Found

by Erin Kinsley

  He’s free.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  18 August

  ‘How are you doing, Ron?’

  Naylor hands Ron Perdue his pint and, sitting down next to him, takes a sip of her orange-and-soda. The beer garden is all lawns and picnic tables, with an overhanging willow tree which almost manages to create a sense of country riverside. The only thing spoiling the illusion is the stink of diesel and the sound of heavy traffic from the road on the other side of the high wooden fence.

  Ron is looking good, in Italian-style twill shorts and a polo shirt, deck shoes on his feet.

  ‘I’m doing all right. Just wondering to what I owe this honour.’

  ‘You’re looking very brown. You been away?’

  ‘Only as far as the bottom of the garden. She’s got me re-landscaping. So much for retirement, eh?’ He raises his pint to her. ‘Cheers. Whereas you, I have to say, have all the unhealthy colour of a copper doing too much overtime. You need to get out more, and I mean that literally. Get more sunshine and vitamin D, or you’ll be getting rickets.’

  ‘I take my daily vitamins,’ says Naylor, defensively. ‘I don’t look that bad, do I?’

  She’s made all the effort she’s had time for: shower and shampoo, tracksuit bottoms, a vest top and canvas slip-ons. The other women in the beer garden are in summer cottons, pretty dresses and golden tans, real or fake. Most are wearing make-up, and Naylor wishes she’d spent ten minutes more getting ready, but that would have made her later than she already was, and Ron gets very snippy about people being late.

  Ron smiles.

  ‘You always look good, Naylor. But you look tired. Goes with the territory, I know.’

  ‘You’re just feeling smug, now you’re looking at a future of long lie-ins. Did June mind me borrowing you?’

  ‘As she says, that depends why you’re borrowing me. She says hello, by the way.’

  ‘Say hello back. And the reason I’m borrowing you is for a good cause.’

  Ron looks at her over the top of his glass.

  ‘Namely?’

  ‘Evan Ferrers.’

  ‘Ah. I did wonder.’

  A family group enters the garden, a young woman holding a thumb-sucking toddler by the hand, her partner with a protective hand on the tiny newborn strapped to his chest. The woman is glowing with something Naylor can’t name. The toddler is making a big thing of climbing on to a bench, and the partner is unstrapping the baby from his chest, cradling its head like it’s the most precious thing on earth.

  Ron follows her glance.

  ‘I see people like that and it just makes me realise how often we fail,’ says Naylor. ‘Fail to keep people safe, I mean.’

  ‘On the balance of probabilities, they’ll get through life just fine,’ says Ron. ‘You know the statistics.’

  ‘We all know the statistics. I don’t suppose they’d impress Claire Ferrers.’

  Ron shakes his head.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose they would. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘It’s what’s not going on. We were all ticking along, following – by and large – Uncle Ron’s golden rules for a successful investigation. No stone unturned. You taught us well. But we’ve been pulled off it for the second time. Stones have been left face down in the mud.’

  Ron sighs. The young woman is now cradling the baby, while the toddler’s becoming engrossed in a colouring book. The partner is walking purposefully into the pub, smiling in anticipation of a cold drink.

  ‘’Twas ever thus,’ says Ron. ‘Staff shortages have been a fact of policing since the year dot. I know you don’t rate Campbell, but don’t shoot the messenger. I don’t suppose it sits any easier with him than it does with you. If you want to complain about it, write to your MP.’

  ‘I was thinking of taking more effective steps than that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like drafting in a support team on the quiet.’

  Ron’s eyebrows lift.

  ‘Come on, Ron, it’s nothing major. Nothing illicit involved. Just the kind of enquiries anyone could make, if they’d a mind to. If they had the training to ask questions without getting anyone’s back up.’

  ‘I feel the need for a bag of crisps,’ says Ron, standing up. ‘You want one?’

  ‘Peanuts, please.’

  Ron returns and throws two bags of Walker’s on the table.

  ‘No peanuts,’ he says. ‘Cheese and onion or prawn cocktail.’

  Naylor grabs the prawn cocktail. Ron opens the cheese and onion.

