Shroud of Evil by Pauline Rowson Page A

rubbish washed up but when I got closer I saw by its shape that it was a body. I went to investigate. I checked to see if the poor sod was alive, which was why I unwrapped part of it. I was gobsmacked when I saw who it was. I called you, Andy, and stayed here to make sure it wasn’t tampered with but nobody comes along this stretch; there are no public footpaths and the land around here is private.’
    But two people had been here yesterday: him and Wyndham Lomas. Horton said, ‘When was the last time you saw Jasper Kenton?’
    ‘Two weeks ago. He had a new client who wanted some close protection work.’
    ‘Have you spoken to him since?’
    But Danby shook his head. ‘No. I emailed him though, to say I’d spoken to the potential client and had given him a quote, which incidentally he accepted yesterday. I was going to tell Jasper on Monday.’ His words had taken them to the body.
    Horton stared down at it. All he could see was a crop of black hair and a grey face and dark wide sightless eyes but even with this limited view he recognized it was the man in the photograph that Eunice Swallows had given him. Jasper Kenton. There was no decomposition and no sea life feeding off the soft flesh of the lips and eyes. There was very little smell attached to the body, which meant that Kenton hadn’t been dead for long.
    The body was wrapped in what was clearly an old sail cloth, cream coloured and soiled, and was bound at the neck, chest, midriff and ankles by thin white dirty rope of the type used on boats called lines, usually used to secure a boat to a pontoon or attach to an anchor or fender.
    Horton confirmed identity, thinking that this time it would be the duty of the Wiltshire police to inform the next of kin – the sister that Eunice Swallows had told him about who lived in Marlborough and who hadn’t been in contact with her brother for some years. Perhaps she wouldn’t be too upset.
    Uckfield said, ‘Well it’s not suicide, because he couldn’t have wrapped himself up like a mummy. And it can’t be accidental death either, unless he was practising to be the next Houdini. Get some pictures, Clarke.’
    They stepped away from the body as Clarke began to photograph and video it. There wasn’t much that Taylor and Tremaine could do here, thought Horton, except take samples of the shingle and sand around the body in the hope that what they collected might show up on the killer’s clothes or belongings.
    Uckfield looked out to sea and then to his right. ‘Where does that go?’
    ‘To a creek,’ Danby answered. ‘There are woods either side of it. It thins out after about half a mile, giving on to a small field surrounded by trees. There’s no slipway or public access to it. Lord Eames owns the woods on both sides and the land at the top of the creek. I can’t see how anyone could have brought the body in that way. And at low tide it dries out to mud. You’d get well and truly stuck.’
    ‘And the other side of the pontoon?’ asked Horton, looking west.
    ‘A tree-lined shore with no public footpaths or access by sea. There are dense woods and the land and shore are owned by Lord Eames right around the coast until you come to the private beach and land belonging to Osborne House, the royal seaside palace where Queen Victoria often stayed with Prince Albert and their nine children.’
    ‘I don’t need the guided tour or a history lesson,’ grunted Uckfield.
    But it was probably the reason why the Eames family had purchased adjoining land years ago. Horton said, ‘Then it seems likely the body was brought in from the Solent by boat.’
    With a worried frown Danby said, ‘It could have been washed up on the high tide this morning just after or before two.’
    Horton knew Danby didn’t like the thought that Eames’ pontoon had been used by the killer. He’d rather the body had been washed up accidentally because that meant keeping Eames out of the equation. Horton favoured that himself, given his