Fatal Legacy (43 page)

Behind him there was a sudden sweep of headlights. He looked back; the rest of the team had arrived. When he turned around again he had lost his night vision and stumbled on the rocks as a solid wall of water almost pitched him head first into the churning maelstrom at the foot of the sea wall. He landed heavily on his knees, felt the right one creak and crack as his old injury took the strain badly, and put out his hands to prevent himself falling. Sharp rocks lacerated his palms but there was no pain as he clung desperately to the top of the wall.

At first Sally had felt confident of her ability to handle the boat. She had driven it many times and it was in good condition with a strong engine. She had thrown her suitcase into the bottom of the cockpit and eased smoothly away, but as soon as she came out from the protection of the wall, her perspective was shattered. Waves buffeted the craft and the wind was so strong that its noise drowned out thought; she found it hard to correct the boat’s course to avoid it being swamped, and it shipped inches of water within minutes. She felt even more tiny and exposed now as she moved beyond the protecting wall and out to sea, but the thought of returning to face Fenwick and certain imprisonment filled her with horror.

The boat bounced and jumped in the waves, as light as a cork, and she had to apply the throttle just to keep it steady. She could feel the pull of a strong undertow and saw the sea churn as it was sucked through the harbour mouth. Wind and spray stung her face, almost blinding her. The power of the waves even this close to the shore was awesome, and she was suddenly afraid. She decided on impulse to turn the boat around and return to the harbour. Anything was better than facing the storm alone at sea.

As she manoeuvred the boat a fierce gust tossed the bow up and round as if it had been made of paper. A following wave crashed into the side, knocking her off balance. For a frantic moment she lay in the bottom of the boat in three inches of water, looking up at the waves above her. They seemed to tower
over the side. When she stood up, their height diminished, yet their threat did not. She wrenched the wheel around again fighting the force of the waves.

Ahead of her the violence of the sea, whipped up by
storm-force
winds, was being funnelled into a ten-metre gap between the arms of the harbour wall. She would have to run its gauntlet.

As he clung on to the sea wall, unable to stand because of the force of the wind and breaking waves, Fenwick watched the boat falter as Sally tried to turn it back through the waves. For long seconds she fought their strength but then a wave crashed over her stern and the small craft spun like a top. The undertow caught it and inexorably dragged it towards the churning water out to sea beyond the harbour mouth. He was momentarily close enough to see the terror in Sally’s eyes as she fought for control of the craft. She struggled to keep it steady and opened the engine to full throttle to pull back into the harbour. For a moment he thought she had succeeded, then a huge weight of water crashed over the bow and the wheel was jerked from her hands with enough force to knock her off her feet. He heard a faint cry of terror, high-pitched and childlike, and any hatred he had towards her evaporated even before the sound died. He was overcome by pity and an instinctive urge to save her.

There were two life belts on a post at the extreme end of the wall. Crouching to prevent himself from being knocked off balance and into the sea, he threw one as far as he could, watching its stout nylon rope snake out into the air before being blown back inland. It fell far short of where she lay in the bottom of the boat, holding on to her silvery case as if it could somehow save her life. He stood up to his full height and cast the rope again. It bounced into the water mere metres away. He dragged it back and was about to throw for the third time when he sensed a huge pressure of air and turned to see a black wall of water rolling in on them both from the open sea.

Sally felt a tipping sensation, as if the boat was coming down on top of her. As she held the suitcase tightly to her chest, she looked up at the side of the boat above her, and beyond that at the mountain of water that was slowly falling on top of her.
Then the boat was no longer beneath her and she felt the sea surround her body. Her legs kicked out instinctively, but her arms still held on to her suitcase as if it would somehow buoy her up and keep her afloat. At first, the airtight case floated easily in the choppy waves. Then, slowly it started to sink. The undertow sucked greedily at her legs as another wave washed over her, and suddenly that was all there was: the night, the water and her money. She looked up, eyes and mouth wide, as the waters closed over her head. She thought she saw a hand stretching out for her, brushing her fair hair as it floated back up towards the surface, but she couldn’t reach it and sank down and away, holding her suitcase tight, until finally her eyes closed.

