Perhaps the blonde really had been an historian.
Perhaps the car with tinted windows had been visiting Sam’s fishing business.
I turned my attention to the doctor as he told the coroner’s court that Michael Clipton’s arteries had been so clogged his heart attack could have happened at any time. Clipton had been on medication for high blood pressure for six years, which explained his red face as he had thrust it close to mine during his interrogations.
A crewmember told how all the cars had been vacant of their passengers and drivers, as the ferry had sailed out of Portsmouth at 10am, and again half way across the Solent when he had checked.
Forty minutes later, as the ferry approached Fishbourne, the passengers were told to return to their cars, which they all did. Another crewmember told how all the decks were clear of passengers as the St Catherine hit the big wooden fenders at Fishbourne.
Clipton, it seemed, had returned to his car, sat in it and died. It was just one of those things, or so I thought until the daughter took the stand.
She was about thirty-five with short straight fair hair and a worried expression on her long, oval face. She spoke softly, and had difficulty in holding the coroner’s eye contact. She said that she’d had no idea that her father was coming to the Isle of Wight. Why should she, I thought, Clipton didn’t have to tell his daughter his movements, which was exactly what the coroner, a grey, shrivelled-up man, said.
‘He would have told me,’ the daughter declared, flushing. ‘I would have worried about him otherwise. Since Mum died and Dad retired he’s always kept me informed if he was going to be away from the house longer than a couple of days.’
‘And this time he didn’t tell you?’
‘Oh yes, he did.’
The coroner looked confused and a little exasperated. I didn’t blame him. She must have seen his irritation because she blushed and added,
‘I knew he was going away but I didn’t know he was coming to the Isle of Wight. I thought he was going to Andover.’
What? Had I heard right? I sat bolt upright as if someone had shoved an electric poker up my backside.
‘Andover?’ The coroner sounded like Lady Bracknell and her handbag. I guessed that Andover wasn’t the sort of place you went on holiday to.
‘Did he have business in Andover?’
‘Business? He’s retired.’ She looked confused.
Her eyes welled up. ‘He was retired.’ A sob caught in her throat.
I couldn’t imagine anyone mourning the bastard who had interrogated and bullied me, but then I was prejudiced.
‘Yes, of course,’ the coroner said, hastily and a little irritably. He didn’t seem to me the best candidate for this job. I wondered if he had been the coroner at my mother’s inquest. I shuddered at the vision of my poor mother’s death being scrutinized like this. Yet it had been and without me being present. The verdict had been accidental death. I couldn’t have prevented it even if I had been free. It was small consolation.
Hastily I pulled myself together and focused on what the coroner was saying.
‘So he told you he was going to Andover for a couple of days’ holiday.’
‘No. He just said, ‘I’ll be away for a couple of days, possibly a few; I’m not sure. I’m going to Andover,’ Clipton’s daughter replied.
My eyes swept the room. I held my breath, waiting for someone to stand up and say, Andover’s a man not a town in Hampshire. No one did. The police didn’t even look interested.
I swivelled in my seat to look behind me, there was no one either sitting or standing. The doors were shut. I needed to speak to Clipton’s daughter, but away from here and in private, without two policemen breathing down my neck, wondering who the hell I was, putting two and two together and coming up with eight.
A verdict was brought in of death by natural causes. The coroner gave permission for the body to be released and I slipped out before anyone else into a day that threatened April showers. I watched from the safety of the opposite side of the road as they spilled out of the inquest. I saw the two policemen move forward and fall into conversation with Clipton’s daughter and partner, who was a slightly overweight man with a little goatee beard that was beginning to turn grey. Their heads were nodding, their expressions serious. Then they all climbed into a car and were driven off. I cursed. I guessed they were leaving the Island.
A payphone was just a few yards to my left and I dived into it and rang Miles’s office. After a brief moment I was put through to him.
‘Clipton’s daughter said he was going to Andover.’
‘And you think that means he was coming to see you?’
Clipton had always believed that I was Andover. ‘Either that or Andover is or was on the Island.’ And that might explain the aeroplane incident. It didn’t explain, though, why he hadn’t tried to attack me again. ‘The only person who might know more is his daughter. I’m going to Clipton’s funeral. There I can ask her a couple of questions under the guise of passing on my condolences. She won’t know who I am.’
‘Unless someone tells her.’
‘I’ll take a chance on that. Besides they might not recognise me now.’
I heard Miles sniff in disbelief. ‘Perhaps I should go instead.’
‘Miles, I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.’
Then sensing I’d spoken too harshly, I added,
‘Thanks, but this is my battle. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done and how you’ve stuck with me but I have to stand on my own two feet.
There is something you can do for me though.’
‘You’ve got it.’
‘Find out when and where Clipton’s funeral is. Perhaps one of your contacts in the police can tell you. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
I rang off and called Joe. His secretary told me I had just missed him. He was on an assignment and wouldn’t be back until Friday. She wouldn’t give me his mobile number either. I was beginning to get the feeling he was avoiding me.
I said I would call again on Friday.
It had started raining but judging by the speed of the clouds a blue bit of sky was due at any moment so I ducked into the café in the Quay Arts Centre, and fetched myself a coffee. I couldn’t help feeling a thrill of excitement. OK, so Clipton’s death had been due to natural causes, but why had he been coming here? And why tell his daughter he was going to Andover? If Andover had been on the Island then it was bloody convenient for him that Clipton had died.
I was impatient for an appointment to see Joe, and for Clipton’s funeral. Perhaps then, at last, I’d start getting some answers.
CHAPTER 3
The following Monday morning I alighted from the hovercraft at Portsmouth. It was a grey, gloomy day with a chill edge to the breeze and the threat of rain in the air. The right sort of day for a burial, I thought, as I skirted Southsea Common and headed towards the city centre.
Clipton’s committal was at one o’clock. That gave me plenty of time for my meeting with Joe, which I’d finally managed to arrange on Friday.
I spotted the fair-haired man with the square jaw and stooping posture as I waited to cross Kings Road. He had been on the hovercraft.
Nothing odd in that, lots of people travel to Portsmouth, but I felt uneasy. I smelt a copper.
I zipped up my sailing jacket, turned right into Landport Street and right again, or rather I would have done, if the road hadn’t been blocked by blue and white police tape, a stout copper and a small crowd. My heart skipped a beat. Almost instantly I knew why they were here. Suddenly the energy and optimism drained from me. It had to be Joe. If it was then there was only one reason why something should have happened to him now: me.