TWENTY-FIVE
By one o’clock they had been returned to Pinsent police headquarters and Mac taken off to one of the interview rooms. Wildman looked angry and Alec grave.
‘I need to phone my sister,’ Miriam said. Kate knew by now that she was safe, but Miriam badly wanted to hear her voice and give her own reassurance.
‘I’ll find you a phone.’
‘It’s OK, I’ve got Mac’s. Alec, what will happen now?’
‘What should be happening is me taking you to the hospital,’ Alec said.
‘I’m all right. The paramedics checked me out.’
‘Even so. If not that, then at least to a hotel.’
‘I want to stay here.’
Alec nodded. ‘Look, wait in the briefing room; there’s a comfortable chair in there and you can make your call in relative peace at least.’
‘Thanks,’ Miriam said. ‘Alec, can you tell me where the loo is first?’
He pointed out the briefing room and then told her where to find the toilets. A quick glance at the briefing area as she passed by confirmed her anxiety that there would still be people about in there. Clutching Mac’s mobile in her pocket, she went to the toilets, taking refuge in a cubicle, hoping no one would come in to overhear. Would anyone actually be up at Rina’s this time of night?
To her profound relief, Tim picked up on the third ring. He had just returned from work ‘Mac?’ he demanded. ‘What’s the news? Is Miriam all right?’
‘Oh, Tim. Thank God. I’m fine.’
‘Miriam?’
‘Please, Tim,’ she interrupted him. ‘I have to be quick and this is really important. Does Rina still have a spare key to the boathouse?’
‘Yes, I’m sure she does.’
‘Listen, please don’t ask questions; there isn’t time. In the kitchen, there’s a knife block. One knife will be missing. Please, Tim, take the block and lose it somewhere. Please.’
‘Miriam? You’re not making sense.’
‘Tim, I have to go. Please do it. Bless you.’ She hung up, praying he would do as she asked and wondering what Mac would say if he found out. The police would search the boathouse; bound to. Mac was a suspect in a murder. Hopefully, the search would be done by the local police and, hopefully, nothing would happen for a few hours yet.
She heard the outer door open and flushed the toilet, came out of the cubicle. A female officer in uniform stood just inside the door. ‘I came to see if you were OK,’ she said. ‘DI Friedman said you might like something to eat or drink, and then he wants you to make a formal statement, if you feel up to it tonight?’
Miriam made a show of washing her hands and grimaced when she saw her reflection in the mirror. Bruised and scraped and cut, and obviously exhausted, her face showed every second of the time since Peel had abducted her. ‘A cup of tea would be really welcome,’ she said. ‘And yes, I feel fine to do that. I just want to call my sister first and tell her I really am all right.’
A few minutes later, tea in hand and ensconced in the old red leather chair – Miriam, hearing the tradition, figured she really did qualify on the grounds of having a truly terrible day – she phoned her sister on Mac’s mobile phone and hoped no one ever had cause to look at the phone records for that night.
‘Rina, wake up.’ Tim and Joy had debated what to do. Joy was in favour of getting straight to the boathouse and doing Miriam’s bidding; Tim, typically as a long-term member of the Martin household, had asked himself the inevitable question – What would Rina do? – and though the conclusion he reached was to concur with Joy, there was the small problem of not having the key.
‘Tim? What’s wrong?’ Rina sat up, immediately alert.
‘We need the key to the boathouse. You still have the spare?’
‘Yes, dear. But why?’
‘Because Miriam wants us to get rid of some evidence,’ Joy said.
‘What?’ Rina looked from one to the other, clearly wondering just what they’d had to drink. ‘Tell me.’
‘You don’t know it’s evidence,’ Tim objected.
‘What else could it be?’
‘Tell me,’ Rina said again. She listened as Tim recounted the content of the mysterious phone call, taking in the fact that Miriam was, presumably, safe and that Mac was, it seemed, in some kind of trouble.
‘Joy, the key is in the jewellery box on the dressing table. Yes, that’s it. Now get going, the pair of you, and for goodness’ sake, be careful. Don’t be seen.’
