Again Danesbrook nodded. And that was one photograph that Bella Westbury hadn't hung on her kitchen wall for two reasons. One, because no wall would be big enough to take all of her protests, and two, because she'd rather keep that one quiet in case someone made the link between her and Danesbrook.
Danesbrook reached for a packet of cigarettes but Horton's glare prevented him from taking one out and lighting it. He said, 'We hit it off immediately.'
'You had an affair.'
'Yes.' Danesbrook fiddled with his ponytail. 'I was married and my wife found out. She slung me out after that. Not that it was a big deal; Valerie was never going to be able to do what she wanted with a bully of a father breathing down her neck all the time. I thought the protest would give her a chance to get out of his clutches but she scuttled back to him in the end, more fool her.'
Horton had difficulty seeing Bella Westbury fancying a weakling like Danesbrook, which meant she started the affair for a reason. She wanted something from Danesbrook and Horton didn't think it was sex. In fact, given her background he knew it wasn't. Sex had just been a tool to extract information.
He said, 'How long did the affair last?'
Danesbrook shrugged, 'A few months. We split up after the protest ended.'
I bet you did
, thought Horton, drawing satisfaction from the fact he'd been right. 'And let me guess,' he sneered, 'you didn't meet up again until a year ago, here on the island.'
Danesbrook's eyes jumped to Cantelli and back to Horton. He swallowed hard but said nothing. Horton didn't need him to. A year ago Bella had become Sir Christopher Sutton's housekeeper.
With a harder edge to his voice, Horton continued. 'Then you and Bella Westbury hatched a plan to screw the old boy out of a considerable amount of money. Whose idea was it, yours or Bella's?'
'It wasn't like that.'
Horton thrust his face close to Danesbrook's. 'No? I'll tell you what it was like. You met Bella, she told you about Sir Christopher's career and his interest in the environment, and then the two of you dreamt up the charity scam. Sir Christopher bought you that car and gave you money, but it wasn't enough, so you got him to include you in his will. Then Bella Westbury told you that Arina Sutton had also made a will after the death of her father and had bequeathed her inheritance to the same benefactors her father had given bequests to. The temptation was too great. You got scared that Arina might change her will later, so you and Bella Westbury decided to kill her.'
'No!' Danesbrook protested, alarmed. 'I haven't killed anyone and neither has Bella.'
'Are you sure about that?'
Danesbrook licked his lips, his Adam's apple jumped up and down as his eyes skittered around the room. The sweat was running off his forehead. 'She wouldn't.'
Horton ignored his pathetic denial. 'But Owen Carlsson guessed it was you, or perhaps he recognized that it was your car Bella was driving, as it slammed into Arina's body, so he too had to die.'
'This is crazy.'
'And then it was Jonathan Anmore's turn. Did he overhear you and Bella talking about it?' Suddenly, a worrying thought flashed into his mind: Bella had called on Charlie Anmore. Was it to check that his son hadn't said anything about her and Danesbrook's scam? Was Charlie in danger? He almost broke off from questioning Danesbrook to get Cantelli to check the old man was OK, but then he thought it unlikely Jonathan would have said anything to his father.
'You have to believe me,' Danesbrook pleaded. 'We haven't killed anyone.'
'Get your coat.'
'But you said I could stay if I cooperated.'
'Did I? Sergeant, call a car to take him in.'
Danesbrook looked like a man who'd just seen his winning lottery ticket flushed down the toilet. 'You've got this all wrong, Inspector. We were going to get money from Sir Christopher, I admit that. He had plenty and his daughter didn't need it all, there was no real harm in that, but we wouldn't and didn't kill anyone.'
Horton wasn't convinced. He reckoned they were both capable of murder and a million pounds was a powerful motive. Of course that didn't fit with the deaths of Helen and Lars Carlsson. But that didn't mean there wasn't a reason. Only one he hadn't yet discovered.
As Cantelli stepped into the hall to call in, Horton said to Danesbrook, 'Where were you in March 1990?'
