Resolutions (2 page)

‘Hang on a minute, will you, Andy.'

The young man sat back down and looked nervously at his boss. ‘Something wrong?'

‘Not so far as I know. Andy, you're coming up to the end of your probationary year. I'd half expected you to have applied for a transfer by now?'

The young man shuffled in his seat.

‘I just wanted you to know that I'll back up whatever you want to do.'

Andy looked awkwardly at his boss. ‘Even if I want to stay here?'

Mac was momentarily caught off balance by the unexpected reply.

‘I like it here,' Andy went on. ‘Oh, I know I'll have to move on some time, get urban experience and all that, but I've had more hands-on this year on some really big cases than I'd be likely to have got in five years up the coast. I'd have been bottom of the pile there. Here, you've treated me like I'm an important part of the team. You know?' He finished lamely. ‘I'd like to stop here, if it's all right with you.'

Mac found that he was smiling; grinning so much his cheeks hurt. ‘It's fine by me,' he said. ‘More than fine.'

The young man rose to go, and Mac started to think what needed doing before he left for Pinsent. Andy had paused in the doorway.

‘Mind if I ask something, boss?'

‘Ask away.'

‘The guy that killed that little girl. That Cara Evans. I know his name was Thomas Peel 'cos I looked it up in the file, but you never call him by his name. I just wondered: why is that?'

Mac stared at him, totally floored by the question. He wanted to deny it, to say that of course he used the man's name. Not to would have been . . . Then he realized that, of course, Andy was right. He avoided voicing Thomas Peel's name. Avoided even thinking it.

‘I just started thinking,' Andy went on, carefully avoiding his boss's eye, ‘about something Mrs Martin once said. She was talking to me mam about someone they knew what had cancer, I think. Anyway, this woman didn't want to talk about it. Wouldn't say
that
word.'

Mac was uncomfortable with the direction this was taking and taken aback by the fact that Andy Nevins should be quoting Rina Martin. ‘Andy, where are we going with this?'

Andy shrugged. ‘Only that Mrs Martin reckoned that you'd not faced up to something if you couldn't call it by its name. She said if you give a thing a name, you start to cut it down to size. That's all.' Cheeks flaming almost as red as his hair, he retreated into the front office, leaving Mac slightly stunned.

Mac closed his eyes. So now Andy Nevins too had fallen under the Rina Martin spell. But he was right and so was she, Mac acknowledged. Name a thing, have power over it. Wasn't that a kind of ancient magic?

‘Thomas Peel,' he said softly. ‘His name was Thomas Peel and he killed Cara Evans while I watched and could do nothing, and then I let him go.'

He closed his eyes. Not that he needed to. The image of that night on the beach was so strong, so vivid, he had no need to conjure it up.

Bright stars in a heavy, black sky, pressing down so hard the world seemed compressed. The sea, oily and calm, lapping at the killer's feet as he held the child in front of him, a knife at her throat. Mac could no longer recall the words he'd used as he tried to talk the man into dropping the knife, his ears straining for the sounds of the promised backup arriving. He had just said anything:
keep talking, keep him looking at you, keep the child alive
.

And then the stray siren, despite Mac's demand that the approach be silent, and the shriek of sound broke the spell that Mac had been weaving. Seconds, less than seconds later, the child lay on the sand and her killer had fled and Mac – Mac went to the child and not after the man, despite the fact that reason and his own horrified gaze told him that Thomas Peel had cut her throat so deeply he had severed blood vessels, severed her trachea: there was nothing he could do.

And that was how his colleagues had found him. Kneeling in the shallow water, the body of Cara Evans cradled in his arms, his hand on her throat, trying to stem the flow of blood that had already spilled out on to the sand.

‘Thomas Peel.' Mac said it with more conviction this time, knowing that he'd be hearing that name repeated numberless times in the coming days and that Andy – and Rina – were right: you had to name your fears if you were to have any hope of controlling them. ‘His name was Thomas Peel.'

TWO

E
mily Peel could not settle anywhere. She had managed to unpack the shopping, even to make herself a cup of tea – though not to remember to drink it. It sat, reproachful and cold, with that sort of cloudy scum on top that forms when too much milk has been added to the mug, like when Calum made it. She'd made
Calum
tea. She
never
made
Calum
tea.

