Driving back from Brookside, DS Wilson couldn’t quite control the tremor in his voice when he said to DI Hammond, ‘What’s Strang wanting to interview Jason about?’
Hammond didn’t look at him. ‘Crossing “t”s and dotting “i”s, I expect. That would be par for the course.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Yes. But Strang doesn’t, which is the main thing. And we’ll keep it that way. Our enquiries are going to draw a blank – right?’
‘Right,’ Wilson echoed. ‘And the Trentham business?’
Hammond shrugged. ‘I’ll hand in the bag and the laptop, but nothing’s going to happen until all this blows through. You can check what’s come in while we’ve been away and I’ll check up with Traffic. And for God’s sake don’t start hyperventilating about Jason – everything’s under control. OK?’
‘Sure,’ Wilson said, as easily as he could. He didn’t believe it, though. He couldn’t see DCI Strang just being fobbed off, and worse, he didn’t think Hammond believed it either. He was whistling in the dark and there was a muscle jumping in his cheek. They were in serious trouble.
Tonight, when Wilson had the promised drink with Strang, he was going to have to pluck up courage and tell him the lot, if he wasn’t to go down as well.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DCI Strang had taken the precaution of working out a press statement before he phoned DCS Borthwick. An instructor at Tulliallan had told them once that if you had to present a superior officer with a problem, offering a solution – or anything that looked like a solution – at the same time would do wonders for your reputation. It was sound advice; JB was worried certainly, but she was definitely grateful to have something ready when the ‘Famous Author’s Daughter Missing’ headline hit.
‘We’ll have a bit of respite, anyway, with the present conditions,’ she said. ‘How is it with you? The city’s about at a standstill here and all the schools are closed. There’s trouble with the trains too.’
‘They seem a bit more robust about it down here, but I can hear the wind now and there’s so much lying that if it brews up a gale we’ll be immobilised. Even as it is, we can’t do the usual thing of checking the few neighbours Cassie Trentham has – that road will be completely blocked by now.’
Borthwick said, ‘I’m very concerned about the poor girl and I can’t begin to imagine what her mother must be feeling. No ransom demand so far?’
‘No. We’ve got a tap on their line and I’ve instructed that it’s to come direct to me if there’s any development. I have the clear impression they don’t expect one and would be relieved if one came. They seem to believe quite genuinely that Anna’s son was murdered and Cassie only escaped death by accident, but they still won’t come clean about whatever it is that’s haunting them.
‘We have to assume that she’s in mortal danger. I loathe feeling helpless while some evil bastard plays games, but there’s little more we can do at the moment.’ He gave a heavy sigh. ‘Maybe Anna and her rather sinister friend will see it differently if there’s still no news by tonight.’
‘Keep me posted,’ she said and rang off.
Strang sat back in his chair. He had been racking his brains, but they were stuck unless Murray came in with useful information about Sansom. He had to admit she was earning her keep in this operation when they were having to investigate while keeping the local force at arm’s length, and her judgement was improving too, provided she didn’t get seduced by a theory and go hurtling off at a tangent.
He emailed the press statement through to the desk and gave instructions that this was the only information to be given to the press and that no calls from them were to be put through to him. He buzzed Hammond to chase him up about Jason Jackson’s address but had no joy there.
Could Jackson’s disappearance be significant? On the face of it, this could be a simple precaution – go to earth, in Glasgow, probably, and keep out of the way until whatever fuss there was had died down and then the old, sordid business could creep back again, as it always did. On the other hand—
There was a tap on the door and Murray put her head round it. ‘Are you busy?’
‘Sadly, no. Come in. How did you get on with Sansom?’
She sat down opposite him. ‘Not at all. He’s missing too.’
She had loaded the remark with heavy significance and his eyebrows rose. ‘Missing missing, or just not there missing?’
