A Reason to Kill Page 18

  ‘Oh, like the hotel at Marlborough Head?’ Tim grimaced, recalling the kids’ party he had so recently endured.

  ‘Yes, but the DeBarrs don’t own that now either. In fact the last of them is old Nick who runs the filling station just down from the hotel. You know the one?’

  Tim nodded, then brushed back the heavy lock of black hair that fell into his eyes.

  ‘Anyway, as I was saying, they owned the airfield before the war, sold it off to the MOD, and after the war it was sold again. Some sort of private consortium. Folded about fifteen years ago after several changes of owner. Shame really.’

  Tim wandered over to where the hedge gave way to a five-bar gate beside which a green sign indicated the footpath Rina had mentioned. He stared long and hard at the dilapidated old building, complete with modest control tower that still dominated the flattened landscape and a sudden thought occurred to him. One, he suddenly realized, that had been forming since the previous evening when Mac had told them about the missing boys.

  ‘If I was a thirteen-year-old boy and I needed a place to hide for a while, where would I go?’ he said.

  Rina’s bright blue eyes demanded an explanation. ‘You think they’ve come back to Frantham?’

  ‘I do. Better to hide out in a place you know and in a place you know no one bothers with than to try to find a new place in a strange country.’

  Rina snorted. ‘Dorchester is hardly foreign fields,’ she said. ‘They both go to school there.’

  ‘They catch the bus here. Bus drops them at school gates. Picks them up from same. Drops them home.’

  ‘All right,’ she conceded. ‘You have a point. But over there, in the tower?’ She frowned, wriggled her shoulders irritably. ‘They’d see us coming a mile off.’

  ‘True, so we have to be seen to go somewhere else. If they are there, they’ll be watching to see what’s going on, which means they’re looking this way. How about if we pick up the cliff path and come back in through the other way?’

  ‘It’ll take an age,’ Rina objected. ‘Tim, at times you’re far too subtle.’ Hitching up her skirts she mounted the stile and jumped down on the other side. ‘Better to try the direct approach. They see us and make a run for it, we’ll spot them and if, as I suspect, there’s no one there, then we won’t have wasted half a day on a nature ramble.’

  ‘How much do you want to bet?’ Tim challenged. ‘Look, hang on.’ He took their cups back to the catering van and bought two bottles of pop and some chocolate and biscuits, then he ran to catch up with Rina. ‘Best to come bearing gifts.’

  Rina rolled her eyes.

  George was never quite sure what it was that made him just sit still and watch as these two strangers headed in the direction of their hiding place. At first it was disbelief: they couldn’t be coming here. The amount of dust that had settled on the ground floor told him that no one ever came here. Then it was curiosity: a short old woman and a tall man whose long strides had him loping ahead of her. Every three paces or so he stopped to wait for her to catch up. George thought it looked like someone with a large, over-energetic but patient dog out for a walk.

  As they drew closer he began to panic, then panic was replaced by resignation. If he’d wanted to run, he should have got a move on long before. He looked across the room to where Paul lay sleeping once again, then got up and tiptoed over to his friend. Paul didn’t stir, even when he touched his hand.

  George went to the stairs and descended halfway, listening. Maybe they’d pass by. If they did, should he run after them, pretend he was just out bird-watching or something? He could at least ask what was going on.

  He heard voices, a man and a woman. They sounded OK, he thought. Happy, chatty, like they were making fun of each other but in a friendly way. Hesitantly, George descended the rest of the way.

  He heard the sound of feet on broken glass as they came close to the door and the scuffing of gravel. Then the door swung wide and the woman entered first.

  ‘George Parker, I presume,’ the woman said. She extended a gloved hand in his direction and, bemused but operating on auto-pilot, George shook it. His eyes, however, were fixed on what the man was carrying.

  ‘Here you go,’ the man said. ‘Your friend upstairs, is he?’ He handed George the drink and then dug in his pocket for the biscuits and chocolate. ‘All they had in the catering van,’ he explained. ‘I understand they’ll be doing bacon batches and such like later on.’

  Bacon rolls. George felt himself grow faint at the thought. The fish and chips of the night before seemed an eternity ago.

