In for the Kill (12 page)

I hauled Westnam’s body along the floor, straining my ears for any sounds of life from Scarlett’s houseboat. I thanked God for a dark, moonless night and although I cursed the wind and the rain, it kept all but the foolhardy, or guilty like me, indoors.

My yacht was moored up beneath the steps of the houseboat. Glancing to my right and left I hauled the body up as best I could, stifling my groans and praying that even the ones I couldn’t stifle wouldn’t be heard against the stormy night.

Panting heavily and sweating profusely, I had Westnam almost in my arms leaning against me.

I felt sick at the smell of death. Then, holding tight to the two ropes, I tipped his body over the edge head first. Slowly I let him slide down the edge of the houseboat easing the ropes until his head and upper torso touched the cockpit. My arms were almost pulled out of their sockets as I let down the rope. Then his crumpled, naked body lay in the yacht.

I locked the patio doors, pocketed the key, climbed on board my boat, and let off the lines.

I started the engine, praying that no one would hear it, and turned into the wind. Thankfully as the tide rushed out it helped me.

It was dangerous but I knew the channel well.

And it was deserted, not even the fishermen were foolish enough to go out in this. I wanted to get around the Foreland into Whitecliff Bay before I tossed Westnam overboard. Where he would end up I didn’t know as long as it was away from me and my houseboat.

As I chugged into the tempestuous night I felt sympathy for Westnam. What a bloody awful way to end your life! Andover had ruined Westnam’s life as surely as he had ruined mine. I tried not to think of any relatives grieving for Westnam. I knew from Joe’s reports that his ex wife was living in the States and they’d had no children.

The tide was beginning to push me to port when I wanted to go to starboard. I corrected my course. The waves splashed over the side of the small boat soaking both Westnam and me.

Where he was he couldn’t feel it and I was beyond caring about my own physical condition. My sailing jacket kept most of my body dry but my feet and legs were drenched in salt water, as were my face and hands. I could see one or two lights from the houses on the shore. This was far enough, any further and I’d be able to say hello to the container ships moored up for the night off Bembridge Ledge.

I grabbed Westnam’s body. He was so heavy that I wondered if I’d be able to do it. My body screamed with pain, but with some superhuman effort I dredged up from God alone knew where, I hauled the poor sod over the side of the boat.

The splash his body made almost drowned me, as did the movement of the boat combined with the waves. It would have served me right if it had. I scurried into the cabin, found my spare anchor, and after wrapping Westnam’s clothes around it I threw it in after him. Then I began my journey back. If I had thought going out was bad then returning was hell on earth. The tide wanted to take me back into the Solent.

I wasn’t quite sure how I made it. Luck, God, whoever and whatever, and I was tying up alongside my houseboat, exhausted. I crashed down on the floor of the houseboat and fell asleep. When I awoke it was still dark, but a quick glance at my watch told me it wouldn’t be long until dawn. I was cross with myself. How could I waste time sleeping when my sons’ fate was in Rowde’s hands? I shivered violently and tried to ease myself up. My arms felt as though they weighed more than the Clifton Suspension Bridge and my legs as though all the blood had been drained from them and the bone extracted leaving them wobbly, like one of those puppets in a children’s television programme.

I was shattered but I hadn’t finished yet. I had to scrub this room, then a hot shower, food and onward.

Four hours later I was changed and fed and there was, as far as I could see, no evidence that Westnam alive or dead had ever been here. I knew the drill at prison and that between 10am and 11am the visits booking line would be open. I went out to a call box and asked to book a visit with Ray. I’d forgotten that there was no visiting on Thursdays and Fridays. Blast! I booked to see him Saturday afternoon at 2pm, the earliest possible time. Three days away and too close to Rowde’s deadline! But even though Ray was incarcerated I knew that if I wanted information on Jamie Redman, Joanne Brookes’ partner, then the prisoner network would give it to me.

I couldn’t just sit around and kick my heels until then though. I had to do something to find Andover but the trail was getting colder by the minute. There was only one person left for me to try and that was Couldner’s daughter, Lorraine Proctor. I hurried out to the car where I’d left Joe’s reports containing the last address he had for her. She lived just outside Chichester, not far from the marina. It was quite a way to travel if she wasn’t in so I would telephone her from the first call box I came to. Before I could climb into the car a voice hailed me and I turned to see the blonde goddess from Brading church heading towards me.

