Shroud of Evil (14 page)

His thoughts occupied him across the Solent but he put them on hold as he disembarked and made for the Castle Hill Yacht Club in Cowes. There was no chance of bumping into Lord Eames with him being in Russia. After showing his ID, Horton asked the secretary, a man whose backbone had apparently been replaced with a poker, and who was troubled by a permanent nasty smell under his long sensitive nose, if Brett Veerman was a member. Peering at Horton disdainfully over the rim of his spectacles, the secretary looked as though he was about to refuse to give Horton that information but as other members entered the yacht club and looked warily and disapprovingly at Horton in his leather biker’s clothes the secretary ushered Horton outside saying that Mr Veerman was indeed a member and had been for the last fifteen years, and was most respectable.

‘I hope nothing untoward has happened to Mr Veerman.’

Horton simply replied, ‘Thank you. You’ve been most helpful,’ leaving Poker Man with a corrugated forehead and apprehension in his eyes.

As Horton made his way to Eames’ property he surmised that Veerman and Lord Eames knew one another from their membership of the yacht club. But how deep that connection went he’d leave to probe for another time. It was also possible that Veerman had been a guest at one of Eames’ parties and that meant Veerman would know the location was very isolated and private.

He drew into the lane and pulled up by the field containing the small group of stone buildings that he’d seen on his first visit. Silencing the Harley he kicked down the stand and crossed to a small gate displaying a ‘Keep Out’ sign. He climbed it and made for the buildings. They didn’t look as though they were inhabited and the grass leading towards them was wild and overgrown, not trampled down. He wondered if Eames’ security sensors reached this far. If so would Lomas suddenly appear or would someone else show up – one of Danby’s operatives perhaps?

Two of the buildings were adjoined in the shape of an L, with the furnace building detached from them. That was clearly uninhabitable. There were no windows or doors and it was little more than a shell with several tiles missing from the roof, exposing the timber rafters. Horton stepped inside anyway and gazed around. Just earth and dirt, no farming implements, no debris.

The other two buildings boasted a complete roof but only the smallest of them had windows and a door. Horton walked around the outside, studying the ground as he went. There was nothing to see except gravel.

He peered through the grimy windows but the inside was too dark for him to penetrate. The door was strong, a weathered oak, and secured with a stout padlock. It looked new but Horton thought it could be easily forced. He was tempted to try but held back. He gazed up and around it. Why bother to padlock the door if there was nothing inside? Was it to stop tramps from getting in and sleeping rough? Or perhaps there were farm implements inside, though there was no farm here or farmhouse. That was a few miles back, close to the main road.

Perhaps Lomas had padlocked it because inside were his flotsam and jetsam that he made artworks from. Yet if he lived here surely there would have been some evidence of that, a seat outside perhaps, some plants or remains of plants, boots or shoes, a clothes line, an old bicycle, tools, rubbish.

He turned and surveyed the field where his Harley was parked. Yes, he could see the track leading to Eames’ house quite clearly from here. If the beachcomber lived here then he would certainly have seen cars arriving in the past and his Harley on Friday. But if this was where Lomas lived then he was the neatest and most minimalistic beachcomber artist Horton had ever come across. And it would have been impossible for him to have taken Kenton’s body from here to the shore. Horton supposed that Lomas could have frogmarched a living Kenton there and then shot him with a pistol crossbow but the distance was considerable – across the field, back along the lane, then a right turn down toward the woods, through the woods and on to the shore – and surely Kenton would have got the better of the older man long before then.

He returned to the Harley and made for the woods where once again he alighted. It was a dull and damp October day and the wood seemed menacingly dark as Horton traipsed through it. He came out on to the shore and retraced his steps from Friday. Eames’ security sensors would be going overtime now, he guessed, smiling wryly. He didn’t care. He stood in exactly the same spot as he had on Friday when the beachcomber had hailed him. He was at the rear of Eames’ land, facing the long and sturdily constructed pontoon. Then it had been almost high tide with the sea lapping under and against it. Now it was just over two hours to high tide but there was still no way around the pontoon unless he climbed on and over it or around it and wanted to get his feet wet.

