THIRTEEN
Abe had left the Martin household by mid-afternoon and Fitch had made himself scarce, as had Joy and Tim. She had watched them all set off into what had turned out to be a clear afternoon, bright and breezy and cold, but blessed with that clarity of winter light that Rina had come to love and which seemed particular to this part of the south coast.
Fitch was driving into Dorchester, and Joy and Tim planned to be tourists for the afternoon. What Fitch had in mind he had not said, but Rina guessed he’d be meeting up with Abe. All had offered to stay and wait for Karen’s arrival, but Rina had been very firm. No, this should be as normal an afternoon as possible. George would have enough to deal with, and she really didn’t want Karen to feel that she was being ganged up on, even if that was the actual truth.
George and Ursula arrived just after four, one of the carers at Hill House giving them a lift on the way home. Peverill Lodge was a regular destination for the pair, and Rina was well known to everyone at the home. She would put them in a taxi later and George would call once they had arrived back, as per their normal arrangement. That was, Rina reflected, perhaps the only normal thing about this particular Saturday.
‘You look very nice, Ursula,’ Rina commented as she greeted the two teenagers.
‘It’s a new top,’ Ursula said, though it did not escape Rina’s attention that she was also wearing make-up, something she would not have bothered with on an ordinary visit. Unlike the other girls at Hill House, Ursula did not go in for ‘paint and powder’, as Matthew Montmorency called it. A little eyeshadow, maybe, but not much else. Today, she had taken extra care, looked older than fourteen; older than George.
George was quiet, nervous. He allowed the Peters sisters to usher him through to the living room, and Rina heard them telling him about the new piano piece they had learnt to play. They were teaching George to play on a casual basis; he wasn’t very good, but he gave it a try as much to be nice to Bethany and Eliza as for any musical aspirations.
‘Is he all right?’ Rina whispered to Ursula who had hung back in the hall.
‘No, not really. He told Cheryl that Karen would be calling in today while we were here; she wanted to know why she didn’t come to Hill House and got all excited, said we should get a cake and all that.’ Ursula rolled her eyes. Cheryl was their key worker at Hill House. Rina suspected that, despite Ursula’s display, the two were really quite fond of her, and Cheryl was devoted to George. ‘George told her Karen was shy and wouldn’t like a fuss. Can you imagine?’
Rina had to remind herself that Ursula had never in fact met George’s sister, so was really in no position to imagine anything. George, she guessed, must have told Ursula a great deal.
Ursula hesitated, then she said, ‘I think he’s scared, Rina. Not of Karen exactly, but he’s kind of not had to think about anything since she left. Not about his dad or his mum or how they lived or anything.’
Rina nodded and clasped Ursula’s hand. ‘We’ll look after him, love. All of us.’
The doorbell rang, the very real bell in the hall dinging loudly on its wrought-iron, spiral pulley.
‘That will be Karen,’ Rina said.
Ursula nodded and hurried through to join George, and when Rina ushered Karen into the large living room in which the welcoming committee had gathered, Ursula was standing firmly at his side, small, slightly built and only fourteen, but as protective as any grown woman. Rina winced as she intercepted the look that passed between Ursula and Karen as the older girl came in. Poor George, she thought briefly: if looks were weapons, he’d be torn limb from limb as each staked their claim.
Abe’s security firm worked out of an unassuming little office on a small industrial estate on the outskirts of Exeter. His immediate neighbours were a company specializing in point-of-sale merchandise and a firm which, as far as Fitch could tell, sold novelty socks. When he met clients, it was either at their place of work or at a tiny little place in Dorchester that he rented as a sublet from a firm of solicitors, sharing their immaculate entrance, building and kudos, but not their costs. The fact that one of the partners in the firm of solicitors was an ex commanding officer in Abe’s unit had secured him the use of what had been a storeroom and an agreeable rate; essentially, in exchange for a nicely furnished space, desk, filing cabinet, computer access and nameplate on the door, Abe did occasional surveillance work for the law firm.
