Believing the Lie (74 page)

Alatea took this in fully and realised what it meant, not only to her but to Nicky and to their life together. She said, “He’s
here
, in Cumbria?”

“He’s been here for days. I thought you would have known. Didn’t he—”

“
Where
is he now? Tell me.”

“Windermere, I think. Other than that, I don’t know.”

Nothing else remained to be said, but many things remained to be done. Alatea said good-bye to the woman and like someone in a dream, she gathered everything she’d brought down from the bedroom in the hope of bribing her. It was just as well, she thought, that the woman had refused her offerings. She would need them now herself in the coming days, for she’d run out of options.

She went back up the stairs to the bedroom and threw the jewellery and money onto the bed. From the box room at the end of the corridor, she brought out a small valise. There was little enough time to gather the things she would need.

Back in the bedroom, she went to the chest of drawers. It stood between two windows and the sound of a car door slamming outside drew her attention to the front of the house again. She saw that, on the worst possible day, Nicky had come home from the pele project early. He was now in conversation with the red-haired woman. He was violent faced. His voice grew loud although through the glass of the window, Alatea could not understand his words.

But understanding the words didn’t matter. Only the fact that they were speaking to each other mattered. That in conjunction with Nicky’s expression gave testimony to the topic between them. Seeing this, Alatea saw also that even when it came to escape, she was out of options. She could not leave in her car, for Nicky and the woman stood on the fan of gravel across which she would need to drive. She could not go by foot to the railway station at the far end of Arnside village, for the only route there went directly between her husband and the woman where they stood talking. So she prayed for some kind of answer to come to her and she paced the room until she saw it. It was through the window, just as the vision of Nicky and the red-haired woman had been. But it was the window on a wall perpendicular to that which overlooked the driveway. This window offered a view of the lawn and beyond it the seawall sketched a stony line of demarcation between the lawn and the sea walk along the bay, beyond which was the bay itself.

Today was one of the days during which the tide had ebbed for miles. This meant the remaining sands were hers. She could cross them and
make for Grange-over-Sands a few miles away. Another railway station awaited her there. All she needed to do was to reach it.

Just a few miles, then. That was all she needed, and she would be free.

WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA

Tim had spent the night beneath a caravan at Fallbarrow Park, at the edge of the lake. On his way there from Shots!, he’d pinched a blanket from the Windermere fire station, where a smoke-scented stack of them just inside an open door seemed like a message telling him that here were his means of passing the time until Toy4You was ready for him. He himself was ready for Toy4You. He felt the need for escape like a weight on his chest. Soon, he told himself, he’d have the only answer he’d wanted to the question that his life had become since Kaveh Mehran had sauntered into it.

The caravan provided him shelter from the night’s rain, and against a tyre and huddled into his stolen blanket, he escaped the worst of the cold. Thus he’d slept rough and when he returned to the business centre towards the end of an afternoon the day of which he’d spent sulking round the town, he looked as bad as he felt, most of his bones aching and every inch of him reeking.

Toy4You directed one glance at him and had one whiff of him and said, in brief, “No way in hell.” He pointed him in the direction of the loo, told him to do what he could to make himself less malodorous, and when Tim emerged he handed him three twenty-pound notes. “Go into town and get something decent to wear,” he told him. “If you think you’re going to meet your fellow actors looking like that, think again. They won’t want anything to do with you.”

Tim said, “What’s the problem? It’s not like we’ll have our clothes on, is it?”

Toy4You made a thin line of his lips. “Get something to eat, as
well. I don’t want you complaining in the middle of things that you’ve missed your dinner.”

“I’m not going to complain.”

“That’s where they all begin.”

“Fuck,” Tim said as he took the money. “Whatever.”

“Exactly right,” Toy4You said sardonically. “That’s the spirit, mate. Fuck whatever.”

