Shroud of Evil

by Pauline Rowson

  SEVENTEEN

  A small slim man in his mid-seventies with a face like a walnut answered the door and confirmed to Horton that he had lived there for forty years. Horton swiftly introduced himself, showed his ID and told Mr Kimber that he could call the station to check who he was before letting him in. Harry Kimber waved aside such precautions and ushered him into the front room with pleasure.

  Horton refused a cup of tea. He could hardly believe his luck. He had hoped that one of Eileen and Bernard Litchfield’s neighbours might still be living next door but he hadn’t really expected it.

  He settled himself into an armchair in the front room at Kimber’s insistence while the elderly man took the chair opposite him. The room was overcrowded with old-fashioned furniture but it was spotlessly clean and the sideboard to the left of Horton in the alcove boasted so many family photographs that Horton could barely see the surface. He couldn’t hear anyone moving about the house and wondered if Mr Kimber was widowed and lived alone. A fact he confirmed when he saw Horton glancing at the photographs, adding that his two sons lived abroad, one in America, the other in Canada.

  ‘You remember Adrian and Tom.’

  But Horton didn’t, not much. They had been older than him, in their early twenties when he was a teenager and they had already left home. He said as much, causing Kimber to nod agreement. Horton remembered little of Harry Kimber or his wife. His experience of being pushed from pillar to post and of seeing countless people come and go in children’s homes, along with the pain of his mother’s desertion, had made him cautious about forming any attachments. Not that he’d reasoned that back then. He’d just tried to shut out other people. A remark that had been levied at him by Catherine and maybe she had been right. His failed marriage and his past were perhaps reasons why he was still reluctant to let anyone get too close. Maybe Thea Carlsson had sensed this and taken herself off before he could hurt her. Perhaps his reasons for keeping his distance with Harriet Eames and with Gaye Clayton were just excuses to prevent him from being hurt and rejected again. Christ, he was sounding like a psychologist. And maybe he was about to break that habit, he thought, over dinner soon with Gaye.

  Horton broached the subject of his visit. ‘I’m not here in an official capacity, Mr Kimber, but a personal one. It might seem a strange request but I’d like to know more about Bernard and Eileen, my foster parents.’

  ‘They’d have been proud of you, especially Bernard, you following in his footsteps so to speak and becoming a Detective Inspector. You’ve done well, lad.’

  Horton felt a grateful warm glow. ‘Thank you.’ Then he added ruefully, ‘I guess I was a handful.’

  ‘A bit of one, yes. But understandably so, given your background.’

  ‘You know about it?’ Horton asked, surprised.

  ‘Only that your mum was taken suddenly. Heart attack wasn’t it, and you were left alone and very young.’

  So that had been the official version.

  ‘Must have been tough on you.’ There was a moment’s silence before Kimber continued more brightly, ‘So what do you want to know?’

  ‘How long did you know Bernard and Eileen?’

  ‘Years before they moved in next door. Well, Bernard I did.’

  Horton started with surprise. That he hadn’t expected. He cursed the fact he hadn’t come here sooner. Not that he thought it would lead him any further forward in his search for the truth about Jennifer’s disappearance, but any information was better than none. And police work was all about gathering, sifting and putting together information until something emerged, and that was what they should be doing as far as Jasper Kenton’s death was concerned. For now though he was eager to hear more about his foster parents.

  Harry Kimber said, ‘In fact it was me who told Bernard the house next door was up for sale. He was living in a rented house then with Eileen. But he managed to get a mortgage and he and Eileen had a bit of money put by. They moved in at Christmas 1979 but Bernard and I go right back to when we did our two years National Service together in 1957. We took to one another immediately. Those were the days of the Cold War, the Suez crisis and the Cyprus conflict. Bernie and I were posted to Cyprus in fifty-nine. It was a bit hairy. British rule was coming to an end, not that we knew that then. We knew nothing. We were working-class boys from the streets of Portsmouth, our dads worked in the dockyard, like nearly everyone in Portsmouth did in those days. And you followed in your father’s footsteps. Bernie and I were glad to get away and have a bit of an adventure, not like some who did their National Service and hated it. We loved it, the more dangerous the better.’

