Footsteps on the Shore dah-6

by Pauline Rowson

  Horton was even more impressed by Cantelli’s complete recall and must have shown it, because Cantelli quickly added, ‘I wasn’t working on either case but Charlotte, my wife,’ he explained for Boynton’s benefit, ‘knew Luke’s mother, Sonia. They trained as nurses together and worked on the same ward before Charlotte gave up work completely when Sadie was born. They kept in touch until Sonia Felton died, which wasn’t long after Luke was convicted for Natalie’s murder.’

  Horton turned to Walters. ‘Any reports of violent assaults last night?’

  ‘Nothing with Felton’s MO on it.’

  ‘Get the case notes on the Natalie Raymonds murder, and apply to see Luke Felton’s prison files, including his medical records. Find out who visited him inside and start checking to see if he’s contacted any of them. Cantelli and I will talk to the sister and brother.’ To Boynton, Horton said, ‘Did Felton have any girlfriends before prison?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  Again Horton turned to Walters. ‘Call the hospitals in the area to see if he’s had an accident. I take it you haven’t already done that?’ Horton tossed at Boynton.

  ‘I didn’t even think of it. I suppose it’s a possibility.’ Boynton looked concerned.

  ‘A remote one, unless he had no ID on him and has got amnesia or is unconscious. Do you have a recent photograph of him?’

  ‘On file.’

  ‘Email it to DC Walters the moment you return to your office. Walters, when you get it, circulate it to all officers.’

  Walters nodded. Horton again addressed Boynton. ‘If you hear from him, or learn anything about his whereabouts, let us know immediately.’

  With a flick of his hair and a sniff, Boynton nodded agreement before slouching off. Horton glanced down at the paper on Cantelli’s desk containing the drawing of the symbol etched on his Harley. That would have to wait. Stuffing it in his pocket he said, ‘Let’s see what the hostel supervisor can tell us about Luke Felton.’

  TWO

  Not a great deal, it transpired. Harmsworth had last seen Luke Felton on Tuesday morning at about eight thirty when Luke had been on his way to work. But one thing was certain, thought Horton, following the hostel supervisor’s eighteen-stone frame up the narrow stairs in the gothic-style Edwardian building, which was as out of place in the middle of the run-down council flats and seedy second-hand shops as a pensioner in a night club, Harmsworth wouldn’t have been a regular visitor to Luke Felton’s room on the third floor. Horton doubted he’d even checked to see if Felton had been in his room when Matt Boynton had called him.

  ‘I would have thought Felton would have been under curfew,’ Cantelli said.

  ‘This isn’t a prison,’ Harmsworth wheezed over his shoulder.

  More’s the pity, thought Horton. ‘Do you live on the premises?’

  ‘I’ve got a flat on the ground floor just behind the office, but officially I only work during the day. I’m not their nursemaid,’ he panted defensively. ‘They’ve got a key to the front door and to their own rooms. Luke was one of the better ones though. Polite, friendly, no drink and no drugs as far as I could tell,’ he added hastily. ‘He was grateful to be free, and swore he’d never do anything to risk being sent back to prison.’

  ‘They all say that,’ Cantelli said wearily.

  ‘No, Luke was different,’ Harmsworth answered vehemently. ‘You could tell he meant it.’

  Luke Felton had certainly got his probation officer and this man wrapped around his little finger. They climbed the rest of the stairs in silence, or rather with Harmsworth panting like a rhino in childbirth. At the top he reached for his keys and unlocked the door.

  Stepping inside, Horton was immediately struck by how clinically tidy the room was. Luke Felton obviously observed prison routine here. Its furnishings were plain and spartan; along with the wardrobe, there was a three-drawer chest and a single made-up bed. There were no dirty underpants or sweaty socks lying on the grey tiled floor; no clothes hanging out of the cheap melamine wardrobe; no books and no technology, not even a television set. Horton wondered what Felton did with himself in his spare time. This certainly didn’t look like the room of a drug addict.

  ‘He should come and keep house for us,’ Cantelli exclaimed admiringly.

  Harmsworth made to flop on the bed but a look from Horton prevented him. Instead, the fat man took out a handkerchief, mopped his crimson face and propped himself up against the door post, puffing like an old steam engine. ‘Luke is very particular,’ he gasped.

