Fatal Catch

by Pauline Rowson

  ‘It’s all right, Inspector, we’re not serving alcohol until midday,’ Davidson hastily said. ‘Just coffee and teas.’

  Horton asked if he could have a word in private.

  ‘Won’t be long, love,’ Davidson jovially addressed the woman but Horton thought he caught a hint of concern in his voice. A glance passed between them before Davidson led Horton into a storeroom behind the bar. He wondered if Davidson would lower his usual booming voice when the questions became more personal.

  ‘Do you know a Mr Leonard Borland?’ he launched in right away.

  Davidson looked a little taken aback by the question. ‘No. I can’t say I do.’

  ‘You were seen talking to him in Fareham Marina car park.’

  ‘I talk to a lot of people. I don’t know anyone by that name.’

  ‘Then perhaps you recognize him.’ Horton showed Davidson the photograph of Borland.

  ‘He looks vaguely familiar. I might have seen him around but I don’t remember talking to him.’

  Was he lying or was Tierney lying or were they both mistaken? Did it matter because Borland had been alive and well until Monday, at least when Mrs Samson claimed to have seen him.

  ‘He lived opposite Fareham Marina. He died in a fire on Tuesday evening.’

  Davidson looked shocked. ‘I know the house. I mean I saw it. Dreadful.’

  ‘He lived alone. We’re trying to find out who saw him and when.’

  ‘I’m sorry but I can’t help you.’

  ‘Were you at the marina a week ago last Saturday late afternoon and evening?’ Horton had already asked him that question but he thought it worth asking again.

  ‘No.’ Davidson shifted uneasily. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘There was a series of robberies in some of the properties there, we’re looking for witnesses.’

  ‘I was fishing in the morning then I came here. I left about three thirty when we closed.’

  ‘And after that?’

  Davidson fidgeted and a thin film of sweat had broken out on his brow. He was clearly uneasy. His big hands didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves and he turned to straighten up some beer bottles, saying in a much lower voice than was his normal manner. ‘I went home. Well, not straight away,’ he added, ‘I had some jobs to do.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On some boats, of course. Look, why are you questioning me. I had nothing to do with any robberies.’

  ‘In Fareham Marina?’ asked Horton eyeing him carefully, not sure why Davidson was so nervous.

  Davidson rubbed a hand across his brow. ‘No, at Gosport Marina.’

  It was clearly a lie. Horton decided to push it. ‘I’ll need the names of the boat owners.’

  Davidson looked horrified. ‘And make them wonder if I’m crooked, not bloody likely.’

  ‘We just need to eliminate you from our inquiries,’ Horton said smoothly.

  ‘Into what? I’ve nothing to do with any robberies or with that poor man perishing in a fire.’

  ‘Do you know a man called Graham Langham?’ Horton pressed.

  ‘No.’

  Horton eyed him steadily. ‘Where were you Tuesday between five p.m. and seven p.m.?’

  ‘At home. Look, I don’t have to answer your questions.’ He made to leave but Horton stopped him with his next question.

  ‘And your wife can confirm this?’

  ‘Of course she bloody can.’

  And that, thought Horton, was at last the truth. ‘Good, then perhaps we can start again, your movements for the Saturday before last?’

  Davidson took a deep breath, pulled himself up and held Horton’s steady gaze. After a moment his big shoulders slumped. He looked nervously over his shoulder towards the bar. Horton recalled the glance between Davidson and the woman behind the bar. ‘You were with someone,’ he said.

  Davidson nodded. Lowering his voice he said, ‘This mustn’t come out. My wife will kill me.’ His big face flushed. ‘I was with Janet, she’s the woman you’ve just seen. I told Marilyn, my wife, that I had some paperwork to sort out here at the club and that I’d stay on until it opened Saturday evening and have a drink. Marilyn doesn’t come here. She’s not keen on fishing and she likes to be at home with the kids, even though the two eldest are seventeen and fifteen. I’ve got three girls. The youngest is ten.’

  ‘Saturday, Mr Davidson.’

