He inched along the floor with his nose to the ground, spluttering and coughing. His eyes were smarting, his lungs screaming fit to burst. He could smell roasting flesh as the crackling fire devoured poor Anne Schofield. Where the bloody hell was this other door?
The room was filled with thick black smoke, which was hard to penetrate, but to the right of the cupboard a curtain was alight. It was the only place left. It had to conceal the door. As the flames licked around his ankles he leapt up and tore at it. The burning fabric fell on his back, and he thanked the Lord he was wearing his leathers. He'd found the bloody door. Please God don't let it be locked. He had to stand up to open it and fling it back before the black clawing smoke got to him. He had one chance and this was it.
He reached up, and scrabbled for the handle…where was it? His eyes were smarting, his lungs heaving…He had his fingers on it. He pushed against it and with an overwhelming sense of relief felt it open. Then he was through and slamming it behind him. He was stumbling, crawling and groping his way up a set of steps.
There wasn't any time to waste. Onwards he went until he was high enough to escape the choking black monster of smoke below. At last he came out to the right of the organ. Fumbling inside his jacket for his mobile phone, he prayed it wouldn't have melted in the heat. He punched in a number, hardly registering that his fingers were burnt, and found himself hoarsely and miraculously speaking to the emergency services.
Then he staggered on towards the far end of the gallery above the front door and collapsed on to the floor. His chest and throat were raw with pain, and his hand was stinging. When he coughed he brought up blackened phlegm and thought his ribs would be ripped apart. It seemed a lifetime until he heard the marvellous sound of the fire engines and saw the blue lights reflected in the windows. And in those minutes he saw a thousand times over the burning flesh of the once kind and gentle Anne Schofield and it sickened him.
But he was safe. He'd escaped, but for how long? He knew now that there had been no news about his mother. He had just assumed it. Anne Schofield had sounded distressed, not anxious, on the telephone because someone had forced her to make that call to him. She hadn't been the intended victim. He had. Quite clearly he had been lured here with one purpose in mind: to kill him. The killer hadn't succeeded, but he would try again. Next time Horton guessed he might not be so lucky.
Ten
Saturday: 9.30 A.M.
'Are you OK?'
'I've felt better.' Horton was touched by the worried expression clouding Cantelli's dark features. His throat felt as though he had been inhaling eighty cigarettes a day since he was fourteen, and a tight band of pain gripped his chest as if his ribs had been strapped up. His right hand was bandaged but his burns had been superficial. Apart from that, and being exhausted after a sleepless night, he was fine, and very glad to be alive.
'What the devil happened?' asked Cantelli.
It was the same question that Uckfield had put to him last night. Horton hadn't told him the truth and he couldn't tell Cantelli. Besides, he didn't know the truth. He had suspected that someone had lured him to his death and used Anne Schofield as bait but in the cold light of day he wasn't sure about that any more.
Sitting in his office with Cantelli the other side of his desk, Horton relayed what he'd told Uckfield and DCI Bliss: he'd called on Anne Schofield to get some background information on the relationship between Rowland Gilmore and his brother Sebastian, and had found her dead. He'd been trapped inside the building when Anne Schofield's killer had tried to destroy the evidence. Of course that didn't explain the phone call he'd received from her.
'Did the killer know you were in there?' Cantelli seemed to eye him a little suspiciously. Had he detected a lie? Had some minute gesture or inflection in his voice given him away? If anyone could read Horton then Cantelli was in with the best chance.
Horton coughed, unsure if he was stalling for time or if it was genuine, and then wished he hadn't because his chest went into a painful spasm. That would teach him to lie. He saw Cantelli frown with concern and managed to rasp, 'My Harley was parked in front of the church.'
'But why kill Anne Schofield? She's a newcomer to the area.'
Horton didn't like deceiving Cantelli, but consoled himself with the fact that the sergeant had enough on his plate at the moment with his father's illness. Croakily, Horton expounded another theory that had come to him whilst he had waited for medical attention last night at the hospital.
'Perhaps Brundall left an incriminating letter or document in the vestry when he went to see Rowland Gilmore. Or perhaps Rowland had a pang of conscience and wrote a confession which Anne Schofield discovered.' Horton held his breath, willing Cantelli to believe that. He didn't think he was far wrong anyway, only that he guessed the incriminating letter or confession had also mentioned his mother, and Horton couldn't be allowed to discover it. But why make Anne Schofield call him? Was the killer afraid that he'd already discovered something about his mother's past life?
Cantelli looked thoughtful as Horton continued. 'I'm certain now that Gilmore's death and Brundall's are connected. Dr Clayton is doing both Gilmore's and Anne Schofield's postmortems today.'
He reached for the bottle of water on his desk and took a long draught from it. It didn't seem to help his throat very much. He could have gone sick he supposed, but how could he let an investigation that might involve his mother proceed without his involvement?
'So are we looking at the same killer for all three deaths?' Cantelli asked.
'Four if you count Rowland Gilmore.' Horton exhaled and felt the pain in his chest. 'If Gilmore was murdered then the MO is very different to Brundall's, Sherbourne's and Anne Schofield's deaths. I think it possible that Brundall killed Rowland Gilmore before returning to his boat. Brundall was then killed, and his killer followed Sherbourne to Guernsey, and then returned here to murder Anne Schofield. Which means our killer is no longer in Guernsey.'
Horton had expressed exactly that opinion to Uckfield earlier that morning and Uckfield had agreed. He'd called for the passenger lists of all the flights from Guernsey to England on Friday to be checked. But that wasn't the only way to travel between England and the Channel Islands, as Horton had pointed out and now explained to Cantelli.
'Our killer could be using a boat to travel back and forth.'
Horton could see Cantelli following his train of thought. 'You mean if he keeps it in Horsea Marina then he'd know the security code to the pontoon and could easily have slipped on to Brundall's pontoon and killed him.'
'Yes, which means we'll have to check all the boat owners for any connection with Brundall. But it's not that straightforward.'
'That doesn't sound very simple to me,' muttered Cantelli.
'Our killer could keep his boat in Guernsey.' Horton sat forward. 'Let's say our pyromaniac follows Brundall from Guernsey but didn't moor up in Horsea Marina; I called the marina and they say no other visitor came in after Brundall either on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. So he must have moored nearby. He manages to get the security code for the pontoon, kills Brundall and then returns to Guernsey, by boat, but he arrives too late to stop Sherbourne from going into his office on Thursday morning. Our pyromaniac does, however, manage to catch up with Sherbourne as he leaves his office and follows him to his client's. He lies in wait for Sherbourne, abducts and kills him before dumping his body in his office and setting light to it before returning to Portsmouth by boat early Friday morning.' Horton took another swig at his water before continuing. 'Uckfield has asked Dennings to check if any boat owner left a marina in Guernsey at about the same time as Brundall and then returned late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, plus if that same person then left Guernsey yesterday. There's only one snag though with my theory.'