by Jo Bannister
‘Your faith in the value of education is touching,’ said Daniel ironically. ‘But I don't think a few days off school will do him much harm. That's a bright boy, Mr Selkirk. I'm not worried about his academic prowess. I'm worried about him not sustaining brain damage in the next few months.’
‘Then why the hell…?’ Selkirk heard himself shouting – half Dimmock heard him shouting – and tried to get a grip. ‘Listen, Hood, let's at least try to behave like civilised men. I'll pretend you really do have my son's best interests at heart, you're not just a meddling busy-body, and you can pretend I give a gnat's whisker what you think of me. Noah is in no danger from me. I don't hit him, I have never hit him. When he's with me, he's safe. Right now I don't know where he is or what's happening to him. But if he comes to any harm, I'll know exactly who to blame.’
Daniel favoured him with a cold smile. ‘It's a good act,’ he acknowledged. ‘I bet most people fall for it. Of course, telling lies convincingly is what you're good at – what you're paid for. I'm sure you're worth every penny.
‘But I don't believe you, Mr Selkirk. It's as simple as that. I've seen a little of your family. I saw your wife last night, after you left the house. I don't believe she got like that walking into a door. I don't think you could get like that walking into a revolving door.’
‘I didn't hit my wife!’ yelled the big man; and the fists bounced up and down at the end of his arms as if they simply couldn't wait to be pounding Daniel Hood's face to pulp. ‘She…’
Daniel waited, eyes wide with curiosity, but Selkirk had choked on his anger and no more words came. ‘What?’ Daniel prompted after a moment. ‘Took a ride in the tumble-drier? Head-butted the fridge?’
Deacon heard the door behind him open and Detective Inspector Hyde passed him on the steps. She joined the two men in the street, looking between them – up at Selkirk, down at Daniel. ‘Is everything all right here? Mr Selkirk?’
Selkirk had to clench his teeth to get his voice under control. ‘Not really, no,’ he gritted.
‘Do you want to talk about it inside?’
‘Yes,’ Daniel said immediately. After a second's pause Selkirk nodded.
They followed her back up the stone steps into the police station. As they passed him Deacon did an about-face and joined on the end.
When Alix Hyde realised he was there she hesitated. ‘I think this is probably to do with my investigation, Superintendent,’ she said pointedly.
‘May well be,’ nodded Deacon, never missing a step.
‘So…where should we go for a bit of privacy?’
‘You can bring them to my office,’ said Deacon generously.
It was clear that Hyde was unhappy, but she was both out-ranked and out-flanked. This was Deacon's manor and Deacon's nick, and if she took him on she'd lose. One of the secrets of winning battles is knowing which ones to fight.
And having the right allies. As Charlie Voss came out of the CID room she captured him with one arm through his, swung him round and added him to the party bound for Deacon's office.
There weren't enough chairs. Deacon took the big comfortable one behind the desk and left the others to fend for themselves.
Everyone in that room was thinking hard – except for Daniel who knew exactly what he was doing. And what he wasn't.
Adam Selkirk was thinking that what had been a private difficulty a week ago was now in the public domain. There were too many people now privy to it for the secret to be kept. The question was no longer whether the lie would continue to serve but whether he could put a better spin on the truth.
Alix Hyde was thinking that sometimes mid-stream is the exact right spot to change horses. If Selkirk had been shouting in the street about his family problems it was probably too late to offer him discretion as a reward for his cooperation. It was time to hit him with the full force of the child protection legislation in order to permanently destroy his usefulness to Terry Walsh.
Charlie Voss was feeling as deeply uneasy in this gathering as if it was him who was suspected of child abuse, and he wasn't sure why. He didn't think he'd done anything wrong. He'd had two imperatives – to protect Noah Selkirk from his father and society from Terry Walsh – and he thought he'd been meeting both. His senior investigating officer seemed to think so too. Which suggested that what he was anxious about was how Detective Inspector Deacon would react. This came as a bit of a shock. Voss didn't like thinking he might have done something even Deacon would disapprove of.