‘Oh, we don’t know yet, of course. He left sometime yesterday and told the hotel he’d be away last night but planned to be back again today. But it’s funny it was just when Cassie disappeared, right? And if this is all about dirt on Anna, he’d be quite likely to know, wouldn’t he? That was Sascha Silverton’s take on it. And there’s so much money, he could get the kind of payoff that would let him vanish to the Caribbean for the rest of his life.’
Strang recognised the signs of a pet theory. ‘Don’t you think there would have been a ransom demand, if that was what it was all about?’ he said gently. ‘And I doubt if famous authors make a habit of disclosing their most sensitive secrets to their PR man.’
Murray turned crimson. ‘You think I’m running away with it, don’t you?’
‘Well, yes. Admittedly, when we have so little to go on and we’re being pinned down and useless, it’s tempting to try to reason back from the farther end. But all we can say with any certainty right now is that the person who came to the door wasn’t a stranger. Cassie was aware she was in danger and she wouldn’t have let in someone she didn’t know. All right, she’s lived in Halliburgh all her life and she knows lots of people, but at the moment, on the basis of what her mother believes, we’re narrowing the field to those who have a direct connection to the Harper Brand, as they call it.
‘But that’s about it. Not much. Still, what we can do is focus more on the county lines problem – that’s rather got eclipsed today. I’m hoping that stressing that I want to talk to Jackson will have heaped a bit more pressure on Wilson. I have to say I’m counting on a confessional session with him tonight.’
Murray looked out of the window. ‘It’s almost dark already,’ she said, ‘but I think the snow’s more or less stopped.’
Strang turned to look. ‘That’s something. But listen to the wind.’ There was a sudden gust even as he spoke and a flurry of fallen snow puffed up. ‘That’ll mean trouble. I wonder how Traffic’s managing.’
‘Rather them than me,’ she was saying when her phone rang. She took it out and looked at the number. ‘Not recognised.’
‘Take it, anyway.’
He listened as she said, ‘Thanks for getting back to me,’ then mouthed ‘Sansom’ to him.
It was a brief call. ‘Well?’ he said.
‘He’s still away. He called the hotel and they gave him my number. He says he’s been over in Dundee seeing a buyer, but he was phoning to say he couldn’t get back because of the weather. So he’s still away.’
Strang looked at her provocatively. ‘And what does that tell us?’
Murray gave him a demure smile. ‘Nothing. We have to keep an open mind. As yet.’
Anna Harper was pretending to be asleep. After an hour of tears and regrets, once she had managed to assure Marta that whatever happened they were standing together – at least she hoped she had – there was nothing more to say and anyway she felt more comfortable with her swollen eyes shut.
Marta was slumped in the chair opposite, her hand under her cheek as she lay against a cushion. Risking a glance at her under her lashes, Anna reckoned she really was sleeping. Breaking so many years of silence had unleashed an emotional storm that had totally drained them both.
Not that Marta regretted what she had done; far from it. They’d been in daily contact all those years and she’d believed that they had shared the same views on most things; it was only now she realised that those views had been hers, not Marta’s. A gulf had opened between them and she had to sort out her thinking. Marta was still her cherished fr
iend. She owed her and she needed her too. If something happened to Cassie—the tears welled up again and she had to stifle a sob in case it woke Marta.
She couldn’t blame her for being what she was born to be. In the grand scheme of morality her own sin was the greater. She had made a bad choice because of the gift that drove her – and sometimes she felt that she had never had a choice at all. On the odd occasion when she had reread one of her books, she found herself saying, ‘Did I really write that?’ But she hadn’t regretted what she had done, either – not until now. Now her guilt was like a hard stone lodged in her chest.
She’d never been the maternal sort; she had found her children disorderly, individualistic, not easily directed in the way her other creations were, and she was eternally grateful to Marta for having made up for her deficiencies in that area.
Only she hadn’t, had she? No one could. Anna’s children had suffered from the lack of their mother; she had lost her son and now she might lose her daughter too.
What was he doing to Cassie, right now? Behind her closed eyelids terrible pictures flashed one after the other – Cassie pleading, hurt, raped even – or dead? She was going to be sick. Abandoning pretence, she leapt up and ran out of the room.
