Dead Man's Wharf Page 4

  'What do you mean by clever?' Horton asked, trying not to hear the slamming doors and rattling keys. He couldn't prevent the tightening in his chest and the slightly nauseous feeling rising in his throat, which hinted at the beginnings of an attack of claustrophobia. He'd been fine in Welton's office, because it was situated far enough away from the everyday sounds of the prison, though the journey there had been rough. Not without difficulty he curbed his desire to spring up and walk about. Instead, he crossed his legs and for a moment let his mind dwell on the boat and the big wide open spaces of the Solent. He couldn't wait until Saturday and his holiday. He wrenched his mind back to what

  Anston was saying.

  'Ebury had a knack of getting straight to a person's weakness. I've seen him wheedle, cajole and manipulate his way into someone's confidence, only for him to turn it against that person and exploit it.'

  'That include prison officers?'

  ''Fraid so, especially the rookies. I've had many a talk with prison officers who have rued the day they thought they were converting Ebury to the good and righteous path only to find they'd been tricked and he'd exploited their trust or betrayed a confidence. Ebury had a nasty streak right down his middle. You had to be firm with him. He'd test you to the limit.'

  Interesting. So had Ebury recently got his claws into someone who had finally turned the table on him and killed him? But that wasn't possible with a locked cell door and a diagnosis of natural death, although Dr Clayton hadn't confirmed the latter yet. And it certainly didn't fit with Irene Ebury's death.

  Nevertheless, Horton said, 'Was there anyone in particular?'

  Anston eyed him suspiciously. 'Why do you ask?'

  'Just curious,' Horton rejoined evenly.

  Anston looked sceptical. 'Ebury just stopped breathing and died,' he said, correctly interpreting the reason behind Horton's question.

  Horton nodded slowly. 'Mr Welton told me about the fight. Do you know what it was about?'

  'No.'

  'And you unlocked the cell when?' Horton already knew the time but it didn't do any harm to see if Welton and Anston were singing from the same hymn sheet.

  'At ten a.m. Ebury was dead. I looked in on him at nine forty-five. He was lying on the bed. I thought he was asleep.'

  'Why didn't Mr Staunton look in on Ebury? I understand he locked him in and he was on duty in that wing.'

  'He had other duties to attend to. Like the police, Inspector, we are always short staffed and prisons are overcrowded. I was helping out.'

  Horton could see that was the truth, but he thought he'd push it a bit further. 'Is there anyone else who might have had a key to that cell?'

  Anston glared at him. Pulling himself up, he said sternly, 'Ebury died of natural causes. The post-mortem will confirm that.'

  'I'm sure it will.' Horton smiled. 'Could I see his cell?'

  'There's nothing in it. His belongings are here.' Anston pointed to a cardboard box. 'We're trying to trace his other relatives.'

  Horton wasn't sure he had any. According to Mrs Northwood there were none. 'I'd still like to see his cell,' he insisted, holding Anston's stare, though not really relishing the task. Finally the prison officer capitulated. Clearly not pleased with the request, he showed Horton out, locking his office door behind him as he went.

  As they made their way through several locked gates and along echoing corridors, Horton fought off the sickening and dizzying wave of claustrophobia by thinking through what he had learnt about Ebury. Clever, cocky and manipulative. He tried to equate this description with what he had been told about the Ebury who had shot and killed the security officer. Admittedly Ebury had been younger then and maybe more headstrong, but if he had been so clever and manipulative then why hadn't he committed a more sophisticated crime, rather than chasing the security van in a stolen car, holding it up and shooting the officer?

  He said, 'Did Ebury ever talk about his crime?'

  'We don't encourage that sort of thing in here. Besides sixty per cent of them will tell you they're innocent.'

  Horton tried a smile despite his rapidly beating heart and sweating palms. He hoped he didn't look like Boris Karloff on a good day. 'No doubt fitted up by the police.'

  They walked through into another wing. The smell of prison mingling with disinfectant turned Horton's stomach. Once again the painful memories of those children's homes came back to haunt him. He forced himself to concentrate on the faces of the men cleaning the landing who were eyeing him curiously. Did he sense their relief at Ebury's death? Maybe he just expected it after what Welton and Anston had told him.

  About two thirds of the way down, Anston stopped and unlocked a cell. He pulled open the door and reluctantly Horton stepped inside the small room about twelve by eight feet. His stomach immediately went into a spasm and his pulse raced.

  My God, to be locked in here! Not to be able to step outside to see the stars, feel the wind from the deck of the boat, breathe the salty air, make a coffee whenever he felt like it, take a walk... The sweat threatened to break out on his forehead and he fought valiantly not to betray his feelings. He didn't want to appear vulnerable in front of Anston because he had a feeling that Anston would revel in it.

  With all the control he could muster, he forced himself to stay motionless and survey the blank, cheerless cell, taking in every detail of it: the magnolia-painted brick, the single bed with the rolled-up mattress; the wooden cabinet, table and chair. In the corner beyond the bed was a half-screen door with a gap underneath it revealing the base of a toilet. Opposite was a small basin. There was no window. It was simply a brick box. All trace of Ebury's personality had been scrubbed from the cell and packed away in that cardboard box that Anston had shown him. The prison had acted swiftly. It was less than four hours since he'd died.

