Pauline Rowson - Death Lies Beneath

‘I overheard Leo arranging it with Ellie. I was by chance at the coffee stall on the Hard when I saw them together. Ellie was on her coffee break, she always took it at the Coastline Coffee stall. They didn’t see me. I told Sharon that I had to meet her at the boatyard. I had something to tell her about Leo. I knew that would bring her here. I came here that Sunday after I’d had tea with Aunt Amelia. Gregory was out fishing all day. The boatyard was closed on a Sunday, but we all knew how to get into it. Harry Foxbury was always lax with his security, besides there was nothing to steal except old boats and bits of metal that weren’t worth much.’

Not then maybe but now worth a fortune, thought Horton, remembering those metal thefts. ‘They came back early.’

‘Sharon was late. I waited out of sight until Leo left on his boat with Ellie touchingly waving him goodbye. I had to stop her leaving before Sharon got here and before Leo’s boat was out of sight. I confronted her. She said she loved him and that he was going to leave Sharon for her. I said she was a stupid young fool.’

‘And you told her what Leo and Sharon did for a living. She didn’t believe you.’

‘She got upset, hysterical. I grabbed her. She tried to get away. I pushed her and she fell. Before I knew it she was dead. Sharon saw it all.’

And had Leo Garvard looked back and seen Patricia Harlow and mistaken her for Sharon or had he only seen Sharon? But Horton considered a third option and knew it was the truth. Garvard had known all along that both sisters had been here and had had a hand in Ellie’s death and cover up.

The clang of metal against metal from the crane dimly registered with him as the wind whipped through the rigging. He said, ‘So you and Sharon struck a bargain. It suited Sharon to say nothing about you killing Ellie because she wanted Garvard out of her life and she wanted all the money from their fraudulent scams, or rather as much as she could get her hands on that they’d secreted away. When she shopped Garvard to the law he knew he couldn’t tell the truth about dropping Ellie off and seeing you kill her because you and Sharon would swear blind that each was with the other and that in all likelihood he’d be done for murder as well as fraud. And Sharon would keep quiet about your part in Ellie’s death because she wanted wealth and a chance to get away.’ And had Gregory Harlow known this? If he had then he could have used it to get Patricia out of his life by giving her up to the police. But that would have involved Connor’s real mother and disrupted the family life he had desperately wanted his son to have. So they had all kept silent until Leo Garvard had found a way to break that silence. His cancer and the chance sighting of Amelia Willard at the radiotherapy department had sparked an idea that had eventually led to three more deaths, and to bringing Ellie’s body up from her watery grave. How fortunate then the timing of raising the sunken barges. Garvard must have read about it or heard about it on the news. But Horton knew that even if the barges hadn’t been raised Garvard would have found another way to bring Ellie’s killer here and expose her remains.

‘It’s over, Patricia. The truth has to come out now. Hand me the knife.’

‘No.’ She stepped back.

‘There’s nowhere to go.’

She spun round and within seconds was clambering and stumbling over the deck of the barge towards the seaward side in the dark. Shit! He turned setting off in the opposite direction around the crane to head her off praying that she wasn’t going to throw herself into the sea or trip over something and fall in and that neither would he. He could hear her faltering footsteps, then there was a cry and nothing, not even a splash. He rounded the crane and drew up sharply. Kenneth Loman was standing over the prostrate figure of Patricia Harlow. Horton swiftly glimpsed Loman’s harrowed sodden face, his wet dishevelled clothes and the heavy piece of piping he was holding. The knife was on the deck and the side of Patricia’s face a bloody mess of mangled flesh.

His breath caught in his throat as Loman raised the hand carrying the piping; his eyes were full of hatred directed at the body at his feet. Horton knew what he was thinking, she’d put him through a living hell and he wanted to vent his anger. He wanted to obliterate her and the pain he had suffered all these years. But he would never be able to, not even if he beat Patricia Harlow to a pulp. Sharply Horton shouted, ‘Killing her won’t bring Ellie back.’

Loman hesitated.

Horton stepped forward and repeated firmly but more quietly. ‘Leave her, Ken. Ellie wouldn’t want this.’

Loman froze. He seemed to consider Horton’s words then he exhaled, the piping fell from his hand and clattered onto the barge. His body slumped. Horton could see he was close to collapse. Stepping forward he took his arm. ‘Let’s get away from here.’

Loman made no protest. As Horton steered him towards the quay he wondered if Patricia Harlow was still alive.

Climbing off the crane barge, Loman said, ‘It’s all right. I won’t run away. You’d better call the ambulance.’

The man was spent. Horton watched him ease his broken defeated body onto the giant cleat, where he stared across the black expanse of the water. Horton doubted he saw the lights across the harbour. It had stopped raining. He remained close, half afraid that Loman might throw himself in but then he guessed that Loman would want to see this thing through to the end.

He called first for an ambulance for Patricia Harlow. Ross Skelton was beyond help, and for all he knew Patricia could be too. Then he called Uckfield. While he waited for him to answer, Horton wondered if the cleat Loman was slumped on was the one that Ellie had fallen and struck her head against, if Patricia Harlow could be believed, and Horton wasn’t convinced by that given her track record.

Swiftly he gave Uckfield a potted version of what had happened and that they’d need SOCO and some patrol units here. They wouldn’t have far to come. He crouched down to face Loman; his wet hair was clinging to his dirty, exhausted face. ‘How much did you hear?’ he asked gently.

‘All of it. I was behind the crane.’

‘You saw her kill Ross Skelton?’

The image of Garvard’s gaunt, grey face on the hospital bed flashed before Horton’s eyes along with Geoff Kirby’s words. Garvard was cunning, clever, manipulative. He knew a man’s weakness and how to exploit it. Garvard had pulled the strings from his sick bed and had taken pleasure during his dying days in imagining how it might work out but had he ever imagined this?

Loman said, ‘When they let me go at the station I knew the boatyard wasn’t far away and I couldn’t go home. I just wanted to be where Ellie had last been alive. I heard them arrive and dodged out of sight. I didn’t know who they were, I just didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. I was angry and upset because I had wanted to be alone. I didn’t think they’d climb onto the crane barge but she did and he followed. Then she spun round and stuck a knife in him. I was shocked, confused. I didn’t know what to do. She hit him over the head and dropped the weapon and then almost immediately you showed up. Is it true what she said, that she killed Ellie?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I hope she dies and I’m convicted for her murder. Prison can’t be much worse than the hell she’s put me through all these years.’

No, thought Horton, and it wasn’t over yet. There was still the matter of Sharon Piper’s murder.

‘Congratulations, sir,’ Eames said, knocking and entering his office an hour later. He cut her short.

‘Did you look up those statements?’