Blood on the Sand Page 16

  'Anorexia,' Bohman said, 'brought on by the psychological pain of losing her parents and being left alone to cope with it. Helga wasn't the guilty type but she should have been. I blamed myself too. I should have done more to help Thea.'

  So not a quick suicide but something that could nevertheless be fatal and a slow way of killing oneself. And how had Owen felt about his sister's illness, Horton wondered with a stab of anger. What had he done to help her?

  He said, 'Did she get on with her brother?'

  'Oh yes. They were very close.'

  But not close enough for Owen to see how his sister was suffering. But then Horton told himself that Thea had been at school in Sweden and Owen at university in England. They couldn't have seen a lot of each other, and he knew that anorexia sufferers were very accomplished at hiding their illness.

  He said, 'Why do you think Lars and Helen were killed?'

  'I've thought about that over the years. All I can say is that it must have something to do with Helen's work.'

  'Not Lars's?' Horton asked, surprised.

  'Lars was an architect, like me. Who would want to kill him?'

  Horton thought he might have wanted to kill the sod of an architect who had designed the impersonal, bleak, urine-smelling, vandal-inhabited council tower block where he had once lived. Not that he remembered it like that when a boy. It had just been home. He was thinking more about the times he'd been called there as a police officer, and to other soullessly designed buildings that stripped the heart out of the community.

  'Why do you think their deaths were because of Helen's work as a photographer?' Horton recalled what Trueman had said about Helen photographing the troubled spots of the world and the obituary he'd read on them.

  'Because her camera was smashed. The next day she and Lars were dead.'

  Horton knew this was significant by the edgy sensation crawling up his spine. He scrambled to connect this with the present murders. What had Helen photographed and where? Perhaps someone thought, or knew, that Owen Carlsson had these photographs and was threatening to show them, or tell someone about them. But why kill him now after all these years? Had Owen's keenness to get this environmental project on the Isle of Wight given him the chance to investigate his parents' death, despite what he'd led Peter Bohman to believe? Had he wittingly, or unwittingly, opened up the past, which had led to his and Anmore's deaths? Had Arina been silenced as a warning to Owen to stop his investigations?

  'Go on,' he said eagerly.

  'There isn't anything more to tell, Inspector. The police said that Lars lost concentration and skidded off the road. But now with Owen's death on the same island, there must be a reason.'

  Oh, there was, and that wasn't the only death. Horton didn't know how Bohman was going to react to the news of Arina Sutton being killed in the same place as the Carlssons but he was about to find out.

  Once he'd told the story, there was a silence that lasted for so long Horton was beginning to think they'd been cut off. Then Bohman said with a hard edge to his voice, 'That proves it. They were murdered. Now perhaps the police will find their killer.'

  And that killer, thought Horton, couldn't be Danesbrook. He began to thank Bohman for his call when Bohman interrupted him. 'There's something else. Thea telephoned me.'

  'When?' Horton's heart leapt several notches. If it was recent it meant she was still alive.

  'The day before Owen disappeared.'

  Disappointment hit Horton in the chest. 'What did she want?'

  'To know if her mother had mentioned a girl––'

  'A girl? What girl?' Horton asked sharply, puzzled.

  'I don't know.'

  'And had she?'

  'No.'

  SIXTEEN

  Saturday

  Throughout the night Horton had racked his brains trying to think who this girl might be that Thea had asked about. Arina Sutton? Arina would have been in her early twenties in 1990. Was it possible she was connected with the Carlsson deaths? Had Owen cultivated her friendship because she had known something about it?

  With sleep scratching his eyeballs, and no answers to his questions, he arrived at the incident suite to find Cantelli, Trueman and Somerfield already there. Trueman explained that Marsden was leading a small team of officers questioning the residents overlooking the Duver for sightings of the person who had broken into Horton's yacht.

  He added, 'Birch's officers have finished checking with the owners of the handful of houses that are on the Duver and they all claim they haven't let their apartments over the last two to three weeks so not even a cleaner has been in them, and they haven't been there themselves since August. The café's been boarded up since the end of October and there's no link between the assistant in the marina shop and the harbour master with Carlsson. Neither claim to have heard or seen anything suspicious.'

  Horton wasn't surprised. He hadn't thought they'd find anything from that line of questioning anyway. 'Where's Superintendent Uckfield?' he asked, eyeing the big man's empty office beyond the incident suite. There was also no sign of Birch, thankfully.

  'Said he'd be in later,' yawned Cantelli. 'Didn't say why.'

  No, but Horton could guess. The only thing that would keep Uckfield from his desk, apart from lunch with the hierarchy, was sex – and that meant Uckfield had made a conquest of the luscious Laura Rosewood.

  'Any news from Luxembourg?' he asked, feeling bad tempered and frustrated. He had woken knowing that this was going to be one of those slow, wasted days in the middle of an investigation.

  Trueman shook his head. 'But the file on the Carlssons' break-in should be with me later today.'

