In for the Kill Read online

  Forty minutes later, as the ferry approached Fishbourne, the passengers were told to return to their cars, which they all did. Another crewmember told how all the decks were clear of passengers as the St Catherine hit the big wooden fenders at Fishbourne.

  Clipton, it seemed, had returned to his car, sat in it and died. It was just one of those things, or so I thought until the daughter took the stand.

  She was about thirty-five with short straight fair hair and a worried expression on her long, oval face. She spoke softly, and had difficulty in holding the coroner’s eye contact. She said that she’d had no idea that her father was coming to the Isle of Wight. Why should she, I thought, Clipton didn’t have to tell his daughter his movements, which was exactly what the coroner, a grey, shrivelled-up man, said.

  ‘He would have told me,’ the daughter declared, flushing. ‘I would have worried about him otherwise. Since Mum died and Dad retired he’s always kept me informed if he was going to be away from the house longer than a couple of days.’

  ‘And this time he didn’t tell you?’

  ‘Oh yes, he did.’

  The coroner looked confused and a little exasperated. I didn’t blame him. She must have seen his irritation because she blushed and added,

  ‘I knew he was going away but I didn’t know he was coming to the Isle of Wight. I thought he was going to Andover.’

  What? Had I heard right? I sat bolt upright as if someone had shoved an electric poker up my backside.

  ‘Andover?’ The coroner sounded like Lady Bracknell and her handbag. I guessed that Andover wasn’t the sort of place you went on holiday to.

  ‘Did he have business in Andover?’

  ‘Business? He’s retired.’ She looked confused.

  Her eyes welled up. ‘He was retired.’ A sob caught in her throat.

  I couldn’t imagine anyone mourning the bastard who had interrogated and bullied me, but then I was prejudiced.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ the coroner said, hastily and a little irritably. He didn’t seem to me the best candidate for this job. I wondered if he had been the coroner at my mother’s inquest. I shuddered at the vision of my poor mother’s death being scrutinized like this. Yet it had been and without me being present. The verdict had been accidental death. I couldn’t have prevented it even if I had been free. It was small consolation.

  Hastily I pulled myself together and focused on what the coroner was saying.

  ‘So he told you he was going to Andover for a couple of days’ holiday.’

  ‘No. He just said, ‘I’ll be away for a couple of days, possibly a few; I’m not sure. I’m going to Andover,’ Clipton’s daughter replied.

  My eyes swept the room. I held my breath, waiting for someone to stand up and say, Andover’s a man not a town in Hampshire. No one did. The police didn’t even look interested.

  I swivelled in my seat to look behind me, there was no one either sitting or standing. The doors were shut. I needed to speak to Clipton’s daughter, but away from here and in private, without two policemen breathing down my neck, wondering who the hell I was, putting two and two together and coming up with eight.

  A verdict was brought in of death by natural causes. The coroner gave permission for the body to be released and I slipped out before anyone else into a day that threatened April showers. I watched from the safety of the opposite side of the road as they spilled out of the inquest. I saw the two policemen move forward and fall into conversation with Clipton’s daughter and partner, who was a slightly overweight man with a little goatee beard that was beginning to turn grey. Their heads were nodding, their expressions serious. Then they all climbed into a car and were driven off. I cursed. I guessed they were leaving the Island.

  A payphone was just a few yards to my left and I dived into it and rang Miles’s office. After a brief moment I was put through to him.

  ‘Clipton’s daughter said he was going to Andover.’

  ‘And you think that means he was coming to see you?’

  Clipton had always believed that I was Andover. ‘Either that or Andover is or was on the Island.’ And that might explain the aeroplane incident. It didn’t explain, though, why he hadn’t tried to attack me again. ‘The only person who might know more is his daughter. I’m going to Clipton’s funeral. There I can ask her a couple of questions under the guise of passing on my condolences. She won’t know who I am.’

  ‘Unless someone tells her.’

  ‘I’ll take a chance on that. Besides they might not recognise me now.’

