‘Hello, Patrick. How are you?’ Marcus smiled broadly, then his expression froze. ‘You’ve found Rupert’s laptop.’
‘No,’ Patrick lied. ‘It’s mine. I’ve been using it for homework.’
‘Homework? I thought you’d finished for the year.’
‘I have, but I’ve got a project to start. Get ready for next term. I’m carrying on with the same subjects, you see, so I can kind of get ahead.’
Marcus eyed him thoughtfully and Patrick knew he did not believe a word of it.
‘Coffee, Marcus?’ Harry asked. ‘Come on through. I was just washing up. Alec and Naomi should be here soon. Patrick, maybe you could give them a ring and find out how long they’re going to be?’
Patrick nodded. He waited until Harry had ushered the reluctant Marcus away and then ran upstairs. He put the bag in Rupert’s study and locked the door, slipping the key into his pocket. Then he sat down on the top step and called Naomi on his mobile, grateful when she said that they were almost home.
‘Marcus saw the laptop,’ he said. ‘I told him it was mine but he didn’t believe me. I’ve locked it in the study.’
‘Good,’ Naomi approved. ‘Patrick, you and Harry keep him amused, we’ll soon be there.’
It was interesting, Patrick thought as he rang off, that they had all come round to his way of thinking as regards Marcus just when, oddly enough, Patrick himself was starting to have some sympathy for the man. He sat for a minute more, analyzing where that feeling had come from and decided it was that he genuinely believed that Marcus cared for Rupert. And if he was scared of Kinnear, Patrick thought, no one could really blame him for that, but what they didn’t know for sure was if Marcus and Kinnear were in this together or if Marcus was just acting out of fear.
He thought about it as he went downstairs and joined his father but reached no conclusion. Marcus smiled at him as he came through into the kitchen. ‘They’re coming back,’ Patrick said. ‘Should be here in just a few minutes.’
‘Oh, good. I was just asking your father if you’d had any luck with the search.’
Patrick shook his head. ‘Rupert had some interesting stuff, though,’ he said. ‘Some great old books and that. He’s got maps from the 1640s when they drained the fens and all sorts.’
Marcus smiled again. A genuine smile this time. ‘He was working on a second book about the Fen Tigers,’ he said. ‘I don’t know all the details but I know one chapter concerned their descendants who still lived around here. He’d discovered that quite a few of the local families have roots going back to that time, including your neighbour, I believe.’
‘Our neighbour?’
‘Yes, the Fieldings at White Farm. He was quite enthused by it all.’
‘Did you know he wrote poetry?’ Patrick asked.
‘I knew he tried. I don’t recall him showing me any.’
‘Well, it’s not all that good. He was a much better prose writer,’ Patrick said. ‘Though I like bits. There’s one about the fenland skies that’s pretty good.’
‘You’ll have to show it to me.’
Patrick nodded. He heard Alec’s key in the front door and went to meet them. Behind him he heard Marcus ask Harry again about the laptop, saying how odd it was that Patrick had the same model.
‘I believe it’s a very common one,’ Harry said.
Patrick was surprised that Marcus even knew. Laptops tended to look similar, though Rupert’s wasn’t new and was certainly not as thin or light as many of the more modern ones. Maybe it was this that Marcus had noted. Whatever, Patrick was not easy about it.
After saying hello to Naomi and Alec he took himself back upstairs and into the study, then locked the door and fired up the laptop. In his excitement about the journals he had not taken so much time to look at the computer and, frankly, neither his dad nor Alec were that good.
Methodically, now, he began to open the files in ‘my computer’ and on the C drive, surveying what was there and comparing the different versions Rupert seemed to have saved. He was still involved when he heard Marcus leave and the car pull away, and then was startled when Alec, unable to access the study, knocked on the door.
‘Oh, sorry. Hang on.’ He let Alec in.
‘You can come out now, he’s gone.’
‘He knew it was Rupert’s computer.’
‘Yes, I guess he did. He mentioned it several times. We stuck to our story.’ He came round the desk to look at what Patrick had been doing. ‘Find anything?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘It was Marcus that put me on to it actually.’
