Pauline Rowson - Footsteps on the Shore

‘We had an affair.’

God! Horton wished he’d cautioned him and had him in that interview room. Shawford could retract this, and probably would. He thought over what Julian Raymonds had said about his wife enjoying power and control. Maybe Natalie Raymonds was the dominant partner, indulging Shawford’s sadomasochistic perversions.

‘When?’ Horton asked sharply.

Shawford shifted, and not because of the load he was carrying. His roving eyes avoided contact with Horton’s. ‘June 1997,’ he mumbled. Then his head came up and he added earnestly, ‘It only lasted a couple of weeks. It was over long before she was killed.’

‘Why didn’t you come forward with this information?’ demanded Horton angrily.

‘Why should I?’ Shawford answered in surprise, seeming to recover some of his composure. ‘It was just a fling, a bit of fun. We met on a corporate hospitality sailing event.’

‘And where was her husband while you were having this bit of fun?’ Horton snarled, pushing away with anger the thought that Shawford might also have been having ‘fun’ with Catherine behind his back before the Lucy Richardson debacle had caused their marital break-up.

Shawford sniffed and studied the ground. Horton wondered if Shawford had been married in June 1997. He could ask and check records. Perhaps Natalie had threatened to tell Mrs Shawford about it, which would have given Edward Shawford a motive for killing Natalie. But that didn’t explain why he would want to frame Luke Felton.

Harshly Horton said, ‘Why did Natalie chuck you over?’

Shawford didn’t even bite at the assumption that it was she who had given the stud of century the push.

‘She found someone else. I don’t know who though,’ he added quickly.

‘Luke Felton?’ suggested Horton.

Shawford eyed him incredulously. ‘Not Natalie’s type. Not enough money. She liked a good time. And she liked power. Some women do.’

‘Can’t see why she bothered with you then,’ quipped Horton, but again Shawford had corroborated what Raymonds had told him. If Natalie had blatantly thrown herself at other men in front of her husband then jealousy was a powerful motive for killing.

Shawford bristled. ‘I don’t have to put up with-’

A glare from Horton silenced him. ‘So you saw Luke waiting beside the road on Tuesday evening, and grabbed your chance to ask him what he remembered of the day Natalie was killed without anyone at work listening in.’

Shawford nodded. ‘He told me he hadn’t killed her and said that it was only a matter of days before he cleared his name. I told him he’d never get the case reopened. I didn’t want him to, because I thought it might come out that I knew Natalie, but I didn’t kidnap or kill him to shut him up,’ he added hastily. ‘Luke said there was someone who believed him who was influential and was keen to help him see justice done.’

That certainly wasn’t Peter Bailey, unless he had lied to Luke, which was possible. And if it had been Ashley Felton, then why hadn’t Luke said something like ‘my brother is determined to help me clear my name’? The same for Neil Danbury.

‘Who was he meeting at Portchester Castle?’

‘I don’t know. It’s the truth,’ Shawford insisted quickly, as Horton looked doubtful. ‘That’s all he said, apart from the fact that it was where it all began, and he remembered water and the bailey.’

Horton seized the last two words eagerly. ‘ The bailey?’

‘I assumed he meant the moat and the outer bailey of Portchester Castle. Though what that has to do with Natalie’s death I’ve no idea, and he didn’t elaborate. He knew nothing about my affair with Natalie, or at least he didn’t mention it. He told me he didn’t even know her.’

‘Did he say how he ended up on the coastal path at Hayling?’

Shawford shook his head. ‘We didn’t discuss it in detail, and I wasn’t interested. I’d got all I needed. I dropped him off in the car park and went home.’

Horton eyed Shawford closely. It sounded like the truth. He turned on his heel and climbed on his Harley, not bothering to look back at Shawford. He hoped it was the last he’d see of him.

He headed for Portchester Castle. Luke had told Shawford that was where it had all begun, and he had come here on Tuesday evening to meet the person he thought was going to help him clear his name, the one who had in fact killed Natalie Raymonds and framed him for her murder. By coincidence, it just happened to be near the site where a woman had been brutally murdered in her garden two days later. The castle, then, Horton thought, pulling into the car park, had to hold the key to Luke’s disappearance and to the murder of Natalie Raymonds. And if Shawford was telling the truth about Felton mentioning the bailey, and if Luke hadn’t met Peter Bailey here on 19 September 1997, then why come here, pondered Horton, entering the castle grounds through a large ancient stone archway. It was miles away both by road and sea from the coastal path where Natalie had been killed.

Horton stood inside the fortifications and stared at the ruins. Nothing new sprang to mind, so he went in search of the castle souvenir shop and bought a guide book. Returning to the Green, he quickly skimmed through the book, learning that the gate he had entered by was called the Landgate. This made sense because it faced landwards, while the entrance on the other side of the Green, with its iron grille set in the stone archway, facing on to the sea, was called the Watergate. Rather obvious, he guessed. And that’s what Luke had recalled in his trance: water and gate, but not two separate words, one — Watergate. Horton also read that he was standing in the outer bailey. So could Luke have arranged to meet Natalie’s killer at the Watergate in the outer bailey in 1997? And had he repeated that arrangement last Tuesday? It seemed likely. Surely he’d have remembered if the person who had killed Natalie had been his brother or brother-in-law, but then he supposed the drugs had obliterated that memory.

Horton located the steep, twisting stone steps to the keep and ran up them, emerging at the top where a biting wind caught him full in the chest and stung his face with an icy chill that was more reminiscent of January than March. He didn’t mind. He found it refreshing after the stench of Shawford.

He was glad to see that he was alone, except for a single gull which was crying overhead as if it had witnessed something terrible. And maybe it had, he thought, as it dived to skim the surface of the water — Venetia Trotman’s murder, and the abduction and killing of Luke Felton, because Horton was even more convinced now, after Shawford’s story, he was dead. He watched the gull fly towards the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, where Jay Turner’s body had washed up, and his mind once again returned to Venetia Trotman. He was equally convinced that Joseph Trotman was Jay Turner. Had he died accidentally? Perhaps he’d gone out on his yacht, Shorena , and fallen overboard? But that would mean someone had been with him, because the yacht hadn’t sailed itself back to Willow Bank. Perhaps Venetia had sailed it back and had kept silent over her husband’s death. Maybe she’d pushed him overboard. Or had Jay Turner’s killer met him somewhere along the coast, killed him and dumped his body in the sea? That thought brought Horton back to Luke Felton.

He cast his eyes over the scene spread before him hoping inspiration would come, just as it had when Dr Clayton had told him about Venetia Trotman being Georgian. Beyond the priory church, to his right, hidden by bushes and trees, was Venetia Trotman’s house. Again Horton considered the coincidence of her death, both in time and location, with Luke Felton’s disappearance. Was there a connection? But no, he had already discounted that.