In for the Kill

by Pauline Rowson

  It was clear by Scarlett’s expression that she didn’t much like Miles. Was it an act or genuine?

  I didn’t know who I could trust anymore.

  ‘Why did you recommend Angela to clean my houseboat,’ I asked as calmly as I could whilst my mind was racing and my heart pounding fit to burst.

  Scarlett looked exasperated. ‘What is all this about Angela?’

  ‘Did you know Miles before I came out of prison.’ I watched her closely for a reaction.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me say Percy’s just died. Is that all you can think about, who cleaned your sodding houseboat?’

  ‘Scarlett, my family are being held hostage. Just tell me the bloody truth, how deep are you in all this?’

  ‘All what?’ she blazed, her face flushing. ‘You think I could hurt your family? You think I’m a crook like my dad was? Bugger off, Alex.’ She turned away from me. I grabbed her arm.

  ‘Gladly, but not until you tell me truth.’

  ‘Truth! What is the goddamn truth? That my mother’s dying before my eyes, my father in-law’s just died of a heart attack brought on because of the truth of what happened nearly seventy years ago, and my ex-husband’s been arrested for murder because he told the truth about following Deeta. The truth is that I’m scrimping and slaving away in a menial job to make enough money to keep myself and my mother alive.’ Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘The truth is that life stinks and so do you.’

  ‘Scarlett, I’m desperate –’

  ‘And what do you think I am?’ Suddenly though her sorrow overcame her anger. Her body slumped. In a flat voice she said, ‘I saw your lawyer friend at the airfield one morning. I’d gone to talk to Steven about something. Steven introduced me –

  ‘Steven knows Miles!’ Now I was surprised.

  ‘Yes. He regularly flies into Bembridge. I didn’t know that of course. Steven’s only just told me.

  He didn’t realise it would be Miles who would turn up to represent him. Your lawyer friend asked me if I knew any cleaners. He told me you were coming out of prison and your houseboat needed cleaning.’

  I reeled with what Scarlett was telling me.

  Miles had a pilot’s licence! I saw in my mind’s eye his hand waving from the window of his car as he headed towards St Helen’s on the day of my release. Of course, how easy for him to double back, follow me, and see me take the path across the airfield to Brading. All he had to do was climb into an aeroplane and watch for my return. Or perhaps he had been working with Deeta and she had called him to say I was leaving Brading Church. And it wasn’t a boat that had brought my family here, but an aeroplane. Miles had flown them into Bembridge. Where would he have taken them? It explained how Steven knew about my release from prison.

  Scarlett said, ‘I didn’t want him to know I was a cleaner. It was my stupid pride. I gave him Angela’s name. She cleans for the London lot that invade Seagrove Bay in the summer months.’

  Just then Steven entered. Scarlett turned her back on me. ‘Are you ready to go home?’

  He nodded. His face was ashen and there were dark circles under his dull, sad eyes. ‘The police want me to report to them tomorrow.’ He addressed his remark to me. ‘They think I killed her.’

  ‘Have they charged you?’

  ‘Not yet. I told them I would call into the station tomorrow with Mr Wolverton.’

  ‘Steven, did Miles Wolverton fly in here yesterday with a woman and two boys, one dark haired, the other fair,’ I asked impatiently.

  Scarlett glowered at me. Steven looked dazed.

  ‘No.’

  I cursed.

  ‘But I think that was Miles Wolverton flying the day you said that aeroplane buzzed you,’ he added.

  Miles was Andover. I was in the corridor when Scarlett called after me.

  ‘I can’t stop now,’ I shouted back.

  ‘You might like to know your friend Ray called.’

  I’d almost forgotten about him. That was quick. I halted. ‘And?’

  ‘He said it’s drugs and it’s not Jamie but Joanne.

  She nearly got done six years ago but got off the charge. Some clever bugger lawyer were his words. Fits your friend quite nicely, don’t you think?’