Fenwick felt his legs lifted off the rocks by the wave as it carried him over the edge of the harbour wall and down beneath the surface of the sea at the harbour mouth. The waves caught him at once, greedy and powerful, and started to suck him out into the Channel. He surfaced once and gulped a desperate lungful of air before yet another wave filled his nose and mouth with scalding salt water. His lungs were burning and his legs ached with the effort of kicking against the current. With one superhuman effort he strained up to the surface again and took another breath, arms beating the water in a vain effort to stay above the deadly suction of the undertow. It was hopeless; it was too strong. The weight of the waves conspired with the drag of the current to suck him under, and he went down for the final time, eyes wide.

An orange nylon rope shone like a beacon in the water in front of him. He lunged for it, feeling its coarse slipperiness burn his fingers, and pull away. He reached again and caught it. With burning muscles he pulled against it until his head was back above water. He rested his cheek against the ridiculous polystyrene ring, too exhausted to do more, arms and legs numbed by the cold. He could see men on the wall now, waving to him, calling him in, but it was impossible for him to move. He was caught like a fish on a line between the power of the current and the anchored rope. They were only ten feet away but it might as well have been a mile. They couldn’t reach him
and he was stuck fast, with waves beating his hands and arms in a constant deadly rhythm. He realised that unless they did something he was going to die, within sight of land, within a stone’s throw of help, and the pointlessness of it all filled him with a fury so strong it flooded his useless arms with renewed strength. He clung on and willed them to drag him in, but he had no strength left other than a desperate desire to hang on, fuelled by the thought of his family and the irony of dying like this. He felt the suction lessen. Then there were rocks under his toes and he was able to wedge his left foot into a crevice and push his body forward through the water.

Torchlight swung through the night above his head and a hand reached out for him, so close that he could see the fingernails thick with grime from the rocks. He made one last enormous effort to close the gap and at last, felt strong arms reach down to lift him up and wrap a coarse blanket around him.

Fenwick woke up for the second time in a small private room in an anonymous hospital. He knew, in an entirely abstract way, that he had been here for three days, since the night that Sally Wainwright-Smith had died, her body swept out to sea and still unrecovered. The doctors had stitched his hands and put his knee back together, and today he would be allowed home, under strict instructions to keep all weight off his leg for a further three weeks. Instructions he was already determined to ignore, because as soon as he saw his children he was going to hold them until it hurt too much to go on.

But it wasn’t that longed-for thought that made him close his eyes; it was the continuing confusion in his mind surrounding Alexander Wainwright-Smith. Ever since he had first regained consciousness he had been obsessed with thoughts of the man. How could he ever have thought him an innocent dupe? He should have realised that Alexander would never allow Sally to act against his wishes. He had inherited more than the Wainwright millions. He had his grandfather’s savage domination and his uncle’s obsessive need to control everything around him.

After hours of thinking, Fenwick was convinced that Alexander was implicated in the planning of all the Wainwright deaths, and that Sally was simply his weapon of choice. He also realised that he would never be able to prove it. Sally was dead.

He was still puzzled by what had happened on the night of Sally’s death; why had Alexander sent him to meet her alone? Fenwick was convinced that he had been set up, even though Boyd had accepted an explanation from Wainwright-Smith that it had been the result of a simple mistake. What possible motive impelled a man to isolate his wife at a hopeless and dangerous
rendezvous – for Alexander could surely have persuaded her to wait somewhere else – and then send the father of the child she had just abducted and tried to burn to death to meet her on his own?

Had Wainwright-Smith expected him to kill his wife? The thought shocked and appalled him. Surely the man realised that Fenwick would be compelled to seek justice before revenge? Then it occurred to him that perhaps Alexander had expected him to behave as he would have done himself; a common mistake. Fenwick rubbed his forehead with a bandaged hand, trying to dispel the headache that still lingered from that terrible night. If he had been sent to kill Sally, then Wainwright-Smith had judged him ill … and yet his wife
had
died. Fenwick sat bolt upright in bed, startling the orderly who had come in to deliver his morning coffee. She backed out quickly, leaving Fenwick staring blankly at the opposite wall with a look of horror on his face. It wasn’t Fenwick whom Wainwright-Smith had manipulated that terrible night but his own wife! He had driven Sally to attempt an escape she could never have accomplished against a trained team of officers intent on her capture.

