Authors: Fiona McIntosh
42
Kate flicked through the Brighton directory, looking for the Rottingdean address. Jack guided the car through the ‘Sunday driver’ traffic, cursing as he went, heading for the historic coastal village that was more conservative than its big cousin, Brighton.
‘Want to put the siren on?’ she asked.
His mouth twisted as he thought. ‘No, we’ll only alarm him more. Best to arrive quietly.’
‘What if she’s already got to him?’
He shrugged. ‘She’ll have left a trail, I hope. This sort of villagey community would likely have nosey neighbours everywhere. Someone will have seen something, but I don’t even want to think about the fact that she may beat us to him.’
Kate held her peace. The way Anne McEvoy had outsmarted them thus far left no doubt in her mind that she would almost certainly get to Flynn before they did.
Finally they pulled up not far away from number thirty-two.
‘Go round the back if you can, Kate. I’ll do my utmost not to spook him, but you never know.’
She nodded, stepped over the low fence and looked for a lane or gate that might lead her around to the rear of the house. Jack took the stone stairs two at a time and rang the doorbell as he searched for his warrant card. Nothing happened, so he rang again. A woman’s voice called back that she was coming.
The door opened and a small woman in her late fifties, he guessed, with a round, kindly face, answered the door. She was wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Yes?’
‘Mrs Flynn?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Jack Hawksworth. Is your husband home?’
‘No, he’s not,’ she said, frowning. Disappointment knifed through Jack at her words. ‘What’s this about?’ she added, reaching for a pair of glasses that hung at her neck so she could read his card.
‘I need to speak with Garvan Flynn urgently. Do you know where he is?’
Kate appeared, shrugging, unable to get around to the back of the house. Jack shook his head slightly to tell her they were unlucky.
‘This is Detective Inspector Kate Carter, Mrs Flynn.’
The woman nodded at Kate. ‘My husband’s with our family in Hove. I’ve just come from there, although I think he was going out.’
‘Do you know where?’
‘Yes, to our son’s house. Look, I’m not answering any more questions about my family until you tell me what this is about.’
Jack sighed. ‘May we come in, Mrs Flynn?’
* * *
Peter sat stiffly alongside Anne in her rented hatchback. Even small talk seemed too difficult for either of them.
Despite the enormous surge of helpless emotion that engulfed her when her son approached the car, Anne was determined not to spook him by bombarding him with questions, or worse, hysterical tears. She swallowed them back ruthlessly. Touching him, as she wanted to, felt impossible even though he sat so close in the cramped space.
He was tall and a bit raffish, like his namesake, her father. She had to assume his symmetrical features were more like his own father’s, the man she had never seen clearly. The blue eyes were hers, though. She hadn’t seen Peter smile yet, just that self-conscious twitch of the mouth when he opened the car door. Nonetheless that small, shy gesture had reminded her so much of herself from childhood.
‘What do you want?’ he finally said when the apprehension of what was ahead and the pressure of silence became overwhelming.
‘Just to talk with you,’ she answered carefully. She was in love with his voice, with him, already. ‘How about a walk on the seafront,’ she offered. ‘We can talk privately there, and there’s also something I want to show you.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll see. It will speak more clearly to you than anything I can explain.’
Anne was readjusting her plan as she spoke, her mind racing ahead as to how to make the most of this
unexpected gift of Peter alone with her. She didn’t want to hurt him, but he was also her key to finding Flynn. It was a struggle to balance the love for him and the hate for his father.
‘Okay,’ he replied, uncertain. ‘But first, tell me my birthday.’
She nodded, glad that, despite all the trauma and emotional upheaval, he was sharp enough to make her earn this. ‘That’s easy, Peter. You were born on a stormy night in August 1975, in Brighton.’ She gave him the exact date.
His mobile phone rang. He looked at it. ‘It’s home.’
‘Leave it for a few minutes, will you? Hear me out and then you can tell them whatever you want.’
He nodded, pressed the button that told the caller his phone was busy.
Jack listened to Clare Flynn talking to her relatives. He could tell from her side of the conversation that her husband had already left.