Tim gaped at her, then snapped his mouth shut. ‘You’re not coming?’
‘Tim,’ Rina said patiently, ‘it’s the middle of the night. Sixty-three-year-old ladies do not go gallivanting in the middle of the night. Young people who work late in hotels and perform magic tricks go gallivanting in the middle of the night.’
‘With their girlfriends,’ Joy added.
‘Most definitely with their girlfriends. Now go.’
They left and Rina stared at the now-closed bedroom door and wondered what was going on. She wanted desperately to call Mac, but, in common with gallivanting, ladies of a certain age tended not to make phone calls, even to their friends at – she glanced at the clock on the bedside table – two fifteen in the morning.
But they did make tea and eat biscuits when they couldn’t sleep.
Donning her pink fleece dressing-gown, she went downstairs and put the kettle on, found chocolate biscuits and sat down to think and wait for Joy and Tim to return.
Wildman had permitted Alec to be the second officer present for the interview. At two fifteen, the only sound in the interview room was a soft whirring of the tape machine as he waited on Mac’s response.
‘I did nothing,’ Mac said quietly. ‘I admit to being stupid, admit to going it alone when I should have asked for help. Admit to maybe nearly getting Miriam killed, I don’t know, I really don’t, but I did not kill Thomas Peel. There was someone else on the beach. I saw them, in the fog.’
‘So, describe this mystery man.’ Wildman was clearly unimpressed.
‘I saw a shadow,’ Mac said. ‘I saw movement and someone behind Peel. Then I saw the knife, or thought I did.’ He sighed. ‘It was dark, it was thick fog. I thought I saw the blade, but most likely I just interpreted in retrospect.’
‘Interpreted in retrospect,’ Wildman mimicked. ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means, I saw a movement, I saw Peel fall, I thought . . . He dragged Miriam down with him as he fell and I thought . . . I thought she’d been . . . I thought she was dead.’
A beat or two of silence. Alec asked, ‘You can make no judgement about the third person, then? Height, weight? Anything at all?’
Mac’s gaze flickered towards his friend’s face and then back to focus on Wildman. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not tall; Peel wasn’t tall and they were behind Peel and I didn’t see them. Not heavy. They ran. I heard them run. I thought I heard them run.’
Had he actually heard anything, seen anything he could swear to? He was certain that the third person on the beach had been Karen Parker, but he didn’t even want to try that idea on in front of Wildman. Karen didn’t feature in Wildman’s world, and for the moment Mac felt he’d rather keep it that way. After all, on the face of it, there was no connection. He wondered if that was the actual fact. No connection. If, in his head, Rina’s anxiety about Karen had become confused with his own obsession with Peel, and everything was warped and changed by that perception.
He only knew that he was tired, that he wanted to get this over with. That as soon as it was over he’d be heading home and he didn’t care if he never left again.
‘You killed him,’ Wildman said.
‘I never touched him. There was someone else.’
‘And you think your girlfriend will back you up? Perjure herself?’
Mac rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘She’ll tell you the same thing,’ he said. ‘I was standing ten feet or so away, trying to talk Peel out of killing her. I was failing, really
doing an appalling job of playing the hero. Peel was going to kill Miriam the way he killed Cara Evans – I could feel it, I could see it in his face. He was enjoying every minute. But I didn’t kill him; there was someone else.’
‘Convenient.’ Wildman was sarcastic. ‘The cavalry arriving just in time.’
Mac nodded. ‘It was,’ he said. ‘It truly was.’
Frantham Old Town was silent and chilly. They had walked around the headland, the first time either Tim or Joy had followed the wooden walkway above the waves at night, and Tim decided on the spot that it would be the next to last, allowing for the fact they’d have to return the same way.
The sound of the sea churning beneath them was disturbing, the wet surface slimy and insecure. The whole experience vertiginous. They did not speak. Tim was very aware of just how far and how clearly sound travelled late at night, and their footsteps already sounded far too loud. He was relieved to step off the wooden causeway and on to concrete, then on to cobbles. The boathouse was only a couple of minutes away. He clasped Joy’s hand and led her through the quiet streets and down to the old slipway, at the head of which the boathouse, once used for lifeboat launches, was situated.
