Cause of Death (3 page)

Mac had been sent here because he was broken. Events had conspired to tear him apart: the death of a child he could not prevent, the aftermath of a disastrous investigation, then sick leave, mental breakdown and very slow recovery. DI Eden, he now knew, had a similar history, though they had never really spoken about it. Eden had served out his final years here and, so far as Mac could tell, had spent them pretty much as he now spent his official retirement: sea fishing and drinking coffee. Mac's hope of peace and quiet had, at first, been completely scuppered. For a few months it had seemed as though Frantham, backwater that it was, had become crime capital of the world, but it had soon tired of all the drama and settled back into sleepiness.

This summer had been glorious. Sunny, but with a fresh breeze off the sea and a healthy population of visitors, Frantham basked in self-satisfaction and Mac basked with it. He watched the families that had come early to the beach settle on the sand with their buckets and spades. He had noticed that it was those with the youngest infants who turned up earliest; those with older children usually arrived in the afternoon, though there were less of those now, much of the country having already returned to school as September began. The day was warm, and tots in multi-coloured shorts and T-shirts scampered about on the sand or braved the shallows to wet their feet and screech at the cold. Not that it was ever particularly warm, Mac thought. The water here was not so deadly freezing as off the North Sea coast where he had grown up and lived for most of his adult life, but it was still pretty chilly, and it was usually after noon before tourists – all but the hardiest of them anyway – braved full immersion.

Sipping his coffee, savouring the scent of vanilla syrup, he turned from the railing and wandered back along the promenade towards the police station. The small, square, squat little building, its wooden doors now open wide above the short flight of stone steps and newer, ugly concrete ramp, looked content in the morning light. The red bricks glowed and Mac fancied he could almost hear it stretch and sigh. He laughed at himself, decided he was getting overly sentimental in his old age, but he did feel happy today. Miriam had gone off into Exeter to meet her sister and she had driven herself. This was the first time this year that she had felt able and confident enough to walk up the hill from their home in the boathouse, get into her car and travel the road, alone, that had been the scene of her kidnap. She had called him twice, once just before she had set off and the second time when she had arrived at her sister's place. She had sounded shaky but elated, and Mac had suddenly felt that the entire universe was celebrating with them.

‘Morning, Andy,' he said.

‘Morning, boss.' The redhead nodded and the freckled face smiled. Andy had not long finished his probationary year.

‘Anything happening?'

‘One lost dog, one lost purse and a call from DI Kendall,' Andy told him. ‘I said you'd get back to him as soon as you got in. It sounded important.'

‘But you didn't take a message.'

‘But he didn't
leave
a message.' Andy grinned at his boss. ‘I did ask. He said it was about an old friend.'

‘Friend?'

‘Well, friend with imaginary inverted commas,' Andy clarified. ‘Anyway, the number's on your desk so you don't have to root for it.'

‘Thanks. Where's Frank?' Sergeant Baker usually manned the desk at this time of the morning while Andy sat in the broom cupboard of a back office and dealt with any paperwork.

‘He said it was a lovely morning so he'd go and look for the dog,' Andy said. ‘You know, the lost one, and that he might think about getting us some of that coffee on the way back.'

Mac laughed and wandered through to his own desk, picking up the phone number Andy had left there and noting, vaguely, that it wasn't either Kendall's mobile or his office number. Frantham was in danger of becoming boringly peaceful, he thought, adding with crossed fingers that he could handle all kinds of boring just now.

It took him a few minutes to get through to his friend and colleague. DI Kendall was, it seemed, at a conference, and the number he had left was the main reception of the hotel.

‘We have to keep our bloody phones switched off.' He sounded aggrieved.

‘Have I dragged you out of anything important?'

‘No, I've left very willingly, and as for important, well I couldn't possibly comment on that one. The only presentation I'm actually here for doesn't happen until tomorrow, but some officious bastard is insisting I attend both days.'

