A Reason to Kill Read online

  Karen felt her heart skip. ‘What?’ she said softly. ‘George, you know you can tell me anything.’

  ‘It weren’t me,’ he said. ‘It were Paul. Mark Dowling forced him to tell. He heard rumours, see. Shaz teased Paul about being a wimp and Paul said we’d done it. Done what she said and he must have told her about the gun because she told Mark Dowling and Paul tried to say it was all a joke but Mark got him and he almost broke his arm, gave him two black eyes and Paul told him.’

  ‘And then?’ Karen felt she knew the answer but she hoped against hope that she was wrong.

  ‘Mark Dowling made him go with him to the old woman’s house and Paul … Paul was there when he killed her.’

  Eighteen

  Eight in the morning on a wet Monday, wind blowing off the sea and bringing with it the salt tang of cold sea spray.

  Mac walked briskly along the promenade, glad that the weekend was over but not quite as depressed by it as he usually was. That, he figured, was because he had worked for a good part of it. And, of course, he’d had company, a rarity in itself.

  After leaving Rina’s the previous afternoon, he had taken a walk down towards the tin huts. It had been dusk, too late for him to gain anything but a general impression of the place. To his surprise he had discovered a creative mix of newer, purpose-built units, large Portakabins and what looked like giant arches with corrugated roofs, which, he supposed, were remnants of the Nissen huts left over from the war. Apparently there had been a small airfield here, Tim had told him, but he didn’t know what function it had served. There had also been accommodation of some sort – Rina thought it might have been a POW camp – where the small industrial units were now.

  Peering into the gathering dusk, Mac had tried to get a feel for the layout of the place. The huts themselves were the buildings furthest back from the town, probably about a mile and a half from the sea front. The newer buildings reached forward towards the town and Mac could make out the embankment from where the railway line swung back towards the promenade. The little coffee shop where he had found his Italian coffee had once served as the main station building, though, oddly, the Railway pub was nowhere near the now defunct line.

  Well, Mac thought, that’s Frantham-on-Sea. No regard for logic.

  Returning to his cheerless flat, he had spent the evening checking through a week’s worth of accommodation pages trying to find himself a place to live once his short tenancy expired. The date was now fast approaching. He had a couple of numbers to try later but, frankly, had found the whole experience a little deflating. Anything decent seemed allocated as a holiday let. In fact, judging by the state of his own flat, anything not so decent seemed assigned that way too.

  Andy was just unlocking the doors when Mac arrived at the station.

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘Morning, Boss, have a good what was left of your weekend? The bigger boss said to come into his office when he arrived. The coffee’s on.’

  Mac nodded thanks, not that he actually liked Eden’s coffee. Thick enough to stand a spoon and strong enough to dissolve same, it devoured milk and refused to change colour even for artificial creamer. In Mac’s experience, it took three sugars just to tame it enough to be drinkable. Still, it did guarantee to keep you awake; a morning cup lasting until mid afternoon before the caffeine crash came.

  Mac paused at the desk and checked the day book. A couple of entries had been added regarding the Saturday night but they were the expected range of drunk in charge, disorderly or passed out on the pub steps. Plus a lost dog and a stolen car that turned out to have been borrowed by the teenage daughter and not stolen after all. Mac wondered how long she was likely to be grounded for – and, indeed, if kids actually did get grounded these days.

  Sergeant Baker wandered out of Eden’s office with a steaming mug in his hand. ‘Thought I heard you,’ he said. ‘Andy, lad, get yourself in here too. Anyone wants us, they can ring the bell on the desk.’

  It was, Mac reflected, a stark contrast to any other place he had ever worked. They were technically in the middle of a murder enquiry here; anywhere else would have been a hive of activity and awash with additional staff. Here, in Frantham, they hadn’t even set up an incident room and his ‘additional help’ had been Andy pulling a bit of overtime along with the two community support officers.

