Resolutions (3 page)

Frantham was fine for the tourists – the locals needed the tourists – but Frantham Old Town was theirs, pure and simple, and he was fortunate enough that they had accepted him as an honorary local after so short a time.

The weather seemed to be reflecting his morning mood: cold and bleak and totally lacking in view. Still dark when he left the boathouse, the slight lifting from black to grey that announced predawn this time of year was immediately blurred again by a thickening sea mist, the fog rolling in as the cold breeze suddenly subsided. His brain seemed full of that selfsame fogginess. What on earth did he think he was doing, heading north to participate in an investigation, the first round of which had damn near finished him off both mentally and physically? He really wasn't up to this; Alec had as good as told him so the previous day, and Rina had tacitly agreed, he was sure of that.

He could call Alec now: tell them that he'd changed his mind, made a mistake, really wasn't ready. No one would hold that against him. Like Alec said, the invitation to rejoin the investigation had been extended out of courtesy. No one had expected him to say yes. They'd all be relieved if he took himself out of the equation.

Yes, he could call Alec, then turn around and rejoin Miriam in that warm bed. No need to get up again for at least another hour. His brain nagged at him, inner voices yammering and pleading, but his feet seemed to have other ideas and continued with their steady tramp, tramp, along the wooden walkway and then on to the solid if shabby concrete of the promenade.

Too late now. Moments later he was in his car, manoeuvring out of the tiny space at the back of the police station, and on his way. Too late now for second thoughts. For good sense or good advice.

‘Thomas Peel,' he said aloud, remembering his conversation with Andy the day before. The name had become a mantra now, a focus and reminder. ‘Thomas Peel. And this time I'm going to get the bastard.'

Heading north-east, back to that other coast, that other sea, but first to see the other victim of all this. Peel's child.

Calum met him at the front door. Mac had met Emily's boyfriend once before, spoken to him on the phone a couple of times, but not recently. He was shocked by the young man's pallor, by the dark circles beneath his eyes.

‘We didn't get any sleep,' Calum said. ‘She just couldn't manage to close her eyes. Every time she tried, she dreamed about him, even before she fell asleep.'

Mac nodded, remembering a time when Thomas Peel had walked through his every dream, sleeping and then, as time went on, waking too.

‘I'm sorry.' It seemed such an inadequate thing to say, but Calum nodded, looked grateful for the sympathy.

‘I told her we should take some time away. I can get holiday.'

‘You should be at work today?'

‘I phoned in. Boss was OK; we're not exactly busy.'

Mac recalled that Calum worked for a little company that designed and installed high-end kitchens. He didn't imagine that the current economics were healthy. He followed the younger man through to the back of the house and into the kitchen. Emily stood by the sink, kettle in hand, but a look on her face that suggested she couldn't think what to do with it.

Calum took it from her, kicked a chair out from under the table and sat her down, gestured to Mac to do the same. He ran the tap and plugged the kettle in.

‘So,' he said, ‘what's happening? Where is he, then? And how come the bastard didn't have the guts to kill himself like we thought he had?' He shrugged, as though realizing he'd answered his own question.

‘I knew he wasn't dead,' Emily said slowly. ‘I just wanted to believe he was. Just really, really wanted to.'

Mac reached out and took her hand. Back then, when they had hunted Thomas Peel the first time, he had sat for hours, or it had seemed like hours, holding her hand, drinking tea, not knowing what to say or how to stop the tears, though the silence after the tears had been worse. She clasped his hand now and managed a brief smile, and he knew she was remembering that time too, and that, like him, she could no longer have told anyone who was comforting whom.

Emily had that kind of skin that was always milk pale, Mac thought. Mousy brown hair that was shot through with blonde in summer, and the darkest blue, almost violet, eyes. She wasn't conventionally pretty, though her oval face was delicately proportioned and her hair was surprisingly thick and soft. It was the eyes that stopped her from being plain, that captured the attention and held it long enough for the viewer to realize that she also had a lovely, sweet smile. He could fully understand the almost worshipful look that Calum cast in her direction, the slight jealousy with which he regarded Mac's hand on hers.

