Dead of Winter (17 page)

He decided that he had to speak personally with Mrs Mariner and then he would go and see the Saxbys anyway. The stud was new evidence, an indication that Issie might still be alive, and her mother deserved to hear of it, but first he had to be sure that Mariner was their man.

The lady of the house was waiting for him in the kitchen with a freshly made pot of tea and the central heating turned up high. Bob Cooper was there, pink and sweating, and had removed his tweed jacket, leaving him in just the pullover, shirt and, presumably, his customary vest.

Mrs Mariner was in her early thirties. She oozed respectability and Fenwick apologised for the mess the crime scene technicians were making as they processed her house. The words brought a frown to an otherwise plump, attractive face.

‘I think you’re wasting your time. Steve’s done a runner by the look of things but he’s not got the gumption or guts to be a criminal.’

‘What makes you so sure?’ Fenwick asked, and then listened carefully as Mrs Mariner explained that he was a man dominated by his mother and brother.

Fenwick wanted to understand Mariner in order to try and anticipate what he might do if he really had kidnapped Issie and was now on the run. So far he had found out that he had a decent, hard-working and house-proud wife who probably looked down on him. That wasn’t too good for his self-esteem and may be sufficient encouragement for a weak-willed man to chase after young girls. The wedding photograph lying on the table showed him a little shorter than his wife, about five eight or nine, an averagely attractive-looking man but hardly memorable. There was nothing in the picture to suggest why a girl like Issie would go off with him willingly.

Mariner as the perpetrator wouldn’t automatically rule out Fenwick’s theory of an unintentional abduction but it was hard to create a scenario in which they were romantically involved. His wife was absolutely sure it couldn’t be him and laughed when he mentioned the demand for money.

‘According to the mobile phone provider a call was made in the vicinity of this house using the missing girl’s phone.’

‘Near this house? It can’t have been; I mean, no …’ She sat down heavily on a kitchen chair and rubbed her forehead. ‘Unless it was his brother, Dan; he’s a very strange individual. There have been times when I’ve had to ask him to leave because of his behaviour, especially when he drinks. He’s not quite right – I don’t know what it is about him exactly but he gives me the creeps.’

‘When did you last see Dan Mariner?’ Bazza asked.

‘About three weeks ago, perhaps more.’

‘And your husband?’

‘Monday morning at breakfast and I spoke to him on his mobile Tuesday. He said he’d been out searching for that girl. I told him I’d be back by Friday.’

‘How did he sound on the phone, Mrs Mariner?’

The woman frowned and rubbed her lips in agitation.

‘A bit odd, but then he is sometimes.’

‘Odd?’

‘Distracted, not really concentrating on the conversation. The only thing he was interested in was the time I was due back. I understand why now. His passport’s gone and he’s taken a lot of food, clothes and all our camping equipment apart from the tent, though heaven knows why in this weather.’ She sounded angry but confident of the missing items. Fenwick thought she could list exactly what had gone.

When he suggested it might be possible that her husband had started an affair with a seventeen-year-old girl, she laughed.

‘In his dreams! That would be his fantasy, his and that idiot brother of his. The Mariners are a sick family and the mother is truly evil. My parents warned me but I was too much in love to see it and married Steve anyway. Trouble is, I’m Catholic and I can’t divorce him now, even though I know he’s been unfaithful many times. It’s usually prostitutes or trollops who trade sex for a night of drinks and a meal at the local but he’s never run away before. I’m still a bit shocked that he’s had the nerve, quite honestly.’

Her eyes strayed to the wedding picture and she shook her head.

Fenwick went upstairs while Bazza continued searching and Cooper stayed with Mrs Mariner. The place was spotless, as if recently spring-cleaned and a technician he passed said there were virtually no prints. There were two bedrooms and a separate bathroom, all clean and tidy apart from some bedding and clothes drying in the spare room. He noticed that Mrs Mariner wore brushed-cotton pyjamas; hardly a lusty marriage. There was nothing else of interest so he returned downstairs, walking into the kitchen as Mrs Mariner handed something to Cooper.

‘Here, my brother-in-law’s address. It’s the house where he lived with his mother before she was taken into care. What a blessing that was. And this is a photograph of him.’

Cooper passed the snapshot over to Fenwick who studied it. There was no doubt Dan Mariner was the corpse in the caravan.

‘We’ll need to take this photograph.’

