Shroud of Evil Read online

  ‘My interview with Ms Swallows?’ Horton tetchily replied.

  ‘No,’ Cantelli said, puzzled. ‘The court case.’

  He brought them both up to date with the outcome of that and the assignment Bliss had sent him on, which drew a surprised raising of dark eyebrows from Cantelli. ‘They know one another,’ Horton explained. Tossing the sheet of paper and the photograph Eunice Swallows had given him of Jasper Kenton on to Walters’ desk, he added, ‘Make out the missing persons report and put out the usual alerts but it’s low priority until Bliss tells us differently. So where were you two when your boss needed you before having to scrape the barrel by sending me?’

  ‘In a Greek restaurant,’ Cantelli answered.

  ‘There’s been another attack?’ asked Horton, perching on one of several empty desks in the room.

  Cantelli nodded. ‘In the same road, and the same as the other two, racist slogans painted on the kitchen and passageway walls.’

  That made three in a fortnight. The other restaurants targeted had been Bangladeshi and Cantonese in a road in Southsea just off the seafront, which seemed to boast more foreign restaurants than the United Nations had members.

  ‘It’s also the same MO, rear door forced, wouldn’t have kept a nine-year-old out,’ Cantelli relayed. ‘And the security system was defunct. Nothing stolen or wrecked. Walters took some photos with his mobile phone.’

  Walters tapped into his computer where he’d uploaded the photographs. Horton studied the pictures. The lettering was in large dark-blue paint scrawled across the wall of a passageway that led into the kitchen and on the available wall space in the kitchen. The slogans included ‘Free UK of dirty immigrants’ and ‘Filth go home’.

  Cantelli, looking over Horton’s shoulder, said, ‘It’s polite as far as slogans go and no swastikas.’

  Yes, and that was unusual. They’d had them carved on gravestones in the Jewish part of a local cemetery and on the walls of the four mosques in the city but that had been some months ago and it didn’t look to be the work of the same vandals.

  ‘I’m organizing extra patrols in the area over the weekend,’ Cantelli continued. ‘And I’ve requested copies of all CCTV footage. Some of the other restaurants have their own and they’re sending them over. We might catch sight of chummy.’

  To Walters, Horton said, ‘Have you got a list of the restaurant’s suppliers?’

  ‘Going back later to pick it up,’ Walters answered, opening his desk drawer to reveal a mini larder and plucking out a bar of chocolate. ‘I’ve got the list of employees though, and past employees. I was just going to check them with the staff lists from the other two restaurants. Most of the names sound foreign though so I can’t see it being one of them.’

  ‘Do it anyway. It might be a disgruntled employee who’s been overlooked for a pay rise or promotion, or a former employee who’s been sacked in favour of someone of a different nationality.’ Horton addressed Cantelli. ‘Fix up a meeting with DI Grimes and the STOP team.’ It was one new initiative that Horton agreed with. The STOP team had been set up specifically to focus on hate crime and comprised officers from Special Branch and Counter Terrorism. It didn’t mean that they were looking for a terrorist but someone holding strong views could end up taking action or being groomed by those who didn’t care how they achieved their aims and who they maimed and killed in the process. ‘You might also like to ask Tim Shearer if he could send one of his staff along. When we catch this bugger I don’t want him walking on a technicality.’ He made for Bliss’s office, knocked perfunctorily and entered.

  ‘Well?’ she said, looking up from her computer.

  Tersely he relayed the outcome of his interview with Eunice Swallows, knowing that Bliss already had this information from Ms Swallows herself. She’d probably telephoned Bliss the moment he’d left. ‘There’s little we can do except the usual, unless Eunice Swallows is prepared to let us have a list of the clients Jasper Kenton is working for and those he is investigating in case they have something to do with his disappearance. There is also the chance that’s he’s absconded with funds stolen from the firm or from one of his clients.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ she said primly.

  How did she know?

  Her phone rang. She nodded dismissal at him.

