‘She’s decided,’ Calum said. ‘Take a team of horses to shift her now, and if Em’s decided, then I have too. We can do this, Mac.’ He shook Mac’s hand, an oddly formal gesture. It was, thought Mac, as though Calum was sealing a deal, and it occurred to Mac that Calum expected him to keep his side of it.
FOUR
Mac had not been back to the place he had once called home in eighteen months. He had spent most of his sick leave away, staying with friends and then, when the strain of their sympathy grew too much to bear, in a remote cottage loaned to him by a colleague. The cottage had been a legacy left by some distant relative. It had been up for sale, but there had been few potential takers. Some things are too remote even to appeal to the most enthusiastic of second-homers and the price bracket just too high for the locals. Mac had been caretaker, occasional viewings officer and increasingly morose guest, until both he and the owner had decided the property was too remote even for him. He’d sunk even deeper into despair: so deep that he was suspected of frightening off at least a couple of sets of possible buyers and his colleague became concerned that another set might turn up one day and find him drunk or dead.
That had been a low point in six months of low points, and he’d woken up one morning to find himself in a monastery of all places. He had no memory of having arrived or of the past six days, but apparently his new place of residence had been courtesy of Alec who had friends in some very unexpected places. He was, he was told, officially on spiritual retreat.
‘Retreat?’ Mac had asked.
‘It’s better than running away.’
Mac smiled, remembering Alec’s comment. ‘Better than running away.’
Very true. Peace, quiet, someone to talk to or not to talk to . . . Mac had shifted tack, retreated rather than tried to run, and eventually returned to work. He had not, though, completely returned, not until now. Now, it seemed, he was running hard in the opposite direction and he had drawn others back with him. He was certain that Emily would have lacked the courage to make her own stand had anyone but Mac been the one to bring her the news, and he was as yet undecided if that was a good or a bad thing.
He made the final turn off the main road, second left at the roundabout and into Pinsent. This little seaside town, very much like his now beloved Frantham, with its promenade and rows of tall, Edwardian houses now converted to flats and B & Bs. Here, though, it was possible to drive along the road next to the promenade, unlike Frantham promenade which was now a paved pedestrian zone. In summer he’d have had to ease along slowly, avoiding the holidaymakers who determinedly ignored the crossings. Now, in the depths of winter, though the cars still moved with habitual slowness, the road was clear and dreary. He glanced out towards the sea, grey and cold-looking in the winter sun of the early afternoon. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard and noted that it was nearly two, that he was hungry, that he was not expected until the planned briefing at four. Not quite ready to run headlong after all, he pulled into a side road and walked back to a once familiar café facing the sea and ordered tea and bacon rolls, sat in the window and watched the world go by, thinking how much of it had gone by since he had last been here.
‘Well, hello, stranger!’
Mac’s heart sank. He wasn’t ready yet to face outsiders. His colleagues would be bad enough. He managed to compose his face into some semblance of welcome as the woman drew out a chair opposite and sat down, uninvited.
‘Ginny!’ Mac laughed with relief and genuine pleasure. ‘How the devil are you?’
‘I’m good, really good. You?’ She tilted her head and studied him thoughtfully. ‘You don’t look too bad at all, considering.’ She wagged her finger, mockingly, schoolteacherish. ‘You had a lot of people worried, young man.’
Mac laughed again. Young man. He was at least a dozen years older than Ginny.
‘Still married, I hope?’
Her eyes softened. ‘Oh yeah, it’s all still good. Kids are in school now, you know. Both of them.’
‘Never. I can’t believe that.’
She laughed. ‘A lot can happen when you’re not watching,’ she said. She reached across and patted his hand in an almost maternal gesture, then glanced at her watch. ‘Speaking of which, time to pick them up. I’d best get a move on. I saw you through the window, thought I ought to say hello, you know. I’m glad you’re OK, you were always well . . . you know. You were all right.’