Horton eyed the rear door that led into the grounds of Eames’ house. There couldn’t be sensors on the shore – on the pontoon, yes, but he wasn’t on the pontoon and he hadn’t been on Friday. But perhaps whatever system Eames had installed could pick up a fly alighting on a pebble sixty yards away, and if that was so then Eames must also have seen the beachcomber. And yet Danby hadn’t mentioned him. Was that because he had been told not to or because Eames hadn’t mentioned the beachcomber to Danby? If so, why not?

He turned and headed back in the direction he’d seen the beachcomber take until he came to the creek. There was no way across it except by boat and opposite he could see a band of trees that abutted directly on to the shore making it impossible to launch a boat from there. The creek culminated in another band of dense woods, as Danby had said, and again there was no place to launch a boat. The shore to his right curved round and adjoined the woods he had trekked through. At high tide the sea would wash up against the roots of the oaks that bordered it. There was no access for a boat. But perhaps Lomas had motored into the creek earlier and had left his boat half in, half out of the water and walked to where Horton had met him. He recalled Lomas had been wearing sandals but he couldn’t remember if his feet had been wet. Or perhaps he had come through the same woods as Horton had done but earlier, at low tide, and he’d walked along the shore out of sight of Horton, looking for his flotsam and jetsam until he’d returned to where he’d found Horton.

Could Kenton’s body have been in a small boat hidden from view in this creek? It was possible. And once Horton had left the area, Lomas had returned to his boat, motored it into the Solent close to Eames’ pontoon, jumped out of it, and tipped it over, along with Kenton’s body, so that it landed face down on the shingle. Then all he had to do was right the boat and body and sail away. The same could be said for Brett Veerman, who could have motored here in his dinghy on Saturday morning.

Horton returned to his Harley. At the field he again stopped and stared at the stone buildings. There were still no signs of life in or around them. He revved up and headed for the ferry, wondering if Eames had viewed his reconnaissance of the area from his computer screen somewhere in Russia and if so what he’d do next. Send Danby to pump him for information again? Or send someone else?

He did neither. Horton spent an undisturbed night but not an untroubled one. His dreams had been a strange mixture of Kenton and Jennifer and along with them came Thelma Veerman who metamorphosed into Richard Eames. That had shaken him awake and had kept him awake for some time until he had finally drifted into a dreamless sleep which lasted until just after seven-thirty. After a run along the seafront to clear his muggy head, a shower and breakfast he stopped off at the sail makers at the marina. Not for his own purposes but to pick Chris Howgate’s brains about the sail that had gift-wrapped Jasper Kenton. Without the sail though there was little Chris Howgate could tell him. Horton had suspected as much.

‘It looks old,’ Howgate said, peering at the photograph of the sail in the evidence bag that Horton had copied to his phone. ‘And filthy. Doesn’t look as though it’s ever been laundered.’ And that thought Horton might be to their advantage because there would be an accumulation on it of crystallized salt, dirt and mildew, which might help them match where it had come from and Horton was still wondering if that could be Veerman’s boathouse.

At the station he diverted to the incident suite and took a seat opposite the burly dark-haired Trueman with the permanent nine o’clock shadow on his strong jaw. Trueman told him that Uckfield was in a meeting and Dennings had gone with Marsden to Kenton’s apartment. Horton asked Trueman what he had been able to unearth on Kenton.

‘He worked for two international pharmaceutical companies at their UK headquarters in London, before he joined Eunice Swallows,’ Trueman relayed. ‘Started as a computer analyst with Finecare Corporation in 1989 and worked his way up to become their head of IT security after eight years and was then headhunted by Wimco where he was Global Head of IT Security.’

‘Must have been earning a fortune.’

‘He chucked it all in four years ago to join Eunice Swallows.’

Just as Danby had told him. ‘Any reason why?’

Trueman shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Maybe he got sick of the pressure or fancied being his own boss. I’m applying for access to his bank account and his phone records.’

‘Could Kenton have come into contact with Brett Veerman when he was working for one of those pharmaceutical companies?’

‘I can’t see how, although there could be a link between the drugs they manufacture and those that Veerman might prescribe.’

‘Can you check if any of them are specifically for eye care?’