  With his fear now firmly in check, he said evenly, 'Who told Peter about his mother's death?'

  'Ken Staunton. Your colleague, Sergeant Cantelli, is talking to him now in the staffroom.'

  Anston didn't miss much.

  'Where was Ebury when you entered?'

  'On the bed. I could see at once by his colour and the stillness that something was wrong. I felt his pulse, there was nothing. I raised the alarm and called the doctor, but I knew it was too late.'

  'Was there anything unusual about the body? The way it was lying, the smell, the way it looked?'

  'He was dead,' Anston replied stiffly, glaring at Horton.

  He'd made an enemy there. Not that Horton was unduly worried and neither did he blame Anston for feeling that way. After all, he'd invaded Anston's territory and made accusations against him and his fellow officers' efficiency. Horton would feel justifiably outraged if anyone did that to him. He also saw that the real power in this prison stood before him. Anston was holding this place together, not Geoff Welton.

  'Did Ebury leave a diary, any letters or notes?'

  Anston shook his head. 'He could barely write and though he was offered literacy classes, he always turned them down.'

  'How did he spend his recreation time?'

  'He was a good footballer. If he wasn't playing or practising he just laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling, probably thinking up some cruel torment for one of his fellow inmates.'

  There was nothing more to be seen here. Anston led him back to his office. Horton would have liked to have taken Ebury's belongings with him, but Anston wouldn't permit it. He let Horton view them though. There wasn't much, just a couple of photographs, a cigarette lighter, which Anston assured him didn't work, and a silver chain necklace.

  'Is this it?' Horton asked incredulous.

  'Apart from some girlie magazines, his clothes and toiletries, yes.'

  Horton wasn't sure if he believed him, though Anston looked to be telling the truth.

  'May I?' He asked, indicating the photographs. Anston nodded his approval.

  Horton turned one over. There was nothing written on the reverse. Flicking it back, he found himself staring at
a woman who looked to be in her early sixties. Her short silver hair framed a classically featured face with high cheekbones and fine eyes. She was very slim, perhaps a bit too thin, and she appeared tall against the young man beside her, whom he assumed was Peter Ebury. Anston confirmed it. Horton surmised therefore that the woman was Peter's mother, Irene.

  She was smiling into the camera, though Horton sensed there was a sadness about her, or was that weary resignation that her son had already descended into a life of crime? This must have been taken not long before Peter Ebury had committed the armed robbery because he looked in his mid-twenties. He was good-looking and fit with a cocky smile. Horton knew from his earlier phone call to the station that by then Peter Ebury had served three terms in prison for theft, assault, and grievous bodily harm.

  Horton tried to place where the photograph had been taken. Mother and son were standing outside a block of flats that Horton didn't recognize. Why hadn't anyone visited this woman when she was in the Rest Haven? Surely she must have some friends or relatives in Portsmouth. He wondered what his mother had thought of her when they'd worked together.

  The other photograph was of Peter Ebury in a nightclub surrounded by a group of young, heavily made-up but attractive girls of between eighteen to twenty-five, one of whom was sitting on his lap. They all looked drunk, presumably from the champagne that was on the table in front of them. Horton judged it to have been taken about the same time as the picture with his mother.

  'Any idea who they are?' He indicated the girls, wondering why Peter had kept this particular photograph.

  Anston shook his head, then, as if reading Horton's mind, said, 'Perhaps Ebury wanted it to remind him of what he was missing and would be missing for a very long time. He got life.'

  Which meant he would have been mid- to late-forties before he came out. 'Can I get photocopies of these?'

  'I don't see why you should want them.'

  'We are investigating his mother's death,' Horton said swiftly and with an edge to his

  voice.

  'What's suspicious about it?'

  Horton sensed there was more than idle curiosity in that question, but Anston's expression was a blank canvas.

  OK, so let's give him something to chew over, Horton thought.

  'An intruder was seen in her room and her belongings are missing.' He'd already told Anston more than he'd told Welton, but then Welton hadn't asked the question, which confirmed Horton's earlier thoughts that Welton had lost his grip.

  'Could be something or nothing.' Anston shrugged.

  'Precisely. And until I am satisfied that it's nothing, I'll keep investigating.' He held Anston's steely gaze.

  After a moment, Anston raised his eyebrows in a gesture that said, please yourself.

  'I'd also like a copy of his birth certificate.'

  'It won't tell you much.' Anston opened a buff-coloured folder on his desk and handed the certificate to Horton.

  The space where the father's details should have been entered was blank, or rather it said 'unknown'. Much the same as Horton's own birth certificate. Had Peter been the result of a five-minute screw in the back of a car in a lay-by or a shag under the pier after a boozy night out? Or was he the product of a regular relationship? Ebury had been born on 31 August 1974 and the birth had been registered in Portsmouth.

