Pauline Rowson - Death Lies Beneath

‘A lifetime, love,’ she said smiling. ‘And I’m still not appreciated.’

‘I’m sure you are,’ he said returning her smile. Now for the questions and he hoped some answers that linked in with the theory he had formed. ‘Did you work with Gregory Harlow?’

‘You know him?’ She glanced at him over her shoulder while making his coffee. Her heavy black eyebrows arched in surprise, and there was a pucker of concern on her furrowed forehead.

Horton nodded and brought out his warrant card. As she placed the coffee in front of him she called out, ‘Lisa, take over. I’ve just got to have a word with this gentleman.’

Although he’d hoped for cooperation he hadn’t expected it so quickly and readily. His excitement mounted because he could see that she had something to get off her chest and he hoped it was what he wanted to hear.

A blonde woman in her early twenties appeared from the back of the stall wiping her hands on a black-and-white-striped apron and slipped into the older woman’s place. Horton stepped around to the back and stood under the rear awning out of the rain, facing the grey choppy sea of the harbour which he could see through the plastic window. The thunder had stopped but the rain was heavier than ever.

‘I heard that Greg was dead,’ the woman, who introduced herself as Iris, said with a sad expression. ‘Was it suicide?’

‘We’re treating his death as suspicious.’

She looked concerned and troubled. ‘You mean someone killed him?’

He let his silence do the talking.

‘My God! That’s awful.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And that’s why you’re here asking questions. You want to know about Greg?’

‘Anything might be helpful. How long did he work for Coastline?’ Horton thought it best to lead up to putting the real questions he wanted answered.

‘He started here on the stall in April 2001 just after I did and became a delivery driver for the supplies side after about nine months.’ She looked uneasy or rather troubled. ‘And he was a delivery driver until last October when Mr Skelton suddenly promoted him to event-catering manager. Biggest leap in promotion I’ve ever seen.’

Horton eyed her keenly. ‘What do you mean?’

Iris hesitated. Horton had seen this before. It was the moment of mental struggle. Whatever Iris had to tell him had ramifications for her personally. He held his silence hoping her conscience would win out, feeling that at last he was on the edge of the truth. Harlow could have got that photograph to Woodley in Parkhurst before his promotion but Horton didn’t believe he had.

‘Mr Skelton is a shrewd businessman. And successful. He’s built this business up from one small coffee stall to a chain of them along the south coast and a big catering company. He makes a lot of money.’ She paused. Then lowering her voice still further she continued. ‘He’s got a big house over the Hamble somewhere, a flashy car — one of those big four-wheel-drive vehicles, looks like a tank — and he has a boat in a marina. Nothing wrong in that but he doesn’t like spending money on his staff. He pays the minimum wage and then not always. He has an eye for cheap labour,’ she added pointedly.

No wonder she had hesitated. Horton understood perfectly what she was talking about. ‘How cheap?’

‘Cheapest you can get away with if the people you employ have got nothing to start with.’

‘Here at the stall?’

‘No.’ Lowering her voice and looking out to sea she said, ‘Not enough space here.’

Horton followed her drift immediately. He thought of that tent of Skelton’s at the Isle of Wight Festival and of Dennings’ presence when he and Eames had arrived. Then there was Haseen Nader. He was probably legit, but it didn’t take too many brain cells to work out what Iris meant: illegal immigrant workers. Harlow had found out about it and kept silent in return for promotion, or perhaps he’d got his promotion because he agreed to be a party to it. Then his conscience had finally troubled him, especially after Sharon’s death when he and Eames had started asking questions. Or rather he’d got scared. He told Skelton he was going to the police, or perhaps Skelton saw he was getting jumpy and decided to silence him. And that made far more sense to him than Loman killing him.

In her normal voice Iris added, ‘And to think the poor soul didn’t live long enough to spend his bigger wage packet. And not long after his aunt’s death too.’

‘He mentioned that to you?’ Horton asked his pulse quickening.

‘No. I overheard that man talking about it. He said Gregory Harlow’s sister-in-law was coming home for her aunt’s funeral, and he had a photograph of her.’

And there it was. What he had conjectured. And the reason why Harlow hadn’t got that photograph into the prison, because this had been Woodley’s destination. This was where he had to show the photograph and pass on his message and it wasn’t to Kenneth Loman.

Trying to hide his excitement, Horton took out the photograph of Woodley. ‘Was this the man?’

‘Yes, that’s him.’

Horton wondered why she hadn’t come forward after all their appeals for sightings of Woodley, but maybe she didn’t buy the local newspaper or listen to the local news, or perhaps she’d been on holiday. ‘When did you see him?’

‘May, early evening it was. I was just going off shift at seven. Well, I’ve said my piece, it’s up to you lot now.’

But Horton had one more question to ask. He already knew the answer but he had to ask none the less. ‘Who did he give the message to?’ It wasn’t Gregory Harlow.

‘Didn’t I say? It was Mr Skelton. He wanted Mr Skelton to pass the message on to Greg, I guess, to tell him that he needed to know his sister-in-law was coming back for her aunt’s funeral.’

Horton headed for his Harley, calling Ross Skelton. There was no answer to his mobile. He then called Uckfield and this time got hold of him.

‘How did you get on with Loman?’

‘He denies meeting Sharon Piper at the boatyard and killing her. Claims he was at home with his wife on Tuesday night and again on Thursday night but says if we ask his wife she won’t be much use as an alibi. She can’t remember anything after Ellie disappeared.’

Horton knew that.

Uckfield added, ‘I don’t think he’s our killer.’

‘He isn’t. Ross Skelton is,’ and Horton rapidly relayed what he’d discovered from his interview with Iris. ‘I believe he’s the man Sharon Piper was with on the day of Ellie Loman’s death in 2001. Garvard knew this and Woodley’s job was to get a message to Skelton to say that Sharon would be coming back for her aunt’s funeral, whenever that was. There would be an announcement in the local newspaper and the Daily Telegraph — courtesy of Fiona Wright — and Garvard gambled on Skelton wanting to look out for it and wanting to see Sharon again because they’d had an affair. Woodley was probably instructed to tell Skelton that Sharon had been forced to leave the country in a hurry because of the police investigation surrounding Garvard. She would return with a new identity and a new name and would only be in the country for a short time. She wanted to see Skelton but they couldn’t be seen together. It was too dangerous for her. There were still some of Garvard’s associates who were after her.

‘Skelton’s the man Sharon met at the crematorium and spent the afternoon and evening with. His company supplies fish and frozen food to the prison on the Isle of Wight and elsewhere on the Island and here on the mainland, so having a lobster tucked away in his fridge at his home or on his boat, and I suspect it’s the latter, would have been quite natural. He could have followed her to the boatyard and killed her or he could have driven her there for her rendezvous, killed her and then driven her car somewhere and abandoned it.’