Fatal Catch

by Pauline Rowson

  Work intruded, and Horton spent the next four hours answering phone calls, replying to emails, reading reports and briefing Bliss, who had returned from a meeting. She wasn’t best pleased with the lack of progress on the petrol station robbery. He wasn’t either but she regarded any failure on his part as a sign of his incompetence. Ever since her promotion and transfer from a station outside the city to Portsmouth and CID just over a year ago she’d been looking for a way to get him out of her ponytail. So far she hadn’t succeeded but Horton knew it would only be a matter of time, unless she managed to wangle herself a higher profile position in another unit and the sooner the better as far as he was concerned. He told her about the discovery of the hand and that he had reported it to Uckfield and that they were awaiting Dr Clayton’s further examination of it.

  At six thirty Cantelli popped his head around the door to say he was off home and that Clive Westerbrook hadn’t been in to make his statement. That surprised Horton. Westerbrook had had plenty of time to return his boat to the marina and drive back to Portsmouth.

  ‘I’ve tried the mobile number he gave Elkins, there’s no answer. Do you want me to send a unit round to his flat? He lives at Spring Court.’

  That wasn’t very far from the station. Horton said he’d call in on his way home or rather before his meeting with Dr Grantham. The more he considered Westerbrook’s no show though the more concerned he grew. He’d certainly looked unwell at Oyster Quays and Elkins had said Westerbrook had a weak heart. Perhaps he’d been taken ill heading back to Fareham Marina but if that was the case then his boat would have been found in the harbour and reported to the harbour master. Maybe it had been.

  He rang through to them but there had been no such incidents. There was no point enquiring at the marina to see if Westerbrook’s boat was there because the marina office was closed now and Horton certainly wasn’t going to walk the dark pontoons searching for it. Perhaps Westerbrook needed more time to recover from the shock of his discovery and intended to come into the station tomorrow morning.

  Just before eight, Horton headed north towards Spring Court. Light flakes of snow were falling. He could see several lights, including coloured Christmas ones, shining and blinking in the windows of some of the flats. The building backed on to a band of trees and the motorway. Horton could hear the roar of the traffic as he pressed the buzzer to flat sixteen. Still no answer. He tried again with the same result. Maybe he should call up and effect an entry, but surely that wasn’t necessary. Westerbrook had probably gone out for something to eat, or was with a friend or partner, talking over his ordeal. He glanced at his watch. It was five past eight and he was late for his meeting. He climbed on the Harley and with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension made for The Reef at Oyster Quays, hoping that Dr Grantham would still be there.

  TWO

  The heat and noise hit him like a shockwave. The bar was packed and the Christmas music so loud that Horton thought they’d be able to hear it in France, ninety miles across the Channel. Why Dr Grantham had chosen this as a meeting place was a mystery because he’d never be able to make himself heard above the racket, let alone hear what she had to say. He stood at the entrance wondering if the best course of action would be to leave, if only to protect his eardrums. He could telephone her and rearrange their meeting at a more suitable place, but that would delay matters and now that he was here, he guessed he might as well press on.

  He quickly scanned the crowded bar, wondering if perhaps she’d already given up on him. Despite what she had said about being the only one under the age of thirty-four, there were several people older. He registered a couple of men in their early forties in amongst the groups of students. There was also a man in his mid-fifties at the bar, drinking alone, and four women in their fifties, plied with bling and make-up, clustered around one of the many high tables dotted about the place. Then he spotted her on the far right of the bar. Her photographs hadn’t done her justice, she was far more attractive in the flesh and even from where he was standing he could see there was a lot of it on show.

  He thrust his way towards her feeling ridiculously overdressed and overheated in his motorbike leathers. She was talking to a blonde man in his early twenties wearing jeans and a wide smile along with a T-shirt and a close cropped beard. Or rather the man was talking and Dr Grantham was looking bored. She glanced beyond the youth and her eyes locked with his. Horton caught a fleeting hint of surprise before recognition, perhaps he too looked different to what she had expected.