  Davidson sighed heavily. ‘We went to Janet’s house, it’s not far. She’s divorced. I came back here at about eight thirty, had a couple of drinks and got home just after ten. You won’t have to talk to Marilyn, will you?’ he asked, alarmed.

  ‘I need to check it with Janet and someone who can confirm you were in the bar.’ He didn’t really need to because he didn’t believe Davidson had anything to do with Langham or Borland’s deaths and he didn’t think he had beaten up Westerbrook but he’d check anyway.

  ‘They’ll think I’m up to something,’ Davidson said miserably.

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘No! Yes. I’ll ask Janet to come in. And you can speak to Ed, he’s the other barman. He was working last Saturday. But don’t say anything to him about me and Janet, he doesn’t know. No one does.’

  Horton thought the whole bloody club probably knew. He had one more question to ask, just to make absolutely certain he could rule out Davidson. ‘And your movements for Monday night?’

  Davidson looked as though he was about to lie then obviously thought better of it. ‘With Janet at her place and then I went home, got in about ten thirty. I told my wife I had to finish off the paperwork here.’

  And Horton thought that lie must be wearing a bit thin with Mrs Davidson. Perhaps she was the unsuspecting sort, or perhaps she didn’t really care. He stayed long enough to speak to Janet and Ed separately who both confirmed what Davidson had said. Janet looked worried and Horton could see her rapidly revising her opinion of her boyfriend, trying to work out what he’d done to warrant police questioning, while Ed seemed to take it for granted that it was just routine. Horton asked them both if they knew Clive Westerbrook. Ed said he didn’t but Janet remembered him not only from his visit last Sunday but from when he’d previously been a member.

  ‘Always fancied himself. Nicely spoken but a bit on the big-headed side. Thought he could spin me a line and I’d fall for it.’

  She’d fallen for Davidson’s though.

  ‘How many times has he been in the club recently?’

  ‘Just last Sunday. We’re only open at weekends. I saw him talking to Les Nugent and then he left.’

  ‘Has Mr Nugent been in since then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did they know one another?’

  ‘Must have done.’

  That didn’t mean they had.

  Horton left. Davidson was in the clear but he wondered why Tierney had said he’d seen him talking to Borland, when he hadn’t been. He’d return and ask him. But on the seafront he pulled over. It was lunchtime and he was hungry. He bought some fish and chips and took them down on to the beach hoping that food and the fresh salty air blowing off the sea would help clear his muggy head. There was so much crowding it. Carolyn Grantham’s appearance and research, and her boyfriend Rufus Anstey. Then there was what Melvin Cooper and Susan Nash had told him. Susan’s statement tied in with what Irene Ebury had said about Jennifer being down and then happy.

  Then there was this investigation. Why had a man perished in a fire after being violently assaulted? Why hadn’t Westerbrook returned to Fareham Marina after fishing out that hand? Had he been too scared to? Was there someone waiting for him at the marina who had threatened to do the same to him? Had Westerbrook known that the fire that had killed Borland was murder and arson? Again something niggled away at the back of Horton’s mind.

  He sat on the stones and ate slowly while watching the handful of yachts sailing off Cowes. He thought of Westerbrook’s boat at the port. Uckfield had said the forensic team was going over it. He recalled his search
of the boat at Thorney. Elkins had commented on Westerbrook having very expensive state-of-the-art navigation equipment, and that he must have been a very keen fisherman. But was he? One photograph of Westerbrook with a fish was all Horton had found on his mobile phone. Nobody listed on his mobile phone had gone fishing with him and he had only renewed contact with the angling club last Sunday. So, was he really that keen? Maybe his trips in the Solent, across to France and to the Isle of Wight weren’t to reel in the wet fish variety but to pick up a very different kind of fish, the kind that he’d already discussed with Uckfield, humans, with the possibility that it could also still be drugs, except as he’d expressed earlier Borland wouldn’t have been able to see evidence of that, unless … Horton paused in the act of eating. Unless he’d seen through his binoculars or maybe even overheard and witnessed something taking place either on the pontoon or on the Hard when Westerbrook had returned to his car.

