Lethal Waves Page 3

  It was just after two o’clock, though, as Horton was on his way to the airport, that Guilbert called him.

  ‘Evelyn Lyster died of severe hypovolemic shock. It occurs when low blood volume causes a sudden drop in blood pressure and a reduction in the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues. In effect, her blood pressure dropped so low she died.’

  ‘Wasn’t she on any medication for it?’

  ‘Her doctor says not. He’d advised just simple lifestyle changes such as increasing her salt intake, eating small portions several times a day, limiting high-carbohydrate foods and drinking plenty of fluids. There was no underlying cause for the low blood pressure – it was genetic, apparently – and the autopsy findings bear that out because Evelyn Lyster was generally in very good health. There’s still the results of the toxicology tests to come, though, which could reveal she took something to end her life.’

  But if she did why do it on the ferry to Guernsey? Maybe Guilbert would get the answer. He’d continue with his enquiries. And Horton with his. Not into the whereabouts of Andrew Ducale, though, because there was nowhere to go with that – unless Violet Ducale had a change of heart – but as the lights of Southampton came through briefly in a break in the clouds beneath him four hours later, he wondered if Richard Eames knew he’d been to Guernsey and that he’d spoken to Violet. Perhaps she was still in touch with him despite her denial and would tell him. Or tell her nephew, who would relay it to Eames. He hadn’t been followed but it would be easy for someone with Eames’ resources to check his movements and discover he had booked a flight to Guernsey. Would Eames be worried that Violet might reveal something of his past? She hadn’t but Horton had come away with the sense that she knew a great deal more than she was prepared to say, not about Jennifer but about Eileen and Andrew’s relationship with Richard Eames.

  The aeroplane hit the concrete with a thud and began to sharply decelerate. Horton let out a sigh of relief. He hated flying. It was being confined that he despised, a legacy of having once been locked in a dark, dank basement in the first hellhole of a children’s home as a form of punishment. The home had long since closed. If it hadn’t he’d have burnt the bloody place down himself.

  Thirty minutes later he was on his Harley heading east along the motorway to Portsmouth. It was dark and raining heavily. The wind was growing stronger by the minute and by the time he reached the marina just before seven thirty it was howling through the masts and rattling the halyards.

  He showered and made himself something to eat. His thoughts turned to Emma and the Christmas she had just spent on the Riviera on her mother’s new boyfriend’s luxury motor yacht. No gale-force winds and freezing nights for her, he thought with bitterness. He’d tried to sound pleased when Emma had excitedly told him over the phone about her presents but all he could hear was how cheap his meagre offerings seemed compared to those of Catherine, her parents and lover boy. Emma had chatted on innocently about the Côte d’Azur and the big boats all around them, not realizing how dismal and inadequate it had made him feel. God, how Catherine must have loved it. How she must have sat there sipping her bloody champagne, gloating.

  He took a coffee up on deck, despite the weather. Sheltering under the canvas awning watching the rain bounce off the deck, he felt Emma’s words stab at his heart. She was back at her expensive school now, where she was a weekly boarder. He felt he was being driven further and further away from her by Catherine, who refused to let Emma sleep on board his own yacht. It was too small, too cold and Emma was too young to tolerate such primitive conditions, Catherine had said. Any family law court would agree. But he couldn’t rent a flat. He’d feel too hemmed in and, even if he did rent one, he was convinced that Catherine would find another reason to deprive him of his daughter’s company. As it was, he only got access two days a month and that was far too few. But come the spring and summer he’d make certain that Emma stayed with him and he was determined to take her on several sailing trips, maybe even to Guernsey again, just the two of them, if he could persuade Catherine to let Emma stay for longer.

  His phone rang. With surprise he saw it was the station. He wasn’t duty CID. In fact, he wasn’t even due back at work until the morning. He considered ignoring it but he didn’t have anything else to do except drink coffee and get maudlin.

  ‘Thought you might like this, Andy, it’s right up your street,’ Sergeant Warren said cheerfully.

  ‘You mean Guernsey.’

