‘Thank you,’ Max said, ‘we plan to talk to him. OK, I think that’s all. Thanks for your time, Ms Lord.’
‘It’s Donna.’
‘Max,’ he returned.
‘I just wish I could be of more help,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know much about his life outside school. I’ve met his mother twice, but that’s all.’
‘That’s OK. Thanks.’
She gave Max a let’s-go-to-bed smile at least that’s what it suggested to Max and returned to the classroom.
As Max and Jill walked down the corridor, the sound of her pupils’ laughter reached them.
‘Right,’ Max said, ridding his mind of Miss Sex-on-legs. ‘We’ll see these pupils and then get something to eat.’ It was three o’clock and he was starving.
They’d been offered the deputy headmaster’s office to use. Max gave the secretary a list of names and the pupils were duly fetched from class.
The first to arrive was Jason Keane. Tall and dark, he was, as Jill had said, a good-looking boy. He and Martin Hayden must make a handsome couple.
‘Hello,’ he said, surprised to see Jill.
‘Hi, Jason. How’s things?’
‘OK, I think.’
‘Good. I’m here helping the police,’ she explained. ‘We’re trying to find out what’s happened to Martin. He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?’
He nodded, yet Max thought he looked nervous. That meant nothing, though. Even in these so-called enlightened days, when Max couldn’t deliver so much as a well-deserved clip round the ear, a rare few were still in awe of coppers.
‘We thought you’d be most likely to know how he thought,’ Jill went on. ‘Did he say anything, drop any hints, or suggest in any way that he might not be in school yesterday?’
‘No. He definitely intended to come because we planned to go into town afterwards and look in HMV. The music store, you know?’
‘I certainly know it,’ Max told him. ‘My sons would spend a fortune in that shop.’
He gave the lad an encouraging smile. ‘Does Martin have a mobile phone?’ His parents had said he didn’t, but Max couldn’t imagine a boy of that age without one permanently glued to his ear.
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘Do you, Jason?’
‘Oh, yes. My mother insisted. Just for emergencies, really.’
‘A wise woman.’ Max smiled. ‘Does Martin know the number?’
‘Yes.’
‘So if he had any sort of problem, he’d call you?’
‘Yes, but he hasn’t.’
‘Apart from looking in HMV, what else do you both do after school?’
‘Sometimes we go to McDonald’s for a burger, but usually we go straight home. On Fridays, Martin ’ He stopped short, looking as if he’d said too much.
‘Go on,’ Max urged him. ‘What does Martin do on Fridays?’
‘He has guitar lessons,’ he admitted quietly.
‘Really?’ Jill was surprised. ‘I didn’t realize he played guitar.’
‘Er, no. The thing is, his parents well, it’s his father really who doesn’t approve. Martin keeps his guitar at my house, and I bring it in for him on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.’‘
Why Mondays and Wednesdays, Jason?’
‘So he can practise.’
‘I see. And it’s a secret?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s OK,’ Jill said, smiling to reassure him.
‘Where does he have lessons?’ Max asked.
‘From a man in Church Street, a Mr Campbell. He’s a strange chap, but Martin says he’s a brilliant teacher.’
They talked for a few more minutes, but Jason could shed no light on Martin’s disappearance.
‘Let me know when you’re organizing another charity car wash,’ Jill said as he was leaving. ‘Mine’s never been so clean.’
‘I will,’ he promised, ‘but we’ll be charging a fiver next time,’ he added with a grin.
The next boy they saw was Keith Palmer. He wasn’t such a fan of Martin’s.
‘We usually sit together on the bus,’ he told them, ‘but that’s all. We used to be good friends. Until last Christmas.’
‘What happened at Christmas, Keith?’ Jill asked.
‘Martin was supposed to be taking my sister, Claire, to the school disco,’ he explained. ‘Something better turned up, though, and he dumped her at the last minute.’
‘Something better?’ Jill queried.
‘Carole Moreton. Her parents are loaded.’ He hesitated. ‘Martin uses people. He thinks he’s God’s gift to the universe and only chooses friends that he thinks will do him some good.’
Was that true, Max wondered, or was Keith Palmer still bitter because his sister didn’t go to the ball with Martin?
