Lynch (3 page)

Chapter 3

Jesse Whitaker pulled his car up outside his flat and switched the ignition off. He sat in silence for a moment, remembering.

In the darkened window of his upstairs flat, he could see the reflection of a crescent moon winking through the dusty clouds that surrounded it. Three weeks in
Harrogate
and already the past six months were beginning to feel as fictional as something out of a James Herbert story. He was getting back on his feet, making new friends, loving his new job. He knew this move, this new life, would be the perfect thing to get over recent events.

He got out of his car, locked it, and walked up the steps to the front door of the building. On a timer loop, he flicked the hall lights on and looked on the corner table at the letters that one of his new neighbours had placed there. So far, he’d only had a moving-house card from his mother, handmade with glitter and ribbons, a woman from whom he acquired his olive-skinned good looks but none of her creativity. Today, there was a welcome pack from his electricity company and a few letters for the previous tenant. He’d return them to their senders in the morning.

The woman in Number 2 had moved in with her daughter on Monday night, pulling up with a small haulage van after eleven o’clock, coaxing her sleepy daughter forward as Jesse watched from the window upstairs, gripping the windowsill so hard his fingers hurt. When he saw that it wasn’t
her
, he relaxed a little, but sleep had eluded him for the rest of the night.

He still hadn’t learned the woman’s name; they had barely spoken, exchanging little more than nods and tentative smiles if they passed in the hallway, her hair falling in her face, eyes downcast. As though she was hiding from something, too.

Tony and Kitty in Number 1 were both retired—he a postman, she a military nurse in the war who hadn’t worked since she fell pregnant the first time. She had shown him her old black and white photographs in pristine albums with yellowing pages the day he moved in upstairs. Tony had said, ‘Wasn’t she something, back then?’ and then looked at Kitty and added, ‘Still is.’

They had made a point of calling on him a few hours after he moved in, bringing him a homemade carrot cake—still warm from the oven—and welcoming smiles. They insisted he join them for dinner that evening and wouldn’t accept any excuse for refusal. ‘You probably haven’t even found your kettle yet,’ Kitty said, ‘let alone had the chance to buy food. Besides, I always make too much. Sometimes I think the kids are still with us.’

Tonight, their flat was in silence. Jesse could imagine them sleeping together in their musky bedroom, Tony in button-up pyjamas and Kitty in a calf-length nightgown with a ribbon at the neck and her hair done up in curlers. Perhaps they were holding hands in sleep.

He went upstairs, yawning. Mark Stanton in Number 4 must have been out for a jog earlier—his running shoes were fermenting outside his door. He was probably ten years older than Jesse and dressed as though he was a pauper but, in truth, he worked for some corporate bank or other. How he got away with his four-day stubble and bird’s-nest hair at the office was beyond Jesse’s comprehension.

Inside his flat, he threw his keys in the bowl by the door and shed his shoes in front of the sofa. Exhausted, but wired from working, he flicked on the TV and poured a glass of red wine. Shutting his brain off had been a problem ever since Prabha tried to kill him. His friends had warned him about her, but he didn’t listen. At first, she was pleasant, a nice new neighbour in an otherwise empty house made up of three self-contained flats. The two flats had stood empty for over a month when she had moved in and instantly ingratiated herself into his life.

That very first day, as he was running a bath, she came and knocked on his door to introduce herself and, making the most of the manners his mother had drummed into him, he invited her in for a coffee. Her ready acceptance should have rung warning bells, but he was blinded by having somebody to talk to at last. She sat for four hours and told him about her life in
India
, about moving to
York
, about hating her job as a supermarket checkout girl, and, mostly, about her love for Jesus and her unwavering faith in Christ as her Saviour.

She was being baptised, she said, the following month at the local Baptist church and invited him along. Politely, he said that would be nice, and he’d check what he was doing that day, though already he was finding her a bit cloying. His bath had gone cold and still she mumbled on about random things that had no order to them, her thought process as awkward as her dress sense.

Little more than five feet tall, Prabha didn’t help her podgy appearance by dressing in thick knitted sweaters a few sizes too big for her. Her wild and wiry hair was always drawn back in a pony tail at the base of her neck and the dry skin of her hands was constantly greased in coconut butter. She had large, wet eyes that forever looked as though she was on the verge of tears and one pitted cheek from chickenpox or some other childhood illness.

