Blood Ties

by Oliver Davies

But the thought had no legs, and other than sharing it with Mills when I next saw him, I could do not much more than stash it away for some other time.

  I drove back into the city, heading directly to the station. Upstairs, Mills and Smith had finally trawled their way through the guest list and now sat slumped at Smith’s desk. Mills’s hair was mussed all over his head, his tie loose and collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled to his elbows. A cup of coffee hung in his hand as he listened to Smith with a brightness in his eyes that hadn’t been there when I left. Eyeing them for a moment, I headed to Sharp’s office, rattling the door with a few heavy knocks.

  “Enter,” she called.

  I opened the door and stepped in, kicking it shut before dropping into the chair opposite her. She was typing furiously, glaring at her screen which reflected slightly in her glasses. I waited patiently, leaning back in my chair and looked around her office. It hadn’t changed much in all the years we’d worked together. A photo of her son and husband sat on the desk, a few brightly coloured children’s drawings tacked to the wall. She had books left all over the place, the shelves themselves taken up mostly with potted plants.

  “Thatcher.” She looked away from her computer at last and took her glasses off, rubbing her eyes with her fingertips before looking at me fully.

  “All well, ma’am?”

  She snorted a laugh and waved her hand dismissively. “Bloody politics,” she told me, clearly annoyed. “How d'you get on?”

  I shared with her my visit to Richard Sandow, from the names he had shared, the way his face looked, and his voice sounded, to the photographs that hung on the wall. Sharp listened carefully, her level gaze never leaving mine until I finished, then she breathed in deeply and leant back.

  “Well,” she muttered, “I wasn’t sure what I was expecting.”

  “Nor me, ma’am.”

  She picked up her mug, swirling the contents curiously. “You don’t think it was him?”

  “Not unless he’s working with someone else, but honestly, ma’am?” I shook my head. “I don’t see it.”

  “You still want to pursue the butler trail?”

  “I think it’s our best bet right now, yes, ma’am.”

  “I was right about one thing, though,” she said triumphantly. “Sandow and the welfare. I knew there was something there.” It wasn’t quite the welfare system, but I let her run with it.

  “How did that make its way to you?” I asked, surprised that she would have been involved.

  “It was back when I did some family liaison work. He called them often enough that one of the girls, a social worker, got in touch with me. Just in case things went south.”

  “Did you ever learn about the child?”

  “No. Classic case, though, Thatcher. After the mum died, they’d have gone into the foster system.”

  “Even with the possibility of a father?” I asked.

  “If Selene never named the father,” Sharp rested her elbows on her desk, “not on the birth certificate, then yes. And it might well be that the child doesn’t want to know either.”

  “Seems wrong,” I muttered.

  “Well, it was about twenty years ago,” Sharp said, “and when it comes to family law, Thatcher there’s a lot I don't know. A lot I don’t want to know either.” Her gaze flicked to the photo of her son.

  “How hard would be to track the child down?”

  “Somewhat. As they are no longer a child, they won't be in the system anymore. We’re talking archives, Thatcher.”

  I smiled at her, the best, bright, please-do-this-for-me smile in my arsenal.

  She met my gaze with a deadpan expression and sighed. “I’ll make a few calls and see what I can do. It’ll be a few days, most likely though.”

  “That’s fine. I wanted to head back to the estate tomorrow. Have another chat with the family.”

  “You’ll tell them you met Richard Sandow?”

  “Might as well.” I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Maybe it’ll inspire them to open up a bit more too. I know that secret, they can share a few more.”

  Sharp gave a short dry laugh. “Fine.”

  “And I want to check the land itself,” I added. “Some of the exit routes through the gardens and things. Mind squaring that for me? I don’t really want to have to navigate that with the family.”

  “I’ll get you what you need,” she assured me, “but there’s always some resistance.”

  “You’d think people would be more cooperative,” I said, crossing my legs, “given that they very much want their belongings back.”

