Resolutions (7 page)

‘Anyone who knows you down there, Mac. Look, if Peel is taking that much of an interest, maybe you should get yourself back down there. You'll be splitting yourself in two, worrying about your friends and trying to keep on top of what's happening this end.'

‘You don't think I'm up to it?' Mac asked harshly.

Alec shrugged. ‘Damn sure I wouldn't be,' he said frankly. He groaned, suddenly thinking of something.

‘What?'

‘Oh, nothing. I'm just visualizing the moment we have to brief DCI Wildman, that's all.'

Mac managed to laugh. ‘He will, no doubt, be delighted,' he said. ‘Probably leave me tethered out in a field somewhere as bait.'

‘Not funny, Mac,' Alec said, and Mac nodded as the realization hit them both that this was exactly what Mac was, and for that reason, if no other, he had to stay.

For the next hour or so they went through the records of visits and phone calls. On the visitors front there was little enough to look at. None of Rains's family came to see him and his friends seemed to have melted away. He'd had a local vicar, one Reverend Tom Longdon, come to see him twice, and a woman called Sara Curtis who was on the list of official prison visitors. During the past month he had made only two phone calls, both to his legal representative, and received only three. Two of those had been regarding his parole hearing and the third was from the same Reverend Longdon. Other than that, Rains seemed to have had little or no contact with the outside world for at least the past three months.

‘You fancy the Reverend Longdon for being Peel in disguise?' Alec joked as they drove away, heading – late – to their second appointment of the day.

‘Or maybe this Sara Curtis,' Mac suggested. ‘Thomas Peel in drag.'

He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the rest and striving for composure, or at least the surface veneer of it. He had, he reckoned, spoken Thomas Peel's name more times in the past twenty-four hours than he had in the past year and, he was almost relieved to discover, Rina and Andy Nevins were right: the name did not fill him with so much dread. He had taken possession of it, used it, exposed it for what it was: just two words, just sounds, just letters, strung together in a particular configuration.

‘Why would he want to stalk me?' Mac ventured. ‘I mean, that's what it amounts to, isn't it?'

‘Unless, of course, that was just one random fact Peel managed to acquire and happened to mention to Rains, knowing he'd pass it on to us.'

‘Which sounds really likely, I don't think,' Mac said. ‘But why now?'

‘We don't know that it is just now,' Alec pointed out. ‘You may well have been the object of his attention ever since he killed Cara Evans.'

Mac shook his head, closing his eyes again. He could feel Alec's scrutiny. ‘No, it has to be more recent. Before DI Eden retired, I hardly used the place. Eden made the most foul coffee imaginable, strong enough to stand a spoon up in – that's if it didn't eat its way through the metal first. Eden went in July and I started to buy my coffee regularly at the coffee shop on the promenade just after that.' He opened his eyes, stared out through the front windscreen. ‘I can't believe I didn't see him.'

‘He may not have been there.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean, it would have been simple enough for Peel to hire someone to keep an eye on you. I'm guessing Frantham is like Pinsent in the tourist season. Incomers everywhere. It's only this time of year that strangers get themselves noticed.'

Mac nodded, accepting that, feeling a little better at the thought that Thomas Peel may have been doing his spying at second hand. The thought that Peel might have been so close, and Mac not known or acted, was an unbearable one. ‘Right, so what's next on our “to do” list?'

‘Ricky Marlow – the man Thomas Peel went to visit when he surfaced three weeks ago. And then to have another chat with John Bennet, Peel's work colleague.'

‘The one who alerted us to the fact that Peel was back,' Mac nodded. ‘Emily, Peel's daughter, she said she remembered Bennet. She's of the opinion that her father wanted to be seen, that he showed himself to Bennet.'

‘We came to the same conclusion. He stood around on the street corner until Bennet left work at lunch time. The cob shop Bennet used was just across the road. Bennet admits to being something of a creature of habit. Peel would have known that; the two of them worked in the same office for five years. Peel went back to the B & B to collect a scarf he'd left behind.'

