She barked out a laugh. ‘No chance.’
‘That’s a shame,’ he said. ‘Really, it is.’
‘Actually, I did go out for a drink with someone.’ She smiled, seeing his eyebrows rise. ‘Spent hours getting dolled up in a brand new outfit, then got to the restaurant and spent an hour and a half jabbering about Josh. Poor man couldn’t get out of there quickly enough.’
‘Well, he’s an idiot.’
Maria was embarrassed and a little annoyed with herself when she felt blood moving to her cheeks. ‘Listen, you fancy staying for an early dinner?’ She moved those errant strands of hair again. ‘Wouldn’t take me long to knock something up.’
It seemed as though he was considering the offer, but finally he said, ‘I think I’ll head back once I’ve seen Josh. The drive’s always a pig on a Sunday.’
They sat in silence for a minute or more. Ashton glanced towards the ceiling, but all was quiet above him. ‘Do you think that spending so much time with you is possibly making him over-sensitive? You know . . . a bit soft?’
‘Sensitive is not soft,’ Maria said.
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Try telling the parents of that girl he bit that he’s soft.’
Ashton nodded, taking the point. ‘Sorry, this is all just a little . . .’ He shook his head. ‘You will call me as soon as there’s any news?’
‘Course I will.’
‘Or if you change your mind about letting me take Josh for a while.’ He flashed what he’d always thought of as a winning smile and said, ‘Oh, and tell Cat I’m thinking about her.’
Maria grunted. ‘Right now, I don’t think she wants to talk to me.’
‘She thinks it was your fault?’ He looked horrified. ‘That’s so unfair.’
‘She’s lost her child, Jeff,’ Maria said. ‘I mean maybe lost him for good. That must have crossed her mind by now.’
‘Even so.’
‘Like you said, what if it had been Josh? How would you be feeling?’
Ashton lowered his head slowly, and when he raised it again just a few seconds later there were tears in his eyes.
Maria smiled. ‘Right, and I’m the one who’s making Joshy soft.’
THIRTEEN
When Thorne stepped into the lift, there was a smell he could not remember from the night before. He looked around but couldn’t see any evidence of what he presumed to be the cause. A young man shouted and ran across the lobby to join him just before the doors closed. He screwed up his face and shook his head in disgust.
‘Bloody kids.’ The man had an accent; Polish, Thorne guessed, though he couldn’t be sure. ‘Dirty bastards.’
Thorne asked which floor the man wanted and pressed the button for him.
He found it hard to believe that anyone who lived here would piss in their own lift, but he was equally bemused at the idea that someone who didn’t might be desperate enough to pop in off the street to . . . use the facilities.
‘Filthy,’ his companion said.
Thorne had given up wondering why people did certain things a long time ago, but in the minute or so it took him to reach the sixth floor he couldn’t help but speculate.
Were the lift-pissers marking their territory? Homeless people getting out of the cold and doing it in their sleep? Perhaps it was a natural reaction for those with a pronounced fear of confined spaces. By the time the doors opened and he could breathe through his nose again, Thorne was leaning towards the conclusion that people did it just because they could.
He had put away a good few murderers with motives no more complex than that.
Catrin Coyne opened the door and said, ‘Oh.’
Seeing the colour drain from her face, Thorne reached quickly into his bag for the photograph he’d placed in a stiff-backed envelope, to let her know as quickly as he could exactly why he was there. ‘I thought you’d want this back as soon as possible.’ She stepped back and turned, and he followed her inside. ‘It’ll be in the papers tomorrow.’
Walking into her living room, Cat said that she was grateful to have the photograph back, that it was good of Thorne to bring it round. She took it from the envelope and placed it on the narrow mantelpiece above the electric fire. She stood looking at it, her back to Thorne, and he couldn’t hear what she was saying.
‘Sorry?’
She turned, tearful. ‘Any news?’
‘We’re following up a few leads,’ he said.
