A Killing Coast Page 0,2

was wasting here, he thought, as Stanley gestured him into an easy chair in front of the modern electric fire.

‘I’d be only too glad to help with Project Neptune,’ Stanley said, settling himself opposite. ‘It would give me a reason for peering through the binoculars without being accused of being a peeping Tom. The things people get up to you’d be surprised, or rather you would if you weren’t a copper.’ He put his coffee on a coaster strategically positioned on the table between them and eyed Horton curiously. ‘But that’s not why you’re here. You said on the phone that you’d like to talk to me about a missing person case from 1978. You mean Jennifer Horton, don’t you?’

Horton’s heart jolted at the sound of his mother’s name. He so seldom heard it spoken because only a handful of people knew about her and the fact she’d abandoned him when he was ten. Catherine, his estranged wife, was one, along with Sergeant Cantelli who was the closest friend he had in a lifetime spent shutting people out for fear of being hurt. Detective Superintendent Steve Uckfield, now head of the Major Crime Unit, and once a close friend was another. Their relationship had been tested over the last year when Uckfield had believed him capable of both rape and murder, the former of which had cost Horton his marriage despite him being exonerated and had wrecked his chances of raising his young daughter, Emma, who had now been banished to a boarding school by Catherine. Admittedly it was a good one and she’d wanted to go. He’d also agreed, but he couldn’t help feeling anxious that she might be experiencing the same loneliness he had felt at his mother’s desertion.

‘You’re the little boy she left behind,’ Stanley said, his sharp grey eyes studying Horton carefully.

It hadn’t been difficult for Stanley to put two and two together. Horton steeled himself. ‘Do you remember the case, sir?’ he asked evenly, pushing away the painful memories of his lonely and angry childhood, trying to sound as if he didn’t care. He was also trying not to raise his hopes that Stanley might be able to tell him something that would help him discover what had happened to Jennifer. When Stanley remained silent, Horton prompted, ‘You filed the missing person’s report and spoke to Jennifer’s neighbour, Mrs Cobden, at Jensen House. Jennifer was last seen leaving the flat at about one o’clock on the thirtieth of November 1978 wearing her best clothes and make-up, and was in good spirits. No one knows what happened to her next or where she was going, only that she didn’t turn up for work that evening at the casino. I wondered if there was anything that stuck in your mind, anything different or unusual that might help me to trace her movements.’

Horton’s mind flashed back. It hadn’t been the first time he’d been left alone at night. Often he’d come home from school, open the letterbox and pull out a piece of string with the key attached on the end, get himself a drink from the fridge and a chunk of bread and jam, sit in front of the television and go to bed alone. But he’d always wake up to find his mother there. Except on the first of December she hadn’t been. He felt the ache in the pit of his stomach as the memory haunted him.

‘It was a long time ago,’ Stanley said frowning.

But Horton wasn’t going to accept that. ‘Can you recall anything being mentioned about Jennifer’s parents? Did anyone question them?’ Horton knew the answer but he wanted to see just how much Stanley had forgotten.

‘They were dead.’

Horton saw a slight narrowing of Stanley’s eyes. The ex-copper knew Horton was testing him. Maybe Stanley could have gone higher in the ranks but perhaps, like Cantelli, he’d been happy to stay a sergeant. From what Horton had read about him, Stanley had also been brave and had earned himself the rare award of the Queen’s Gallantry Medal in 1980 when he and another officer had gone in pursuit of armed robbers and had come under intense fire.

He said, ‘Do you know how Jennifer’s parents died and when?’

‘No, but you can easily check that yourself, if you haven’t already done so.’

Horton hadn’t. He didn’t have their death certificates but he could obtain copies. And he no longer had a copy of his mother’s birth certificate, which, along with the only photograph he’d had of