Mac laughed. He had a pretty good idea which conference Kendall had attended, having noticed the memo a few weeks previously. From what he remembered, day one focused on community relations and sensitivity to minority groups. Important, yes, but as Kendall's main expertise was organized crime, and community relations hardly evidenced in his remit, it did seem an odd decision to have tied up a senior officer for both days when day two, relating to the move of organized criminality from an urban to a rural environment, was more truly relevant to Kendall's practice.

‘I'm delivering the paper in question,' Kendall said almost apologetically. ‘You know I'm doing the MA?'

‘I remember you saying.' It seemed everyone was studying these days, Mac thought.

‘Yes, well my research is into media representations of crime and how that shapes public response. Actually,' he said almost reluctantly, ‘I'm really enjoying it, but, well, you know . . .'

‘I know,' Mac agreed, not sure if he actually did. ‘What did you want me to call you about, or was it just an elaborate escape plan?'

Kendall laughed. ‘Wish I'd thought of it,' he said. ‘No, it's about an old acquaintance of ours. Stan Holden. You know he was released?'

‘Yes, Rina told me.'

‘Right, well it seems time served on remand counted against his sentence. In the end his shooting of Coran was ruled self-defence anyway and the time served counted against the other charges.'

Kendall didn't sound too happy about that, Mac thought.

‘So—'

‘So we have reason to think he may head your way. He's been living in a hostel since his release, but he left three days ago and he's been in the wind ever since. Just thought you ought to have the heads up, you know.'

Mac could hear someone in the background calling Kendall's name. His friend groaned. ‘I'm going to have to go,' he said. ‘So much for the escape plan. Oh, you know Rina Martin's been visiting him in jail, I suppose?'

‘Yes, she told me that too.'

‘Right, well let her know. Just in case he turns up on her doorstep.'

‘I will,' Mac promised. Kendall rang off and Mac was left to reflect that it was very, very likely that Stan would turn up on Rina's doorstep. In fact the only surprise was that he had not already done so. Mac also knew that Kendall would never be able to get his head around the idea that she would welcome him; it would be far too alien a concept for Dave Kendall. In fact, Mac reflected, it was probably the combined influence of eighteen months of Frantham and almost that of Rina that made it seem normal, expected even, for a convicted criminal with Stan's violent past to seek sanctuary in Peverill Lodge.

He wandered back through to the front office, thinking about the routine paperwork waiting on his desk and about Stan Holden. If it hadn't been for Stan then Joy, Tim's young fiancée, would not be with them. She would be dead, just like her brother and father. As would two very innocent little girls.
¹
Against those facts, Stan's previous conduct paled, not exactly into insignificance, but, well it kind of balanced things up, Mac thought. He shook himself mentally; that sounded far too much like Rina logic, not the sort of ideas an officer of the law should have floating around in his head.

Sergeant Baker bustled in through the big double doors, his round face reddened by the summer sun and the remnants of sunburn now flaking from his balding scalp. He smiled broadly. ‘Lovely morning,' he said. ‘Lovely. I thought I'd take a drive up to the De Barr hotel and a bit of a walk along the cliff path, show some presence, you know?'

Mac nodded. ‘Sounds like a good idea,' he approved. Frank Baker was popular with the summer visitors, always ready for a chat, his broad-shouldered, uniformed presence seeming to epitomize what most visitors expected in a rural policeman. ‘On your way back, swing round by the aerodrome, will you, make sure they've got everything settled for the open day.' The rather lovely art deco tower and tiny airport were now almost fully restored and had been operational for several months. The impact on local jobs had already been a positive one and the official opening was only a couple of weeks away.

‘Will do.'

‘I'm out at the Palisades this morning,' Andy reminded him, referencing the larger hotel out towards the Exeter road where Tim performed. ‘Security check?'

‘Oh yes, so you are. No problem, I can hold the fort here. If there's a sudden crimewave I'll give one of you a call.'

