When Will There Be Good News? (39 page)

*

'But,' Marcus said, 'does it have anything to do with Decker or not? Is it just a coincidence that he appears at the exact moment that she disappears? And what? He just walked away from the train crash?'

'He hasn't actually appeared anywhere,' Louise pointed out. 'He's the invisible man.' 'Decker,' Jackson murmured, gazing thoughtfully out of the car window. 'Decker? Why do I know that name?'

The absence of Decker, the presence ofJackson. As if they had changed places in some mysterious way. Jackson had lost his BlackBerry in the train crash and mysteriously acquired Decker's driving licence at the same time. Had he unknowingly swapped with Decker? Was Decker the man who rang Joanna Hunter's phone when Louise was in the house yesterday morning? He had been looking for ']0', not Joanna, not Dr Hunter. Is that what she had said to him when she visited him in prison -Call me Jo? What else did she say to him?

'What else did you lose?' Louise asked Jackson. 'Credit cards, driving licence, keys,' Jackson said. 'There's an address book in the BlackBerry.'

'So your whole identity, basically. What if Decker's using it? You get the driving licence of a Category A prisoner with a warrant out against him and he gets you -upstanding citizen -so-called -credit cards, money, keys, a phone. The last person who phoned Joanna Hunter on Wednesday called on your phone, your BlackBerry, so perhaps it was Decker. He phones Joanna Hunter and then she disappears. Neil Hunter says she left at seven but we only have his word for it. Maybe she left later, after the phone call. And if she did drive away -somehow or other, not in her car, not in a rental -and she wasn't driving down to see the aunt then where was she going? To meet someone else? Decker? Did he catch the train to Edinburgh because they had arranged a meeting? He gets derailed, literally, he phones her afterwards and she goes off to meet him.'

'And then what?' Marcus said.

'That's the bit that worries me. What about CCTV, there must b
e
cameras up where she lives, lots of rich people live on that street, and-' 'Back up a minute,' Jackson said. 'Why are you so interested in this guy Decker? I don't understand.' 'Yes,' Reggie said. 'Who is Andrew Decker? And what's he got to do with Dr Hunter?'

Sorry, kid, Louise thought. She hadn't wanted to be the one to tel
l
Reggie aboutJoanna Hunter's past
. A
s she expected, this informatio
n
made Reggie even more vocal. (,Murdered? Her whole family?') Th
e
girl was a terrier, you had to hand it to her. She wasn't even relate
d
to Joanna Hunter and yet she seemed to care about her more tha
n
anyone else. Louise couldn't imagine Archie feeling like this abou
t
her.

'Jesus,' Jackson said. 'Of course -Andrew Decker. How could I
h
ave forgotten that name? We were on manoeuvres on Dartmoor
. We
were called in to search for the missing girl, the one that got away.'

'Joanna Mason,' Louise said. 'Now Joanna Hunter.'

'And now you have to look for her again,' Reggie said to Jackson.

'Just because something bad happened to her once doesn't mean it's happened again,' Louise said to Reggie.

'No,' Reggie said. 'You're wrong. Just because something bad happened to her once doesn't mean it won't happen again. Believe me, bad things happen to me all the time.'

'Me too,' Jackson said.

'You're worried that this Decker's going after Joanna Hunter?' Jackson asked Louise. 'It seems unlikely, I've never heard of anyon
e
doing that.'

'To tell you the truth I'm beginning to worry that Joanna Hunter is going after Andrew Decker.'

'On the other hand,' Louise said.

They were parked on the forecourt of a service station. Marcus and Reggie were in the shop buying snacks and Jackson had slipped into the front passenger seat. He was giving off heat. Louise wondered if he had a fever or ifshe was imagining it because of her own overheated state. She wanted him to hold her, she wanted to let her bones melt, even if for a moment. She never felt like this with Patrick, never wanted to stop being Louise, but sitting here on the brightly lit forecourt she wanted to give in, leave the battlefield. Was there a way of keeping him this time, locking him up in a prison, a box, a safe, so he couldn't get away again?