  ‘Heard you were flying back today.’

  ‘News travels fast.’

  ‘We’ve got a body, male, Caucasian, and as you’re on the spot, so to speak, I thought you’d like to take a look.’

  Guilbert had said almost the same yesterday evening.

  Warren added, ‘If it’s a suspicious death then you can get the Big Man out of his nice warm house instead of me.’

  Warren meant Detective Superintendent Uckfield, head of the Major Crime Team. Horton was already heading below to fetch his jacket and keys. ‘Where?’

  ‘By one of the houseboats at the end of Ferry Road.’

  ‘Tell the officers I’m on my way.’

  ‘Already have.’

  Horton gave a grim smile and rang off. He grabbed his powerful torch, shrugged into his waterproof sailing jacket and locked up. There was no need to take the Harley – the handful of houseboats were barely half a mile at the end of the road which culminated in Langstone Harbour. They had been there for as long as he could remember.

  He turned left out of the marina and broke into a run. The wind was singing through the masts of the boats on both sides of the spit that extended into Langstone Harbour. There were no houses here, just the marine institute building belonging to the University of Portsmouth on his left and the sailing and diving club on his right facing out on to the Solent. To its left was a narrow strip of beach, then the lifeboat station and opposite that the houseboats and the turning circle for the bus which had stopped running this late. Parked in its space was the police car and, inside it, sheltering from the wind and slanting rain, was PC Johnson. In the back PC Seaton sat with a man Horton didn’t recognize, so he had to be the person who had reported the gruesome find. Seaton climbed out. The wind whipped around them and the stinging rain drove into Horton’s face.

  ‘The body is partly wedged under the houseboat,’ Seaton said solemnly, leading Horton towards a black-and-white painted wooden structure. It was propped up on stout wooden stilts resting on square concrete blocks which in turn were bedded in the shingle. ‘By his appearance, I’d say he was a vagrant.’

  Horton played his torch over the body, swiftly registering the sturdy walking boots, the old and worn trousers that were soaked through, threadbare, patched and dirty, the camel-coloured overcoat tied around the waist with a thin leather belt and the bloody mess around the chest. If he wasn’t mistaken it looked very much like a gunshot wound. There was no question of this death being suicide or natural causes like Evelyn Lyster’s. This clearly was homicide. A brief sweep of the ground around the body with his torch revealed no weapon.

  His beam travelled up to the face. It was deeply etched with lines but clean-shaven. The hair was light brown with grey flecks and reached the collar. The eyes were open and looked slightly startled but perhaps that was his imagination.

  He turned away and, reaching for his phone, called SOCO. Then he rang through to Warren and requested more officers to seal off the area. Not that they needed to worry about nosy parkers at this time of night and in this weather, but the scene would need to be preserved as best it could. The rain would have destroyed a great deal of evidence if the victim had been killed here but he could have been dumped by car or by boat.

  Finally Horton punched in a number on his mobile phone and called Uckfield. It was going to be a long night and he wasn’t the only one who was going to get wet, cold and very little sleep.

  THREE

  ‘He’s been dead about two or three hours but that’s only an estimate. Rigor�
��s present in the jaw and the neck.’ Dr Sharman straightened up and pulled off his latex gloves. Arc lights illuminated the gruesome scene. The wind buffeted the canvas tent which had been erected to protect them and the body. It howled in through the gaps as the rain lashed against it.

  Horton turned to Uckfield. ‘That puts it sometime between eight and ten. It was reported just after ten by Lionel Packman.’

  ‘Are we sure he’s not the killer?’ Uckfield grunted nasally under the scene-suit mask. His cold sounded to be in full force. That, the weather and being called out in it were all causing him to be grouchier than usual.

  ‘He seems to be on the level and he wasn’t covered in blood. I take it there would have been blood on the killer.’ Horton addressed the doctor.

  ‘Probably,’ Sharman answered cautiously.

