Pauline Rowson - The Suffocating Sea

'The fare paid cash. I've no idea who he was.'

Damn. Horton could have traced a credit or debit card payment or a cheque.

There was nothing for it but to wait until Kingston showed up. When he did, he was a small barrel of a man in his late fifties, with thinning white hair stretched across his egg shaped head. Horton felt like a giant beside him. He didn't want to question him in front of the woman, and suggested they step outside.

Kingston went one further. 'I'm off the run now. How about a coffee? There's a cafe three doors down on the right. I'll just sign out and meet you there. You can order me a bacon sandwich.'

It was the all-day-breakfast type with steamed-up windows, a good old-fashioned clanging bell above the door and a portly unshaven man behind a tall counter wearing an overall that looked as though it had been rescued off the rubbish tip. Health and safety would have closed this place down, if they ever got within sniffing distance, but clearly its customers loved it. It was crowded.

Horton placed the order and gazed around for a table. Two men in painter's overalls got up from the table near the window and Horton pounced on it. He sipped at his mug of black coffee, which tasted like liquorice, and wished Kingston hadn't ordered bacon because the smell of it frying brought back the picture of those charred human remains and threatened to start his stomach once again practising for the Olympic gymnastics gold medal.

The bell clanged and through a haze of cooking smoke and fried food, Kingston rolled in. Ex navy, thought Horton, studying the gait and the slightly pompous air with which he addressed the man behind the counter. Once he had greeted the proprietor, Kingston settled himself down, and took a gulp of his coffee.

'What do you want to know?'

'Everything you can tell me about the fare you picked up yesterday morning at eleven thirty and took to Horsea Marina.'

'Is it about that boat that caught fire? I heard it on the news this morning.' Kingston had that gleam in his little grey eyes that told Horton he'd bore the pants off everyone for a month retelling the tale.

'How do you know if your fare had any connection with that?' Horton asked, watching Kingston carefully, as he spooned another sugar into his coffee. No worries about getting diabetes there!

'Because he told me to wait for him, and I saw him go on to a pontoon. I just put two and two together. There's something funny about that fire, isn't there? Hey, he didn't do it, did he? He didn't look the type.'

'What was he like?'

Kingston thought for a moment. Horton curbed his impatience. He could tell this man would not be hurried or cajoled. Physically small he may be, but he was a giant in his own estimation and ego. Horton knew he would get the information he wanted. He just hoped that Kingston wouldn't embellish it in an attempt to inflate his own sense of worth.

'He hailed me outside the airport at about eleven twenty-five and got into the back of the cab. Some of them like to sit in the front, but not this guy. I asked him where he'd come from and he said Guernsey.'

Horton was encouraged. This was sounding good.

Kingston continued. 'I told him that me and the missus had got engaged there thirty years ago, and what a lovely place it was, but he just said, "How much further?" So I thought, OK, Pete, keep your mouth shut and drive. Some of the fares are like that. They want you to be invisible whilst others want to tell you their life history.'

And vice versa, thought Horton, recalling some of the cab drivers he'd met.

Kingston's bacon sandwich arrived and Horton was rather glad when Kingston spread a liberal helping of brown sauce over it. Its spicy fragrance smothered the smell of roast flesh.

Horton let him take his first bite before he asked, 'How did he seem? Worried, pleased, happy?'

'Anxious, I'd say. He kept tapping his fingers on the door, and craning his neck as if I could get there any faster.'

'How long did you wait for him at the marina?'

'About an hour. Cost him a bob or two, but he didn't seem to mind,' Kingston replied with his mouth full. 'I guess he was loaded. He told me to have a coffee. I said, "It's your money, mate." The meter was ticking all the time. I found a cafe that wasn't too posh amongst all those expensive shops and restaurants and when I got back to the cab he showed up five minutes later. I drove him back to the airport. He paid his bill and went off like a good boy.'

'Did he say anything on the return journey?'

'Not a word. He didn't even thank me, though he gave me a ten per cent tip.'

'Thanks enough then seeing as the fare must have been high,' Horton said, caustically.

'Not bad.' Kingston smiled and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.

'And how did he seem when you drove him back to the airport?'

After taking the last bite of his sandwich, Kingston said, 'Annoyed, rather than worried.'

'Can you describe him?'

'Wore a dark suit. About your height, slim, mid-fifties. Biggish nose and hawk-like eyes.'

It matched the description that Avril had given him with some extra detail. 'And you've no idea of his name?'

Kingston didn't have but Horton knew who would. He turned out of Eastleigh town centre and headed for the airport. At the information desk he showed his ID and asked to speak to the senior security officer. Three-quarters of an hour later he was walking back to his Harley pleased with himself.

He called Uckfield. Maybe he should have telephoned Dennings but he would only relay the information to the superintendent himself and Horton didn't see why Dennings should have the satisfaction of being the bearer of good news.

'Our visitor was on the ten twenty-five a.m. flight from Guernsey to Southampton yesterday,' Horton said, as Uckfield grunted down the line. 'Fortunately the flight wasn't very busy; there were only ten men on board. Three of them flew back to Guernsey from Southampton yesterday: one on the five fifteen flight, and two on the seven fifty flight. As those were the only two flights out of Southampton, and based on the taxi driver's evidence that he had dropped his fare off at the airport at half past one our man has to be the one who caught the earlier flight.' And a brief chat with the check-in girl had confirmed it.

Horton continued, 'He's called Nigel Sherbourne. His flight was booked from an address in St Peter Port, Guernsey, in the name of Sherbourne and Willings Solicitors.'

'He can't be the killer then,' said Uckfield.

'OK, so the timing's wrong for him to have thrown the lighted match on to the boat, because he was back in Guernsey, but he could have loosened the cooker pipe on his arrival. That would have allowed enough time for the gas to build up. Then his accessory comes along, knocks Brundall out and throws the match on board. That's murder in my book.'

'Why would his solicitor wish to kill him?'

'Perhaps he'll tell us if we ask nicely.'

Uckfield sniffed disbelievingly and said, 'I'll get Dennings on to Guernsey.'

On his way to Horsea Marina, Horton thought over this new information. If the solicitor was an accessory to murder then, according to Avril's evidence, Brundall had welcomed him and expected his arrival, so had Sherbourne contacted Brundall on some pretext in order to fly here and loosen the gas cooker pipe, perhaps discovering some urgent papers that needed signing? Or had Brundall summoned the lawyer to Portsmouth? Maybe Brundall had left some urgent unfinished business in Guernsey that couldn't wait until he returned. Or had something occurred here that had prompted Brundall to call his solicitor? Perhaps it was the reason why Brundall had returned to Portsmouth in the first place.

Horton hoped that visiting the scene of the crime might spark some ideas, but when he got there, his brain refused to come up with anything fresh and he saw nothing illuminating except the Christmas lights and decorations on the boardwalk. The mobile incident suite was only just being manoeuvred into place in front of the pontoon where Brundall's boat had been and Horton could see a couple of uniformed officers heading towards the shops to interview the owners.