Fragile Lives (25 page)

An additional problem occurred to him. The cliff path leading back in the direction of the hotel could easily be observed from the rear of Hill House. The blond man would only have to glance out of the window at the wrong moment and George, with his red hair, was pretty unmistakable. He had no doubt that the blond man would realize who he was and George did not for one minute think he could outrun him, not in his socks along a rough path and he had already decided he dare not risk going back upstairs to get his shoes.

His luck had held so far, but would it continue to hold if he tugged too hard?

No option, he'd have to risk the path.

Then he remembered Simeon. The distance to Simeon's house was about the same as that to the DeBarr Hotel and it went the opposite way. Simeon would call Rina for him and she would get hold of Mac and the other advantage of that was that Simeon would see logic in calling Rina first, the people at the hotel would insist on calling the police and that was if they believed him.

George did not want to think what the blond man might do if he heard sirens heading for Hill House. Cheryl and the kids would be finished, he was sure of it.

George had reached the door. The house seemed even more silent, no longer even the murmur of the blond man on the phone. Thinking about it, George realized that what he'd been hearing was a series of very short conversations with periods of quiet between and it was this that had first caused him to pause, this which had attracted his attention.

He had read somewhere that mobile phones were now easier to trace than land lines. Who was the blond man calling? Were others on their way?

The front door was unlocked. George breathed a sigh of relief. He had been so worried that Cheryl might have increased security after last night. He wondered how the blond man had bluffed his way in.

Easing the door open just enough to slip through, George fled out into the chill air of another wintry day. Of course, it had now begun to rain again. Not looking back, he crossed the side garden and climbed the low fence, leaping from there on to the cliff path and then he ran, the cold air filling his lungs and then burning. Simeon, be in, he prayed. Simeon, please be in.

The world seemed to be holding its breath and waiting, Mac thought. He leaned wearily against Kendal's car and sipped a mug of tea that someone had handed him. Apparently, some enterprising soul had co-opted the nearest neighbours and they were doing their bit to keep the troops happy.

Randall's solicitor had now arrived and was in consultation with his client. Mac would return later and sit in on part of the interrogation.

Mr Goldman was still refusing to speak until he had news that his children were safe. More worryingly, he was also refusing to eat or drink. The on-call doctor had been to see him and he had been placed on suicide watch. Mrs Goldman was still under heavy sedation.

He had spoken to Rina and heard about the petty vandalism, wanted to send someone round but Rina would have none of it. The sense that they had been invaded was, she said, overwhelming for a while, though it was soon evident that the damage done to the Martin household was largely superficial and somewhat half-hearted, more for effect than for lasting impact.

‘A few broken ornaments and emptied drawers,' she told Mac. ‘We've cleaned and scrubbed and tidied and the place feels like ours again.'

She wanted no more fuss and he had settled for dispatching Andy Nevins to take a statement. That would be fun for the young probationer, he thought; Andy was quite terrified of ‘Miss Martin'.

Kendal came back from one of his regular visits to what he called the front line. Tyson was in regular radio contact but Kendal wanted to see for himself what wasn't going on. He was tense and bored and impatient for action.

‘Anything?' Mac asked.

Kendal shook his head. ‘Tyson thinks they're getting restless, there's been more movement and the odd argument.' He frowned. ‘Tyson reckons there's something wrong here, but he can't put his finger on it. He says he'd have expected more dialogue by now, more straight demands. It's almost as if they've lost the script and can't improvise.'

Mac nodded, similar thoughts had occurred to him. He remembered a bank siege in his last job in which he'd had peripheral involvement. They had known very early on what the criminals wanted and, though there had been glitches in communication, those inside the bank had been quick to try and control the situation. Here, it was almost as if no one knew what to ask for.

George was hurting. His feet were cut and bruised by the sharp stones of the path. His lungs were burning from the fierce cold of the air and the tension in his chest that prevented him from breathing properly. His knees and hands hurt from where he had slipped and fallen on gravel and mud. And he was cold, freezing cold, gone past the shivering stage and transformed into a solid block of discomfort.