  Yeah, and how would you know, thought Horton, crossing to the wardrobe as Cantelli took the chest of drawers.

  ‘Was Felton friendly with anyone in particular?’ Cantelli asked, rifling through the drawers.

  Harmsworth considered this for a moment while Horton flicked through the meagre belongings in the wardrobe: a checked shirt, pair of cargoes, trainers and that seemed to be it. No discarded needles or drugs, not even a can of lager.

  ‘He seemed to get on well with Tyler Yarland,’ Harmsworth answered. ‘Yarland’s on bail for car theft and vandalism. Comes from a rough background, parents dumped him into social services care when he was a kid and he’s been pushed from pillar to post ever since.’

  And there but for the grace of God go I, or could have gone, thought Horton, pulling down the sports bag from the top of the wardrobe. He’d had some scrapes with the law as a kid until a foster father, who had been a policeman, had changed the course of his life for ever. There was nothing in the bag. He glanced at Cantelli, who shook his head to indicate he’d found nothing of any note in the chest of drawers.

  ‘Where’s Tyler Yarland now?’ Horton asked, as Cantelli lifted the mattress and checked under the bed.

  Harmsworth glanced at his watch. ‘Probably still in bed. Most of them don’t get up until midday. There’s not much to get up for.’

  ‘Except to collect their social security giro and buy booze and fags,’ Horton quipped.

  Harmsworth shrugged his fat shoulders. ‘Yarland’s room’s the third one along the corridor.’

  Cantelli slipped out and Horton crossed to the window. They were at the rear of the building, overlooking the small car park. Horton watched a woman of about twenty-five emerge from one of the run-down flats opposite. She was pushing a crying baby, with a child of about Emma’s age, eight, trailing miserably behind. Why wasn’t the child in school? Classes had started two hours ago.

  He thought of the boarding school that Catherine wanted to send Emma to and recalled with anguish his daughter’s sobs on the telephone because she didn’t want to go. He’d visited Northover School without Catherine’s knowledge two weeks ago and to his annoyance had found it excellent. He’d been looking for a reason to hate it and certainly to rescue Emma from its clutches. But it was small, homely and comfortable, and had facilities to die for. It was also select and very expensive, and the fact that his father-in-law, Luke Felton’s employer, had agreed with Catherine to pay the fees stuck in Horton’s craw. It was obvious to him what they were trying to do, and that was to ease him out of his daughter’s life. Well, they won’t succeed, he thought with furious determination. It was his responsibility and pleasure to make sure his daughter got the best of everything, and that would certainly be a darn sight more than he’d ever had as a child, including love.

  His mind flashed back to his own childhood. This was his inheritance: a bleak and barren urban landscape, a tough school, the streets his playground, a succession of children’s homes and foster parents, emptiness, longing and anger. Yet there had been love and laughter with his mother before that terrible November day when he had waited for her to come home from work at the casino and she hadn’t. And he recalled again a memory that had returned recently while he’d been on the Isle of Wight. She’d turned, laughing, and called to him as they were walking across the golf course at Bembridge. Over the last few weeks he’d tried to remember more of that day, and whether they had been alone or accompanied
by a man, but the memory had dissipated leaving him no further clues as to her whereabouts.

  Hastily he turned his mind back to Luke Felton. Trips down his miserable memory lane he could do in his own time. He wondered how Luke Felton had got into drugs, and why. Was it for the experience? Had it started in a small way and he’d got addicted to harder stuff? Or had he been influenced by the wrong crowd, jeered and goaded into experimenting, and hadn’t wanted to lose face? Whatever had happened, it had made him desperate and violent, and an innocent woman had lost her life.

  ‘Does Felton talk about his crime?’ he asked, turning back to Harmsworth.

  ‘No, and I didn’t ask. That’s not my job.’

  What is, wondered Horton. As if reading his mind, Harmsworth added defensively, ‘I’m here to make sure the place doesn’t get trashed.’

  ‘A caretaker then,’ Horton said, but his sarcasm was lost on Harmsworth. ‘Is anything of Felton’s missing? Clothes, mobile phone?’

