That name made him pause as she passed him the saucer of biscuits. “Which is why I have to tell you something really important. But before I do, now Kayleigh's out of the room, it's best she's not reminded of those sick photos. She's doing well at school, got some decent mates. But..." Rita fixed him with her fearsome blue eyes. "I don't want you seeing them either. Promise?"
"Forensics will have to."
"That's different."
Fraser leaned forwards. “So what else did you want to tell me?”
*
When she’d finished telling Fraser the origin and history of Jez’s two distinctive knives and their box, and how he and Pete Brown might have shared them, he stayed silent.
“As I said to Frank, I never saw hide nor hair of them after moving here. That’s not a lie, and it’s possible, isn’t it?” She searched his face expectantly.
“Yes,” he reached out to cover her hand with his. “But do Briar Bank know?”
“I had to tell you first.”
“I appreciate that, Rita, but they’ll need to be told. Withholding possible evidence could backfire.” He returned to his unfinished coffee, then said, "by the way, where's Freddie?"
With the Molloys in Frond Crescent. Bit more up-market than here. They've a lad almost his age and they get on like a house on fire. Why?"
"Only asking."
"His Dad's hardly a barrel of laughs, mind."
"So I'd heard."
"What does that mean?" Rita stared at him over the rim of her mug, unease in her voice. Fraser placed a finger over his lips. She noticed he still had clean, well-shaped finger nails. The opposite of Frank's dirty things.
“Strictly between us, understand?”
A nod.
“We’ve had a file on Eric Molloy for over four years now."
"A file?" she whispered. "Whatever for?"
"He could be dangerous."
Rita stiffened and paled.
“But his wife Pat runs the Young Wives, arranges the church flowers and organised a petition against Wheeler coming here. They're committed Christians, for God's sake."
Having withdrawn his BlackBerry from his pocket, Fraser soon accessed a newspaper column from September 2006, in which a Raymond Norris aged 32 from Crudleigh, Tyne and Wear, had been arrested for abducting a seven year-old girl from the village school’s playground. He’d sexually assaulted her in a nearby field, leaving her to make her way home.
“Take a look,” he said, passing it to Rita who seemed more than perplexed.
"What's this to do with Eric Molloy?"
"Raymond Norris was found guilty and left the slammer three and a half years later with a new name, new vocation. Have a guess."
Rita scraped back her chair. Checked her watch against the wall clock and made for her coat behind the door. Fraser tried to calm her, but she elbowed him away.
"I must get Freddie!" She cried. "Before Molloy brings him back in his car."
Fraser's hand was on her arm.
"Hold on. That way we could lose him. What with all the other nonsense about Dave Perelman drummed up by Briar Bank, we can't afford to. So, we meet the car. When's he due?"
"In twenty minutes. But he might recognise you."
“Then I'm your bro from Cape Town, and we're saying goodbye."
Rita looked up at him. "Where’s your red hair?"
"Step-bro, then."
And despite fresh terrors, real and imagined, she managed to smile.
*
The fog had lifted enough to let the one street lamp cast its glow on the two people waiting below. Molloy's new, aubergine-coloured Proton was on time, parking behind Fraser's Saab. Immediately he and Rita began their charade as its doors opened and an overcoated man in his early forties came round to help eight year-old Freddie from the rear seat. Rita noticed with a jolt that her son had been alone with him, while Fraser saw the slimeball hadn’t much changed from his glory days.
"And who’s this?" Said the chauffeur, eyeing Fraser up and down.
"My step-brother, Gavin," said Rita.
Fraser proffered his hand; readily taken.
"Thanks, Mr Molloy," said Freddie who seemed reluctant to leave him.
“My pleasure, young man. Any time."
Rita winced, wanting to strangle the man, and gesturing to Freddie to hurry.
"He does our lad Joe the world of good,” Molloy added, watching her son till he reached number 11. She glanced uneasily at Fraser. “By the way, Gavin's just going."
"Not too far, I hope. This fog'll be worse tomorrow."
"I'll be fine,” said Fraser. “Hey, do I detect a Geordie twang? Takes me back to Newcastle Uni in the good old days."
For a split second, Molloy's composure cracked. His voice had a harder edge. "No fear. Too bloody cold up there." He swung round towards his car. "Best be getting back. Pat'll be wondering what I'm up to."
"I'm a photographer, by the way." Fraser announced, undeterred. "Portraits are my thing. You into that by any chance?'
Molloy began walking away.
"He’s taken lots of his Sunday School kids," Rita added. "And our Jez.”
Even that didn't stop the man in his tracks. He was already halfway into his car when Fraser caught up with him as if still having something to say. He opened the passenger door on to a pile of junk covering the seat, where a damaged decoy duck caught his eye. He picked it up, aware of Molloy clicking in his seat belt.
“Nice,” he lied.
The driver revved up. "Came from the tip," he said, while screenwash hit the windscreen and was swiftly wiped away. "I go there most days. Fair bits and bobs if you look. Usually something to fiddle with."
"I'm all for recycling." Fraser had registered that last choice of verb and slipped the duck inside his jacket before closing the door. The Proton sped away, leaving himself and Rita stranded in a pall of exhaust.
