Death Lies Beneath

‘Got even with her,’ Garvard croaked. ‘Found Ellie. . See her soon. . loved her. .’ He slipped into unconsciousness.

Disappointed, Horton left. Outside he asked the prison officer to sign the bottom of each page of notes and give them to him.

‘I didn’t get much of what you said, Inspector, but I got a few of the points you made and Garvard’s comments and reactions. Hope you can read my writing.’

‘It’s better than mine.’

He was glad to get out in the fresh air even though it didn’t feel fresh. The day had turned sour and the sun was skulking behind a menacing dark sky. Elkins’ prediction of thunder looked like being fulfilled any moment. His head was pounding as he called up a patrol car and while waiting for it he paced the busy road chewing over the interview. Something Garvard said, or rather how he’d said it, struck him. It was those last words. Found Ellie. Did that mean he hadn’t known where her body had lain all these years or that by arranging to have Sharon killed there the police would discover Ellie’s remains? It had to be the latter, surely. And he had a sinking feeling that they would never discover who had killed Sharon Piper especially if Garvard had hired a professional killer via Stapleton’s contacts to do it. And Stapleton was never going to tell.

He continued to mull this over as the patrol car drove him back to Fishbourne, where the police launch was waiting for him. Garvard had known that Sharon would return for her aunt’s cremation and had organized, through Fiona Wright, an announcement to be placed in the Daily Telegraph but neither he nor Fiona Wright could have arranged for Woodley’s funeral to be held on the same day, and none of the Woodley crowd had any involvement in the arrangements either. So was that just one of life’s coincidences? It seemed to be.

Horton knew that Fiona Wright hadn’t killed Sharon Piper because Dr Clayton had given her a lift home. So if the killer wasn’t Gregory Harlow, Reggie Thomas, Harry Foxbury or a hired hit man then who else could it be? Think like Garvard, he urged his sluggish brain. Why would Woodley need that photograph of Sharon Piper? What was Woodley’s purpose if it wasn’t to kill Sharon? If Garvard knew that Ellie’s bones were at Tipner Quay then who else would he enlist to kill Ellie’s murderer? Then he had it. Kenneth Loman.

Woodley had never been Sharon’s intended killer, he was Garvard’s messenger boy. He was to make contact with Kenneth Loman and tell him that Sharon knew something about his daughter’s disappearance and that she was returning for her aunt’s funeral. Yes, that fitted. Loman wouldn’t have known what Sharon Piper looked like, hence the need for the photograph. Woodley had probably told Loman that he had information indicating that Tipner Quay was significant and was probably the last place anyone had seen Ellie alive. Yes, he rapidly thought. Once Woodley had delivered his message all Loman had to do was scan the local newspaper every day until the announcement of Amelia Willard’s funeral appeared, go to the crematorium and tell Sharon that unless she agreed to meet him at Tipner Quay he would go to the police. She agreed but she probably had no intention of telling Loman she’d killed Ellie. Or perhaps she told him it was accident or she tried to pin the blame on Garvard.

Loman, distraught, angry and motivated by revenge, stuck that knife in Sharon Piper’s back. He could easily have walked to the boatyard to meet her, not wanting to be seen, and then driven her car away and dumped it, after killing her. And Loman could also have killed Gregory Harlow because Harlow had arrived at the boatyard as arranged with Sharon and seen Loman. That meant Loman would have had to cross to the Isle of Wight by ferry, and perhaps Gregory Harlow had picked him up. Loman could have fabricated some story to convince Harlow they needed to talk. But Horton frowned with puzzlement. It fitted except for two things. He could swear that Loman’s reaction to the news that they’d found his daughter’s remains was genuine grief. And, secondly, he just couldn’t see Loman prising open Harlow’s jaw and making him swallow drugs and drink. But if Loman was their killer then the person who Sharon had spent the afternoon with eating lobster and drinking white wine had nothing to do with her death.