  ‘The way I see it,’ he says, ‘is this. I don’t mind dabbling on the perimeters, looking at a few maps, applying my little grey cells from the comfort of my own sofa. But out there on the streets, that’s a different matter.’

  ‘OK, I get that,’ says Naylor, dipping into her crisps. ‘But I had a call from Claire Ferrers asking how we were getting on, and I felt so guilty. I didn’t have the guts to say we didn’t get a quick result – again – so we’ve moved on to something else, something where we might get to put a tick in the “solved” box. And it doesn’t feel right to me. Evan’s abduction was the most serious type of crime, and we’re letting it slide by. We might be coppers, Ron, but there has to be some leeway. Under current circumstances, we can’t play by every rule.’

  ‘I like rules,’ says Ron. ‘If more people lived by them, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

  ‘But we are in this mess. We’re in a mess where Evan Ferrers has been abducted and abused and would without question have been murdered but for a massive stroke of luck, and nobody’s even been interviewed for it, let alone convicted. What kind of message does that send out? If we don’t get you in the early stages, you’re golden, you’ve got away? That’s not policing, Ron, that’s anarchy.’

  Ron’s finished his crisps. He folds up the packet and sticks it between two slats of the table top.

  ‘If I thought anyone was doing what you’re suggesting on my watch, I’d have had them transferred out so fast their feet wouldn’t have touched the floor. And if Campbell finds out we’re having this conversation, he’ll go ballistic, and he’d have the right to do so. You’re undermining his authority. He’s told you to drop it, and he’ll take the public flak for that. It’s why he earns more than you do.’

  ‘He might take the flak, but he’s not taking the phone calls. He’s not the one Claire Ferrers’s ringing for updates that aren’t there.’

  Ron looks her in the eyes.

  ‘OK, hit me,’ he says. ‘What were you thinking?’

  ‘I was looking at one of the previous owners of the car Evan was found in, the Ford Focus. Sheila Birch. She hadn’t been the main driver of the vehicle. That was down to her husband, Brian. There was something there that gave me a feeling. You know how sometimes things just feel a bit off? It niggled me for days, and then it came to me. His story was, after the car was taken, he got a train back down south. Hartlepool into Euston, he said. And that didn’t sound quite right, so I had a look on Google, and sure enough trains from Hartlepool go mostly into King’s Cross. OK, that could’ve been misremembering or a slip of the tongue or maybe he took some obscure route, travelled via Blackpool or Leicester or Aberystwyth. It’s not a solid lead, I know, and it may be nothing, but I just think it’s worth a closer look, where exactly the car was taken from and what he was doing in Hartlepool. No stone unturned, right? This is a guy who doesn’t want a company car. Who on earth turns down a company car for an 09-plate Ford?’

  Ron frowns.

  ‘Who indeed? That’s an interesting one. So where are we talking about? Don’t tell me you’re wanting me to go all the way to County Durham?’

  Naylor shakes her head.

  ‘Not as far as that. This guy’s offices are in Chelmsford. I didn’t have time to visit while I was there but they might know someth
ing about his background. I’d really appreciate it, especially as there’s nothing in it for you. It’s not as if I can even offer you expenses.’

  ‘I’ve been to Chelmsford once or twice, but only to the prison. Haven’t they got some gardens there, a stately home?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘I drove past signs to it, and I thought June might like to visit. I’ll run it by her, and I’ll let you know. And if I’m considering doing you this massive, illicit favour, I think you should be buying me another pint.’

  Leaning on the sill of his bedroom window, Evan watches the Freelander drive slowly up the track, rocking as the tyres find the potholes. He’s been alone for several hours, but alone is what he prefers to be, though some company is becoming tolerable to him now. He’s OK with Grandma and Grandpa in their slow, bumbling ways, he can spend time with his dad, and his mum’s all right if she isn’t being over-attentively fussy. He remembers his mum before – pretty, super-efficient Mum when she was always so busy she barely had time for him, but that was then. He hasn’t seen that mum in a long time. Mum now is nervous, anxious and worried about him, even though she doesn’t say so. She’s always giving him things he hasn’t asked for – crisps, chocolate, cans of pop, new stuff to wear. Evan’s happy to eat the crisps and chocolate and drink the pop, but he doesn’t care what he wears. It’s luxury just to have clothes that are clean and his size and his own, the same way it’s luxury to be able to get clean, to have a bath or shower when he likes, with hot water and shower gel or Grandpa’s old-fashioned soap, and towels to dry himself with that smell of fresh air from the washing-line. When he was . . .