‘I know you said he’d gone. I just hoped he might have come back for some reason . . . Yes, I’ve tried Peter’s mobile. It’s busy and then it went to that recorded message thing. I’ll have to keep trying, I suppose.’ A pause. ‘I’m telling you, I don’t know. They could have missed each other because Peter was here. I can see he’s made a pot of tea, although it’s untouched . . . Look, I’ll call you when I hear something. Let me get off the phone now, I don’t want to keep these people waiting any longer. Bye.’ She turned to the detectives. ‘Shall I try his mobile again?’
‘Yes,’ Kate said. ‘In fact, can you give us your husband’s and son’s mobile numbers, please?’
‘My husband doesn’t carry a mobile, says he doesn’t want to be that contactable,’ Clare said, before reciting Peter’s number.
Anne had just parked when Peter’s phone sounded again. ‘Home again, I presume?’ she said.
He nodded, having glanced at the screen. ‘My mother can be relentless. I’ll send the busy signal again, but you’d better start talking. I’ll give you one hour.’
‘Fine,’ Anne replied. She would need far less if her rudimentary plan worked. ‘Walk with me.’
‘What’s in the urn?’ he asked, nodding at the vessel in her hand.
‘Trust me. This is for appearances only. You’ll see.’
Peter shrugged. This whole experience was weird; what was one more strange element? ‘Why West Pier?’ he asked.
Although she found it hard to, Anne smiled. ‘I know you think you’ve never set foot on it in your life, but believe me, this place is as intrinsic to your history as it is to mine.’
He frowned. ‘We can’t go on there. It’s completely closed off. It’s been declared unsafe.’
‘It’s only closed to those without a key,’ she said and held one up in her fingers. Earlier that day, Anne had spun a poignant tale to the woman who owned The Rock Shop at the start of the pier on the promenade. Anne’s story about the husband who had died far too early and her need to cast his ashes from the pier where they had first met as childhood sweethearts had touched the shopkeeper’s romantic nerve and she’d agreed to give Anne her key, on the proviso Anne would deny it if ever asked.
Anne slid the key into the gate’s padlock and turned it. ‘Come on,’ she said, pushing the gate open and waving her son inside.
Jack’s sixth sense was sending him all manner of alarming messages. ‘Has he turned his mobile off, Mrs Flynn?’
‘No, it rings and then just goes to his voicemail,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand all this new-fangled technology.’
‘He’s pressing the busy signal, sir,’ Kate warned.
Jack knew she was right. Peter was deliberately not answering his mother’s calls. ‘And you think he’s with his father?’ he said to the worried woman.
‘He has to be. Where else could they both be? Perhaps they went for a pint together. I told you, there’s been some bad feeling in the house but my son hasn’t done anything wrong.’
‘Mrs Flynn, we haven’t told you everything. We want to assure you that we’re not here for Peter.’
‘Then tell me. Why are the police in my house?’
Jack began the story of what they knew. His listener sat silent, tears streaming down her face, as he spoke. Kate moved to sit alongside her and took Clare’s hand when Jack got to the most difficult part of his story about a heavily pregnant woman being abducted and attacked, the baby all but stomped from her body as it laboured to be born.
‘I’m so sorry you had to learn this from us,’ Jack finished.
Clare Flynn wept. ‘This is not my Garvan you speak of.’
‘Mrs Flynn, again I’m so sorry,’ Jack said earnestly, ‘but we suspect your husband to be the ringleader of
this gang who abducted and raped Anne McEvoy when she was fourteen in 1974, then abducted her again when she was heavily pregnant and forced her to deliver the child.’
The woman wept harder.
‘Clare, the baby was a son and we believe he was stolen by Garvan Flynn. Your son is called Peter, isn’t he?’ She didn’t answer, didn’t need to. ‘He’s not your son, is he? He’s adopted. And he’s twenty-nine? The timeline fits.’
‘He told me he bought him,’ she whispered, her lips almost white, her complexion suddenly colourless. ‘I wanted a child so badly. I couldn’t get pregnant. It was Garvan, he had a low sperm count we were told. But it was lots of things, I’m sure. Pressure from my parents, them wanting a grandchild, a grandson! He told me a man got Peter for us from a woman who had plenty of kids she didn’t want. This was just one more she didn’t care about. We gave him a loving home . . . a good life . . .’ She was sobbing.
