‘Every day.’
‘You know what I mean, but I’ll rephrase it for you. How often did you sleep with him?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘It is when Luke Felton might be dead.’
She flashed him a surprised glance.
‘How often, Kelly?’ Horton asked more harshly.
‘Twice,’ she spat. ‘I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I thought he might be better second time around. He wasn’t.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’ she cried, exasperated.
‘He told you the same thing all over again?’ Horton said incredulously.
‘More or less. He said he wanted to put Natalie Raymonds’ killing behind him and move on. And that’s it, apart from what he muttered in his sleep, something about water and darkness and bailing.’
‘Bailing?’ Horton picked up eagerly. That was new. ‘As in bailing out?’
‘I don’t know. It might have been bailey. Now I’ve got work to do.’ She threw her cigarette down and ground it out viciously with the sole of her shoe.
This time they let her go. Turning to Cantelli, Horton said, ‘Are you thinking what I am?’
‘She could be mistaken. Or perhaps Luke Felton remembered Peter Bailey from the trial.’
Horton called Lena Lockhart on her mobile. After confirming she was safe and well, he asked her if Luke had mentioned anything about bailing or bailey. He could hear her thinking about this for a moment.
‘No, sorry. Is it important?’
Horton wasn’t sure. He let her go and rang Walters.
‘I showed one of the gravediggers Rookley’s ugly mugshot but he didn’t recognize him,’ Walters said. ‘I’m just waiting to speak to the other gravedigger, who’s due back from the dentist soon, but I’ve got the name of the funeral directors who handled the burial you saw on Friday. I’ll check that out after I’ve had something to eat,’ Walters added pointedly. ‘I haven’t had anything all morning.’
Horton wasn’t sure that Walters’ ‘anything’ meant the same as most people’s. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard and saw that it was almost one thirty. It was also time to move his yacht to another marina and safety, yet he hesitated. ‘If I move it, Barney,’ he explained as they headed back to the station, ‘it might delay me finding him.’
‘Or him finding you,’ Cantelli said. ‘I thought that was the point.’
‘If he returns I’ll be prepared.’
‘Or asleep. Even you can’t keep awake for ever.’
‘I don’t think he will return. Not now I’ve blown his hideaway.’
Cantelli snorted his views on that. ‘I’ll ask for a patrol along Ferry Road. I’ve not noticed anyone tailing us.’
‘Maybe he’s got to sleep some time.’
After grabbing something to eat, Cantelli went to interview Ashley Felton while Horton rang through to Trueman. He briefed Trueman about the stolen tapes and his interviews with Felton, Boynton and Kelly Masters, ending with, ‘I think it confirms that Luke Felton has nothing to do with the Venetia Trotman murder.’
‘I’ll tell the super.’
And then stand well back, added Horton, because Uckfield would need to start looking for another suspect. It also meant he had no reason to be involved in the Venetia Trotman murder, except that he wanted to be. Ridiculous though it was, he felt he owed her something.
There were no signs of Waverley or Harlam and Bliss didn’t make her presence felt either. Horton called Sergeant Stride, who said that no motorbikes had been stolen in the Portsmouth area over the last month — which was good for motorbike owners, not so good for Horton’s mission to unmask his mysterious persecutor. DCI Pritchard hadn’t returned his call, so Horton tried him again, only to be told he was in a meeting. If it was the same meeting it was a bloody long one.
He then called the lab and managed to get hold of Joliffe this time. Joliffe said there was no match on any of the fingerprints taken from the houseboat debris, but he would see if they could get a match on DNA, which would take longer. Horton felt frustrated at the delay but consoled himself with the fact that it ruled out a convicted villain, recently released and after his blood. Did that make the case stronger for his graffiti artist being someone connected with Zeus? Horton wasn’t sure.
His phone rang. Horton answered it to find Walters on the end of the line.
‘The other gravedigger remembers you, guv, and he remembers Rookley.’
Thank heaven for an observant man. ‘And?’
‘He didn’t see where Rookley went because he was watching the committal, but after it he saw Rookley again, talking to someone at one of the graves. He couldn’t see who because he had his back to the gravedigger, but he described him as a well-built man but not fat, dressed in a dark overcoat. He couldn’t see the hair colour because he wore a hat and they were standing under a black umbrella.’
