Scattered Remains (Nathan Hawk Mystery)

by Douglas Watkinson

  And then she remembered me. I heard the name Patrick and saw the man close his eyes, just as his daughter had done with me initially. A family trait.

  He stepped aboard and Belinda handed him down his suitcase. She entered the cabin ahead of him and I rose to greet him. If it had seemed crowded with just the two of us there, it now felt like a ghetto.

  “Nathan Hawk,” he said, when the handshaking was done. “D’you know, that name rings a bell.”

  He removed his overcoat and barely turned to look at his daughter as she took it from him, being far more concerned about where he knew me from. I put him at about 50 years old, dressed in a tailored suit over a white shirt and grey silk tie. Beneath that he was clearly fit and athletic. And vain. The lines in his face had been dowsed in anti-wrinkle cream, which had left behind a lacquered finish. The bastard still had a full head of hair, though, most of it bottle brown. He sat down on the sofa, obliging me to retake my place beside him and putting us closer to each other than either of us cared for.

  “Belinda says you’ve come about Patrick,” he said quietly. “I can’t imagine what it feels like. Your only child just … disappears out of your life.”

  “You know his parents?”

  “I went over to Rushfarthing House a couple of times.” He glanced through to the galley where Belinda was making him tea and lowered his voice. “We had hopes of the two of them making a go of it. Wasn’t to be.”

  “You liked him, then.”

  He nodded. “Very much. He wasn’t afraid to be himself. Most kids these days are trying to be someone else, someone who doesn’t exist - the thinnest, the richest, the most famous…”

  “And they’re off!” said Belinda, in the style of a race commentator.

  Hewitt smiled. “Sorry. Hobby horse.”

  Belinda brought him his tea and placed it on the floor in front of him. He smiled up at her and, as she kissed him on the cheek, he reached into the magnificent hair as it fell in front of her. It was a more intimate gesture than I would have made to my daughters and her delight in it was more than either Ellie or Fee would’ve felt. She straightened up and wound her hair back into its loose knot.

  “How was Istanbul?” I asked.

  “Warmer than London. And doing better business, at least in my game.”

  He went on to tell me that ten years ago, when he hit the big four zero, he’d given up his career in pharmaceuticals and gone into something that interested him. Art. Buying and selling paintings. From drug dealer to art dealer, he quipped, adding that while most of the drugs he’d sold round the world cured people, so did paintings, sometimes more effectively. He wasn’t making as much money now, of course, but he didn’t need it.

  “The Turkish art market is the latest to take off,” he said with quiet excitement. He turned to include Belinda. “I bought two paintings this visit, one by a lady called Gizem Saka, another by a chap called Ozdemir Altan. They cost me an arm and a leg. I mean usually I just buy stuff I like, then wait for the painters to become famous—”

  “Talking of pictures,” I interrupted. “Belinda says you’ve got a photo of Patrick somewhere.”

  Confined though we were, he managed to draw away slightly and stare at me with crystal sharp blue eyes, no bags under them, courtesy of the anti-wrinkle cream.

  “You’ve no photo of him?” he said. “A man you’re trying to find? His parents must have given you one, surely.”

  “I haven’t met them yet.”

  He found that equally puzzling. “Well, when you do, go easy on them. One of the reasons I stopped visiting was that I couldn’t bear their hope. They believed, and still do I imagine, that Patrick will just walk back into their lives one day with a reasonable explanation for his disappearance. Life will carry on as before.”

  “And you don’t think that’s going to happen?”

  “Do you? It’s been a year, for Heaven’s sake, without so much as a postcard.”

  “You said hope was one reason you didn’t go back. Were there others?”

  He glanced up at his daughter as if to check some conclusion they’d drawn at the time. “Gerald didn’t want us to. He was afraid we might bring a touch of reality to things.”

  Belinda laid a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you go dig out that photo, Mike?”

  Children calling their parents by their first names was a vanity I’d always disapproved of, for no reason other than it smacked of disrespect, but in Belinda and her father’s case it felt downright inappropriate. He smiled and she helped him on with his overcoat. He paused, one arm in a sleeve.

