‘The proceeds of two robberies,’ Alec told him. ‘From back in the early eighties.’
Fine raised an eyebrow. ‘And the connection with your uncle would be?’
‘We suspect Rupert might have been driving the getaway vehicle,’ Alec said.
Fine raised an eyebrow. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘You’ve got my attention. Tell me more.’
Quickly, but as concisely as possible, Alec filled in the details of the crimes and the part he suspected his uncle might have played.
‘You’re serious?’ Fine said at last. ‘You really think this Billy Pierce may have it right and your uncle was involved?’
Alec nodded reluctantly. ‘It fits the known facts,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I’d love to be proved wrong but in the absence of something disproving his involvement … Rupert was a clever man but he wasn’t always a wise one and I suspect ex-DI Pierce was right.’
‘Sam Spade,’ Fine laughed harshly. ‘I like that. But Alec, have you thought this through? Two men died. One an innocent bystander. Do you really think your uncle could have lived with that? Could he have just carried on as normal all these years? I didn’t know him, but the impression I’ve gained from those that did was that he was a good man. An honest one.’
‘That’s the one thing that causes us to doubt,’ Naomi agreed, ‘but, as Alec says, we have to work with what we’ve found out.’
‘But you’re only hypothesizing about the so-called code you’ve found in the journals. It might be completely unrelated.’
‘Of course it might,’ Alec agreed. ‘It might even be something Rupert used to throw Kinnear off the trail, but it seems to me that Kinnear believed that Rupe still had the money and from the look of the ledger Harry’s been working on, Rupert was drawing money back through the antiques business, effectively laundering it for Kinnear. There are purchases mentioned that he’s paid one price for and declared another. Items sold for a different rate according to which records you examine. Money diverted. Though we don’t yet know where. And when we compared this to the stuff his solicitor gave me, details to do with the house and his business and his ordinary accounts, you can’t but help see the difference.’
‘You’re pretty sure that the house and business are clean then. I mean, apart from his recent activities.’
‘Pretty sure, yes. It would need a forensic accountant to go back through the books.’
‘Well, I hope you’ve got deep pockets,’ Fine said. ‘They don’t come cheap.’
‘I was wondering, ‘Alec said. ‘If this became an official investigation …’
Fine threw up his hands in a gesture somewhere between horror and denial. ‘Alec, you’ve got to be joshing with me. There’s not enough evidence to warrant those kinds of resources. Bring me Kinnear, bring me a direct link to your uncle and something might be done, but as it is, no hope.’
Alec nodded. He hadn’t been expecting anything else but he thought he ought to ask. ‘But, the publicity,’ he said, ‘you can handle that?’
‘That I can do,’ Fine agreed. ‘We’ll get the local media involved and Kinnear’s picture out there with a statement to the effect that he’s wanted for the attack on you and an attempted break-in at the house of a recently deceased minor celebrity.’
‘Minor celebrity?’ Alec laughed. ‘Rupe would have enjoyed that.’
‘Well, he almost was,’ Fine said. ‘We’ll just give it a little spin. It shouldn’t be difficult, not with the local writer angle and the circumstances in which he was found. It might take a day or so to build, but I reckon we can get his picture and a brief statement in tomorrow’s papers. That would be a start.’
‘Good,’ Alec told him. ‘Then the next move will be up to Kinnear.’
‘There’s something else,’ Naomi said. ‘Probably unrelated, but Patrick’s befriended a young lad by the name of Danny Fielding.’
‘At the farm back of Fallowfields,’ Alec elucidated.
‘His mother went missing about the time of Rupert’s death. Danny is convinced it wasn’t as simple as her just leaving home. She’s not been in touch and no one seems to have seen her.’
‘And you want me to see if there’s any previous?’
‘Please,’ Naomi said. ‘It occurred to me there might be a history. I wondered if you could check out the local women’s refuges.’
‘I could get that done,’ Fine said, though he sounded a little wary. ‘You realize, though, that I couldn’t tell you anything. If she’s there it’s because she’s in need of protection. It’d be up to her if she wanted to make contact with her son.’