  After he'd received the photocopies of the photographs and the birth certificate, Horton thanked Anston and stepped outside the prison, sucking down lungfuls of the petrol fumed air like a submariner unexpectedly saved from a suffocating death. He didn't mind the sheeting rain that now accompanied the blustery wind. It was a two-minute walk to the car, but Horton would gladly have walked all the way back to the station some four miles distant just to get the stench of prison from him.

  In the car, Cantelli said, 'Ebury never took advantage of the listeners service, and he never applied for education either within the prison or a distance-learning course. He shunned the prison visitors, said they were a bunch of self-satisfied, egocentric pricks who could only get their jollies by seeing someone lower in the slime than themselves.'

  'Ebury said that?' Horton asked, surprised.

  'According to Staunton. I asked if those were Ebury's exact words and Staunton said more or less.'

  Horton remained doubtful, but Anston had claimed that Ebury was clever. Though, not clever enough to evade the life of a criminal.

  'I managed to have a brief chat with a couple of other officers in the staffroom,' Cantelli added. 'They all thought that Peter Ebury was a pain in the arse and no one's sorry he's gone.'

  'Which bears out what Welton and Anston told me.' Horton quickly briefed Cantelli.

  Cantelli pointed the car towards the station. 'I asked if someone could have pinched a set of keys to Ebury's cell, copied them and then put them back, but Staunton looked at me as if I should be carted off to the funny farm. He took great pains to run through the security procedure and the prisoners' routine, and, from what he said, I don't think anyone could have killed Ebury.'

  Horton, reluctantly, had to agree that it was looking that way. But he still didn't like it. Unless Walters, Seaton and Somerfield came up with something from the nursing home,

  he would have to accept there was no case to answer.

  This was exactly what DCI Bliss told him twenty minutes later. He found her in his office.

  'This is where you should be, Inspector,' she said, eyeing him like he was a dung beetle. 'Not deploying uniformed resources without approval from the duty inspector and requesting staff from the scientific services department to take fingerprints and photographs without authorization from me. This amounts to nothing more than a whim.'

  'It was hardly that,' Horton retorted, thinking why the hell doesn't she shift her narrow backside out of my chair, sitting there like she's the chief bloody constable. Less than two months ago she was a DI like him.

  'A whim,' she insisted. 'An old lady died. It happens.'

  'Her belongings are missing and a resident reported seeing someone suspicious in Mrs Ebury's room—'

  'They're dementia patients, for heaven's sake. Everyone is suspicious.'

  'Oh, I see. So we can forget it,' he said with heavy irony, stung by her supercilious tone. 'Irene Ebury had dementia and has no one left to care about her or her belongings, which don't amount to much anyway. Her dead son is a criminal so he won't be missed. It's obviously not as high profile as two ponced-up television presenters receiving threatening calls, which you will find are a publicity stunt.'

  Bliss stood up, her face flushed with anger. 'You know very well what I mean. It's a question of resources and you don't have them to explore every petty crime—'

  'I hardly call someone dying petty,' he replied tautly.

  Her colour deepened. 'If you can't prioritize your caseload, then you'd better think again about staying in the job.'

  That was well below the belt. It didn't even justify an answer as far as he was concerned. He held her stare which was as cold as an emperor penguin but not nearly so cute and thought how he'd love to see the back of her.

  Her voice was like barbed wire when she added, 'I've ordered DC Walters to return to the station immediately, and Seaton and Somerfield to resume their usual duties. You might not like the fact that I got promotion, especially when you didn't, or that I am now your superior officer, but you either work with me or you put in for a transfer.'

  Like bloody hell I will, he thought. And give you the satisfaction of getting rid of me? He could see that he was a great big nasty thorn in Bliss's neatly tended garden of CID. Well, tough, if she didn't like it, then she'd have to pull him out. She'd get her hands scratched trying, though, and he couldn't see Bliss wearing gloves. She wasn't the type.

  'Results, Inspector, that's what we're paid to get. C.A.S.E. = Results. See if you can earn your salary.' With a tight frown, she swept out of room. Well, at least now he knew what the initial R stood for.

  Cantelli poked his head roun
d the door. 'You're still walking then?'

  'My balls are intact and so is my determination. She told me to forget about Irene Ebury and her stolen belongings, and you know what that makes me want to do?'

  Cantelli groaned and rolled his eyes. 'I've sent the photographs off to the photographic unit and I've requested the case notes on the Peter Ebury armed robbery. I'll start looking into Irene Ebury's background this afternoon.'

  Horton hesitated. He knew that Bliss's threats wouldn't hold water with Cantelli, but should he tell him about the connection with his mother? He'd never lied to Cantelli and had rarely kept anything from him. In fact, Cantelli was the only person in the station who knew about him being raised in children's homes and with foster parents. But maybe there would be nothing to find. And perhaps he'd explain everything after Thursday when Cantelli had got through the ordeal of his father's funeral. Horton heard the excuses in his mind and shoved them aside.