Perseverance Street (23 page)

Charlie looked from one to the other.

‘When?’ he repeated. ‘When did she accuse you of taking her son? Simple question.’

No answer.

‘The truth is that she hasn’t seen you to be able to accuse you of anything.’

No answer.

‘So, you’ve given yourselves away, haven’t you? So, where’s the boy?

‘We don’t know what you’re talking about!’ snarled Randle. ‘Now clear off!’

Charlie shook his head and held them both in his contemptuous gaze as he said, ‘I think we’d better let the police deal with this scum, Lily.’

‘I agree,’ said Randle harshly. ‘I’ll be damned well contacting them myself just as soon as you’ve gone! Stupid bloody woman!’

Charlie walked her back to
his van. Before getting in she turned to him and said, ‘He’s a liar, Charlie. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Of course I know. I knew that before he said a single word.’

They were both in the van as Charlie explained. ‘When he came to the door he pretended not to recognise you at first. How could he not instantly recognise a beautiful woman like you? He admitted to spending half a day with you in Grassington, then he came to visit you in Leeds and yet it still took him ages to speak when he came to the door.’

He started the vehicle and drove off towards the main road.

‘I didn’t speak either,’ said Lily. ‘I didn’t know what to say to him.’

‘I know, and that didn’t help him. He and his wife will have anticipated such a moment and they’ll have rehearsed it until they’ve almost convinced themselves they are telling the truth. With you turning up so unexpected like that he needed time to remember his lines. Obviously he slipped up when he said you’d previously accused him of taking your son. When was that supposed to have happened?

‘His wife got straight into the act with her having had a bit more time to think. On top of which they answered all my questions as though I was a copper, not just an ordinary bloke who’d no business asking such questions. They were going through a rehearsed routine. Trust me. They’d practised answering these questions before. And there’s something else that gave them away …’

‘What’s that?’

‘Well, the way they spoke to you
just now tells me that they’re an intrinsically unfriendly couple. I doubt if they’ve got many close friends.’

‘None, according to Jimmy and Brenda,’ said Lily.

‘And yet, on their own admission, they befriended you and Michael to the extent that they took you off in their car within an hour of meeting you. Jimmy said Randle was a Jekyll and Hyde character which means he’s obviously a man who can turn on the good guy act when it suits him and it suited him and his wife that day back in April.’

‘Charlie, how do you know all this stuff?’

‘I’ve been well trained in the art of being someone else – and I’ve spent a long time actually
being
someone else.’

‘So, you believe Randle took Michael.’

‘Absolutely. There are only two stories here: yours and theirs. You’re the genuine article. No question of that. What I don’t know is what they’ve done with him.’

‘Or why they took him.’

‘That’s the real baffler. One of our problems is that we’ve now put them on their guard for when the police start asking them questions. I doubt if they’ll slip up quite so easily again.’

‘Are you saying we should have left it to the police, instead of barging in like that?’

Charlie
shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Anyway, it’s a bit late worrying about that now. However, they’ve given themselves away to me, so they’ll know there are at least two people who know what they’ve done – not just you. They won’t like that.’

He turned on to the A64 and headed west. ‘If it comes to it,’ he said, ‘I could probably get the truth out of Randle, but it would have to be a last resort. People like Randle are basically men of straw. He’d crack fairly quickly if he thought the alternative was death.’

‘Can you really do that?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘It wouldn’t bother me what you did to him. Jesus! Charlie, what’s happening to me? I’m not a cruel person.’

‘You’re a step closer to your son, that’s what’s happening to you.’

‘So, what next? Are you going to go round there at four in the morning to torture him?’

‘No. I think you should go to the police and tell them everything you know. You’ve got a match for the photograph. See what they can dig up about him.’

‘But the Randles will just give the police the story they gave us, without the slip ups.’

‘Oh, they’ll no doubt give the coppers a much more convincing version – the full rehearsed script. But they’ll be panicky, which is what I want them to be. To be found guilty of child abduction puts them in jail for a long time, they’re bound to worried sick right now. After all this time they’ll have thought they got away with it.’

‘Which police? The ones
in Malton?’

