Fatal Catch

by Pauline Rowson

  She’d worked for British Intelligence and had played a part in informing on the plans of the Radical Student Alliance in the 1960s and early 1970s; that was the truth. And Guilbert had told him that Eileen Ducale had left Guernsey in 1961 to work for the civil service in London. Horton wouldn’t be surprised if it had been there that she’d met Jennifer and introduced her to her twin brother, Andrew. And Jennifer had been recruited by Andrew to work for British Intelligence in the days of the Cold War.

  He’d discovered something about all six of these men in the photograph and he’d been left a code by the man who had taught five of them, which Horton believed indicated she’d been heading for Gosport and a rendezvous with someone from the intelligence services, possibly Eames or possibly the man she’d seen in the casino, who was also working for British Intelligence and whom she believed was dead. Susan Nash’s words reeled around his head: she went deathly pale as though she’d seen a ghost.

  Then there was the story that she’d been connected with the IRA in the mid to late 1970s either to help foil terrorist plans or to aid them; he thought both were unlikely and Dormand had told him this in October to distract him from what was really the truth. And that brought him back to the brooch, which PC Adrian Stanley had stolen from his mother’s flat. He’d seen her wearing it. The fact that it wasn’t listed anywhere on the stolen art and antiques database meant that it had been given to Jennifer by someone she had loved and who had loved her. Someone who had come back from the dead.

  So who was the ghost Jennifer had seen? A ghost that Eames was so desperate for him not to find? One who Eames was going to great lengths to protect or rather to prevent from ever being found. Andrew Ducale aka Edward Ballard?

  Horton poured himself a glass of water which he drank thirstily in one go. He stuffed the picture back in his pocket and locked up the boat. The marina car park was deserted. He climbed on the Harley and headed for the station, but on the deserted seafront he pulled over and silenced the engine. He stared at the black expanse of sea that stretched before him. In the light of the moon he could see the flecks of silver on the waves as they rolled on to the shingle beach.

  Trueman’s words on identifying Borland’s burnt body rang through Horton’s troubled mind: although a formal ID and fingerprints are impossible given the fire, his dental records were accessed shortly after he was taken to the mortuary and they matched.

  Horton took a deep breath; was it possible the ghost that Jennifer had seen was Zachary Benham and he hadn’t died in that fire in the psychiatric hospital? The dental records had claimed the body was that of Zachary Benham but that would have been easy to fabricate. So where was Benham now? Had he killed Jennifer? Had he run off with her? Had someone else killed them both? Why hadn’t Benham perished in that fire? And if he hadn’t then who had in his place? Two men could give him the answers to these questions. He knew where one of them was, Lord Eames, except he never would tell. The other man would.

  Horton started the engine and headed for the station. The answers lay with Andrew Ducale, and now that Horton knew what questions to ask he also knew that Ducale would reveal the truth. All he had to do was find him and he’d begin by talking to Violet Ducale in Guernsey.