  Raising his voice above the clamorous crowd, he bellowed, ‘Dr Grantham?’

  ‘Yes,’ she shouted back.

  The fair young man swung round and studied Horton coolly and assessingly with pale blue eyes. Then he shrugged, smiled pleasantly and said, ‘See you around Dr Grantham,’ and walked off with a slight swagger.

  ‘One of your students?’ Horton again shouted.

  ‘I don’t have students. I’m conducting a research project. I think that young man was trying to chat me up.’

  That was Horton’s cue to say that he had good taste, but he didn’t. He formally introduced himself, offering his hand to establish the business nature of the meeting. She took it with a smile. Her handshake was dry and firm, and her eye contact confident with a hint of sensuality that caused him his second quickening of pulse since spotting her. He steeled himself against her obvious charms.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ he bawled above a sudden burst of raucous laughter and a sing-along to one of the Christmas songs being pumped out. He’d rather have said can we get the hell out of here.

  ‘Brandy and soda,’ she shouted back.

  Good job he could lip read he thought, pushing his way to the bar. He’d been given to understand that students were hard up but judging by what he could see here they must have been saving up their student grant, unless they had wealthy parents to subsidize their drinking.

  He bellowed his request for a brandy and soda and a Diet Coke to the pubescent barmaid who looked as though she had a hangover along with a skin problem. She had to be over eighteen to work behind the bar but she looked more like fifteen. Horton made a mental note to ask uniform to check out the place.

  ‘I could have chosen somewhere quieter to talk,’ Carolyn Grantham said, taking her drink from him on his return. ‘But I thought this might not make you feel obliged to talk to me whereas a quieter less frenetic environment might have done.’

  So there was method in her madness. No one would hear a word he said here. He removed his jacket and thrust it on the floor by his feet. Carolyn Grantham had already done the same with her black coat and red scarf, and there was a computer case beside them. He thought the sooner they got this over with the better. ‘You wanted to talk about Jennifer Horton.’

  She took a large pull at her brandy before answering. She didn’t look nervous but maybe she was. ‘Yes. Your mother.’

  She eyed him closely but he made sure not to betray any reaction. He was after all an expert at hiding his emotions, he’d had years of practice. Catherine had accused him of being too cold, too distant, but then she would say that to assuage her guilt over deserting him, and having an affair while they were married, although he had no proof of the latter, just suspicions. It didn’t matter now anyway.

  ‘I realize that this must be difficult for you,’ Dr Grantham continued. She moved closer to him to make herself heard and Horton caught the soft smell of her musky perfume, not to mention an eyeful of her cleavage, encased in a figure-hugging dress, and it was a figure worth hugging. Did her words have a double meaning because he was finding it difficult not to respond to her physically? But again he made sure to hide his emotions. She continued, ‘And I know this is not the right place to discuss such a sensitive matter but if you feel able to talk about Jennifer’s disappearance then I’d be very happy to meet you in a more relaxed, quiet and private environment.’

  ‘There isn’t anything to talk about,’ he said evenly and loudly. ‘She vanis
hed on the 30 November 1978 and that’s it.’

  ‘Have you ever tried to find out what happened to her?’

  He eyed her steadily. Did she already know the answer to that question? He wasn’t sure. ‘It’s the past. It won’t change things,’ he said neutrally.

  ‘But it leaves a gap.’

  Of course it did he wanted to snap, a great yawning chasm that he had tried to learn to live with until a year ago when an investigation had opened the lid on it.

  Hastily she continued. ‘Look, if you decide you’d like to cooperate in my research or just talk to me then call or email me. If you don’t that’s fine. If you want more information about me then I’d be happy to provide it and references. I don’t expect you to take me on trust.’

  He took a pull at his drink. ‘How many other cases are you examining?’

  ‘I’m focusing on five, all from the 1970s.’

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘Pardon?’ she cried, leaning even closer to him as more loud laughter rang out behind her.

