by Nick Hollin
‘What about the chocolate icing on your throat? What was the significance of that mark?’
‘I skipped school once, more than once, but on this occasion I followed Dad, desperately wanting to see what he did with his days, all the things he wouldn’t share with me when he got home. I wanted to see why he’d been acting so strange. Only, he didn’t go to work. He went into town and met up with a girl – a girl who didn’t look much older than me. I remember thinking… Jesus, I remember thinking all kinds of things!
‘I confronted him that evening. I asked him if he was some kind of pervert. I asked him if I had a sister he wasn’t telling me about. I thought that might explain why he’d been so cold towards me. He just told me it was to do with the murder case he’d been working on, someone he had saved.’
Katie thumps the door, letting out a fraction of her frustration. ‘Christ, I said some horrible things in return, things I’d somehow managed to forget until now… But there were two things I’ll never forget: Maclean was the name of the man Dad had saved the young girl from, I got a glimpse of the case notes on his desk. There was also a necklace in a box there, a necklace with a twisted fastening. I thought at first it was for me, his own way of saying sorry, of proving that I was more important than anything at work, but the next time I followed him I saw him give it to the girl.’
‘Markham knows this,’ says Nathan. ‘Which means he must have something to do with the Maclean case. And we have evidence.’ He turns to look at her. ‘Or rather, we did. You washed it away.’ He’s holding his throat, although it feels very much like he’s squeezing hers. ‘We need to share this with your team.’
‘The photo back at the flat warned us to keep quiet,’ she says, lifting a finger to her lips.
‘You’re protecting your dad.’
‘Of course I fucking am! It would destroy him. His reputation is all he has left. He might have lost who he is in the present, but I can protect his past. I owe him that. I owe him everything.’
‘But my brother!’
‘I know,’ she says, ‘I know. But you also have to remember that Markham gave us the clue. This is what he wants: to hurt us the way he’s hurt the other families.’ She slows a little and looks across at Nathan, seeing his frustration, feeling his pain.
‘Fuck it!’ she says, pulling her mobile out of the centre console. ‘Let’s do what’s right. Alex Maclean, 1987. Tell them to look into it, just in case. Tell them about the mark on my neck. Tell them I destroyed it. Tell them…’
Nathan looks up at her, then down at the phone, the screen illuminating his face. ‘No,’ he says eventually. ‘You’re right. We can’t risk telling them anything yet.’ He lifts a finger to his lips and holds it there. ‘Let’s wait and see what’s at this address first.’
Katie nods and takes back the phone, the speed building under her foot again. She tries to convince herself she really was doing what was right in offering Nathan the phone, in risking everything, but the truth is she’d always known he wouldn’t make the call. Worse still is the sense that they’re using each other. He needs her to help find the man who may have already killed his brother. She needs him to shut that man up for good.
Twenty-Nine
There can no longer be any doubt. Nathan knows exactly where he’s heading. It’s where he would always head when he couldn’t find a way to distract himself. He’s just never, in all his endless imaginings, come up with a murder that felt so justified.
He’s pulled out of his thoughts by the phone between them buzzing into life. Katie snatches it from under the dashboard and opens up a message. It’s almost four in the morning, so Nathan expects it can only be work-related, but the twist in Katie’s face says otherwise.
‘What is it?’ he asks.
Katie throws the phone down and it bounces off the centre console and disappears into the footwell ahead of him. He thinks about reaching for it, but he hears her bark an order to open the glove box as she swerves towards the hard shoulder.
He does as instructed, confused and a little scared, suddenly imagining another part of his brother’s body will be in there – a tongue, an ear, a curl of skin sliced from his back. But instead there’s a book. He pulls it out and she snatches it from him, bringing the car to a stop and switching on the light above them. It’s not at all what he’d expected: it’s a children’s book with a brightly coloured illustration of a Christmas tree on the cover and a title he can’t make out. Katie sits with it on her lap, her eyes wide, her hands shaking. It reminds Nathan of the books he escaped into in the early days up at his cottage in Scotland. But this is not one of his. Katie carefully opens the book and, with a trembling finger, follows the handwritten inscription:
YOUR FATHER SAYS IT’S TOO EARLY FOR PRESENTS, BUT I JUST CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU TO COME, MY LITTLE KATIE. WE’RE GOING TO HAVE SO MUCH FUN TOGETHER!
The bottom right-hand corner of the page is blackened with yellowing fringes, a clear sign that someone has tried to set it alight. Above that are words written in a smaller hand. He needs to lean in closer to make them out, his head only a couple of inches from Katie’s. It’s not the same writing as on the notes they’ve found before, but far more upright and angular:
I don’t make mistakes. See you at the end.
Thirty
It’s started to get light outside. It’s also started to rain. The wipers on Katie’s dad’s old car are struggling to keep the windscreen clear. How could Markham have known about the book from her mum? She hadn’t known about it until she was in her teens, finding it in a pile in the attic. She’d waved it at her dad, and he’d told her he’d never seen it before. She’d kept its contents a secret, the only secret she had ever shared with her mum until, one day, when she’d let her temper get the better of her, she’d taken a lit cigarette (one of the many secrets she kept from her dad) and put it to the corner. She hadn’t let it burn for long.
