Resolutions (10 page)

‘They don't blame you, you know that,' Alec said as he pulled up in front of their house.

‘I know it, but I don't understand why they don't. I was there, Alec. How can they accept I could do nothing?'

‘Because they know you,' Alec said quietly. ‘They watched you tear yourself apart for months looking for their child's killer. You sat with them, hour after hour, while they waited for news. You cried with them, Mac, and when they saw you at the hospital with Cara . . . Mac, I was there; I saw the state you were in. No one could have blamed you after that.'

Mac tried hard to steady his breathing and to slow his heart. It thumped against his ribs, deafened him. He couldn't remember – was grateful that he had somehow buried that memory so deep even he could not access it – but they had told him he had held on to the child, trying so hard to save a life that could not be saved: had held her in the ambulance, carried her into the hospital, laid her on the trolley and begged anyone who would listen to help her. He could not believe that all the months of searching had come to nothing, and then later, when he had been told that there were no new leads, that the case had been wound down pending later review, he had felt betrayed, not just because of Cara Evans and her parents, but also on his own behalf.

He wanted to go home now.

Alec opened the driver's door and got out. Mac followed, going ahead of his friend past the parked car and up to the front door. Becky Evans opened it. She stood stock still, staring at him.

‘Mac,' she said. ‘You've found him? Tell me you've found him.'

‘We've been upgraded back to active,' Mac said softly.

Joe Evans appeared behind his wife, taking in the scene, a look of combined hope and dread fighting for precedence on his too-thin face. Joe Evans was never meant to be a skinny man. Mac knew what he was feeling. They'd never let go of the hope that Cara's killer would be brought to justice, but they had, nevertheless, reached some measure of, if not peace, then equilibrium, and now that was to be destroyed all over again.

Joe Evans, Mac knew, was wondering if he had the strength for it. As Mac watched, he stiffened his shoulders and lifted his chin, reminding Mac of Emily's Calum, the whole world resting on his back but determined to take his best shot at carrying it.

‘You'd best come in,' Joe Evans said.

NINE

T
here was no way down to Frantham Old Town by car. The little fishing village had been the only Frantham before the Victorians had come along and constructed Frantham-on-Sea, with its promenades and boarding houses and now defunct railway. Frantham Old Town, by contrast, had never been intended for the tourist trade; it tumbled down the steep slope from coast road to seafront and little harbour via cobbled streets only just wide enough for a bicycle, and was occupied by a company of fiercely protective local families, many of whom had been there for generations.

Miriam, therefore, had two options. She could either park in the pull-in at the top of the hill and walk down the length of the little settlement to the boathouse, or she could drive a quarter of a mile further on, park at the newly built marina, close by the lifeboat station, and then walk back across to the boathouse, a matter of five minutes at a fast pace – and Miriam rarely walked at any other.

Miriam, unlike Mac, was not a creature of habit; it was a matter of nightly impulse as to which she should do. That and if she had shopping with her, in which case the marina was a better, flatter and more evenly paved option. Tonight, though, one of those cherished winter sunsets, witnessed as she had driven back to base from the scene of a serious road accident, was still hanging around when she had deposited her paperwork and box and left for home. Red still streaked a blackening sky, but close to the horizon a band of silver and peach remained, and she knew from experience it would still be there by the time she reached the pull-in on the coast road above her destination.

Miriam had never really been a weather-watcher before – in fact, she had always rather scoffed at the peculiarly British obsession – but, almost imperceptibly, she had come to realize that she had been caught by the cloud-watching bug and, in part at least, Mac was to blame. Frantham Old Town and the little boathouse apartment revealed the most delicious opportunities for the activity, and she had become as obsessed by the ever-changing view of sea and sky as Rina and Mac.