‘Strange to think about Peel working for a living.'

‘But he did and apparently was very good at what he did. Bennet is another draughtsman; they both work, or rather worked, for the same architects' office. Bennet has three kids, and Peel visited his house on a number of occasions. He must have wondered . . .'

‘Any evidence he did?'

‘Thankfully, no. Peel was never alone with the Bennet children.' Alec indicated, turned off the main road and down an increasingly narrow lane. ‘Peel went to see his old friend Ricky Marlow at work. We're visiting the great man at home.'

‘Great man?' Mac queried.

‘Ricky – Richard Marlow – owns the Ramolt Hotel in town, part-owns three pubs and two car dealerships, and has an extensive buy-to-let “portfolio” or whatever it's called. Supports a dozen local charities and yada yada.'

‘Oh,
that
Richard Marlow.' Mac frowned. ‘And the connection with Peel?'

‘Well, on the surface, it's that the architects that Peel used to work for did the extension on Marlow's house and other bits and pieces on his pubs or something. Anyway, Peel did the drawings, generated the computer models or whatever they do now, liaised with Marlow on the changes. According to Marlow, that was the extent of their involvement, but . . .'

They were turning now into a set of double gates at the end of a long drive. The house up ahead was modern but obviously not off the peg. Painted white and with an odd, green pantiled roof that Mac was not sure he actually liked, it spread expansively either side of a massive front door. Single-storey wings extended the frontage even further, and glancing through the tall windows as they parked up, Mac realized that one wing housed a large indoor pool.

‘All right for some,' he said. ‘Second pool on the other side?'

Alec laughed. ‘Apparently, he collects orchids or something,' he said. ‘I believe that's where he keeps them.'

‘Orchids. Right.'

‘You don't like orchids?'

‘Actually, no. They're sticks with fancy bits stuck on the ends. You can't tell me that's attractive. And we have nothing on Marlow except that Peel contacted him?'

‘So far, no. Usual rumours about dodgy dealings and backhanders, but nothing more concrete or more unusual. He's cooperated with the investigation, claims he was as shocked as anyone could be when Peel turned up, but he failed to report their meeting and it was only after John Bennet reported seeing Peel that Marlow admitted to having his own encounter.'

‘He came forward, then?'

‘No, we managed to track Peel's movements on CCTV, saw him coming out of one of Marlow's pubs. We confronted Marlow and he admitted Peel had been to see him.'

‘And? What did Peel want?'

‘That's what we don't know. Marlow insists Peel just bought himself a drink and sat at the bar nursing it. Marlow says he saw him, recognized him and realized he was maybe the last person he wanted around, told him to leave. Marlow says Peel left without comment, but I find that hard to believe.'

‘Witness statements?'

‘Indicate a brief conversation between the two of them. Marlow just insists that Peel took a bit of convincing, that Marlow threatened to call the police, a threat which he did not carry out either at the time or retrospectively. He claims just to have been glad to see Peel go, to have been worried about what Peel might do if Marlow crossed him.'

‘Which may be true.'

‘Which may be true, but . . .' Alec opened his car door and had to grab the handle as a gust of wind caught it and wrenched it back. Mac was more cautious, holding on to the door as he got out of the car, and looked around, noting the depth of gravel on the drive and the measured manicure of the lawns.

Money
, he thought. And lots of it.

The front door opened as they crossed the drive, and Mac realized that Marlow must have been watching them, waiting for them to get out of the car. He stood on the top of the short flight of steps, holding the door half-closed behind him as the wind pushed hard against it, as though intent on fighting its way inside.

‘Bitter day,' Marlow said, stepping back and gesturing for them to go in. ‘A truly bitter day.'

Mac could not help but wonder if he meant the wind or purely that the police had come to call.

