When he’d come back, Karen had still been cleaning up. She told him to pack a bag, just with his favourite stuff, then she’d phoned for a taxi and they’d gone to the police station, sat in the reception area and waited. George had fallen asleep stretched across the chairs. They never had gone back to collect the rest of their gear.
He tried hard to remember anything else that had happened that day, but it was four years ago and so much had happened since. So much moving around and turmoil and anxiety that it all got a bit confused – and anyway, he didn’t spend much time these days trying to recall a time he’d rather blank from his memory. If it was possible to take a pill that would selectively wipe out bits of your past, then George would probably have done so.
He remembered he’d been offered counselling in one of the hostels they’d stayed in. The chance to talk things through and tell this woman called Philly what had happened. George’s mum had. She’d spent hours with this Philly woman, crying and wailing and talking about how bad it had been but George just said ‘no thanks’. Why would he want to keep remembering all that? George wanted to move on, to have a future, not to keep rehashing a lousy past.
Thinking about it, he couldn’t remember what Karen had done.
Footsteps coming up the uncarpeted stairs told him his dad was probably on the way back up. George tensed, but stayed put. The door opened. His dad and the man from the promenade came into the room. George had not had a proper chance to look at the other man until now. He was younger than his dad and tall with blond hair that was kind of spiky at the front. He was smartly dressed in dark trousers and a blazer with shiny buttons. George stared at him and the man stared back.
‘Get down,’ his dad said. George obeyed.
Edward Parker handed him a mobile phone. ‘Call your sister. Tell her you’re with me.’
George took the phone and stood nervously passing it from hand to hand. ‘I don’t know the number,’ he whispered.
‘What do you mean you don’t know the number?’
‘She’s not going to be at home,’ George was desperate to explain. ‘She’ll be at the flat by now and I don’t know the number for the flat and I don’t know her mobile either; she just got a new one and I wrote the number on the list on the wall in the hall near the phone but I don’t know it.’
Edward Parker stared hard at his son and took a step closer. ‘You what?’ The hand came back and George cowered. He was back then. Nine years old and scared to death, knowing how much his dad’s fist hurt.
‘I ain’t lying to you. I wouldn’t lie to you not ever.’
‘You better not be. What’s this load of junk?’ He dropped the business card Tim had given George on to the bed.
‘He’s a friend,’ George stammered. ‘He does magic.’
Parker senior laughed loudly. ‘Magic,’ he said. ‘Bloody magic.’ He stepped closer once again, a thought striking him. ‘He seeing your mam?’
George was genuinely taken aback. ‘No. Course not. Mam ain’t seen no one. You got her too scared.’
His father’s eyes narrowed and George prepared himself for a blow that never arrived. His dad pushed past the other man and left. In the doorway, the blond man turned. ‘Don’t get him riled,’ he said. ‘He enjoys it. Don’t forget that.’
‘What’s he want?’ George begged. ‘I don’t understand what he wants.’
The man paused, considered George for a moment, then seemed to make up his mind. ‘He wants your sister,’ he said. ‘He reckons it’s payback time.’
‘Payback time?’
‘Tried to kill him, didn’t she? Nearly managed it too. That’s not nice. Not nice at all.’
Thirty-Three
Karen was in a state. Mac made her sit down and breathe slowly before she tried to tell him what had happened. Carol Parker watched. She seemed unable to function even enough to ask questions. Mac wondered if she was even aware her son had left and how many of the little pills Karen had given her.
‘How long were you gone?’
‘I don’t know. About an hour, a bit more. I told him to stay put.’
‘You don’t think he might have just gone to the shops? Maybe you needed something.’
She shook her head. ‘I made a list before I left. He knew I’d be going shopping as soon as I got back.’
‘Maybe he got worried, came looking for you?’
‘Then I’d have passed him on the way, wouldn’t I? I went straight home and came straight back.’
‘He boiled the kettle,’ Carol Parker said. They both stared at her. Mac got up and felt the kettle. Still hot.