When he left Shots!, Tim headed back for the shops. He found, oddly enough, that he was hungry. He’d thought it unlikely he’d ever be eating again, but a hunger came on him as he passed the fire station again and the scent of bacon on the grill formed a cloud through which he passed. The smell made his mouth water unexpectedly. It put him in mind of breakfasts in his childhood: hot bacon rolls and scrambled eggs. His stomach rumbled accordingly. Okay, he thought, so he would find something to eat. He’d get the clothing first, though. He knew where an Oxfam was in the centre of town, and that would do when it came to trousers and some kind of jersey. No way in hell was he about to purchase something new from one of the other shops. Waste of money, that. He wouldn’t need new clothes after today.

At Oxfam he found a pair of old corduroy trousers, worn in the arse, but they were in his size and that was good enough for Tim. To this he added a polo-neck sweater and as he already had shoes, socks, and an anorak, he needed nothing else. The purchase left him with plenty of money to buy a meal, but he reckoned he’d just get a sandwich from the grocery, perhaps a bag of Kettle Chips and a drink as well. The rest he’d post to Gracie inside a card. He’d write a message about taking care of herself first and worrying about the rest of the world later because
no one
, he would tell her, was about to take care of her no matter how nice she tried to be to them. Then he’d apologise about Bella. He still felt dead awful that he’d damaged Bella. He hoped the woman at the electronics repair shop could fix her properly.

It was funny, though, Tim thought as he left Oxfam with his purchases and made for the grocery. He was actually feeling a bit lighter. He’d made a decision and relief came with it. It was odd to
consider that for so very long he’d felt so terribly wretched when all he ever had had to do was simply decide.

WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA

They had to wait nearly a half hour at the police station in Windermere, which was where Freddie drove them. They had Tim’s laptop with them as well as the map the boy had printed out. Both of them had thought that simply walking into the police station and announcing they had information about a child pornography ring was going to light a serious conflagration under someone’s office chair, but that had not been the case. Like a doctor’s surgery, they had to wait their turn and as each moment passed, Manette’s anxiety climbed roofward.

“It’s all right, old girl,” Freddie had murmured more than once. He’d taken to holding her hand as well, and he made gentle finger circles upon it, just as he’d done in the early days of their marriage. “We’ll manage it all in time.”

“Whatever
it
is,” Manette said. “Freddie, you and I both know it could already have happened. It could be going on while we’re waiting here. He could be…they could be…I blame Niamh for this.”

“No point in blaming,” Freddie said quietly. “That’s not going to get us the boy.”

When at last they were ushered into an office, Freddie quickly logged on to Tim’s e-mail and brought up the exchanges the boy had had with Toy4You as well as the photos and videos that had been sent to him. Once again and ever the gentleman, Freddie made sure that Manette couldn’t see what the films were, but she could tell from the expression on the constable’s face that they were indeed as bad as Freddie had indicated.

The constable picked up a phone and punched in three numbers.
He said to whoever answered, “Connie, you’re going to want to look at a laptop I’ve got my paws on…Will do.” He rang off and said to Freddie and Manette, “Five minutes.”

“Who’s Connie?” Manette asked.

“Superintendent Connie Calva,” he said. “Head of Vice. Have anything else?”

Manette remembered the map. She fished it out of her bag and handed it over. She said, “Tim had this amongst the things on his desk. Freddie thought it best to bring it. I don’t know how useful…I mean, we don’t know the streets involved. They could be anywhere.”

Freddie said, “I reckoned you’d have someone who could go back and find the map Tim began with. This is an enlargement he printed. The full map should be easy enough to find for someone better versed than I am in Internet maps.”

The constable took it from Freddie, reaching into his desk simultaneously and bringing out a magnifying glass. It was the oddest thing for him to have, Manette thought, harking back to Sherlock Holmes. But he made a reasonable use of it, applying it to the map in order to read the names of the streets more clearly. He was saying as he did all this, “This sort of thing’s usually done in Barrow, at the constabulary. We’ve a forensic computer specialist there and…Ah. Hang on. This is easy enough.”

He looked up at them as a woman in jeans, knee-high leather boots, and a tartan plaid waistcoat stepped into the room, presumably Superintendent Calva. She said, “What’ve we got, Ewan?” and nodded to Manette and Freddie.

