A Reason to Kill Read online

  Mac nodded. ‘Did any of the staff mention that their behaviour was off? Unusual in any way?’

  She sighed, shook her head. ‘Everyone wondered about Paul’s face,’ she said. ‘He’d got two right shiners. But you know that. He seemed very reluctant to talk and, frankly, I don’t think anyone had the time to press it. I would have done at the end of the day but … well, I never got the chance.’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘The thing is, George and Paul are usually quiet. They don’t draw attention, they don’t stand out. I like the pair of them and I could tell you what their grades are in every class they have, but the fact is – and it’s only just hit me today – I don’t really know either of them. They’re quiet, average, nice boys.’

  Mac nodded. The woman was clearly pained by this but he didn’t know what he could say that would offer comfort. ‘That’s probably what my teachers would have said,’ he told her. ‘I don’t think I was ever particularly memorable.’

  She grimaced and Mac guessed that this offering had not been what she wanted to hear. ‘And definitely no sign of them at the gates tonight,’ he mused, more to himself than to her.

  ‘No, nothing. There was something, though. But it’s probably totally unconnected.’

  Mac raised an eyebrow. ‘What would that be?’

  ‘Oh, this man. He was standing on the other side of the road, watching the kids getting on to the buses. He didn’t do anything, but it was just a bit odd. Some of the students said he’d been there last week too.’

  ‘Did you talk to him?’

  ‘I tried. He was downright rude.’

  ‘Can you describe him to me?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I can do better than that.’ She sounded pleased finally to have something positive to offer. ‘I got one of the students to take his picture on their mobile. Oh,’ she added anxiously, ‘I made sure he didn’t see her. Of course I did.’ She went over to the printer and fished out two A4 sheets from the tray. ‘This is him,’ she said.

  Twenty-Three

  There were no lights on in the house. Karen swung the front door open and shouted. ‘Hello? Anyone home?’ Puzzled, she flicked on the lights and slammed the front door, calling out again before looking in the kitchen and then going up to George’s room. It would not be the first time he’d retreated to his room as soon as he’d come in and just stayed there.

  ‘George, you in there?’ She knocked then pushed the bedroom door open and switched on the main light. He sometimes played his computer games in the dark, but this time there was definitely no one there.

  ‘Bet he’s at Paul’s,’ Karen muttered to herself. Their mother would not be home yet; Mondays she worked a later shift and caught the last bus, getting in just after ten. Leaving the front door on the latch, Karen went in search of her brother.

  It was clear from the alacrity with which Colin Robinson opened the door that something was wrong. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I thought …’

  Karen stared at him in puzzlement. ‘Is George here? There’s no one home.’

  It was his turn to be puzzled. ‘You don’t know?’ he said. ‘I assumed …’

  Seems to be the night for broken sentences, she thought. ‘Knew what? Has something happened to George? To Paul?’

  Colin Robinson stared helplessly. ‘You’d better come inside,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t; I’ve left the door unlocked. Mr Robinson, what’s going on? What’s happened?’

  He shook his head and it occurred to Karen that she’d never actually seen him without his wife before and that usually it was Nora Robinson who did most of the talking. Without his mouthpiece he seemed unmanned. Helpless.

  ‘What’s been going on?’ Karen persisted. ‘Where are the boys?’

  ‘We don’t know.’ The reply spluttered out. ‘I assumed the police must have called and told you, or told your mam at least.’

  ‘What do you mean you don’t know?’ She felt like shaking him. Make the words fall out. ‘Mr Robinson?’

  ‘They’re missing,’ he said and she could see that this man was struggling with the tears now he’d had to say the words. ‘They went missing at lunchtime, climbed the gate. Nora’s at the school, she’s not come back yet. She reckoned I ought to stay just in case … Said someone ought to be here.’

  Karen took this in, then made her decision. ‘Make me a coffee,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll shut up the house and I’ll be back, then you’ve got to tell me everything. Before our mam gets home.’

