Suffocating Sea (32 page)

He stared down at Janice Hassingham and started violently.

She was smiling and it transformed her face. She was no longer the dull, sad woman he and Cantelli had seen that morning in her office; years had sloughed off her and with it the heavy coarseness of her features. Her eyes were a vivid green and her usual pallid complexion was flushed with exhilaration. The breath suddenly caught in Horton’s throat. From the first time he’d set eyes on her at Horsea Marina he had known there was something familiar about her, but it had taken this transformation for him to understand why he’d had that feeling. Now he knew what had triggered the memory of the man on the Town Camber quayside. He also knew the true identity of the man standing beside her.

‘You’re Warwick Hassingham,’ he said, staring at Croxton, whilst his brain raced to assimilate this latest revelation and put it in place with everything else he had learned.

‘I haven’t used that name for years. Drink, Inspector, or should I say, Andy? After all we’re old friends.’

That last comment brought Horton up sharply. It made him sick with fury. Here was his mother’s boyfriend and the man who had killed her. He wanted to hurl himself at Warwick Hassingham and smash his face to a pulp. It took every ounce of his willpower not to do so and only the fact that he could see that was exactly what Hassingham wanted restrained Horton. They weren’t alone in this house. Hassingham had protection. He spun round to see a man built like a brick outhouse, with shoulders bigger than DCI Dennings, standing in the doorway.

‘My bodyguard, Trevor,’ Warwick explained unnecessarily.

Horton couldn’t think of a more fitting job for eighteen stone of muscle. And he didn’t fancy his chances against the shaven-headed muscle man. He turned his gaze back to Janice, who was looking smug; he’d get no help there.

‘How long have you known that your brother was alive?’

he addressed her sharply.

‘Since I overheard Sebastian talking to Rowland on the telephone last Tuesday.’

‘And that was why you were at the marina on Wednesday night? You went to see Tom.’

‘Yes, I didn’t know where he was until Rowley told me, but by then I was too late. He was already dead.’

‘And how do you feel about your brother killing the only man you ever loved?’ Horton said, watching her closely. Her eyes flicked to Warwick’s.

‘Sebastian killed Tom and that’s why I had to kill him.’

‘You locked him in the freezer.’ So it
was
Janice.

‘Yes.’

Then he recalled Sebastian’s alibi. ‘But Sebastian was at Tri Fare the night Brundall was killed.’

‘The sales director lied. Seb asked him to. Selina went to Tri Fare alone. She lied to you too.’

Could Horton believe her? Her face was expressionless.

Warwick was looking so sure of himself. Horton knew then that Warwick had killed Brundall and had spun his sister some claptrap about it being Sebastian. He’d got Janice to kill Sebastian for him. The evil bastard.

‘Sit down,’ Warwick commanded.

An arm shot out and Horton felt as though his shoulder had been trapped in a vice. He couldn’t prevent a cry of agony escaping, as Muscles pushed him on to the sofa. Releasing him after a sign from Warwick, Horton rubbed his shoulder.

Fuming with anger and smarting with pain, he said, ‘Did you kill my mother?’

‘Jennifer Horton’s little boy a copper! It was a bit of a shock when Seb told me. It wasn’t until Rowley returned to Portsmouth and made the connection that Seb realized who you were. I never thought you’d end up on the right side of the law. Just shows how wrong you can be about kids. It scared poor little Rowley almost shitless. Every day he lived in fear that you’d come knocking on his door to arrest him.

He kept a very close eye on you.’

‘You mean the newspapers.’

‘You saw them?’ Warwick glanced at his watch.

He knows I might have called for help and he wonders how long he’s got. Horton wished now that he had done so, instead of telling Trueman to wait. His heart was thumping against his ribcage.

Warwick said, ‘I managed to get rid of them after that woman vicar left for the church. I didn’t expect the Church to put in a replacement so quickly and neither did Seb.’

‘You killed Anne Schofield just because she’d seen those newspaper articles!’ Horton cried, anger welling up in him.

‘We couldn’t take the risk. She said you’d already seen them.’

‘So you frightened the poor woman into calling me, knowing that if she mentioned my mother I’d come running, and you thought you’d kill us both at the same time.’

‘Pity you refused to die then, and on your boat. Although I thought I’d succeeded until Seb told me you’d been interviewing my sister. Still, third time lucky.’

