Shroud of Evil Read online

The man thrust a bronzed hand into the pocket of his shabby shorts and fetched out a grubby card. As Horton took it from the strong, suntanned hand he caught a glimpse of something deep in the man’s eyes but couldn’t place what. He glanced down at the card. It contained only a name: Wyndham Lomas. ‘There’s no address or contact number,’ he said.

  ‘I like my privacy too.’

  Horton smiled and pocketed the card. Lomas made no attempt to move off. Perhaps he intended staying on the beach looking for his flotsam and jetsam. But it was time Horton was going. He had to call at the abbey. As he clambered over the fence into the woods Lomas called out, ‘Don’t let the dogs get you.’ Horton hoped he was joking.

  Twenty minutes later he was pulling into the abbey car park unmolested by any guard dogs. He headed for the café and gift shop where he found the café manager, Cliff Yately, a well-built man in his late forties with a round, friendly, open face, who greeted him warmly but with wariness in his wide, dark-brown eyes. Horton quickly reassured him that he was the bearer of good news and asked where he could find Brother Norman.

  ‘With the vet and Jay in the piggery,’ Yately replied.

  It was just beyond the tea shop gardens. Horton saw the lean monk talking to a scruffily dressed man who was looking on with concern as another slender man beside them was examining a large golden red pig that Horton had been told was a Tamworth. Jay Ottley, the pig man, like Yately was not a monk, but unlike Yately, Ottley lived at the abbey. It had been Ottley who had discovered the robbery on his way to feed the pigs and had reported it to Brother Norman. As Horton drew level Brother Norman looked up and instantly appeared anxious. Ottley’s attention for a moment was diverted from his beloved pigs. He scratched his shaggy greying beard with a worried frown on his careworn face. Horton understood why they looked concerned. Neither wanted to be called to give evidence in court, and now they’d be spared that.

  Brother Norman said something to Ottley that Horton couldn’t catch and stepped out of the piggery. ‘Not bad news I hope, Inspector?’ he said, folding his hands into the sleeves of his black habit, drawing Horton a short distance away. Horton found it as difficult to put an age to him now as he had the first time he’d met him in early July, when he’d informed the monk that the items stolen from the abbey had been recovered. Brother Norman’s lined face peered out from the cowl, concerned, his pale blue eyes worried. He could be anything between mid-fifties and seventy. Since that initial meeting Horton had spoken with the monk several times, and over the last month, leading up to the trial, he’d called here weekly, in his own time, to keep him abreast of developments in the hope of alleviating some of the anxiety. He needn’t have come personally. He could have delegated it to DS Norris but he didn’t trust the short, balding, overweight Isle of Wight detective to be reassuring. And besides, Horton liked coming here. He found it restful. But there had been another reason for his interest. Thea Carlsson.

  He’d grown close to Thea during an investigation on the island in January. She had understood his anger and pain at his mother’s desertion. She had claimed to be psychic and told him that his mother wanted to be found. He didn’t know about that; he didn’t really believe all that bollocks, but Thea had been the only person he had told about Jennifer, apart from Cantelli. He’d barely said anything to Catherine, his ex-wife, sensing that she wouldn’t really have been interested. And besides, their marriage had broken up before he’d discovered that his mother hadn’t been the hard-bitten tart he’d been led to believe. Thea had stayed in the abbey guest house but had returned to her home country, Sweden, as soon as the investigation into her brother’s death was over, making it clear to him that she needed space and time to herself. He’d never bothered to follow it up. Since Catherine had thrown him out, choosing to believe a false allegation of rape against him when he’d been working undercover, he’d been on his own. Just as he’d always been alone, he thought, since the age of ten. And lately he’d begun to feel his loneliness more keenly than ever.

  He pushed aside his thoughts and gave Brother Norman what he hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘For once it’s not bad news,’ he said, thinking it rather sad that most people associated the police as harbingers of doom. ‘The men who robbed the abbey have changed their plea to guilty. So there’s no need for you or anyone else here to appear in court. They’ll be sentenced on Monday and your possessions can be returned to you after that.’

