He felt her shake her head.
‘Hey.’ Gently, he eased her body away from his just enough for him to look down into her eyes. A thought occurred to him. ‘How did you find out?’
‘Mac called, this morning. He said he didn’t want me to hear it from anyone else. He’s coming up tomorrow. He’s . . .’ She buried her head in his chest once more and wept painful, noisy tears. Calum stroked her back and, somehow, welcomed the tears. Tears were kind of normal, after all. That terrible stricken silence was something he didn’t know how to handle. ‘I’ll take the day off, be with you when he comes.’
He felt her nod. ‘Then we’ll think what to do next. Like I said, I can take some time.’
This time the head was shaken. ‘I’m not going to run.’ She sounded angry now and Calum saw that as another good sign. She pulled away, wiping at reddened eyes with the heels of her hands. ‘Not unless you want me to go.’
‘Oh, hey, now don’t start that again. I already told you more times than I can count: whatever comes, we face it together. I told you that when you told me who you were and what your dad had done. We’ll get through this, Em. You and me. You understand that?’
She nodded, but didn’t seem convinced. ‘What if he comes here?’
‘Why would he? Look at it logically. How could he even know where you were? And if he did know . . . Well, love, if he’s not dead now, then he’s not been dead for all that time you thought he was. He could have turned up any time over the past year plus, and he hasn’t, has he? So what makes you think he will now?’
She tried to agree, tried to smile, to admit that what he said was right, but it was as though Mac’s phone call had once more made her father real, solid. She had managed to believe the letter the police had shown her. Managed to convince herself that he was dead, even though suicide was something she would never have associated with her father. Now, however, all of that reality, all of those thoughts she’d managed not to have since then, seemed to crowd in on her, waiting in the shadows at the edges of the room, at the periphery of her vision. Waiting for her to acknowledge them. Waiting to drown her.
Mac and Miriam arrived unannounced at Peverill Lodge just after seven o’clock. The evening meal was in the process of being cleared away, but leftover dessert was offered and accepted. The food in the Rina Martin household was always worth sampling and Miriam had become a major fan of Steven Montmorency’s cooking. Mac left Miriam ensconced at the kitchen table, digging into sticky toffee pudding and catching up on news with Bethany and Eliza, two more members of the extended family. He followed Rina into the little room at the front of the house that she reserved as her own personal space. Tim Brandon, the youngest member of the Martin household, joined them a moment later with a loaded tray of tea and more toffee pudding.
Love, in the Martin household, seemed, Mac thought, to be doled out in deep blue bowls and drenched in cream. It was also delivered freely in terms of conversation and sound advice, and Mac felt deeply in need of both.
He waited to speak until Tim had settled the tea tray on to the low table set between the two fireside chairs and brought a third chair from the recess of the bay window and he had accepted a cup from Rina, putting off the moment.
‘Not working tonight?’ he asked Tim.
‘No, it’s Monday.’
‘Oh, of course it is. Sorry, Tim, my brain is elsewhere. I’m glad you’re here, though.’
‘Trouble?’ Tim’s dark eyes filled with sympathy.
‘Yes . . . no. I mean . . .’ He took a deep breath. ‘I heard this morning. There’s been a break in the Cara Evans case. It’s been upgraded to active and I’ve been offered the opportunity to be part of the investigation.’
Silence seemed to drop upon the room from some point above the ceiling. Mac saw Tim and Rina exchange a glance and knew what was going through their minds. They had known him since his first days here at Frantham and would be thinking . . .
‘I’m ready to deal with it,’ Mac said softly. ‘I know you’ll be worried, I know it won’t be easy, but, Rina, I have to do this.’
She sighed. ‘Of course you do, Mac, but the selfish part of me wishes you’d had a bit longer to prepare.’
‘Would that have made it any better?’ Tim wondered. ‘Sometimes, having time to stand on the edge is harder than making the leap.’
Rina nodded. ‘Sometimes,’ she agreed. ‘Mac, when do you leave?’