She left, allowing the door to clang behind her. Mac ordered another cup of tea. Ginny hadn’t changed, he thought. No reason why she should have; it hadn’t been that long. He wondered if she was still working, if her husband really didn’t know. What secrets families keep . . .
Carolyn Johnson had ordered a taxi to take her to Frantham and then hired a car from the DeBarr garage-cum-filling-station-cum-car-hire just outside the seaside town. Once, the DeBarrs had owned half of Frantham-on-Sea and their name still graced the Hotel up on Marlborough Head, but the mini-empire had long since shrunk down to what Ray DeBarr considered a satisfyingly manageable size.
‘How long will you want it for?’ he asked the attractive blonde as she lay her documentation on the desk in front of him.
‘Oh, three, four days maybe. Can I extend if I need to?’
Ray checked through her licence and insurance details. ‘Of course; not much call this time of year. I’ll give you a card; you give me a call and you can renew over the phone. Now, how would you like to pay?’
He watched her appreciatively as she left, sashaying out across the forecourt towards the waiting hatchback, and half-heartedly wished himself twenty years younger, correcting that to thirty and conceding that he probably couldn’t have afforded her anyway. She wore jeans and a black, three-quarter length coat, but he’d have made a bet that both bore labels his wife would have drooled over and even he may have heard of.
‘Back in the day,’ he mused to himself, filing the copies of Carolyn Johnson’s paperwork. Back when being a DeBarr actually meant something. He chuckled at his own fantasies. Having money wasn’t the same thing as having class, and the young woman he had just encountered seemed well in possession of both.
Ten minutes later, the little hatchback pulled up in front of Peverill Lodge. The blonde-haired woman calling herself Carolyn Johnson took a moment or two to compose herself before getting out, suddenly taken by surprise at the attack of nerves. Rina was the one person in the world who still daunted her, but, even had someone put a gun to her head and demanded the reason, she could not have explained why. Would she be home? Knowledge of the routine in the Martin household told her that lunch would be over, that the Peters sisters would most likely be having their afternoon nap, and that Rina would be busying herself with something or other that probably involved sticking her nose into someone else’s business.
Which, after all, was precisely why ‘Carolyn’ had come back to see her.
Hooking her black leather bag off the passenger seat, she got out of the car, crossed the road to Peverill Lodge and rang the bell. Somewhat to her surprise, it was Rina who opened the door, and to her great satisfaction it was several seconds before the older woman recognized her.
Then understanding dawned. ‘Hello, Karen,’ Rina said. ‘I had an odd feeling you might turn up some time soon. You’d better come in.’
Mac was at the same time back on home ground and also feeling the trepidation and strangeness of being an outsider. Somehow he had expected things to have changed, but the front desk was still scuffed and in need of a polish, and still scarred with rings left from hot mugs. The green lino still looked as if Noah might have made use of it for bedding down something with sharp claws, and he would have sworn the same youths still waited on the uncomfortable benches.
The desk sergeant, a man Mac did not recognize, glanced up with an enquiring smile as Mac entered the reception area. Behind the man, through a frosted glass screen, Mac could see silhouettes moving as officers assembled for the briefing. Alec must have been looking out for him
because he appeared just as Mac was about to introduce himself to the desk sergeant. Alec buzzed him through the half-glazed door.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked quietly.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Mac assured him and surprised himself by finding this was almost the truth.
‘What is it you want?’ Rina asked.
‘Direct as ever.’ Karen was amused.
‘Of course. I see little point in prevaricating. Do you take sugar?’
‘One, please. Thank you.’ Karen took the china cup and saucer from Rina, aware as she did so that the cup rattled gently against its rest. She lowered it on to her knees, wondering if this use of china was a Rina Martin ploy to test her nerve. Who needs lie detectors when you have bone china? ‘I came back to see George,’ she said. ‘He’s my brother. I want to know he’s OK.’
‘You could have phoned if that was all. You have my number. I promised to keep an eye on him and I have.’
