Cold Grave (43 page)

He had rebuked Rachel for even investigating the case and apologised for her having to do so. He was annoyed at her and grateful, saddened and sickened at the consequences of the new investigation. He was pleased, once he finally grasped all that had happened, at the outcome but Rachel had sensed it hadn’t been enough to put his mind at ease.

Tony looked at him now, standing on the tree-lined gravel path next to Danny, who was trying to swap police stories with him, Alan chewing uncertainly on his lower lip and his eyes wandering warily to left and right.

‘It breaks my heart to see him like this,’ Rachel said behind Winter.

‘I know. But you’ve done what you could to help him — with Claire at least.’

‘Yeah. Maybe. He isn’t settled yet though. I’m hoping that when Deans goes to trial, I can tell him that it’s finally over. But that’s another two months away.’

‘Kyle Irving’s trial is before then, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, next month. Hopefully he won’t be practising his fake psychotherapy for a while.’

‘How long do you think he’ll get?

‘Years. We’ve got blackmail, perverting the course of justice and interfering with a police investigation. The bastard…’ she lowered her voice, ‘the bastard saw pound signs. He was happy for us to think that Paton was the killer. He reckoned he could make a fortune by writing a book about it: “inside the mind of a murderer” — that sort of thing.’

‘How much of it do you think he really knew?’

‘Plenty. He knew about the four of them meeting the girl even if he didn’t know for sure that one of them had done it. Paton had spilled his guts in therapy and he obviously knew enough to get email addresses for Mosson and Deans and to make up a false one for Bradley to fool the others. Paton was full of guilt about leaving Claire on the island and that bastard Irving took full advantage of it to try to sort his money problems.’

‘If he hadn’t, then Deans wouldn’t have reacted the way he did and we might not have found out what the hell happened.’

Rachel laughed bitterly.

‘True, but I’m not about to be thanking him for that,’ she told him. ‘It’s not like you to be seeing silver linings where I’m seeing clouds. Usually it’s the other way about.’

‘Maybe I’m seeing the light?’

‘Yeah, right.’

She drew a finger tenderly down Tony’s cheek and left him to rescue her dad from Danny’s war stories. Tony turned his back to the path they’d stood on and regarded the marble headstone propped up by single red roses strewn at its base. The flowers had each been dropped there by one of the mourners at the request of Claire’s parents.

The principal inscription on her headstone mimicked, word for word, the sentiment carved on Lily’s anonymous grey slab in Brig o’ Turk.

I will fear no evil for thou art with me

It had been a long time since Tony had had any faith in the protective power of God to deliver anyone from evil and clearly Claire Channing had a very good reason to have feared it. Tony’s belief in life after death was on a par with his belief in God but he knew that it was possible to live
with
death. He had done so with his parents and now Claire’s parents would do so with her. In a strange sense that at least meant she wouldn’t be alone.

‘Dad?’

The anxiety in Rachel’s voice caused Tony to turn away from the headstone and back to her. He saw Alan Narey yards ahead of her, heading determinedly down the path to where the Channings stood hand in hand by the door to the chapel. Rachel swivelled anxiously to Tony, then back to her father before trying to catch up with him before he reached Claire’s parents.

Tony could see that she wanted to run after him but a graveyard was hardly the place for that. Instead, she scurried down the path, gently trying to call him back. Winter passed Danny as he went after her, despite knowing that if she couldn’t get to her dad in time, then neither could he. He was at her heels but she was still a few yards from her father, who was now at the shoulder of Ted Channing.

‘Excuse me,’ Alan Narey began softly. ‘Mr… excuse me.’

Claire’s father turned, red-eyed and slightly bewildered, ready to accept what he must have assumed were more condolences. He obviously didn’t recognise Alan Narey but stretched out his hand to take the one that was offered to him. Mr Narey wrapped his other hand over Channing’s and held it there.

‘I need to apologise to you,’ he told the girl’s father.

Rachel was at her dad’s side now and placed her hand on his arm, trying to lever his hand from Channing’s but her dad wasn’t for letting go.

‘Sorry, I don’t understand…’ Ted Channing was saying.

‘Come on, Dad,’ she told him. ‘Let’s not bother Mr Channing. This is a difficult day for him.’

‘No,’ he told her. ‘No, Rachel. I need to speak to Mr… Mr…’

‘Channing,’ the father told him. ‘Why do you need to talk to me?’

‘Please, Dad.’

‘Mr Channing, I have to apologise to you — about your daughter.’

‘Claire? Why?’

‘Claire? I didn’t know that was her name. We called her Lily but we knew that wasn’t her name. We didn’t know her real name.’

Channing looked confused. ‘And that’s what you’re sorry for?’