  For a moment, Mac felt his irritation rise at what might have looked like neglect of duty, but in truth that really was not the case. He couldn’t fault the forensic side of the investigation. Couldn’t argue, either, with the efficiency with which the initial enquiry had been carried out or with the additional officers who had arrived and busied themselves within that first, precious, golden hour when evidence is fresh and shock might be relied upon to lower guards and loosen tongues. The truth was, until all the forensics reports were in and the initial information collated, there was little else that could be done.

  Mac knew it was all a question of priorities but he could not help but compare this to the last time he had been involved in a violent death – the manpower dedicated to her death, to the search for her killer, the level of public interest in the enquiry, the way the media had kept it in the news for weeks.

  Mac had been a policeman long enough to know that there was no such thing as equal, especially when it came to murder. Some deaths, like some lives, just generated more column inches, shouted louder than did others and, Mac reflected sadly, Mrs Freer had no one to keep her face in the papers and her pain on the television screen.

  Could he be the one to keep it there? Shuddering, recalling the days, the weeks when he’d had no choice in the matter and no control over the type or level of exposure, Mac knew he could not.

  Dragging his thoughts back to the present, Mac grabbed his mug from the shelf just inside Eden’s office and held it out to be filled.

  ‘Sit your bum down,’ Eden said. ‘Hotch up a bit, Andy, give the inspector some elbow room. Now, what do we know?’

  Ten minutes were spent in bringing everyone up to speed. Mrs Freer, events over the weekend, news from up the coast of a drug bust and a stabbing outside a nightclub. ‘Not life-threatening, thankfully. Fight over some girl, it looks like. I’ve managed to get a recent picture of the old lady,’ he added. ‘Her previous carer had one taken with her last summer. She came forward with it over the weekend, thought it might be helpful. The local papers have picked it up and the news will carry it at lunchtime. You know how it helps if the public can put a face to the victim.’

  So maybe that would equal the score just a little, Mac thought. ‘The wasteland at the back of the house. How well was it searched? From what I saw the focus was on the road and gardens.’

  Eden nodded. ‘Manpower,’ he said. ‘Or, to be PC, should I say “availability of personnel”. I had the search extended to the ditch just at the back of her place and that bit of a path the kids use on their bikes. I’m hoping to hustle up some bodies later in the week. Particular reason for asking?’

  Mac shrugged. ‘I was over there yesterday,’ he said. ‘It occurred to me the weapon might have come from the waste ground rather than the house. A half brick would have fit the wound profile.’

  ‘Anything forensically to back that up?’

  Mac shook his head. ‘No, nothing in the wound,’ he admitted. ‘It was just a random thought.’

  Eden nodded. ‘It needs searching,’ he admitted, ‘but the size of team required to do it is considerable and not at present forthcoming. Cordoning the area is not only impossible but impracticable. The world and his wife have access. I’m hoping if we put the word out we’ll rustle up some local volunteers. Your friend Rina might help out there?’

  Mac nodded. ‘I’ll get on to it,’ he promised. ‘Might be worth putting the word out at the local pub too, and even on the Jubilee, try to get them onside.’

  He paused for the general murmur of agreement then asked, ‘What do we know about the Parkers? I’d lay money on the boy being involved in some way. The Robins
on boy, too, though according to his mother butter wouldn’t melt. Someone had beaten seven shades out of him and I’ll lay another bet it didn’t happen at school.’

  ‘It could have done,’ Sergeant Baker pointed out. ‘Boys that age do get into fights. Any reason why not?’

  Mac shook his head.

  ‘I do,’ Andy said unexpectedly.

  ‘Oh, and what would that be?’ Frank Baker demanded.

  ‘Because I went to school, didn’t I? I mean, I went to the same local comp and they have staff standing by the school bus, watching the lines. If he’d been beaten up at school then even if the staff didn’t catch up with it in class, chances are they would have done when he got on the bus.’

  ‘How much notice do they actually take?’ Mac asked. ‘I mean, if a kid wanted to hide something …’

  Andy was shaking his head. ‘Four members of staff plus others. Teachers, classroom assistants, prefects, all on a rota. They have to check all the bus passes. The passes have photos on and, believe me, they’re worse than passport control. The bus drivers used to do it but it was too slow and they reckoned it wasn’t their job. Anyway,’ he finished, ‘it wouldn’t have happened at school without someone noticing. I’d bet on that.’