  Oh, indeed it did. I rushed towards her, took her face in my hands and kissed her. Before she could respond I had gone. Westnam, Couldner and Brookes – all with a secret they didn’t want exposed. Who would they have told their secrets too? Who could they have trusted? There were only two answers to that question: a priest and a clever bugger lawyer. If I needed confirmation that Miles was Andover this was it. But knowing it didn’t mean I knew where my family was, or that I would get them safely away from Rowde’s clutches. I did know where Miles was though.

  I drove through the empty streets as fast as I could praying there were no traffic cops about.

  When I reached the curve in Embankment Road I saw his car. Parking behind it I climbed out, my fists clenched, my body rigid with anger. At last I was going to meet Andover face to face.

  Finally I was going to learn the truth. With a quickening heartbeat I pushed back the door of my houseboat and stepped inside.

  CHAPTER 17

  Spread out before Miles were my mother’s diaries and jewellery. He looked up surprised, then smiled warily. My instinct was to rush at him and beat the truth from him, but I wasn’t certain I would be able to stop myself from killing him. With difficulty I controlled my raging anger.

  There were questions that I needed answers to first. Like where were my family?

  ‘You won’t find what you’re looking for there,’

  I said, tautly.

  ‘What? Oh sorry, didn’t mean to pry. I was curious. It was rude of me.’ His green eyes were scrutinising me. ‘What are you doing back here?’

  He was still trying to be friendly. He hadn’t yet worked out that I knew. Time to enlighten him.

  ‘I reckoned that Rowde had Vanessa and the boys on the Island. Where are they, Miles?’ I crossed to stand opposite him.

  ‘How should I know?’ He pulled himself up to face me.

  ‘Because you asked Rowde to kidnap them.’

  His surprise was so genuine that I doubted myself. Then I told myself that Miles was a consummate actor. He had to be to have fooled the courts, the police and me all these years.

  ‘Why did you frame me? Is it really because my mother betrayed your grandfather? Seems a bit ridiculous to me.’ I spoke with what I hoped was calculated contempt. I saw just a flicker of anger flash in his eyes. He made to speak, then decided against it.

  ‘You also killed Deeta so that Steven could be accused of murder. You got your own back on Percy too. He’s dead by the way. You’re Andover, Miles, and you framed me for something that happened to your grandfather almost seventy years ago. For the sake of revenge you killed my mother and stripped me of everything I owned and loved. You destroyed my life.’ My fists clenched. The blood pounded in my head. I willed myself not to strike him. It took every ounce of self-control I possessed.

  Miles looked as though he was about to deny it. If he did I knew I wouldn’t be able to contain myself any longer.

  He said, ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘Joanne Brookes, drug smuggling charge, some clever bugger lawyer got her off.’

  ‘And you’ve put it all together from that?’

  ‘And this.’ I held out the photograph. ‘Your grandfather, I believe: Hugo Wildern. I take it you killed Joe before I could get to him and you took my file from the warehouse?’

  I could see him weighing it up: truth or more lies. In the end he saw he didn’t really have a choice. He sat down. ‘Your file didn’t contain much but I couldn’t take the risk. Joe gave me the reports, but I wasn’t sure if he had kept copies. As it was, I needn’t have bothered.’

  Jesus! The arrogance of the man. ‘And Darren?

  The man in the warehouse? Did you kill him?’

  Miles didn’t answer. He didn’t have to; I could see that
he had.

  I said, ‘I know Joanne Brookes was into drug smuggling at one time and that you managed to get the charges dropped but what about Westnam and Couldner? What were their secrets?’

  I forced myself to sit opposite him and emulate his causal manner whilst my heart was screaming kill him, beat him to a pulp. My mind, however, was racing, wondering how this might get me to my family. Was Rowde working alone? I needed to find out and quickly. I could see though I wouldn’t be able to hurry Miles.

  ‘I suppose there’s no harm in your knowing now. Westnam left a banker’s dinner early. I was there. He was drunk. On his way home on a quiet country road he knocked over and badly injured a woman. He couldn’t afford the scandal.

  He called me. I collected him and took him home to bed. I told the police that I had been talking to Westnam and that he and I had been together at the time of the incident. The car had been stolen and flashed up.’

  ‘When it hadn’t. And Couldner?’