‘We understand your position, Clare,’ Kate assured. ‘You couldn’t have known the truth.’ She decided it was best not to mention that Clare and Garvan Flynn had deliberately and knowingly broken the law in taking a child that was not theirs.
‘But I believed him!’ Clare cried. ‘I had no reason to doubt him. He said a man in the pub told him he could get a baby. It was an unwanted pregnancy to a drug addict mother. She’d already had four kids to different fathers. According to this man, she didn’t even know who Peter’s father was.’
‘Well, a paternity test will probably prove that Garvan is Peter’s biological father,’ Jack said. ‘The
likeness is there in these photos you have around the room.’
‘I always thought so, although I tried to tell myself that Peter was too tall, that his smile was nothing like Garvan’s, that his personality was much brighter and outward-going. I convinced myself he was someone else’s child, ignored the similarities in colouring and features.’ She began sobbing again, gasping as she spoke haltingly. ‘Garvan is a gentle man. He couldn’t have done these things you speak of.’
‘It was many years ago. He’s not the same person now, I’m sure. He was the same age then that Peter is now. Was he an angry younger man?’
She nodded. ‘He got very frustrated that I couldn’t fall pregnant. He’d go out drinking. He was very angry for a while and we even separated for a short time in 1974.’
Both Jack and Kate straightened. ‘When in 1974, Mrs Flynn, can you recall?’ Kate asked.
‘Oh yes, it’s the only time we were ever apart. It was winter — all of October and November. We got back together by early December . . . you know,’ she shrugged, ‘in time for Christmas.’
‘And now?’ Kate asked.
‘He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t do anything wrong. He’s a wonderful father — has been since day one. He loves his family. We love him.’
‘Did he smoke thirty years ago, Clare?’ Jack asked. ‘Did he roll his own cigarettes using tobacco from a tin?’
‘Yes,’ she stammered. ‘He did.’
Jack glanced at Kate. ‘Clare, have you received any odd phone calls from a woman calling herself Anne
McEvoy, Sophie Fenton, or any woman you didn’t know but seemed to know your husband?’
Clare shook her head. ‘No, nothing.’
‘But you think Peter was here this afternoon, while you and your husband were with your relatives?’
‘I know he was. He has his own key. I can tell he was here because he always leaves the used teabags in the sink. His father and I break them open and use them on the garden. It’s our routine. Peter just tips the pot out and leaves them. Besides, I can smell his aftershave.’
‘I smelt that too. I think it’s Fahrenheit,’ Kate said, trying to keep Clare Flynn chatting.
‘That’s right, the deep orange bottle. His father used to use Brut 33 a long time ago. He said it was strong enough to cover the smell of the fish he handled — he was a great angler, my husband — but I hated the smell of it. He doesn’t wear aftershave now. Hasn’t worn it since then. Doesn’t go fishing much, either.’
‘“Then” being when he came home with Peter?’ Jack prompted.
She nodded. ‘Garvan seemed to change overnight from the moment we had Peter. We left Hove, moved into this house. My parents helped us to buy it. All our old folks are dead now but they went to their graves knowing they had that precious grandson. And Peter knew them, loved them.’
‘They knew how he came to you?’
She nodded. ‘My parents did. It’s not that they didn’t care how he came to us, but they knew how desperate we were and that this baby had a terrible home. If he’d stayed with his no-good mother — not that she wanted him — he’d have been lucky to get
through school and not turn out a yob or a tramp.’ She looked at them, apology in her expression.
Jack kept his face deliberately impassive, but inside he was thinking about Sophie Fenton and how the actions not just of Garvan Flynn but of his extended and very selfish family had shaped a serial killer.
Clare sniffed again. ‘He left his job, he stopped fishing, gave up smoking and drinking. He stopped being an angry man. Everything changed. We were happy again.’ She looked up, her red weepy eyes defiant. ‘He is not a bad man. He has been nothing but an attentive and loving father, a good husband.’
‘That may be, Mrs Flynn, but we believe your husband was also responsible for serious criminal offences during his late twenties, and his actions then might have prompted what is occurring now with the serial killer we’re hunting.’
She shook her head vehemently. ‘I can’t believe that, Mr Hawksworth. I can’t.’
