Sam pushed open the door into Harry’s office. Harry looked up, startled.
‘I’m going to the police.’
Harry didn’t respond at first. He sat at his desk, his fingers steepled and resting just under his chin. His cheeks looked flushed, pensive.
He looked up at Sam slowly, had to refocus as he watched him.
‘What did you say?’ He said it like he was irritated.
Sam shut the door behind him.
‘Terry McKay. I’m going to the police.’
‘And what would you say?’ Harry asked wearily.
‘That Terry threatened to expose Jimmy King and had arranged to meet him.’
Harry shook his head slowly. ‘And I’ll say the opposite. Jimmy King was with me when Terry McKay was hurt.’
‘And Luke?’
Harry nodded. ‘Luke too.’
Sam shook his head angrily. ‘I was there,’ he said, his voice loud. ‘I saw Terry. I saw what Jimmy King did to him.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Were you there, Harry?’
When Harry didn’t respond, Sam sat down and stared at him. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve lied for Jimmy, would it?’
Harry swallowed and then replied, ‘Think like a lawyer, Sam. That’s what you are, remember. What chance would you have of proving that?’
‘It doesn’t always have to be about what you can prove,’ Sam replied. ‘Sometimes, it can be about what’s right.’
‘Is that what you thought when you went to law school, that it wouldn’t be about proof?’ Sam didn’t reply, so Harry continued, ‘If you think that, you’re in the wrong job. It’s only ever about what you can prove.’
‘So why did you go to law school?’ Sam replied, his voice harsh. ‘For the power, because you can change a life just like that?’ He clicked his fingers.
Harry leaned forward, a sneer on his face. ‘You’re the type who never lasts long. I’ve seen it too often. Came to the law to change the world.’
Sam smiled. ‘The trouble with lawyers is that you don’t live in the real world. You have no moral compass. Deep down, it’s only ever about the money.’
‘And now you talk about lawyers in the third person. Have you given it up already?’ When Sam didn’t reply, Harry added, ‘That money affects me and my family. It gives them a good life, a better one than I had.’
Sam laughed, the noise loud in the office. ‘Don’t give me that impoverished speech again. I’ve heard it too often. And don’t pretend that you did it all for Helena.’
Harry swallowed. ‘And I would do it again.’
‘Where did this “good father” act come from?’ asked
Sam, his voice rich with sarcasm. ‘Helena talks like you were never there. Remember, she called
me
yesterday, when she got into trouble, not you.’
Harry threw his pen down and stood up sharply. ‘I worked hard to build this firm. All hours. All days. I gave Helena a good life.’
‘But where were you?’ Sam looked around. ‘Here? Helena needed a father, not a lawyer.’
Harry seethed as he looked across at Sam, their eyes locked.
Then Sam smiled and pulled a disk out of his pocket. ‘Maybe this will answer a few questions. See what Helena thinks of your friends then.’
Harry looked at the disk, and then at Sam. He went pale.
‘What is it?’ he asked, but Sam could tell that he had worked it out already.
‘You’ve got good cameras, Harry.’
Harry’s eyes widened and his cheeks turned crimson, but before he could respond, the air was broken by the ring of Sam’s phone.
Sam stepped back and looked at the screen on his phone. He held it up for Harry to see. ‘Your daughter,’ and then he turned around to answer.
When he heard her voice, he was worried. She was crying, a soft mew.
‘I’ve been attacked,’ she said quietly.
‘Where are you?’
‘On the canal path,’ she said, the words coming in gulps, ‘between the school and home. I was walking back when I was jumped.’
Sam’s nails dug deep into the back of the chair.
‘What about Henry? Is he okay?’
Then he heard Helena begin to wail.
‘I can’t see him,’ she screamed. ‘He’s gone.’
Sam dropped the phone, his hand trembling. He could hear Harry asking what was wrong, but it was background noise, the sound of the blood rushing through his brain the only thing he could hear. He had to swallow, just to stop himself from being sick.
He turned round to Harry. ‘Something’s happened.’
I turned off Johnny Cash. The first
American Recordings
album had rumbled around the room, his voice resigned to his short future, the guitar lean and raw, but it distracted me. My father had brought me up on Johnny Cash, but for once, I wasn’t in the mood. I offered my father a silent apology, a quick look to the heavens, and then looked down at Eric’s paintings.
