Resolutions (24 page)

‘Or of failing to protect, in Mac's case,' Abe pointed out. ‘She blames him for letting their dad take George away. Karen's logic isn't what you might call objective.'

Fitch shovelled mashed potato, thinking hard. ‘So,' he said, ‘Sara Curtis may have carried a message from her brother or from Peel to Rains, kept him in the loop. Miriam said there were pictures of kids on the wall in the basement. Do we know where Peel's been hiding out?'

‘Not yet. He seems to have moved about a lot. No one actually wanted his company for long. I know he was being protected, and I have some idea of who and why, but until I firm it up I'd rather not add to that speculation.'

‘And the gallery Karen told young George about?'

‘Interesting. Particularly as there is already an art dealer in the mix. Our Igor Vaschinsky. We know he has a legitimate business and we also know his brother deals in stolen artworks.'

‘And launders some of his money through his brother's legitimate galleries.' Fitch nodded. ‘So . . .'

‘So we get a list of his holdings and business interests; see if there's a gallery coming up for sale in the New Year.'

Rina had retreated with Tim and Joy to the peace and quiet of her front room. The family had been ecstatic at their return and effusive in their welcome. It had been a while before Rina could escape without them feeling slighted.

‘So,' she said, ‘the priority is to find Karen Parker. Abe and Fitch are doing their part; what can we do?'

‘Fitch can use my dad's old associates,' Joy said. ‘Mum still has plenty of clout in that direction; plenty of people owe her favours.'

‘And Abe has contacts in some really odd places,' Tim added.

‘So that leaves us.' Rina was aware that they looked expectantly at her.

‘Karen worries me,' she said. ‘Where is she, what is she planning, what will she do when she learns that Mac is back here? She planned to hurt him, inflict the maximum pain; I'm certain of that. She enlisted Thomas Peel, and when she did, I think she knew he'd want to replay that night on the beach when little Cara Evans died. I think she expected him to kill Miriam; that maybe she got there too soon. I don't know.'

‘What if it wasn't her on the beach?' Tim said. ‘I mean, a lot of people wanted Peel dead. Maybe someone else was following him or . . . something.'

‘Or
something
?'

Tim shrugged awkwardly. ‘It's just a thought, Rina, but what if Mac
did
kill him? Miriam wouldn't rat him out, would she? And I mean, no one could blame him if he did.'

‘Well, I think the law might,' Joy said.

‘I suppose so, but hopefully we've taken care of that side of things. I mean, no one that matters.' He looked hopefully at Rina.

She shook her head. ‘Tim, I believe Mac; Miriam too. There was a third person on that beach and I'd bet my life that person was Karen Parker. She's killed once that I know about. I suspect Abe and Fitch are
not
telling me that she's upped her score since then. Karen is a very angry, very able and very destructive young woman, more than capable of manipulating a situation to her own ends – and, I suspect, a lot cleverer than Peel gave her credit for. He thought he was manipulating her for his own ends, and I don't suppose anyone could have been more shocked than he was to find out he was wrong. But we should take note: those who underestimate or cross Karen Parker tend to end up dead or in very deep trouble. We've already done the second of those things. I think we should be very careful indeed not to do the first as well.'

Up in Hill House, Ursula had crept into George's room and they sat together on his bed, staring out of his window across the ink-black sea.

‘What do you think is going to happen?'

George shrugged. ‘Karen will find out that Mac is home and then she'll be mad. She'll come back here, or wherever he is. She doesn't let up once she's made up her mind to do something.'

‘So, what do we do?'

‘There's only one thing she wants more than Mac and that's me.'

‘George, you can't.'

‘I'm not going to go with her. I told her, I told everyone: I want to stay here, with our friends, with you.' He glanced anxiously at her. The light was out and her face was pale in the starlight. He knew that both he and Ursula were a bit slow about doing things. Some things. There were plenty of kids in his class who had . . . well, who claimed to have . . . though George didn't believe most of them. He swallowed nervously, leaned forward and kissed Ursula rather clumsily on the mouth.

She stared at him, and he thought for one awful moment that he had offended her. Then she kissed him back and he was relieved to find that she was about as bad at it as he was.

‘I'd better go,' she said. ‘We'll be in deep trouble if Cheryl catches us.'

Deep trouble
, George thought as she closed the door very softly behind her. It seemed ironic that they should worry about such an ordinary thing as being caught in one another's rooms so late at night, what with all the big stuff there was to worry about. Stuff like having a psycho sister and knowing, despite everything, that he still loved her very much and wanted her to be all right. Knowing too that he was probably going to have to be the one to stop her before she put ‘being all right' way beyond the reach of any of them.

THIRTY

W
ednesday morning and the breakfast news was full of it. The child killer, Thomas Peel, had been found dead on a remote beach the morning before, and the media, annoyed at being so behind the times, were going into overdrive in their efforts to catch up.

Mac had described to Rina just how remote Rowleigh Bay was, and, watching the helicopter circle now, she realized just how right he was.

She watched intently, taking in the tiny village with houses huddled between church and pub, narrow road leading in and even narrower track leading out, both now crowded with vans and people and the paraphernalia of the modern media. The helicopter was turning now, the commentary explaining that Rowleigh Bay was popular with walkers in the summer, that the cliff path dropped down on to the beach and many took refuge in the village pub either for lunch or to spend the night before continuing on. It looked as though it would be a pretty place in summer, Rina thought, but it was her experience that just about anywhere along the north-east coast looked bleak from October through till March.

‘And it was to seek refuge in the Cross Keys pub that a man and a woman came the evening before last,' the reporter intoned. ‘The landlord described them as being wet and cold and very frightened. They asked to use the phone because their mobile, as many of
us
have found today, couldn't get a signal here. And then they left again. Not long after that, the police and ambulance arrived, although it seems likely now that the ambulance was too late to be of any help; Thomas Peel was already dead.'