When she thinks about Markham touching it, she feels what little control she has left starting to slip, hammering her hands against the steering wheel. Nathan has his head pressed into the glass of the passenger door. He hasn’t moved for a few minutes.
‘You think it’s a trap?’ he says, without lifting his head.
Katie finds herself looking across at the glove box to where the precious but now defiled book has been returned. ‘Of course.’
‘Do you think he means see you at the end of the journey?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Do you think Christian will be there?’
‘Again, I don’t know.’
‘What do you think he’s done to Christian?’
‘Don’t!’ she says sharply. ‘We need to keep our focus.’
‘You think I don’t have focus?’ says Nathan, turning to look at her.
It’s when she looks back at him that Katie really sees the torment and the bubbling rage, and she finally understands. She’s calm because one of them needs to be. It’s how they’ve always worked, it’s why they’ve worked, because they’re opposites, because they’re a team.
* * *
The closer they get to the address they’ve been given the more privilege they see, until eventually they find themselves crawling down a tree-lined street of huge detached houses. They find the number seventeen on a tall brick gatepost at the end of a snaking drive. Although there’s a gate with a keypad, it’s not shut and they drive straight in, deep gravel crackling under the tyres. In front of the house, a 1970s red-brick building that must have at least half a dozen bedrooms, is a tall, broad man with swept-back grey hair. He’s standing next to a bag of golf clubs he’s loading into a shiny black BMW. The sight of the clubs takes Katie back to the twisted body of Sarah Cleve.
She pulls alongside and winds down the window and asks warily: ‘Who are you?’
‘You’re fucking kidding me!’ he says, a rough voice that speaks of sixty a day and a whole lot of shouting.
She almost smiles: it’s exactly what her dad would have said.
‘You drive onto my property and ask who I am?’ continues the stranger, his face reddening. He pulls a club from his golf bag.
‘Feel free to take a swing,’ she says. ‘It might iron out a few of the dents.’
There’s something about him that seems familiar: the way he carries himself; the way he’s peering into the car, as if assessing who he’s up against. He’s confident, and his broad shoulders and solid arms suggest he might be right. But that confidence suddenly disappears and he takes several steps back, stumbling on the gravel.
‘I know you!’
At first Katie thinks he’s talking to her and that she was right, he’s recognised her from an old case and it’s more than the bonnet of her car she should be worried about. But she turns for a split second to Nathan and sees he’s pressed his back into the door and lowered his head right down.
‘I’m a police officer,’ she says, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her warrant card. The man has moved round to the front of the car, and she has to press the card up against the windscreen to show him. He barely looks at it, so she pops open the door and half-steps out, leaving the engine running, ready to slip back in and throw the car into reverse if need be. ‘This is not who you think it is. And we are no threat to you. We just want to talk.’
This time her words seem to have broken through, and he glances across at her, the club now resting on his shoulder.
‘What about?’
She’d like to be honest and say she doesn’t have a clue, but not before she knows who she’s talking to.
‘As you will have seen from my card, I’m DS Katie Rhodes. I work Serious Crimes back in London, and—’
She was intending to continue, to offer up her own story in the hope of hearing his, but from the very mention of her name his mouth has fallen open and the golf club has slipped from his hand and slapped against the gravel. He takes a step forward, staring intently at her.
‘Christ, I can see it!’ he says. ‘How did I not see it before? And this is the profiler?’ He glances across at Nathan. ‘The one who always shied away from the papers, but whose face is now plastered across every single one?’
Once more Katie considers the age of the man, the vague familiarity and the level of aggression and comes to a new conclusion.
‘You worked with my dad,’ she says, trying to make it sound like she’d known all along.
‘I was his partner for fifteen years,’ he says. ‘He talked about you all the time. Sadly we never got to meet.’
She reaches for the name and is relieved when it comes to her.
‘Detective Sergeant Barclay,’ she says with a smile.
‘It was Detective Chief Inspector when I retired a few years back, but don’t you worry about that. Your dad was always very particular about authority, a real stickler for the rules…’ He slows, taking in her crumpled appearance. ‘But you can call me Malcolm.’ He matches her smile, but it doesn’t linger. ‘Now you didn’t come out here just to say hello. In fact, you shouldn’t have been able to come out here for any reason. This address is only known to a select few, seeing as I’ve made some pretty high-profile enemies over the years.’ While he says this his eyes are darting left and right. Katie’s do the same, and she finds there’s not much to see except for a wood on the other side of the road and a glimpse of the neighbouring properties.
She decides to take a punt. It’s not that she has nothing to lose – pretty much everything is on the line here – but whatever might have held her back before seems to have frayed and now finally snapped.
‘Superintendent Taylor,’ she says, and leaves it at that. From the way the man’s head tilts and offers the tiniest nod she knows she’s guessed well.
‘How is he?’ asks Barclay.
‘Better than my dad,’ says Katie.
The old detective’s face twists in discomfort and he releases a long breath. ‘I heard about that. I’m so sorry. I should have gone to visit Simon.’