Having parked up, Miriam paused before wending her way down through the narrow streets. That silver streak still clung tenaciously to the horizon, though the sky above was solid black and the stars were starting to appear. Miriam was sure there was a sound meteorological reason for it all, but privately she viewed it as a bit of Frantham magic. She took little notice when a second car pulled up, just glanced over to see if the driver was anyone she knew, then dismissed it from her attention when she realized it was not. It crossed her mind that the driver might wonder what she was doing, standing there in the dark, staring down at the ocean, and she was mildly surprised when the driver did not move to get out. She glanced at him again, noting a middle-aged man, glasses perched on a rather broad nose. He too seemed to be staring out to sea. Another weather-watcher, Miriam thought, and when the man turned his head and looked her way, she summoned a polite smile. The man did not respond; he just continued to stare.

‘OK,' Miriam muttered to herself. ‘Just your friendly neighbourhood pervert then.' It wasn't all that unusual for courting couples to use the pull-in as a meeting place and, considering the view, Miriam could understand that. This man appeared to be alone, but, well, maybe he was meeting someone. Shrugging, Miriam set off down the hill towards the welcoming lights of Frantham Old Town.

Despite the fact that the streets were largely unlit, only the glow through curtained windows and the odd light above a front door breaking up the shadow, Miriam had never felt uneasy walking down alone. It was a friendly place, close-knit and welcoming, and though she and Mac were incomers, she had never felt that they were seen as intruders, a fact she put down to Mac's job and position in the community. Tonight, though, she felt oddly uneasy. Something in the way the man had looked at her was disturbing. He hadn't just glanced her way; he had looked and then kept on looking, and that bothered her.

Miriam always walked fast, but she realized that tonight she had almost broken into a run. Not a good idea on the steep cobblestones, even when, as now, they were fairly dry. She blessed the fact that her work called for hours of standing and walking and sensible shoes. Heels were definitely not the footwear for Frantham Old Town. Above her, back at the road, a car door slammed, the sound carrying easily on the still evening air. For a second or two Miriam froze, listening for footsteps. From a nearby house issued the faint sounds of a television quiz show, the sound of children arguing from another across the street, and from behind her the unmistakable sound of someone following her down.

She hurried on, tempted to knock on one of the doors and ask for help, aware of how silly that might appear. Glad that her shoes had soft soles and made little sound on the cobbles, she threw away her caution and good sense and broke into a run, the steep hill quickening her pace way beyond the realms of comfort or safety.

Just ahead, round a bend, there was a pub, the King's Head, and the lights beckoned her. Chances were, even at this early hour, there'd be someone there she knew, who would walk her the rest of the way to the boathouse and not think her crazy. She could stop, have a drink, have a chat, wait for the man to go away, get this speculative friend to walk her home and maybe even invite them in for coffee. Well, maybe not that but . . . but what if there was no one there she knew? What if, what if . . .

Just opposite the pub was a tiny shop where Miriam had, in the summer, bought a bracelet for her sister. She had run into Mac,
almost
by accident, that day and they had spent the rest of it together, an
almost
unplanned act – utterly unplanned on Mac's side – that had led to everything else. At the side of the shop was a set-back doorway into a baker's shop. Breathing hard, Miriam abandoned thoughts of the pub and dodged back into the shadows of the recessed door. And waited, trying hard to control her breathing, waited for the man to go by.

Seconds passed. Minutes dragged, or seemed to. Maybe she was mistaken. Maybe there was no one there?

And then the footsteps, regular and deliberate and unnaturally loud in the stillness of the little town.

Miriam pressed as flat as she could, almost willing herself through the doorway and into the empty shop. She heard him pause. Maybe she could scream? She had no doubt that if she screamed someone would come. Screams in the night were unusual enough here and the population concerned enough, inquisitive enough, that she would not be ignored. She drew breath into her lungs, heard the man cough and then move again, footsteps coming closer and then passing by. Miriam watched as he moved past her hiding place, glancing from left to right as though looking for something. She was convinced that he had spotted her. He paused again, lifting his head and pushing the glasses back up the broad nose. Distractedly, she noticed that his hair had grown too long and brushed against the collar of his coat.

