Lethal Waves Read online

  When his silence continued, she said, ‘Why are you interested in that picture, aside from the fact that you believe Andrew left it for you?’

  ‘Because it has something to do with my mother’s disappearance. I’m not sure how. But I believe Andrew knows what happened to her after she walked out of our flat and vanished but couldn’t tell me directly.’ And Horton sincerely wished he had instead of leaving him to stumble about trying to fit together the pieces of what had turned out to be a very complex puzzle. He was still far short of completing it.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Horton, but I can’t help you.’

  The continued use of his surname might have been from habit or it might have been her way of putting the conversation firmly on a business footing. She consulted her jewelled watch. The gesture and her manner made it clear to him that the interview was over. Should he press her? He’d like to but from the set of her mouth he knew from experience he’d get nothing more. Perhaps she was tired. Perhaps he’d stirred up too many painful memories. But something about their conversation had unsettled her.

  He took a card from his wallet and handed it to her, asking her to call him at any time if she remembered anything that could help him or if she heard from Andrew, but he knew she wouldn’t. He left knowing that even if he returned tomorrow to press her she’d stick to the same story. He had enough experience of suspects to gauge that. But Violet Ducale was not a suspect in one of his cases.

  He took his farewell, silently acknowledging that she did look more tired than when he had arrived, and struck out towards the sea in the damp, chilly drizzle. He had two hours to kill before his dinner with Guilbert. It would be good to catch up. His thoughts veered back to the photograph he’d shown Violet Ducale and what he had discovered about the men in it: James Royston had died of a drugs overdose in 1970; Timothy Wilson had been killed in a motorbike accident while returning to Southampton from Lord Eames’ Wiltshire estate in 1969; Zachary Benham had died in a fire along with twenty-three other men in a psychiatric hospital near Woking in 1968 and Rory Mortimer had been murdered by one of the other men, Antony Dormand, who Horton had traced to Northwood Abbey on the Isle of Wight in October.

  He halted and leaned on the railings, staring out to sea in the gathering twilight, recalling Dormand’s confession. He claimed to have killed Mortimer because Mortimer had been spying for the Russians in the days of the Cold War, and that Zachary Benham had been sent to that psychiatric hospital to unearth a spy and had died in the attempt. He’d also said that Jennifer had been involved in intelligence gathering in 1967, informing on the Radical Student Alliance who had been engaged in violent protests and demonstrations in London. But Dormand had gone further. He’d said that Jennifer had also been involved in providing intelligence on, or possibly for, the IRA in 1978 at the time of her disappearance, which coincided with bloody carnage on the streets of Britain with bombs going off in Bristol, Coventry, Liverpool, Manchester and Southampton. There had also been the horrific bombing before then at Aldershot Barracks in 1972 and in Manchester City, Victoria Station, King’s Cross and Oxford Street in 1973. And in 1973 Jennifer had left London with him for Portsmouth.

  His mobile rang. It was Guilbert. Perhaps he was just checking that they were still on for their meal tonight but as Horton answered it he thought it more than likely that work had intruded and Guilbert might have to delay or cancel. He hoped the former rather than the latter.

  ‘I’ve got a death, Andy,’ Guilbert said apologetically. ‘A woman’s been found dead on the Condor Commodore Clipper ferry which sailed from Portsmouth this morning.’

  Horton often saw the vessel in Portsmouth Harbour but he’d never travelled on it and he’d never had cause to board it in the line of his work, thankfully.

  ‘On the surface it looks like natural causes but the officer who attended called us in. My sergeant’s on board now. The dead woman was a foot passenger. She was found in her cabin, which was locked. We don’t have a name for her yet because she wasn’t travelling on to France so she didn’t need to show her passport at the Portsmouth terminal, and she paid cash for both her single ticket and her cabin. No visible signs of violence but it’s best to be certain. Don’t want it rebounding on us later. DS Martell’s called in the police doctor. He and the scene of crime officers are already on board.’

  Guilbert was cautious, as he was right to be. He was a painstaking, thorough cop but with an intuitive feel for cases and an instinctive understanding of people including the criminal class.