‘Oh?’
‘He mentioned Rupert’s new book on the Fen Tigers and how some of the families were still living round here. He said the Fieldings were one of them and I thought I remembered seeing something. So I looked and I found this. It’s a list of all the people he interviewed for that book. There’s like a little file on each of them and this one is on the Fieldings of White Farm.’
He turned the screen so Alec could read it properly.
‘It’s a rough family tree,’ Alec said. ‘And some comments on the family. “Husband is a boorish oaf”,’ Alec read. ‘That’s a very Rupert turn of phrase. “Wife is a shrew. I pity the boy”. Well, that’s a little damning, wouldn’t you say?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘There’s more,’ he said. ‘About the family history and the stories he planned to use.’ He sighed and leaned back in Rupert’s captain chair. ‘I’ve been looking for financial stuff and there’s a couple of files Dad hasn’t seen yet. They were nested inside folders he kept his writing in.’
‘Hidden?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘Burying it in the garden was better,’ he said. ‘Easy enough to find if you look deeper than the title and no one has so far, which is why we missed it.’ He pushed up from his seat. ‘You and Naomi get anywhere?’
‘Well, we’ve arranged for Kinnear’s picture to get into the papers, but Fine can’t do a lot more for us. Harry tells me Danny Fielding came over.’
Patrick nodded. ‘We didn’t find out anything.’
‘Apart from Ellen March,’
‘Ellen March? Oh, angry woman.’
‘That would be the one. From what she said to Harry it’s likely she and Danny’s father were having an affair.’
Marcus was unhappy. Unhappy and now very much afraid. He had been counting on Naomi and the others playing straight with him. Had convinced himself that they would even though reason told him they had no cause to tell him anything.
The laptop belonged to Rupert, Marcus was sure of it and Patrick and Harry had both lied. That meant they didn’t trust him. Marcus thought about it as he drove home and was bitterly angry and despairing by turns. Angry because if it hadn’t been for his insistence they look into Rupert’s death, no one would have suspected anything or found anything. No one would have looked further than a heart attack. Alec would have probably sold up and that would have been that. Despairing because he knew Samuel Kinnear would not be understanding of his troubles. Sam Kinnear just wanted results.
He was unsurprised when the phone rang just after he got back to his flat above the shop. Kinnear was watching him, Marcus was sure of that. Kinnear or the quiet one he’d seen once or twice in his company.
‘Well?’ Sam Kinnear demanded.
‘I don’t have much to tell. They’ve found the laptop, that’s all I know.’
‘And you’ve got it.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘No, I haven’t got it.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m supposed to just ask and they hand it over, is that what you think?’
‘Works for me.’
‘Maybe I don’t have, shall we say, your powers of persuasion.’
‘I’ve been telling you that from the start. You reckoned you could get the stuff quietly, no fuss. Seems you can’t.’
Marcus sighed. ‘Let me have another try,’ he said. ‘The computer isn’t any good to you without the books, or so you sai
d. I don’t know yet if they’ve found the books.’
Kinnear was silent. ‘One more day,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you another twenty-four. Get the laptop and find out about the books. You don’t, I will. You get the books and you work out what that bastard Rupert was doing with my money, where he hid it and how he planned on getting it back.’
‘Rupe had already transferred more than you deserved,’ Marcus was suddenly angry.
‘I want it with interest,’ said Sam Kinnear. ‘Way I figure it, he owed me capital and with thirty-year interest on top. Rupert had only just whetted my appetite.’
Back at Fallowfields Alec was on the phone to ex-DI Billy Pierce. He had the approximate address of Rupert’s flat from his parents. They had been uncertain of the number and Alec wasn’t even convinced it was relevant.
‘It’s a bit of a wild goose chase,’ he told Billy Pierce. ‘My dad is certain he didn’t sell the flat, but their contact with Rupert was sketchy at best for the past twenty or so years.’
‘Oh, it’ll give me something to do,’ Pierce told him. ‘Keep my hand in. Anything else happening your end?’
Alec told him what had been going on. ‘So, it’s now wait and see time,’ he finished. ‘Something tells me we won’t be waiting long.’
