Death Lies Beneath Read online

  Extricating herself from the wreckage, Dr Clayton said, ‘Stab wound to the lower back, but I can’t confirm that was the cause of death until I do the autopsy. There are no other obvious signs of physical assault, no marks visible to show that she turned and struggled with her attacker, but I need to examine her more closely on the slab to be certain of that. And there’s no identification on her or under her. No handbag I’m afraid, Superintendent, and there’s no sign of the missing shoe on the wreck.’

  Horton said, ‘Any signs that she was brought here under duress?’

  ‘Not on the surface. I’d say her killer came up behind her while she was standing on the quayside, thrust the knife into her back, then pushed her into the water. At a rough estimate she’s been dead between ten to thirteen hours; some time between nine thirty p.m. and twelve thirty a.m. I can be more precise when I do the autopsy, which I’ll do as soon as she’s brought to the mortuary. But I was here last night.’

  Uckfield eyed her, surprised. The red Mini that Manley had mentioned, thought Horton. He knew that Gaye Clayton was a sailor like him but he hadn’t known she was a member of the Tipner Sailing Club. No reason why he should know, they’d hardly discussed it. Corpses were more their usual topic of conversation.

  Gaye added, ‘I certainly didn’t see her, although I was sailing in the harbour so I might have missed her arrival. But I didn’t see a car parked that I didn’t recognize when I left the sailing club just before ten.’

  ‘Who else was here?’ asked Uckfield sharply.

  ‘Your chief constable, for one; Paul Meredew.’

  Uckfield’s craggy features registered surprise. Horton hadn’t known Meredew was a sailor but then why should he; he’d barely spoken two words to the new chief on his recent tour of the troops. He’d only been in post five weeks.

  Gaye added, ‘Paul Meredew is a new member at the club. The commodore sponsored him; Councillor Dominic Levy.’

  ‘Christ, it gets worse,’ muttered Uckfield. ‘The chair of the Police Committee and the Chief Constable. Anyone else I should know about at this club last night? The local MP? The Home Secretary?’

  Gaye smiled. ‘No, just Paul Meredew, Dominic Levy, Fiona Wright, who’s a radiographer at the hospital, and me; and Richard Bolton, who owns Print Easy, he was behind the bar and he’s also club secretary. There were a few more people in the club earlier having a drink but I don’t know them. You’ll need to check the times with Richard, or look in the log book. We all sign in, and sign out, so that should help, and Richard can give you their contact details.’

  Horton said, ‘Did you see anyone sailing around these waters?’

  ‘There were several yachts and cruisers heading in and out of Horsea Marina to the north and some yachts further out towards Gosport and Fareham in the west. It was a beautiful evening although not much wind for sailing. Fiona and I were on dinghies.’

  ‘Who was here when you left?’ asked Horton.

  ‘Councillor Levy, the Chief Constable and Richard.’ Gaye glanced back at the body. ‘It’s a strange place for her to end up given her clothes, which on the surface of it look very expensive. Her jewellery also appears to be genuine. There’s a hat pin, which looks as though it contains a diamond, and probably the reason why the hat stayed in position as she fell. She’s also wearing two dress rings of sapphires and diamonds on her right hand, small diamond earrings and a gold necklace. No watch, though, and no mark where she might have worn one, which suggests she usually either took it off to sunbathe or she didn’t bother wearing one.’

  Horton was rapidly trying to recall if she had been wearing a watch in the video. He’d need to check. Uckfield’s phone rang and he moved away to answer it.

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell us, Dr Clayton?’ asked Horton.

  ‘Only that she’s probably in her early to mid-forties and the sooner you can move her in this heat the better.’

  Horton agreed and thanked her. He nodded Taylor and his team onto the wreck and stepped away from the scene. The silver undertaker’s van had arrived and two police officers were standing by with the awning to cover the area where the body lay and preserve it for further forensic examination. Horton didn’t envy Taylor and his team working under it in this heat.

  Uckfield returned with a face like thunder. ‘That was Wonder Boy. He says Sawyer doesn’t recognize the victim and she’s not on file with the Intelligence Directorate as being an associate or girlfriend of Stapleton’s but that doesn’t mean she isn’t connected with him. And Sawyer says, as she could be involved with Woodley’s death, we’re getting Eames.’

