George put his worries aside and focussed on his food. He was always hungry. Kaz said it was because he was growing, but George reckoned it was because he could remember going without food so often when their dad came home. Food became another weapon to be used and denied whenever it pleased him.
Kaz said once he was like a stray dog that had finally been taken in. He just couldn’t believe that there would always be food and he felt he had to stock up every time it was offered, just in case.
Their dad, George reckoned, had a hell of a lot to answer for. It was probably just as well he was growing or he’d end up fat.
He wiped his plate clean with the last of his chips and was pleased to see that Paul had demolished most of his meal too and, though he’d slowed down a bit, was showing no sign of giving in. He didn’t look as pinched and pale either, though the bruising still looked stark and painful.
‘You want another Coke?’
Paul nodded and George went to the counter, feeling in his pocket for some change.
‘What happened to your friend?’ the woman behind the counter asked.
‘Oh, he was in an accident,’ George told her. ‘He’s a lot better now.’
The woman looked quizzically at him but made no further comment. George glanced out into the street. It was fully dark now and the streetlights had come on, the crowds thinned down almost to nothing.
He’d made no further mention of his father to Paul; tried not to make it obvious as he scanned every face as they passed, just to make sure. He wondered if he’d been waiting at the school gates again, and if anyone had noticed him.
Karen had been so sure, George thought as he took their drinks back to the table. But it seemed that in the complicated world of George Parker, nothing was ever certain.
There was only so long that they could string out their stay in the little café and when the woman came from the counter and started clearing their plates, George figured it was time to be off. They wandered aimlessly, back up the main street, unconsciously headed towards the school.
‘So, what do we do?’
‘I can’t go home.’
‘And we can’t wander round here all night. We’ll freeze for one thing.’
Paul shrugged. ‘I dunno.’
‘Look,’ George decided he had to take control. ‘The only place we know round here is school and we can’t hide out there. I say we go back to Frantham, hide out in the tin huts.’
‘You nuts? He’ll find us there.’
‘No, no he won’t. He’ll be like everyone else, expecting us to have run off, not going back home. You got a better idea?’
‘You’ve got some cash,’ Paul said slowly. ‘We could go somewhere.’
‘And how long you reckon that’s going to last? We’ve got to eat as well.’ He sighed heavily, wishing himself back home. In the warm. With his TV and his computer games. More than that, he wished himself back before any of this had happened. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ll get the rest of the money. We’ll go to the bus station. We passed a sign for it a bit back. We let ourselves be seen on the cameras so everyone will think we must’ve caught a bus, and then we go back to Frantham.’
‘How? I mean, that’s the one place we can’t get a bus to.’
‘We walk,’ George said. ‘It’s a straight road. It ain’t that far.’
Paul scowled but George could tell he couldn’t fault the plan and he couldn’t better it. ‘OK.’ Paul shrugged. ‘OK, I suppose that’s what we’ll do.’
George felt a surge of anger rise from the pit of his stomach and wedge itself in his chest. ‘This isn’t my problem,’ he wanted to say. ‘It weren’t my idea to skip out of school.’ But he swallowed the words before they reached his tongue. Paul was his friend, and anyway, part of this was his problem. He couldn’t just walk away.
He was generous enough to realize that he, George, had already experienced some really bad stuff and had come through it. He had some idea of what he could survive. For Paul this was the worst of the worst and he had nothing in his life with which to either compare or from which to gain courage.
‘Come on,’ George said. ‘We’d better get off. We’ve got a long way to go.’
Twenty-Five
Just after eight, Mac made a call on the Robinsons’ house.Nora Robinson sat with her husband at the kitchen table, a half-drunk mug of coffee in front of her. Her husband’s appeared to be untouched. A third mug sat between them, a trace of lipstick on the rim.
‘Karen’s been in and out all evening,’ she said. ‘The poor girl’s worried sick. She’s only just been able to contact her mum.’
‘And how are you?’ Mac asked quietly.
‘Oh, you know.’