  I heard Miles sniff in disbelief. ‘Perhaps I should go instead.’

  ‘Miles, I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.’

  Then sensing I’d spoken too harshly, I added,

  ‘Thanks, but this is my battle. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done and how you’ve stuck with me but I have to stand on my own two feet.

  There is something you can do for me though.’

  ‘You’ve got it.’

  ‘Find out when and where Clipton’s funeral is. Perhaps one of your contacts in the police can tell you. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  I rang off and called Joe. His secretary told me I had just missed him. He was on an assignment and wouldn’t be back until Friday. She wouldn’t give me his mobile number either. I was beginning to get the feeling he was avoiding me.

  I said I would call again on Friday.

  It had started raining but judging by the speed of the clouds a blue bit of sky was due at any moment so I ducked into the café in the Quay Arts Centre, and fetched myself a coffee. I couldn’t help feeling a thrill of excitement. OK, so Clipton’s death had been due to natural causes, but why had he been coming here? And why tell his daughter he was going to Andover? If Andover had been on the Island then it was bloody convenient for him that Clipton had died.

  I was impatient for an appointment to see Joe, and for Clipton’s funeral. Perhaps then, at last, I’d start getting some answers.

  CHAPTER 3

  The following Monday morning I alighted from the hovercraft at Portsmouth. It was a grey, gloomy day with a chill edge to the breeze and the threat of rain in the air. The right sort of day for a burial, I thought, as I skirted Southsea Common and headed towards the city centre.

  Clipton’s committal was at one o’clock. That gave me plenty of time for my meeting with Joe, which I’d finally managed to arrange on Friday.

  I spotted the fair-haired man with the square jaw and stooping posture as I waited to cross Kings Road. He had been on the hovercraft.

  Nothing odd in that, lots of people travel to Portsmouth, but I felt uneasy. I smelt a copper.

  I zipped up my sailing jacket, turned right into Landport Street and right again, or rather I would have done, if the road hadn’t been blocked by blue and white police tape, a stout copper and a small crowd. My heart skipped a beat. Almost instantly I knew why they were here. Suddenly the energy and optimism drained from me. It had to be Joe. If it was then there was only one reason why something should have happened to him now: me.

  I craned my neck to see a police car straddling the road of terraced houses, small offices and council flats, its blue light pulsating. My flesh crawled. I glanced nervously behind me but the fair-haired man was nowhere in sight. I watched the white-suited scene of crime team come and go. A television cameraman and reporter were further along to my right.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked a black man next to me.

  ‘Man been attacked,’ he said.

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘If he is, he ain’t breathing none too well with the body-bag zipped up over his face. I seen it come out half an hour ago.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Dunno.’ He shrugged his broad shoulders, but the woman next to him said:

  ‘I heard one of the policemen say it was a private detective and that he must have been working on a pretty nasty divorce case to get himself killed.’

  God! Where would this end? Would it
ever end?

  I hung around a bit longer but couldn’t pick up any further bits of gossip. Disappointed and worried I ducked into the nearest café, which was full of students. Nursing my coffee in as dark a corner as I could find I wondered what to do. If I came forward and told the police that I’d had an appointment with Joe they’d ask me why. Before I knew it I’d be in a police station answering questions, or, as they so euphemistically put it, helping with their enquiries, until they could eliminate me. I was out on licence. One sniff of trouble and they’d have me back inside before you could say porridge. The memory was enough to bring me out in a cold sweat and turn the contents of my stomach to liquid. But what if Joe had entered our appointment in a diary?

  Did he keep a diary? Did his secretary?

  ‘You all right, dear? You looks a bit queasy to me.’

  I glanced up to see a middle-aged waitress with blonde frizzled hair, tight cheap clothes, excessive make-up and a worried frown on her lined face.

  She was wiping down the table next to me. She didn’t seem to fit with the café, which was full of youthful vigour, clear skins and trouble-free expressions. Still she wasn’t the only one: I hardly blended!