Unknown to Rina, Fitch had previously visited both businesses, and Abe’s expertise had several times proved useful to Bridie Duggan, Fitch’s employer. The Duggan empire had been founded on very dodgy practices, but in later years Jimmy Duggan, now deceased, had moved into more legitimate areas, including two nightclubs. Since his death, Bridie had continued that move, her eldest son taking over part of the day-to-day running of their enterprises, but Bridie well knew that it took more than intent and one generation to completely make the transfer from illegitimate to legal and she liked to keep a close eye on previous colleagues and associates. She was an astute enough businesswoman to make use of inside information and to know when and where trouble might be brewing with Jimmy’s former partners. Abe had been invaluable as a low-profile troubleshooter.
Fitch nodded to the woman on reception; they had met before when he had visited the office and, once seen, Fitch was rarely forgotten. She smiled nervously at him. ‘Mr Jackson just arrived,’ she said. ‘You know where to go?’
Fitch thanked her and headed upstairs to Abe, knocking on the half-glazed door and then going straight in. Abe waved him into a chair and set a glass on the desk in front of Fitch, who raised it in salute and then sipped, savouring the taste of the single malt.
‘Best just make it one,’ Abe said. ‘You’ve got to drive back.’
Fitch nodded. ‘Joy and Tim have gone to look at some writer’s house,’ he said. ‘She’s all into that stuff now. Tim’s influence, I suppose. Bridie thinks it’s wonderful.’
‘That would be Hardy’s place, I would imagine,’ Abe said wryly. ‘He was pretty famous, you know, still makes good television.’
Fitch regarded Abe over the rim of his glass before setting it down. ‘Taking the piss, are we?’
‘Possibly. How is Bridie? I spoke to her last week and she was full of cold.’
‘Better now. Got through a half-dozen boxes of tissues, nose like Rudolf. So, this kid of Parker’s, what’s she been up to then? I take it you kept most of it back?’
Abe produced a file from the desk drawer and pushed it across to Fitch. ‘Some of this is speculation,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a couple of leads I want to run. Thought I’d wait to get the go-ahead. I don’t want Rina knowing all this; she’s got enough on her plate and anyway—’
‘Rina’s got morals. You and I gave them up a long time ago.’
‘I still have a moral compass,’ Abe protested.
‘Yeah, but it certainly don’t point north. Bridie says not to worry about pay; she’ll foot the bill.’
‘No bill,’ Abe said. ‘This one’s on the house.’
‘Getting sentimental, are we?’
Abe shook his head. ‘Settling an account, that’s all.’
Fitch snorted what may have been a laugh. ‘Right,’ he said. He drained his glass and looked regretfully at the bottle of Macallan. ‘Get the kettle on, then. I’m a slow reader.’
For the next half hour Abe Jackson watched Fitch read. He made tea, strong enough to take the plate off a cheap spoon, and set a red mug beside the file. Fitch nodded but did not look up. He read like a child, following his finger as it tracked line by line. Some people, Abe knew, would take this as a sign of lacking intellect; Abe knew better. Fitch was meticulous, and something about keeping contact with the words of the page seemed to help that acute and accurate processing that passed for thinking in Fitch’s head. Abe was a linear thinker, A to B with as few stops and sidelines as possible; get to the core, the heart. Fitch, for all his brawn, was possessed of a very agile brain and was anything but linear. Fitch mad
e connections that Abe knew, from experience, he would either not see or would dismiss as being too far outside his original brief.
‘So,’ he said when Fitch finally looked up and closed the file. He took the red mug and gave him a refill. Two sugars, not stirred.
‘There’s been no ramp-up,’ Fitch said. ‘No one turns so naturally to violence, not without some kind of . . .’
‘Oh, it’s there,’ Abe said. ‘She put her dad in hospital, remember. Justifiable, of course, but nevertheless she crossed a line. Then there was that Mark Dowling kid.’
Fitch frowned, touched the file as though doubting himself.
‘No, it’s not in there,’ Abe told him. ‘Not the Mark Dowling episode. My associate prepared that file. I got hold of the intel on Dowling from another source. Seems he was threatening Karen’s little brother. It was in the papers earlier this year; I’ll scan and email the clippings soon as I have everything. Rina’s not given either of us a hell of a lot of notice. It seems Dowling is, or was, prime suspect in the murder of an old woman, lived down the street from Rina. Mac’s first case not long after he arrived. Anyway, Dowling gets beaten to death, Karen disappears not long after. Mac was about to make the arrest, though he was somewhat lacking in solid evidence at that stage. I think he hoped she’d confess.’