  “If you’ve not met Gerald and Marion, it isn't them you're working for. Who, then?”

  “A well-wisher.”

  He accepted my evasion with a nod and left.

  When Mike Hewitt returned from his own boat with the photo it was quite a moment, one that had been creeping up on me for a month now but when it arrived it still packed quite a punch. All of a sudden there he was - clear, imposing and memorable, the young man who’d been demanding so much of me, largely against my will. He was sitting with Belinda at the table on the roof of Scorpius, reading a paper. The Guardian, strangely enough. He was a gangle of a man, tall and long boned, with curly fair hair and something old-fashioned about him. He wasn't as strange a looking boy as I’d imagined, in fact some would say that he was rather good-looking. Belinda Hewitt was no doubt one of them. He’d been caught on camera just as he turned to it, the expression on his face one of passing irritation. When asked to smile for the shot he’d done no such thing. In fact he’d challenged it.

  “Who took the photo?” I asked.

  “I did,” said Hewitt.

  “Taken when you hadn’t known each other long. He’s on his guard.”

  Hewitt smiled his appreciation of my deduction. “He took some getting to know, did our Patrick, but once I did…”

  I knew what Hewitt was talking about. It had taken me an age to get to know Maggie’s dad, reserve on both our parts, but eventually we became the greatest of friends. As for Patrick being clever, never mind a genius, that didn’t show. Then again, I’m not sure what cleverness looks like.

  Back at Beech Tree, Jaikie had been in touch with Richard Slater, who’d been so thrilled to hear from him, so flattered, so overjoyed, so everything a grown man should have grown out of. Even Jaikie had found it cloying but had persevered with my request for information about ASC. Slater had heard of them, though not of Julien Raphael, but he would ask Ralph Askew if the name meant anything. Ralph was his friend the Under Secretary at the Department of Energy, Slater had reminded Jaikie for the 200th time…

  An hour later Askew contacted Jaikie to say that Richard had just called him and pricked his conscience. He’d been meaning to invite the three of us to lunch ever since the premier of All Good Men and True which, incidentally, he now thought was one of the best war films he’d ever seen. And he would certainly get his researchers to find out everything they could about ASC and its Investment Facilitator.

  Why, I wondered, would a government minister be so keen to have lunch with a retired Detective Chief Inspector, a country GP and a cash-light film star? Jaikie thought he was the main reason, of course, explaining that people like Askew were known in the business as star-fuckers, sad bastards who would do anything to have some of the glitz and glamour rub off on them. That didn’t explain his interest in me and Laura, I pointed out. What did we have that he wanted? What did we know that might be useful, valuable, even dangerous…?

  The question fell back into the shadows when I brought out the photo of Patrick Scott. Just as had happened with me on board the narrowboat, he suddenly became real as opposed to an idea that had grown out of my need to go combine harvesting in the dark. Laura’s immediate response was that Patrick clearly felt uncomfortable at being the centre of attention. She couldn’t resist adding a medical observation. “And if he carries on slouching like that he’ll end up with back problems.”

  “He’s ende
d up with more than that,” I said.

  Jaikie’s summary was much as I’d expected. “Skinny sod, a poor man’s Matthew McConnaughey without the presence.”

  “Oh, I think he’s rather attractive,” said Laura.

  “And Belinda Hewitt, who’s even more beautiful in the flesh than in the photo, thought the sun shone. So, possibly, did another girl called Henrietta.”

  “Look at that jutting bottom lip,” said Laura, with the same delight she reserves for Martin Falconer. “Sulky, volatile, mercurial. Clever, though.”

  Jaikie thought he must have missed something, took the photo back and re-examined it.

  “Everyone seems to think he’s clever,” I said. “Belinda, her father, Kevin Stapleton. Mind you, he was a moody sod as well, inclined to flare up, mouth off and storm out. So I have to ask: instead of being chopped up for dog food did he simply walk out one day and never look back? People do.”

