‘It’s what she said. In fact I quote her exact words.’
Horton raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes, not the caring kind, or rather I should say maybe not someone who shows her emotions. Perhaps she’s just clumsy with words. But she was very businesslike and quick. It was a simple case of “yes that’s Jasper Kenton”. There were no tears and she didn’t seem shocked.’
‘Who was with her?’
‘PC Seaton.’
Horton wondered if Seaton had got more from her. He was a good young officer and keen to get into CID, but knowing how tight-lipped and rather fierce Eunice Swallows was he doubted it. ‘Did she say anything else or ask any questions about his death?’
‘No, she was remarkably lacking in curiosity as well as emotion.’
So she either knew all there was to know because someone on the team had told her – Bliss – or she hadn’t cared enough about Kenton to inquire. Perhaps, as Gaye Clayton said, it was just her way because if she had killed her business partner then surely she would have faked some kind of emotion.
‘Is there anything more you can tell me about Kenton?’
‘Looking at the radiology images, which I was doing before you arrived, I think it likely he was dead by late Friday afternoon or early evening but was shot, as I said, sometime late Thursday night or early Friday morning. He wasn’t drugged. How’s the investigation going?’
‘Slowly.’
‘Like the way the victim died,’ she quipped with black humour. Horton understood that.
‘Do you know Brett Veerman? He’s an ophthalmic consultant surgeon.’
‘Dealing with corpses as I do, I wouldn’t have much cause to come across him in my line of work,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Even if the person who has died has donated his or her corneas the body will be quickly taken to surgery and I wouldn’t have any involvement in it or any need to discuss it with Mr Veerman. I know the name though and that’s about it. Do you want to know if he conducts corneal transplants?’
‘Only if he was doing that or any other eye operation Thursday night and what he did after it.’
‘You think he might be the killer.’
‘Let’s say I can’t rule him out but it’s just a theory, and at the moment one which Uckfield doesn’t seem to be buying into. We’ve got no evidence to back it up except that Kenton was investigating Veerman for suspected infidelity and there is a discrepancy of times between when his wife says he arrived home in the early hours of Saturday morning and when he says he did. I know that doesn’t tie in with Kenton being shot on Thursday night but it could still be significant. Cantelli’s sniffing around to see what he can find out.’
‘And you’d also like me to make some discreet enquiries.’
‘Not if it will compromise your professionalism.’
‘It will cost you. And more than a couple of drinks.’ She eyed him coquettishly.
‘I’ll buy you dinner,’ he promptly replied, thinking how nice it would be to spend the evening in her company and wondering if she’d accept. She didn’t look horrified at the prospect.
‘At a place of my choosing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even if it costs a fortune?’
‘It’ll be worth it.’
‘You’re on.’
He returned her smile. Rising rather reluctantly, but with pleasure at the thought of spending more time with her and away from the stench of the mortuary, he said, ‘I’d better rescue Barney before they mistake him for a patient and whip out his appendix.’ He left feeling more cheerful than he had for some time. But Cantelli was looking frazzled around the edges.
‘You’d think I was asking for an on-demand liver transplant,’ he said with frustration outside the bustling hospital that looked more like a shopping mall entrance than a place of healing. Even the wheelchairs were chained liked shopping trolleys, Horton thought sadly, and required a coin deposit refunded on return to their base no doubt to save them from being stolen or ending up ditched in a side street or the creek that surrounded the city. ‘I know everyone is busy,’ Cantelli continued as they headed to the car, ‘and the National Health Service is stretched to breaking point—’
‘Gone well beyond that.’
‘Yeah. But I’ve been passed around more times than a hat at a busker’s night in the pub. Good job I wasn’t dying of anything contagious.’
‘Probably wouldn’t have noticed.’
