At last Mrs Barton looked up from her computer screen. 'Not that I can see.'
'But she did come here,' Horton insisted. Had Morville lied? This time Horton didn't think so.
'I'll ask Reception.' She picked up her phone.
'Can you also ask if Eric Morville had an appointment, what time and did he keep it?'
Whilst she spoke to her receptionists, Horton chewed over what he had learnt. One thought kept returning to him: was Langley still involved with women? Had Dr Woodford been Langley's second caller and Langley's lover?
Mrs Barton replaced the receiver. 'Jessica Langley arrived just before surgery on Thursday morning at nine a.m. Dr Woodford had left instructions that she was to be shown through to her consulting rooms. Eric Morville is Dr Stainton's patient; he had an appointment Thursday morning, at half nine, which he kept.'
Horton rose. He had the information he needed. Then he paused. 'Just one thing more, can you tell me if Tom Edney was a patient?'
With a pointed sigh she fiddled about with her computer and after a moment she looked up and said, 'No.'
Horton thanked her and left. He had two more calls to make, which he did in the shelter of the surgery lobby. It wasn't very private with a stream of people coming in and out, but no one seemed interested in him; he guessed they were too preoccupied with their medical needs and the nerve-racking experience of visiting a doctor. Or was that just him who suffered from this phobia?
The first call was to the Queen's harbour master. No one in the office could remember if Swansong, Woodford's yacht, had radioed up to cross the small boat channel last Thursday, during the day. They didn't keep a record, there would be too many. And Cantelli had already discovered earlier that only a handful of fishing boats and the Isle of Wight ferry had used it at night.
Then he called Gaye Clayton.
'How well do you know Dr Woodford?'
'I've met her a few times at the sailing club.'
'Can you tell me what the initials MRCGP stand for?'
'Member of the Royal College of General Practitioners.'
'And MBBS?'
There was a moment's silence then, 'It stands for Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, awarded after a five year course of study involving two years' pure science and three years' clinical experience.'
'So whoever has this degree can carry out surgery?' He thought of the expert way Tom Edney's throat had been cut.
'It shows a satisfactory understanding of anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology, sociology, psychology, medical statistics, pathology, medicine, and yes, surgery, also obstetrics and gynaecology and psychiatry. A further year of supervised work must be undertaken before a doctor can be fully registered with the General Medical Council. What is it, Inspector? Why do you want to know?'
'I'll tell you later. Thanks.'
It was raining hard now. The wind beat against him as he weaved his way in and out of the heavy home time traffic on the M27 to the west of Portsmouth on his way to Gosport Marina. Had she already gone out sailing? He hoped not. He would call on Sergeant Elkins when he reached the marina. But the police launch wasn't in its usual place. Blast! He had been counting on Elkins' help. Horton phoned Cantelli. He wasn't in the station and his mobile was switched off. Had he already left for home? Horton left a message on Cantelli's mobile saying where he was, then switched off his own mobile. After showing his warrant card to the man behind the reception counter in the marina office, Horton got the location of Woodford's boat.
Horton ran down the pontoon. Driving slashes of rain beat against his face. He thought he was never going to get there but eventually he caught sight of its mast. Thank God, he wasn't too late.
He turned at right angles on to the pontoon that housed Swansong, a Legend 41. There was a light on below in the cabin. Glancing up at the mast he could see that the yacht had global positioning satellite, which would easily guide Woodford across the channel in the dark. And although she was an experienced sailor like him, perhaps she didn't like to chance going out in this storm and the likelihood of being run through by a container ship.
The boat opposite was uninhabited. The wind was howling through the rigging and the rain drumming on the pontoon. He was wet but he hardly noticed it. Across the harbour he could see the lights of Oyster Quays. He climbed quietly and nimbly on board, yet even then the boat rocked. It must have alerted Woodford, yet no one appeared on deck.