  ‘I know you’re not here officially, Andy, but as Portsmouth is your patch I thought it might be helpful if you could join me.’

  Horton didn’t hesitate. He said he would be with Guilbert within ten minutes. Briskly he struck out towards the lights of St Peter Port, the marina and the Condor ferry terminal, sorry for the death but glad to put his personal machinations behind him for a while.

  TWO

  ‘All right if I turn her over?’ Dr Carston looked up from where he was crouched over the body in the cabin. It was lying face down in the confined space between the twin beds.

  Guilbert nodded and waved in one of the two crime-scene officers who were standing beside Horton in the narrow, thickly carpeted corridor. Carefully but with some difficulty they manoeuvred the body and Horton found himself studying the blank eyes and purple flesh of a woman he thought to be in her fifties. There were some expensive rings on her fingers, and her clothes – black trousers and a jade jacket – looked to be of good quality. Her hair was cut short and highlighted blonde. Above the smell of death he caught the scent of her spicy perfume.

  Guilbert gave a shake of his head. ‘She’s not known to me.’

  Horton didn’t recognize her either but then there was no reason why he should. Although she had travelled from Portsmouth it didn’t mean she had originated or lived there. And even if she did the Portsmouth population of over two hundred thousand meant he might never come across her.

  Carston addressed them from his crouched position. ‘Rigor is well established, as is lividity in what we can see of the body. It doesn’t disappear when I press it.’ He demonstrated this on the neck. ‘Therefore I estimate she’s been dead between seven to ten hours.’

  Horton rapidly made some mental calculations. That put the time of death somewhere between nine and eleven that morning, not long after the ferry had sailed from Portsmouth. Had she come straight to her cabin and stayed here, he wondered, or had she gone on deck and watched the ancient fortifications of Old Portsmouth slip past her on her left and the shores of Gosport on her right as the ferry sailed out of the narrow entrance of Portsmouth Harbour into the Solent? If so, had anyone seen or spoken to her?

  ‘No obvious signs of cause of death,’ Carston continued, straightening up. ‘I can’t detect any smell on the breath. It looks like natural causes or possibly suicide to me.’

  Horton originally thought she would have been lying on the bed if she had committed suicide. But perhaps she had decided at the last moment to try to summon help. She’d risen but the drugs she’d swallowed had begun to work, she’d staggered as she made for the cabin door, had fallen and died. He had already noted that there was no sign of any luggage in the cabin, only a red handbag on one of the beds beside a short black raincoat. That, and the fact she’d bought a single ticket, seemed to back up the doctor’s theory of this being a possible suicide. There was also a silver and black thermal cup flask on the little table between the beds, which he thought might have contained a drug, self-administered, and which she might have drank in the privacy of the cabin.

  Guilbert thanked the doctor and waved in the two SOCOs. He stepped back into the corridor with Horton where a fair-haired woman in a red waterproof jacket who Guilbert introduced as Detective Sergeant Trisha Martell was waiting. ‘None of the crew remembers seeing her on the deck or in the restaurant or lounges,’ Martell crisply reported. ‘And there were no passengers booked in any of the cabins in this corridor. There are only fift
een passengers left on board for the onward sailing to Jersey.’

  Which was now delayed, thought Horton.

  ‘We haven’t spoken to them yet. The Guernsey passengers had already disembarked before her body was found. I’m getting a list of them, and of the crew.’

  Horton wasn’t certain that Guilbert would need to question them but it was Guilbert’s call, not his.

  Guilbert turned as one of the SOCOs approached them. ‘No suicide note in the pockets of her coat, trousers or her handbag, sir,’ she said.

  Horton knew that suicides didn’t always leave notes – in fact, few of them did.

  She handed over two plastic evidence bags. In one Horton could see the dead woman’s handbag; in the other the contents of that bag. There was a small bottle of antiseptic hand gel, some tissues, a bottle of perfume – which he recognized from his time spent married to Catherine to be a very expensive brand – a small cosmetics bag and a pair of sunglasses, hardly needed in January. In another small evidence bag was a set of keys, of which there were five on a silver key ring with a ruby-coloured stone in the middle, a purse and a mobile phone.

