by LJ Ross
No, Ryan thought. She needed to find a new normality, one in which she could come to accept that her son was gone and would never be coming back.
“Does your sister live nearby?”
She sighed.
“Not far. She lives in Falstone.”
He gave her his most winning smile and, though she was old enough to be his mother, it had the required effect of holding her attention.
“Would you do me a favour, Angela? Would you call her, as soon as possible? It would be a great help for me to know you weren’t alone, so I can concentrate on finding the person who killed Duncan.”
She flinched, as if she wanted to put her hands over her ears, but it was too late.
“Will you do that for me?” he persisted.
“Yes—yes,” she capitulated. All the same, he made a mental note to contact the police counsellor as soon as possible.
“Thank you,” he said, and considered how to approach the next question. “Do you remember telling my colleagues that you wanted to help our investigation, to find who was responsible?”
Her fingers stilled against the fabric of her skirt and she looked up at him with blazing eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “I want to help.”
He nodded.
“Good. I have a question to ask of you and it’s very important.”
She levered herself up a bit and focused on his face.
“What is it?”
“Did you receive a postcard from Duncan, a couple of months after he went missing?”
Her face fell again.
“Yes, I did. It was in the January of 1982. I remember it clearly, it was so unexpected and…well, he said a lot of cruel things. But that’s why I never believed he was missing, Inspector. How could he be dead and still be sending me a postcard? I thought he’d just gone away. It’s why I didn’t believe it was Duncan you found, not until I saw him for myself.”
Her eyes closed briefly as she thought of her boy; her beautiful boy captured in clay like a statue. The man at the mortuary had tried to show her on a television screen but she’d needed to touch her son, to know he was real, just one last time.
Ryan kept his face and his voice studiously calm when he asked the most important question of all.
“Do you know where the postcard is now?”
She focused on him again and a fog seemed to lift from her eyes.
“Yes, I think I could find it. I keep Duncan’s things in his room,” she said. “In case—well, just in case he ever came back.”
She gave him an embarrassed look, expecting to see pity but finding only compassion.
“That’s very organised,” he reassured her. “Do you mind if we look for it now?”
She searched his face, trying to read the answers in his eyes.
“It wasn’t from Duncan at all, was it? Somebody sent it to me, so I would think—so I would hope—”
“Yes,” he said softly. There were no words of comfort he could offer; nothing to explain the basic cruelty of giving a woman hope when there had been none.
Her body sagged for a moment, then Angela drew herself up and her hands gripped the edge of the chair. The knuckles were enlarged after a lifetime of hard work and the onset of arthritis, but they were still capable.
“It’s this way,” she said firmly.
* * *
Entering Duncan’s room was like stepping into a time warp.
The walls were papered with posters of musicians and bands from the late seventies and early eighties, with a big picture of David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust dominating the wall above the single bed that was freshly made. There was no dust or cobwebs on any of the surfaces and Ryan could see at a glance that Angela had truly believed that her son might one day come back. She hovered in the doorway beside him and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder in silent support.
“You’re doing better than you think, Angela,” he said quietly. “And you’re stronger than you know.”
It had been a long time since anybody had told her she was strong, or offered her a shoulder to lean on. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“Thank you,” she managed, leaning against him. “Your mother must be proud.”
Ryan’s arm tightened on her shoulder while his throat worked.
“I hope so.”
A minute later, Angela knuckled tears away from her eyes with a brisk hand and gave him a watery smile.
“Let’s find that postcard,” she said, and walked across to a large built-in wardrobe. Inside, Duncan’s clothes hung neatly on hangers and she inhaled their scent as she always did, hoping to catch a remnant of the past.
But there was nothing.
Shaking it off, Angela kneeled on the floor to retrieve a plastic clip-box of cards and mementos and pushed it across the floor to the centre of the room.
“If it’s anywhere, it will be in there. I almost threw it out, but I didn’t quite have the heart.”
Ryan joined her on the floor in the centre of the room and gently lifted the lid to reveal a collection of greetings cards from Christmases and birthdays, letters, small drawings Duncan had gifted his mother as a child, and a lot of photographs. Because he was so intent on finding the postcard, Ryan almost didn’t notice the pictures of Duncan with an assortment of other teenagers he assumed to be the men and women on his current list of prime suspects.
“When was this one taken?”
He paused in his search to pick out a group photograph of eight or nine kids gathered outside an adventure playground, some with bikes, some without. Duncan stood astride his bike and had the same open-hearted smile Ryan recognised from the police image tacked to the Murder Board.
Angela peered at the image.
“That must have been the summer before Duncan went missing,” she murmured. “Yes, it must have been, because Kate was still carrying quite a lot of weight in this one, whereas she lost a lot of it the following year.”
Ryan looked up in surprise.
“Which one did you say was Kate Robson?”
Angela pointed to a plump girl with braces and freckles, wearing flared jeans that were a little too tight and a self-conscious smile.
“That’s her.”
Ryan’s eyebrows shot up. Judging by Robson’s physical appearance before she died, he would never have guessed at such a transformation.
