The Shining Skull (28 page)

The chief inspector thanked her and when she was out of earshot he looked up at Wesley. ‘Someone’s got out of bed on the right
side this morning.’

The words ‘Whose bed?’ leaped unbidden into Wesley’s head but he didn’t voice them. In fact he felt a little ashamed of himself.
Rachel’s private life was her own.

Heffernan looked down at the sheet of paper Rachel had given him. ‘I suppose I’d better give this PC Blunt a ring . . . See
if he’s managed to contact Marcus.’ He sighed. ‘I want to get this sorted out, Wes. Leah Wakefield’s family have been on to
the Chief Super and he’s told me he wants results.’ He put his head in his hands like a man under pressure. And Gerry Heffernan
didn’t like pressure from above. He liked to do things in his own time in his own way.

‘I’ll speak to this PC Blunt if you want.’

Gerry Heffernan looked up at him gratefully. ‘If you could, Wes.’

Wesley took the details from his boss and was about to return to his desk. But he hesitated for a second. It was still on
his mind, the dream that had caused him to wake, sweating and terrified at four in the morning. It had triggered something;
some memory; some connection. It was as if he’d seen the truth in those strange images. But he was being ridiculous, overimaginative.
It had been a nightmare, nothing more. Stress probably.

‘You OK, Wes?’

‘Yeah. It’s nothing,’ he said confidently before making his way back to his desk and picking up the phone.

Five minutes later he wandered into Gerry Heffernan’s office, looking worried. ‘Gerry, I’ve just spoken to that PC Blunt from
Greater Manchester. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘What doesn’t?’

‘He called at the address we gave him for Mark Jones and he found Jones in.’

‘And?’

Wesley frowned. ‘Mark Jones didn’t know what he was talking about. He said he’d never been to Devon in his life.’

‘Is he sure he talked to the right man?’

‘Oh yes. He produced his passport and everything. And his Aunty Lynne lived at that address until she died last September.
He fits the approximate description but he denies knowing anything about why we’d want to contact him.’

Gerry Heffernan put his head in his hands.

‘I think we’d better get up to Manchester, don’t you?’

It normally takes around five and a half hours to travel from Tradmouth to Manchester. But, thanks to road works on the M5
and an overturned lorry on the M6, it took Gerry Heffernan and Wesley Peterson an extra hour to complete the long and arduous
journey. By the time they’d pulled into the car park of Mark Jones’s local police station, they felt as if they’d crossed
the Sahara on a pair of camels, hot, tired and dry. But all the police station had to offer in the way of refreshment was
tea out of a machine which closely resembled heated dishwater.

Wesley looked at his watch. It was half four already. He’d warned Pam that he would have to spend the night away and she’d
taken the news remarkably well. However, she had said that her mother would come round and keep her company. Perhaps an evening
of Della whispering poison into her ear would make things revert to how they were before. Good things rarely lasted.

After a brief chat with PC Blunt, they asked him to take them to Mark Jones’s address. They had to see the man for themselves
. . . and find out why he’d been lying to the local police.

‘Bit different from the Fallbrook place,’ Heffernan commented as they walked up Mark Jones’s garden path.

Wesley looked around, noting the scrubby, littered patch of grass that hardly merited the title of garden and the flaking
paint-work on the doors and widow frames. ‘All it needs is a car on bricks,’ he said with a grin.

‘Yeah, you’re right, Wes. Come to think of it, where is his car?’

But before Wesley could contemplate the answer the front door opened and PC Blunt was starting to make the introductions.
A middle aged man stood framed in the doorway wearing faded jeans and a sweatshirt proclaiming his enthusiasm for a gruesomely
named death metal band. On paper he probably would have fitted the approximate description of Mark Jones – or Marcus Fallbrook
as they now knew him – but, faced with the reality, the two men looked quite different. This man’s nose was more bulbous,
his cheek bones higher and his hair thinner. There was no strong resemblance to Adrian Fallbrook here – he rather resembled
a child molester from central casting.

Gerry Heffernan stepped forward. ‘We’re looking for a Mark Jones. Is your name really Mark Jones or are you having a laugh?’

The man took a step backwards, intimidated by Heffernan’s direct approach. ‘I kept telling him.’ He jerked his head towards
the bemused PC Blunt. ‘I’m Mark Jones. I showed him my passport and everything. You’ve got the wrong man.’

