Shroud of Evil (32 page)

‘Or for. That is something we’d all like to know.’

Horton eyed him keenly, looking for the lie, but he saw none. ‘And is that who I am supposed to find and lead Lord Eames and his colleagues to?’ Pictures flashed through Horton’s mind: the wealthy man with the big car, the man with the boat. Had the latter been Edward Ballard? Had they both been Edward Ballard? Then he considered what he’d discovered about Eileen and Bernard. Eileen had worked for the civil service in Northern Ireland during the troubles; she’d left there and come to Portsmouth when Bernard had been shot and injured. The code that Amos had bequeathed to him, which could be the location reference for the Royal Navy hospital at Gosport where Bernard had been taken and where Horton now believed Jennifer had been heading the day she disappeared. To rendezvous with Eileen. To give her information about the IRA or to assist the IRA.

His head was spinning. He said, ‘We never had any money and my mother had to work as a croupier in a casino and leave me to fend for myself at nights. There was no one she was in the pay of.’ He eyed Dormand closely. What could he see in that expression? ‘Don’t tell me all that was a cover!’ he cried, astounded.
My God it couldn’t be!
He recalled the damp, smelly, crowded terraced houses in Portsmouth where he’d lived with his mother before they had been rehoused in the tower block. ‘You think this person she was reporting to killed her?’ And he was certain that couldn’t have been Eileen Litchfield. Dormand didn’t reply. ‘She went to meet him on that day in November. Who is he?’

‘That is something we’d all like to know.’

And had Dormand been hoping to find him here? Had he thought he’d found him in Lomas and had been deceived? Had Eames thought he’d found him in Dormand and realized he was wrong?

‘Why? It happened years ago.’ But maybe Horton understood. Swiftly he answered his own question. ‘Because he has highly damaging information about you and Richard Eames?’

‘And others.’

Horton exhaled. Nothing he remembered was how it seemed. He didn’t know any longer which memories he could trust.

‘Is that why you’re leaving – because this man is not here, because your cover is blown or because you killed Lomas?’ Horton wasn’t sure of that but it was possible. Whoever Lomas had been working for, Eames had been keen to keep his presence quiet. Dormand was eyeing him evenly but his expression didn’t betray his thoughts.

Horton continued. ‘You didn’t kill Jasper Kenton though. You just moved his body.’ Dormand had placed it on Eames’ shore in the early hours of Saturday morning not because he wanted to draw Horton to the abbey – Horton had already been here several times in connection with the recovery of stolen goods – but as a message to Eames that he had killed Lomas and was prepared to continue to kill rather than be exposed or be killed.

Horton took a breath. ‘Who took that photograph from 1967?’ he asked.

‘Jennifer.’

Eames had denied she had but then Eames was a liar, as might Dormand be. These men lied whenever it suited them. But if it was true then had Jennifer given the picture to Edward Ballard or had the picture been found in their flat after Jennifer had disappeared? By whom though? Someone working for the Intelligence Services or someone responsible for killing Jennifer? How had it ended up with Ballard? Had Ballard been her contact in London or Portsmouth? Had he discovered that Jennifer had been betrayed or had betrayed them but that she’d left behind a child – him? When Ballard discovered what had happened to her he had taken him from the children’s home and placed him with Eileen and Bernard Litchfield.

‘Is she dead?’

‘I would say most certainly, wouldn’t you?’

He would. But so too were Jasper Kenton and Thelma Veerman. He might not be able to do anything about Lomas but he could about Kenton and Thelma Veerman. His weary brain picked up what Dormand had said earlier:
‘Hands are so important, don’t you think? They don’t lie.’
The monks often kept their hands hidden in their sleeves – not so easy for others – but which of them was it: Jay Ottley, who always wore gloves, or Cliff Yately, who had sprained his wrist and had his hand bandaged and his arm in a sling? But it wasn’t only hands that didn’t lie; it could also be the shape of the face and much of a face could be hidden behind a beard as Dormand’s had been in that old photograph.

‘Where’s Jay? Or should I say Sam Tandy?’

Again Dormand remained silent.

Horton continued. ‘Kenton wanted Jay Ottley’s money, or rather the royalties that have been accruing in Sam Tandy’s account for years. Kenton had located the account but hadn’t got access to it. In return for keeping quiet about Jay’s new life, Kenton said he would leave Jay in peace. So what disfigurement does Jay Ottley have on his hands that Thelma Veerman had seen?’

‘His left hand. An accident when he was in his late teens left a permanent weakness and a scar.’

‘Don’t tell me, with a pistol crossbow.’

Dormand inclined his head in acknowledgement.

Horton continued. ‘Kenton tracked Tandy to the abbey but he needed Thelma Veerman to identify him. He wormed his way into her lonely empty life, having discovered that she provided nursing care. Did Thelma see Tandy kill Kenton? Is that why he had to kill her?’

‘That was a shame. Thelma was innocent but Kenton was a crook and blackmailer. If Jay had left it to me I would have seen to it and no one would have been any the wiser.’