Fitch shoved the file further on to the table. ‘Some hope of that,’ he said. ‘So, Karen disappears and?’
‘And she sent Mac a mobile phone. She’d photographed the murder scene.’
‘She’d what?’
‘Cold,’ Abe agreed. ‘Mac reported it to Eden, his boss back then. Eden was on the verge of retirement. Mac knew all he could do was prove that Karen had seen Dowling dead, photographed the scene. She’d gone anyway, so it all went into a file somewhere and nothing came of it. Then Mac had his hands full with your boss and his family. Karen Parker was the least of his worries.’
‘And now . . . she’s efficient, I’ll give her that. Three clean kills. How does she make contact?’
‘My sources tell me an ad is placed in the personal column of one of three national newspapers. She has a different day for each one. She replies, arrangements are made, money transferred, she does her thing, gets paid the balance. You read in the file about Percy Mears?’
Fitch nodded. ‘Tried to renege on the balance once she’d completed the job.’
‘So, she paid him a visit, extracted what was owed. Bank records show the last thing he did before he died was make the transfer. Talk is, she does the job, takes the money, is gone. As long as you don’t mess with her, she’s perfect.’
‘And it’s well known that she’s Parker’s kid? Parker was a cheap thug. How did she convince anyone she was even capable?’
‘Victim number one. Vido Feinmann. In the file.’
Fitch nodded, working it out. Vido was a man he knew well from Jimmy Duggan’s not so legitimate days. ‘Prostitution, drugs, extortion, usual mix,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘Had a nasty habit of increasing the price. Wasn’t there some incident with a young woman. Carlisle’s daughter? GHB, date rape . . . He went to ground a bit sharpish after that.’ He paused. ‘So, young Karen Parker, knowing that Vido is not only not going to be missed; his absence, shall we say, is likely to be rewarded . . .’
‘Did what Carlisle and his crew had been unable to do. Tracks him down, kills him, sends the pictures to Carlisle along with the bill.’
Fitch laughed. ‘She’s got balls; you’ve got to give her that.’
‘Yeah, what I hear, Vido donated his. Anyway, she’s then up and running. Kudos and start-up capital in one.’
‘And two since. Apart from Percy Mears. Being a client, I suppose he doesn’t count.’
‘Apart from him, two more that we know about. It has to be said too that she’s canny. Doesn’t take out anyone who’s likely to be missed or who’s likely to start a vendetta. Vido overstepped the mark: no one was going to be seen to miss him or mourn him. Wesley Norman – number two in our report. He’d played one side against the other so often that no one would trust him to buy them a beer. Thought he was clever; didn’t realize that you have to have someone out there willing to watch your back while you rip off the opposition. The names implicated in getting rid of him are, let’s say, legion . . . way I figure it, someone passed the hat and everyone bunged a fiver in.’
‘I never encountered Norman,’ Fitch said. ‘I knew about him, never heard a good word. So, where does Thomas Peel start to figure in this?’
‘That, as they say, is the sixty-four dollar question. So far as I can ascertain, contact with Thomas Peel was part payment for victim number three, Edward Hutchens. She seems to have heard that Peel was being protected and who by. The Hutchens hit was, we think, put out by Igor Vaschinsky.’
‘Vaschinsky? Russian Mafia? Well, his elder brother is, so . . .’
‘Vaschinsky is, in part, a legitimate art dealer who uses his business as a front for a fine-art smuggling operation. Hutchens crossed him, threatened to go to the authorities and expose Vaschinsky, if, of course, he didn’t pay up. One thing the Russians don’t take kindly to is blackmail. It seems our Igor liked the idea of this young Turk being the one to take out his old friend; it amused him, so he made contact with Karen Parker, they agreed terms, and then Karen got wind of the fact that Hutchens and Peel had once been friends, that Hutchens was, possibly, still in contact. Anyway, it seems she persuaded Hutchens to tell her where Peel was hiding out before she killed him. She then hands over to Igor Vaschinsky and his people, who get hold of Peel for her and persuade him, shall we say, that it’s in the best interests of everyone if he cooperates with her. Karen and Peel both have a gripe with Mac and so . . .’
