Fragile Lives (16 page)

‘What amazes me,' Mac said, ‘is that none of the victims have spilled the beans. They must have been terrified, how can they just put something like that behind them and not talk about it?'

‘Terrified people
don't
talk,' Rina asserted. ‘You scare someone enough, threaten them that the consequences of their actions will bring disaster on some other loved member of the family, they'll stay silent. Look at all the children abused within their family who will go through hell rather than give their abuser away.'

Mac nodded, reluctantly allowing her the point.

‘The parents are in the antiques business, specializing in near and Middle Eastern antiquities. The twins, Deborah and Sarah, they go to a small private school called Preston Park and the family seem to live a quiet life. No major social commitments, no committees, in fact I couldn't find out much more, I'm afraid.'

‘Nice to know the Internet isn't all powerful,' Mac said but he was frowning, his face creased with worry.

‘They aren't going to die, Mac,' Rina said softly. ‘There won't be more deaths on your watch.'

He shook his head. ‘You can't know that. No one can.'

‘Mac, start thinking like that and when the time comes to act, you'll be so paralysed with fear of getting it wrong you'll be no use to anyone.'

Tim stared at her, appalled. Mac tensed and then relaxed, nodded. ‘No. You're right, I know it. Rina, give me everything you have and I'll set wheels in motion and I promise we'll be discreet and I'll get someone out to take a look at your car, Tim.' He stood, took the sheaf of paperwork from Rina. He was on his mobile setting up a meeting with DI Kendal almost before he left the house. Kendal, he figured, would have the resources to deal with this, to figure out what the next move would be.

‘There goes a man on a mission,' Tim said wryly, watching through Rina's window.

Rina nodded. ‘Now,' she said, ‘we have to think what more the pair of us can do.'

O
n the first morning, the twins had woken up in a strange place. They had found themselves in a big double bed in a large room with striped wallpaper. There was a tiny en suite with toilet and wash basin and what remained of a shower cubicle. It looked like someone had started to strip everything out and then stopped halfway. The tiles were off the walls and the floorboards bare.

In the bedroom the carpet was torn and floorboards were exposed on one side of the bed. A stain was still visible underneath the bed itself and on the floor as though something had seeped through.

‘I think it might be blood,' Deborah had said, her eyes wide. Her sister, curled up in the exact centre of the quilt, had said nothing.

They knew almost at once what had happened to them. They'd been kidnapped in the night and a sore spot on Deborah's arm matched a bruise and blooded pinprick on Sarah's which explained why they had slept through the entire experience.

Their mother was a fan of crime dramas on the television and they made sense of their situation by referencing the programmes they had seen.

‘They drugged us,' Deborah said. ‘I dreamed there was a man in our room. A big man with a mask thingy over his head and face. He told me to be quiet or he'd hurt our mum.'

Sarah nodded again, half remembering the same event though in truth neither girl had heard or seen or felt a single thing.

‘Do you think the man is still here?' Sarah asked.

‘I don't know, I don't hear anything now, not even that woman.'

As one, they turned and looked towards the door. The only other piece of furniture, aside from the bed, was an old television, standing on rocky, spindly legs. The woman had come in some time after they'd first woken up. Just after the crying and the screaming and the crying for help that had been their first response had finally subsided and they'd begun to think they were alone.

She'd brought a tray with bowls of cereal and milk and two bananas and showed them how to work the television by opening the little panel at the side of the screen and pressing buttons. ‘The remote doesn't work,' she'd said.

She'd not told them anything else or answered their questions or acted like there was anything unusual going on. She hadn't been nasty or nice or anything, but just indifferent, leaving the food, locking the door, walking away.

After a while they had eaten the breakfast, though Sarah had been scared it might be drugged again.

Deborah, with typical Deborah-style logic had said that if that were so then why had she told them how to work the telly? If they were asleep they wouldn't need to know.

