Pauline Rowson - Footsteps on the Shore

‘But that’s not how it happened, is it?’ Horton now said sharply, despising Chawley and not caring if he showed it. ‘You couldn’t simply plant the DNA on Natalie’s body and the bottle with Luke’s fingerprints on it immediately after Sean called you because you wouldn’t have known where Luke was. You needed him not to be able to remember where he was on the nineteenth of September for him to become your scapegoat, and that meant Natalie’s murder was planned and no impulse killing.’

Chawley eyed him steadily. After a moment he nodded slowly and with a weary sigh said, ‘You’re right, of course. I thought it would look better for Sean if I told you it was a spur-of-the-moment killing, done in anger, unpremeditated, but it wasn’t. After being rejected, Sean planned how he would kill Natalie and how he would frame Luke for it. Heroin had been seized in a raid in Havant and put in the drug safe, but it hadn’t been entered in the log. Sean simply falsified the entry and took enough to lay Luke out. He arranged to meet Luke, drugged him and then drove to Hayling, parked his car in a side street near the southern access to the coastal path and met and killed Natalie and planted the evidence.’

Horton didn’t care for what he was hearing. His body was tense, his mind a jumble of thoughts, as Chawley continued.

‘I didn’t know what Sean had done until just before Bailey called to say he saw Felton on that path. Sean was breaking under the strain. He told me.’

‘And instead of doing what you should have done, you covered it up.’

Chawley nodded. He leaned back in his chair. His face was even more drawn than when Horton had entered and the flesh seemed to have fallen from his frail body. Horton didn’t feel pity, only fury.

‘It’s a convincing story,’ he said, with an edge of steel to his voice that made Chawley look up. ‘And it’s almost true, except for one fact. Sean Lovell didn’t have an affair with Natalie Raymonds. You did. You killed her and you framed Luke Felton for her murder.’

Chawley eyed him with an expression devoid of emotion. There were no denials, no outraged protestations. Just silence.

Harshly, not bothering to disguise his disgust, Horton said, ‘You arranged to meet Luke at Portchester Castle, where you kept a boat. You lured him there, plied him with drink and drugs that you stole from the drugs safe or more likely took off some addict without declaring it or charging him. Then, taking hairs from Luke’s body and his clothes, you pressed his fingerprints on a bottle of water and you drove to meet Natalie Raymonds in that copse as arranged, parking your car some distance away in a side street. Then you strangled her using your tie, and planted the evidence and Natalie’s fingerprints on the bottle of water to make it look as though it was hers. You were quickly on the scene, heading the investigation. When Luke was found and the evidence matched, it was a result. Bailey’s false testimony clinched it and Luke’s memory was a blank. And I’ll tell you why I know it was you,’ Horton continued ruthlessly. ‘Apart from the fact that I would never believe Sean to be capable of an affair, let alone a murder, there’s the matter of the mobile phone records. Natalie’s mobile calls were never checked, because if they had been your telephone number would have been listed. But there’s something even more convincing to show that you killed Natalie Raymonds. There’s Luke Felton’s disappearance.’

A frown puckered Chawley’s lined brow. ‘I can’t see how-’

‘He’s dead.’

Chawley’s face paled. ‘Then why-?’

Horton shook his head in wonderment. ‘You know why,’ he said scathingly. ‘Because Luke started to remember things about Natalie’s murder and that meant it was too dangerous for him to live. He had to die.’

Scornfully Chawley said, ‘You can’t think I killed him! I haven’t even got the strength to move from this chair.’

‘No, not you,’ Horton said, rising. ‘Which means someone else has gone to great lengths to protect Natalie’s killer, and Sean Lovell’s wife couldn’t have done that.’

‘Who then?’ Chawley demanded angrily, but it was bluff. Horton saw the fear in his yellow eyes.

At the door he paused. Bitingly he said, ‘You’re a copper, work it out.’

He found Chawley’s daughter-in-law hovering anxiously in the kitchen.

‘Is he all right? Should I go in?’

Horton removed the picture of Luke Felton from his jacket pocket. ‘Have you seen this man?’ She started nervously and eyed him apprehensively. ‘It’s OK,’ he added quickly. ‘You won’t get into trouble for telling me.’

‘He came here a week ago last Saturday.’

It was as he’d thought. That would have been 7 March, and Luke had disappeared on Tuesday the tenth. It was also before the covert drug operation had started on Crown House.

She added, ‘I was just coming back from shopping and almost ran him over as he was walking down the driveway away from the house. Gavin said he was just someone selling door to door, but he didn’t have a bag with him. And Gavin rushed out after him. I saw him stop in the street from the landing window. That man got in the car. I don’t know where they went. Is it important?’

It was, but Horton wasn’t going to tell her that. He said, ‘Do you own a boat?’

Her genuine surprise gave him the answer before she said, ‘No.’

‘I thought you must, given all the pictures your children paint of boats.’

‘Duncan used to have a motorboat, but he sold it when he got ill. We often take the children to the harbour. They like to paint while Gavin is working.’

‘But your husband does sail?’ Horton recalled that Gavin had been wearing chinos, deck shoes and a red sailing jacket on the Sunday he had first called here.

‘Oh yes, often with friends-’

‘Like last Sunday?’

‘Yes. And he teaches dinghy sailing during the season. Unfortunately I don’t like the sea. It terrifies me and makes me sick.’

‘Where’s your husband now, Mrs Chawley?’

She glanced at the clock. It was five thirty-five. ‘At work. Why?’ she asked anxiously.

‘And that’s where?’ Horton asked, although he already knew the answer.

‘The Youth Enterprise Sailing Trust. He’s chief executive.’

Horton told her a police officer would be with her soon and that he would prefer it if she didn’t call her husband. He couldn’t stop Duncan Chawley calling him though. Julia Chawley looked frightened but agreed to do as he asked.

Outside he called Walters. ‘Margery Blanchester,’ he said, before Walters could moan about something. ‘Find out who the beneficiary of her will is.’ Horton remembered what the volunteer on the paddle steamer had said: Thanks to a recent legacy from an old lady, we hope to get this young lady finished a lot sooner than expected.

Then he rang Cantelli. ‘You were right. Bailey didn’t kill Natalie Raymonds, and neither did Ashley Felton or Neil Danbury. Duncan Chawley did. He tried to make me believe it was Sean Lovell.’

‘Then he must be sick in the head. Sean would be totally incapable of that,’ Cantelli cried vehemently.

‘That’s more or less what I said. Get over here, Barney. Charge Duncan Chawley with the murder of Natalie Raymonds and arrange for him to be taken into hospital. Make sure someone stays with him at all times and a woman police officer stays with his daughter-in-law, Julia. As soon as you’ve done that, meet me at the Youth Enterprise Sailing Trust.’

‘Why there?’

‘It’s where I’ll find Gavin Chawley.’

‘I don’t envy you telling him what his father did.’

‘He already knows.’