Time to Kill (25 page)

Mason scrolled anxiously through the follow-up stories in subsequent editions of the newspaper for an explanation of the ‘particular aspect' of forensic evidence but couldn't find it. But he was reassured by the repetition in those subsequent stories and police spokesmen quotes that the official investigation was very obviously stalled. The story in that day's edition was reduced to a single column of little more than two inches. David's condition was reported as unchanged. No identity had been established for the man who had been burned to death. Nowhere in anything Mason read was there reference to Daniel Slater being a defecting KGB colonel that almost inevitably would have resulted in his being named.

There was nothing new involving or about him on any of his illegal, unsuspected computer ‘cuckoo' sites but there was a Chase Manhattan sales pitch for an investment portfolio in his PO box. Mason occupied the rest of the morning registering at two computer industry employment agencies, giving the box number for mail and promising to supply fuller CVs later and in the afternoon made the much delayed tourist visit to Alcatraz, thinking that if he'd had to serve his sentence there and not White Deer he probably would have risked being drowned by the bay currents and tried to escape.

Mason was irritated by the uncertainty of the undisclosed forensic discovery in the burned out 4x4, as he continued to be by his stupid CCTV mistake at Ann's gallery, but objectively he decided he was doing well, reassuring himself that there would almost certainly have been a reference to him in Glynis Needham's computer system if there had been any official interest in him.

There was still no cause to hurry back east. David Slater still had to die. Mason was enjoying himself.

Nineteen

A
nn stayed constantly at David's bedside, quitting the room only when doctors or nurses needed to change either dressings, drips or the comatose boy himself, and briefly to sleep on her hospital cot. Slater left once, on the first day to collect changes of underwear for them both from Hill Avenue, each uncaring of their outward appearance. Slater spoke morning and afternoon with Mary Ellen, relieved there was no immediately impending work, otherwise leaving her to run the office with instructions to refuse any new orders or enquiries. He also talked daily with Jean at the Main Street gallery, relaying Ann's disinterested direction on how and in what order to close down the Worlack exhibition and to reject any fresh approaches that might have resulted from its success. Ann was an irregular worshipper but literally embraced the consoling offer from the hospital-attached vicar, praying with him daily with David's hand still clasped between hers, her eyes fervently clamped shut in her desperation for divine intervention. Slater, who had no belief, prayed with them too, dismissing the hypocrisy. When they remembered or were urged by nurses, they ate off trays.

And throughout David remained artificially alive.

On the fifth day, after the unanswered prayers, Ann abruptly blurted out, ‘Why hasn't he woken up?'

Slater was startled by the demand: it had become a vigil without words. He said, ‘He's too ill.'

‘I want him to wake up!' Ann's voice was slurred, as it had been when she was drinking.

Slater remained silent.

‘We should get specialists. Better people than here! Why haven't you got specialists in? Had David transferred?'

‘Are you ready to talk?'

‘No!' refused Ann, knowing what he meant.

‘We have to talk.'

‘No.'

‘It's no good, Ann.'

She lowered her head until it rested on her hands that were holding David's. ‘He's so cold! He needs more blankets. Get some more blankets.' She looked up as she spoke, her hair matted and straggled around a face wet and streaked by tears.

‘God can't bring David back to life. No doctors, no specialists, can bring him back to life. We've got to let him go.'

‘No!' she said, but for the first time her voice was softer, the resignation gradually evident.

‘There's nothing we can do … nothing anyone can do.'

‘Another day. Just one more day, please.'

‘One more day,' Slater agreed.

‘Just in case.'

‘I'll tell them … make arrangements. I need to make arrangements.'

‘Yes, you do that. Leave me here.'

Peter Denting was in his room, wearing street clothes, and rose at once from his desk when Slater entered. Slater said, ‘We've decided.' His voice broke and he coughed and said it again.

Denting said, ‘I'm glad you have. It must … it's the only decision you could have made …'

‘But Ann wants one more day.'

