‘I might still do that,’ I said evenly.
Gus sat up surprised. ‘Why?’
‘For three million pounds. I’ll go ahead just as we planned. I’ll fly with him to Zurich on Monday. He calls Vanessa when we get there, I speak to her and then you call me to say that they’ve been released. Rowde will believe it. I’ll get the money and then I’ll kill Rowde.’
‘How?’
‘Do you really want to know?’ There was a silence. After a moment I continued. ‘Prison teaches you all sorts of tricks, including how to kill a man. I’ll do it on one condition. I get to keep the three million. I deserve some kind of compensation. I think I’ve more than earned it, don’t you?’
‘And you’ll go away and stay away.’
I nodded.
‘You won’t have any further claim on Vanessa or your sons?’
‘No. If my sons decide to come looking for me when they’re older then that’s up to them, though I doubt they’ll find me. Look, Gus, I’m tired. I’ve got nothing to keep me here. This way I can start a new life for myself, away from here and all my memories. You’ve got what you want, Vanessa and a family, and I’ve got some kind of compensation for what I’ve suffered, and a chance to start afresh without psychos like Rowde on my back.’
Gus scrutinised me for a moment thinking over my words. ‘OK, it’s a deal.’
‘Right, tell me how and where I can find the money.’ I saw him hesitate. ‘I’ve got to know, Gus, otherwise I’ll call the police and tell them everything. They’ll start an investigation…’
‘It’s in a Swiss numbered account in the Zurich International Bank. I’ll need to call them and tell them you’re coming. I’ll authorise them to hand the money over to you.’
‘I’ll be travelling on a false passport. I’ll call you and give you the details as soon as I get them from Rowde, OK?’
Gus nodded.
‘Let me have the number now, Gus.’
He hesitated, shrugged and then took a business card from his wallet and wrote twelve numbers on it. I recognised part of it (even though it was jumbled up) as Vanessa’s birth date.
‘How do I know this is the real number and not a fake?’
‘How do I know you’ll kill Rowde and stay away from Vanessa and the boys?’
I nodded. ‘OK.’
‘Are you sure you can handle Rowde?’
‘Yes.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll need to make some arrangements.’
As soon as he’d gone I stuffed a pillow in my bed and stepped onto the aft deck, closing the patio doors behind me. I had to keep alert, but I was exhausted both mentally and physically. I snatched a glance at my watch: it was almost 5.30am. The night was moonless and pitch dark.
I shivered in the wind and rain, thinking that at least the cold would prevent me from falling asleep, and I didn’t think I would have long to wait, correctly as it turned out. A noise alerted me. I crouched down out of sight. A shadowy figure was moving around inside the lounge, and then disappeared from my view. After a moment I heard it step off the houseboat and I dropped down onto the shore and ran after it along the Embankment. I reached him just as he was about to climb into a car.
‘Good try, Gus, but I’m still alive.’ He spun round. The hood slipped from his head.
‘But not for long.’
He swung the petrol can. I saw it coming and dodged out of the way. I reached out and grabbed him around the legs. He fell down thrashing about. I lifted his head and bashed it against the hard earth, then I balled my fist and smashed it into his face, once, twice.
‘And this one’s for my mother.’ I hit him again.
‘And for Ruby.’
Then four men in dark clothes appeared from nowhere. Two were pulling me off and restraining me. I tried to shake them off. It took a command from Crowder before they released me.
‘Call an ambulance,’ Crowder addressed his sergeant, ‘And get an officer to accompany Mr Newberry to St Mary’s Hospital.’
Crowder’s eyes travelled beyond me and his mobile was pressed to his ear.
I turned knowing what I would see. Flames were licking out of the houseboat.
‘Don’t worry, Alex. We got your conversation with Mr Newberry. Have you got the code to the Swiss bank account?’
I handed over the card Gus had given me. ‘It’s the correct number only Gus didn’t expect me to live long enough to collect the money.’
‘This money of your grandfather’s – any idea of the code?’
‘No.’ So the brooches hadn’t been discovered on Miles’s body.
‘Don’t you think it should go back to those who it belongs to?’
I did but finding who that was, was a whole new ballgame. ‘Maybe one day it will,’ I said, thinking of those birth dates.
