The Pure in Heart (11 page)

‘Where to?’ Nathan said as Simon got into the car.

‘Don’t know. Let’s get away from here first … Go out towards Starly.’

‘Something up
there?’

‘Shouldn’t think so.’

Nathan knew better than to ask any more questions but drove on out of Lafferton and into the country lanes. It was a dull day, the sky an unrelieved and dreary grey, the trees bent in the cold wind. Serrailler sat in silence until he suddenly said, ‘Go right here and then take the lane to Blissington.’

Nathan did so. The roads were empty, the lane narrow with overhanging
banks but at the end they came to a village, not much more than a huddle of cottages and a couple of large houses set back behind gates.

They pulled up in front of a pub set behind a raised triangle of grass with a huge oak tree. ‘I never even knew there was a village here,’ Nathan said.

The bar was quiet and smelled good. They ordered home-baked ham rolls and coffees.

‘What do we know?’ Simon
Serrailler said when they were settled at a window table.

‘Right – the boy and his mother came out of the house at around eight ten.’

Step by step they went through the few facts they knew, then talked their way back, to what Marilyn Angus had told them.

‘Nothing,’ Simon said at last. ‘Normal small boy, normal family, no tensions, no problems. Nothing.’

‘So?’

‘Worst-case scenario? Random
driver out looking for a child? When we get back, I want to know all the usual – double-check on any missing children
nationwide, paedophiles recently released from prison, all that. Uniform will get all the stuff on locals who always drive that way to work, neighbours, anything odd in the vicinity … If you were a paedophile looking for a child, what would you do?’

‘What this one did … Pick a
time of day, going to school time or coming home, lots of kids around.’

‘Yes, but most of them are in gangs going to the bus or getting in and out of cars where there are plenty of people about … these are rush hours.’

‘Done some homework first. Prospect.’

‘OK, so you’d know streets where kids were more likely to be walking alone. Or waiting alone.’

‘You think this was carefully planned?’

‘Maybe …’ Simon Serrailler finished his beer. ‘The mother. She didn’t say what you’d expect. Didn’t blame herself for leaving him on his own to wait for the lift.’

‘So it was her usual thing then?’

‘Often enough anyway … she said she was in court that morning, so maybe on court days and when it wasn’t her turn to do the school run, she generally left David to wait at the gate.’

‘Nine years old?’

‘Well … it was daylight, cars generally passing, the lift would be regular and reliable … not sure we should apportion much blame for that.’

‘Someone knew just when … what day, what time.’

‘Or maybe we’re way out. I wanted to turn this over with you now because when we get back to the
station – unless David has been found – all hell is going to be let loose. The television and press will be
going national, calls will be flooding in. Get me another of these rolls, will you? Eat while you can.’

On the way out to the car Simon stopped to look at a bench under the great oak tree. ‘
In memory of Archie and May Dormer. They loved to sit here
.’

‘Peaceful. I’ll bring Em out here next time we do a bike ride. She’d like to live in a place like this. In her dreams.’

‘You never know … keep
a lookout for a cottage … something like that row over there.’

‘Archie and May’d have ’ad one of them. People could then. We ain’t got a prayer, they’ll be two hundred grand.’

‘Keep looking … you never know. Come on, Nathan, where’s your cheer?’

‘Wherever the kid is,’ Nathan said starting the car.

‘The small English cathedral town of Lafferton is in shock today after the disappearance of nine-year-old schoolboy, David Angus … This is a blow to a place which has still not recovered from last year’s murders. David Angus, son of a consultant neurosurgeon and a solicitor was last seen …’

‘Bloody hell, kids ain’t safe at their own flaming front gate now …’

‘Heard it on the one o’clock
news. They haven’t found him then?’

Michelle Tait scissored open a packet of frozen pizzas and turned on the gas oven. ‘Turn up in a ditch somewhere, won’t he, like that little girl down in Kent.’

‘He might have gone off on his own. Gone to a mate’s.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Sort of thing I did all the time.’

‘Yeah, well. This kid isn’t like that. Nice family, private school, posh house … they
don’t, do they?’

‘Why does having all that make him less of a nine-year-old kid?’

‘Use your cells. You want a pizza?’

The offer sounded grudging.

‘No, I’ll get something down the Ox later.’