‘In the morning, first thing. Miriam’s going to keep an eye on the boathouse. I expect she’ll be staying there as much as she usually does, so no worries about that.’
‘And we’ll keep an eye on Miriam,’ Rina assured him. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve any idea . . .’
‘How long this will take? No, none at all. But it’s the first movement we’ve had in the case for months; everyone will be eager to push things on as fast as possible.’
‘I imagine they will.’
Mac caught the odd tone in Rina’s voice and realized what she had heard in his. He had already removed himself from Frantham and therefore from them. He was already thinking and behaving as though he had gone, become part of this other world in which they did not figure.
‘I’ll be coming back,’ he said firmly. ‘Rina, I’m under no illusions about what this is going to do to me. I’m going to need my family when this is over.’
Somewhat mollified and reassured, she reached out and took his hand. ‘We’ll be here,’ she said. ‘But, Mac, I want you to promise me something. I can understand that you have to see this thing through, to see an end to it, but remember, Mac, you are not invincible and, much as I regret having to say it, you are not indispensable, not to the police. There are other officers. You are indispensable to us. Irreplaceable. Promise me you will remember that?’
He had rarely seen her look more concerned or more earnest and he responded in kind. ‘I promise,’ he said solemnly. ‘If I find I can’t cope, I will take myself off the case.’ He smiled wryly. ‘You can be sure I’m going to be under the tightest of scrutiny, you know. They’ll be looking for poor old DI McGregor to fall apart on the job.’
A few miles away, a young woman got off the late train at Honiton Station and checked into the George Hotel on the High Street. She asked about hire cars, said she’d be staying for two days, maybe more, smiled and flirted with the young man at reception. Her blonde hair shone brightly in the strong lights in the lobby, skilfully highlighted and the cut expensive and as tailored as the black wool coat she wore. She had one bag with her and she said it was fine, she could carry it up herself.
The young man at reception watched hungrily as she recrossed the lobby and headed for the stairs.
‘Put your eyes back in,’ his manager joked, coming from the small office behind reception. He glanced at the registration sheet she had just filled in. ‘Carolyn Johnson,’ he said. ‘Out of your league, mate. Way out.’
The receptionist, blushing furiously, attempted to laugh it off. ‘I can dream, can’t I?’
‘Oh, dream on,’ his manager said and retreated to the office, still laughing.
THREE
Mac left early, kissing Miriam goodbye and watching regretfully as she rolled over and snuggled back down beneath the duvet. Outside, the morning was chill and grey and a stiff breeze blew off the sea as he completed the short walk round the headland to collect his car from behind the police station. Old Frantham Town, where his boathouse flat was located, had no vehicular access, a fact which had helped keep it free of the second-homes brigade. It also had a population of rather determined and conservative locals who resisted change with a tenacity that Mac had at first viewed as eccentric, but which, less than a year into his tenure, he now understood completely.
Frantham was fine for the tourists – the locals needed the tourists – but Frantham Old Town was theirs, pure and simple, and he was fortunate enough that they had accepted him as an honorary local after so short a time.
The weather seemed to be reflecting his m
orning mood: cold and bleak and totally lacking in view. Still dark when he left the boathouse, the slight lifting from black to grey that announced predawn this time of year was immediately blurred again by a thickening sea mist, the fog rolling in as the cold breeze suddenly subsided. His brain seemed full of that selfsame fogginess. What on earth did he think he was doing, heading north to participate in an investigation, the first round of which had damn near finished him off both mentally and physically? He really wasn’t up to this; Alec had as good as told him so the previous day, and Rina had tacitly agreed, he was sure of that.
He could call Alec now: tell them that he’d changed his mind, made a mistake, really wasn’t ready. No one would hold that against him. Like Alec said, the invitation to rejoin the investigation had been extended out of courtesy. No one had expected him to say yes. They’d all be relieved if he took himself out of the equation.
Yes, he could call Alec, then turn around and rejoin Miriam in that warm bed. No need to get up again for at least another hour. His brain nagged at him, inner voices yammering and pleading, but his feet seemed to have other ideas and continued with their steady tramp, tramp, along the wooden walkway and then on to the solid if shabby concrete of the promenade.