Then, relief. The man seemed to notice the pub, moved purposefully across the narrow street and went inside.

She almost laughed aloud.

Cautious, though, she left the sanctuary of the doorway and stayed in the shadows as she passed the door of the King's Head. Through the windows she could see the early drinkers chatting to the landlord. The stranger ordering something and the landlord lifting a glass to one of the optics.

Miriam was almost past, still in the shadows cast by the narrow shops and little houses, but busy telling herself that she had been a fool. The man had just come out here for a drink – that was all – and was probably meeting friends. She was letting her imagination run riot and to no purpose, none at all. And then he turned, drink in hand, and looked her way and Miriam was running again, even though reason told her he'd see nothing through the pub windows, looking out from bright light into dark. She ran and didn't stop until she was inside the boathouse and had locked the door, the conviction that she knew the man from somewhere – and that she really was the reason he had come here – now absolutely wedged tight in her mind.

TEN

M
ac had given up on the idea of going home; it just wasn't going to happen. Wildman had declared that there was to be a case review for all senior officers: a chance to go over old ground, discuss it as a group, be open to the possibility that the original enquiry may have missed something or that tiny details, overlooked then, may come into sharper focus in the light of new information.

Mac couldn't fault him on his logic and, though he knew they'd all worked their backsides off during the first investigation, was not even offended by the idea that something may have been missed. He knew just how easy it was to become myopic, particularly when emotions were running so high. That said, he was not exactly enthusiastic about spending his weekend in the close company of Wildman or even such pleasant colleagues as Alec. He felt himself being sucked down into the maelstrom intensity of the original enquiry and really would have welcomed time to breathe.

For the first time he began to wonder if he'd been right to come back; more worryingly, he'd begun to have niggling doubts that he even wanted to do this job any more. Even at the height of his involvement in the Cara Evans case, even at the deepest moments of despair that followed, he had never had that thought and he could not for the life of him understand why he should be having it now.

He took the opportunity to call home and Miriam's voice cheered him instantly. An instant more and he was aware that something was wrong.

‘I hoped you'd call last night.'

‘By the time I got back it was so late I thought you'd be asleep. We went to see Cara Evans's parents. It was a long visit.' He felt a momentary pang that he'd made time to phone Emily, but thought it best to keep that to himself. Miriam sounded tense, a little distant.

‘That must have been hard,' she said. ‘I just hate it when I have to meet with the bereaved. I never know what to say.'

‘Are you all right?' Mac knew she wasn't. Just something in her voice, or something missing from it.

She hesitated. ‘I'm sure it's nothing.'

‘Miriam? Come on, you don't worry over nothing.'

‘Don't I?' she managed to laugh but it sounded false. She began to tell him about the man who had followed her, or who she thought might have been following her, though she was sure now that it had been coincidence and nothing at all.

Mac listened, tense, and, as though her fear was contagious even in the retelling, his anxiety overwhelmed him.

‘Miriam, listen to me. I want you to pack your stuff and leave, now, soon as you get off the phone. Jerry will be off today' – the boathouse owner was often around on Saturday – ‘so get him to walk you back to your car and check the car when you get there.'

‘Mac? I don't understand. And I'm not asking Jerry to walk me anywhere – he'll think I'm nuts. Anyway, it's broad daylight. Saturday.' She sounded braver now, relieved that she could be impatient with
him
instead of herself.

‘Get in touch with DI Kendal – you remember him? His number should be in my book. Tell him you need to speak with a sketch artist and ask him to give me a ring.'

‘Mac, you're scaring me.'

‘Good. Miriam, I think there may well be something to be scared about.' He closed his eyes, swore softly under his breath. He should have called her last night, should have warned her then, but somehow he had assumed that Peel's attention would have shifted north when he did; apparently not. Miriam's description of the man struck a chord. Peel, with his too-large glasses and his slightly flattened nose. Like Mac, he'd been a rugby player in his youth and his face suffered the same indignities.