‘No. Eventually though I ran across one of Charlotte’s nursing friends. It’s a miracle I found one in that maze of a place and Charlotte having left nursing so long ago. I thought all her friends would have jacked it in by now. But Brenda, bless her heart, is going to get me a list of the consultants operating on Thursday night and Friday. I couldn’t just ask for Veerman’s list because I didn’t want to draw attention to him. She’ll email it over as soon as she can but it might not be for some time. Sorry, Andy, but that’s the best I could do in the circumstances and without making it official. Except for the fact that those I did speak to in the eye clinic said Mr Veerman was wonderful. I said I was checking out how good he was for my mum’s cataract operations.’
They had reached the car. ‘Don’t worry, your nurse contact might come up with something and I’ve got Gaye working on it.’
‘I wish her luck,’ Cantelli said with feeling.
And perhaps they would make the request official if he could persuade Uckfield to do so. Heading back to the station he asked Cantelli to contact the powerboat training companies in the area. ‘Find out if any of them provided training to Jasper Kenton over the last few months. I find it hard to believe that he’d buy a boat and take it out without doing a course.’
As Cantelli made for CID, Horton headed up the stairs to the major incident suite where he found a small team of officers and civilians installed at computer terminals. He placed Kenton’s holdall, containing his clothes, and the file detailing the purchase of the boat, on the desk beside Trueman. There was no sign of Dennings and Marsden. Uckfield was in his office. Seeing Horton, Uckfield rose and joined him and Trueman.
‘So Kenton owns a boat, what of it?’ Uckfield declared after Horton had relayed the morning’s discovery. But Trueman had already printed off the photographs that Horton had emailed earlier and had pinned them on the crime board, so Uckfield must have seen them.
‘It could have been used to take him, alive or dead, to the Isle of Wight,’ Horton replied, wondering why Uckfield looked so doubtful about that. Horton told him about the conflicting descriptions of Kenton’s personality. Uckfield dismissed it as being of no account.
‘Thelma Veerman would describe him as being quiet,’ Uckfield said. ‘He’s hardly likely to go around grinning, making jokes and slapping her on the back. It doesn’t exactly instil confidence in the client if the private detective she’s engaged is all “hail fellow well met”.’
‘Then why didn’t Eunice Swallows and Danby describe Kenton as being like that?’
‘So he’s got a bit of a split personality.’ Uckfield shrugged. ‘He is the victim not the killer and I can’t see him being killed because his mood changes depending on who he’s with. If that was the case I’d have murdered the ACC long before now,’ he joked. But Horton wasn’t prepared to share it.
‘Why not?’ he quipped, annoyed that Uckfield seemed so uninterested. ‘Perhaps whoever Kenton was involved with finally got fed up with having to deal with this dual personality. Kenton pushed him too far, the killer picked up the pistol crossbow and shot him on the spur of the moment and then left him to bleed to death.’
‘But that—’
‘Doesn’t explain why he was wrapped in a sail and ended up on the shore on the Island,’ Horton added wearily and tetchily. ‘I don’t think a woman alone could have manhandled the body unless she’s built like a Russian shot putter. Has Bliss reported in?’
‘Give her a chance, she’s only just started. I’m meeting her later for a debriefing.’
‘What a
bout Dennings then? Has he got anything from Kenton’s apartment?’ Horton saw Uckfield look beyond him to the door.
‘Let’s ask him.’
Trueman’s phone rang and Horton and Uckfield crossed to Dennings who had just entered with Marsden.
‘Neat as nine pence,’ Dennings said in answer to Uckfield’s question. ‘Everything in its place and clean enough to eat your dinner off the floor. Touch of the OCDs if you ask me.’
And a person suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder didn’t sound like the impulsive man Kenton had been described as at the marina, but it did fit with what he’d seen of the motor boat.
‘Anything in the flat relating to him owning a boat?’ asked Horton.
‘Couldn’t find any oars or old bits of sail if that’s what you mean,’ Dennings answered flippantly.
It wasn’t. ‘Any keys?’ snapped Horton.
‘Only this one and it’s the spare set to his car.’
Horton glanced down at the evidence bag that Dennings placed on the table. In it was a key, tagged with a label, and written on the label in small, round, neat handwriting in ink was the registration number of Kenton’s car.