Helicopter transmission handed over to their man on the ground and Rina listened on. ‘Details are sketchy. The landlord of the Cross Keys said he'd noticed a car passing his pub about an hour before with one person inside. I think viewers have got to understand, this is such a small village that any vehicle passing through at this time of year is going to draw attention. I'm told there's a little pull-in up on the headland, just before the cliff path descends on to Rowleigh beach, and that police have been up there since yesterday morning. The locals tell me that, although it would have been dangerous and difficult in the dark and with thick fog swirling, visibility minimal, it may be possible that either the couple or Thomas Peel came down that way. The car the landlord saw pass his pub was taken away by the police yesterday afternoon. It is believed to be an estate, dark blue, maybe a Volvo.'

‘Boy, are they scrabbling round for something to say,' Tim commented.

‘You're up early.'

‘Couldn't sleep. Too much going on in my head.'

‘And Joy?'

Tim actually blushed. Rina tried not to laugh.

‘Sleeping. It's all been a tad exciting.' He turned his attention back to the screen.

‘Police have said that no one is being held in connection with Thomas Peel's death and that a formal statement will be issued later this morning. There are rumours that the woman had previously been a hostage taken by Peel, but these have not been verified. It was thought, briefly, that she might even have been Peel's daughter, Emily. We do know that, a few days ago, Thomas Peel went to the house that his daughter shared with her boyfriend, Calum Heaney, armed with a shotgun, and that he attempted to kill both his daughter and her boyfriend and succeeded in wounding a neighbour who went to their assistance.'

The report then turned back to speculation about the shooting and ‘our woman on the spot' standing outside Emily's damaged house.

‘Don't know much, do they?' Tim helped himself to tea from Rina's pot.

‘No, they don't, and I get the feeling that they're annoyed the breaking news, as they're calling it, didn't break until twenty-four hours after the event.'

‘Slow up north?' Tim suggested.

‘From what Mac told me, you have to know the place exists in order to find it. The Cross Keys pub became the command centre up there, so I imagine everything was wrapped up pretty tight, and maybe the locals were slow to welcome that kind of media invasion. If it happens here, you can be sure the inhabitants of Frantham Old Town won't be rolling out the red carpet. The new town might put up with it for a while, if it brings some extra winter income but . . .'

‘You think that likely to happen?'

She shrugged. ‘We'll have to see what comes out in the media statement. One thing's for sure, though: Karen will now know that Mac isn't being held as a suspect.'

Tim nodded. ‘That isn't good,' he said. ‘Not good at all.'

George and Ursula had managed to sneak a few minutes of news, standing in the TV room with plates of toast and hoping, in the morning chaos of Hill House, that their presence would not be missed. They weren't supposed to watch the television first thing in the morning. All the kids had their bags to get ready, breakfast to eat and small chores to do, and the prevailing and understandable sentiment among their carers was that early-morning television interfered with that process.

They watched with the sound turned down and subtitles on, one ear straining to hear what was going on in the kitchen and hall as Cheryl dealt with lost PE kits and homework that hadn't been done and a mountain of breakfast that, thankfully, it was not their turn to help prepare.

It did not take long for Ursula to reach the same conclusion as Tim and Rina.

‘Karen's going to be mad as hell,' she said. ‘Do you think she'll come after Mac?'

George shrugged. ‘Probably,' he said.

Down the hall they could hear Cheryl calling them and Ursula killed the TV.

‘Did you get your history done?' Ursula asked as they raced for the front door, grabbing backpacks as they went.

‘Yeah, but I think I've screwed it up.'

‘Sure you've not, but, anyway, you've got Mrs Peace for history, don't you? She'll give you an extension if you ask. She likes you.'

George nodded and climbed aboard the minibus, wondering again at a world that seemed to place history homework almost on a par in their lives with the fact of a friend nearly getting killed and his own sister roaming around the countryside knifing people in the back.

He was finding it hard to focus on the school stuff, finding comfort in the normality of it at the same time.

Ursula cast him an anxious glance and he managed a smile. ‘You've been through worse,' she said quietly

George nodded. He probably had, but that time Karen had been on his side and he'd been grateful for it. This time he was not so sure he wanted that.

Abe Jackson and Fitch were at Abe's main office on the industrial estate. The solicitor's office was great as the public face of his business, but here, in this more anonymous setting, he had the computers and the faxes and the phones and the personnel.

Fitch had been on the phone for the past hour, talking to previous associates of his late boss, and was building a picture of a Karen Parker that even George would have had trouble recognizing. Her father had been little more than hired muscle; even Jimmy Duggan had once employed him for that purpose, though, finding that he lacked finesse, it had not been a job opportunity that had lasted long enough to become a career. All agreed that Karen was far more intelligent, reliable and ruthless.

‘No nerves,' Fitch was told. ‘A real ice maiden and with the looks to go with it.'

Fitch also gleaned the impression that Karen was not in this for the long haul. She would make her money and then get out. ‘She's a flash in the pan,' Fitch learnt. ‘Give her a year and she'll burn out.'

‘Give her a year and I reckon she'll be off, find herself a rich old man.'

And they were all right, Fitch reckoned. Karen did not plan a lifetime as a hired assassin; she was in it for the short term, for the instant cash it afforded and which she would have the sense to invest in something more solid and steady and life-changing than the mere destruction of a handful of individuals whom few would mourn and whose deaths many would rejoice over. Five years down the line, Karen would be something else, all trace of this episode in her life gone.

He found himself thinking that he'd almost like to know her then, when the anger had been consumed by action and she had her life on track; trouble was she was threatening now those Fitch was determined to protect.