But he was almost there. Would Simeon be home? Would Simeon let him in? All the doubts he had been shoving to one side as he ran the mile along the cliff path assailed him now.

Stumbling on frozen feet across the last bit of lawn, George circled the house and hammered on the front door.

To his surprise and shock it was not Simeon who answered. It was another man, taller, darker but enough alike for George to remember that Simeon had said he lived with his brother.

‘What the hell?' Andrew said, staring at the sodden, frozen boy standing on his doorstep.

‘I'm George,' George said. ‘I met Simeon on the cliff.'

‘When? Today?' Andrew was confused. ‘What's he doing out in this?' He looked again at the boy. ‘Oh, for goodness sake, come on inside. George? George Parker? Rina's talked about you. Your dad.'

George nodded frantically. He had begun to shiver now. ‘Got to call her,' he managed. ‘The blond man's at Hill House. He's hurt Cheryl and he's got two kids there and—'

‘Enough, into the kitchen with you, the fire's lit.' Andrew led George through. ‘That door there' – he pointed to the far side of the kitchen – ‘there's a shower room. Strip off and put the shower on hot, get warm. I'll rustle up some clothes and tell Simeon you're here then you can tell me what this is all about.'

George was dripping on the kitchen floor. The thought of getting warm and dry was almost overwhelming but there were other concerns, more urgent ones.

‘No,' he almost shouted. ‘You've got to call Rina now. I've got her number, I think, but I don't have Mac's and I need Mac.'

‘Mac? The policeman? DI McGregor. God, look at you, you're freezing. OK, at least get out of your wet things, I'll grab some clothes and the phone. If you freeze to death Rina will never forgive me.'

He dashed off out of the kitchen and George, reluctantly, went into the little shower room Andrew had indicated. It was evidently not much used for its intended purpose, stuffed with buckets and brooms and potatoes sitting in wooden boxes. George peeled off his sodden clothing and rubbed himself dry with a towel, grateful that it was warm from the radiator. A knock on the door told him Andrew had returned. He opened the door a crack and accepted the clothes, pulling on tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt and warm jumper. They were much too big, but George didn't care; they were warm and dry and felt perfect. He emerged to see both brothers in the kitchen and Andrew was speaking into the phone.

Simeon handed him socks. ‘Warm,' he said. ‘Your feet are cold.'

‘Thank you,' George said. He struggled to put them on with hands that still had frozen sausages for fingers.

‘Something about a blond man,' Andrew was saying. ‘Look, I'll hand you over. Rina, if there's a story in this?' He laughed at the response and gave the telephone over to George.

‘George, why aren't you in school today?' Rina said.

‘What?' George was baffled. Sometimes even the most reliable adult could be stupid.

‘All right,' she said. ‘I'm sorry, George, it's been a long night. Tell me. You've seen Coran?'

‘Coran?'

Belatedly, Rina realized the boy only had half the current information. ‘Blond man,' she said. ‘That's his name. Now, talk to me.'

George took a deep breath. He told her how Paul had cracked up in class and how he'd been allowed to take the day off because he hadn't got any sleep either because Cheryl had been warned something might be up and how he'd slept late and when he'd woken up …

‘She was lying on the floor and there were these two kids tied to chairs. Two girls with dark-brown hair. Rina, I didn't want to leave them but I couldn't do anything on my own. I daren't try and use the hall phone, he'd have heard me. I was going to run to the hotel, then I remembered Simeon and that he knew you and so I came here.'

Simeon was listening with interest but little comprehension. Andrew stared, his mind clicking and turning as he collected facts.

‘You did the right thing,' Rina told him. She questioned him carefully, extracting everything he could remember about the children he had seen.

‘George,' she said, ‘hand me back to Andrew, please.'

George did as she asked and Andrew listened and then hung up. ‘She wants you to stay here,' he said. ‘She's going to call Mac and he'll probably want to talk to you so we stay put and wait for orders, OK?'