When she finally left, Jesse emptied the bath and ran a fresh one, sank into a lather of bubbles, and wished he could be better at saying no.

He was resolute now, even after moving, about locking doors and windows. Once locked, he would recheck them, and then he would go to bed, swallowed by pillows, and stare at the ceiling for an hour or more before sleep finally came. Sometimes, he swore he could still hear her crying.

It was an unfounded nervous reaction, they told him, this overwhelming and sticky fear he allowed himself to flounder in, especially now that he had moved to a new town. It was his chance to get away from everything, put the past firmly behind him and start afresh, new friends, new life.

He didn’t keep in touch with anybody in
York
other than his mother, and this evening, physically tired but mentally alert, he called home. He knew she’d still be awake—with her hips the way they were since her accident a few years ago, she slept little and stayed up most nights to watch endless marathons of senseless romantic comedies.

‘Hey, gorgeous,’ she said on the phone. He swore sometimes she used pet names so as not to get any of her six children mixed up. ‘Not in bed, yet?’

‘I’m going that way in a minute,’ he told her. ‘Guess what.’

‘You’re pregnant?’ she laughed.

‘With triplets,’ he said. ‘No, you remember that guy I mentioned? The one I work with?’

He could hear the smile in her voice. ‘The one with the stunningly bright blue eyes and gorgeous Irish accent?’

He laughed. ‘That’s the one. I asked him out.’

‘On a date? Where are you taking him?’

‘I haven’t decided yet. There’s a place in
Leeds
called Bibi’s. It does the nicest venison in a red wine and chocolate sauce.’

‘Isn’t that a bit too close to horse meat?’

‘Mother!’

‘I’m joking. Sounds lovely. What’re you going to wear?’

He had a great relationship with his mother, particularly since Prabha. He pictured her now, sitting in her chair, catch-up TV paused so she could give him her undivided attention, full pot of tea in its usual place on the coffee table beside her, in constant supply like a drip feed.

As he was telling her about the new shirt he had bought at the weekend, she abruptly changed the subject. ‘You’re still not sleeping right.’ It wasn’t a question.

Jesse sighed, rested his head back on the plush sofa. ‘I know what you’re going to say.’

‘And I’m going to say it anyway.’

‘Please don’t.’

‘She’s history, honey. You’re thirty miles away at least. And no one here has seen her around town. With any luck, she’s gone back to
India
like she said she would.’

‘I know,’ he said. It was the same ritualistic words every time he spoke to her.

‘We’ll come through next weekend,’ she said. ‘Your father misses you, even though he’s too stubborn to say so. We both do.’

‘I know.’

‘And you’ve nothing to worry about. She’s gone.’

He yawned. ‘I know.’

When he hung up, locked his front door and checked his windows, he finally went to bed and lay in an irrational knot of fear. If she was no longer in
York
, there was one of two possibilities in Jesse’s mind. She had either truthfully gone back to
India
—although he suspected not; she often spoke of how much she hated it there—or she was trying to track him down.

He scratched at the pink scar under his left armpit, and hoped he was wrong.

Chapter 4

When her car pulled up the dirt track to the old farmhouse they lived in, Scott and Katherine went out onto the porch to meet her. Half hoping it wasn’t her, they said nothing as they waited for the car to stop, and watched as she got out of the driver’s seat.

She smiled in the sunlight, raising a hand over her eyes to see better. ‘Scott,’ she said.

It sounded strange, hearing his new name spoken by her.

‘Ann,’ Katherine beamed, coming down the three wooden steps with the aid of her cane and holding up an arm for a hug.

They embraced warmly and Scott, from the porch, said, ‘Why are you here?’ He hadn’t intended it to sound as cold as it did.

Ann Clark leaned back into her car and picked up a folder. ‘Can we go inside?’ she asked.

Once inside the house, Scott dropped his cool exterior—if Ann was here, maybe they were being watched—and gave her a hug. ‘Are we moving again?’ he asked.

‘No,’
Clark
said. ‘Nothing’s changed.’

Katherine busied herself in the kitchen, making coffees and arranging biscuits on a plate, and when all three of them were settled at the table, Clark said, ‘How’s
Yorkshire
?’

