Horton said, ‘Perhaps Freedman arranged to meet Constance with the intention of killing her because she was becoming a nuisance. She might even have suspected or knew about his affair with Evelyn, and if she threatened to tell it could tie him in with her death and he couldn’t afford to take that risk. Freedman had the gun. Vivian Clements had given it to him in return for his silence about the phoney robbery. Constance had told Freedman her husband had planned the robbery. Freedman took the gun with him but somehow Constance got it from him and turned it on him. Dr Clayton said he was shot at close range. Constance leaves, taking the gun with her, and then an idea occurs to her that she could link Freedman’s death to her husband and stage the suicide, and so get rid of him.’
Uckfield rested his hands behind his head and spread his legs. He addressed Dennings. ‘You and DCI Bliss can put that to her tomorrow.’
‘We should let her go,’ Cantelli said. ‘Her husband has only just died and she’s had to visit the mortuary. She’s had a tough day and she looks all in.’
Uckfield eyed him contemptuously. ‘She could be a killer.’
‘Or she could be innocent. I don’t think she’s going to run away.’
‘Cantelli’s right,’ Horton agreed. ‘She looks on the verge of collapse.’
‘Then we might get a confession from her.’
‘It won’t hold up, Steve. Any defence lawyer will tear it to shreds.’
‘Then let them. We hold her for another twenty-four hours on suspicion of murder and in the meantime we charge her with intent to defraud the insurance company and being in possession of a firearm without a licence. It doesn’t matter that it belonged to her husband – she’s still culpable in law. If she wants a lawyer, get her one.’ Uckfield hauled himself up. ‘I’m going home.’
And that was the cue for them all to do the same.
Horton rode home slowly, his mind on the clothes that Freedman had been wearing when he was shot. Bliss could be right and Freedman had carefully chosen those clothes to make himself invisible, but equally he could have chosen them to throw suspicion on a vagrant if anyone saw him at the scene. He could have bought the clothes from any charity shop or, as Cantelli had said, taken a charity bag from outside a shop or house and helped himself. Equally, he could have got those clothes from Gravity and taken them – especially the coat – before Sheila had a chance to see it. He’d stuffed them in a bag or a rucksack and walked out without Martha or Glyn noticing. He could easily have got past Ashmead’s office without him seeing and Martha might already have gone home or been busy cleaning up in the kitchen area behind the counter with her back to the door.
Then there was Dennis Lyster. If his death was the first murder in this chain of killings then maybe they should be taking a closer look at it and at him.
Horton pulled on to the seafront and caught a flash of lightning out to sea. What did he know about Dennis Lyster apart from the fact he’d been a civil engineer? Had he always worked overseas? No, because Rowan had said that before he’d gone away to school he had sailed with his father on a boat they owned.
Horton recalled the coroner’s report. Evelyn Lyster had said that she and her husband had once owned boats, which backed up what Rowan had said about sailing with his father, but Dennis didn’t have a boat at the time of his death. Evelyn Lyster had claimed that it would have been a natural choice for her husband to end his life by drowning. So where had they kept their yacht when Rowan was a boy? Where had they lived? Did it matter? He didn’t think so. He was just desperate to find answers to the questions plaguing his mind.
He caught another flash of lightning and heard the distant rumble of thunder. He could see the pinpricks of lights on some of the ships moored up beyond the Bembridge lifeboat station. He thought of Freedman’s body by the old houseboat and the fact that Gaye had said that Freedman with a bullet in him could still have walked or staggered some distance.
Climbing on his Harley, he made for the Eastney lifeboat station and walked around to the slipway to stand in front of the building. The lightning was getting more frequent and the thunder growing louder as the storm drew closer. It wasn’t raining but it soon would be. He was facing the entrance to Langstone Harbour and beyond it the Solent. He couldn’t see his Harley from here and neither could he see the road. More importantly, as he had considered the last time he’d visited here, no one could see him. Had the location been chosen specifically because of that, had it been a random choice or did it have some other meaning? Not that he knew this was where Freedman had met his killer but through his mind ran the thought that Dennis Lyster had been a sailor, and because of that he’d probably have been a member of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. But that got Horton no further forward.