  ‘Regular little gambling den we’ve got going,’ Eden commented.

  Andy grinned. ‘I know the Parkers and the Robinsons,’ he added. ‘Karen Parker was only a year behind me in college. Everybody fancied her. Everybody.’

  ‘Give you the brush off, did she, lad?’ Frank Baker wanted to know.

  ‘She gave everyone the brush off. I reckon she just wasn’t into men, if you know what I mean.’

  An explosion of laughter from Sergeant Baker. ‘She maybe didn’t meet any men at that college of yours,’ he said.

  ‘Or it could be she’d seen enough to put her off,’ Eden added. He got up and crossed to one of the large metal file cabinets lined up on one side of his office. Mac watched in fascination. A file, actually in the cabinet? One that was not part of the strata on Eden’s desk?

  Eden sat down with a thump. ‘Get me some more coffee, will you, Andy? Anyone else?’

  Mac shook his head. He’d be buzzing for hours as it was. ‘She has a record?’ The surprise showed in his voice.

  ‘Karen Parker? No, not her. The father. He’s how come they ended up here. Thanks, Andy. The local refuge lets us know when one of their families gets housed, just in case whoever they’re running from tracks them down. I had a chat with Karen when they first moved here, and called her now and then afterwards, just to make sure she knew she could ask for help if she needed it. She’s a good kid, kept the family together. They moved nine times in two years before they finally fetched up here. My liaison at the local hostel told me they were terrified the dad would find them, but I figure they must have realized if they’d gone any further south they’d be in the sea, or in France.’

  ‘So, what do we know about the father?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Nasty piece of work, as you may have gathered. No mastermind but an habitual criminal, finally ended up inside with five years for armed robbery. The wife waited for him, though by all accounts he was already treating her like dirt. He served his time, came out to join a terrified wife and two kids that barely knew him. Karen was thirteen at the time and George must have been seven, and by all accounts it all went very wrong very fast. Two years on and Carol Parker gets taken into hospital for the umpteenth time …’ He paused, rifled through the file and handed photographs to Mac. Mac recognized the hair rather than the face. The features were too bloated and bruised to be properly recognizable.

  ‘That time he broke her jaw and her cheekbone. Oh, and three ribs, and she was still refusing to press charges. Scared out of her wits. Karen was fifteen by then and she took young George and camped out in the local police station, refused to move until someone got them the help they needed. Parker senior had beaten on the kids too, and Karen was ready to testify even if her mother wouldn’t – or couldn’t. Anyway, by the time they went to arrest the dad, he’d flown.’

  ‘She struck me as a very mature young woman,’ Mac said. ‘The boy though, he was twitchy, nervous. Like I said, I had the impression he wanted to tell me something but didn’t have the nerve.’

  ‘Best give it another try,’ Eden said.

  Mac nodded thoughtfully. ‘I was planning on it.’ He glanced at the clock on Eden’s wall. Nine fifteen, the kids would already have gone off to school.

  The phone in the outer office began to ring.

  Nineteen

  The trip in on the school bus had been tense and uncomfortable. It was impossible to talk about anything that mattered. Looks cast their way, curious and shocked, queried the bruises on Paul’s face but no one asked. George and Paul were always on the farthest bank of mainstream popularity anyway, but those few enquiries that might ordinarily have been made were diverted by the fact that Dwayne had positioned himself in the seat on the opposite side of the aisle and spent the entire journey taunting both Paul and George, hinting that he knew exactly how Paul had come by his injuries. The kids close enough to hear listened warily, but no one commented. No one wanted to become the focus of his attention and then, by implication, attract the further attention of Dwayne’s gang. Most didn’t even dare think far enough to include Mark Dowling in the equation. Mark was the bogeyman, the unthinkable.

  Paul kept his head down as they got off the bus. Staff watched as they filed into school, pointed and whispered to one another as they saw his face. One stopped him, laying a pale, manicured hand on his shoulder. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Got into a fight, Miss.’