‘Any more news?’ Colin was staring hungrily at Mac. ‘I just can’t understand it. It isn’t like either of the lads to do this.’
‘We’ve got a possible sighting,’ Mac said. ‘It came in just as I was driving back.’
‘Oh?’ The eagerness with which they both turned to him caused Mac acute guilt that it wasn’t more. ‘You know the school provided us with pictures?’
Nora nodded.
‘Well the local beat officers and community support have been doing the rounds with them. A woman in a chip shop in the middle of town is sure they came in for a meal about half past five. They had fish and chips and mushy peas and, she says, they just about ate the pattern off the plates.’
‘Little sods.’ A burst of laughter came from Colin. ‘She’s sure, is she?’
‘Ninety per cent. George is fairly distinctive with that red hair. She says she took special notice because he was so well mannered, but the clincher is she noticed the bruises on Paul’s face. She says she asked George what happened to his friend and he said he’d been in an accident.’
Mac smiled his tight, awkward smile. ‘At least you know they’ve had something to eat.’
Nora Robinson nodded slowly. ‘But nothing since that?’
‘Not yet, no. But the pictures are out there now and there’s CCTV close to the café where they ate. And, now we’ve got a rough time, it should be possible to pick them up again. It will just take a bit of time.’
‘Karen said George would have his bank card with him,’ Colin Robinson said. ‘I knew Paul would only have a bit of change for the drinks machine.’ He seemed relieved, as though Mac’s news meant that his son would soon be walking through the door. Nora still seemed harassed and doubtful. No less anxious.
‘But why did they go off like that? I can’t understand it.’
Mac had his ideas, but now was not the time to posit them. He needed to talk to Karen first. ‘The important thing is that they seem to be OK at the moment. We’ve got a lot of eyes looking for them, Nora. We’ll bring them home.’
She nodded, unconvinced. ‘It’s got to be something to do with what happened to Paul,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t it?’
Mac rose, ready to go. ‘I’m going to have a word with Karen,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you know the moment we have anything more.’
He let himself out; glancing back from the front door he could see them both, still sitting at the kitchen table, each buried in their own thoughts. It was odd, Mac thought; they were married, had a child together, lived together, but they both seemed so very much alone.
Karen opened the door as he stepped up to it. ‘I saw you go to the Robinsons’,’ she said. ‘I almost came round, but Mam’s on her way and it would be just bad luck if she arrived when I wasn’t here. Any news? You want some coffee? I think I’ve drunk a week’s worth here and round at the Robinsons’.’
Mac smiled. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘That would be welcome.’ He told her about the sighting and she laughed as Colin had done. ‘Good old George,’ she said softly. ‘Always bloody starving. This woman, she said they looked OK?’
‘She liked George’s manners,’ Mac said. ‘She said that he looked fine but that Paul seemed a bit out of it. She’d actually wondered if he was on something until he started to eat
. Then she reckoned he looked more normal. But yes, they looked all right.’
‘Thank God for that,’ she said with a fervour that surprised him.
‘You know why they ran?’
Karen poured boiling water on the instant coffee and added milk. ‘Sugar?’
He nodded. ‘Do you know why they ran, Karen?’
She hesitated. ‘It sort of depends,’ she said. ‘Depends if it was George or Paul doing the running. I’ve been thinking about it and it could be either way.’
Mac frowned. This was a new angle. ‘I admit,’ he said, ‘I’ve been working on the assumption that Paul was running scared of whoever beat him up. I’m assuming you know who that might be?’
She smiled. ‘And why would I know?’
‘Because even though he wouldn’t tell his parents, he’d be likely to confess all to his best friend, and from what I’ve seen of his best friend and said friend’s sister …’
Karen smiled, shook her head. ‘Mark Dowling,’ she said. ‘Paul got on the wrong side of that little bastard.’
‘And George? What was George afraid of?’
Karen chewed her lower lip. It was the first sign of indecision Mac had observed in her. ‘He thought he saw our dad,’ she said finally. ‘Outside the school gates last week. He was really freaked out. I’d told him we’d run far enough, that he’d never find us here, and I think he’d actually started to believe that.’