Horton tried to ignore the threat, but he shuddered inside at the thought of the kind of end Hassingham had in store for him. It would probably be a house fire, if Hassingham ran true to form. And would Janice also be a victim? Horton guessed so, though Janice looked oblivious to the fact. Had Uckfield got enough information on James Rowthorpe and this house to connect it with the murders and alert the island’s police? Horton doubted it and he was probably still waiting for that phone call from Horton, which unless he did something to get out of this, would never come.

He said, whilst trying to think of a diversion to distract Muscles’ attention from him, ‘Which one of you killed David Lynmor, the skeleton in Rowland’s air-raid shelter?’ He’d scored a point by the look of surprise on Warwick’s face. Only it was a hollow victory; Horton doubted he’d be allowed to live long enough to celebrate.

‘Lynmor was a pest. He tracked Rowley to Wales and then to Portsmouth.’

‘And then he found Brundall in Guernsey and grabbed a local photographer to gatecrash Newton’s party. We haven’t been as slow or dim as you think,’ Horton sneered, ‘and even if you kill me, which I take it you intend to do, then there’ll be others after you.’

‘I doubt that. I disappeared once, I can do it again.’

‘It might not be so easy next time,’ Horton threatened, but could see his words held no terror for Warwick Hassingham.

This man probably had various escape routes and identities already mapped out. ‘Who killed Lynmor and Jacobs?’

‘I killed Jacobs and Sebastian dealt with Lynmor. He lured him to Rowley’s house and stuffed his body in the air-raid shelter. He knew that Rowley would never go in there and find it. Rowley was cracking under the pressure. He was our weakest link. When he entered the church Seb wondered if he’d confess but he managed to persuade Rowley that the church would be more grateful for his money than his confession, and besides if he confessed that he was party to a million-pound diamond raid and a murder, then they wouldn’t take him and Rowley couldn’t cope with that, not after his wife and kid had died. It meant more to him than anything, and so he kept quiet. But Seb and I always kept an eye on him.’

And Rowland, a man of the church, had lived with that past all those years. How could he have been such a hypocrite?

‘I see you disapprove,’Warwick continued. ‘Rowley thought God had punished him by taking Teresa and Claire from him.

Rowley tried to atone for his sins for the rest of his life, by living like a pauper and devoting himself to God and his parishioners.’

‘Until Brundall showed up on Tuesday wanting to confess,’

Horton snapped, but his mind had picked up on something Warwick Hassingham had said. The four fishermen had killed Croxton, or whatever his real name was, and had claimed it was Warwick’s body. Why? He’d been right about the diamonds but it wasn’t smuggling. Warwick had said ‘a diamond raid’, which meant a robbery.

He had to get Warwick to tell him about it, not that it would do him much good if he was dead, but he was still alive and he would fight with all the strength and guile he had to keep it that way.

Warwick crossed the room and poured himself another drink. ‘Unfortunately, Brundall had developed a conscience as well as cancer.’

‘And that was when Sebastian came scurrying across to Cowes to meet up with you so that you could plan his death.’

‘I told him to loosen the gas cooker pipe on his return and then later that evening throw a lighted match on to Brundall’s boat.’

Horton dashed a glance at Janice. Her hands were in her lap and her body erect as she sat on the edge of the sofa. Her eyes followed her brother. Yet, Horton was curious, her expression had changed; she was no longer smiling and there was something sharp and dangerous behind her eyes.

Then Horton saw quite clearly what had happened. ‘You’ve got that wrong,’ he said with an edge of steel to his voice.

‘You came back with Sebastian on his boat on Wednesday morning, only no one saw you. You stayed below whilst you went through the lock. Sebastian left for his office and then Tri Fare as he told us. You went to meet Tom Brundall. You loosened the gas cooker piper and then left, watching Nigel Sherbourne arrive. You guessed what Brundall was going to do, or maybe he told you. Here was a man who was dying; perhaps he didn’t care if you killed him. Maybe he wanted you to kill him and by doing so we start an investigation and the truth comes out. That was Brundall’s confession, only he couldn’t have envisaged you’d kill Sherbourne.’

Horton could see that Hassingham didn’t like this very much.

Horton was very close to the truth. He risked another glance at Janice; she was so tense that Horton thought she might snap in half.