They were spread across the table, a mosaic of his final years, the images that haunted him as he woke. There was no logic here. I didn’t think Eric could dream the future any more than I could. But I knew that I was looking at the pictures for more than just interest now. I was looking for clues, some hint that he might have dreamt his own future, his own end.
It was the most recent paintings that troubled me. There was darkness in them. The colours were flatter, almost dirty, and they all showed the dark building.
I thought back to Jimmy King’s house, and then looked again at the paintings. In silhouette, it wouldn’t look much different. It was large, imposing, with two
gables at the front, H-shaped. Is that what Eric had seen?
And then I remembered the outbuildings there, at the end of the long, neat lawn. A child could be hidden in one of those.
I smiled to myself. I sounded like I was starting to believe it. I knew why I was looking, why I was giving Eric the benefit of the doubt. It was because I had that same feeling that I’d had the year before, when my own father was killed, that there was something to look into. These paintings were by someone I knew, just briefly, and they had somehow led to his death. I knew there was a great story in them, but it had become more than that to me. I had seen the look in Mary Randle’s eyes, that loss, that disbelief. I had the chance to somehow make it right.
I glanced towards a photograph on the wall. It was my father, playing football. He’d had a brief career as a professional in the lower leagues, before he gave it up and joined the police. I’d had it on my wall in London. It had made its way north, and I found myself nodding at it, making promises.
Luke King. He was the key. He was at the centre of all of it, I sensed it, felt it, knew it with every gut instinct I had. He was linked to Jess’s death by his arrest. He was linked to Eric by the painting. He was linked to Terry McKay by Terry’s own words. And he was linked to the abductions by Eric’s death. But I didn’t know enough about him. I decided to go to Luke’s house, just to see what else I could find. I had the paintings now. I might see things I hadn’t seen before.
* * *
‘So how do we play Billy Hunt this time?’ asked Pete. ‘We’ve tried softly softly.’ When Laura shot him a glance, he held his hands up. ‘That’s not a dig.’
Laura looked at the house and thought about that. ‘We’ll just play it as it comes. He’ll be suspicious, but if he’s talking, keep it soft.’
‘You’re the boss.’
Laura looked at him. ‘Since when?’
‘Since you keep on getting things right.’
They walked to the door together, but when they arrived, Pete hung back. The net curtain twitched even before she got her finger to the doorbell. When the door opened, it was Billy, and he looked flustered.
‘Who called you? I didn’t.’ He stepped to one side. ‘Come in, come in.’
Laura and Pete exchanged confused glances but went in anyway. As they passed the front room, they saw Billy’s mother on the sofa, asleep. When they got to the back room, they saw a young woman in there, pretty, dressed in khaki trousers and white T-shirt, her short dark hair filled with red flashes. Protest chic.
But it wasn’t her clothes or hair that drew Laura’s attention. It was the cut above her left eye, and the purple swelling over her right eye. There was a cut to her top lip, fat and red, and swelling to the side of her cheek, just above deep scratch marks on her neck.
The woman looked at Billy, and then at Laura.
‘You said you wouldn’t call them,’ she wailed, and she pulled her knees up to her chest. Her hands went over her face, and Laura could hear the sniffles.
‘No one called us,’ said Laura. ‘We came to speak to
Billy.’ She paused, and then asked, ‘Do you want to tell us what happened?’
The girl said nothing.
‘Charlie, tell them,’ pleaded Billy, his eyes wide.
She looked up, wiped her hand across her cheek and winced as she made contact with the swelling.
Billy spoke for her. ‘It was Dan Kinsella. He did this.’
‘Dan Kinsella?’ queried Laura.
‘He goes to our group,’ said Billy.
‘The dream group?’
Billy nodded.
‘So what happened?’ Laura asked Charlie. ‘Were you a couple?’
Charlie looked down and shook her head slowly. ‘No,’ she said, but she said it in a way that told Laura that maybe she had hoped differently.
‘He came round yesterday morning, early,’ Charlie continued. ‘He seemed different, all excitable.’
‘What do you mean?’
She looked up. ‘Just that. He was pacing up and down and talking really fast. I mean, he’s always bubbly, the life and soul, but this was different. He seemed, well, a bit desperate.’
‘So what did you do yesterday?’
