by John Harvey
'Perfect!' Lorraine exclaimed when she saw him.
'What? What did I do?'
'Nothing,' she said, summoning a smile. 'Sit down and I'll get you a drink. Dinner won't be more than twenty minutes or so.'
The evening passed unremarkably enough: food, settling the children off to sleep, a second glass of wine, the same old mindless TV. In the bathroom, Lorraine kissed Will on the back of the shoulder in passing and, in bed, after she'd finished reading, she rested what might have been an exploratory arm on his side, but Will was tired and not in the mood and feigned not to notice.
Half an hour later, turning heavily, Lorraine spoke to him out of the darkness. 'Will, are you sleeping?'
I was.
'This afternoon, when I got back with the kids, there was someone out there in the field.'
'What kind of someone?'
'A man.'
'What doing?'
'Nothing. Just standing.' She touched his elbow. 'I think it could have been Mitchell Roberts.'
Will was instantly awake.
'Roberts? You're certain? You're sure?'
'No, of course I'm not sure. I'd have told you before if I was.'
'Why the hell didn't you phone me at the time?'
'I just said. Because I wasn't certain. And anyway, it wasn't as if he actually did anything. He just ... looked. I turned my head away and then he was gone.'
'Out in the middle of a field, he can't have just disappeared.'
'But he did.'
'And you didn't see fit to say anything about it until now.'
'There's no sense getting angry.'
'Isn't there?' He hurried downstairs and came back with the copy of the newspaper that had Mitchell's photograph on the front page.
'Is this him? The man you saw?'
Lorraine looked at it hard and sighed. 'I don't know.'
'Think.'
'Jesus, Will! I am. But it was getting dark, I couldn't see properly. It ... it might have been him, yes, but I'm sorry, I just can't be sure.'
Will set the paper aside, switched out the light and reached for her hand; for a while, neither of them spoke.
'If it was him,' Lorraine said, staring up into the dark, 'what does it mean?'
'It means he knows where we live. Most likely where Jake goes to school. When you're home and when you're not.'
Lorraine shivered and squeezed his hand. 'What does he want?'
'I don't know. To frighten us, probably. Frighten you. Get back at me.'
'He wouldn't hurt us, would he? Hurt the children?'
'He might.'
Will moved so that his arm was close around her, her face pressed fast against his chest.
65
No way Lorraine wasn't going in to work. 'Will, no, listen. I've already taken three days off this month, one yesterday to take Jake to the dentist ...'
'That was half a day.'
'... and two when Susie was sick. I can't afford to take any more. And this is a busy time.'
'According to you, it's always a busy time.'
'Well, it is. There are still overseas students whose grants haven't been settled, applications starting to come in for next year. If I don't keep on top of it, they'll let me go.'
'So fine, let them.'
'No. Not because of this. Someone standing in a field.'
'Someone?'
'Yes. I don't know who it was or what they were doing there.'
'You did last night. Mitchell, that's what you said.'
'I said it might have been.'
'And now?'
'I'm just not sure.'
'Jesus Christ!' Will slammed his fist down on to the breakfast table and one of the bowls jumped on to the floor and smashed.
Immediately, Jake started to cry, and seconds later Susie followed suit.
'I don't see why you're so angry,' Lorraine said, stooping to pick up the pieces.
'Then you're stupider than I thought.'
'Thank you. Thank you very much.' With a clatter, she dumped the broken china in the bin.
'That man, Roberts, d'you know what he's done? What he's capable of doing?'
'Yes. Yes, I think I do.'
'And you're prepared to take the risk?'
Lorraine counted up to ten. 'I'll talk to the school, and the nursery. Make sure both the children are kept inside and properly supervised. If they're not prepared to do that they can come to work with me. We'll manage somehow. All right?'
'Fine!' Will pushed past her and wrenched open the kitchen door. 'But on your head be it!'
'You're so worried,' Lorraine snapped, 'do your job, why don't you? If it's Mitchell out there, and he's so bloody dangerous, why don't you catch him?'
