Free Suffocating Sea by Pauline Rowson Page A

flicked through the rest of the newspapers. In every single one, the Reverend Gilmore had put a circle around an article and that article was about him. Jesus!
    It was as if he was reading a scrapbook on his career. At any moment he expected Michael Aspel to leap out from behind the curtains with a television crew and hand him a big red book, saying, ‘This is your life.’
    With curiosity now overcoming his emotions he began to examine the dates. The newspapers were all later than the one where Gilmore had written his mother’s name. That had been the article that had sparked this interest in him. But why this obsession?
    ‘What can you tell me about him?’ he asked, making sure to hide the emotion in his voice.
    ‘Nothing, I’m afraid. I’ve come from a parish in North Hampshire. You’ll need to speak to his parishioners or the Dean.’
    Would he though? He wanted to move on with his life.
    Emma was his future. It didn’t matter that she didn’t have paternal grandparents. It was probably for the best that she didn’t know who they were. And, he reminded himself, he didn’t have time to spare. He had a murderer to catch, and if not that then a pair of yobs who had attacked an American tourist, not to mention all the other thefts, assaults and burglaries piling up on his desk!
    ‘Thank you for showing me these,’ he said politely, with, he hoped, a voice devoid of emotion. ‘They’re of no interest to me. Reverend Gilmore obviously knew my mother, but I didn’t know him.’
    He wanted to get out of here quickly. The place was depressing him. He turned to leave when his eyes caught something written on the crowded blotter. Pushing the pile of newspapers further over, he saw quite clearly standing out from the other scribblings, the words, ‘Horsea Marina’.
    Nothing unusual in that except the words were heavily under-lined and appeared to have been written recently. The lettering wasn’t as faded as the rest. It was just a coincidence, he told himself. Why then did something click inside him, which he couldn’t put his finger on? It was a bit like a light switch going on but the bulb was missing.
    ‘Did the Reverend Gilmore own a boat?’ he asked, hoping that illumination would come with her answer.
    ‘Not that I know of,’ she said, surprised. ‘Why?’
    ‘He’s written the name of a marina on his blotter, or perhaps you wrote it?’
    ‘It wasn’t me.’ She frowned, puzzled by his line of questioning.
    Why should Reverend Gilmore choose to write those words when his parish didn’t extend to the marina some seven miles to the north and west of the city? Perhaps he had a friend or relative who lived at the marina. The explanation could be perfectly simple and probably was, but Horton couldn’t help thinking it a coincidence. That was the policeman in him.
    Anne Schofield interrupted his thoughts. ‘What would you like me to do with the newspapers?’
    ‘Burn them or throw them out for recycling,’ he said quickly and firmly. The past was no use to him.
    He saw her eyeing him closely. She looked troubled. ‘And if I find any other reference to you or Jennifer Horton do you want me to call you?’ she asked gently.
    He wanted to say no, but knew he couldn’t. After a moment he retrieved a card from his jacket and said, ‘You can contact me on my mobile.’
    It wasn’t until he was on his way home that he wished he’d taken that piece of blotting paper. He told himself that lots of people lived and worked at Horsea Marina, and Gilmore could have known any of them. But that fresh blue ink bothered him as much as the discovery that Gilmore had known his mother. And it continued to nag at him when he went for a run.
    He didn’t have his mother down as a churchgoer, but if Gilmore had been his father then he would only have been seventeen and his mother eighteen when he’d been conceived.
    Had she run away from home when she had discovered she was pregnant? Perhaps she had been thrown out.