  “You and I have been in this game too long to start wondering about that now,” Sharp told me. “Off you go. I want what you told me written up.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” she said sternly. “We’re dotting all the I’s and crossing all the T’s on this one. And take Mills with you. I think he almost withered away to nothing going through those alibis.”

  “Seems to be enjoying himself,” I noted, peering through the blinds on the glass wall to where he and Smith sat talking. Sharp followed my gaze and glowered.

  “They’d better be careful,” she muttered. “The last thing I want is a HR complication.” She let out a heavy sigh as her phone started to ring. “Get out.” She waved me to the door.

  I grinned at her, but headed out quickly, her voice vanishing as I shut the door and crossed the room to Mills.

  “How’d it go, sir?” he asked, scrambling to his feet.

  “Interesting. Come on.” I jerked my head towards our office. “We have some work to do.”

  With Mills helping, it all got done very quickly. We polished up all the paperwork Sharp required of us, and I told Mills about Sandow as we did. He shared my thoughts, thankfully, and Sharp got through to the social worker who was setting about looking into the necessary files to find our mystery child. She’d even acquired what I needed for tomorrow to go without a hitch, the family aware of our arrival in the morning. All that, and then she had to go home and look after her son, who was apparently still suffering from his stomach bug, throwing up left, right and centre.

  When the last document was done, I pushed myself back from my desk and yanked my coat on. “Come on, Mills,” I called to him. “We’re going to the pub.”

  He didn’t need to be told twice. He turned off his computer and pulled his coat on with awkward haste, half falling through the door as we strode out.

  It was a nice evening, a cool breeze keeping away the spring heat. Thunderstorm season soon, so I was enjoying the lack of humidity whilst it was still here. We headed down the street, rounding the corner to The Bell. The old Victorian pub was wedged between two tall buildings, its doors wide open to the street. Mills headed to a table over by the window as I headed to the bar.

  Paul, the landlord, leant against the bar, his back to me, looking up at the television in the corner where a game of football unfolded.

  “Evening, Paul,” I called. He turned around, quickly heading over, snapping to attention.

  “Inspector Thatcher. How’re things?”

  “Same old, can’t complain. What about you? That hip of yours any better?”

  He chuckled and gave his hip a light rap with his knuckles. “Getting a new one soon,” he told me.

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I smiled and nodded. “Best of luck,” I told him.

  “The usual for you?” he asked, reaching down for a glass.

  “Please.”

  “Your sergeant, too?”

  “Him too.”

  Paul nodded and set to work, tossing a packet of crisps my way too. I handed him a tenner and carried it all over to Mills, the bag of crisps between my teeth.

  I slid onto my chair and took a long sip of lager, shrugged my coat off and sighed happily.

  “Maybe I’ll do this when I retire,” I told him. Turn the old coaching house into a local again, spend my days pouring pints. It was the chatting to people I wasn’t so fond of.
>
  “Own a pub?” Mills asked, opening the crisps.

  “Why not?”

  “Seems a lot of work,” he said. “Kind of defeats the point of retiring, doesn’t it?”

  I scratched the back of my neck. “Sort of. Gives you a good reason to spend all day in a pub though, doesn’t it?”

  “Some might host an intervention for that,” he said.

  “Who? You?”

  “Someone has to.” He took a sip. “Maybe Jeannie can help me. And Dr Crowe.”

  “Bit of a sorry crowd,” I noted.

  “I don’t know any of your other friends,” he told me, “that is unless I’m your only one?” He grinned and popped a crisp in his mouth. I imagined him meeting Sally, and a shiver almost went down my spine. Dealing with one of them was enough, the two of them together would certainly send me into an early retirement.

  “You won’t be allowed in my pub,” I told him. “You’re barred.”

  Mills laughed and leant against the wall, his leg crossed over the other at the knee, glancing out the window. “So,” he began, “we’re heading back to the estate tomorrow?”

