Horton headed for his Harley, calling Ross Skelton. There was no answer to his mobile. He then called Uckfield and this time got hold of him.
‘How did you get on with Loman?’
‘He denies meeting Sharon Piper at the boatyard and killing her. Claims he was at home with his wife on Tuesday night and again on Thursday night but says if we ask his wife she won’t be much use as an alibi. She can’t remember anything after Ellie disappeared.’
Horton knew that.
Uckfield added, ‘I don’t think he’s our killer.’
‘He isn’t. Ross Skelton is,’ and Horton rapidly relayed what he’d discovered from his interview with Iris. ‘I believe he’s the man Sharon Piper was with on the day of Ellie Loman’s death in 2001. Garvard knew this and Woodley’s job was to get a message to Skelton to say that Sharon would be coming back for her aunt’s funeral, whenever that was. There would be an announcement in the local newspaper and the Daily Telegraph – courtesy of Fiona Wright – and Garvard gambled on Skelton wanting to look out for it and wanting to see Sharon again because they’d had an affair. Woodley was probably instructed to tell Skelton that Sharon had been forced to leave the country in a hurry because of the police investigation surrounding Garvard. She would return with a new identity and a new name and would only be in the country for a short time. She wanted to see Skelton but they couldn’t be seen together. It was too dangerous for her. There were still some of Garvard’s associates who were after her.
‘Skelton’s the man Sharon met at the crematorium and spent the afternoon and evening with. His company supplies fish and frozen food to the prison on the Isle of Wight and elsewhere on the Island and here on the mainland, so having a lobster tucked away in his fridge at his home or on his boat, and I suspect it’s the latter, would have been quite natural. He could have followed her to the boatyard and killed her or he could have driven her there for her rendezvous, killed her and then driven her car somewhere and abandoned it.’
‘Motive?’
‘Perhaps she had something on him from back in 2001. He’s crooked now so he could have been crooked then. Skelton’s employing illegal immigrant labour but DI Dennings probably knows that already, or at least the Border Agency do, which is why they’re watching his tent at the festival. Garvard knew Skelton was a crook and he judged what Skelton’s response would be when he discovered that Sharon was returning. Skelton needed to find out what and how much Sharon knew, perhaps Woodley was even told to hint that she knew something about his current operations. He might not only be employing illegal immigrants, he could be trafficking in them, or drugs. Garvard could have picked something up on the prison grapevine, or from one of the Coastline delivery drivers. He’s a twisted bugger and a creative con man, he could easily have made up enough to convince Skelton. Skelton decided it was too risky to let Sharon live. Gregory Harlow saw Skelton kill her or suspected him of it and wanted more than another promotion out of him. Maybe he asked for a big fat pay rise or a bonus. He got killed instead.’
‘Right. I’ll get the Island police to bring him in and I’ll get a unit over to his house, have you got his address?’
‘No, but according to Iris it’s at Hamble and he has a boat in a marina. Could be Horsea Marina, nice and convenient for Tipner Quay. And he’s not answering his mobile.’
Horton relayed the number. It wouldn’t take them long to get Skelton’s address and locate the boat, and Skelton had no reason to suspect they were on to him and go into hiding. They would have their killer. But what if Skelton wasn’t at the festival and he wasn’t at home or on his boat?
Horton started the Harley and swung it in the direction of the church which had been robbed of its brass plaques. A short distance after it he indicated left and turned into one of the back streets, retracing on the bike the steps he and Eames had taken on Thursday. He came out by the Lord Horatio pub, which looked worse than normal in the gloomy weather and rain.
His thoughts veered from Ross Skelton to Woodley and Garvard. There was something he’d seen or noted in a gesture from the sick man, or was that just his imagination? He considered what he knew of Garvard and what Geoff Kirby had told him. Where was Ross Skelton now? Skelton and Sharon Piper, he ran it over in his mind. Something was troubling him. It was one small niggling doubt and the image of Garvard on that hospital bed flashed before him.