Emily took a deep breath, trying to get a grip on the stupid, random thoughts that were racing through her brain as she tried to block those memories that her mind didn't want to deal with. She ought to take Frankie for a walk, she thought. She ought to get the washing done. She should at least tidy the kitchen.

In the end, she did none of those things – and had done none of those things by the time Calum came home and she realized the day was ended and she had not even been aware of its passing.

‘Em?' The front door slammed shut and from the hall came the dull thud that signalled the dropping of Calum's work bag on to the tiled floor. ‘You home, love? Why is it so dark in here? Hello, Frankie, boy; where is she, then?'

Calum bustled into the living room, Frankie in tow. ‘Emily? What is it, baby?'

He knelt down beside her, taking her hands. ‘Emily?'

She stared at him, uncomprehending. ‘He's not dead,' she whispered. ‘He's not dead. Calum, it isn't over and now I don't know what to do.'

He didn't need to ask who she meant. Instead, he pulled her off the chair and down beside him on the floor, gathering her as close to his body as he could, Frankie joining the group embrace and whimpering softly.

‘He doesn't know where you are, Em; you don't need to be scared. He's not part of our lives, not part of you any more. Emmy, he's not here.'

She was trembling, shaking so violently that he too was truly scared, as though her fear was somehow contagious. ‘We'll go away for a while. I'll phone work and tell them I need time off. It isn't a busy time of year; Jim will understand.'

He felt her shake her head.

‘Hey.' Gently, he eased her body away from his just enough for him to look down into her eyes. A thought occurred to him. ‘How did you find out?'

‘Mac called, this morning. He said he didn't want me to hear it from anyone else. He's coming up tomorrow. He's . . .' She buried her head in his chest once more and wept painful, noisy tears. Calum stroked her back and, somehow, welcomed the tears. Tears were kind of normal, after all. That terrible stricken silence was something he didn't know how to handle. ‘I'll take the day off, be with you when he comes.'

He felt her nod. ‘Then we'll think what to do next. Like I said, I can take some time.'

This time the head was shaken. ‘I'm not going to run.' She sounded angry now and Calum saw that as another good sign. She pulled away, wiping at reddened eyes with the heels of her hands. ‘Not unless you want me to go.'

‘Oh, hey, now don't start that again. I already told you more times than I can count: whatever comes, we face it together. I told you that when you told me who you were and what your dad had done. We'll get through this, Em. You and me. You understand that?'

She nodded, but didn't seem convinced. ‘What if he comes here?'

‘Why would he? Look at it logically. How could he even know where you were? And if he did know . . . Well, love, if he's not dead now, then he's not been dead for all that time you thought he was. He could have turned up any time over the past year plus, and he hasn't, has he? So what makes you think he will now?'

She tried to agree, tried to smile, to admit that what he said was right, but it was as though Mac's phone call had once more made her father real, solid. She had managed to believe the letter the police had shown her. Managed to convince herself that he was dead, even though suicide was something she would never have associated with her father. Now, however, all of that reality, all of those thoughts she'd managed
not
to have since then, seemed to crowd in on her, waiting in the shadows at the edges of the room, at the periphery of her vision. Waiting for her to acknowledge them. Waiting to drown her.

Mac and Miriam arrived unannounced at Peverill Lodge just after seven o'clock. The evening meal was in the process of being cleared away, but leftover dessert was offered and accepted. The food in the Rina Martin household was always worth sampling and Miriam had become a major fan of Steven Montmorency's cooking. Mac left Miriam ensconced at the kitchen table, digging into sticky toffee pudding and catching up on news with Bethany and Eliza, two more members of the extended family. He followed Rina into the little room at the front of the house that she reserved as her own personal space. Tim Brandon, the youngest member of the Martin household, joined them a moment later with a loaded tray of tea and more toffee pudding.

Love, in the Martin household, seemed, Mac thought, to be doled out in deep blue bowls and drenched in cream. It was also delivered freely in terms of conversation and sound advice, and Mac felt deeply in need of both.