‘Mrs Parker, do you know when he went? Where?’
She blinked, her mind searching for the words. ‘I was watching that chat show thing. All those adulterers.’ She lapsed back into her reverie.
Mac shrugged. ‘Mean anything?’
‘Not really, no. I don’t watch daytime TV. Mac, he’s got George, I just know he has.’
‘But how? There’s no sign of anyone being here and George wouldn’t let anyone in, especially not …’ He glanced anxiously at Carol, not wanting to spark another bout of hysteria. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a basic time frame. You got back at ten thirty?’
‘About then.’
‘So I’ll get someone to talk to the shopkeepers, get their CCTV tapes, see if he’s on them.’
‘That will take an age.’
Mac shrugged. ‘Karen, it’s the best I can do. At least we’ve got extra help on hand.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve got to get back. I’ll get someone on to the CCTV.’
Karen nodded but she looked mutinous. ‘So a dead thug takes priority over an abducted thirteen-year-old,’ she said.
Mac sighed. ‘Karen, that’s not fair. You know I’ll do all I can.’
When she didn’t respond he left, irritated and anxious in equal measure.
From the window, Karen watched him go. She was furious with herself and now angry with Mac and frustrated with her mother. Was every bloody thing her responsibility? Could no one else be trusted to do anything right?
For some time the two women sat in silence, Karen with her thoughts, her slow burning anger; her mother, she assumed, with that blank space where thoughts should be. Then Carol switched the television back on and Karen flinched at the sound of it. It was lunchtime. News time. She turned to watch as a picture of Mark Dowling flashed up on the screen followed by one of Mrs Freer. Listened to the vague speculation, dressed up in authoritative words that the two incidents might be connected.
Mac’s face swam into view as he made an official statement. Several leads, too early to tell, but yes, it was natural to make assumptions about two murders so close in time and location, especially in such a quiet place as Frantham-on-Sea. The two boys? Yes, both safe and well. They’d been interviewed as a matter of routine and it was being treated as a domestic incident. The important thing was that the kids were now safe.
‘Safe!’ Karen spat at the television. ‘You say they’re safe? You bastard.’ So this was what was so important he had to rush away. A television slot that anyone could have filled. It would have been fine if he’d used the opportunity to say, ‘Look, George Parker has been abducted. His father has him. The father he’s been running away from these last four years, has got him now, and I want you all to go out and look. Find Edward Parker, find George.’
Karen blinked the tears of frustration and hatred from her eyes. She had thought that Mac was different. That he cared. That he’d really cared.
Now, it was up to her again, just like it always was. The problem was, this time she didn’t know what to do or where to start. The decisions she’d made before had either been obvious or she felt she’d been led to make them by some kind of intuition. Now even that had failed her.
Karen sat down on the sofa next to her mother, wishing that her mam could take all the trouble away like she used to when her dad had been in prison. When Karen had just been an ordinary little girl.
She began to cry. Her mother moved, her attention attracted by the strange sound issuing from deep inside her child.
‘Karen?’
Karen felt her mother’s arms slip around her shoulders and for a brief instant she wanted to shake them off, resist. But she couldn’t do it any more, couldn’t do this on her own. She laid her cheek against her mother’s shoulder and sobbed, feeling her mother’s tears as they fell softly on to her hair.
Thirty-Four
‘Phone call for you, Tim,’ Bethany twittered. ‘They asked for “that Marvello chap”. Maybe it’s a job?’
‘That would be a change.’ He picked up the receiver of the hall phone. ‘Tim Brandon speaking, aka Marvello.’ He fell silent, shocked by the tone of the voice on the other end. ‘Who is this? What?’ He felt his legs go weak. This wasn’t happening; it wasn’t real. ‘Look,’ he interrupted. ‘How did you get my card?’ Of course, he remembered: he’d given one to Paul and one to George. George had been impressed. ‘Look,’ he said again, ‘I’m not even sure where she is. I’d have to go and get her and why the hell should she believe me anyway?’