Naomi nodded. ‘I think it would be something for Danny to know that she was still alive,’ she said. ‘He’s convinced she would have been in touch if she’d been able.’
‘So, won’t knowing that she hasn’t been be harder still on the lad?’
‘I don’t know,’ Naomi told him. ‘But we promised to try and find out.’
Fine considered for a moment then pushed his chair out from behind the desk. ‘Give me a minute,’ he said.
It was in fact almost ten before he came back. He dropped a folder on the table. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You know I can’t go into detail, but you were right. There is history. A half dozen calls in the past three years. Nothing before,’ he sighed. ‘It’s become more common round here of late to be called to domestics. Pressures on farmers have never been greater and tempers boil over. From my reading of the reports though, this was a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other. Sharon Fielding has a temper and so does her old man. She walloped him with a cast iron pan last year. Lucky not to crack his skull. Neither of them have ever pressed charges.’
‘I see,’ Naomi said. ‘So it could be that there was violence this time.’
‘You’re afraid Danny Fielding could be right?’
She nodded.
‘OK, look, I’ll do a ring round. I’m assuming they’ve called the hospitals and the usual stuff?’
‘You know, I’m not sure they have,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Patrick said that Danny had phoned family and friends, but he’s just a kid.’
‘Well, we can get on to that,’ Alec said.
‘They might not let on she’s there, you know. Depends if she’s told them not to,’ Fine reminded him. ‘And if she was unconscious and had identification then the family would have been informed. You can give a description, of course, see if they have any bodies they don’t have a name for. I’ll do the mortuary,’ he added. ‘Be easier for me.’
‘Thanks,’ Naomi said though she suddenly felt terribly depressed. What if Sharon Fielding did turn up dead or badly injured?
She sighed. Well, she supposed, at least then Danny would know he hadn’t been abandoned. It was, she thought, a toss-up which outcome would be worse for the boy.
Danny Fielding had agreed to come to Fallowfields that morning. Patrick had thought it might be easier if only he and his dad were there, and Napoleon, of course, Naomi having left him behind. Napoleon was a great ice-breaker and Patrick was relying on him to ease the way.
Patrick met Danny in the meadow.
‘Does your dad know you’re here?’
Danny shrugged. ‘He’s out,’ he said. ‘Don’t know when he’ll be back.’ He had made Napoleon’s acquaintance when he talked to Patrick that night he had texted him, and he renewed the friendship now, patting the dog’s back and stroking his ears.
Patrick led him through the garden and into the house, entering through the kitchen door. ‘You want something to drink?’
‘You got coke?’
Patrick got a couple of cans from the fridge. ‘Here.’
‘Thanks.’
Danny stood just inside the kitchen door as though ready to make his escape. He allowed his gaze to travel around the room and Patrick noted as it fell on the blue bowl filled with eggs, the flowers Naomi had cut in the garden and the various gadgets Rupert had filled his kitchen with.
‘Did you make the list?’
&nbs
p; Danny nodded and finally left the kitchen door. He took a couple of sheets of lined, crumpled paper from the back pocket of his jeans and sat down at the table. ‘This is everyone I could think of. I’ve ticked the ones I tried already.’
‘Did you try the hospitals?’ Harry asked. They both jumped, neither having heard him come in from the hall. Danny got to his feet as though ready to run away. ‘Don’t mind me,’ Harry told him, ‘I’ve just brought you these.’ He laid on the table a telephone directory and the Yellow Pages and the cordless phone.
‘Thanks, Dad.’
Harry nodded. ‘I’ll just make myself some coffee.’
Danny watched him warily and Patrick found himself observing as though through Danny’s eyes. He was so used to his father that he rarely noticed that he looked older than most parents, largely due to the fact that his hair was already grey and a little thin. He wore it cropped short, despising anything resembling a comb over. Harry’s eyes were grey too and his skin a little wrinkled at the corners. Patrick liked his father’s eyes. He was, lately, a little fatter round the middle than he really ought to be but, again, Patrick rarely noted that either. Patrick himself, slim and dark haired, olive skinned, resembled his mother, though his eyes, an almost navy blue, were inherited from Mari, Harry’s mother and, so he had been told, were like those of Harry’s long dead sister.