He watched them depart, chatting amicably as they left through the main doors and then round to the awkward little parking space at the back of the police station. Mac stood on the doorstep, sipping the remnants of his coffee and gazing out on to the promenade, suddenly glad to be alone. Despite the peace and stability of his surroundings, he found he had a lot to think about. Everything in his life seemed about to change again. Miriam was going back to university to finish her long-put-off postgraduate studies – Mac was helping her to finance them and was still shocked at the cost. She was talking about her PhD and speculating that it would probably take her a further four years. She'd already had a chat with a potential supervisor and tentatively proposed an area of study in the osteo-archaeology that had been her area of expertise before she had become a CSI. Mac hoped this was the right path for her and that she wasn't just taking flight into academia in response to the events of the previous winter. He wanted to support her, wanted for them both to get it right, and they'd talked the figures through: if they stayed living in the boathouse and Mac continued with his job and Miriam did a bit of part-time work – the nature of which was as yet unspecified – then they would be fine.

She had been worried, he knew, that he'd resent supporting her both emotionally and financially, but he had honestly been able to tell her that he would not. Miriam was one of the best things that had ever happened to him. Rina and her strange family were another. All of that was fine. More than fine. And the fact that he still woke in the night gripped with fear and drenched in a cold sweat was only because he counted Miriam so highly.

She knew about that, of course. It seemed to Mac that sometimes the pair of them took it in turns to be overwhelmed by what might have been.

She understood
that
kind of fear, but what Mac could not admit, was too proud and too embarrassed to admit, was another fear that had crept up on him. What if she found this new life of hers more interesting? What if she met other people, far more suited to her intellect and personality than Mac believed he was?

Most of the time, Mac was able to tell himself that he was being utterly irrational. Miriam would be coming home to him every night, and it wasn't as if she was going away to study. He'd never dream of wanting or trying to stop her from doing anything that made her happy, but that didn't stop the nag of fear that now woke him in the night as often as the memory of almost losing her had done.

‘You are such a prize prat,' Mac told himself as he stared out across the promenade. He smiled, deciding he needed Rina to give him a good talking to.

It had been several days before Jerry had been able to get away from the crowd and make a personal call using a landline – a phone box he had spotted one night when he'd been out at the pub with Santos and the others. It took him a while to get through and he came straight to the point.

‘Who set us up? And why haven't the police gone public?'

There was a slight pause. ‘Where are you? Can you talk?'

‘No time, I'll be missed. You know what a tight rein he keeps. So what the hell is going on?'

‘Interpol tell us it wasn't a police operation. Intel suggests it was Vashinsky. Beyond that I've got nothing to tell you.'

‘Right.' Jerry thought for a moment. ‘I want out,' he said. ‘Now.'

The slight hesitation again. ‘Your cover?'

‘Still intact so far as I can tell. But I want out. Now. There's nothing to stop me just walking away.'

‘No, there's not, except you know he'd find you. And her. Jerry, another week, two at most, then we'll talk. Can you cope with that?'

Jerry hung up. ‘Don't have much frigging choice, do I?' he said.

O
n Tuesdays, twice a month in the tourist season, there was a small art and antique market in Charmouth, partly in the village hall but also spreading into the little car park and along the pavement. Rina liked to visit – occasionally she liked to buy – and then to enjoy a walk along the fossil beach. She loved Lyme Regis too, having collected fossils as a little girl and now returning to it in a small way so much later in her life, but Charmouth beach was generally a bit less crowded and also a tad easier on the feet. Although it was only a mile or so along the coast, it was unusual to find Jurassic remnants at Frantham; the old town, snuggled into a small crack in the cliffs that followed the outfall of a fast-flowing stream, didn't have a beach, and the sandy, shingly mix of the beach in Frantham new town, the Victorian build, was surprisingly fossil free. Rina suspected that the Jurassic seam dived down underground at that point; either that or something in the geology made it unfit for preservation.

The art and antique fair didn't open until eleven and when Rina arrived people were still setting up. She knew most by sight and a few by name and waved a greeting as she passed by on her way to the beach. The day was shaping up to be a hot one, she thought; it would be good to get down to where there was likely to be a sea breeze.