Calmly he said, ‘Sharon didn’t kill Ellie, Patricia, you did.’ He held his breath keeping his steady gaze on her. Would she continue to deny it or would she finally crack? Only the wind howling through the crane rigging and the rain lashing against them punctuated the silence which seemed to stretch on for ever. Finally it broke.
‘It was an accident,’ she said in a rush. ‘I only pushed her. She fell and knocked her head on the cleat.’
He let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. That was consistent with the injuries to the skull that Dr Clayton had pointed out to him but there was more to Ellie’s death than that. With barely disguised disgust he said, ‘But you then dumped her body in the sea and left her there to rot.’
‘What else could I do?’ she said as though she’d had no choice.
‘You could have confessed,’ he said, with bitterness. ‘You could have saved Rawly Willard from taking his own life, and spared his parents, your aunt and uncle, from years of suffering.’ Not to mention the heartbreak and anguish she’d caused Kenneth Loman.
‘The police killed Rawly with their persecution of him,’ she said dismissively and defiantly. ‘That had nothing to do with me.’
‘And that’s what you’ve told yourself all these years.’ Horton held her hard stare. ‘No, Patricia, you killed Rawly as surely as you killed Ross Skelton and Ellie Loman. And Sharon knew what you’d done. She’d always known, hadn’t she?’
He saw instantly that he was correct. And Sharon had kept silent because it suited her to have it over Garvard. ‘Does Connor know who his real mother is and that he’s the result of an affair between your husband and your sister?’
She flinched but the knife stayed firmly grasped in her hand pointing at him. He didn’t doubt that he’d be able to disarm her, but still she was perilously close to the edge of the water.
Stiffly she said, ‘I agreed to bring him up as my own.’
And you never let Gregory forget his affair. Seeing Connor every day was a reminder to Gregory of his infidelity. How Gregory Harlow must have been tempted to tell him over the years. But his silence was the price he had to pay for having had an affair with Sharon while married to her sister. And silence was his guarantee that the boy would have a family upbringing rather than be abandoned to a children’s home or be put up for adoption. If Gregory wanted to see his son growing up he would have to stay with Patricia and keep silent. And he did.
Despite the body in front of him, the woman holding the knife and the relentless rain, which was the least of his worries, Horton needed the answers to a few more questions, and he needed to get her into custody.
He said, ‘Why were you here when Leo Garvard dropped Ellie back on that Sunday after she’d spent a day on his boat?’
‘Can’t you guess?’ she said scathingly.
‘You wanted Sharon to see them together. You wanted to hurt her as she had hurt you by sleeping with your husband.’ Patricia had thought that Sharon was in love with Leo, but she wasn’t. Sharon had probably had a string of affairs aside from Skelton and she had used sex many times to trap her quarry. Garvard knew this and went along with it. But Patricia hadn’t known that.
‘I overheard Leo arranging it with Ellie. I was by chance at the coffee stall on the Hard when I saw them together. Ellie was on her coffee break, she always took it at the Coastline Coffee stall. They didn’t see me. I told Sharon that I had to meet her at the boatyard. I had something to tell her about Leo. I knew that would bring her here. I came here that Sunday after I’d had tea with Aunt Amelia. Gregory was out fishing all day. The boatyard was closed on a Sunday, but we all knew how to get into it. Harry Foxbury was always lax with his security, besides there was nothing to steal except old boats and bits of metal that weren’t worth much.’
Not then maybe but now worth a fortune, thought Horton, remembering those metal thefts. ‘They came back early.’
‘Sharon was late. I waited out of sight until Leo left on his boat with Ellie touchingly waving him goodbye. I had to stop her leaving before Sharon got here and before Leo’s boat was out of sight. I confronted her. She said she loved him and that he was going to leave Sharon for her. I said she was a stupid young fool.’
‘And you told her what Leo and Sharon did for a living. She didn’t believe you.’
‘She got upset, hysterical. I grabbed her. She tried to get away. I pushed her and she fell. Before I knew it she was dead. Sharon saw it all.’