Jack sat forward. He was worried that Clare Flynn, already pale and trembling, might collapse if he pushed her too hard, but time had run out for them. He covered her hand with his. ‘Think, Mrs Flynn, please. Where could Garvan be now?’
The house phone rang.
43
As Jack was questioning Mrs Flynn, her adopted son was looking with wonder around the ruin that was the West Pier concert hall.
Anne noted his interest. ‘This used to be like a fairytale palace in its heyday. During the 1920s, amazing musicals and events were held here, including open-air dancing.’
‘It’s so sad to see it in such a state,’ Peter agreed, ‘but why have you brought me here?’
Anne sat down on a rickety old workbench and unscrewed the top of a bottle of spring water she’d pulled from her backpack. ‘Drink, Peter?’ She watched him hesitate. ‘It’s okay, I brought another one for myself,’ she said, drinking thirstily from the other bottle she’d carefully marked. ‘Sit down, I’ll tell you everything,’ she said, passing him the water.
‘Thanks,’ he said and lowered himself gingerly to avoid dirtying his pants too much. He took a long draught from the bottle.
Anne sighed. It had begun.
* * *
Garvan Flynn banged again on the door of Peter’s flat, an empty gesture born of frustration. He knew his son wasn’t hiding from him or ignoring him — he simply wasn’t there.
He pulled out the mobile phone Clare didn’t know he owned and reluctantly dialled home. His wife answered, her voice shaky, as if she’d been crying.
‘It’s me, what’s wrong?’ he said and was bombarded by a torrent of weepy information. He could barely make out her words but understood enough to know that his past had finally caught up with him.
A man’s voice suddenly spoke. ‘Garvan Flynn?’
Flynn remained silent, frozen to the spot.
‘Mr Flynn, this is DCI Jack Hawksworth from Scotland Yard. We need to speak with you in connection with —’
Garvan clicked off without thinking, terror flooding his veins. They couldn’t trace him, surely. And his wife didn’t know his number, didn’t even know he had this phone. He leaned against Peter’s door, his heart pounding so hard in his chest he was sure he could hear it.
Peter. He had to talk to Peter.
His son’s was the only number he kept in the address book of his phone. He found it and hit the automatic dial button, desperate to get to his boy before anyone else told Peter anything about the past. If Peter’s phone was on, he’d answer. He would never ignore his father calling from his rarely used mobile.
‘Hello, Pierrot,’ a woman’s voice said. Garvan’s shock was complete. He slid down the door to the ground, his legs buckling with fright.
‘Who is this?’ he said in a hissed whisper, his eyes wide with fear. His mind had already computed that only one female in the whole world knew to call him by that name.
‘I’m offended you don’t remember the mother of your son. And he’s such a handsome fellow — much taller and gentler than you.’
Garvan’s eyes widened further. ‘You’ve seen him?’ he croaked.
‘Seen him?’ She laughed, a cruel sound. ‘I’m with him.’
‘With him?’ Garvan nearly choked on the words.
‘He’s not feeling terribly well, Pierrot, but then you only have yourself to blame for that.’
Rage of the kind Flynn hadn’t felt in almost thirty years coursed through him. ‘Don’t you dare touch a hair on his head,’ he began, his voice laced with menace.
Anne matched him. ‘Or what? You know what I’ve already done to your precious Jesters Club. They’re all dead, Pierrot — every one of them except you. They all died weeping, begging for forgiveness, as is right. If you want to save your son, Pierrot, you know where to find me. Just think back to where his life began.’
The line went dead in his ear and Flynn screamed with impotent fury.
Clare Flynn was no longer making sense. She’d disintegrated into a wailing heap and Jack realised there would be little information from her in the foreseeable future. He left Kate to organise a family member to come and sit with her, and to contact the local police. He stepped outside to drag in some fresh air and to calm himself.
His gut was screaming at him that not only had Clare Flynn been right about her son being here this morning, but that Anne McEvoy had got to the house before they had and persuaded Peter Flynn to accompany her.
