Pauline Rowson: Blood on the Sand

'No. Please. Not that. I'll be all right. I need…' Again her eyes travelled in the direction of the bunker before she screwed them shut as if she could blot out what she'd seen. She obviously couldn't though, because she quickly threw them open again.

'Sit down,' Horton commanded. She obeyed without question, sinking on to the grassy hummock. It was soaked from the heavy rain of the night, but getting her jeans wet was the least of the poor girl's concerns.

'I'll call the police. This won't be my case,' he explained, studying her harrowed expression and feeling there was something vaguely familiar about her. Stepping a short distance away, he swiftly searched his memory for his past cases but nothing registered with him.

He was tempted to call Superintendent Uckfield, head of the major crime team in Portsmouth, but there was no indication yet that this was murder. It could still be suicide. So he rang the head of the island's CID, Detective Chief Inspector Birch.

'What do you want? I'm busy,' came a voice like a dry twig snapping underfoot. Birch by name and Birch by bloody nature, thought Horton, recalling the thin-lipped, gaunt man with whom he'd had a run-in when he had been a sergeant and Birch a DI on the mainland. What had stuck in Birch's gullet was the fact that Horton had been right about a case. He'd insisted that the man Birch had arrested for murdering a pensioner was innocent. But Birch had wanted a result and hadn't much cared how he'd got it. Birch had coolly and verbally bludgeoned the vulnerable, simple soul they'd arrested until he'd confessed. Two days later, in police custody, Brian Gooding had hanged himself and Horton had found the real killer, an evil bastard called Fred Hemmings.

But Birch had got his promotion to DCI, and Horton was still a DI, which just went to show there was shit justice in the world.

Crisply Horton said, 'Possible murder, the Duver, St Helens. I'm with the woman who discovered the body, male Caucasian.'

'The victim's name?'

'Haven't got that far.' Horton relayed the location, knowing it wasn't far from the car park.

'Stay there,' Birch commanded.

'I wasn't thinking of leaving. No sirens.'

The line went dead. Birch probably didn't like being told that but Horton didn't want the world and his wife coming to take a look, though he didn't think they'd draw a crowd on a cold January morning.

Relieved to see that the dog-walking brigade hadn't yet woken up, he sat down beside Thea Carlsson, feeling the wet grass soak through his cargos. He wished those seagulls would go away. After a moment he said gently, 'Who was he, Thea?'

Her head swivelled round. She looked surprised to find him there.

'I never thought… I didn't expect Owen to do that,' she stammered.

'Owen?'

'He's my brother.'

Horton hadn't expected that. Her shock seemed genuine enough but being a police officer he knew there could still be a reason why she had wanted her brother dead. This could be an act. If it were though, it was worthy of an Oscar.

'You think he took his own life?'

Her head came up and she eyed him with suspicion. 'What other explanation is there? You saw him.'

He had indeed. But there were certainly more isolated spots on the island to commit suicide, so why come here? And why hadn't anyone found him before now when clearly he'd been dead for days?

'Did he own a gun?'

'No.'

Where had it come from then? He didn't believe her. 'Where does your brother live?'

'Cowes.'

'With you?'

'Yes. If the police had listened to me in the first place then Owen might still be alive,' she added with a flash of anger. 'I reported him missing on Sunday, but they said he'd probably just taken off for a few days. They thought I was being neurotic. But I knew Owen wouldn't go away without telling me. I knew something was wrong…'

Her voice faltered. She stared into the distance, but not in the direction of her dead brother. Wherever she looked though, Horton guessed she was seeing the rotting corpse. He studied her angry, hurt and bewildered expression, knowing all too well how it felt to live with the pain and emptiness of someone 'missing'. Her mystery had been resolved, albeit tragically, within three days. He'd been living with the mystery of his missing mother for nearly thirty years. What had happened to her after she'd left their council flat that November day, he still didn't know. She'd mixed with some dubious characters, admittedly, one of whom he'd come across recently while working on a case, but that trail had gone cold.

Had she ended up like Owen Carlsson, he wondered, staring across the Duver. He didn't want to think so but knew it was possible. Suddenly and unexpectedly a distant memory nagged at a dark corner of his mind. There was something here that had prompted it but no matter how hard he tried, whatever it was it refused to step into the light. The sound of vehicles approaching brought him back to the present. Birch had got here quicker than he'd expected.

'When was the last time you saw Owen?' he asked, bringing his mind fully back to the case, only it wasn't his case.

It took her a while to answer. 'Saturday morning. Owen went out walking. When he didn't return by late afternoon I called him but got no answer. I tried most of Saturday night and Sunday. Then I went to the police. I tried again all day Monday and Tuesday but got nothing.' She shivered violently. Her eyes darted to the bunker.

'Did your brother have any financial worries?' Horton could hear people making tracks through the gorse and the low rumble of voices. Of course it might not be Birch.

'No.'

'Had he been unwell?'

'You mean depressed? A bit. You see his…' Her words trailed off. Horton looked up to see two uniformed officers heading towards them. Behind them was a lean man in his late forties wearing a long raincoat and a sour expression on his grim, unyielding face. He was accom panied by a short, corpulent balding man in a shabby jacket that didn't quite meet across his stomach.

Horton rose, and leaving Thea in the care of the woman police officer, crossed to Birch. He'd lost more of his hair since Horton had last seen him and what he still had was now grey, but his eyes were exactly as Horton recalled, hard and full of cynicism.

Birch curtly introduced the short, balding man as Detective Sergeant Norris. There was no smile of greeting. Working with Birch had obviously inoculated him against using those particular facial muscles.

'What are you doing on the island?' Birch demanded, as if Horton should have applied for a visa.

'Sailing. I'm on leave.'

Birch regarded him disbelievingly. That was his problem, thought Horton, as he led them to the corpse. The young uniformed officer retched at the sight of the rotting body before scuttling away. Horton didn't blame him, but Birch's expression never altered. If he blinked Horton must have missed it. He gave no sign of being moved by what he saw, and neither did Norris. Given that a violent death such as this happened on the Isle of Wight about as frequently as a total eclipse of the moon, this pair were remarkably indifferent. Too indifferent for Horton's taste.

Horton held out the gun. 'I took this off the woman; she's the dead man's sister. She claims it's not her brother's.'

'We'll check,' Norris said, taking it.

Horton quickly briefed them on what he'd learnt so far. Birch showed no recognition of the name, but Horton knew a missing person's enquiry, especially one that had only been reported three days ago, wouldn't have involved a DCI unless, of course, it had been a child.

When he finished, Birch said, 'She could have killed him earlier, then dumped his body here this morning. When she heard you crashing through the undergrowth she picked up the gun to cover her fingerprints and to make you think it was suicide.'