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was a first time for everything.
    He rammed his hands in his pockets and stamped his wet feet to get them warm, wondering if the unit he’d asked Sergeant Warren to despatch to the cemetery to search for Rookley had found him. Perhaps they’d not even gone; Warren’s diatribe on the shortage of manpower didn’t exactly inspire Horton with hope. If Rookley wasn’t located, and if he didn’t show tonight, then Horton would have him picked up tomorrow.
    ‘There’s nothing of any significance here, Inspector.’ Taylor’s nasal tones broke through Horton’s thoughts. The photographer nodded to indicate he’d got the images he needed, which was just as well as the sea, swollen by the naval ship’s progress, washed up against the body. Horton addressed PC Johns, ‘Tell the undertakers they can remove the body.’
    Johns didn’t need telling twice. The bedraggled PC hurried back to the shore while Horton stayed to watch the rotting corpse being scraped off the mud and lifted into a body bag before being placed on the trolley and wheeled away. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. He examined the area where the corpse had lain. There was nothing but mud. Leaving Taylor and his team to collect further samples, he was relieved and thankful to return to the car where he squelched into the passenger seat and called Dr Gaye Clayton. He got her voice mail, so left a brief message telling her the body was on its way and he’d appreciate an ID as soon as possible.
    Horton then called Sergeant Warren. The one unit he had been able to spare to search the cemetery reported no sign of Rookley. ‘It’s a big place, Inspector. How long do you expect me to keep them there?’ Horton could hear the complaint in Warren’s dour Scottish tones.
    ‘You can call it off,’ Horton said briefly and rang off before having to suffer Warren’s phoney gratitude. Seeing that Cantelli was still deep in conversation with Mr Hackett, huddled under the protection of the hut doorway, Horton punched in a number on his mobile phone and a few minutes later had arranged for a survey on the boat he had viewed late yesterday afternoon and was hoping to buy. He then called the owner, Mrs Trotman, to tell her, but there was no reply and no answer machine. He’d try later.
    Reaching into his pocket, he unfurled the paper containing the symbol scratched on his Harley and studied it closely, but it still looked like a series of random squiggles. It had been carved almost certainly by a penknife, which would have taken some time to execute. Was it the act of a mindless moron who got his kicks from vandalizing other people’s property – a drunken yob, maybe, staggering home? But there were no pubs or clubs en route to or from the marina, except the restaurant at the marina itself, and Horton could hardly see its upmarket clientele doing something so destructive and malicious. Still, it might be worth asking the owner about his customers last night. Though when he’d be able to do so was another matter entirely. And the marina CCTV hadn’t picked up anything. He doubted the CCTV cameras on the seafront would either, even if he did have the time to view them, which seemed increasingly unlikely as the day was unfolding. And that brought him back to the body.
    If it wasn’t Luke Felton, then who was it and how had he died? Were they looking at a suspicious death, suicide or an accident? Was there a family somewhere who would need to be given the bad news?
    Cantelli climbed in the car. ‘Hackett didn’t have anything to add to what we already know from Seaton, and Walters says no one’s reported a missing person in the last seventy-five hours, or in fact over the last four days. He also says that neither Luke Felton nor anyone fitting his description has been taken to the local hospitals. I’ve got the addresses of Luke’s brother, Ashley Felton, and his sister, Olivia Danbury. Do you want to call on them now? Ashley Felton lives not far away in Old