Before he knew it he found himself heading for the north of the city and within twelve minutes was drawing up outside a terraced house. It took some time for the door to be opened and when it did it wasn’t Patricia Harlow who stood before him but a fair-haired, blue-eyed, good-looking man in his early twenties. For an instant Horton thought he was being haunted before Dr Clayton’s words at Sharon Piper’s autopsy flashed through his mind: she’s borne a child. My God, now he knew why Patricia hadn’t wanted Connor Harlow at the mortuary with her when she had identified her husband’s body. And he also knew why Gregory Harlow had stayed with Patricia all these years. Horton showed his ID.
‘I’d like to speak to your mother,’ he said, knowing that would be impossible.
‘She’s not here.’ Connor Harlow looked anxious and upset, not surprisingly thought Horton, eyeing him closely. ‘Is it true that my father was murdered?’
‘I’m sorry to say it is. Does your mother know this?’
‘Yes. A woman police officer came a couple of hours ago to tell us. Have you any idea who could have done such a thing? Why kill Dad? He never did anything to harm anyone.’
Horton was rapidly thinking. ‘What did your mother do after she was given the news?’
Connor looked confused.
‘It’s important,’ Horton pressed as gently as he could while trying to suppress his concern and impatience. He was beginning to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach about this.
‘She didn’t cry, if that’s what you mean. She never does.’ There was a touch of bitterness in his voice and Horton thought he saw a brief flicker of anger behind the eyes. ‘I tried to talk to her but she blanked me out. That’s not unusual. She’s not the type of person you can . . . she doesn’t show her emotions. She went into her surgery. She told me she needed to think and she couldn’t do that with me around.’ Now Horton heard the pain in the young man’s voice.
‘Did she telephone anyone?’
‘I don’t know. She might have done. She went out about ten minutes ago.’
Horton thanked him and hurried away. He felt a slight qualm for being so abrupt and for leaving the man bewildered and upset but time was critical. He told himself that Patricia Harlow could have gone to a friend who was consoling her in her grief, only he didn’t think Patricia had any friends. And from what he’d seen of her, and from his brief meeting with Connor Harlow, he doubted she needed consoling over her husband’s death. She might even be glad he was dead. From her reaction to the news Horton guessed she’d been working out who might have killed her husband and why. She wasn’t stupid, far from it. And there was only one place she could be.
The blue-and-white police tape on the cordon flapped in the wind as Horton drew the Harley to a stop just outside it. The sailing club was still closed, the road was deserted except for the two cars parked inside the boatyard, one belonged to Patricia Harlow and the other was as Iris had described it ‘like a tank’, a big four-wheel-drive cruiser: Ross Skelton’s.
Behind and above Horton the traffic swished and roared along the rain-soaked motorway. The day had drawn in early, the sky was a darkened hue making the sea of the harbour look a muddy grey, flecked with smudgy white foam. Horton tensed and hurried quietly forward through the empty boatyard. He hoped to God he wasn’t too late. He could see the two wrecks on the quayside but there was no sign of anyone and certainly not Patricia Harlow or Ross Skelton. Could they be inside the old boatshed?
Swiftly and silently he headed for the quayside, the rain running down his face, his ears straining for any sound. He eased his way around the wreck where Sharon Piper’s body had been found and drew up as the crane barge came into view. On it stood the bedraggled figure of Patricia Harlow, looking out across the rain-swept harbour. He reached it before she spun round, sensing his presence rather than hearing his approach, Horton thought.
In an instance he registered her ashen face, her blood-stained jacket and the bloody knife in her right hand before his eyes fell on the body that lay face down at her feet. It was Skelton. The back of his head was a mess of blood, flesh and bone but there was no knife wound. He rapidly theorized that she must have stood in front of him and stuck the knife into his guts taking him totally by surprise and then hit him over the head with a piece of metal piping he could see lying close by. And he didn’t think she’d acted in anger.
‘It’s over, Patricia. Put down the knife,’ he commanded with authority, while his heart was hammering fit to bust. Keeping his eyes on her he made to climb on the barge but she quickly stepped away from the body towards the edge and closer to the sea. The rain was drumming against it like a hundred stones being flung at the flat steel surface. Edged with a flimsy piece of wire strung out by poles not even knee high it wouldn’t take much for her to topple over.
