Horton didn't hide his surprise. He had thought Gordon was talking about Richard Eames being this 'master', but Richard hadn't been born then. Before he could comment though, Gordon continued:

  'Someone who still believed that the only way forward was the far right. And I discovered who that was. Naively, I confronted him, just as Salcombe had done. His old friend,' he added with bitterness. 'I was twenty-two, invincible and stupid. I told him we would make the story public. I didn't care about the consequences, only I hadn't foreseen that those consequences would be murder. I should have done. He knew he had to kill us to make sure his secret stayed that way. Tim was killed in 1969, James in 1970, Zach was almost killed in 1968, and Salcombe was killed in 1970 when Michael should also have died. Instead, he was convicted of murder. Mortimer would have killed Dormand except that Dormand went missing after James Royson's death. At first, we thought it was because he was distraught. Antony Dormand and James Royston were lovers. But after the attempt on Zach's life, I wondered if Antony had also been dealt with until he surfaced as a monk in Italy where I had travelled for an exhibition of my work two years ago and came across him while I was staying at their guest house.'

  'He really was a Benedictine monk then,' Horton said surprised.

  'Yes, although I'm not sure he believed in God. He shut himself off from the world once James died and he sort of got used to it. He liked the peace and solitude. He was soothed by the chants, the prayers and the routine. We had a great deal to talk about.'

  'Why did you return to Portsmouth in 1978?' Horton asked, his heart beating fast, his mind racing to assimilate all he was learning.

  Gordon Eames remained silent for a moment. He shifted and leaned back against the helm. 'It was a mistake. We all make them, but I didn't know at the time the implications of that decision. I was an idiot. I read about my mother's death in the newspapers.'

  Horton recalled reading the article in Walters' newspaper earlier of Lady Marsha's death in November 1978, a sudden and unexpected heart attack, and the Viscount's tragic accident on his yacht the year after off the coast of France.

  Gordon was saying, 'I thought about it over and over. I felt sick at the thought that they would all be at her funeral and everyone would be sympathetic to my father who'd be looking suitably upset and dignified. In the same article, I read about myself. How I'd been a great disappointment to the family, how I'd blackened its name and tarnished its reputation with drug abuse, criminal behaviour and communist leanings, and how I had died alone in a drugged stupor on an Australian beach. God knows what I thought I was going to do but before I could reason it out, I'd packed a rucksack and was on a flight to England. And even though I had a new identity and passport, my father knew where I was. In fact, I didn't find out until afterwards that he never believed I was dead. Richard had told him he'd identified a body he believed to be mine, but maybe our father got it out of Richard that he'd done that so I could just carry on with my new life.'

  'And Richard knew your new name?'

  'Not that I was Jethro Dinx, because I only assumed that after 1978. But he knew the name I had been living under in Australia before that. I flew out of Australia on that passport, and my father knew that, as he did when I had arrived in England. He gave instructions that I was not to be stopped.'

  And a Viscount had influence enough to do that, Horton thought. Nobility could pull strings and rank.

  Gordon said, 'I had three days to kick my heels before the funeral. And three days to cool off. I stayed in Portsmouth where I'd spent some time in my misspent youth. I went to the casino amongst other places and found Jennifer there. I had no idea she was working there. She recognized me. I left almost immediately but she came after me. We couldn't talk for long; she would be missed. She never mentioned she had a child, although I could see that something was troubling her. I told her that I lived in Australia and asked her to leave with me. She said she didn't want to travel under her own name but didn't say why. She said she would tell me everything later. That was enough for me. I said I would get her out without a passport and then could obtain another for her under a new ID. We agreed to meet at Albert Johnson Quay in four days, after the funeral, where we could pick up a cargo boat to some foreign port and then another ship on to another port, and so make our way to Australia. But I changed my mind about going to the funeral. I never went. I just wanted to get out of the country. I had the impression I was being followed, and I thought that when Jennifer and I were talking outside by the pier we were being watched.'

  'Then why did you wait that long to meet her?' Horton asked angrily.

  'Because I needed time to make arrangements to get us abroad. She didn't know I intended for her to leave with me on that same day we'd arranged to meet. I didn't want her to bring any personal belongings or pack a bag and draw attention to the fact she was leaving. Remember, at that stage I didn't know of your existence. She never showed up. I didn't know where she lived. I couldn't ask in the casino because that would have drawn attention to myself and her. The boat was about to leave. I had to clear out.'

  'Leaving her to die,' Horton said with disgust. His father was a coward. He didn't for a moment believe that Gordon Eames hadn't known about him. 'So you left the country,' he said scathingly. 'How do I know you didn't kill Jennifer or the others?'

  'Because I would hardly spare Zach and help Michael if I had done so.'

  That rang true. With his chest tight, his head spinning, Horton said, 'Jennifer kept the rendezvous but instead of you, she met your brother, Richard. You'd contacted him and asked him for money in exchange for clearing out and keeping silent over the fact that he had falsely identified your body. He agreed. Richard lured Jennifer away and killed her.' It was as Horton had always suspected; Richard Eames was a murderer.

