Detective Mike Croft Series Box Set

by Jane Adams

  ‘You gave me all you could,’ Jake repeated thoughtfully. ‘And what was that, Alastair? You gave me your hatred and a taste of the belt at least once a week just in case I’d done something you didn’t catch me at. You told me I was bad even when I tried to do my best to be good. You made your own story up in your head and, by God, you lived by it, and I never understood why you hated me so much. What it was that I had done to you that forced you to write me off practically before I was born and never, ever revise that view whatever I said. Whatever I did. I want to know it, Alastair, what it was that made you feel that way?’

  Alastair shifted restlessly under his son’s relentless gaze. Jake’s voice was calm, as though he’d asked about the weather or some odd item of the news. Alastair wanted to deny his words, to tell him that he’d misunderstood, but he could not bring himself to lie.

  ‘Even when you were a little child,’ he said, ‘you had that way with you, of doing things or saying things that only caused us pain. You were always evil, Jake, killing and maiming and telling lies. Creating hurt and pain where there’d been none before. I had to hurt you, Jake, show you what the pain meant. That you couldn’t go on with your vile games and your lies and your . . . your deceits.’

  ‘Ah, but they weren’t deceits, were they, father? Not all of them, not in the beginning, and I know where all of this began, Alastair. Thinking about it, I really do, and it’s so simple that it’s almost laughable. That day I caught you with that woman in my mother’s room. You on top of her, pounding away, with your white arse showing and your trousers down around your ankles. You’d not even taken time to get undressed before you started poking her. And she was squealing like some stuck pig. That’s when it all began between us, your resentment of me. And all your lies about me won’t change any of that.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Alastair began to protest. ‘You were far too young to understand. After you were born, I never went near your mother again. She wouldn’t have me even touch her, scared she’d get pregnant again and lose another one. Or maybe have another like you, I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re right, I wasn’t old enough to understand,’ Jake said, ‘but you decided I was old enough to take your belt to. I was beaten raw, and all the time you were lying and screaming what an evil little bastard I’d turned out to be, and I can remember the pain of it. And the worst pain of all was not knowing what I was being punished for.’

  ‘I was desperate,’ Alastair protested. ‘I loved your mother and I knew she’d never forgive me.’

  ‘Not again, you mean. Not after all the other women.’

  ‘I know that I was wrong,’ Alastair said slowly, spacing out his words as though to give them weight. ‘And I regret all that, Jake, I really do. But you were never easy . . .’

  ‘And when she came home and the neighbours told her what you’d been about. The lies you told her, about me killing her blasted cat. And you hitting it with that broken line prop until you broke its bloody back. I watched you bury it, and I heard her crying because she thought I was turning out like you and couldn’t bear the thought of that. And you know what, Alastair? I could still taste the blood in my mouth where I’d bitten my tongue when you’d knocked me down. You’d given me a real gift that day, you’d taught me that you were weak and stupid and helpless and that I didn’t have to be like you.’

  Alastair stared out towards the darkening horizon, his jaw clenched and his body tight and rigid.

  ‘I didn’t make you the way you are,’ he said. ‘Nothing I did or didn’t do taught you to be what you became, Jake, and you know that. If I lied about the details, I didn’t lie about the rest. You were evil as a child, even more evil as an adult, and you had more scope to play your games. I never had a part in that.’

  ‘You created me,’ Jake told him mildly. ‘Sowed the seed in my mother’s belly. I’m sad for you that you didn’t like the results.’

  He turned his face away from his father, gazing once more out to sea. ‘No, but you’re right, of course. You had nothing to do with what I became. You wouldn’t have begun to know how to do that. You never had that much about you, anything like the skill or the imagination to create someone like me.’ He paused reflectively. ‘It’s sad, don’t you think, that a father should despise his son so much or a son so hate the father?’

  ‘If you hated me so much,’ Alastair questioned harshly, ‘why didn’t you finish me off? Get rid of me earlier?’