Mac frowned, another piece of the puzzle slipping into place. ‘Outside the school, close to where the buses wait?’
‘Yeah, I think so. Why?’
Mac dug into his pocket for the photograph they had printed for him at the school. He’d folded it to put in his pocket and a crease now ran, scar like, cutting the man’s face in two.
He watched as the colour drained from the girl’s face, then pulled out a chair from beneath the kitchen table and sat her down. ‘It’s him, then?’
She nodded. ‘He’s put on a bit of weight.’ She took the picture from Mac, laid it out on the table and studied it intently. ‘That scar’s new, on the side of his face, down on to his neck. But yes, that’s him. Oh my God, poor George.’
‘Karen, did you make a phone call earlier today? To the police in Exeter?’
She looked puzzled. ‘What, about our dad?’
‘No, about Mark Dowling, accusing him of Mrs Freer’s murder?’
The front door opened. ‘That’ll be Mam.’ She got up, headed towards the kitchen door.
Carol Parker had a sense of timing, Mac thought. ‘Karen, did you make that call?’
She turned to Mac. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Can we talk about that later on? I know it’s important but …’
Carol Parker burst into the kitchen and dropped her bag on to the floor. ‘What happened to our Georgie? Oh, Karen, where’s he gone? Where’s he gone?’ Then she stopped dead in her tracks and fell silent, staring at the picture which still lay on the kitchen table. Her scream took Mac utterly by surprise. Loud and piercing and repeated, on and on and on.
Karen grabbed her mother, forced her down into a chair and Mac grabbed the picture, fumbling it into his pocket. No need to ask, he thought abstractedly, if she recognized who it was. Karen was fighting with her mother now, as Carol ripped at her hair and tore at her face in a frenzy of grief and fear that had Mac retreating, helpless, into a corner.
‘What do I do?’ he shouted over the noise. Carol was wailing now, the screams less piercing but no less distressed. ‘I’ll call a doctor.’ He went out into the hall, then into the living room so that at least he could hear. He spoke to Eden, explained what was happening. Karen appeared at his side. She went to the sofa, pulled the cushions free and dug deep into the lining.
‘Sedatives,’ she explained. ‘We keep them for emergencies. George knows but Mam doesn’t; she’d take the lot.’ She extracted two from the bubble pack, handed the rest to Mac. ‘Put them back, will you?’ Then she retreated to the kitchen.
Mac looked at the pack he was holding. The prescription was an old one, the date almost a year ago. ‘Two tablets, as needed,’ the label said. From a bubble pack of sixteen, eight tablets were now gone. A second pack was untouched inside the crushed box. He recognized a trade name. His own doctor had prescribed them for him when he’d finally crashed. Couldn’t think, couldn’t function, couldn’t even sleep. He’d taken them for a week or so, Mac recalled, and the world had retreated to a pleasantly hazy distance for a while and – though he’d still been unable to think and decidedly unable to function – sleep, albeit with the most vivid of dreams, had at last come without the need for a half bottle of whatever was available that night.
Not sure what else to do, he hid the pack and replaced the sofa cushions, joined Karen in the kitchen where screaming and panic had now subsided into choking sobs as Carol tried her best to swallow tablets and the water Karen was holding for her.
The doorbell rang, and Mac opened it to the doctor who’d attended Mrs Freer that first morning when the carer had found her.
‘Inspector Eden called me,’ he said. ‘I’m just up the road.’
Mac nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said. The doctor passed him and went through to the kitchen. Mac looked on as Karen explained what she had given her mother and gave a medical history with a precision and calm that left Mac astounded again by the quiet control of this very young woman.
‘We’ve got to go,’ Carol was saying over and over again. ‘Got to go.’ Hysteria returned as the doctor suggested she lie down upstairs. ‘No, we’ve got to go. He’ll come back. We’ve got to go.’
Mac could see from her eyes that the drugs were kicking in. ‘We’ve got to get her out of here,’ Karen said. ‘She’s terrified he’ll come back.’