Thorne had spent the afternoon at the office. He’d typed up a report on his interview with Felix Barratt, while others reported back from their trip to HMP Whitehill. Billy Coyne, they said, was ‘predictably upset’ and though they would talk to anyone who’d been in to see him over the previous few months, nobody on his approved visitors list had rung any alarm bells. The officer who had tracked down Coyne’s attempted murder victim announced that they could rule him out. The man had been in Leeds, where he now lived, at the time Kieron had gone missing, though they would, of course, be paying a visit to all his close friends and relatives.
There was plenty to do.
Everyone was busy.
In Thorne’s case, this had meant a fruitless hour on the phone trying to talk to someone, anyone, from local bird-watching groups or ornithological associations. Nobody had been available on a Sunday, so he had left several messages. He’d told Boyle what he was doing, how he’d felt after the conversation with Barratt that it would be worth checking out.
The DCI had been predictably dismissive.
‘Got a funny feeling about him, did you?’
Thorne had said nothing, just sat and imagined kicking a few more of the Scotsman’s teeth out.
Cat sat down and stared up at him. ‘What sort of leads?’
‘People have been calling in. Hopefully there’ll be a lot more when the papers come out in the morning.’
‘Calling in to say what?’
‘Possible sightings,’ Thorne said. ‘We’re looking into every one of them and if there’s anything positive we’ll let you know. I promise we won’t keep you in the dark.’
She nodded, then kept on nodding. She muttered, ‘In the dark,’ then looked at him. ‘He’s still scared of it, you know? Wherever he is, I just hope there’s some light.’
Even if he had not seen the half-dozen empty Harp cans on the table, Thorne would not have needed to stretch himself professionally to work out that Catrin had been drinking. He’d smelled it on her when he’d walked in and he could hear it in her voice. It was not so much the words – nothing slurred or stumbled over – but the spaces between them; uneven, out of kilter. He could tell she was a little drunk because he saw how hard she was trying to appear sober. He remembered reading somewhere that it was a trick actors used.
He nodded towards the empties, scattered around a saucerful of cigarette butts. ‘You’ve had some company then, anyway?’
Cat managed a smile. ‘Billy’s sister was over.’ She reached to stand up two cans that were lying on their sides. ‘I mean I like a drink, but even I couldn’t do that lot on my own.’
‘It’s good to have family around,’ Thorne said.
‘You want one?’ Cat stood and gathered up the empty cans, stepped towards the door. ‘I’m going to, so . . .’
Thorne didn’t take too long to say yes. He was heading home after this, anyway. ‘Keep you company,’ he said.
Half a minute later, she was back with a couple of the cans Angela had left in her fridge. They opened them, touched them together as though they had something to celebrate, or perhaps in the hope that they soon would.
‘What about your mum and dad?’ Thorne asked.
‘Dad left when I was sixteen,’ she said. ‘No idea where he is. Mum died a few years back, not long after Kieron was born.’
‘Sorry,’ Thorne said.
She shrugged, the pain of it negligible suddenly. ‘You?’
‘Yeah, mine are still around. I should really go and see them, actually, but . . .’
‘You’re a bit
busy right now. Sorry about that.’
‘Don’t be daft.’ Thorne took a decent drink and then another. ‘Have you spoken to Mrs Ashton?’
Cat took a drink of her own. ‘Well, she called, but it wasn’t great. I wasn’t exactly friendly.’
‘It’s natural to look for someone to blame,’ Thorne said. ‘Doesn’t really do any good in the long run, though.’
They both stared at their drinks for a few moments.
‘You do a bit of social work on the side, do you? Samaritans, something like that?’
He laughed. ‘I can’t even sort my own life out.’
‘Yeah?’ Cat watched him drink, took another swig of her own.
Thorne wondered if hearing about someone else’s problems might take Catrin Coyne’s mind off her own. He quickly thought better of it. Jan, the house, the shit he was still getting from certain people at work ten years on from what had happened with Frank Calvert.
All of it so unimportant.