The hatch was open. There were no shadows to tell him if the boat was occupied. He stepped under the deep blue spray hood. Still no one hailed him or showed their head. With a racing heart, he descended into the cabin, climbing down the wooden steps rather awkwardly frontwards rather than backwards as was usual. He didn't want to be caught unawares. He'd only gone a couple of steps though when he saw that no one was going to catch him off his guard. Dr Woodford was there all right, but killing him looked to be the last thing on her mind.
Eighteen
She was sitting opposite him, the other side of the galley, on a cushioned bench, which ran in a U-shape around the table. Dressed in navy trousers and a red Mustoe crew jacket, which was zipped up to her chin as if she was cold, she gazed at him blankly.
Horton forced himself to relax though his heart was going like the clappers and the adrenalin was pumping fast. It didn't look as though he was in imminent danger of being attacked by her. Quite the opposite in fact, Woodford looked like a discouraged child, tired and defeated. A woman stricken by grief. The strain of what she had done was etched into every line of her face.
She lifted her head. It seemed to take a great effort. In a flat voice she said, 'You know, don't you?'
'That you killed Jessica Langley, yes.'
His words seemed to confuse her. She stared at him as if puzzled. Then as they finally sank in her eyes widened and she cried, 'No! How could I? I was in love with Jessica.'
So she was going to deny it, but for how long? He moved further into the luxurious and elegantly designed teak cabin that made his boat look like a shack on the sea. Now he was standing close to her, looking down on her as she sat. The door on his right, to the aft cabin, was slightly ajar.
'What happened?' he asked gently, treating her like a frightened child. One wrong word and she would clam up, or perhaps lash out and he didn't fancy any hypodermics filled with methadone being pumped into him. He should have called for back-up, but he hadn't so there it was. But she didn't look as if she had the energy to rise from her seat, let alone attack him. And he was strong and fit. In the silence he could hear the wind whistling and drumming through the halyards.
Finally, just when he thought he would have to prompt her, she said, 'Jess registered with me as a patient in May. At her first consultation we both knew there was something between us. It just happened. I couldn't help it and neither could she. I know it was unethical. It's never happened to me before. I'm a married woman and have been for nineteen years. But you can't plan these things. When you fall in love it's so overpowering you're helpless. Doesn't matter who it's with, even someone of the same gender. I would never have believed it of myself. She was so…so exhilarating. It was as if I was only living a half life before I met her.'
Horton saw the memory of her relationship shining in her eyes. He thought of poor little Michelle Egmont who had killed herself for Langley and now Dr Woodford had killed Tom Edney and Timothy Boston because of Langley. What a woman. When she was bad she was horrid.
'Does your husband know?' he said, keeping his tone conversational and non accusatory.
'He won't understand. He's a true alpha male and he has a reputation to uphold.'
Something stirred in Horton's brain. He scrabbled to retrieve it, but it remained as elusive as smoke.
'What happened the night Jessica died?' he asked. There was no need to bully this broken woman into a confession; she was ready to tell it all.
She glanced up at him with a sad and dazed expression. 'I telephoned her on Thursday evening just before
eight o'clock and told her I was on board my boat. I had taken it that afternoon to the Town Camber to be closer to her apartment…' Her voice faltered.
The Town Camber manager hadn't mentioned Woodford's boat when Walters had asked if any strangers had moored up. Horton said, 'They don't usually let you stay in the Town Camber for very long.'
'I know, but they're not so strict out of season. Anyway the manager is a patient of mine.'
Of course! That explained it. To the manager, Dr Woodford wasn't a stranger.
She continued. 'I was excited at seeing Jess again. We were going away for the weekend on Friday night, a whole weekend together, alone, but I couldn't wait. I had to see her on Thursday night.'
'Why not simply go to her apartment?'
'She didn't like me to. She said it was too dangerous for both of us; someone might see us together and recognize us. I'm a married woman and Jess is always worried someone will find out, Inspector.'