  ‘He’s not right,’ George said. ‘Paul, he’s been acting funny and he just keeps wanting to sleep.’

  Rina clasped him lightly on the shoulder and headed for the stairs. George and Tim followed her. She knelt beside the other boy and shook him gently, calling his name. Paul opened his eyes and then yelped in panic.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Rina told him. ‘No one will hurt you. Your mum and dad are worried sick, but it’s all going to be all right now.’

  He shook his head, dark eyes cold with fear. ‘He’ll get me,’ Paul said. ‘He said. He said he’d kill me and he’d hurt me mam too. He said …’

  Rina was shaking her grey head. ‘If you mean Mark Dowling,’ she said, ‘he’s in no position either to issue threats or to carry them through.’

  ‘You see!’ George was triumphant. ‘I told you they arrested him, didn’t I? That’s right, isn’t it? We saw the police cars round his house.’

  He watched as this woman called Rina, who he recognized vaguely because she’d visited Mrs Freer, and this strange tall man, exchanged a glance.

  ‘It was a bit late for that,’ Rina said. ‘Someone killed him, I’m afraid. That’s what the police were doing there.’

  George supposed he should feel shocked at the news but somehow he just couldn’t. Relief flooded him, just like the moment of pure exultation had earlier that morning, only the relief seemed just a bit more permanent. The man called Tim had laid out the pop and biscuits and chocolate and even Paul was enlivened enough by the news that he ate and drank. Some of the colour had returned to his cheeks. The threat – that awful, overwhelming, immediate threat – had been lifted and George could tell that Paul wasn’t even thinking about the rest of the stuff. About the breaking and entering and the gun and then going back with Mark Dowling and watching the old woman die.

  He hoped so much that Paul would have at least a bit of time before the rest of that stuff all descended on him and he had to be afraid of it again. He needed a break, some time out, a little bit of a reprieve.

  Rina answered George’s questions as best she could and then she reminded them both that people were seriously worried about them, that they had parents who’d been going frantic all night. Tim produced his mobile phone and called someone called Mac who Rina explained was a policeman.

  George almost stopped listening after that. What Rina had said about parents reminded him of his dad and that he was back and that he had troubles of his own that he’d now have to deal with.

  ‘OK,’ Tim said. ‘Mac’s been called away somewhere but DI Eden and someone called Andy are on their way. You know who that is, Rina?’

  She nodded. ‘You’ll be fine with them,’ she told George.

  ‘But anyway.’ Tim withdrew a small card from the pocket of his coat and then wrote a name on the back and placed it in Paul’s hand. ‘Tell them you want to talk to this man. D.I. McGregor. You can trust him, George, Paul. He knows what’s happened and he’ll do everything he can to help you both through this. You understand?’

  George nodded and leaned over to look at the card. Paul was twisting it in his hands as though not sure what to do with it. George saw the name and little advert on the other side to the scribbled name. ‘You’re a magician?’

  ‘I sure am.’ Tim grinned. A second card had suddenly appeared in his hand though George had not seen him move. It was dog-eared and just a little bit creased. He handed it
to George. ‘Marvello at your service,’ he said, with a little bow and a wolfish smile.

  George did his best to smile back but the weight of worry was bearing down upon him again. He slid the card into the pocket of his coat. ‘Thanks,’ he said, wishing that magic tricks and escapology extended to situations like this.

  Thirty

  Mac had been called from the scene by his opposite number, an Inspector Kendal from Dorchester HQ. Kendal told him that they had an address for Edward Parker, George’s father.

  ‘That was quick.’

  Kendal laughed. ‘We try. No, we’ve known about him for a while now. Moved down here from Manchester four months ago; our colleagues up there gave us the tip off. Mr Parker has some interesting associates.’

  He gave Mac the address of Parker’s flat and told him he’d meet him there.

  Edward Parker’s flat looked surprisingly expensive, Mac thought as he pulled up outside the modern and purpose-built block. It was part of one of those mews complex things that seemed to be so popular these days and which, frankly, Mac hated passionately. To him they were the architectural equivalent of fast-food restaurants; identical countrywide and making absolutely no concession to local character.

  He nodded to the man in the rather good grey suit leaning against a rather battered Ford Mondeo. ‘DI Kendal?’