‘This is it?’ Joy asked.
‘Yes.’ He slipped the key into the lock and opened the side door, glancing round to check that no one watched.
‘There’s no one to see,’ Joy whispered. ‘They’re all asleep.’
Not daring to switch on the lights, they felt their way up the stairs and into the little flat. Eyes used to the dark now, Joy looked around, taking in the open-plan living room cum kitchen diner. ‘Aw, it’s cute,’ she said. ‘And tiny. My bedroom’s bigger than this.’
‘Your bedroom’s bigger than most people’s houses.’
Joy giggled.
‘OK, let’s find this knife block and go. Right, that must be it. Miriam was right: one missing.’
Joy had brought a shopping bag from Rina’s kitchen and they slipped the knives, still in the block, into the bag. ‘Right, I need a cloth,’ Joy said. ‘That will do.’ She picked up a tea towel and took something from the shopping bag. ‘I took these from the kitchen too,’ she said. ‘They’re ones Matthew and Steven don’t use much, so it’ll be all right. Matthew likes the carbon steel ones and these are stainless.’
‘What? You’ve brought knives?’
‘Sure I have. It’d look a bit suspect, a kitchen without sharp knives – someone’s bound to notice.’
He watched, slightly awed, as she polished the blades and wiped the handles on the tea towel and then slipped them into the cutlery drawer. ‘You look far too good at that,’ he said.
‘My dad taught us kids to be careful,’ Joy said. ‘Even the straight ones among us. Force of habit, I guess. Right, let’s get out of here.’
Tim nodded, sudden panic gripping him. They were doing something important, he felt; also something he was pretty sure was illegal, and while that did not of itself worry him unduly, he felt oddly bad about involving Joy.
Down the stairs and out of the door, closing it quietly, though the sneck seemed terribly loud as it shot home. Back on to the cobbles, the concrete, the causeway, round the headland.
‘What should we do with these?’
‘Drop them into the sea?’
‘I don’t know how deep it is here,’ Tim worried.
‘Right, so we spread them about.’ Joy took the bag from him and took the knives, one by one, pulling down the sleeve of her sweater and wiping them before launching them in a high and long arc way out into the ocean. Tim was impressed.
‘Where did you learn to throw like that?’ he asked as the block followed the blades. ‘Something else your dad taught you?’
‘No, a mix of netball training and playing cricket with a couple of brothers,’ she said. ‘Only way they’d let me play was if I learnt to bowl right. What if the block floats?’
‘Hopefully it won’t. The tide should be on the way out. Anyway, anyone who sees it will think it came off a boat; all sorts does.’
‘Hope so. Right, we’ve done all we can; let’s get back. Even you don’t work this late and we don’t want anyone asking questions.’
Fitch was in the kitchen with Rina when they arrived home; light sleeper that he was, he’d heard them leave and Rina come down. He was relieved to hear that it had all gone well, worried about the implications; he was in agreement with Tim that they had probably just now been guilty of concealing evidence and, most likely, perverting the course of justice.
‘It can’t be justice if they’re blaming Mac for something,’ Joy said. ‘My dad reckoned Mac was a truly honest man, and there weren’t many people he said that about.’
‘Well, in his line of work, there weren’t many that qualified,’ Fitch observed.
‘True,’ Joy concurred.
‘So, what now, Rina?’
‘Now, Tim, we go to bed and then see what’s on the morning news. By then it will be perfectly normal for me to give Mac a call; maybe we can find out what’s going on.’
‘I feel too awake to sleep,’ Tim complained.
‘I don’t,’ Joy told him. ‘Way past my bedtime.’ She yawned and stretched and then bid them all goodnight and headed upstairs. Rina too trekked off to bed. She was unsurprised, when she reached her room, to find that the camp bed was unoccupied and Joy nowhere to be seen.
