Chawley returned to shaving the wood, frowning a little as he did so.
Horton went on. ‘The DNA on some of the hairs taken from the therapist’s office will match yours.’ The eyes that flicked up to Horton’s were more wary now.
‘You gave Luke a lift back to Portsmouth on that Saturday and told him you’d help him get to the truth. Did Rookley see you pull up outside Crown House and overhear Luke saying goodbye to you?’
Still Chawley said nothing.
‘Did you tell Luke to meet you on Tuesday at Portchester Castle where it all began in 1997?’
The hands hesitated for a moment before resuming their careful motion on the wood.
‘How did you kill Luke, Gavin? The same way you killed Ronnie Rookley?’ Horton kept his gaze steadily on Chawley. Would he continue to say nothing? Would he deny it? Or would a desperate desire for approval or his ego make him confess?
Chawley stopped planing and ran a critical eye over the wood while he said casually, ‘Rookley thought he could blackmail me.’
Horton’s heart jumped a beat. ‘And that’s why you met him in the cemetery at the committal of a lady called Margery Blanchester, who has left this organization a generous legacy. How did Rookley know how to get in contact with you?’
Chawley scowled. ‘I gave Luke my mobile number. He didn’t have a mobile phone but he scribbled the number down on a piece of paper. Rookley must have got it off him, or found the paper. And I told Luke that I could use someone like him at the sailing trust.’
And, Horton thought, when he and Cantelli had questioned Rookley in the cafe over Luke’s disappearance, the little crook had seen his chance to make some money.
Picking up the piece of wood, Chawley turned to face Horton. ‘Rookley telephoned me Friday morning. I was on my way to the funeral. I said I’d meet him in the cemetery. He said that unless I gave him money he’d tell you about my meeting with Luke. I told him to meet me at the lock but half an hour before you were due to see him, only he wasn’t getting any money. I knocked him out while he was leaning into the boot of my car to count it, or so he thought. I pushed him inside and slammed it shut.’
‘And then you hit me.’
Chawley nodded. ‘You’d think it was Rookley or one of his accomplices. And it would stop you following me if you were sharp enough to see me drive off.’
So the sound of the motorbike pulling away had nothing to do with Rookley or Luke’s death. But Horton already knew who that was: their Georgian. And where was he now, Horton fleetingly wondered. But then he reasoned, even if the Georgian had managed to follow him here and was listening, he’d hear this had nothing to do with Venetia’s death, so there was no reason for him to intervene.
‘What did you do with Luke’s body, Gavin?’
‘It’s in the Solent, along with Rookley’s,’ Chawley said matter-of-factly.
‘You took both of them out on a boat on separate occasions?’
‘Yes. No one will miss them. One was a useless junkie, the other a violent thief. I couldn’t allow them to ruin my father’s reputation, and mine. My work is important here. Lots of people depend on me.’
And they’re going to have to manage without you soon, thought Horton, and for a very long time. Angrily, he thought of Luke and his parents, destroyed by the Chawleys. He wanted one of them in court and convicted for it at least. He guessed that Gavin Chawley would deny what he’d said later when Horton got him to the station, and he hadn’t charged and cautioned him, but Horton was confident they’d be able to assemble enough evidence to make him think again. The gravedigger might even be able to identify Chawley talking to Rookley. There would be DNA in Lena Lockhart’s office and they might be able to prove Gavin had travelled across to the island by one of the ferries — unless he’d travelled by boat, but he didn’t own a boat, according to his wife. Was that a lie?
Horton rapidly considered this, recalling that she said he’d been sailing with friends. Had he taken time away from them to slip up to Lena’s office and steal the tapes? They would check. But if he didn’t own a boat then how could he have disposed of Luke’s body, and Rookley’s, in the Solent, at night? The dinghies and the small safety rib kept here weren’t up to such a task, but one boat was, and it certainly wasn’t this wreck of an old paddle steamer.
Gavin’s fingers caressed the wood. ‘Luke would have been no use to society, and Rookley certainly wasn’t. I couldn’t allow a man like that to blackmail me or my father. He served the community all his life. He made one small mistake.’
‘I don’t call what your father did small, and I don’t mean covering up for Sean Lovell.’
Gavin Chawley’s eyes narrowed.
Steadily, Horton continued. ‘Sean Lovell didn’t have an affair with Natalie and neither did your father. It was you, Gavin. You killed Natalie. Your father knew it. He covered up for you then and he’s kept silent about it ever since. What did Natalie do to make you kill her, Gavin? Did she reject you? Laugh at you? Belittle you?’
Chawley’s fingers tightened on the wood. Horton waited with bated breath, listening to the creaking and groaning of the old paddle steamer and praying Cantelli wouldn’t burst in on him now and spoil this confession.
After a moment Chawley said, ‘She told me the affair was over. She said she was bored, that I wasn’t important enough. I was only a sales clerk then, working for Julia’s father. He had a boat building company here. Well, I showed her. I knew Luke from the Castle Sailing Club. He should have been thrown out after that attack on a pensioner but the club secretary was too weak to do it.’
‘So you tricked Luke on to your father’s boat in 1997, where you drugged him. How did you get the heroin?’
Chawley smiled reminiscently. ‘I’ve always done charity work. I think it’s important to give something back.’
No, Horton thought, you need it to feed your overinflated ego and satisfy your craving for attention. Did Duncan Chawley know that his son had a serious personality disorder? He guessed so.
‘I worked for a time helping drug addicts,’ Gavin said. ‘It was easy to get the stuff and know how much to use. Once I had Luke on my father’s boat, I stripped him and put on his clothes and shoes. I was the same build then, and while I wasn’t exactly the same shoe size I could manage wearing his trainers for a while. It was perfect. I pressed his fingers on a water bottle, carefully preserving his prints, cut some of his hair and then drove to Hayling where I’d already arranged to meet Natalie. I strangled her and then hit her to make sure I got her blood on Luke’s clothes, and I planted the evidence. Then I drove back to the boat. It was dark then. No one saw me.’ He spoke as though it was a routine affair, something anyone might have done.
Horton said, ‘When did your father know it was you?’ He watched Chawley play with the wood in his hands, and tensed in preparation for an attack that he knew must come. Chawley wouldn’t let him live to tell this tale. He’d killed three times; another death wouldn’t matter to him. Now, Horton thought, would be a good time for Cantelli to arrive.
‘Dad found Luke on the boat just as I returned from Hayling. I had to tell him. He said he’d take care of things on condition that I marry Julia, though I didn’t want to. He said she’d be a steadying influence on me. She was in love with me of course but, well, she’s not exactly my equal. You’ve seen her, she’s a timid little thing and dull as ditchwater. But it turned out OK in the end because her father died soon afterwards and left her the house and the boat building business, which I sold to start this charity. So you see, some good came of it.’
As if that justified killing someone, Horton thought with anger. And not just three people, five if he counted Sonia and Neville Felton. Horton imagined what kind of life poor Julia had suffered, and those very quiet children. He recognized a bully when he saw one, the kind that gradually and relentlessly chips away at a person’s self-esteem and confidence. He’d also like to know exactly how Julia’s father had died. But that was for another time.