Trueman nodded.

‘The Swallows website says Kenton acted as an expert technical witness. I’d like to know which trials he gave evidence at.’

‘Bliss might discover that at Swallows, but I’ll get on to it.’

Trueman didn’t need to ask why. He’d know that Horton was wondering if Kenton’s expertise had helped to put away someone who had wanted to get even.

Horton rose and crossed to the crime board. ‘Unusual murder weapon,’ he said thoughtfully, studying the pictures of the pistol crossbows. ‘Any other homicides around the UK that match this MO?’

‘There have been crossbow murders but a different type of crossbow and nothing where the body has been wrapped up in an old sail cloth or anything else come to that. We’re going to do the usual rounds of all the archery clubs but …’

‘You’re not hopeful.’ Horton thought, like Trueman, it was unlikely they’d get a lead that way. He made for his office but met Cantelli and Tim Shearer in the corridor. The STOP meeting was over and Cantelli reported that there had been no racist slogans painted on restaurant walls over the weekend. Horton asked Shearer if he’d ever come across Jasper Kenton when in London.

‘The name doesn’t ring a bell. Crook or victim?’

‘Victim.’ Horton swiftly relayed the outline of the case and Kenton’s background to them both, adding, ‘He might have acted as an expert witness in cyber crime investigations.’ Shearer said he’d make some inquiries and let him know.

Heading for CID, Cantelli said, ‘Is there a link between Jasper Kenton and Agent Harriet Eames? Could Kenton have discovered some information about a crook wanted by Europol and the killer dumped the body on Eames’ property as a warning that the same could happen to his daughter, Harriet, unless she lays off investigating?’

They halted by the vending machine. Cantelli’s words brought back some of Horton’s conversation with Mike Danby about Eames’ protection measures.

‘I can’t see Europol, or Harriet Eames, giving into threats like that but her father can pull strings.’ And he had, judging by the pace of the investigation. Pushing a button for a black coffee Horton rapidly considered this new take on Kenton’s death. Reaching for his plastic cup he said, ‘Kenton was a computer forensic expert so it could be linked to a major international fraud or scam. It would explain Bliss going undercover. She’s working at Swallows so that she can have access to Kenton’s files, with Eunice Swallows’ permission. And it would also explain Uckfield putting a lid on the media coverage.’

If it was the case then the Major Crime Team would be working with the Serious Organized Crime Agency and the Intelligence Directorate and Harriet Eames had probably already been questioned about Jasper Kenton. She and her bosses could be trawling through their investigations to find a link to whomever it was Kenton had been about to expose.

‘I wish I knew which cases Kenton had been working on,’ Horton said with feeling, as Cantelli retrieved his plastic cup of tea from the machine. ‘The only one I do know about is Thelma Veerman’s husband’s suspected infidelity and I don’t see him as an international crook. Unless …’ He recalled what Trueman had just told him and what he’d read on the Internet about Veerman.

‘Unless?’ prompted Cantelli.

‘There’s a drug connection. Perhaps Veerman was involved in drug trials at one of the companies Kenton worked for and suppressed or covered up vital information about their side effects. Or he’s obtaining drugs from the hospital and selling them on. He’s a cool customer, aloof and mocking underneath that superior manner.’ He turned into the CID office, where DC Walters was tucking into a packet of crisps and staring at a computer screen. ‘Or maybe he
is
just having an affair.’

And that meant it couldn’t have anything to do with the beachcomber. Only the uncomfortable feeling in Horton’s gut told him it might. He said nothing to Cantelli about that or his trip to the Isle of Wight yesterday, or that he’d been on the beach the day before Kenton had been found there. Not because he didn’t trust Cantelli – he did – but it might put the sergeant in a tight spot if it later transpired the beachcomber was relevant or even critical to the crime and Cantelli had known and kept quiet about it, and he didn’t want to get the sergeant into trouble.

Horton addressed Walters. ‘So which of the restaurants gave you a free meal over the weekend, or have you managed to wrangle two free meals and you’re leaving the third until tonight?’

Walters looked sheepish. ‘Only doing a spot of surveillance and not being paid for it. All in my own time, guv.’