‘I don't have all the details,' he said. ‘But there's been a sighting, one that checked out. Someone saw him who knew him from before, a man called John Bennet?'

Emily nodded. ‘They worked together.'

‘He saw . . .' That problem with naming again, but this time the word Mac had trouble with was . . .

‘My father,' Emily said. ‘He saw my dad. It's all right, Mac. I can cope with you saying it. I can't change the fact I'm related to him.'

‘He saw him and followed him, watched when he went into a little boarding house, then called the police.'

‘Where?' Calum demanded.

‘He'd come back to Pinsent,' Mac said.

‘He'd come back? Why? How come no one else saw him?' Calum looked away. The kettle had boiled and he made tea. Coffee for himself. Mac noted that his hand was shaking.

‘Why go back to Pinsent?' Emily was astonished. ‘He'd know someone would be sure to see him. The boarding house. The police . . .'

‘Went there, but he'd gone. According to the landlady, he'd checked out earlier that day, just “popped back in”, she said, to see if he'd left his scarf.' He paused. ‘Mr Bennet was on his lunch break. He still works the same job as he did when your father knew him; still gets his lunch from the same corner shop . . .'

‘He wanted to be seen.' Emily nodded emphatically, as though that made perfect sense, which, given what Mac knew about her father, it probably did. The man was an exhibitionist, a walking ego. He loved to play games. ‘He knew when Mr Bennet would go for lunch and where he'd go. He showed himself.'

‘That's what we think,' Mac confirmed. ‘They put out an alert and got two more sightings for the same day, another the morning after. That was three days ago and there's been nothing since, but it's the best lead we've had in a long time and it's confirmation that he's still alive.'

‘Why is he doing this?' Calum shook his head. ‘I don't get it. The bloke was free and clear. Why come back?'

‘Money,' Mac said. ‘We know he was owed money. My colleagues think he's come to collect.'

‘Owed? By who?'

Mac took a deep breath. ‘Thomas Peel is a killer,' he said. ‘And we know Cara Evans wasn't the first child he abducted. What we also know is—'

‘That he got kids for men who . . . who like that sort of thing.' When it came to it, Emily couldn't say it either.

‘Paedophiles?' This was new to Calum. ‘Em, you never told me that, I mean . . .'

‘He never touched me if that's what you're worried about.' Her voice was harsh. ‘I never told you that part because it was all bad enough already. Because that bit of it didn't make it into the newspapers. Because it was just one more thing to chuck at you, to make you want to say . . .'

‘To say I love you,' Calum interrupted her. ‘Em, I'm still here, I ain't about to run away. I'm not living with your dad.'

Silence gathered itself in the tiny kitchen; silence that shouted at them that living with her father was precisely what they'd all been doing. Calum shook himself, handed mugs of tea to Mac and Emily. ‘So, what now?' he said. ‘All that other stuff, you kept it back from the media?'

Mac nodded. ‘We had names, no proof. We had one case of blackmail, knew there were more. Calum, it was all such a tangle, such a bloody mess, it was decided we would keep that side of things under wraps until something broke. Nothing did, not until now.'

‘He's contacted someone?'

Mac nodded. ‘I'm sorry, I can't tell you much, largely because I don't know much, but we had permission to monitor certain phones calls. He made a call to one of those men.'

Silence again. Nothing to say. Far more questions than could be fitted into that small space filled by a little wooden table, two school chairs and three bodies.

Calum finally broke the spell. ‘So, what now?' he asked again. ‘Do you think he'll come here?'

‘You think he knows where I am?' Emily had confronted that question already, but to hear Calum ask Mac thrust it at her with renewed intensity.

‘I think he might,' Calum said. ‘Look, Em, your dad is a lot of things, but we know he's clever and we know he likes everyone to know it.' He looked at Mac for confirmation. Mac, gaze fixed on Emily, just nodded.

