Horton made to leave when something forestalled him. He couldn't say what exactly, but his instincts were telling him to stay put. He watched as Kingsway opened the boot of his car. After a couple of seconds he emerged with a grunt before manhandling something very heavy, judging by the growling and groaning he was doing, on to the trolley. It looked like a roll of carpet. Horton's first thoughts were that Kingsway was illegally dumping household rubbish before his copper's brain jolted into gear. No carpet was that heavy surely. His flesh crawled, as his eyes narrowed into the night to focus on the shape. He stiffened. If he wasn't mistaken it was a body. He couldn't see whose, but his first thoughts were of Nathan Lester. Why would Kingsway want to kill Lester though? The only reason he could think of was that it had to be something to do with Farnsworth. And now, at last, he quickly put the facts together. Kingsway wasn't only guilty of striking his mother, but of killing the person she was fixated on: Farnsworth.
He peered into the night as Kingsway manoeuvred the trolley. In so doing he pushed it past the window. There, at the end of the rug, was an opening and in the glimpse of moonlight Horton saw… He froze. His heart stopped. Jesus! No! It couldn't be. There was a mass of black curly hair. It wasn't Nathan Lester. It was Barney. Kingsway had killed Barney Cantelli.
Without thinking, Horton wrenched open the door and in a blind rage rushed across to Kingsway. He'd kill the bastard for this. Kingsway turned. Saw him. And before Horton knew it, Kingsway swivelled round, kicked out and struck Horton in the midriff. Horton doubled over as the breath was sucked from his body and pain shot through him. The ground came up to greet his bleary-eyed vision. Before he could even think of moving or breathing, something cut through the back of his neck, the shock seemed to slice his body like a meat cleaver. There was an acute flash of pain. And then absolutely nothing.
TWENTY-TWO
He was no longer in the car park. He knew that immediately by the darkness pressing on his eyeballs, the stench, and the filthy water in his face. His neck was as sore as hell and his hands and feet were tied, but he was alive. He didn't know about Cantelli. Fear gripped him as he recalled the body being hauled out of Kingsway's car. His heart was so heavy with sorrow that he could hardly breathe. Charlotte. Barney's five kids. He shivered uncontrollably. If he had a choice he'd rather be dead if it meant Cantelli could live.
It was an effort to move, the pain of his loss was almost too much to bear, but he forced himself into an upright position. Was there still hope that Barney might be alive? He had to cling on to that.
He tried to focus his eyes. It was pitch black. He could see nothing. His senses told him though that he was underground. And his reasoning, which was slowly surfacing through his throbbing head and the pain of his sorrow, said that he must be in one of the tunnels under the Fort Cumberland earth mounds. He dug his nails into his palms and felt the sweat trickle down his back. The tunnel was pressing down on him. His stomach heaved. His heart raced. He could hear his breathing coming in gasps. Air. He had to get air. But there wasn't any. He struggled to rise, but his bonds were too tight and limiting. Desperately he tried to fight off the rising attack of claustrophobia.
Calm, keep calm. Think rationally. Think of Cantelli, he might still be alive and if he is, then he needs your help to get out of here. What use are you to him as a quivering heap? Charlotte is relying on you. Barney could be in here somewhere within reach.
He emptied his lungs slowly. It did the trick. He wasn't sure how long it took, but gradually his heart rate settled down, though not to normal. This wasn't bloody normal. There was a noise to the right of him. Sharply he brought his head round, then wished he hadn't when a shaft of pain shot through him almost making him lose consciousness. A shape loomed out of the darkness.
'Let's see you, Kingsway,' he shouted, though his throat was dry and his voice hoarse.
A powerful torch swung full beam on Horton. He blinked and tried to snatch his head away from the glare, but it wouldn't go.
'You shouldn't have attacked me,' came the voice from the darkness. 'I'm sorry you've been involved.'
'What do you want? Forgiveness?' Horton snarled, but he recognized the whining tone of self-justification that was so familiar to him when hearing a confession to a crime.
The beam swung away and Horton watched Kingsway settle himself opposite, on the trolley that had brought him and Cantelli here. He quickly scanned the area and picked out the slumped body of Cantelli about nine feet from him. His heart plummeted to the depths of his being.
'Is he dead?' he asked in a flat resigned voice.
'He might be now.'
Horton clenched his fists and tried to leap up, but once again he was defeated by his bonds. He fell back deflated, but anger stirred within him, fuelling his determination to get out of here alive and feed Kingsway to the seagulls. He told himself there was still a chance that Cantelli was alive. Kingsway had said 'now' which meant he hadn't killed Cantelli outright. Horton clung to that hope. It was all he had. And it meant he had to find a way to overpower Kingsway or persuade him to give himself up.
'Why make things worse for yourself, Kingsway? Let us both go and I'll see that you get a fair trial. With a good solicitor you might not get long.'
But Kingsway didn't hear him. Almost regretfully he said, 'If she hadn't let that grinning idiot of a diver fool her, then none of this would have happened.'
Horton quickly saw the way Kingsway's mind was working. Here was a man seeking to apportion blame for his own crimes and shortcomings. Something Horton guessed Kingsway had done for most of his life. Nothing would ever be his fault. Perhaps if he appeared to understand and empathize with him, he could eventually talk his way out of this. But what had Farnsworth done to an old lady like Marjorie Kingsway? Sex wasn't the motive for his actions and neither was it love or success, but it could have been power and the type of power that came from exerting influence over a vulnerable person to give Farnsworth the money and possessions he craved.
Now, putting everything he had seen and learnt over the last few days together, Horton saw clearly what must have happened and he was beginning to understand where Nathan Lester fitted into this. He recalled Cheryl's words: she used to have a lovely big house in the country, in Surrey, with a swimming pool… And Haslemere, where Farnsworth had worked as an estate agent, was in Surrey.
'Did Farnsworth undervalue your mother's house?' he asked, making an effort to keep his tone mater-of-fact.
'Yes. He got Lester to pose as the buyer and then they sold it on for a big profit, which they split between them.'
That explained the thirty thousand pounds in Lester's bank account. Marjorie Kingsway probably wasn't their first victim or their last. How many others had they swindled? wondered Horton.
Kingsway said, 'And before that Farnsworth got Lester into my mother's house to value the antiques. He said they were worthless and then sold them for their proper value.'
That fitted too. Although Horton hadn't seen the items in Lester's shop close up, he'd seen enough in the man's house to know that some of it was valuable. He said, 'How do you know this?'