So which of them had killed Dennis? Evelyn because she wanted to be with Freedman and she was sick of Dennis under her feet? Or Freedman because he knew that Evelyn would inherit the house and get the insurance money? That, coupled with her own wealth, would be an attractive proposition; however, that wealth had been accumulated because there was still the matter of Evelyn’s secretive nature, her purchase of the Isle of Wight property, her use of two names and her tendency to pay by cash – not in itself suspicious, but if he put that with her desire to travel one way to Guernsey and the fact that she was dead there had to be something. What had she been up to? Something that Freedman knew about or had managed to get out of her. Was it blackmail? Was there a criminal partner in Guernsey? Not if Freedman had thought he was on to a winner by killing her, and Horton didn’t think a criminal living in Guernsey had arranged to meet Freedman and flown over here on Tuesday night specifically to kill him, although it was viable.
Perhaps Uckfield was right when he said that Freedman targeted wealthy widows or widows-to-be with the aim of preying on them and conning them out of their money. Freedman thought he’d struck lucky with Constance Clements, only to discover her husband had spent most of her money and re-mortgaged the house, so he dropped her.
Lightning lit the night sky, illuminating the lifeboat station, and within a few seconds it was followed by a loud clap of thunder and a squall of lean, slanting rain. The wind suddenly rose and swirled violently around him. The waves crashed on to the shore. But Horton didn’t move. His mind flew back to that first sight of Freedman’s body under the houseboat and how he’d considered it an unusual place to find a vagrant on such a wild night, only he hadn’t been a vagrant, and because he wasn’t this was a fairly good location for a private meeting, especially for someone who had planned for it to end in murder. But there had always been the chance the lifeboat might have been called out, or that the lifeboat volunteers might have been meeting here that night. Elkins had spoken to Chris Howgate, one of the helmsmen, who said they hadn’t. So had Freedman known he’d be safe here from interruptions on Tuesday night? He could have listened to the weather forecast and thought that no one would be foolish enough to be at sea in such a storm and taken advantage of that to arrange a meeting, but he would have gambled on the fact the lifeboat wouldn’t be called out. Perhaps he knew the crew weren’t going to be here for a meeting or a drill that night and, if that was the case then he, or his killer, had inside knowledge. No one had asked the lifeboat volunteers if they recognized or knew Peter Freedman or Vivian Clements. Horton thought it was about time he did.
TWENTY
Saturday
Horton found Chris Howgate in his small office off the main factory floor of his sail-making business in the building adjoining the marina. His staff of four were busy cutting out sail cloth on a large table. Horton nodded to them as he went through. He knew Howgate well and, after a brief exchange of greeting, Horton explained why he was there. Howgate, a round-faced muscular man in his early forties, looked concerned.
‘Dai Elkins asked me if I’d seen anyone hanging around the lifeboat station on Tuesday night and I told him I hadn’t because I didn’t go there and neither did anyone else. There was no training or meeting and it was
a miracle we weren’t called out in that storm or last night, but then anyone with an ounce of brain wouldn’t have gone out in such atrocious weather. Point is that not everyone has an ounce of brain.’
Horton knew that.
‘Only last week we had to rescue a man off the Bembridge Ledge who had bought a boat and a road atlas and was attempting to cross the Channel to France. Can you believe it?’
Sadly, Horton said he could.
He showed Howgate a photograph of Peter Freedman and asked if he recognized him. Howgate shook his head. He didn’t know the name or recognize Vivian Clements either. Horton said he’d need the contact details of all the volunteers to ask them the same questions.
‘You can ask Roger Stillmore now. He works for me and he’s been on the lifeboat for years. He doesn’t go out on shouts any more but he still helps out.’ Howgate rose, crossed to his office door and hailed Stillmore, who appeared a minute later.