Simon. She hasn’t heard him called that in a long time; even in the care home it’s always Mr Rhodes.
‘I wanted to go. But…’ Barclay stops to search for the words.
‘I understand,’ she says, thinking of her own reluctance, her own regret.
‘I lost my own dad to dementia. When he was younger than I am now. And some days…’ He reaches up and rubs the side of his balding head. ‘Some days when things aren’t coming to me clearly…’ He seems to have lost some of his original size. ‘I was never scared of anything at work, and we came across so many truly terrible things—’
‘That’s what I came here for,’ Katie jumps in, spotting her chance to move things along. ‘I need to know about the Maclean case.’
‘Really?’ he says casually, slipping the golf club back into the bag and avoiding her gaze. ‘Why?’
‘Because my dad has been talking. Not much, and not cohesively, but it’s clearly causing him a lot of distress. I hoped you might be able to help.’
He lifts the bag and carries it towards the boot of the BMW. It’s a car built for speed more than practicality, and once again Katie finds her anger building. This is the retirement her dad should have enjoyed.
‘It’s all in the papers,’ he says, looking up briefly.
‘All of it?’
‘The important bits are. Your dad was a bloody hero.’
‘Do you remember what happened? Only, he said a few things—’ She breaks off, hoping that Barclay might fill in the rest.
‘I remember,’ he replies. ‘I don’t mind discussing this with you, but we should probably go inside.’
‘You’re worried someone might overhear?’
He smiles at this suggestion. ‘My concern is about keeping dry,’ he says, pointing to the dark clouds gathering above and moving for the door, beckoning her to follow.
‘Is he helping with your investigation?’ he asks, nodding towards the car.
‘Offering a perspective. It’s not personal to him, unlike…’ She moves in closer and lowers her voice. ‘He’s looking to be occupied, as well you can imagine.’
‘But shouldn’t that be the case you’re working on? Shouldn’t you be searching for his brother?’
‘Superintendent Taylor has given me time to recharge my batteries. These past few days have been…’ she looks down, unable to find the words. ‘I’m sure you understand, sir.’
‘Malcolm,’ he corrects her, pushing open the front door at the same time as Nathan climbs out of the car. ‘Can I get you both a cup of tea?’
‘That would be great,’ she says with a genuine smile. She wishes she’d come to see this man sooner, and on her own terms, if only to talk about Dad. Nathan catches up and declines a drink and a handshake, keeping his arms fixed tight to his sides.
The living room is just as she’d pictured it from the outside, dominated by a huge stone fireplace filled with dried flowers, not logs, and with an even bigger television hung above it. The carpets are thick and obviously new, and they’ve been asked to take their shoes off. Katie feels rather embarrassed; in the rush to get out last night she threw on the first pair of socks she could find, which happen to have an enormous hole in the toe.
They sit next to each other on a deep sofa in the middle of the room, twisting to look across at Malcolm Barclay on a reclining armchair. He has it upright now, his posture even more so, a cup and saucer balanced on his knee. Katie can’t help but laugh to herself at how ridiculous he looks, not at all the man he would have been when her dad was working with him. Back then, she’s sure it would have been a polystyrene cup and a bacon butty. Here he’s offering Duchy Original biscuits carefully arranged on a bone china plate.
While he’d been organising all this, possibly buying himself time to prepare his story, Katie and Nathan had looked around the room, focusing on the detail rather than the impression it was intended to give. On a table in the corner there were more than a dozen silver-framed photos showing Barclay and his wife, the children, the g
randchildren and the dog, which appears not to be around anymore. The one that had instantly caught Katie’s eye was of two young men standing with their arms around each other’s shoulders, smiling broadly into the camera. Katie had gasped the moment she saw it; it had been so long since she had dared look at a photo of her dad as he used to be. By her calculation he must have been about her age in the photo, tall and fit and with a full head of hair.
‘So, your dad’s been talking?’ says Barclay.
‘Indeed,’ says Katie. ‘There was something he said a while back, out of nowhere: one of the few things he has said in the last few months that has made any sense. It was like he was himself again, for maybe thirty seconds, nothing more. He took me by the hand and made me swear that I’d do it, like it was the most important thing in the world to him.’ She glances over Barclay’s shoulder, giving the impression she’s reliving the moment. ‘He said he had doubts over Maclean’s guilt. Said I had to look for him, to do all I could to be certain myself.’
‘Well, tell him not to worry. There was more than sufficient evidence. He found him standing over the girl with a knife in his hand, chased him and the bastard slipped and fell.’
‘But you weren’t there?’ asks Katie, and for the first time she can see discomfort in his face.
‘Yes, I was,’ he says, quickly. Too quickly. ‘Of course I was. Check the report if you want. I saw it all.’
‘Fine,’ says Katie, not wanting to push too hard too early on. ‘What can you tell me about Emma Pritchard?’
‘The first girl?’ Barclay starts to stir his tea very slowly with a silver spoon. ‘About her, very little. She was from a good family. I used to see a lot of bad ones, so I always noticed when the love was there. And as far as we were ever able to discern there was no motive beyond the lust of that sick bastard.’