  Brother Norman looked heartedly relieved. ‘I’ll tell Jay that; he will be pleased and so am I. Thank you, Inspector, for taking the time and trouble to come here personally to tell us.’ He dashed a glance behind him and back to Horton. He seemed distracted. ‘I must go. It’s almost time for Sexts, a short service before dinner,’ he explained to Horton’s baffled look. ‘I mustn’t be late.’

  Horton could see from the abbey clock that it was close on one. But despite his anxiety to get to his devotions, Brother Norman hesitated. ‘I’m sorry I can’t repay your diligence and success, Inspector, by giving you in return hopeful news of Thea Carlsson, but even if I knew where she was I wouldn’t be able to betray a confidence.’

  ‘I know. Forget I asked,’ Horton replied lightly but he felt embarrassed he’d even raised the subject. He didn’t want Brother Norman to feel he owed him a favour.

  ‘You’ll come to see us again, won’t you?’ Brother Norman said. ‘Even though the ordeal of the thefts is over.’

  ‘Of course.’ But Horton thought it might be best to put the abbey – and Thea – behind him once and for all. Maybe Brother Norman sensed his secret thought because before he hurried off to his prayers he threw Horton a parting glance that held doubt and something akin to regret in the pale blue eyes and lined face.

  Horton made the two o’clock sailing comfortably and on the ferry grabbed a sandwich and a coffee. Fifty minutes later he was heading along the corridor to CID. Bliss was in her office, on the phone, but before he’d gone a few steps she hailed him. He stifled a groan and turned back to see her skinny, upright figure in the doorway. She jerked her head to indicate she wanted him in her office. There in her customary slim black skirt and white shirt she eyed him as she always did, with distaste.

  ‘I’ve just been phoning CID – where is everyone?’ she snapped.

  She made it sound as though he had half a dozen staff instead of two. ‘I don’t know, Ma’am. I’ve just come in.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to do.’

  For what, he wondered. Clearly by her tone he was her last resort. Her disapproval of him was rooted in his method of policing, which went contrary to everything she stood for. Bliss was a strictly by-the-book copper, email, memo and meeting mad, while he was too hands-on, too maverick and allergic to anything that smacked of management speak, her favourite language. He eyed her narrow face and sharp green eyes. If he had expected her to ask about the court case then it looked as though he was in for disappointment.

  ‘We have a missing man,’ she announced crisply.

  Two it seemed, if you counted Cantelli and Walters.

  ‘His name is Jasper Kenton. He’s been missing since yesterday afternoon. He’s a private investigator and the business partner of Eunice Swallows who owns the Swallows Investigation Agency. I want you to take the report.’

  Horton didn’t bother hiding his surprise. ‘A uniformed officer can do that,’ he replied, wondering why Bliss was keen to send someone of his rank out to it.

  ‘I’m ordering you to do it, Inspector, and if you have a problem with taking orders then I suggest you change career.’

  And wouldn’t you like that, Horton said to himself.

  ‘The office is in Albert Road, Southsea. Well, what are you waiting for?’

  You to climb on your broomstick and fly away, Horton thought, with annoyance at her manner and the tone of her command. He got the address and headed out of the station. He’d never heard of the Swallows Investigation Agency or of Jasper Kenton or Eunice Swallows. But then he hadn’t come across every private in
vestigator in the city. What made this one so special, he wondered, that Bliss was prepared to sacrifice usual procedure? Perhaps there was more to Jasper Kenton’s vanishing act than Bliss had told him. He’d find out soon enough. But as he drew up outside the office above a bohemian styled café on the corner of a busy main thoroughfare he couldn’t help feeling this was a waste of his time – that Jasper Kenton had probably taken off for a long weekend and had simply forgotten to tell his partner.

  TWO

  ‘Of course he wouldn’t have forgotten to inform me,’ snapped the woman behind the large, pristine desk in the spacious office, viewing Horton over the top of her gold-rimmed spectacles as though he was an imbecile. Eunice Swallows was in her mid-forties, dressed plainly in shapeless black trousers and a black long-sleeved top. Her brown hair was short, sensible and tidy; she wore no make-up and the only jewellery he could see were small gold stud earrings. ‘Jasper is most efficient.’