‘Everyone will tell you he’s wonderful,’ Keith warned them, ‘but he’s not. If something exciting cropped up, he’d go off without a thought for letting anyone know.’
Max only hoped he was right.
The last pupil they spoke to was David Fielding.
‘I suppose everyone’s saying I beat him up,’ he said shiftily, taking Max by surprise.
‘Did you?’
‘No.’
‘Then why does everyone say you did?’
Fielding shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘Me and me mates thought he needed a bit of a kicking, but we never hurt him. That’s all lies.’
‘When was this, David?’
‘A couple of weeks ago. We only called him names.
Faggot, queen, stuff like that. Honest. Anyway, he got over it. Must have, because on Friday, he said he wanted us to be mates and that we’d have a drink after school.’
Faggot? Queen?
‘And when are you going to have this drink?’ Jill asked.
‘Should’ve been yesterday. He was supposed to be bringing some of his old man’s home-made wine in.’
‘And you didn’t see him at all yesterday?’ Max asked.
‘No.’
‘OK, David, that’ll be all. You can get back to your English lesson now. Is Miss Lord your teacher?’
‘Yeah.’ He grinned.
‘Then I’m sure you’re eager to get back,’ Max said, allowing himself an inner smile. ‘Off you go!’
It was almost six o’clock when Jill turned off the main road towards Kelton Bridge. She’d intended to go straight to her cottage but, on an impulse, she stopped at The Weaver’s Retreat. The Haydens might be a very private family, but there was little that escaped the residents of Kelton Bridge, and the pub was the best place to hear the gossip. The second best place was the village post office, but Olive Pren-dergast’s tittle-tattle tended to come highly embellished.
‘The usual, is it, Jill?’ Ian, the landlord, asked, his hand already on the lager pump.
Jill didn’t really know what she fancied. It might as well be lager as anything else.
‘Please.’ She looked in dismay around the empty bar. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘It were busy earlier,’ he replied, pouring her a half-pint of Stella, ‘but there’s often a lull around now.’
‘Thanks.’ She handed him a fiver as he put her glass on the bar.
‘Still raining, is it?’
‘Worse than ever. We’ll have to build an ark soon.’
He smiled at that. ‘It’s supposed to improve tomorrow. Should be colder and windier, but dry.’
‘Fingers crossed then.’ She perched on a stool at the bar and took a sip of lager. ‘Have you heard about Martin Hayden, the boy from Lower Crags Farm?’
‘Ay, me and Dennis were talking about it earlier. It’s a funny do. Mind, he’s a bit of a wild one, by all accounts, so he could have gone off anywhere.’
‘A wild one?’
‘He seems to have gone that way lately,’ Ian said, nodding. ‘He’s been thrown out of a couple of pubs in Harrington in the last couple of months. Mind, that’ll be the landlords’ fault, if you ask me. They’re too happy to turn a blind eye to under-age drinking. I know he could pass for eighteen, but landlords are supposed to ask for ID from anyone who looks younger than twenty-one. Anyway, he got thrown out twice that I know of. You know what kids are like when they’ve had too much to drink.’
‘Yes, I can imagine. Do you know the family well?’
‘No.’ He polished his side of the bar as he thought. ‘Occasionally, very occasionally, Andy, his brother, has a drink in here. George Hayden’s been known to call in but he’s not a particularly chatty or popular bloke.’
Jill was all too aware of that.
‘What about the boy’s mother?’
‘Josie? She seems nice enough, but she doesn’t have a lot to say for herself.’ He grunted. ‘George makes sure of that.’
The door banged open and Tony Hutchinson breezed in. ‘Hi, Jill. Ian. Where is everyone?’
While Ian explained again that they’d missed the rush, Jill looked at the tie Tony was wearing. As headmaster of Kelton Bridge’s primary school, he dressed in suit and tie every day, and Jill was fascinated by his ties. They came in all colours of the rainbow and, if they didn’t happen to match his shirt, they were guaranteed to clash violently with socks that had been fluorescent yellow. In his mid-fifties, he was a good-looking man, but those socks . . .
‘We were talking about Martin Hayden,’ Jill said as he sat on the stool next to her and took a swallow of his pint. ‘Do you know the family, Tony?’