George nodded. ‘Do you think they'll be all right? Cheryl looked, I don't know, she looked crumpled, limp. And who are the kids?'

‘I don't know,' Andrew told him. ‘She promised she'd give me an exclusive afterwards.' He grinned at George.

‘You're a reporter?'

‘Not usually
that
kind,' Andrew said. ‘But a good journalist knows a scoop when it lands on his doorstep.' He smiled reassuringly then pointed to an easy chair close by the fire. ‘Sit,' he said, ‘before you fall down. Simeon and I will rustle up something for you to eat.'

‘What's going on?' Tim asked.

‘That was George. He was off school today. Coran is at Hill House and he has the girls with him. They aren't at the farm. Mac is on a wild goose chase there.'

R
ina's news threw everything into confusion.

‘There's no doubt about this?' Kendal wanted to know. ‘We're trusting the word of a thirteen-year-old.'

‘How could he make this up? He knew nothing about the Goldman kids, but he does know Coran by sight. No, if George says he's at Hill House then that's where he is. We had a patrol car there most of the night but it seems they were withdrawn at eight thirty. The kids would have left for school. I'll make a bet that Coran was watching.'

‘I'll speak to Tyson, this changes the balance here,' Kendal said. ‘You'd better start getting things mobilized.' He winced. ‘I don't want to think who'll be footing the bill for this.'

Mac nodded. It would take time to shift operations over to Hill House, or rather, to set up yet another task force. So, Coran was only one man, but he had three hostages. What was he waiting for? What did he want? Why not just cut and run? What did he want the children for?

Stan was not prepared to wait this time. According to Rina, the police had no truly local resources to call on unless you counted a probationer and an elderly sergeant and a man nearing retirement. Resources would have to be called in from Dorchester and Honiton and probably Exeter. It was time, he worried, that they didn't have.

‘Coran is just one man,' he told Rina.

‘An armed and dangerous man and there are more people than Coran to consider.'

‘I know.'

‘For what it's worth, I'm with Stan,' Fitch said. ‘I say we go after the bastard, take him out.'

Rina eyed him suspiciously. He was enjoying this far too much, she thought, though she understood that the opportunity to act after so much frustration was overwhelming.

‘And if we get it wrong? We'll have to live with that.'

‘There is no “we”, Rina.'

‘You'll need a distraction, something to bring him to the front of the house, away from the children. Tim and I are it, I think.'

Stan shook his head.

‘What can I do?' Joy asked.

‘You can stay put,' Fitch told her.

Joy turned on him. ‘Fitch, I almost died last night. If it hadn't been for Stan I'd be lying at the bottom of the ocean somewhere with a bullet in my brain. I think I'm a bit past telling
no
to. I got a second chance. I want to help those kids get one too.'

‘I don't believe Coran would kill them,' Stan said.

‘But can you be sure?'

He shrugged uncomfortably then looked away.

‘Right, so let's stop wasting time. Rina, do you know the layout of the house?' Fitch asked.

‘I know what Mac's told me, but that's all.'

‘Then we get George on the phone while we drive up there. He can fill us in. Everyone ready?'

No one was, but no one said so. ‘This is mad,' Tim muttered.

‘It is that,' Rina agreed, ‘but at least you'll have a story to tell all those military relatives of yours. They may begin to think you're almost normal.'

Tyson had thought carefully about how to play the new situation. He understood now why it had felt so wrong; so inauthentic. He decided he would play it straight and tell them what he now knew.

‘Inside the house,' he called. ‘Inside the house, I hope you're listening. I suggest you take up my suggestion and come out now, unarmed and with your hands raised. We've just received information about an associate of yours, a certain Mr Coran. It would appear that he took your bargaining chips away some time ago. As I understand it, gentlemen, lady, the children are no longer in your possession.'

Inside the house there was consternation.

‘I told you he sold us out.' Thompson was furious. ‘Bastard.'

Tina, sitting at the top of the stairs, burst into tears. ‘I don't want to do this any more. What's the bloody point?'