He told Bazza to finish off the search and make sure anything recovered was sent immediately to Cellmark, the forensic laboratory in Abingdon, to be processed at once. A team was sent to the mother’s house just in case Issie had been taken there, though that would have been an act of such stupidity he doubted it. He decided to go straight to the Saxbys’ and then to Surrey HQ.

They knew who had taken Issie and probably where she had been held immediately afterwards, though they were no closer to learning where she was now. Norman had called a team briefing for eight that evening. It would be a chance to review all the evidence and plan what to do next. Fenwick should have felt more positive, and anyone looking at him would have thought he was, but the sick worm of concern he had felt from the outset twisted and turned in his gut and his inner thoughts were as dark as the winter evening.

He sat in the front seat of the Ford Mondeo, his eyes fixed blindly on the snow that was steadily covering the windshield. His mind was as empty as his sight, a complete void except for the
all-consuming
terror that held him rigid.

If asked, even under torture, he wouldn’t have been able to say where he was or how he had arrived there. All he knew was that he had a sense of being hunted and that sooner or later the hunters would find him and it would all be over.

The heavy snow had already covered his car in a thick, lethal blanket that would freeze him inside the stillness of its tomb. In some part of his subconscious he knew this, knew that the lethargy he was experiencing was the gentle onset of hypothermia. His eyelids drooped and he couldn’t be bothered to blink them open. They would find him soon enough; why worry?

There was a sudden rapping on the window. He ignored it.

‘… mate, you’ll freeze to death in this …’

The words and the knocking wouldn’t stop, so that he was forced to jerk his head up and struggle to focus. The voice buzzed in his ears like an irritating fly.

‘What?’ The word stuck in his mouth, kept there by numb lips that wouldn’t open.

‘Come on, mate! You’ve bloody fallen asleep. It’ll kill you in this weather.’

He heard the words thickly through the frozen glass and his eyes tracked up to their source. His heart stopped; his jaw dropped open as he stared at the hunched figure in yellow reflective gilet over a blue uniform coat. The policeman bent down further now that he saw the man looking at him.

‘I think you should come with me to the hospital,’ he shouted, ‘get yourself looked at. How long have you been in there?’

A basic survival instinct pushed itself to the surface, stimulating words that he didn’t even know he could formulate. He cranked the window down an inch.

‘Had a row with the missus,’ he said, certain the blatant lie would be disbelieved. ‘She kicked me out.’

‘On a day like this? That’s animal, that is.’ The policeman stared at him with renewed concern. ‘Your lips are blue. You need to get warm, sharpish. Come on, I’ve got some coffee in my car.’

He made to open the driver’s door but it was locked. Steve fumbled but managed to turn on the car’s ignition, shaking his head at the offer.

‘S’OK, mate, I’ve got some of me own. I’ll soon warm up now.’ He lifted the empty thermos flask from the passenger seat and waved it. The clock on the dash read 13.47; the time since ten-fifteen, when he’d driven away from the pool, had vanished.

‘You sure?’ The traffic cop stamped his feet and blew on his hands, hesitating.

‘Certain, but thanks again. In me own bloody world, I was; miles away. Good that you came by when you did.’

‘Right you are, then, but drive safe. The roads are treacherous around here. Council didn’t grit this part, did they?’

‘Typical.’

‘Too right. Well, see you.’ The cop thumped the roof and trudged back through snow that was up to the top of his boots.

He watched the patrol car back out of the lay-by and pull away cautiously. He waved and received a short hoot of the horn in response. When he was sure that they really had gone he started to laugh, a chuckle at first, then a proper belly laugh that went on and on, rising into hysterical crying that lost all trace of humour and shook the car with its violence.

‘Unbelievable; bloody unbelievable!’ He kept repeating the words, laughing and then sobbing in relief. There he’d been, in a snow cave preparing to die and the bloody police had come along and saved him. He wiped his eyes, took a deep breath – and then burst out laughing again. The hunters had saved him.

He was a great believer in Fate, in the reality that Life would happen to you anyway no matter how much you tried to change it. His life, he had long been convinced, would be tough and unfair; no easy chances, no winning lottery tickets or wealthy relatives dying. So there was no point being an optimist or trying too hard. It only opened you up for disappointment. His mum had taught him that from before he could walk.

