Pauline Rowson - In for the Kill

‘I saw her go into your houseboat,’ he said.

I froze and held my breath. I knew he must have meant Deeta.

‘She didn’t come out again, not until the morning,’ he added.

‘You were outside all night?’

‘In my car.’

I groaned. On his evidence Steven could have me arrested. ‘What do you want, Steven? Do you want to see me go down for murder? Wasn’t embezzlement good enough? How did you do it? And why for Christ’s sake?’

‘That fucking war.’ He spat with venom.

His answer took me by surprise. I stared at him.

I could recognise a soul in torment. I recalled the carefree little boy with the sticky out ears and the wide grin. That Steven couldn’t have ruined my life and my reputation. But could this one have done so? I wasn’t sure.

‘What happened?’

‘Gulf War syndrome. I got chucked out of the RAF.’

Had the war somehow affected Steven’s mind?

He’d had many years to brood about it. Had it tipped him over the edge into insanity? Had all the past injustices welled up in him and focused on me?

‘Why pick on me, Steven?’

‘You slept with Deeta,’ he rounded on me.

It wasn’t the reply I had expected. I didn’t see hatred in his eyes now, only a deep and inconsolable sorrow. I knew that he had been in love with Deeta.

‘I stopped her at the Toll Gate café but she didn’t want to speak,’ he continued. ‘She was angry with me for spying on her. We rowed. She stalked off along the beach and around the point.

I went after her, then realised how hopeless it was. An hour later she was dead.’

‘You didn’t frame me?’

He stared at me confused. I had got it wrong, again. Andover wasn’t Steven.

‘Frame you? For what?’

‘Have you told the police any of this?’ I tried not to sound nervous.

‘No. They haven’t asked. You made love to her, didn’t you?’ he rounded on me. ‘Did you love her?’

‘No, I –’

Suddenly his fist struck my chin. I stumbled back surprised, but as I stared at him and felt the blood from my cut lip I didn’t feel angry with him. I guess this was what he had asked me here for. He stepped back, and looked away. His shoulders sagged and I knew he wouldn’t hit me again. I was glad. I was getting rather fed up with being everyone’s punch-ball.

‘That’s all she was interested in, the war,’ he said sorrowfully.

I scrambled up. ‘Why did she want to know about the Gulf War?’

‘Not that one. The Second World War,’ Steven snapped.

Of course. My brain quickly reassembled the facts as Steven continued:

‘She and Dad became good friends. She’d spend ages with him talking about the old days, not many people bothered. I got to know her because of it. Poor Dad. The doctor has given him some pills. I loved her, not like some people who used her and thought nothing of it.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He turned away and began walking back to the hangar. ‘I’ll see what I can find out about that plane buzzing you,’ he called over his shoulder.

I hurried back to the houseboat, taking the footpath behind the village at the back of my mother’s house and coming out by the Pilot Boat Inn. Even then I couldn’t avoid the small huddled groups of villagers and dog walkers. I caught snatches of conversation about Deeta’s death.

Someone said that the police had set up an incident room in the village hall. I was worried that if the police questioned Steven he’d tell them about Deeta and me. I couldn’t afford to lose any time sitting in a police interview room.

Where the hell was Rowde? Why didn’t he get in touch? Perhaps he’d be waiting for me back at the houseboat. He wasn’t, Scarlett was.

‘Where have you been?’ she declared. ‘I’ve got some news for you about that blonde woman.

You’ll have to come with me though. I can’t leave Mum alone.’

Ruby was staring at the television, her hands clasping her straw handbag.

Scarlett glanced at her mother and then at me.

She spoke in hushed tones. ‘I was cleaning Deeta’s room in the hotel the day before she was killed. I had to take Mum with me. I can’t leave her here, can I?’

She glared at me as if I was going to chastise her. I wondered where all this was leading.

‘Usually Mum’s pretty good. She just sits there muttering to herself or singing. I was called away to another room; a guest wanted his breakfast brought up and there was no one else to do it so I had to leave Mum, only for a few minutes. I didn’t realise she’d taken it until yesterday, after I heard that Deeta had been killed.’

‘Taken what?’

‘This.’ And she stretched across me to the bread bin which she flipped open. She pulled out a photograph in a silver frame. As she straightened up she looked at me and I felt something jump between us that startled her as much as it did me. She frowned and thrust the photograph into my hands.

I gazed down at it. I wasn’t sure what I expected but it wasn’t the photograph of a young man in his early twenties, handsome with a square jaw and broad smile, tall and slender. He was dressed in a lounge suit, shirt and tie. In the background was a chalk cliff and sea. It looked remarkably like Whitecliff Bay to me. Judging by the type of photograph and the clothes I would have said it had been taken in the 1930s.

‘Who is it?’ And what, more to the point, was this to do with me?

Scarlett rolled her eyes. ‘How the devil should I know? Mum thinks it’s someone called Max.

I’ve only just managed to get it away from her.

They’ll think I’ve stolen it. I can’t tell the police, you know how their minds work. I’ll lose my job. I don’t know what to do.’ She thrust a hand through her hair, which was now copper with black streaks.

I was flattered that she had confided in me.

Her trust warmed my aching heart.

‘Let’s see who it is.’

I prised open the back and extracted the photograph whilst Scarlett kept an eye on her mother.

‘It is Max.’

Scarlett looked shocked. I didn’t blame her.

We’d both dismissed everything Ruby said as nonsense. If Ruby was right about this could she possibly be right about someone pushing my mother down the stairs?

I read aloud the writing on the back of the photograph. ‘Maximilian Weber, Whitecliff Bay 1938.’

‘Weber, that was Deeta’s surname,’ Scarlett said. ‘This must be her grandfather. She was too young for it to be her father, and, besides, he’s arrived at the hotel. I saw him check in last night.

Did you know she was German?’

It explained her accent and maybe her conversations with Percy. ‘She said something about her grandfather being here at the beginning of the war. Perhaps that’s when Ruby knew him.

Steven Trentham told me Deeta used to talk about the war endlessly with Percy.’

Scarlett scowled. ‘You’ve spoken to Steven?’

‘Yes.’ I could see she looked uncomfortable and wondered why.

She turned round and began to fill the kettle.

‘Steven followed her from your houseboat. I saw him.’

‘He’s just told me.’

‘Did he also tell you that we were once married?’ She spun round. ‘I can see not, judging by your shocked expression and your gaping mouth. I suppose it surprises you that someone wanted to marry me.’

‘I never said –’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘Why are you always so defensive?’ I cried, exasperated.

‘Takes years to perfect and with a father like mine I got plenty of chance to practise.’

Her tone was light but I could hear the pain behind the words. I saw a life of pretending she didn’t care what they said about her father. Her hostility was a shield to prevent her from being hurt. I wondered if her eccentric hair colour and style of dress were also used as a kind of barrier to stop people from getting too close.