‘And so, Peel comes out of hiding and Mac goes back up north. Karen turns up here.’ Fitch nodded thoughtfully. ‘Which implies not only that she doesn’t like Mac a whole lot, but also that he’s the one person she’s scared of.’
‘Scared? No, I wouldn’t go that far, and I’d also say she’s wary of Rina, though Rina has so far been an ally. Mac, however . . . Mac wants Peel, and Mac knows enough about Karen to make life very hard.’
‘I think it’s more personal than that,’ Fitch speculated. ‘Rina told me once that Karen felt he let her down. Parker senior snatched his son, Karen called on Mac to help and she thinks he didn’t act fast enough. That’s how come Rina and Tim ended up on the cliff top that day, when Parker took his tumble. Anyway, we’re trying to apply logic and reason here. Karen doesn’t need a reason, the way I see it.’
He picked up his mug and peered despondently into the now empty depths. ‘Truth is, when Rina called and asked for me to come down, I thought she’d just got a bee in her knickers over nothing. Teach me to think again, won’t it?’
At Peverill Lodge, tea went much better than Rina expected. Karen heaped praise on the sandwiches and cakes and sausage rolls the Montmorencys had provided. She laughed at the jokes Bethany Peters told – despite the fact that it took the joint effort of both sisters to remember the punchline – and listened to the very hesitant duet George had been persuaded to perform with Eliza, clapping loudly at its end. Even Ursula relaxed her guard enough to tell Karen that George had been put up a stream at school and was now in second from top for most subjects. She sounded, Rina thought fondly, rather more like a proud mother than a de facto girlfriend.
‘Well done, Georgie,’ Karen said softly, and Rina could see the very real pride in her eyes. ‘I knew you could do it. You just needed to be somewhere settled down.’
Rina looked anxiously at her young friend. Karen had just given him an opening; would he take it?
George did. He took hold of Ursula’s hand – something Rina had not seen him do before so openly – and said, ‘I like it here, Karen. I am settled. I’m getting on at school, I’ve got friends and I—’
‘And I’m really happy about that,’ Karen interrupted, ‘and of course Ursula can come and visit any time she likes, but, George, you need more tha
n that and I can offer that now. I’ve got us a little house and I’ve found you this great school and—’
‘And I don’t want to go.’ There, he’d said it. George bit his lip and Karen stared. Rina was shocked to see bright tears fill Karen’s eyes.
‘Rina, can we, I mean, can George and I talk somewhere private, please?’
Rina hesitated. She looked at George, who took a deep breath and then nodded. ‘You can use my room,’ Rina said. Her little sitting room at the front of the house was usually off-limits to all but a select, invited few.
‘Thanks,’ Karen said. She got up and went out into the hall.
‘George.’ Ursula’s eyes were wide with concern.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘She’s my sister and I love her. She’ll understand.’
He let go of Ursula’s hand and followed his sister. Rina showed them into her sitting room and quietly closed the door.
George accepted Karen’s hug, returned it, recalling all those times when Karen’s love had been the only thing between him and a world of pain. He sat down in one of the fireside chairs and Karen took the other, bringing it close so that the chair arms touched. ‘I want you with me, little brother. I’ve made so many plans. You’ll love the little house – look, I’ve got photos on my mobile.’
George looked at the pictures she had taken, noting absently that her phone looked as expensive and sophisticated as everything else Karen owned now. She was right: it was a lovely little house – small, Georgian-looking almost, with a pretty cottagey garden. There were pictures too of the inside and what would be his bedroom, and she had all these plans for what they could do together. ‘There’s a basement, George. We could turn it into a games room. You remember how we always used to joke about doing that. We’d have a TV and games machines and table football.’
George laughed, despite his misgivings. ‘Like the one they had at . . .’ He tried to think which of the many hostels and refuges they had been at. ‘Well, that place, you know. We got told off for being out of bed.’
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