There seemed little more he could do for Thea. But there had to be. Even if she had killed her brother and Anmore he still felt he should do something to help her.
It was late. He was tired. He took a shower and lay down on his bunk. Tomorrow he'd have to return to Portsmouth. Best to put the case and Thea Carlsson out of his mind. He had a divorce to get through and a daughter to save from a boarding school, which only made him think of Thea again.
He went over the facts of the case. Owen had last been seen by Evelyn Mackie crossing the chain ferry on the Saturday before his disappearance. But no one else had seen him either then or since that time. Was Mrs Mackie telling the truth, or had she said that to throw them off the scent? Perhaps Owen had been nowhere near the ferry. Perhaps he'd gone somewhere else that morning. But why would Evelyn Mackie want to lie?
Then she'd been in the hospital the morning Thea had disappeared. Evelyn Mackie knew that Gordon Elms was collecting Mr Westleigh to visit his sick wife, and she also knew about the telephone call. But why would she want Thea out of the way and Owen and Jonathan Anmore dead? No, he was running up a blind alley with that one. The nurse, when Trueman spoke to her, could confirm the telephone call. Horton knew it hadn't been Peter Bohman because he'd called him earlier, despite the late hour.
Then there was Bella Westbury. They knew what she had been doing on the island and why, although they didn't know all the facts of the case. Owen could have discovered this and been killed to silence him, ditto Jonathan Anmore. Bella had disappeared. She certainly wasn't crossed off Horton's list yet.
And Danesbrook? They knew he had been out to get money from Sir Christopher Sutton while he was alive, and that he could have killed Arina Sutton so that he could inherit through his charity. His only alibi for when Arina was killed was Bella Westbury. Yes, Danesbrook was definitely still in the frame.
Thea had visited the library to check the press cuttings of her parents' accident and to get Gordon Elms' address, which led Horton to thoughts of ghosts and Scanaford House. Gordon Elms was Sir Christopher's illegitimate son, but not his sister's killer. And neither was he Owen and Jonathan's murderer. Sir Christopher's affair didn't explain what he was doing during that missing year, only why he'd been sent away. Horton doubted if they'd ever discover where. Was that the key to all these deaths? Then there was the 'girl' Thea had mentioned . . .
However much he considered matters he wasn't going to get the answers. Not now. Not ever. On or around the high tide tomorrow, at one o'clock, he would sail out of the harbour and head for home, returning later to the island to collect the Harley, and be at his desk bright and early Wednesday morning.
Was Birch right? Was Thea their killer? Perhaps she hadn't planned to kill her brother. Maybe she'd just lost control. But the gun made that impossible. That stuff about being told by some psychic power where she would find her brother was rubbish. For a moment he wanted to believe that she might have killed Owen in a trance or some kind of blackout, except that Owen Carlsson had been dead for some days. How long, Dr Clayton had said was difficult to diagnose because of the weather conditions and where the body might have been kept, but there was no disputing that Carlsson had been killed some days earlier and his body taken to the Duver and deposited in the sand. And Anmore had to be her accomplice. Anmore was the person who had searched his boat, and Anmore had tried to kill Thea because Thea said she was going to tell the police what she'd done.
So it was over, he thought wearily. Birch was right. He wished he'd never come here. He told himself that his memory of her would fade over time. But he would never forget her expression as she'd spun round to face him, nor the look she'd given him before she went to the police station. Neither would he forget her stricken expression during the fire and the feel of her slender body in his arms as he'd thrown her from the window.
He closed his eyes, hoping to sleep. Eventually, when it came, he dreamt of her.
TWENTY-FOUR
Tuesday
Charlie Anmore looked tired and very old. He hadn't shaved and he was wearing a red and cream striped pyjama top under a frayed and grubby rust-brown cardigan. Horton felt sorry for troubling him but one thing had surfaced in his mind after a restless and lustful sleep and that was the fact that Bella Westbury had called on Charlie Anmore. Why? Was it just to offer her condolences as she'd claimed? He doubted it. Not with her history. And once the question had formed, Horton knew he couldn't ignore it. It nagged and gnawed at him as he went for a run early that morning. It niggled at him as he ate his breakfast, and it burrowed and chewed at him as he made his boat ready for sailing. Had Charlie been gardener to Sir Christopher Sutton at Scanaford House in 1990 when Helen might have taken a photograph there? Was that what Bella Westbury had wanted to find out? Had she been trying to establish if Charlie Anmore had made the connection between Helen Carlsson and the secret that Sir Christopher Sutton harboured? Horton had to know before heading for home.
Charlie Anmore's eyes lit up for a moment when Horton introduced himself; obviously he'd been hoping he had brought him news about his son's killer. Horton shook his head and said gently, 'I'm sorry, Mr Anmore.'
'Aye, so am I, son. I doubt you'll get who did it anyway.' He waved Horton into a seat in the small living room which smelt of sorrow and whisky.
Horton felt saddened that Charlie had so little faith in the police. He said nothing about DCI Birch believing he knew who the killer was. He began. 'When Bella Westbury came to visit you what did you talk about?'
