The Suffocating Sea

Cantelli said, 'Brundall hired it all right. Walters is on his way there now.'

Horton glanced at his watch. It was almost ten thirty. Dennings would be in Guernsey talking to Inspector Guilbert.

Cantelli said, 'Is there anything wrong, Andy?'

Horton regarded him keenly. There was only concern in the sergeant's dark eyes. 'Apart from a murder, you mean?'

'You look…worried.'

'I'm fine,' Horton said, perhaps too sharply because Cantelli gave a slight lift of his eyebrows, but knew better than to push it. 'Have you called the hospital?' Horton asked to distract him.

'No. I'll do it now while we're waiting.'

'I'll call into the mobile incident suite.' Horton strode across the car park towards a large Portakabin facing the multiplex cinema complex. He spent a few minutes talking to the officer in charge and flicking through the reports but again no one reported having seen Brundall, and he hadn't visited any of the pubs or restaurants. Neither had he eaten at the yacht club. He must have brought supplies with him. Horton reckoned a dying man wouldn't have fancied much to eat anyway.

By the time he returned to the car, Cantelli was just coming off the phone. His dark face was puckered with concern and Horton was fearful the old man might have had a relapse.

'Marie's with Dad,' Cantelli said. 'I managed to text her and she stepped outside and called me back. He's not too bad, she says, though it seems strange to see him in bed and inactive. You know my dad — he's usually a bundle of energy. She'll have a word with the consultant when he does his rounds. Isabella and Tony are at work, the cafes don't run themselves, and Charlotte said she'd go in later this morning and take Mum. Charlotte will stay until she has to pick the twins up from school. I said I'd get up after work.'

Horton could see he was torn between wanting to be there all the time and being at work. He said, 'I'm sure they're looking after him, Barney.'

'Yeah. You just feel so bloody helpless.'

A car swept into the car park and drew up beside them. In the passenger seat next to Walters was a slim man in his thirties with gelled hair. Walters introduced him as Darren Trenchard.

'He booked it for a week,' Trenchard said in answer to Horton's enquiry. Horton was surprised that Brundall had planned to stay that long, though there was no reason why he shouldn't do so.

'Could I have the keys, Mr Trenchard?'

Trenchard handed them across. Horton donned a pair of latex gloves, which he retrieved from his jacket pocket and zapped the car open. He walked around to the passenger side and flipped open the glove compartment. Inside was the paperwork relating to the car and nothing else. The boot yielded only the spare wheel and some tools.

'Take a look at the mileage for me,'Horton said to Trenchard. 'Can you say how many miles your client has done?'

The man peered inside and then glanced at a copy of the agreement he'd brought with him. 'Forty-three.'

'And he hired it when?'

Another glance at the paperwork and Trenchard replied, 'Tuesday morning, midday.'

Forty-three miles meant Brundall must have stayed fairly local. There was no satellite navigation on the car so no record of where he had gone.

'Did Mr Brundall say anything to you when he hired the car?'

'Like what?' The man looked bewildered.

'Where he was going? What he needed a car for? Nice weather? Anything?'

'No, just that he wanted something basic and comfortable.'

'Did he collect it from your premises?'

'No. He called us and asked if we would deliver it and said he would do all the paperwork then.'

'Is that usual?'

'It happens, especially when people come here on their boats from abroad.'

He must have called from the public phone box near the cinema complex and perhaps that was where he had also summoned Sherbourne. Why hadn't anyone seen him do so then?

'Did he tell you where he had come from?' Horton asked.

'No. I checked his passport as a means of identification. It said he was British. He's that man that got killed on his boat, isn't he? Was he a drug runner?' Trenchard's eyes lit up.

'You've been watching too much television. Are your cars cleaned before they're hired out?'

'Oh yes, inside and out.'

'Good. We'll need to take it away for examination. If it's all right you'll probably get it back cleaner than when you hired it. We'll give you a receipt.' He nodded at Walters to do the honours and drew Cantelli out of earshot. Horton hoped that the forensic team might be able to tell them something about where the car had travelled by the dust and mud in the tyre treads or under the wheel arches.

Cantelli said, 'We might get sight of Brundall on the CCTV cameras around the city.'

Horton wondered if Dennings would have thought of that if he'd been here and doubted it. Why hadn't Cantelli gone for promotion? He was far brighter than Dennings. But Horton already knew the answer to that question and he envied Cantelli. The sergeant was content with where he was and with what he had, and that, thought Horton, was a great gift.

'I'll ask Uckfield to make another statement to the press and get out a picture of this car.'

Horton left Walters to wait until the police vehicle recovery truck arrived and then to drop Darren back to Buckingham Street. His phone rang as Cantelli turned on to the motorway heading back to the station. It was Trueman.

'There are a couple of possible sightings of Brundall that look hopeful in response to the superintendent's statement to the press yesterday. A woman who was walking her dog on Portsdown Hill on Tuesday remembers speaking to a man who fits the description. It was just after midday.'

If it was Brundall then he must have driven straight there from hiring the car: it was only a few miles away and from Portsdown Hill, Brundall would have seen the city spread out beneath him. It was a spectacular and breathtaking view and might well have been the first place a man returning to his hometown would have visited; either there or the sea front.

'And the other sighting?' he asked.

'St Agnes's Church, Portsea, on the same afternoon.'

Horton started in surprise. Horsea Marina, the words on Reverend Gilmore's blotter. Could Brundall have known Reverend Gilmore? How? Had he once been a member of St Agnes's congregation or was there more to it than that? He felt his spine tingling not only with excitement but with a faint feeling of uneasiness and apprehension that he didn't much care for. Was it some kind of intuition that had told him he should have taken that piece of blotting paper when he'd left the vicarage? And wasn't it those two words that had driven him back here today to discover the hire car?

He got the details before ringing off. 'I'll talk to the parishioner,' he said to Cantelli, 'you tackle the woman with the dog.'

Cantelli pulled a face. Horton knew that Cantelli was about as good with dogs as he was on the sea.

'Why don't I take the parishioner and you take the woman with the dog?' suggested Cantelli hopefully.

But Horton couldn't let him do that.

'You might have to enter an Anglican place of worship, and I wouldn't want to offend your religion,' Horton joked uneasily. He could see Cantelli eyeing him with suspicion. Damn. But how could he tell Cantelli he'd been to the vicarage and seen those words 'Horsea Marina' on the dead vicar's blotter without revealing why he had been there? Besides, he wanted to know why Brundall had been to St Agnes's Church and on the day both he and the Reverend Gilmore had died. It was one hell of a coincidence and he smelt trouble with a capital T the size of the Eiffel Tower.

'St Agnes is a Catholic saint as well as an Anglican one,' Cantelli said. 'Did you know that she's the patron saint of chastity, engaged couples, rape victims and virgins, to name but a few? If I have to go inside the church I'm sure the good Lord will forgive me my sins.'