After a moment Beth shook her head. ‘Empty.’
Taylor added, ‘There’s only the usual vehicle documentation in the car compartments.’ He handed the keys, which he’d placed in a plastic evidence bag, to Horton. ‘As well as the ignition key, and automated key fob, there’s a key for the rear door,’ he added, walking around to the rear of the vehicle where the two doors were wide open. ‘The other two keys look as though they are to his house.’
But Horton thought the smaller key might be to the caravan at the festival. He peered inside the rear of the van. It was empty, which was what he had expected. All the supplies were at the festival, which thankfully they couldn’t hear from here.
‘Any sign of a mobile phone?’ He knew there couldn’t be otherwise Taylor would have said. Taylor confirmed this with a shake of his head.
‘He could have got out of the van and dropped it, or chucked it away.’
Or it could be in the caravan at the festival. That seemed unlikely, why would Harlow leave it behind? Equally why would he ditch it? The obvious reason was because it contained evidence linking him to Salacia. They would get the number and apply for the phone records.
Uckfield came off the phone. He left instructions with DCI Birch to keep the area cordoned off until they’d finished the search and told the undertakers to take the body to Portsmouth on one of the night-ferry crossings. ‘No point in dragging Mrs Harlow over here,’ Uckfield said to Horton while unzipping his scene suit. ‘She can make a formal ID tomorrow morning before Dr Clayton does the autopsy.’ Stepping out of the disposable suit and hitching up his trousers he added, ‘Let’s break the news to her.’
On their way back to Portsmouth, Horton wondered what Uckfield would make of Patricia Harlow. Perhaps this news would cause that brittle shell of hers to crack wide open.
It was almost ten o’clock by the time they pulled up outside the house, and dark. Horton had wondered if Patricia Harlow would still be up. There was no light shining from the front of the house. A marked police car was waiting for them further down the road. Inside were two PCs. Eames climbed out of her car and handed Horton the search warrant that Trueman had given her. ‘It seems a bit insensitive searching her house this late and at the same time we’re telling her that her husband’s dead,’ she said.
‘Not if Harlow murdered two women and she’s an accomplice,’ Horton brusquely replied, recalling Kenneth and Marie Loman. As he headed towards the house, he saw the net curtains twitching at a house across the car- lined street. He rang the bell while Uckfield stood impatiently beside him and Eames waited behind them with the two uniformed officers. He was beginning to think that she must have retired to bed when a light came on in the hall and a few seconds later the door was flung open. Patricia Harlow had discarded the white overall in favour of a lemon T-shirt that stretched across her well-developed chest. She eyed them first with surprise and then with anger.
‘What is it now? Can’t you leave me alone? This is harassment. I won’t tolerate it.’
‘Shall we go inside, Mrs Harlow? No need for the neighbours to hear everything.’
She stared at him and each of them in turn before stepping back.
They entered the spotlessly clean hall with its pale pink carpet covered by plastic to protect it from the footsteps of her clients. The smell of antiseptic was as pungent as before. Horton continued, ‘We have a warrant to search these premises.’ He nodded at PC Johnson, who held out the warrant.
‘This is ridiculous-’ she began without looking at it.
But Horton interjected, ‘I’m afraid we also have some very upsetting news for you concerning your husband.’
‘Gregory’s on the Isle of Wight,’ she declared.
‘Shall we go in here?’ Horton gestured towards the front room, which he knew to be her surgery. It wasn’t the best of places to break the news but it was the nearest and it would allow the officers to search the house.
She entered it with ill grace. Horton nodded at the two officers to begin their search and for Eames to stay with him. Uckfield remained silent but entered the room behind Horton and stood by the door. Nothing seemed to have changed from Horton’s last visit.
He began. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that your husband’s body was found late this afternoon.’
She eyed him with suspicion then her eyes flicked over the small group. ‘Dead? But he can’t be. You must have made a mistake,’ she said hesitantly.
‘No mistake, Mrs Harlow.’
Silence. What would she do now?
‘I don’t understand. If this is some kind of trick-’
‘No trick. This is Detective Superintendent Uckfield. He and I have just come from your husband’s body. He was found in his van in a wood on the Isle of Wight.’
Her skin paled. ‘How? An accident?’ She frowned as though she was trying to make sense of what he’d just told her.
‘It appears as though he took his own life; there was a bottle of whisky beside him in the van.’
‘Gregory hates whisky. He never touches the stuff.’ She said it as though it was conclusive proof that it couldn’t be her husband.
‘They’ll be a post-mortem, which will give us more information about how he died but not why; we thought you might be able to tell us that?’
‘Me? How should I know?’
But she knew something. She showed no sign of breaking down, though. That could be because she was in shock or in denial; the news hadn’t really sunk in yet. That could take some time. Her eyes shifted at the sound of the officers searching in the room next to them. She turned away to the cabinet where her sterilizer was and began to idly finger some instruments. Her tension filled the air.
Horton said, ‘We believe your husband’s death might have something to do with the deaths of Ellie Loman and the woman seen at the crematorium at the same time as your aunt’s funeral.’
Her hand froze. She stiffened but she didn’t turn to face them.
‘You know who she is, don’t you?’ Horton persisted gently.
‘No.’
‘Mrs Harlow. Your husband is dead. The time for lying is over.’
She spun round, her eyes filled with fury. ‘My husband’s death has nothing to do with that woman or Ellie Loman. Isn’t it bad enough that one person in my family has died because of police persecution? You just couldn’t leave Rawly alone and the poor weak soul killed himself, so now you’re looking for someone else. Me or my husband. We’ll do. Just as long as you get someone for it you’re happy. Well, Gregory had nothing to do with her disappearance and neither did I. Do your search and then leave me alone. I’ve got things to do.’ She pursed her lips together and stood erect.
Uckfield jerked his head towards the door. Horton said, ‘My colleague will stay with you in here while we conduct the search.’
She made no reply.
In the hall Uckfield raised his eyebrows and gestured for them to enter the kitchen. ‘God, she’s tough,’ he said quietly.
‘And capable of killing,’ Horton replied. ‘Perhaps Gregory Harlow didn’t meet and kill Salacia but she did when she discovered he’d had an affair with her. And perhaps she told her husband that and he killed himself, unable to live with it.’
‘Yeah, that’s possible. I’ll poke around in here and the garden. See what they’ve found in the lounge and upstairs.’
Horton was keen to see the house. He hoped it might give him a greater understanding and insight into Patricia Harlow. He took the lounge first.
‘Nothing so far, sir,’ PC Allen greeted him. They’d been told to look for any notes or correspondence from either of the dead women or from Gregory Harlow but Horton knew that if such existed it could be on the computer and there was one in the surgery, which they’d take away.
He surveyed the featureless room with its plain cream wallpaper, the same pale pink carpet that was in the hall, and a square cream sofa and two matching armchairs. There was an absence of cushions and rugs and only one picture of a bland country view above a tiled hearth with an electric fire. There was a modern television in one