  Horton tried to see the gentle giant he had known as a reckless young man without fear. It was difficult, but then he was looking back at it from a troubled teenager’s point of view and one who’d had a large chip on his shoulder. Bernard had managed to get him out of many scrapes and had quietly talked to him. He’d never raised his voice or his fists; he’d never lectured him; he’d just left him to consider what he had done and why and told him he was clever enough to know right from wrong and doing wrong didn’t make things right.

  ‘Do you have any photographs of Bernard and Eileen?’ Horton felt a real desire to see them, not to help him with research into his mother’s disappearance because they couldn’t, but so that he could have a better picture of the couple who had saved him from descending into a hellish life of being on the wrong side of crime. And it hadn’t just been Bernard who had refrained from lecturing him: Eileen had never chastised him either, even when he had said such hurtful things to her in his anger and pain. She wasn’t his mother and he had resented her for that. He’d rounded on her often. Again and again she had simply repeated that no, she wasn’t and could never be, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love him. She never spoke ill of his mother, in fact now he thought back she never spoke of her. And with the passing years he’d come to see Eileen as his mother. His heart ached as he recalled her dying days. He was only glad to have been with her and to have had the opportunity to thank her quietly and to tell her he loved her. He didn’t know whether she had heard him.

  Kimber said, ‘I have some pictures of Bernard but not Eileen. She was very camera shy, not like they are today.’ He sprang up with surprising agility and crossed to the sideboard. ‘Don’t you have any photographs of them?’

  ‘No. Eileen must have cleared them out before she moved into the flat.’ And now that he considered it, that was rather strange. And he couldn’t remember Bernard or Eileen taking any photographs of them together, or of him on his own.

  As Kimber rummaged around in the drawers Horton said, ‘What did Bernard do after his National Service?’

  ‘Resumed his apprenticeship in the dockyard, like I did, but neither of us could stick it. He joined the Royal Air Force as a policeman and I joined the navy as a diver. Bernie was in the RAF Police until 1979 and then joined the Hampshire Force. He was injured while he was serving in Northern Ireland in 1978. Shot in the shoulder while patrolling the airfield at RAF Aldergrove.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. He never said,’ Horton said, surprised. And he hadn’t known that Bernard had served in Northern Ireland.

  ‘He wasn’t the type to talk about it or his job. The wound wasn’t serious. Could have been a hell of a lot worse. He could have been killed. Many service personnel were, and civilians, innocent women and kiddies. It was before those terrible bombs were set off by the IRA in towns and villages across Northern Ireland. And all those bombs in December in Bristol, Coventry, Liverpool, Manchester, and just up the road in Southampton. The IRA said they were gearing up for a long war,’ Kimber said sadly. ‘But then we seem to have just as many, if not more, troubles now. And all in the name of religion. Or so they claim. Still,’ he said more chirpily, ‘Northern Ireland was where he met Eileen.’

  And that was another shock for Horton. ‘She was from Northern Ireland?’ Eileen had never spoken with a Northern Irish accent. And she’d never once mentioned coming from
there, and neither had she or Bernard talked about their family – or if they had then he hadn’t paid much attention, but then a teenage boy would hardly have been interested in his foster parents’ past, only in himself. And Horton didn’t remember any family coming to visit. His mind raced back through those years. Now that he came to consider it he didn’t remember any friends either, except Harry Kimber and his wife. The Litchfields had been a very private couple.

  ‘Eileen was working in Belfast as a typist in the Civil Service. Now where was she from? I can’t remember if she said …’ Then he clicked his arthritic fingers. ‘That’s it. Me and the wife were going on holiday and she said, “Give the island my regards” or “my love”, something like that.’

  ‘She was from the Isle of Wight?’

  But Kimber shook his head. ‘No. Mary and I were going on holiday to the Channel Islands.’

  ‘Which island?’ Horton asked eagerly even though he already knew the answer.

  ‘Guernsey. Beautiful place. You ever been? Mary and I went back a couple of times. We both loved it.’

