Death Lies Beneath (25 page)

Horton frowned. Leo, not Harry. Who the hell was Leo? No one by that name had featured in this case, and he was certain he hadn’t seen the name on the sailing-club list. And what did she mean about them knowing Salacia was no fool?

He said nothing. This had been a long time coming and he needed to hear it. Thank God Eames was experienced and attuned enough to keep quiet.

Patricia Harlow continued, ‘Gregory and I lied to you. We did see Sharon at my aunt’s funeral just as we were going into the chapel. I couldn’t believe it was her at first. I hadn’t seen or spoken to her for years. I didn’t even know where she went when she left Portsmouth but I wouldn’t have been told anyway and I didn’t care.’

Horton wondered what she meant. Why wouldn’t she have been told?

‘When we all left the chapel after auntie’s funeral Sharon had gone. I accused Greg of contacting her but he swore he had no idea where she had been living. It must have been in Portsmouth though because she must have seen the funeral announcement in the local newspaper. It was typical of Sharon to turn up when Aunt Amelia had died, and I knew why; she was after some of her money. There were only two things Sharon was ever interested in, money and Leo. But she wasn’t going to get a penny of Aunt Amelia’s money. Sharon had her share when Amelia was alive; she certainly wasn’t going to get any of it when she was dead,’ Patricia Harlow added with bitterness. ‘And Sharon had squeezed everything she could out of her husband. She married Marcus Piper for his money. He was a successful businessman until Sharon got her claws into him. She bled him dry. I always wondered about his death, although the coroner said it was suicide. He threw himself off his boat in the Solent, leaving Sharon with the house and boat and a nice fat insurance policy that paid up on suicide. After he died in 1996 she went to live in Spain in 1997, renting a villa, and invited Aunt Amelia and Uncle Edgar over for a holiday and that’s when they met Leo.’

Horton noted that her hands were white with tension and her face drawn and harrowed. He wanted to ask her about Leo but he didn’t want to stop the flow. There would be time later.

‘Then after auntie’s funeral Sharon showed up outside our house before anyone else arrived.’

‘How did she get there? Did she have a car?’ Horton couldn’t resist interjecting.

‘I don’t know. I didn’t see. She was standing by the gate. I told her she wasn’t welcome. She said she could see that but she thought it would be best for us to talk otherwise the police might learn something about Ellie Loman’s disappearance. I asked her what the devil she meant. She looked at Gregory and just smiled. Gregory agreed that he’d meet her at the old Tipner boatyard at ten thirty that evening.’

‘His suggestion or hers?’

‘Hers.’

‘Did she say why ten thirty?’

‘No, and I didn’t ask.’

‘Did you see her leave?’

‘No. I went into the house.’

‘Did Gregory follow you?’

‘After a moment,’ she said tightly. ‘I was anxious for the wake to end, it seemed to drag on for ever, and when it eventually did, I asked Gregory what Sharon meant by her threat. He said because he didn’t have an alibi for the day Ellie disappeared Sharon would fabricate something unless we agreed to her demands, which would be giving her Aunt Amelia’s money. She’d make her tale so convincing that the police would fall for it. After all you had before.’ She eyed Horton coldly.

He didn’t know what she meant and before he could ask she continued.

‘I said we shouldn’t go. That we should face it out, but Gregory said it would be him that Sharon would accuse not me and he wasn’t going to risk that. He thought he might be able to come to a compromise with her. I said, “Sharon doesn’t do compromise, she’s a greedy bitch.” He said that if we didn’t meet her then she’d be back. We rowed so by the time he left it was closer to eleven than ten thirty. When he returned home just after eleven fifteen he said she hadn’t been there.’

‘You believed him?’

‘Yes.’

‘How was he when he returned?’

‘Well, he wasn’t covered in blood, if that’s what you mean,’ she retorted derisively before adding, ‘And he wasn’t upset. He didn’t kill her. He would have told me if he had.’

Eames said, ‘Perhaps he wanted to protect you.’

Judging by Patricia Harlow’s expression that was clearly something Gregory Harlow had never done. ‘He was worried she hadn’t been there and so was I. Then you came the next morning and told me she was dead. And now he’s dead.’

Was it the truth? He didn’t know. And if neither of them had killed Salacia or rather Sharon, who did that leave? Were they back to Harry Foxbury again? But there was the photograph that had been found in Woodley’s cell. And there was this Leo.