‘We were given this address.’

‘That’s not my problem,’ the man said sulkily.

Wesley stepped forward. ‘Look,’ he said, meeting the man’s resentful eyes. ‘It’s obviously just a misunderstanding. The Mark
Jones we’re looking for isn’t in any trouble. We’re just trying to contact him on behalf of relatives, that’s all.’

The man’s expression softened a little. He even began to look a little curious.

‘Look, can I just ask you if you’ve been in hospital recently, if you’ve had an accident that resulted in a head injury?’

The suspicion returned to Jones’s face. ‘Yeah, I have. Why?’

‘When did this happen exactly and which hospital were you in?’

When the man had recited the facts, Wesley looked at Heffernan. This matched exactly what they’d been told by the man who
had been proved to be Marcus Fallbrook. But why had he lied? And why had he assumed this man’s identity to do so?

Fortunately, Gerry Heffernan had thought to bring the photograph of Marcus they’d borrowed from Adrian Fallbrook. As soon
as he showed it to Jones they saw the flash of recognition in his eyes.

‘This is Joe. The old bugger. Has he been giving you my name? Bloody cheek.’

‘Joe?’

‘Joe Quin. We both work at the garden centre. Only he’s not been in work for a couple of weeks. What’s he done? Why’s he given
you my name? Come on, I want to know what’s going on.’

He wasn’t the only one, Wesley thought. But he stayed silent, listening, thinking.

‘Sorry, we don’t know ourselves yet, mate,’ said Gerry Heffernan, putting on the old pal’s act. ‘That’s what we’d like you
to help us find out. Tell us about Joe. What kind of a bloke is he?’

‘OK. I work with him and we go for a drink occasionally but I wouldn’t say we were bosom buddies.’

‘Has he got a girlfriend?’

‘Yeah, Sharon. But he hasn’t mentioned her recently so I don’t know if it’s still on or . . . ’

‘What else can you tell us about him?’

‘He used to be a roadie . . . for bands, like . . . travelling round. But he gave that up about eighteen months ago. Dunno
why. Must be better than heaving bags of peat around all day.’

‘The car he drives is registered in your name.’

‘Yeah, I sold him my car a few weeks ago. With this head injury the doctor says I can’t drive and . . . ’

‘So he’s never sent his details off – the car’s still registered to you?’

Jones shrugged as though such matters didn’t concern him.

‘Has he ever mentioned Tradmouth in Devon?’

Jones shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Him and Sharon used to go to North Wales quite a bit . . . Abersoch. But I don’t
remember anything about Devon.’

‘Did he ever mention a family called the Fallbrooks? Or anything at all about finding his real relatives?’

The answer was a firm shake of the head. ‘Never. I would have remembered.’

‘What about his family?’

Jones shook his head. ‘Never talked about them.’

‘What about his dad?’

‘Didn’t have one.’

Wesley guessed that Jones had told them all he knew. And some instinct told him that what he’d said was the truth. Marcus
– or Joe – had assumed his work colleague’s identity. Perhaps it was acquiring the car that had given him the idea or perhaps
he had planned it all from the start. But as to why he hadn’t used his own name, Wesley could only hazard a series of guesses,
each wilder than the last. ‘Do you have his address?’ he asked, suddenly longing to be away from that shabby house and on
the trail again.

‘It’s a couple of miles away. Heald Green. Yarm Road. Number seventeen. But don’t tell him I said . . . ’

‘Like I said, Mr Jones,’ said Wesley at his smoothest. ‘As far as we know Joe’s not done anything wrong. We’re just trying
to trace him, that’s all.’

They were glad to have PC Blunt to act as their native guide. He led them to Yarm Road – number seventeen – and, once they
had reached their destination, he hung around expectantly. Gerry Heffernan hadn’t the heart to send him away. He might as
well do the bloke a favour by diverting him away from Greater Manchester’s crime for an hour or so.

Number seventeen was a small semi-detached – a reasonably respectable house in a respectable road – the epitome of the ordinary.
It looked rather better kept than Mark Jones’s. The net
curtains in the window could have benefited from a good wash and the grass in the front garden was in need of a mower but
apart from that it looked fairly clean, if a little bland and featureless, as though someone did the minimum amount of maintenance
required but took no further interest. They let Blunt, as the local lad, ring the doorbell. But when there was no answer and
no sign of life round the back of the house, it was Gerry Heffernan who broke the pane of glass in the back door to gain entry.
‘You didn’t see that,’ he said to Blunt with a theatrical wink. Blunt looked the other way and smiled.