"No goodbyes then," said the Londoner, showing her the duck. “Good job I'm not easily offended."
"Will you hand it back?" Rita asked.
"Of course."
She glanced up at his strong profile, his light-coloured hair raked back from his forehead. Just having him alongside made her feel secure, and on the steps of number 11, his hand rested in the small of her back, sending a spasm of pleasure up her spine.
"So, what now?" she asked, before opening the door, and by way of reply, Fraser let a finger trace the side of her face to the corner of her lips.
“Leave it to me."
With that, he turned and strode off towards his waiting car, and once she'd gone inside, he pointed his Saab towards the turning for the church and Frond Crescent.
38
DI Tim Fraser reached St Peter's church within ten minutes. In the lifting fog it seemed more like a warehouse than a place of worship, lacking any ecclesiastical association. The main pointer to its function being a small, full graveyard edged by a row of cremation markers.
Apparently, there'd been no room to let Jez rest where he'd attended Morning Service and Sunday school during his last, troubled summer and, as Fraser walked towards the highest point of the estate, a growing anger kicked in.
The discovery of Jez’s bike and the Walton-on-Sea knife in Black Dog Brook, had fuelled Rita's obsession with tracing the elusive Pete Brown, while Jarvis was trying to pin a double murder on Dave Pereleman. An aggrieved teenager’s need to dismantle an inadequate father figure, and a neurotic, elderly neighbour seeking excitement, were too riddled with coincidences and lack of obvious motivation. The bane o
f his life as a cop. As for Kayleigh Martin's crayon sketch, youths like that were ten a penny.
Fraser gritted his teeth, as he entered Frond Crescent. The truth lay deeper than either of these suppositions, and Rita would just have to trust him.
*
Number six, unlike its neighbours, was detached. That much was clear, also the white satellite dish jutting from the nearest corner. The narrow, newly-painted two-storey façade, resembled a new tooth in a mouldy mouth. A new front fence still smelt of creosote, while an added porch and Austrian blinds at each unlit window, suggested obsessiveness and, he suspected, not a little dough. God knew from where.
It was quiet, alright, yet he felt unseen eyes following his every move.
Unlike Malcolm Wheeler, the Molloys' arrival from Crudleigh had gone unnoticed following orders from the Top. Now they'd got a kid themselves.
That did it for him, objectivity or not, then, for some reason, he recalled how Rita had let him touch her.
*
The Proton was parked outside, between various other cars and vans - some as if they'd aged in the same spot for years. Their oily slicks highlighted by the few working street lamps. The only colour in that drab settlement. Fraser also observed a thread of light in the centre of number 6’s front door's frosted pane. His hand tightened round the wooden duck, the other in his left pocket kept contact with his police-issue Glock, which Chief Superintendent Des Parrott had insisted on, after Fraser's predecessor had been felled on a Whitechapel pavement.
The gate's catch opened at a touch and he noticed a slate sign on the pebble-dashed front wall, which read Why Worry. The irony of it lingered as he pressed the bell and peered into the glass where a dark figure suddenly blocked out the light. Following the shunting of bolts and the pull of a chain, the door opened.
"Yes? Who is it?" demanded an unmade-up woman whom he knew was thirty-eight, with frizzy, damp hair and that same square face he recognised from the newspapers after Norris's release. Pat Molloy boldly gave him the once over.
"I’m Gavin Taylor. Rita Martin's step-brother." He held out the decoy. "I won’t keep your husband a second."
The woman's pale eyes swivelled towards the front room.
"Eric?" she called. "There's a Gavin Taylor here. Got your duck."
The man nudged his way forwards, muttering about a sudden migraine which had forced him to lie down in the dark. Fraser noted the tight jumper, skin-skimming grey worsted trousers and slippers with You Devil embroidered on each front.
"Wanted to get this back to you," Fraser began. "Don't know how I managed to keep hold of it. Sorry."
"I wondered too, but easily done. Come on in." Molloy took the duck by its neck, while his wife disappeared down the passage towards the brightly lit kitchen at the end. "Plenty more where this came from. Like a peep?"
“Sure. D’you use Ebay too?”
“Never.”
Molloy kept a shading hand on his forehead as he led along the hall towards that dazzling brightness.
"Nice and quiet here, I must say," observed his follower.
"Our Joe went up to bed early. Freddie wore him out."
Yet there was no evidence of children at all. Nothing with which any child might amuse themselves. Instead, Why Worry had a furtive, claustrophobic feel.
"Great kid, that." Fraser volunteered. "Our Rita's done a brilliant job, considering."
"There's a wild streak with them, mind. Specially Jez."
Fraser started at that name, but let the ex-con continue.
"Course, his Dad was hardly ever around, and to be frank, the church couldn’t have helped. He seemed out of reach of everyone. Let’s hope Freddie and his sister can yet be saved."
"Saved?'
"You know what I mean. By our Lord."
They passed a line of framed, monochrome photographs signed E M hanging on the hall wall. Fraser was drawn to one in particular, of wind-damaged trees. A track narrowing into the distance. Hadrian's Wall, surely? Yet there was no trace of Geordie in the man's voice or speech pattern.