  ‘We’re?’

  ‘You’re back on the case. It’s official. In fact you’re going to have the pleasure of working with Eames.’

  Horton had never heard of him. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Europol.’

  The law-enforcement agency for Europe. ‘So Sawyer thinks Marty’s connected with a European criminal gang.’

  ‘Could be connected with King Kong for all they seem to know. You get Agent Eames from the Netherlands and I get DCI Bliss. Yeah, aren’t I the lucky one,’ Uckfield sniped cynically to Horton’s surprised look. ‘Dean wants her to re-examine the interview notes from the Woodley investigation and oversee the re-interviewing of Woodley’s associates.’

  There was no mistaking the sour note in Uckfield’s voice, or guessing the unspoken comment which Dean must have voiced, ‘in case you missed anything’. Asking a DCI to check the files of an investigation handled by a detective superintendent was like a kick in the balls. And knowing Uckfield of old, Horton didn’t think he was going to take that lying down, or sitting even. Dean was playing a dangerous game if he thought he could intimidate the big man.

  Uckfield continued, ‘Return to the station and pick up Eames—’

  ‘He’s here already?’ Horton asked puzzled and instantly suspicious.

  ‘Just arrived.’

  From where? Horton had heard of supersonic flight but no one got from the Netherlands that quickly. He could only surmise that Eames must have been working with Sawyer already.

  Uckfield said, ‘Check out the funeral party after Woodley’s. If they don’t know the victim then Marty Stapleton is right in the frame along with Reggie Thomas and the rest of Woodley’s scumbag crew. Trueman’s circulating pictures of the victim to all units asking for any sightings of her in and around the area where Woodley was attacked, and at the hospital and the marshes. He’s also sent the video over to the video-enhancement unit for close-up shots of the victim. I’ve told him I want a frame-by-frame analysis of every toerag who attended Woodley’s funeral. I want to know if one of them so much as glanced in the victim’s direction. If a fly landed on Maureen Sholby’s big tits yesterday I want to see it rubbing its legs and its eyes bulging with glee. Marsden’s taking over here. He’s on his way.’

  Horton climbed on his Harley and headed back to the station, where no doubt Agent Eames would be waiting for him in the incident suite. Within ten minutes he had parked the Harley and was about to step inside the rear entrance when an attractive blonde woman in her early thirties hailed him.

  ‘Inspector Horton?’ she asked in an educated voice that Cantelli would have called posh.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered cagily while rapidly trying to place her. Swiftly he took in her navy blue trousers and striped blue and white blouse. She was carrying a short cream casual jacket. She didn’t look like a social worker but she could be a lawyer, which was worse. No handbag or briefcase, though. Her fair hair was cut short and styled around a clear-skinned fair face with a hint of make-up. And her eyes were confident and a very deep blue.

  ‘I’m Agent Eames. I’ve been assigned to assist in the investigation.’

  Horton took the proffered hand not bothering to disguise his surprise. Uckfield was in for one too. Her grip was firm and her eye contact steady.

  Crisply she continued. ‘I’ve got the photographs of the victim from Sergeant Trueman and the address o
f Amelia Willard’s next of kin from DC Walters: Patricia and Gregory Harlow, 42 Bunyon Road.’

  ‘Then what are we waiting for?’

  She eyed the helmet in his hand and his leather Harley Davidson jacket with a slight frown.

  ‘Do you have a car, Eames?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Pity,’ he muttered, and catching her smile followed her towards it.

  THREE

  ‘I don’t remember seeing a woman of that description at my aunt’s funeral,’ Patricia Harlow announced brusquely, after Horton had made the introductions. They were standing in the scrupulously clean and methodically organized podiatry surgery in the front room of the 1930s bay and forecourt house. It smelt of disinfectant. The news of a brutal murder seemed to have had little effect on the squat, square-faced woman in front of Horton. Normally such news as he’d brought would have triggered a barrage of questions, or at least a muttering of concern and sympathy, but Patricia Harlow in the short white overall and dark trousers seemed more concerned about sweeping up her previous clients’ nail clippings with the long-handled dustpan and brush. He had difficulty putting an age to her. The deep lines either side of her discontented mouth and the two smaller ones etched between her eyebrows made her appear more early fifties than late forties but he could be widely off the mark.

