Footsteps on the Shore (26 page)

He turned back to his desk. The fact that the tapes had been stolen proved that someone had been with Luke when Natalie was killed. So why hadn’t Bailey seen this man? He sipped his coffee as he assembled his thoughts. One reason could be because Luke had agreed to meet the man and Natalie in the copse. The accomplice could have driven there and parked up nearby, or he could have come by boat from Portsmouth, and taken Luke Felton back to the Portsmouth shore by boat in the dark, hence bailing. Yes, he liked that idea. Another option was that Bailey was lying about seeing Luke Felton. And why would he do that? Because Bailey was the accomplice and Natalie’s killer. Mentally, Horton ran through their previous interview in that depressing house. Bailey had seemed agitated and had looked decidedly uncomfortable when Horton had mentioned Portchester Castle. Why? Could Bailey have met Luke Felton there on Tuesday, afraid that Luke had started to remember certain things about that day?

Horton sat up. With a frisson of excitement he quickly grasped the theory and began to push it further. Why would Bailey want Natalie Raymonds dead? And why should he wish to frame Luke Felton? Bailey was hardly their drugs supplier. And how would he have known either of them? Horton guessed he could have seen Natalie Raymonds when she’d been running along the coastal path. But how would Bailey have known Luke Felton, and more importantly his background, well enough to get him to agree to a meeting in that copse? There were two possibilities. Bailey had either worked or socialized with Luke Felton, which seemed doubtful unless the job his father had got Luke had been at Hester’s Shipbuilding, or Bailey already knew him. Peter Bailey didn’t have a criminal record, so he couldn’t have been involved with Luke during his community service for the attack on the pensioner in 1995, unless . . .

With his heart racing, Horton quickly turned to his computer and called up the case files for 1995. When he found the one he wanted his eyes devoured the text on the screen. Several minutes later he sat back, with a grim smile of satisfaction. There was a great deal more to Peter Bailey than met the eye and considerably more than he had told them. Bailey also had a very strong motive for wanting Luke Felton convicted and put away for a very long time.

TWENTY-ONE

P
eter Bailey sat hunched over a cold cup of tea with a slimy skin on it in the interview room, looking forlorn and pathetic. Horton eyed him closely. His grey monk’s hair was damp with sweat and unkempt, his trousers were smeared with earth, and the fingers, which fiddled with his spectacles, showed traces of dirt under the nails.

Horton had discovered that Bailey’s mother was the pensioner Luke Felton had assaulted and robbed in 1995. Ethel Elmore had remarried after her first husband had died in 1963, when Bailey was twelve. He’d kept his father’s name. And if it was that simple, thought Horton, watching Bailey’s grubby fingers, then why hadn’t Superintendent Duncan Chawley made the connection in 1997?

‘Maybe he did,’ Cantelli had said, ‘but because Chawley had Luke Felton in custody and he’d already confessed he kept quiet about it. It was one case swiftly cleared up and a brownie point to him.’

Horton didn’t like it. It was sloppy work and threw into question Felton’s guilt.

Cantelli began the interview in a casual, friendly manner, almost as though he wasn’t particularly interested. ‘How did you lure Luke Felton into meeting you on the coastal path in 1997?’

Bailey eyed them both guardedly ‘I didn’t.’

‘No? Perhaps you took him there in your car then.’

Bailey shifted nervously but said nothing.

Cantelli smiled. ‘It’s OK, Peter, we understand. If he had done that to my mother I’d have wanted to get my own back and finger him for Natalie’s murder.’

Bailey’s head came up. ‘I didn’t. I saw him slouching along that path.’

‘And you did what?’ Horton interjected sharply, making Bailey start.

‘Nothing.’

Horton laughed derisively. ‘You expect us to believe that, the man who had attacked your mother?’

Bailey’s grey skin flushed. He replaced his glasses and studiously avoided eye contact.

Horton sat back and in a lighter tone said, ‘How often did you see Natalie Raymonds running along the coastal path?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Never? On all the occasions you went there to spy on the little terns?’ Horton said, feigning surprise.

‘No.’ Bailey fidgeted.

‘I think you did, Peter, and maybe that’s when the idea first struck you. You thought her a perfect victim, a good-looking girl, alone, regular in her running habits.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Bailey stared at each of them in turn with a bewildered air.

