Fragile Lives (7 page)

‘We could have spared you that.' Mac was surprised. ‘The ID number on his implant and his dental records would have been enough.'

‘Wanted to see, didn't I. His mother would never have forgiven me if I hadn't made sure.'

Mac nodded. ‘I understand.'

‘So. Are they?'

It took Mac a second or two to realize what the original question had been. ‘The post-mortem is complete,' he said. ‘It confirmed cause of death but so far we don't know a lot more. There are tests still to come back.'

‘When did he die?'

‘Best guess is seven to ten days, erring towards the shorter time.'

‘I see. Let's walk.' Taking Mac's assent for granted Duggan moved towards the river path. Mac followed and the big man brought up the rear. The tarmac path laid beside the water was just wide enough for two abreast and Duggan waited for Mac to fall into step beside him.

‘Who's your friend?' Mac didn't recognize him from anyone he'd seen in yesterday's search.

‘Name's Fitch. You won't find nothing on him.'

Mac made no comment. ‘So,' he said. ‘What do you want to talk about, Mr Duggan?'

‘Who killed my son? What else reason would there be for us to talk?'

Noted, Mac thought. ‘Who might
want
to kill your son? From what I've read, he's not exactly high profile in his own right. Few convictions as a juvenile. Nothing since university. He seems to have travelled widely between his degree and starting his postgrad studies. Is that right, Mr Duggan?'

‘That's right, Inspector McGregor. We can only raise our kids the best way we know how, we don't control how they turn out and Pat, he wanted to study. Always stuck with his head in a book. His sister, well, if it doesn't have Jordan on the cover, she don't want to know and his older brother manages my clubs for me. But not Pat. You could see the lad tried to fit in, hence the spot of trouble he was in, but true nature will out as they say and we sat him down, told him what was what. His grandad was a man who loved books and his great grandad too.'

‘The pharmacy,' Mac said.

‘The little chemist shop, that's right. So, he stopped his mucking about and he got on with his school work after that. Made us proud. So what did they go after
him
for? I ask you that?'

Mac's heart skipped. ‘Any particular “they”?' he asked. ‘Mr Duggan, if you have any idea who might have killed your son …'

‘If I knew who the bastards were and where to find them, I wouldn't be having this conversation, would I? I'd be out there doing something about it.'

Mac nodded. ‘I suppose you would,' he agreed. He didn't think it was the right time for any sort of ‘you have to leave that sort of thing to the police' platitudes. ‘But, Mr Duggan, it sounds as though you might have some idea, some clue as to what led to your son's death?' He let the question hang and waited. Beside him, Jimmy Duggan paced on heavy feet, his hands thrust into his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the cold despite his coat. You can't dress for that kind of cold, Mac thought. Not the kind that freezes you from the inside.

Abruptly, Duggan stopped. ‘Maybe,' he said. ‘Maybe I know something. I need to think about things, find out a bit more first.'

‘Find out? Find out what?'

‘About the man I'm talking to for a start,' Duggan said and Mac realized that Jimmy Duggan was referring to him.

‘Why should that matter?'

‘Because it does,' Duggan said. ‘Are you a man I can trust? What are you in this for? Be one thing if it was just me that needed to know, but there are others too. Others I won't be letting down by making the wrong judgements.'

‘In what for? The job? I'm a police officer, Mr Duggan, it isn't a negotiable position. And who are these others?'

Duggan ignored his last question. ‘Not negotiable? Isn't it? I could give you a list of people who think it might be. Anyway, I'll find out what I need to know and then I'll think about having another talk.'

A surge of impatience rose from Mac's belly. ‘I'm not at anybody's beck and call, Mr Duggan.'

‘Oh? Is that so? And what about the dead, Inspector McGregor? Where are you when they come to call?'

They turned then, as though by common consent, but Mac knew it was Duggan who had made the decision. Fitch stood aside and let them pass and then brought up the rear once more.

‘You've not had Parker's body wash up yet then?'

‘Edward Parker? What do you know about him?'

Duggan shrugged. ‘He was a fist for hire, if you like. Did a bit of door work for me, but I soon let him go. Didn't have the class for it.'

