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referred to more derogatorily as the gnome on account of his diminished height and beaky nose. Horton thought the news of Bliss’s involvement wouldn’t exactly thrill Trueman. He didn’t need the hyperactive, overcritical DCI hovering over his shoulder and questioning his actions every other minute. But he’d bear it with the stoical silence that was his customary manner. Extra manpower would be drafted in and, depending on the outcome of the autopsy, it might mean that Cantelli and Walters’ weekend could be disrupted. Horton had no conscience about disturbing DC Walters but he did about taking Cantelli away from the bosom of his family.
    They waited until the coastguard had zipped Kenton into a body bag, by which time it had started raining and the police launch had returned from its reconnaissance of the shore and creek entrance. Elkins said they’d gone as far as they could up the creek but not to the top. ‘We’ll need the RIB for that,’ he reported. ‘And there’s no entrance we could see to the west of the pontoon.’ Taylor had mapped the crime scene and he, Tremaine and Clarke left on the launch for Portsmouth. Danby offered Uckfield and Horton a lift on his boat to Newport Quay, which Uckfield accepted with alacrity. Horton wasn’t complaining either. Despite it being a choppy journey it was better than having to hack their way through the undergrowth.
    Many times as they headed up the River Medina to the island’s capital town, Horton was tempted to tell Uckfield about his presence on that beach and about his chance meeting with the beachcomber, but he didn’t. He didn’t like the fact that he was withholding vital information. The thought made him tense. But he also didn’t care for the coincidence. He didn’t understand what was going on –
if
something was – and until he did he was going to keep silent. Kenton might still have been alive on Friday at midday, but if he had been then Lomas could have been looking over the location with a view to taking Kenton’s body there after killing him.
    They took their leave of Danby, with Uckfield promising to keep him informed, and climbed into the waiting police car. As they were driven the short distance to the mortuary the beachcomber’s words plagued Horton.
‘You never know what you might find washed up on the beach.’
He did now.

SIX
    ‘L ooks interesting,’ Gaye Clayton said. Dressed in her mortuary garb with a microphone headband placed under the cap covering her spiky auburn hair and the mouthpiece in front of her lips, which Horton knew was connected to a small recording machine in the pocket of her mortuary plastic gown, she eyed the corpse on the slab with a gleam in her green eyes.
    Looking up, she addressed them. ‘Are you staying for the autopsy?’
    Uckfield replied. ‘No, only until you unwrap him. We want to know how he was killed because I don’t think he crept in there and zipped himself up.’
    ‘Can’t see any zip,’ she replied, her freckled face peering at the body, ‘unless it’s last year’s model and it’s up the back.’
    Uckfield smiled facetiously.
    She nodded at the mortuary attendant, a sturdy, solemn man in his late fifties, who stepped forward with a digital camera and video. Uckfield tutted impatiently and shifted his bulk as the corpse was again photographed and videoed. Gaye Clayton was good, the best forensic pathologist Horton had come across, and she wouldn’t be hurried by Uckfield or anyone else.
    He studied Jasper Kenton’s lifeless pale face visible through the opening of the sail cloth, peering out like a man behind a curtain not wanting to be seen. It must have given Mike Danby quite a shock finding the body of someone he knew on one of his most prestigious client’s land. Not that he had displayed that when they’d met, though he’d sounded shaken enough on the phone. Danby was ex-job and would have been used to seeing bodies in worse states than this; he would have quickly engaged