  Glad to get away from her, he returned to his office. It was almost five and he had little to show for his day’s work but he was curious to know more about Swallows. He did an Internet search on her name, and within seconds he was reading how they had built up an enviable track record of success since being established four years ago. Before then both Eunice Swallows and Jasper Kenton had been working alone. Eunice Swallows came with vast experience in the field of retail fraud and employee theft. Jasper Kenton had worked with major corporations in London and was an expert in computer and Internet-based investigation, digital forensic examination and cyber security services. Something Eunice Swallows hadn’t told him, though to be fair he hadn’t asked. But it made him consider what he had just mentioned to Bliss. Could Kenton have stolen from a client or from the agency itself and absconded with the proceeds? If he was that much of a cyber expert then it was unlikely that anyone would notice for some time.

  The website also mentioned that Kenton acted as an expert technical witness, providing case and trial consultancy in the field of cyber crime. Horton hadn’t come across him but then he hadn’t been involved in any complex cases that involved a high level of computer forensic data and Internet use. That would have been the remit of the Hi-Tech Crime Unit, the Serious Organized Crime Agency, or the Intelligence Directorate. Horton had dealt with pornography cases and investigations where computer evidence had been vital but the Hi-Tech Unit had assisted with those. Maybe he’d ask around internally to see if Kenton’s name rang any bells. And perhaps Tim Shearer had heard of Kenton. He made a mental note to ask him on Monday if Kenton hadn’t shown up by then.

  He saw Walters leave. Twenty minutes later Cantelli stuck his head round the door. ‘The extra patrols are set up for after the restaurants close from one a.m. onwards. Let’s hope it’s a quiet night for fights otherwise they might get called away. And I’ve arranged a meeting with DI Grimes and his team for Monday morning, nine-thirty. Tim Shearer said he’d come himself. I’m off home now, unless there’s anything …’

  ‘There isn’t,’ Horton quickly broke in. He knew how important Cantelli’s family was to him and they were deprived of the sergeant’s presence enough times without him adding to it unnecessarily. Not that Charlotte ever complained and neither did Cantelli’s five children, as far as Horton was aware. He wished Cantelli a good weekend with a silent longing that he could be with his own daughter, Emma. Maybe if he lived in a flat rather than on his boat Catherine would let Emma stay with him. Catherine thought the boat too cold and unsuitable for an eight-year-old. But he hated the idea of living in a poky apartment crammed in the middle of the city. At least with his boat he had the space of the marina and the sea beyond it, and he could satisfy his restlessness by sailing. Not tonight though, he thought, as he headed home in the dark and the rain. The wind was howling through the masts when he reached the marina. The rain was ricocheting off the deck like bullets and the sea was slapping against the hull of his yacht. Most days he enjoyed returning but tonight he felt a stab of envy at Cantelli in his warm, family house on the eastern edge of Portsmouth, surrounded by people who loved him and whom he loved.

  He gazed around the chilly cabin, feeling its emptiness. His loneliness settled on him like a heavy weight. If he could just have someone. He had hoped that Harriet Eames, who he’d worked with a couple of times, might be that someone until he’d come to suspect that her father might be involved in his mother’s disappearance. Perhaps he was destined to be alone, he thought, making a coffee and trying to shake off the clawing suffocating feeling of depression. Even Bliss had someone, he considered with bitterness, imagining her chatting with Eunice Swallows over a drink, discussing Jasper Kenton
’s disappearance. He didn’t know that for a fact, but when had facts got in the way of depression?

  Irritated with himself he slammed down his coffee cup and rose. Sitting here feeling bloody sorry for himself wasn’t going to get him anywhere. There were only three antidotes for that: one was sailing, which was completely out of the question in this weather; another was work, which he’d had enough of for one day. So that left him with the third. He changed and went for a run.

  THREE

  Saturday

  Horton was at his desk early the next morning. He had no need to be there and would have gone sailing if the weather forecast had been more optimistic, but rain and high winds had been forecast and it was better to occupy his time catching up with his backlog of paperwork than mooching about the boat. His run along the promenade last night had helped to lift the depression for a while but the early hours of the morning had seen it return with a vengeance. After trying unsuccessfully for two hours to shake it off and return to sleep he’d given up and headed for work. He’d made good inroads into answering his emails and filling in forms – although the pile never seemed to diminish, only expand – and at eight-fifteen he thought he’d earned himself a canteen breakfast. He headed towards it, thinking he would treat himself to the full works – eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, tomatoes and anything else on offer – when Sergeant Warren intercepted him.