"Great shots," he said.
"Thanks. It’s amazing how trees survive whatever's thrown at them."
"Rita said you took photos of your Sunday School kids. Are there any of Joe?" Risky, but Molloy's face showed no reaction.
"Not yet. Pat moans I've never bothered much with him. 'Specially when he was a baby. All mouth and Pampers then…"
The ‘Pampers’ word triggered other unwelcome thoughts.
"So what camera did you use for these images?" Fraser asked as casually as he could.
"A Canon EOS 5000. Pat got me it for Christmas a few years ago. You can keep your Taiwan rubbish."
"D’you do your own developing?"
"Used to, till Joe needed the room. Now it's the back of the garage. Once in a blue moon, I'd say."
"And normally?"
"Boots, mainly. But for black and white I generally go to Tipton's in the city centre."
"How do you mean, generally?"
Molloy threw him an impatient glance.
"If I'm busy."
He then led the way through that glaring kitchen where one window overlooked the rear garden, and the other an attached outhouse. Molloy switched off one of the spotlights just as his wife began chopping swedes. A glistening orange cube skidded across the floor and lay there.
“Thanks, you,” she said, sourly, and switched the spotlight on again.
"I'd like to see that Canon of yours sometime," Fraser suggested, aware that Pat Molloy now faced him. A flicker of suspicion in her eyes. Not for the first time in Why Worry, he felt uncomfortable.
"First things first, eh?" Molloy unbolted an adjoining door as Fraser scanned a nearby cork notice board. He was looking for any handwriting to compare with how Rita had described that message to Kayleigh. Also to match the violent graffiti he’d seen about Malcolm Wheeler, whose grizzled face stared out from a flier in the bottom right corner. A closer look showed someone had added, GOOD RIDDANCE YOU SCUM! in blue ballpoint.
"Who wrote that, then?" Fraser jokingly.
"Eric did," snapped his wife.
"Evil needs action,” her husband said.
Fraser murmured, "I quite agree," and when neither Molloy was looking, eased the item from the board into his jacket pocket. Apart from the capital letters’ forward slope, a likeness wasn’t obvious, it was worth a punt.
"Same with immigrants,” Molloy was speaking again. “God deliver us from the bloody lot, say I. And now Romanian and Bulgarian criminals have carte blanche to pile in. Why we’ll be voting for Ukip next year."
Fraser didn’t comment, following Molloy into the outhouse, where smells of varnish, leather hide, turps, all mingled to a choking degree. Worse once the man lit an old oil heater in the middle of the floor.
Did this hoarding simply stop with objects? Fraser wondered, eyeing sacks of still-pungent horse hair, and tools for every kind of repair, ranged in size order at eye level along the wall. He also spotted Pat Molloy giving him a death stare through the single, small window, turning away when their eyes met.
“My latest project,” said the collector with some pride, squatting on his heels before pulling out a half life-sized wooden crucifix from under an old blanket. Its incumbent missing most of the left arm and right foot, wobbled against its prop, making a strange, grating sound. "For Coventry Cathedral, eh?" Fraser encouraged.
"No, no," said the perspiring craftsman. “St Peter's. By Easter."
"Of course, stupid me. Rita said how you’re both busy with that church"
"I'
m its warden and Sunday School teacher, apart from our other activities. We like to do our bit for Christ, and besides, it’s our way of saying thanks."
"For what?" This sudden benevolence caught Fraser unawares as he continued to hunt for clues.
"Making us welcome.”
*
Fraser continued searching for a throwaway toy - something young Joe might have used - but there was none. Only the strange way the restorer stroked the sculpture's thighs before exploring the folds of the loincloth. However, it wasn’t until he transferred his attentions to the sculpture's nipples, that he knew justice for Rita and Jez would come sooner rather than later.
"Tell you though," Molloy stood up. "I really miss those Briar Bank kids. I bet they’ve all been given Tablets by now. Making things with your hands isn't trendy any more."
"You were there?" Fraser could barely keep astonishment out of his voice.
"Yeah. Summer term, 2009. Seems like yesterday."
What the hell had DS Peter Deakins and the rest of them been thinking about? No CRB check as a minimum precaution? Molloy had just been freed…
Fraser suddenly felt too hot.
"Why the surprise?" Molloy interrupted his thoughts.
"I take my hat off to anyone faced with a class of kids," as his host picked up a damaged petit-point footstool. Turned it over in his hands.
"I did Emergency Supply cover for a Miss Landerman after that Easter. A hard act to follow, but crafts isn't maths, is it? My kids loved it."
My kids…
"I bet they did.'
Hadn’t Jez had been there at the same time? Stayed on after the move to Scrub End? Best not to mention this, Fraser told himself. In case the weirdo went to ground.
However, Molloy beat him to it. "What a talent that young Jez Martin had. The Head told me how his work had been burnt by other kids. Such a shame he went off the boil… ”
"Rita did tell me. I'm not surprised."
"God does move in inexplicable ways, don't you think?"
Fraser concurred, then asked, "what tools did Jez use? Anything in particular?
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