  She said, ‘I expect it’s the murder round the corner; fair turns you over, don’t it. You’re not safe these days. I’ve heard it’s poor Mr Bristow.

  Such a nice man, never did no one no harm.

  Used to come in here regular like for a coffee and a doughnut, or a nice fry-up for breakfast.

  Hard to believe.’

  She smiled sadly before strutting off on heels that were ridiculously high and thin. Not for me it wasn’t hard to believe. Things happened to me and around me. Had my call to Joe warned Andover that I was on his trail? How could Andover have known that unless Joe’s phone was tapped? It seemed incredulous but then as Andover had managed to manipulate my computer files, a simple case of phone tapping certainly wouldn’t be beyond him. Besides, I’d learnt in prison that you could easily buy electronic listening devices on the Internet or by mail order.

  I considered another possibility that had occurred to me more than once over the last few years. Could Andover be an electronics or computer expert? I didn’t know anyone like that.

  At least I didn’t think I did. It could be someone I had been at school or university with, who might have entered one of those fields. If so it had to be someone who hated me because I had hurt him in some way. I couldn’t think of anyone who fitted the picture, except Steven Trentham, but that was impossible.

  I turned my mind back to poor Joe. Why kill him? The obvious answer was because Andover was scared that Joe might tell me something.

  Which meant there was something to tell. Then why hadn’t Joe already told it to me? Perhaps he had but its importance had eluded me. Time for me to go over the reports he had sent me, yet again.

  I sat up. The reports! Shit! I hoped they were OK where I had left them on the houseboat. I almost hurried home then, but soon realised there was little point. If Andover was after them, they’d be long gone by the time I returned home.

  Whichever way I looked at it someone had known I was coming here, and that someone had made sure that Joe wasn’t going to be alive when I arrived. Then a thought struck me, if Andover had listened in to Joe’s telephone calls, perhaps the police had too. Perhaps they had bargained on my coming to see Joe on my release, which meant they could already be looking for me.

  I sipped my coffee racking my brains trying to recall how that conversation had run:

  ‘Joe, it’s Alex Albury. Do you remember me?’

  ‘Of course I do, Mr Albury. How are you doing?’

  ‘I’m out on parole. I’d like to come and see you.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing for you, Mr Albury. The trail was as cold as a freezer in Iceland.’

  ‘Maybe, but I’d still like to talk to you. I’d like to go over what you did, who you spoke to, what you found.’

  ‘I found nothing.’

  ‘Would Monday suit you, about eleven? I’ll pay for your time.’

  ‘OK, if it’ll make you happy. But don’t build your hopes up.’

  If the police had bugged Joe’s calls, then I’d know soon enough.

  I finished my coffee, paid my bill and headed out. I was early for Clipton’s funeral but I didn’t mind. It would take me a while to walk across the city to the cemetery where Miles had told me Clipton was being buried. I checked to see if I was being followed but the fair-haired man had gone.

  By the time I reached the vast cemetery on the eastern side of Portsmouth the dark clouds were gathering overhead and the wind was snatching at the trees scattering the blossom from them like confetti at a wedding. I sat amongst the flaking and lichen-covered tombstones listening to the birds chirping and watching the squirrels’

  antics. My mother had been cremated. I was glad.

  I didn’t like to think of her flesh and bones rotting away inside the earth.

  I shuddered and lifted my collar as the first spots of rain fell. With Joe dead my hopes rested on Clipton’s daughter giving me some answers to my questions. As if on cue cars began to pull into the cemetery. I glimpsed her black-clothed figure in the limousine behind the hearse. I followed the cars to Clipton’s grave and then ducked behind a large memorial angel, weathered in white marble, and made out like I was a mourner.

  Either Clipton had a big family or he had been well liked, and this made me wonder if Joe had any family, perhaps a wife he had confided in. I knew he didn’t have a partner but what about his secretary? She must have typed up his reports.