‘It’s wonderful,’ Katherine said. ‘So much open space. You can’t hear a thing at night, it’s so peaceful.’

‘And you’re walking again,’
Clark
said. ‘Last time I saw you, you were still in the chair.’

Katherine smiled and nodded. The pain in her abdomen and hip was a constant reminder of the bullet that tore at her stomach, but she had been stronger than the pain and her recovery had been swift. ‘The walking cane is just for show,’ she said. ‘I barely need it.’

‘Some days you rely on it,’ Scott said. ‘I’m sorry, Ann, but please, why are you here? You can’t have come all this way after eighteen months just to ask about our health.’

Clark
drank some coffee and shook her head. ‘It’s nothing serious,’ she said. ‘But partly, I did want to come and see how you were doing.’

‘Pat Wilson wouldn’t have allowed you a social call, surely?’

‘
Wilson
’s retired,’
Clark
said. ‘He sends his best wishes. We have a new guy in charge of the division. Robert Mann. Nothing like
Wilson
. Tough as nails. But no, seeing how you are is just a by-product.’

She opened her folder and withdrew a photograph. ‘I wanted to show you something,’ she said.

Katherine raised her glasses from the chain around her neck and
Clark
handed the six-by-eight photo to Scott.

‘Do you recognise him?’ she asked.

Scott studied the photo. The man was tall, slim, dark hair and eyes, deeply sun-coloured skin, a hard look on his face. He wore a heavy winter jacket in the photo and carried a duffel bag. ‘I don’t think so,’ Scott said. ‘Should I?’ He handed the photo to Katherine.

‘That’s what I’m here to determine.’

‘Who is he?’ Katherine asked.

‘His name’s Miguel Fernandez,’
Clark
said, ‘but he also goes by Ortiz and Salazar.’ She paused, allowing time for any recognition. ‘Do those names ring any bells?’

‘Means nothing to me,’ Scott said, and Katherine agreed. ‘Do we need to keep an eye out for him?’

Taking the photo back from Katherine,
Clark
placed it back in her folder. ‘It’s unlikely you’ll ever see him. We just wanted to make sure you hadn’t already crossed paths with him.’

‘Is he related to the business with David?’ Katherine asked.

Clark
nodded. ‘As far as we can tell, yes.’ She held her coffee mug in both hands and said, ‘He’s a Spanish national, ex-army turned hired hand. Our Interpol counterparts in
Spain
had been tailing him last year but never had enough to pin on him. He was jailed last month for a minor, unrelated misdemeanour and was released two days ago.’

‘He isn’t coming to
England
, is he?’ Scott asked.

‘We don’t know as yet,’
Clark
said. ‘The same day he was released, Spanish officials picked up some chatter on a monitored Internet portal. It was nothing specific, but it referred to a
UK
visit and it made mention of planned operations being underway. Miguel Fernandez disappeared the next day.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Scott said. ‘How does that tie up to us?’

Clark
cleared her throat. ‘He was one of the names mentioned by Ryan.’

Ryan. The name brought back so many emotions, so many visions and memories in his head. In his former life, they had been lovers, life partners. Until he was murdered.

Scott shook the images from his mind. ‘Does this Fernandez guy know about Ryan? About what happened?’

Clark
nodded, said nothing.

Scott looked at Katherine. ‘Maybe we should move.’

‘Nonsense,’ Katherine said. ‘Like Ann said, nothing’s changed.’

‘Right,’
Clark
said. ‘We’re confident he hasn’t left
Spain
yet. And besides, Scott and Katherine Lynch are nobodies to him.’

Scott wasn’t convinced. ‘What if he finds out?’

‘If Spanish officials have done their jobs right, and believe me, they don’t do things by halves over there, nobody will be able to find you,’
Clark
said.

Scott stood. ‘I hope you’re right.’ He went into the utility room and came back with a spade. ‘I have some work to do in the yard.’

When he had left them alone, Katherine said, ‘He’s scared of change. He’s been moody since you called yesterday morning. Give him half an hour, he’ll be fine.’

‘I guess it’s difficult, seeing me again.’

‘It’s not you,’ Katherine said. ‘It’s what you represent. When you put us into this Witness Protection, you told us we had to cut ties with everyone and everything from our old lives. You’re the only link he has to Ryan.’

‘You’re coping well,’
Clark
said.