‘I want to see him.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not? I have a right to come and see him.’
Rina shook her head. ‘No, my dear, you don’t. Your rights ended when you left. George’s rights are paramount now, and he has a right to get on with his life.’
‘He’d know I’d not abandon him.’
‘He never felt you had. Karen, George understood completely why you had to leave in such a hurry. He’s not a fool and he knows you far better that you give him credit for. George loves you, is grateful to you, but is under no illusions. He knows what you are.’
‘And what am I, Rina?’
‘I believe the technical term is sociopath.’
‘Really. Not a psycho, then?’
Rina smiled, chuckled softly. ‘You know better than that, sweetheart. What were you studying? Psychology, wasn’t it? No, a true psychopath has no ability to empathize, and I know, Karen dear, that your problem in some ways is that you have empathized too much.’
‘You have to defend your own.’ Karen shrugged lightly. The cup and saucer rattled.
‘There are ways and ways of defending.’
‘Are there? Rina, I know you mean well; you always do. I know you believe every word you’re saying, but I want to see George and I want to take him with me. He belongs with what’s left of his family. I should never have left him behind, but I can put that right now.’
‘And if he doesn’t want to go?’
Karen’s laughter was genuinely disbelieving. ‘Of course he’ll want to go,’ she said. ‘What is there to keep him here?’
‘Oh, you’d be surprised,’ Rina said. ‘I really think you would.’
As it happened, there was a great deal to keep George in Frantham. While Hill House might not exactly be most people’s first choice of home, events had conspired to make sure George felt it was his. He’d made friends there, he’d earned kudos by defending both his home and his carer, saving her life when she’d been brutally attacked, and, more than all of that, he’d now spent more time there than he’d spent in any place for a very long time.
He had a room of his own. He had stuff of his own that he could be fairly certain would not have to be abandoned when the family did another night-time flit, and he had a best friend who might actually, tentatively, delicately, be thought of as his girlfriend. Not that he’d yet risked calling Ursula that, but everyone else at Hill House and at school thought of them as an item, even if he’d not yet had the nerve to own the phrase himself.
He certainly didn’t want to be going anywhere.
Damn, even his school work was OK these days, largely due to Ursula, of course, but also down to the fact that he was settled and calm and actually enjoying school – most of the time at least.
Rina’s call came just a few minutes after the minibus had dropped them all after school. It wasn’t unusual for Rina to ring Hill House for either himself or Ursula, but her timing was unusual. She usually waited until he’d been home for a while, knowing that they’d then have time for a proper chat.
George knew at once that something must be wrong.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, his absence of preamble a habit picked up from his older mentor.
‘Does anything have to be up?’
‘Doesn’t have to be, but it is. I can hear it in your voice.’
Rina sighed. ‘It’s Karen,’ she said.
‘Karen? Nothing happened to her, did it?’ It occurred to him to wonder how Rina would know.
‘She’s fine, George. In fact, I suspect she’s more than fine. It’s just . . . George, she turned up here. This afternoon. She wants to see you. No, more than that, she wants you to go with her. She wants you to leave, George.’
There was silence on both ends of the line. George found that his chest had tightened. He held his breath, as though waiting for the next blow to fall.
‘George?’ Rina sounded concerned, well aware that on occasion she lacked finesse. ‘I’m sorry, love. Are you all right?’
‘She’s here?’ George felt he could only take in so much of what Rina said. ‘No, Rina, she can’t be here. What if Mac sees her?’
‘Mac left this morning. He’s gone up north for a while.’
‘And she’s come back.’ It occurred to George that this was no coincidence. Though with the next thought he wondered how Karen could possibly have known. He hadn’t been told that Mac was going away. But, then, that was what Karen did. What she had always done: known things. Known things and then done something about them, and Mac, George suspected, comprehended exactly what she’d done the last time she’d been in Frantham and that someone was dead as a result of that.