'This and that, how the island's changed since Jonathan was a boy, that sort of thing.'
Horton felt disappointed. So it was Jonathan's childhood days in the seventies that Somerfield had meant by 'the old days'.
'She didn't ask you about 1990 when you were the gardener at Scanaford House?' probed Horton.
Charlie looked surprised. 'No. I was never a gardener there. That was Jonty's client.'
So that was it. Horton's final attempt at trying to find the reason for Owen's death had fallen flat. He'd listen politely for a while then make his way home. There was nothing more he could do and, though he felt frustrated, he saw that he had no option.
Charlie continued. 'Bella and I talked about all the building that's going on. They call it progress but it doesn't look much like it to me.'
Horton nodded sympathetically while steeling himself for a diatribe on the planning authorities. Then he wondered why Bella Westbury would want to talk about building. But of course she was on the environmental bandwagon . . . only she wasn't. That was all a sham. Part of her cover. So if she wanted to talk to Charlie about building, he damn well wanted to as well.
'Any building works in particular?' he asked politely.
'Just here and there, though we did chat about the site of the old mental hospital. I said I wouldn't fancy living there myself, too many ghosts.'
And there was that word again – ghosts – only this time coupled with another word that made him think of Danesbrook and his charity, and Sir Christopher Sutton and his specialism: mental hospital . . . neuropsychiatry. Horton felt a quickening in his pulse.
'Ghosts?' he prompted.
'Aye. Poor souls. Beautiful grounds though,' Charlie said wistfully. 'I was a gardener at the old asylum in the 1950s and 1960s.'
Horton was even more interested now. He nodded encouragement at Charlie, who didn't need
much; Horton could tell his mind was back in the past in probably happier times.
'Most of the patients were harmless. You'd see some of them in the gardens with a nurse. Others were locked away in the main house. We had our own lodge in the gardens, me and Dickie Jones along with Harry Makepeace; he were the boss. We kept our tools there, and made our tea and ate our dinner. They're both dead now.'
'And you chatted about this to Bella?'
'Oh, yes. She was very interested. Probably only being polite.'
I doubt it, thought Horton. And he knew why Bella had been so interested. Calmly, though his
pulse raced with excitement, he said, 'Did you know any of the doctors there?'
Charlie eyed him as if he were mad. 'Gawd, no! They wouldn't talk to the likes of us or us to them. Things were very different in those days, not like now where everyone says we're all on one level, but we aren't. Maybe it was different for Jonty.' A cloud crossed his face. 'I left Whitefields in 1969, worked for the council as a gardener for fifteen years and then started my own little business in 1984 before Jonty took it over.'
But Horton had stopped listening after Charlie had said 'Whitefields'. A dark, intimidating painting of a big house flashed before his eyes and Gordon Elms' words sprang to mind. They had a summer fête in the grounds. Whitefields it was called. They pulled it down in 1986 and built new houses on it. And Gordon Elms and his mother had visited there in 1981, the year after Sir Christopher's wife had died. Gordon had bought the painting because it reminded him of his mother being happy. And Horton would stake his last penny that Sir Christopher Sutton had worked at Whitefields at some stage in his career as a neuropsychiatric consultant. He'd need to check with Trueman, but Horton was convinced it hadn't shown up on Sutton's employment records. Of course, Sutton could have spent a short spell there, which didn't warrant recording, but Horton didn't think so. His money was on 1959.
'Was there ever any hint of anything not quite right happening at Whitefields?'
'Like what?'
Horton had no idea, but something the Intelligence Service didn't want exposed. He shrugged.
Charlie said, 'I wouldn't know if there was. I just worked in the gardens. Funny you should mention that though because Bella asked me if Jonty and I had ever heard rumours about the place. I said only that it were supposed to have been haunted.'
That clinched it for Horton. Sutton had been there all right, and Horton wouldn't mind betting doing something with those poor inmates that the government and medical council desperately wanted to keep quiet, such as experimenting with new and potentially dangerous drugs. If he recalled correctly, and from what Trueman had said earlier, this was at the height of the Cold War, when anything was possible. And, if he was right, Bella and her paymasters, whoever they were, would be very eager to keep any such confession from Sutton's dying lips, and from the public gaze. Eager enough to kill for? He reckoned so.
Charlie said, 'It was pulled down in 1991 and Cawley's began building all those houses on the land a year later––'
'Hold on,' Horton said. 'I thought the houses had been built on it in 1986.' Surely that was what Gordon Elms had said.
But Charlie was shaking his head. 'No. It was closed in 1986 but they didn't get round to pulling it down until 1991, and building on it a year later. The big house was rather grand, but it weren't listed. There were a lot of people who wanted to save it, but that didn't count for much in the end. Who would want to live in a flat converted from an insane asylum? Can't say I blame them, all those ghosts.'
Which brought Horton right back to Helen Carlsson. Could Helen have visited Whitefields because of the stories about ghosts? It was possible given the fact that Bohman had told him she had 'the gift'.
