In for the Kill (2 page)

It was a good story.

I turned to face Miles. ‘You did your best.’

‘And it wasn’t good enough.’

No, it wasn’t.

‘Joe Bristow couldn’t trace Andover and neither could the police, so how can you?’ he asked.

Joe had been the private investigator that Miles had hired on my behalf. He had stopped looking for Andover just over a year ago. Joe had told me to save my money. As far as he was concerned Andover had flown.

‘I have to try,’ I said.

Miles sighed in capitulation. He saw that he wasn’t going to get me to change my mind. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help find him just say the word.’

Before I could answer his mobile phone rang.

Miles went inside to take his call.

My mind trawled through the events of my arrest and trial, just as it had done a thousand times before. Each time I hoped for some clue that could tell me why Andover had framed me and each time I drew a blank.

It had started long before my arrest. Six years ago James Andover had set up a registered charity to raise money to research into the causes of heart disease. Andover had named himself, me and two other businessmen as his fellow trustees. He had complied with all the regulations of the Charity Commission and filled in the forms. Then he had targeted three men: Couldner, Westnam and Brookes, all of whom had donated over a two-year period the sum of one million pounds each.

The money had gone into the charity bank account, and then into another bank account in my name, only I hadn’t opened it. The money had then been transferred, all electronically without me even being aware of it. Where it was now I had no idea, though the police had thought differently. When Couldner had died in a car accident in the May before my arrest, his daughter had become suspicious over her father’s dwindling bank account and reported it to the police. They had traced it to the charity and hence to me. Andover had disappeared, and the other trustees had proved to be fictitious, names taken from gravestones, signatures forged. The registered office of the charity had been my mother’s house in Bembridge. A divert had been put on the mail though, to another address which was an empty one-room office in the middle of London, registered in my name. The two surviving businessmen, Roger Brookes and Clive Westnam, swore they had been contacted by me and had donated money in good faith. I was left as the one tangible person to carry the can.

I’d never heard of the charity and neither had I ever been a trustee. Of course the police didn’t believe that; not with the overwhelming evidence they uncovered. The Hi Tech Crime Unit had also discovered deleted e-mails from me to Andover on my computer hard drive. I hadn’t sent them. No one believed me. They were on the computer therefore it had to be true.

Computers didn’t lie. Humans did. I’d since discovered that a computer hacker could easily have hacked into my computer via the Internet and put them there.

‘I’ve got to go,’ Miles said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Crisis with a client. Will you be all right?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ I replied, trying to hide my relief.

‘Thanks for the lift and the champagne.’

‘You sure you don’t want to come over to Portsmouth? You can stay with me.’

‘No. Thanks.’ Company was the last thing I needed after sharing my life with almost six hundred men.

Miles opened the boot of his car and reached for a mauve folder. ‘The press cuttings you asked for.’

‘Are they all there?’

‘Yes.’

He looked as if he wanted to ask me why I needed them. It wasn’t to start a scrapbook.

I watched the Mercedes glide towards St Helens, past a black van with tinted windows parked on the slipway. It was the same van that had followed us across Brading Down. I wasn’t sure if it had been behind us before then. It could just be a coincidence, but I was edgy. What if the police were watching me? I didn’t want them dogging my footsteps in my search for Andover.

And I didn’t want them anywhere near me when I found him.

I wouldn’t have put it past DCI Clipton to have me tailed. He’d never believed in my innocence.

How I hated that man for the torment he had put me through. My conviction had been a feather in his cap, a step up to Detective Superintendent, and head of the Specialist Investigations Unit in south Hampshire. Well, I hoped his workload was so huge that it gave him sleepless nights and ulcers. If he had detailed someone to keep an eye on me, then somehow I would have to shake him off.

I put the press cuttings file on the houseboat, pushed a baseball style cap low over my face to avoid being recognised by any of the villagers, and went back out into the sunshine. It was too good a day to waste and I needed to stretch my legs.