And what Deacon was thinking was, This is where I listen lots and speak little. Because everything here is not as it seems to be. Well, there's nothing unusual about that, in my world virtually nothing is quite as it appears. But usually I can count on the other police officers, and today I'm not sure I can.
He said benevolently, ‘So who's going to start?’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Alix Hyde said, ‘Charlie?’
Voss hesitated. He was used to being the Victorian child in these situations, seen and not heard. But Detective Inspector Hyde did things differently to Detective Superintendent Deacon, and Voss was in as good a position as anyone to set out the facts, and appreciated being given the chance.
He cleared his throat. ‘It has been drawn to our attention that Mr Selkirk's twelve-year-old son has suffered a number of unexplained injuries. We've been trying to establish how he sustained them, to find out who was responsible and to prevent any recurrence.’
Behind his eyes, which remained impassive, Deacon was thinking: Well done, lad. Whether or not you know what she's doing – and I don't think you do – that was the right answer. He said aloud, ‘Where's the boy now?’
‘He's with his mother,’ said Daniel.
‘And you know where they are.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you don't want to say.’
‘No.’
Deacon turned to Selkirk. ‘And you want to know?’
‘Of course I want to know,’ said Selkirk, managing not to shout though it played havoc with his blood pressure. ‘Last time I saw them they were both upset. I need to know they're all right.’
‘They're all right,’ said Daniel. When he was angry his voice didn't soar, it developed this edge like honed steel.
‘How do you know that?’ demanded Selkirk. ‘You're here and they're not. How do you know they're safe?’
‘I saw them yesterday. They were fine. They were together and there was nobody else there. As long as nobody knows where they are, I think we can assume they're fine.’
‘Oh do you?’ snarled Selkirk. ‘Can we quote you on that? Will you accept the responsibility if you're wrong?’
Daniel half-turned to look him full in the face. With both of them standing it wasn't a question of him looking the solicitor up and down so much as up and further up, but the message it conveyed was unmistakable. Daniel Hood despised Adam Selkirk and didn't care who knew it. ‘Oh yes,’ he said with conviction.
‘I see,’ said Deacon thoughtfully. ‘But that clearly isn't enough for you, is it, Mr Selkirk? Do you want to explain why not?’
There was the briefest hesitation before he came back. ‘You want me to explain why the word of last year's head prefect isn't enough to reassure me? He took them from my house in the middle of the night, and he won't say where they are, and we only have his word for it that they wanted to go. Do you expect me to find that acceptable?’
In fact Daniel never made head prefect. He wasn't good enough at sports. And if he had it would have been ten years ago. But it was meant as an insult and it felt like one, and Daniel felt himself flush. ‘My word is good. Ask anyone.’
‘Your word is good,’ agreed Deacon, nodding slowly. ‘Your judgement, however, can be flawed. So tell me: how did you get involved in this?’
‘He's a boy, Jack,’ said Daniel, an odd mix of anger and entreaty in his voice. ‘He's twelve years old. Not the kind of twelve-year-old you were – the kind I was. And every time I saw him he had a fresh crop of b
ruises. He's been hit -regularly, and hard. I didn't find that acceptable.’
‘And I told you,’ snarled Selkirk, ‘I never laid a hand on him.’
‘So you did,’ acknowledged Daniel coldly. ‘But then, you're a man who lies for a living.’
If he was attempting to provoke violence, this time he came close to succeeding. Selkirk's broad shoulders lifted in a way that said one of his ham-sized fists was close behind. Deacon continued watching with interest, Hyde with anticipation. But Charlie Voss stepped quickly between them, physically shouldering Daniel aside. Angry as he was, Selkirk was not ready to strike a police officer. He subsided.
‘So you think he beats his twelve-year-old son,’ summarised Deacon, ‘and he denies it. Detective Inspector Hyde?’
Alix Hyde gave a tiny nod. ‘That's the allegation that's been made to us. We've interviewed Mr Selkirk. He denied it on that occasion too. Our investigations are on-going.’
‘Have you spoken to Noah's school?’