She spoke as if Langley was still alive. Horton felt some sympathy for her. No one would have thought twice about them being seen together, but Langley had sewn seeds of doubt in Teresa Woodford's mind. He guessed that the real reason Langley kept Woodford away was because she didn't want her stumbling across her other lover: Leo Ranson. Was there only the one? Horton wouldn't mind betting not.
She continued. 'We had just got ourselves a drink when I had a call out. I didn't have to go of course, since GPs are no longer on call these days, but a patient I was very fond of was being taken to hospital; his wife telephoned me. I don't give all my patients my mobile number but this one I did, and it had to ring that night.'
'So you left Jessica on your boat.' But was she alive or dead? According to Woodford, alive. Could he trust her to be telling the truth though? 'What time?' he asked sharply.
Woodford looked distracted for a moment before she pulled herself together and said, 'It was eight twenty. I glanced at my watch and said I won't be long. I didn't know then that I would never see her alive again.' She shuddered and buried her chin lower into her jacket as if cold.
If she was telling the truth then she had an alibi for the night Langley was killed, and she couldn't have taken the body to the mulberry. She couldn't have killed Jessica Langley before the call-out because Dr Clayton said that Langley's death had occurred between nine and eleven p.m. Was Dr Clayton mistaken? Was yet another of his theories about to go up in smoke? He felt the bitter blow of disappointment. He had been so convinced that Woodford was his murderer. He pulled himself together as Woodford continued.
'My patient died in the night. I got home just after four a.m. In the morning I heard on the radio about the death of a head teacher. I tried to ring Jess but there was no answer, and they told me at the school that she hadn't come in and the police were there. I began to get really worried so I went round to the mortuary-'
'On the pretext of checking things out for your patient who died.' Horton groaned inwardly. This had the ring of truth about it, and it could easily be checked.
She said, 'Gaye told me who it was. I couldn't believe it. I had to see her.'
She pushed her hands further into her pockets. She was shivering and near to collapse. He should call for a car, but he didn't want to break the flow of her statement, besides he knew that she wasn't going to retract it. Far from it, she seemed relieved to be able to talk to someone. The marine unit would be here soon anyway. But what the hell was he going to charge her with? He'd try another question. 'How did you get her to mulberry?'
'I didn't. That's what puzzled me at first before I discovered that her killer had used my boat to take her there.'
Her killer? Who the blazes was that? He was rapidly running out of ideas. But he had detected a change in her tone of voice. It was harsher and her eyes narrowed. Quickly picking up on it he said, 'You know who killed her?'
'Timothy Boston. He told me before I killed him.'
And there it was. She hadn't killed Langley, but she had taken revenge on her murderer. How did she arrive at the conclusion that Boston had killed her lover?
'I didn't know that on Friday,' she went on, her voice sharper. 'After I'd seen Jess in the mortuary I hurried to my boat. There was no blood and nothing had been disturbed. I thought then that Jess must have been attacked while walking back to her apartment. I should have told you that I had been with Jess the night she was killed, but I was worried what you might think. And there was my husband and his career to think of. So I kept silent. I brought my boat back here. Then I heard on the news that her body had been found on the mulberry and I guessed that my boat had been used to take her there. I checked the log and the mileage showed I was correct. I couldn't think who had done such a terrible thing and why, until I began to suspect that maybe my husband had found out about our affair. But I really couldn't see him in the role of killer. I didn't know what to do until I received the letter.'
Her hands came out of the pockets. She wrapped her arms around her body, hugging herself.
'Boston wrote to you?'
'He was going to blackmail me. In his letter he told me to meet him on his boat in Gosport Marina and bring one thousand pounds. If I didn't show then he would go to the police and tell them exactly what happened on the night Jessica died, and that he would ruin my career. I had no choice. Of course, I knew he wouldn't stop there; blackmailers never do, or so I understand. He was an arrogant man, Inspector. Full of his own self-importance and I was sick of men like him.'