‘Not much help there,’ Horton grumbled, though one person flitted into his mind. Neil Danbury. But then thousands of men were well built and wore dark overcoats; the description also fitted Ashley Felton, who had a reason to be dealing with Rookley, while Neil Danbury didn’t.
Walters continued. ‘The gravedigger says it didn’t look as though they were arguing, and neither did they look as though they were discussing the dearly departed. They weren’t standing over a grave or nothing.’
‘Ask him if Rookley left with this man.’
‘Already have. He doesn’t know. He had to go in the opposite direction to dig another grave.’
Horton cursed. ‘Get around to the funeral directors.’
‘But guv-’
‘You can grab some lunch as you go.’
Restlessly, Horton applied himself to his paperwork while his mind busied itself elsewhere. He thought about Venetia Trotman and the man with the foreign accent who had reported her death. Trueman hadn’t said they’d got anything from analysing his voice pattern, so they must still be waiting on the report. Then there was Jay Turner washed up in the harbour. Where had he come from? Why had he ended up on their shores? Had he been killed? And where was Rookley? He’d vanished completely, like Luke Felton. Could both be connected to drugs? Did Ashley Felton know more than he’d told them?
Horton fetched a coffee, hoping the caffeine would clear his mind, and took it back to his office. Drinking it, he stared across the car park, deep in thought. If Luke had been trying to remember who had been with him on that fateful day, why hadn’t he called Lena Lockhart and asked to listen to the tapes in the hope that it might stimulate greater recall? Perhaps he didn’t want to remember but wanted to put the past behind him and move on, just as Boynton had told them. Horton knew that was easier said than done. Kelly had told them that Luke remembered bailing, which meant he’d either been on a boat at some stage or, as Cantelli had suggested, was getting the word confused with Peter Bailey who gave evidence at his trial.
He turned back to his desk. The fact that the tapes had been stolen proved that someone had been with Luke when Natalie was killed. So why hadn’t Bailey seen this man? He sipped his coffee as he assembled his thoughts. One reason could be because Luke had agreed to meet the man and Natalie in the copse. The accomplice could have driven there and parked up nearby, or he could have come by boat from Portsmouth, and taken Luke Felton back to the Portsmouth shore by boat in the dark, hence bailing. Yes, he liked that idea. Another option was that Bailey was lying about seeing Luke Felton. And why would he do that? Because Bailey was the accomplice and Natalie’s killer. Mentally, Horton ran through their previous interview in that depressing house. Bailey had seemed agitated and had looked decidedly uncomfortable when Horton had mentioned Portchester Castle. Why? Could Bailey have met Luke Felton there on Tuesday, afraid that Luke had started to remember certain things about that day?
Horton sat up. With a frisson of excitement he quickly grasped the theory and began to push it further. Why would Bailey want Natalie Raymonds dead? And why should he
wish to frame Luke Felton? Bailey was hardly their drugs supplier. And how would he have known either of them? Horton guessed he could have seen Natalie Raymonds when she’d been running along the coastal path. But how would Bailey have known Luke Felton, and more importantly his background, well enough to get him to agree to a meeting in that copse? There were two possibilities. Bailey had either worked or socialized with Luke Felton, which seemed doubtful unless the job his father had got Luke had been at Hester’s Shipbuilding, or Bailey already knew him. Peter Bailey didn’t have a criminal record, so he couldn’t have been involved with Luke during his community service for the attack on the pensioner in 1995, unless. .
With his heart racing, Horton quickly turned to his computer and called up the case files for 1995. When he found the one he wanted his eyes devoured the text on the screen. Several minutes later he sat back, with a grim smile of satisfaction. There was a great deal more to Peter Bailey than met the eye and considerably more than he had told them. Bailey also had a very strong motive for wanting Luke Felton convicted and put away for a very long time.
TWENTY-ONE
Peter Bailey sat hunched over a cold cup of tea with a slimy skin on it in the interview room, looking forlorn and pathetic. Horton eyed him closely. His grey monk’s hair was damp with sweat and unkempt, his trousers were smeared with earth, and the fingers, which fiddled with his spectacles, showed traces of dirt under the nails.