She was dressed for hiking in shorts and walking boots. Her honey blonde hair shone like something out of a hair advertisement. She looked the picture of such perfect health and vitality that she made me feel positively ill. I turned to see Scarlett at the door of her houseboat.

‘What happened to you?’ the blonde goddess said, a concerned expression on her beautiful face.

‘I fell over. Too much to drink I expect,’ I joked, impatient to be away. I heard Scarlett’s door slam.

‘You’re Alex Albury. Percy Trentham told me after I described meeting you in Brading church.

I’m Deeta.’

What else had Percy told her? That I was an ex con? If he had it didn’t seem to bother her. I took the hand she proffered. Her grip was strong and dry. I didn’t feel quite so much the embarrassed adolescent this time of meeting her, though I did silently wince at the memory of my ineptitude at our last encounter.

‘How do you know Percy?’ I was still suspicious of her.

‘He has a metal detector. I see him on the beach sometimes. He’s a mine of information about the Second World War.’

I recalled she had said she was writing a book about the Island at war. I didn’t like to tell her that some of Percy’s war stories were very dubious. She was the historian; she would check her sources.

She said, ‘My grandfather lived here during the early part of the war. Percy said you used to live in Bembridge House and that your grandfather built the folly there as an air raid shelter. It’s a remarkable piece of architecture. Percy said your grandfather was a very important man in the war.’

‘I don’t think so. He died in a sailing accident in 1940. I shouldn’t trust everything Percy tells you.’

‘He likes to exaggerate. I looked your family up though. Did you know that you are descended from the Anglo-Saxons?’

‘That might explain why I feel so old and tired sometimes.’

She laughed. Despite all my problems I couldn’t prevent my loins from again responding to her beauty and her sensuality.

She said, ‘Do you have any records that your father or grandfather left?’

‘Sorry, no.’ Any other time I would like to have talked to her. I would have flirted with her and I would certainly have invited her out for a drink.

Now I was running out of time. She caught my agitation.

‘I’m holding you up. Perhaps I will see you when you have more time.’

‘I’d like that.’ I watched her go with some sorrow. After almost four years without sex I meet a woman interested in me and I haven’t got the time! That was sod’s law for you all right.

I pulled up at a call box and punched in Lorraine Proctor’s number. A lady answered who told me that Mrs Proctor would be back at two o’clock.

‘Are you from the agency?’ she asked.

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘The estate agency. Is it about the house?’

‘Oh yes, that’s right,’ I said quickly, my mind racing. ‘Who am I speaking to?’

‘Mrs Ellis. I’m Mrs Proctor’s cleaner.’

‘Of course. Don’t worry about any message, Mrs Ellis. It’s not urgent. I’ll call her later.’

Two o’clock, that gave me enough time to get to Chichester and find the house. Dear Mrs Ellis had given me my intro.

I rang Miles first though before setting out.

‘What’s the latest on Joe’s death?’

‘Random attack. Burglar after money.’

‘What was he strangled with?’

‘Something soft, a tie or scarf.’

Not bare hands then. Different to Westnam’s strangulation, which could possibly indicate two killers: Rowde having killed Westnam and Andover, Joe.

‘A burglar wearing a tie!’ I said. ‘Must be a pretty smart burglar.’ For some reason Gus, immaculate in that suit and tie sitting in the kitchen, sprang to mind.

‘Could have been a scarf, used to cover the lower part of the face so he couldn’t be recognised.’

I gave him that one but I didn’t go along with the random burglar theory.

‘What about Sergeant Hammond, Clipton’s sidekick?’

‘He really did win the lottery.’

‘Lucky him.’

I rang off and headed for the mainland. I reached Chichester just before one o’clock and parked in the multi-storey next to Waitrose. It was a bit of a long shot but if the house was up for sale then I guessed one of the more upmarket estate agents in the city would have the details on it.