Eames said, ‘How do you know Sharon killed Ellie?’

‘She must have done.’

Horton said, ‘But if Sharon didn’t kill Ellie Loman and neither you nor your husband killed Sharon, then someone else did. And it’s possible they did so because they also believed that Sharon had killed Ellie.’

Her head jerked up. ‘For revenge, you mean?’ she said, quickly catching his meaning, making him think she might already have reached this conclusion.

He watched her face as the thoughts raced. Clearly there was someone who could have killed Sharon for revenge, only he’d taken a while to do so, perhaps because he’d only recently discovered that Sharon had killed the woman he’d fallen in love with. Leaning forward and lowering his voice, Horton said, ‘Who is Leo, Patricia?’

She eyed him with surprise. ‘But you know who he is. You must,’ she added, with a bewildered expression, gazing at each of them in turn. ‘Leo Garvard was Sharon’s partner. He’s the man she gave up to the police.’

‘S
haron Piper became Carol Palmer,’ Trueman said three hours later. ‘After grassing on her partner in crime, and her lover, Leo Garvard, she went under the witness protection scheme and was given a new identity. She became Carol Palmer and moved to Spain.’

‘Along with all the other grasses and crooks,’ Uckfield sneered with his mouth full of food. Sandwiches and coffee had been brought up to the incident suite from the canteen.

Trueman continued. ‘It was believed that Garvard was in with some big-time villains and that Sharon Piper wasn’t safe once she grassed on him. She dropped off the radar four years ago.’

‘Great! So what have we got on her?’ Uckfield shovelled in his fourth sandwich.

Horton reached for his second and began to relay what Patricia Harlow had repeated to him and Eames in the interview room and what he and Trueman had subsequently discovered from the case file on Leo Garvard.

‘Sharon Piper, as we’ve already seen on the video, was attractive and totally aware of her sexuality, which she used to trap victims. Her job, after she and Leo had identified their victims, was to help charm them into investing money into fraudulent schemes dreamt up by Leo. One of the schemes was selling false investment policies to clients, the other was land banking. Leo would sell parcels of land, which he claimed had planning permission, and which either never existed or would never get planning permission. He’d then follow it up by selling the investors multiple plots or asking them to pay additional sums in order to liquidate their holdings once they realized they’d never turn a profit. That’s how they got Edgar Willard to part with his money.’

Uckfield looked incredulous. ‘She stitched up her own uncle!’

Eames answered. ‘Yes, which was why Amelia Willard had to move to that small and shabby house. When Edgar died not long after Rawly she found all their savings had gone and that Edgar had taken out a small mortgage on the house without her knowledge in order to fund another of Sharon and Leo’s schemes. She had no choice but to sell the house to pay off the mortgage and other debts, and downsize. She lived on her state pension and what she got from Edgar’s civil-service pension.’

Horton took it up. ‘And I doubt Sharon ceased her wicked ways once she was in Spain. She probably continued with the scams. And as we know victims of such fraudulent schemes are often too ashamed to come forward and admit they’ve been duped. These are usually successful, clever businessmen, directors or retired professionals.’

Into Horton’s mind sprang Edward Ballard. Had he been sucked dry by Sharon Piper? Had he come looking for revenge and got it? When Patricia Harlow had first told them about Leo Garvard, Horton had wondered if Garvard was Ballard but that had been quickly disproved. And, as he’d told himself before, he had no reason to suspect Ballard of being involved. He was about to continue when Bliss interjected.

‘We only have Patricia Harlow’s word that Sharon killed Ellie Loman and that she wasn’t at the boatyard when her husband went to meet her. She’s lied once, she could be lying again. Gregory Harlow could have killed Sharon Piper and then wracked with guilt he killed himself.’

Uckfield looked up. ‘He could have killed her, yes, but he didn’t kill himself.’

Horton froze with another sandwich half poised. ‘You’ve got the PM report,’ he said eagerly.

‘Came in a few minutes before this conference. Dr Clayton’s confirmed it was homicide.’

So bang went Gregory Harlow as a suspect for killing Sharon Piper, but he could have seen who had killed her. ‘How did he die?’

Trueman answered. ‘Alcohol and barbiturate poisoning, not self-administered. There was bruising inside the mouth and around the jaw area. Someone held his mouth open and poured the whisky down it.’

‘A man, then?’

‘Dr Clayton thinks it’s probable but she can’t be absolutely certain.’