He listened as the man gave him an address, told him he’d better make bloody sure that Karen took notice – and no police. Someone would be watching. He’d be calling back in an hour and Karen had better be there by then.
Tim lowered the phone slowly and then stepped back from it as though worried it might bite. What the hell should he do now? He did what anyone else in the Martin household would have done. He stood in the hall and yelled.
‘Rina! Rina, we’ve got a problem. A big problem.’
Karen snatched the door open, thinking, hoping that it must be Mac come back with news. She vaguely recognized the grey-haired woman standing on the threshold but the man was a stranger. He thrust a hand towards her.
‘I’m Tim,’ he said. ‘Friend of George’s. That is, we found him at the airfield.’
Karen was utterly bewildered. ‘He’s not here,’ she said. Tim and Rina, George had talked about them, said they were nice.
‘We know he’s not,’ Rina said quietly. ‘Tim has just received a very disturbing phone call and we need you to come with us. Now.’
‘This is about George?’
Rina nodded. ‘A man calling himself Edward Parker has him. I’m assuming you know who that is?’
Karen swallowed nervously. ‘Let me grab my coat and bag,’ she said.
She dodged back inside, leaving the door ajar and her visitors standing on the tiny landing. She didn’t dare let them in, scare her mother even more.
‘I’ve got to go out,’ she told Carol.
‘You’re going to fetch George?’
‘Yes, I’m going to fetch George.’
‘He’ll probably be at Paul’s house,’ Carol said. ‘He’s always round there.’
‘Yes, Mam, he probably is.’
Collecting her coat from the peg, Karen caught sight of herself in the mirror by the door. She looked a mess. Red-eyed and blotchy. Even her hair looked untidy.
She opened the door and gestured for them to go down ahead of her, there not being room for three on the landing. Closing it quietly, she hoped her mum would be all right on her own, feeling as she did so that this was such a permanent departure but not fully knowing why.
‘Tell me,’ she demanded. ‘You’ve not gone to the police, have you? Useless lot.’
Tim and Rina exchanged a glance. ‘No, no police, though I think we ought to,’ Tim said. ‘The man on the phone said there’d be someone watching, but I don’t know if we should believe him. I saw nothing out of the ordinary coming over here.’
‘Tell me, what did he say? Why phone you?’
‘He must have found my card,’ Tim said. ‘I gave one to George. I’m a magician,’ he confessed, as though that would explain everything. ‘Anyway he said his name was Edward Parker and that he had George but that he’d trade for you. He wanted you and that this was all going to happen now. No argument. Then he went on for a bit about how much this was your fault.’
Karen nodded. ‘Sounds like our dad,’ she said. ‘So, when and where?’
‘You can’t be serious about going?’ Tim said. ‘He sounded crazy to me. I mean, not that I’m an expert or anything …’
‘Tim, you’re gabbling,’ Rina told him sternly. ‘Of course we have to go. This man has threatened his children. Something is going to be done about it.’
Tim nodded. When she put it like that it seemed obvious. Kind of.
‘We?’ Karen questioned.
‘My dear,’ Rina said. ‘We are involved now. You don’t think we’d let you do this on your own, do you?’
They reached Peverill Lodge. Rina lifted the cordless phone from its cradle in the hall and directed Karen and Tim into her sanctuary. The Montmorencys and the Peters sisters had gathered in the hall.
‘Lunch is late,’ Rina announced. ‘Steven, do your bit with that wonderful sauce of yours, will you, and ladies you can do some pasta. No, not for us; I’ll tell you everything at tea.’
Listening from inside the cosy little room, Karen turned to Tim and whispered, ‘Is she for real?’
‘Oh, very real,’ Tim whispered back. ‘Oh yes, she is very real.’
Rina sat down in her usual chair and directed Karen to the other. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘What does he want and why? Truth now, no misdirection. If we are to protect young George and keep you away from that dreadful man, then I need to know it all. And I suggest you keep it brief; he’s due to call very soon.’
