‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘At first I thought Hazleton must have sold the necklace to Glenn or to someone who had sold it on to him, but when I gently pumped Hazleton it was clear he didn’t know anything about a necklace. I told him that if he had a necklace or any other jewellery in the same style as the ring I could make his fortune. I knew he would have to look. He was a greedy little man and a thief, that much was clear from the items he gave me to sell, which had no provenance, so the night I told him about the jewellery being worth a fortune I followed him to the derelict house, up there.’ Vernon jerked his head but his eyes didn’t leave Horton.
He continued. ‘Hazleton rummaged around inside the house for a while and after he’d left I stayed on. I found three steamer trunks with the name Sarah Walpen on them and the cruise ship label. Inside one of the trunks I found what was left of Sarah Walpen. The rest was easy. Sarah Walpen had been on SS
‘Russell Glenn was a deckhand on board it.’
‘Yes,’ Vernon said, surprised that Horton knew this. ‘It was also due to dock in Southampton, but because of a dockers’ strike all the passengers and some of the crew were transferred on to a ferry in the Solent and taken into Portsmouth instead. The cruise ship couldn’t get into Portsmouth Harbour because it was too big.’
And Horton saw how easy it must have been in the ensuing chaos for Glenn to tick off Sarah Walpen as having disembarked. Sarah’s belongings were sent on, as already arranged, to the empty house waiting for her, along with her body. Her furniture had probably been shipped there earlier. After a while Victor Hazleton had wondered why there was outstanding paperwork for her at the lawyer’s office and, on investigating, had found a ready fortune, easily accessible, with no questions asked.
Horton said, ‘So you thought that as Glenn had the necklace, and had never said a word about it, he must have killed Sarah Walpen and stolen it from her.’
‘Yes. He must have forged her name on her accounts, and stolen other valuable items from her, which started him on the road to wealth.’
‘And you decided to blackmail Glenn into handing over the necklace.’
Vernon sniffed but didn’t answer.
Horton said, ‘And is that why you killed Colin Yately: because he was getting too close to the truth and would ruin your scheme? You tortured him into telling you about Arthur Lisle and the research they’d done on Sarah Walpen. So after tricking Lisle into collecting the evidence from Yately’s flat you then killed him. Did Victor Hazleton see you? Is that why he had to die? Or had you already decided his usefulness was at an end, and you saw an opportunity to get rid of him and frame Arthur Lisle for it?’
‘No! I’ve no idea who killed them and I’ve never heard of Arthur Lisle or Colin Yately,’ Vernon said, surprised.
Did Horton believe him? It sounded like the truth, but Horton wasn’t going to let that influence him. The gun was still pointing at him, but Vernon seemed almost to have forgotten it was in his hand. Horton eased a step forward, feeling the icy waters reach up his calves. He was within reach of the RIB now, looking up at Vernon at the rear of it, close to the engine. But Vernon, in his excitement and increasing agitation, didn’t seem to notice how close he was.
Vernon insisted. ‘I found a man’s body in a small inlet in the cliff, just in the next bay, on Monday morning. I’d come here to collect more evidence from Sarah Walpen in case I needed it to persuade Glenn to part with the necklace. I thought Hazleton must have killed that man because he’d discovered his secret. It was a perfect opportunity. I dressed the body in one of Sarah’s dresses, which I fetched from one of the trunks in the house. I thought the media would pick up on it, you know, “mystery of man’s body found wearing old-fashioned dress in the Solent”, that kind of thing, and then I could send a message to Glenn telling him they might discover it was a dress belonging to Sarah Walpen, and that if he didn’t do what he was told, the police would get a hint of who the dress belonged to. Not that Glenn knew it was me.’
You wanna bet, thought Horton.
‘I put that man, Yately, in a RIB I’d hired and took him into the Solent.’
‘Tying the dress around his ankles to act as a buoyancy aid and dropping him off somewhere by the Nab Tower, letting the tidal flow take him into harbour,’ Horton said stiffly. ‘And you killed Arthur Lisle and Victor Hazleton. You put Hazleton’s body in Lisle’s car and drove to Chale Bay, where you dumped the car.’
But Vernon was looking confused. ‘No.’
‘You expect me to believe that!’ scoffed Horton, thinking he didn’t have long. The cold sea was numbing his legs. He had to avoid getting cramp at all costs. Desperately he flexed his toes inside his sodden shoes and shifted forward as much as he dared. Now his hand could touch the RIB and he was looking up at Vernon.
‘Give me the gun, Oliver, it’s over,’ he said evenly, his heart thumping. He reached up his hand and held it there. But clearly Vernon was not ready to give it up. Horton pressed, ‘A good lawyer will convince a jury it was self-defence or accidental.’
‘I don’t need a lawyer. I’ve got this.’ Vernon reached into the pocket of his jacket. As he did so Horton took his chance. Swiftly, he reached out with both hands, grasped Vernon’s ankles and heaved with all his might. The necklace flew from Vernon’s hand as his body was wrenched backwards. Vernon let go of the gun, screeched and twisted over to reach for the necklace in the sea, giving Horton the chance to jump on board the RIB and plonk himself squarely on Oliver Vernon’s back.
‘The necklace, I must get it,’ Vernon squealed.
Horton reached into his pocket for his handcuffs, pulled Vernon’s hands behind him roughly and clasped the cuffs on his wrists.
‘Let me go. I have to get the necklace,’ Vernon squealed, almost crying in desperation.
Horton picked up the gun and released the bullets. He put both in his pocket.
Then he reached for the lines on the side of the rib and swiftly bound Vernon’s ankles.
‘Please, you must get the necklace,’ Vernon pleaded.
Horton jumped off the RIB and walked around to where the necklace had been flung. He peered down into the shallow water and as he did the picture beside Adrian Stanley’s hospital bed sprang into his mind. And with complete clarity he saw exactly what it was Stanley had been trying to tell him.
TWENTY-TWO
They found what was left of Sarah Walpen and Arthur Lisle two hours later. The fog had lifted leaving a clear early evening. Horton stood in the bay beneath Sarah Walpen’s house and took several deep breaths, trying to rid his lungs of the stench of human decay and his mind of Lisle’s decomposing body. Taylor and his crew were already inside Sarah’s house and arc lights had been erected, making it look even more pathetic than it had in the fog. Oliver Vernon had been escorted away to be interviewed by Dennings. Horton had no taste to hear his tale again, or his bleating about the necklace. It was a stunning piece of jewellery of glittering diamonds and emeralds, as Vernon had described, and it had already cost too many lives. Horton doubted Vernon would give them the name of the collector he’d had lined up for it.
While he’d waited for SOCO and Uckfield to arrive, Horton had returned to Hazleton’s house by way of the fields, leaving Vernon secured. There he’d picked up a mobile signal and called first the incident suite in Ventnor, then Uckfield, before ringing Cantelli.
‘I’ve been trying to get you for hours,’ Cantelli said, with relief in his voice. Then Cantelli had told him that he’d found Sarah Walpen listed as a passenger on the SS
Horton had quickly relayed what had happened and what Vernon had said. Horton asked Cantelli to get him the names of boat owners at Ventnor Haven. If neither Russell Glenn nor Oliver Vernon had killed Yately, Lisle and Hazleton, then only one person could have done. Horton had then ridden the Harley along the top road until he’d found the track off it that led down to Sarah’s house and he’d relayed instructions to the patrol cars on how to find it. Someone had brought him a pair of socks and shoes to replace his sodden ones.
Uckfield joined him at the water’s edge ‘Vernon’s still insisting he didn’t kill the others.’
