‘Oh, but of course not.’ Eliza was immediately contrite. ‘I’m sure you have so much to do?’
Mac was aware that she’d let the question hang, that she and everyone around the table, with the possible exception of Tim, was desperate to ask him everything, anything about the case. He managed an awkward smile. ‘We do have a number of leads,’ he said, remembering that he had said something very similar to Karen Parker a short time before and that she had laughed.
Eliza didn’t laugh. She nodded approvingly and looked intently into Mac’s face. ‘Well that’s good, isn’t it? That you have leads?’ She looked around the table, inviting confirmation. ‘Well it is, isn’t it?’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Rina soothed. ‘Right, shall we all have coffee?’
Mac found himself involved in what seemed to be an established household ritual – the removal of plates and crockery and making of coffee, carrying the fresh pots back into the dining room. He wondered who got the job of washing-up.
Rina handed him a cup and held the door open. ‘Shall we adjourn?’ she asked. ‘Tim, you’d better come along too.’
Obediently they followed her. Mac, glancing back at the others, noted the curious, almost hungry looks cast in their direction as they left: those deprived of secret things.
Rina flopped down into one of the easy chairs and pointed Mac at the other. Tim deposited his cup on the table and fetched a fireside chair from the bay window. Mac sipped his coffee, wondering what was coming next.
‘So,’ Rina asked when Tim had settled. ‘How is it going?’
Mac smiled. ‘You know I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘I have some thoughts; I have some small leads, but nothing I can talk about. Sorry.’
Rina nodded. ‘Have the neighbours been helpful?’ she asked innocently.
Mac found himself laughing this time. The sound shocked him. ‘Rina, you never give up, do you?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t see the point of giving up,’ she said. ‘You won’t have got anything from the next-door neighbours. They wouldn’t give anyone the time of day, never mind commit to giving actual information, and the people on the other side, those not actually attached to poor Mrs Freer’s house, they work all hours God sends. I believe they want to emigrate to New Zealand or some such. I suppose they’re saving.’
She drank her coffee and set the cup down gently on the table. Mac exchanged a glance with Tim and noted the hint of a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. He waited for the next instalment in Rina’s neighbourhood history.
‘Then there’s the Bennets. The only view they have of the outside world is what they see on the television. They even have their shopping delivered. The single mother next to them, well, she’s so wrapped up in herself she notices nothing of the world around her. Jumps out of her skin if you so much as say good morning. The boy, on the other hand … Eyes everywhere. You gain the impression that he sees everything and worries about all of it.’
‘That would be George Parker,’ Mac said.
‘I believe that’s his name, yes. He has a sister, cast in the same mould. She has an intelligent look to her.’
Mac realized this was a query directed at him. He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I spoke to her,’ he confirmed. ‘She strikes me as intelligent, yes.’
‘And?’
‘Rina, I’ve nothing to tell and I couldn’t tell you if I did.’
‘No, but something is troubling you about your morning labours. I could see it on your face.’
‘How do you tell?’ Tim wondered. ‘I think the Inspector’s natural expression is a troubled one.’
Rina nodded thoughtfully. ‘Maybe so,’ she said. ‘I was down at Mrs Freer’s one day when the school bus arrived. I saw George Parker get off. There was another boy with him, the Robinson child. He lives a few doors down, but you’ll be relieved to hear I know nothing more about him. What I did notice though, was a third boy, about the same age. He followed them off the bus even though he doesn’t live in the same street. He was taunting the pair of them, teasing, but not in a nice way. I frowned at him and he walked off.’
Mac caught Tim hiding a smile, but he found himself half believing that a Rina Martin scowl would be enough to intimidate almost anyone. He sensed she had brought up the incident with some specific purpose in mind. ‘Do you know the other boy?’
Rina shook her head. ‘Not his name, no. But I’ve seen him before. He hangs around with Mark Dowling and his gang.’
‘Mark Dowling?’
