Finders Keepers (11 page)

‘So good to see you back, Jonas. How
are
you?’

Jonas could barely look at him. Not without seeing the face of the Reverend’s father, Lionel, the deep sockets of his dead eyes twin puddles filled with blood. The killer had struck on Jonas’s watch, and yet Lionel Chard’s son was here now, holding his hand and welcoming him back. Forgiving him.

That was his job, of course. He was a man of God; what else could he do?

Jonas knew what
he
would have done. He mumbled something that apparently satisfied convention, and the Reverend
Chard
nodded, smiled and patted him on the shoulder as they walked on.

They started out in the hamlet itself – checking sheds and outhouses and coal bunkers – and moved out to the north-west across fields and through farmyards and barns and hay stores and milking sheds. People came out and helped while they were close to their homes, then waved them off and wished them luck as they went – as if they were troops off to war, not a small and increasingly sweaty search party. Jim Courier took off his uniform jacket and slung it over his shoulder and Jonas did the same.

As they headed up into the heather, Jonas squinted into the sun. It seemed like years since he had felt its heat on his face – years since it had seeped through the layers of his skin to warm the very core of his being. It made him think of long-gone summers and of the sour tang of early apples stolen from the gnarled trees up at Springer Farm. It made him think of Lucy – cold and dead and too deep in the soil ever to feel the sun on her face again, however brightly it shone for him.

He had dropped behind the others. He picked up his pace.

The only woman in their group – a slim, outdoorsy brunette who wore proper walking trousers with zip-off legs – offered everyone a piece of chocolate, and people chatted idly as they walked. Whenever Courier got confused by stiles or forks, Jonas put him back on the right course.

As it got warmer, the adrenaline of the morning dissipated, and they hiked doggedly from outbuilding to distant shed, speaking only when it was necessary.

The Reverend Chard was not a fit man or a young man and by lunchtime was plainly beginning to flag. Jonas had a quiet word with their leader, who suggested to the Reverend that he had done enough for one day. The vicar made a token protest and then set off gratefully back to Wheddon Cross for his car and, no doubt, a pint of cold cider at the Rest And Be Thankful.

Jonas watched him go with relief but also some envy. He had started out with the confidence of memory, but over a year of sitting and staring meant his lungs no longer had the capacity to fuel such exertions comfortably, and his legs ached. The sun, which had been so welcome at the start of the day, further sapped his strength, and he felt as hungry and tetchy as a toddler at teatime.

He had a sudden flash of a baby opening its rosebud mouth for a spoon-train, and of Lucy scooping the drips off its smooth chin. The baby had his eyes, and Lucy turned to smile at him, radiating happiness.

Jim Courier came over and pointed at something on the map. Jonas kept his head low and nodded, although he could see nothing but the man’s blurred finger.

They moved on and Jonas emptied his mind and watched his own feet as they pointed his way across the fragrant hills.

Over the three days, not a single volunteer dropped out.

As his men reported to him by radio, the helicopter team crackled and Stourbridge called on variable phone lines from across the moor, Reynolds placed crosses over the satellite images of tumbledown barns and stands of trees, and watched the area left to search shrink by the hour.

At first he was delighted by the methodical way the ground was being covered. Then as they ran out of barns and copses and the children had still not been found, the relentless march of crosses denoting that a search had been completed in a particular grid took on a whole new complexion. Instead of triumphant, each cross made Reynolds feel more desperate.

The volunteers were thorough and reliable, and – as Stourbridge had promised – the hunt covered the ground faster than anyone else.

But all that meant was that it took them less time to discover absolutely nothing.

*

Startling, in’t it, the amount of fuss what’s made when it’s all too late? All them people hunting all across the moor. And all for nothing.

I took no pleasure in searching with them; just had to be done, that’s all – to keep things looking right. If I didn’t do that, people might talk. Ask.

Inquire.

Some of them, though … I had to stop myself looking at the stupid hurt in their eyes, just in case they seen something back in mine. But being there and hearing them bleat about the children and the maniac what’s got ’em made me want to kick all their arses – them careless bastards.

No one appreciates a single thing nowadays. No one values what they got. Not until it’s gone, at least.

And them children’s gone, that’s for sure.

Gone for good.

IT WAS NIGHT
, and Mrs Paddon was in that warm, fluid state between sleep and wake when she heard a child crying.

She was a little deaf, and the walls of Honeysuckle Cottage were three feet thick and made of stone, but the sound was unmistakeable.

Mrs Paddon was nearing ninety and had never had children of her own, so the noise did not pull her from her slumber the way it might someone who had been a mother. Instead she kept her eyes closed, and allowed the faint sobs to take her back to the time when Jonas was a boy …

He’d been a sunny child, but too adventurous for her liking. There was always a tree to tumble from in the back garden, a bike to fall off on the steep lane, or a pony up at Springer Farm that bucked and bolted.

She’d heard him at times like that, sobbing just like this, and had always stopped whatever she was doing and stayed very still until she’d been sure someone was there to comfort him – until she’d heard Cath making soft cooing noises and kissing it better,
or
Desmond brushing him down and geeing him up. Moments later, she’d see Jonas back up the tree, back on his bike, Elastoplastered and ready for action. Only then had she resumed whatever she’d been doing.

Now, in her single bed, with most of her life behind her, Mrs Paddon drifted back to sleep to the sound of a child sobbing, and dreamed wonderfully of those balmy days when Cath and Desmond were still alive, when Jonas was sweetly innocent – and when she was young again.

When the old lady awoke the next morning, she could not even recall that her sleep had been interrupted; she only knew that it had been good.

