Blood on the Sand (34 page)

   And Horton knew that Laura had asked Anmore to call Thea to incriminate her further in her brother's death and to frame her for Anmore's murder.

   Thea said, 'I got a lift from Mr Elms but as soon as I was at Yarmouth I felt a premonition of danger.'

   'Why didn't you call me?' Horton cried, half annoyed and half in anguish.

   'How could I? Who would believe me?'

   Horton recalled his own disbelief of Thea's psychic powers on the Duver the morning he'd found her and felt a stab of guilt as she continued.

   'DCI Birch made it quite clear to me from the beginning that he thought I was mad. I have a record of mental illness. It would only be a matter of time before everyone believed I had killed Owen. They'd have said I had an accomplice to help me get Owen's body to the Duver. They'd have thought of something to prove I did it.'

   Sadly he knew that was true.

   She was saying, 'I was going to cross to the mainland, then I realized that running away would make me look guilty. I didn't know where to go until I saw a poster advertising Quarr Abbey and I thought the monks would take me in. I managed to hitch a lift to Fishbourne with a woman who was catching the ferry to Portsmouth. She was returning to London after being on the island for a week. From there I walked to the Abbey.

   'There's a rule of silence at the Abbey. No one can speak to me except the monk designated to take care of me. Tonight he could see how upset I was so I told him what had happened. Then amazingly he said he'd seen my brother. The resemblance between us is striking. He'd seen Owen walking along the beach early on Saturday afternoon, and spoke to him, but Owen didn't answer. Brother Joseph said Owen seemed upset and deeply troubled. He watched him head towards the pontoon with a woman whom he described to me. It was her.' She pointed at Laura. 'Brother Joseph heard a gun shot shortly afterwards, but he thought it was the farmer shooting rabbits. He didn't connect it with Owen, why should he? The Abbey doesn't have a television, radio or any contact with the outside world, so he had no idea what had happened.'

   Laura leapt up. 'I'm not going to prison,' she cried, and before Horton could stop her she was out of the door and running towards the jetty. Cursing, he raced after her, but he didn't have the speed with his wet clothes and his freezing body, not to mention his arm feeling as though it was on fire. She was heading for the RIB. He knew he wouldn't get there in time to stop her.

   Then she stalled and quickly he saw that the RIB had broken its mooring and was tossing on the tumultuous waves about three yards out to sea.

   She dashed a glance at him. 'I'm not going to prison,' she repeated.

   'Laura, it's over.'

   'No.' She turned back to the sea and in that instant Horton knew what she was about to do.

   'Laura. No.' But already he was too late. She was in the sea.

   Frantically he looked around but there was no lifebelt or line to throw her. He peered into the pitch-black evening. Where the hell was she? Then his eyes picked out what he thought was a figure. Incredibly she was trying to swim towards the RIB. She'd never make it. He made to dive in after her when Thea grabbed his arm.

   'Leave her,' she said urgently.

   He strained his eyes out to sea, every instinct within him aching to go after her, but he knew that Thea was right. He was exhausted and he would be pretty useless with his wounded arm. Already the darkness had swallowed her up. She might make it. He should have tried.

   'We have to call the coastguard and the lifeboat.' He turned and began running towards the house, knowing his mobile was useless after the soaking it had taken. His footsteps were heavy. He was too slow. If only they could reach her in time . . .

   He crashed through the door, rushed for the phone and called the station. He told them to alert the lifeboat and coastguards. Then he called Cantelli.

   'Are you still on the island?'

   'We're just heading for the car ferry, though I don't much fancy the crossing in this weather.'

   'Postpone it.' Horton gave him instructions on how to find
Tideways
and rang off. Cantelli would take him to A & E. He replaced the phone knowing they wouldn't find Laura Rosewood alive. He felt drained and exhausted, but turning to Thea standing behind him he knew that she was feeling worse than him. Swiftly he crossed to her and put his arms around her, feeling her thin, shivering body lean into his chest. Resting his chin on the top of her head, he closed his eyes and tried not to see the body of Laura Rosewood washed up on a beach, or the bloody, maggot-infested body of Owen Carlsson in the sand. Maybe Thea was thinking the same. He felt her pain, borne silently. She shed no tears. Maybe they would come later, maybe never.

   After a moment she pulled away from him.

   'Are you OK?' he asked. He always seemed to be asking her stupid questions, but she nodded.

   'I didn't think she'd run away like that. I thought she'd try and bluff it out. She could have said Brother Joseph was mistaken, or that Owen had come here and left, or that I'd gone after him and I'd killed him.'