  “So how do you explain the metal plate turning up in the field?” Laura asked.

  Jaikie smiled. “And why the second thoughts, Dad?”

  “Not my style I know, but for all her beauty and all her distress there’s something about Belinda Hewitt which isn’t quite … safe.”

  -11-

  I wanted to visit Gerald and Marion Scott alone, mainly because homes where a child has gone missing are the most soul-destroying places in the world. Everything has been put on hold in expectation of the loved one’s return, or end-of-the-world news that they never will. And although the mechanics of daily life are reduced to their rightful essentials and nobody cares if dinner is late, a bill unpaid, a car unwashed, those involved in the loss suffer a crippling mixture of hope and despair in which every extraneous sound, every shadow across the wall, might be followed by the subject of their anguish just breezing in. Mike Hewitt had found the Scotts’ hope unbearable and had asked me to go easy on them. I didn’t plan to. My intention was to leave their house having told them the truth about Patrick, insofar as I knew it, and I didn't want Jaikie looking over my shoulder while I did that.

  However, he was insisting that he accompany me and in light of my reluctance was giving me his beaten dog performance, the one where the victim quietly agrees to do anything you say but thinks you're a grade one bastard for saying it. I tried the “stay and take care of Laura” angle but it didn’t work because we both knew George Corrigan was nearby. I’d pointed out the signs the previous evening and it wasn’t just a matter of the odd fag end in the ditch, or a half-finished sandwich in the spinney the other side of the lane. It was the top button of his check shirt. I'd found it under the kitchen window as I went to the gate for yesterday’s post. Its fate was never to be sewn back on.

  In a volte-face of principle, I finally agreed to Jaikie coming with me, justifying the change of heart as a chance to ask him a few questions, such as why Jodie hadn't been near us lately. Did it have anything to do with the money he owed Laura, Corrigan and Jamal? Not to mention me. He still hadn’t cashed those dollars, still had no money in his pocket, but as with all returning children he’d grown comfortable with me paying for coffees and the odd lunch on the road. Shame no longer entered into it. There'd been no further displays of forgetfulness on his part, just an understanding between us that I knew something was amiss.

  Belinda Hewitt had been right about Clarebourne where the Scotts lived. Set in a no-man’s land of similar villages, it had been untroubled for hundreds of years, and then some civil servant, charged with conjuring up homes to live in, had hit on the village of Milton Keynes and turned it into a city. Ironically, this might well have been Clarebourne’s salvation, the fact that all too close to it lay the ugliest experiment in social manipulation that Europe has seen since the Third Reich. People had steered clear of it.

  Rushfarthing House lay at the end of a single-track lane, broken and pot-holed by winter. The house was a curiosity in itself, being of Georgian design and set in 20 acres, and it gave the impression of being a hideaway, built by a moneyed family to house an embarrassing relative perhaps. Why else would it be so tucked away? The rusty iron gates hung on two stone pillars and stood open, not as a welcoming gesture, but to accommodate the Tesco delivery van which had arrived minutes before us. As I pulled up beside it, a woman whom I took to be Marion Scott was thanking the driver and now turned her attention to Jaikie and me.

  “Can I help?” she asked as we got out of the Land Rover.

  She looked ready for battle, dressed in a sheepskin body warmer, gardening gloves and brandishing a pair of secateurs.

  “I was hoping to speak with Mr Scott,” I said. “Is he home?”

  She thought about the question while she looked us over with suspicion, then said, “I don’t know.”

  The delivery van was driving off by now and, hearing its departure, Gerald Scott emerged from the house holding an electronic handset. He pointed it at one of the stone pillars and jabbed at a button, twice, three times but nothing happened. He questioned the device as to why this was, apparently expecting an answer, and walked towards the gates, still clicking away. Not until he was within ten feet of it did the mechanism creak into life and the two gates began the arthritic process of closing on each other. Gerald Scott turned and walked back to the house, pleased with himself.

