Killing Coast, A (Detective Inspector Andy Horton) Read online

  Horton wondered why she hadn’t visited her father, but he’d save that question for later. He recalled Dr Clayton’s estimate of time of death. Had Colin Yately set out to meet his daughter last Thursday and had an accident? But no; not in that dress. It didn’t sound as though he’d killed himself, not if he’d spoken to his daughter on Wednesday and arranged to meet her, but they only had Hannah Yately’s word on that. How could they be sure the conversation had gone as she said? Maybe they rowed and Yately, distraught, had decided to end his life. Horton wasn’t sure where the dress came into it because he didn’t think it was Hannah’s, but who could tell? Time for speculation later. Facts first.

  ‘What time did he call you on Wednesday?’ he asked.

  ‘Six o’clock.’

  ‘On your mobile?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They might at least be able to check that if they needed to.

  ‘How did he sound?’

  ‘Happy,’ she answered miserably.

  ‘And you were looking forward to seeing him?’

  ‘Of course,’ she frowned, clearly bewildered by his questions. If they had rowed she wasn’t going to mention it and there were no telltale flushes of guilt.

  ‘Did he know you were going away together for the weekend?’ Horton’s eyes swivelled to Damien’s and back to Hannah’s.

  ‘Yes.’

  Horton noted that Damien hadn’t been invited to the Thursday evening meal. He could have been working, Horton supposed. Or perhaps it was a father and daughter bonding thing. Yately might not approve of Damien. Or he might have held the opinion that no man would be good enough for his daughter.

  Cantelli said, ‘Did your father say what he was going to do on Thursday before meeting you? Was he working?’

  ‘No. Dad’s retired,’ she replied. ‘We were meeting in the pizza restaurant as usual at about seven thirty. He was coming over on the Fastcat from the Isle of Wight. He lives in a flat at Ventnor.’

  That explained why Hannah hadn’t visited her father to check if he was all right. But Colin Yately’s address, Horton noted, was not far from where Victor Hazleton lived. Could there be a connection between Yately’s death and Hazleton’s light at sea? Surely not. For a start he didn’t believe Hazleton and, secondly, they had no reason to believe Yately’s death was suspicious. And they could certainly check whether Colin Yately had ever caught the Fastcat or any ferry on Thursday.

  Cantelli again. ‘Could you describe your father to us, Miss Yately.’

  ‘I have a photograph.’ She reached down into a handbag at her feet. Horton didn’t like to tell her it probably wouldn’t be much use in helping to identify their body.

  Cantelli passed the photograph across to him. Standing beside Hannah Yately was an ordinary-looking sort of man in his mid fifties, slim-faced, with thinning brown hair, dressed in casual trousers and an open-necked checked shirt. The photograph had been taken in summer on the waterfront at Oyster Quays, with the Spinnaker Tower in the background.

  Handing it back to Cantelli, Horton said, ‘How tall is your father?’

  ‘Five foot ten.’

  About the height of their body.

  ‘Inspector, is it Dad?’ she asked, anxiously scrutinizing him.

  Cantelli shifted beside him, sensing what he was about to say. There was no easy way to do this.

  Gently he said, ‘The description fits your father, and we found this.’

  At a nod from Horton, Cantelli reached under the folder on the desk and pushed across the photograph of the key fob. Hannah Yately let out a cry and then gulped noisily before beginning to sob. Cantelli slipped out and moments later returned with a plastic cup of water which he handed to Damien.

  ‘Drink this, Hannah,’ her boyfriend urged quietly, ashen-faced.

  Horton said nothing until she had drunk and composed herself. ‘I understand this must be very upsetting for you, Miss Yately, and although that was found on the body it doesn’t necessarily mean it is your father. But I’m not going to get your hopes up because it seems probable that it is him. If so, we need to find out what happened after you spoke to him on Wednesday. Do you think you could answer a few more questions for us?’

  After a moment she nodded.

  ‘Could you confirm that belongs to your father?’