   'There was too much building up against her. But being wrong annoyed her more than anything. She was angry at herself, for being trapped. She wasn't thinking straight. I should have stopped her.' He moved away from Thea.

   'There was nothing you could do. You're bleeding, and freezing. What chance would you have of surviving? To die trying to save a killer would be a waste of your life.'

   Horton knew she was right, but he didn't like it. 'I'll fetch us some blankets.'

   'No. I'll go.'

   He flicked the kettle on, then pulled off his sodden jacket and peered at his bloody T-shirt. His arm was throbbing and burning but he could see that the bullet had only taken a chunk of flesh out of his upper arm and hadn't penetrated the muscle.

   Thea returned within minutes with a blanket draped around her shoulders and another for him. She was also carrying a first-aid box.

   She began to clean his wound. He watched her for a moment, feeling a deep tenderness towards her that given time he knew could become more. After a while he said, 'Why didn't you answer the phone after Owen went missing?'

   'For the same reason I didn't talk to Mrs Mackie, and why Owen and I talked in the garden. We didn't know who we could trust.'

   'You trusted me the first time we met – why?'

   She gave a small, tired smile. 'Let's just say it was a matter of instinct.'

   He returned the smile, deciding not to press her further on that one. He felt his affection deepening with each passing moment before the bitter voice of past betrayals echoed in his head. Well, that could sod off for once.

   Thea said, 'Both Bengal and I would be dead if it hadn't been for you. How is he?'

   'Wormed his way into Evelyn Mackie's affections, I'd say.'
Like you have into mine.

   'Good. I'd like him to find a comfortable home.'

   She wouldn't be taking him back to Luxembourg with her then. Would she even be returning there? He guessed so and felt a pang of disappointment. He hoped it wouldn't be too soon. But those were questions for another day. Now he asked the question that had been bothering him.

   'Did Jonathan Anmore tell you where to find Owen?' Laura Rosewood had said he'd called Thea, but Thea hadn't answered Terry Knowles' calls so why should she have answered Anmore's call?

   She sat down beside him, her pale blue eyes sad and hollow with fatigue. Her hands were shaking slightly. Her chin came up and she held his gaze. 'No, he didn't.'

   He knew it was the truth. He took her hands in his. They seemed so small and so thin. She made no effort to withdraw them.

   'I couldn't tell you where I was, Andy, though I wanted to.'

   He liked hearing her say his name.

   The silence hung between them for several seconds. Horton felt reluctant to disturb it but there

   was still a question he needed to ask. 'Who was the girl, Thea? The one you asked Peter Bohman

   about?'

   She took a breath. 'I kept seeing this girl in my mind just before Arina was killed. She was in a stark white room, wearing a white gown, and she was warning me of evil and danger. She warned my mother too, only she either chose to ignore it or couldn't avoid it. I think the latter, which was why she sent me that postcard of Whitefields. It feels like an evil place, and a sad one. I think the girl was from there and my mother had seen her just before she came across Laura and those men. Oh, this girl isn't real, not now anyway. She lived once. Sorry if this sort of talk bothers you.'

   'I never said . . . Did this girl tell you how it would end?'

   'In the sea, but I didn't know whether that was my fate or someone else's. It's all right, you don't

have to believe.' She gave a timid smile.

   Maybe he did. Suddenly he was back on the old golf course at the Duver but this time as a child. A woman was ahead of him. She turned and called his name, then laughed.

   'She's still alive.'

   Horton started. 'Who is?' he asked sharply. He knew she wasn't talking about Laura Rosewood. She held his gaze and he saw this was no act.

   'The woman you're searching for,' Thea said quietly.

   Horton felt sick, then a flicker of hope, then bewilderment.

   'You're very angry with her for hurting you.'

   He made to withdraw his hands but she clung on to them.

   'Listen.' She leant forward with a new urgency in her voice, as the sound of a car pulled up outside. 'You don't have to believe me, that's up to you, but I just want you to know that I felt her presence on that first day we met. When you touched me, she was there so powerfully that for a moment I forgot about Owen and that was incredible. I felt your anger, and her pain. I could hardly breathe.'

   Car doors slammed. Footsteps on the gravel drive. His heart was pounding. The blood pulsating in his ears. He had about twenty seconds before Cantelli rang the doorbell. He so desperately wanted to believe her, but could he? Dare he? Ten seconds.

   'Is she dead?'

   'That's not the question.'

   Voices outside. Was she telling him the truth? He took a breath. 'Thea, should I look for her?'

   She held his gaze. 'That's for you to decide, Andy.'

   'Does she want me to?'

   The bell clanged through the house.

   'What do you think?'

   There was only one possible answer.