He paused. ‘Later that evening you threw the match on to the boat and left Horsea Marina to come back here, but not on Sebastian’s boat because it didn’t leave the marina. How did you get here, and how did you get to Guernsey and back?

Do you keep a boat in Cowes Marina or Yarmouth?’

Warwick said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink, Andy?’

Horton flinched at the use of his name. His mind spun down the years when he’d heard this man speak to him. He felt physically sick. Warwick must have seen the torment in his eyes.

‘You always were a bright kid, Andy. Bit of a pain in the arse sometimes, but I could always get rid of you with money to buy an ice cream or go to the pictures, whilst Jennifer and I . . .’

Horton leapt up and was halfway across the room before Muscles fell on him like a starving tiger and nearly ripped his arms from their sockets.

Warwick waited a moment, watching Horton’s grimace of pain, before he said, ‘Let him go.’

Horton collapsed on the floor trying to ease the pain in his arms and shoulders without betraying how much it hurt. His eyes flicked to Janice and what he saw shocked him. Quickly he looked away, not wishing to draw Hassingham’s attention to his sister’s expression of loathing. No, it was more than that. It was a fury that exceeded even his. Horton felt hope.

But what chance would he and a middle-aged woman stand against Muscles and Warwick Hassingham? Warwick was older than Horton and not nearly as fit. Horton knew he’d get the better of him, but he doubted he’d stand a chance against the Jolly Green Giant.

Janice rose. ‘I’m hungry. I’ll make some sandwiches.’

‘We haven’t got much time. We’ll be leaving in five minutes.’

‘We can take some with us.’

As she left the room, Warwick said, ‘It’ll give the sad bitch something to do.’

‘What are you going to do with her?’

‘What do you think?’

‘She’s your sister, for God’s sake.’

Warwick shrugged and Horton saw the evil that had driven this man to kill, cheat and lie. He shuddered to think what his mother had suffered at his hands, and prayed her death had been swift. He silently vowed that before he died he would make Warwick Hassingham pay in some way for what he had done.

Steeling himself to control his feelings, he said, ‘So you all got rich on the proceeds of this diamond raid.’

‘Yes. And we wouldn’t have done if it hadn’t been for Jennifer. I see that shocks you. Jennifer was very beautiful; she met Peter Croxton in the casino. He fell for her in a big way and couldn’t resist a bit of pillow talk.’

‘Which you encouraged,’ Horton said with bitterness.

Warwick wouldn’t have let his mother live with that knowledge.

‘He told her he was about to undertake the biggest diamond robbery in history and that he would buy her all the diamonds she wanted.’

‘And she told you.’ Horton drew himself up. He heard the implications of Warwick’s words about his mother’s sexual habits. Warwick Hassingham had been nothing more than a bloody pimp, using his mother’s infatuation of him to extract valuable information from Croxton.

‘Croxton was a con artist and a very good one. He’d already set up the false identity of James Rowthorpe. I simply took it over when he died. We were very alike and that’s what gave me the idea in the first place, though it was Jennifer who first pointed out the likeness to me.’

Horton felt a pang of sympathy for his mother and he was shocked by the emotion. It was as if the picture of her he’d been looking at for years had suddenly and sharply come into focus. And it wasn’t how he had imagined it. For once he put himself in her shoes and imagined her as a victim and not his cruel, heartless mother.

He said, ‘So Croxton pulled off a big jewellery heist.’

‘Hatton Garden. He got away with millions,’ Warwick said boastfully, as though it had been his robbery. Horton saw that the temptation to tell him was too big to resist.

Warwick topped up his drink. ‘He was an importer and exporter of diamonds so he knew his way around. He wasn’t called Croxton there. He used a dual identity. Everyone at Hatton Garden knew him as Philip Crane. Then on the fifteenth of August 1977 he simply entered the vaults and emptied them, got away with diamonds, jewellery and cash worth over £1.5 million. No one noticed they’d gone until Monday morning; by then it was too late. Most of the people whose safety deposit boxes were stolen never came forward because they didn’t want anyone to know what they had in them. They were either the proceeds of crime or tax evasion.’

It was clever and simple.

‘Croxton drove down from London that night,’ Warwick said. ‘He’d hired a motorboat and arranged for Jennifer to meet him, only she didn’t turn up. We did.’