Horton had discovered that Bailey’s mother was the pensioner Luke Felton had assaulted and robbed in 1995. Ethel Elmore had remarried after her first husband had died in 1963, when Bailey was twelve. He’d kept his father’s name. And if it was that simple, thought Horton, watching Bailey’s grubby fingers, then why hadn’t Superintendent Duncan Chawley made the connection in 1997?
‘Maybe he did,’ Cantelli had said, ‘but because Chawley had Luke Felton in custody and he’d already confessed he kept quiet about it. It was one case swiftly cleared up and a brownie point to him.’
Horton didn’t like it. It was sloppy work and threw into question Felton’s guilt.
Cantelli began the interview in a casual, friendly manner, almost as though he wasn’t particularly interested. ‘How did you lure Luke Felton into meeting you on the coastal path in 1997?’
Bailey eyed them both guardedly ‘I didn’t.’
‘No? Perhaps you took him there in your car then.’
Bailey shifted nervously but said nothing.
Cantelli smiled. ‘It’s OK, Peter, we understand. If he had done that to my mother I’d have wanted to get my own back and finger him for Natalie’s murder.’
Bailey’s head came up. ‘I didn’t. I saw him slouching along that path.’
‘And you did what?’ Horton interjected sharply, making Bailey start.
‘Nothing.’
Horton laughed derisively. ‘You expect us to believe that, the man who had attacked your mother?’
Bailey’s grey skin flushed. He replaced his glasses and studiously avoided eye contact.
Horton sat back and in a lighter tone said, ‘How often did you see Natalie Raymonds running along the coastal path?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Never? On all the occasions you went there to spy on the little terns?’ Horton said, feigning surprise.
‘No.’ Bailey fidgeted.
‘I think you did, Peter, and maybe that’s when the idea first struck you. You thought her a perfect victim, a good-looking girl, alone, regular in her running habits.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Bailey stared at each of them in turn with a bewildered air.
Relentlessly Horton continued, ‘Perhaps you even spoke to Natalie. Maybe you fancied her and she laughed at you or told you to push off. Hurt and humiliated, an idea began to form in your mind on how to get back at her and at the same time get revenge on the man who had hurt your mother.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Bailey said sullenly. ‘I saw Luke Felton the day that girl was killed. I’d never met her before.’
‘Maybe you didn’t mean to kill Natalie. You just meant to put that tie around her throat, squeeze it a little to make her unconscious and then leave Felton to take the blame for assaulting her, but when you felt the power you had over her a better idea sprang to mind. She wouldn’t be able to laugh at you again if she was dead and Felton would be convicted for her murder. And just to make sure, you came forward to say you’d seen him on the path. It was justice for what he did to your mother. But then Luke was released on licence and started remembering. He called on you and begged you to tell the truth. But you couldn’t have that, so you killed him. What have you done with his body, Peter? Buried him in the garden?’
Bailey’s eyes widened with horror. ‘I don’t know where he is. I swear it. I thought that. .’
‘Yes?’
Bailey’s body slumped. He stared down at his trembling hands and muttered, ‘He ruined our lives, Mother’s and mine. I couldn’t leave her after that.’
‘You wanted to?’ Cantelli asked gently.
Bailey’s tormented eyes swung up to Cantelli. ‘I’d been offered a job abroad but after the attack she became an agoraphobic. She never stepped outside the front door from that day until they carried her out in her coffin ten years later. That’s what Luke Felton did to us, and what did he get for his crime, for wrecking our lives? Community service.’ There were tears in his eyes now as he added, ‘It was pitiful. A disgrace. He was made to clear up litter along the shore at Portchester Castle. I saw him there one lunchtime when I was working at Hester’s. I wanted to confront him but I couldn’t. It’s just not in my nature.’ Bailey dashed a hand across his eyes.
‘So you arranged to meet him at Portchester Castle last Tuesday night with a view to killing him. Where did you take him, Peter?’
He stared at Horton, confused. ‘Nowhere. I didn’t meet him. I haven’t seen him.’ Suddenly the tears began to roll down his creased face. ‘My mother was the gentlest, most trusting woman you could find. She didn’t deserve what he did to her. He killed her as good as if he’d stuck a knife in her heart.’