Once they were inside the narrow kitchen Wesley looked around. It was the house of a man, although a vestige of female influence
could still be seen in the dusty silk flower arrangement on the windowsill.

Without a word they wandered through into the hall, then into the living room where the bland and unloved theme continued.
The carpets were beige with swirling patterns that had been fashionable once but Wesley couldn’t remember when. The walls
were magnolia and the only picture hung above the tiled fireplace; a cheap framed print of a harbour scene.

‘I recognise that,’ said Gerry Heffernan, pointing at the picture. ‘That’s Tradmouth.’ He turned to Blunt. ‘That’s where we’ve
come from.’

Blunt looked at the print of Tradmouth Harbour and made appreciative noises.

‘Let’s have a look around, shall we?’ Heffernan began to make for the door.

‘Shouldn’t you have a warrant, sir?’ Blunt was starting to sound worried.

Heffernan turned, an innocent expression on his chubby face. ‘I’m worried about this bloke, aren’t I? He’s gone missing and
we’re all losing sleep over it aren’t we, Inspector Peterson? We’re trying to find something that’ll tell us where he might
be.’

Blunt hesitated. ‘If you put it like that, sir . . . ’

‘Look away if you’re squeamish, Constable,’ said Wesley with a grin as Heffernan opened the lid of the oak bureau in the corner
of the room and began to search through its contents. ‘Or better still, go upstairs and see if you can find any letters or
documents . . . Anything that mentions the name Fallbrook. And check out exactly who lives here, will you?’

As Blunt disappeared, Heffernan handed Wesley a folder with the logo of one of the larger high street banks emblazoned on
the front. Joe Quin was obviously a man with a tidy mind. His bank statements were in order, Wesley was relieved to see, and
told a story of a man with a modest income and frugal spending habits. The only outgoing over the past weeks that could have
been described as extravagant was the five hundred pounds he had paid Mark Jones for his old car. All the transactions since
then would be on the latest statement, as yet unreceived. That would make for interesting reading, Wesley thought.

There were more bank statements, this time in the name of Mrs Jacqueline Quin. And credit card statements in both names. And
there was something else.

‘Have a look at these,’ Heffernan said as he handed Wesley a buff envelope. Inside there was set of photographs, some in colour,
some in black and white.

Wesley examined them, then he went through them again, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Amongst the photographs
was a copy of the picture they’d found in Helen Sewell’s room at Sedan House. Two women – Helen and a woman they had assumed
was her sister, Jackie – with Marcus Fallbrook.

And there was more.

‘This is the Fallbrooks’ garden. There’s the tree house Adrian was talking about. And here are some shots of the interior.
It’s not changed very much. What do you think it means?’

‘I think these were taken by whoever kidnapped Marcus . . . reconnaissance. This woman in the photograph. She looks a bit
like Helen Sewell but a lot younger. I bet she’s the Jacqueline who sent the birthday card. She must have had some connection
with the Fallbrook family . . . a dismissed servant maybe.’

Heffernan stared at the pictures for a few moments, turning the possibilities over in his mind. ‘She might have worked for
the Fallbrooks. She might have had some sort of grudge against them and decided to kidnap the child.’

‘Then she couldn’t give him up? Her sister, Helen, must have been in on it.’

‘Well, Pauline Vine knew nothing about it and Helen can’t tell us now. Do you reckon Marcus found these pictures and started
to remember what had happened?’

Wesley thought for a few moments. ‘It’s possible.’

‘I think it’s about time we found Marcus, don’t you, Wes?’

He opened the second drawer down and began to rummage. ‘No sign of a passport yet. Hope he’s not decided to fly off somewhere.’
As if on cue, a jet thundered overhead, shaking the house.

‘Bit noisy round here,’ said Wesley calmly. ‘I can’t see him going very far. He’s set to inherit a fortune. And what about
Sharon? If we can find out what hospital she’s in . . . ’

‘I want to know why he used a false name. Why pretend to be Mark Jones, his mate? What’s the point unless he had something
to hide?’