Marlow's study was book-lined and so thickly carpeted that small children could be lost in the pile. The hall floor, Marlow told them, was reclaimed parquet from an old manor house that had been demolished when his was being built. He said it was two hundred odd years old. The carpet in the study, Mac thought, certainly did not have that age or pedigree, but probably, he considered, a similar cost.

An orchid sat on the heavy oak desk, long stems strapped tightly to green canes, and did nothing to rectify Mac's opinion of the plant, though he had to admit that the flowers were interesting. Deep orange with freckled faces and very different from the ones he was used to seeing in the local supermarkets trapped in their plastic bags.

Marlow gestured them to twinned captain's chairs, preparing to seat himself in a somewhat more opulent example behind the desk.

‘Would you like something to drink?'

Both declined. The tea at the prison had been no better than the machine coffee, but both Mac and Alec had downed two mugs of the stuff while working their way through the visitation records. Mac felt he was already swimming.

Ricky Marlow sat down, steepling his fingers and regarding the two of them with a degree of impatience. ‘I've agreed to see you,' he said, ‘but I really don't see what more I can say. Peel came into the Eagle and Dove, and I just happened to be there. Had I not been there, I would have been none the wiser regarding his presence in Pinsent. That being the case, I could have told you nothing; having happened to be there, I can still tell you nothing.'

‘But you failed to report him,' Mac said. ‘I find that a little hard to understand, Mr Marlow. You knew that he had committed murder. Mr Marlow, he killed a child.'

Marlow gestured impatiently. ‘And you're right, of course. I should have called the police the moment I saw him. Recognized him. The truth was I was taken aback. I could only think how angry I was that he'd put me in that position, come into one of my premises and sat there, sipping a drink, bold as brass. It was the sheer effrontery of it. I'm sorry to say that put everything else out of my mind. I just wanted him gone.'

‘What did he say to you?' Mac asked.

‘I've already been over this so many—'

‘Please, Mr Marlow,' Mac said. ‘Go over it for me.'

Marlow sighed, slumped back against the heavy leather, button back of his chair. ‘He said, “Hello, Richard.” I said, “What the hell are you doing here?” and he said he was having a drink. I told him he should go; he said he hadn't finished his drink yet. I told him he could have a refund, that he should leave immediately. That went back and forth for a minute or so, and then he left. Nothing more.'

Mac considered. ‘You say the exchange went back and forth?'

‘Yes. It was boring. It was tedious. It meant nothing.'

‘It
meant
nothing?' Mac queried.

‘I'm sorry?' Marlow looked confused.

‘You said it meant nothing. Not “we said nothing else” or “nothing more interesting”. You said the conversation, the exchange,
meant
nothing. That implies that something more was said than your simple request that he leave and his simple refusal to do the same.'

Alec had raised an eyebrow, his expression quizzical. He too turned to look expectantly at Ricky Marlow.

‘I didn't mean . . . I didn't think anything. I . . .' Marlow frowned and began again. ‘He said he hadn't finished his drink. I told him he could have a refund and he laughed. He said he wanted more than a refund and I told him he'd better think again.'

‘Any reason he might think you owed him something?'

Marlow shook his head impatiently. ‘None,' he said. ‘Marstons – the architects Peel worked for – they did quite a lot of work for me. Designed the two wings on the house, the courtyard extension out back that we built so we could have a separate guest annex, and a few other bits on other properties. They did good work. Peel was a first-class designer and troubleshooter. It was standard practice to send him out with the first drafts of the architect's designs to do any snagging. I've got to admit that's partly why I kept going back to them. Most architects are so tied in to their so-called visions that they don't see the practical snags until it's too late. Marstons like to iron out the problems early on and Peel had a good eye. I admit, I requested him after the first job they did for me. I knew we were on the same wavelength where the building work was concerned.'

‘And on other matters?'

‘I don't recall that we discussed any other matters,' Marlow said coldly. ‘He was there to do a job.'

‘And you don't waste time in small talk with the hired help,' Alec suggested.