Resolutions

by Jane A. Adams

  FIVE

  Alec had arranged accommodation for Mac: one of the holiday lets that, in season, would have been occupied by families so determinedly set on enjoyment that they would have taken little notice of their surroundings.

  ‘It’s only temporary,’ Alec said as he led Mac inside. ‘We’ll fix up something better.’ He hesitated. ‘I remembered you didn’t like hotels . . .’ He trailed off and Mac nodded. Alec had obviously sorted this out in a hurry, further proof he had not been expected.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  Alec left, having arranged to collect Mac the following morning and checking he knew where to find the local shops. Being Alec, he had brought essential supplies: bread, milk, tea, a couple of ready meals and a handful of leaflets advertising the local takeaways. Mac was grateful and almost overwhelmingly homesick. He tried to call Miriam, but got no answer on the boathouse phone. He tried her mobile, got the voicemail, guessed she’d be out on a job. He thought about trying her work mobile, but abandoned the idea almost immediately. If she was out working, then the last thing she’d need at a crime scene was him phoning her just to have a good whinge, especially, as had happened several times lately, she’d been appointed lead CSI.

  Mac sighed, flopped down on the saggy couch and took a look around the open-plan living, dining, kitchen that made up the main area of the holiday flat. It reminded him of the place he had rented for his first month or so in Frantham. That too had been an apartment resting during the winter off-season and it had been very similar in layout to this, though that one had a better view, directly out over the ocean. Getting up, he twitched the curtain aside, confirming his suspicion that the only thing to be seen here was a row of slightly rundown shops.

  He checked out the bedrooms: bunk beds in one, a double bed in the next. Sheets, blankets and a duvet had been left folded on top of the bare mattress. He dumped his bag on a chair set beside yet another uninspiring window and noted that, thankfully, everything at least looked clean.

  Back in the main room, he tried Miriam’s phone again and again got the voicemail. He missed her. Missed the little hideaway above the boathouse that Rina had found for him. True, it was tiny, but it was neat and clean and full of his own belongings and, more often than not, Miriam was there.

  Desperate now to hear a friendly voice, he found Rina’s number and called Peverill Lodge, glancing at the clock and hoping he would catch her just after their evening meal. She picked up on the second ring.

  ‘Hello, Mac, how are you holding up?’

  ‘I’m . . . well, I’m managing. Be better tomorrow when I’m busy.’

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘Not yet, no. But I will, I promise; that will be my next call.’

  Rina harrumphed her disapproval. ‘Make sure it’s something decent, then. Mac, we had something odd happen today. Karen came back, demanding to see George.’

  ‘Karen? Are you sure? No, of course you are. You saw her?’

  ‘She came here. She wants George to go away with her. He, of course, wants to stay. There’s far too much holding him in Frantham now for him to want to be uprooted again, but—’

  ‘But you don’t think Karen will see that. Rina, it looks as though I’ve picked a bad time to leave. Tell Frank Baker and Andy. Give them a heads up, just in case there’s trouble.’

  ‘I will,’ Rina promised, ‘though I don’t know there’s a lot they can do. Nothing wrong with a girl coming back to visit her brother.’

  ‘Everything wrong if that girl is trouble. Rina, you know what she did as well as I do.’

  ‘But can you prove it, Mac?’

  Prove it? Probably, but he needed to be there and then he needed to explain why he had not presented his evidence before, and that might prove, well, something of a problem. ‘Let’s just hope she takes herself off again before it becomes an issue,’ Mac said. ‘I’ll try and get back for the weekend, depending on what happens here.’

  ‘Is much happening there?’ Rina wanted to know.

  Mac had to smile at Rina’s obvious curiosity. ‘So far, not a lot,’ he said. ‘Enough for me to know that I was right to come back, I think. But also enough to know I don’t belong here any more. Rina, it’s the strangest feeling, coming back and wondering how the hell I could ever have thought of this place as home.’

  ‘And is Frantham home?’ she asked softly.

  ‘You know it is, Rina, love,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can. Count on it. And, meantime, tell George not to worry; we’ll sort it out.’ He just hoped, as he hung up, that sorting it out did not involve arresting George’s sister.