  Perhaps she could tell me something. Or was she in danger herself? I sincerely hoped not, but I wasn’t betting on it.

  I scanned the crowd. The police officers weren’t hard to spot as experience and my cellmates had taught me how. There was no one I recognised. Not even Clipton’s softly spoken sergeant who had played nice guy to Clipton’s mean and angry one. I wondered what had happened to him. Even if he’d been transferred surely he would have been here. Perhaps they hadn’t got on.

  The cemetery seemed deserted save for us. It was raining now quite heavily and the curate was having a job holding the umbrella over the vicar in the tempestuous wind.

  My only chance of speaking to the daughter would be after the committal when the other mourners made their way back to their cars.

  Then, on the pretence of giving my condolences, I could ask her what her father had said about Andover. Either that or I would have to follow them back to the house, but that would be risky given the police presence, as someone might recognise me. I hadn’t really thought of how I was going to broach the subject but knew that something would come to me. I hadn’t been a PR man for over thirteen years for nothing.

  The committal seemed to go on forever. The wind strengthened and with it came heavier rain; it was mean, slanting stuff that stung my face and seeped through my trousers and shoes.

  Clipton, it appeared, was having the last laugh on us. The only good thing about it, I thought, was that the mourners would be in a hurry to leave. And they were. His daughter remained; along with the man I’d seen her with at the inquest. Holding his hand, and clutching a handkerchief, she stared down at the coffin as the vicar snatched a surreptitious and anxious glance at his watch.

  Now was my chance and I was going to take it. I had to repeat myself before I penetrated her sorrow.

  ‘I’m sorry about your father.’ I wasn’t, but I had to observe the niceties.

  She twitched her lips in the ghost of a smile that never touched her eyes. Her partner smiled encouragingly at her.

  ‘Are you ready, Christine?’ he asked gently.

  She nodded and the three of us began to move off. The vicar and curate followed. Ahead of us, huddled by the cars, were the other mourners, faces screwed up against the harshness of the weather. My face was so wet that the rain ran off it in rivulets. My trousers were clinging to my legs like melted plastic. But what was a bit of rain to me? I�
�d known worse.

  I was wondering how to broach the subject when she became conscious that I was beside her.

  ‘Did you work with my father?’ she said, her voice seeming to come from a great distance away.

  Poor cow, she looked so bedraggled and forlorn, her fair hair was dark with the rain and plastered to her head. Her eyes held such pain and sorrow that told me she must have loved him. I tried to imagine Clipton as a loving father, but couldn’t.

  ‘No. But I knew him through his work.’ It seemed to satisfy her. Her partner was too concerned about her to detect any double meaning or sinister intent.

  ‘I can’t think what he was doing on the Isle of Wight,’ she suddenly burst out. I could see it was a question that had been vexing her ever since she had heard the news of his death.

  For a spilt second I tossed up what to say and decided that half the truth might get me somewhere – where, I didn’t know, and only time and daring would tell. ‘I think he might have been coming to see me.’

  That brought her up sharply. She stopped to stare at me whilst over her shoulder I could see the other mourners getting impatient and beginning to clamber into their cars.

  ‘Why?’

  Before I could answer the husband spoke. ‘You didn’t say at the inquest?’

  He’d noticed me there then. ‘No.’

  ‘Why was he coming to see you?’ she repeated, a dazed expression on her face.

  ‘Because of Andover.’

  ‘But… I thought… what do you mean?’

  ‘Come on, honey, let’s get out of the rain, the other mourners are waiting.’

  ‘No.’ She shook him off and turned a penetrating gaze upon me as though I had suddenly woken her from sleepwalking. ‘What do you mean?’

  Time to be economical with the truth. ‘Your father and I met four years ago in the course of his work. I can’t tell you much about it, you understand.’ She nodded enthusiastically. I had made it sound as if we were both working on counter-espionage. ‘We were looking for someone called Andover. We didn’t find him. I live on the Isle of Wight. Your father could have been coming to tell me he had found Andover.’