Free Suffocating Sea by Pauline Rowson Page B

In 1968 times weren’t so enlightened and people weren’t tolerant towards unmarried mothers. Maybe he still had grandparents alive in Portsmouth who knew nothing about him, or rather who didn’t want to know about him, which was more likely.
    It was a foul night with lashing rain and gale-force winds blowing off a turbulent sea and Horton was glad to shower and get back to the boat. He called the incident room to be told there was still no sign of Sherbourne. He hadn’t returned to his office or his home and calls to the hospital had drawn a blank. So where was he?
    Horton shivered, not from the cold but from the conviction that something must have happened to him and it didn’t bode well. If Guilbert hadn’t vouched for him then Horton might have thought, like Dennings, that Sherbourne was a suspect in a murder case and had run away.
    Sitting on his bunk, with the wind howling through the masts and the rain drumming on the coach roof, Horton tried not to think about his mother. It was pointless. Anne Schofield’s call had resurrected so many emotions in him that he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer. With a racing heart and dry throat he reached out and lifted the cushions on the opposite bunk. Stretching a hand into the space underneath, he retrieved a battered old Bluebird Toffee tin. His hand hovered over it. Then with a breath he threw open the lid and removed a photograph.
    It had been years since he’d looked at it and now, with his heart beating fast and not because of his physical exertions, he stared at the woman with the little boy beside her. He must have been about five or six when this picture had been taken.
    He could recall nothing about the circumstances although he recognized the location. It had been taken down by the harbour entrance where the Gosport chain ferry had once traversed across the narrow channel. His mother was holding a glass and he was clutching a packet of crisps. She was dressed in a pair of flared red trousers, a white jumper with sweetheart neckline and a wide-brimmed floppy hat over her shoulder-length blonde hair. He was in shorts and a T-shirt. It was clearly summer. How old was she? Early twenties? Who had taken the photograph? His mother’s boyfriend? Could that have been the Reverend Gilmore?
    Horton racked his brains, trying to recall the day, but it eluded him. Behind his mother was the sparkling blue sea of Portsmouth Harbour and to her right he could make out the dockyard as it had been before its transformation into the select waterfront complex of shops, restaurants and luxury apartments that was now Oyster Quays.
    He shoved the photograph back in the tin and put it under his bunk. He tried to sleep but images and words from the day’s events swirled around in his head determined to wake him every half an hour. He was rather glad when his phone rang and he reached across the bunk for it, trying to see the time.
    He half expected to hear Cantelli’s voice, but it was Uckfield who growled down the line.
    ‘There’s been another fire.’
    ‘Where?’ Horton was suddenly wide awake. He swung his legs over the side of the bunk and grabbed his watch. He was amazed to see it was 5.25 a.m.
    ‘Guernsey.’
    Horton’s heart sank. Of course it could be Brundall’s house, but Guilbert and his officers had already been inside that, so not much point in setting fire to it now. There was only one place that it could be and the thought sent a shudder through him.
    He said, ‘Sherbourne’s office?’
    ‘Spot on.’
    Coincidence? Not bloody likely.
    ‘How bad?’
    The answer was in Uckfield’s silence.
    Horton caught his breath. ‘Sherbourne’s dead?’
    ‘Yes.’

Six
    Friday: 6 a.m.
    ‘It looks as though Sherbourne was already dead when the fire started at about two a.m.,’ Uckfield said, as Horton unzipped his leather jacket and, slinging it on a desk in the incident suite, placed his helmet on top of it. They were the only two there.
    So where was Dennings?