Suffocating Sea (16 page)

He crossed to the bookshelves either side of a tiled fireplace. There were a number of spaces. Had these gaps been there when he’d come in here with Anne Schofield? He couldn’t remember, but the fact that he was registering it made him think they hadn’t been. He’d been more concerned then about finding out what Gilmore had written about his mother than worrying about what books the man had on his shelves.

Was there something in one of them that might give him a clue to his mother’s past? He didn’t have time to go through each and every one of them and he shuddered to think that DC Walters or another junior officer would unearth something. Perhaps he could return tomorrow, Sunday, and spend more time in this dank and miserable house trying to search for some clues to the past. But he knew he couldn’t stand that. He shut the door, thinking that maybe he simply didn’t want to know.

He explored the rest of the house. The living room with its brown-and-orange-patterned carpet and dull green curtains held an ancient television set, no DVD or video, and a press-button cream telephone on a chipped wooden table beside a faded light-green Dralon settee. There were two armchairs and a heavy oak sideboard, circa 1920, opposite the lurching Christmas tree that made Horton feel even more depressed.

Upstairs there were two double bedrooms, a box room and a bathroom. All looked as though they hadn’t been touched since the house had been built and only Rowland Gilmore’s bedroom was furnished. Here there was a single brass bed, made up with a lilac eiderdown. Beside it was a painted white bedside table on which were a few women’s toiletries, a faded pink lamp with half its tassels missing and a crime novel. He picked it up and skimmed the blurb; appropriately enough it was an ecclesiastical mystery thriller. The faint smell of perfume told him that this must have been Anne Schofield’s.

He felt repulsed and saddened over her death. If only she hadn’t come here she’d be alive today. And maybe another person finding those newspapers wouldn’t even have noticed the writing in the margin and the circled articles about him, or if they had they wouldn’t have been so curious. Why had Anne Schofield taken the trouble to track him down? He should have thought of that earlier, but the shock of hearing his mother’s name mentioned and seeing it written in those newspapers had overwhelmed him. Now, perhaps he’d never know.

Surveying the rest of the sad little room he saw a chest of drawers and a heavy dark wooden wardrobe, the kind that were often on sale in second-hand shops.

He opened the wardrobe. Her clothes weren’t inside. Had she baulked then at the thought of hanging them up alongside the dead vicar’s? Where were they? He pulled open a drawer in the large chest and found her underwear and blouses neatly folded inside it. There was a suitcase underneath the chest of drawers and he drew it out. Flicking it open, he found inside a couple of pairs of trousers and a skirt. She hadn’t brought much with her, hopefully anticipating a short stay and it had certainly been that!

Horton returned his attention to the wardrobe and Rowland Gilmore’s clothes. Most of the jackets and trousers were worn and shabby, but then his hand froze as he felt the texture of one of the jackets. This one was different. It felt expensive.

Pulling it out, he noted the Savile Row label and gave a low whistle. It was an old-fashioned suit by today’s standards, but it still screamed quality. Had this been bought on the proceeds of Gilmore’s share of the fishing business? Horton was no fashion expert, and he would check, but judging by its collar and fit, and from what he already knew of Gilmore’s life, he guessed it must have been purchased in the late 1970s.

Why had Rowland Gilmore kept this suit, when everything in his wardrobe looked as though it had been bought from a charity shop or jumble sale? What significance did it have for a man who had obviously cared nothing for personal belongings?

Horton’s mind raced through what he’d seen here, or rather what he’d not seen. He hadn’t found any photographs. So had Anne Schofield already disposed of them, or had Rowland Gilmore destroyed the ones of his wife and child, unable to bear the pain of looking at them? If so, Horton could understand that. This house was the refuge of a lonely man who had substituted the church for his family and, Horton guessed, had still found it lacking. The exhibition of poverty and deprivation Horton saw here had been to Rowland Gilmore’s mind atonement for allowing his daughter and wife to die. Horton felt some empathy with him.

Gilmore had tried to kill himself before finding God and the Church and from Horton’s experience suicides often killed themselves with a picture of their loved ones in front of them.

This was a special suit and if that was so . . .