I have, sir,’ said Voss. ‘They weren't aware there was a problem. At least…’ Unsure how much to say in front of Selkirk he ground to a halt.
Unconcerned for himself, Daniel dispensed with discretion and finished the sentence for him. ‘Des Chalmers wasn't aware there was a problem until I told him. I asked him to keep an eye on Noah, to see how many more bits of furniture he was going to be careless enough to walk into.’
Adam Selkirk was already too flushed to redden further. But there was vitriol in his eyes.
‘I see,’ said Deacon. ‘So what happened yesterday?’
‘I got a phone call, after midnight. I went to their house and found Mrs Selkirk bleeding and Noah terrified. I took them home with me.’
Deacon looked at Selkirk. ‘Where were you?’
Again the slight pause. ‘I went for a drive.’
Deacon had been a detective for a lot of years: he'd heard just about every falsehood, every half-lie and every improbable truth it's possible to tell. But his eyebrows climbed as if he'd never heard the like of that. ‘In the early hours of the morning? Leaving your wife bloody and your son in hysterics? Why?’
‘We'd been arguing,’ growled Selkirk. ‘Marianne and I. We both needed the space to calm down. I drove up and down the coast for an hour. When I got back the house was empty.’
‘What did you do then? Call us? Call the hospital?’ Selkirk shook his head. ‘Why not? You left your wife upset and bleeding, and when you got home she'd gone. Didn't it occur to you she might have gone to the hospital?’
‘He knew she wouldn't have gone to the hospital,’ said Daniel tersely. ‘She never had before, she wouldn't this time. She left him a note to say she was spending the rest of the night with a friend and would be in touch shortly. Unless he's suggesting she wrote it at gun-point, there was never any question of her leaving the house unwillingly.’
Deacon was still nodding – slowly, hypnotically, like a plush bulldog on somebody's parcel-shelf. ‘Who called you?’
Daniel didn't want to say. But Selkirk already knew. ‘Noah.’
‘Did you hear him make the call?’ asked Deacon.
‘No. But it wouldn't be Marianne, and arguments don't wake the neighbours in River Drive.’
‘So there was a domestic going on, Noah called Daniel for help and Daniel went round and found Mrs Selkirk hurt and Noah terrified. He offered to put them up for the night and they accepted.’ He stabbed Selkirk with a lancet eye. ‘What the hell do you find so objectionable about that?’
The solicitor gave a sniff that curled his lip. ‘About that, nothing. About the assumptions he's been making, plenty, but that's another issue. What's worrying me now is that I can't find either of them. Noah's not in school and Marianne's not at work. Both of them have mobile phones: both of them are switched off. They're not at his house’ – he couldn't bring himself to say Daniel's name – ‘I checked, and I couldn't see any of their things there either. And he knows where they are, and he won't tell me.’
Deacon swivelled. ‘Daniel?’
‘That's right,’ Daniel said evenly. ‘I won't help him find them and hurt them again.’
Deacon looked back at Selkirk. ‘In the circumstances, it's a reasonable attitude.’
‘You don't know the circumstances,’ grated Adam Selkirk. ‘I do. And I'm telling you my son is in danger right now.’
Daniel felt confident enough of his ground to call his bluff. His yellow head tilted back so he could look the solicitor in the eye. ‘I really don't see how that could be, Mr Selkirk. He's with his mother and you don't know where they are. That's all that boy needs to be safe.’
‘According to you.’
‘According to me, and anyone else with an eyeball in his head,’ said Daniel acidly.
Selkirk found himself squaring up to a man who barely came up to his chin and could have camped out in his jacket. ‘You arrogant little bastard! What do you know of my family? What do you know of me, that you can say that about me? You're a failed teacher who tried to give him a bit of help with his maths. And maybe you mean well, and maybe you were worried about him, but you haven't the skill, the knowledge or the authority to rip my family apart in an effort to help him with anything else. Now you've hidden him and his mother away where not only I but no one else can check that they're OK.’
Adam Selkirk drew a deep breath before committing himself – before saying that which, once out, could never be private family business again. And then he said it.
