He took a breath. Uckfield had been bouncing around the station with a big grin on his craggy face, elated at clearing up one of Dean’s failed cases and disappointed that there was no one around to hear him crow about it. Monday though would be different. Horton thought they would hear about it on Ben Nevis. Uckfield would get his revenge on Dean for pulling in DCI Bliss to review one of his cases. He’d gone home about an hour ago along with an extremely tired Trueman and a weary and relieved Marsden because Uckfield in his joy had forgotten all about the press debacle. Only Eames remained inside the station. Horton thought he should call Mike Danby and tell him about Ellie Loman’s murder. Or perhaps he’d delegate that to Eames. Danby was staying in one of her family’s properties, after all.
He heard footsteps behind him. Eames.
‘Thought you’d like to know, sir. A call’s just come through from the hospital. Leo Garvard died this morning at three thirty-three.’ She looked as tired as he felt. Fatigued she appeared vulnerable, more approachable, and even more beautiful. He experienced a strong yearning to wrap his arms around her and hold her, which he quickly nipped in the bud, not without some difficulty. What was the point? She was out of his reach and she’d be returning to The Hague on Monday. He knew that wouldn’t have stopped other men from trying and might even have made seducing her more attractive but he wasn’t most men. He didn’t want a one-night stand. He wasn’t sure if Eames would want that either. God, he didn’t even know her first name.
‘Did they tell him what had happened?’
‘Yes, but whether he heard. .’ She shrugged. ‘He was unconscious.’
Horton knew though that hearing was the last sense to leave a person. So perhaps Garvard did know, and knowing, he had finally let go.
Eames continued. ‘We might discover who left the photograph of Sharon in Woodley’s cell now that Garvard is dead. I’m assuming that Garvard had the photograph all the time.’
‘Probably, but I don’t think anyone’s going to admit to putting it in Woodley’s cell.’
Eames considered this for a moment before saying, ‘And Ross Skelton attacked Woodley and because he made a hash of it first time he picked Woodley up from the hospital and took him to the marshes where he left him to die.’
It was the conclusion that Uckfield had drawn and the timing of Woodley’s visit to the coffee stall seemed to match it, although they didn’t have the exact date for when Iris saw him. Uckfield’s reasoning behind it was that Skelton had been planning to join forces with Sharon. ‘He was a crook and a killer,’ Uckfield had reiterated. ‘Woodley must have told Skelton, under Garvard’s instructions, that Sharon had a scheme he’d be interested in that would make him a great deal of money but that no one should know about it. That would have been enough for Skelton to silence Woodley. He proved himself a killer with Gregory Harlow’s death. He followed Woodley to the pub, waited until he came out then attacked him but he botched it. Then he picked Woodley up and took him to the marshes.’
‘How did he know Woodley was going to leave the hospital?’ Horton had thrown in.
In exasperation Uckfield had answered, ‘Skelton telephoned him or visited him and spun him some yarn about someone being after him and that he’d help get him away.’
It was the theory that Uckfield was clearly going to stick to, and one which would never be disapproved. It meant the clearing up of another case, and a notch on Uckfield’s proverbial promotion belt, but Horton said to Eames, ‘Skelton didn’t attack Woodley.’
She frowned. ‘Lawrence Sanderling couldn’t have attacked Woodley and neither did Patricia or Gregory Harlow, so if Skelton didn’t, who did?’
‘When we catch our metal thieves we’ll ask them,’ Horton said.
She looked at him in surprise.
‘Whoever struck Woodley was disturbed doing it. Our metal thieves were in the area that night, not at the church, but the date matches that of when they stole that bronze statue from a garden in Old Portsmouth and a fountain from the wine bar. They cut through the back streets in their van and prevented Garvard’s instructions from being carried out. Woodley was expendable, a messenger boy. He’d delivered the message and needed to be eliminated.’ His words suddenly conjured up Edward Ballard. Several thoughts galloped through Horton’s mind but he was too tired to even grasp one of them as they flashed past.
‘So who killed him, or rather left him at the marshes to die?’ Eames asked baffled.
‘Ask Marty Stapleton, although I don’t think he’ll tell you.’
‘Shit!’
He smiled. ‘That’s not a very nice word for a girl like you.’
‘I know a lot worse. So Stapleton was in on it.’
‘Yes, in letting himself be attacked by Woodley in prison, and in providing someone to take Woodley out after he’d delivered the message. Garvard probably didn’t know who Stapleton ordered to do it and didn’t care, just as long as Skelton was on the hook.’ And the person who had attacked Woodley could have been in the pub drinking, watching and waiting for Woodley to leave, knowing that he had finally delivered his message to Skelton. Either that or he had waited outside, and it wasn’t Reggie Thomas because Thomas like Woodley would finally blab. Garvard had wanted someone who had no connection with Woodley and who would never be traced. For a second Horton’s mind leapt back to Edward Ballard before he continued, ‘Garvard had no idea that Woodley’s funeral would coincide with Amelia’s Willard’s.’
‘Gambler’s luck.’
‘Bad luck for Gregory Harlow and Lawrence Sanderling.’ He should also say bad luck for Patricia Harlow and Sharon Piper but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. ‘Woodley had only the one message to deliver and that was to Skelton. For all Garvard’s planning he hadn’t foreseen Lawrence Sanderling.’ Or had he? He had known that by bringing Sharon back for the last of the Willards’ funeral, and assembling those still alive from the time of Ellie’s death, something would happen. And it had.
Eames, clearly following his train of thought, said, ‘So who did he plan to kill Sharon? Or is “plan” too ambitious?’
‘Maybe. He knew that Sharon would see Patricia and that they were both involved in Ellie’s death. Perhaps he thought that Patricia would kill Sharon. And he judged that Edgar and Amelia’s friends would be at her funeral; friends he and Sharon had conned, so one of them could do it for revenge.’
‘And they did,’ she said sadly and quietly.
‘Yes.’ There was a moment’s pause before he continued. ‘Or perhaps Garvard thought Skelton might be prompted into doing it because he thought Sharon knew too much about him employing illegal immigrants and perhaps even assisting in bringing them into the country. Maybe Woodley delivered more than the message Iris overheard.’ Horton shrugged.
‘And in return for organizing Woodley’s death, Stapleton gets whatever money Garvard has stashed away.’
‘Well, it’s no good to Garvard now.’
‘We might find it,’ she said optimistically.
Horton doubted it. ‘I don’t think that will be of much comfort to Lawrence Sanderling and Kenneth Loman.’
‘No.’ She sighed before adding more brightly, ‘Buy you a coffee, guv?’
It was the first time she’d called him guv. He looked at her clear-skinned face with its dark smudges under her intelligent blue eyes and his heart quickened. He’d like to have said yes. He’d liked to have talked to her and not about the case, but what did he have to say to a woman like Eames from a background so totally opposite to his? ‘Think I’ll give coffee a miss for a while.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’
He thought she sounded disappointed but perhaps he was only hoping she was. He eyed her surprised. ‘I thought you’d be returning to Europol.’
‘I’m waiting instructions and there’s no one to give them to me at this ungodly hour or should I say godly hour seeing as it’s Sunday.’
He watched her climb into her car and drive away. Cantelli would be back tomorrow and he’d be very pleased to see him.