Charlie shrugged. ‘Just chilled out. But he didn’t want to go out, so we just stayed at my house.’
Laura and Pete exchanged brief looks. They’d both picked up on the timeframe, that he had gone to see Charlie at around the time that Eric was discovered, along with Kyle.
‘Did he say why he didn’t want to go out?’ asked
Laura, now sitting next to Charlie, her voice gentle, trying to coax out the facts.
Charlie shook her head again. ‘He’s the sort of man you go along with. If he doesn’t want to go out, he just sort of makes it seem okay.’
‘He’s a control freak,’ interrupted Billy, his tone hostile.
Charlie shot him a look, part anger, part acceptance.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Laura.
‘Just that,’ he said, but more quietly now. ‘He’s only been coming to the group for a few weeks, and he acts like he runs it, knows everything there is to know about precognition, as if he has read it all in a book.’
‘So what did you do all day?’ Laura asked Charlie. She was worried that Billy might stop her from talking.
‘Nothing much,’ replied Charlie quietly. ‘Just talked. About him. About me.’
‘What about him? Where is he from?’
She looked embarrassed. ‘I don’t really know. He seems to know Blackley, but he doesn’t like to talk about himself Then she looked up. ‘His parents are dead, he told me that much, killed in a car crash. That’s when he started having precog dreams, like the emotions were a trigger.’
Laura looked at Pete and nodded that he ought to go outside. He realised what that meant, that he should call it in, see what the computer had on Dan Kinsella.
Once Laura was on her own with Charlie and Billy, she asked, ‘How did it get rough?’
Charlie’s chin began to tremble, so Laura asked Billy if he would leave the room. She thought he was going to refuse, but when Laura smiled at him, he reluctantly
agreed and went to make a drink. Once she was alone, Laura asked, ‘Did you become involved last night?’
Charlie didn’t respond at first, but then, as the tears started, she nodded. ‘I went out to buy some wine, and I thought, well, you know, I thought something might happen.’ She wiped her eyes and shook her head. ‘It sounds stupid, but I thought we would, you know, kiss or something, maybe even end up in bed.’
‘But that isn’t what happened?’
Charlie shook her head, and then she started to sob. She covered her face as she spoke, her voice broken and high.
‘He went through the bottle too quickly, so I opened another, and then he started coming on to me, but it wasn’t like how I’d imagined it. He gripped my neck, became all aggressive, like he was angry with me, but I hadn’t done anything wrong.’
Laura reached out and held Charlie’s hands, giving them a reassuring squeeze. ‘Go on,’ she said quietly.
‘He kept on squeezing my neck,’ Charlie continued, ‘really hard, and I knew I didn’t want that. I had been having a dream like that, and I’d told Dan all about it, that I wake up gasping, my throat all closed up. It was like he was trying to make my dream come true. When I told him no, he said he wanted to put his hands around my throat, wanted me to feel like death was close, and that he could bring my life back.’ She sniffled and wiped her eyes. ‘He was so different when he was drunk.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I thought he was joking at first, so I laughed. But that made him angry, so he pinned me down.’ Her hands
went to her throat and tears started to meander down her cheeks. ‘I could feel his hands on my neck.’ She gulped at the memory, and then seemed to steel herself. ‘I fought back. I screamed, kicked, thrashed around. I was scared. Then I bit him, really hard on his hand. He shouted out, and then he began to swear at me, loudly. Then he started to hit me.’ She took a deep breath as she recalled it. ‘He only stopped when the old man in the house next door banged on the wall.’
‘So he left?’
Charlie nodded. ‘He ran out. I haven’t seen him since.’
‘You’ve no idea at all where he lives?’
She shook her head slowly. ‘We see each other at the meetings, and sometimes in town. It sounds stupid now, but he just never mentioned it.’
Laura looked back towards the kitchen. ‘Why did you come here, to Billy?’
Charlie wiped her nose and sniffed heavily. ‘I know he’s done some strange things, that he got into trouble over that girl, but anyone who looks after his mum like Billy does can’t be all bad. He never liked Dan, I knew that. I thought he was jealous, because maybe he liked me or something. I knew he liked Jess, and I thought Dan did too. It turned out that Billy was right.’ She smiled. ‘I think he gets lonely. He’ll make someone happy one day.’