He reached inside the jacket pocket and his fingers curled around thick paper. Slowly, holding his breath, Horton drew it out. It was a photograph of a beautiful, dark-haired woman in a printed summer dress, pinched in at the waist with short puffed sleeves and a V-neck collar. She was laughing into the camera, or at the person behind the camera, and beside her was a little girl of about five or six with deep brown eyes, a wide smile and curly brown hair.

Horton felt the breath being sucked from his body. It was as if he was experiencing Gilmore’s agony of loss. He sank heavily on to the bed as Gilmore’s emotions assailed him: anguish, guilt, desperation . . . Was it any wonder the poor man had tried to kill himself? Horton tried to imagine the pain of losing a child. He wanted to rush out and find Emma.

He wanted to hold her tight for ever, and to never let her go.

A stout knock on the front door finally jolted him out of his thoughts. He stirred himself and hurried down to let Cantelli in. Horton knew at once that there must be something different about him because Cantelli said, ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘Maybe I have.’ And more than one, he thought. He handed Cantelli the photograph. ‘Rowland’s wife and daughter.’

Cantelli stared at the picture in silence. His expression soft-ened. After a moment he said, ‘What a bloody waste.’

He made to hand it back but Horton said, ‘Keep it. Find out everything you can about them and the little girl’s death.

And bag up the suit I found it in. I want to know when it was made, where it was sold and what it cost.’

Cantelli nodded and turned the photograph over. He read,

‘“Teresa and Claire. 1979. Oxwich Bay.” Where’s that?’

‘On the coast of Wales, not far from the Mumbles and Swansea.’

‘Anne Schofield was from Wales. It’s on her file. I didn’t get a chance to go through it in the Dean’s office but he’s getting someone to copy it, and Rowland Gilmore’s, and will send them over later. Do you think she knew him?’

Horton swiftly and mentally recalled his conversation with Anne and her expressions as they had talked. There had been nothing there to hint she had been lying but if she had known Rowland Gilmore, and he had mentioned Jennifer Horton to her, then it would explain why she had bothered to track him down after seeing those articles.

‘Possibly. Did you get a photograph of Rowland Gilmore?’

‘Yes.’ Cantelli handed it across.

With a quickening heartbeat, Horton took it. He was staring at a slight man in his early thirties with straight brown hair thrust forward over a narrow face. It wasn’t the man he had seen on the quayside. He was sure he’d never seen Rowland Gilmore in his life, and there wasn’t the slightest resemblance between himself and Rowland Gilmore, so he couldn’t be his father.

‘That was taken on his ordination and kept in his file. The Dean said we could find a more recent photo on the Church’s website.’

Horton was cross with himself for omitting to check that.

‘What did the Dean tell you about Gilmore?’

They stepped inside the study, and Cantelli drew up in surprise. ‘Christ, this house is bloody awful! And it makes me dislike the pompous prat I’ve just been talking to even more. How could the Church let him live like this?’

‘I think it was Rowland’s choice.’

‘Some choice, eh? I’ve seen dogs living in better kennels.’

‘The Dean?’

‘He’s executor of Rowland’s will along with the Diocesan solicitors. Rowland didn’t leave much money, which doesn’t surprise me seeing this place.’ Cantelli gestured at the room.

‘But what he did have he left to St Agnes’s, as his brother Sebastian told us. There wasn’t much on his file that we don’t already know. He was born in Portsmouth, was a fisherman before he was ordained. Widowed in 1980, six months after his daughter died, and that seems to be it. When he entered the Church though, he handed over the sum of just over five hundred thousand pounds.’

‘That must have guaranteed his ordination.’

‘You bet.’ Cantelli had reached the window and was gazing into the garden. ‘I . . . What the heck is—?’

‘An air-raid shelter, and no, I haven’t looked inside it yet.’

Had Anne Schofield though? She said she hadn’t.

Heading for the door, Horton said, ‘Perhaps it’s about time we did.’ Better to have Cantelli with him than anyone else if there was something inside the shelter that referred to his mother, and better they should find it than the forensic team.

With Cantelli behind him, Horton stepped into the weed-strewn patch of garden. It was drizzling now and the day was depressingly dark and made darker by the looming dockyard wall with its barbed wire on top.

‘I feel like I’m in Colditz,’ Cantelli muttered. ‘You got a plan for digging a tunnel or going over the wall?’