“It’s amazing, how she turned herself around,” Angela was saying. “I remember Duncan telling me that the kids had started calling her a nasty nickname… Oh, my goodness, what was it, now? Something like Roundy, or Roly. Yes, Roly Robson, that was it. Poor Kate.”
Angela shook her head sadly.
“It’s so tragic, the way she was killed. I just don’t know what’s going on any more. I feel as though I hardly know the people around me.”
Ryan listened and thought that her sympathy for Roly might evaporate just as soon as he was able to tell her his suspicions about Kate Robson’s involvement in her son’s murder, and that of another innocent young man.
He turned back to the image and tried to pick out the others on his list.
In the centre of the image, a tall, broad-shouldered teenager of around sixteen or seventeen smiled boldly at the camera. He had a mop of dark, curly hair and was wearing ripped jeans with scuffed trainers.
“Mitchell Fenwick?”
Angela nodded.
“Yes, and that’s Jackie beside him.” She tapped a finger on the image of a reed-thin girl with a mane of blonde hair, clinging to Mitch’s arm. “They were inseparable. Still are, really, although I hear—”
She clamped her lips together, unwilling to gossip.
“It’s alright, Angela. I won’t repeat anything you tell me unless it’s directly relevant to the investigation.”
She pulled a face.
“It was just me being an old gossip. I was about to say that I’d heard their marriage was a bit rocky at the moment because Mitch… Well, he just can’t seem to help himself, sometimes. Other women,” she add
ed, in a stage whisper.
Ryan nodded, trying to think of any circumstances in which he could betray his wife, but finding none. He’d sooner carve out his own heart than hurt hers.
He turned back to the photograph.
On Jackie’s other side, there was a shorter girl with a mass of curly hair and a rounded face he recognised immediately as belonging to Michaela Collingwood. On the other side of Mitch, he recognised Freddie Milburn wearing stonewash jeans and a baseball cap pulled so low it almost concealed his face.
“Hard to believe they were once so young,” Angela said to herself, and was about to move on to the next photo when Ryan thought of something.
“Who was taking the picture?” he asked, gathering up a stack of similar photos taken around the same time. “Who took all these pictures?”
Angela gave him a startled look.
“Oh, I never thought of that. Um, it could have been anyone, really, but the only person I can think of as having the money to afford a Polaroid camera back then would have to be Nathan.”
Ryan’s eyes flashed, but were quickly veiled.
“Nathan Armstrong? But I understood he didn’t live here in 1981.”
“Oh, no, he didn’t. But his family used to come and visit during the school holidays,” she explained, still blissfully ignorant of the impact of her words. “If this picture was taken in the summertime, he’d have been up here visiting. All the kids got to know him, since he came every year. I think he bought his place on the reservoir because he’d been so happy here, as a child.”
“How touching,” he said.
“Nathan grew up to be such a nice man,” Angela continued. “Every time he comes to stay in the area, he always pops in to say ‘hello’. I can’t count the times he’s sat and listened to me droning on about the gift shop or about Duncan, but he’s always so patient.”
Ryan watched as she smoothed the pages of a hand-drawn Mother’s Day card and warred with himself. Now was not the time to tell her, he realised. That time would come soon enough, when all the evidence was in place.
He reached inside the box with a gloved hand for the next stack of mementos and something fluttered right onto his lap.
It was a faded, yellowing postcard with a picture of Big Ben on the front.
* * *
With extreme care, Ryan flipped over the postcard and read the message written in faded ink on the back:
Dear Mum and Dad,
Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Tell the police to stop looking for me. I couldn’t stand listening to you both arguing anymore, so I decided to leave.
Duncan.
It was a short, blunt message designed to put a stop to the police search, Ryan realised. But the last line about John and Angela Gray arguing at home was pure malice from a killer who enjoyed twisting the knife.
“Are you sure somebody else wrote this?”
Lost in thought, he’d forgotten for a moment that Angela was sitting beside him, waiting for him to speak.
“I strongly believe this postcard was written by Duncan’s killer, yes. But I can’t prove it until it has been tested,” he replied, pulling out a plastic evidence bag to keep the postcard safe. “As soon as the results come back, we’ll know for sure.”
Angela’s lips wobbled and she pushed herself up, with a hand from Ryan.
“Can I get you a tissue?”
She waved him away and went over to stand beside the window, where rain still pattered lightly against the glass. A dream-catcher swung from the curtain pelmet, a souvenir from a family trip to Scotland one year.
“I feel terrible even thinking what I’m about to say,” she whispered. “But, God help me, I’m glad Duncan didn’t write it. When it came through the letterbox all those years ago, I cried for three days. I couldn’t understand how my son, the boy we raised, could be so cold. But now I know—I know it wasn’t him.”
Ryan came to stand beside her.
“Thank you,” she said, in a tear-clogged voice.
Ryan shook his head.
“For what?” He hadn’t done much for the poor woman; he still hadn’t found the person who killed her son and it was tearing him apart. What could she possibly be thanking him for?