Danny examined Harry and Patrick knew he was comparing him to his own father. From what Patrick had seen so far that would not be an easy thing to do, though for that matter, it wasn’t easy to compare Harry to any father he could think of. Harry was, well, Harry. He found himself thinking about his stepfather. A tall, strong, fit outdoorsman with red hair and a beard to match and again wondered what on earth had possessed his parents to get married.
‘You can tell my dad anything,’ Patrick found himself saying. ‘He just wants to help, too.’
For a moment, Danny turned his gaze on Patrick and Patrick got the impression that he had crossed some line, made some incomprehensible statement. He shrugged, muttered something that Patrick didn’t catch but which he guessed expressed disbelief.
Patrick pulled the list towards him and began to read.
At Harry’s suggestion they worked back through the list from the beginning, starting with those numbers Danny had already tried – his mother’s sister, a cousin and a maternal grandfather that he never saw.
There were a few friends listed, some without numbers. It was clear that Danny had just written down anyone with a connection to his mother, however tenuous.
Harry took over. He sat down at the table and examined the list. ‘We should try hospitals,’ he said. ‘You never know she might have been in an accident and not had anything with her to say who she was.’
‘You mean like, she might have lost her memory?’ Danny sounded hopeful.
‘I’m not saying that’s what happened, Danny,’ Harry warned. ‘But we should look at all possibilities. Now, you’d better tell me about your mum, her age, what she looked like, what she might have been wearing on the day she left.’
Danny and Patrick watched as Harry found the numbers he needed, asking Danny’s advice about local hospitals and which his mother was likely to have been taken to.
Patrick listened with amusement and Danny was in evident awe as Harry began his spiel. ‘Oh, good morning. I wonder if you can help me. I certainly hope so, the family is terribly worried …’ He paused, listening. ‘It’s my sister,’ he said, his voice shaking slightly. ‘You see, she’s missing and we’re worried she might … oh, thank you.’
He covered the mouthpiece and said, ‘They’re redirecting me. This could take a little while.’
‘Sister?’ Danny asked.
‘They won’t tell you anything if you’re not a relative,’ Patrick whispered as Harry resumed his conversation with someone else.
‘Yes, my sister. Sharon Fielding. Yes. No, it would have been just over two weeks ago. We did call just after she disappeared but …’
Harry allowed his voice to trail off as though distressed and Patrick could hear the sympathetic tones of the woman on the other end of the line.
Harry repeated the description Danny had given him and then covered the mouthpiece again. ‘She’s gone to check,’ he said. They waited and the woman returned. Harry thanked her and hung up the phone.
‘No, no one there,’ he said. ‘She did tell me though, that if they’d had an unknown patient for this long, they would probably have put out an appeal in the local paper. She gave me a couple of numbers to try, local papers, I think, just in case we missed it. We’ll try the other hospitals first and then get on to them.’
Patrick got up and filled the kettle. He was reminded horribly of watching Naomi go through this very process earlier in the year when a close friend had gone missing. She had called the hospitals for him then, asking the questions Harry was asking. Later the friend had turned up dead. Drowned in the canal with a mix of drugs and booze in his stomach and an accusation of murder hanging over his head. Watching Harry do this brought back such painful memories. He could imagine what Danny must be going through.
He made tea and gave Danny another can, watching and listening as Harry worked his way through the hospital list and then the numbers for the local papers. At the end of that he replaced the phone and blew out a frustrated breath. Gratefully he picked up the mug his son had placed on the table beside the directories.
‘Nothing?’ Patrick asked, though that was self evident.
‘No, we can cross those off the list. Now, what else do we have here?’ He glanced through the contacts that Danny had written down. ‘Let’s try the ones you have phone numbers for first,’ he said, ‘then we’ll try to figure out the rest. Do you want to talk to people or shall I?’