  Was he afraid of committing himself, wondered Horton, but then Sharman was only a GP and only there to confirm officially that the victim was dead. He wasn’t a forensic pathologist like Gaye Clayton. Uckfield hadn’t suggested they call her. Maybe he would after Sharman had left but there wasn’t a great deal she could do here in these conditions and Uckfield probably wanted to get back to his nice warm home as soon as he could.

  Grumpily Uckfield said, ‘Packman could have stashed his blood-stained clothes somewhere or threw them out there.’ He waved vaguely in the direction of the sea. ‘And why the hell was he here in this godawful weather when any sane person would be at home sipping whisky and watching the box?’

  Which was probably what Uckfield had been doing when Horton had called him – the drinking whisky bit, anyway – because he could smell it on Uckfield’s breath. He’d had the sense, though, to summon a car to bring him here.

  Horton relayed what Seaton had told him about Packman. ‘He was worried about his houseboat in this storm. He inherited it from his mother in September and he’s been painstakingly restoring it since. He’s a retired carpenter. We’ve got his details and we’ve asked him to come into the station tomorrow to make a statement.’

  ‘Which houseboat is his?’

  ‘The one to our left.’

  ‘Convenient, it being next door.’

  Horton didn’t think Packman was the killer because from what he’d seen of the man he’d been genuinely shocked. Still, Horton wouldn’t rule him out yet, not until they had more information about the dead man. For all Horton knew Packman could be the best actor since Sir John Gielgud. He said, ‘He says there were no cars parked here when he arrived and he didn’t see or hear anyone leave.’

  Uckfield grunted and addressed the doctor. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘You did go to medical school, I take it?’

  ‘They didn’t teach us second sight,’ snapped Sharman, a long, thin man in his forties. ‘For all I know he could have died of heart failure and someone came along and threw a bucket of blood over him.’ He picked up his case, nodded at Horton and left.

  In a voice that carried, Uckfield said, ‘Think I preferred Dr Price even if he stank of booze and turned up pissed. Smell any alcohol on him? The dead man, that is, not Dr Sharman. I can’t smell a damn thing with this ruddy cold.’

  Horton said he couldn’t. ‘And there are no beer cans or spirit bottles lying around. There aren’t any carrier bags of personal belongings either, which is unusual for a tramp. He would have had some even if it was just a few sorry items.’

  ‘Perhaps the killer stole them.’

  Horton raised his eyebrows, causing Uckfield to add, ‘Yeah, I know, a vagrant would hardly have anything of value on him. But someone thought it worth shooting the poor sod because although I might have a bunged-up nose and I didn’t go to medical school I’ve got eyes enough to see that’s a bullet wound in his chest. If it’s not I’ll kiss the assistant chief constable’s arse and, talking of the devil …’ He shot a glance at his watch under the scene suit, ‘… it’s about time I called Wonder Boy. Get the team in, Inspector.’

  Horton knew the Super would take great pleasure in spoiling ACC Dean’s night. It was almost eleven twenty, so the chances were he had retired to bed. Uckfield was probably hoping Dean had already sunk into a very deep sleep.

  Climbing clumsily out of his scene suit, Uckfield handed it to Beth Tremaine, a scene of crime officer, before dashing out into the sheeting rain to the police vehicle that had brought him here. Horton remained where he was and nodded Phil Taylor, the head of the crime-scene team, into the tent. He gave instructions to Jim Clarke, the forensic photographer, to take pictures of the shore behind the houseboats and the pontoons down by the Hayling Island ferry when he’d finished photographing the body. Clarke would use specialist night equipment. He’d also return in daylight to take further shots. It wouldn’t be light until eight and the first commuters would be on the little ferry from Hayling to Portsmouth at seven a.m.

  Could robbery have been the motive? Horton wondered. Had there been something of value on the victim that the killer had wanted? Something he’d kept all the time he’d been on the road, or something he’d found or which someone had given him? Horton would have suspected a fellow vagrant of killing the man except for the fact he’d been shot and he couldn’t see a vagrant owning a gun. It wasn’t impossible, though. And neither was it impossible for the victim to have been forced to hand over something at gunpoint.