  He was unexpectedly hungry now. Not hungry enough to eat one of Alec’s ready meals; he’d vowed after his first weeks in Frantham, when he’d lived on anything that could be prepared in five minutes’ use of the microwave, that he’d never touch such things again. He flicked through the leaflets Alec had left, remembering some of the names from his time in Pinsent. Found an Indian restaurant that did deliveries and phoned through an order for the set meal for one without really paying much attention to what it was. Remembered then that he had promised to call Emily.

  She must have been waiting for his call because she picked up on the second ring.

  ‘I’ve got your number set up on the caller display,’ she said. ‘So I knew it was you.’

  He asked if the police liaison officer had been in touch.

  ‘She has,’ Emily told him. ‘Lydia. She’s nice, I’ve got her numbers and she’s arranged for the community support officers to keep an extra lookout. She said she could stay if I wanted, but I’ve got Calum and I’m sure there’s other people need her more. I can get in touch any time, she said. And she’s going to sort out about having our calls monitored and all that. She says she doesn’t think he’ll show up here, but I’ve been thinking and I think Calum is right and he might.’

  ‘Oh?’ Mac queried. ‘Why is that, Em?’

  ‘Because he’s already shown himself once. There’s no reason not to now. He’s getting ready for something else. He’s showing off, telling you, and me too, just how untouchable he is.’

  ‘I doubt he’s thinking about what I might think,’ Mac mused. ‘You may be right about him turning up at your place, but I don’t think I’m that relevant to him, Emily.’

  ‘Mac, it became personal. The night . . . the night he killed that little girl, he stood there and made you watch while he killed her. He knew there was nothing you could do, that you’d never expect him to actually go through with it. I mean, who would? No one expects to see a threat like that carried out, but he did: he killed her and you watched. You were there. It was personal, you and him. Mac, he’ll know you’d have to come back and finish things. He knows you. He knows you were nearly destroyed by what he did; you couldn’t let it go, not being you . . .’ She trailed off, running out of words. Mac didn’t quite know how to respond, but he knew in his heart of hearts that she was right. It was personal. It had gone beyond job and duty and justice.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ Mac said quietly. ‘I had to come back, see this through.’ For a moment, there was silence between them. Mac was aware of his own breathing, how loud it sounded, how tense and tight his lungs felt as he drew each breath in. He wondered if it sounded loud to Emily or if she too was listening to her own strangled breaths, in, out, in, out, tight in the throat and loud in the ears. In the end, he heard her move, heard Calum’s quiet voice in the background.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘Calum’s cooked tonight. He’s better at it than me. Make sure you eat, won’t you, Mac? It’s easy to forget the ordinary things, but sometimes they’re all you’ve got left to hang on to.’

  Mac smiled. ‘You’re starting to sound like Rina,’ he told her.

  ‘Rina?’

  ‘Ah. I forgot you didn’t know Rina. She’s a friend. A really good friend. She lectures me about eating right and all that.’

  ‘You be careful, M
ac,’ Emily said. ‘Remember, he thought he’d killed you too that night. He won’t like the fact that we got away from him, you and I.’

  ‘I will,’ he promised. ‘And you too.’

  A knock on the door told him that his food had arrived and he rang off, found his wallet, paid the man with the quilted bag and the red shirt and big smile who waited at the door. He no longer felt like eating, but, noting wryly that he’d promised two women that night that he would, he went through the motions of finding a plate and cutlery, set the kettle on to boil and, because he could no longer bear the silence and the harshness of his too-loud breath, he turned the television on and stared at the screen while he ate, not tasting any of it. Afterwards, he reflected that this evening was so like those first lonely evenings in Frantham, that the only thing missing was the bottle and glass he had habitually left on the kitchen counter. For a moment he almost felt that same terrible level of despair.

  Mac took a deep breath and found his mobile phone. This time Miriam answered. She had just arrived home, she told him, and Mac was warmed by the knowledge that home, tonight, was his little flat above the boathouse.

  ‘I love you so much,’ he told her as they said goodbye. ‘You just take good care of yourself.’