  ‘Nice to meet you.’ They shook hands and Kendal indicated the suit. ‘Court this morning. Got to look the part.’

  Mac laughed. ‘It’s a bit posh, this,’ he said. ‘Must have come into money. Renting, is he?’

  ‘Nope, he bought it. Cash. Reckons it was a private loan. From a friend.’

  ‘A friend?’

  Kendal nodded. ‘I’ll fill you in properly back at the station. Let’s just say that Parker’s friends accept payment in kind and charge a considerable amount of interest.’

  The flat was on the third floor. Entry to the building was controlled by an intercom and buzzer. To Mac’s mild surprise, Kendal announced himself and was buzzed through without comment. ‘He knows you then?’ Mac said as they got into the lift.

  Kendal nodded. ‘We’ve had our conversations. Thing is, Parker reckons he’s well out of our reach. We’ve nothing on him yet, and his friends are as slippery as a net full of eels.’

  ‘What are we talking here? Organized crime? Drugs?’

  Kendal shrugged. ‘Drugs, yes, but that’s not the main game. Identity theft, computer scams. Techie stuff.’

  ‘Sounds a bit smart for Edward Parker.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s employed for his brains. Thing is, we’re not sure just who is employing him or exactly what for. These past months, apart from two visits to Manchester and another to, we think, London, he’s been a model citizen. Shopped at the local supermarket, joined the video store, worked out at the gym. And it might be pure coincidence that his little trips have coincided with two dead and one left in a vegetative state.’

  The lift doors opened. ‘I’ve been told to share what we’ve got with you. We didn’t know the family were here when Parker arrived. If we had, we’d have disclosed, but the funny thing is, this is the first slip up he’s made, trying to make contact with the boy. I can’t think his so-called friends would be impressed.’

  ‘Unless,’ Mac said, ‘they found his family for him and brought him here because of it.’

  Kendal shrugged and led the way along the plush landing. He pressed the bell and Edward Parker opened the door.

  A few minutes later, Mac sat in the leather wing chair to which Parker had directed him and observed the man. He was clean shaven, with cared-for skin which drew attention to the scar on his lower jaw. It travelled down on to his neck. Thinning hair was cut short but stylishly. Clothes that Mac guessed he’d never afford on his salary. He glanced around the flat at the thick carpet, the rather tasteless but expensive leather suite, and mentally compared it to the house Parker’s family inhabited.

  The only thing the two dwellings had in common, Mac noted, was the lack of personal stuff. No pictures, no photographs. There was a car magazine on the coffee table but an absence of books or even music. A sizeable television dominated the corner of the room and the sofa had been angled, the better for the viewer to recline, but the handful of scattered DVDs on the floor were the only indicator of personality or interest.

  ‘I hear the boy’s done a runner.’

  ‘He has. Mr Parker, you were waiting outside the school. When challenged you were abusive.’

  ‘Some woman asking questions,’ he said. ‘None of her damn business, was it?’

  ‘She’s a teacher, Mr Parker. If she sees a stranger loitering outside of her school, then it becomes her business.’

  He shrugged. ‘I wanted to see my boy.’

  ‘And if he didn’t want to see you?’

  Parker barked a laugh. ‘Course he would. What boy wouldn’t want to see his dad? It’s those other two, poisoned his mind against me.’

  ‘Your wife and daughter?’

  ‘What wife? She was never a wife. Useless bit of … And as for that other one.’ He touched the scar on his face. ‘Little bitch. She gave me this.’

  ‘Karen?’

  ‘Dead right.’ Parker sat forward in his chair and pulled the crisp white shirt out from his trousers. Displayed for Mac’s perusal a second scar that ran from just below his ribs and disappeared behind the waistband of his trousers. ‘This one too. I want her brought in for it. Arrested, you got that?’

  This was taking a bizarre turn. ‘Mr Parker, when is your daughter supposed to have assaulted you?’

  ‘Four year or more ago. Time I got out of hospital, she and that other one had long gone, taken my boy with them. Poisoned his mind against me.’

  ‘I rather think you assaulting his mother might have done that,’ Mac said slowly. ‘Four years ago. That would be the last time you put her in hospital, wouldn’t it?’