  He stops the thoughts of then, there, that place using a trick he’s invented to shut them down. Closing his eyes, he empties his head of everything but a staircase, a silver spiral fantasy of a staircase leading upwards, like one you might find in one of those computer games like Elvenar or World of Warcraft, a stairway between worlds. And in his mind he slowly climbs, counting the steps as he goes up, up, up towards blue sky where birds are flying, plump Disney cartoon bluebirds which smile and chirp as they fly around him, and land, in his mind, on his shoulders and his head. When he reaches the high top of the staircase there’s a stone platform surrounded by a wall overgrown with ivy, a sky-borne platform like the turret of a fairytale castle, and that’s where Evan stops and counts the birds. It’s like the way Mum used to tell him to count sheep when he couldn’t sleep, and he’d picture fluffy lambs jumping in a field. Now he counts bluebirds until the fear has diminished, and he feels it’s safe to open his eyes.

  He feels his bedroom here is like that imagined sanctuary, high up and isolated with a view of birds. Not so many birds, and they’re not bluebirds, but swallows, jackdaws, crows, sparrows, kites and kestrels. Grandpa’s been teaching him how to tell the difference between them all, even from far off, and Evan’s read A Kestrel for a Knave, about Billy Casper – a youth about his own age – who found and trained a bird of prey. If Evan could do that, nothing would make him happier. What a great thing it would be, to have a wild creature as a companion, to set the bird free and have it come back to you . . .

  The Freelander pulls up in front of the house. For a while nothing happens, and Evan can see Grandma and Grandpa sitting in the front seats, looking out, not speaking, watching swallows dip and loop over the rose garden. Then Grandpa reaches over, puts his arm round Grandma’s shoulder and kisses the top of her head, a gesture so affectionate Evan feels a lump rise in his throat.

  Grandpa gets out of the car and walks round it to open the door for Grandma. He holds out his hand to her as she gets out, and they walk slowly into the house arm in arm, Grandma making them stop to admire one of her rose bushes which is bowing under blush-pink blooms. Once they’re in the house, Evan can hear the sound of the kettle boiling and the rattle of teacups, familiar noises he finds comforting. In a few minutes he hears the stairs creak, footsteps on the landing and a light knock at his door.

  ‘Are you there, young man?’

  Grandpa’s voice.

  Evan leaves the window and crosses to the door, where he lifts away the chair under the handle. A part of him remains cautious, and he opens the door just a crack at first, keeping his foot against it in case of the unexpected or the unwelcome, needing to be sure it is Grandpa, and that Grandpa is alone.

  Jack’s there with Evan’s favourite mug – gold-rimmed with an airborne Spitfire – filled with sweet, milky tea, and on a flowered side-plate, a buttered cherry scone.

  ‘Permission to board, Captain,’ he says, and Evan smiles and gives a mock salute and steps back to let him pass, but he’s unable to resist looking up and down the landing to check for unwanted visitors. He closes the door against intruders who aren’t there.

  Jack puts the tea and scone down on the bedside table.

  ‘Your grandma thought you’d like a bit of something,’ he says, sitting down on the bed. ‘Just to put you on until tea-time. She’ll no doubt be thinking you might starve between now and then. Women, eh?’ He pats the bed beside him, encouraging Evan to sit, but Evan’s wary. Instead, he sits down on the chair at the door.

  A look crosses Jack’s face which Evan can’t quite read: weariness, sadness, despair. He glances at Evan, and musters a smile.