How often had Alexander set the stage and then sat back, perhaps miles away, to wait for his wife’s psychotic yet malleable behaviour to deliver for him the rewards that had before been just beyond his reach? He had his inheritance, had rid himself of a dangerous wife, and was free at last of FitzGerald’s inside control of the family firm. He may have lost the Hall to the fire but he had enough left to have made all his plotting worthwhile. Unless Miles Cator and his team found enough evidence to close the business for money-laundering, Alexander would literally get away with murder: his uncle’s death, his cousin’s, now finally his wife’s.

It was as if his thoughts of the Commander had conjured him up. Miles Cator breezed into Fenwick’s room unannounced carrying a bunch of grapes wrapped in a brown paper bag. The man looked tired but he smiled when he saw that the patient was awake.

‘I came to say thank you, Chief Inspector. I’m glad to hear that you’re making a full recovery.’

‘Thank you?’ Fenwick’s mouth was dry and his voice came out harshly.

‘Yes, for the Wainwright case. It’s a gem. With the papers you gave us, and particularly Arthur Fish’s little brown book, we have more than enough information to open a formal inquiry. I’m going to seek a court order today for the suspension of trading across the whole business, and then the Fraud Squad will go in along with the rest of my team, Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue. That’s why I’m here in Sussex, finalising the arrangements. We’ll be in there for months, but at the end of it I’m confident we’ll have exposed one of the biggest and most carefully concealed money-laundering operations the UK has ever seen. You deserve most of the credit for this and I’m going to make sure that you get it, even though I’m sure there will be plenty of others wanting more than their fair share!’ He didn’t need to mention who he meant, and Fenwick enjoyed his knowing grin.

Cator shook Fenwick’s bandaged hand with care and left the grapes on his bedside table before bidding him a cheerful farewell.

Fenwick dropped his head into his hands, not in despair but with a huge sense of relief. Thank God for Arthur Fish. To Wainwright-Smith he must still seem a minor casualty of his wife’s paranoid psychosis, but in reality Fish was his nemesis. By his death he might eventually bring down the Wainwright empire after over a century of totalitarian and utterly selfish dominance. He didn’t know whether Wainwright-Smith knew of the extent of the corruption beneath the skin of his family firm, and he didn’t care. The reality was that everything for which the man had manipulated, married and murdered was going to vanish
tomorrow
, vaporised thanks to Arthur Fish’s little brown book. To his amazement Fenwick found yet again that he did believe in God – an Old Testament vengeful and jealous God Who from time to time would mete out justice beyond the wit of man.

He felt empty but calm with this realisation, and gradually the pain of his knee returned him to reality. His coffee had grown cold but he drank it anyway and was dozing despite the caffeine when his next guest arrived. He was glad his eyes were closed; it meant that he could regain control of his emotions before he opened them and looked his visitor in the eye.

‘I won’t stay long but I had to come to say thank you. You tried to save her, despite everything; you cared enough to want
her to live, and I’m incredibly grateful to you.’

Fenwick shook his head gently as if to clear the haze of sleep from his mind, and Alexander mistook the gesture.

‘No, I’m so glad you tried, particularly knowing what she’d done. It means that even you, you of all people, thought she was worth saving.’ With his heightened sense of awareness, Fenwick could hear the artificiality of Wainwright-Smith’s voice, and wondered how often he had practised that heart-broken yet grateful tone.

He couldn’t think of anything to say. He felt physically sick at the man’s hypocrisy, and only the thought of the court order kept a look of loathing from his eyes.

‘There
was
good in her, you know, there really was. If she hadn’t had such a terrible childhood she’d have been a wonderful person, I know it.’

Alexander sounded close to tears and Fenwick looked at him afresh. He had rarely encountered true wickedness. He had seen stupidity, greed, hate, and even love in excess, with all its terrible consequences, but wickedness was rare. Sally had been wicked, either born that way or nurtured into evil, but what was it that had made her husband so?

‘I’m very tired.’

‘Of course, I’ll go.’ Wainwright-Smith gave him a
superficially
sympathetic smile and left.

