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Brundall had cancer.
    Uckfield had mobilized the troops quicker than Horton had believed physically possible. But when you’re wining and dining with the chief constable anything was feasible, like his secondment to the major crime team, which Bliss had told him about that morning through gritted teeth. She said that Walters had called in sick (probably suffering from a hangover or an excess of sexual activity) and that Cantelli was to run the CID
    office. But Bliss had added that she still expected Horton to oversee it, handle his paperwork, and make sure the mugging case was properly investigated. Some secondment, he thought cynically. Perhaps he should have eaten spinach for breakfast!
    Uckfield’s office blinds were shut, which meant he was either in conference or having a nap after a boozy late night, and Horton guessed it was the former.
    ‘Brundall’s GP has confirmed he had cancer,’ Trueman said.
    ‘It was at a very advanced stage. Inspector Guilbert called the doctor early this morning and rang through the information five minutes ago. Guilbert’s applying for Brundall’s full medical details but it looks as though he’s our victim.’
    Horton reckoned so. He picked up a printed photograph on Sergeant Trueman’s desk. It showed a small gathering of people on board a large luxury yacht.
    ‘That’s Tom Brundall in 1996,’ Trueman added over his shoulder whilst scrawling the information on the GP’s confirmation of cancer on the crime board.

    ‘Which one?’
    ‘Him.’ Trueman pointed to a slim man, in his mid fifties with an angular face and light brown hair. He seemed surprised– or even startled – at having his picture taken. Horton got the impression he wasn’t too pleased about it either. He felt a brief frisson of excitement as if there was something important in what he’d just seen. Had he recognized Brundall? He didn’t think so. It must be something else, but try as he might he couldn’t think what it was. It had gone.
    Brundall was dressed in light-coloured trousers and an open-neck checked shirt. Beside him, reclining on the sunlounger, was a casually but well-dressed man in his mid thirties with fair hair, sunglasses on his head and a glass of champagne in his hand, smiling into camera. The other people in the photograph were behind them and slightly out of focus. Horton tried to banish the memory of the shrivelled blackened corpse on the pontoon and replace it with this one of Brundall. He thought Brundall looked a fairly innocuous sort of man, instantly forgettable, the kind you might expect to meet in a bank or an accountant’s office.
    Trueman continued. ‘It’s the only photograph that the Guernsey police can find of him. They got it from the local newspaper archives, along with this cutting.’
    Horton took the piece of paper on to which the press cutting had been scanned and then e-mailed from Guernsey. ‘Top banker claims times are good,’ said the headline and they certainly looked it, if the size of that boat was anything to go by. It must have cost at least a million back in 1996.
    He read the article with the practised skill of a thousand-words-a-minute man. The banker referred to wasn’t Brundall, but the head of a private Guernsey bank, a man called Russell Newton who was entertaining guests aboard his yacht, including financier Tom Brundall. So that’s what the dead man had done for a living. Was Newton the man on the sunlounger? Horton guessed so.
    ‘Harrison is ageing the photograph to bring it up to date,’
    Trueman informed him. ‘You know, colouring the hair grey and adding a few lines to fit the description the marina staff gave you. I should have copies in half an hour.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Glad someone appreciates it.’ Trueman jerked his head in the direction of Superintendent Uckfield’s office. ‘He’s like a bear with a sore arse.’
    ‘Don’t you mean head?’
    ‘And that judging by the amount of black coffee the super’s putting away.