  With latex-covered fingers, Guilbert opened the purse. ‘No address, no driver’s licence. No ticket either. She must have thrown that away after boarding. Some coins and three twenty-pound notes. Credit and debit card in the name of Mrs Evelyn Lyster.’ He addressed Martell. ‘Run her name through the Police National Computer and check if she has a driver’s licence.’ As Martell headed down the corridor to the stairwell with her mobile phone pressed to her ear, Guilbert retrieved Evelyn Lyster’s mobile phone from the evidence bag.

  ‘Last call was made Saturday at eleven fifty-three a.m. to a mobile number. No name but it might be in her address book.’

  Horton knew that Guilbert wouldn’t call it. It could be a husband, son or daughter and relaying the tragic news over the phone wasn’t the most sensitive way of doing things. If her address was Portsmouth then Horton would call it in and get an officer round.

  He said, ‘Any numbers in her address book with a Guernsey telephone code?’

  Guilbert quickly scrawled through them and shook his head. ‘No. There are hardly any numbers listed. Just a handful.’

  ‘Any with a Portsmouth telephone code?’

  ‘Yes.’ He handed the phone to Horton, who had put on the pair of protective gloves Guilbert had given him. The numbers were for the doctor, dentist, a hairdresser and a beauty salon. It was clear that she had lived in Portsmouth. There were also mobile phone numbers for someone called Rowan and a Gina – no surnames. Other than that, nothing, which surprised him. He was even more surprised when he flicked to her log of calls and texts, both those sent and received, and found there weren’t any.

  ‘She was either very disciplined in clearing her phone or she cleared it before deciding to take her own life,’ he said.

  ‘If she did,’ Guilbert reiterated.

  Horton scrolled to her photographs and received another shock. There weren’t any.

  ‘Perhaps she didn’t like taking pictures.’ Guilbert took the phone from Horton.

  ‘Or perhaps she was determined to strip her phone of anything personal before doing the deed. Anything in the flask?’ Horton addressed the other crime-scene officer who was placing it in an evidence bag.

  ‘No sir, empty. There are no pills anywhere or empty pill bottles or sachets, and no toiletries in the shower room.’

  Which meant the drug, if she had taken one, must have been in the flask. But she could have suffered a heart attack, aneurism or a massive stroke.

  ‘If she did kill herself I wonder why she chose to do so on the way to Guernsey?’ Guilbert mused.

  ‘Maybe the island held a special memory for her.’

  Guilbert shrugged. Then added, ‘Sorry to have dragged you into this, Andy.’

  ‘You didn’t. I agreed to come.’

  ‘About dinner tonight—’

  ‘We’ll do it another time.’ It would have to be on his next visit, whenever that might be.

  There was little more for SOCO to do but prints and swabs would be taken. There didn’t seem any need to seal off the cabin or question the remaining passengers.

  Martell was heading back towards them. ‘Evelyn Lyster has a clean driving licence but she’s not listed as currently owning a vehicle. She has no previous criminal convictions. Aged fifty-five, lives at Penthouse One, Governors Green, Old Portsmouth.’ She flashed a look at Horton.

  ‘Expensive. It’s situated in the oldest part of the city overlooking the Solent.’ He wondered if Evelyn Lyster lived alone. Reaching for his phone, he said, ‘I’ll get an officer around to the address.’ It was too late to call Cantelli. He and DC Walters would probably already have left the station for the night. And there was no need to drag out whichever one of them was duty CID. There was also no need to notify DCI Lorraine Bliss, his boss, as this looked in all probability to be suicide or death by natural causes. Horton relayed the details to Sergeant Warren and gave him Inspector Guilbert’s number. Warren would send round two uniformed officers to break the bad news to any relatives and then call Guilbert back.

