Gregory's Game (14 page)

She persuaded Desi to drink some of the water. The child was obviously feeling as miserable and hung over as Kat had when she'd first woken up. She clung to her mother and howled plaintively.

And Kat sat on the thin mattress, with her back to the wall, facing the spot where she knew the door to be and rocked her gently. ‘I'll get you out of here,' she promised, over and over again, saying it like a mantra and willing herself to believe.

T
ess and Vinod arrived back at the police headquarters to join the first meeting of the Major Incident Team. DCI Branch – someone Tess had heard of but never met – had waited on their arrival before making a proper beginning, but it was obvious he was already up to speed.

‘Anything useful from Annie Raven?'

‘We got a photograph of Nathan Crow, the man who was with Ian Marsh when—'

DCI Branch nodded. He already knew who Nathan Crow was. ‘Genuine, you think?'

‘I don't see why not.' She paused and propped her bag on a side table, withdrew the photograph. ‘It's from their wedding. Bob Taylor and Annie Raven.' She pointed. ‘The best man is Taylor's brother. That's Crow. I don't see why she'd bother to lie about it; we could check with other guests, make life difficult for her if she lied. I'm betting it's the genuine article.'

Branch nodded. ‘Get his face isolated and copied after the meeting,' he said. ‘We'll get it distributed and consider releasing it to the press.'

Tess opened her mouth to object that they had no evidence on which to launch a man hunt.

‘As a witness, who may also be in danger,' Branch said.

Tess shut her mouth and went to join Vinod.

Standing at the front of the room, Branch introduced himself and the half-dozen people who had come with him. A list was being distributed, with names, ranks and brief notes on previous cases. Tess made her own notes anyway. Writing something down fixed it for her in a way that merely reading it never did. She was called to the front in her turn to give everyone a run down of the case so far and their interview with Annie Raven. She produced the photograph of Nathan Crow.

‘We don't know how he fits into the picture at the moment. DC Jaz Portman and her team are running background on everyone involved.' She looked at Branch meaningfully. ‘If you can spare someone from your team to assist that would be useful.' He nodded, but didn't agree. Tess moved on. His lookout, she thought, but she knew what could happen all too easily; people reported to those in their usual chain of command. Two unfamiliar groups grafted together could sometimes mean that people got left out of the loop unless proper liaison was set up from the start. Someone had to keep the book, be a central point. But of course, she chided herself. He knew that.

‘I don't think she was exactly straight with us,' Vinod was saying and Tess realized she had missed the question and who had asked it. She was dog tired, she realized suddenly – not that she could use that as an excuse.

‘In what way?'

‘I don't know. Omission rather than commission,' Tess said. ‘She was cautious, wary and not just in the way everyone is when the police come to call. It was almost as though she'd just developed the habit. Her husband too. He's directed all new communication through their lawyer. He said he was getting to be particular about who he let into his house.'

Branch frowned. ‘Seems a little extreme.'

‘Maybe not.' It was Jaz, glancing through her notes. Branch gestured to her and she stood up, faced the room. ‘I started to run basic checks, just to see who we were dealing with. This Bob Taylor is a pretty famous artist and his wife is a photo journalist. Top flight. Mostly war zones. She's been in some tight corners according to what's available online, so the wariness might just be professional caution. But there's more. She and this Nathan Crow were under the guardianship of a man called Gustav Clay. They grew up together.'

Tess nodded. ‘She told us that.'

‘But this Gustav Clay. He died a couple of months ago. I got hold of a guest list from his funeral service; it reads like a who's who of the diplomatic corps and foreign office and I don't just mean from the present lot. His obit. describes him as a career diplomat and from what I can gather he wasn't just embassy staff. I reckon this guy was a real-life spook.'

A ripple of laughter through the room and Jaz flushed.

Branch held up a hand for silence and nodded at Jaz. ‘Copy what you have into the main folders,' he said. ‘I expect new material to be made available as it comes up and copies laid out on that table over there. And I expect everyone in the team to update themselves even if it's outside of your immediate brief. Right, do we have anything else?'