He sat on the stoop and tried to clear his mind and allow his thoughts to organise themselves into a logical pattern. Anne was obviously making her play for Garvan Flynn, her final target, but he couldn’t second-guess her plan. He could understand her need to see her son, but entangling him at this stage didn’t make sense. Unless, of course, Peter was the lure. She had been helpless with Peter as a baby, but now he was an adult and she was the aggressor, baiting a loving father to come and rescue his son. She would have Pierrot in her trap, could make him bargain his own life for his son’s. Yes, that had symmetry and meaning. But where was she?
His phone rang. It was Sharpe and there were no salutations. ‘Deegan wants to launch the investigation tomorrow morning. I don’t have to tell you what that’s going to mean.’
Jack closed his eyes. ‘We’re so close, sir. You have to stall him. You can’t shut me down. If they pull me off now, the investigation goes to hell. I’m the only one who’s seen Anne McEvoy.’
It was a desperate pitch; a very thin premise for the Ghost Squad to cut him any slack.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ Sharpe said wearily. ‘Deegan’s not telling me what he’s got on you, Jack, but I sure hope he’s rattling a chain that’s not attached to anything.’
‘I presume he’s going to try and blame me for Paul Conway’s death somehow, sir.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’
‘I’ve got nothing to hide, sir. I only wish I knew why Conway’s death means so much to Deegan that he’d chase it so hard after all these years.’
He heard his Super sigh. ‘I agree. I’ll hold them off, but I don’t think we’ll have more than twenty-four hours, Jack. You know how Ghost Squad works.’ Sharpe sounded suddenly older. ‘So tell me some good news.’
Jack told him everything that had happened this afternoon.
‘You spoke to him?’ Sharpe repeated, incredulous.
‘Kate’s having the call traced but we already know it was Flynn. Wherever he was when he called home, he won’t be calling from there again. Tracing that location is pointless.’
‘Find that woman, Jack. This time tomorrow you’re likely to be suspended.’
Jack didn’t even bother to say goodbye. There was nothing more to be said. He rang the ops room and was promptly put through to Sarah, who had more news.
‘The van’s been found at Gatwick Airport, sir.’
‘Have you checked if she’s rented a car?’
‘Yes, but no Anne McEvoy or Sophie Fenton on the records. However, the girl who was on early this morning is being contacted at home. We’re hoping she may remember a woman from the early hours. Perhaps another name was used.’
‘Good,’ he said, happy that Sarah was such a stickler for detail.
‘In the meantime, we’re going through the motions of checking rail, bus and so on. But she seems to be
cashed up, so tracing her via credit card doesn’t strike me as an option.’
‘She could have hitched a ride back to Brighton, for all we know,’ Jack said helplessly. ‘How are you holding up?’
‘I’m fine, sir. What else can I do to help? I spoke to Kate about ten minutes ago and she’s briefed me on where you’re at down there.’
‘Nothing. Just back up Kate with whatever she needs and keep Swamp and Brodie appraised.’
‘What about you, chief? What are you going to do now?’
‘Rack my brains to think where Anne McEvoy might be luring her prey to.’
‘If she stays true to her previous MO, sir, it’ll be another location that’s meaningful to her past.’
‘But we know she killed her victims somewhere safe before dumping the bodies in that meaningful place. She could be anywhere in Brighton or Hove.’
‘She had the van to do her gruesome work before,’ Sarah mused. ‘She doesn’t have it any more. And she knows we’re close now. Perhaps she’ll risk it. If she’s using their son as her bargaining power, perhaps she’ll force Flynn to meet her.’
‘Maybe,’ Jack said, frowning. ‘I need some time to think. Get on to Tandy, see if he has any ideas. Try the others and get back to me if anyone has any inspiration.’
Jack rubbed his face, trying to clear his mind. Kate opened the door and came out onto the step.
‘She’s in the bathroom trying to get herself together,’ she said.
‘Don’t trust her. I made that mistake with Phil Bowles.’
Kate nodded. ‘Her cousin, Sheila, is on her way over. Should be here very soon, but I think we should call a doctor.’
Jack quickly brought Kate up to speed on Sarah’s news.
‘She won’t hurt her son,’ Kate reassured. ‘It’s his father she wants.’
‘I’ll try the boy’s phone again,’ Jack said, standing. ‘Perhaps he’ll answer this time. Keep an eye on Mrs Flynn.’