  The phone rang. Cantelli took the call.

  Horton stared at the crime board silently urging it to reveal some tiny scrap of information that could help with the case. Thea's employers had e-mailed a photograph of her taken from her personnel file. The serious pale blue eyes and thin face looked blankly at him. Where are you? Are you alive or dead? God, he wished he knew. He couldn't help thinking about what Bohman had told him about her illness triggered by the tragic events of her childhood. It didn't bode well for her current state of mind.

  The thoughts jeered at him. There must be something that could connect and tie up all the loose ends of this case, but whatever it was remained tantalizingly out of his reach.

  'That was the front desk,' Cantelli said, replacing the receiver. Horton spun round. 'They took a call early this morning from a woman who says she saw Thea Carlsson, but before you get your hopes up, Andy, this was before her brother was killed. She's a librarian at Cowes and she says Thea was in there on the Thursday before her brother's disappearance.'

  Horton wasn't sure how this helped them. 'She could have gone to borrow a book or to look something up on the Internet,' he said grumpily. He didn't think Thea would have used her brother's computer and he'd not seen a laptop or any other mobile device in the house, and neither had she had a mobile phone on her when he'd found her at the Duver.

  'I'll ask her,' Cantelli said, reaching for the phone.

  Horton headed for the canteen after giving Trueman instructions to fetch him the moment he heard from Luxembourg. He hoped that breakfast might galvanize his sluggish brain and lift his mood. He ate mechanically, not tasting the food, going over all the facts of the case from that first moment on the Duver to the conversation with Bohman. Nothing clicked. All it did was make his headache worse. He had just finished eating when Cantelli breezed in.

  'Thea asked to view the microfiche of the local newspaper coverage for 1990. And we know what happened then,' Cantelli said, taking a seat opposite Horton.

  They did indeed. Maybe it was curiosity on her part, seeing as she was on the Isle of Wight for the first time. 'Did she copy anything down?' he asked.

  'The librarian said she was too busy to notice, but Thea did ask for a local telephone directory.'

  'Who was she looking up?'

  'Don't know. Could it have been Terry Knowles?'
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  'No. You said he lives in Southampton, and he hadn't left any of his desperate sounding messages

  on Owen's answer machine then.' Horton thought back to his first conversation with Thea.

  She'd claimed not to know anyone on the island. If that was true then who could she have been

  trying to locate? Jonathan Anmore perhaps? Or someone from 1990?

  'Get a copy of all the press cuttings on the Carlssons' accident, Barney. See who is mentioned in them, check who lives locally and contact them to find out if Thea got in touch.'

  'The newspaper office isn't open until Monday, but I'll track down the editor to see if I can get hold of them today.'

  Horton envied him his activity. He thought again of the girl that Bohman had mentioned, and the story that Anmore had told him about the ghost of Scanaford House. It reminded him of the book on ghosts in Owen's house with the inscription inside it. Horton didn't believe in ghosts except those of your own making, and he had a few of them haunting him. Nevertheless, was Scanaford House the link? Was it mentioned in that book?

  He called Cantelli back. 'Find a copy of a book called The Lost Ghosts of the Isle of Wight. Track down the author, and if you find the book see if it mentions the ghost of Scanaford House.'

  'Didn't know there was one.'

  'Well there is, and I'm getting rather tired of the bloody thing. According to Anmore a girl was murdered there by her father . . . At last!' he cried as Trueman headed towards them.

  'Inspector Strasser's called. Thea's apartment has been broken into and ransacked.'

  'When?' Horton asked sharply. Had it been immediately after Owen's death, or after Thea's disappearance?

  'He doesn't know. The door wasn't forced so whoever did it must have had a key.'

  Cantelli threw Horton a concerned glance. 'Did Thea give this person a key or—'

  'Was it taken from her after she'd been killed?' Horton finished, his voice tight with emotion. Was the person who ransacked her apartment the same one who had attacked him and Thea, and set light to Owen's house? What was it that was so dangerously incriminating, that they were prepared to go to extreme lengths to destroy?

  Trueman said, 'Owen could have had a key to his sister's flat and his killer took it from his body.'

  Horton much preferred that version. Trueman continued.

  'Strasser's got Forensic in and he's instigated enquires. But there is something he thought we might like to see. He's no idea whether it's significant but there were some photographs in the flat.'

  'Of what?'

  'He didn't say. He's scanning them in and e-mailing them over.'

  Horton thought they could hardly be relevant to the case otherwise the intruder would have taken them or destroyed them, as he'd done with Helen's camera.

  Cantelli left to meet the editor of the local newspaper while Horton hung around waiting impatiently for the photographs to ping into Trueman's inbox. There was still no sign of Uckfield, neither had there been any further sightings of Thea Carlsson resulting from the press statement and photograph issued by Uckfield late last night. Monday might bring more response, Trueman said, but Horton wasn't optimistic.