‘Your local knowledge really is lacking,’ Tim told him. ‘Nasty piece of work. His dad runs a car repair place down in the tin huts. He’s a bit of a wide boy, but by all accounts he’s a good mechanic. The son though, Mark, one of three boys and none of them any good from what I’ve seen, but Mark is … unpleasant.’ The word somehow assumed the character of an expletive.
‘I’ve heard the name,’ Mac mused. Something about a burnt-out car? He tried to recall, but it seemed to him that it had been only a passing comment, one overheard and not directed at him. ‘Looks like a Dowling,’ Eden had said. ‘Little toe rag.’ It occurred to Mac that in his previous posting the adjective used would have been ‘scrote’ at the very least, but somehow he could not imagine Eden using more abusive language. Or needing it. Eden could pack as much distaste into the ‘toe rag’ phrase as could Tim into the word ‘unpleasant’.
Someone tapped hesitantly on the door and Tim rose, took possession of the proffered coffee pot and closed the door again.
Rina refilled their cups.
‘So,’ Mac said, ‘tell me about this Mark Dowling.’
He listened to Rina’s account of the boy who had truanted from his early teens, shoplifted, took cars that had been brought in for repair at his father’s business and broke into his neighbours’ houses.
‘He got himself caught so often it was almost an embarrassment,’ Rina said. ‘Always in the local papers, he was. His mother said she’d had enough and took off somewhere. Mark must have been about fifteen at the time. There were rumours that the father was violent, but I wouldn’t know about that. Anyway, the courts finally put him away and when he came back home he seemed to have quietened down but the general opinion is that he just learned to keep his head down.’
‘It sounds as though the early stuff was attention-seeking as much as anything,’ Mac proposed.
Rina snorted. ‘Had he been mine, he’d have got attention all right, but it might not have been the kind he was looking for. Anyway, he seems to have gathered this admiring little group around him and whatever he’s really up to seems to dip below the radar, as it were.’
Mac nodded, not quite sure how Rina thought this fitted in but making a mental note that he must add Mark Dowling to his list of ‘things to discuss with Eden’ the following day.
‘There have been complaints about kids on motorbikes,’ he said.
‘By the huts, yes. Oh, most don’t do any harm, most stick to that big patch of wasteland Tesco is trying to buy. It’s just when they get stupid and cut through by the old folks’ home and on to Newell Street that the trouble really starts. No crash helmets and no sense. I don’t wonder people complain then.’
Thoughtfully, Mac sipped his cooling coffee. ‘Have you ever seen George Parker or his friend with Dowling’s gang?’
Rina shook her head. ‘No, as I told you, just that one incident with the other boy. Him, I have seen with Dowling.’
‘And you think Dowling might be linked to the murder?’
Rina frowned, troubled. She obviously didn’t like Mark, but to link anyone with such a violent act was, Mac suspected, a step too far.
‘I don’t know,’ she said finally. ‘He’s a nasty piece of work, but … What I do think, though, is that his little group will have heard whatever gossip there is, which, of course, is not to say you should give credence to it.’
Mac considered himself told.
‘There’s another thing,’ Rina told him. ‘Quite a separate thing. You
remember telling me about the lights you saw, out by Marlborough Head.’
Mac hadn’t given it further thought, but he nodded.
‘Well, Tim and I went down there.’
‘Down there?’
‘There’s a little bit of beach and a cave,’ Tim supplied.
‘Ah.’
‘We did some poking around and we came up with these.’ Rising from her chair, Rina crossed to a small chest of drawers standing just beside the door. She returned with three plastic freezer bags and deposited them on Mac’s knee. ‘Evidence,’ she said.
‘Of what?’ Mac examined the bags, peering at their contents through the clear gaps between the blue stripes.
Rina shrugged carelessly. ‘Who knows,’ she said. ‘We thought you could have the fun of finding out.’
