'Where?'
Yelford glanced at the file. 'Ridley Hall in Cambridge. He did very well, excelled at everything. As I said, he was very bright.'
'I understand his daughter was drowned. Can you tell me when?'
Yelford rearranged his features to look suitably sad. 'A tragic accident. I believe it was in 1980. It's not on the file. His wife died shortly afterwards.'
'Did he come here straight from being ordained?'
Yelford consulted the file again, though Horton got the impression he didn't need to, and that it was done either for effect or to stall for time.
'No. He was based in a number of areas: Bristol, Oxford, Ross-on-Wye. He returned to Portsmouth in 1995.'
Which fitted with what Kenneth Gutner had told him and that bloody article on Gilmore's desk. But Horton had picked up a new nugget of information.
'Returned?'
Yelford looked as though he'd been caught out committing a misdemeanour. He said stiffly, 'He was born in Portsmouth.'
Was he now? Like Brundall. And like Horton's mother. It was at least the beginnings of a connection. 'What did he do before he was ordained?'
'My file doesn't hold that kind of information, Inspector. I am sure the Dean would be only too pleased to help you, but he is a very busy man at this time of the year. I could make you an appointment to see him after Christmas; until then I hope I have given you sufficient information.'
Far from it, Horton thought, as Yelford closed the folder and stood up. Clearly he wanted Horton off the premises. 'Does the Reverend Gilmore have a next of kin?'
With a pointed sign, Yelford opened the folder and briefly consulted it. 'There's none mentioned in the file, but I do know that he had a brother: Sebastian Gilmore. He's been in touch with the Dean over the funeral arrangements.'
Then why hadn't the Reverend Gilmore named him?
'I'd like his address.'
Yelford looked surprised and then smug as he said, 'I would have thought the police would know Mr Sebastian Gilmore.'
The name rang a bell but Horton couldn't place it: villain or hero? He wondered. Yelford rose and turned to his window. 'Gilmore's fresh fish and frozen food,' he said, looking out.
Horton crossed to the window and looked down where Yelford was pointing. Of course! That Gilmore. Below and further to the right of Horton, he could see an office block and a large warehouse emblazoned with Gilmore's name. Horton also recalled the fresh fish market at the Town Camber and the fact that Brundall's father had been a fisherman. Was it just coincidence that the Reverend Gilmore's brother operated a fishing business? Somehow he doubted it.
He left the Diocesan offices carrying with him a nasty taste that Yelford had somehow managed to leave in his mouth. Once outside he called Dr Clayton to be told that she would be free in about an hour, so he left a message to say he would like to see her then for a few minutes.
Instead of rushing back to the station, Horton found himself heading in the opposite direction towards the Town Camber. He needed time to digest what Gutner and Yelford had told him.
It was only early afternoon but it felt much later. A leaden sky was making the short winter day even darker and more oppressive than usual. In two days it would be the shortest day of the year and in six days, Christmas morning. He'd volunteered for duty. Better that than moping on the boat being haunted by the ghosts of his Christmas past. Still before that there was Emma.
Turning right on to the Town Camber, Horton drew up on the quayside just past Gilmore's public fish market and in front of the Bridge Tavern. Switching off the engine he stared at the fishing boats and tugboats bobbing about in the basin. It was all so different from how he remembered it as a child. Then Lucas sail-makers would have been on his right, the old boat sheds had faced on to the Camber, one of which had still miraculously survived, and across the far side of the water there had been the ship-building engineering works instead of those new houses and apartments.
Suddenly, without warning, he was back here, as a child, sitting on the concrete quayside swinging his legs over the edge. It was summer. He was eating an ice-cream, which he now recalled his mother had bought from Cantelli's ice-cream van opposite the engineering works by the ancient harbour walls. There had always been, and still was in the summer months, a Cantelli ice-cream van there, and it was strange to think his link with the Cantellis went back so far, though he'd only met Barney through work. From that long-ago day he could hear the echoes of seagulls screaming overhead and smell the fish and seaweed mingling with the scent of beer.
With a racing heart he glanced behind him at the Bridge Tavern. It had hardly changed from the outside, but in his mind he saw his mother sitting on one of the wooden benches and beside her was a dark-haired man with a sharp-featured face. His mother looked upset; the man grabbed her arm, he leaned towards her talking earnestly.
Horton snatched his head away and stared at the fishing boats with an intense feeling of anger. They were the emotions he had experienced then, as a boy of what? Eight possibly. So why had he felt like that? Why hadn't he liked the man? What had he said to Horton, or his mother? Instead of being happy eating ice-cream on a bright sunny day Horton recollected only misery and loneliness.
After a moment he turned back to look at the pub again, trying to grab some more of the memory, but it had vanished. Had that man been the Reverend Gilmore? He wished he'd asked Anne Schofield or the slimy Yelford for a photograph of him now. Horton didn't think it was Tom Brundall but then he could be wrong. His child's mind could have exaggerated the man's countenance. But it probably had nothing to do with either Brundall or Gilmore, it could just have been one of his mother's boyfriends — he seemed to recall a few of them.
Jennifer Horton's boy's a copper. Why was this so noteworthy? What was the 'wrong' Gilmore had referred to and what did Brundall want to confess? Both men had mentioned Horton's occupation and that to his mind could only mean one thing: they had committed a crime, and they hadn't been discovered. Was it worth checking the computer for unsolved crimes? He doubted it when he didn't have any idea of the timescale. Also he had the feeling that this crime had probably gone unreported.
It began to rain so he started the Harley and headed out of Portsmouth towards the hospital on Portsdown Hill where he pulled up outside the mortuary. He found Gaye Clayton in her office and she beckoned him in with a weary smile.
'You look tired,' he said.
'It's a busy time of year for us and we've got a couple of people off sick.'
Horton sat down opposite her ancient battered desk and stretched out his long legs. 'I think I might be about to add to your burden.'
She raised her fair eyebrows. 'What is it this time — or should I say who?'
'Rowland Gilmore. He died on Wednesday evening, supposedly of a stroke.'
'I don't like the sound of this "supposedly".'
'And neither do I. I've just been talking to someone who witnessed his death, and before that the fact that Gilmore was seen talking to Tom Brundall before he was killed. I have a terrible feeling their deaths are connected and that Rowland Gilmore's might not be down to natural causes. I haven't checked the police report yet, but wondered what you could tell me. Did you do the PM?'
She was tapping into her computer before Horton had finished speaking. 'No. He's not on the system, so he must be in this pile.' She picked up a small stack of buff coloured folders and flicked through them. 'Ah, here he is. Rowland Gilmore, born the fifth of March, 1953.'
That confirmed the age Anne Schofield had given him, which made him young to be his father, though not impossible.
Gaye was saying, 'He was brought in at three minutes past seven on Wednesday night. He had all the symptoms of a stroke as far as the houseman was able to ascertain and from reports given to the ambulance man, he had trouble speaking and understanding, loss of balance and paralysis. He died at five minutes past seven.' She looked up. 'Didn't anyone come in with him?'