  Was it a coincidence that Eileen had come from the very place that Ballard had told Horton he was sailing to – only he didn’t go there, according to Horton’s sources. It had to be, surely. And Kimber could be mistaken. “Give it my love”, or some such phrase, didn’t mean she had lived there or had been born there; she might simply have been there on holiday. Then why did he have this feeling that it was highly significant? Was there something in Guernsey that connected Eileen Litchfield with Edward Ballard? Guernsey didn’t tally with the location reference that Dr Quentin Amos had left him, which was Gosport. Same initial, yes, but miles apart in location and topography. He needed to consider this more fully.

  ‘Do you know what Eileen’s maiden name was?’ He could get it from the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages but this might save him time.

  ‘No, sorry. Ah, here they are.’ Kimber turned and handed Horton two photographs. A flood of warm affection swamped Horton as he gazed down at the fit, dark-haired young man in his twenties wearing his army national service uniform. There were the deep-set brown smiling eyes in the heavy square face that he remembered. He swallowed and cleared his throat. Standing beside Bernard was a fair, good-looking man with blue eyes and a cheeky grin. Harry Kimber. He heard the elderly man sigh.

  ‘It doesn’t do to look back,’ Kimber said sadly.

  How bloody right he was, Horton thought, turning to the second photograph of Bernard. He was dressed in combat fatigues and a flak jacket and was carrying an automatic self-loading pistol.

  ‘Northern Ireland,’ Kimber said. ‘Not quite sure why I kept that one or why Bernard gave it to me, but it could have been to show me how tough he was.’ Kimber looked sorrowful for a moment, as he thought back down the years. Then he brightened. ‘But I knew that anyway, or at least how brave he was. And a little reckless. Bernard always was a bit of an action man, more so than me.’ A frown creased his already corrugated forehead. ‘I was worried about Bernard during the troubles. IRA bombs going off everywhere, not only there but over here too. Terrible times, they were. You’ve got to be on the alert for terrorism but I don’t need to tell you about that.’

  No, thought Horton; extreme views often led to vandalism, destruction, physical pain and murder. He just hoped their racist restaurant vandal would be apprehended before it went any further.

  ‘Can I borrow these for a while? I’ll copy them and return them to you.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Kimber showed him to the front door. There Horton paused. He wished he had a photograph of Edward Ballard but he recalled the fair, fit man he’d seen talking to Bernard and asked Kimber if he remembered seeing him. His answer was as Horton expected: no.

  Outside, Horton let his memory go back to the time he saw Edward Ballard hand that Bluebird Toffee tin containing the photograph of his mother and his birth certificate to Bernard. Had it contained anything else that Bernard had removed before passing on to him? He would never know, not unless he found Ballard and asked him, and he thought he had about as much chance of that as being promoted.

  He scanned the long road of terraced houses built in the 1930s while his memory slipped back in time to the day he’d sneaked home early from school and seen Bernard with Ballard. What had been parked here then? Ballard must have arrived in some kind of vehicle. Would he, as a teenager, have noticed any cars though? Yes, if they had been different, flash and expensive like the one he recalled his mother climbing into once, parked outside their flat. That had been an American car he’d thought, but couldn’t be sure. Maybe to a child it had just looked big and flash. No, the only thing he would have noticed here was something he was interested in, even as a boy. Of course! Why hadn’t he recalled it before? Because it had been autumn and the weather damp and windy and he’d thought nothing of a man dressed in black clothes – trousers and a big black jacket – but now, if he put that with the admiring glance he’d given a motorbike, Horton knew that Ballard had come by bike. What kind though? A Honda? A Triumph? He racked his brains trying to remember. He’d seen Ballard climb on a motorbike. It had given a satisfyingly deep throb as it had roared away. That had appealed to his boyhood fantasy of being able to escape. He’d wished he could ride away from the school he hated and the other boys he fought with, but most of all from the anger inside him. And there it still was like a hard ball gripping his gut, causing his fists to clench. He took a breath. Emotion was no use to him, but reason was and it was only reason that would help him get to the truth. Edward Ballard had ridden away on a powerful motorbike but that fact didn’t help him find out what had happened to Jennifer and why Bernard and Eileen Litchfield had been able to unofficially foster him.