  ‘That isn’t like you, Paul. Does your form tutor know?’

  He shrugged. ‘Dunno, Miss, me mam phoned in on Friday. I was off.’

  George shuffled awkwardly as Paul mumbled his reply. Dwayne, already in the corridor, had turned, inane grin in place as he mimed someone with their arm twisted behind their back.

  George looked away, afraid someone would notice. Someone would guess. They would guess that part and then know everything.

  ‘Well, get along both of you or you’ll be late,’ the teacher said finally, seemingly blind to the irony that she was the one responsible for their tardiness. Silent and tense they made their way to their classroom. Their form teacher, Miss Crick, eyed them both thoughtfully, her gaze resting longest on Paul’s face. She said nothing but entered their ‘present’ mark into the electronic register that linked to the central computer system.

  ‘Everyone have their ID cards?’ she said. The standard morning question. Today, unusually, everyone did. ID cards, scanned through readers, allowed library books to be borrowed, lunch to be paid for, attendance in class to be registered as they filed through the electronic doors and swiped their cards. Not to have a card was a serious offence and involved a trip to the principal’s office to beg for a temporary replacement. Dwayne was a regular in that particular queue.

  Then the bell for first lesson rang and they were heading out again, Paul separated from George by the press of the crowd and, George felt, because Paul had contrived for it to be like that. George blinked angrily at tears that forced their way to the corners of his eyes; he suddenly felt so terribly alone.

  Andy put the call through to Eden’s phone. ‘Anonymous tip,’ he whispered to Mac and Sergeant Baker as he re-entered the room.

  Mac raised an eyebrow and turned his attention to the one-sided conversation going on at Eden’s desk. Finally, Eden laid down the receiver.

  ‘Anonymous phone call to our colleagues in Exeter,’ he said. ‘A woman, calling from a phone box in Dorchester, naming one Mark Dowling as the culprit.’

  ‘Dowling,’ Mac said, the name that had been unfamiliar a few days before now all too common. ‘Any details?’

  Eden shook his head. ‘Just the name. She stayed on the phone just long enough to give them that.’

  Mac glanced at the others and knew they were thinking the same thin
g. ‘There’s absolutely no reason we should think …’

  ‘That our informant is Karen Parker? No, none at all, but …’

  ‘So,’ Mac got to his feet, ‘where do I find Mark Dowling?’ he asked. ‘Time for a talk.’

  Rina had dragged Tim off to the local library. ‘The fresh air,’ she told him, ‘will do you good.’

  ‘In a library? Library air is full of dust and microbes, Rina. Books that haven’t been opened so long we probably don’t even have immunity to the microbes any more. Full of Victorian microbes.’

  ‘The fresh air on the walk there will do you good. It’s bracing out there this morning, and anyway we aren’t going to look at books, we’re going to look at the newspaper archive and we might make use of their internet connection too.’

  ‘Rina, you’ve got internet here.’

  ‘I’ve got dial-up here. The library has broadband. Get your coat.’

  Still grumbling, Tim did as he was told. ‘What are we looking for anyway?’

  ‘Smugglers, of course. Didn’t you listen when I told you about the cigarettes, the people?’

  ‘I listened,’ Tim said. ‘I just don’t see what it has to do with us?’

  Rina shrugged. ‘Look upon it as your civic duty,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘Because,’ Tim told her grandly, ‘Frantham is only a town. To have a civic duty you have to be a citizen and for that one must live in a city.’ He looked sideways at her, received Rina’s best brand of withering look and fell silent. Well, he’d thought it rather clever. Maybe she was right and he should get out more.

  The walk to the library was only short. The walk to anywhere in Frantham was pretty much the same. Tim entered the red brick Victorian edifice in Rina’s wake and looked about with interest, noting the high galleries that ran around three sides and housed what looked to be an extensive reference collection and a music section. The gallery was supported on high Roman-style arches in red brick and white stone that reminded him vaguely of the Natural History Museum in London.