  “I think it’s just the batteries,” he said to his wife and brought us into the conversation with, “It’s a bit of a toss-up. Spend thousands on a system we can operate from inside the house or make do with what we’ve got. Who are you?”

  “They’ve delivered the groceries,” said his wife.

  Having just seen the Tesco van leave, he knew that wasn’t the case and gave us his full attention. It was an interesting face, bony and delicate. The eyes were quick, blue-grey and far younger than the rest of him. What gave his age away – mid-70s - was the paper-thin skin with its road map of veins just below the surface.

  “My name is Nathan Hawk,” I said. “I’d like to talk to you about Patrick.”

  He looked across at his wife. “He isn’t here at the moment. We expect him back shortly. If you leave your name and a telephone number…”

  “Are you from the papers?” she asked.

  “No, I’m a retired policeman.”

  “You say that as if it might give me confidence?” said Gerald, expecting his wife to appreciate the sarcasm. He pointed at Jaikie. “Who’s he?”

  I told him that Jaikie was my son but that didn’t soften Gerald either. As far as he was concerned we were bad news, here to make capital out of the tragedy that had left him and his wife in a paralysing limbo for nearly a year. I stooped and picked up one of the boxes, nodded for Jaikie to grab the other.

  “Kitchen?” I said to Marion.

  Inside, Rushfarthing House was empty – not in any literal sense, in fact we must have passed a small fortune in antiques on our way through. But every piece lacked an … attachment to the room it stood in and the kitchen was as forlorn as any, with breakfast dishes still scattered across the vast pine table, dead flowers in the centre of it, a couple of baited mousetraps on the floor.

  I settled the box of groceries on one of the ladder-back chairs and Jaikie placed his on top of mine. When the Scotts entered, Gerald tried to get beyond the politeness we’d shown and return to his annoyance, his anxiety, that we’d come to ask questions about his son.

  “Right, well, thank you,” he said, eventually. “Busy day. You’ll want me to open the gates again.”

  “Mr Scott, we need to talk about Patrick.”

  “No.”

  “You’re being hasty, Gerald,” said his wife. “These gentleman might know things.”

  Gerald doubted that very much and for a moment or two I mistook his wife for the half of this marriage with its feet still on the ground.

  “When did you last see him, Mrs Scott?”

  “Oh, please, call me Marion.”

  “When did you last see Patrick, Marion?”

  The question bothered her, as if it had
come straight out of the blue, and hadn't been asked five seconds previously.

  “Monday,” she said.

  “Monday the 20th of October, a year ago,” Gerald modified. “Just before we went on holiday.”

  Marion looked down at the shopping, then at the secateurs still in her hands. If we hadn’t been there she might have voiced her dilemma but, given our presence, Gerald spared her the need and took both secateurs and gardening gloves from her and laid them on the table. She mouthed her thanks and began to unpack the groceries, examining each item before deciding on its place. Jaikie tried his best to help and she smiled at his willingness.

  “Do you know my son?” she asked him.

  “I know his girlfriend, Belinda.”

  The frost on Gerald thawed a little. “Ah, the lovely Belinda. We haven’t seen her for some time. Do you remember her, Marion?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  Clearly she didn’t, which was why Gerald went on to describe her. “Quite a beauty. Red hair, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, that sort of thing.”

  Marion smiled. “What is it with men and red hair? Mine is grey.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was said in playful regret, or as a simple statement of fact. Whichever it was, Marion Scott must once have been pretty, rather than beautiful, but time and gravity had played their downward tricks on her face. The eyes were bagged, the cheeks gouged, the skin on her neck turkeyed. She wore no retaliatory make-up and, like her husband, she dressed in the plainest of clothes, which had survived way beyond their natural lifespan.

  “So you haven’t seen Patrick for a year?” I asked.

  “If that’s what my husband says, I’m sure it’s true. But that’s Patrick for you. Bee in his bonnet and off he goes.” She took a box of eggs from Jaikie and turned to the fridge. “That doesn’t mean to say…”

  She paused as if the simple act of placing the eggs on a rack combined with thinking about her son required more of her than she could give.