Horton felt like saying touche, but didn’t. It was an oversight on Uckfield’s part but the big man was never going to thank him for pointing it out. And it was a minor victory which didn’t assuage his guilt over Hazleton’s death. Even if Lisle had used his boat there were still several points that didn’t add up. He said, ‘If Lisle used his boat to rendezvous with Yately somewhere along the coast near Hazleton’s house and then drove his car out here, how did he get back to his boat? It’s a considerable distance to walk and there’s no public transport at that time of night.’
‘He got a lift and that means someone will remember seeing him,’ Uckfield said brusquely.
‘And the dress found on Yately?’
‘Yately had an affair with Lisle’s wife and Lisle wanted revenge, and he was sick enough to put one of his wife’s dresses on the body. Hazleton saw Lisle kill Yately so he too had to die.’
‘But why put Hazleton in the boot of the car? Why not take his body out to sea and dump it?’ insisted Horton.
‘To cover up the evidence,’ Uckfield declared with immovable certainty.
Horton wasn’t sure, but Uckfield’s theory seemed far more probable than his of both men indulging in cross-dressing and being discovered by smugglers.
Uckfield was reaching for his mobile phone. Horton heard him tell Dennings to look for photographs of Abigail Lisle in the house. They might be able to match the dress worn by Yately. They’d have to show the photograph of the dress to Rachel Salter, and Horton didn’t envy the person who had that task.
He took another look at Victor Hazleton. He hoped the poor man hadn’t been alive when he’d been locked in the boot and left there to die with the sea seeping in to drown him, terrified and panic stricken. But if Hazleton’s killer was the same person who had tormented and killed Colin Yately then he was very much afraid he might have been. And was that vindictive evil killer Arthur Lisle? Horton would want to know a great deal more about the man before he could answer that question.
Sergeant Norris crossed to Horton. ‘The farmer claims he heard nothing out of the ordinary last night or this morning and the residents in the two nearest houses didn’t hear or see anything unusual.’ The sergeant’s eyes strayed towards the boot of the car.
‘Did you know Victor Hazleton, the victim?’ Horton asked.
Norris shook his head. ‘I don’t recognize the name.’
Coming off the phone, Uckfield turned to Marsden and said crisply. ‘I want you to set up a temporary incident room at Ventnor working closely with Sergeant Norris. Norris, I want Hazleton’s house sealed off immediately. Also get hold of the police doctor and get him over here before the ghouls come out in force. Yeah, I know the poor bugger’s dead but we still need the doctor to tell us the bleeding obvious.’ Norris nodded and hurried to his car parked above the bay. To Marsden, Uckfield added, ‘I want an all-ports alert put out for Arthur Lisle; liaise with Sergeant Trueman on that.’ Marsden shot off to join Norris. To Horton, he said ‘Does Hazleton have any relatives?’
‘Not sure. He has a cleaner and gardener.’
‘OK, we’ll call at his house, and we need all the information we can get on him.’ Uckfield again reached for his mobile phone, this time obviously to tell Trueman to start researching Victor Hazleton’s background, when Horton forestalled him. ‘Cantelli’s already started on that.’
Uckfield said, ‘Then he can carry on working on it with Trueman.’
Horton wasn’t sure what Bliss would think of that but that was Uckfield’s problem, not his. He wondered how much, if anything, Cantelli and Walters had managed to check out on Russell Glenn and his yacht crew, or whether Cantelli had had much joy researching cross-dressing conventions, something he still hadn’t mentioned to Uckfield and wouldn’t, not now. It didn’t seem relevant. Horton wondered if he should drop his research on Glenn. They probably wouldn’t have time for it anyway. And perhaps he should do the same with Adrian Stanley. He should let the past go.
With Uckfield on the phone, Horton turned his back on the sea in an attempt to find some relief from the penetrating rain and rang Cantelli, telling him why he couldn’t get an answer from Hazleton’s phone and that Uckfield wanted him to work closely with Trueman on Hazleton’s background. Cantelli said he’d found nothing on cross-dressing conventions. ‘I could check with Vice,’ he added.
Horton told him to forget it. He then rang Bliss and swiftly brought her up to date, expecting a similar bollocking to the one Uckfield had given him, for slipping up, but Bliss was more concerned whether Hazleton’s death was connected with Project Neptune.
‘Superintendent Uckfield doesn’t believe so,’ he said, and he told her Uckfield’s theory.
‘I’ll have to report it to Detective Chief Superintendent Sawyer,’ Bliss said. ‘Keep me fully briefed, Inspector.’ She rang off.
Horton crossed to the Morris Minor and addressed Taylor. ‘Is there anything in his pockets?’
Tentatively, Taylor reached towards the body and eased his slim hands inside the trouser pockets. He extracted a set of keys, which he dropped into an evidence bag and handed to Horton. There were five, two of them the large old-fashioned sort. Horton then telephoned Dr Clayton. ‘Anything more on Yately?’ he enquired.
‘I’m still waiting for the results of the tests.’
He asked her whether Yately’s body had revealed any homosexual tendencies and got a firm ‘no’. He then told her about Hazleton’s death, adding, ‘When can you come over and do the autopsy?’
‘Early tomorrow morning. I’ll arrange it with the hospital mortuary.’
‘Thanks.’ He told her that the police launch would bring her over and a car would collect her from Cowes Marina and take her to the mortuary in Newport. He called Elkins who was waiting offshore in the police launch and briefed him about the discovery, giving him instructions to return to the mainland. He’d go back with Uckfield, and he asked Elkins to collect Dr Clayton from the port in the morning.
The Island police doctor arrived twenty minutes later. He could tell them little about how Hazleton had died, possibly a blow to the head, and that he’d been dead for approximately thirteen hours, maybe less, maybe more, which meant that Hazleton must have been killed shortly after making that call to him at twenty-one thirty-five.
They stayed until the body was removed, watching it from the comfort and warmth of Uckfield’s BMW, by which time Taylor and his team had left for Hazleton’s house and a member of the press had arrived. Uckfield adroitly fended off questions from him with an ‘it’s too early to comment’ remark. Horton had asked one of the local officers to organize the Morris Minor to be taken to the station garage in Newport for further forensic examination and to stay with it until it safely arrived. Then, giving directions to Uckfield, they headed back along the coast road to Hazleton’s place. Uckfield relayed what Trueman had managed to get on Arthur Lisle.
‘He worked in property conveyancing for a law firm called Wallingford and Chandler in Newport for thirty years. Retired three years ago.’
The same time as Yately, but that didn’t mean much. ‘And that’s it?’
‘Seems to be. There’s no record of Lisle having left the Island by ferry or hovercraft any time after Thursday or returning, so unless he paid cash he was here, possibly at home, though we haven’t got any neighbours yet who claim they saw him. I’ll give a press conference asking for sightings of him. And there’s nothing more on Victor Hazleton, yet.’
Horton thought of that impressive house filled with antique rugs and telescopes and an observatory to die for. To kill for? If he discounted Uckfield’s theory then who would inherit? If they had killed him then why put the body in Lisle’s car? And how did that connect with Lisle and Yately; one a solicitor, the other a postman? What had Hazleton done for a living? Had he made a will? Had Lisle drawn up that will and had Yately witnessed it and someone now wanted it never known because it would disinherit them? But no, there he went again, thinking like a bloody Agatha Christie novel and being too damn fanciful. But was his smuggling theory as outlandish?