  Horton’s thoughts quickened as he recollected the routes that had been on Westerbrook’s GPS: France, the Solent, the English Channel, and a bay on the east coast of the Isle of Wight. Horton knew it well. He’d sailed close to it on his previous yacht and on Catherine’s father’s yacht when he’d taken the tender into the bay with Emma on board and they’d played on the isolated sandy beach and hunted for fossils in the cliff side. They’d climbed to the top where a track led to the road. There were no houses. It was remote.

  He finished his chips, screwed the paper into a ball and tossed it in the bin. Perhaps that bay was a good place to fish. But if it was then Westerbrook hadn’t been there on Monday night because the date that was on the chart plotter was three weeks ago. But perhaps he just hadn’t bothered to re-enter it because he knew how to navigate into it.

  They needed a sighting of Westerbrook for Monday and Tuesday when Borland had been alive. Perhaps someone in Westerbrook’s apartment block had seen him. Uckfield could get officers over there or Horton could call in and detail a unit to start knocking on doors but the thought of that bay nagged away at him. He stared across to the Isle of Wight and the elusive thought that had niggled at the back of his mind earlier crystallized. It was possible that Westerbrook had put in there on Monday night to ostensibly drop off a valuable cargo. Was it also possible that Graham Langham had been told to meet him there in his white van? Langham had gone in the hope of being cut in on the deal. Instead he’d been cut out of it. Was his van still there? Only one way to find out. Horton headed for Portsmouth and the Wightlink ferry terminal.

  SEVENTEEN

  Forty minutes later Horton was outside the ferry booking office calling the marine unit hoping that Elkins was on duty. He was. He asked Elkins to meet him at the port and headed there on the Harley knowing that he should call Uckfield and tell him that Langham’s van had crossed on the Wightlink ferry on Monday night and that it hadn’t returned. But Uckfield would probably tell him that uniform could check it out, and they could and most probably should, it was a much better use of manpower but the police RIB would get him over to that cove and back within the hour, even accounting for a check around the area, and an hour wasn’t going to delay anything.

  Elkins and Ripley were waiting for him. As Horton donned his life jacket he quickly told Elkins what he was hoping to find above a secluded cove on the east coast of the island. Ripley opened up. They sped across the Solent, the noise of the engine and the movement of the RIB prohibiting further conversation. Within fifteen minutes they were rounding the Bembridge peninsula and another five took them across Sandown Bay. Ten minutes later Ripley was easing the craft into the deserted cove. It was high tide, just as it had been on Monday night and therefore the cove was highly accessible by RIB or a flat-bottomed boat, such as Westerbrook’s.

  Horton jumped out and asked Elkins to follow him and to bring the bolt cutters. ‘Hope you’re up for a climb?’

  Elkins eyed the cliff face dubiously. On the way up the twisting narrow path Horton relayed more information.

  ‘Langham was booked on the six p.m. ferry from Portsmouth to Fishbourne, due to return on the ten o’clock sailing. He paid cash, which someone probably gave him.’

  ‘Westerbrook?’

  ‘If he did then someone gave Westerbrook the money. I think Langham was told to come here to pick up a consignment, possibly illegal immigrants or girls being brought in to be exploited in the sex trade, which on this occasion was a lie to get him here. Whatever the cargo, Langham didn’t care because he thought he’d hit the big time.’

  ‘And once here he was killed.’

  Horton nodded. ‘His van could have been driven away by the killer and dumped somewhere but my bet is it’s still where Graham was told to leave it and instead he was taken away and dumped.’

  ‘Or he could be in the back of it minus his hand, and other body parts,’ Elkins said, breathing heavily from the climb.

  ‘We’ll soon find out,’ Horton said gravely. He continued, ‘I think that his hand was put on Westerbrook’s boat without Westerbrook’s knowledge as a means of scaring him that the same would happen to him if he didn’t keep his mouth shut. Westerbrook didn’t discover it until Wednesday while out fishing and tried to ditch it but Nugent inadvertently reeled it in.’ It made sense except Horton wondered why Westerbrook had asked Nugent to go fishing with him.