Jaz sat down and Tess could tell she was deflated. ‘It kind of fits,' Vinod muttered. ‘All the rest of the cloak and dagger stuff we've been getting hints of all day.'

Tess nodded.

Branch was speaking again. ‘About half an hour ago we got our first concrete lead. Katherine Marsh's car was found on a side road about ten miles from her uncle's house. Half in a ditch and on a bend known locally as an accident black spot. It seems that several of the locals had spotted it earlier in the day; they'd checked no one was still inside and phoned it through, but as I say, it's a spot where the local farmer is used to finding tourists who'd skidded off the road, so the connection wasn't made. What also slowed things down is that her uncle was certain she'd have taken a different route. Time was wasted following that up.'

‘Which has really pissed Branch off,' Vinod commented.

Tess nodded. It pissed her off too. Time had been lost. Far too much time.

‘So, our game plan is this: DS Fields will join DC Portman and her team on the background, and will be the voice for that team. DI Fuller and DS Dattani, you'll be travelling down to Suffolk tomorrow morning to interview the family, look at the route Katherine Marsh took and liaise with the CSI on scene. Report back to me by phone at noon and then we'll decide on your next move. Best make an early start; it's a long drive. You'll also be responsible for keeping Professor Marsh informed. The two of you had first contact with him, I understand?'

Tess nodded.

‘And he's refused the services of a liaison officer.'

She nodded again. ‘We tried to get him to stay with a friend, but he won't be budged. I've made all the arrangements for the phone intercept.' She glanced at her watch. ‘That should be in place by now.'

‘I'll chase it up,' Branch said. ‘You and Vin get off home and get some sleep. You're expected down there by eight.'

God, what sort of time would they have to start out? Tess wondered. She nodded again. ‘Sir.'

There were a few more loose ends to tie, but Branch dismissed them shortly after that. Tess glanced again at her watch. She was wondering. Why had Katherine Marsh chosen that route? Why had her uncle been so certain she had gone the other way?

Ian Marsh answered the phone on the second ring. His voice was tense and dry.

‘They found the car,' Tess explained. ‘No, I'm sorry, I don't have much more to tell you than that. I'm heading down there.' Something prevented her from telling him that she wasn't leaving until the morning. She just knew he'd want her to be going now, would take comfort from that little deception. ‘I was wondering about where her car was found. Her uncle was certain she'd take the main roads, and the search was focused on—'

Ian Marsh laughed softly. It was a hollow sound. ‘Oh, lord,' he said. ‘He was a worrier, always. Kat said it was like Little Red Riding Hood's mother telling her to keep to the path. Always keep to the path. Kat never did. She grew up in that neck of the woods, knew the roads like … Well, she'd always nod and smile and make him think she was taking his advice but she never did. She likes the back roads, the country tracks. Said they were prettier and more interesting to drive.'

Tess could hear the man's voice begin to crack. ‘I'm so sorry, Professor Marsh,' she said softly. ‘We'll find them. I promise you.' But he had hung up on her. Retreated into his world of pain. Tess thought about ringing him back but what could she say, what could she do? The best she could do for him now was to go home, get what sleep she could and get ready for the long drive in the morning.

Naomi lay awake, thinking. She'd gone to bed early with a headache and listened to an audio book for a while. She still missed the act of turning pages, the smell of familiar, oft-read favourite books. The simple pleasures of browsing bookshops and libraries. Now her choice of titles was dependent on others and it just wasn't the same. She'd loved picking up an unknown author or an unusual subject.

She could hear the television on in the other room. Alec was watching a film that involved a lot of bangs, crashes, shouting and explosions. But she was pretty sure he'd be in the other room, watching television, whatever was on. They had lived so much in one another's pockets these past months that personal space was an almost forgotten luxury and since his accident, Naomi had instinctively kept even closer, her desire to protect suddenly almost overwhelming. These last few days seemed to have facilitated the crisis she knew would come; they had also highlighted their mutual need for quiet time alone, even if only a flimsy stud wall and a painted door divided them.

