to a third party. The boat was normally crewed by two people. The other is a man called Walter Hurrell. Like Hodgson, he’s ex-Navy. However I wouldn’t waste time exploring whether he was part of the theft. If it had been a joint operation between the two of them, there would have been no need for the pics.’
‘Couldn’t the third party still have been involved?’
’No need: three would have been a crowd in the theft. Hurrell wasn’t a party to it; trust me on that. But,’ I added, ‘if I was investigating I would like very much to know whether Mr Hurrell has been to a DIY store lately to purchase a blowlamp.’
‘You think . . .’
‘The man isn’t only ex-Navy, Inspector,’ I told her. ‘He was Special Forces. My investigation would focus very strongly on him; I’d be looking for his DNA and fingerprints. If they weren’t taken for elimination purposes at the time of the Princess Alison theft, then Bridie Gorman’s boyfriend really plumbed the depths of incompetence in his investigation. I’d be finding them and looking for them to show up in Hodgson’s cottage.’
‘Couldn’t he have been there anyway, if they were crew colleagues?’ Lottie suggested.
‘It’s possible,’ I conceded, ‘but if they were concentrated in the vicinity of the body, that would be significant.’
‘Would you be hauling him in for interview?’ she asked.
‘First I’d try to establish his whereabouts at the time of Hodgson’s killing, and at the time of the break-in to his house. In his day job Hurrell is Eden Higgins’ minder; if he was off with the boss and can prove it on either or both of those dates, it’s an abortive line of inquiry. If he wasn’t, I might be having a chat with him, and trying to persuade a sheriff to give me a search warrant for his house to look for the laptop and other stolen items.’
‘Hold on, sir,’ the DI said. ‘If he’s close to Higgins, could he be involved?’
‘No,’ I replied, firmly. ‘Eden didn’t get to be a billionaire by being stupid enough to invite me to investigate a theft knowing that it might, that it would, lead me to other crimes in which he was involved.’
‘So why would Hurrell . . .’
‘I don’t know, and I’m not saying he did. I’m offering him to you as a suspect, that’s all. You might get lucky and find Hodgson’s ring in his house, but I doubt it. No,’ I concluded, ‘whoever did it, this is what I think happened. Hodgson was a suspect, because Hurrell wasn’t; that could make Hurrell the killer, but not necessarily. The first step that was taken was the theft of Hodgson’s laptop. Knowing what we do about his phone being clean says to me that the laptop didn’t give up anything either, so the killer went back and tortured him.’
‘Until he talked?’ Lottie asked.
‘Who can say?’ I replied. ‘But we haven’t found the boat yet, have we?’
‘You are sure his death is connected to the Princess Alison?’
‘Have you and Provan come up with anything else in the man’s life,’ I challenged her ‘that could have led to someone torturing him and then shooting him?’
‘No, nothing,’ she admitted. ‘He was an ordinary man with no bad habits.’
‘Other than involvement in a multimillion-pound theft,’ I pointed out. ‘There’s just one thing,’ I added. ‘My hunch, and please do take my hunches seriously, is that he talked before he died. In my experience, and I’ve seen a couple, one last year in fact, torture murderers don’t stop until they’ve got what they want, but once they have, then it’s goodnight. Hodgson only had one burned foot; that tells me he didn’t hold out long.’
‘So what can we expect to find, Mr Skinner?’
‘That I really don’t know.’
‘So we might find it and never realise,’ she suggested.
‘That’s possible,’ I admitted. ‘There’s only one other thing I’d do,’ I added, ‘if I was leading this hypothetical inquiry. I’d go through Hodgson’s credit card and bank card activity in the weeks before the theft of the Princess.’
‘Why?’
‘I’d be looking to place him somewhere unusual, somewhere that was away from the norm for him. Put him there and see what shows up in the vicinity.’
‘We’ll do that, sir. Can I come back to you if I need to?’ she asked.
‘Not without DCC McGuire’s express permission. I’ve got too much on my conscience already without a broken career adding to it.’
‘Not the chief’s consent?’ She’s shrewd, is Lottie.