Dead Man's Wharf

'Daniel Collins went diving with Nathan Lester over the summer months until September. Did he or Farnsworth ever mention discovering a wreck?'

She shook her head, looking baffled. 'No.'

That didn't mean to say they hadn't. He doubted if Farnsworth would have told her anyway.

'Do you have the details of Farnsworth's previous girlfriends?'

'A couple. Would you like their addresses?' She powered up her computer. 'Nick went out with Rosemary Taylor for three years. The poor woman. But she's happily married now to a garage mechanic and lives in Brighton. The one before me was Stephanie Wilson. Nick was with her for a year. She's living in Spain with her parents. They emigrated there four years ago. I can't see either of them killing Nick.'

Horton tossed up whether to tell her about Nick Farnsworth's missing fingers. Deciding he had nothing to lose by doing so, he asked, 'Do you know why someone would want to cut off three fingers of Mr Farnsworth's left hand?'

She eyed him sharply, then sat back with a thoughtful look on her urchin face. He could see her weighing up this new information, her mind trying to fit it into what she knew about the people surrounding Farnsworth and those who had known him.

'And Daniel Collins?'

'Fingers all accounted for.'

'You think it could be a husband or boyfriend seeking revenge?'

He shrugged. He didn't know what to think any more. As Uckfield had said, they seemed to be going round in circles.

'I suppose it's possible,' she said after a moment, but reluctantly. 'Was Nick battered or disfigured in any other way?'

'No.'

'So why cut off his fingers?' she muttered to herself. 'Was it after death?'

'Yes.'

'So cutting off a dead man's fingers…' she mused. Then suddenly she was sitting bolt upright, her skin flushed, eyes shining. 'Of course!'

'What is it?' he asked, his own excitement rising as she tapped into her computer.

'Hang on.'

He did with little patience.

'There.' She swivelled the screen to face him. For a spilt second he was bemused by what he saw, thick fleshy tube-like masses of white and orange clinging to rocks, some kind of coral, and then into his mind flashed the photograph on the wall of Daniel's study.

Daisy said, 'Alcyonium digitatum, better known as Dead Man's Fingers. And you can find it just off Bembridge on the Isle of Wight. I've dived there many times both with Nick and with Daniel.'

And Farnsworth had wanted to change the location of the dive for the series to that area. He must have found a wreck there, or nearby, or one of the others had — Manners, Collins or Lester — and one of them had told Farnsworth about it. Cantelli had been right. This was about discovering an important wreck.

'Do you have the exact location?' he asked.

Once again she tapped into her computer. 'Give me your e-mail address and I'll send it across to you.'

He obliged. Perhaps now it was time to call out the police divers. And time to talk to Manners again and bring Jackson in.

After thanking Daisy, he returned to the station. Hurrying to CID he was surprised to see it deserted. Where the blazes was everyone? Then he saw that it was just after six thirty. Walters must have gone home and so too must have Cantelli; his jacket wasn't on the hook behind the door.

He made for his office to check that the e-mails Daisy had sent over had come through but paused to stop at Lee's desk. On it were Lester's bank statements. She'd got them into some kind of order with the most recent on top. He quickly flicked through them. There were large gaps but one two years ago showed Lester to have a considerable amount of money. Slowly it had dwindled until the latest statement he was looking at, dated last August, showed Lester to be in the red to the tune of a thousand pounds. So what had he spent it on?

Rummaging further on Lee's desk he found her notes. Lester had paid a six-year lease on the shop a year ago, which had taken a chunk out of his finances. He'd also put a deposit on his house, which he had purchased at the same time. Horton guessed that Lester's shop had been haemorrhaging money.

He sat back deep in thought. Where had Lester got his money from in the first place? Had a relative died and left him a legacy? Or perhaps it was his gratuity from leaving the navy or his savings.

Snatching up the phone, Horton called the major-incident suite and got Trueman.

'Walters and Lee are here helping to man the phones,' Trueman said. 'They haven't stopped ringing since the superintendent's press call asking for witnesses who might have seen a man on the dual carriageway on Christmas Eve. You wouldn't have thought there would have been that many people out, but I think the whole of Portsmouth must have been wandering up and down that road.'

Horton wondered how DC Lee was liking her stint at manning the phones — not much, he guessed.

'We've not had a chance to get much on Nathan Lester,' Trueman added. 'Except that he's single and lived in Bordon before moving to Portsmouth two years ago. He left the navy in 2004 and started his antiques business here in 2007. There's no record of any employment between those years and Lester wasn't claiming benefit.'

Bordon was a growing town which had sprung up from the army based there. It was twenty-six miles from Portsmouth and thirteen miles from Haslemere, where Farnsworth had lived and worked. Horton wondered if Lester had made contact with Farnsworth when he had been working in Haslemere. Daisy had said that Farnsworth was sick of Nathan following him round like a pet dog, so Horton guessed that it was likely. He also wondered what Lester had done during those three years.

He'd like to find out, but as he crossed his office and viewed the pile of paper on his desk, he knew that he had run out of time to work on this case. He hated leaving unfinished business, a decided drawback in his job — half the cases they handled were unfinished. He'd have to leave the Collins and Farnsworth murders to others. And what about the deaths of the Eburys? What would DC Lee do about that in his absence? he wondered as he clicked open his e-mails, thinking that perhaps he could come in over the weekend. But Uckfield had made it clear last night that he couldn't expect to have regular and prolonged access to Emma if he was working all the hours God sent. If he wanted Emma, then he had to change his working habits, simple as that. And if he wanted that place on the major crime team, with the chance of promotion, he'd have to give up the idea of regular access to Emma. There was no contest.

His phone rang. He was surprised to hear Charlotte's voice.

'Is Barney there, Andy?'

'No. I thought he'd gone home.'

'He was here earlier. He left two hours ago. He promised he'd get back in time for Molly's dance concert, and he's not answering his mobile.'

Something evil crept into the office. Horton felt his stomach go into spasm. It was as if the air quivered with danger and that feeling of a thunderstorm approaching was back with a vengeance.

'Is anything wrong?'

He'd not spoken and yet Charlotte had sensed something in his silence.

'He's probably out on an interview,' he said, hoping the enforced lightness of his tone deceived her. He was eager to get her off the phone and start his enquiries about Cantelli, but she forestalled him.

'Barney seemed very excited about something. He was in the attic looking out his old notebooks; you know, the unofficial ones a lot of police officers keep.'