Relentlessly Horton continued, ‘Perhaps you even spoke to Natalie. Maybe you fancied her and she laughed at you or told you to push off. Hurt and humiliated, an idea began to form in your mind on how to get back at her and at the same time get revenge on the man who had hurt your mother.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Bailey said sullenly. ‘I saw Luke Felton the day that girl was killed. I’d never met her before.’

‘Maybe you didn’t mean to kill Natalie. You just meant to put that tie around her throat, squeeze it a little to make her unconscious and then leave Felton to take the blame for assaulting her, but when you felt the power you had over her a better idea sprang to mind. She wouldn’t be able to laugh at you again if she was dead and Felton would be convicted for her murder. And just to make sure, you came forward to say you’d seen him on the path. It was justice for what he did to your mother. But then Luke was released on licence and started remembering. He called on you and begged you to tell the truth. But you couldn’t have that, so you killed him. What have you done with his body, Peter? Buried him in the garden?’

Bailey’s eyes widened with horror. ‘I don’t know where he is. I swear it. I thought that . . .’

‘Yes?’

Bailey’s body slumped. He stared down at his trembling hands and muttered, ‘He ruined our lives, Mother’s and mine. I couldn’t leave her after that.’

‘You wanted to?’ Cantelli asked gently.

Bailey’s tormented eyes swung up to Cantelli. ‘I’d been offered a job abroad but after the attack she became an agoraphobic. She never stepped outside the front door from that day until they carried her out in her coffin ten years later. That’s what Luke Felton did to us, and what did he get for his crime, for wrecking our lives? Community service.’ There were tears in his eyes now as he added, ‘It was pitiful. A disgrace. He was made to clear up litter along the shore at Portchester Castle. I saw him there one lunchtime when I was working at Hester’s. I wanted to confront him but I couldn’t. It’s just not in my nature.’ Bailey dashed a hand across his eyes.

‘So you arranged to meet him at Portchester Castle last Tuesday night with a view to killing him. Where did you take him, Peter?’

He stared at Horton, confused. ‘Nowhere. I didn’t meet him. I haven’t seen him.’ Suddenly the tears began to roll down his creased face. ‘My mother was the gentlest, most trusting woman you could find. She didn’t deserve what he did to her. He killed her as good as if he’d stuck a knife in her heart.’

‘And is that why you killed him, Peter?’ Cantelli asked softly.

Bailey stared at him with anguished eyes. He sniffed noisily and ran a hand under his nose. ‘No, but it’s why I lied. You’re right, I didn’t see Luke that day. I made it up. I wasn’t anywhere near the coastal path. I was at home with my mother.’

And if Bailey was now telling the truth, where did that leave them? thought Horton. And where did it leave the original investigation? With a ruddy great hole in it.

Bailey began to gabble. ‘I didn’t think my evidence would help to convict him. I thought the police would find out before it got that far, but then Felton admitted the crime. I thought he must have been there. Everyone said he did it. I didn’t feel guilty. I remembered what he had done to my mother and thought that at last I’d got some kind of justice. I put him out of my mind until you showed up asking questions and I thought he might have remembered something about her murder and discovered I’d lied. I thought he might come after me.’

‘Maybe Felton did come after you, and you killed him,’ pressed Horton, quietly this time.

Bailey forced his head up with an effort. ‘No.’

‘He knew you’d lied and he wanted revenge for the years he’d spent inside. You had to kill him. Maybe it was self-defence. A jury would have sympathy with that.’

Bailey was shaking his head. ‘I haven’t seen him.’

Horton gave Cantelli a sign to continue. ‘Where were you last Tuesday from six o’clock onwards?’

‘At home.’

‘Can anyone vouch for you?’

Bailey looked thoroughly dejected. ‘No.’

After a moment Cantelli said brightly, ‘Been gardening, Peter?’ He jerked his head at the dirty fingernails.

Bailey blinked at the change of subject and stammered a reply. ‘I stumbled into a bramble.’

‘In your own garden!’

‘I didn’t have my spectacles on.’

Bailey looked at them both with pleading in his fearful eyes. Horton said, ‘We’ll search your house and garden.’

‘You’ll find nothing.’