  Harmsworth shrugged his fat shoulders.

  ‘Does Felton have a mobile phone?’ If it had GPS then it could pinpoint where he was.

  ‘I’ve not seen him with one.’

  That didn’t necessarily mean he didn’t have one. ‘What was Felton wearing when you last saw him?’

  Harmsworth’s face screwed up in the effort to recall. ‘Green cargoes, trainers, a T-shirt — grey I think — and a navy blue jacket.’

  Horton jotted this down and said, ‘We’re waiting for a recent photograph of Felton from his probation officer, do you have one?’

  ‘On the computer.’

  Harmsworth locked the door and handed Horton the key. If Luke returned then he’d have his own key, and if he didn’t then Horton didn’t want any Tyler, Wayne or Dwayne wandering in and helping themselves to what there was of Luke Felton’s meagre possessions.

  He followed Harmsworth to his office on the ground floor at the front of the building in time to see the back of a slight, scruffily dressed man with greasy black hair scuttle out of the door. He’d know that shambling shifty figure anywhere: Ronnie Rookley. Through Harmsworth’s office window Horton watched Rookley dash across the road and dive into a dirty cafe opposite.

  Turning back, Horton asked Harmsworth if Felton had used the payphone he’d seen in the hall.

  ‘It’s been out of order for three weeks. And he hasn’t used my office phone.’ Harmsworth eased his bulk into the swivel chair behind his desk in the corner of the shabby office and tapped into his computer. A minute later Horton was staring at a printed picture of Luke Felton. He saw a man in his late thirties with fair cropped hair, a square-jawed open face, and blue eyes that held no fear or wariness but weren’t cockily confident either. Horton thought back to the Luke Felton he’d seen in September 1997, then he had looked much the same as any other junkie: dirty, dishevelled, unshaven, pale-skinned and spotty, but with blood on his clothes — blood which had turned out to be Natalie Raymonds’.

  Cantelli sauntered in. ‘Yarland claims he hasn’t seen Felton since Monday night and then only in passing. He has no idea why he’s missing. I spoke to a couple of others who didn’t even seem to know who Felton was, let alone when they last saw him.’

  That didn’t surprise Horton. In this kind of place, and with these kinds of men, they’d meet a wall of silence. It probably wasn’t even worth sending officers to question them.

  With instructions to Harmsworth to call them if Luke Felton showed up, Horton gestured to Cantelli to follow him. Stepping out of Crown House by the front entrance, Horton handed Cantelli the photograph of Felton. Then, nodding at the cafe opposite, he said, ‘I’m hungry.’

  Cantelli eyed it, horrified. ‘We’ll get food poisoning.’

  ‘Better stick to coffee and conversation then, though it’s more likely to be expletives and grunts. Recognize that disgusting figure?’ Horton asked, as they dodged through the traffic and stood outside the cafe.

  The slight man at the counter turned, saw them, started nervously and dived for the door, but Horton reached it first. As he pushed it open Cantelli muttered, ‘Thought I could smell manure in Crown House.’

  ‘When did they let you out, Ronnie?’ Horton said loudly, blocking the man’s exit, and forcing him to slide into a chair at a table close to the door. Cantelli crossed to the big balding man behind the counter, who was eyeing them like a bouncer in a night club looking for a reason to eject them and not much caring how trivial it might be. Breathing could be enough, thought Horton.

  ‘Keep your voice down, can’t you?’ the small man with the pock-marked skin muttered, glancing over his shoulder.

  ‘Ronnie, we’re the only sad bastards in here!’ Horton eyed the heavily tattooed man in his mid-fifties, sporting more earrings than a jeweller’s window, sitting beside him. He wondered what criminal activity Rookley was plotting this time, because knowing him of old he wasn’t in here for his health.

  ‘There’s him.’ Rookley jerked his head in the direction of big belly man. Horton studied the hard-featured face behind the counter. Horton didn’t know him but maybe Cantelli did.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Jack.’

  ‘Jack who?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know?’

  ‘Because you’re a crook, a thief, a liar and used to dealing with the low-life scum of Portsmouth. And you were talking to him about five seconds ago. I could see you through the window.’