  ‘Yes. I bought it for Dad for Christmas about six years ago. He always carries it with him.’

  ‘Does he keep his keys on it?’

  ‘Yes. Weren’t they with it?’ she said, surprised.

  They weren’t but Horton wasn’t going to mention that yet. ‘Does your father have any distinguishing marks, tattoos, scars?’

  She shook her head.

  Cantelli said, ‘Has he had any surgery?’

  She swallowed hard and tried to pull herself together. Horton admired her for that. ‘He broke his leg five years ago. He was knocked off his bike when working. He was a postman; he took early retirement three years ago. And he had surgery on his knee, cartilage problems, about ten years ago.’

  ‘So your father doesn’t work at all?’ enquired Cantelli.

  ‘No. He says he doesn’t need much to live on especially since him and Mum got divorced.’

  So that ruled out him wearing his wife’s clothes, thought Horton, unless he secretly had a hankering for her and had taken some with him when they broke up, which was a bit weird but then he’d met some pretty weird people in this job.

  Horton said, ‘When did they get divorced?’

  ‘They spilt up when Dad took retirement. The divorce came through about eighteen months after.’

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘He was relieved. My mum’s not the easiest person in the world to live with,’ she answered with an edge of defiance.

  ‘And where is that?’

  ‘Newport, on the Isle of Wight. My parents were married for twenty-three years, but when Dad retired from the post office Mum said it was bad enough suffering him at weekends and in the evenings, she couldn’t stand being cooped up with him every day and night. I’d already left home and moved here to live with my boyfriend.’ She looked as though she was going to cry again but Damien squeezed her shoulder and that seemed to give her the strength to continue. ‘I work as a receptionist at the Ferry Port Hotel and Damien’s assistant manager. Mum said she’d supported me through college and now she wanted a chance of real life, as she called it, and a bit of fun before she was too old. She seems to be having it too.’

  Horton noted the bitterness in Hannah Yately’s tone.

  ‘I don’t have much contact with my mother. Dad got over Mum throwing him out long ago. In fact, I think it was a relief. They hadn’t much in common and Dad would never have left her, he’s the faithful type. Till death do us part and all that . . .’ She stalled, as she realized what she’d said, but instead of the tears came anger. ‘If it is him then he must have had an accident. Why else would he have been in the sea? Does my mother know?’

  ‘We haven’t spoken to her.’ Horton added, ‘Did your father own a boat, Miss Yately?’

  Her surprised expression gave him the answer before she confirmed this with a shake of her dark curls.

  ‘Did he know anyone with a boat, or ever go out sailing or fishing?’

  ‘He never mentioned it. You think he might have fallen overboard?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’ Though Horton thought a remote one recalling how Yately had been dressed, unless he had been at a party on a boat, as Cantelli had posed. He said, ‘We’ll need to confirm identity.’

  Her head came up, panic and alarm in her eyes. ‘You mean you want me to—’

  ‘No,’ Horton quickly reassured her. ‘We should be able to verify it is your father from fingerprints and DNA. Do you have a key to his flat? We need to check it out,’ he added, hoping that neither she nor Damien King would ask why they didn’t use the keys on the fob. Neither did. As she again reached down into her handbag, Horton wondered if they’d be able to check Colin Yately’s fla
t tonight.

  ‘Does your father own or rent the flat?’ he asked.

  ‘He rents it.’

  So unless they could get hold of the landlord it would mean the local police making a forcible entry. Could it wait until tomorrow morning, by which time the keys could be sent over? A twelve hour delay probably wouldn’t make any difference, he told himself, and yet there was a chance that Yately could be lying ill or dead inside the flat, that he was not the body in the mortuary.

  Cantelli took the two keys she handed to him. ‘One’s to the front door, the other’s to Dad’s flat,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll give you a receipt for it.’ Cantelli asked if she knew the name of the landlord. She did, but not his address. She thought it was somewhere in Shanklin.