So they had huddled together on the bed and pulled the quilt around them, watched daytime television and worried about their mum and dad. They had cried because they were frightened and then cried some more because their mum and dad would be scared and finally they had fallen asleep in the early afternoon because you can only cry for so long before it wears you out.

Deborah woke first. The sound of the door closing had roused her. She realized that when she heard the lock being turned. It was getting dark outside and a lamp had been placed on the floor beside the television, plugged into the same socket. The first tray had been taken and another left. Deborah shook her sister and together they inspected the contents of the tray. Sandwiches and crisps – the ready salted ridgy ones that were Deborah's particular favourite. More fruit – apples and tiny oranges this time. And those little pots of jelly Sarah really liked. Deborah inspected the sandwich fillings. Tuna for her and ham salad for Sarah.

‘Someone knows what we like,' she whispered. ‘They know what we like to eat.'

‘You think they've been watching us? Dad's been saying.'

‘Dad's always telling us not to talk to strangers and all that stuff,' Deborah objected.

‘Yes, but a lot more lately. He's been parking the car in the garage instead of on the drive and I've seen him, he checks it all over before he gets in and he and Mum have been arguing more.'

‘They always argue'

‘But more.'

Deborah nodded, knowing her sister was right. ‘Do you think he knew something might be going to happen?'

‘We didn't talk to strangers,' Sarah said.

Deborah nodded solemnly. That was true, they'd always been very careful to do as they were told, but it hadn't made any difference, had it. The strangers had come to get them anyway. And now they'd been there for a whole week – when were they going to be rescued?

George and Ursula arrived back at Hill House just after four. They stayed long enough to dump their bags and collect Ursula's torch and then went out through the gate at the end of the garden and on to the cliff path.

It was a bleak, windy night that threatened rain and was already more than twilight dark. It was about three quarters of a mile to the place near the DeBarr Hotel where the steep cliff path led down to the little beach and the cave. George wasn't really sure why it was so important to go there now, after all, the tide was in and would not turn until late that evening. They could go down so far but could not get on to the beach.

Ursula was there because she wouldn't let him go alone and besides, she had said, it was
her
torch.

Such logic George found irrefutable.

‘Paul seemed a bit weird today,' Ursula commented. The wind was so strong she had to lean in close to George's ear to make herself heard. ‘I mean weirder than usual.'

‘He's falling to bits,' George said. ‘And no one's seeing it.'

‘You are. I am.'

‘And what do we know, we're just kids. If the teachers don't want to see it and his mam and dad don't want to see it there's not much we can do except be there.'

‘Can't really do that though, can we? Not outside of school time.'

George shook his head, noticing that Ursula seemed to have taken on joint responsibility for his friend but not really minding. He was at a loss as to how to help and having someone he could at least talk to was comforting. She was right though, nothing either of them could do outside of school time. Before … before Mrs Freer and George's mum dying and all of that, he had gone round to Paul's house most evenings, been regularly fed and watered and included in their family and after his mum had killed herself he'd stayed with them for almost three weeks. Since he'd gone there'd not been even one invitation to go round and spend time with them. He felt a bit hurt about that, not that Paul hadn't issued the invitation; Paul was in no fit state to even consider it, but George had hoped that his mum would call, maybe even ask him to go over for the weekend. After all, that sort of thing was allowed, encouraged even.

‘He's not even talking to me in class,' George said. ‘I mean, I know he wants me there, he sits next to me, follows me around if I leave the room. Doesn't like getting on the school bus on his own, you seen that?'

Ursula nodded. They had taken to walking him up the drive to the waiting bus, seeing him safely on board and seated. Even taken to asking one of the girls in Ursula's class to remind him to get off at his stop. She'd thought it funny at first but now she was worried too, Ursula said.

The truth was, most of the time Paul acted like he was from a different planet and didn't know how this one worked. George had seen it all before and he just couldn't understand why no one was doing anything about it.

‘I talked to Miss Crick,' he said. ‘She said they were worried too but …' He shrugged.