Howgate made the introductions. Stillmore, a sturdy man in his late fifties with fine silver-grey hair and a gap in his front teeth, examined the picture of Peter Freedman but after a few seconds he shook his head and did the same for Clements. ‘I’ve never seen either man before.’ He and Howgate also confirmed they knew no one called Constance Clements. Horton hadn’t really expected them to but for thoroughness had thought he’d ask. He did the same for Dennis Lyster. At least he’d had a connection with the sea, according to his son, albeit a long time ago.
‘It sounds familiar,’ Stillmore said, frowning thoughtfully.
‘He was a boat owner about eighteen or twenty years ago. He died last March. His body was found just off Ryde Pier. Ryde Inshore Lifeboat attended.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Stillmore’s expression cleared. ‘I read about the shout in our news bulletin. Terribly sad that.’
Horton should have considered that the news would have been circulated to all lifeboat crew and volunteers.
‘I guess he never got over it.’
‘Losing his job, you mean?’ Horton said.
‘Did he? I didn’t know that. No, I meant what happened years ago. It never really goes away.’
‘What doesn’t?’ Horton asked puzzled and deeply curious.
‘The death of a child at sea. That is if it’s the same Lyster.’ Stillmore added hastily, seeing Horton’s surprise, ‘He had a son called Rowan. I remember that because it’s the same name as the hospice and my dad was in the hospice at the time.’
‘Yes, it’s the same man,’ Horton answered, keenly interested. No one had mentioned this and he was certain it hadn’t come up at the inquest, otherwise Cantelli would have said. So why the silence? ‘Tell me about it,’ he said eagerly.
Howgate gestured Stillmore into the seat beside Horton.
‘Dennis Lyster was sailing his yacht, a twenty-eight-foot Westerley, just off the Isle of Wight when he got into difficulty. He shouldn’t have been out in the first place. The wind was force six and rising to near gale force, and the waves were like walls of water, eight feet and rising. Lyster had two young boys on board, aged ten. One wasn’t clipped on.’
Horton raised his eyebrows.
‘I know, bloody stupid,’ Stillmore said with sorrow. ‘Lyster had reefed in and was running on his engine alone. The child was swept overboard. Lyster engaged man overboard manoeuvres but in that sea and wind it was near-on impossible. He sent out a mayday. The boy who entered the water was wearing a life jacket but this was February.’
And Horton knew what that meant. The sea temperature would have been about forty-one degrees Fahrenheit – bloody cold. Horton shuddered at the thought. He couldn’t even bear to think how he’d feel if anything happened to Emma. Fear gripped his heart. He hoped to God that Catherine made sure Emma was safe when she was on board her boyfriend’s floating gin palace and when she sailed on her grandfather’s yacht.
‘We got the child out of the water and he was airlifted to hospital by the coastguard helicopter but the poor little mite was already dead. Dennis Lyster was distraught, as you can imagine.’
‘Can you remember the name of the child who died?’
‘He was called Cary as in Cary Grant. I remember thinking at the time this poor little mite is never going to grow up like Cary Grant. I can’t remember his surname. He was about ten – the same age as the other boy on the yacht, Rowan Lyster.’
‘He wasn’t related to Lyster then?’
‘Not as far as I know. I couldn’t attend the inquest because it was held on the day of my dad’s funeral.’
Horton could get the name from the marine accident investigation report and the coroner’s office. He said, ‘Have you seen or spoken to Dennis Lyster since then?’
‘No. I read about him being fished out of the sea and it possibly being suicide and thought that it must have been haunting him for years.’
And what about Rowan? Had it haunted him? It certainly didn’t seem that way because Rowan had pursued a career on the sea. Maybe he’d pushed it aside, or perhaps he’d been too young to realize the full horror of it.
‘Do you remember Dennis Lyster’s wife, Evelyn?’
‘No. Like I said, I wasn’t at the inquest so didn’t get to meet her.’
‘And she wasn’t there when you got Dennis Lyster and his son safely back to the shore?’
‘No. They were taken to Bembridge where an ambulance was waiting. The boy was suffering from hypothermia and both father and son were in a state of shock.’