  “We are,” I confirmed. “I want to have another little chat with the family, see what Lord Hocking might tell me about Selene and his brother, and see what the butler knows about all of this.”

  “I’d wager he knows a lot,” Mills said. “They often do, don’t they? That’s kind of the point.”

  “I’d wager the same thing,” I agreed.

  “Do you think Lord Hocking ever suspected that the child was his?” Mills asked in a lowered voice. “I mean, he might have just written it off as being Richard’s?”

  “Potentially. He was married at this point,” I added. “Henry on the way.”

  “This mystery child would be older than him?” Mills said carefully. “And if they are Lord Hocking’s, that would technically make them the heir to the estate.”

  “Easy, King Henry. I don’t know if that’s quite how these things work these days.” But it was likely, from what I had seen of the family. Tradition like that, would make quite the splash amongst them all. “And anyway, we don’t even know if the child knows who its father is. And if they did know, why would they steal a painting? Why not confront the family?”

  “Nobody’s done anything yet though, sir,” Mills reminded me. “Nobody’s tried to sell it yet, nobody’s left a threat or blackmail. Maybe it’s more a souvenir than anything else.” He spoke quickly, the ideas coming out of his mouth as he thought them up. “I mean, if it was Selene’s favourite painting, why wouldn’t they take it? Have a small piece of her after what the family did to her?”

  It made sense, and I nodded encouragingly to him.

  “Timing-wise,” he went on, “maybe they’ve only just found all of it out themselves. Used the party as the perfect time to head in and take it. And since nobody knows what they look like, they could have gotten about fairly unnoticed.”

  “The brothers look very much alike,” I added, “as do the other children. Maybe, the child has enough of a resemblance to them that nobody took notice. They were too drunk to tell if it was Henry, or a stranger, or some distant relative. Either way, they wouldn’t be sure enough to stop and demand an explanation.”

  “Unless Selene had very distinctive features,” Mills had to argue. “For all we know the child is mixed race. Or very possibly, not the child of either of them. Maybe that’s why Selene never told them about it, more than just not wanting to come between them.”

  “None of their business.” I took another long sip of beer, nodding approvingly to Mills. He really did have a good brain. He’d make a bloody good Inspector when the time came, and it was no wonder he went from constable to sergeant so quickly.

  “Well, until we find out who the child is,” I murmured, “we can only speculate. But it’s good to have a few theories under our belt.” I took a crisp. “For now, I want to figure out more of the how’s. We know they got in using the cover of the party, and likely got out through the cellars. But somehow, they made their way through the estate with an oil painting in hand, in a heavy frame that is unlikely they took apart. I want to see the routes from the house where they could have parked a car, if indeed, they needed to.”

  Mills nodded. “It might be worth talking to the groundsman then,” he suggested. “They probably know more about the land itself than the family does.”

  I smiled. “Good thinking. I’ll leave to you that whilst I talk to Lord Hocking again. I get the feeling he won’t want much of an audience when it comes to digging up past indiscretions.”

  “I know I wouldn’t. But then,” he gave a light shudder, “I don’t think I’d ever be with the same girl as my brother. Bit weird, isn’t it?” He grimaced.

  “Very weird,” I agreed. But then, as my grandad would say, that was the rich for you.

  We moved away from work talk then, and Mills deftly dodged my leading questions about Smith, coming right back at me with questions about Jeannie. Eventually, we ended up on the rugby as the evening wore on and the spring sky slowly started to darken.

  Thirteen

  Thatcher

  I got home that evening and went straight to the boxes in my spare room, rooting out the numerous frames that were wrapped up and stowed away. With the television filling the house with noise, I set about propping the pictures up, on a chest of drawers, on the mantelpiece against the wall. Images of my grandparent’s faces, ones that I had long tried to ignore, and myself as a boy. Me and Sally outside the coaching house in mud-speckled wellies, toothless grins and buckets of mud. And my mother. As a young girl, cradling a pregnant stomach; holding a swaddled baby; teaching the baby to walk. Soon, their faces were everywhere, and there was no longer a room I could walk into without seeing her. It was jarring, and I felt some of the shame I had seen on Richard Sandow’s face. Guilt boiled up, sour and unpleasant and I fought against the urge to take them all down again and bury them underneath blankets and old winter coats.