'On the other hand what?' he prompted.

'Neil Hunter, Joanna's husband, is hardly above suspicion. For all we know he's done away with her himself. And the baby. Maybe she was leaving him and he lost it.'

'It happens.'

'On the other hand ... he also knows some quite interesting people.'

'Interesting?'

'What we in the trade call "criminals". Some guys from Glasgow we've been hearing rumours about for a while. A guy called Anderson. He's trying to get into town, muscle in on some legit businesses. Private car hire being a particular favourite apparently.'

'Mini-cabs?'

'Yeah. And amusement arcades. Health clubs. Ropy beauty parlours. Guess who owns all of those?' 'Neil Hunter?' 'Bingo. One ofhis amusement arcades burned down last week and there's been some other stuff.'

'Stuff?'

'Technical term. We were looking at Hunter for wilful fire-raising but now I'm seriously beginning to wonder. What if Anderson's threatening Hunter's family? Kidnapped, Reggie keeps saying and she's been right about everything else so far. Bizarrely.'

'You and yours. Think about it. Sweet little wife, pretty little baby. Do you want to see them again? Because it's your call. That's what Reggie said.'

'You've got a good memory for an old man.'

'Lot of rote learning at school. And I'm forty-nine. Younger than your spouse, I believe. Do you want to see them again? Do you think they're being held somewhere?'

'And the aunt was just a red herring. A wild goose. A way of throwing anyone offwho was worried aboutJoanna Hunter's sudde
n
disappearance,' Louise said. 'The ironic thing is that her husban
d
needn't have bothered, Decker leaving prison gave Joanna Hunter
a
really good reason not to be around. Neil Hunter should never hav
e
gone down the aunt route.'

'Good theories,' Jackson said. 'How are we going to prove o
r
disprove them?'

'We're doing nothing. Just me. I'm the real police, you're just a waster. Basically.'

'Thanks.' He reached his hand out and took hers and said, 'I reall
y
did miss you, you know.' Her mouth went dry and her heart slippe
d
into overdrive as ifshe had some kind ofvirus and she thought abou
t
starting the engine and driving him away to the nearest hotel, bar
n
or lay-by, but Marcus and Reggie were already barrelling out of th
e
shop and she only just had time to reclaim her hand before the
y
bundled back into the car, bringing in a draught of cold night air an
d
ripping open crisp packets.

'Do you want your seat back?' Jackson said to Marcus and he said
,
'No, you're all right, I'm happy back here with the dog,' but Louis
e
said to him, 'Actually, you can drive, I'm feeling tired, I'll sit in th
e
back,' because she couldn't bear to be so close to Jackson and not b
e
able to touch him again.

'No probs,' Marcus said. 'All change. Men in the front, women i
n
the back, just how it should be. Joking obviously,' he added swiftly
,
catching sight of Louise's face in the rear-view mirror.

It was dark long before they recrossed the border. The miles after Berwick dragged. They dropped Reggie and Jackson in Musselburgh. 'You're sure you want him staying with you?' Louise said doubtfully to Reggie.

'He hasn't got anywhere else to go.' 'Well, I do have a home to go to actually,' Jackson pointed out. 'It's just that the world and his wife seems intent on stopping me reaching it.'

'You have to help find Dr Hunter,' Reggie said.

'Finding Dr Hunter is my job, not his, Reggie,' Louise said. 'I don't want any amateur interference.' She turned to Jackson and said, 'We can do this without your help, thank you.'

'Go home to your kids, Herb, kind of thing?'

'Exactly.'

'Nice wheels,' he said, patting the roof of the BMW affectionately as if it was an old friend. 'Bugger off.' 'I'll see you tomorrow,' he said. 'Will you?' 'Yes, of course.' Her heart lifted, she would see him again tomorrow. This was ho
w
teenage girls felt, how Louise had never felt when she was a teenage girl. Patrick was right, she'd never had an adolescence. Making up for it now.

