Footsteps on the Shore Read online

  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 Cante
lli 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 café, 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.’

  FIFTEEN

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ Peter Bailey said, reluctantly letting them in and leading them through a faded hall into an equally faded sitting room. It was icily cold, which reminded Horton of Venetia Trotman’s house, but there the resemblance ended. The acrid smell of male sweat mingled with that of fish, dust and decay and the room looked as though it had last been decorated sometime in the 1970s. Its orange walls, yellowing net curtains, threadbare maroon carpet, sparse and dated furniture and a television that could qualify as an antique, all confirmed to Horton that Peter Bailey was as oblivious of his surroundings as he was of his appearance. He peered nervously at them over the top of smeared gold-rimmed spectacles, with a chip in the right lens. His silver eyebrows knitted across a forehead in a thin face etched so deep with lines that the expression corrugated iron sprang to Horton’s mind. His white monk’s hair sprang up around a freckled pate, making it difficult to put an age on him. Late fifties or late sixties? It was hard to tell.

  Cantelli lifted the small pencil from behind his ear and opened his notebook. ‘You saw Luke Felton on the coastal path on Hayling Island on the nineteenth of September 1997.’

  ‘On the afternoon that girl was killed, yes.’

  ‘Can you remember the time?’

  Bailey removed his spectacles. ‘It’s in my statement.’

  ‘Of course.’ Cantelli smiled, as though he was dim for forgetting that. ‘But if you would confirm . . .’

  ‘It was just after four o’clock or thereabouts.’

  ‘What were you doing on the path, sir?’

  Bailey looked puzzled. ‘Why all the questions, Sergeant? Luke Felton was convicted and sentenced. I thought this was finished with a long time ago.’

  ‘Luke Felton’s been released on licence.’

  Bailey’s skin blanched and he stared wide-eyed at each of them in turn. ‘I don’t understand,’ he stuttered.

  Cantelli quickly explained, finishing with the news that Felton was missing. ‘We’re looking for anything that might help us find him.’

  ‘You can’t think he’s coming after me?’ Bailey uttered, clearly horrified. Horton noticed that his left leg had started to jigger and the hands holding his spectacles were shaking.

  ‘I doubt he’d even remember you, sir, he was so spaced out on drugs,’ Cantelli said reassuringly. ‘Perhaps you could just tell us what you can remember of that day.’

  Bailey looked far from pacified. In fact his face looked like a chewed-up sock.

  Horton added, ‘It might help us to find him and send him back to prison for breaching the terms of his licence.’

  Bailey turned his anxious gaze on Horton. ‘I can’t see how what I have to say can possibly help you do that.’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind, sir,’ Cantelli firmly insisted.

  Bailey rose and crossed to the large bay window. Horton caught Cantelli’s eye and urged silence. Not that he really needed to. Cantelli knew the score.

  Clearly Bailey was gathering his thoughts. In the silence, Horton listened for sounds of a Mrs Bailey, or anyone else living in the house, but there was only the whirring of what must be a refrigerator. It certainly wasn’t the central heating. Was he a bachelor, or perhaps a widower? Or had Mrs Bailey grown tired of being cold and walked out on him? Horton wouldn’t blame her if she had.

  Bailey took a deep breath and turned back to face them. With his nerves under better control he began.

  ‘I’m a twitcher, bird watching’s my hobby. I was on the Hayling Coastal Path that day because the contractors had been working on restoring the old Langstone Oyster Beds and after completing the project in May it was discovered that little terns had started nesting there.’ He swivelled his eyes between them, adding, ‘The oyster beds were restored not for fishing but for nature conservation. It’s a Site of Special Scientific Interest and home for tens of thousands of seabirds.’

  Horton already knew this, and so too did Cantelli, but they said nothing, letting Bailey talk on.

  ‘As a result of the work an island had been formed in one of the lagoons and had become home to little terns. Did you know they’re an internationally rare seabird and subject to the European Union’s Birds Directive?’ Bailey had regained his colour and was looking animated.

