Czech Mate (4 page)

Gazing at the cream-emulsioned wall often found in this type of accommodation, Tom murmured, ‘He looked genuinely shattered last night.'

‘Because of the effect the drama might have on his two small daughters. He's abandoned wife and injured son to make sure
they
are given their favourite Sunday breakfast. Told Mrs McRitchie there was no way he would let what happened ruin
their
lives. Don't say it! It was also my first thought.'

Tom whistled softly. ‘Kevin not man enough for him?'

‘Got it in one. Sees it as some kind of slur on his own virility. Recognize the type?'

‘Dangerous.'

‘He's presently at home with the objects of his excessive affection. Good time to catch him . . . and, Tom, he spent last evening playing badminton but unless he can produce witnesses who will vow he was in plain sight the whole time, he has to be a suspect.'

‘My big problem is that whoever attacked the boy had no way of knowing when he would use the toilets, or even if he would that evening.'

‘Unless Kevin had arranged to meet someone there at a specific time. The doc says there are no signs the boy's been using drugs, but he could have been supplying, Tom.'

‘Jack Fellowes has just told me he thinks Kevin went up there for a smoke. There was a box of matches and a pack containing three cigarettes on the sill beneath the open ventilator. There was also a smouldering stub on the floor when Jack arrived.'

Max chuckled. ‘My mind goes into overdrive on teens today. Of course, smoke a surreptitious fag then flush the stub down the pan. Did it all the time at school. How about you?'

‘Back of the bike shed, me. Any info on the extent of the injury?'

‘Doc says the blow wouldn't normally do more than heavily stun the recipient. Kevin happens to have a thin skull, hence the excessive damage.'

‘So it could have been intended as a warning. That fits with Beeny's theory of frustrated sexual advances. By his father?'

‘I doubt it, but his obsession with the two girls could well be unhealthy. I'm off to talk to the Clarkson boys. The hospital will contact us when the patient is fit to answer questions. They say probably not until tonight or the morning, and his recollection could be extremely vague. Call me after you've interviewed McRitchie.' Short pause. ‘Finish the mince pie before you go.'

Tom smiled as the line went dead. Mince pies were a major hazard of Christmas investigations. He returned and settled in his chair to recap on their earlier conversation.

‘So there were the Padre's new wife, Lieutenant Farmer, Sapper Rowe and two of the tinies' mums helping you with the kids. They were all present from start to finish and no one else came for a short while, then left.'

‘That's right,' Jack Fellowes confirmed. ‘Could have done with a couple more volunteers – that age group can be demons to control – but everyone's got so much on at this time of year. Lieutenant Farmer holds dance classes at the Centre on the first and third Saturday each month, so some of the girls know her well. She also has an advanced first aid certificate. Useful when kids are running and jumping about in large numbers. There's always several who trip and fall, others who eat too much and regurgitate shortly afterwards.'

Tom pulled a face. ‘Tell me about it.'

‘The Padre's wife was asked if she would come to judge the costumes and hand out the prizes – one for each age group and one for the most original in any group – but we were about to start the parade when Kevin was discovered.'

‘So Mrs Robinson had only just arrived at that point?'

‘No. When she agreed to do the honours she said she'd come at the start and help in any way she could.' Fellowes raised his brows. ‘Between you and me, Tom, she was bugger-all use except for serving dollops of trifle and smiling the entire evening.'

Tom nodded. ‘I met her very briefly a month or so back. I knew the first Mrs Robinson quite well and liked her. Brisk woman who fought her illness with great courage right to the last days. This one seems a bit otherworldly, less fit to be a padre's wife.'

‘She might settle to it in time. They've only been married six months. First husband was a bank manager.'

‘Switched from saving pounds to saving souls.' Finishing his coffee and resolutely ignoring the mince pie, Tom asked, ‘How about Sapper Rowe? I've not come across him at all.'

‘A good lad. Clever with his hands. The eldest of five, so he's good with tinies. He set up all the apparatus for the team competitions. You know the kind of thing – scrambling through hoops, putting boxes within boxes, bouncing balls into buckets. He really got them all going, raised their competitive spirits.'