‘You reckon someone’s got him?’ she asked. ‘Keeping him?’
‘I really don’t know,’ he said.
‘It’s fine to tell me, if that’s what you think.’ She waited. ‘If someone’s got him, it means he’s still alive, right?’
Thorne knew that the vast majority of those who abducted children killed them relatively quickly – within a day or two, usually. He did not want to go down that road, and certainly not the one that was darker still and led to those who kept children alive for reasons nobody would want to think about for too long.
‘Truth is, I don’t know what to think.’ She turned her head towards the window and talked quietly to the blackness beyond it. ‘Either he’s already gone . . . or he’s out there somewhere, scared to death in the dark, shouting out for me. One minute I’m thinking one thing, then I jump the other way and it doesn’t really matter, because both of them are like a knife in me. You know?’
Thorne nodded and finished what little beer was left in the can. He held it up when she turned back to him. He said, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got another one of these.’
FOURTEEN
He might have been six floors up and more than a few beers to the good, but Thorne had decided to do his olfactory system a favour and take the stairs. He was on his way to the scarred metal door next to the lift when he clocked that he was being watched. Peered at. He could not see much more than a man’s pinched, pale face – a long nose with oversized nostrils and fat lips which were moving quickly and silently – staring at him around the front door that was one along from Catrin Coyne’s.
‘Can I help you?’
Thorne saw panic flash across the man’s face a second before the door was closed. He walked across and knocked. Waited, then knocked again.
‘Hello?’ The occupant, who was clearly standing on the other side of the door, was softly spoken and sounded a little nervous.
Thorne leaned close and lowered his own voice. ‘Can you open the door, please? I’m a police officer.’
A few moments later the man behind the door opened it, but no further than it had been when Thorne had first become aware of him. Once again, he peered out; at Thorne, then – craning his neck a little – at the empty space around and behind him. Thorne held up his warrant card, which very swiftly seized and held the man’s attention.
‘Is everything all right, sir?’
The man nodded, his lips moving rapidly again, though it took a few moments before they produced any words. ‘What’s going on?’ The voice was flat and accentless, barely above a whisper. Long fingers bristling with rings snaked around the door and he pointed in the direction of the flat from which Thorne had just emerged. ‘With Catrin. I saw all the police here last night, that’s all. I saw the comings and goings.’ The hand moved back and he began scratching at his neck.
‘Do you know Ms Coyne?’
He looked surprised, almost offended. ‘Well, of course I know her. Is she all right?’ He stared at Thorne, pupils like pinpricks. ‘Is Kieron all right?’
Thorne moved back a few paces and curled a finger. ‘Would you mind stepping out for a few moments?’
The man blinked slowly and retreated a little. He said, ‘Well, it’s very late.’
‘Please.’
The low mutterings before the door was fully opened and the man stepped out were indecipherable, but there was no mistaking the smell – sharp, vinegarish – that followed him. A lot less unpleasant but every bit as distinctive as the one left behind in the lift. Thorne remembered what Catrin had said to him the night before. Her concerns about upsetting certain neighbours.
Thorne took out his notebook. ‘Can I ask your name?’
‘Yes, you can.’
Thorne waited. ‘I am asking.’
‘Grantleigh.’
‘Well, Mr Grantleigh . . .’ Thorne stopped, seeing the man smile. He smiled back. ‘Something funny, sir?’
‘Grantleigh is my first name. I didn’t know we were being formal.’
‘So . . . ?’
‘Figgis. My name is Grantleigh Figgis.’ He turned slightly and nodded back at his front door. ‘I’m presuming you don’t need to ask my address.’
He was very tall and extremely thin, the bones in his wrists and at the top of his shoulders as pronounced as the sunken eyes and the hollows in his cheeks. He wore a tight, sleeveless pullover, somewhat incongruous above a pair of grubby grey tracksuit bottoms and the kind of furry slippers more usually associated with old ladies. Thorne looked at him – the mop of greasy blond hair, those dry lips smacking together again – and a description he’d once heard his father use about someone the old man had worked with popped into his head.