Fenwick rested his head back against his pillow, and watched his unwelcome guest depart. Within twenty-four hours Alexander’s whole world would fall apart; his bank accounts frozen, his reputation left in tatters and his influence bankrupt. It couldn’t happen to a better person. He never wanted to see the man again.

Half an hour later, the ward sister walked in, brisk and cool.

‘The doctor says you can go any time you like now, Chief Inspector. Shall I get your clothes out for you?’

‘No, I can manage.’

‘Well, I’ll bring the wheelchair round in fifteen minutes.’

‘For the last time, Sister, I do not need a wheelchair.’ They had been arguing this point since early morning.

‘Your injuries are not to be taken lightly. If you don’t
convalesce properly it will have very serious consequences, particularly for a man of your age.’

There was no point arguing with her.

‘Tell me, Sister, is DC Nightingale still in here?’

‘Yes, she’s in the room at the far end of the ward, but she’ll be out soon. Another day or two at most will see her right.
And
she’ll have put on some weight before she goes!’

Fenwick didn’t doubt it if the sister had anything to do with it. As soon as she’d left, he washed, shaved and dressed quickly, ignoring the deep ache in his muscles and the pain in his right knee that made him hobble on his crutches. He was determined to be gone before she returned. He picked up the grapes and put them in his pocket, then walked painfully down the corridor.

Nightingale was lying propped up on pillows, reading a book, her face pale except where the bruising had dyed it purple and yellow.

‘Hello. I brought you some grapes.’

At the sound of his voice she looked up, startled, and her hand flew to cover the contusions on her cheek. When she answered, her voice was brittle and high-pitched.

‘Thank you, that’s very thoughtful. They’ve let you out?’

‘Yes, this morning.’

‘And you’ve had time to buy grapes already?’

She really was going to be an excellent police officer.

‘Well, no, someone brought them for me and I thought you deserved them more.’

She smiled, relaxed and confident.

‘It’s still a kind thought. Come in, sit down. I need to talk to you.’

‘If you’re sure it won’t tire you.’

She shook her head, still smiling. ‘I’m fine. They’re worrying too much.’

‘Still, you need to build up your strength. I want you back fighting fit.’

There was an awkward pause. He had just reminded them both of who he was and therefore the nature of their relationship. The smile slowly faded from her face.

‘Don’t worry, sir, I’ll be back soon.’ She looked away and there was a small silence, then she blinked and looked him
firmly in the eyes again. ‘I do need to talk to you, about the Wainwright case.’

Fenwick suppressed a laugh; she really was impossible.

‘It’s closed, by which I mean there won’t be a trial for the murders. The investigation into the money-laundering will go on, but that’s not our affair, thank goodness.’

‘No, it’s the murders I want to talk about. I’ve been thinking. I’m not sure we should close the case like that.’

‘Not again! I seem to recall that this is the second time that you’ve tried to persuade me to reopen a Wainwright case. Sally’s dead, so is James FitzGerald. They were the criminals; two separate and devious people intent on manipulating Wainwright’s for their own purposes.’

‘Let’s ignore them, sir. I’m talking about Alexander Wainwright-Smith. What makes you think that Sally was working alone? Do you really think she could have orchestrated the whole thing by herself? This took stealth and planning, starting with the death of Alexander’s uncle.

‘I think Alexander is the real beneficiary of all this – he has his money, control of the family business and freedom at last from a psychopathic wife. He can do what he likes with his life now. Supposing he knew her background, married her and manipulated her into committing these crimes …’

Fenwick managed to cover his look of admiration by bending to help himself to some of his gift of grapes. She was right, of course she was, and some day he might just tell her so. But not today.

‘No, Nightingale, this has to stop. It’s all supposition and the result of having too much time on your hands.’

‘So you think she was working alone?’ Nightingale looked glum and Fenwick attributed it to her disappointment at his lack of interest in the theory.

‘I think, Nightingale,’ he soft-punched her good shoulder, suddenly very aware of the bandage on the other one, ‘that the case is closed, and you should concentrate simply on getting better.’

Nightingale looked at him, frowned, then grinned suddenly.

‘Just testing,’ she said, and laughed as he threw a grape at her head.