  Gordon Eames took a deep breath. The sea mist swept into the boat. Horton could hear the foghorns of the ferries and cargo ships in the Solent.

  'It wasn't Richard who met her, but a man who would do anything to protect the fact that he was a traitor and always had been. Who thought Hitler should have won the war and who, after the war, still believed our country would be better served by extreme right wing policies. The same man who had made sure his old friend Salcombe died, along with all of us in the Radical Alliance save his puppet, Mortimer. He wouldn't have spared me, and he didn't spare Jennifer.'

  Horton's head spun as he concluded who Gordon Eames was referring to. 'You're saying your father, the Viscount, was responsible for those deaths and Jennifer's?' he said incredulously.

  Gordon moved closer to the helm.

  'How long have you known this?' Horton demanded, unsure he could believe what he was hearing.

  But Gordon didn't answer him directly. 'Richard's sin was turning a blind eye to it and helping to cover it up. Mine was running away from it. Life is messy. People cock up. We make bad decisions and have to live with them. Richard and I remained silent, even when people died. Yes, my father, the Viscount William James Eames, was the master, a traitor and a killer. Protecting his secret for the sake of his family and the country, as he saw it, from socialism and communism, at any cost.'

  Horton was finding this difficult to take in. He stared, dazed, at Gordon Eames. 'Your father ordered Jennifer to be killed.'

  'No. My father met her after she'd been seen with me and told her that I had sent a message to say that the place and day she was to meet me had been changed to three days' time, not four, and at the quayside at The Camber at Old Portsmouth.'

  Could Horton believe this? 'And she went? Just like that?'

  'Yes, because she had no reason to think anything suspicious. He had told her she and I had his blessing. That I knew she had a child but not who the father was, and that he would never say.'

  Horton felt the pontoon rock. Gordon Eames seemed not to notice, but he must have sensed the movement and knew what it meant.

  'Why would she agree to meet your father? And how did he know about me?'

  'Because Viscount William James Eames is your father,' Gordon said evenly.

  Twenty-four

  'It's true.'

  The figure who stepped on to the boat was the man Horton despised. The man he had held responsible for Jennifer's death. Richard Eames. And here was his brother, Gordon, telling Horton they were step brothers. And that their father had killed Jennifer. No, it couldn't be true. Horton stared at them, aghast. His body stiffened.

  'What happened?' he asked, his voice taut with emotion.

  Gordon answered, 'She boarded our father's yacht at the Camber believing I was on board. Before then, when he had met her to change the rendezvous place and time, he'd given her a valuable family heirloom, a brooch.'

  'The Portsmouth Blue.'

  'Yes. He told her it was his gift to her and me, and he was happy for her to make a new life with me. He did so for two reasons. One to make her believe he was sincere, and secondly, he knew that if I had told her about his treachery and murder, she would refuse the brooch. She didn't. So far, he was safe. But he couldn't take the risk of her going with me and finding out about him. He had to make sure it stayed that way.'

  'You knew your father killed Jennifer and you did nothing. You let me rot in a children's home. Neither of you helped me. You are both accessories to Jennifer's abduction and murder,' Horton hotly declared.

  Richard Eames answered, 'But you'll never charge us.'

  'Don't be so sure,' Horton rounded on him, but he knew Richard Eames was right. The last thing he wanted was to have his heritage paraded for all in the Hampshire police and the wider world to know. His father, a Viscount, a fascist traitor during the war, Mortimer's paymaster, a killer. Now he knew why their flat had been searched, why everything was seized after Jennifer's disappearance. It was to remove anything incriminating such as letters, photographs, diaries that might have betrayed an affair with Viscount William James Eames. And to retrieve the brooch, but PC Stanley had got there first not knowing its heritage and true value.

  Angrily, Horton continued, not waiting for an answer, 'You think you're protected because of who you are. Both of you have colluded in and covered up murders – Jennifer's, Timothy Wilson, James Royston, not to mention those men in the psychiatric hospital fire.'

  'Where's your evidence?' Richard said. 'Gordon's hardly likely to make a statement, and I certainly won't. It's all a fabrication of your imagination.'

  Horton tensed. His fists clenched. He'd dearly love to smash it into Richard Eames' over-confident lean face. His eyes flicked between the two men standing at the crowded helm. It was all he could do to restrain himself from lashing out. Violence would get him nowhere, although it might make him feel better in the short term.

  Richard Eames was right, damn him. Getting evidence was another hurdle, aside from not wanting his past made public. He had no evidence that William Eames had killed Jennifer. There was no Antony Dormand or Rory Mortimer to confess to the murders they had committed, and no bodies to find. Dormand had probably killed Mortimer outside Ben's cabin, with either Ben, Gordon Eames or Michael Paignton having lured Mortimer, aka Halliwell, down there. Had Ben, Gordon and Michael Paignton witnessed the murder? Two of the three were dead, and the third would never tell. Dormand, having killed Mortimer, had ditched his body in the sea just as William Eames had done with Jennifer's. There were no witnesses, and Horton would never get a confession from either of these two.