A proper funny strip of piss.
‘How well do you know Catrin?’
Figgis cocked his head and thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his tracksuit bottoms. ‘We’re not intimate or anything.’
Thorne was always interested when people answered questions he had not asked them. He waited.
‘We’re neighbours, so . . . you know.’ The hands came out of the pockets and were waved about a good deal as he spoke. ‘A cup of sugar here, a spare loo roll there. I might lend her my lawnmower once in a while.’ He smiled, showing just how bad his teeth were. ‘Mostly, we just bitch about some of the other residents, to be honest.’
‘What about Kieron?’
Figgis looked at him, very still suddenly. ‘What about him?’
‘You see much of him?’
‘Yes, obviously, because he’s always with his mum and I see quite a lot of her.’
‘So, Kieron’s always with his mum, is he? When you see him?’
‘Yes, of course, but it’s not like he’s ever in the way or anything. Kieron’s a lovely boy. Very polite.’ He began scratching at his neck again. ‘You still haven’t said what this is about.’
‘No.’ Thorne tucked his notebook away. ‘I haven’t.’
‘Has something bad happened?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t go into details, but it might be best if you could give Catrin a little . . . space for the time being. That OK? Maybe get your cup of sugar somewhere else.’
‘Absolutely,’ Figgis said.
‘I’d appreciate that.’
‘Whatever you think.’
‘And thank you for being so helpful.’
‘Well, if you say so . . . you’re welcome.’
Thorne walked across to the lift, then remembered and veered away towards the stairs. When he turned, just before heading down, he could see that Catrin Coyne’s neighbour had moved fast and was already safely back behind his front door again.
Still watching.
Thorne was on his way back to the car when he spotted the phone box on the other side of the road. He waited for a gap in the traffic, reached into a pocket for his phonecard, then jogged across.
It couldn’t hurt, could it?
Stupid, because he knew that it could, that it had.
Five minutes before,
halfway up that tower block, chatting to an amiable, if unusual, individual whom Thorne had no reasonable excuse to suspect of anything, it had been a feeling he had recognised; unwelcome, insistent. A nagging pain that was all too familiar. Impossible to ignore however much he might want to, yet equally hard to describe in a way that anyone would understand.
Only the dreams made any sense of it.
No, not a pain. Not to begin with, anyway.
Stepping into the phone box, Thorne felt something close to real agony and told himself he was an idiot for not using Catrin Coyne’s toilet when he’d had the chance. He was suddenly bursting. He slammed in the phonecard and dialled, gritting his teeth.
‘Come on. Jesus . . .’
He knew that, when caught as short as he currently was, there were those who would make use of the nearest phone box, if there wasn’t a lift available, but he was not quite that desperate. Yet.
Ajay Roth answered, full of it.
‘Just talking about you,’ he said. ‘One of your twitchers rang back.’
‘What?’
‘People who look at birds. Anyway, he reckons there’s over a hundred different species in Alexandra Park. Including dunnocks and mealy redpolls, whatever the hell they are . . .’
Thorne resisted the temptation to tell him that they were almost certainly birds and said, ‘Listen, Ajay, I need you to run a name through the PNC for me. Have you got a pen?’
‘Yeah, somewhere . . .’
‘Grantleigh Figgis.’
‘Bloody hell. Where did you dig him up?’
‘He lives next door to Catrin Coyne.’ Thorne spelled the name out. ‘You got that?’
‘OK, might take me a few minutes. Can I call you back?’
Thorne wondered if he had enough time to nip out and find somewhere to piss, then decided against it. It wouldn’t take very long, however bad Roth was with computers, and Thorne did not want to miss his call.
He moved gingerly from foot to foot and tried not to think about it.
A couple came and stood close to the phone box. The woman looked at her watch and stared in at him. Thorne found a small area of the window that was not obscured by ads for local prostitutes and pressed his warrant card against the glass until the couple wandered away, swearing.
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