  ‘Why should I waste my time? It was much more fun to know that you were waiting, every day of your life, you were waiting for me to come back and you were living your life in fear. I enjoyed that, Alastair. Enjoyed that so much.’ He sighed, as though suddenly weary of the game. ‘Move closer to the edge, Alastair, and then look down. Go on.’

  Reluctantly, the older man moved forward.

  When Jake spoke to him, his voice was soft. ‘Have you ever thought what it would be like to go on walking? To look down at that rush of white water scouring away at the cliff and just become a part of it all. To let go and leave all of this behind. Look down. Spread your arms and fall into the wind. Ask yourself just what it is you have to lose, what you have left. It’s all finished for you, Alastair, this life. Why not let it go?’

  Jake had moved closer to him, picking up from the grass the palm-sized digital camera he had left lying there. He lifted it to his eye, gun in one hand and the camera in the other, watching his father’s face.

  ‘It would be so easy,’ Jake told him gently. ‘You could make your peace with the world and then just let it all go.’

  Alastair stood at the very edge of the cliff, his eyes fixed on the boiling rush of water foaming on the rocks, then he jerked around to face Jake.

  ‘I won’t do it!’ he shouted at his son. ‘If you want me dead, you’ll have to be the one to kill me.’

  Jake fired then, hitting Alastair with both barrels full in the face, then trained the camera on his father’s body as it spiralled down, arms stretched upon the wind, the splash tiny as it hit the sea.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Honiton had become the focus for something of a media circus following the Crimewatch programme, although with the coming of evening things had quietened down a little, journalists and photographers wandering off to pick up some local colour in the pubs.

  Mike, Peterson and Maria had driven a dozen miles to find a quiet place to eat. They’d found a little restaurant in Lyme Regis, the relative anonymity of the seaside town promising them the chance of a quieter evening.

  The raid had taken place on Jake’s London flat and they were still waiting for reports to come in. A quantity of letters and what appeared to be house agents’ details had been found, some of them going back four or five years. Mike had arranged for everything to be faxed through to him in Honiton, together with the first of the witness statements from neighbours. It would take time to arrive and everyone needed a break, so Peterson had suggested they all go and eat.

  It had not been an easy day, Maria thought. She’d stayed inside avoiding the media crush, wanting to be useful yet so much aware that she had no real business being there. She’d prowled around the incident room, making tea, washing mugs and emptying bins, anything to keep busy, until Peterson had taken pity on her and given her the psychological reports to read.

  ‘The problem is,’ she said, picking up on an earlier conversation, ‘there’s so much pressure now to get it right. The public expect that anyone with half a degree in any of the mind sciences can get inside the killer’s head and anticipate exactly what he’s going to do.’

  ‘There’ve been some spectacular successes,’ Mike argued. ‘The Jamie Bulger case, for instance, and early stuff on that London rapist working the railway stations.’

  ‘John Duffy,’ Peterson provided. ‘That was a first. Then the floodgates opened.’

  ‘And the level of expectation sky-rocketed.’

  Maria paused as the waitress arrived, aware of the look the woman gave her and wonde
ring if she’d been recognized. She carried on.

  ‘The problem is the notion that you can be right all the time, and with Jake Bowen that’s not easy. The man is ordered and intelligent. He doesn’t seem to act from fear or impulse, he plans. And my guess is he’s read all the same books we have.’

  ‘Would you class him as a psychopath?’ Peterson asked her. ‘There seems to be some debate even about that.’

  Maria prodded at the food on her plate. She was hungry but found it hard to eat, guilty about even that simple act of normality. ‘It’s a more complex question than you might think,’ she said. ‘For what it’s worth, I don’t believe I would. Neither do I think Jake Bowen is insane. My guess, and that’s all it is, is that Jake knows exactly what he’s doing and exactly what effect it’s going to have. That he’s even capable of becoming emotionally involved with those he hurts and kills. I think Jake Bowen understands what we would call right and wrong, can even empathize with it. I just don’t think he cares.’ She lay her fork down and poured water with a hand that trembled only slightly. ‘That’s what scares me so much.’