  She’d kept them waiting for ten minutes, while attending to a client, and her next one, an elderly lady with softly curled grey hair and lively eyes, was waiting in the hallway outside, no doubt straining her ears for any gossip after she’d heard him announce who they were. A fan whirred gently in the far corner by the window but it did little to dispel the heat and only seemed to waft the disinfectant around.

  At a nod from Horton, Eames pulled out the photograph Trueman had given her. ‘Perhaps if you’d just take a look,’ she said politely.

  With an irritable sigh Patricia Harlow relinquished the dustpan and brush and snatched at the photograph. Horton watched her closely. Her face showed no emotion and her small dark eyes no recognition. She thrust the picture back at Eames. ‘No. I’ve never see her before. Now if you—’ She made towards the door but Eames stalled her.

  ‘Could she have been a neighbour of Amelia’s?’

  ‘Her neighbours are over sixty and they were at the service.’

  ‘A friend then?’ persisted Eames.

  ‘Amelia was seventy-three and that woman is clearly a lot younger.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been friends.’

  Pointedly consulting the clock on the wall above the client’s chair, Patricia Harlow said, ‘Amelia didn’t have many friends and before you ask she didn’t have any family either. Her son, Rawly, died in 2002 and Uncle Edgar died soon after. There is only me and my husband, Gregory.’

  ‘And where can we find him?’ asked Horton.

  ‘I don’t see why you need to bother him,’ she said sharply, frowning.

  ‘There’s always the chance he caught sight of her.’

  ‘He didn’t.’

  Horton said nothing and was pleased that Eames kept silent too. After a moment Patricia Harlow was forced to add, ‘He’s event catering manager for Coastline Catering and he’s on the Isle of Wight for the Festival.’

  Where DI Dennings and most of the drugs squad were. But that was only a ten-minute trip across the Solent on the hovercraft or thirty-five minutes on the car ferry, less on the police launch. Removing a photograph of Daryl Woodley from his jacket pocket, he said, ‘Do you recognize this man?’

  She gave an exaggerated sigh and studied it briefly. Horton wondered if she might recognize it from the local newspapers. But she shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘His name is Daryl Woodley.’

  Clearly that meant nothing to her either. ‘His funeral was the one held before your aunt’s.’

  ‘Then that woman must have been at that.’ Her hand grasped the door handle. But Horton hadn’t finished yet.

  ‘We’ll need a list of all those who attended your aunt’s funeral with their contact details, please. How soon can you draw one up for us?’

  ‘Is that really necessary?’

  Horton held her exasperated glance and remained silent even though he felt like shouting, yes it bloody well is. Eventually she had to capitulate. Grudgingly she said, ‘Call back after seven. I’ll have it for you then.’

  Horton would have liked it sooner and no doubt so would Uckfield, but Patricia Harlow was already showing in her elderly client.

  ‘Charming woman,’ Eames said sarcastically, as they walked the short distance to the car. ‘I wouldn’t like to be one of her clients.’

  ‘She could be sweetness and light to them.’

  ‘It seems that the victim was there for Woodley’s funeral.’

  But Horton would reserve judgement on that for a while at least. He told her to head for the newspaper offices, giving her directions. ‘Leanne Payne, the journalist who covered Woodley’s funeral, and the press photographer, Cliff Wesley, might remember seeing the victim.’

  ‘Won’t that alert them?’

  ‘They probably already know about it.’ He thought of Ethan Crombie on his mobile phone. ‘The newspaper won’t be able to run anything until tomorrow anyway.’ But that didn’t stop the news appearing on the Internet or on television and radio, and for all he knew Crombie, or one of the others, might already have informed them. Perhaps uniform were keeping reporters and camera crew at bay at the crime scene right now and Marsden was making with the ‘no comments’. The press were not Horton’s favourite people but there were many times when they needed their assistance and this might be one of them.