  ‘I will,’ she promised. ‘You come home soon, Mac, and remember, any time you like, you can just walk away. No one who matters will think any less of you if you do – you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be fine.’ He hoped with that he wasn’t telling her lies.

  SIX

  Next morning was bracing, the wind coming in off the sea and harsh enough to take the breath away. ‘I’d forgotten just how bloody cold this place was,’ Mac commented ruefully as he got into Alec’s car.

  ‘Oh, you’re turning into a soft southerner, that’s your problem,’ Alec laughed, blowing on his hands to warm them before he started the engine. ‘No, the weather’s turned mean this morning and they reckon it’s in for the week. Naomi sends her love, by the way, and you’re invited to dinner on Sunday.’

  ‘Give mine to her,’ Mac said. ‘And thanks, but if I can get back home at the weekend, I’m going to.’

  Alec nodded. ‘Don’t count on it,’ he said. ‘Things start moving, we’ll be lucky if we get lunch anywhere.’

  Mac looked at his friend, who was now concentrating on pulling out into the traffic and not looking his way. It seemed to be taking a lot of concentration considering the lack of other vehicles.

  ‘Alec?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s happened since last night?’

  Alec grimaced. ‘DCI Wildman,’ he said. ‘As of this morning, he and his team are leading the investigation. Rest of us are now other ranks.’

  ‘Wildman.’ Mac closed his eyes. ‘Someone up there doesn’t like me and I don’t think I mean God.’

  Alec managed a laugh. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘we knew there’d be someone from the taskforce coming in. That was inevitable. We just don’t have the resources, never did; that was the problem last time.’

  ‘Oh, I know, but whatever spin you try and put on it, any scenario that includes Wildman is a bad one. I thought the man was an arse and he thought I was an idiot long before the Cara Evans case, and we neither of us took the trouble to, well, to hide that.’

  ‘No, I remember. Look, Mac, we just do our jobs, let him do his, and, well, keep it zipped.’

  ‘I will if he does.’ Mac subsided into silence for a moment or two, but it couldn’t last. ‘He’s more than an arse, Alec, he’s . . . Does he know I’m here?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Alec nodded, ‘and he’s waiting for any excuse, Mac, remember that. Don’t give him one. Right,’ he interrupted as Mac began to object again, ‘glove compartment, two files. Our assignments for this morning, well away from you know who. Get yourself up to speed.’

  Reluctant but glad to have the distraction, Mac fished the folders out. One was familiar to him, one was not. Philip Rains had been in prison since before Mac had left for Frantham. Thomas Peel had blackmailed him for years and, when his usefulness as a distraction had become greater than his usefulness as a source of income, he had thrown him to the proverbial lions via an anonymous phone call to one of the crime hotlines and a brown envelope containing some particularly nasty pictures of Rains and two young boys.

  Alec glanced over. ‘Got a ten o’clock appointment,’ he said. ‘Prison governor reckons he’s been a model inmate, but, of course, he’s getting all that personal attention, isn’t he?’

  Mac nodded, understanding what Alec meant. Rains could never be part of the general prison population. He’d have been dead within the month. Less, probably. Someone would have known who he was and what he’d done and taken it upon themselves to do something about it. Mac had a sneaking suspicion that Alec thought that was exactly as it should be, though unlike some of their colleagues – Wildman included – he’d never voiced the opinion out loud.

  He turned back to the file, noting that Rains was due for a parole hearing in six months and would have every reason to be behaving himself. ‘Have his family stayed in contact?’

  Alec shook his head. ‘There was never a suggestion he’d touched his own kids, but the wife took the children and left the country. She’s Canadian, I think. Not British, anyway, and I understand she’s gone back to her parents. Rains always reckoned Peel threatened his family. Maybe he did. Either way, I think she did the right thing. Finally.’

  Mac glanced sharply in his direction. ‘You think the wife knew what Rains was into?’

  ‘How can a woman not know? I mean . . .’ Alec shrugged and trailed off.

