‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Rowan said almost dismissively.
‘I think you do.’ Horton swivelled his gaze on Gina. ‘And so do you. Maybe you even helped your husband. Knowing that Evelyn was worth a fair bit of money and resentful when she wouldn’t give you more to buy equipment for the business, you put a beta blocker in her flask the Saturday you were in her apartment for dinner, knowing that she made her drinks up for the week on a Saturday.’ Horton remembered seeing the rows of flasks lined up in the cupboard in both the Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight apartments and recalled what Gina had previously told them about Evelyn’s fear of being without a drink. ‘You probably even offered to make her a couple of flasks of coffee. You didn’t care which flask it was or when she drank it. It just so happened to be on Monday when she was on her way to Guernsey.’
‘You’ve got no evidence. My parents are lawyers. I’ll call them.’
And Horton wondered if they’d come running. He thought that perhaps not. But she was right. They couldn’t prove it. They’d need a confession and Horton didn’t think Gina was going to give them one. Rowan would be different, though. He would eventually tell. He was much weaker than his wife.
Cantelli summoned up the uniformed officers who were waiting in the car park. They were there within seconds. Two officers took Rowan and the third officer Gina, who studied them evenly and confidently before turning. Cantelli would drive her back to the station, but as Horton’s phone rang he stilled Cantelli with a gesture and answered it, saying, ‘It’s Guilbert.’ He listened for a moment then thanked him.
To Cantelli, he said, ‘They’ve found Evelyn Lyster’s Guernsey account under the name of Brookes. It’s with Manley’s Bank. There’s also a safe deposit box and a property registered in her name, which must have been where she was heading, and where her belongings are, including possibly a laptop computer.’ Horton didn’t know how often she had travelled to Guernsey but it was fairly frequently, he thought, and always as a foot passenger and paying by cash, and possibly not always from Portsmouth. He suspected that sometimes she caught the train to Poole in the west and the ferry that sailed from there. The contents of the safe deposit box and the bank account might give them information on other properties she’d bought and sold and still owned as she cleaned her dirty money.
‘I’ll wait for SOCO to arrive. You’d better brief Bliss and Uckfield.’
Horton didn’t think they’d be able to pick up any traces of flesh and blood from the paddle or from the RIB. The sea and rain would have washed away much of it and Gina and Rowan the rest, and it had been months since Dennis had died, but it was amazing how sometimes just a small speck survived.
He gazed out to sea, watching a motor launch head across the Solent towards the Bembridge lifeboat station, and thought of Martha’s body, limp in his arms. If a spoilt and jealous child hadn’t pushed a boy into the sea eighteen years ago six people would still be alive. But could he really lay all the deaths at Rowan’s door? If the Lysters and the Gamblins hadn’t been so greedy and engaged in criminal activity then all of them might still be alive. So much pain caused and there would be more to come, more lives ruined. But Horton knew the futility of going down the road of ‘if onlys’. He’d played that game too many times in other investigations and in his own life. And now he thought of the latter.
He heard cars approaching but didn’t turn to look; instead he stared along the coast of the Isle of Wight to where he could see the trees that bordered the shore by Lord Richard Eames’ property, but it was the man Horton had met on Eames’ private beach in October who came to mind. The beachcomber who had called himself Lomas. His Lordship likes his privacy, he’d said but claimed not to know him. Maybe that was the truth, maybe not. Because Horton was beginning to believe that Lomas was in fact one of two men, Zachary Benham, who had either never been in that psychiatric hospital or who had been but had escaped the fire, possibly after starting it, or Gordon Eames, who had died in Australia in 1973 and whose body was supposedly in the family vault in the small private chapel on his brother’s Wiltshire estate.
His search to prove whichever one it was could wait because, as he heard footsteps crunching over the shingle beach, it was to Martha that his thoughts returned and to the little boy who had drowned. The vision of Emma swam before him. Nothing was going to bring back Jennifer and nothing would bring back Martha and Cary Gamblin. Emma was the present and very much alive. Emma was his daughter.
He gave instructions to the uniformed officers to seal off the area, and to Phil Taylor to examine the scene for traces of blood and flesh, then hurried to his Harley. Uckfield could wait too. Cantelli was there. He’d oversee things for him, and if Uckfield and Bliss didn’t like it then tough.
He climbed on his Harley and headed north out of Portsmouth to what had once been his marital home, hoping to find his daughter there. And if she wasn’t then he would wait until she came, he didn’t care for how long. All he knew was that he had to see Emma. He had to hold her in his arms. He had to tell her how much he loved her. And nothing or no one, especially not Catherine, was going to stop him.
Lethal Waves Page 27