Ralph’s Children (25 page)

Relax.
With so much riding on this, not just for her, but for the Moon family.

Kate thanked the officer.

Flashes of memory already assaulting her.

The four of them coming at her in their eerie dark masks.

Roger holding her face down on the sofa, almost suffocating her.

Kneeling on Laurie’s thighs, pinning her down for Jack to cut her throat.

Relax.

The officer read her a formal explanation of the procedure, told her that the suspect might or might not appear on the film she was to see; that Kate was to view the entire film at least twice;
that she could, if she wished, see all or any part of the film more often and that if she could not make a positive identification, she should say so.

Panic ignited, made her feel ill, made her want to run. Without masks, it would be impossible to recognize her – the whole thing was a travesty because Roger would go
free
, they
would all stay out in the world knowing they’d won.

But then it began.

Nine images, one after another, on a screen, each image numbered.

Nine strangers.

But she
knew
her.

She half-closed her eyes as she had earlier decided she would to make the line-up fuzz a little, and her heart hammered and prickles of gooseflesh sprang up on her arms, and each time she was
shown the film, they had moved Roger’s image to a different place in the parade, her face looking into the camera, turning her face first to one side, then to the other.

A monster brought to life.

It was strange beyond all Kate’s imaginings to see how attractive she was, her eyes dark and clear, betraying nothing, her neck slender as a model’s. Remembering that they were
recording her reactions, her mind working well now, her fear gone, determined that nothing be allowed to undermine this identification, Kate opened her own eyes fully, examined each image
carefully, took her time, though there was no need.

Because she knew her.

Knew which of those women was no stranger, which of them had dragged her to the bathroom and pulled down her panties so she could pee, which of them had recited the savageries of late
abortion.

Which of them had helped Jack to kill Laurie Moon.

She knew her without a shadow of doubt.

And told them her number.

* * *

O
ne of the most significant outcomes of having Roger in custody, charged with the kidnapping and murder of Laurie Moon, as well as Kate’s
unlawful imprisonment, was that her detention had swiftly led them to Jack.

Karen Frost was the name of the actress who had been Roger.

Not just an actress. Also an official prison visitor who had not long since approached the chaplain at HM Prison Tayton Park – because every voluntary OPV had to apply to each new prison
they wanted to visit, to go through all channels each time, including Home Office checking. Frost had given her changed address as her reason, having lately moved from Reading to a flat less than
five miles from Tayton Park, and her request had been granted.

After which she was documented as having paid special attention to one male prisoner by the name of Paul Wilson, presently on remand, charged with burglary from a dwelling and grievous bodily
harm.

Kate and Rob invited Michael and Bel to the cottage, swore them to secrecy and brought them up to date with the developments.

‘Tayton Park wasn’t where the teacher was murdered, was it?’ asked Michael.

Kate shook her head. ‘Different prison – Oakwood.’

‘They’re checking in case Karen Frost was ever a visitor there,’ Rob said.

‘Nothing yet to link her to Alan Mitcham,’ Kate said.

‘It’s still promising news, though, surely,’ Bel said.

‘The main point for now,’ Kate said, ‘is that Helen Newton thinks Wilson is almost certainly either Jack or Pig.’

‘We already know he’s definitely our burglar,’ Rob continued. ‘They went through items found in his home after his arrest, and found our ultrasound picture.’

‘Goodness,’ said Bel, and took a large swallow of red wine.

‘Wilson tried claiming it was from one of his own children’s scans,’ Kate said, ‘but his wife let him down, said it wasn’t.’

‘Good for her,’ Michael said.

‘Anyway, the picture had a date on it,’ said Kate.

‘And by that time,’ Rob went on, ‘they had a warrant to search Karen Frost’s home too – and guess what they both had in common.’

‘The book,’ Bel guessed.

Kate nodded. ‘Not many novels in Wilson’s place, according to Newton.’

‘Is that enough?’ Michael, the former lawyer, was wary.

‘Of course not.’ Rob’s smile was grim. ‘But there’s more.’

‘Carol Marsh, Paul Wilson and Karen Frost were all at the same children’s home,’ Kate explained. ‘A place called Challow Hall.’ She paused. ‘About five miles
from Swindon, a little way off the Ridgeway Path.’

