Pauline Rowson - Footsteps on the Shore

‘He seemed to get on well with Tyler Yarland,’ Harmsworth answered. ‘Yarland’s on bail for car theft and vandalism. Comes from a rough background, parents dumped him into social services care when he was a kid and he’s been pushed from pillar to post ever since.’

And there but for the grace of God go I, or could have gone, thought Horton, pulling down the sports bag from the top of the wardrobe. He’d had some scrapes with the law as a kid until a foster father, who had been a policeman, had changed the course of his life for ever. There was nothing in the bag. He glanced at Cantelli, who shook his head to indicate he’d found nothing of any note in the chest of drawers.

‘Where’s Tyler Yarland now?’ Horton asked, as Cantelli lifted the mattress and checked under the bed.

Harmsworth glanced at his watch. ‘Probably still in bed. Most of them don’t get up until midday. There’s not much to get up for.’

‘Except to collect their social security giro and buy booze and fags,’ Horton quipped.

Harmsworth shrugged his fat shoulders. ‘Yarland’s room’s the third one along the corridor.’

Cantelli slipped out and Horton crossed to the window. They were at the rear of the building, overlooking the small car park. Horton watched a woman of about twenty-five emerge from one of the run-down flats opposite. She was pushing a crying baby, with a child of about Emma’s age, eight, trailing miserably behind. Why wasn’t the child in school? Classes had started two hours ago.

He thought of the boarding school that Catherine wanted to send Emma to and recalled with anguish his daughter’s sobs on the telephone because she didn’t want to go. He’d visited Northover School without Catherine’s knowledge two weeks ago and to his annoyance had found it excellent. He’d been looking for a reason to hate it and certainly to rescue Emma from its clutches. But it was small, homely and comfortable, and had facilities to die for. It was also select and very expensive, and the fact that his father-in-law, Luke Felton’s employer, had agreed with Catherine to pay the fees stuck in Horton’s craw. It was obvious to him what they were trying to do, and that was to ease him out of his daughter’s life. Well, they won’t succeed, he thought with furious determination. It was his responsibility and pleasure to make sure his daughter got the best of everything, and that would certainly be a darn sight more than he’d ever had as a child, including love.

His mind flashed back to his own childhood. This was his inheritance: a bleak and barren urban landscape, a tough school, the streets his playground, a succession of children’s homes and foster parents, emptiness, longing and anger. Yet there had been love and laughter with his mother before that terrible November day when he had waited for her to come home from work at the casino and she hadn’t. And he recalled again a memory that had returned recently while he’d been on the Isle of Wight. She’d turned, laughing, and called to him as they were walking across the golf course at Bembridge. Over the last few weeks he’d tried to remember more of that day, and whether they had been alone or accompanied by a man, but the memory had dissipated leaving him no further clues as to her whereabouts.

Hastily he turned his mind back to Luke Felton. Trips down his miserable memory lane he could do in his own time. He wondered how Luke Felton had got into drugs, and why. Was it for the experience? Had it started in a small way and he’d got addicted to harder stuff? Or had he been influenced by the wrong crowd, jeered and goaded into experimenting, and hadn’t wanted to lose face? Whatever had happened, it had made him desperate and violent, and an innocent woman had lost her life.

‘Does Felton talk about his crime?’ he asked, turning back to Harmsworth.

‘No, and I didn’t ask. That’s not my job.’

What is, wondered Horton. As if reading his mind, Harmsworth added defensively, ‘I’m here to make sure the place doesn’t get trashed.’

‘A caretaker then,’ Horton said, but his sarcasm was lost on Harmsworth. ‘Is anything of Felton’s missing? Clothes, mobile phone?’

Harmsworth shrugged his fat shoulders.

‘Does Felton have a mobile phone?’ If it had GPS then it could pinpoint where he was.

‘I’ve not seen him with one.’

That didn’t necessarily mean he didn’t have one. ‘What was Felton wearing when you last saw him?’

Harmsworth’s face screwed up in the effort to recall. ‘Green cargoes, trainers, a T-shirt — grey I think — and a navy blue jacket.’

Horton jotted this down and said, ‘We’re waiting for a recent photograph of Felton from his probation officer, do you have one?’

‘On the computer.’

Harmsworth locked the door and handed Horton the key. If Luke returned then he’d have his own key, and if he didn’t then Horton didn’t want any Tyler, Wayne or Dwayne wandering in and helping themselves to what there was of Luke Felton’s meagre possessions.

He followed Harmsworth to his office on the ground floor at the front of the building in time to see the back of a slight, scruffily dressed man with greasy black hair scuttle out of the door. He’d know that shambling shifty figure anywhere: Ronnie Rookley. Through Harmsworth’s office window Horton watched Rookley dash across the road and dive into a dirty cafe opposite.

Turning back, Horton asked Harmsworth if Felton had used the payphone he’d seen in the hall.

‘It’s been out of order for three weeks. And he hasn’t used my office phone.’ Harmsworth eased his bulk into the swivel chair behind his desk in the corner of the shabby office and tapped into his computer. A minute later Horton was staring at a printed picture of Luke Felton. He saw a man in his late thirties with fair cropped hair, a square-jawed open face, and blue eyes that held no fear or wariness but weren’t cockily confident either. Horton thought back to the Luke Felton he’d seen in September 1997, then he had looked much the same as any other junkie: dirty, dishevelled, unshaven, pale-skinned and spotty, but with blood on his clothes — blood which had turned out to be Natalie Raymonds’.

Cantelli sauntered in. ‘Yarland claims he hasn’t seen Felton since Monday night and then only in passing. He has no idea why he’s missing. I spoke to a couple of others who didn’t even seem to know who Felton was, let alone when they last saw him.’

That didn’t surprise Horton. In this kind of place, and with these kinds of men, they’d meet a wall of silence. It probably wasn’t even worth sending officers to question them.

With instructions to Harmsworth to call them if Luke Felton showed up, Horton gestured to Cantelli to follow him. Stepping out of Crown House by the front entrance, Horton handed Cantelli the photograph of Felton. Then, nodding at the cafe opposite, he said, ‘I’m hungry.’

Cantelli eyed it, horrified. ‘We’ll get food poisoning.’

‘Better stick to coffee and conversation then, though it’s more likely to be expletives and grunts. Recognize that disgusting figure?’ Horton asked, as they dodged through the traffic and stood outside the cafe.

The slight man at the counter turned, saw them, started nervously and dived for the door, but Horton reached it first. As he pushed it open Cantelli muttered, ‘Thought I could smell manure in Crown House.’

‘When did they let you out, Ronnie?’ Horton said loudly, blocking the man’s exit, and forcing him to slide into a chair at a table close to the door. Cantelli crossed to the big balding man behind the counter, who was eyeing them like a bouncer in a night club looking for a reason to eject them and not much caring how trivial it might be. Breathing could be enough, thought Horton.