‘No. Yes. That too. But I’m sorry because… Mr Channing, I forget things at times but I remember your daughter. But I didn’t do the right thing by her. I let her down.’

Channing was fighting to hold back fresh tears, visibly gulping down his emotions.

‘How? I don’t understand.’

‘Dad. Please, let’s leave Mr Channing.’

Alan Narey turned to speak to her, his mouth opening but, after an awkward pause, closing again. He thought about it some more.

‘No. You leave me. I need to speak to him.’

She knew he had forgotten her name.

‘I was a policeman, Mr… Mr Channing. I was supposed to find out who killed your daughter. And I didn’t. I’m sorry but I didn’t.’

The man looked back at him, a tear forming in the corner of his eye.

‘I did my best. I thought I did. I… you see, I let her down. I’m a father too, Mr… I know what a father would feel. I felt it.’

‘But this, this is your daughter?’ Channing asked him.

Alan turned and looked at Rachel as if only just realising she was there.

‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

‘Mr Narey,
your
daughter found the man that killed mine.’

‘She did?’

Alan looked at Rachel, confused anew. She nodded at him and was rewarded by a glow of pride.

‘I’m… I’m still sorry,’ he told Ted Channing.

Claire’s father tried for an answer but instead opened his arms and the two men hugged, tears tumbling down both their cheeks. They held on to each other for a while until Alan abruptly broke the embrace, looking at Channing with some surprise and turning to his daughter.

‘Can we go home now, Rachel? Your mum will be worried about us.’

She didn’t have the heart to tell him about her mother but instead took his arm in hers and they began walking back down the path together.

Tony stood aside to let them past, falling into step with Danny and selfishly wondering if either Rachel or her dad had even noticed his presence. It had always been the way he’d liked it, observer rather than combatant, a bystander to tragedy. Now however he was beginning to wonder whether being on the outside of things was where he wanted to stay. Being on the inside brought the risk and reward of hurt and intimacy.

Just as suddenly, Alan Narey stopped again, a look of consternation on his face, and stood still for an age.

‘There’s a saying, Rachel. It goes… no, no, don’t help me. I’ll remember it. It’s about… dammit.’

Winter could see that the pain on her dad’s face as he struggled with his memory cut Rachel in two.

‘Yes…’ He took a deep breath and nodded with relief. ‘You cannot wash blood with blood. Yes, that’s it. All you do is make things even worse. That’s what that man Deans tried to do though: wash blood with blood.’

Rachel hugged her dad close, burying her head into his shoulder.

‘Blood is strong,’ she told him. ‘It makes people do things, good and bad. Come on, we’ll take you back. And I’m going to visit every day. You’ll soon be sick of the sight of me.’

Winter stood behind them, jealous of their closeness but also absorbed. He wondered lamely whether it was worse to have lost your parents, as he had, or to lose them regularly as Rachel was now fated to do with her dad.

He thought of the futility of washing blood with blood. And he wondered if he’d ever be able to stop doing it.

Rachel slowed her step, turning to him with a warm smile and waiting till he caught them up. She slipped her right arm through his, her left still entwined with her father’s. Danny stepped up to join them on the other side, linking his arm through Alan Narey’s and completing an unlikely yet appropriate chorus line.

Together they walked back up the cemetery’s main thoroughfare, the twin chapels directly ahead of them, separated and connected by the towering steeple with its theatrical archway leading to the world beyond. Resisting a last glance over his shoulder towards Lily’s final resting place, Winter forced himself to look ahead. He couldn’t deny that it made quite a picture.

I owe gratitude, as ever, to everyone at Simon & Schuster UK; particularly my editor Maxine Hitchcock for her endless supply of ideas, patience and reassurance. Thanks too to Emma Lowth and Florence Partridge for always being there to offer help when needed, which was often.

My head and heart — if not my liver — thanks my agent, Mark “Stan” Stanton for his continuing wise counsel. Less wise but nonetheless welcome advice came from my good friends in The Midnight Plumbers, particularly in this instance to Robert Clubb for his invaluable knowledge of computer geekery.

For equally expert assistance, I am grateful to Professor Caroline Wilkinson of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee and to Andy Rolph and the staff of R2S Crime in Aberdeen.

During his 20-year career in Glasgow with a Scottish Sunday newspaper, Craig Robertson has interviewed three recent Prime Ministers, attended major stories including 9/11, Dunblane, the Omagh bombing and the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, been pilloried on breakfast television, beaten Oprah Winfrey to a major scoop, been among the first to interview Susan Boyle, spent time on Death Row in the USA and dispensed polio drops in the backstreets of India. His debut novel,
Random
, was shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger.