Resolutions Page 14

  Ursula took his hand and held it tight. ‘My dad’s in hospital,’ she said. ‘He’s been there since I was little. Mum couldn’t cope. She left me with my gran and then my auntie, and then she just went off somewhere.’

  George was shocked. They’d both avoided talking about the past, just touching on the less painful elements, but not wanting to dwell on those parts so hard to face.

  ‘You don’t know where she is?’ he asked.

  ‘She left with some man she met at work. Said he made her feel wanted and important. Gran was too old and then she died, and my auntie works abroad a lot, all over the place. Anyway, there was no one else, you know? Stuff happened and I ended up at Hill House. I hated it, until you came.’

  George squeezed her hand and welcomed the firm pressure in return. They fell silent then, each buried in their own memories, aware that around them the morning gossip and quibbling had regained its normal volume. They said nothing more until they got to school.

  NINETEEN

  Mac had been trying to contact Miriam all morning, but her mobile phone kept ringing and then going over to voicemail. Eventually getting someone to answer the office phone, he was told that she had not come in that day nor had she called in sick.

  Worried, Mac phoned her sister, only to be told that she had left as usual, her sister thought, just before eight. Could she have broken down en route? Surely, if so, she’d have called someone.

  ‘She has breakdown cover,’ Mac said. ‘She had her mobile with her?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure. It’s like an extra limb; she takes it everywhere.’

  True, Mac thought; like him, she was used to being summoned at odd hours and the habit of keeping the mobile close carried over even to those times when she was not on call.

  ‘I could drive her route,’ Miriam’s sister offered. ‘Just in case.’ She sounded really worried now, more so when Mac instantly said no to her suggestion, then regretted the sharpness in his tone. ‘You think something happened to her, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mac said truthfully. ‘I’ll get someone to go out and look for her. Can you tell me which way she’d be most likely to go?’

  Minutes later Andy Nevins was mobilized and Sergeant Baker was alerting their colleagues in Exeter, just in case this should turn out to be more than Miriam merely being late for work.

  ‘She’s probably gone straight to a job,’ Mac told Miriam’s sister when he called her back to let her know what was going on. ‘She maybe had a call-out on her way in.’

  ‘Maybe,’ the sister agreed cautiously, clinging to that little bit of hope, but as Mac put the phone down, it was with the awareness that neither of them thought for a second that could be true.

  Andy found Miriam’s car halfway between her sister’s house and her workplace. He called Mac.

  ‘It’s parked on the roadside, as if she’s pulled over deliberately on to the verge. There are tyre marks crossing the road in front of her car – looks like someone turned round, clipped the verge front and back when they manoeuvred. Mac, I’ve spoken to DI Kendal. He said I should secure the scene best as I can and wait for him to get here.’

  Scene? Oh God. ‘Signs of a struggle?’ Mac’s heart was pounding, but he tried hard to keep his tone normal. He heard Andy hesitate.

  ‘Scuff marks on the road that look like shoes have scraped on the gravel, and . . . and, Mac, there’s blood, just a few drops, looks like cast off and then drips as if she . . . as if she stood for a moment and the blood dripped on to the gravel at the side of the road. Mac, I may be wrong, I’m no expert.’

  Mac took a deep, sustaining breath. Andy was, in fact, very good at reading a scene. He was fascinated by the technical side of policing, and Miriam had talked him through a number of crime scenes, arranged for him to have a place on one of the new training courses her department was setting up to improve the skills of new police recruits. If someone knew how to secure a scene and what to secure, then the chances of preserving vital evidence were massively improved.

  ‘Let me know as soon as Kendal arrives,’ he said. ‘And thanks, Andy.’

  ‘Trouble?’ Alec had picked up on the tail end of the conversation.

  ‘Miriam didn’t make it into work,’ Mac said. ‘They’ve just found her car. There’s blood, Alec, signs of a struggle.’

  ‘Thomas Peel,’ Alec said.

  TWENTY

  Miriam woke with a head that thumped and pounded so loudly she thought the sound came from somewhere else, until the pain told her that the sound was inside her.

  Her hands were no longer bound and she lay on a narrow bed in the corner of a room with a gently arching ceiling. Painfully, she tried to focus on the brickwork above her. A basement, then. An old one, substantially built but – she inhaled, concentrating on the smell of the room and trying to shut out the worst of the pain – not damp and not particularly cold.

  She struggled to sit, but her head threatened to fall off and she was forced to lie still for a little longer. Beneath her fingers she could feel the texture of rough blankets and, beyond that, metal. The mattress on which she lay was a little smaller than the frame of the bed and it was the metal structure that almost burnt her fingertips with its sudden coldness.

  She tried again to sit and this time succeeded, though it was several minutes until the contents of her skull ceased slopping about and she could manage to open her eyes.

  ‘I have a concussion,’ she said aloud, oddly startled by the sound of her own voice. She could, when she focused, hear no other sound, just her own breathing and the chink and squeak of metal against metal as she shifted on the bed. She wondered how long she’d been out.

  Beside the bed stood a small folding table and on that was a plastic jug, half-filled with water, and a paper cup. Beside that a chocolate bar. Somehow she was unsurprised to find that it was a chocolate cream, her favourite. ‘Of course it is,’ Miriam muttered angrily. ‘Does his research, doesn’t he?’

  She touched walls that were painted white over flaking brickwork, though her first impression had been right and there was no feel of damp. The room was cool and she guessed at night it would be cold, but there must be at least some heating to keep it dry. Squinting, her eyes still not fully able to focus, she could see pipes running around the room just above the level of a rather battered wooden skirting-board and a tiny, cast-iron radiator near the corner of the wall opposite the bed. At the other end of that same wall was a door. That at least looked new and heavy and solid. A single light bulb, suspended from a braided cable of a type she was sure was now illegal, shed about forty watts of light on to a concrete floor. The only other furnishing was a zinc-plated bucket in the corner furthest from the door. Next to that another folding table on which was set a single pink toilet roll.

  ‘Great,’ Miriam muttered. ‘Thanks a lot.’

  She closed her eyes again, thinking that at least he could have left her some aspirin beside the water jug. She was determined not to be afraid. Her wrists hurt and her head felt like it had an army of Morris-dancing bears performing inside it, but she felt oddly calm. Probably just the effect of the concussion, she thought.

  The fact was, he could have killed her. Mac would have no way of knowing if she were alive or dead, and would have to believe Peel, but here she was, still alive, so Peel must have something else in mind and that meant . . . well, she wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but she was determined to feel optimistic about it. It was either that or break down and give in to complete despair. That she was certainly not going to do.

  Miriam shivered; she was still dressed in her outdoor clothes, but even so felt chill and shaky. She recognized that part of this was shock, part physical trauma. Shifting her weight slowly, she managed to get off the bed and stand on her own two feet – that they felt like someone else’s feet was little comfort when the pins and needles began. She pulled the coarse green blanket from the bed and, with a bit of difficulty, draped it around her shoulders, grateful that it had bee
n meant for a double bed and so reached right down to her feet. Coarse it may be, but it was warm.

  She tried to move, feet still not obliging at first. She poured some water and drank, sipping slowly, trying to ignore the nausea which confirmed her thoughts about concussion. As she set the cup down, she glanced at the wall behind the bed. And froze. Pictures of children adorned the brickwork, innocent-looking images of children playing, kids with their families, in school yards and on climbing frames. Children, arranged in a rough circle on the bricks beside the bed. And in the centre of the circle, one child – smiling face, light brown, almost blonde hair, clutching a doll: Cara Evans.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Mac was trying to focus on the lunchtime news and not succeeding very well. He’d spoken to Kendal and to Andy Nevins several times already and was wondering if he could call again, reminding himself that the last conversation with Andy had taken place only twenty minutes before and if anything new had happened they would have let him know. Or would they? How often, Mac thought, had he delayed speaking to family because he’d known he might have to contradict himself some time later? Then again, how often had family contacted him, not because they really expected new developments but just for the assurance they had not been forgotten?

  And how often had he wished they’d lay off and just let him do his job?

  Alec had briefed Wildman regarding events down in Frantham, and Mac had been glad of the intervention. Wildman stood, watching him. One eye on Mac, one on the television. Peel’s little exhibition of Saturday night had taken a while to permeate, largely because reporters had been first kept at bay and then given no additional information until the Monday morning. First reports had concluded that this was a violent domestic; drama but little promise of long-term content. By Monday morning, someone had got hold of the fact that Emily Peel was the daughter of Thomas Peel. The Thomas Peel, child killer. That reports of his suicide had been unfounded; that, for reasons as yet uncertain, he had come looking for his daughter and her boyfriend; and that he had been intent upon murder.

  It seemed to Mac that just about everyone in the street had been interviewed at least once. Reports from officers stationed at the end of Jesmond Street revealed three local news crews, two national papers and four television vans – ‘one satellite, two proper’, according to one comment – and that Emily and Calum’s neighbour, together with Frankie the dog who was still in residence with him, had attained celebrity status.

  Mac listened as Mr Macintyre told, once again, how he had heard the shot, looked out of his front window and seen a man with a shotgun enter his neighbour’s house. That he’d come downstairs and told his wife to call the police, and that then the security light in his yard had sparked on.

  ‘They were hiding out behind the wall,’ he said. ‘Young Calum had carried the dog and poor little Em – she was in bits, so she was. I said to them, you come along in, I’ll make you a brew. Then all of a sudden, there he was. I tell you, if Frankie hadn’t barked when he did, I’d have been a gonner and the young ’uns too. Then we heard the sirens, just after the shot, and he scarpered, that Peel.’ He nodded emphatically and Frankie barked, just to show how he’d done it that night.

  Had Mac been in a better mood, he might have joined the laughter. As it was, Macintyre’s good humour just set his teeth on edge.

  ‘Weren’t you scared to open your door?’ The interviewer was very young, very pretty, and the old man was clearly enjoying his moment of glory. ‘No, my love, we don’t scare easy round here. Not that we expect trouble, mind; this is a respectable street, and Calum and young Emily are a lovely pair, even if they haven’t found the time to get married yet.’

  Mac walked away, stared instead out of the window and down into the car park. He took his phone from his jacket pocket and studied the screen, checking just in case it had rung or a message had been left, and he, somehow, had not heard.

  ‘If you’re not going to be any good to me here, you’d best fuck off home,’ Wildman said.

  Mac started, so absorbed in his own thoughts he’d not heard his boss. ‘I may well do that,’ he said. ‘Miriam is missing. Right now that’s all I can think about. Peel has her.’

  ‘And the last time you and he crossed swords, you lost, far as I remember.’

  ‘I don’t need reminding.’

  ‘I think you do. I think you need to be reminded of it over and over again until you realize you can’t solve anything on your tod. You need the rest of us. Police work is about team work, not playing the bloody hero. That way people get killed.’

  ‘I never played the hero, as you put it. I followed a lead. I didn’t have time to wait. We’d waited before and Peel had slipped through our fingers in the time it took backup to get there. I didn’t ask for what happened. I didn’t want to be the one there, facing him. I didn’t make it happen. Peel did; he called the shots right from the very start and he’s doing it now.’

  ‘Good,’ Wildman said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said good. Time you brushed that frigging chip from your shoulder and realized you aren’t alone in your suffering.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You think any of us got away with it? Any of us here that didn’t go home and rack our brains wondering if we could have done more, done anything to save that little lass? It was chance. Chance Peel decided you were the one he wanted to fuck around with. You were the one he could watch suffer and enjoy the most, but get this straight, Mac: it could have been any one of us on the beach with him that night, and ninety per cent would have done exactly what you did. Run to the kid and let him go. Peel was playing his luck that night, betting on the odds.’