Too late now. Moments later he was in his car, manoeuvring out of the tiny space at the back of the police station, and on his way. Too late now for second thoughts. For good sense or good advice.
‘Thomas Peel,’ he said aloud, remembering his conversation with Andy the day before. The name had become a mantra now, a focus and reminder. ‘Thomas Peel. And this time I’m going to get the bastard.’
Heading north-east, back to that other coast, that other sea, but first to see the other victim of all this. Peel’s child.
Calum met him at the front door. Mac had met Emily’s boyfriend once before, spoken to him on the phone a couple of times, but not recently. He was shocked by the young man’s pallor, by the dark circles beneath his eyes.
‘We didn’t get any sleep,’ Calum said. ‘She just couldn’t manage to close her eyes. Every time she tried, she dreamed about him, even before she fell asleep.’
Mac nodded, remembering a time when Thomas Peel had walked through his every dream, sleeping and then, as time went on, waking too.
‘I’m sorry.’ It seemed such an inadequate thing to say, but Calum nodded, looked grateful for the sympathy.
‘I told her we should take some time away. I can get holiday.’
‘You should be at work today?’
‘I phoned in. Boss was OK; we’re not exactly busy.’
Mac recalled that Calum worked for a little company that designed and installed high-end kitchens. He didn’t imagine that the current economics were healthy. He followed the younger man through to the back of the house and into the kitchen. Emily stood by the sink, kettle in hand, but a look on her face that suggested she couldn’t think what to do with it.
Calum took it from her, kicked a chair out from under the table and sat her down, gestured to Mac to do the same. He ran the tap and plugged the kettle in.
‘So,’ he said, ‘what’s happening? Where is he, then? And how come the bastard didn’t have the guts to kill himself like we thought he had?’ He shrugged, as though realizing he’d answered his own question.
‘I knew he wasn’t dead,’ Emily said slowly. ‘I just wanted to believe he was. Just really, really wanted to.’
Mac reached out and took her hand. Back then, when they had hunted Thomas Peel the first time, he had sat for hours, or it had seemed like hours, holding her hand, drinking tea, not knowing what to say or how to stop the tears, though the silence after the tears had been worse. She clasped his hand now and managed a brief smile, and he knew she was remembering that time too, and that, like him, she could no longer have told anyone who was comforting whom.
Emily had that kind of skin that was always milk pale, Mac thought. Mousy brown hair that was shot through with blonde in summer, and the darkest blue, almost violet, eyes. She wasn’t conventionally pretty, though her oval face was delicately proportioned and her hair was surprisingly thick and soft. It was the eyes that stopped her from being plain, that captured the attention and held it long enough for the viewer to realize that she also had a lovely, sweet smile. He could fully understand the almost worshipful look that Calum cast in her direction, the slight jealousy with which he regarded Mac’s hand on hers.
‘I don’t have all the details,’ he said. ‘But there’s been a sighting, one that checked out. Someone saw him who knew him from before, a man called John Bennet?’
Emily nodded. ‘They worked together.’
‘He saw . . .’ That problem with naming again, but this time the word Mac had trouble with was . . .
‘My father,’ Emily said. ‘He saw my dad. It’s all right, Mac. I can cope with you saying it. I can’t change the fact I’m related to him.’
‘He saw him and followed him, watched when he went into a little boarding house, then called the police.’
‘Where?’ Calum demanded.
‘He’d come back to Pinsent,’ Mac said.
‘He’d come back? Why? How come no one else saw him?’ Calum looked away. The kettle had boiled and he made tea. Coffee for himself. Mac noted that his hand was shaking.
‘Why go back to Pinsent?’ Emily was astonished. ‘He’d know someone would be sure to see him. The boarding house. The police . . .’
‘Went there, but he’d gone. According to the landlady, he’d checked out earlier that day, just “popped back in”, she said, to see if he’d left his scarf.’ He paused. ‘Mr Bennet was on his lunch break. He still works the same job as he did when your father knew him; still gets his lunch from the same corner shop . . .’