  Horton said, ‘What did your father do with his time?’ She looked a little bewildered so Horton elaborated. ‘He was retired so did he have any hobbies, interests?’ But he might just as well have asked her how far the planet Mars was judging by her expression. Hannah Yately had the self-obsession of youth and he guessed her doting father had been there on those dining-out occasions solely to listen to her and not the other way round. Still, he and Cantelli would do the same with their children when they reached Hannah’s age, and before that. Horton would give anything to spend a day listening to his daughter’s bright chatter.

  ‘He liked walking,’ Hannah Yately said hesitatingly, as if unsure whether that constituted a hobby.

  ‘Was there any particular place he liked walking, or did he have a favourite walk?’

  ‘I don’t know. He just walked.’ She eyed him with an air of desperation.

  ‘With anyone or alone?’

  ‘Alone. I think. I don’t know. He didn’t have any girlfriends if that’s what you mean, although he did seem happy. In fact, happier than I’d seen him in some time,’ she added, somewhat surprised that she had managed to recall this. ‘I asked him if he’d found himself a new woman; he laughed and said, better than that.’

  ‘What did he mean?’ asked Horton, interested in this new nugget of information and thinking of that dress.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ she answered forlornly.

  Cantelli said, ‘What about male friends? Was there anyone he was particularly close to or that he talked about?’

  She shook her head. ‘Dad was very private. The so-called friends he did have were Mum’s and they disappeared quickly after they split up. I don’t know about his neighbours.’

  Horton didn’t need a psychologist to tell him that Hannah Yately took her father’s side in the divorce. He again thought of his own daughter and hoped that he’d still be close to her when she was Hannah’s age, despite Catherine’s determination to keep him at a distance.

  There didn’t seem anything more Hannah Yately could tell them for the present. Cantelli got her father’s date of birth and address, and the address of her mother in Newport on the Island. He asked if she wanted them to call her mother.

  She looked tempted, then pulled herself up. ‘No. I’ll speak to her.’

  Horton said they’d let her know as soon as they had further news on her father, and confirmation it was him, and watched her leave.

  On the way back to CID, Cantelli said, ‘I’ll contact the ferry companies.’

  Horton fetched a black coffee from the machine in the corridor outside CID, and took it to his office where he opened the sandwiches he’d bought earlier. As he ate Hannah Yately’s comment jarred at him. I asked him if he’d found himself a new woman; he laughed and said, better than that. Had Yately found himself a new man and had something gone wrong between them, resulting in his body ending up in the sea? According to his daughter it was five days since he’d disappeared, but that didn’t mean his death was suspicious. And there was no evidence to suggest it, so no need to alert Uckfield and the Major Crime Team. And no need, he thought, to seal off the flat, but he wouldn’t mind taking a look at it, just to be sure they were dealing with Colin Yately’s death. He could bring something of Yately’s back for a match on DNA and fingerprints. And he could see if Colin Yately kept a stash of women’s clothing there. The door burst open and Bliss stormed in with a face like it had supped on sour milk. Why didn’t the bloody woman ever enter anywhere like normal people, Horton thought with a stifled groan.

  ‘I was expecting a briefing, Inspector,’ she barked.

  ‘I’ve been interviewing the daughter of the man discovered in the sea. I believe it to be Colin—’

  ‘I don’t mean that,’ she flapped her thin arm at him as though she was swatting away a particularly irritating wasp. ‘I mean Victor Hazleton. I had to go into a meeting earlier this afternoon with Detective Chief Superintendent Sawyer and others involved in Project Neptune without the full facts of the matter. How do you think that made me feel?’

  ‘Foolish and inadequate?’ he replied brightly. If the cap fits . . .

  ‘It’s you who are inadequate, Inspector,’ she raged, glaring at him. ‘I take the matter of receiving information that could thwart a potential terrorist threat very seriously, and so should you. If you don’t you shouldn’t be in the job.’