From the look on Will's face, she thought he was going to hit her and she flinched. Susie's tears became breathless sobs. Jake hid his face in his hands. The door slammed so hard a sliver of frame cracked away and Lorraine was left shaking, the sounds of frightened children filling her ears, hands across her chest clasped tight.
Dressed and out of the house with just a quick kiss on the children's heads, a nod towards Lorraine, Will called in a few favours from the officer in charge of Ely police station on Nutholt Lane. A patrol car would pass through the village at regular intervals, with a constable being stationed outside the primary school at the middle of the day and immediately after school.
As soon as Lorraine had mentioned any possibility of children being endangered at the nursery, they had insisted she keep Susie away, and so, loaded up with picture books, crayons and toys, Lorraine had bundled her into the car and taken her down to the college where she worked. She rang Will on her mobile as soon as she arrived, wanting to make the peace, but failed to get through.
Will was in the car, driving towards Norwich with all possible speed, the Last Shadow Puppets CD on the stereo, loud as it would go.
Roy Cole met him at Bethel Street with something like anticipation bright in his eyes.
'Same place as before?' Will asked.
'The same.'
This time they took the car, Will filling in the details as they drove.
On arrival, Cole tossed the cigarette he'd been smoking into the kerb, left the car parked outside the store with its blue light flashing and within minutes he had Paul Heywood relieved of his duties and out in the delivery yard, hunch-shouldered, hands clasped in front of his crotch as if expecting to be kicked.
'Remember the Detective Inspector here?' Cole asked, his face no more than an arm's length from Heywood's own.
'Ye-yes.'
'He asked about your pal, Mitchell Roberts, you remember that?'
'Yes.'
Cole reached around and caught hold of the man's ponytail, jerking hard. Pain narrowed Heywood's eyes. 'This time you better tell him the truth.'
'I did - I did.'
'This time you better tell him fuckin' everything.' One quick tug and he let him go. 'I'm just going out here for a smoke, leave you two alone.'
Nervous, Heywood wiped at his watering eyes: when Will moved towards him, he tensed and closed them tight.
'Mitchell Roberts,' Will said, 'when you talked to him on the phone. From the garage. He ever mention a man named Pierce, Simon Pierce?'
Heywood shook his head.
'Simon Pierce, you're sure?'
'Yes, he never ... I never heard that name before, I swear.'
'Okay.' Will rested a hand, not heavily, on his shoulder and Heywood juddered as if he'd been struck.
'You don't like to get hurt,' Will said, smooth and quiet, a friend enquiring of a friend.
'No, no.'
'Happened sometimes when you were inside, I suppose?'
'Yes.'
'Happened quite a lot.'
'Yes.' Heywood was sweating now, a shiver running through him with every word.
'Roberts, he helped you out sometimes, I dare say?'
'Yeah. Yes, he did, he was a mate.'
'And sometimes not.'
Heywood's
eyes leapt nervously around.
'Sometimes not,' Will repeated.
'No.' Eyes cast down. 'No, sometimes he couldn't. Sometimes he ...'
'Sometimes he stood and watched.'
'Yes.' Heywood crying now, shaking against Will's hand that still rested on his shoulder as if in consolation.
'You wouldn't like to go back ...'
'No. No.'
'I'm sure we could arrange it, DS Cole and I. Arrange for you to go back inside, see all your old friends, those that are still there, spend a little time together, enjoy each other's company.'
'No, please, please.' He took hold of Will's arm and squeezed. 'Please don't.'
'Tell me then what you can about where Mitchell goes, where he stays. Whatever you can remember, places, names ...'
Heywood let go of Will's arm and swayed an awkward step backwards, before finally steadying himself, steadying his breathing. 'He talked once about Cleethorpes and then this other place where he stayed, west of here, Wisbech, some name like that? Liked it round there, I remember him saying. Congenial, that was the word he used. Never heard it before or since. That's how it stuck in here.' Tapping the side of his head. 'Congenial.'
'Stayed,' Will said. 'Stayed on his own?'
'No. That'd be with them diddicoys, wouldn't it? Got on with them, some of 'em at least. Gyppos, you know?'