‘Christ, he'll have the PC brigade after him if they hear,' put in Tom dryly. ‘These days they all have to win equally.'

Fellowes shook his head. ‘These are army kids. They know all about being the best.'

Tom referred to the printed statement made to George Maddox. ‘You've provided the names of the two mothers who were helpers. One of my team will talk to them but, from your recollection, you noticed nothing or anyone suspicious up till the time Kevin was discovered.'

‘Nothing, Tom, but I was pretty well occupied. No time even to visit the bog until I went up there to find the boy. Mind you, there was a steady stream of kids up and down to the toilets all evening. If Kevin was attacked by an intruder any one of them could have been the victim.' He looked unhappy. ‘Nasty business. Parents will be edgy until you get who did it.'

Tom got to his feet. ‘Your two are back at uni, so no need to worry about them.'

‘Don't you believe it. The older they get the bigger the problems,' he said with a smile that belied his words. ‘But they're good lads.'

Sheila Fellowes walked in at that point. ‘Oh, are you going, Tom? You haven't eaten your mince pie.'

‘Had an urgent call from the boss. Have to be elsewhere, I'm afraid,' he replied smoothly, and escaped into the snow.

The McRitchie house was on the end of a block of four in a mini village of married quarters built decades ago and badly in need of renovation. Many families were too uncaring to add personal touches, and regarded their quarter as simply somewhere to sleep, eat and slouch on the sofa to watch TV for hour after hour.

It was instantly apparent to Tom that Mavis McRitchie was a home-maker. The room was bright with framed posters of country or coastal scenes glowing with colour, and the cushions wore handmade red, green and white patchwork covers that matched the tablecloth arranged diagonally beneath a bowl of gilded fir cones. Sitting on what looked like a patchwork throw across the settee were two dark-haired girls dressed in scarlet leggings with blue and white hand-knitted tunics.

‘We were having our usual Sunday question and answer session,' Greg McRitchie explained as he ushered Tom in. ‘We always enjoy it, don't we, sweethearts?'

Two heads nodded; two sullen expressions appeared as brown eyes stared at Tom who had intruded into their family activity. With no more than a year between them, Tom put them at around Beth's age. She was mercurial, with swiftly changing moods, but he had never seen such aggression in her eyes as there was being directed at him from Shona and Julie McRitchie.

‘I've come at the right time, then,' he said encouragingly, ‘because I need to ask some questions to which I hope you'll give some important answers.'

‘We only play the game with Dadda,' said one with finality.

‘Yes,' agreed the other in the same tone.

Their father hastened to soothe them. ‘Mr Black means that he wants to ask
me
a few things. Nothing to do with our game. That's our
special
fun. Go up to your room and make a list of what you want to buy at the market this afternoon, while I talk to Mr Black.'

They rose as one and headed for the stairs, ignoring the visitor.

‘Hey, haven't you forgotten something?' asked Greg in teasing manner, and they turned back to run to him and kiss his cheek. ‘That's better. Off you go. Only one Twix bar each, mind, or you'll have no room for your dinner at Maxie's.'

Tom watched all this with mounting disquiet. How long before this insidious petting developed a sexual aspect? He made a mental note to speak to someone in welfare about his concern. He also determined to question the girls about last night's party in the presence of their teacher tomorrow, although he realized he was unlikely to get useful answers from them. A session with young Kevin would surely yield more about the routine in this family.

Corporal McRitchie turned to Tom still wearing a disturbingly fond smile. ‘Light of my life, those two, sir.'

‘How about your son?'

The smile vanished. ‘I gave my every off duty minute to teach him how to make a success in life, to make something of himself. Wish I'd had a father prepared to provide the wonderful opportunities that boy was offered.' He scowled. ‘Total waste of effort. He's weak and spineless. Can't even catch a ball cleanly if you throw one to him. Know what, sir? When I brought a dog home, he cried and ran to hide behind his mother's skirts. No guts at all!'