Twenty-Eight
‘We’ve got trouble,’
Kinnear looked up from the television. He liked to watch the morning news on the BBC. It was very informative, he thought.
‘We’ve always got trouble.’
Reid dropped the first edition of the paper in his lap. It was folded so that Sam Kinnear’s picture stared out on the front page. Kinnear picked it up and studied it as though it was unfamiliar. He read the brief paragraphs beneath and then tossed the paper aside.
‘And?’
‘And they put you on the front page. Every man and his dog is going to be looking for you. Sam, we’ve got enough, let’s get out of here now.’
Kinnear studied him with much the same expression as he’d studied the picture in the paper. Reid swallowed nervously and took an involuntary step back.
‘This changes nothing,’ Kinnear said. ‘Just speeds things up.’
‘We’ve got enough, Sam,’ Reid said again. ‘Enough to make a start somewhere else. Sam, I want my share. I want out. Now.’
Kinnear got up from his chair and crossed the room in two strides. He grabbed Reid by the shirt front and hoisted him clear of the ground. ‘Since when did I give you permission to want anything,’ he said, his voice no more than a soft, threatening growl. ‘I want the rest of my money. My money. You’re along for the ride, don’t forget that.’
‘You need me,’ Reid squeaked. ‘Need me to do the business. You don’t know how …’
‘But like as not Marcus does. Don’t forget that. Like as not that bloody accountant they’ve got out at Fallowfields knows. You are not my only option. Don’t forget that.’
He dropped Reid letting him fall to the floor. Reid lay there, curled into a ball like a dog expecting a final kick. Risking a look, he saw Kinnear had picked up the phone. He’s calling Marcus, Reid guessed. The threat Kinnear had just made gripped his belly, cramped it tight so that Reid thought he might be sick. He’d got himself into this even though he knew what Kinnear was. He’d shared a six by ten space with the man for three straight months. Reid tried to remember just when and how he’d agreed to do this, agreed to help Kinnear, and found he could no longer remember. He recalled getting out of jail, then a few weeks after, remembered the familiar hand heavy on his shoulder and the voice in his ear, ‘I’ve got a job for you, Jimmy boy.’
He couldn’t recall ever having agreed. Men like Sam Kinnear didn’t ask, they just assumed you’d go along with what they had in mind.
Across the room Kinnear slammed the phone down. ‘Bastard’s not answering his phone,’ he said. ‘Get over there and tell him I want to see him. Now.’
‘Bring him here?’ Reid was anxious. With Marcus, Kinnear would not need him. He’d made that plain.
‘Yes here.’ He frowned at Reid. ‘Thought you were watching him.’
Reid didn’t think he could draw attention to the illogic of this statement. I’m here, he thought, getting you your frigging paper and your groceries and your fags. How can I be watching Marcus if you want me here?
Instead, he scrambled to his feet and stumbled back down the stairs and across the yard. He could feel Kinnear’s gaze burning into his back as he ran towards his car.
I could run, Reid thought. Get in the car and drive and not stop until he’d put the miles between himself and Sam. He pushed the idea aside almost as soon as it formed in his head. He had witnessed what happened to the last person who had run from Kinnear and she, so far as Reid could see, had only mildly pissed him off. Sam would find him if he ran. As a matter of principle, Sam would hunt him down and Reid, superstitious fear taking place of anything resembling common sense, was sure that there would never be enough places in which to hide.
The sight of Kinnear’s face stopped him dead. Marcus stared at the rack, hand hovering over his usual choice of daily paper but his eyes fixed on the local rag he rarely bought. He bought it now though, clutching it in his hand so hard that his sweat leeched print on to his palm even before he was halfway back to the shop.
A thought struck him and he stopped dead in the middle of the pavement.
‘Watch it, won’t you,’ someone said as they crashed into him with their pushchair.
‘Sorry.’ The apology so automatic he didn’t even think what he might be apologizing for.
He read the text beneath, the words leering at him. ‘Vicious attack. Dangerous man. Do not approach.’