  Elkins wiped the sweat from his forehead as they reached the top. The grass and shrubs gave on to a rough track and Horton set out along it walking briskly as Elkins tried to keep pace. They hadn’t gone far though when Horton spotted the van. It was parked behind some tall shrubs just off the track. He swiftly crossed to it and peered through the driver’s window. The inside was strewn with old parking tickets, petrol receipts, sweet wrappers, fag packets, drink cans and old tabloid newspapers. It was a mess. There was no blood and no sign of Langham.

  ‘No other vehicle tracks,’ Elkins said, stretching his fingers into latex gloves.

  Horton did the same. ‘Ready?’

  Elkins nodded.

  Horton tried the rear door. It was unlocked. ‘We won’t need those,’ he indicated the bolt cutters. He took a deep breath and glanced at Elkins who did the same and nodded. Horton steeled himself to meet the mutilated body of Graham Langham. He threw open the door and let out a sigh of relief. He heard Elkins exhale. It was empty. Or rather there was no sign of Graham Langham or any of his body parts, only rusty garden implements and a lawn mower, presumably the one he’d stolen on Saturday evening and hadn’t been able to sell on Sunday night.

  Horton gazed around the secluded area with its shrubs, hollows and trees. Perhaps Langham’s body was lying somewhere close by in the undergrowth. Or perhaps he’d been killed and transported elsewhere. But the path he and Elkins had climbed was fairly steep. Westerbrook, with his bad health, would have been in a worse state than Elkins had been when he’d reached the top if he had climbed up it on Monday night and if he had then Horton didn’t think he’d have had the breath to kill Langham, let alone transport his body back down the cliff to the bay and his boat. In fact the climb would probably have killed him. But Langham could have voluntarily descended the cliff to the bay to meet at the agreed rendezvous believing he was going to benefit from it financially, then he had been killed, his hand amputated, his body bundled into a boat and dumped in the English Channel. Without the rest of his body they had no idea how he’d been killed, he could have been shot, stabbed, throttled or beaten to death, but Gaye Clayton’s words about the kind of knife possibly used to cut off his hand came back to Horton. It could have been used to slash Langham’s throat first. He tensed and stared out at the cold grey sea.

  Elkins’ voice broke through Horton’s thoughts. ‘If Langham was butchered on Westerbrook’s boat then Westerbrook must have spent some time cleaning it. I didn’t see any blood.’

  Neither had Horton either the first time he’d been on board last Wednesday or yesterday. He rang Uckfield. Before explaining where he was and what he’d found he asked him what Adams had said about Lang
ham’s fingerprints being in Borland’s house.

  ‘Claims they must have got there when he burgled him on Saturday. And before you say how do we know he did, how do we know he didn’t. There’s no one to tell us what if anything was nicked from that house.’

  ‘Then you’d better tell Adams I’ve found Langham’s van.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Uckfield eagerly.

  Horton swiftly told him and gave him the news that it was minus Langham’s body.

  ‘I’ll call DCI Birch and get him to organize a search of the area and for the van to be taken away and forensically examined.’

  Birch, head of the island’s CID, wasn’t going to be very pleased to find him on his patch, thought Horton. Their enmity went back several years when Birch had hounded a mentally ill man – who Horton believed innocent of committing a vicious assault – into committing suicide. Birch hadn’t liked it when Horton had been proved correct and had got the real offender and given Birch a piece of his mind.

  Horton said, ‘I’d like to return to Portsmouth with Elkins and break the news to Moira, if I have DCS Adams’ permission,’ he added with heavy sarcasm.

  ‘OK, but do it quickly.’

  Which meant before Uckfield told Adams they’d located the van, and if Adams complained, Horton knew Uckfield would backtrack and claim he’d never given Horton permission to interview Moira, or he’d say that he must have misheard him.

  Horton waited until the first uniformed officers arrived and gave them instructions to seal off the area and await DCI Birch. There was only about an hour left until sunset and unless Birch called for lights to be set up Horton knew the search would have to wait until the morning.

  With Elkins he headed back to the RIB. An hour later Horton was knocking on Moira’s door.