Evan brought the dinghy nearer. “Where’s Betsy?” he demanded. “What have you done with her?”
“Betsy? What are you talking about? I’ve no idea where Betsy is. I was sailing alone—just get me off here.”
“What happened to your boat?”
“It capsized. Freak wind.”
“I thought you were supposed to be a good sailor.”
“I am. A bloody good sailor.”
“Who lets his boat capsize? How far away?”
“Out there, somewhere. I grabbed onto the top of an ice chest and the current brought me this far.”
“I’m asking you again—what happened to Betsy? You’re not getting off that buoy until you tell me.”
“She—she went down with the boat. I’m sorry. Freak accident. I’m not the greatest swimmer. There was nothing I could do.”
“Like hell there was,” Evan said. “Just like there was nothing you could do when you killed Kathy Sparks and Rebecca? Did you throw both of them over the side? Convenient way of getting rid of somebody, isn’t it? It’s no good denying it, Michael. The police know everything.”
“It wasn’t my fault.” Michael started to cry. “How was I to know? She’d had sex with plenty of other blokes—I I didn’t think she’d mind. She said she’d report me for rape, so what else could I do?”
“And Rebecca? Did you have to kill her too?” Evan shouted.
“Rebecca started following me around. I think she was keen on me at first. But then she began to put two and two together. Now get me off this bloody thing. I can’t hold on much longer.”
“When I’ve found Betsy,” Evan yelled. “Now where did the damned boat capsize?”
“I told you, it’s too late. I saw no sign of her in the water when I swam away.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll go home and forget I ever saw you,” Evan roared. “If you ever want to get off that buoy, you’ll tell me exactly where it is.”
“Sort of due southwest from here. It can’t be too far. I’m not a strong swimmer.”
Evan gunned the motor, leaving Michael yelling after him. “Don’t leave me. I can help you find it. I can’t hold on much longer!”
There was more of a swell now. The little dinghy rose and fell as it cut through the waves. Spray splashed into Evan’s face and his wet clothing clung to him. His hands were stinging like crazy. He was shivering, though, more with fear than with cold. How would he find her out here? How would he ever spot the hull of a capsized boat, if it hadn’t sunk completely by now? Betsy! He felt tears warm on his cheeks. He should have done more to protect her. He should have forbidden her to go to the Sacred Grove again. He stood up in the bobbing boat, scanning the sea for anything that could be a body. Then he saw it—the upturned hull of a small boat.
He made for it, his heart racing.
“Betsy!” he yelled. “Betsy? Can you hear me?”
Then a small white hand rose from behind the boat. She was clinging to the rudder, her arms wrapped around it, looking like a small, lost mermaid. Her face broke into a big smile when she saw him.
“I’m glad you got here, Evan,” she managed to croak. “I couldn’t have held on much longer.”
It took him a while to haul her into the dinghy. She slithered to the floor and collapsed, coughing and gasping. “Michael,” she managed to say. “It was Michael. He was going to kill me. I had to capsize the boat. It was the only thing I could think of doing.”
“It was bloody brilliant,” Evan said.
“I don’t know what happened to him. I ducked under the boat and stayed there. I thought he might give up looking for me and think I’d drowned. I suppose he must have drowned by now.”
“He was alive when I last left him clinging to a channel marker,” Evan said. “We’ll go in to Porthmadog and get the police launch to pick him up.”
“How could I have been so stupid?” Betsy sat hugging her knees to herself. “I thought he was the one person I could trust, but he killed Rebecca.”
“How did you find out?” Evan asked.
“She told me.”
“What? When?”
“I saw her, Evan. She came up through the water and she told me who she was. That’s when I realized she was warning me.” She looked up, her face alight with excitement. “Oh my gosh, you know what that means, don’t you? I really am psychic after all. That’s why I dreamed about the right cave. I really do have powers.”
“Is this the way you take it easy when you’re given the day off?” Sergeant Watkins stormed into police headquarters, followed by Glynis Davies.
“We went to the Sacred Grove—the whole place is in an uproar. Rhiannon called us,” she said.
“And we’ve got Michael Hollister in custody,” Watkins added. “He’s blubbering like a baby, asking for his mother.”
“His mother suspected him all along, can you believe that?” Glynis demanded. “She brought him home from Oxford because of another missing girl. She said she couldn’t turn him in—her own flesh and blood.”
“And then he went and killed her husband,” Watkins added.
“Do we know why he killed Randy?” Evan asked. “Was it just to get him out of his mother’s life?”
“No, he had a better reason than that. Randy saw him going out on the sailing boat with Rebecca. When you came showing pictures, he remembered and questioned Michael about it. So he had to go. Luckily, Michael has a good brain. He overheard Randy extolling the virtues of the cave he’d just discovered on his jogs. The rest was easy.”
“And he established the perfect alibi for himself too,” Evan added. “I only realized afterward how easy it was to cut across country to the point.”
“Ah, so that’s how he did it,” Glynis said. “His mother was still swearing that he couldn’t have killed Randy because he was in Porthmadog all afternoon.”
“Some family,” Evan commented.
“Yes, so much for the aristocracy,” Watkins agreed. “Too much inbreeding, I suppose.”
Evan sighed. “In a way I can’t help feeling sorry for that boy. Abandoned by his mother when he was little more than a baby.”
“Don’t start on that,” Watkins said. “The psychiatrists will have a field day trying to prove that he was a product of his unhappy childhood. I didn’t have the best childhood but I don’t go around killing people.”
Evan smiled.
“She’s a plucky kid, young Betsy, isn’t she?” Watkins went on. “Kept her head out there in the boat.”
“Yes, she’s something else,” Evan said.
“She told me she only kept going to work at the Sacred Grove because she wanted to help you,” Glynis commented, watching Evan start to blush.
“Well, she does sort of—” he was about to say, “fancy me,” when Watkins finished the sentence.
“She said you were being so clueless that somebody had to get to the bottom of things.” He looked at Glynis and they started laughing. He pulled up a chair and sat beside Evan. “But I think I’ll keep that remark to myself when I put in my recommendation to Colwyn Bay.”
“What recommendation?” Evan asked.
“For you to fill the vacancy in the department. Now that I’m being promoted, I’m hopeful we can take on an extra trainee.”
“I hope you get it,” Glynis said. “I really like working with you.”
“That’s great.” Evan nodded as he got to his feet, digesting this information. “Thanks, Sarge—oh, and I can’t call you Sarge anymore now, can I? What do I call you instead?”
“God will do,” Watkins said. “Or sir. Your honor. Your worshipfulness …” He laughed as Evan gave a mock bow.
“I’ve got to go,” he said.
“Yes, you were told to stay home and rest, not shred your hands to pieces out in the ocean. Now go home and stay there, or I’ll tear up my recommendation.”