Angela turned and wondered if he knew what people saw when they looked at him. He was a good-looking man, yes, but that was incidental and would fade over time. What shone from his sad, serious grey eyes was absolute dedication; an unwavering commitment to helping others, and that was something that didn’t tend to fade, it only grew stronger.
“Don’t you understand, lad? After that postcard arrived, I thought my son didn’t love me. I’ve blamed myself all these years but, thanks to you, now I know that he did, and it wasn’t my fault.”
CHAPTER 33
Ryan entrusted the postcard into the capable hands of a local police sergeant to deliver it to Tom Faulkner, whose team of CSI technicians were waiting on stand-by to begin testing the saliva bound to the adhesive on the underside of the postage stamp. It was an old sample and it would be a tricky job but they would give it their best shot, which was all Ryan could ask for.
In the meantime, he made his way back to the Incident Room, where he found Phillips waiting with news from Kate Robson’s solicitor.
“Where’ve you been—on your granny’s yacht?”
He bustled around the desk to greet him and Ryan was momentarily distracted from thoughts of murder and mayhem by the sight of Phillips’ lurid yellow tie, decorated in a series of embroidered bananas.
Ryan pointed a finger at the offensive garment.
“What the hell is that?”
Phillips smoothed a proud hand over the woven silk and struck a dashing pose.
“D’ you like it? I got it from the shop at the art gallery on the Quayside.”
“Don’t tell me you paid good money for it?”
“It’s an investment,” Phillips said defensively. “The shop assistant said it was ‘wearable art’.”
“Sounds like they saw you coming,” Ryan muttered, dumping his jacket on the back of a chair.
“Play your cards right and I’ll get you one as a stocking filler for Christmas,” Phillips said.
As a threat, it didn’t get much worse and so Ryan held his hands up in defeat.
“Did you hear back from Kate Robson’s solicitor?” he asked, changing the subject back to more important matters.
Phillips nodded.
“No joy there,” he said miserably. “She left everything to the RSPCA.”
“Shit,” Ryan muttered, then belatedly realised how that sounded. “Not that I don’t care about the animals, but it would have been nice to have had a name.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Phillips said. “Did you have any luck finding the postcard?”
“I’ve just seen Angela Gray. We found the postcard and it’s winging its way back to Faulkner as we speak. He’s going to prioritise testing the stamp and see what he can find. But if he does find any DNA, the problem’s going to be finding a match.”
“Unless it matches with one of the samples we already have on record,” Phillips said, with his usual optimism.
“And what if the one we’re looking for hasn’t provided a DNA sample?”
It took Phillips less than a second to follow the train of thought.
“Nathan Armstrong? But he wasn’t living at Kielder when Duncan died and he’s alibied for the nights Guy Sullivan and Kate Robson were murdered.”
“Is he? We still haven’t seen any of that CCTV footage he’s been promising us,” Ryan said. “And as for his whereabouts in 1981, Angela told me that Armstrong and his family used to visit Kielder almost every school holiday.”
“And 21st October was a school holiday?” Phillips guessed.
“Nationwide,” Ryan confirmed. “Which puts Nathan Armstrong back in the frame.”
“He still won’t give us a sample.”
“He doesn’t have to.”
Phillips did a double ta
ke.
“What d’ you mean?”
“I drove back to Kielder Castle this morning and had a fish around the bins. I found the takeaway coffee cup I saw Nathan Armstrong throw away last night, at the town meeting. There’s a chance Faulkner can extract something, and if he can match it to the DNA on the postcard, it would give us reasonable grounds to make the arrest.”
“You’re a crafty bugger,” Phillips breathed. “Makes me proud.”
They stood in silence for a moment, letting the facts and dates crystallise in their minds as the rain continued to fall outside. It was heavier now, thundering against the windows and bouncing off the reservoir.
Ryan looked around the room, suddenly realising they were one short.
“Where’s Yates?”
“She’s at the office tracing the details of who used to own Reedmere Farm, just in case it’s important.”
“Alright, that’s good. Tell her to check in with MacKenzie and see whether anything else has turned up at Hunter’s place or on his body. We need to be sure there are no further connections from that angle.”
While Phillips put a quick call through to their colleague, Ryan walked across to look at each of the faces on the board, studying them as if their features alone would give some clue about what lurked within their hearts.
“What kind of person kills a friend, then continues to live in the same area as his victim’s mother?” he asked, when Phillips re-joined him.
“The kind with no remorse,” Phillips said. “What the head-doctors would call a functioning psychopath.”
Ryan nodded slowly.
“He doesn’t kill in frenzy, like Kate Robson did, and he doesn’t kill animals or vulnerable women for sexual gratification and control as far as we know. There’s something else that gives him satisfaction, some other motivation to kill.”
“Duncan might have been his first victim,” Phillips said. “That changes things, gives them a sense of incredible power if they manage to get away with it.”
“Manipulation is another key factor here, Frank. Somebody had enough charisma to keep Kate Robson submissive all these years, keeping their secret even though it drove her to madness. Who do we know who could command that kind of control over another person?”