'I can't remember. Why do you want to know?'
Horton glared at him.
'All right. Let me think.' After a moment his haggard features brightened. 'I was in London, at the Poll Tax riots.'
'All month?'
'Pretty much. The riot was planned for the end of the month, the thirty-first of March, so there was a lot of organizing to do beforehand. That was one of my more successful demonstrations,' he added boastfully. 'It killed the tax dead. We showed the government they couldn't ride roughshod over us.' He gave a tentative smile.
'For someone who has spent most of his life on benefit and hardly paid a pound in taxes that's a bit rich,' Horton spat scornfully.
Cantelli led Danesbrook outside to a waiting patrol car. As he was giving instructions to the uniformed officers inside it Horton's phone rang. It was Marsden.
'Bella Westbury's leaving home with a suitcase, sir,' he said excitedly.
'Follow her.' He rang off and to Cantelli said, 'Bella's on the move. She can't get far at this time of night. The only transport off the island is the car ferry. When she gets there we'll bring her in.'
But they'd only just pulled into the station car park when his phone rang again.
'I've lost her,' Marsden relayed, dejectedly.
Horton cursed.
'She must have known I was tailing her,' Marsden said, 'because she timed it to perfection, slipping through on a red at a set of traffic lights. I couldn't follow, a damn great lorry was charging through. She was heading in the direction of Cowes so I thought she might have been taking the Red Funnel ferry to Southampton. But her car's not here.'
Horton quickly thought. 'Stay there, call me if she shows up and arrest her for the murder of Arina Sutton. I'll send a unit there to assist you.'
He rang off and speedily told Cantelli what had happened. 'Turn round and head for Cowes,' he ordered. 'The terminal's not the only place she could have been heading. There's a marina and that means boats.'
As Cantelli sped to the marina, Horton rang through to the station and told Uckfield what had happened.
'I'll put an alert out for her,' Uckfield said. 'Leave Danesbrook to me. This time I'll get him to talk, smarmy solicitor or not.'
Horton didn't know how he was going to find
the
boat Bella Westbury might be leaving the island on. She'd given no indication that she could handle one, and neither had there been anything in her house to point him in this direction. But he had to be right. And he had a feeling that if they didn't catch up with Bella now then they never would. She would go underground again.
'Her car's here,' Cantelli said, sweeping into the car park.
'You take the pontoons to the right, I'll take these.' Horton set off at a fast pace to his left, knowing that Cantelli wasn't about to enjoy himself on the water but he wouldn't shirk doing a thorough job nevertheless.
He wondered if they were already too late. She could be halfway down the River Medina by now, or out into the Solent.
The rain bounced off the wooden pontoons and the wind whistled and clattered through the masts. He didn't even know where to start. He could be searching one pontoon only to see her boat slip past him having left another. But, straining his eyes, he saw a figure step off a small yacht halfway down a pontoon to his right. His heart quickened but no, the build was wrong for Bella Westbury. Then there was the throb of a powerful engine. It was coming from the pontoon to his left. He spun round. It had to be her.
He sprinted back down the pontoon and up the other one with the rain bashing into him. A hooded figure was loosening the stern rope. It spun round at the movement of the pontoon and the sound of his footsteps. There was no mistaking who it was this time.
Bella Westbury hesitated, dashed a glance at the boat, looked set to jump on board, and then changed her mind. He reckoned she didn't have much choice; he could easily leap on before the boat pulled away, or, easier still, radio up and get the marine unit to pull her in.
'Tut, tut, you were meant to tell me if you were leaving the island,' Horton said with heavy
sarcasm, drawing level with her.
'I didn't want to ruin your beauty sleep, Inspector.' Her expression remained impassive except, Horton thought, for a hint of scorn in the way the corners of her mouth turned down. She glanced away and retied the rope on the cleat. 'I expect you've taken Danesbrook in for questioning.'
'He said you were the brains behind defrauding Sir Christopher.'
She said nothing, simply raised her eyebrows.
'You'd better come with me to the station,' he said briskly, trying not to be irked by her arrogance.