The truth or a lie? Horton told Bailey he’d be held on suspicion of the murder of Luke Felton while they conducted a search of his premises. Bailey made no protest, he didn’t even ask for a solicitor or a warrant, but granted them permission to go ahead with a dumb inevitability that Horton found depressing.

Outside Cantelli said, ‘Could he have killed Natalie Raymonds?’

It was a question that Horton had been asking himself during the interview. Was Bailey capable of such a crime, and one that had required careful planning? The answer was yes. Bailey had been a design draughtsman, which meant he had an eye for detail, and he had a powerful motive.

‘If he did, then unless he admits it we’ll not be able to prove it. We might get lucky with the search, though, and find evidence to connect him with Felton’s disappearance. And we might even find Felton’s body. I’d like you on the search, Barney.’

Their conversation had taken them back to the CID office where Walters had returned footsore, wet and in bad humour. ‘The old lady they were burying on Friday was a Margery Blanchester, she was ninety-one,’ he said, throwing himself down in his chair with a heavy sigh. ‘None of the funeral directors match the description the gravedigger gave me, and I can rule out five of the eight mourners because three are women and the other two are men in their seventies. I’ll do the rest tomorrow.’

Horton consulted his watch and was surprised to see it was just after six, but there was someone he wanted to see before calling it a day and he wanted Cantelli with him.

‘Why do you want to interview Julian Raymonds?’ Cantelli asked, as they headed out of the city towards Hayling Island.

‘If Chawley didn’t check that Bailey was related to the pensioner Felton attacked, then what else didn’t he check?’

‘Raymonds’ alibi?’

‘Possibly, and even if Chawley knew Bailey was lying and kept silent to get a conviction it’s shoddy work, and it means we can’t trust a single thing in that case file, except the pathologist’s report. Chawley told me he’d checked Natalie’s background and looked for links between her and Luke, but how can we be sure? There’s nothing in the file I’ve read to indicate any of Natalie’s friends were interviewed, and there’s no record of where she went to school, where she worked, nothing. And if we put that with Lena Lockhart’s testimony and the missing tapes then we’ve got a very different case on our hands. One that needs reopening.’

‘I don’t think Olivia Danbury will be too pleased about that.’

Or her arrogant and overprotective husband, thought Horton, and neither, he suspected, would Julian Raymonds be.

The door of Raymonds’ house was opened by a well-groomed blonde woman in her early forties. Cantelli swiftly made the introductions in the pouring rain.

‘This is about letting that killer out of gaol, isn’t it?’ Mrs Raymonds snapped. ‘I don’t want Julian upset. He’s been under a lot of pressure and his health’s not good.’

Horton tried a sympathetic look. He said nothing and neither did Cantelli. With an irritable sigh she was forced to admit them and they followed her neat little figure down the hall into a gleaming white living and dining room that made Horton wish he’d brought sunglasses. It reminded him of what Catherine had done to what had once been his home.

Sitting hunched over a laptop computer was a thin, balding man in his fifties with several papers spread out around him. Beyond him, Horton could see the lights of Portsmouth across the dark expanse of Langstone Harbour.

‘It’s the police,’ Mrs Raymonds announced briskly.

Raymonds looked up, more alarmed than upset. Mrs Raymonds had been right though; her husband didn’t seem in the best of health. Horton wondered what was wrong with him. His troubled eyes flitted warily to Horton and quickly away again. For a moment there was a brief flash of colour on his hollow cheeks before it faded once more into greyness.

Politely, Horton said, ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, Mr Raymonds, but I need to ask you a few questions about Natalie.’

Raymonds lowered the lid of his laptop. ‘It’s all in your files. I’ve nothing to add.’

‘We have new evidence showing that Luke Felton might not have been alone when your wife was killed.’ And the person with him, thought Horton, could still have been Peter Bailey.

Raymonds’ eyes flicked up to his wife, who was standing ramrod straight, arms folded, lips pursed, glaring at Horton. She caught her husband’s glance and gave a slight shake of her head.

Catching it too, Cantelli said, ‘Any chance of a cup of tea, Mrs Raymonds?’

She looked as though she was about to tell Cantelli what he could do with his tea, but whether Cantelli’s charming smile or the slight nod from her husband changed her mind, Horton didn’t know. She huffed out of the room with Cantelli following. If anyone could charm her then Cantelli could. And at the same time pump her for information.