Horton believed that. ‘You removed Kenton’s clothes, wrapped him in an old sail cloth and took him to Eames’ land in the early hours of Saturday morning after which you returned to the abbey and drove Kenton’s car to the Fishbourne ferry terminal for the four a.m. sailing to Portsmouth. You bought a ticket in the name of Adam Rooney. Kenton had a return ticket in his wallet under a false name and false registration number so that he couldn’t be traced after Sam Tandy had signed over his millions to him. In the rear of Kenton’s car you found a camera and video along with a laptop computer and phone, all of which contained information on his investigation into Brett Veerman. You decided to leave the car where Veerman had a flat. You wiped the car clean, of course.’ And Dormand would have been an expert at that.

‘And did you find Thelma’s body here on Tuesday afternoon, after she’d met Jay?’ Did he drug her dogs? Yes, he must have done, probably with some medication he had got from the vet for his sick pig. ‘On Wednesday afternoon or morning you took her back to her house by that boat with her dogs and left her there.’

‘Just tidying up as I’ve been trained to do.’

‘Why didn’t Jay Ottley just sign over the money? He didn’t need it. Two people would be alive today if he had done so.’

‘He thought Kenton had come here to take him away. Jay could never leave. Too much LSD had left him with hallucinations, one of which was that if he stepped outside the abbey demons from hell would come after him and eat him alive.’

‘He’ll have to leave now when I charge him with double murder. He’ll get treatment.’

‘It’s too late for that.’

Dormand’s words sent a chill through Horton. ‘Where is he? Where’s Sam Tandy?’ he asked, fearing the worse.

Dormand glanced beyond Horton to the boathouse. He turned. His blood ran cold. ‘He’s dead?’

‘Perhaps by now he is. When you asked at the café where you could find me, Jay thought you’d come to take him away.’

That confirmed to Horton that there was another way through the abbey gardens to the shore and a much quicker route than the one he’d taken. Could he trust Dormand to be telling the truth though? Was he just saying that to divert him so that he could make his escape on the boat, which was clearly his intention?

‘Did you kill him?’ Horton tossed a concerned glance at the boathouse.

‘No. He killed himself. With his pistol crossbow which he kept here.’

Horton again looked back at the boathouse.

‘You have a choice, Andy Horton. Either stop me from leaving or try and save Sam Tandy’s life.’

Horton studied Dormand evenly for a few seconds, then turned and ran to the boathouse. He pushed open the door and saw the recumbent body of Jay Ottley stretched out amongst the lines, sails, oars, life jackets and rusting bits of boat. Ottley’s eyes were wide open and even in death he looked haunted. Swiftly Horton checked for a pulse, knowing he wouldn’t find one. Ottley had made sure of that. The bolt from the pistol crossbow was embedded in the right side of the head and the weapon was lying close to Ottley’s right gloveless hand. The scar from his accident years ago was visible in the palm of the left hand.

The sound of a boat’s small engine alerted Horton. He raced out and peered into the black night and could just make out the dark shape of Dormand in the dinghy heading out into the Solent. Dormand raised his hand in farewell. Horton stepped forward, but what could he do except call the coastguard?

He reached for his phone but hesitated. Would they be too late to find Dormand? Would his body be washed out to sea? Or had he or others planned his escape route? Was there a speed boat waiting to take him somewhere? Would the coastguard find the small boat empty and drifting? Just as Kenton had planned his phoney death, perhaps Dormand had already planned his. He scoured the sea for the small dinghy and thought he saw it heading out towards Ryde.

‘Just tidying up like I’ve been trained to do.’

Horton stared back at the boathouse. Had Jay Ottley really shot himself or had Dormand, a trained assassin, killed him? Had he been tidying up? Was he tidying up with his own death? No one would know what he had told him about the past and Jennifer. And Dormand had let him live because he was the bait.

Horton let the sea lap at his feet. He couldn’t see any boats now, only a few tiny lights in the distance. He wasn’t sure how long he stood but after a while he stabbed a number on his phone and called the coastguard. He reported a possible man overboard from a small dinghy. Then, taking a breath, he called in.

He didn’t tell Uckfield all of it and he wouldn’t. He had an appointment with Lord Eames for that. Or rather Eames would find him. The official story would be that Sam Tandy, known as Jay Ottley, had killed Jasper Kenton and Thelma Veerman and Brother Norman had conspired with Ottley after their deaths to help move their bodies in order to delay and confuse the investigation. Brother Norman, unable to live with his conscience, had killed himself at sea. Sam Tandy, alias Jay Ottley, had committed suicide by firing a pistol crossbow into his brains after Horton had shown up and asked for the whereabouts of Brother Norman, believing that the police were on to him. No one would know Brother Norman’s true identity except him and Lord Eames.

Horton’s phone rang but he ignored it. It would be Eames. There were now only two men left alive from those days of the Cold War, of spies, betrayal and the dirty tricks of 1967: Lord Richard Eames and another man whom Jennifer had worked with or for. One of those men had lured Jennifer to her death.

Horton stared out to sea. He was several steps closer to finding him but there were bigger and more dangerous steps yet to take. The trail began in Guernsey with Eileen Litchfield. But it didn’t end there. It didn’t even end in Gosport where his mother had gone on that foggy November day in 1978. No, it ended with the troubles in Northern Ireland and that was where he would begin. He turned and headed back up the shore to wait for the approaching police cars.