  Stiffly, he replied, ‘Mr Hazleton’s report of a light at sea poses no threat to shipping or the USS Boise’s visit. If it had I would have informed you immediately. It’s unlikely there was any light. The elderly man has a reputation for exaggeration and fabrication.’

  ‘Well I hope you’re right.’ She eyed him malevolently before continuing, ‘We have a duty to protect visitors to the city and the community. DC Walters has sent me his report on the security arrangements on Russell Glenn’s yacht; I expect to have yours on Victor Hazleton on my desk within the next two hours along with your report on your team’s performance targets for the next month for my meeting with Superintendent Reine early tomorrow morning. And I don’t want a repeat of the fairy tale you spun last month. Let me you remind you that our new Chief Constable’s mission is “lean and agile, delivering best value for the taxpayer”.’

  ‘Not sure we can do both,’ Horton muttered, but unfortunately Bliss had excellent hearing.

  ‘Then you’d better start applying for another job. And I want a full report on the arrangements you’ve made for the additional security for Mr Glenn’s superyacht for Friday night.’

  He hadn’t even started on that. He let out a sigh as she swept out. If his CID department, already grossly undermanned, was any leaner there’d be no one in it. He made a start on the reports but with half his mind on Colin Yately. Bliss hadn’t even been interested in their body. Why? He didn’t really need to ask himself that question; with recruitment frozen and promotion severely restricted because of government cut backs there was even less chance of her shinning up the slippery pole, but she was going to make damn sure that however slim her chances she’d get there somehow, and that meant sucking up to the big brass. Project Neptune was her chance to shine. And a cock-up on Glenn’s super-shiny new yacht would severely blot her copy book.

  Cantelli knocked and entered. ‘The Wightlink office wouldn’t give me the information over the phone. I told them they could ring back and check I was who I claimed to be but they wanted proof before they divulged the information.’

  ‘Glad to see someone’s on the ball.’

  ‘I’ve made an appointment with them early tomorrow morning and with Hovertravel in case Yately decided to come by hovercraft. I’ve traced the landlord to an address in Shanklin but haven’t contacted them. Do you want me to ask the local police to enter the flat?’

  ‘No, I’m going over as soon as I’m finished here.’

  Cantelli rolled his eyes at him.

  Quickly Horton added, ‘I know I don’t have to but I’m curious.’

  ‘When aren’t you? Need any help with that?’ Cantelli gestured at Horton’s littered desk. ‘And I heard what Bliss said.’

  ‘No. Check if Walters has made any headway on those burglaries and organize extra patrols for the area for the next couple of nights, we
might catch them at it. We’ll also need additional officers at Oyster Quays for this charity bash on Friday.’

  Horton knuckled down to finishing the reports and clearing his desk of some of the outstanding matters. He was surprised to find it was almost six o’clock when Cantelli knocked to say he was heading home and that Walters had already left. Horton rose and glanced out of his window. Bliss’s car was still there. He’d intended catching the six thirty ferry and if he didn’t leave now he’d miss it. By the time she saw or heard his Harley leave – and the witch had ears like a bat – then he’d be long gone. He emailed the reports Bliss had demanded and shut down his computer. Plucking his leather jacket from the coat stand, he was about to leave when his phone rang.

  He cursed. It was bound to be either Bliss checking up on him or the front desk with a report of a crime he’d have to deal with. He should let it ring but with a weary sigh he lifted the receiver.

  ‘Is that Andy Horton?’ asked a female voice as far removed from Lorraine Bliss’s harsh one as the equator was from the Antarctic.

  ‘Speaking,’ he answered cautiously, trying to recognize the voice and failing.

  ‘It’s Avril Glenn. Russell Glenn’s wife, the owner of the yacht at Oyster Quays,’ she added when he didn’t answer.

  Horton started, surprised. Why the hell was she phoning him? Then his heart sank, what had that lumbering detective Walters done now? This had to be a complaint. Then he registered her tone. It hadn’t been angry, rather the opposite, quite friendly.