'I wouldn't go home without saying goodbye,' he said. Bastard. She wasn't enough to keep him, couldn't compete with the pull of his new wife. Tessa. Bitch.

She wanted to say, come home with me -well, not home, she could hardly take him home, introduce him to her husband, to Bridget and Tim, 'This is Jackson Brodie, the man I should have married.' Not married. Marriage was for fools. The man she should have run away with. Over the hills and far away. 'Take a leap of faith with me,' that's what she wanted to say to him. But of course she didn't.

'Who's Herb?' Marcus puzzled.

'Shit. I should have taken that handbag off Reggie.' What was happening to her? She wasn't usually forgetful. Now she was beginning to feel as if her brain was fraying.

'I'll organize a uniform in the morning, boss.'

'You're a wee treasure, so you are.'

Marcus said, 'Just drop me somewhere,' and she said, 'Don't be silly, I'll drop you off at home.' He lived in South Queensferry, miles out of her way.

'I'm miles out of your way, boss.'

'Not a problem, really. I've got my second wind.' He still lived wit
h
his mother. Archie wouldn't still be living with her when he was twenty-six. 'Girlfriend?' She'd never thought to ask before, Marcus had never seemed like a boy who had a girl.

'Ellie.'

'But not living with her?'

'Next step, boss. We went to view a house last night as a matter of fact. Malbet Wynd.'

Yes, of course, he was a boy who did things properly, in steps and stages. A girl called Ellie, a house in Malbet Wynd. He prepared for things.

After he'd climbed out of the car Louise slid back over into the driving seat and rolled the window down. 'First thing in the morning we need to find out ifJackson Brodie's credit cards have been used and where. And see if we can put some kind of trace on that phone.'

'Right, boss.'

'Night, Scout.'

'Night, boss.'

She waited until he'd unlocked the front door and turned and waved goodbye before disappearing into the house. A curtain twitched in a downstairs room, his aspirational mother she supposed.

She sat for a while longer wondering if there was somewhere she could go that wasn't home. Fife and all points north was just across the water. How far could she get before anyone noticed she was gone?

Tribulatio
n
WITH HINDSIGHT, REGGIE COULD SEE NOW THAT PERHAPS SHE should have mentioned her criminal relations to Jackson Brodie. If she'd warned him about her brother, for example, before inviting him to stay with her tonight, then he might not have walked into Ms MacDonald's living room ahead of her (while she locked the front door so they would be safe -irony, ha, etcetera) and found himself with a nasty-looking penknife nicking the skin covering his carotid artery at almost the exact spot where she had desperately felt for a pulse on the night of the train crash. Billy was on the other end of the knife.

'Surprise!' Billy said flatly. 'Who is this joker?' He pressed the knife deeper into jackson's neck. 'What's he doing here?'

'Let him go,' Reggie said. There was no point in appealing to Billy's better nature because he didn't have one, but a person had to try. 'He's nobody to you.'

To her surprise, and Jackson's too, Billy did let go of him, shoving him to the floor where he landed heavily as he only had one good arm to break his fall. Reggie was caught off guard by Billy grabbing her instead, putting his arm round her neck, almost crushing her windpipe. He used to do the same thing when they were little. Mum would say, Give your little sister a kiss to say sorry, because he was always having to apologize for some misdemeanour -snatching her doll, kicking over her Lego, biting -he was a terrible biter -and he would sing out 'Soreee, Reggie,' and under cover of kissing her would halfstrangle her and Mum would say, Bad boy, Billy. He looked wild-eyed, like the horses in Midmar field did when Sadie got too close to them.

Jackson struggled on to all fours and then got slowly to his feet. Billy stopped trying to choke her and instead pressed the point
of the
knife against her neck and said to Jackson, 'Don't even think about doing anything.' She could feel the blade, cold and sharp on her skin. It was such a small knife yet it could do so much damage to her.