TWENTY-SIX
Despite so little sleep, Rina was up early and watching the breakfast news. Fitch joined her. Tim and Joy were still unavailable for comment and, though she was sure Fitch knew where Joy had spent the night, Rina decided not to mention it. Joy was an adult, after all, and Fitch was not her keeper.
The breakfast news was a disappointment. A small mention of the shooting that had taken place two nights before, and more speculation as to why Thomas Peel should be trying to kill his daughter and her boyfriend. Something more about a body found on a beach at a place called Rowleigh Bay, but that was all.
Rina tried Mac’s phone, but it was off. She and Fitch breakfasted on speculations and found it an unsatisfying diet.
At eight, to Rina’s profound relief, Miriam called. She sounded distressed and confused and very tired. She wanted to come home and was about to call her sister and see if someone could come and get her.
‘What’s happening, Miriam? We heard you’d been reported missing, then nothing else.’
‘Oh, Rina, it’s all so . . . They think Mac killed Peel. He told them what happened, that there was someone else on the beach, that he didn’t stab Peel, but no one believed him. Rina, I want to come home. I want Mac to come home with me.’
‘Is that likely?’ Rina asked anxiously.
‘I think so. I don’t know. They’re going to search the boathouse, something about a knife.’
Ah, Rina thought, so that was it.
‘I don’t know much, but I think they’ll release him later on police bail and we can come back. He’ll be suspended, of course, pending full investigation, but I don’t know any more than that. His car won’t be released for a while, though. It’s still considered part of the crime scene, and they’re still trying to figure out where Peel kept me and . . . oh Rina, it’s all so bloody awful.’
‘We’ll come and get you,’ Rina said stoutly. ‘Fitch is still here and he has a vehicle. We can be there by . . .’ She looked at Fitch.
‘Somewhere around midday if we leave now.’
‘Somewhere around midday. Now, don’t you worry, we’ll soon be there and everything will be fine.’ She could feel Miriam wanting to ask about the knife block, but could think of no way of letting her know that Tim and Joy had done their stuff without incriminating them. In the end she said simply, ‘Tell Mac we all send our love, especially Tim and Joy. They’ve been really worried about the stress he must be under.’
‘Thank you, Rina,’ Miriam said. ‘I’m truly grateful.’
‘We have a vehicle here,’ Rina said firmly. ‘We may as well make use of it.’
> ‘Right,’ Rina said firmly. ‘I’ll get my shoes and write a note for Steven. He and Matthew will have to get breakfast this morning. You get on to Abe Jackson and tell him what we’re doing. I want to know where Karen Parker has got to. Poor George was very upset by her behaviour yesterday; I want to know what else she’s up to. And later we’ll call Joy and Tim, and they can meet George out of school and find out if Karen told him anything useful.’
Fitch nodded. ‘Right you are,’ he said. ‘Rina, do you think Mac may have . . .’
‘Killed Peel? No, I don’t. Oh, I’ve no doubt, given the right circumstances, he may well have been tempted, maybe even capable, but if Miriam says he didn’t do it, then I believe her. If she says there was a third person on that beach, then I believe that too.’
‘Looks like we may be the only ones,’ Fitch said gravely.
‘Then we’ll have to help him convince everyone else, won’t we?’ Rina said.
Karen stood in the basement where Thomas Peel had briefly held Miriam Hastings prisoner, and felt both satisfaction and disappointment. This house was hers now, part of a deal that had nothing to do with killing Peel. That act had been a bonus, both for her and her current employer. Peel was an irritation to many – a blackmailer, a cheat, someone who had been protected only because he had information that could make trouble for certain business rivals his protectors had, and which had, for a while, made him useful. But, as Peel of all people should have known, usefulness can be outlived, and when Karen had asked for him as part-payment for other work she had undertaken, no questions had been asked. She’d then seen the safe house he’d been using and decided she’d like that as well. It was as close to perfect as she could imagine.
The trouble was that her pleasure at the acquisition was diminished by George’s refusal to join her. She’d had such hopes. It would be like it used to be, only better. All of the pleasure and none of the pain.
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