'Then I'll need to switch off the engine and collect my things.'
Horton had no choice. Either he had to kill the engine or she did and either way if he let her out of his sight she could make a bolt for it. He wished Cantelli was here but there was no way of alerting him without phoning him and he didn't want to give Bella the slightest chance to slip away from him. He followed her on board and into the wheelhouse. The engine was silenced.
'My things are in the cabin.'
As he stepped down behind her he braced himself for a possible attack. He hadn't forgotten that pitchfork in Jonathan Anmore's back or the gunshot wound in Owen Carlsson's temple. He could be looking at a triple murderer who could be about to turn on him with a knife or gun.
'I'm not your killer,' she said, reading his mind.
'Why are you running away then?'
'My job's finished.'
Horton knew she didn't mean housekeeping. 'With Anmore's death?'
'No. Like I said, I'm not your killer, and neither is Roy Danesbrook. I didn't think there was any point hanging around any longer.'
Horton held her confident gaze. 'You didn't change sides, did you?' he said. 'In 1996 you were at the Newbury by-pass protest with Danesbrook. Your job was to infiltrate the protesters in order to tell the road contractor, or the police, or both, what the protesters were going to do. You also told Danesbrook's wife that you'd slept with her husband. Does Danesbrook know what you did to him, and that you were a spy?'
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
Oh, she did all right. And she didn't seem at all worried. That infuriated him. She was too complacent, too cocky.
Harshly he said, 'No doubt you also fed information to Intelligence on the Greenham Common peace protest and the miners' strike, and others I suspect. So who are you working for this time? And don't tell me you're not.'
She eyed him for a moment then said, 'Seeing as you're not recording this, Inspector, I work for whoever pays and needs me, private enterprise or the government, I'm not fussy. We both know there are organizations that will give handsome rewards for leaked information about their competitors. You can't get everything from the Internet despite what people think. Sometimes it needs a real live person to get into an organization undercover.'
'And that's your speciality,' he sneered. If she hadn't killed Arina Sutton for the money, and she was here undercover, then it couldn't have anything to do with the deaths of Helen and Lars Carlsson. So why else would she, or Danesbrook, kill Owen Carlsson? There was only one other motive – the original one: the environment. Laura Rosewood had said that there were powerful people who wanted to silence or delay Owen's findings and Bella Westbury had to be working for one of them.
He tried again. 'Who are your paymasters this time?'
She smiled her reply. 'You don't really expect me to go that far.'
'Then let's try Integrated Coastal Zone Erosion, Owen Carlsson's project.'
She looked surprised for a moment before recovering her composure. Obviously she hadn't been expecting that.
He said, 'The results of Owen's project are to include a set of policy recommendations to deal with coastal erosion in a sustainable way, so who wanted it delayed or stopped? Is that why you killed Owen?'
'I'm going to have trouble convincing you that I'm not Owen's killer or Jonathan's.'
'You had to be seen to be on the side of the environment, hence your interest in it and the friendship you cultivated with Owen. You also knew that Sir Christopher Sutton was a friend of Laura Rosewood, an adviser on the environment to the European Commission, so if you were friendly with Sir Christopher you'd also be able to find out what Ms Rosewood was doing, regarding Owen's project. How did you wangle the job as Sir Christopher's housekeeper and cook?'
'He had a vacancy. I applied.'
He eyed her sceptically. 'When Arina arrived on the scene to look after her father you introduced her to Owen, and what a bonus that must have been for you when she and Owen fell for one another. Arina was another source of information on Owen's progress.'
She remained silent. Well, perhaps she'd change her mind when he charged her with murder.
'Did you set fire to Owen's house in the hope of destroying his findings?'
'No.'
'Did you search Thea's apartment?'
'No.'
'Did you kill Helen and Lars Carlsson in 1990?'
'No.'
She was staring at him with a slightly sardonic smile on her face that he would dearly love to wipe off. She said, 'As I've already told you, in 1990 I was with my husband, who was seriously ill.'