  ‘I said why the 1970s?’

  ‘Because the date is far enough back to make a good comparison between the way such cases were treated then compared with now. I’ll explain,’ she quickly added to his puzzled and probably sceptical glance. ‘If I can make myself heard. Do you want to continue this outside?’

  ‘Go on.’ She’d been right. Outside was cold and quiet. There would be more pressure on him to confide. Even though he knew he could resist that, he’d still feel obliged to offer that they go somewhere warm and quiet, perhaps for a meal, and that could lead to him relaxing his guard. He wasn’t ready to do that yet. Maybe never. And why should he play easy to get, especially if she was in Sawyer or Lord Eames’ pocket.

  She smiled as though reading his thoughts. ‘I’m looking at missing adults as opposed to children. Two of the five adults I’m focusing on are from Hampshire, Jennifer Horton from Portsmouth and Brenda Myers from Andover. There’s more information on Brenda than on Jennifer and Brenda still has a sister and two brothers living but there’s only the skimpiest of reports on Jennifer’s disappearance but then you’d know that. I’m not investigating the cases but examining how they were reported and managed; the experiences of the relatives then and their views now; and what, if anything, they did to try and locate the missing person along with the emotional and psychological effect on the family, but my key area of research is how the media portrayed such cases then and how that compares with similar cases today.’

  Horton took a swig at his Coke.

  She continued. ‘In Jennifer’s case there was zero media coverage because of you being a child, I suspect, and, so far as I can see from the file, she had no living relatives to kick up a fuss. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’ He took another pull at his Coke while watching her. A burst of laughter and another chorus of out-of-tune singing to one of the Christmas songs caused Carolyn Grantham to frown. He said, ‘I can’t tell you anything other than what’s in the file.’

  She would know from it that PC Adrian Stanley had interviewed two people at the casino where Jennifer had worked as a croupier, her boss, George Warner and a fellow croupier Irene Ebury, both of whom were dead. Stanley had also taken a statement from their neighbour at the council tower block where they had lived. Mrs Cobden at Jensen House had reported that Jennifer had last been seen leaving their flat at about one o’clock on 30 November 1978 wearing her best clothes and make-up, and in good spirits. There had been no further investigation, or if there had been the evidence of it had been destroyed.

  ‘I can’t help you.’

  There was a short pause before she smiled again and tossed back her brandy. ‘OK.’ Bending down and treating him to another eyeful of cleavage she retrieved her computer bag, coat and scarf. Straightening up she added, ‘If you change your mind then you know how to contact me.’ She stretched out her hand. ‘Thanks for coming anyway and for the drink.’

  He watched her leave, then swallowed the rest of his drink and got out of the hellhole as quickly as he could. The cold air struck him a welcoming icy blast and he could see her shapely figure ahead as it swung on to the escalator down to the car park. It was still snowing. He followed more slowly. There was no sign of her by the time he reached his Harley. She was already heading home, wherever that was. Time he was too.

  The thin sharp flakes beat into his visor as he rode carefully along the seafront eastwards to the marina. Perhaps he’d been too abrupt. He certainly hadn’t discovered anything from her but then the choice of her meeting place had made that impossible, deliberately so he wondered? Or was he just too suspicious. The questions that had formed in his mind when he’d first seen the email and again before his meeting were still there. How genuine was she? If he’d been smart he would have played along with her slightly flirtatious and seductive manner and got the answers. But he wasn’t ready for that yet. Maybe he wasn’t ready or willing to play that game at all. Perhaps it was time to draw a line under the whole thing and move on.

  The dark night swallowed up the sea on his right leaving a black abyss. He felt as though he was stuck in one. There were no lights visible on any passing ships because there weren’t any sailors foolish enough to be at sea in this weather, but neither could he see the lights of boats anchored up off the Isle of Wight or any life form itself on the island five miles across the Solent. There weren’t even any lovers in their parked cars with steamed up windows. It was as though he had the world to himself, or rather as though he was alone in the world. He tried to push the thought aside and yet Catherine’s refusal to let him spend time with Emma, the thought of the lonely Christmas ahead and his daughter growing up without him depressed him. He’d always been alone.