Emily took a deep breath, released it slowly. ‘I'm not running,' she said at last. ‘If he comes here, Mac, then we can let you know. You can arrange for someone to watch out, can't you? Maybe even tap the phone?'

Mac frowned. This was not the response he had expected. He'd been all set to offer the option of a safe house until this was all over, but it seemed he was not the only one set on facing his demons.

‘We're sure,' Calum said, pulling his rather skinny body up to full height and squaring what, considering his frame, were surprisingly powerful shoulders. He would need them, Mac thought. Need all the breadth he could muster.

‘OK, then.' He took a business card from his pocket and wrote his mobile number on the back. ‘Any time, just call me. I'll arrange for a family liaison officer to get in touch today and they'll coordinate with me and the rest of the team.' He drained his mug and stood, feeling overlarge in the small space.

‘You'll ring me later?' Emily asked. It seemed that some stranger in family liaison would not be enough.

‘I'll ring you later,' Mac confirmed. Calum saw him to the door. ‘If you change your mind,' Mac said, ‘we can arrange for somewhere to stay.'

‘She's decided,' Calum said. ‘Take a team of horses to shift her now, and if Em's decided, then I have too. We can do this, Mac.' He shook Mac's hand, an oddly formal gesture. It was, thought Mac, as though Calum was sealing a deal, and it occurred to Mac that Calum expected him to keep his side of it.

FOUR

M
ac had not been back to the place he had once called home in eighteen months. He had spent most of his sick leave away, staying with friends and then, when the strain of their sympathy grew too much to bear, in a remote cottage loaned to him by a colleague. The cottage had been a legacy left by some distant relative. It had been up for sale, but there had been few potential takers. Some things are too remote even to appeal to the most enthusiastic of second-homers and the price bracket just too high for the locals. Mac had been caretaker, occasional viewings officer and increasingly morose guest, until both he and the owner had decided the property was too remote even for him. He'd sunk even deeper into despair: so deep that he was suspected of frightening off at least a couple of sets of possible buyers and his colleague became concerned that another set might turn up one day and find him drunk or dead.

That had been a low point in six months of low points, and he'd woken up one morning to find himself in a monastery of all places. He had no memory of having arrived or of the past six days, but apparently his new place of residence had been courtesy of Alec who had friends in some very unexpected places. He was, he was told, officially on spiritual retreat.

‘Retreat?' Mac had asked.

‘It's better than running away.'

Mac smiled, remembering Alec's comment. ‘Better than running away.'

Very true. Peace, quiet, someone to talk to or not to talk to . . . Mac had shifted tack, retreated rather than tried to run, and eventually returned to work. He had not, though, completely returned, not until now. Now, it seemed, he was running hard in the opposite direction and he had drawn others back with him. He was certain that Emily would have lacked the courage to make her own stand had anyone but Mac been the one to bring her the news, and he was as yet undecided if that was a good or a bad thing.

He made the final turn off the main road, second left at the roundabout and into Pinsent. This little seaside town, very much like his now beloved Frantham, with its promenade and rows of tall, Edwardian houses now converted to flats and B & Bs. Here, though, it was possible to drive along the road next to the promenade, unlike Frantham promenade which was now a paved pedestrian zone. In summer he'd have had to ease along slowly, avoiding the holidaymakers who determinedly ignored the crossings. Now, in the depths of winter, though the cars still moved with habitual slowness, the road was clear and dreary. He glanced out towards the sea, grey and cold-looking in the winter sun of the early afternoon. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard and noted that it was nearly two, that he was hungry, that he was not expected until the planned briefing at four. Not quite ready to run headlong after all, he pulled into a side road and walked back to a once familiar café facing the sea and ordered tea and bacon rolls, sat in the window and watched the world go by, thinking how much of it had gone by since he had last been here.

‘Well, hello, stranger!'

Mac's heart sank. He wasn't ready yet to face outsiders. His colleagues would be bad enough. He managed to compose his face into some semblance of welcome as the woman drew out a chair opposite and sat down, uninvited.