Katherine stood. ‘I’m older and wiser,’ she said. ‘Help me with dinner? You’re staying the night, aren’t you?’

‘After I make a couple of calls, I’m free until Monday. I passed a B&B on the way here, I can stay there.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Katherine admonished. ‘I’ve already made up the guest room.’

‘In that case,’
Clark
said, ‘what’s for dinner?’

Scott’s spade cut the ground with a satisfactory crunch and he turned it. The early summer sun was high overhead and the few feathery clouds in the sky were not enough to diminish its rays.

He had taken his shirt off ten minutes ago and a light film of perspiration coated his body. He had thrown his weight behind turning the soil. Eighteen months of mucking out the stables and maintaining the garden around their home had toned muscles he never knew he had. Always slender, the muscle definition that this manual work had granted him had given him a certain confidence in other aspects of his life that he had lacked before.

With his old life behind him, he had been managing to move on. He smiled more, he laughed more. He was much more adept at making friends and winning jovial arguments with his work colleagues. He couldn’t put it all down to his physique, of course. He knew that last year’s events in
London
had changed the way he viewed the world. When Kane Rider was kidnapped—Scott now considered Kane as another person, a long dead ghost of a man—and Margaret had been shot and, in turn, shot her own husband to save their lives, his view of life had changed dramatically.

Death, he considered, made you think about life.

When Ann Clark came out with a glass of orange juice for him, she said, ‘Being self sufficient?’

Scott shrugged. ‘We have the space for it. We plant them, we pick them, we eat them. It’s satisfying work.’

‘What are you growing?’

‘Tomato, carrot, cabbage. There are potatoes over there, too.’ He continued turning the soil. ‘We have to keep them separate or they’d just take over.’

‘You’re not in any danger,’
Clark
said, as though he had asked.

‘You can’t know that,’ Scott said.

‘You’re safer here than being Kane Rider back in
Ireland
.’

Scott stopped digging, his foot on the end of the spade, and stared out across the field. ‘I don’t know who Kane Rider is any more.’

‘That’s a good thing,’
Clark
said. ‘For all intents and purposes, he doesn’t exist any more.’

‘He died that night in
London
,’ Scott said. ‘And now you’re here, bringing him back to life again.’

‘You’re angry with me,’ she said.

‘No,’ Scott told her. ‘I’m angry with myself. I haven’t felt so useless in so long. What if something happens?’

‘It won’t.’

‘Ann, I know you better than that. You’re holding something back and I don’t like it.’

‘I can’t discuss the particulars of a case. You know that.’

‘If something’s happening,’ Scott said, laying down the spade and picking up his shirt, ‘don’t drip-feed me information when it’s too late, okay? That’s all I’m saying.’

They went inside and Ann continued to help Katherine with dinner preparations while Scott showered and changed. They skirted around the important subjects as they ate, talking instead about life in North Yorkshire, how different it was from
Belfast
, and yet how similar. The people were friendly, the roads were winding, and the accents were pleasant. Katherine had made a friend of their neighbour, a woman with the mouth of a devil and the culinary skills of an angel. Scott was getting on well at the Silverwood Centre and enjoying the change from office work.

Clark
told them of Pat Wilson’s retirement party. Detective Superintendent Wilson had been her superior in the National Criminal Intelligence Service, a division of Interpol, and had spearheaded the campaign to take down David Bernhard and rescue Kane Rider last year. His early retirement was a direct result of that operation, where he felt he had given everything he could give to the force and now wanted nothing more than to sit in his garden and make homemade cider.

‘You didn’t go for his position when he retired?’ Katherine asked.

‘I haven’t been serving long enough,’
Clark
said. ‘Besides, Robert Mann was a shoe-in. His past record is a glowing commendation to his commitment to the job.’

Scott said, ‘At least Jim Dixon was put away before going up for promotion,’ and they laughed.

When they heard a car come up the drive and come to a stop, Scott was on his feet immediately. He looked at
Clark
. ‘Expecting anybody?’

A car door closed and there was a knock on the front door.

‘Calm down,’ Katherine said. ‘Go and answer it.’

‘I told you you’re safe here,’
Clark
said, but she stood up anyway.

She and Katherine followed Scott into the front room and when Scott glanced through the window in the evening light, he said, ‘Oh, balls.’