  He returned to his boat where he postponed all thoughts of Jennifer, showered and cooked something to eat. He turned his mind to Jasper Kenton. Mentally he ran through all the facts he’d learned about Kenton and his death, trying to find something that would make Uckfield take more direct action. But he knew this was one of those cases that was set to drag on, mainly because Eames wanted it that way. Was that because of the beachcomber? Was Horton harbouring a killer? He had to know. Perhaps he should take his own boat across to the island and motor up that creek. From the sea it would look different and maybe he’d spot something that could give him a lead. He’d need to refuel though because he hadn’t been out sailing for some time. He froze. Fuel. What had Elkins said about Kenton’s boat? Rapidly he racked his brain. Yes, that was it, the tank was half full. Had it been empty when Rob at the marina had helped Kenton to refuel? Or had Kenton been topping it up? Did it matter? He knew it did. He wasn’t quite sure why, but like that nagging personality discrepancy in Kenton that refused to go away, Horton knew that the amount of fuel in that boat meant something significant and he was determined to find out what it was.

  EIGHTEEN

  Wednesday

  ‘Neither Kenton nor anyone else took that boat to the Isle of Wight or anywhere Thursday night,’ Horton relayed to Cantelli the next morning in the CID Operations room. ‘I’ve spoken to Rob at the marina and he says he asked Kenton if he wanted the boat filled up but Kenton said no, just half a tank, and there was only a small amount of fuel left in it when he took it to the pumps. Elkins says there is still half a tank left in the boat and he hasn’t found any trace of Kenton’s boat putting in to any of the marinas on the Isle of Wight. He must have met his killer here on the mainland and it wasn’t at Oyster Quays or the Camber because I’ve already checked with them. He certainly didn’t drive over to the island because the ferry company have no record of his car being on any sailings on Thursday or Friday.’

  ‘So he either crossed on someone else’s boat or in someone else’s car.’

  ‘Yes. And that’s not Brett Veerman’s because he didn’t cross to the island until Friday night, by which time Kenton was dead. And I don’t think Kenton could have been in the rear of his Volvo, bleeding to death since Thurs
day night.’

  ‘What about Thelma Veerman’s car?’

  Horton shook his head. ‘There’s no record of her having been on the ferry.’ He’d checked that morning. ‘I’ve told Uckfield that we need to run a check on all those who travelled on the ferries on Thursday night and Friday morning for any connection with Kenton. I’m going to re-interview Thelma Veerman and I want you with me.’

  Cantelli grimaced. ‘Wish you’d asked me before I had breakfast.’

  ‘I’d ask Walters only he looks as though he’s already been on a rough sea for forty-eight hours.’ Horton jerked his head at the overweight DC, who staggered in the door with a face like a constipated St Bernard dog clutching his fat stomach.

  ‘Think I ate something dodgy last night at that bloody Turkish restaurant. My guts feel like they’re going to explode.’

  ‘Well for Christ’s sake don’t let them do it here. I take it you were on surveillance last night and no one showed up to spray filthy slogans on the filthy kitchen.’

  ‘No. After my meal I sat outside in the car until two o’clock. Then my guts started playing up.’

  ‘See that they’re better by tonight.’

  ‘I’m not going back in there to eat,’ Walters protested vehemently.

  ‘Then try the Indian restaurant you mentioned yesterday or get a takeaway and sit in your car.’

  ‘And if I get taken short?’

  ‘Perhaps they’ll let you use the restaurant toilet.’

  Walters groaned. ‘I’m sick. I should be at home.’

  ‘Then go home,’ Horton said sharply. ‘But make sure you’re outside or in one of those restaurants you identified as in desperate need of redecoration and better security tonight.’

  Walters nodded gloomily and plodded out. Horton gave Cantelli instructions to book them on the ten o’clock sailing and returned to his office where he rang Thelma Veerman but there was no answer. Annoyed, he replaced the receiver without leaving a message. He could have another wasted journey if she wasn’t at home, but glancing at the clock and seeing it was just after nine he thought she was probably walking the dogs. She had to go home at some point – unless she was away, he thought, but her car had been on the drive yesterday.