A Killing Coast Page 0,3

her, had gone up in flames when his previous yacht, Nutmeg, had been torched by a killer trying to scare him into dropping an investigation. It had only served to have the opposite effect. Since then he had run a check through the General Register Office but only for a record of Jennifer’s death. He hadn’t found it. That didn’t mean that she wasn’t dead though. Her body might never have been discovered; she might have died in another country. Equally she might have assumed another identity. Or her body could be lying in a mortuary somewhere unidentified, female unknown. If he allowed his DNA to be run through the database he’d have an answer to the last question but that would mean explaining why, and he wasn’t prepared to do that, yet.

He said, ‘Why weren’t her friends questioned?’

‘I spoke to the woman next door, and Jennifer’s boss, George Warner. He owned a string of amusement arcades, nightclubs and the casino at Southsea where Jennifer worked. He said she was a bubbly, good-looking woman and had started working for him early in 1977.’

And that tied with what Horton already knew.

Stanley frowned in recollection of the case. ‘There was another woman I seem to remember who said that Jennifer was seeing a man.’

‘Irene Ebury. She’s dead.’ Horton had been called to an investigation in a nursing home in January and had discovered that Irene Ebury had been a resident there, and that her belongings had mysteriously gone missing. It had brought him into contact with Detective Chief Superintendent Sawyer, Head of the Intelligence Directorate, and the knowledge that Sawyer was interested in Jennifer’s disappearance because he believed she could have been linked to a master criminal the Intelligence Directorate called Zeus. Was that the man Jennifer had run away with? Sawyer seemed to think so and he wanted to enlist Horton’s help in finding him. But Horton had declined for fear of putting Emma’s life in danger, though now that Emma was at Northover School Horton hoped she was safe from nutters and villains like this Zeus was reputed to be. By visiting Stanley, Horton knew he had publicly declared his interest in finding his mother and he wondered how long it would take for the lean, silver-haired chief superintendent to approach him. Not long was his guess.

He brought his mind back to George Warner and the casino where his mother had worked. The casino was now flats and George Warner and his empire long since gone. Trying to track down and speak to anyone who might have worked there and who would remember Jennifer, or know anything about this man she might have associated with, would take for ever and probably result in zilch. It was a dead end.

Stanley said, ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, but there’s not much I can tell you, and it’s all on file. No one hinted at foul play.’

‘Did you keep any of your notebooks where you might have jotted down something?’

‘No.’

Horton wasn’t sure if he believed him. It sounded like the truth and Stanley maintained eye contact, but then he had been a copper. ‘What was the word on the street, the gossip about her and her disappearance? There must have been some.’ Horton could hear the desperation in his voice and hated himself for it. When Stanley looked uncomfortable Horton wished he hadn’t asked. He braced himself to hear what others had already told him over the years.

‘There wasn’t much. She probably got bored with being trapped inside a poky flat with a kid and wanted a good time, but that was only rumour.’

‘What do you think happened to her?’

‘It could have been true.’

Horton eyed the former policeman closely and saw only his concerned expression, and yet he felt there was something more. Perhaps Stanley was being economical with the truth to spare his feelings. Horton knew there had been two men in his mother’s life in 1977 and that neither of them had been upstanding citizens, in fact, quite the opposite; villains to the core, and both were now dead. Jennifer’s track record of choosing lovers wasn’t exactly healthy, which made Horton consider briefly who his father was. But that was a road he certainly didn’t want to travel down.

He said, ‘Do you know what happened to her belongings?’

But Stanley shook his head.

‘You went into the flat I take it?’

Horton thought Stanley looked uneasy. ‘No. I spoke to the neighbour, to George Warner and a couple of his staff, and that was it.’

Horton wasn’t