‘Yet last night you charged him with the responsibility of looking after his sisters.'

‘And he even failed at that! Off on his own,
smoking
! He knows that's strictly against the rules.'

‘Which rules, Corporal?'

‘Mine, sir, for my family.' His eyes lit with fervour. ‘An army is successful because there's discipline, rules that must be obeyed so each individual soldier knows exactly what he and his fellows have to do. Reduce that system to an individual regiment, then to a battalion, a company, a platoon. It works in every case. Adapt that principle to a family and it can't fail to be successful, too. You've just seen my two little charmers. Good as gold and happy as the day is long.' The fervour faded. ‘Kevin has never understood the need for rules and has now begun openly to defy them.'

Disliking the man more by the minute, Tom said, ‘Evidence of guts that should surely please you. Now, I need a rundown of your son's main activities outside school, his interests and the names of his principal friends.'

‘The answer to the first two is the same. He fancies himself a future star of the pop scene. He plucks his guitar, prances around and jabbers like all the big names now. That's
all
he does. Even his mother can't get him interested in anything else. His only friends are Johnny King, Malc Carpenter and Callum Peters. They call themselves a group.' McRitchie's swarthy face screwed up in disgust. ‘Swinga Kat! They've even had it printed on their T-shirts.'

Reflecting that his girls would probably call that a pretty cool name for a group, Tom asked if Kevin and his mates ever played in public.

‘At the Youth Club, sir. They tried to get a gig in town but were told they're too young. Too bloody pathetic, more like!'

Tom let that pass. The man could be right. ‘Does Kevin know any of the younger musicians in the regimental band, particularly those who play in the splinter group performing at discos?'

‘Shouldn't wonder at it. That's all he thinks about.'

‘How about squaddies? Is he friendly with any seventeen-or eighteen-year-old lads?'

‘Doubt it. He rubbishes the army, so he'd have nothing in common with squaddies. Why d'you ask?'

The sound of squealing and running feet overhead took McRitchie's attention. ‘So is that it, sir?'

‘For now, Corporal, but isn't there something you want to ask me?'

‘Like what, sir?'

‘Like who could have made such a brutal attack on your son.'

‘Some weirdo who wandered in to use the bog and got angry when he found a kid there having a smoke. It's the only explanation.'

‘No, Corporal, there are a hell of a lot of possible explanations and, as you appear to have little concern over why Kevin should be the target of a vicious assault, I shall have to ask others to provide me with the answers that'll lead us to catch the perpetrator.'

Tom drove away curiously loath to leave those two young girls with their father. He wondered just what questions and answers comprised the game they only played with ‘Dadda'. Was it the overture to something criminal? Was the next stage the one where the girls were encouraged to show him their special places while he showed them his? As the father of three daughters Tom held strong views on the rape and sexual abuse of girls. He had even grown slightly wary of horseplay with Maggie, whose breasts and hips had rounded to budding womanhood in the last twelve months. Pubescent daughters were complex. Sons would be easier to handle.

On that thought he questioned himself harshly. If he had a son would he need the boy to be tough, rough and all-out male? If the lad ran in fright from a dog would it disappoint and disgust him? If a son's sole interest was to grow a long pony-tail, dress in skintight spangled satin and wail into a microphone in smokey dives would he feel the way Greg McRitchie felt?

To banish the uncomfortable suspicion that it might be all too likely, Tom restored his equilibrium with the certainty that, whatever the situation, if young Master Black were ever attacked
his
father would hunt down the person responsible with rage in his heart.

Unsettled by his train of thought, Tom had just decided to go home for soup, a sandwich and Nora's uncomplicated philosophies when his mobile rang. He pulled up beside the gymnasium to answer.

‘Tom Black.'

‘Jakes here, sir. Lance-Corporal Treeves has surfaced.'

‘Alive?'

‘And kicking. With a tale and a half to tell.'

‘I'll be there in ten.'

So much for his plan to offset the unease prompted by the McRitchie interview! He made a three-point turn in driving snow and headed back across the base to their chilly new premises.