‘And not a million miles from Caisleán,’ Rob finished.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Bel.

‘I’m betting Wilson is Jack,’ Kate said.

‘Why not Pig?’ asked Michael.

‘No solid, stand-up-in-court reason.’ She shrugged. ‘I just don’t feel that Pig was the type to be a burglar – which could be complete nonsense – but Jack was
definitely more obviously violent, so the GBH seems more likely to be his thing.’

‘How are you coping with all this?’ Michael asked her.

‘Bit nervous,’ Kate said.

‘She’s very brave,’ Rob said.

‘Another identification?’ her mother asked.

‘I suppose,’ Kate nodded, her stomach already in knots.

R
alph had known in her heart, however much Roger had denied it, that the younger woman would be unable to resist visiting Jack, but she had also known
that she was as helpless to prevent that as she had been to halt the disastrous chain of events that had since come to pass.

All down to Kate Turner.

All of it.

I
t was almost the same as it had been with Roger.

They were all tough looking in different ways, but only one was
him.

Jack, as she had believed, not Pig, who had, even in red overalls, looked thinner, seemed altogether weaker.

This man had flame red hair and pale skin, and green eyes that were sharp and hard. And a straight, uncompromising mouth.

A cruel mouth, Kate thought.

Don’t choose him for that.

But she had stood so close to Jack, had been slapped by him, menaced by him, dragged around by him, hog-tied by him.

Threatened by him.

‘I wish to God I could kill you here and now.’

Words she would never forget, any more than she’d ever manage to blot out the memory of the man who’d spoken them, the man who’d murdered Laurie Moon.

Besides, something else was making it almost easy for her now.

The way he had looked into the camera when they’d made their recording.

As if he was looking at
her
, not into the lens.

Looking at Kate, at the woman who had killed his friend, with pure hate.

It seemed to her like a challenge, as if he wanted to be chosen.

Kate watched the film right through three times.

Knew she was making no mistake.

Told them his number, and that it was the man she had known as Jack.

And prayed with all her might that he would be found guilty, given life.

He had been named Paul, they learned later, after the man who’d found him as an abandoned newborn in a supermarket car park, and Wilson after one of the nurses on duty at
the Bristol Royal Infirmary to which he’d been taken.

Sad stories, unlucky beginnings, for Wilson, Marsh and Frost.

Probably for Pig, too, whoever and wherever he was.

It began to appear likely, too, given their use of the same aliases with Alan Mitcham, that the gang’s obsession with the book and perhaps their bizarre game-playing, too, might have begun
back in their years in the children’s home.

‘Maybe,’ Kate said, ‘they just liked being fictitious characters better than themselves.’

She used their real names now, of course, whenever she spoke to the police or to Martin Blake, but she never thought of them that way.

To her they were still Jack, Roger and Simon.

B
oth charged now, awaiting trial. Roger in HM Prison Stonebridge, Jack still in Tayton Park, his court date for GBH and burglary imminent.

More than a hundred miles apart but both locked up, out of Ralph’s reach for heaven knew how long.

Forever, it seemed to her.

‘What can we
do
?’ Pig asked her on the phone, despair in his voice.

‘Nothing,’ Ralph answered. ‘Not a single thing.’

‘I’m not much for violence, as you know,’ said Pig, ‘but I think I could kill
her
.’

‘Promise me,’ Ralph said with passion, ‘you won’t do anything stupid.’

‘I won’t,’ he said.

‘If something happens to you, too,’ said Ralph, ‘I’ll have no one.’

‘It’s all right,’ Pig told her. ‘You don’t have to worry about losing me. I just can’t stop thinking about how they’ll be standing it in those
places.’

‘They’ll stand it because they have to,’ Ralph said.

T
he whereabouts of Pig began to consume Kate.

Newton’s team had tried to find staff who had worked at Challow Hall in those days who might remember a fourth child, or maybe even a fifth, remembering their ‘chief’ –
any other children especially close to Marsh, Wilson and Frost – but as yet no one had come up with an answer.

No one caring enough to notice, perhaps, Kate thought.