  ‘Jasper Kenton’s car’s been found,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’ Horton asked, half expecting Warren to say at the Continental Ferry Port or Southampton Airport car park, which would fit with his theory of Kenton doing a runner with a client’s money. So he was surprised when Warren said it was parked in a resident’s space at the Admiralty Towers car park in Queen Street. That was a modern seven-storey block of apartments close to The Hard and not far from the waterfront and marina at Oyster Quays. Had Kenton dumped his car there and taken a boat across to the continent or to the Channel Islands?

  Warren continued. ‘The resident whose space the car’s parked in arrived there half an hour ago. He called the car park company to complain but when he got no reply he called us. He’s the “I pay my rates and your wages so get someone down here now and move it” type.’

  Horton knew them well.

  ‘He says he has never seen the vehicle before and has no idea who its owner is. I’ve sent a unit over to pacify him but told the officers not to touch the car.’

  Horton didn’t have Jasper Kenton’s car keys. They could force an entry and that would probably be quicker than asking Eunice Swallows to go to Kenton’s house and return with a spare set of keys. Judging by what she had told him yesterday Kenton probably had them hanging in a special place, neatly labelled. But Horton had another idea.

  ‘Call Nigel Bowman, give him the vehicle details and ask him to meet me there.’

  Bowman was head mechanic at the police vehicle workshop. It would take Bowman about forty minutes to get a set of keys that would unlock the Vauxhall. There was the chance that Jasper Kenton was inside one of the apartments and had inadvertently parked his car in the wrong space. Horton could get a couple of officers knocking on doors but that was a lot of doors to knock on – and why hadn’t Kenton called his business partner and told her he was there? Maybe because he was ill inside one of the flats, or perhaps even dead.

  He instructed Warren to call Eunice Swallows and ask her if any of the clients Kenton was investigating lived at Admiralty Towers or if Kenton knew anyone there. She’d claimed he had no friends but perhaps Kenton had a lover he didn’t want Eunice Swallows to know about. He could understand that, having met the woman.

  It was just after eight-thirty when he swung into the ground-level car park beneath the glass and steel apartment block. There were two parking areas: one for residents’ parking, the other for public parking, the latter of which was used mainly by those visiting the nearby Historic Dockyard. As that didn’t open until ten o’clock it was deserted. There were a few cars in the residents’ spaces and a bad-tempered looking squat man in his late forties standing by one of them, a high performance new sports car. Judging by his expression and his wild gesticulations he was haranguing PC Liz Jenkins, who remained stoically unmoved, maintaining only a look of polite interest on her attractive dark face. Horton knew the expression well. Jenkins would have experienced a lot worse.

  The man’s eyes flicked to Horton, registered the Harley and Horton’s clothes and rapidly dismissed him. Horton was used to that. No one expected a police officer to be riding a motorbike unless he was a traffic cop in uniform. Horton crossed to PC Allen who was standing by Kenton’s car.

  ‘No keys in the ignition, sir,’ Allen announced. ‘It’s locked. I tried the handle – with gloves on,’ he added hastily, ‘but Mr Roger Watling, that’s the man with PC Jenkins, says he tried all the doors and the boot.’

  Horton peered inside the dark-blue saloon. It was spotlessly clean and tidy with nothing visible on the seats and it clearly had not been broken into. The exterior and windscreen, however, were rain spattered and a little dirty. It had stopped raining at about three a.m. but that didn’t mean the vehicle hadn’t been parked here; he had no idea when it might last have been cleaned.