‘I taught the three children,’ he said, licking froth from his top lip. ‘They were OK, but I don’t know the parents well. They keep themselves to themselves. They’ve never involved themselves in school or village activities.’
‘What do you make of young Martin?’ she asked.
‘An honest opinion? He’s a spoilt brat.’ He took another swallow of beer. ‘Not in a material way perhaps,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘but – oh, perhaps he’s not spoilt exactly, but he’s got one hell of a high opinion of himself. A bright boy, though.’
Nothing he said surprised Jill.
‘The daughter’s a hairdresser,’ he went on. ‘She’s done Liz’s hair a couple of times.’
‘Oh?’
Now that did surprise Jill. Liz, Tony’s wife, was always immaculately coiffeured and Jill had assumed that only a top stylist was allowed near it.
‘Yes. Apparently, she’s into astrology. A nice enough kid, though. It’s just the males in the family that no one would want to associate with.’
‘What about Andy?’ she asked curiously.
‘He’ll be as big a bully as his father one day.’ He grimaced. ‘Sorry, but you did ask my opinion.’
And she was grateful for any opinion.
‘What do you think, Tony? Might Martin have escaped the farm and done a runner?’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me in the least,’ he replied easily. ‘Martin Hayden looks out for Martin Hayden and Martin Hayden alone. He wouldn’t think twice about anyone else.’
Perhaps he’d done exactly that. Jill hoped so.
Now it was Tony’s turn to ask the questions. ‘Is this idle curiosity or have you returned to police work?’
‘I discussed Martin’s disappearance with the force,’ she said, ‘but no, I’m not working for them.’ She grinned, knowing exactly what Tony thought of the self-help books she wrote. ‘I’m too busy writing.’
‘From top criminal profiler to crutch for housewives who are feeling a tad stressed by life.’ He tutted. ‘You must be mad!’
‘Quite probably.’
She finished her drink and declined Tony’s offer of another. With a deadline looming and a day’s work missed, she needed to get back to her cottage and her computer . . .
A bit of housework wouldn’t come amiss, either, she decided when she walked into her cottage.
The cat flap clicked open and closed, and she scooped Sam into her arms. He was getting even fatter if that were possible.
‘Are you feeling neglected?’ she murmured. ‘Never mind, a spot of dieting wouldn’t go amiss.’
At the sound of the tin opener, her other cats, Tojo and Rabble, appeared.
With the animals happy, she made a coffee and drank that, then quickly tidied the sitting room.
As she did so, she thought back to her meeting with Martin Hayden’s family, or part of that family. She hadn’t met the sister.
Yesterday morning, Martin’s mother had said goodbye to her son, as she did every morning and, as yet, they’d found no one who had seen him since. On the half-mile walk from the end of the farm’s drive to the bus stop, Martin had vanished. But boys didn’t vanish. The road in question was a winding, narrow B-road, but someone must have seen him.
How long would it take him to walk that half-mile? Ten minutes? His mother had said he’d left in good time to catch the bus, and it hadn’t been raining then. They had several centimetres of rain yesterday, but it hadn’t started until after ten o’clock. According to his mother, he often listened to music on his MP3 player as he walked. He wouldn’t have been rushing.
George Hayden wasn’t behaving like a distraught father. Why? Because he knew, or thought he knew, where Martin was? Had there been a family row? Was that what Josie Hayden was hiding?
Jill’s phone rang and she saw from the display that it was either her mother or father.
‘Hello, love, I wondered if I’d catch you. Not out tonight then?’
‘Apparently not, Mum,’ Jill replied, amused. ‘How are things in Liverpool?’
‘Oh, all right. What about you?’
‘Busy,’ Jill told her, as she always told her. It was usually true, but she knew she should make more time to visit her parents. ‘Dad OK?’
‘Ha! And how should I know? He’s been fishing every night this week. I tell him, I don’t know why he bothered to marry me. But then, he wouldn’t have a resident skivvy if he hadn’t. And you’ll never guess what the devil did oh, that reminds me, you know Tom Peters who lives at number four? He married that flighty piece with the red hair?’
‘Nope, means nothing to me.’ Mum forgot that she hadn’t lived on the estate for seventeen years.
