He reached for his phone but hesitated. Would they be too late to find Dormand? Would his body be washed out to sea? Or had he or others planned his escape route? Was there a speed boat waiting to take him somewhere? Would the coastguard find the small boat empty and drifting? Just as Kenton had planned his phoney death, perhaps Dormand had already planned his. He scoured the sea for the small dinghy and thought he saw it heading out towards Ryde.
‘Just tidying up like I’ve been trained to do.’
Horton stared back at the boathouse. Had Jay Ottley really shot himself or had Dormand, a trained assassin, killed him? Had he been tidying up? Was he tidying up with his own death? No one would know what he had told him about the past and Jennifer. And Dormand had let him live because he was the bait.
Horton let the sea lap at his feet. He couldn’t see any boats now, only a few tiny lights in the distance. He wasn’t sure how long he stood but after a while he stabbed a number on his phone and called the coastguard. He reported a possible man overboard from a small dinghy. Then, taking a breath, he called in.
He didn’t tell Uckfield all of it and he wouldn’t. He had an appointment with Lord Eames for that. Or rather Eames would find him. The official story would be that Sam Tandy, known as Jay Ottley, had killed Jasper Kenton and Thelma Veerman and Brother Norman had conspired with Ottley after their deaths to help move their bodies in order to delay and confuse the investigation. Brother Norman, unable to live with his conscience, had killed himself at sea. Sam Tandy, alias Jay Ottley, had committed suicide by firing a pistol crossbow into his brains after Horton had shown up and asked for the whereabouts of Brother Norman, believing that the police were on to him. No one would know Brother Norman’s true identity except him and Lord Eames.
Horton’s phone rang but he ignored it. It would be Eames. There were now only two men left alive from those days of the Cold War, of spies, betrayal and the dirty tricks of 1967: Lord Richard Eames and another man whom Jennifer had worked with or for. One of those men had lured Jennifer to her death.
Horton stared out to sea. He was several steps closer to finding him but there were bigger and more dangerous steps yet to take. The trail began in Guernsey with Eileen Litchfield. But it didn’t end there. It didn’t even end in Gosport where his mother had gone on that foggy November day in 1978. No, it ended with the troubles in Northern Ireland and that was where he would begin. He turned and headed back up the shore to wait for the approaching police cars.
Shroud of Evil Page 26