‘What does she want, Rina? Is she coming here?’
‘She wants to see you, George. She wants you to go away with her.’
‘Away with her? No, I don’t want to, Rina. I want to stay here. Is she coming here?’
‘I didn’t tell her where you were, love, but I don’t think it’ll take her long to find out. George, don’t you worry: you aren’t going to go anywhere, but I didn’t want her suddenly appearing on the doorstep and you being taken by surprise.’
‘No, no, thanks.’ George chewed his lower lip, a habit he’d been trying hard to break. Just turned fourteen, he’d started to think of himself as one step from an adult; now, suddenly, he seemed to have been plunged back into the uncertainties and insecurities of childhood. It wasn’t that he was scared of his sister. Not really. The two of them had been so close before their mum had died . . . ‘I’ll have to see her,’ he said. ‘Talk to her and tell her I want to stay here. She’ll be OK with that, I know she will.’
He could hear the doubt in Rina’s voice as she replied. ‘If that’s what you want to do, George, then how about you meet her here?’
George breathed a sigh of relief. He did want to see Karen, really he did. He loved his sister, but . . . ‘Thanks, Rina,’ he said. ‘Thanks for that.’
‘No problem,’ Rina told him, though it sounded like a lie. ‘I’ve got her number and I’ll give her a call, then phone you back.’
George lowered the receiver as carefully as if it might explode.
Mac followed Alec through to the briefing room, struck by the familiarity of it. That same slightly dusty smell, overlaid with a faint scent of lavender polish and pine disinfectant. He could recall the time when the briefing room would have been thick and acrid with the smoke from a dozen cigarettes, but that era was long gone.
The furnishing was basic here. Long tables stacked with paperwork and computer equipment, set against the wall so that the rats’ nest of cables from all the electronic equipment could be tucked away enough to satisfy health and safety – provided they didn’t look too closely and see the doubled-up plugs in inadequate sockets. Plastic chairs on tubular frames, the red seats old enough to be faded to a dull orange and stained by years of handling, were tucked under desks and occupied the central space. Incongruously, in the corner set aside for mugs and kettle, an old, faux-leather fireside chair half-bl
ocked the door to a tall cupboard. The chair had just appeared one day and had stayed ever since. Ten years or so, to Mac’s knowledge. It had become convention that anyone sitting there should be left well alone, their residence there an indication that the day had been a bad one.
Against the long wall, facing the main door, a trestle had been set up and was now bowed beneath the weight of storage boxes. Mac recognized the Cara Evans case files. Above that, on hessian pinboards, a uniformed officer was adding to the current images, reports and contact details. A picture of Cara Evans, taken a few weeks before she had died, smiled across at him.
Mac caught his breath. He remembered the picture painfully well: it was the one Cara’s mother had given to the police on the day her daughter had first been reported missing.
‘Find her for me. Please find her for me.’
‘I will,’ Mac had promised her. Then, immediately regretting the certainty of that, he had amended it. ‘I’ll do all I can.’
But he had found her. Trouble was, he had been too late.
Officers had begun to wander in. Some talking, laughing, catching up on the day. All glanced in Mac’s direction. Some nodding, newer officers looking askance at this stranger. A few coming over to say a word or two, clasp his arm, a quick pat on the back. Mac responded, smiled, returned the greetings, but none of it felt real. It was as though he stood a foot or so to one side of himself, watching, observing, hearing and feeling, but not fully there. He could feel Alec’s scrutiny, his anxiety, and when someone handed him a copy of the current case file, he did his best to look casual and competent, perching against the edge of one of the side tables and flicking through a file he could not seem to see, his eyes refusing to focus, mind refusing to make sense of the words.
I shouldn’t have come back, he thought. I should have swallowed my pride and told Alec I couldn’t deal with this. I should have let well alone.
But it was too late for that. His decision had been made, and already others had built their plans upon the foundations of his return.
Resolutions Page 3