And had Leo Garvard looked back and seen Patricia Harlow and mistaken her for Sharon or had he only seen Sharon? But Horton considered a third option and knew it was the truth. Garvard had known all along that both sisters had been here and had had a hand in Ellie’s death and cover up.
The clang of metal against metal from the crane dimly registered with him as the wind whipped through the rigging. He said, ‘So you and Sharon struck a bargain. It suited Sharon to say nothing about you killing Ellie because she wanted Garvard out of her life and she wanted all the money from their fraudulent scams, or rather as much as she could get her hands on that they’d secreted away. When she shopped Garvard to the law he knew he couldn’t tell the truth about dropping Ellie off and seeing you kill her because you and Sharon would swear blind that each was with the other and that in all likelihood he’d be done for murder as well as fraud. And Sharon would keep quiet about your part in Ellie’s death because she wanted wealth and a chance to get away.’ And had Gregory Harlow known this? If he had then he could have used it to get Patricia out of his life by giving her up to the police. But that would have involved Connor’s real mother and disrupted the family life he had desperately wanted his son to have. So they had all kept silent until Leo Garvard had found a way to break that silence. His cancer and the chance sighting of Amelia Willard at the radiotherapy department had sparked an idea that had eventually led to three more deaths, and to bringing Ellie’s body up from her watery grave. How fortunate then the timing of raising the sunken barges. Garvard must have read about it or heard about it on the news. But Horton knew that even if the barges hadn’t been raised Garvard would have found another way to bring Ellie’s killer here and expose her remains.
‘It’s over, Patricia. The truth has to come out now. Hand me the knife.’
‘No.’ She stepped back.
‘There’s nowhere to go.’
She spun round and within seconds was clambering and stumbling over the deck of the barge towards the seaward side in the dark. Shit! He turned setting off in the opposite direction around the crane to head her off praying that she wasn’t going to throw herself into the sea or trip over something and fall in and that neither would he. He could hear her faltering footsteps, then there was a cry and nothing, not even a splash. He rounded the crane and drew up sharply. Kenneth Loman was standing over the prostrate figure of Patricia Harlow. Horton swiftly glimpsed Loman’s harrowed sodden face, his wet dishevelled clothes and the heavy piece of piping he was holding. The knife was on the deck and the side of Patricia’s face a bloody mess of mangled flesh.
His breath caught in his throat as Loman raised the hand carrying the piping; his eyes were full of hatred directed at the body at his feet. Horton knew what he was thinking, she’d put him through a living hell and he wanted to vent his anger. He wanted to obliterate her and the pain he had suffered all these years. But he would never be able to, not even if he beat Patricia Harlow to a pulp. Sharply Horton shouted, ‘Killing her won’t bring Ellie back.’
Loman hesitated.
Horton stepped forward and repeated firmly but more quietly. ‘Leave her, Ken. Ellie wouldn’t want this.’
Loman froze. He seemed to consider Horton’s words then he exhaled, the piping fell from his hand and clattered onto the barge. His body slumped. Horton could see he was close to collapse. Stepping forward he took his arm. ‘Let’s get away from here.’
Loman made no protest. As Horton steered him towards the quay he wondered if Patricia Harlow was still alive.
Climbing off the crane barge, Loman said, ‘It’s all right. I won’t run away. You’d better call the ambulance.’
The man was spent. Horton watched him ease his broken defeated body onto the giant cleat, where he stared across the black expanse of the water. Horton doubted he saw the lights across the harbour. It had stopped raining. He remained close, half afraid that Loman might throw himself in but then he guessed that Loman would want to see this thing through to the end.
He called first for an ambulance for Patricia Harlow. Ross Skelton was beyond help, and for all he knew Patricia could be too. Then he called Uckfield. While he waited for him to answer, Horton wondered if the cleat Loman was slumped on was the one that Ellie had fallen and struck her head against, if Patricia Harlow could be believed, and Horton wasn’t convinced by that given her track record.
Swiftly he gave Uckfield a potted version of what had happened and that they’d need SOCO and some patrol units here. They wouldn’t have far to come. He crouched down to face Loman; his wet hair was clinging to his dirty, exhausted face. ‘How much did you hear?’ he asked gently.