‘Kenton must have had his boat keys on him when he was killed,’ Horton declared, ‘which means he must have been intending to go to the boat. Boat keys are usually attached to a cork float in case they’re accidentally dropped overboard,’ he explained for the benefit of the non-sailors, Dennings and Marsden. Uckfield would know this. ‘So they’re hardly the sort of keys you carry around with you every day.’ Horton saw Trueman come off the phone. He didn’t join them but turned his attention to his computer.
Dennings shrugged as if to say please yourself. Addressing Uckfield, Dennings continued, ‘He’s got a bicycle, rowing machine and a running machine in the garage but no shooting targets or pistol crossbows.’
Horton hadn’t expected there to be anything like that. The latter belonged to the killer.
Dennings continued, ‘The apartment’s above the garage and opens into a lounge that gives on to a small room that Kenton obviously used as an office, but there’s no computer and no phone, just a desk with only a few bits of stationery in it and a couple of files containing guarantees, equipment instructions, security conference notes. Nothing from his bank or of a personal nature like his birth certificate.’
Horton guessed Kenton must have kept that off site in a safe somewhere along with any other personal items that could possibly be stolen and used for identity fraud. Eunice Swallows had told him that Kenton had kept his passport in the office so it was possible his birth certificate was also there and if so Bliss would have it.
Dennings confirmed this by saying, ‘No utility bills either. Must have destroyed them after paying them, or perhaps he paid them all online. No evidence of him having a girlfriend and no family photos or personal correspondence. Couldn’t find any back-up memory sticks or hard drive and no safe.’
Uckfield said, ‘According to Eunice Swallows they use a secure online back-up company where all their confidential files are sent each night but Kenton hadn’t filed anything for Thursday.’
So Bliss had reported something back, thought Horton. Uckfield clearly wasn’t telling him everything but then he wasn’t confiding everything in Uckfield. It wasn’t a good way to conduct an investigation but for now it would have to suffice. He again considered Cantelli’s suggestion that Kenton could have been on to something connected with an investigation being conducted by Agent Harriet Eames in Europol. But if that were the case then why hadn’t Detective Chief Superintendent Sawyer of the Intelligence Directorate stuck his beaky nose in?
Marsden, standing beside Dennings, chipped in eagerly. Consulting his notebook he said, ‘The bedroom was also tidy and clean, even under the bed. Good quality clothes and neatly folded, a couple of pale blue shirts, several white ones, all freshly laundered and ironed immaculately. Half a dozen black and grey T-shirts in neat piles and colour coded, socks rolled up into matching pairs, again laid out by colour, as are his underpants.’
Uckfield said, ‘Bloody hell, talk about anal.’
Marsden gave a dutiful smile and, again consulting his notebook, continued, ‘In the wardrobe there were also two suits, one dark and the other light grey, and four pairs of black trousers. Two pairs of black polished shoes along with a couple of pairs of expensive trainers, but no causal clothes.’
‘There are some in the holdall,’ Horton said, looking behind him at where he’d placed it on the desk next to Trueman, who at that moment caught his eye.
‘That was a call from the car park company,’ Trueman said, addressing them. ‘They’ve sent over the information we requested and I’ve just checked through it. The number plate recognition software shows Kenton’s car entering the Admiralty Towers car park.’
‘When?’ asked Horton eagerly.
‘Four forty-one Saturday morning.’
‘Are you sure?’ Horton asked, surprised, his brain racing. He threw Uckfield a glance. The big man was also looking puzzled.
‘You know what this means,’ said Horton to Uckfield.
‘Yeah, a dead man can’t drive.’
No. And neither could someone who had been on the Isle of Wight, tucked up in bed with his wife. And that, Horton thought with disappointment, meant the killer couldn’t be Brett Veerman.
FOURTEEN
‘They could be lying,’ Horton ventured. ‘They could be in this together.’ Dennings was eyeing him as if he’d just declared he’d found a way to hold back the tide and Uckfield just as incredulously.
‘Why should they?’ Uckfield answered. ‘And why would they put Kenton’s car in the Admiralty Towers car park if they killed him?’