Marta, exhausted, slept on.
PC Kate Graham came into the main CID room, where DS Wilson was scowling over the big Ordnance Survey map fixed to the wall. At his side PS Johnston was pointing to one of the trunk roads.
‘They’ve got a major problem there. Looks as if they’re going to have to set up barriers across the blockage to stop the mental giants with a Discovery who think they can bulldoze through from getting stuck and then expect us to bail them out. It’s blowing a gale out there now.’
‘Total nightmare,’ Wilson said heavily. ‘OK, tell them to go ahead. Don’t see what else they can do.’ Johnston nodded and set off and then he noticed Graham. ‘Want something, Kate?’ He sounded irritable.
‘I was really looking for DI Hammond,’ she said. ‘Do you know where he is? I got a call from one of the crews asking if they still need to keep the B6453 open.’
‘The B6453? I shouldn’t think so. We need every crew we’ve got on the major roads and that’s a losing battle. We’ve got a dozen braindead members of the public trapped in their cars on the outskirts of the town – Steve’s out there dealing with them now before they all start phoning their MPs.’
‘So I’ll tell them that, shall I?’
‘Yeah, that’s fine.’
‘So where should they go instead?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, how should I know?’ he snapped.
Graham stood her ground. ‘Sorry, sir. But I don’t know who’s in charge of this when DI Hammond’s out, and the crews are waiting to be told.’
Wilson groaned. ‘Oh, right, right, I suppose they are. It’s just I’ve got far too much on my plate.’
He was losing it − twitching, even. They were treating this as a major emergency; the phone lines were jammed with frantic calls and admittedly this storm was a serious weather event, but even so, they were used to snow disruption in these parts and it surely wasn’t enough reason for Wilson to go to pieces. It wouldn’t help anything.
‘Shall I ask them where they think they should go?’ she suggested gently. ‘They know the situation on the ground, after all.’
He jumped at the suggestion. ‘Good idea. Just get them off my back. I’m going to be stuck here all night unless the ploughs abandon the struggle. Sooner the better.’
Just as Graham was leaving, the door opened and DCI Strang came in. He smiled at Kate and said to Wilson, ‘How’s it going? You don’t look too happy.’
The man’s face was so pale it was almost grey. ‘It’s chaos out there – chaos! They’ve never seen anything like it. The forecast’s getting worse by the minute.’
‘Anything I can do?’ Strang offered.
‘Thanks, but not really, sir.’ He had a prominent Adam’s apple; Graham noticed it bounce up and down as he gave a gulp and went on, ‘About that drink, sir—’
Strang laughed. ‘Not to worry. I guess you’ll be pretty tied up here.’
‘Yes, but I really wanted a chat with you, sir.’ Was that a tone of desperation in his voice, Graham wondered? It was intriguing – but she really had no business still to be listening.
She was going to slip away just as Wilson’s phone rang. With a muttered apology he listened, then said, ‘I’ll be right there.’ He turned to Strang. ‘Sorry, sir – I’m needed downstairs. Can we make it tomorrow?’
‘Sure,’ Strang said easily. As the door shut, he said to Graham, ‘Well, what did you make of that, Kate?’
She pulled a face. ‘There was a snowplough being diverted to clear one of the minor roads instead of trying to keep the main road clear and he didn’t know what to do. He’s completely losing it. But it sounds as if you’re being cast in the role of Father Confessor.’
‘That’s what I’m hoping. He’s giving all the signs. It’s just painfully frustrating that there’s so little we can do right at the moment. Well, I suppose I might as well go back to the pub. Are you having to stay on duty?’
‘No. I’m off more or less now. Livvy’s gone back to my house already.’ She hesitated. ‘By the way, she told me where you were staying – it’s awful, that place! If you’d like to come to us for supper instead, I’ve got plenty for four. Plenty for several days, to be honest – I’m well used to stocking up in winter.’
