CHAPTER 16

By the time they reached the marina the wind had risen and the halyards were slapping against the masts. The stifling heat had vanished and the fat rain had developed into lean, mean streaks. Horton thought he heard the faint rumble of thunder as they slipped on to the pontoon brushing past a man coming out.

Hurrying towards Jarrett's boat Horton could see he was back and that the cover was off which meant that Jarrett must be on board. He wondered why he hadn't covered over his precious motor cruiser to protect it from the weather. As he climbed on board and dipped below into the cabin he saw the answer.

He cursed and stepped forward with a sinking heart. Jarrett was lying on his back. His eyes were staring up into nothing. There was blood around his mouth and a livid mark around his neck. Horton felt for the pulse in Jarrett's neck even though he knew there was no point. The body was still warm. He straightened up shaking his head at Cantelli who looked shocked and worried. Horton knew where this would leave him. They would try and pin Jarrett's murder on him along with Lucy's. Cantelli said, 'Is it the same killer?'

'Looks like it.' Horton was unable to disguise the disappointment he felt. 'Chummy seems to go in for strangulation.'

'This doesn't make sense. Why kill Jarrett? What has he got to do with Melissa Thurlow?'

'Nothing. The murders have no connection with Melissa Thurlow. I was wrong.' Horton stepped back on deck under the protective cover of the spray hood. He could hear the rain beating against it and splattering onto the pristine deck. 'I didn't expect this. I should have done.' He tried to clear his brain. Think damn you, think. 'You'd better phone through and get the circus in.' He couldn't stick around here and wait for Uckfield. 'Can I borrow your car?'

Cantelli looked surprised. 'Where are you going?'

'Away from here, that's for sure.'

'I discovered the body with you,' Cantelli protested. 'No one can think you're involved with this.'

'Oh, can't they. By the time Uckfield and Reine are convinced of that it will be too late.' He wasn't prepared to tell Cantelli his suspicions about Reine being the 'someone high up' that Jane had mentioned. He didn't want Cantelli compromised, or at risk, any more than he already was. 'Tell them you were acting on a hunch coming out here. Don't mention me.'

'And if they ask me where my car is?'

'I'm sure you'll think of something to say. And try and trace that man we saw slipping off the pontoon as we came in. Did you get a look at him?'

Cantelli frowned. 'Not a proper one, sorry.'

Neither did Horton, though he felt there was something familiar about him. 'I'll call you.'

He climbed into Cantelli's car with a sinking heart. Four people dead and he was no nearer to finding the killer. There had to be something he'd overlooked. Could the lockmaster give a better description? Had anyone else seen and recognised this man on Thurlow's boat? Oh they'd find out, once they'd questioned the marina staff and berth holders. But how long would that take and where would he be then? Still suspended – again.

He slid the driver's seat back to accommodate his longer legs but it got stuck. Reaching underneath it he found a child's drawing book stuffed in the space. He made to throw it on to the back seat when his hand froze. He glanced down at the drawings he'd put there earlier and then at those in the drawing book in his hand. His heart was going like the clappers. He sat back and thought. Cantelli's drawings on his notice board, the twins writing underneath them and on these drawings, Melissa's belief that she had an illegitimate brother or sister. Could it be a twin brother or sister? There were the love letters to Culven that Melissa had denied writing and yet were in an identical hand. He stared at the drawings again, suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning. He couldn't tell the difference between the Cantelli twins writing. He recalled the lockmaster's description, tall fellow, lean, looks fit and another image flashed before Horton's mind, it was of an athlete, a runner.

He swung the car out of Horsea Marina. His pulse racing. The photographs on the wall of Thurlow's boardroom had shown a man with a marathon medal and a group of disabled children. The business was losing money but Calthorpe had seemed unaware of it. Culven's files had mentioned redundancies.

Why hadn't he seen the likeness before? Oh yes, Melissa had a twin and that twin was Graham Parnham. But how could it be? He had been in France. Or had he? Only one way to find out.

Parnham's house in Emsworth was in darkness though and despite ringing the bell and knocking several times Horton knew he wasn't there. Where could he have gone? If he was right –- though as yet there was no evidence to say he was – this was a man who had killed three people, four if he was responsible for Jarrett's death. A man who would kill again to achieve his goal, which was? Horton paused as his brain scrambled to put together the pieces. What did Parnham want? Revenge? For what though? Or perhaps it was money he wanted. If Parnham was related to Melisssa Thurlow, if he was her twin then the two motives would fit. He'd want revenge on Melissa for being adopted by wealthy magnate Randall Simpson and he'd want a share of that wealth. And if Uckfield had released her then there was only one place she'd be and Parnham would know that.

By the time Horton reached Briarly House the lightning was flashing across the sky like an erratic searchlight and the thunder booming like a hundred cannons. The house was in darkness. Perhaps Melissa had gone to stay with friends.

He stepped back and looked up at the window. Then he walked around to the back of the house looking for the best way to enter. He pushed against the conservatory door. It opened.

Gingerly he crept through the kitchen, his ears straining for the slightest of sounds but all he could hear was the thunder. From his previous visits he knew the house wasn't alarmed.

He negotiated the hall, knocking his shin on the corner of a table and cursing softly under his breath. Swiftly, but stealthily, he searched the rooms on the ground floor but found nothing and no one. Upstairs he stood in the pitch black and strained his ears but heard only the wind and rain. A growing sense of anxiety was beginning to creep up his spine. Something wasn't quite right. He felt uneasy. This house wasn't empty. He'd known from the moment he had stepped over the threshold, only he'd chosen to ignore his instinct. Now his pulse quickened and he tried to still his pounding heart as he eased his way along the landing. Carefully and slowly he pushed back a door to a bedroom, nothing, then another and the bathroom. Deserted.

He made his way down the passageway to the room at the end. Gingerly, with his fingertips, he pushed open the door. Slowly it swung wide. She was lying on the bed, much as Lucy Richardson had been, but Melissa Thurlow was face down and wearing a green dressing gown. An empty bottle of pills and an empty whisky bottle lay by her side on the floor. Her arm was hanging over the edge of the bed where she had let it fall.

Swiftly he crossed to the bed believing her to be dead but when he pressed his fingers against her neck he felt a pulse. Thank God. He lifted the telephone, but something struck him violently on the side of the head, and he fell to the floor. Before he even had a chance to recover a gun was thrust at his temple. 'Over.'

He rolled over. His head was muggy from the blow. He felt his arms being wrenched behind him whilst his brain said resist, fight back, but that gun was at his head. Whatever bound him was made of material. The bonds were tightened.

'You can turn around.'

Parnham said, 'I don't mind shooting you here if I have to, so don't try anything, Inspector.'

Slowly Horton's head cleared. 'Let me call an ambulance. She's still alive.'

'All the more reason not to call one.'

Was he going to have to stand here and watch Melissa slowly die whilst this man gloated?

Parnham's eyes flickered to Melissa for a moment but almost instantly came back up again and focused on Horton before he had a chance to take advantage of it. Horton had to think of a way to overpower Parnham and get help for Melissa before it was too late. But he was staring at a ruthless, unbalanced and complex personality. If Melissa died, that would make four deaths. Not Jarrett's though, because now Horton knew who the man slipping off the pontoon had been. But what good was that if he didn't get out of here? Parnham wouldn't hesitate to kill him, but to do so here would be a mistake. He would need to get him away from Briarly House and then Horton would have to take his chance. But it might be too late for Melissa.

'You're going to stand there and let your twin sister die?'

'You know.' Parnham looked disappointed. A flicker of annoyance showed behind the eyes, this time without their spectacles. Now Horton could see the likeness more strongly. He cursed himself for not spotting it sooner, but Parnham's spectacles, and the light shining off them from Thurlow's office window, had deceived him. He remembered how Parnham had removed his spectacles and polished them, a gesture, Horton now thought designed to taunt him.

Parnham continued, 'She had luxury and comfort all her life. She never had to work and scrimp and save like me.'

'You killed her because of that!' goaded Horton. The longer he kept him talking the more chance he had of getting out of this alive.

'Why not? I couldn't get my revenge on my stupid, selfish mother because she's dead. And Roger was going to make me redundant. How could I get another position at my age? Especially one so lucrative.'

'You were taking money out of the company.'

'I was drawing the director's pay I was entitled to.'

'And you didn't think that was putting pressure on the business and hence your proposed redundancy?' Horton scoffed.

Parnham scowled. 'The business would have been fine if Roger and Charles hadn't been so greedy, but then when you're keeping a mistress… Why should I be the one to suffer because of their greedy incompetence?'

'You overheard Thurlow and Culven talking about the redundancies in the yacht club on that Friday.'