‘Do you want a lift anywhere?’
‘No.’
I watched Crowder and the ambulance drive away. Vanessa was going to get a shock. I hoped the boys would be all right and weather it though.
Maybe they could stay with me for a while, but where, I thought, walking slowly back to my burning houseboat. The fire fighters were doing a good job, but I didn’t think there would be much left.
The commotion had attracted my neighbour.
Scarlett was standing in the roadside opposite, staring anxiously at the burning spectacle. I hoped the police had told her there was no one inside. Maybe she wouldn’t care if I was after what I had done to her mother. But the relief on her face as she swung round and saw me lifted my heart and filled me with hope. After all the deceptions I wondered if I could trust again, but with Scarlett I knew that what you saw was what you got.
‘Well you might have told me that you were OK,’ she cried, exasperated. She was as dishevelled as always, wearing her long green raincoat over a T-shirt and shorts with her big boots on her feet, but her hair was brown and all one colour. I wondered if that augured well.
‘I’m sorry about Ruby. I tried to save her.’
Sadness touched her face. ‘I know, and nearly got yourself killed in the process. The lifeboat men told me. It wasn’t your fault, Alex. She’s at peace now.’
Relief overwhelmed me. She didn’t blame me.
She stretched out a hand and I clasped it tightly.
We stood for a moment in silence staring at the smouldering ruin of my houseboat. The fire fighters were dampening it down now. The wind had eased back and it had stopped raining. Slowly the day was coming alive. Scarlett shivered and I drew my arm around her.
‘You’ll want somewhere to stay,’ she said.
‘Are you offering?’
‘Only if you don’t mind a bit of mess and can make a mean cup of tea.’
I smiled. ‘Try me.’
‘No time like the present.’
We crossed the road but before we stepped onto her houseboat she turned to face me.
‘Is it over now, Alex?’ she said, quietly.
I looked across at what was left of my houseboat then back into her sad brown eyes. I thought of everything that had happened to me and what was still to come: Gus’s trial and Vanessa’s anguish. But the burden of proving my innocence had lifted from my shoulders, and the hard knot of anger and revenge inside me had vanished.
‘Yes, Scarlett,’ I replied, steadily. ‘It’s over.’
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
TIDE OF
DEATH
A MARINE MYSTERY FEATURING
DI ANDY HORTON
AND BARNEY CANTELLI
It is DI Andy Horton’s second day back in Portsmouth CID after being suspended for eight months. Whilst out running in the early morning he trips over the naked battered body of a man on the beach. PC Evans has been stabbed the night before, the DCI is up before a promotion board and Sergeant Cantelli is having trouble with his fifteen-year-old daughter. But Horton’s mind is on other things not least of which is trying to prove his innocence after being accused of rape.
Beset by personal p
roblems and aided by Cantelli, Horton sets out to find a killer who will stop at nothing to cover his tracks. As he gets closer to the truth, he risks not only his career but also his life…
‘Be prepared to be taken aback!’
ISBN 0955098203 Paperback £6.99
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
IN COLD
DAYLIGHT
A GRIPPING
MARINE MYSTERY
Fire fighter Jack Bartholomew dies whilst trying to put out a fire in a derelict building. Was it an accident or arson? Marine artist Adam Greene doesn’t know, only that he has lost his closest friend. He attends the funeral ready to mourn his friend only to find that another funeral intrudes upon his thoughts and one he’s tried hard to forget for the last fifteen years. But before he has time to digest this, or discover the identity of the stranger stalking him, Jack’s house is ransacked.
Unaware of the risks he is running, Adam soon finds himself caught up in a mysterious and dangerous web of deceit. By exposing a secret that has lain dormant for years Adam is forced to face his own dark secrets and, as the facts reveal themselves, the prospects for his survival look bleak. But Adam knows there is no turning back; he has to get to the truth no matter what the cost, even if it means his life.
‘Plenty of twists and turns. A thoroughly enjoyable read.’
ISBN 0955098211 Paperback £6.99
Coming soon:
Deadly Harbour
– An Andy Horton Marine Mystery
www.rowmark.co.uk
Document Outline
About the Author
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
In for the Kill Page 20