The surgeon hesitated. ‘All right.'

‘And I have to make arrangements.'

‘We have grief counsellors who can help, afterwards.'

Psychiatrically trained counsellors who would want background his-tories, thought Slater at once. ‘Thank you. But we'll be all right.'

‘They're very good. I recommend you talk with them. And with the vicar. I know he's been visiting daily.'

‘We'll see,' avoided Slater.

‘You're going to need a lot of help,' insisted Denting. ‘Your wife particularly.'

The man was right, Slater accepted. ‘I'll talk to her about it when it's over. Let's get it over first.' He was talking about his son, Slater realized, talking about letting his son die.

‘And speak to your own physician,' advised Denting. ‘There's medication, safe things, that can be prescribed. I can get something for you here, right away, if you think she'd take it. '

Ann was already hollowed out, Slater thought. How much worse was she going to be later? ‘I'll think about it … see how she is.'

‘What about you?' pressed the surgeon.

‘I'll be OK.'

Denting's internal telephone sounded. The man responded looking at Slater during the short exchange and when he put the telephone down he said, ‘The policeman, Hannigan, is looking for you. I'll let people know what you've decided about David …' The man hesitated. ‘You're doing the only thing you can.'

The traffic sergeant was waiting by the nurse's station, his uniform strained around him. There was another man with him, in plainclothes. Both rose at Slater's approach. Hannigan said, ‘This is Homicide Detective John Stone.'

‘Homicide!' echoed Slater, at once. ‘You got who killed David?'

‘We didn't know David had died?' frowned Stone. He was a short, slim, unprepossessing man in a conservative, waist-coated suit.

‘At the moment clinically. We're going to turn off the life support machine,' declared Slater, his voice catching as he finished.

‘We're sorry to hear that,' said Hannigan, professionally sympathetic.

‘Why is a homicide detective involved?' said Slater, recovering.

‘You been reading the papers, Mr Slater?' asked Stone.

‘No?' said Slater, questioningly.

‘Forensics have come up with something … something we're not releasing to the media at the moment. And can't understand.'

‘What?' asked Slater, holding back the irritation at not being told outright if whatever it was had something to do with David.

‘The 4×4 that was torched?' picked up Hannigan. ‘The inside was saturated with petrol. And although they're melted out of obvious recognition, our scientific guys think they found the plastic containers in which the gas was carried. At least five. And as I already told you someone was burned to death where it was dumped and set alight.'

‘Intentionally?'

Hannigan gave a gesture of uncertainty. ‘And as I also told you, where it was dumped is a hang-out for winos and druggies. We haven't identified the dead guy …' He hesitated. ‘And then I remembered when we talked that you thought someone might have deliberately run David down …'

‘And I thought I should come and talk to you about that,' finished Stone. ‘You have any cause to think your son was deliberately run down?'

Slater didn't reply at once. Never disclose yourself to be in a Witness Protection Programme or the reason for it, he remembered. It was inconceivable that Mason could have found them and in some way be involved, that he would run a child down. There'd inevitably be publicity if he told them who he was; create a situation in which Mason really could find them, from the media reports. If he was identified, he and Ann would have to run, start all over again. Start all over again without David. Ann couldn't stand that sort of upheaval, after what had happened to David. Slater didn't think he could, either. He shrugged. ‘It was instinctive … I wasn't thinking. You working the theory that the dead man was murdered?'

‘At the moment we don't have a theory, just some things that don't fit together,' said Hannigan. ‘There wasn't enough time between when your son was hit and the fire for whoever stole the 4x4 to stop and stock up with gas for a long journey. And he couldn't have refuelled anyway, although he wouldn't have known that. The cap to the gas tank was locked and the owner still had the key, so it was obviously hot-wired.'

Slater stood looking steadily between the two police officers. ‘Whoever ran David down bought at least five cans of gas – gas he couldn't use to refuel the vehicle –
before
he stole it?'