On the launch he rang Uckfield. While waiting for him to answer Horton stared out at a muddy and very choppy dark bluey-green sea which the wind was whipping up into angry white spray. Thunder growled out to sea somewhere beyond the Isle of Wight. Cantelli would have hated this crossing. He hoped the sergeant had enjoyed his holiday. He would be glad to have him back on Monday. He wondered if they’d have the answers to this investigation by then. They were close but still it might drag on. And if it did, how long would Eames stay? What would Cantelli make of her?

When Uckfield answered, Horton gave him a concise report drawing a few grunts and ‘bloody hells’ along the way. When he had finished, Uckfield said, ‘We’ll bring Loman in for questioning.’

‘Go easy with him, Steve. He didn’t kill his daughter. I also think that if he did kill Harlow, he would have confessed to it.’

‘He still might when we confront him about it,’ Uckfield grunted.

Horton reluctantly agreed that was possible. He rang off after telling Uckfield that he’d go to the hospital and interview Fiona Wright. And as the Portsmouth coast loomed closer he turned his mind as to how he’d play it.

TWENTY

As it was he didn’t have to say much. ‘Tell me about the advertisement Leo Garvard asked you to place in the Daily Telegraph.’

‘He’s dead?’ she asked, concerned.

‘No. But I don’t think it will be long now.’

She bit her lower lip and pushed a hand through her brown hair. ‘I’d like to be there, but that depends on you, I suppose.’ She waved him into a seat in her consulting room, anxiety etched on her tired face.

‘If all you did was place that announcement then you won’t be detained for long. You might make it in time.’ All you did, he thought. And that small act had brought Sharon Piper to her death, which in turn had led Gregory Harlow to his.

‘I promised Leo I would. It was all he asked me to do. And because of that a woman has died. I’m sorry.’

Leo Garvard must be a hell of a man, he thought. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘He was two weeks into his treatment last June when he said he thought he recognized an elderly woman as he was leaving. He couldn’t approach her even if he’d wanted to because of the prison officer with him and even if he did he wasn’t sure she’d recognize him or want to acknowledge him because of his conviction. Leo’s appointments were usually timed at the beginning of the day so that he could arrive and leave before too many other patients arrived. Over the following sessions we got talking. Not about his criminal conviction and I didn’t ask him. I wasn’t here to judge him, just to treat him, but I became emotionally involved and that was wrong, and unprofessional. I’m not sure how we ended up talking about Amelia Willard but we did.’

Garvard hadn’t lost any of his charm or his powers of persuasion. Horton remembered what Geoff Kirby had told him and he wondered what weakness Garvard had exploited in Fiona to get her to open up and do his bidding. Compassion, kindness, pity? Or perhaps she’d fallen in love with him.

‘Amelia was also one of my patients,’ Fiona was saying. ‘She was a lovely, gentle, happy lady despite her illness. Leo so desperately wanted to speak to her. Even though he was having treatment for his cancer he didn’t believe he’d survive it very long. He told me that he’d been very close to Amelia and her family years ago but they’d become estranged when Amelia’s son had killed himself and he’d been sent to prison. It was a great relief for Leo to talk to someone outside the prison service. He told me that he’d been raised in a children’s home, he’d never known his father or mother and that Amelia and Edgar Willard were the closest he’d got to having family.’

Bullshit, Horton thought but didn’t say. He’d read Garvard’s file and he’d been raised in a secure middle-class home by his banker father and his schoolteacher mother, both of whom had died before his conviction.

‘Leo had worked hard and built up a successful financial business. But in a moment of madness, he threw it all away. I told him I didn’t want to know what he’d done.’

And he wouldn’t have told you the truth even if you had asked.

‘He asked me about Amelia’s cancer and the prognosis. It wasn’t good. When Leo came to the end of his treatment he said he wouldn’t see me again. I told him I’d visit him in prison but he made me swear I wouldn’t. He couldn’t bear me to see him there. It was too painful for him.’