  Cantelli contrived to look amazed while Horton nodded encouragement, thinking that perhaps Mrs Bailey had grown tired of playing second fiddle to the little terns.

  Bailey resumed his seat. Sitting forward he continued eagerly. ‘One pair of little terns had settled on the small island and had raised two young. It was amazing. I watched them for ages. It was a remarkable day for me, which was why I remembered seeing that man, Felton.’ His face clouded over.

  ‘I was returning to my car, which I’d parked where the old railway halt used to be, when Luke Felton passed me. He was walking down the path towards the seafront, or rather I should say slouching. His head was down. He had his hands in his pockets and a woolly hat rammed on his head.’

  ‘How did you know it was Luke?’ asked Horton sharply. ‘You couldn’t have seen his face if his head was down and almost covered by a hat.’

  Bailey flushed, this time with agitation rather than enthusiasm, and his leg started to jigger again. ‘I described the clothes to the police officer who interviewed me, and they fitted the description of those Luke Felton had been wearing: scruffy jeans, muddy trainers, a navy jacket and navy woollen hat. He was about five feet ten, and thin. You see, when I heard the appeal on the local news by that police superintendent for anyone seen on the coastal path that day I came forward and gave my statement.’

  So that explained that, but Horton felt uneasy. ‘Did you see a woman? Five feet four, long brown hair, slim, wearing running clothes.’

  Clearly by Bailey’s troubled expression he knew exactly who Horton meant. ‘Natalie Raymonds. No. I know where her body was found though, but I didn’t walk that far. I’ve often wondered if I had done whether I might have been able to prevent her death.’

  Looking at Bailey, Horton doubted it, though he supposed his sudden appearance might have frightened Luke Felton off. There was a short pause before Horton dropped in casually, ‘Had you ever seen Luke Felton or Natalie Raymonds before?’

  Bailey looked surprised. ‘No. I usually stayed at the northern end of the coastal path and around the marshes. In those days I was still working and my mother was alive, so I couldn’t always get away. She was an invalid for many years. She died four years ago.’

  And that, thought Horton, explained the neglected, unloved air about the house.

  ‘Where did you work?’ asked Cantelli wi
th polite interest, though both he and Horton already knew.

  There was a moment’s hesitation before he answered uncertainly. ‘Hester’s Shipbuilding. I was a design draughtsman, but I was made redundant in 2001 when it closed down. After that I took whatever I could, mainly contract work. I still do a bit from time to time, although I don’t really need to work now Mother’s dead, but it gets me out of the house.’

  And Horton would like to get out of this miserable house too, but there were more questions to ask. ‘Can you describe exactly what you did and what you saw while you were bird watching the day you saw Luke Felton?’ Seeing that Bailey was puzzled, he added, ‘I take it you had binoculars.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I see.’ Bailey relaxed a little and considered the question. Horton wasn’t sure how it would help but there had to be more. Or rather he just hoped there was. ‘I took some time watching Binness Island in Langstone Harbour—’

  ‘Was the tide up or out?’ Horton interrupted.

  ‘Up. I remember because the dredger was going out of Oldham’s Wharf and I was concerned it would frighten the birds away.’ He frowned in thought. ‘There were three fishing boats trawling the channel and a couple of sailing dinghies from the club by Oldham’s. That’s all I can remember.’ The leg jigger was back.

  Horton said, ‘Did you see anyone else on the path?’

  ‘No. I was surprised because it was a nice day, warm and sunny.’

  ‘You’d have thought more people like you, keen bird watchers, would have been looking at the little terns.’

  There was the hesitation again, and another frown. ‘Yes, you would,’ Bailey answered, eyeing Horton anxiously.

  Cantelli said, ‘Were there any other vehicles in the car park when you returned to your car?’

  Bailey put a hand on his knee as though trying to stop it jigging. ‘I don’t see how this will help you find Felton.’

  Cantelli simply looked at Bailey enquiringly while Horton remained silent.