A sharp flash of lightning lit the room illuminating Parnham's face for a moment. Almost instantly it was followed by a deafening crack of thunder, which shook the house and rattled the thin windowpanes. Parnham didn't even flinch. It was as though he were living in an existence of his own, totally oblivious of the storm raging around him. Horton could hear the wind chasing itself around the house and the mean rain lashing against the windows with such ferocity that he thought the panes might shatter.

Parnham said, 'I heard Roger arranging the meeting with Culven and knew they were up to something. The company has corporate membership of the yacht club so I simply went there before Roger and waited. They couldn't see me from where they were sitting.'

Horton had to raise his voice to be heard above the storm. 'So you planned your revenge?' 'I'd planned that a long time ago, I just had to speed things up a bit.'

'Does Melissa know you're her twin?' Horton wondered if she was still alive. He prayed she was.

'She does now. Or rather she did before she tragically took her own life.' The gun wavered for a second. 'I told her. I think I'll tell you before you die in tragic circumstances. A drowning accident might be suitable.'

'I know most of it. Your mother took Melissa out of Barnados when she met Randall Simpson because he had admitted to her he couldn't have children. You'd already been adopted.'

'Yes by Agnes and Bert Parnham. But it wasn't an official adoption. My mother was billeted with them during the war. When she got pregnant after the war she returned to stay with them, handing me over to the Parnhams as soon as I was born and putting Melissa into Barnados. I was condemned to spend my childhood and youth growing up in poverty whilst she had everything.'

Horton doubted Parnham's upbringing had been as bleak as that but it had been poor compared to Melissa. 'When did you find out about Melissa?' Again the flash of lightning and roar of thunder. Horton prayed they'd be struck by a thunderbolt, if it didn't kill them it might give him a chance of escape.

Parnham was saying calmly and evenly, 'I found a letter when my adoptive mother died just over ten years ago. It was from my birth mother crowing about her new life. It gave me enough information about Randall Simpson to identify him and track down Melissa.'

'The false biography.'

'I see you have been busy.'

'But why kill the others? Roger Thurlow, all right, I can see your twisted reasoning there, you wanted the blame to fall on Melissa. But why kill Culven and Lucy Richardson?'

'Oh, I didn't intend to kill the girl,' he said airily. 'She brought it on herself really. I thought she might have seen me dump Roger in the tower. Still, she was only a tart.'

Horton tensed and his fists curled behind his back but what good was that.

Parnham smiled. 'Roger was my intended victim all along. By killing him and framing Melissa I would destroy her comfortable life. I wanted her to know what it felt like to be an outsider. I wanted her to experience the sensation of disintegration. I wanted her to feel shame and disgrace, as I had felt it. Then finally to feel fear, just as I've felt fear all my life, the fear of failing and the fear of poverty. She pleaded with me in the end, you know. Said she'd give me everything and anything I wanted, this house even, but then I'm going to get this anyway, as her only blood relative, so why should I let her live?'

Parnham needed to talk, to explain. Horton inched back towards the window just a fraction hoping that Parnham wouldn't notice. He said, 'And France? Your alibi?'

'Clever, wasn't it? I was in France as no doubt you and the good sergeant checked. But instead of taking the ferry like I told you I took the high speed catamaran, the first one on Saturday morning to Cherbourg. It leaves Portsmouth at five thirty and gets in at Cherbourg at eight fifteen. I had a hire car waiting at Cherbourg and drove to St Malo in time to go to the bakers.'

'To give you your alibi if we checked.' And they hadn't, a serious omission on their part. 'Then you came back by the high speed on Tuesday in time to kill Culven and not on the ferry as you claimed and on which you were booked on the Wednesday.'

'Yes. As I was leaving the ferry port on foot I saw the tart who had been in the tower walking down to the railway station. I picked her up and we went back to her place where I stayed for most of the day.'

The gun wavered a bit but not enough for Horton to attempt anything, especially with his hands tied behind his back. 'How did you kill Roger Thurlow?'

'On Friday I went after Roger to his boat. By the time I got there he was asleep.'

'Unconscious actually. Melissa had drugged his water. She wanted him dead. You did her a favour.'

Horton could see Parnham didn't like that much. After a moment Parnham continued. 'I wanted to tell him why he had to die, but you can't look a gift horse in the mouth, can you? So I put a plastic bag over his head and held it there until he died.'