What to do about Gregory? What, if anything, was she likely to find out? Alec still ached from what he had taken as a personal snub from Tess and what Naomi knew was only an inevitable consequence of their changed relationship. Alec was no longer an insider, no longer privy to the secrets and the contact and the intimacy of the job. And it
was
intimate, she thought, in the same way that any group who faced mutual threats or problems with really significant consequences were intimate. You bonded with your own kind and the inevitable segregation that followed on from separation, be it voluntary or not, was inevitably hurtful in a way that those whose workmates were just casual friends would never understand.

She found she was thinking of Kat and the child. She'd not spoken of any of this to Alec. He had been so busy with his own thoughts that it would have felt almost like an intrusion and, besides, she was really not sure how he'd react to Gregory's request. The policeman part of Alec was still not just wary of Gregory but also suspicious of him – and with good reason. Gregory and Alec's version of law and the right had probably not been even on nodding terms in years. But he also had reason to be grateful to the man and Naomi knew that would have rankled.

‘Where are you?' Naomi said softly. ‘If you're alive, are you cold or hungry, are you in the dark? Are you in pain?'

She tried to stop, but her thoughts ran away with her, visualizing the worst.

She had done this before, Naomi thought. A long time ago, when Naomi had just been a little girl, scared for a friend who had disappeared without trace and blaming herself for the loss, she had tried to imagine what might be happening. The truth was, her friend was already dead. She had felt, then, that the world blamed her. Harry's sister and her best friend. Just snatched away, never to return.

Was Ian Marsh thinking like that? Was he imagining, dreading, torturing himself with what might have happened, just as Naomi had when someone she loved had been taken away, and as she did now about a woman and child she had never even met.

Sleep wasn't going to happen and she no longer wanted to listen to her book. She got out of bed and found her dressing gown, went to join Alec with his film and the crashes and bangs and loud explosions, hoping that the noise would somehow drown out the voices in her head and the pictures that swam behind her sightless eyes, more vivid and intense than anything she had ever seen in her sighted days.

I
an Marsh had returned home. There had been offers to call someone, offers of help from neighbours he had barely spoken to until today, offers of a police liaison officer. Ian had rejected them all. The local Suffolk police were already at Kat's uncle's place, trying to piece together what had happened from that end, so Ian was spared the task of telling them that their niece and her child had been abducted. He'd have to talk to them later, he knew. Field the inevitable questions about why they had been taken and what anyone could possibly want from a university professor and his wife and child. Ian was not a rich man; comfortably off, yes, and with property worth a good amount against which he could probably raise money for a ransom, but they were hardly obvious targets. Not if you looked at it through normal eyes anyway.

But that was the trouble, Ian thought. So much of his life was hidden, kept secret even from Kat. Especially from Kat.

She knew he'd travelled abroad a great deal, that he'd worked for various relief agencies, lending his skills and expertise, especially when, as a younger man, the adventure of it had appealed to him. But the Professor Marsh she knew – the almost forty, respectable, ordered and safe Professor Marsh – what could he possibly have done that meant someone took his wife and child in punishment?

The phone rang and Ian was in two minds: should he leap for it, seize it in case it was the abductors, or should he ignore it in case it was Kat's aunt or uncle seeking information he didn't have?

Reluctantly he raised the receiver from its cradle to find it was neither. It was Tess Fuller telling him that the phone tap he had agreed to would be in place in the next hour or so and asking if he was sure he didn't want someone with him. He was surprised the intercept on his phone had taken so long to set up, knowing how physically easy it was in these digital days. He said so, heard Tess pause as though surprised and remembered that most people would not consider that. Most would still think of a phone tap as a physical thing; men and equipment staked out at the professor's home.