Blood on the Sand (33 page)

   And if she could do that then Horton didn't think she'd have any compunction about killing him.

   'We put one of Jonathan's collapsible wheelbarrows in the boat and early Wednesday morning, when it was still dark, we went into Bembridge on the high tide. At this time of year, as you know, there isn't a soul about. Both Jonathan and I know the harbour like the back of our hands. We put Owen in the wheelbarrow and placed him in the bunker on the Duver.'

   'Why?' Horton asked, baffled. 'Surely it would have been easier to have thrown his body over the side of the boat and leave him to be washed up later, if at all.' Like she was planning for him.

   She scowled as if annoyed at the memory. 'It would but there was Thea. Owen might have confided in her. She might make a nuisance of herself and besides I had to have someone to take the blame for Jonathan's death.'

   Horton stiffened. Dr Clayton's words flashed through his mind.
A clever killing by a clever killer.
Also a ruthless one by an evil woman.

   Laura was saying, 'Jonathan telephoned Thea and left an anonymous message telling her where to look for her brother's body.'

   So Thea wasn't psychic. Why had she lied? If only she'd told him about the call at the beginning he might have saved her life, and caught Owen's killer sooner.

   He said, 'Then Anmore kept watch from a safe distance, saw me arrive and wondered who the devil I was when I seemed so friendly with the police.'

   'Yes.'

   She shifted slightly as though her arm was beginning to ache. The tide was going out. And he'd be going with it if he didn't do something – and soon. Quickly he scanned the horizon for any sign of a human being or a weapon but no sane person was out in this weather, and it was an isolated spot. There was only the abbey to his left and he didn't think the monks would be walking along the shore in the wind, rain and dark.

   She said, 'Jonathan watched you go to your boat, and then searched it after you left. He didn't discover you were a policeman though, and I didn't know that either until you showed up with Steve.'

   'Which of you knocked Thea out and then tried to set light to us?'

   'Jonathan, of course. I had to make sure that Owen hadn't left anything incriminating behind, which could point to me.'

   He tensed with fury. 'And you thought he'd kill Thea too.' The time was almost here. Soon he would have to make his move or it would be too late.

   She frowned, annoyed. 'I didn't know Thea had been released. Jonathan let himself in with Owen's key, and knocked Thea out before she had a chance to see him. Then you showed up so he decided to destroy any evidence and hope it would look as though Thea, unbalanced, had attacked you and then set light to the house. 'It's time to go, Andy.'

   The gun came up. The sea was crashing on to the shore beneath him. There was no way out. He held his breath. He wouldn't hear the trigger being pulled above the sound of the wind and waves. It would be quick and relatively painless. He steeled himself. His heightened senses screamed at him. He had microseconds of life left. There was only one thing he could do. And he did it.

A
sharp hot pain smashed into his arm before the freezing cold water sucked the breath from his body. It wasn't deep, but there was enough water to pull him under. He was still alive. For how much longer though was another matter. When he resurfaced, as he must, she would be there, standing on the jetty waiting for him. Suddenly the water close by hissed and spat. She was firing at him.

   He half swam and half waded in his sodden heavy clothes until he was under the jetty, grabbing at one of the wooden posts, his clothes weighing him down, the freezing water numbing his body, the heavy waves threatening to drag him back. He tried to calculate how many rounds she had fired, and how many she had left. Had she exhausted her supply? He bloody well hoped so because he couldn't stay here for much longer.

   Using the jetty stilts to guide him, he slowly hauled himself up the shore until there was soft shingle and sand beneath his feet. He felt as though he'd been in the water a lifetime, though he knew it was only a few minutes, if that. Then he was free of it, but there was a sharp climb up the beach to the summer house and Laura would surely see him in the electric light that still blazed from the cabin.

   Crouching low he looked down the jetty towards the sea. Yes, there she was, leaning over and peering into the dark water. Then he blinked, hardly able to believe his eyes as incredibly another figure came up behind her. Who the hell was it? He couldn't see. By its stature it looked like a woman. Bella Westbury? No, it was far too slender for her. Who then? Julie, the hired help? His heart sank. His escape would be more difficult now. How did he know she too didn't have a gun or had fetched more ammunition for Laura? There might even be bullets left in Laura's gun. He had to get to a phone.