Ewan handed over the laptop and waved the map at her as well. “Enough of the bad nasty on that to make you fear lightning strikes from God,” he said in reference to the computer. “And this is a printout map of the area round the business centre.”

“You know where these streets are?” Manette asked. It seemed too much to hope for.

“Oh, aye,” Ewan said. “They’re right here in town. Not ten minutes away.”

Manette grabbed Freddie’s arm but spoke to the constable. “We must go there at once. They intend to film him. They’ll be doing it there. We must stop them.”

The constable held up his hand. “Bit of trouble with that route,” he said.

Connie Calva had gone to a desk nearby and had begun to study the laptop as she removed a piece of gum from its silver wrapper and folded it into her mouth. She wore the weary expression of a woman who’d already seen it all, but that expression altered as she moved from image to image. Manette could tell when she’d reached the videos. She stopped chewing. Her face altered to a careful blank.

“What sort of trouble?” Freddie was asking in the meantime.

“These streets are lined with private homes and B & B’s. There’s a fire station there and, like I said, a business centre as well. We can’t go barging in left and right without something to go on. The laptop’s filled with it, aye, but how d’you make the connection between the laptop and this map aside from the user having found the map online? D’you see what I mean? Now you’ve brought us some excellent information, and Superintendent Calva will get onto it directly. And when we know more—”

“But the boy is missing,” Manette cried. “He’s been gone for over twenty-four hours. And with this on his computer and a blatant invitation to be part of a film in which God only knows what is about to happen…He’s fourteen years old.”

The constable said, “Got that. But we’ve the rule of law—”

“Bugger the law!” Manette cried. “
Do
something.”

She felt Freddie then. His arm went round her waist. “Ah yes,” he said. “We see.”

She cried, “Are you mad?”

“They’ve got to follow their procedure.”

“But, Freddie—”

“Manette…” His gaze shifted to the door, and his eyebrows rose. “Let’s let them get on with it, eh?”

She knew that he was asking for her trust, but in that moment she trusted no one. Still, she couldn’t take her eyes off Freddie, who
was on her side in all things. She haltingly said, “Yes, yes, all right,” and once they’d given every possible piece of information they could to the constable and to Superintendent Calva, they went out to the street.

“What?” Manette said to Freddie in anguish.
“What?”

“We need a map of the town,” Freddie told her, “which we should be able to find in a bookshop easily enough.”

“And then?” she asked him.

“Then we need a plan,” he said. “Either that or one monumental, excellent piece of luck.”

WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA

They had the latter. The police station was on the outskirts of town, straddling Bowness-on-Windermere and Windermere itself. When they left the station, Freddie drove farther into Windermere, and they were travelling up Lake Road just coming upon New Road when Manette spotted Tim. He was leaving a small grocery, a striped blue and white plastic bag in his hands. He was inspecting its contents, and he fished inside to bring out a bag of crisps, which he proceeded to tear open with his teeth.

Manette cried, “There he is! Pull over, Freddie.”

“Hang on, old girl.” Freddie drove on.

She cried, “But what are you—” and she squirmed in her seat. “We’ll lose him!”

A short distance along, Freddie pulled to the kerb, once Tim was safely behind them and walking in the opposite direction. He said to Manette, “You’ve got your mobile?”

“Of course. But, Freddie—”

“Listen, darling. There’s more involved here than just scooping up Tim.”

“But he’s in danger.”

“As are a lot of other children. You have your mobile. Set it to vibrate and follow him. I’ll park and ring you. All right? He should lead us to wherever they’re going to film, if that’s what he’s here for.”

She saw logic in this, cool and clear-headed Freddie logic. She said, “Yes, yes, of course. You’re right,” and grabbed her bag and made certain of her mobile. She started to get out of the car but then she stopped and turned to him.

“What?” he said.

“You’re the most wonderful man, Freddie McGhie,” she told him. “Nothing that’s happened before this moment matters as much.”

“As much as what?”

“As my loving you.” She shut the car door smartly before he replied.

ARNSIDE
CUMBRIA