Hesitant at first, Karen explained about their past. The violence, the need to escape and how he had found them again.
‘Which doesn’t tell me why he hates you so much,’ Rina said bluntly.
Karen stared down at her feet. ‘I wanted him dead,’ she said. ‘After that last time. I couldn’t bear it any more, being afraid all the time, seeing Mum and George going through so much.’
‘And you too?’
She shrugged. ‘Me too. I got George out of the way and I went to find our father. I knew he’d be in the pub; I could have told the police that and had him arrested, but they’d arrested him before and then Mum chickened out and I knew if I was the only one willing to speak out no one would really take any notice. Oh, they’d all said the right things, but … Look, I just wanted an end to it all.’
‘So …?’ Rina prompted.
‘So I checked which pub he was in and I waited outside. I knew I didn’t have long and if he’d not come out in time I’d have to get back for George, but he did come out and he did cut through the alley and he didn’t see the knife I had until I’d cut him twice.’ She shrugged. ‘I even wore a pair of Mam’s washing-up gloves. I left him there, thought I’d killed him. Got rid of the knife and gloves on the way home and then went to finish clearing up before George got back. Then we packed our stuff and left.’
Tim stared at her. She’d not looked at anyone while she’d been telling her story, staring instead at the laces on her shoes. She looked up now, her expression defiant.
‘I’d do the same again,’ she said.
Rina nodded slowly. ‘So now we know what happened,’ she said. ‘Right. His is the next move.’
On cue the phone began to ring.
‘Pick it up, Tim.’
Reluctantly, he did as he was told. ‘Yes, this is Tim Brandon. Yes, I’ve got her with me.’ He held out the phone to Karen. ‘Wants to talk to you.’
Karen took the phone. ‘Hello, Dad,’ she said. ‘Still an absolute bastard, aren’t you?’
Looking at Rina, Tim saw her flinch at Karen’s bluntness. Not, he figured, quite the way to handle this.
‘Hurt my little brother and I’ll really do for you this time. Oh, I don’t need an army. Only mistake I made last time was I should have made sure you were bloody dead.’
She listened then, nodding slightly, her lips pursed and white, then she handed the phone back to Tim. ‘You’ll have to drive me,’ she said. ‘You do drive, don’t yo
u?’
Tim nodded anxiously.
‘Listen to him then,’ she said. ‘He needs to tell you where and when.’
Tim listened, repeated the instructions. ‘Why there?’ he wondered when he’d finally got off the phone.
Rina shrugged. ‘Because you can see anyone coming for miles,’ she said. ‘I suppose that must be one reason. What puzzles me, though, is why such a rush? It’s almost as though he’s on a schedule. Karen, we really should call the police.’
She was on her feet, cheeks blazing. ‘No, absolutely no. You don’t know him like I do. He’d kill George at one sniff of police.’
Rina waved her back to her seat. ‘Sit, let’s think this through. Karen, why all this elaboration? He could have found you, had his revenge. He didn’t need to take George to get to you.’
Karen shook her head. ‘I don’t know. He showed up at the school last week, but the police reckon he moved down here a few months ago. He must have known where we were, or more or less where we were. I thought at first it was just part of his method. He likes people to be afraid. He knew if George had seen him, George would be afraid and that he’d tell me. He must have realized we’d just move on again.’
‘Sounds as if you suddenly became the priority for some reason,’ Tim speculated. ‘But if you’d known he was around, wouldn’t you have reported him, got an injunction or something?’
She shrugged. ‘We’d probably have tried.’
‘So, you’d have drawn attention to him,’ Rina said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe that was something he definitely didn’t want. Maybe he had to stay in the background. Maybe whatever reason he had for staying hidden no longer applies.’
Thirty-Five
George tried to work out what time it was. He’d spent what seemed like hours staring out of the window watching the sky change from dark grey to pale blue and back to grey.
A Reason to Kill Page 20