  ‘And you’d have done it different, would you?’

  ‘Damn right I would, but, you know what, Mac, I don’t see myself as being a better person for knowing that. I don’t hold myself up against the likes of you and pass judgement; that’s your game, not mine. I just know me, just like Peel knows himself, just like Peel knew you. Like he knows you now. You’re not the most able opponent, Mac, not the best copper, not the meanest, not the strongest – just the one that provides him with the best game. Remember that, then, when it all goes tits up again, which – mark my words – it will; you might get to play him a blinder. You don’t want another death on your hands, and no one that knows you wants to deal with your bloody conscience either, so do us all a favour.’

  Mac stared, lost for words. Angry retorts rose to his lips and died there. The room had fallen silent, only the television breaking the tension and that was now delivering the weather report. Absently, Mac absorbed the fact that fog would be blanketing most of the country from late afternoon.

  ‘You’ve no right . . .’ he said at last, but there was no heat in his protest, just a profound weariness.

  ‘No right to do what, Mac? To make you less of a martyr? Martyrs don’t make good cops. Remember that.’

  He turned on his heel and left the room. Mac watched him go, wondering if and how to make his own exit.

  Alec appeared at his side, a mug in his hand. ‘Tea,’ he said. ‘Drink. You OK?’ he added.

  Automatically, Mac took the mug from him. Conversation resumed, drowning out the weather forecast.

  ‘Is that the general view?’ he asked.

  ‘General? No. Common? I imagine so.’

  Mac took that in, accompanied the knowledge with a slug of tea. Found he felt oddly cleansed by Wildman’s anger, by his own response – or lack of it. He nodded.

  ‘Look, everyone sympathizes, everyone knows, fears, it might be them next time. We all hope we’d make the right call, but none of us knows how it would pan out when we’re actually in that position.’

  ‘And how did you feel, afterwards? When they brought her back from the beach, when—’

  ‘Mac, along with every man Jack of us – women included in that – I was glad I’d been somewhere else.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Somehow Mac made it through lunchtime and in
to the afternoon. Kendal phoned, but there was nothing to report, only that blood at the scene was the same group as Miriam’s, but that traces had been minimal.

  ‘We can probably assume she’s not badly hurt,’ he said. ‘Or at least not losing blood.’

  Was that compensation? Mac had to hope so. He thought again about just dropping everything and heading for home, but something told him that Peel would not remain so far south, not for long; he would stick with familiar terrain. And the thought that he might be halfway down the motorway should Peel make contact, and he would then have to backtrack and lose precious time, was the one thought that kept Mac from leaving.

  Peel needed to know where to contact Mac, and Mac needed to be able to be contacted.

  Mid-afternoon brought a shred of news. A driver of a Range Rover, heading for home and encountering the police cordon, had described an event he had witnessed that morning.

  ‘The timing’s right,’ Andy Nevins told him. ‘And the description of the man. And he’s remembered part of the reg number. It’s something.’

  ‘It is something,’ Mac agreed. But what? Was the number plate genuine? Was he even driving the same car? The Range Rover driver had seen no woman passenger and had said that the car was a saloon – a BMW, he thought, or something similar. ‘Big,’ he’d said. ‘Nearly wedged itself across the road.’

  Mac knew that meant there was only one place Miriam could have been and that was in the boot of the car. He could not help but wonder what Peel had done to her; she may not be bleeding, but she wasn’t fighting either, or Range Rover man would have heard.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, summoning the energy and the courage to phone Miriam’s sister. Andy was acting as liaison – the family knew him and Mac understood how much a familiar voice could help under these sorts of circumstances – but it would not be enough just to hear news from Andy, and Mac knew he had to call them too, talk them through their fears, just as he was trying to do on his own account. He was about to find their number in his contact list when the phone rang again and Mac looked at the display. Miriam’s phone.