  ‘I was ordering a drink.’

  Horton eyed the empty table in front of them. ‘Didn’t realize it was table service,’ he said sarcastically. ‘So what were you doing at Crown House?’

  ‘I live there.’

  ‘Since when?’

  Rookley shifted his scrawny figure. ‘October. I’m out on licence. Got a year of my sentence left and I don’t want nothing to bugger it up and go back inside.’

  ‘Did you hear that, Sergeant?’ Horton boomed, causing Rookley to flinch. ‘Ronnie’s out on licence and reformed.’

  ‘That just goes to show miracles can happen,’ replied Cantelli, placing three chipped mugs on the table, one of which he pushed towards Rookley. Rookley peered at the dark brown liquid as if it were poison. Cantelli said, ‘They’re out of Earl Grey.’ He pulled up a seat to the right of Rookley, blocking his other exit route.

  Rookley shot a nervous look at the balding proprietor.

  Horton thought, if he’s that scared of him why come here? ‘Luke Felton,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap. You live in the same building.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Where is he?’

  Rookley shrugged his narrow shoulders. ‘In bed?’

  ‘He’s missing.’

  Rookley sniffed and relinquished eye contact. ‘So?’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  But Horton knew Rookley was lying. Rookley’s eyes scanned the cafe and then focused on the window facing the street. Horton saw him stiffen. Following the direction of his gaze, he saw a tall black man lounging against the lamp post on the corner of a narrow street outside the council’s housing office; his head was shaking in rhythm to the music that was plugged into his ears, a baseball cap was rammed low over his brow and his hands were thrust deep into the pockets of a large black leather bomber jacket.

  Rookley quickly buried his face in the mug and swallowed a mouthful of tea before pulling a face. Horton didn’t blame him. It smelt like shit and looked like something that had come from the sewage farm at Bedhampton. Horton valued his throat and stomach too highly to drink the coffee that Cantelli had bought him, and the sergeant hadn’t attempted to lift his cracked mug to his lips.

  ‘We were talking about Luke Felton,’ pressed Horton.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ Rookley half rose.

  ‘Sit down,’ Horton commanded quietly but firmly. ‘Unless you cooperate I will ask questions very loudly before I take you to the station, where I will-
’

  ‘OK, you’ve made your point. I heard something, that’s all.’

  ‘Like what?’ Horton’s patience was wearing a little thin. It was time to squeeze some information out of the runt. The black man had gone.

  Rookley licked his lips and dashed another glance at big belly man. ‘Not here,’ he hissed.

  ‘Just tell me where Luke is,’ Horton sighed.

  Rookley shifted. ‘Can’t now, but I might be able to tonight.’

  Was he bullshitting? Horton thought it highly probable. Rookley just wanted shot of him. As if reading his mind Rookley quickly added, ‘I need to ask around a bit.’

  Horton didn’t believe it for one minute. He was stalling. Why? But Horton said, ‘OK, where?’

  ‘Milton Locks. Nine o’clock.’

  ‘Why there?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘How do I know you’ll be there?’

  ‘Because you know where I’m living and I don’t want you sniffing around after me.’

  Horton quickly weighed up whether to press him, decided it would be a waste of time and scraped back his chair. ‘I’ll be there. Just make sure you are, Ronnie.’

  Rookley scurried away without looking back. Horton watched big belly man’s eyes follow him before they swivelled back to Horton. The hatred in them was unmistakable, but Horton didn’t let that worry him.

  Crossing to him, Horton said, ‘When did you last see Luke Felton?’

  ‘Fuck off, copper.’

  Horton held his hostile stare a moment longer before obliging.

  ‘Do you know the cafe owner?’ he asked Cantelli when they were outside.

  Cantelli shook his head. Big belly man now had a mobile phone pressed to his ear. ‘Give me the photograph of Felton and keep your eye on handsome in there.’

  Horton slipped across the road as the traffic lights changed and darted down the narrow side street by the housing office. Turning right into a small car park at the rear of the run-down shops and flats he found what he was looking for: a dark saloon car. Inside it was the large black man who’d been lounging against the wall by the housing office. Checking no one was watching him, Horton opened the passenger door and climbed in.