was it? His conversation with the man on the paddle steamer and the mention of Hester’s was scratching away at Horton’s mind like a dog with a flea. ‘Let’s talk to the witness who saw Luke Felton on the coastal path. Peter Bailey.’
‘Why?’ asked Cantelli, surprised.
‘I’ll tell you on the way,’ Horton replied.
Cantelli couldn’t see what the significance of Peter Bailey having worked at Hester’s Shipbuilding had to do with Luke Felton’s disappearance and said so. Neither did Horton, but he said, ‘Indulge me.’
‘That usually leads to trouble,’ grumbled Cantelli good-naturedly. ‘How do we know that Bailey’s still living at the same address? He might have emigrated or died.’
‘Well, we’ll soon find out.’