  He felt nauseous and disgusted. He was angry that Ducale had left him the picture which had set him off on this quest. But, even through his anger, his brain told him his quest had begun before then, with the charred remains of a body found on a burnt out boat in a marina, which had led him to a Portsmouth vicar who had kept track of his career in past copies of the local newspaper. It had been that discovery which had sparked curiosity about his mother's disappearance, which he had managed to relegate to the back of his mind for years. Now he wished he had never discovered the truth.

  'What now? You kill me too, to silence me?' he said tersely.

  Richard answered, 'Why should we do that? You're unlikely to tell anyone.'

  He was right. He didn't want anyone to know he was the bastard son of a Viscount and one who had been a traitor during the war, a right wing fascist all his life, and a murderer. No one was who they claimed to be. Nothing was how he had believed it. Secrets, lies and deception was what Dr Quentin Amos had said in his urine smelling flat in Woking before dying, and after telling him the names of five of the men in the picture from 1967. And the lies and deception would continue. These two would never betray their father and their family name. And Horton would never speak of this.

  Horton addressed Gordon, 'You colluded in murdering Mortimer.'

  'Murdering a murderer, yes. Paignton deserved justice, and he was never going to get it any other way. Dormand killed Mortimer in October. And sadly, Michael died on his boat in February.'

  'But not of natural causes.' Horton's glance fell on Richard.

  Richard Eames drew his lips together in a tight line. Gordon looked bewildered. He glanced at his brother, and a dark expression crossed his face.

  'Carbon monoxide poisoning,' Horton said. 'His ventilator was faulty. Easy to fix for someone who knows about boats. The canopy was in place and zipped up. It was a cold foggy day.' Horton didn't know for a fact that the heating ventilator was faulty, it had never been tested, and he didn't care. He wanted to sew distrust and suspicion amongst these two.

  In a quiet voice that held more menace than an angry one, Gordon addressed his brother, 'Is that true, Richard? Did you kill Michael?'

  But Horton harshly interjected, 'You don't expect a habitual liar to tell you the truth!' He scoffed.

  Richard said, 'Of course I didn't.'

  But Horton could see that Gordon didn't believe him. Good. He addressed Gordon, 'Richard couldn't let Paignton live because he knew that the orders to frame him for murder hadn't solely come from your father, although Mortimer believed they had. In fact, father and son colluded to kill Salcombe and frame Paignton, and when Paignton recovered his memory in prison he asked to appeal against his conviction. He had new information. He was forcibly persuaded to keep quiet. You saw to that,' Horton tossed at Richard. 'How did you know where to find Paignton?'

  'I didn't.'

  But it was bluff. 'Then I'll answer my own question. After Mortimer was killed by Dormand in October, Paignton flew back out to the Cayman Islands using the identity that Gordon had created for him.' That was a guess, but Horton could see he was correct, and he could check if Gordon ever gave him the name that Paignton had assumed while living his new life. 'Paignton already had access to Halliwell's accounts having worked as his secretary, and he had the authority to tidy up Halliwell's affairs. This he did. He also had Halliwell's passport. He altered his appearance to look as much like Halliwell as he could. They were of the same build, height and colouring, and the passport picture was almost ten years old. It worked, no one queried it. He flew back to the UK on Halliwell's passport on 4 January.

  'He visited Wight Barn Wines on 10 January where he purchased some expensive wines. That was foolish of him, but he couldn't stay hidden forever and he knew a great deal about vintage wine, as you told me,' Horton directed at Gordon. 'But Paignton didn't account for Jerry Carswell, an old cellmate, finding him and recognizing him. Paignton also made his will with Chilcott in something of a hurry. Perhaps he knew his days were numbered, not for health reasons but that someone might discover who he really was and would make sure he remained permanently silent. After all, Carswell had traced him. And Carswell was the link, the catalyst that led you to Paignton.' Horton scrutinized Richard Eames' lean fair features. The man gave nothing away. Horton hadn't expected him to, but Gordon's study of his brother told Horton that doubts were turning into realization that he was telling the truth.

  Richard took a few steps in Horton's direction. Was he armed, Horton wondered? Would Richard shoot him? There would be no one here to see it, only his brother, Gordon, and he wouldn't tell. The fog would muffle the sound, not that there was anyone within hearing distance anyway.

  Forcing his voice to remain calm while his heart pounded and his senses were on full alert, Horton continued. He kept his eyes on Richard. 'Charles Nansen at Wight Barn Wines told Carswell that there were two excellent cellars on the island and two men who owned bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, you and Halliwell. You had a telephone call from Charles Nansen who was apologetic over letting it slip to someone who had visited him. The man who had called on him, George Caws, was keen to purchase some privately, and Nansen said he had given Caws your name and that of Cedric Halliwell who lived at Beachwood House on the island.'

  Richard Eames was still trying to look superior and unconcerned but harshly Gordon said, 'Go on,' when Horton paused.

  Addressing first Gordon, Horton said, 'Richard asked Nansen when he had last seen Halliwell, and he was told that he'd visited Wight Barn Wines on 10 January. Richard knew that wasn't possible because Halliwell was dead. Dormand had told him in October, or maybe it was you who told your brother when you were on this shore as Wyndham Lomas, at the same time as I was.'

 

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