  Colin Robinson looked momentarily taken aback but then he nodded gratefully. ‘I’ll leave the door ajar,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the kettle on.’

  Mark Dowling, Karen thought as she went back to secure the door. Bloody Mark Dowling. The police must have gone to see him and he must have threatened the boys. But no, that couldn’t be it; she’d only made the call that morning and the boys would have been safely in school by then. She collected her keys and fastened the door, made her way back to the Robinsons’. No, that wasn’t it; couldn’t be. George must have told Paul that he’d spilled everything to her and Paul must have freaked out. George wouldn’t just leave his friend. That just wasn’t in his nature, though, thinking about what the pair of them had got up to the week before, Karen half wished it was. Paul would never have had the nerve to break in anywhere on his own, any more than George would.

  She pushed open the Robinsons’ front door and called out to alert Colin Robinson that she was back. He appeared at the kitchen door.

  ‘Um, do you want to go through or …?’

  ‘Kitchen’s fine.’ She managed to smile at him. She sat down and took the proffered coffee, refused the sugar, trying to keep her expression calm and simply concerned while her mind screamed that she and George had both played this one all wrong.

  ‘So what happened?’ she asked gently. ‘Did anybody see them go?’

  Half an hour later Karen had left the Robinsons’ house. She stopped off at home to pick up her coat and a torch and then went out again, walking with determined steps across the wasteland and back towards the main road.

  ‘Lunchtime,’ Colin Robinson had told her. The cameras had recorded the boys climbing the small gate and then running off down the road. The school had noticed they were missing by a quarter to two and raised the alarm.

  Karen paused, shone the torch on her watch, glad now that she’d bought it. She’d picked it up at a sale in an army surplus shop a while ago and now the weight of it in her hand and the powerful beam was very reassuring. It was almost seven. George and Paul had been missing for almost five hours.

  Paul would have had no money with him, but Karen was pretty sure that George would have his ATM card. She’d always nagged him about having access to at least enough cash to get himself home, get himself a meal. Until now Karen’s advice had been unnecessary; now she wondered if it had, after all, been for the best. She wasn’t certain how much cash George had in his account, but reckoned it was at least fifty or so. How far could two boys run on fifty quid?

  Not far in real terms, she supposed, but far enough.

  ‘Does Paul have a mobile?’ Karen had asked.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s still in his room. I checked.’

  So, she thought, no luck there. She had thought about getting George a cheap one last Christmas, but knew neither he nor their mother would be able to afford to keep putting credit on it and that it would be another financial strain she would have to take on. She wished fervently she had done so now though. Mobile phones could all be traced these days, she was pretty sure of that. She had read somewhere that, even switched off, most emitted a signal of some sort.

  Angrily, she shook her head. No good asking ‘what if?’, is it? Probably no good doing what she intended to do now either, but that was beside the point.

  The back of Mark Dowling’s house was visible now, rising beyond the six feet of privet hedge.

  Karen skirted the boundary and pushed her way through brambles out on to the main road. She brushed herself down and then marched
up to the imposing front door. A light burned in one front window but neither of the Dowling cars was there. It was Mark himself who opened the door.

  ‘Well, well. Look who it is,’ he said. ‘It’s Georgie Porgie’s big sister. What the hell do you want?’

  Good question, Karen thought. Just what did she want? All fired up, she’d come here wanting to confront this bastard and now she was here she hadn’t the slightest notion of what good it would do.

  Annoyed with herself as much as she was provoked by Dowling, she took a step forward, placed her hand in the middle of his chest and pushed him back inside.

  It was the last thing he expected. No one laid hands on Mark Dowling. Off balance, he staggered back.

  ‘Hey! Right, you want to play like that?’

  Regaining his balance, he lunged at her. Karen brought the flashlight down hard upon his outstretched arm, then, before he could react, she had swept it upward, her full strength behind it. It caught Dowling square on the jaw. Stunned, he went down. Karen, merciless now, followed through with a vicious kick. She caught his nose with her heel. The crack as it broke was both unnaturally loud and deeply satisfying.