  * * *

  Macey had been out all day and Charlie only reached him at his home number late that evening.

  ‘There’s been no joy,’ Charlie said. ‘No replies to the ad as yet. I’ve been sitting by the phone, staring at it like a lovesick teenager. Anything your end?’

  ‘Little things here and there, nothing conclusive. Your friend Peterson’s had road-blocks all over the place, disrupting the holiday traffic, and the national press and TV’ve been out in force. It’s been all right from my point of view. They’ve all been so bloody bored, I’ve been the most interesting thing around today. If I’d taken up all the offers of drink I’d had I’d have been comatose by now.’

  Charlie laughed. ‘So it’s the move to London next, is it?’

  ‘Living in hope, Charlie. Look, how long do you want this ad to run? Some bright spark on the force is going to see it and then the shit’s really going to hit the fan. Depends whether you’re bothered about that, of course?’

  ‘Give it another day,’ Charlie said. ‘If he makes contact we’re going to have to bring Mike in on it anyway, but if it comes to nothing I’d as soon not have him, well . . . bothered. We’ll cross that bridge if and when we have to.’

  ‘I can just see the headline, Charlie, “Injured Cop and Maverick Reporter Snare Woodland Killer”. You know, it’s a funny thing, but no one’s come up with a tag for this one. He’s not the something ripper or the what’s-it strangler or the wherever poisoner.’

  ‘Problem is, Macey, there’s too much variety in what he does and he’s too mobile. You know how folk like to pigeon-hole. Jake’s problem is he wants everything.’

  ‘Yeah, right. But he ought to have a tag line.’

  ‘If he phones I’ll recommend he gets a publicist,’ Charlie promised.

  He put the phone down and stared at it, willing it to ring. For all his attempt at humour, Charlie was finding this harder and harder to cope with. He knew that everyone involved in the Bowen investigation must feel the same. It was the not knowing, the feeling that Jake could be anywhere, that made it so hard to be rational. Charlie Morrow was no coward, but he wondered what he was going to do if Jake really did make that call.

  * * *

  When they arrived back at Honiton a pile of faxes awaited them. Half a dozen officers sat at their desks, working the late shift, still sifting through the phone calls that had come in the night before. Crimewatch had generated over 700 calls and a list of 270 names. Most would turn out to be entirely innocent; a few would be vindictive. Three or four names had come up more than once, and that might or might not be promising. All needed feeding into the database and cross-referencing with what information they’d already got.

  Maria had gone in with them, her presence accepted but not mentioned. She had the feeling that as long as she kept her mouth shut, so would everyone else, and when Mike picked up a stack of papers from the newly faxed pile, so did she.

  ‘What am I looking for?’ she said.

  Peterson raised an eyebrow. ‘Try and establish some kind of order,’ he said at last. ‘Sort the documents by type and then by date. Then we’ll list them, see if we can establish a pattern and if it fits with what else we’ve got.’

  Mike was reading another fax. ‘They talked to the cleaning lady,’ he said. ‘They got lucky, she lives only a few doors away. It’s one of those converted houses,’ he explained, ‘and the other tenants knew who she was.’

  ‘Was she helpful?’ Peterson asked.

  ‘Well, it sheds some light in one way but complicates it in others. She met the tenant only once, but apparently there are a number of people who stay there on an irregular basis. She thinks they’re actors of some kind, which fits with what we know, but she said she didn’t ask too many questions.’

  ‘How does she get paid?’ Maria asked.

  ‘By post, once a month, in cash. It arrives on the twenty-eighth of every month in a padded envelope. When there are people staying there, she doesn’t have to clean, but she gets paid the same anyway. If she has to do extra cleaning when they’ve gone, she gets paid an extra three hours, so obviously Jake must know who’s in residence and approximately when.’

  ‘It also means that quite a few people have keys, presumably.’