  ‘People keep secrets, even within families,’ Mac argued. He thought of Ginny, the woman he had bumped into so unexpectedly in the café and wondered again if her husband really didn’t know how she came by the extra money. Surely, by now, he’d realize she didn’t actually have a cleaning job? ‘People see what they expect and want to see,’ he said. ‘Some things feel so unbelievable or so unacceptable that they really don’t see them. The human brain is nothing if not flexible.’

  Alec snorted. ‘Look, I can fully understand not wanting to see, not wanting to know, but there must be something at the back of your mind tells you this isn’t right or that doesn’t add up. The way I see it is that she put her own kids at risk too.’

  ‘I thought Rains didn’t touch his own children.’

  ‘Well, no, he didn’t, but you’re not telling me he wasn’t tempted and you’re not telling me there wouldn’t have come a time when his friends didn’t get access to them.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Mac said. ‘Most people do have their line in the sand, even if it’s a pretty wavy one.’ He found himself thinking about George and Karen and what they’d gone through with their violent father, and their mother too battered and beaten by years with him to be capable of fighting back. Karen had drawn her own line and it had been a pretty decisive one. She’d realized she could do nothing to change or save her mother, do very little, when her dad was around and she was so young, to protect herself, but when Parker had come back from a spell in prison and started hurting George, he’d crossed Karen’s line and she’d made him pay for it.

  Mac found himself excusing her attack on Edward Parker, her father. The world would not be a worse place for his loss, but it seemed that once she had crossed her line, set herself up as protector of her little brother, there was nothing she was incapable of in pursuit of that. He had once told Rina that he thought such love would become a terrible burden for George to bear, and he had seen nothing that disabused him of that view. Worse, his attempts to protect George from knowledge of what his sister had done and why had come to nothing. George was not someone who refused to see. Loyalty and love might prevent him from speaking of it, even with Rina or Mac, but he had said enough for Mac to understand the depth of George’s comprehension. George, young as he was, looked life in the face and dealt with it.

  Karen was capable of ever
ything, up to and including murder – up to and including such obsessive love that Mac feared for anyone who might stand in the way of it, and that, bizarrely, included George himself.

  ‘Penny for them,’ Alec said.

  ‘Oh, I was thinking about home. Frantham.’

  Alec smiled. ‘About Miriam?’

  ‘Actually, no. Not at that particular moment, but now you’ve brought her to mind . . .’

  Alec laughed at that. ‘I’m happy for you, I really am. We all thought . . .’

  ‘That poor old McGregor was a lost cause. Hey, don’t bother to argue, I thought it too. But I’ve been lucky.’

  Lucky that new friends had chosen him, taken it upon themselves to make him whole again. And what a bizarre selection of people they were, Mac thought.

  Further thought was interrupted by their arrival at the prison gatehouse, and Mac turned the focus of his thoughts back to the man they had come to see. ‘I never interviewed Rains,’ he said. ‘What should I expect?’

  Alec reached through the window to present their ID and permission to visit. ‘Banality,’ he said, and Mac got the distinct impression that in Alec’s eyes that made it worse.

  It was another fifteen minutes before they’d dealt with the formalities and Rains was brought out to them. They had been put in the visitors’ room, a space occupied by a dozen small, melamine-topped tables surrounded by blue plastic chairs and with a coffee machine wedged into a corner close beside the door. Off this main area was a viewing room, glass-panelled and equipped with telephones, alarms and a large wooden table stacked with paperwork and currently occupied by two prison officers who seemed to be trying to work out some kind of shift rota. They had glanced up as Alec and Mac passed by the open door, assured them that Rains would be no trouble and gone back to their work.

  Rains was brought in through another door at the far end of the visiting area. Dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, Rains approached them cautiously, pulling out a chair and settling himself uneasily at their table. He was a tall man, matching Mac for height but not quite reaching Alec’s. Pale, with tired eyes and hands that shook slightly as he accepted the coffee they had bought for him from the machine. He’d once been a powerful, well-built individual, Mac guessed; there was a squareness to the shoulders and a tightness to the shirt sleeves that spoke of someone who once played around with weights, though now a layer of flab covered once-flat abs and his face sagged at jawline and chin.