  ‘You’re a bastard, Dowling,’ Karen spat as he lay writhing on the tiled floor of the Edwardian hall. ‘You may have scared two kids witless, but you don’t scare me and I promise you this, I’ll make bloody sure you go down for what you did to that old woman and for what you did to my brother’s friend.’

  Dowling made as if to struggle to his feet but she raised the torch again and he thought better of it. From the pocket of her coat she produced her mobile phone. Eyes fixed on Dowling, daring him to move, she took his picture.

  ‘Always good to have a souvenir,’ she said.

  Dowling staggered to his feet, but she was ready for him. The long-stemmed torch caught him a glancing blow on the temple this time and sent him reeling across the hall.

  ‘I’ll bloody get you. I know where to find you, bitch; you’ll wish you’d not been born.’

  Karen’s look was pitying. ‘Mark,’ she said softly, ‘someone already tried that. They didn’t manage it either and, believe me, beside him, you’re just a sad little amateur.’

  She left, slamming the door behind her, hurried back towards the waste ground and only then did she ask herself what the hell she thought she’d been doing. It was so utterly irrational.

  Karen glanced at her watch again and then shone the torch on her coat and shoes. Some blood, but not a massive amount. Abruptly, she turned on her heel and went back to the Dowling house. Mark Dowling, a towel pressed over his bloody nose, opened the door again. Karen really hadn’t thought he’d be that stupid.

  His eyes widened, but she gave him no time to react this time. She left him where he lay on the hall floor, wiped the doorbell with the end of her scarf and headed towards home.

  That, Karen figured, was a much better, much more rational way to finish things.

  Back at the house she shed her coat carefully, emptying the pockets and then rolling it so the blood was inside. On her way home she had made two phone calls to her mother’s mobile. Neither had been answered. She then washed her hands, checked her shoes and went back to the Robinsons’ and knocked on the front door.

  ‘Any news? I’ve been trying to get hold of Mum but she must have left her phone in her locker when she got changed.’

  ‘Nothing. Nora’s on her way home. Did you try her work number?’

  Karen shook her head. ‘No point. Reception’s closed. There’s just the cleaning staff and they won’t answer the phones. You think Mrs Robinson will be long?’

  ‘A half-hour I would think. I’ll give you a ring if you like, when she comes in.’

  ‘Thanks. I appreciate it. Mum’s going to go frantic.’

  She trotted back to her own house and checked her watch again. Half an hour. That was fine.

  She collected the torch from where she’d placed it on the draining board, washed it under a running tap, scrubbing at it with anti-bacterial cleaner. Then she popped her raincoat into the machine on the quick-wash setting, half load. Karen never bought anything that might encourage dry-cleaning bills.

  She dismantled the torch, cleaned the batteries and wiped everything down with a clean cloth, then placed the dismantled sections into a carrier bag. Moments later, fresh coat and gloves on, she was cutting across the wasteland once again, but this time towards the undercliff.

  Karen was almost shocked at how calm she felt. If George was right and he really had seen their father then she’d obviously not done the proper job she thought she had that other time. This time, there would be no errors. No one, but no one, was going to threaten her family ever again – and she had absolutely no conscience about ridding the world of Mark Dowling.

  ‘Justice,’ she said softly. ‘Just common law.’

  Her watch told her that fifteen minutes had passed. One by one she took the parts of the torch and threw them far out over the cliff. The carrier bag she folded neatly and shoved into her pocket to join one already there. Karen was a green citizen; she always reused her bags. She could post it into the supermarket recycling box the next day. Her gloves went into one of the large bins at the back of the hotel.

  Back home, she checked the phone for missed calls. No, the last number recall was exactly the same as it had been when she left. The Robinsons had not yet phoned.

  Don’t you just love technology? Karen thought.

  She was upstairs hanging the damp but well cleaned raincoat on a hanger in her room when the phone rang. She rushed downstairs.