  ‘Apparently.’ Mike referred back to the fax. ‘There are regulars who don’t stay there but just pick up their mail. She’s got instructions to leave the mail on the table in the hall until the Sunday. Any uncollected mail gets put in the sideboard cupboard in the living room. She thinks someone goes through it from time to time, and presumably those using it as a mail drop know where to look for stray letters.’

  ‘The rest just gets left there,’ Peterson commented, looking at the pile of faxes on the table. ‘How long has she been doing the cleaning?’

  Mike scanned the fax again. ‘Three years, I think. Yes, that’s right. She was recommended by the previous woman, a Mrs Lee, who’s moved to Bangor apparently. They were neighbours. That was the only time she met the real tenant. The flat’s rented under the name of Matthews. They’re trying to find the landlord now, see how Jake pays his rent.’

  ‘My guess is cash in a padded envelope,’ Maria said. ‘I don’t suppose the landlord cares as long as Jake pays his rent and doesn’t wreck the place.’

  ‘They must have a way of contacting Bowen,’ Peterson said. ‘I mean, when the cleaning lady left, how did she let him know?’

  Mike put the fax back on the table and sat down. ‘He calls once a month,’ he said. ‘Her home address, since there’s no direct line to the flat, only a communal phone in the hall. Just checks that she’s got the money, asks if anything’s needed and that’s it. Apparently he asked this Mrs Lee if she knew of anyone who could help and gave her a bonus for finding someone.’

  ‘And no one got curious or suspicious, because they were well paid and not being asked to do anything illegal,’ Peterson concluded. ‘Do we know when Jake’s due to phone her again?’

  ‘Last Tuesday,’ Mike told him. ‘We’re a month adrift on that one. They’re keeping a twenty-four-hour surveillance on the flat for the next few days, but the raid was hardly unobtrusive. I’d guess the most we can hope for is one of the regulars picking up their mail.’

  ‘Could lead us somewhere. It’s the best we’ve got so far.’

  Maria was sorting through the lists of house agents’ notes. Some were two or three pages long and had become separated during faxing, so she began putting them in order and stapling them back together, the simple task soothing, taking just enough of her concentration.

  ‘He’s looking for a place to restore, by the looks of these,’ she said. ‘Or at least, he was five years ago.’ Peterson pulled the small stack of collated sheets towards him and skimmed through. ‘Older properties, detached, and with large gardens.’

  ‘Hmm, and all of them with outbuildings or basements or both,’ M
aria added. ‘Only one problem.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘If these are the ones Jake left in London, then they’re obviously the ones he didn’t want.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  4 July

  Thursday morning emerged out of a light drizzle that looked like nothing and soaked everything it touched. Jake had decided it was time to go back to work. The new samples he had ordered had come in and he was eager for a change of scene.

  He felt an enormous sense of relief now that Alastair had left him. It was something he had waited a long time for and now that it had happened the euphoria was such that Jake wanted to share it.

  The pity was that he had no one to tell. That was the good thing about film, knowing that it could be shared, that somewhere along the line there would be feedback from delighted fans.

  The film of Alastair’s demise was not enough on its own, but sooner or later Jake knew he’d find a way to work it into something special.

  He liked driving in the rain. He enjoyed the sense of isolation, of separateness, being in the shelter of his car and watching the world around him disintegrate into millions upon millions of fragmented pieces. He liked the way the windscreen wipers, sweeping across the screen, restored his world for a merest instant before the rain shattered it once more. Deliberately, he set the wipers on single stroke rather than repeat, to make the most of the effect. It was a very visual, very Jake Bowen thing.

  There was still the problem of what to do with Essie. Now Alastair had gone, he’d increased the sedation, hoping the dose was right, so she’d be certain not to wake before his return. The truth was, Jake had no real interest in the child.

  He could film Essie — dead or alive or dying, she had financial potential — but was that what he really wanted to do? He guessed that everyone had written her off for dead by now; that they were hunting for a corpse and not a living child. Jake wondered if it would be more fun to let them know that Essie was still alive and then stand back and watch the response.