‘I need to check if he’s still alive,’ Horton insisted, climbing onto the barge alert to the fact that at any moment she might step further back. But this time she remained still. She showed no signs of relinquishing the knife though. He didn’t like the fact that she was still holding a weapon which she could plunge into him while he was crouching over the body, but he assessed that he could dodge out of her way by the time she reached him and then he’d be able to easily disarm her.
He pressed his fingers against Skelton’s neck. There was no pulse. He tried again, his eyes flicking downwards for an instant. There was a movement to his right but she had edged further away from him rather than closer. Skelton was dead. Straightening up, Horton said, ‘Patricia, you need help. Let me get it for you.’
‘No!’ she shouted and seemed surprised that she could speak. It seemed to invigorate her. ‘No,’ she repeated now more self-assured. He saw something of the former Patricia Harlow reasserting itself. She pulled herself up and tossed back her head. ‘He killed Gregory. He was going to kill me. I had to do it. I had to get him before he killed me.’
There was no pleading in her voice. She had spoken as if it was a matter of fact and that anyone would understand why she had done what she had. Maybe Skelton had tried to kill her. Perhaps the knife had been his. But if so how had she got it from him? Horton couldn’t see him giving it up willingly and she could never have taken it from him by force. Skelton had looked to be a fit and agile man. Had he put it down for a moment while waiting for her to show and she seized the opportunity to grab it? Skelton had then spun round but too late she’d plunged it into his stomach.
‘Give me the knife, Patricia,’ he repeated firmly, stepping towards her and holding out his hand.
‘No. You’ll arrest me for murder.’ She snatched the knife behind her back as though afraid he would steal it from her and took another step towards the edge of the barge. If he moved again he might force her over the side and if he rushed at her she’d turn and either jump or fall in accidentally. And he didn’t want to go in after her with that knife she was wielding. He had to get her to give herself up and more importantly give up the knife.
Almost conversationally he said, ‘Why was he going to kill you?’
‘Because I knew about him employing illegal immigrants, of course,’ she scoffed as though he was stupid for not realizing it. ‘Gregory told me. When the police said Gregory’s death wasn’t suicide then I knew Ross Skelton must have killed him.’
But why would she have agreed to meet her husband’s killer? Rapidly he replayed what Connor had told him. It was probable she had made a call from her surgery, they could check that, and if she had made the call then it had to be to arrange this meeting with Skelton and not the other way around. She had come here with the intention of killing him. Why? Revenge for her husband’s death? Somehow that didn’t ring true. So it must be because she suspected him of knowing something that could damage her, and there were only two things it could be.
He said, ‘If Skelton had planned to kill you then he’d need to make your death look like suicide, which means he didn’t come here with a knife. Perhaps he intended knocking you out, making it look like an accident and then pushing your body into the sea.’ He saw her eyes narrow and her mouth tighten. ‘But you came here with a knife. Is it the same knife you used to kill your sister, Sharon?’ He wanted to provoke a reaction.
‘I didn’t kill her. He did.’ She jerked her head at Skelton’s recumbent body.
Evenly Horton said, ‘Why would he do that?’
‘Because Sharon was with him the day that Ellie Loman disappeared. He saw her kill Ellie. And he was with Sharon the day Aunt Amelia was buried. Gregory recognized his car parked just outside the crematorium as we were turning into it. She must have arranged to meet him there.’
No, that was Garvard’s doing. He’d had a long time to plan this.
‘If he saw Sharon kill Ellie Loman then she was more likely to kill him to silence him.’
‘Maybe she tried and it went wrong,’ Patricia Harlow leapt too readily at this.
There was one very big flaw in her story and at last he was beginning to see exactly what must have happened. He thought he caught a movement to his left behind the crane but dismissed it as the wind swinging the rigging. ‘Why didn’t you come to us when you suspected Ross Skelton of killing not only your sister but also your husband?’
‘I couldn’t. You wouldn’t believe me. You’d try and blame me like you did poor Rawly.’
‘And we’d be correct. Because you did kill your sister, Patricia, and Ross Skelton discovered that while he was killing your husband.’ He saw instantly that he’d got it wrong. There was a flicker of smug triumph in the back of her eyes. He eyed her steadily and closely, rapidly recalling all the interviews with her, the times she’d lied and twisted the truth. Then he knew.
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.