‘He wanted to be seen.’ Emily nodded emphatically, as though that made perfect sense, which, given what Mac knew about her father, it probably did. The man was an exhibitionist, a walking ego. He loved to play games. ‘He knew when Mr Bennet would go for lunch and where he’d go. He showed himself.’
‘That’s what we think,’ Mac confirmed. ‘They put out an alert and got two more sightings for the same day, another the morning after. That was three days ago and there’s been nothing since, but it’s the best lead we’ve had in a long time and it’s confirmation that he’s still alive.’
‘Why is he doing this?’ Calum shook his head. ‘I don’t get it. The bloke was free and clear. Why come back?’
‘Money,’ Mac said. ‘We know he was owed money. My colleagues think he’s come to collect.’
‘Owed? By who?’
Mac took a deep breath. ‘Thomas Peel is a killer,’ he said. ‘And we know Cara Evans wasn’t the first child he abducted. What we also know is—’
‘That he got kids for men who . . . who like that sort of thing.’ When it came to it, Emily couldn’t say it either.
‘Paedophiles?’ This was new to Calum. ‘Em, you never told me that, I mean . . .’
‘He never touched me if that’s what you’re worried about.’ Her voice was harsh. ‘I never told you that part because it was all bad enough already. Because that bit of it didn’t make it into the newspapers. Because it was just one more thing to chuck at you, to make you want to say . . .’
‘To say I love you,’ Calum interrupted her. ‘Em, I’m still here, I ain’t about to run away. I’m not living with your dad.’
Silence gathered itself in the tiny kitchen; silence that shouted at them that living with her father was precisely what they’d all been doing. Calum shook himself, handed mugs of tea to Mac and Emily. ‘So, what now?’ he said. ‘All that other stuff, you kept it back from the media?’
Mac nodded. ‘We had names, no proof. We had one case of blackmail, knew there were more. Calum, it was all such a tangle, such a bloody mess, it was decided we would keep that side of things under wraps until something broke. Nothing did, not until now.’
‘He’s contacted someone?’
Mac nodded. ‘I’m sorry,
I can’t tell you much, largely because I don’t know much, but we had permission to monitor certain phones calls. He made a call to one of those men.’
Silence again. Nothing to say. Far more questions than could be fitted into that small space filled by a little wooden table, two school chairs and three bodies.
Calum finally broke the spell. ‘So, what now?’ he asked again. ‘Do you think he’ll come here?’
‘You think he knows where I am?’ Emily had confronted that question already, but to hear Calum ask Mac thrust it at her with renewed intensity.
‘I think he might,’ Calum said. ‘Look, Em, your dad is a lot of things, but we know he’s clever and we know he likes everyone to know it.’ He looked at Mac for confirmation. Mac, gaze fixed on Emily, just nodded.
Emily took a deep breath, released it slowly. ‘I’m not running,’ she said at last. ‘If he comes here, Mac, then we can let you know. You can arrange for someone to watch out, can’t you? Maybe even tap the phone?’
Mac frowned. This was not the response he had expected. He’d been all set to offer the option of a safe house until this was all over, but it seemed he was not the only one set on facing his demons.
‘We’re sure,’ Calum said, pulling his rather skinny body up to full height and squaring what, considering his frame, were surprisingly powerful shoulders. He would need them, Mac thought. Need all the breadth he could muster.
‘OK, then.’ He took a business card from his pocket and wrote his mobile number on the back. ‘Any time, just call me. I’ll arrange for a family liaison officer to get in touch today and they’ll coordinate with me and the rest of the team.’ He drained his mug and stood, feeling overlarge in the small space.
‘You’ll ring me later?’ Emily asked. It seemed that some stranger in family liaison would not be enough.
‘I’ll ring you later,’ Mac confirmed. Calum saw him to the door. ‘If you change your mind,’ Mac said, ‘we can arrange for somewhere to stay.’
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