At the end of the Embankment I ducked down onto the beach by the Toll Gate café, where a handful of holiday-makers were sitting at the wooden picnic benches making the most of the April sun, and I struck out along the beach. I resisted the urge to remove my trainers and socks and feel the soft sand between my toes. I would save that pleasure for another day just as I would the sensation of cold seawater on my feet and body. Now I simply delighted in hearing sounds that had been lost to me for so long: the calling of the seagulls, the gentle ripple of the sea as it rolled onto the shore, and the rustle of the breeze through the trees as I stepped up onto the coastal path. I nodded at the occasional dog walker but didn’t meet anyone I recognised. I removed my cap and lifted my head higher.

Soon I was striding across Bembridge Airfield on my way to Brading, feeling the sun on my back and the gentle breeze on my face. I thought I was in heaven. But I couldn’t relax, not with Andover hanging over me.

Why had Couldner, Westnam and Brookes given so generously and willingly? Why had Andover chosen
them
as victims? There had to be a reason, some kind of connection between them, and I had to find it. There had been no hint at my trial that they had been blackmailed by Andover, even though my barrister had put it to Westnam and Brookes.
I
knew they had, because I knew I was innocent. All three men couldn’t have been so modest that they hadn’t wanted their donations to be made public!

Whatever Andover had threatened them with it had to be something big enough for them to pay up and then remain silent when questioned under oath. Joe Bristow hadn’t discovered it, though he had dug deep into their affairs, I might not either, but I had to try.

I pushed back the door to Brading church and found myself face to face with a vision of such beauty that she made me go weak at the knees.

Embarrassingly I found myself blushing, something I hadn’t done since a teenager. I guessed she was in her early twenties. Her legs seemed to stretch up into infinity and her shoulder length hair was so thick and golden that it reminded me of a field of ripe corn. Despite my best efforts at self-control my body responded to three and a half years of enforced celibacy. I cleared my throat and tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come. If she noticed my discomfort she didn’t show it. Instead she smiled and said:

‘It’s incredible that there was once an Anglo-Saxon village here, right where we are standing.’

I think I mumbled something in reply, but wouldn’t swear to it. I felt like a bloody adolescent schoolboy.

‘I’m a historian,’ she added, apparently undaunted by my silence. ‘I get carried away sometimes, occupational hazard. I think I live more in the past than the present and that’s not very healthy.’

Tell me about it I thought, her words striking a chord with me. Had she just given me a message: stay away from the past, from Andover, or else? No, that was ridiculous.

‘Are you researching the church’s history?’ I finally found my voice. I was curious about her.

‘No. I’m writing a book about the Island during the Second World War.’

‘That shouldn’t take you long,’ I said jokingly.

The Island was very small, only twenty-three miles from east to west and just over thirteen miles from north to south. Its population of about a hundred and twenty thousand increased by many in the summer holiday season. I didn’t know much about the part the Island had played during the war, apart from the tales Percy Trentham used to spout about the radar station.

I hadn’t really been interested.

‘On the contrary,’ she said, ‘The Island is most fascinating and the past can often help us put things into perspective. We’re all so self-obsessed with our own petty problems today, and yet in a hundred years’ time we’ll all be dead and what we thought so important will be forgotten.’

‘It’s a point of view.’

‘And one you don’t share?’ She gazed at me curiously. I saw amusement in her sapphire blue eyes.

‘No,’ I replied. My problems were important now because I had to live now and not in the past or the future. Someone other than myself had rewritten my future because he had radically altered my past. I had to know why. I had to set the record straight not only for myself but more importantly for the future of my boys, and their children.

She looked as if she wanted to challenge me, but something in my expression must have made her reconsider.

Abruptly she said, ‘Well, I mustn’t disturb you.’

With a smile she was gone. The church felt cold and dark after she had left as though she had taken the sunshine with her. I closed the heavy oak door behind me annoyed with myself for being so inept. The smooth-talking easy-going Alex Albury had evaporated over the last few years, leaving a tongue-tied idiot in his place.