I struck lucky at the third one I came to in East Street after collecting a number of housing details from the others, none of which matched Lorraine Proctor’s address. Fifteen minutes later I left the estate agents clutching the details of Harbourside House and with an appointment to view, unaccompanied by the agent, which was a stroke of luck on a property worth almost a million pounds. But then I was due some luck and I had pushed hard for the appointment. I told them I had a meeting scheduled in London later that afternoon. I spun some yarn about being an IT entrepreneur with cash to burn in my pocket and the desperate need to find a house quickly for myself and family that was close to Chichester Harbour and with a mooring for my yacht. They all bought it. Goodness knows whether it would lead me to any information about Andover but I had to try. I had used the story about having an accident with a Mercedes on my return from the States to explain my battered and bruised face.

Lorraine Proctor opened the door to me. She was exquisitely dressed in camel-coloured trousers and a cream shirt that could only have come from a top designer. She, like the house, was a bit too polished and modern for me. It made me yearn for the informality of my houseboat. The thought rather surprised me.

Before prison I would have wet myself in anticipation of living in a house like this, individually designed and commissioned by the owners with a glazed atrium, five bedrooms, a swimming pool and access to the harbour. Now I no longer aspired to it. In fact I wouldn’t have wanted it as a gift.

‘Mr Hardley?’

‘Yes.’ I’d used my mother’s maiden name. ‘It’s very good of you to see me at such short notice.’

‘Not at all. Where would you like to start?’

‘Downstairs, I think.’

She hadn’t recognised me behind the bruises or the white hair. I had wondered if she might.

Neither had she shown any shock at my battered face, nor asked me questions about it, I guessed the agent had called her to explain.

After a tour of the hall, sitting room, kitchen and breakfast room we stepped into the study.

From here I could look out across the garden to the upper reaches of Chichester Harbour and to the South Downs beyond. It was beautiful. A sailor’s paradise with a Bavaria 42 yacht moored at the bottom of the garden.

‘It’s perfect,’ I said, thinking more of the yacht and location than the house. On the tour we’d chatted about how long she’d lived here: six years. What her husband did for a living: consultant surgeon. I was wondering how to bring up the subject of her father and Andover.

Waiting for inspiration I gazed at photographs of racing yachts on the walls. ‘You sail?’ I asked.

‘When I can, with my husband. He also races yachts.’

‘You’ll miss living here.’

‘Not really, we’re moving to Hayling Island.

We’ve bought a house with a mooring that gives us direct access into Langstone Harbour and the Solent. It takes quite a while to sail up through Chichester Harbour until you reach the Solent.

It’s an art deco house that needs some work. I shall enjoy that.’

‘Is interior design your business? I must say you have immaculate taste.’

Whatever she answered it by-passed me.

Suddenly I was staring at a large photograph of a beautiful yacht with a full spinnaker and a hardworking crew racing in the Solent. Where had I seen the name on the spinnaker before?

Spires. Of course it had been on the notepad in Gus’s hall, beside the pilot’s licence. I took a step nearer and eagerly scanned the other photographs. There was one of the crew in harbour; the skipper was holding a magnum of champagne to celebrate their victory.

‘Is this your husband?’ I asked pointing to a tall blonde man beside the older man holding the champagne.

‘Yes, and that’s my father beside him. He was killed in a car accident the summer after this photograph was taken.’

The year before my arrest. ‘Who’s this?’ I asked pointing to one of the crew. I knew who it was: Gus Newberry. I wanted to know if she did.

‘Probably someone who worked for my father.’

I didn’t have a clue where Gus worked or what connection he had with Sidney Couldner, only that there was a connection. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. It could just be a coincidence.

Yet it niggled me.

I raced through the rest of the house with only a fraction of my mind on it. After a hasty goodbye I drove around to Chichester marina and parked the car. Opening the boot I scrabbled through my press cuttings file until I found the one I wanted. I knew I’d seen the name Spires somewhere other than on Gus’s notepad. They had been Manover Plastics accountants; there was a reference to them in one of the articles on Clive Westnam. Why hadn’t I seen the connection before? Because it had needed the photograph and the notepad to link it. Was there a connection with Brookes? I wouldn’t mind betting so.