‘What if I tell you that you misread the situation from the start? That it isn't me who hits the child when the pressure of work builds up. It isn't me that gets so frustrated I lose all control and lay into whoever's nearest with anything that comes to hand. It's Marianne. It's his mother.’
For a moment the sheer effrontery of it stole Daniel's breath away. He was aware of gaping at the man like a stranded goldfish. Finally he managed, ‘That is the most outrageous thing I ever… And you're supposed to be this high-priced lawyer with the gift of the gab? I can lie better than that!’
‘It's the truth,’ gritted Selkirk.
Deacon wouldn't have admitted it, but the fact that he left it at that, didn't try to embellish it with evidence for the defence, impressed him somewhat. The biggest mistake people make when they're lying is not knowing when to stop. They try to prove everything they say. Their alibi is never that they were having a bath: they were always in a busy pub with five friends.
Of course, anything Deacon knew about the criminal mentality, Selkirk knew too.
‘I saw her!’ cried Daniel. ‘Her nose was bleeding. There were bruises on her forehead. There were bruises on her wrists.’
‘I grabbed her by the wrists.’ Selkirk's voice was low. ‘She headbutted me.’
‘Don't be ridiculous!’ snorted Daniel.
‘Why is it ridiculous?’ demanded Selkirk. ‘Because she's a woman? Because she's small and looks fragile? If you knew a thing about her, Hood – if you knew anything about any of us – you'd know Marianne's tough. Mentally and physically. She has to be to do her job. It doesn't just involve sitting at a desk making plaintive phone calls. Sometimes it involves trekking out to disaster areas and living in a tent on a bottle of water and a packet of biscuits a day. Sometimes it involves cornering dictators – war-lords, men with armies at their backs – and telling them to sell the second-best executive jet and feed their people on the proceeds. She risks her life on a regular basis, and millions of people survive because of it.
‘But it takes its toll. Sometimes she gets back from one of these war zones and it's as much as she can do to walk from the taxi to the front door. I've carried her upstairs before now. I've undressed her and put her to bed. I've held her in the night when things she's seen come back to haunt her, and they don't even go away when she wakes up. My wife isn't fragile, but she is under the kind of stress that nobody here has ever experienced – can even imagine.’
Deacon cleared his throat. ‘Actually…’
; Daniel knew what he was going to say and broke in quickly. ‘I don't doubt it. What I don't believe is that that makes her want to come back and beat the living daylights out of her son.’
‘Of course she doesn't want to hurt him!’ spat Selkirk. ‘She loses control. That's what it does to her – all the suffering, and knowing that she can make a difference, and knowing that she can never do enough. It eats her up, and when she can't bear it any more she explodes. Sometimes it's just the crockery. Sometimes it's me. Well, that's all right, I'm a lot bigger than she is and I love her, and if I can absorb some of her pain that way I will. But sometimes it's Noah. And he's willing too, but he's a lot smaller than I am and sometimes she hurts him. He denies it, but I know she does. I try to keep them apart when she's in danger of losing it. Most of the time I succeed, but not always.’
Both his voice and his gaze hardened. ‘And you've set them up in a cosy little home-from-home somewhere, and nobody knows where they are and nobody's going to disturb them. And next time the demons come there'll be nobody to know, and nobody to hold her wrists until the rage passes.’
The silence in Deacon's office was so profound that traffic noises came up from the street and the murmur of someone on the phone from the floor below. Almost, they were spellbound. None of them knew whether it was the truth. But it was a credit to Adam Selkirk's skills as counsel that they were all thinking about it. Thinking what it meant if he wasn't lying.
Daniel's voice was hollow. If this was the truth… He couldn't afford for it to be the truth. ‘Then why did you leave them alone? On Monday night. Why did you go for a little drive and leave them alone?’
‘Because that's what works,’ said Selkirk, almost too tired now to continue hating him. ‘That's what experience has taught us is the best thing to do. Her fury is like a fever: it mounts until it breaks. After that there's no question of anyone getting hurt, she just needs some time alone to pull herself together. And by then, so do I. I go for a drive. When I get back we don't speak of it again.’