And Evelyn Lyster would have been in Portsmouth and wouldn’t have had time to get to the island before the ambulance. Maybe she had never got there but waited for her son and husband to return home. Perhaps she’d even been abroad, working. And what of Cary’s parents? Who had broken the news to them? Where had they been at the time? Who were they? Did this have anything to do with the three deaths: Evelyn Lyster, Peter Freedman and Vivian Clements – four if you counted Dennis Lyster? But how could it?
Horton thanked them both warmly and returned to his Harley, mulling over what Roger Stillmore had told him. What had happened to Cary’s parents? Had Cary been their only child? How had the tragedy affected them? Maybe it had finally driven Dennis Lyster to suicide and his death wasn’t suspicious. But why hadn’t Evelyn Lyster mentioned it at the inquest? Perhaps she had just wanted to forget it and put it behind her. It explained why Dennis Lyster had worked overseas for so many years, though. Perhaps he’d been trying to put as much distance as he could between the place where the tragedy had occurred and himself. The marine accident investigation report would give him the details of Cary’s parents and from there they would be able to trace them. He didn’t want to disturb them though and bring back such harrowing memories unless he really had to. And the same might be said if they questioned Rowan about the tragedy. And he couldn’t see why they should or how it could have any bearing on the murders.
He made for the station but didn’t go inside. Instead he again headed for Gravity and found Ashmead in the shower room with a mop and bucket. ‘We’ve got a leaky pipe – the plumber’s on his way,’ he explained.
Horton asked him if Freedman had brought a rucksack or bag into the café on Tuesdays when he worked as a volunteer.
‘I never saw him with one.’
‘Did you ever see him leave carrying a bag of any kind?’
‘He might have done; I don’t know. It wasn’t the sort of thing I took notice of. Is it important?’
‘Probably not.’
Ashmead was looking drawn. The lack of funding was clearly getting to him. Horton hoped the strain wouldn’t prove too much and send him on a downward spiral to seek relief in alcohol. But soon Ashmead would get Freedman’s legacy and although Horton didn’t know how much that was he was certain it would help. A terrible thought flashed into his mind. He couldn’t believe that Glyn Ashmead would kill for money. But surely he had to believe the unbelievable – that was his job.
He asked Ashmead if he recognized the name Constance Clements but Ashmead
shook his head and neither did he recognize a description of her. He didn’t seem to be lying, but nevertheless Horton considered the possibility that Constance might have donated some of her husband’s clothes to the charity, including that Gieves and Hawkes coat. It seemed the sort of thing that Vivian Clements might have worn and it fitted his measurements. Maybe it was Ashmead she had met and fallen in love with. But would Vivian Clements have hung on to so shabby a coat? Possibly if Constance had packed it away and then decided to have a clear-out.
But perhaps Freedman had told Constance Clements he volunteered at Gravity on Tuesdays and Constance had come here to see Freedman and she’d met Glyn Ashmead. They’d begun a relationship. She wanted rid of her husband and Ashmead wanted Freedman’s wealth. Maybe Freedman had told Ashmead that the centre was named in his will. Perhaps Glyn Ashmead was resentful of Freedman’s success. Perhaps their relationship went way back to when they had both been on the road.
He thought of that coat Freedman had been wearing when he’d been shot. Perhaps it had been Glyn Ashmead’s. He said he’d kept a belt as a reminder of his dark days on the streets in the hope that seeing it would ensure he’d never go down that route again but maybe it had been the coat he’d kept. Freedman had got hold of it and worn it and the other clothes as a taunt to Ashmead when they’d met by the lifeboat station. Ashmead had said that Freedman was contributing ten per cent of his income to the centre and the accountant had confirmed that but perhaps he hadn’t been giving it voluntarily; he had been forced to do so as blackmail money. Ashmead had something on Freedman which he had threatened to expose but finally Freedman had said enough was enough. He’d threatened to stop paying. Ashmead was desperate for money, not for himself but for the centre. Ashmead could have acquired the gun from Constance and shot Freedman, then killed Vivian Clements. But where did that leave them with Evelyn Lyster’s death? Neither Ashmead nor Constance could have done that, and why should either of them kill Dennis Lyster, if he had been killed.
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