Pauline Rowson - Death Lies Beneath

He pressed his fingers against Skelton’s neck. There was no pulse. He tried again, his eyes flicking downwards for an instant. There was a movement to his right but she had edged further away from him rather than closer. Skelton was dead. Straightening up, Horton said, ‘Patricia, you need help. Let me get it for you.’

‘No!’ she shouted and seemed surprised that she could speak. It seemed to invigorate her. ‘No,’ she repeated now more self-assured. He saw something of the former Patricia Harlow reasserting itself. She pulled herself up and tossed back her head. ‘He killed Gregory. He was going to kill me. I had to do it. I had to get him before he killed me.’

There was no pleading in her voice. She had spoken as if it was a matter of fact and that anyone would understand why she had done what she had. Maybe Skelton had tried to kill her. Perhaps the knife had been his. But if so how had she got it from him? Horton couldn’t see him giving it up willingly and she could never have taken it from him by force. Skelton had looked to be a fit and agile man. Had he put it down for a moment while waiting for her to show and she seized the opportunity to grab it? Skelton had then spun round but too late she’d plunged it into his stomach.

‘Give me the knife, Patricia,’ he repeated firmly, stepping towards her and holding out his hand.

‘No. You’ll arrest me for murder.’ She snatched the knife behind her back as though afraid he would steal it from her and took another step towards the edge of the barge. If he moved again he might force her over the side and if he rushed at her she’d turn and either jump or fall in accidentally. And he didn’t want to go in after her with that knife she was wielding. He had to get her to give herself up and more importantly give up the knife.

Almost conversationally he said, ‘Why was he going to kill you?’

‘Because I knew about him employing illegal immigrants, of course,’ she scoffed as though he was stupid for not realizing it. ‘Gregory told me. When the police said Gregory’s death wasn’t suicide then I knew Ross Skelton must have killed him.’

But why would she have agreed to meet her husband’s killer? Rapidly he replayed what Connor had told him. It was probable she had made a call from her surgery, they could check that, and if she had made the call then it had to be to arrange this meeting with Skelton and not the other way around. She had come here with the intention of killing him . Why? Revenge for her husband’s death? Somehow that didn’t ring true. So it must be because she suspected him of knowing something that could damage her, and there were only two things it could be.

He said, ‘If Skelton had planned to kill you then he’d need to make your death look like suicide, which means he didn’t come here with a knife. Perhaps he intended knocking you out, making it look like an accident and then pushing your body into the sea.’ He saw her eyes narrow and her mouth tighten. ‘But you came here with a knife. Is it the same knife you used to kill your sister, Sharon?’ He wanted to provoke a reaction.

‘I didn’t kill her. He did.’ She jerked her head at Skelton’s recumbent body.

Evenly Horton said, ‘Why would he do that?’

‘Because Sharon was with him the day that Ellie Loman disappeared. He saw her kill Ellie. And he was with Sharon the day Aunt Amelia was buried. Gregory recognized his car parked just outside the crematorium as we were turning into it. She must have arranged to meet him there.’

No, that was Garvard’s doing. He’d had a long time to plan this.

‘If he saw Sharon kill Ellie Loman then she was more likely to kill him to silence him.’

‘Maybe she tried and it went wrong,’ Patricia Harlow leapt too readily at this.

There was one very big flaw in her story and at last he was beginning to see exactly what must have happened. He thought he caught a movement to his left behind the crane but dismissed it as the wind swinging the rigging. ‘Why didn’t you come to us when you suspected Ross Skelton of killing not only your sister but also your husband?’

‘I couldn’t. You wouldn’t believe me. You’d try and blame me like you did poor Rawly.’

‘And we’d be correct. Because you did kill your sister, Patricia, and Ross Skelton discovered that while he was killing your husband.’ He saw instantly that he’d got it wrong. There was a flicker of smug triumph in the back of her eyes. He eyed her steadily and closely, rapidly recalling all the interviews with her, the times she’d lied and twisted the truth. Then he knew.

Calmly he said, ‘Sharon didn’t kill Ellie, Patricia, you did.’ He held his breath keeping his steady gaze on her. Would she continue to deny it or would she finally crack? Only the wind howling through the crane rigging and the rain lashing against them punctuated the silence which seemed to stretch on for ever. Finally it broke.

‘It was an accident,’ she said in a rush. ‘I only pushed her. She fell and knocked her head on the cleat.’

He let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. That was consistent with the injuries to the skull that Dr Clayton had pointed out to him but there was more to Ellie’s death than that. With barely disguised disgust he said, ‘But you then dumped her body in the sea and left her there to rot.’

‘What else could I do?’ she said as though she’d had no choice.

‘You could have confessed,’ he said, with bitterness. ‘You could have saved Rawly Willard from taking his own life, and spared his parents, your aunt and uncle, from years of suffering.’ Not to mention the heartbreak and anguish she’d caused Kenneth Loman.

‘The police killed Rawly with their persecution of him,’ she said dismissively and defiantly. ‘That had nothing to do with me.’

‘And that’s what you’ve told yourself all these years.’ Horton held her hard stare. ‘No, Patricia, you killed Rawly as surely as you killed Ross Skelton and Ellie Loman. And Sharon knew what you’d done. She’d always known, hadn’t she?’

He saw instantly that he was correct. And Sharon had kept silent because it suited her to have it over Garvard. ‘Does Connor know who his real mother is and that he’s the result of an affair between your husband and your sister?’

She flinched but the knife stayed firmly grasped in her hand pointing at him. He didn’t doubt that he’d be able to disarm her, but still she was perilously close to the edge of the water.

Stiffly she said, ‘I agreed to bring him up as my own.’

And you never let Gregory forget his affair. Seeing Connor every day was a reminder to Gregory of his infidelity. How Gregory Harlow must have been tempted to tell him over the years. But his silence was the price he had to pay for having had an affair with Sharon while married to her sister. And silence was his guarantee that the boy would have a family upbringing rather than be abandoned to a children’s home or be put up for adoption. If Gregory wanted to see his son growing up he would have to stay with Patricia and keep silent. And he did.

Despite the body in front of him, the woman holding the knife and the relentless rain, which was the least of his worries, Horton needed the answers to a few more questions, and he needed to get her into custody.

He said, ‘Why were you here when Leo Garvard dropped Ellie back on that Sunday after she’d spent a day on his boat?’

‘Can’t you guess?’ she said scathingly.

‘You wanted Sharon to see them together. You wanted to hurt her as she had hurt you by sleeping with your husband.’ Patricia had thought that Sharon was in love with Leo, but she wasn’t. Sharon had probably had a string of affairs aside from Skelton and she had used sex many times to trap her quarry. Garvard knew this and went along with it. But Patricia hadn’t known that.