Will knew. He nodded once at Heywood and pushed his way through out of the yard and on to the street, where Roy Cole was just finishing his cigarette.
Duncan Strand, the Gypsy and Traveller Liaison Officer for the Cambridgeshire force, was in his office at the Huntingdon headquarters when Will phoned, but due to leave for a meeting in Leicester within the hour. Will checked his watch; no way of reaching there in the time. Instead, he pulled into a lay-by and gave Strand such details as there were. A group of travellers, sticking to the east of the country. Cleethorpes to Wisbech. From north-east Lincolnshire, on the estuary of the Humber, down to Wisbech, an inland port amidst the Cambridgeshire Fens. Wisbech, where, thirteen years before, twelve-year-old Janine Prentiss was abducted and held prisoner for three days. Three days and nights.
'I'm not sure how long he might have stayed with them, Roberts,' Will said, 'could have been just a matter of a few days, could've been longer.'
Up to then, prison aside, he had always reckoned Roberts for a loner, but now... Congenial, the word resonated with Will too.
'Llewelyn Jones,' he said. 'Ring a bell?'
'Loud and clear. Other side of Peterborough, last I heard. Could've moved on.'
'You'll check?'
'Do what I can.'
Mitchell Roberts' profile would be readily accessible on the force computer; no need for Will to spell out the urgency of the situation. He broke the connection and pulled back out on to the road. He was no more than fifteen miles further along when his phone rang and he snatched it up, thinking it was probably Strand calling him back.
It was Lorraine.
Someone answering Mitchell Roberts' description had been seen close to the perimeter of Jake's school.
To hell with safety, Will speed-dialled as he drove. By the time he arrived in the village, some forty-five minutes later, several police vehicles were ahead of him, parked up on the verge, and the school was virtually sealed off. Inside, lessons were going on, but not as usual. Jim Straley hurried across to meet him, the local DI matching him stride for stride.
'Your boy's safe,' Straley said. 'Nothing happened. This man - could have been Mitchell, but it's still not certain - he was spotted hanging round the back of the school first, out where the playground butts up against the first field. Then later, just coming up to the end of lunch break, he walked right up to the front gate. Teacher on duty asked him what he thought he was doing and he just backed off. Wandered away, calm as you like.'
'I thought there was meant to be an officer out here all through lunch-time?' Will said.
'So there was. Answering a call of nature inside.'
'My wife?' Will asked.
Straley nodded in the direction of the school. 'Inside. I offered to escort her and the kids home, but she said she'd wait for you.'
Will found Lorraine in the head teacher's office, Susie playing with the polished stones of her necklace, Jake sitting subdued, cross-legged on the floor, his head in a book. The head teacher was elsewhere, playing a maths game with year five.
'Oh, Will!'
Bending low, he hugged her close; her and his daughter both.
'I should have listened, I'm sorry.'
'No. We were neither of us thinking straight. Besides ...' straightening, '... it's okay.' Suddenly, there were tears pricking his eyes and he turned towards Jake. 'Come here, you. Put that book down and give your dad a hug.'
'Dad,' Jake said, brushing against his father's face, 'are you crying?'
'What have I got to cry for?' he said, but for now he couldn't stop.
When Jim Straley knocked on the door and beckoned Will outside, they were all standing, wrapped around each other, in a cluster.
'One of the local PCs found a witness, doing a spot of fishing out beyond the village. Reckons he saw a man answering Roberts' description run across the field ahead of him, cross the stream by a bridge lower down and head off north towards some farm. Whiteside Farm, something of the sort?
'Whiteside, I know it, that's right.'
'Apparently, there's a track runs up from there to the main road?'
Will nodded. The A1101.
'This fisherman, he thinks he may have heard an engine, starting up. Quite heavy, he reckoned, the way it turned over, like maybe an old van.'
'Not much likelihood of CCTV.'
'Depends which way he went and how far. If he's gone south towards Mildenhall, down past the airfield, good chance I'd say. But if it's the other direction ...' Straley shook his head.