   Laura turned and froze. Then suddenly the two figures were wrestling, and looked in danger of falling into the water. His heart somersaulted. Jesus! It wasn't Julie but Thea. She was alive. But not for much longer if Laura had her way.

   He sprang up, cursing through his chattering teeth, and propelled himself on to the jetty, his speed and agility hampered by his sea-soaked clothes and his shivering body. He cried out as he grasped the jetty with his wounded arm, the pain ripping through his body. Then he was running towards them. Were there any bullets left in that gun? He hoped to God not. Would Thea get hurt? At last he was there, grabbing Laura, pinning her arm behind her.

   'She attacked me,' Laura cried. 'She's mad. She killed her brother and Jonathan, and she tried to kill me.'

   Horton stared at Thea's thin, drawn face and saw anxiety and fear. He turned to Laura. 'Good try and it might have worked if you had stuck to your original story and hadn't already confessed to me.'

   'Prove it,' she shouted defiantly.

   'I think this is proof enough.' He indicated his arm which was throbbing like mad.

   'She grabbed the gun from me and shot you.'

   Horton followed Laura's gaze and saw that Thea was holding the gun. Suddenly, realizing it was in her hand, Thea looked as though she was about to throw it in the sea when Horton quickly said, 'I'll take that.' He held out his hand but Thea seemed reluctant to pass it over. Quietly he said, 'It's OK, Thea. I know what happened.'

   She handed it over. Keeping his strong right hand on Laura, and trying not to think of the pain in his left arm, he managed to disable the gun seeing, with relief, that the magazine was empty anyway.

   'You've got no evidence to show I was involved in any of these murders,' Laura cried. 'She's the killer. She's unbalanced. Owen told me.'

   'It won't work.' Horton said, dragging her towards the summer house with a feeling that maybe it would. She would deny everything she had told him. They had found no evidence that Laura had been in Anmore's barn, and even if they did she'd claim she had met Anmore in his barn on other occasions. And her car had not been seen anywhere near it. She must have parked it some distance away and walked to the barn, killed Anmore and then walked back to her car using a torch to guide her. There would be no evidence on her boat either, because they'd have washed it down, and the sea would have destroyed the rest. But they might get something from the summer house though Jonathan had probably hosed it out and scrubbed it down; a tiny shard of glass meant nothing. Even then they couldn't actually prove Laura had shot Owen. And no one could prove she had killed Arina, unless a witness came forward, which was unlikely, or the silent Julie would help them, but somehow he doubted that. All he could get her on was the Whitefields land fraud, but even then she'd claim that she had been young, and completely infatuated with Jack. And she knew it.

   Was there something he had missed? Something that would prove she was the killer. She stared boldly and defiantly at him in the bright light of the summer house. Thea looked worried. Horton could imagine what was going through her mind. They would still believe she had killed her brother, and now her prints were on Laura's gun. But they had no real evidence to prove that Thea had killed Owen or Anmore, and she hadn't even been in the country when Arina was killed. She was safe . . . but even then his gut told him a clever barrister would make mincemeat of him, and tear Thea to shreds, and Laura Rosewood could afford the best there was.

   As if reading his mind she repeated with conviction, 'There is no evidence linking me to any of this.'

   With disgust, Horton thrust her on to the sofa. He was chilled to the bone and Thea was also soaked to the skin, but he couldn't use a blanket or any type of covering in here and risk contaminating any fragment of evidence that might still conceivably exist from Owen's murder. He didn't want to think about the maggots and how Jonathan must have cleaned this place out.

   He said, 'They'll believe the word of a police officer rather than you.'

   'Not one who was recently suspended for raping a girl,' she declared smugly. Thea eyed him warily. 'Especially when you stormed into my house, assaulted me and forced me to lie. I was running away from you when you attacked me. I had to shoot you in self-defence. Or perhaps I'll claim that Thea showed up to kill me because she knew that Owen had confided his concerns about his sister's health to me. She wrestled with me, took my gun and shot you. I am a very persuasive woman, Andy, and a highly respected one with very good contacts in the police and the European Commission.'