Horton talked to Charlie a little longer out of politeness, but was impatient to get away. When he did, ten minutes later, he immediately called Cantelli.
'Can you talk?'
'I'm in the canteen.'
'How's Uckfield?' Horton asked.
'Fuming and supposedly resting in his hotel bedroom where I left him last night. He's been on the telephone to Trueman half a dozen times this morning and me about the same.'
'What's Birch doing?'
'Still trying to find a past connection between Thea and Jonathan Anmore. He's matching their employment and medical histories, looking for a link. Nothing so far but he's not that concerned as he claims they must have met up when Thea was over here at New Year. Trueman spoke to the nurse, Vanessa Tupper, in Tenerife this morning. It's not good news, Andy. The call Thea received in the hospital was from Jonathan Anmore.'
Horton swore softly.
'It looks as though she could have gone to meet him in Yarmouth. Birch thinks she returned with him to his barn where she killed him, and then made off on foot. She doesn't drive, remember.'
'Bloody convenient that Gordon Elms happened to be driving to Yarmouth then,' Horton said cynically.
'Birch reckons she must have overheard Elms saying he was collecting Mr Westleigh from Yarmouth and that was why she said she'd meet Anmore there.'
'He's got an answer for everything,' Horton quipped.
'There's something else, Andy.'
Horton braced himself for more bad news. His heart felt like lead.
'DCI Birch is so certain Thea killed her brother and Anmore that we're not looking for anyone else. He's making a press statement later this morning. I'm taking Uckfield home later this afternoon, very much against his will, may I add, along with Somerfield and Trueman. Chief's orders. Marsden's staying behind to help Birch. Sorry, Andy. The evidence is beginning to look overwhelming.'
It was and Horton didn't like it one bit. Birch might be winding down the case but Horton still had a few hours left to follow up the lead Charlie Anmore had given him. And he was damn well going to.
'There's something I need you to do for me, Barney, and without Birch shoving his oar in.' Horton quickly told him about his interview with Charlie Anmore. 'Check Sir Christopher's employment record, see if you can find any note of him ever having worked at Whitefields. Call Dr Nelson and ask him about the place. Did Sutton ever mention it? If Nelson's involved with Bella, and whoever she's working for, then you might have the funny buggers come down on you after speaking to him. Ask Dr Clayton if she can find out anything through her contacts. I'm heading for the library.' It would be quicker than returning to his boat and using his laptop, and he would also have access to other information like press cuttings or reference books that might give him some idea what all this meant.
In Newport library, Horton logged on to the computer and trawled the Internet for references to Whitefields. Soon he was reading how the mental hospital had been built on farm land during the 1890s as the Isle of Wight's first County Asylum and officially opened on 13th July 1896 with the first patients transferred from the mainland a few days later. By the 1980s the hospital was outdated and ill-equipped for modern needs so it was gradually shut down until, as Gordon Elms had said, it had closed in 1986. After that it had lain derelict until Cawley Developments had purchased the land from the National Health Service Trust in 1990.
Horton read about the ghosts that were supposed to have haunted the hospital, which made him wonder why Elms had never mentioned them. And then he came across some other more unusual websites where people had posted their photographs of derelict buildings, including Whitefields before it had been demolished. As he viewed the sad pictures of the deserted ablutions rooms, broken-back doors hanging off their hinges, rotting balustrades and iron beds in tiny cells, he shivered. Words flitted through his mind. Ghosts . . . Sutton . . . Whitefields . . . photographs . . .
He sat back and stared at the screen. Sutton would have been long gone from Whitefields by 1990 when Helen might have shown up there to take her photographs, if he had worked there in the first place. Had Helen Carlsson stumbled on some old documentary evidence, if she'd been photographing the place? Given her interest in ghosts and photography maybe she had.
Judging by the pictures on the Internet it had certainly been a splendid building. But why would someone have killed her and her husband because of that? And who was this girl Thea had mentioned? Had Helen Carlsson met a girl in the derelict building who had told her about Sutton's work there? But no, the girl wouldn't have been a girl in 1990 if she'd known Sutton; she'd have been well into her sixties, unless she was a ghost . . . He smiled at the stupidity of that theory. This seemed to be getting him nowhere. He needed air and space. He needed to think. He stepped outside. His phone rang. He hoped it was Cantelli but it was Uckfield.
'Where t
he bloody hell are you?' But before Horton had a chance to answer, Uckfield went on, 'What's Birch doing to cock up my case?'
'No idea. I'm not working on it any more.'
Uckfield scoffed. 'That's never stopped you before.'
Horton told him what he'd discussed with Cantelli and his conversation with Charlie Anmore. He also told him his theory that Helen Carlsson might have been photographing the derelict Whitefields.
'And where does that get us?' Uckfield growled.
Precisely, thought Horton. But it had to mean something. He heaved a sigh of relief as Uckfield rang off and tried to get back to his thoughts about Helen and her photographs. What had cost her her life and the lives of the others?
Blood on the Sand Page 24