Strang laughed. ‘Let’s hope it won’t come to that! But that’s very kind, if you’re sure. Your cooking got a terrific write-up from Livvy.’
She went pink. ‘Oh dear – now you’ll have raised expectations. Just very old-fashioned stuff – my father hasn’t really caught up with the vegan revolution.’
‘Sensible man. I’ll go back to fetch my coat and then maybe you could sherpa me across. It’s looking like a white-out now.’
DC Livvy Murray was installed already in front of the fire in the Grahams’ sitting room with a glass of whisky in her hand. Even traversing the relatively short distance from the police station had proved something of an ordeal. Unlike the delicate flakes that she had muttered about before, what was viciously stinging her face now had fallen earlier and was being whipped up by a merciless and rising wind. The gritting that had been done was now no more than a blurred stain of salt and sand and no one was about to tread the snow to slush on the pavements. It was piling high against walls and into doorways and turning the cars into snowy mounds.
When she reached the Grahams’ house she could see that someone – Hugh’s carer, perhaps? – had made an earlier attempt at clearing a path but it was filling in again already. In the vestibule she took off her shoes, thickened into wedgies with impacted snow, and looked mournfully at the saltwater stains on her ankle boots from the gritting mixture. They’d been an investment, she had told herself at the time, but it was a market where the bottom had fallen out. The uppers weren’t looking good, either.
Hugh Graham had been pleased to see her. ‘Come on in, Livvy! Pull the chair right up to the fire – you look absolutely perished. What you need is a drink – you know where to get it.’
‘You’re not fooling me, Hugh – that’s just an excuse. You’re only pleased to see me because it’s a good half-hour before the usual time. I’m sure Kate would say we should wait till she gets back.’
‘Ah, but as Kate’s father, I can overrule her. You look to me like a woman badly in need of a medicinal Scotch. What’s it like out there?’
Livvy shook her head at him as she went to oblige. ‘You’re a bad influence! It is mind-blowing, though – like one of these wildlife films about the Antarctic. You’d think there could maybe be a polar bear behind one of the parked cars that look like icebergs.’
She gave him a report on the situation round about, then said, ‘Now, I’ve got instructions for you from Kate. She’s going to see if Kelso Strang would like to come over for supper. He’s staying at Th
e Sun – apparently it’s pants—’
‘Indeed it is. Poor man, poor man!’ Hugh was looking delighted. ‘Of course she should bring him, an old friend like that. Maybe he’d prefer to stay here – we’ve another bedroom …’
Livvy gave him a warning look. ‘Now that’s exactly what Kate’s afraid of. If he comes, it’s no big deal, right? He’s a senior colleague, that’s all.’
‘Of course, of course, but they were really good pals, and with him being a widower now …’
‘Are you really that desperate to get rid of your daughter?’ she said teasingly. ‘Kate’s not on the hunt for a man, you know.’
To her horror, Hugh’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, I’m not saying she is. It’s just she doesn’t get to meet folk down here and she’s getting older. She gave up what would have been a good career to look after her mum and then when she might have had a chance to move on I became an old crock and she won’t leave me, even though I’ve told her she should.’
Livvy was dismayed. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry I joked about it. But to be honest, I don’t reckon she minds. This is her home, she’s got friends here and you’re very good company. We all make our own decisions, and this is hers – you have to respect that.’
‘It’s the guilt, that she’s given up her life for her mother and me. If she could just find the right guy …’
Livvy shook her head at him. ‘All I can do is repeat what Kate told me to tell you – that if you say anything to Kelso that makes her feel embarrassed, it’ll be a very long time before you see another apple crumble.’
At least that made him smile. ‘She’s bringing out the big guns, is she? I tell you what, I’ll be thoroughly rude to the bloke, shall I?’
‘Don’t think you could be, actually. You’d find yourself slipping into being nice after three minutes. Oh, I think I hear someone now.’ She got up to look out of the window. ‘Yes, that’s them both. I’ll go and open the door.’
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