  Guilbert gave instructions to Martell to supervise the removal of the body while he updated the captain. Horton took his leave, saying that he’d call Guilbert in the morning. He was driven back to the terminal where he walked into St Peter Port and found a bistro. There he ordered a Coke and something to eat but when the food arrived he found he had little appetite. Several things troubled him. There was the thought of Evelyn Lyster dying alone and possibly afraid and in despair. There were also his memories of sailing here with Catherine and his daughter, Emma. The last time had been just over two and a half years ago before his world had imploded following that false allegation of rape while working undercover. He’d subsequently been cleared but an eight-month suspension and his drinking bouts during it had sealed what he now knew had been a marriage destined to fail. And he had so badly wanted it not to. His divorce had put paid to sailing trips with his ten-year-old daughter and so much more. Catherine’s stubborn refusal to let him share in Emma’s life was frustrating and needless.

  Leaving half of his meal untouched, he stepped outside and made for the esplanade, also disturbed by thoughts connected with his meeting that afternoon with Violet Ducale and his ongoing search for the truth behind his mother’s disappearance. He was certain that Violet Ducale had spoken to and possibly seen her nephew, Andrew, since 1967, but if so why not tell him? Was it because she knew that he had worked for and was possibly still working for British Intelligence? And there had been more troubling her as their conversation had progressed.

  He stared across the inky black expanse of sea, lit occasionally by a fleeting moon and the blinking lights of the buoys. The sound of the waves washing on to the sandy beach in the still, cold night were softer, more calming than he was used to in his home town where the sea would crash on to the pebbles and suck the stones under as it rolled back. The light, drizzling rain had ceased.

  The trilling of his mobile phone pierced his thoughts. It was Sergeant Warren.

  ‘Thought you’d like to know, Andy, that there was no response at Evelyn Lyster’s flat but I got the details of her next of kin from her doctor.’ Horton had relayed the number on Evelyn Lyster’s phone earlier. ‘The GP said that she suffered from low blood pressure but otherwise was a very healthy woman. He’s never treated her for depression. She leaves a son, Rowan Lyster.’

  The name on her mobile phone. Horton wondered how he’d take the news. ‘Divorced?’

  ‘Widowed. I’ve sent PCs Somerfield and Johnson round to the son’s and I’ve informed Inspector Guilbert. Do you want me to ring you back and let you know how they get on?’

  ‘I’m on leave?’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  Horton rang off, turned away from the sea and began to walk back through the quiet, narrow cobbled streets towards the guest house where he was staying. It was very different here in
the height of summer when tourists thronged the little town with its distinctive French feel. He wondered again about Evelyn Lyster, alone, locked in her cabin. Had the fact she suffered from low blood pressure caused her death or had she taken a drug in order to end it?

  He recalled his own dark days of despair during his suspension and marital break-up. He’d gone out to sea on his small yacht in a brewing storm and had pitted himself against the elements, daring them to take his life. But his instinct and desire for survival had been too strong. He’d learned his lesson well during the hellish days in the children’s home.

  Warren called him just as he stepped out of the shower. ‘Rowan Lyster has no idea why his mother was on the ferry to Guernsey. She’d said nothing to him or his wife, Gina, about going there. The last they saw of her was on Saturday evening at her flat when they had dinner with her. She was in good spirits and there was no sign that she was depressed. The family has no relatives on Guernsey or on any of the other Channel Islands.’

  The autopsy would give them some of the answers for her death but if it was suicide then although they might discover the how they might never know the why.

  He spent a restless, dream-filled night but on waking couldn’t remember the exact fabric of the dreams. It left him feeling slightly hungover and with a nagging sensation that somewhere buried deep in them was a tiny fragment of information that would help him unlock the past. He’d have liked a run but hadn’t brought his running gear. Instead he set out for a brisk walk, hoping the chilly sea breeze would blow away his muggy head.

  He called Guilbert before he set out to see if anything new had come in. It hadn’t. But Guilbert said he had put out an appeal for information about Evelyn Lyster. Maybe someone would come forward to say she had intended staying with them or she’d booked into a hotel on the island. Except she’d had no luggage. Perhaps she’d owned or rented a property on the island which her son and daughter-in-law had known nothing about. Or perhaps she had a lover and her clothes and belongings were at a property they shared. Guilbert said her son was arranging to fly over tomorrow and that the autopsy result would be through by midday.