  Inactivity sat heavily on him. Pacing the incident suite he was half tempted to go and join Marsden in the search for his boat intruder – either that or ride around the island in the hope of

  finding Thea Carlsson, although he knew that would be a complete waste of time.

  He was about to complain about Strasser's delay when Trueman cried, 'They're here.'

  Horton rushed over to peer at Trueman's computer screen not daring to hope they might help with the investigation, and steeling himself for disappointment.

  Trueman said, 'I'll print them off. They're all black and white photographs anyway.'

  As they slid off the printer, Horton found himself staring at three pictures which, judging by the style and subject matter, were the work of Helen Carlsson.

  Trueman said, 'Strasser says there was writing on the back of each one; he's copied it across in his e-mail. The first one is a demonstration in Kathmandu against the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. April 1979.'

  And the authorities didn't much care how they crushed it, thought Horton. Helen Carlsson must have taken a hell of a risk to get in that close.

  'The second,' Trueman read out, 'is of the demonstration by metal detectorists against a law to ban metal detecting in this country in December 1979.'

  'They obviously won their cause then because I see them all over Southsea beach.' Horton had had no idea that metal detecting had caused such a stir. He studied the third photograph. It was of a woman standing at the top of the steps of a Royal Air Force aeroplane. Either side of her were a man and woman dressed in suits, while on the concourse below were men and women in uniform. 'I don't need you to identify her,' Horton said, pointing at the former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Then his eye lingered on the square-set woman standing to her right dressed in a smart suit, standing to attention, her eyes alert and hard. There was something familiar about her. He struggled to retrieve it as Trueman read from the computer screen.

  'Twenty-ninth of August 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher visiting Northern Ireland, disembarking from the aeroplane at RAF Aldergrove.'

  That had been when the conflict in Northern Ireland had been at its height, which explained Helen Carlsson's interest in taking the photograph. Margaret Thatcher hadn't long been in power. Then something registered in his tired brain. A snatch of conversation flashed into his head. I will never forgive Margaret Thatcher and the Tories for their treachery . . . that bloody mad woman. Suddenly he knew without any doubt the identity of the young woman in the suit standing beside the Prime Minister.

  'Well, well, well,' he expostulated, energized. 'Run me off another copy of this one, Dave. Then get me all the information you can on her.' Horton stabbed a finger at the sturdy figure.

  'You recognize her?' Trueman asked, surprised.

  Horton nodded. 'I do indeed. It's Bella Westbury. And I'd very much like to know what she is doing there and why before I ask her.'

  SEVENTEEN

  It was late afternoon and dark by the time Horton and Cantelli pulled up outside Bella Westbury's cottage. By then Horton had got some of the answers to his questions and Cantelli had managed to unearth the editor of the local newspaper who had generously opened up the office on the proviso that she got first bite of the news story.

  Only police officers, the coroner and the relatives, such as they were – Helga and Peter Bohman – had been mentioned in the press reports of the Carlssons' road accident. The reporter had since married a sailor and moved to Plymouth. Horton couldn't see Thea being interested in any of them, but Cantelli had also discovered the author of The Lost Ghosts of the Isle of Wight, one Gordon Elms.

  'He lives in Cowes,' Cantelli had reported. 'Two streets away from Owen Carlsson.'

  And Horton's money was on Elms being the person Thea had been searching for in the library's telephone directory. He doubted now that it had anything to do with the case. It was just Thea's desire to meet the man who had written a much treasured book for her. But the librarian said she would get a copy of the book for them on Monday.

  Horton detailed Trueman to check if Danesbrook, Bella Westbury, or Jonathan Anmore had travelled to Luxembourg at any time since Thea's arrival on the island. One thing, among many others, which troubled Horton, was if Bella Westbury had searched Thea's apartment she wouldn't have left the photograph behind.

  'No sign of life,' Cantelli said, peering at the small cottage opposite.

  Which was more than could be said for Uckfield who had finally surfaced all smiles and rosy cheeks just after lunch. His mellow mood hadn't lasted long after Horton had briefed him. And his temper wasn't improved when Marsden had returned to say that no one they'd spoken to so far around the Duver recalled seeing anyone suspicious in the area around the time Carlsson's body was found.

  'Better see if she's all righ
t,' Horton said, climbing out of the car. 'You don't happen to have a ramming rod in the boot?'

  'I never travel without one. No, of course I don't.'

  'Then we'll ask her to let us in.' Horton nodded in the direction of a small dark-coloured car which had just pulled in further down the road. 'Mrs Westbury?' he hailed her as she was inserting her key in the front door.

  She spun round with a frown. Even though she'd given no indication that she'd seen them waiting, he knew she had.

  'Mr Horton.'

  'Detective Inspector Horton and this is Detective Sergeant Cantelli.' They flashed their warrant cards. Horton doubted she could see them properly under the dim street lamp some yards away, but she pushed open the door and said stiffly, 'It's late for a police visit.'