She had been the same, sticking to what she knew, cautioning him not to get above himself, against trying too hard. ‘
Know your place, stay there and you won’t be disappointed,
’ she’d say and he and his brother had been convinced she was right. They watched schoolfriends sweat at their studies, or practise their chosen sport until they were exhausted, and they’d felt superior, knowing they had the right of it. Had all that work changed a single life? Did one of them get to play for Man U, or the Arsenal? ’Course they didn’t; and only snotty Philip Baker had made it to university out of the whole class, and that was because his dad beat him if he didn’t study.

His mum knew the ways of the world and had taught them well: how to conserve your energy and spend it only on what you enjoyed, how to keep others out and never get tricked into believing that good would happen. It never did, not to the likes of them. It was that conviction that had led him, finally, to drive away from the swimming pool without the ransom money.

On the way there he had repeated his new mantra to maintain his courage and shifting sense of purpose:
I haven’t killed the albatross; I haven’t killed the albatross
… The sentence resonated reassuringly in his head until he had been certain that, for once maybe, he would be lucky.
She
was his luck and she was still alive.

He had felt good when he made the call to Saxby, pleased that he’d had the foresight to be in place already, to be able to watch the car park to be certain that the police didn’t show up. As he had waited though, every arriving car became a potential threat; every van without windows a surveillance trap waiting to snare him. His confidence evaporated faster than the snow melted on his warm windows. He had started muttering to himself, as if hearing the words out loud would boost his confidence.

‘I haven’t killed the albatross … the bird’s alive and well … the albatross is alive … she’s alive.’ He would pause to swallow some coffee, then, ‘If the next car that arrives has a little girl in it my luck’s in.’

And when a family estate deposited a mother or father and daughter his spirits rose. If it was a boy it was neutral; no children was negative and his mood would deflate.

‘Girl!’ He would shout out and punch the steering wheel. Then, ‘Blue car!’

Blue was his lucky colour. Anything blue was good, always had been ever since his dad had bought him a Chelsea strip as a present for his sixth birthday, the only birthday the bugger had remembered. It had been a knock-off from the market and last season’s design but he hadn’t cared. Blue was good, so was white. Yellow was neutral, but red and green – they were bad; real bad luck happened with red and green. His wife had red hair; he should have known better than look at her in the first place. His mum’s room in the nursing home had green walls and a red carpet that smelt of sick. With a shock of memory he realised that Dan had been wearing a red shirt the night he’d …

A red estate pulled into the car park, followed by a black station-wagon, a green van and another red car. His hopes spiralled
down. He was wearing his lucky blue jumper under the sweatshirt with a hood, which he pulled up over his head as the warmth in the car slowly faded.

‘Blue.’ A new car came into the car park, but the word was barely a mutter now, almost in vain as if it had no power to balance the weight of negative energy that was piling up around him. But five hundred thousand pounds was a lot of money and the thought of it carried more power than anything Steve had ever believed in before. The idea of owning that much cash worked on his mind, changing his constant calculation of the balance of the fates. Girls versus boys didn’t count any more, he concluded. Neither did the tally of cars by colour that were parked around him.

What mattered was his anonymity. Nobody knew him; nothing would have the power to change the good fortune that the
girl-albatross
was bringing him as long as he remained unknown. It was as if he was in hiding from his fate, camouflaged under the cover of her wings, waiting to snatch a new future before his previous life caught up with him. He decided that if he saw nobody he knew the whole time he was there it was a sign that he was meant to have the money and leave his past life behind.

Inside his hood Steve had smiled, confident that he had found a test that would work. None of his mates had toddlers preschool age to take swimming and they wouldn’t be stupid enough to come here themselves on a day like this. By the time he had stepped out of the car his faith in his good fortune was restored.

The confidence lasted while he walked around to the front entrance, blossomed when he saw the bulging bin liner exactly where it was meant to be and was almost beyond containment as he had paced towards it.

‘Oi!’

He had ignored the shout, convinced that it couldn’t be aimed at him. He didn’t know anybody here, right?

‘Yo, man! How y’doin’? Haven’t seen you in weeks.’

With a dread so deep it was certainty he had turned around to see Jerry Knight, JK to his pals, heading towards him, cigarette
cupped in the shelter of his palm. He had stared at his shining face, so out of keeping with the weather, his mind stunned with disbelief.