The other direction, Will thought. Up through Littleport and across the northern reaches of the Hundred Foot Washes towards Wisbech.
Was it coming together at last?
Some of it, at least.
'Come on,' he said, putting his head around the head teacher's door. 'We're going home.'
66
The youth Helen stopped to ask for directions—knock-off sports gear, Nike trainers, Adidas cap—tried to sell her a wrap of china white before realising his mistake. The moment he did, he was off, as Helen's dad might have put it, like a blue-arsed fly.
Her dad had lived on estates like this growing up, block after block designed by someone with a set of Lego and sod-all imagination, each, save for the name, indistinguishable from the next.
The board showing the layout was so covered with graffiti, it was all but impossible to decipher. Dogs growled and snapped from walkways crowded with prams and pushchairs and uncollected waste. Children cried and women shrieked.
The woman Helen finally found to ask was dressed head to toe in a black hijab, only her face and hands showing. Her voice was so soft, Helen had to lean towards her to hear, but the instructions were accurate and clear. Kelly's flat was on the seventh floor, reached, when it was working, by a lift redolent of stale urine with sweet hints of marijuana. Bottle it, Helen thought. Eau de Despair.
In contrast, Kelly was bright, chirpy, well turned out, make-up carefully applied, hair razor cut close to her head, dark with a pinkish tinge.
'Got lost, did you? Took me bleedin' forever. Still go the wrong way sometimes, end up back where I started. Come on, come on in.'
The tiny hallway was home to a double buggy, myriad boots and shoes, assorted boxes and an overflow of toys. More toys in the living room, but those not in use were neatly stacked; flowers on the table, slightly wilted, but flowers nonetheless. Attached to the wall, a large-screen television angled down. Regardless of whatever was going on around him, a boy of between two and three sat on the carpet studiously building a tower of coloured bricks and screaming with delight each time it collapsed.
'I'll make us a cup of tea in
a minute. Everett's gonna take the kids for a walk, i'n't you, Everett? Give us a bit of peace.'
The man who'd appeared in the doorway was big and black and cradling a baby of some nine or ten months against his chest.
Seeing Helen, he smiled. 'You police, right?'
'Right.'
'But not from here, like?'
'Not from here.'
His smile broadened. 'That's all right, then, i'n it?'
Shifting the child from one arm to the other as if she were a doll, he bent down towards Kelly and kissed her on the neck, running a hand across the stubble of her hair. 'Later, babe.'
Kelly squeezed the muscles of his arm, kissed the baby's head, picked up her son and kissed him too, then, making sure Helen was comfortable, went off into the kitchen to make the tea.
A lot of kissing, Helen thought, trying not to look at reflections of herself in the blank screen of the TV.
Kelly soon returned with mugs of tea and slices of cake—'Reduced at Iceland. Past its sell-by date, who cares? Live dangerously, eh?'
After a quick swig of her tea, Kelly reached for her cigarettes, offering one to Helen before lighting up herself.
'Can't get away with this when Everett's here. Goes ballistic.' She almost giggled. 'Not a pretty sight.'
'You been together long?'
'Since before Tracey was born.' She drew hard and held the smoke down in her lungs. 'Never thought he would. Never thought he'd stay. Goes to show, don't it? Men, you never can tell.'
True there, Helen thought. 'You happy to talk about Heather?' she asked.
'Happy? I wouldn't say that. I will though, not that I think it'll help. That night ...' She shivered, remembering. 'She was my best friend, you know. And that last year, before, you know, we went away, we was round one another's houses all the time. Well ...' She laughed. 'More hers than mine. I think her mum preferred it that way. Less chance of catching nits or some awful disease. First thing you got round there, "Take off your shoes, girls, and leave them in the hall, then go upstairs and wash your hands." She laughed again. 'After that we'd get a biscuit, right? One biscuit on a plate, two if we were lucky, and some juice in a glass with a straw. "Make sure you don't make any unnecessary crumbs." She was nice, though, Heather's mum. Stuck up, of course, but that weren't her fault. Way she was brought up. Like me, common as muck.'