‘Afford to drink all right, can’t you?’

‘What, two halves?’

‘You been to the jobcentre again?’

‘Yes. And I’m looking in the paper.’

‘Plenty of jobs … look, rows of jobs there …’

‘Right.’

‘You got
no room to be picky, you know.’

‘I’m trained. I’m not stacking supermarket shelves.’

‘Trained. Right.’

‘Yeah, trained, which is more than most people round here can say.’

‘OOOOHH. Bloody good job you got me and Pete “round here” though, ain’t it?’

‘You want me out? OK. I’ll get out.’

‘Where?’

‘Someone I know.’

‘Pigs might fly.’

‘You remember Lee Carter?’

Michelle sat down at the kitchen
table opposite him and lit a cigarette. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Walked into him in the street. Drives a BMW convertible.’

‘I bet he does. You went down for four and a half years for the likes of Lee Carter. Are you off your head?’

‘He’s straight. Making a fortune.’

‘Oh sure.’

‘I could work for him, no sweat.’

‘Planting cabbages?’

‘He’s got a business … like this sort of executive club.’

Michelle
gave him a look that could have stripped paint.

‘Not what you think.’ Andy heard his own voice, talking up Lee Carter, sounding defensive. His sister was right of course. What the hell was he thinking about?

Only it was something. He’d gone over it a lot since Lee had driven him out to his house, shown off, told him where it was all coming from, thought about it and asked around. He was gradually
picking up some of the old threads – the right ones. He was being careful. He knew what he wanted. If he had money or if he found someone with it, he could start a proper market-gardening business, supply the best shops and hotels, good stuff, what they wanted now, organic, and not just cabbages and spuds. He had the training, he had the sense, he could do it. ‘Start-up capital’ it was called.

He stared down at the newsprint. ‘Media Sales Executive.’ ‘Marketing Consultant.’ ‘Group analyst.’ All the proper jobs seemed to have vanished. ‘Youth outreach coordinator.’ He folded the page over.

‘You put a foot wrong, Pete’ll have you out that door.’

‘He wants me out of it any road.’

‘Yeah, well, if I say you stay, you stay, only you want to watch it.’

The missing Lafferton boy had made
Sky News. There was a picture. A mousy little kid with a small snub nose and a serious expression. School blazer. Tie. All neat.

Andy looked into the soft nine-year-old face. He remembered men inside. What they would do to a kid like that. What they had done to plenty, and if they were behind lock and key, enough others weren’t.

He sat down.

Lee Carter. He saw the house. The car. The fountain
starting up. The thick pile carpet. The gilded bar in the corner of the room.

Only he’d gone past that when he was a kid, wanting, wanting, doing anything to get, not bothered how. He could go and work for Lee Carter, but then what? Besides, he wasn’t interested in horse racing or the people who were.

There had to be another way.

A posse of men in Stetsons galloped across the screen kicking
up a dust storm. Andy got up. Westerns were just one of the things he couldn’t stand.

There was still bedlam. From the kitchen came the crash of a dish into the sink.

‘See you,’ he shouted. No one answered.

He pulled his donkey jacket off the peg and went down the cold, ugly street towards the lights of the Ox.

It was full and they were all talking about the boy. Andy got a pint and ordered
a plate of pie, peas and chips.

‘Poor little sod.’

‘They’ll find him.’

‘You reckon?’

‘I didn’t say they’d find him alive.’

‘Right.’

‘Poor bloody parents. Anyway, what’s Lafferton done? After all that stuff last year it don’t deserve another lot.’

‘It won’t be local.’

‘Why not? Who says?’

On and on. The boy’s face was in his head now, he couldn’t get rid of it. He wanted to do something
and there was nothing he could do, unless they asked for people to start searching Starly or Hylam Peak or the Hill … He’d be up there with them if so. What it was, he realised suddenly, he was restless. He was in prison at Michelle’s almost as bad as before and in a way it was worse because he hadn’t anything to do. There, he’d been outside in the market garden eight till five. He’d had a purpose
to his day. He had to do something. Starting tomorrow.

His plate of food came steaming hot, mounds of it, the pie oozing thick brown gravy. A yell went up from the darts board. When he’d finished, he’d take his drink over there, have a game. Michelle wouldn’t want to see him before eleven.