  All the talk of family, the Hocking family mostly, but Sharp’s quiet, fierce attitude towards her son, Mills’s blatant disgust at how the Hocking family tore itself apart; all of it, inescapable. I took no pictures into my bedroom, deciding to have at least one place, other than the bathroom where I could be without being haunted. There was something about sitting on the toilet with a family member looking down at you that was just plain unnerving. I went to bed earlier than usual, no real desire to stay up and do anything, and crawled into bed like a sloth, letting myself wallow beneath the blankets, trying to tell myself that it was all for the sake of tomorrow, where I’d need my wits about me to navigate the difficult conversation with the family.

  Mills’s mention of the groundskeeper had been a stroke of genius, and a small lucky shot. As good as he was, as good as he was getting, I wanted to handle this particular conversation alone. I’d had many years of dealing with people like the Hocking’s, many years of confronting people with the one thing they wanted to forget, many years taking the blows for it. Mills would come to that in time, but for now, he was more useful to me when he was still bright and optimistic. I didn’t want to push him towards an early retirement; the only one of the sergeants I’d worked with for whom I’d had such compassion before, the rest of the time I just left them to it. It could be a nasty job, and they ought to learn that quickly.

  It was I who picked Mills up in the morning, my car better suited for the country lanes that led us to the estate. He did bring coffee though, sliding into the car, cheeks red from the surprisingly cold wind of the early hour, and smiled breathlessly.

  “I have a question,” he stated as we drove from the city, the usual morning greetings swiftly gotten out of the way.

  “Go ahead,” I answered.

  “Will we mention any of this to the children? Henry and Rupert, I mean?”

  I had been wondering over that myself. “No, I don’t think so. It’s not our place, and it might not even affect them. That’s Lor
d Hocking’s business to figure out.”

  “They might know something,” he pointed out, a little reluctantly.

  I sighed. “They might. But they might not. I’ll speak to Lord Hocking first, get a sense of it all and go from there. I’m not about to make the family rift even deeper.”

  “They deserve to know,” Mills said quietly.

  “They deserve to be told by the right people,” I countered. “We’re strangers Mills. In a few weeks, they’ll have forgotten us entirely. We’ll just be the random policemen who found their missing painting.”

  “Optimistic of you, sir,” Mills observed.

  “I’ve been known to be,” I replied, “from time to time.”

  We drove on for a few more miles, and then he said, “I was thinking about the painting.”

  “What of it?” I asked.

  “Ragsdale painted the estate, maybe the groundskeeper could show us where. The view he painted, there might be something there worth taking note of.”

  It was a long shot, but I gave him a nod. “Cover every possibility,” I muttered. “Maybe there's something in the painting itself that’s worth taking note of.”

  “Not an unheard-of phenomenon,” he said. “I read about it last night. Some artists used to hide things in their pieces. Often themselves, a little face in the background somewhere, but other things too. Symbols, metaphors, that sort of thing. If we can’t see the painting itself, we can at least take a look at the inspiration.”

  “Old land often carried lots of secrets of its own,” I added, “with or without artistic license.”

  “I have my camera.” He patted his coat pocket. “We can have a proper close look back at the station.”

  “Smart thinking,” I approved. Mills straightened up slightly, a faint glimmer of pride on his face as he looked out of the window at the land that passed us. Farming land mostly, broken up by patches of woodlands and new developments of houses. All built in the same sort of stone. We drove through the village just beyond the estate borders, the one that Ragsdale had been born in, not the one on the estate itself. There was probably one of those little blue plaques somewhere, identifying the exact house, if it still stood. And no doubt we’d find his name on the war memorial outside the church.