‘I’ll try to arrange a safe house,’ Mac said. ‘Or a hostel?’ He looked expectantly at the doctor but it was Karen who replied. ‘They give priority to women in immediate danger,’ she said. ‘Mam’s not. Not that immediate, anyway.’ She sighed. ‘Maybe a hotel, just for tonight?’
Mac felt in his pockets, knowing even as he did so that he was going to regret this impulse. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’m renting a flat looking out on to the promenade. Take the keys, grab what you need.’
The doctor nodded. ‘I’ll get my car,’ he said. ‘Drive them up there.’
‘Thanks.’
‘But what about you? Is there somewhere for you to sleep as well?’
Mac thought about the lumpy sofa. Too short and too uncomfortable to do anything more than sit for a brief while. ‘You’ll have to share with your mam, I’m afraid. You’ll find clean sheets in the top of the wardrobe. Frankly, I don’t think I’ll be getting much chance for sleep anyway, but if I do, I’ll crash on the sofa.’ He smiled in what he hoped was an encouraging fashion.
‘Thanks,’ Karen said again. She looked so relieved that Mac’s misgivings faded, just a little.
Glancing at the kitchen clock he saw that it was already almost ten but when he ran through in his head all of the tasks that lay ahead of him that night, sleep, even on the lumpy sofa, looked to be a long way away.
Twenty-Six
By half past ten, Karen and her mother were installed in Mac’s flat and he had informed the Robinsons of this additional problem.
‘If George should happen to turn up here,’ Mac said, ‘I don’t need to tell you to hang on to him and call me.’
Eleven o’clock saw the arrival of a drizzly rain. Mac reported to Eden, marking how old and tired his senior colleague looked, though, to be fair, even young Andy Nevins was flagging.
‘You think Karen was a definite for making that phone call?’ Eden asked him.
‘She would have admitted it if her mam hadn’t turned up,’ Mac said. ‘I’m sure of that. I’ll talk to her about it later.’
‘Question is,’ Eden mused, ‘does she have any proof of that or is it pure speculation based on what Dowling did to her little brother’s friend? And, of course, it depends what else the rumour mill’s be
en putting about. You seemed to think she had her ears open.’
‘I think there’s more to it than that,’ Mac said. ‘I’m just about convinced the two boys broke into the old woman’s house. If Mark Dowling got wind of what scared them off …’
‘Then the opportunity to get himself a nice little revolver would be just too much to pass up.’ Eden nodded. ‘It figures,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a warrant to search his home. Came through an hour ago. I suggest five o’clock might be a reasonable enough hour. He’ll like as not be back from a night on the town and he’s not likely to be awake enough to do a runner.’
‘What if he’s at his so-called girlfriend’s?’
‘Then we’ll have officers posted there, just to be sure. I’ve managed to wangle a few extra bodies from our friends in Dorchester. I suggest we all try to grab a couple of hours’ shut eye.’
Mac nodded. He got up and stretched. His body ached, through tension as much as tiredness as the old focus returned. He was, he realized with a slight but pleasant shock, starting to feel like a policeman again, instead of some great pretender.
‘See you here at four, then,’ he said
Mac stopped off at the flat to collect some of his things but had decided not to stay. It didn’t seem appropriate.
‘Mam’s asleep. Fast off,’ Karen said.
‘Good.’
‘You stopping then?’
He shook his head. ‘Going to bunk down at a friend’s,’ he said. ‘You’ve got my mobile number?’
‘Yes. I’ve got it.’
‘Look.’ Mac stood in the middle of his living room, his overnight bag clutched in his arms. He lowered it to the floor. ‘Look, I know it’s late but …’
‘But you’ve got to ask about the phone call.’ She nodded. ‘Yeah, that was me, but you already sussed that. You want to know why? Because Mark Dowling beat seven shades out of Paul, made him tell about the gun and then beat on him some more just because that’s the way he is. Then he made Paul go with him when he killed that poor old woman.’
A Reason to Kill Page 15