  ‘I’m tired, old lad,’ he says. ‘Nearly all day in that hospital, and a long drive there and back. It’s a good job you didn’t come with us. You’d have climbed the walls with boredom, all that waiting about. Anyway.’ The smile is gone. ‘There’s something I have to say to you, man to man, and I wish to God I didn’t have to say it, because God knows you’ve had enough to cope with in your short life without having any more troubles piled on you. But that’s life sometimes, my boy. Bad things come together.’ Evan’s expression is startled. ‘It’s about your grandma, Evan. You and I knew she wasn’t very well, didn’t we? We’ve known that for a while. But the truth is the doctor has told us today that she may not be with us very much longer. Grandma reckons she’ll be here for Christmas but odds are that won’t be the case. So what I want to say to you is this. You know you’ve been everyone’s priority, don’t you, your mum’s and your dad’s and mine and your grandma’s. Of course you have. You’re precious to us all, more precious than you’ll ever know. But just for a short while – not too short, though, I most sincerely hope – your grandma needs us, and I need you to be a help to me. If you can be fully responsible for some of the work here, then I can have more time to look after your grandma, give her the care she needs so she can be home as long as possible. She wants to be at home, of course. It’s a lot to ask of you, I know, after what you’ve been through, and never think you’re anything but top of my list. Do you understand me? Can we be a team, for your grandma’s sake? You’ll have to be out and about a bit more, and I know that sometimes makes you uncomfortable. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, but it’s a state of emergency, isn’t it? A real state of emergency.’

  Jack looks at Evan, and Evan sees desolation in his grandfather’s eyes. Silently he rises from his chair to sit down next to Jack, and takes the old man’s hand in his youthful own.

  As Grandpa says, it’s a state of emergency, and that changes the rules. He knows it’s time to speak, but when he opens his lips, it’s as if his throat has closed through lack of use, and he can’t put the words together.

  Instead, he squeezes his grandfather’s hand, and when Jack returns the pressure, he knows he’s understood that Evan’s answer is Yes.

  TWENTY-SIX

  21 August

  Ron’s left June at the RHS gardens at Hyde Hall with a promise to be back in time to meet up for lunch. He’s not anticipating problems: a short drive to Petersen’s, and a casual enquiry at reception as to whether his old mate Brian Birch might be around. Beyond that, the plan is less concrete, but he’s got the confidence born of years of experience to know he can carry it off. And there’s a maverick f
reedom in being outside the framework, not being bound by the rules: no warrant card, no traceability. Ron never did any undercover policing, but he’s worked with men and women who have, and they all say the same. You can get away with so much more if no one knows who you are. Anonymity rules. If he finds anything of interest, he’ll pass it on to Naylor, and she can get herself over here and ask the same questions on an official basis. Job done.

  As it turns out, the job is done much quicker than he expects.

  The satnav leads him on to an industrial estate, one of those places populated by small businesses you’ve never heard of, all doing essential, niche jobs not enough people need doing to ever make it big. Widget grinders and laundry services, motor factors and skip hire. And companies like Petersen’s, compressed air and hydraulics specialists. Not everybody’s everyday supplier.

  And it would seem it’s possible to be too niche.

  When the satnav shows the chequered flag to tell Ron he’s reached his destination, he stops the car. He’s in the heart of the estate, surrounded by low brick buildings with a few cars and vans on their forecourts and very little, apparently, going on. What should be Petersen’s building is between an electrical supplies place and a company specialising in tile adhesives, but there are no cars on its forecourt and no lights on inside.

  He parks right in front of the door and gets out of the car. There’s mesh on the windows, a collection of rubbish and blown leaves around the doorstep and a piece of wood over the letter box to stop the delivery of mail. The only sign Petersen’s were ever here is the nameplate by the door which no one’s bothered to take down, a stylised image of a wind turbine and a strap-line reading Pneumatic Technology Solutions.

  Ron looks around. At a road junction about a hundred metres away, there’s a breakfast and burger van. He walks over to it.

  Seeing Ron approach, the guy sitting behind the counter folds his copy of the Mirror and stands up, wiping his hands on his chef’s trousers.