They
had cared, she knew that, about each other.

She remembered Pig stroking Simon’s hair after he’d removed the stocking from her head, remembered feeling that he loved her, felt now therefore that
she
, Carol Marsh, was
most likely to prove his Achilles heel.

‘Which is why I’m so sure,’ she said to Helen Newton in July, ‘that he’s bound to visit her grave one of these days.’

There was nothing, Newton responded, to say he hadn’t already done so, since there were no CCTV cameras at the cemetery, nor was there any feasibility of keeping a physical presence
there.

‘It’s almost as if they’ve lost interest,’ Kate fretted on the phone to Martin Blake afterwards, ‘now they’ve got the other two.’

‘I don’t think that for a minute,’ Blake disagreed. ‘Especially as they’ll have Laurie Moon’s parents on their backs too.’

‘Do you suppose Newton thinks Jack or Roger are going to give up Pig’s identity?’ she asked the lawyer. ‘Maybe as part of some kind of plea bargain?’

‘It could happen,’ Blake said. ‘Possibly.’

‘He’s no real help at all,’ Kate complained to Rob over dinner that night.

‘Not a lot he can do, I imagine,’ Rob said.

He took a forkful of pasta, saw that she wasn’t eating, put it down again.

‘All down to interrogation, then,’ he said, ‘or deal-making with the other two.’

‘They won’t give Pig up,’ Kate said definitely.

‘You can’t be certain of that,’ Rob said.

‘I can,’ Kate said. ‘I’m not sure why, exactly, and I know it sounds odd, but I just feel they won’t ever betray each other.’

‘Honour among thieves,’ Rob said.

‘Murderers,’ Kate amended.

‘I’m glad you said that.’ Rob picked up the bottle and poured more red wine into both their glasses. ‘You were beginning to sound as if you almost admired
them.’

‘Not if I live to be a thousand,’ Kate said.

Laurie Moon’s death before her eyes again.

* * *

T
he situation, Kate had come to accept, was probably as good as it was going to get, at least for now.

Jack having been found guilty of GBH and burglary, serving ten years.

So, one dead, two facing trial.

Life, in the meantime, going on for her.

Her column, on the other hand, she realized, might not have that much longer to live. The Caisleán nightmare had made it not only emotionally difficult, but also legally impossible to
share as many of her day-to-day thought processes with her readers as she had in the past. The strain had shown in
Diary of a Short-Fused Female
, and Kate felt sure it was only a matter of
time until Fireman was forced to junk it.

Which was why she had told him, in late July, that she’d decided to write a biography of Claude Duval, the French highwayman said to have owned a house in Sonning-on-Thames – where
Dick Turpin’s aunt had also lived.

‘Curious in a way,’ Fireman said, ‘that you should be attracted to villainy now.’

‘On the contrary,’ Kate told him. ‘Seductive and charming as he might have been, Duval went around terrorizing travellers, so I can assure you I won’t be painting him as
a gallant romantic.’

Rob, too, had come upon a new interest, sparked by a colleague working in his school’s office, Marie Coates, a long-time paraplegic who spent her time off helping disabled children to ride
ponies at Lambsmoor Farm, south of Blewbury.

‘It’s a small, independent scheme,’ Rob told Kate. ‘She’s suggested I might like to come along one Saturday to take a look.’

It was near the Ridgeway, Kate thought, not far from Caisleán.

‘Lovely idea,’ she said.

Not far enough.

‘Do you really think so?’ Rob checked.

‘Of course.’ She saw his doubt, knew it was because he disliked leaving her alone for too long these days, decided that was ridiculous, something she needed to stop before it got out
of hand. ‘Rob, I’m fine with this, truly.’

‘If you liked riding, it would—’

‘But I don’t.’ Kate smiled. ‘And I certainly don’t want you turning down something you’re so incredibly suited to, just for me.’

‘I’d do anything for you,’ he said.

She read the intensity in his eyes and knew that now, after the journey they’d travelled, both together and apart, it was true.

‘I’m hardly short of things to do,’ she said. ‘I’m behind on
Short-Fuse
, as usual, and I really need to get into my research for Duval. And the fact is, we
have to get back to normal, at least until the trial.’