  There was no ticket on the windscreen, which was no more than he had expected, not only because the vehicle was in a resident’s space and therefore wouldn’t have needed a ticket but also because this was the type of car park where you collected your ticket at the barrier and inserted it into the machine before leaving, paying only for the number of hours you’d been parked. The residents had their own entrance lane and barrier, which clearly Kenton must have entered by. There might be CCTV, he thought, glancing around, and with a bit of luck there might also be a system that had number-plate-reading technology which could tell them when Kenton had parked here. However, the fact the car was in the residents’ area and not the public car park meant that Kenton must either have been buzzed through by someone he knew living here, or he had a pass. There was every likelihood therefore that he was inside the building. Perhaps even now he was in one of these flats, perfectly safe and happy, wallowing in an excess of sexual bliss. But why park in Roger Watling’s space and not the space of the person he knew? Perhaps he’d just got it wrong, but that didn’t fit with the description Eunice Swallows had given him.

  Horton crossed to Roger Watling and received a hostile glare from the short chubby man, dressed expensively but causally in chinos and a leather jacket over a T-shirt. His expression changed to one of surprise when Horton introduced himself and showed his ID. ‘You live here, Mr Watling?’ he politely enquired.

  ‘No. I live in London. I have an apartment here. I come down some weekends. Look, all I want you to do is move the bloody thing,’ Watling declared, exasperated. His eyes were bloodshot and Horton could smell garlic and alcohol on his breath.

  ‘Do you know a Mr Jasper Kenton?’

  ‘No. Is that whose car it is?’

  Horton retrieved his mobile phone where he’d uploaded a photograph of Jasper Kenton and showed it to Watling. ‘Do you recognize this man?’

  ‘Never set eyes on him. When are you going to get it shifted?’ He ran his stubby fingers through his gelled hair.

  ‘As soon as we can, sir. Have you any idea why Mr Kenton should park his car in your space?’

  ‘None whatsoever. Now if—’

  ‘How are residents permitted entry to the car park?’

  ‘We have a fob.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  Watling huffed and puffed but thrust his fat fingers into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out his keys. ‘That’s it.’ He indicated a small flat black pad on his key ring. ‘I press it against the pad at the barrier and that gets me into the car park and into the apartment block.’ He jerked his head at a door behind him. A sign above it read: ‘Entrance to Apartments’.

  ‘Were you here last night?’

  ‘No. Look, I told this officer. I arrived this morning at about eight o’
clock and found that car in my space.’

  ‘Have you been up to your apartment?’

  ‘No. I rang the car parking company and then you lot and was told to wait.’

  Horton turned to PC Jenkins. ‘Perhaps you’d like to go with Mr Watling to his apartment.’

  ‘You don’t think this man is inside it!’ Watling cried, alarmed.

  ‘We have to check, sir.’

  ‘He bloody well better not be.’

  But Horton wondered if Kenton had been investigating Roger Watling. If he had though he’d hardly be likely to park in his space.

  Watling marched off, leaving PC Jenkins to hurry after him. Horton didn’t think Watling was going to be too pleased when they asked him for his prints and a statement. But maybe it wouldn’t come to that if it transpired that Kenton was in the building.

  Horton addressed PC Allen. ‘Call in Watling’s licence number and check it out.’ His phone rang as a car pulled in and a long thin man with a hooked nose and cheery smile climbed out. He was brandishing a set of keys. It was Warren on the phone.

  ‘Eunice Swallows is going to check if they have any clients who are resident at Admiralty Towers or if they are investigating anyone living there. She’ll call you.’

  Yeah, when? She’d told him yesterday that she and Kenton always discussed the cases fully. So why the stalling tactics?

  The locks on the car gave a satisfying clunk as they sprang open. Pulling on latex gloves, Horton opened the passenger door and peered into the glove compartment. There were no driving gloves, as was usual these days, just the service history and car manual. He found a road atlas in the pouch behind the driver’s door and nothing else. But there was an inbuilt satellite navigation system.

  ‘Now for the boot,’ he said to Bowman with a slight quickening of pulse. He’d looked into a few in his time and found some very nasty things. But there was no smell emanating from this one to warn them they might be in for a shock. Nevertheless, he tensed. Thankfully it was empty. There wasn’t even a rug. And there was no sign of the surveillance equipment that Eunice Swallows said Jasper Kenton had been issued with and which she had suggested might be in his car.