  ‘We were at a party at Couldner’s managing director’s house. Couldner got carried away with the MD’s daughter. She was fifteen. He always did like them young. I told the girl that if she breathed a word about it, her father would be dismissed.’

  I wanted to hit him hard. With difficulty I contained my fury and disgust. I couldn’t afford to rattle him. Prison had trained me well. If Miles attacked me I guessed I could give as good as I got, but I wasn’t going to take any chances yet.

  Not until Vanessa and my sons were safe. And if I couldn’t find my family on time…? If Miles wouldn’t tell me where they were…? Then I had to keep that meeting with Rowde.

  Miles said, ‘How did you find out about Joanne Brookes?’

  ‘I’ve got contacts too, Miles. Who told you about your grandfather?’

  ‘It was a coincidence really. Life is full of them.

  It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? I think it was meant to be. I saw it as justice. Fate had put it within my grasp and I couldn’t ignore it, Alex.’

  ‘You’ll be telling me you hear voices next.’

  Miles lips twitched but his eyes glared. Why hadn’t I seen before how mad he was? The answer was because he had defended me with passion and vigour, because he was my friend.

  My only friend, after all the others faded away.

  And I had needed a friend so badly.

  Miles said, ‘I was defending the usual thug on a charge of manslaughter. It was about fifteen years ago. His grandfather was in court and he came up to me after I got his beloved grandson off. He said, “You must be related to Hugo Wildern. I’ll never forget him. You look so alike.” I told him he must be mistaken. My grandfather’s name was Baxter. But when my mother died about two months after that I was going through her papers and I found a letter from Amelia, my grandmother, to Hugo.

  ‘I found the old man and asked him what he knew of Hugo. He told me he’d been in the prison service during the war when Hugo had been arrested for treason in 1940. He said that Hugo always maintained he was not a German spy but nobody believed him. Hugo told him that he had been helping Jews get out of Germany for money and that a man called Max had betrayed him and that he was the German spy. One of the warders was a terrible bully, he regularly beat Hugo.’

  Miles expression darkened and his body tensed.

  ‘Hugo offered them the proceeds of his ventures if they would just stop hitting him but it didn’t do any good. My grandfather was beaten to death and then his death covered up, forgotten, swept away, where’s the justice in that?’

  ‘There isn’t any. But where was the justice in what you did to me? You killed my mother for God’s sake!’ I sprang up unable to sit mildly by and listen to his drivel. My body was poised for attack. ‘You took away my life, my wife, my children, everything I held dear and valued.’

  ‘She betrayed me,’ he said evenly.

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ I shouted. ‘She betrayed your grandfather, Miles. Even then she was just a kid.

  Max put the idea into her and Percy’s head.’

  ‘And I decided their children should suffer for it as I had suffered.’

  ‘You! How have you suffered? You’ve got a good job, plenty of money.’

  ‘It’s not enough, is it, Alex, as you found out.

  It’s nothing without your reputation.’

  I stared at him. Incredibly through my anger and my sorrow I saw that he was right. Through the turmoil of my emotions I understood his warped reasoning.

  Miles continued. ‘When I knew the truth of my grandfather’s betrayal I came looking for Percy. I found his son Steven Trentham in a terrible state after being shot down in the Gulf War. He’d had some kind of breakdown. His career was at an end and I didn’t think the fiery Scarlett would hang around him for long, rightly as it turned out. I thought he’s had his punishment, so I turned to Olivia Albury and found you.’

  His voice harsher now he continued. ‘Alex Albury: a very successful businessman, wealthy, beautiful family, attractive loving wife, large expensive house, a yacht. You had the perfect life.

  Not only that but you stood to inherit Bembridge House. Because of my grandfather’s fate, brought on by your mother, my grandmother had lived a life of shame and hardship, struggling to raise her daughter, my mother. My mother married a dockyard worker in Portsmouth.

  Fortunately I was clever and won a scholarship to the grammar school, then university and law school. But there was no money. At least that was what I thought until the old man told me about the Jewish money. The three million pounds from Westnam, Couldner and Brookes is peanuts compared to that.’

  ‘You know the amount?’ I asked surprised.

