‘That must have gone down well.’ I was beginning to understand where the pressure Lundy had mentioned over the phone was coming from.
‘Not as badly as you’d expect. The plan is to develop it into a marina. He’s talking about dredging channels in the estuary, building a hotel, transforming this whole area. It’d mean hundreds of local jobs, so that took the sting out of closing the oyster sheds. But there’s a lot of opposition from environmentalists, so while the planning arguments go on he’s just mothballed the place. He can afford to play the long game, and he’s got enough political clout to win in the end.’
People like that usually did. I looked at the muddy bed of the estuary, where the tide was already returning. ‘Where does his son come into this?’
‘He doesn’t. Not directly, anyway. Leo Villiers was what you might call the black sheep. Only child, mother died when he was a kid. Got himself booted out of private military school and then dropped out of university officer training corps in his final year. His father still managed to get him enrolled in the Royal Military Academy but he didn’t finish. No official reason, so it looks like there was some scrape his father pulled strings to cover up. After that he went from one scandal to another. There was a trust fund from his mother so he didn’t need to work, and he seemed to enjoy stirring things up. Good-looking bugger, like a fox in a coop with girls, but nasty with it. Broke off a couple of engagements and got into all sorts of trouble, everything from drunk driving to aggravated assault. His father’s very protective about the Villiers name, so the family lawyers were kept busy. But even Sir Stephen couldn’t cover everything up.’ Lundy gave me a worried glance. ‘Obviously, this is all off the record.’
I tried not to smile. ‘I won’t say a word.’
He nodded, satisfied. ‘Anyway, long story short, for a time it seemed like he’d settled down. His father must have thought so, because he tried steering him into politics. There was talk of him standing for local MP, press interviews. All the usual fluff. Then all of a sudden it stopped. The local party found someone else to stand and Leo Villiers dropped out of sight. We still haven’t been able to find out why.’
‘And that was when he went missing?’
Lundy shook his head. ‘No, this was a fair bit before then. But someone else did. A local woman he’d been having an affair with.’
I realized then I’d read this all wrong. This wasn’t just about locating a missing man. I’d assumed that Leo Villiers was the victim, but he wasn’t.
He was the suspect.
‘This is strictly confidential,’ Lundy said, lowering his voice even though there was no one around to hear. ‘It doesn’t have any direct bearing on today, but you might as well know the background.’
‘You think Leo Villiers killed her?’
The DI hitched a shoulder in a shrug. ‘We never found her body so we couldn’t prove anything. But he was the only serious suspect. She was a photographer, moved out here from London two or three years back when she got married. Emma Derby — glamorous, very attractive. Not the type you’d expect to find somewhere like this. Villiers hired her to do his publicity photographs when he looked like going into politics, and then commissioned her to do some interior design for his house. Turns out that wasn’t all she did, because his housekeeper and gardener both claim they saw a half-dressed woman fitting Derby’s description in his bedroom.’
Pursing his mouth disapprovingly, Lundy patted his pockets and took out a packet of antacids. He popped a couple from the foil strip.
‘Looks like they had a falling out, though,’ he said, chomping the tablets. ‘We’ve got several witnesses who heard her ranting and calling him an “arrogant prick” at some swanky political bash not long before she vanished.’
‘Did you question him?’
‘For all the good it did. He denied having an affair, reckoned she’d thrown herself at him but he’d turned her down. Hard to believe given his track record, especially when he didn’t have an alibi for the day she went missing. Claimed he was away but wouldn’t say where or offer anything to corroborate it. He was obviously hiding something, but the family’s lawyers were throwing up every obstacle they could. Threatened to sue for harassment if we so much as looked askance at him, and without a body or evidence there wasn’t much we could do. We searched the area around where Emma Derby and her husband lived, but it’s mainly saltmarsh and mudflats you can’t get to on foot. Ideal place to get rid of a body. Hellish to search, so finding anything in there was always going to be a tall order. And then Leo Villiers went missing himself, so that was pretty much that.’
I thought back to what Lundy had said on the phone the night before. ‘You said his disappearance wasn’t suspicious, but someone like that must have made enemies. What about Emma Derby’s husband?’
‘Oh, we took a good look at him. Bit of an unlikely match, to be honest. He was a good bit older than her, and it was no secret they were having difficulties even before she hooked up with Villiers. But he was out of the country when his wife went missing and then up in Scotland when her boyfriend disappeared. His alibis checked out both times.’ Lundy turned down the corners of his mouth. ‘You’re right about Villiers having enemies, and I dare say not many people will shed a tear over him. But there’s nothing to suggest any of them were involved, or that there was anything suspicious about it. There was a report that the gardener scared off a prowler from the grounds of his house not long before he disappeared, but that was more likely just local teenagers.’
I looked out beyond the oyster sheds to where the muddy estuary bed was disappearing under the returning water. ‘So you think Villiers killed himself?’
The DI’s caginess on the phone had made me think this was something more than an accident. Lundy shrugged. ‘He’d been under a lot of pressure and we know he had at least one failed suicide attempt in his teens. Sir Stephen’s lawyers have been blocking us from seeing his medical records, but going on verbal accounts from people who knew him there was obviously a history of depression. And there was a note.’
‘A suicide note?’
He looked pained. ‘We’re not officially calling it that. Sir Stephen won’t have anyone suggesting his son killed himself, so we’re having to tread carefully. And the note was found in Leo’s bin, so either it was a draft or he changed his mind about leaving it. But it was his handwriting, saying he couldn’t carry on. Hated his life, that sort of thing. And the housekeeper who found the note told us his shotgun was missing as well. Handmade by Mowbry and Sons. You heard of them?’
I shook my head: I was more familiar with the effects of shotguns than with their manufacturers.
‘They’re up there with Purdeys when it comes to bespoke shotguns. Beautiful craftsmanship, if you like that sort of thing, and phenomenally expensive. Villiers’ father bought it for him when he turned eighteen. Must have cost nearly as much as my house.’
A cheaper gun would have been just as lethal. But I was starting to understand why Lundy had been wary about saying too much earlier. Suicide was a difficult thing for any family to process, especially of a man suspected of murder. It would be a doubly hard blow for any parent to accept, so it was no wonder that Sir Stephen Villiers was in denial. What set him apart was that he had the money and power to enforce it.
That might be harder if this was his son’s body.
The distant speck of the helicopter was still visible, although now the wind was carrying its sound away from us. It seemed to have stopped moving.