  Horton squinted through the rain at the black expanse of Eastney Lake stretching across to the lights of the houses on the Milton shore opposite. It had been high tide half an hour ago. He could hear the waves washing on to the shingle shore. Behind him on the opposite shore, which faced the Solent, the waves would be crashing on to the beach, but here the harbour afforded some shelter from the worst of the storm. Not much, though. To the north of the houses he could see the dark space that was Milton Common, a nature reserve that bordered Langstone Harbour on its western side. This was a strange place for a vagrant to come. There were no pubs, no supermarkets, no off-licences to sell alcohol and very few places to shelter except under one of the houseboats or upturned dinghies. By the position of the body, he hadn’t crawled under there to sleep. He wasn’t curled up and he hadn’t been shot in his sleep, not unless he slept lying on his back and didn’t mind the lower part of his torso and legs getting wet. But he couldn’t have been shot standing up and fallen back because he’d have hit his head on the houseboat and either fallen forwards or slid down to land outside the houseboat, not partially under it. Dr Clayton would be able to enlighten them on that score.

  He turned to PC Johnson who, along with Seaton, was huddled just inside the awning beside the blue-and-white police tape that was flapping alarmingly in the gale-force wind which showed no signs of easing.

  ‘Did Mr Packman mention hearing a boat?’ Horton raised his voice above the wind.

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  Which meant Johnson hadn’t asked him. Horton didn’t blame him for that. In this weather, who would have been mad enough to arrive by boat? A killer, could be the answer. But why should he just so that he could kill a tramp?

  Clarke’s lanky figure unfurled itself from the tent. He discarded his scene suit and threw the hood of his waterproof jacket over his head before heading for the shore. Horton stepped back inside. Dr Sharman had gone through the pockets of the victim’s coat but not his trousers. Horton didn’t relish the job but he did it nonetheless. Both were empty. There might be something in the back pockets or in the pocket of his shirt but he’d leave that to the mortuary attendant.

  ‘Anything?’ he asked Taylor.

  ‘Some blood spatters. We’ll bag up the stones around the body and underneath. There’s no sign of any weapon.’

  In the morning Sergeant Trueman would mobilize the major incident suite, organize a fingertip search of the area and find out who owned the houseboat. Perhaps it was the victim’s or belonged to a relative. Lionel Packman said he didn’t know who the owner was and he’d never seen anyone in it.

  Horton rang thr
ough to Warren and asked him to call the undertakers.

  Uckfield returned with a grin on his craggy face, which meant he had woken the assistant chief constable.

  ‘I’ve told Dean I’ll call a press conference for nine. By then the news will probably be all over the Internet and Leanne Payne from the local rag will be badgering me for a press statement.’

  News travelled rapidly in the Internet age and Horton, like Uckfield, knew this would be big if the media got hold of the fact the victim had been shot. Gun crimes were still thankfully rare in the UK and Uckfield would keep that nugget of information from them. How long for, though, was another matter. Horton wouldn’t like to bet on it being very long. Someone was bound to leak it.

  ‘Found any ID?’ asked Uckfield, taking a large white handkerchief from the pocket of his sailing jacket and blowing his nose loudly.

  ‘No. Do you want me to call Dr Clayton?’

  ‘First thing in the morning will do. No point in disturbing her beauty sleep. There’s sod all we can do tonight and it doesn’t look as if there will be a grieving relative for this poor soul.’

  Not like Rowan Lyster who, Guilbert had said, was due to formerly identify his mother, Evelyn, tomorrow on his arrival in Guernsey.

  If there was no ID in the rest of the victim’s clothes then tomorrow, with the aid of one of Clarke’s photographs, officers would do the rounds of the hostels, which wouldn’t take long, there only being one in the city, but they’d circulate his photograph to other hostels in the outlying towns and start asking on the streets if anyone had known the dead man.

  ‘I’ll give a briefing at eight,’ Uckfield said, sniffing strenuously and pushing the handkerchief back in his pocket. ‘Make sure you and your team are there.’