‘Perhaps Thelma Veerman drove the car there to get even with her husband for having affairs, or to get him out of her life. If he got convicted and sent to prison she’d be free of him. I know she’d also be implicating herself but perhaps she’d deny it, or claim he coerced her, or that she was driven to do it.’
Uckfield peered at him as though poised to lift the phone and call the men in white coats. OK so it was unlikely, but not impossible.
He addressed Trueman. ‘Does Kenton enter the car park at any time on Thursday after four-thirty p.m. or during Friday?’
‘No. That’s the first time his car shows up there, and I’ve gone back to the Monday before. I’ve also checked Roger Watling’s vehicle. He doesn’t show until Saturday morning just before eight as he said and London have confirmed his alibi for Friday night. I’m asking them to check him out for Thursday night.’
‘Also if he owns a boat.’
Trueman nodded. ‘Brett Veerman’s vehicle entered the car park at nine twenty-five on Friday evening and left at eleven thirty p.m. which tallies with the time he caught the ferry.’
‘Is it there on Thursday night?’
Trueman scrolled back down the list. ‘No.’
Uckfield sniffed and eyed Horton keenly. ‘You’re still favouring him despite the fact he wouldn’t have parked the victim’s car in his own car park and he was probably in bed at the time?’
Rapidly Horton tried to pull together his thoughts. Again he addressed Trueman. ‘Can we see who is driving Kenton’s car?’
‘No. I’m sending the image over to the lab to get it enhanced but whoever’s driving is wearing dark clothes and has a dark cap pulled low over his face.’
‘Or her face,’ added Horton.
Trueman nodded. ‘And the CCTV cameras don’t pick up the driver walking away.’
Dennings chipped in. ‘And there won’t be any footage of Veerman confronting Kenton, or escorting him out of the building to his car, because neither of them are in that car park on Thursday evening.’
Horton had worked that out himself but he didn’t bother saying so. It had been his original theory. That had changed now he knew Kenton had a powerful motor boat and his boat keys appeared to be missing.
Trueman added, ‘I’ll get hold of C
CTV footage from Queen Street and the Historic Dockyard to see if we can spot Kenton’s car in the area.’
The high brick walls of the dockyard faced on to the entrance to the Admiralty Towers car park. Cameras might have been pointing that way. They might have picked up something, but Horton wasn’t banking on it.
He said, ‘There is the possibility that Brett Veerman met Kenton on his boat at the Hamble on Thursday night. They went out on it across the Solent and put in somewhere.’ But not at the end of Lord Eames’ pontoon because Eames would have picked that up on his computer. Unless he had done, spotted Brett Veerman, recognized him and was protecting a yacht club friend. He didn’t voice the latter thought to Uckfield.
‘Why?’ demanded Uckfield.
‘Because Kenton had something on Veerman,’ Horton continued. ‘Something so damaging that Veerman had to prevent it from coming out no matter what the cost. And maybe Kenton was going to blackmail him. Perhaps Kenton’s done a bit of freelance investigating on the side before.’
‘OK,’ Uckfield grunted and sat down heavily. ‘Seeing as you’re still determined to put Veerman in the frame let’s hear it all.’
But Horton hesitated. Did he put forward his idea that Veerman could be involved in an international drugs crime that connected him to Europol and Harriet, as he and Cantelli had discussed earlier? No, he decided to keep quiet on that for now but he could still run through another possible scenario.
‘Brett Veerman meets Kenton on his boat at Hamble Marina on Thursday night. Veerman has come prepared with a pistol crossbow to kill Kenton but Kenton is obviously oblivious to this. They take the boat across the Solent to Veerman’s house. High tide on Thursday night was just after midnight so they could have got close to the shore where Veerman lives and where he’s already placed his dinghy.’
Marsden said, ‘Why would Kenton go voluntarily?’
‘Perhaps Veerman has promised to pay him off in return for his silence, and claims he has to get the money from his house.’
Uckfield sniffed to indicate he thought that was weak. Horton did too but again it was possible.
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