  ‘Hello? Oh, Mrs Robinson. Any news? Yes please, I’ll be round in a minute. Thanks so much.’

  She lowered the receiver and took a last careful look around. Then, checking that her damp trainers were drying out beneath the radiator, she put on her slippers and went back round to see the Robinsons.

  Twenty-Four

  George and Paul had spent a cold afternoon hiding out in the local park about half a mile from their school. A thicket of trees close to the children’s playground provided them with cover but not the best of shelter and they shivered in the fierce wind that blew across the open grassed area and between the swings before it was finally muffled by the trees.

  At least the cold put people off coming to the playground with their kids, George thought to himself, but it was cold comfort. Bitterly, icily cold comfort.

  Three fifteen came finally and at least gave them permission to move and be out and about. The only danger now was from any kids that might know them. George was thankful for the fact that both he and Paul merged so much into the background that only their classmates were likely to be looking out for them and most of those bused it in to school from Frantham and other settlements nearby.

  They made their way back into the town centre, trying to look purposeful, as if they were actually going somewhere. George quickly realized that no one was really paying them any attention anyway.

  They kept warm by wandering in and out of the bigger shops. They talked very little. Paul seemed sunk in the deepest and most morose of thoughts and after a while George gave up all attempts at conversation.

  By five o’clock George was really suffering from the lack of lunch and what threatened now to be the lack of dinner.

  ‘I’m starving,’ he said. ‘Look, we’d better get something to eat.’

  ‘What with?’

  ‘I told you, I’ve got money in the bank. I just need to find a hole in the wall. Come on.’

  Reluctantly, Paul plodded after his friend. He stood watching listlessly as George fed his card into the slot and slowly keyed in his PIN. He’d only used it a couple of times and he panicked momentarily, wondering if he’d got it right, then a moment longer as he wondered if the police knew about his card and if they’d blocked his bank account or something.

  ‘Look,’ he said finally, retrieving his card and two crisp ten-pound notes. ‘I told you.’

  Paul seemed to rally a little. ‘How much y
ou got?’ he asked.

  ‘About another forty. I’ve been saving. Look, let’s get some grub, then we can have a think about what we’re going to do next.’

  Paul sank once more into despairing mode and George sighed impatiently. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s a chip shop back that way. Got seats inside. Let’s sit down for a bit.’

  ‘What if someone sees?’

  ‘So, they see. We’re going to be eating fish and chips just like a load of other people. What’s the big deal?’

  ‘What about CCTV?’

  ‘God sakes, Paul, we’ve been captured on camera I don’t know how many times since we got here. Everybody is. But no one’s going to be looking that hard for us, at least not yet. We’ve only been gone since lunch.’ He sighed. ‘Look, maybe you better call home, let them know you’re OK. You got your phone?’

  Paul shook his head. ‘Left it home, didn’t I?’

  ‘Then we’ll find a phone box somewhere.’

  Paul shook his head.

  ‘Come on then, let’s at least get something to eat. My belly’s hurting.’

  With a show of reluctance, Paul ambled after George and they found the chip shop George had noticed earlier.

  ‘Eat in, please,’ George said. ‘Fish and chips twice, thanks.’

  ‘You want mushy peas?’

  Manners cost nothing, Karen always told him. He could hear her saying it now.

  George shook his head and then nodded. ‘Yes thanks, and two Cokes.’

  He paid and then led the way to a small table at the back from where they could watch the door. Paul slumped down and George arranged cutlery while they waited for the food to be brought. Karen was right about that too, he thought. It was always better, somehow, when you had something to do with your hands.

  ‘Enjoy your meals.’ The woman smiled at them both.

  ‘Thanks,’ George said, absurdly glad he’d remembered his manners. He sprinkled salt and then vinegar, tucked in, ignoring Paul completely, noting a few reluctant minutes later that his friend finally began to eat and that soon he was filling his face with as much enthusiasm as George.