‘Do not approach,’ Marcus said. ‘How very funny. Do not approach.’ He realized that he had spoken out loud and that a woman turned to look his way. He heard too the hysterical edge to his voice.
‘I can’t go on like this,’ Marcus told no one in particular. ‘This just can’t go on.’
He slipped into the shop by the back way, relocked the door and let himself into his little office. The shop was open, his part-time girl setting out new stock. Marcus positioned himself so he could see the front shop door and then dialled. Alec answered the phone.
‘I’ve got to talk,’ he said. ‘Alec, I’m in big trouble and I have to talk to you.’
‘Where are you? The shop? I’ll—’
‘No,’ Marcus almost shouted down the phone. ‘I think they’re watching me, Alec. I’m coming out there. I can’t stay here, I …’
He dropped the phone back on to the desk as Alec’s voice continued to call his name. Staring out through the glass door of his office he saw that other man come into his shop, the small, dark-haired creature he had spotted with Kinnear.
A second later and the man had seen him too.
Marcus leapt round the desk and turned the key in the office door, then let himself back out through the rear of the shop. He ran to his car and slid the key into the ignition with hands that shook so much they flapped around the hole before managing to slot it in.
‘Please start?’ His car was temperamental, sometimes taking a second or so to catch. This morning it felt like an eternity.
He turned out of the yard and into the busy street beyond. Where would the man have gone? Did he have a car? Would he guess where Marcus could be going? Marcus glanced sideways at the shop front as he pulled into the main road but saw no one there that resembled the dark-haired man. He sank down in his seat, trying to make himself as small as possible as if that would help. No, the man was not in the shop either. He must have seen Marcus escaping and run back outside.
Marcus turned left at the end of the road and then right, cutting through side roads only a local might use. He reached the junction with the main road and peered out both ways. Clear. Marcus pulled out on to the main road. He put his foot down and accelerated away, relief coursing through his body.
He would drive to Fallowfields, tell them everything. They wo
uld call the police, Marcus supposed, but he didn’t care about that any more. He just knew he had to get away from Kinnear and from the man who had come to the shop.
Glancing in his rear-view mirror he saw a small red car accelerating fast. His first thought was that kids always drove too fast on these narrow winding roads. He inched across, keeping close to the verge, assuming that they would pass him by if he gave them room and then, as the car pulled closer still Marcus’s heart came close to stopping.
It was him. The man who had been with Kinnear.
‘Dear God!’ Marcus put his foot down and his car surged forward. The small red hatchback behind kept pace and then gained. It was so close now that Marcus could see the man clearly in his rear-view mirror. Foot flat to the floor now, Marcus knew he could not escape.
He felt the bump as the red hatchback hit his rear bumper. It was so gentle, so cautious that at first Marcus wasn’t sure it had been deliberate, then he realized that the driver of the red car was just testing out his own skill and nerve. He rammed him then, red car crunching into Marcus, pushing him faster than the accelerator would go. Marcus tried to twist away, wrenching the steering wheel and momentarily freeing himself from his pursuer.
Marcus screamed. A car in the oncoming lane sounded its horn. He glimpsed a pale and terrified face as he wrenched the wheel the other way, could feel the rear tyres stepping out of line before he steered back into the embryonic skid and straightened his line.
How far was Fallowfields. How far?
Marcus realized that it was closer than he’d thought. He could see that wide, sweeping bend coming up and after that would come the sudden left turn into Fallowfields’ drive. He had to make it there. He had to make that turn.
Pure willpower seemed to propel his car forward so that it inched away from his pursuer. Marcus found that he was praying. He took the bend wide, pleading that nothing would be coming the other way, then swung across, and dived into the opening in the hedge that spelt safety. Sheer momentum carried the red car forward and Marcus was convinced he would be broadsided. Instead, the unexpectedness of his actions had gained him just enough time. He slithered messily into the gravel drive, the red hatchback clipping his back end and sending him even further out of shape. Dragging on the wheel he straightened out of a second potential skid, the drag of the gravel helping to slow down his sideways slide. Then foot down and spraying small stones skyward he made it to the house, braking just in time.
Legacy of Lies Page 17