*

Steven Lamb was on the skate ramp on the playing field the first time he saw Jonas Holly back on the beat. The shock was so great that he missed the lip and skidded to the bottom of the scuffed half-pipe on his chest and forearm – much to the amusement of Lalo Bryant.

‘Twat!’ Lalo chortled. He liked Steven, but he’d once broken his ankle on this very ramp and the memory of his own howling was always uncomfortably close. It had been nobody’s fault but his own, but he was constantly looking for balances and paybacks.

Steven got up and said nothing, but his stomach was in turmoil.

It had been easy to forget Mr Holly while he was stuck in his house up the hill, being all hermity. But the sight of him walking calmly through the village in his uniform – and the knowledge that he would be doing that every day from now on – made Steven feel slightly panicky. He crossed the crisp grass to retrieve his skateboard, then tucked it under his arm and walked away.

‘Don’t be like that!’ shouted Lalo.

But Steven hardly heard him.

Mr Holly was already passing the Red Lion by the time Steven reached the road. Barnstaple Road was the main – and very nearly only – road through Shipcott. Named in a simpler time when destinations were few.

Steven followed in Jonas Holly’s footsteps. He didn’t know what he was expecting. He didn’t know why he was doing it. Part of him – a
big
part – was embarrassed by the childish notion of keeping watch on Mr Holly. A teenaged boy keeping tabs on a policeman; it was silly and it was pointless and it was unsustainable. But still, he kept pace with the tall figure up ahead, never getting closer, stopping to tie his shoelace when Mr Holly lingered to read the notices in the window of Mr Jacoby’s shop, moving on again when he did.

The school was at the end of the village and Steven paused to tie his laces
again
while Mr Holly crossed the road and started back down the opposite pavement.

Now they were walking towards each other.

Steven didn’t know where to look. He didn’t want to have to say hello to Mr Holly but it seemed inevitable.

Steven turned his head to look into the windows of the houses he was passing. Some had nets, but many did not. Here were the dusty cacti in matching blue ceramic pots that lined the sill of Mr Peach, his PE teacher; here was the duck collection – including a plastic Donald – which Mrs Tithecott doted on and displayed proudly. Chris and Mark Tithecott had been getting into fights over those ducks ever since they’d started school – they made the twins a target just as surely as if they’d had red hair, glasses, or no-name trainers. Steven had witnessed them pleading with their mother to take the ducks out of the window on at least two occasions, but she’d been collecting them since she was a girl and was intransigent. Steven didn’t think the ducks were as bad as the twins did, but had some sympathy anyway, because of the years his nan had stood in their own front window, staring like a loon, watching for her dead
son
to come home from the shop, making targets of them all.

Steven realized that while he’d been remembering stuff, Mr Holly had passed by on the other side without having to be acknowledged.

Result.

Still, Steven knew that now Jonas Holly was back at work in Shipcott, he would never feel easy again.

THERE WAS A
car in the woods. It idled deep in the dapple, on a spring sea of bluebells and starry white garlic. About three years ago, Ronnie Trewell had driven it there and, in a moment of panic, set fire to it. That was before he grew up a bit and learned that stealing a car and driving it fast was only the beginning of what could be a beautiful friendship.

After watching in misery as that first car burned, Ronnie had vowed never to waste another one. From then on, he kept the cars he stole. If the bodywork was shoddy, he’d mask off, refill and re-spray. If the engine ran rough he’d take it apart and work on it until it was hard to tell whether the ignition was on or off. If the performance fell short of what the internet told him it should be, Ronnie invested in air filters and new plugs and synthetic oil. In short, he stole good cars and made them better.

And each time Jonas Holly finally called at his door to ask him to open the garage and hand over his latest illicit prize, Ronnie got a lump in his throat the size of a locking wheel nut.

He didn’t blame Jonas; didn’t hate him. He knew that that
was
the way things were. People lost stuff; eventually they wanted it back. Jonas was just the middleman.

And he was a good middleman. He seemed to understand that Ronnie was more than just a thief. He seemed to understand that he
cared
.

Once, as Ronnie stood misty-eyed, watching a powder-blue Triumph Stag (with freshly re-chromed wire wheels) driven away on a low-loader, Jonas had patted his shoulder kindly. ‘This has got to stop, Ronnie,’ he’d sighed – and Ronnie had thought bitterly that Jonas was finally showing his true blue police colours. Then Jonas had added, ‘All this hard work going down the drain.’

He’d managed to get Ronnie on to a police-subsidized karting course, where his twin talents of mechanics and driving very fast led to him shining, instead of shaming his family.

The Stag was the last car Ronnie Trewell ever stole.

But this had been the first. This half-burned-out once-red Mazda MX5 convertible.

Ronnie had never gone back to the woods to see it, so it was left to Davey and Shane, among others, to find it and play in it. Although ‘play’ was not a word they would ever have used – even in their own heads.

Rally Crash was their favourite game – where one would sit behind the wheel, on a cushion stolen from Shane’s mother’s bedroom, and pretend to mow down the other, who was a hapless spectator at a hypothetical rally. This game involved much loud verbal gear-changing and last-minute shouts of warning from the driver, and cries of terror plus spectacular dives into the undergrowth from the victim. Then the driver would get out and pronounce the spectator dead, or the spectator would use his last breath to reach out and strangle the driver in the ferns.

Just depended how they felt.

The other game was Getaway, where both Shane and Davey robbed a bank – which was the big stump about fifty yards off – then had to dodge police snipers and gas grenades to make it to
their
getaway car, all the while spraying bullets from their AK-47s. The roof was burned off the Mazda so this game allowed them both to devise ever-more dangerous methods of getting into the car – the ultimate being a spectacular, testicle-threatening slide across the blistered boot.