As I walked back across the marsh and through the woods to Bembridge I examined her words.

It was as though there were a subtext to her conversation. Was it some kind of warning? Or was I just being paranoid? I couldn’t be blamed for having a persecution complex. Perhaps she really was a historian and the meeting pure coincidence. I had to get a grip on myself. I couldn’t see suspicion everywhere I looked.

I had reached the airfield again when I heard the throb of an engine behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that a light aircraft was just coming into land. I picked up my pace. I had time to reach safety.

The aeroplane throttled back. I looked again in its direction, more anxiously this time. It seemed to be approaching with alarming speed.

I walked faster, but it was getting nearer. It was closing rapidly on me. Jesus!

I broke into a run cricking my neck over my shoulder. It was heading straight for me.

Couldn’t the bloody idiot see me? But then my blood ran cold, of course he could. I was the prey.

I swerved but still it came. The sweat was pouring down my face. My breath was coming in hisses and gasps. My feet were striking against the hard hummocky turf. Desperately I tried to keep my balance, the uneven surface jarring my knees and twisting my ankles. The hedgerow and safety seemed as far away as ever.

Suddenly the throb of the engine was in my ears, inside my head. It was so loud that it must be on top of me. I dropped to the ground flattening my face in the wet grass. It swooped over me with a roar, almost brushing my hair. I didn’t have a moment to lose, certainly not to lie here panting. I sprang up and tore across the remaining strip of grass.

The aeroplane was flying in the direction of the harbour across the bird sanctuary. It dipped its wings as it turned. It was coming back, but I would be out of its reach by then. Already my calf muscles were telling me I was climbing the hill to the windmill and safety. The pilot must have seen this because the aeroplane turned round and headed out to sea.

I walked quickly back through the village and along the Embankment, hoping I wouldn’t see anyone I knew. My head was spinning with what had just happened. Had the pilot intended killing me? It would have been a clumsy way to do so and would probably have resulted in his own death. I didn’t think even the most desperate of men would commit suicide over me. But why attempt to frighten or injure me? The answer was simple; it was a warning, just like that woman’s in the church. Forget the past. Do nothing and you’ll be allowed to live. But doing nothing wasn’t a choice I had. No amount of warnings was going to frighten me off. I had been out of prison less than twelve hours and already Andover was running scared. That was good.

I let myself into the houseboat feeling optimistic. Joe Bristow had been wrong. Andover hadn’t flown the country. He was right here in England, perhaps even on the Isle of Wight. Now all I had to do was find him.

I rose early the next morning after a restless night. The houseboat had seemed eerily quiet; I had missed the sound of men snoring and coughing, the prison warders’ footsteps along the corridors, the slamming of doors and the rattling of keys.

I took a quick shower unable to adjust to the fact that I could stay as long as I wanted under scalding hot water. Then, after sitting with a coffee and watching the sun rise over the harbour, I stirred myself and took a long walk around the shore to Culver Cliff. Here I looked out upon the world. The sea sparkled and shimmered beneath me in the crisp, April morning, but instead of making me feel happy it had the opposite effect. My heart was once again heavy with the thought of all the mornings I had lost at the hand of Andover. I couldn’t feel at peace with myself. Andover and the poison of prison had seeped its way into my soul and had made everything sour. Time to do something.

The world would have woken up by now I thought, consulting my watch.

Bembridge library was open. The librarians were busy with a couple of grey haired women who looked vaguely familiar, my mother’s old friends I seemed to recall. I scuttled past them, my head low, cursing Andover silently for forcing me to behave like this. One day, I vowed, I would hold my head up high and not feel ashamed.

I looked up Clive Westnam on the Internet and found references in various articles to my court case and the embezzlement. There didn’t seem to be anything I hadn’t read before, and certainly nothing that wasn’t already in Joe’s reports, which I had studied again last night. The references seemed to stop about two years ago.

That had been when three judges had ruled that my sentence would stand. It was the second and final time they had refused my leave to appeal.