  He called Uckfield, who was not overly optimistic about that. So far no one from the media had been on to him. Horton relayed the interview with Patricia Harlow and added that he and Eames would also call in on the funeral directors to see if any of the pall-bearers or drivers remembered seeing the woman in the black hat. There was no point contacting Woodley’s undertakers because they had left immediately after depositing the coffin in the chapel. There hadn’t been any need for them to stay. Woodley had no relatives, and no one had booked or paid for a car to take anyone to a wake, if there had been one.

  He rang off and addressed Eames. ‘So what do Europol have on Marty Stapleton?’ He’d not had time to discuss the case with her on the way to Patricia Harlow’s because it had only taken them twelve minutes and most of that time had been taken up by Bliss’s call. She’d rung for an update while Eames had used her satellite navigation to locate the Harlows’ residence.

  ‘Nothing that you don’t already know, sir.’

  Horton doubted that. ‘Try me.’

  She flashed him a glance and obviously caught his dubious expression. ‘For the last two months I’ve been working on mapping and analysing major jewellery robberies that have taken place across Europe over the last fifteen years, liaising with officers across the Continent, trying to establish a connection between the robberies, apart from the jewellery that is, and if the proceeds are being used to fund criminal activity and if so what kind. Stapleton’s series of robberies along the south coast of England, committed between 1997 and 1999, targeting jewellers and jewellery reps, were included. I’m sorry to say I haven’t made any real progress. When DCS Sawyer reported that Daryl Woodley had been found dead and that he’d not only been in the same prison as Marty Stapleton but had attacked him, I was asked to fly over and liaise with the Intelligence Directorate to see if we could establish a new link or get further information. I only arrived yesterday. This morning I was with DCS Sawyer at police headquarters, when he took the call from ACC Dean about the dead woman. I was told to report to the ACC at the station and when I arrived I was given instructions to work with the Major Crime Team.’

  So a desk Johnnie then and not operational, thought Horton. Eames might be better utilized working with Trueman in the incident suite rather than interviewing potential witnesses and suspects. He admitted she’d acquitted
herself well with Patricia Harlow, but that had been basic stuff.

  Eames was saying, ‘I know from the file that Stapleton netted millions of pounds, which have never been recovered, and neither has he named his confederates, although one of them was caught with him; Billy Baldwin. He was sent down with Stapleton in 2000 and died in prison.’

  ‘Of a massive blood clot on the brain, two months into his fifteen-year sentence.’

  ‘Yes. Baldwin was in a prison in another part of the country from Stapleton and his death was not considered suspicious but he had shown signs of wanting to do a deal and get his sentence reduced.’

  ‘And that would have been enough to bring Marty out in a rash and arrange to have Baldwin disposed of.’

  ‘The autopsy confirmed natural causes.’

  ‘It would.’

  ‘You think it was rigged?’

  Horton shrugged to disguise his true answer, you bet it was.

  She continued, ‘None of the stolen items have resurfaced either in their original or in any other form. And we haven’t been able to trace an account in Stapleton’s name either here or abroad despite running a number of combinations of his name and his background through all the major banks and investment houses across Europe and in various international tax havens.’

  ‘Right. No, I mean turn right here.’

  ‘Oh.’ She indicated and swung into the newspaper office car park.

  He waited until she had silenced the engine before saying, ‘Does the description of the victim match anyone you’ve come across while mapping and analysing?’

  ‘No, not from memory, but I haven’t run her profile through the computer. Someone in the Intelligence Directorate or one of my colleagues at Europol is probably doing that now.’

  ‘Then let’s hope they come up with something. Meanwhile let’s see what the press remember about her.’

  Cliff Wesley was out on a job but they were given directions to the newsroom on the third floor of the modern building, where they found Leanne Payne amongst a handful of reporters whose eyes were glued to their computer screens. Horton introduced Eames as a colleague without giving any reference to her working for Europol. That would have alerted Leanne Payne to the possibility of an international connection, which would have had her drooling with excitement. So far they had managed to keep any connection between Woodley’s death and Stapleton quiet, but for how much longer Horton wasn’t sure, especially as Leanne Payne had spoken to Reggie Thomas yesterday at the funeral.