Lunch in the Parker household was a less elaborate affair although Karen had done her best. Their mother had never been much of a cook and her lack of skill had been yet one more bone of contention with their father. Karen had lost track of the number of beatings received over burned dinners. From the time she was capable of handling a kitchen knife and reading a recipe book, Karen had taken on as much as she could of the culinary duties and she had succeeded far better than her mother. Vainly, the younger Karen had tried to improve her mother’s skill, but Carol Parker seemed to have lost all faith in her abilities and every small failure simply served to reinforce her sense of helplessness. Later, in school, Karen had discovered the phrase ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’. Of this sad concept, Carol, in Karen’s eyes, seemed the epitome.
‘I made pudding,’ Karen said now. ‘Want some?’
George nodded eagerly. The only time he could be assured a decent meal was when Karen prepared it or he ate at Paul’s house. He was, in self-defence, taking a leaf from Karen’s book and learning to cook, but his efforts, though better than his mother’s, were still a little hit and miss and getting her to give him money for shopping was a real trial. She felt, somehow, that she ought to be in control of the money and the shopping but in truth was in command of neither. Karen usually made a point of stocking up once a week, getting their mother to accept this as a favour and always careful not to undermine the fragile progress she was making. That she was managing to hold down a job – OK, maybe not a particularly demanding job – was a triumph in its own right and Carol’s children did all they could to let her know they were proud of her efforts.
‘You want some pudding, Mam?’
Carol blinked. ‘Oh, I don’t know. What is it?’
‘Apple crumble. I’ve bought some cream to go with it.’ Karen was still not totally satisfied with her efforts at pastry making, but crumble was easy.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I shouldn’t. Well, maybe just a little.’
Karen smiled her approval. Another hangover from their father’s influence was Carol’s obsession with her weight. She was getting better, actually managing to eat a full meal these days, but Karen and George remembered all too vividly those skeletal days just before everything had finally come to a head when she had been terrified of every mouthful.
Karen served the crumble, distributing the lion’s share to George and careful not to give her mother too large a portion. She served it in a shallow soup plate, the larger dish making the portion look even slighter, even more manageable. Carol could be so easily scared by anything that looked like too much and her definition of too much was determined by her level of confidence on any given day.
George dug in, listening vaguely to the female conversation as Karen tried to plan a shopping trip. Carol worried about spending on clothes, too, and George noticed that Karen laced the conversation with words like ‘good value’ and ‘really cheap’. He knew too that Karen would end up getting the stuff Carol needed for her, but at least she’d wear it these days, even if his sister still had to lie about the price paid.
‘We’ll wash up,’ Karen said. ‘You go and have a rest.’
George felt his full stomach turn over, knowing that Karen was getting their mother out of the way so that she could begin the interrogation. He knew he couldn’t get away from it either. Karen had ways and means of worming inside his head and she had a bloodhound instinct should he try to tell her a lie. He dropped his spoon into his now empty bowl with a resigned sigh and the acknowledgement that, actually, he really wanted to tell and that any resistance on his part would be in part for show and in part because he knew it was going to be hard to find the words. Since Paul had told him what had gone on with the old woman he’d been sort of hoping that Karen would force the information from him. It had weighed so heavy that, along with the fear that he had seen his father standing outside his school, George felt like his brain had been loaded down with lead.
Karen waited until their mother was safely out of the way and the washing-up begun before she started in on George. She was well aware of the way occupied hands seemed to free up the tongue and she set George to drying, something Carol never bothered with as a general rule. George wielded the striped tea towel with elaborate care, setting the dishes on the counter as he dealt with each one. Karen eyed him cautiously, selecting her moment.
‘So,’ she said finally. ‘Tell me.’
George stalled. ‘Tell you what?’
‘Whatever it was you didn’t tell the policeman the other day, like who it was broke into the old woman’s house.’
