‘Tell me about your aunt?’ Horton began.
‘There’s nothing to tell. I don’t know why you’re here. She was old and ill and she died.’
‘Of cancer you said, what kind?’
‘Is that relevant?’ she replied tartly.
‘Anything could be in a murder inquiry.’
‘Murder? Oh, you mean that woman at the crematorium. You must be mad if you think my aunt-’
‘Another body’s been found. We believe it to be that of Ellie Loman.’
Clearly that was a surprise. For a moment she was speechless then her eyes widened as she made the connection and scornfully she said, ‘So that’s what this is all about, you’re still persecuting Rawly after all these years, even though the poor man is dead, driven to his death, may I add, by the police harassing him. He never met her. He never saw her the day she disappeared and he never dated her. And if you think there’s anything left of my aunt’s belongings that will incriminate him then you are completely insane, not to mention the fact that you are wasting taxpayers’ money, and my time.’
Evenly Horton said, ‘Is that what he told you, that he had never dated her?’
‘He worked with her, he liked her, but he never asked her out.’
Eames looked up. ‘Why not?’
Patricia Harlow eyed Eames with something that bordered on contempt. Unaffected by it, Eames added, ‘Ellie Loman was an attractive young woman.’
‘That doesn’t mean Rawly went out with her.’
‘But he’d like to have done,’ insisted Horton.
Patricia Harlow’s eyes swivelled to Horton. ‘Rawly was a quiet man, sensitive. He didn’t have a great deal of confidence or experience when it came to women.’
And did that mean that when he finally plucked up the courage to ask her out he’d been rejected and hurt enough to kill her? Or perhaps he’d seen her with another man and in a jealous rage had killed her and pushed her body in the sea? But there had been no evidence to corroborate that. Could he have obliterated it so completely? And whatever the circumstances, Rawly Willard certainly hadn’t killed Salacia.
‘Your aunt’s cancer? What kind was it? We can find out from her medical records but it would be quicker if you told us.’
‘I don’t see why you want to know.’
‘And I don’t see why you are being so evasive,’ retorted Horton, sharply. He knew it wasn’t relevant to the inquiry but he wasn’t going to let her get away without answering. And her carping was beginning to get on his nerves.
‘Rectal cancer,’ she grouchily replied.
‘Thank you.’
‘There’s no need-’
‘Did you know Ellie Loman?’
‘No.’
It was said too quickly and her eye contact was evasive. ‘Let me rephrase the question, Mrs Harlow. Did you ever meet Ellie Loman?’
‘No.’
Another lie.
‘Did your husband?’
‘No.’
Horton left a few seconds silence before saying, ‘What were your aunt and uncle like?’ She looked disconcerted by the sudden change of conversation, as Horton had intended.
‘They were decent law-abiding people. My uncle was a very principled man.’
‘Harsh?’ asked Eames.
‘No. Fair. Upright. He tended to see things in black and white. He worked for the Inland Revenue, rose to be a senior officer there. He was clever with money. He had investments.’ Her voice trailed off. Horton sensed a ‘but’.
‘He played the stock market?’
‘No. But he made one or two unsound investments and lost some money that he was hoping would see him and my aunt through their retirement. When Rawly killed himself my uncle went downhill rapidly. He died within a year. My aunt got the life insurance and half his pension but it wasn’t much and the house was too big and had too many unhappy memories for her. She lived in one of those large rambling Edwardian houses off the seafront. She sold up and moved here a year after Uncle Edgar died.’
Horton said, ‘And now you inherit.’
Patricia Harlow eyed him with something akin to loathing. ‘Yes, though that’s none of your business.’
PC Johnson flushed the upstairs toilet. He was probably searching under the bath. Horton heard PC Allen climb the stairs. That meant he’d found nothing in the two rooms downstairs or in the cupboard under the stairs. Horton leaned back in his chair and kept his eyes on the stiff-backed woman beside him. ‘Where were you and your husband the day Ellie Loman disappeared?’ Horton noted that her hands, clasped together on the table, tightened.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘The day your cousin was accused of murder!’ Horton scoffed. ‘I’d have thought it would be imprinted on your mind. But let me remind you. It was Sunday 1 July 2001.’
‘Then I was at Mass in the morning.’
‘And in the afternoon?’ pressed Horton, knowing there was something she was uncomfortable about telling him.
She shifted position. One hand reached for a tissue from the pocket of her jacket. ‘I went to my aunt’s for tea.’
‘With your husband?’
‘No.’
‘Did your husband go to church with you?’
‘He’s not a Catholic.’
‘So where was your husband, Mrs Harlow?’
‘I don’t see why you should be asking now. No one was interested before.’
Horton said nothing.
After a moment she said, ‘If you really must know, he went fishing.’
‘On a boat?’ Horton asked sharply.
‘Where else would you go fishing?’ she sneered.
From the beach, on a river, beside a lake. But he didn’t say. ‘On his own boat?’
‘Yes. We had a small day boat then.’
‘Then?’
‘Greg sold it a few years ago.’
Had he, though? ‘When exactly?’
‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.’
I will when I find him. ‘The name?’
‘Tide’s Out.’
‘Did he go fishing alone on that day?’
‘I think so. I don’t know. Why all this interest?’
‘Where did he keep the boat?’
‘On a mooring in Portsmouth Harbour,’ she said with a note of exasperation.
This was getting even more interesting. So Gregory Harlow must have been familiar with Foxbury’s boatyard, and he had no alibi for the day of Ellie’s death. Horton knew that his expression gave nothing away but Eames had caught on and even though she showed no emotion he could sense her excitement.
He said, ‘If it was on a mooring in the harbour your husband would have rowed out to it.’ And perhaps he had done that from the slipway at the Tipner Sailing Club. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He ignored it.
‘I suppose so.’ But her exasperation was tainted with an air of unease.
‘From where?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh, come on, you never asked him or went with him?’
‘I certainly never went with him and what he did with his boat was his business. I wasn’t interested in it.’
Unfortunately that had a ring of truth about it.
Eames said, ‘What time did your husband return home that day?’
‘I can’t remember.’
But Horton wasn’t going to let her get away with that. ‘Let me rephrase my colleague’s question, how long was it after you returned from your aunt’s that your husband came home?’
‘A couple of hours,’ she shrugged, but avoided looking at him.
‘And that was when?’ persisted Horton.
She looked annoyed she fallen into the trap. ‘I left my aunt’s at six, Gregory got home around about eight. I can’t see why you want to know all this. We had nothing to do with that girl’s disappearance. We didn’t even know her.’
But she was edgy. ‘Was your uncle at home that day?’
‘No. He was playing golf on Hayling Island.’
Horton wondered if there was any way of corroborating that after all these years. He doubted it. ‘Did he return home while you were with your aunt?’
‘No. And before you ask I don’t know what time he came in. That surely must be in your files.’