Horton recalled Boston's stance when he'd asked Susan Pentlow for an interview: the man's over protectiveness and pompousness.
'Boston seemed surprised at first that I'd obeyed his instructions. He was standing in the cockpit and I was on the pontoon. I made sure to bring a holdall with me but it didn't contain any money.'
No, thought Horton, only the syringe with a lethal dose of methadone. Why had Boston been surprised? Did he think Dr Woodford would dismiss the letter?
'What happened?' he asked, watching her closely. She seemed calm and in control.
'Despite his requests for me to climb onboard I stayed on the pontoon. That meant he had to climb off the boat, which was exactly what I wanted. He told me that he'd seen Jess and me together that night. We'd foolishly kissed on deck, and from that he must have seen we were in love. It wasn't a little peck on the cheek. I tried to call his bluff by saying that Jess had told me about finding him on a boat last week with a bag full of stolen antiques and that if he so much as said one word about my affair with Jess then I would go to the police.'
Horton had been right then. He felt chuffed about that at least. Boston had been at Town Camber that night to kill Langley and plant her body on the Martin's boat and that was why he had shopped Johnson and Goodall. But he'd seen Langley and Woodford and had a better idea.
Woodford said, 'Boston just smiled and said, "Where's your evidence?" Of course, I didn't have any but I said I could make things difficult for him. "Not half as difficult as I can make them for you," I recall him replying. He told me that he'd taken Jess to the mulberry and dumped her there like rubbish. He put money wrapped in honey in her knickers.'
'Why?'
'He laughed when I asked him and made some flippant remark about a wise owl falling for not so sweet a pussy-cat. That's when I injected him with a massive and fatal dose of methadone. He stopped laughing then.'
Horton suppressed a shudder at the blandness of her words.
She said, 'I pushed him over the pontoon. I didn't know his clothes were going to get caught and he'd be discovered so soon. He deserved to die for what he did to Jess. And I don't mind going to prison for it. I'd do it again.' Her head came up defiantly. Her fair cheeks flushed. There was anger and pain in her expression.
'And Tom Edney? Why did you kill him?'
'I didn't.' She looked up surprised. 'Why should I?'
'Because he also saw you with Langley and you had to silence him.'
But she was vigorously shaking her head. 'No.'
Th
ere was a pause. Horton could hear the rain beating against the coach roof and pounding off the decks. If he believed her, who killed Edney? Was it Boston? Had Edney seen Boston kill Jessica Langley on Woodford's boat that night? But somehow Horton couldn't see Boston slitting anyone's throat, whereas a doctor and one skilled in surgery could have done. Again he had the vague notion he was missing something. He tried to recall what it was but annoyingly it refused to come to him, like a face you recognize but the name of the person eludes you.
He said, 'You should have come to us.' If she was speaking the truth then she had committed no crime until she had killed Boston, and they would have got the evidence to charge and convict Boston.
'I thought of the trial and the public exposure. I thought that I could make it look as if Boston had killed himself because he couldn't live with what he had done to Jess. If Gaye hadn't been so good at her job, if his body hadn't got caught, I might have got away with it. But I don't care now. I'm glad you've come, Inspector. I am quite happy to go with you and make a full statement. I want everyone to know how that wicked man killed Jess. I loved her and I don't care who knows it now,' she declared with a note of defiance in her voice.
Horton wondered what her husband would make of that. It was time for them to leave. Where was Sergeant Elkins? Was he on the pontoon waiting? Horton hadn't heard a motorboat entering the marina. He didn't think Woodford was going to protest though. He would call for a patrol car. The case was closed. He'd found Boston's killer and according to Teresa Woodford, Boston had killed Langley and he thought, probably Tom Edney. That would please Uckfield. And yet he still felt uneasy.
She stood up and he stepped back to allow her to ease her way out of her seat. There wasn't enough room for both of them to walk together, and he didn't think she was going to make a bolt for it.
He said, 'Did Boston punch her?'
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