  The snow was thickening and beginning to form a light dusting on the pavements and on the only car in the marina car park, which belonged to Eddie in the marina office. Horton drew to a halt and silenced the engine. Everything was quiet except for the soft moan of the wind through the rigging of the yachts. He made for his yacht scanning the car park and road as he went but there was nothing untoward and no one sitting in a parked car, watching him. But then why should they be, Eames and the intelligence services knew where he lived.

  His yacht was cold. Catherine’s assertion that it was completely unsuitable for Emma to stay on overnight depressed him further because she was right. But it wasn’t quite the Dark Ages he thought crossly, tossing the bags containing Emma’s Christmas presents on to the table. He had access to electricity on the pontoon and he had heaters on the boat. He didn’t feel the cold but a nine-year-old girl would. Not in the Riviera on Peter Jarvis’s yacht. And his gifts would look puny alongside Catherine’s and her boyfriend’s. Emma probably wouldn’t even be permitted to take them with her.

  Dejected he made a black coffee and sat at the table. His thoughts drifted back to his meeting with Carolyn Grantham. She hadn’t conjured up painful memories because they were there anyway, all the time, only he’d learned how to shut them out, until last Christmas when he’d got the first hint that what he’d been told about Jennifer running off with a man wasn’t true.

  His mind flashed back to the first Christmas without his mother. He’d been ten. His stomach constricted at the agonizing memory of his isolation and desolation. Despite his best efforts the pain never went away, it was as intense now as it had been then. Even Bernard and Eileen Litchfield’s attempts to make Christmas happy for him after he’d gone to live with them at the age of fourteen hadn’t succeeded. By then he’d had four years of Christmases spent in children’s homes and with other foster parents who wouldn’t have known the true meaning of Christmas if it had slapped them in the face. After his marriage he’d spent twelve years with Catherine, seven of them with her and his daughter, trying so very hard to make up for those lonely despairing Christmases and look where that had got him? Alone. Again.

  A noise outside made him start. He listened for it, unable to define exactly what it had been, but
there was only silence. Even the soft wind had dropped, and the snow was muffling everything. He was tempted to take a look but resisted. It was probably something out to sea.

  Had he gone as far as he could with trying to discover the truth behind Jennifer’s disappearance? He reached into his pocket and retrieved his wallet. From inside he removed a worn and creased black and white photograph taken in 1967 during the student sit-in protest at the London School of Economics, where Jennifer had worked as a typist.

  He’d studied it so many times that he knew every feature of the six men in it by heart. He’d discovered who they all were. Five of them were dead: Timothy Wilson had been killed in a motorbike accident in 1969 on a deserted road on Salisbury Plain on a calm, clear April night. James Royston had died of a heroin overdose in a sordid bedsit in 1970. Zachary Benham had perished, along with twenty-three other men, in a fire that had raged through the ward of a psychiatric hospital in Surrey in 1968. Rory Mortimer had been killed by Antony Dormand who had been alive when Horton had last seen him on a dark wet October night on a beach on the Isle of Wight. It was Dormand who had confessed to Horton that he had killed Rory Mortimer under orders from the intelligence services because Mortimer, like Royston and Wilson, had been a traitor, selling his country’s secrets to the Russians. When Horton had asked if Dormand had also killed Wilson and Royston he hadn’t answered. Was that an admission in itself? And Horton recalled Dormand’s chilling words before he’d boarded a small boat and motored away into the dark night of the Solent. Jennifer had disappeared in 1978 when there had been a spate of bombs set off by the IRA in Northern Ireland and Britain. Dormand had claimed she was involved with British Intelligence and the IRA. But Horton wasn’t sure if he could believe that. The sixth man, Lord Richard Eames, was very much alive.