‘Well, it seems as if he’s giving her a dose of her own medicine. He’s carrying on with oh, I don’t suppose you’d know her. She only moved in a few months ago. All tits and arse, your dad described her. And he’s probably right at that. She’s got a couple of kids and not a sighting of the father. Name’s Tracy.’
‘It’s all happening on River View then,’ Jill said with amusement.
‘We certainly see life,’ Mum agreed. ‘And then there’s well, well, well! Look what the cat’s dragged in.’
Jill assumed that her father had returned from his fishing trip. Rain or shine, day or night, he and his mates hauled fish from the water, congratulated each other, and then threw them back. Pointless!
She waited for the inevitable bickering between her parents. Devoted to each other they were, but outsiders would never know it.
‘You daft bugger,’ she heard her mother say softly.
No wrangling?
‘Here, Jill, talk to your dad a minute.’
‘Hi, Dad. Catch a big one?’
‘I caught nothing,’ he said with disgust. ‘Not a bite all night. That pike was hanging around, though. I’ll have him one of these nights. Anyway, how’s my girl?’
‘Your girl’s wondering how you’ve managed to escape a lecture from your wife.’
‘Easy,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘I stopped at the filling station on the way home and bought her a half-price bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates.’
‘Ah!’ Jill laughed. ‘What woman could resist such sophistication?’
‘I had a couple of quid on Starlight in the 1.30,’ he explained the reason for such extravagance, ‘and it romped home at sixteen to one.’
‘I thought of backing that, but I didn’t get a chance to look at the runners properly. However,’ she added, enjoying the chance to gloat, ‘I did manage to put a few quid on Pigeon Post.’
‘Eh? Never! God, that was a good price, wasn’t it?’
‘Thirty-three to one. It won by a short head.’
‘Well I never! A pity you didn’t get a good look at the runners. The way your luck is at the moment, you’d be quids in. So what kept you busy?’
She explained about Martin Hayden’s disappearance. ‘So I’ve been to see his family. I’m unofficially helping the police.’
‘Oh?’ he said knowingly. ‘Any particular copper?’
Jill smiled to herself. Her dad, like everyone else on River View estate, had an inbuilt distrust and dislike of the police but there was one exception.
‘Yes.’
‘Ah.’
‘It was strictly business,’ she assured him, ‘and there’s no need to mention it to Mum or she’ll be ordering her wedding outfit.’
‘You could do a lot worse, sweetheart.’
‘I could do a hell of a lot better, too.’
Her parents, her sister everyone was convinced that Max was the catch of the century. No matter what Jill said, no one would believe it was over, that she no longer loved him. She
had
loved him. She’d believed there could never be anyone else for her. But he’d had an affair, or if not an affair then a sordid one-night stand, and it was over. It had been over for a long time.
She felt a familiar sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Even thinking about his betrayal was something she’d rather not do.
‘So how’s Mum? Really?’ she asked, changing the subject.
‘Doing great,’ he answered, and Jill could sense that, for once, he was telling the truth. She’d had an operation on her lung. Thankfully, it had been successful.
‘And the ciggies?’ Jill asked.
‘Not had a puff since!’
Jill smiled at the pride in his voice. ‘Good for her.’
‘Mind you,’ he added, ‘she’s gone from sixty fags a day to forty Mars bars a day.’
They talked for a few more minutes, then Jill chatted to her mother again before ending the call . . .
Max had met her parents a few times, and he’d liked them probably as much as they’d liked him. ‘A good honest bloke,’ her dad had called him.
‘And how would he know?’ Max had joked when Jill had passed on the compliment. ‘He lives on River View. That lot make the Krays look like charity workers.’
He had a point.
River View was a rough estate, and it was getting worse. A look in the local paper was enough to convince people that the majority of petty criminals hailed from the estate. Her parents had moved there when they married and wouldn’t entertain the idea of moving. Mum carried on as if she lived in her personal soap opera and Dad liked to think he was tougher than any of them . . .
She deliberately turned her thoughts back to Martin Hayden. Assuming there had been a family row, and it seemed likely, where would a boy like Martin go? He would want to teach his parents a lesson, yet he would want his comforts, too. So where would he go?
Or perhaps he hadn’t gone anywhere. Perhaps George Hayden was trying to teach his son a lesson. Perhaps he knew exactly where he was.