‘I guess they see it as something his parents have to deal with.'

‘
They
don't know what to do!' George was angry, agitated, helplessness making him want to punch or kick or throw something over the cliff and see it arc into the cold, grey sea, watch it sink and hope his troubles could sink with it. ‘Look, he saw an old woman battered to death, he saw her murdered. He couldn't stop it and he was too scared to tell. He's still scared and he feels so guilty it's just tearing him to little bits. How can they know what to do about that?'

Ursula squeezed his arm. He almost pulled away. There were times when comfort hurt almost as much as the lack of it but need won and he leaned a bit closer to her, just for a brief moment, acknowledging that he felt guilty too, not just about what had gone before but because
he
didn't want to deal with Paul's problems either. His new friendship with Ursula had become very close and very precious in a short period of time and he felt bad about that too. Ursula, complex as she was, was easy to get along with and though he knew one day she'd tell him about herself and he'd be willingly weighed down with that additional burden, for now, she was there, willing to take his problems on board without demanding for a fair exchange and George was pathetically grateful.

Ursula flashed the torch around. ‘Looks like we're here,' she said. ‘Sure you want to do this?'

‘No.' George laughed suddenly, the sound carried from them on the rising wind. ‘I just want … just want to …' He took hold of what was left of the handrail and lowered himself gingerly on to the first section of eroded path.

‘Do you want the torch?'

‘No, shine it down in front of you, then we should both be able to see.' He froze suddenly. ‘Is that a motor? Maybe the boat is coming in?'

‘Just a car engine,' Ursula said. ‘With this wind we wouldn't be able to hear anything.' Although she was sure she could hear voices, couldn't she, carried on the fierce wind or was it just the wind screaming and calling?

‘George, we should come back in daylight, when we can see what we're doing, see the beach at low tide.'

‘The first chance we'll get to do that will be Saturday.' Could he bear to wait that long? He took another cautious step, slipped on wet mud, grabbed the rail. From somewhere, behind them? Below? A screech of tyres or a scream of voices or of wind pierced through the noise and bluster.

‘George, I want to go back.'

George did too. He turned awkwardly, trying to keep a hold on the shaking rail for as long as possible. Ursula scrambled back on to the path and held the light so he could see his way back, then the pair of them turned and ran, back the way they had come.

As they reached the curve of the headland and dipped away from view a shadow detached itself from behind the hotel wall and stared after them.

What, the shadow wondered, were they doing? For that matter, what were they doing out alone on the cliff path on a night like this? One slip and that would be the end of either one of them. Just like it had been for the boy's father. Turning, he walked back to the car and joined his companion. ‘Just a couple of kids mucking about,' he said. ‘Forget it.'

His companion nodded, losing interest and going back to his paper. I'll have to tell Coran that the boy was here, Stan Holden thought to himself. Won't I? Then he pushed the idea aside. He wasn't sure what he could or should tell Coran any more.

M
ac had arranged a brief meeting with DI Kendal after speaking to Rina, but that Wednesday morning Kendal had organized a major gathering of both local officers and members of the major case squad. It seemed that Mac's intelligence, largely courtesy of James Duggan and Rina Martin, provided additional pieces in an already existing puzzle. It was the first major presentation Mac had made since the Cara Evans case and to say he was nervous would have been a major understatement.

He took a deep breath, assessing the expressions on the ten faces spaced around the conference table. Looked for doubt in their eyes. Doubt that he had a reason for summoning them here; doubt that he was fully recovered or up to the job. Found none. Exhaling slowly, he touched a key on his computer, watching as the image of a battered, sea-washed body settled on the electronic whiteboard, suddenly relieved that he had bothered to attend what had been a tedious three-day course on new technology. ‘Patrick Duggan,' he said, ‘son of James Duggan. Washed up in Stanton cove, three miles from Frantham. Cause of death, a single gunshot wound to the head.'