‘All of it. I was behind the crane.’
‘You saw her kill Ross Skelton?’
The image of Garvard’s gaunt, grey face on the hospital bed flashed before Horton’s eyes along with Geoff Kirby’s words. Garvard was cunning, clever, manipulative. He knew a man’s weakness and how to exploit it. Garvard had pulled the strings from his sick bed and had taken pleasure during his dying days in imagining how it might work out but had he ever imagined this?
Loman said, ‘When they let me go at the station I knew the boatyard wasn’t far away and I couldn’t go home. I just wanted to be where Ellie had last been alive. I heard them arrive and dodged out of sight. I didn’t know who they were, I just didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. I was angry and upset because I had wanted to be alone. I didn’t think they’d climb onto the crane barge but she did and he followed. Then she spun round and stuck a knife in him. I was shocked, confused. I didn’t know what to do. She hit him over the head and dropped the weapon and then almost immediately you showed up. Is it true what she said, that she killed Ellie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I hope she dies and I’m convicted for her murder. Prison can’t be much worse than the hell she’s put me through all these years.’
No, thought Horton, and it wasn’t over yet. There was still the matter of Sharon Piper’s murder.
TWENTY-TWO
‘Congratulations, sir,’ Eames said, knocking and entering his office an hour later. He cut her short.
‘Did you look up those statements?’
‘Yes.’ She seemed taken aback by his abruptness. Quickly recovering she said, ‘The mourners at Amelia Willard’s funeral you asked me to check. There was only one man who said he didn’t see the woman with the large black hat because he had to go to the toilet.’
Horton’s pulse quickened. ‘And he is?’
‘Lawrence Sanderling. Flat 1, King Charles Court, North End. Is it important?’
‘Oh, it’s important all right.’ Horton reached for his sailing jacket. He’d changed into a set of clothes he kept in his office: cargoes and a T-shirt, socks and shoes. He’d learnt over the years that they’d be needed on many occasions and not only because someone had thrown up over what he had been wearing but that they might end up covered in blood. This time it was because his other clothes were soaked through.
‘Let’s talk to Mr Sanderling.’
‘But what about the interview with Kenneth Loman?’ Eames asked, surprised.
‘Uckfield can get someone else to take Loman’s statement.’
Uckfield was reporting to Dean, who was at home. So too was Bliss because there was no sign of her at the station. But then it was nearly ten thirty.
‘You can always go home, Eames,’ Horton added, heading through the CID office.
‘No,’ she said quickly, plucking her jacket from the coat stand and following him.
He remained silent as Eames drove through the glistening wet streets to the north of the city. His thoughts took him back to Patricia Harlow. The initial prognosis was that she would recover but that she’d be permanently scarred and there was the possibility of brain damage. A car had been sent to take Connor Harlow to hospital. Soon he’d discover the extent of his birth mother’s and his adoptive mother’s crimes. He wasn’t sure how Connor was going to handle that but he knew there would be pain and bitterness. Ross Skelton’s two daughters, aged twenty-three and twenty-one, might feel the same along with shock when they discovered their father had murdered a man and was a crook. His estranged wife might gloat over it, though, or was that his view of how Catherine would react? DI Dennings had reported that he and the Border Agency had found six illegal immigrant workers in Coastline’s operations at the festival and now they and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs would be trawling through Skelton’s business operations like a prospector looking for the smallest glint of a diamond that could change his fortunes.
A message on Horton’s desk and another on his voicemail from Sergeant Elkins had said that Ballard had left St Peter Port, they weren’t sure when. He must have slipped out. No one had seen him go.
Eames pulled up outside a shabby block of flats not far from the leisure centre in the north of the city, and close to where Woodley had lived. It also wasn’t far from the old boatyard. Eames pressed her well-manicured finger on the dirty intercom, while Horton noted the peeling and scuffed paintwork, the rubbish lying around in the forecourt and the rotten windows. She hadn’t asked why they were here and he could see that she had been rapidly trying to work it out. Perhaps she had by now.