She kept her voice carefully neutral, not wanting to scare him off, but inside she was screaming at him, wanting to know what the hell he had been thinking. What possible excuse he could have had. Karen had no doubt at all that George and his friend had been the ones responsible for that; his behaviour when the policeman had visited had just been too suspicious. Karen was horrified, but she recognized that George was horrified too and, well, he was her little brother. Karen would do what she’d always done for her family: she would put things right, whatever.
‘What makes you think I got anything to say?’ George mumbled.
‘Oh, come off it, George. So, what happened then? You do it for a dare? You get pissed or what?’ She turned sharply, a further worry surfacing. ‘If I find out you or that friend of yours took drugs, I swear, I’ll shop the pair of you.’
‘We never done drugs,’ he said. He seemed relieved to have something to deny.
‘So what was it then? George, I can’t believe you did such a stupid thing willingly or sober so …’
‘It were this girl,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Sharon Bates. She said Paul didn’t have the nerve for nothing, that he was—’
‘Better a wimp than a fool,’ Karen said sharply. Then, seeing George’s expression change, she cursed herself for interrupting at the wrong moment. ‘OK, sorry, little bro. You just tell me and I promise I’ll keep it shut ’til you’ve finished.’
George reached over and took another plate from the stack, set it down and began to dry it. At this rate, Karen thought, he’d still be drying come tea time.
‘We were all over in the tin huts,’ he said. ‘Mam had fallen asleep and Paul came to the back door. His mum and dad had gone out. We were all over there, about eight of us, and Sharon had this bottle. She said it was cider but it tasted funny.’ He glanced anxiously at his sister. Karen kept her face carefully neutral. ‘I only had a swig or two,’ he said. ‘But Paul … well he had a load. He said he was all right but he weren’t and I knew we had to get back before his mam and dad came in so I was trying to get him away and then Shaz said we were scared of everything and everyone else started to pick on me and Paul and …’ George’s hands stopped moving and he closed his eyes.
‘And what, George?’
‘And Sharon said about the old lady. About how it would be easy to … to … just to break in. Prove we weren’t scared.’
Karen stood very still. So much she wanted to say. So angry with him that she knew once the words were released she’d have the devil’s own job to call them back. She took a deep, slow breath. ‘And so?’
‘I managed to
get Paul to come away with me and he were falling over all over the place. I thought I could get him back home and it would all be OK, but then he fell down again and he found this bit of metal.’ George sighed. ‘You know what it’s like over there, all sorts of stuff gets dumped and well, anyway, that were it. Paul said he could open the door with it. He said it would be easy and we wouldn’t steal nothing, nothing that mattered, just something to prove we’d been there and he weren’t scared.’
Why, Karen wondered, was it so important to prove anything to the morons they’d been drinking with over in the sheds? She had a fair idea who the girl was and didn’t exactly have a high opinion of her, but then she remembered what she’d been like at George’s age. An outsider, partly because circumstance had forced her to grow up fast and partly because she could never dare to invite anyone home. Young Karen would, she remembered, have done a lot of stupid things in an effort to have fitted in if fitting in had ever been an option, and she knew that both George and Paul were having a hard time of it in their different ways.
Still, that didn’t excuse what they’d done. ‘Did you ever think how scared she might have been? George, I can’t get my head around this, I really can’t. I thought you’d got more …’ She broke off, biting back the words she really wanted to say. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Tell me the rest.’
‘We got the door open. I told Paul we should go. Right then. It would be reported to the police, you know, that someone had broken her door. We didn’t need to do no more, but Paul, he pushed the door open and she were standing there, in the kitchen.’ He swallowed convulsively. ‘She had a gun, Kaz; it were pointed straight at us. We just ran and I got Paul back in his house and we were just shaking like …’ He turned to look directly at his sister. ‘I ain’t never been so scared since Dad. You know?’
She nodded, shook the water from her hands and wiped them on her jeans then went over to him. ‘Come here, you daft bugger.’
He accepted the quick, sisterly hug but then pulled away. ‘There’s more, Kaz, and it’s really bad.’
A Reason to Kill Page 10