‘Class? Is that a prerequisite now?'

‘It is if you want to work for me. I hear the daughter might have taken after her old man.'

Mac tensed but replied as evenly as he could, ‘In what way would that be?'

‘I hear she got her own back on Parker. He reckoned she put the knife in, had him in intensive care.'

‘Apparently so.' Mac was cautious.

‘No one can blame the girl for that,' Duggan continued. ‘I've heard what he did to his family and at least the girl showed some spirit.'

‘That's one way of looking at it.'

‘But I hear other things too. That the lad broke into an old woman's house and the woman wound up dead.'

‘That had nothing to do with George.' Mac defended perhaps a little too quickly and Duggan cast him a sly, interrogative look.

‘I also hear the one that killed her wound up dead too.'

Mac said nothing and Duggan did not immediately pursue the question though Mac had the feeling that it would be picked up again at some later date.

‘I want to speak to the boy,' Duggan said unexpectedly after a long moment of silence.

‘George? I can't allow that. Why would you want to speak to him anyway? George and his family spent years running from Parker. They know nothing.'

‘Because if I know boys he'd have kept his ears open and know more than you think. Because his dad left my employ not long before my son went missing and now my son's turned up here. I don't like the coincidence.'

Neither did Mac, but he wasn't going to say so. Instead he asked, ‘But you had no reason to connect the events before?'

‘No, like I said, he was a fist for hire. He moved on. His kind do.'

‘And when did he move on?' Mac asked.

‘Couple of months ago. He'd been unreliable for a spell before that. Always buggering off somewhere. He had the sense to take himself off before I sent him.'

Mac shook his head. ‘It doesn't fit,' he said, thinking aloud. ‘We know that Edward Parker had been living in this area for a good six months, so, OK, he might have been commuting back and forth while working for you, but your son went into the water, well, the best estimate until the tox screens are back would be seven to ten days ago. Parker died three weeks back and he left your employ some time before that. Mr Duggan, when did your son go missing?'

For the first time the big man looked uncomfortable. He seemed to sag, shoulders drooping as though something inside of him collapsed in on itself. ‘He went a week after Parker did,' he confessed finally. ‘Third week of January, we'd been away, the wife and me and his sister, but we were all meeting up that weekend. He'd gone back to uni at the start of term and everything seemed fine, met up with his girlfriend on the Friday night and before you ask, she's not from our sort of family, thinks I'm just a businessman. He stayed over at her place and then caught the train back home on the Saturday morning and we were all going out together that night to celebrate his sister's birthday, only he never made it. Somewhere between the train station and home, he went. They took him.'

Mac stopped walking and, after taking a single pace, Duggan stopped too. ‘Who took him?'

‘Whoever did.' Duggan was tight-lipped.

‘But you suspect someone specific … and why didn't you report it?'

Duggan moved on. ‘I had my reasons. Like I said, it's not just me involved. His girlfriend got worried and called us when he didn't turn up back at uni. I had to lie to the poor lass, tell her he'd gone away but eventually we had to come clean. She loves him, she had the right to know he'd not just run off on her. Then I had to tell her to keep her mouth shut and now I've got to tell her he won't be coming back.'

‘You like the girl?' It was an irrelevant question and Mac found he'd been jolted into asking it purely because he was surprised.

‘We like the girl, she works hard and she's going to be a doctor. Up to her ears in debt to do it,' he added. ‘None of that seems right, leaving university with that amount of shit hanging round your neck and just because you want to make something of yourself. I mean, if Pat had wanted to go for your Media Studies tripe then we'd have urged the lad to do something else …'

‘Or criminology?' It was pure mischief, but somehow Mac could not resist.

Duggan stopped and stared at him, hard blue eyes narrowed. Then he laughed, throwing back his head and laughing until the tears came. ‘You know,' he said, ‘that was on his shortlist. He understood irony, did our Pat.' Then the laughter faded and Mac felt the change in mood. ‘You know I'll kill the bastards, don't you?'

‘It had crossed my mind.'

‘And you, what will you do? Try and stop me?'