A man’s wary and wavering voice answered. Eames quickly introduced them and added, ‘We are quite happy to wait here, Mr Sanderling, while you call the police station to verify who we are and to push our identity cards through your letter box or put them up against your window.’
‘No. Come in.’
The buzzer sounded and they stepped inside. Horton registered the dirty hallway, scratched paintwork and the smell of urine and rubbish.
A door to their right was opened by a grey-haired, well-built man in his late seventies dressed in a petrol-blue cardigan over a check shirt and grey trousers. Horton made to show his ID when the elderly man forestalled him. ‘I know who you are and why you’re here.’
They followed Lawrence Sanderling through the tiny vestibule into a small living room with old-fashioned furniture and a threadbare carpet. Seeing and interpreting his glance, Sanderling said, ‘Not much for a man who once used to run a company, live in a large house not far from Edgar and Amelia near the seafront, own a boat, privately educate his daughters, and was married to a lovely woman.’
‘Sharon Piper and Leo Garvard,’ said Horton sadly.
‘Yes.’ Sanderling waved Horton into an ancient chair with a sagging cushion in front of the electric fire. Sanderling drew up a hard-back chair and gestured Eames into it, before pulling up one for himself.
‘It was my own fault,’ Sanderling said, once settled. ‘I was stupid enough to believe them and greedy enough to fall for their lies, but I wasn’t the only one and I thought if it was good enough for Edgar then it was good enough for me. Sharon was his niece, for God’s sake.’
‘You saw her when you came out of the toilet at the crematorium.’ Because this was the man Horton had stepped aside for when he, Uckfield and Marsden had followed Woodley’s mourners to the front of the crematorium.
Sanderling nodded sadly before a spark of life and anger flashed in his grey eyes. ‘There she was dressed to the nines looking well and wealthy. Living off my money and other fools like me, laughing and tucking her hand under the arm of a man. I nodded at her and she blanked me. She didn’t even remember who she had once fleeced.’
‘Even if she had I don’t think she would have cared.’
‘No.’
‘You should have come to us.’
; Sanderling lifted a shoulder. His body seemed to be curling up in itself. ‘I couldn’t stomach going into Amelia’s funeral after seeing her. I decided to follow them.’ He glanced up at Horton. ‘I had no idea why or what I was going to do. I was on some kind of autopilot and very, very angry, not a showy sort of violence but something deep inside me had snapped. It was eating away at me, driving me on. She got in a car parked in the overflow car park where I’d left mine. I always park there when I go to funerals at the crematorium, and there seem to be a lot of them at my age, it’s easier to slip away. He got into a big silver four-by-four, Toyota Land Cruiser. I didn’t know then where he went but I followed her to Gregory and Patricia Harlow’s house, where she sat in the car. When the funeral car arrived she climbed out and crossed to them. There was a brief exchange between them and then Sharon got back in her car and drove to Horsea Marina. I saw her get on this boat with the man she’d met at the funeral.’
Horton had been correct about that. Skelton’s motor boat had been impounded. On it was a RIB that Skelton used as a tender and Horton had been told that, like Foxbury’s, it had a powerful Suzuki 300hp engine on it, or rather twin engines, powerful enough to whip him across the Solent in fifteen minutes. Horton was betting that Skelton had returned to the mainland from the Island then used his RIB to cross back to the Solent, he’d moored up in Wootton Creek or at Fishbourne and walked to Firestone Copse, where he’d arranged to meet Harlow. There he’d killed him, walked back to the RIB and returned to the marina or moored up outside it and returned to the marina the next day or Saturday. All this they would painstakingly check.
Sanderling was saying, ‘I had no idea how long she intended to stay on the boat with this man. It might be all night. I wanted just one glimpse of recognition from her, or one sign of remorse.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘I certainly wasn’t going to get that. The longer I sat there the more I thought back over my life, remembering how it had once been. I thought too of Edgar and Amelia and poor Rawly and the anger grew. It was a cold, calm sort of rage, as though everything had suddenly became very clear. I knew what I had to do.’
Death Lies Beneath Page 24