‘And is that why you killed him, Peter?’ Cantelli asked softly.
Bailey stared at him with anguished eyes. He sniffed noisily and ran a hand under his nose. ‘No, but it’s why I lied. You’re right, I didn’t see Luke that day. I made it up. I wasn’t anywhere near the coastal path. I was at home with my mother.’
And if Bailey was now telling the truth, where did that leave them? thought Horton. And where did it leave the original investigation? With a ruddy great hole in it.
Bailey began to gabble. ‘I didn’t think my evidence would help to convict him. I thought the police would find out before it got that far, but then Felton admitted the crime. I thought he must have been there. Everyone said he did it. I didn’t feel guilty. I remembered what he had done to my mother and thought that at last I’d got some kind of justice. I put him out of my mind until you showed up asking questions and I thought he might have remembered something about her murder and discovered I’d lied. I thought he might come after me.’
‘Maybe Felton did come after you, and you killed him,’ pressed Horton, quietly this time.
Bailey forced his head up with an effort. ‘No.’
‘He knew you’d lied and he wanted revenge for the years he’d spent inside. You had to kill him. Maybe it was self-defence. A jury would have sympathy with that.’
Bailey was shaking his head. ‘I haven’t seen him.’
Horton gave Cantelli a sign to continue. ‘Where were you last Tuesday from six o’clock onwards?’
‘At home.’
‘Can anyone vouch for you?’
Bailey looked thoroughly dejected. ‘No.’
After a moment Cantelli said brightly, ‘Been gardening, Peter?’ He jerked his head at the dirty fingernails.
Bailey blinked at the change of subject and stammered a reply. ‘I stumbled into a bramble.’
‘In your
own garden!’
‘I didn’t have my spectacles on.’
Bailey looked at them both with pleading in his fearful eyes. Horton said, ‘We’ll search your house and garden.’
‘You’ll find nothing.’
The truth or a lie? Horton told Bailey he’d be held on suspicion of the murder of Luke Felton while they conducted a search of his premises. Bailey made no protest, he didn’t even ask for a solicitor or a warrant, but granted them permission to go ahead with a dumb inevitability that Horton found depressing.
Outside Cantelli said, ‘Could he have killed Natalie Raymonds?’
It was a question that Horton had been asking himself during the interview. Was Bailey capable of such a crime, and one that had required careful planning? The answer was yes. Bailey had been a design draughtsman, which meant he had an eye for detail, and he had a powerful motive.
‘If he did, then unless he admits it we’ll not be able to prove it. We might get lucky with the search, though, and find evidence to connect him with Felton’s disappearance. And we might even find Felton’s body. I’d like you on the search, Barney.’
Their conversation had taken them back to the CID office where Walters had returned footsore, wet and in bad humour. ‘The old lady they were burying on Friday was a Margery Blanchester, she was ninety-one,’ he said, throwing himself down in his chair with a heavy sigh. ‘None of the funeral directors match the description the gravedigger gave me, and I can rule out five of the eight mourners because three are women and the other two are men in their seventies. I’ll do the rest tomorrow.’
Horton consulted his watch and was surprised to see it was just after six, but there was someone he wanted to see before calling it a day and he wanted Cantelli with him.
‘Why do you want to interview Julian Raymonds?’ Cantelli asked, as they headed out of the city towards Hayling Island.
‘If Chawley didn’t check that Bailey was related to the pensioner Felton attacked, then what else didn’t he check?’
‘Raymonds’ alibi?’
‘Possibly, and even if Chawley knew Bailey was lying and kept silent to get a conviction it’s shoddy work, and it means we can’t trust a single thing in that case file, except the pathologist’s report. Chawley told me he’d checked Natalie’s background and looked for links between her and Luke, but how can we be sure? There’s nothing in the file I’ve read to indicate any of Natalie’s friends were interviewed, and there’s no record of where she went to school, where she worked, nothing. And if we put that with Lena Lockhart’s testimony and the missing tapes then we’ve got a very different case on our hands. One that needs reopening.’
Footsteps on the Shore dah-6 Page 20