What did the man want? Praise? Horton's expression remained impassive but all the time, behind the mask, he was desperately seeking a way out. The gun was still aimed at his head with a steady hand. Parnham's gaze never wavered from him.

'I drove his car to Paulsgrove and left it there and jogged back to the marina. It was foggy. Ideal conditions. I hadn't really planned for that,' he said, as if he could have done so if he wished. 'I took the Free Spirit through the lock on free flow and motored to Emsworth where I picked up a buoy.'

Much as Horton had guessed. 'And the clothes? Did Thurlow really dress up in women's clothes?'

Parnham laughed. 'Of course he didn't. I brought the clothes with me. I picked them up in a charity shop. I undressed and re-dressed Roger. Have you ever tried to dress someone who's dead, Inspector? No? Well I don't recommend it. It is extremely difficult. I put him in the tender and motored near to the shore and then dragged the tender with Roger in it up the tower and dumped him.'

Was Melissa still alive? Horton agonised, but he couldn't stop Parnham now.

'It was just after midnight. I waited for a while. Saw a couple of girls come out of the track, then two men. They were very drunk, or drugged. I recognised Culven. When it was quiet, I dumped Roger inside the tower but one of the girls returned. I couldn't be sure she hadn't seen me, so she had to die. Then I returned to the shore at Emsworth, where I left the tender, and ran home.'

Behind Horton was a window but he was on the second floor. He wouldn't have time to get out of it before Parnham pulled that trigger and besides he'd probably break his neck landing on the gravel drive beneath him.

'I think it's time we made a move, Inspector. She must be dead by now.' Parnham prodded him towards the door.

Perhaps he could throw himself down the stairs. But no, that would only make Parnham fire the gun at him and he might end up breaking his leg, or his neck.

'How did you lure Culven to his death?' he asked, desperate to keep him talking until he could find a way out of this.

'Easy. On Tuesday evening I called Culven and asked him to meet me in the car park at Eastney. He did. He would have done anything for me by then.'

'He was infatuated with me. I knew all about his little fetish and Alpha One.'

'What about Alpha One?' Horton stopped.

'I think you already know. Isn't that why you were suspended? Lucy told me all about it.'

'She told you who framed me?' Horton's heart quickened.

'You'd like to know of course.'

Horton knew Parnham was playing with him.

'Maybe I'll tell you before I kill you. I suppose it would be a kindness. Move.' He jabbed the gun in Horton's back and continued. 'Of course Jarrett's smuggling pornography.'

'Lucy told me, although she didn't really need to. I've been out with Jarrett several times. I know a great deal about Colin Jarrett. It could come in useful.'

'I doubt it, he's dead.'

Parnham halted for a moment. 'Is he?'

'You didn't kill him?'

'No. Pity. Still to get back to Culven.' He prodded the gun in Horton's back and urged him forward. 'We went down on to the beach; it was dark and foggy. I was walking behind him, throwing stones into the sea like you do, and then I strangled him. He wasn't a very strong man. I dragged him along the beach so he wouldn't be washed out to sea and then I stripped him and bundled his clothes up and put them in the boot of his Mercedes. I then drove it to Horsea Marina where I planted the letters in his house. I could use him to really make Melissa suffer. I guessed the police would arrest her. Quite a good idea, don't you think? Then I took the car to Stansted Woods and flashed it up. I ran back to Emsworth from there, got in the tender and took the Free Spirit out. I set it adrift after getting into the tender and motored it round to Eastney Lake where I left it and then jogged back to Lucy's flat where I stayed until I headed to the ferry port to coincide with the time of my ferry and took a taxi home, carrying the bag I'd previously left at Lucy's. Quite a good bit of improvisation that, wouldn't you say?'

'So there was no affair between Melissa and Culven?'

'None whatsoever. The letters were clever, weren't they? Twins, you see, sometimes have identical handwriting. I'd managed to get a sample of her writing all those years ago, from the house but I needn't have bothered. It was the same as mine. It confirmed what I already knew, that we were related.'

They were in front of the garage. Horton was soaked to the skin. The rain was lashing against him, dripping off his ears and his nose.

'Don't you think it's a very capable revenge, Inspector?'

Horton didn't answer.

'There's only you left and you won't be around for much longer.'

Parnham opened the boot of Melissa's Ford. Could Horton swing round and head butt Parnham, or at least ram his head into his belly and wound him. But Parnham must have sensed his intentions. Before Horton had the chance, something came down violently on the back of his head and the blackness swallowed him up.