‘You think you can do it?’
‘Sure I can.’ Harry smiled at the boy who eyed him speculatively.
‘What you doing this for?’ Danny asked.
‘Why not?’ Harry shrugged. ‘You need help. And besides,’ he added, meeting the boy’s eyes and knowing more was required, ‘I had a sister once, she went missing. It was twenty years before I found out what happened to her. Twenty years of wondering and never being able to settle properly because there was always that thought that she would come through the door.’
Not the best of analogies, Patrick thought anxiously. Helen had died. Been murdered. But he knew what his dad meant. Patrick had grown up in the shadow of her memory and in the end it had been a relief for everyone that they could finally know what happened to her.
Danny, he noticed, did not ask. He sipped his coke and blinked hard and Patrick knew that he was trying not to cry. He looked away and Harry turned his attention back to the next number on the list.
‘Ah, good morning.’ The fourth call now and so far nothing gained. ‘No, I’m not selling anything. I’m calling about Sharon Fielding … My son is a friend of Danny’s.’
Pause. Harry listened, then, to Patrick’s surprise he raised his voice and spoke angrily into the phone. ‘Look, I’ve got the boy here now, sitting at my kitchen table, tearing his heart out because he doesn’t know what the hell happened to his mother. If you can’t give me a few minutes of your time …’
Pause, Patrick heard a woman shouting down the phone.
‘I’m sorry if you feel like that,’ Harry said. ‘But whatever you might have thought she was still his mother. I’d have thought a little compassion …’
Harry stared angrily at the phone. ‘Hung up,’ he said.
‘What was all that about?’
Harry shrugged. ‘Danny, this Ellen March, was she a close friend?’
Danny shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I just found any numbers I could and writ them down. That was on a bit of paper under the phone book.’
‘Right. I see.’ Harry leaned back in his chair and stared at the remaining numbers.
‘What was her problem?’ Patrick asked.
Harry shrugged, but Patrick c
ould tell this was something he didn’t want to talk about in front of Danny, so he let it go when his father simply said, ‘I think she was just touchy about a stranger asking her questions.’
Danny looked even more depressed than when he had first arrived. ‘You think it’s worth trying the rest?’ he asked.
Harry smiled at him. ‘Let’s give it a go.’ He glanced up at the kitchen clock. It was half past twelve. ‘Tell you what, you and Patrick make some lunch and I’ll do the rest of these on the other phone. The battery’s going on this one. I could hear it beeping on that last call.’
That wasn’t the only thing that needed beeping, Patrick thought. He’d caught enough of the woman’s language to register that.
Danny shrugged uncomfortably. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I guess so’
Patrick got up and went to the fridge. ‘What do you want?’ he said. ‘We’ve got ham and cheese and corned beef. Salad …’
Harry picked up the list and the phone and made his escape. One useful thing he had found out from Ellen March was that she wasn’t a friend of Sharon’s. From what she’d said to him, Harry would make a bet she was having an affair with Danny’s dad.
Twenty-Seven
Danny left just after two and Patrick wandered back upstairs to Rupert’s study. He had been flicking through the earlier journals he had noticed on Rupert’s shelf, looking for previous references to Kinnear. So far, he had found nothing and the journals did not appear to go back to the time of the robberies, but were obviously a habit Rupert had acquired only in the last ten years of his life.
A car pulling up on the gravel brought him to the window, thinking Alec and Naomi had returned. He was shocked to see Marcus.
‘Shit!’ Patrick muttered. He had left the journals and laptop downstairs in the dining room in plain view.
Racing downstairs he passed the front door as Marcus rang the bell for a second time. Harry was about to open it as Patrick dashed by, grabbing his record bag from the coat pegs as he ran.
‘Patrick?’ Harry had the door open now and Marcus was coming inside.
Patrick scooted into the dining room and grabbed the books and the ledger, stuffing them into his bag. Marcus stuck his head around the door to say hello just as Patrick was attempting to do the same with the laptop.
Legacy of Lies Page 16