  Parker got to his feet and glowered over Mac. ‘She press charges, did she? She take me to court over it? No, because the bitch deserved all she bloody got.’

  ‘Sit down, Mr Parker,’ Mac said. Kendal had risen to his feet, reached for his phone.

  ‘I want to see my boy and I want her punished.’

  ‘You’ll leave your family alone, Mr Parker,’ Mac said.

  ‘You threatening me?’ That bark of a laugh again. ‘Bloody funny that is.’

  ‘I’m warning you. Keep away.’

  ‘Or what? You’ll make me, will you? You and whose army? I don’t need your help to find them any road.’

  ‘And are you threatening a police officer?’ Kendal asked quietly.

  Parker turned ice-blue eyes upon him. ‘No, like the man said, just delivering a warning.’

  Mac’s phone rang, breaking the tension. He flinched as the shrill note cut through him, but he hoped no one noticed. ‘McGregor.’ He listened to the news that George and Paul had been found, safe and well. He schooled his expression not to change, not to let Parker senior know, though the delay, Mac realized, would be small enough. He was glad that he’d acted upon Karen’s fear and moved them from the house, but didn’t figure that his flat would be safe for long. He stood up.

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Parker,’ he said. ‘We can see ourselves out.’

  ‘Nasty bugger,’ Kendal declared once they were outside. ‘Sooner we get something concrete on him the better.’

  ‘Just concrete would do,’ Mac smiled wryly as Kendal laughed at the bad joke. ‘His son’s turned up,’ he said. ‘And the other boy.’

  ‘Both OK?’

  Mac nodded.

  ‘Well that’s a small relief. What do you reckon to what he said?’

  ‘That was news to you too?’

  Kendal nodded. ‘Have you met the daughter? What do you make of her?’

  Mac considered. ‘Mature, capable, very sensible. Do I think he could be telling the truth about what she did? Maybe. I really wouldn’t want to say.’

  ‘Deserved all he got if you ask me. I�
��ll have a go at tracking down the hospital records.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Mac said. ‘Look, this is probably not related but …’ He explained about the lights, the cave and what Rina had found there.

  Kendal laughed. ‘Sounds like you’ve got yourself a resident Miss Marple,’ he said. ‘The coastguard has reported odd activity all along this stretch of coast. Nothing conclusive. Look, tell you what, get Miss Marple’s evidence to me and I’ll put it through to forensics. Not that we could use it, of course; there’s the chain of evidence problem for a start. But I think it would be worthwhile taking a look at that cave.’

  Mac nodded. He stopped off at Kendal’s car and collected the reports Kendal had copied for him, then took his leave. Mac glanced up at the third-floor flat before getting into his car. Edward Parker, glass in hand, was looking down at him.

  Thirty-One

  It was five o’clock on the Tuesday afternoon when Mac drove back to Frantham. He’d been told that the boys were at the police station, having been reunited with their families, fed and watered, and checked out by the doctor. Paul had come in with his parents and George had Karen there to protect his interest.

  ‘They want to talk to you,’ Eden told him. ‘They don’t want to confess their all to anyone else. Seems your friend Rina put them up to it.’

  ‘Rina? What’s she got to do with it?’

  ‘Oh.’ Eden hadn’t realized Mac didn’t know. ‘She and that lodger of hers, Timothy Brandon, they were out with the search teams.’

  ‘Right,’ Mac said. ‘I’ll be ten minutes.’ Definitely a Miss Marple clone, he thought. Or should that be Lydia Marchant?

  Passing the Dowling house he noted that most of the searchers had now departed, their numbers replaced by television cameras and local reporters all busy staking their claim to a scrap of verge, fenced in behind a cordon of traffic cones and tape. The road had been closed for much of the day, traffic facing a ten-mile diversion through half a dozen villages and back on to the coast road. The road was partly opened now, with uniformed officers checking the cars that wanted access. Andy, on point duty, saw Mac and waved him through. The press, bored with the lack of action and alerted to Mac’s known status, craned forward to see just who he was. Mac was grateful for the cordon, flimsy as it was. Cameras captured his image for the morning news and the locals, knowing him from the Freer murder, acknowledged him, gaining themselves a little kudos in the process.