  ‘Could he have gone to stay with friends or family?’ persisted Horton.

  ‘No. I’ve checked. Jasper only has a sister living in Marlborough but she hasn’t seen him for years.’

  ‘Friends then?’

  ‘Jasper doesn’t have any.’

  How do you know, thought Horton, raising a sceptical eyebrow.

  ‘He’s a very private person,’ she added, pursing her lips, clearly annoyed that her statement needed expanding. ‘He left the office at four-thirty on Thursday and should have been in today. I thought he might have overslept although that would be extremely unlikely. Jasper is always punctual. I rang his mobile phone – he doesn’t have a landline; says it’s a waste of money – but I only got his voicemail. I have left several messages and I emailed him. When he didn’t reply by lunch time I grew more concerned. I thought he might be ill so I went to his flat.’

  ‘Which is where?’

  ‘Emsworth.’

  A small village fronting on to Chichester Harbour, ten miles to the east of Portsmouth.

  ‘We each have a key to the other’s home in case of emergencies. Jasper wasn’t there and there was no evidence that he had returned home last night. No unwashed crockery lying around or in the dishwasher and his bed was made up, but that’s how I would expect to find the flat even if he had been home all night and left early this morning. Jasper is meticulously tidy.’

  ‘Obsessively so?’

  ‘No,’ she snapped, moving a pen on her practically clear desk – apart from the computer, telephone and a buff-coloured folder – so that it lined up with her telephone.

  ‘Have the neighbours or any of the other residents seen him or his car?’

  ‘His flat isn’t in a block of apartments. It’s a converted sail loft with a garage below and there is only one other apartment next to him but that’s a holiday let. It’s empty at this time of year and yes, Inspector, I did check. There is a row of terraced cottages opposite, which face west whereas the sail loft faces south so there are no windows overlooking Jasper’s apartment. However, I knocked on the property nearest to Jasper’s and the woman who lives there said she didn’t see him come home yesterday or leave this morning. I called DCI Bliss.’

  ‘You know her?’

  She looked as though she’d like to tell him that was none of his business. Her unplucked eyebrows puckered as she said curtly, ‘Yes, from when she was stationed at Havant, before her promotion. Our offices were based there. We moved here a year ago.’

  That explained the personal telephone call and why he’d not heard of Swallows before. It also explained why Bliss had sent him. He suspected that Eunice Swallows had called in a favour. He said, ‘Mr Kenton has been missing just less than twenty-four hours; surely it’s too early to get alarmed.’

  She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘It’s totally out of character for Jasper to do this,’ she crisply replied.

  ‘What do you think might have happened to him?’

  ‘He must have had an accident and before you ask, I have checked with the local hospital, and neither he, nor anyone fitting his description, has been admitted. There’s nothing in his apartment to indicate where he was going either, but he could have been involved in a road accident elsewhere in the area or be lying injured somewhere. Here is a photograph of him.’ She flicked open the folder on her desk and handed him a large photograph which she’d obviously printed off her computer. ‘I’ve also emailed a couple of pictures to DCI Bliss and she can let you have them.’

  Horton studied the slim, slight man with short thick dark hair, a thin face, solemn brown eyes and a serious expression, about mid-forties.

  ‘I’ve printed off all Jasper’s particulars including his address and vehicle license number.’

  She gave him a sheet of paper, which he knew she must also have emailed to Bliss, as well as giving her the information she had relayed to him. It made a mockery of his visit here. Maybe by now Bliss had ordered Cantelli to run a check of the reported accidents and put out an alert. So why waste his time by sending him here? Perhaps Bliss was just trying to impress Eunice Swallows, or perhaps, as he’d thought earlier, she owed Swallows a favour. If that was the case then Bliss could have come herself, he thought with annoyance.