‘Hey man, you OK? You lookin’ at me as if I’m a ghost or sommink.’ JK grasped his hand sideways and pummelled it vigorously before double-punching his knuckles in his customary salute. He had responded in a trance.

‘Wassup? You sick? You want to come inside, get warm?’

He recovered his wits.

‘Row with the missus, the usual.’

‘You need to dump her, man; she’s doin’ your head in.’

‘Yeah, I know. How’re you?’ His autopilot was taking over; he even managed a smile.

‘Good, good. Managed to find this job, din’ I, after three months of lookin’. They laid us all off at the printworks and it’s taken me for ever to find somefink else. S’only maintenance, not skilled like before but, y’know, it’s a start. I’ve worked me way up before; I’ll do it again.’

He had stared at the overalls and plastic identity pass around his friend’s neck and enjoyed a warm feeling of condescension.
Try all you like, you sorry bastard, they’ll only grind you down again
.

‘Yeah, sure; didn’t know you work here.’

‘Started last month, in time to save up for the wife and boy for Christmas.’

‘I didn’t know you worked here,’ he repeated. Part of him wanted to punch the self-satisfied smile off JK’s face. Stupid bastard had wrecked his chances and all because he’d chosen some poxy menial job rather than queue up for the dole like a regular citizen.

‘… I said see you at the Bull tonight? Christmas darts special, remember?’

He had forgotten; they’d be expecting him … and Dan.

‘Yeah, see you then,’ he lied.

‘Dan coming too? How’s the lazy sod doin’?’ JK took a drag, holding the smoke deep in his lungs before exhaling a perfect smoke ring.

An image filled his mind of Dan splayed out on the couch, his
neck slashed open, blood gushing out and up. He wanted to be sick.

‘Lying around as usual,’ he said, swallowing hard.

‘Typical!’ JK laughed, pinched the top off the cigarette and slipped it into his pocket. ‘Better get back before they miss me. See you tonight.’ He punched farewell and left.

He had squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again to take in his surroundings. The bag was still there; snow settling steadily on top of it. He had stared at it with longing, even took a pace towards it. Then a lifetime’s caution had stopped him and made him dart a look around. Not all the cars were empty. That white one over there had a woman in it reading the paper while waiting for someone; maybe it was him. There was a dark metallic green Volvo to his left with two people in it talking. Its windows were misted up as if they’d been there a while; why?

He had sniffed the air and looked around again. Over there, almost behind him to his right there was a black Ford with a man in it. He was sipping coffee now but he was almost certain he had been staring at him just before. Dangerous; it was too dangerous. He had turned away sick with failure, the heat of the money lying there burning into his back. When he had reached his car he’d driven away at once … and somehow ended up here in this godforsaken lay-by.

The taste of defeat was still in his mouth as he sat in the car while the heater blasted away ice and snow from the windows. What was he going to do? Before the traffic cop had arrived he’d been prepared to freeze to death. Stupid thinking, he realised now, but understandable. He had been so close to a fucking fortune. Tears of self-pity filled his eyes but he blinked them away angrily.

It was all JK’s fault. If he’d only bothered to tell him that he worked at the swimming baths he’d never have chosen the place. Smug git. JK always acted superior, telling him how he should live his life – try this, do that – and all because he’d managed to scrape together some GCSEs.

JK looked down on him, he was sure, and he had that big-arsed woman of his too, so obliging. He remembered JK’s ecstatic description
of their honeymoon, what she’d let him do to her, what she had done for him. Everything, that’s what; there had been nothing that two people could do to each other in bed that they hadn’t tried.

Of course he’d pretended it was normal, that all wives were like that, but it hadn’t dampened JK’s enthusiasm, or his obvious gratitude that he had somehow ended up with a churchgoing wife who was amazing in bed.

Thinking of JK’s exploits made him grow hot. His trousers constricted him and his hand moved to his zipper, a secretive,
oft-repeated
gesture. Whatever he had boasted to JK and others, his wife was conservative and frigid. He undid the top button of his trousers but then stopped himself. What was he doing? He didn’t need self-help, not with that pretty young albatross waiting for him. She would be desperate, wondering whether he had abandoned her; so grateful to see him.

His stomach and groin tightened. JK’s missus was nothing compared to Issie. He could barely contain his excitement as he switched on the headlights, slipped the car into gear and eased onto the road, feeling his way over loose snow until he joined a gritted dual carriageway and blended into the traffic.