   He believed her. She was clever all right, but maybe not quite clever enough. It was time to tell her something which, he hoped, might provoke her into a fit of remorse, though he wasn't counting on it.

   With as much confidence as he could muster he said, 'It's all been for nothing, Laura.'

   She looked surprised for a moment but still cocky. 'What do you mean?'

   'All these deaths. You needn't have done them.'

   'You're talking rubbish,' she snapped.

   Now for it. 'The scandal at Whitefields that Christopher Sutton told his daughter about had nothing to do with your land deal. It was Sir Christopher's role there fifty years ago.'

   'What are you talking about?' She eyed him with irritation.

   'Sir Christopher was transferred from the British Military Hospital in Tripoli during his National Service in late 1958 because he was caught in bed with a female member of staff. He was sent to Whitefields where he agreed to help out on secret drug experiments with the mentally ill patients. He didn't much mind because it was his field of specialism, pioneering new mind drugs and therapies.' Horton didn't know this for a fact but he could hazard an educated guess that this was the scandal that Arina had alluded to, and why Bella Westbury had been his housekeeper.

   He said, 'The year in question, 1959, was the height of the Cold War. And that was the secret Sutton confessed on his deathbed, which you overheard Arina telling Owen. And one which would cause an international political scandal if it ever came out. It had nothing to do with your sordid, money-grabbing crime.'

   Laura was eyeing him as if he was mad, but he thought he detected a glimmer of uncertainty in her keen blue eyes – though that could be wishful thinking on his part.

   He continued. 'When Arina died so suddenly, Owen began to wonder if it was true and if the security services had silenced Arina. So he attempted to find out. He called on Dr Nelson, Sutton's colleague at Tripoli, who told him about the nurse and Sutton being sent away. When you hinted to Owen that you might know something about Whitefields he thought you might have discovered this secret through your political contacts or that perhaps Sir Christopher had hinted to you what he had been doing there. Owen understood and was more than willing to go along with your demands for caution and secrecy because he knew how dangerous it was. You killed him for the wrong reasons, Laura. Owen had no idea about your fraud or the fact that you'd been involved in the murder of his parents.'

   'Rubbish!'

   But he could see her trying to grasp this new knowledge. Horton threw Thea a look. She seemed in control of her emotions, but he guessed the turmoil inside her. 'You could have got away with it, Laura. You could have carried on quite happily. It's all been for nothing.'

   The truth was beginning to sink in. There wasn't so much confidence about her eyes. But still with a trace of defiance, she said, 'You still can't prove I've killed anyone.'

   'I think Inspector Horton can,' Thea said quietly.

   'What do you know about it?' Laura hissed at her.

   Thea dashed a glance at Horton. She said, 'I had the last postcard my mother sent me lodged in a book called
The Lost Ghosts of the Isle of Wight
. It was a photograph of Whitefields, but I didn't know where it was, and what it meant, until I visited Gordon Elms and saw the painting on his wall. I asked Owen about it and then he told me what Arina had said about Whitefields. He was scared the house was bugged so we talked in Owen's wild garden.'

   Which, Horton recalled, was where Evelyn Mackie had seen them talking on the Friday before Owen's disappearance.

   'That proves nothing,' Laura declared contemptuously.

   'There's a witness.'

   Horton stared at Thea, surprised.

   She gave him an apologetic glance. 'I only discovered it this afternoon, which is why I came here. I didn't know whether she would be here and what I would do when I got here if she was, but I needed to be where Owen had died.' She shivered and hugged her arms around her slender chest as her sad eyes scoured the summer house. Horton wanted to go to her, but he couldn't afford to take his eye off Laura Rosewood.

   Pulling herself together, Thea continued. 'I've been staying at Quarr Abbey in the guest house. I needed to be somewhere safe. I didn't know who I could trust. Jonathan Anmore called me at the hospital and told me that he knew who had killed my brother. He asked me to meet him by the marina in Yarmouth.'