Despite his unease Horton suppressed a smile and stared at the rusting piece of corrugated iron over the entrance to the arch-shaped air-raid shelter. It looked as though it hadn’t been moved in years. He stretched his fingers inside a pair of latex gloves and, taking his cue, Cantelli did the same.

‘If we find a body I hope you get to it first.’

‘Thanks. Give me a hand.’

Together they prised the corrugated iron sheet out of the way and leant it against the fence on their right, which gave on to a narrow alleyway before the garden of the next house.

Horton noted there was a side entrance into the garden and a man’s bicycle resting against the fence, the Reverend Rowland Gilmore’s most probably.

There were three stone steps leading down into the shelter.

Inside was dark. It smelt of decay and damp and Horton could hear the soft scurrying and rustle of animals, rats most likely.

Cantelli took a pencil torch from his pocket. The thin beam pierced the dim interior. Horton could see that on either side of the small shelter was a bench. There was nothing on it except dirt.

‘I wouldn’t like to have been in here when the bombs were falling,’ Cantelli said, with feeling.

Horton agreed. There must once have been a large house where the ex-council house vicarage now stood, which must have been bombed. Whoever had lived in it must have been mad, or very brave, to have stayed here during the war, being so close to the naval dockyard and a prime target for the Luftwaffe.

‘There doesn’t seem to be anything here,’ Cantelli said, voicing Horton’s thoughts.

He wasn’t sure whether he was disappointed or not. He didn’t know what he had expected to find. Cantelli’s thin beam of light swept under the bench on Horton’s left.

‘Hang on.’ Horton’s heart quickened. ‘Shine your torch under there again.’

Cantelli obliged. Horton entered the air-raid shelter with Cantelli close behind. Horton had to duck his head, but Cantelli could just about stand up. Horton crouched down and peered into the gloom under the bench where Cantelli shone his inadequate light.

‘Old newspapers,’ he said.

Horton’s pulse began to race and he could feel a cold sweat prickling his spine. Surely Anne Schofield wouldn’t have dumped the newspapers that had mentioned him out here? He reached under and lifted a couple of them, but the paper crum-bled in his hands. No, these papers had been here a long time.

‘Can you see a date on them, Barney?’

Cantelli picked up the corner of one. ‘No, but it looks bloody ancient to me.’

Horton again delved under the bench and clutched another handful. The same thing happened. The paper dissolved.

‘There’s nothing—’ His hand froze. He had felt something other than paper.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know. It’s right at the back. It’s hard. It feels like. . . bones.’

‘Animal?’

Horton heard the hopeful tone in Cantelli’s voice. It could be a fox or dog perhaps. He lay down on his stomach and cleared away the rest of the paper as Cantelli peered over his shoulder. Then his fingers gripped the hard narrow object and, holding it, he pulled himself up. Cantelli shone his torch but there was really no need: they both knew instantly what it was.

Horton said, ‘It’s a femur and it’s not animal. Looks like we’ve found ourselves a skeleton.’

Twelve

‘The poor bugger could have keeled over in an air raid in 1940,’ Uckfield said, after Horton relayed the news to him on the telephone.

‘Wouldn’t the builders have discovered him?’

‘They probably didn’t bother to look inside; you know how lazy the blighters can be.’

It was possible, but Horton had other ideas. ‘It could be the “wrong” that Gilmore mentioned and Brundall wanted to confess. They could have killed this person.’

He knew it couldn’t be Jennifer Horton because Rowland Gilmore had only been living in the vicarage since 1995. But he still clung to the belief that the two men had known something about his mother’s disappearance, and because this skeleton couldn’t be her that didn’t necessarily mean that she wasn’t dead, or that they hadn’t had a hand in her death.

Uckfield was squawking down the line. ‘Are you saying the vicar then lived with it at the bottom of his garden all these years, knowing he’d had a hand in its murder?’

Horton supposed it sounded a bit incredulous. ‘Perhaps he saw it as a penance and prayed over it?’

‘Huh! It’s just the kind of weird thing they would do.’

Uckfield scoffed, obviously of the same opinion as Sebastian Gilmore when it came to religion. ‘OK, get Taylor and his team in after they’ve finished in the church, and get them to bag up the bones for Dr Clayton, but it’s not a priority, Inspector. We’ve got three deaths which are. Any results on the PMs yet?’