‘That's how it looks,' agreed Hannigan. ‘Preparing to destroy any evidence.'

‘Evidence of what?' persisted Slater.

‘Something else we haven't got around to answering, unless it was just traces of the thief when he finished with the car.'

‘How many cases have you ever come across of something like that being done?'

‘None,' admitted Hannigan. ‘Stolen cars torched, certainly. Happens all the time. But not having the gas already in the vehicle, ready. Normally it's just using what's already in the tank.'

‘Where was the body, inside or outside the car?'

‘You ever been involved in detective work, Mr Slater?' asked Stone. ‘You kinda think like a cop.'

‘I'm a security consultant.' Was he being asked to explain himself?

‘I know. That didn't answer my question.'

‘No, I've never been a cop,' said Slater, his voice rising with his anger.

‘How'd you get into security?'

Slater wasn't sure whether the heat he felt was anger or apprehension. He hoped it wasn't showing on his face. There was no reason to become uneasy about his being properly identified. There'd been protective provisions built into the creation of his new life. ‘Drifted into it, really, after the marines. Did some embassy security work and decided to stick with it.' The government was responsible for military and diplomatic employment, as they were with the CIA, making it easy to fabricate official although false biographies for people they were protecting.

‘Where'd you serve?' persisted Stone.

Enough, decided Slater. ‘At the US embassies in Paris and Rome,' he recited, letting his voice rise again and knowing there were entries confirming that on army records. ‘But what the hell has my army service and my job got to do with the running down of my son and the burning to death of some guy in a wino dump – both presumably by a guy you're nowhere near catching!'

‘Absolutely nothing,' said Hannigan, hurriedly.

‘We asked ourselves the same question, about whether the body was in or out of the car,' said Stone. ‘If the body, already dead, was inside along with all that gas, torching the car would be a good way of disposing of it, wouldn't it?'

‘And David?' demanded Slater, still loud voiced.

‘A complicating accident. If the guy's killed somebody he's hyper, wanting to get rid of the body, driving badly. He can't stop, after hitting your son, can he, not with the cargo he's already carrying? That's why he drives away. If he's decided how he's going to dispose of the body he's also chosen where to do it. Which is another inconsistency because it's part of a traffic system, not somewhere you'd easily find, in the dark. He leaves David, without even stopping to see what he's done, goes to his pre-arranged spot and torches the vehicle.'

‘So the body was inside the car?' pressed Slater. If the scenario was as they were describing it there couldn't be any possible connection with Jack Mason.

Hannigan shook his head. ‘Impossible to determine. It was found
outside
the wreck. But it blew up when the heat got to the gas that was in the tank – the owner had just filled it up. The body could have been inside but blown out. There were some physical fractures as well as burns.'

‘I don't see how I can help you,' said Slater, suddenly caught by the unreality of discussing hypothetical murder just yards from where David lay, murdered very much in reality if not by technical definition.

‘We're sorry to have troubled you,' said Stone, without any regret in his voice. ‘And I'm sorry if I upset you with some of my questions.'

‘And we are very sorry about your son.'

‘You're not even close to an arrest, are you?' challenged Slater. ‘Whoever killed David isn't going to be caught, is he?'

‘The case is very far from being closed,' insisted Stone.

‘It's never going to be, for my wife and I,' said Slater, turning away from both men. ‘I've got a funeral to arrange.'

Jack Mason let two days go by after picking up the Pennsylvania prison authority's dismissal of his civil action threat from Patrick Bell's computer, patiently letting the lawyer read to him over the telephone what he'd already seen on his illegal entry. When Bell finished Mason said, ‘So, it's who blinks first?'

‘You want me formally to file?'

‘You know I do.'

‘The State's got more money than you. They want to string it along, they can clean you out with potential costs before it ever gets to court. It's the oldest ploy in the book.'