‘Wouldn’t he have struggled?’ asked Marsden.

‘He was drugged and unable to put up much resistance. Dr Clayton says the toxicology tests need to verify this but she found . . .’ Trueman paused to read from his computer screen, then continued, ‘“laryngeal oedema in the upper respiratory tract, froth and pus in the lungs and congestion in the brain which confirm alcohol and barbiturate poisoning.” She says that Harlow was probably given Nembutal or Amytal. All barbiturates depress the central nervous system causing sleep and in large doses produce coma followed by kidney and respiratory failure, and death. The alcohol was used to speed up the process of death and possibly to make us think he committed suicide. He probably took the barbiturate unwittingly and then someone forced the alcohol down him.’

‘Time of death?’ asked Horton.

‘Between eleven p.m. Thursday night and two a.m. Friday morning. The security officers who DCI Birch’s team have interviewed say that Harlow left the festival in his van alone. SOCO have found no additional tyre tracks near or leading to the spot where Gregory’s van was parked so either he picked up his killer on the way or he met him there, and the killer entered the woods on foot. DCI Birch has officers out asking for sightings of any vehicles parked near the copse.’

Uckfield wiped his mouth with a large white handkerchief. ‘Right, let’s bring Leo Garvard in.’

‘That might be difficult.’ Horton exchanged a glance with Trueman.

‘I don’t care how bloody difficult it is,’ Uckfield exploded. ‘He’s our killer. He killed Sharon Piper for revenge for stitching him up and for killing his girlfriend, Ellie Loman, and then he killed Harlow.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Harlow saw him kill Sharon of course. We bring him in.’

‘You tell him, Dave,’ Horton said.

‘Leo Garvard was convicted for fraud in 2002 on Sharon’s evidence and he’s still serving his sentence.’

‘And I’ll give you three guesses where,’ Horton added.

‘Not Parkhurst!’

‘Yes, and Garvard is probably responsible for giving Woodley that photograph of Sharon Piper, aka Carol Palmer aka Salacia, but he couldn’t have killed her and he couldn’t have killed Gregory Harlow, but he could have organized both murders.’

‘Then we’re back to Reggie Thomas,’ Bliss said triumphantly. ‘Garvard could have ordered Thomas to get rid of Woodley because Woodley was going to confess.’

‘Unlikely,’ Horton answered. ‘Woodley wouldn’t have known the meaning of the word, but he could have screwed up somehow. Or perhaps on reflection Garvard considered Woodley wasn’t up to the job. But I can’t see Thomas doing it for nothing, or Woodley come to that if he’d gone through with it, which means Garvard must have some money from his scams stashed away.’

‘Which Sharon Piper could have been spending,’ Marsden piped up.

‘Possibly,’ said Horton.

Uckfield sat back and scratched his crotch, causing a scowl of disapproval on Bliss’s face. Eames appeared not to notice. ‘So Reggie Thomas attacks Woodley after he leaves the pub, Sholby’s and Hobbs’ alibis are false. Woodley doesn’t see his attacker so when Reggie offers to take him out of hospital, an unsuspecting Woodley goes with him. But Reggie, in a borrowed or nicked car, drops him at the marshes where he leaves him to die. At the crematorium Reggie manages to speak to Sharon, or passes her a message, asking her to meet him later that night at the boatyard. Maybe he claims he has a message from Garvard. She agrees and he stabs her, steals her car and dumps it somewhere.’

Horton said, ‘Perhaps he passed the vehicle on to one of his mates, Sholby or Hobbs, or directly to the garage proprietor, Mellings, who recycles it.’

Bliss chipped in. ‘That seems highly possible given the intelligence we’re gathering.’

Horton frowned in thought. ‘That still doesn’t explain why Woodley’s funeral was arranged for the same day and just before Amelia Willard’s.’

‘Or why Sharon Piper showed up for it,’ added Eames.

But Horton could explain that. ‘It’s unlikely that she was living in this area, although we don’t know that for certain, but if she wasn’t then someone from here knew her whereabouts and told her that Amelia had died and when the funeral was being held.’

‘Gregory Harlow?’ posed Bliss.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Garvard?’ suggested Uckfield.

‘Or someone liaising with him,’ Horton replied. ‘The prison network is very wide.’

‘We’re not back to Marty bloody Stapleton, are we?’ exclaimed Uckfield.

Horton shrugged. ‘It could be one of his contacts.’