  ‘I’m guessing, but I know where it is. My mother left me this.’

  He reached into his pocket and drew out a cameo brooch. It looked vaguely familiar. I was sure my mother had worn one very similar. Then it came to me. She had been wearing it in the photograph that Deeta had taken from me.

  Miles turned the brooch over to reveal a number engraved on the reverse. He said, ‘I knew at once that the money must be in a Swiss bank account and that this was only part of the number. I had to find the other two brooches.

  What had happened to Edward Hardley’s? Had he passed it down to his daughter, Olivia? Or had it gone down with him on his boat when he drowned?’

  Or, I thought, was it rotting with his bones in the folly? But it couldn’t have been if my mother had been wearing it in that photograph of me with the telescope. That had been taken a long time after my grandfather’s death.

  Miles said, ‘With you in prison I could search your mother’s house. It wasn’t there. I asked her, but she wouldn’t say.’

  I leapt forward to strike him but he was quicker.

  His punch came before I could even see it, right in my stomach. I buckled over, winded.

  ‘She did fall. I didn’t push her.’

  I didn’t believe him. I vowed silently I would kill him for that.

  He said, ‘It’s not here with your mother’s jewellery, so where is it, Alex?’

  ‘Were you working with Deeta?’ I panted, trying to recover my breath.

  ‘Yes. I discovered who she was from Steven Trentham. I approached her and we joined forces to find the third brooch, yours. When I knew you were heading across the marshes to Brading the morning you were released I told her to make contact with you. If I couldn’t find the brooch then I guessed she might be able to get the information from you, after all a beautiful girl like her, and you a man who’d spent years in prison…’

  ‘But all she discovered was the photograph,’ I snarled.

  ‘Yes.’ Miles unfurled his hand and now there were two brooches. ‘I just need yours for the hat trick.’

  ‘You killed her for that.’

  ‘Yes. Where, is it, Alex?’ He clenched his fist ready to strike me again.

  ‘Get stuffed.’

  His fist came out, but before he had a chance to hit me the door flew open and in tumbled a bedraggle
d and very wet Ruby.

  ‘Hugo!’ she cried, staring at Miles. Fear swiftly chased away the surprise on his face. Of course, she’d seen him bring me home from prison and again leaving my houseboat. It was why she had confused me with Hugo on our first encounter.

  ‘She’s old and she’s got Alzheimer’s,’ I said quickly, afraid for Ruby’s safety. Miles wouldn’t spare her. ‘She won’t remember and no one will believe her even if she did say anything.’

  ‘Not good enough.’

  I saw him smile at her. She returned it.

  ‘I always knew you’d come back,’ Ruby said. ‘I told Livvy you would. She said she’d seen you, but I didn’t believe her. I knew you wouldn’t visit her and not me. I was always your favourite, wasn’t I?’

  ‘Of course you were.’

  Miles took hold of her bony arm. She was soaking wet. Her pink summer dress was almost purple as it clung to her and the gloves grasping her handbag were sodden. Her sparse grey hair was plastered to her scalp. Where was Scarlett?

  Did she know her mother was out? Would she come here looking for her? God, I hoped not.

  ‘Give me the brooch, Alex,’ Miles said, his voice heavy with menace.

  ‘I haven’t got it.’ It was the truth. It certainly hadn’t been in with my mother’s jewellery that I’d collected from the solicitor. Perhaps it had been thrown out when my mother died? Perhaps Vanessa had it.

  ‘Wrong answer.’

  Miles had Ruby by the neck before I could even raise a fist. His great big hand was squeezing her throat so that her eyes bulged.

  ‘Let her go!’ I cried

  ‘That’s up to you.’

  Ruby was making choking noises.

  ‘I haven’t got it,’ I yelled.

  ‘You’re lying.’

  He tightened his grip on Ruby. Her body was going limp. I had to do something.

  ‘I’ll get it for you,’ I cried, quickly thinking.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Monday. Kerry, the solicitor’s, got it,’ I lied.

  Miles relaxed his hold a little on Ruby’s throat.

  The fear in her eyes tore at my heart.