Mac shrugged. ‘My concern at the moment, Mr Duggan, is to find out who killed your son. Murder is not something that sits well.'

‘Especially when the killer goes free? I imagine that must rankle, Inspector. I imagine the dead must keep you awake then.'

He knows, Mac thought. He knows about the child. ‘Especially then,' he said quietly. ‘I think we both want justice, Mr Duggan, as our primary objective anyway. I think we may only differ in our views on its administration.' He sounded pompous, Mac thought. Duggan seemed to bring that out in him but he could not have said why.

‘Justice, yes.' Duggan said. ‘Though for my money I'd as soon see the bastards follow Parker's example and take a long drop off a cliff as to have the tax payer bear the brunt of paying to keep scum like that.' He frowned. They had reached his car now and Fitch had opened the door and started the engine. ‘Speaking of which, Parker's little tumble and all, I hear there was others involved along with the kid. Some old woman?'

She wouldn't like being called old, Mac thought. ‘And?' he asked.

‘And what does she know about Parker?'

‘Very little. Her involvement was in helping George and Karen on that one occasion. You might say she was purely incidental.' Not that being called incidental would please her any more than old.

‘Aye, well that's as may be but I'll be talking to her too.'

‘No, Mr Duggan, you will not.'

‘And who's to stop me? You? Far as I know there's no law that says I can't knock on her door for a bit of a chat.'

He paused, dug in his pocket and produced an antique card case, removed a business card. It carried only his name and a mobile phone number. ‘Maybe you'd pass this on,' he said. ‘Tell her I'd appreciate it if she spared me a bit of time. Least she could do for a bereaved father, I'd have thought.'

He climbed into the Range Rover and Mac watched as they drove away. Irritated, he thrust the card into the pocket of his coat. He would talk to Eden but he had no doubt that he would have to pass the message on; Duggan would talk to Rina whether Mac liked it or not and it was best for her to be prepared.

At the end of the day the kids made their way out towards where the buses waited. George and Ursula would have to get the minibus. This dropped off and picked up in the centre of town, about a ten-minute walk away and central for all the kids at Hill House to be able to meet up. The only two it collected directly from school being the twins.

George walked Paul to the school bus that was going back to Frantham, Ursula in tow fiddling with her bag and fretting whether she had the books she needed for homework.

‘She's weird,' Paul muttered.

George shrugged. ‘She's OK. Better than the rest of them at that place. Wish I could have stayed with you.'

Paul nodded but it occurred to George that this wish wasn't strictly true for either of them any more. It had been great to be at Paul's house and have the stability of Paul's family around him when they were both getting over everything. But it was time to move on now; get back to school, rediscover whatever it meant to be ‘normal' and George was struck by the fact that he was achieving this far more readily than Paul. His friend seemed lodged in the same crevice he had retreated into when Mrs Freer had been killed. He seemed unable to face anything that even felt like normality. George, who had been around depression and defeat long enough to know what it looked like, recognized his mood for what it was and knew he really needed help. A lot of help and, like, now. He knew too how hard it was for people to recognize Paul's mental state for what it was and how uneasy family could be when it came to seeking out help for someone close to them who was slowly slipping beyond reach.

God, it had been bad enough with their mam.

Sure, George thought, Paul was seeing this counsellor woman and her aim was supposed to be to get him talking, accepting, dealing with and moving on, but George had seen too many of those types in action too and he was cynical as regards their effectiveness.

How did talking help? How did reliving terrible things in minute detail make anyone feel better?

George really didn't know.

And now there was Ursula for Paul to deal with.

‘Does she know about … you know … everything?' Paul asked in an undertone.

‘Course not. I never told her nothing about any of it.' But, he reflected, that didn't actually mean anything where Ursula was concerned. She had ears like radar and a brain that filled in gaps in her knowledge with an incredible degree of accuracy. Ursula ‘got' things; was able to slot the puzzle into place while everyone else was just scrabbling about trying to see what the picture on the box was. What if she'd heard the staff talking just like he had on his first night? And, unlike the other kids in Hill House, Ursula actually watched the news when she got the chance and read the papers. Even more damning, there was no way she could have missed out on all the gossip going round the school.