  He consulted the sheet of paper Eunice Swallows had handed him. Jasper Kenton was forty-seven, single, five foot nine, weighed approximately ten and a half stone. He drove a new dark blue Vauxhall. The last time Eunice Swallows had seen him he’d been wearing a black two-piece suit and black slip-on shoes, a white shirt and maroon tie. He had no distinguishing marks or tattoos (how did she know, Horton wondered, unless Kenton himself had told her that) and he wore no jewellery.

  ‘Was he carrying anything when he left the office?’

  ‘His briefcase.’

  ‘Containing what?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t search him,’ she retorted. Then she added more evenly, ‘It was his computer briefcase.’

  ‘Any surveillance equipment in it?’

  ‘I doubt it, but he has been issued with a camera, Dictaphone and video recorder. They’re not at his apartment. They might be in the boot of his car.’

  ‘So he could have been on surveillance.’

  ‘No,’ she answered with conviction.

  ‘Why so sure?’

  ‘Because we always discuss our cases and our actions so that we each know what the other is doing. It’s best practice. He would have told me if he was undertaking a surveillance operation.’

  ‘Perhaps something came up and he couldn’t miss the chance of following it up.’

  ‘Then he would have reported to me.’

  ‘Maybe he couldn’t and can’t risk making contact. Perhaps his surveillance has taken him abroad or some distance away in the UK.’

  But she was shaking her head. ‘We always make it a rule to keep in touch. And he hasn’t left the country because his passport is still here in the safe. We keep both our passports on the premises in case we need to go overseas in a hurry.’

  With that ruled out he asked, ‘How did he seem?’

  ‘Fine,’ she answered crisply.

  That was a fat lot of help. ‘He wasn’t anxious or excited?’

  ‘I would have said if he was,’ she said tartly. ‘Jasper is rarely excited and never anxious.’

  What is he, a machine? Horton was beginning to think this cool, tidy and organized individual was a figment of Eunice Swallows’ imagination, either that or Kenton was very good at hiding his emotions, something Horton had once been expert at but the recent events of his divorce and trying to get to the truth of his mother’s disappearance had proved otherwise. He’d had momentary flashes of anger both with Catherine and with Lord Eames.

  ‘Did Mr Kenton say anything to the staff about what he was doing last night?’

  ‘No. We don’t gossip and we don’t have time to waste on idle chit chat.’

  She was sounding more like Bliss with every minute. Perhaps Kenton had got fed up working for her and had taken off. Horton wouldn’t blame him if h
e had.

  ‘What is he currently working on?’ Could it be something that might have caused someone to want him to disappear, he wondered. Was that why Bliss was concerned?

  ‘Background checks on individuals, fraudulent insurance claims, suspected matrimonial infidelities, that sort of thing,’ she said with an icy stare. Horton knew that expression of old. It said don’t ask me any more because I’m not going to tell you.

  ‘Did he have any meetings scheduled for late yesterday afternoon or today?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you contacted his clients to check if he’s been in touch or called in to see them?’

  ‘Of course not. I don’t want them alarmed.’

  No, mislaying one of your operatives didn’t exactly instil confidence in a private investigation company. ‘We could speak to them,’ he said, anticipating the reaction he was going to get.

  ‘No,’ she said vehemently. ‘This has nothing to do with any of them.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I am. Look, put out the usual alerts. Surely even you can do that?’ she added cuttingly.

  Yes, and any police officer could have done that. Horton rose. He briefly thought about questioning the staff he’d seen when he’d been shown into Eunice Swallows’ office – a very thin lady in her late fifties with a short severe haircut and two men stationed at computers, one in his mid-twenties, the other late thirties – but he’d already spent too much of his time here. He almost changed his mind though when Eunice Swallows whisked him out at the speed of light. None of the staff looked up from their desks. Probably too terrified of her to even blink.

  He returned to the station, irritated with both Bliss and that Swallows woman, wondering if Bliss’s strategy was to dump on him as many mundane and low-ranking jobs as she could as a way of making him so uncomfortable and angry that he’d apply for a transfer. Just let her try, he thought, marching into the CID operations room where he found both DC Walters and Sergeant Cantelli.

  ‘How did it go?’ Cantelli asked.