He waited to speak until Tim had settled the tea tray on to the low table set between the two fireside chairs and brought a third chair from the recess of the bay window and he had accepted a cup from Rina, putting off the moment.

‘Not working tonight?' he asked Tim.

‘No, it's Monday.'

‘Oh, of course it is. Sorry, Tim, my brain is elsewhere. I'm glad you're here, though.'

‘Trouble?' Tim's dark eyes filled with sympathy.

‘Yes . . . no. I mean . . .' He took a deep breath. ‘I heard this morning. There's been a break in the Cara Evans case. It's been upgraded to active and I've been offered the opportunity to be part of the investigation.'

Silence seemed to drop upon the room from some point above the ceiling. Mac saw Tim and Rina exchange a glance and knew what was going through their minds. They had known him since his first days here at Frantham and would be thinking . . .

‘I'm ready to deal with it,' Mac said softly. ‘I know you'll be worried, I know it won't be easy, but, Rina, I have to do this.'

She sighed. ‘Of course you do, Mac, but the selfish part of me wishes you'd had a bit longer to prepare.'

‘Would that have made it any better?' Tim wondered. ‘Sometimes, having time to stand on the edge is harder than making the leap.'

Rina nodded. ‘Sometimes,' she agreed. ‘Mac, when do you leave?'

‘In the morning, first thing. Miriam's going to keep an eye on the boathouse. I expect she'll be staying there as much as she usually does, so no worries about that.'

‘And we'll keep an eye on Miriam,' Rina assured him. ‘I don't suppose you've any idea . . .'

‘How long this will take? No, none at all. But it's the first movement we've had in the case for months; everyone will be eager to push things on as fast as possible.'

‘I imagine they will.'

Mac caught the odd tone in Rina's voice and realized what she had heard in his. He had already removed himself from Frantham and therefore from them. He was already thinking and behaving as though he had gone, become part of this other world in which they did not figure.

‘I'll be coming back,' he said firmly. ‘Rina, I'm under no illusions about what this is going to do to me. I'm going to need my family when this is over.'

Somewhat mollified and reassured, she reached out and took his hand. ‘We'll be here,' she said. ‘But, Mac, I want you to promise me something. I can understand that you have to see this thing through, to see an end to it, but remember, Mac, you are not invincible and, much as I regret having to say it, you are not indispensable, not to the police. There are other officers. You
are
indispensable to us. Irreplaceable. Promise me you will remember that?'

He had rarely seen her look more concerned or more earnest and he responded in kind. ‘I promise,' he said solemnly. ‘If I find I can't cope, I will take myself off the case.' He smiled wryly. ‘You can be sure I'm going to be under the tightest of scrutiny, you know. They'll be looking for poor old DI McGregor to fall apart on the job.'

A few miles away, a young woman got off the late train at Honiton Station and checked into the George Hotel on the High Street. She asked about hire cars, said she'd be staying for two days, maybe more, smiled and flirted with the young man at reception. Her blonde hair shone brightly in the strong lights in the lobby, skilfully highlighted and the cut expensive and as tailored as the black wool coat she wore. She had one bag with her and she said it was fine, she could carry it up herself.

The young man at reception watched hungrily as she recrossed the lobby and headed for the stairs.

‘Put your eyes back in,' his manager joked, coming from the small office behind reception. He glanced at the registration sheet she had just filled in. ‘Carolyn Johnson,' he said. ‘Out of your league, mate. Way out.'

The receptionist, blushing furiously, attempted to laugh it off. ‘I can dream, can't I?'

‘Oh, dream on,' his manager said and retreated to the office, still laughing.

THREE

M
ac left early, kissing Miriam goodbye and watching regretfully as she rolled over and snuggled back down beneath the duvet. Outside, the morning was chill and grey and a stiff breeze blew off the sea as he completed the short walk round the headland to collect his car from behind the police station. Old Frantham Town, where his boathouse flat was located, had no vehicular access, a fact which had helped keep it free of the second-homes brigade. It also had a population of rather determined and conservative locals who resisted change with a tenacity that Mac had at first viewed as eccentric, but which, less than a year into his tenure, he now understood completely.