He cut the pie and watched the pastry sink softly down into itself.

‘Darling?’

‘Hello, Ma. Yes, I’m still here.’

‘Oh, isn’t it infuriating when people ask you the entire time? How do you feel?’

‘You know how I feel.’ Cat shifted her weight from one leg to the other and back again but the knife-blade pain in her groin did not lessen. ‘The baby’s lying on a nerve and it won’t budge. Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.’

‘Darling, I don’t suppose you feel like
giving me a hand on Saturday morning, do you? Only Audrey has let me down and I really don’t think we have enough people …’

‘Remind me what’s happening on Saturday morning.’

‘The hospice exhibition in the Blackfriars Hall … ten till four, and of course I wouldn’t ask you, and needless to say you’ll just sit in a chair and talk to people and hand out leaflets and so on, I wouldn’t expect you
to do coffees and teas and so forth.’

‘Good of you. The problem is the baby is due on Sunday and the thought of sitting in a chair or
standing about for more than five minutes is grim, to tell you the truth.’

‘But what else would you be doing? It’ll take your mind off it.’

‘Mother, nothing will take my mind off having a baby apart from having a baby.’

‘Are you doing anything else?’

Cat closed
her eyes. Since retiring from the NHS, Meriel Serrailler had filled her life with a round of voluntary work, sitting on committees, acting as membership and social secretary to the St Michael’s Singers at Lafferton Cathedral, and chairing the board of the local hospice. Cat remembered being told about Saturday’s exhibition. The hospice needed a new day-care extension; plans had been drawn and
a model made but so little money had yet been raised that the Blackfriars Hall in the centre of the town was hosting an exhibition of the plans. The Friends of the Hospice were putting on refreshments and the usual raffle and tombola and, by the end of the day, hoped to have attracted some potential donors.

‘Sooner or later you are going to have to retire as Queen Bee,’ Cat said wearily.

‘Why?
I’m good at it, I am fit and well and have plenty of free time.’

‘You are also seventy-one.’

‘Poof. Anyway, darling, do you think you would?’

‘No,’ said Cat firmly, ‘but I have someone who might. Karin McCafferty’s husband just left her.’

‘Then she will certainly need her mind taken off things. I never really liked Michael.’

‘Unfortunately Karin did.’

‘I wonder why I didn’t realise they
weren’t happy?’

Karin was the designer who had remade Meriel’s garden the previous year. Cat chuckled.

‘You’re slipping, Ma.’

‘They haven’t found any trace of little David Angus, I rang Simon a minute ago. Not a trace. What do you think has happened to him?’

‘I’ve been trying not to think about it.’

‘They filmed the parents this morning … making an appeal. It’ll be on the six o’clock news.
Darling, do take care. I’ll ring Karin.’

‘Can’t you rope Dad in on Saturday? Time he did his bit.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of asking him,’ Meriel said and put the phone down.

Cat pulled a basket of sprouts and carrots towards her and sat up at the kitchen table to peel them. She would not watch the six o’clock news. Sam and Hannah had gone with Chris to their cousin Max’s birthday party twenty miles
away and would not be back until later. They would be rolled into bed, sticky and sleepy, and then she and Chris would have a late supper.

She would not watch the six o’clock news.

Would Karin mind being asked to help on Saturday? Probably not. Karin could put up a good front and besides, she was charming and beautiful
and could probably sell ice to Eskimos. She was just the right kind of person
to land a big donor. Her two days and nights staying at the farmhouse, pouring out everything over and over again, seemed to have emptied her of all shock, anger, resentment over being left by Mike. She was still hurt and saddened and she would undoubtedly have had him back tomorrow, but the all-clear from the hospital had strengthened her and uplifted her spirits. She had cried, she had talked,
she had blamed herself, and Mike. She had dissected her marriage and gone over every incident and conversation for the previous few months, trying to understand what had gone wrong and why, whose fault it had been, whether she should have behaved differently, not said this or done that. Cat, in her present languid state, had been happy to provide an ear, and the occasional word of comfort and
advice. But at the end of the two days, Karin had got up, washed and set her hair, made her face up carefully, packed her bag and gone home, head held high. ‘I’m looking up,’ had been her last words to Cat as she had hugged her at the door, ‘up and ahead.’