‘Do no harm. The Randles are in their jurisdiction. The Malton boys will no doubt get in touch with the Leeds coppers.’

‘Mr and Mrs Randle, a very serious allegation
has been made against you both and I’m duty bound to question you about them.’

‘By “duty bound” I assume you mean you don’t believe these allegations because they’re being made by a poor young woman who’s not right in her head?’ said Edith.

DS Bannister was in the Randles’ house along with a detective constable from Leeds and a uniformed sergeant from Malton. There was no doubt that the man in the photograph, whom Lily claimed had taken her son, was the man sitting across the table in front of him. The other person in the photograph, half out of shot, was his wife, Edith. They’d both admitted this. But being in a photograph isn’t a crime unless the photograph is incriminating in some way, which it wasn’t.

‘Mrs Robinson says you went to her house on the afternoon of Friday the twenty-seventh of April this year and you left taking her son, Michael, with you – ostensibly to give her a break during her bereavement and to give Michael a weekend in the country, namely Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales.’

‘Sergeant,’ said Randle, ‘we went to see her to offer our condolences but we left alone. Why would we lie about this? There was never any mention of us taking him. We don’t live in Grassington, we live here. On the day we met Lily and Michael we took them to a house in Grassington but it wasn’t our house, it was a house where Edith needed to do a bit of work before a house contents auction. If you don’t believe us, ask the estate agent.’

‘The man dealing with it is
Mr Penn,’ added Edith.

‘Yes, I’ve already spoken to Mr Penn,’ said Bannister, looking at them to see if this raised any sign of worry in their faces. It didn’t.

‘Mrs Robinson says that she and Michael stayed the night at a Lark House, which she assumed was your house.’

‘I’m sorry but Lily knew full well it wasn’t our house, Sergeant,’ said Edith. ‘We talked about how we’d like to live in a grand place like that. I only went there to do a bit of dusting and tidying before the auction. Lily left late that same afternoon. She’d missed her coach back so we dropped her off in Skipton to catch the bus. What time was it when you ran her into Skipton, Bernard?’

‘Well, I know her coach was leaving at five and she didn’t realise what time it was until it was half an hour too late. We took her in soon after that – I reckon about six because we had to get home. I was on duty that night. I think she got a bus direct through to Leeds.’

‘Early the following morning the auctioneers were due to go in to set up,’ said Edith. ‘It’d look well for them to turn up and find us in one of the beds and Lily and her son in another room.’

DS Bannister made a note that
Randle should have been on camp the night Lily said he was in Grassington. If there was any record of that, her story would crumble. Also he needed to check with the estate agent that their auctioneer had gone round early the following morning and found the house empty; and that Mrs Randle had once been a housekeeper there; and that she’d been employed to do some dusting and tidying before the auction.

He also needed to check with Lily the time she said she’d left the house that morning. On the face of it, he should be able to disprove her allegation within twenty-four hours. Check with the camp records, check with the estate agent, talk to Lily again. Ask her why she’s lying.

Ask her what she did with her son.

‘How did you know where I
was?’ Lily asked Bannister.

They were in Dee’s house. It was the following afternoon. Dee and Charlie were there. Charlie had taken a week off work, much to his dad’s annoyance. But it seemed to Charlie that Lily was at a crucial point in tracking down her son and she needed all the help she could get.

‘I’m a detective, Mrs Robinson. It’s my job to detect people.’

It wasn’t much of an answer but it was obviously the only one she was going to get so she didn’t pursue the matter.

‘I’ve done some checking on Bernard Randle,’ he went on, ‘and it seems he was on night duty at Eden camp the night you say he was at Lark House.’

‘What?’

‘The army keep duty records. I checked them this morning. He was on duty from ten p.m. until six in the morning.’

‘He has a reputation as a fiddler,’ said Charlie. ‘Who’s to say he hasn’t fiddled the duty records?’

Bannister gave this some thought and sighed. ‘On the night you say you were at Lark House what time did you go to bed?’

‘Not late,’ said Lily. ‘I’d say about ten o’clock.’

‘And Randle was there when
you went to bed?’

‘Yes, he was.’

‘You see my problem? Army records have him at Eden camp at ten o’clock.’

‘Army records are wrong then,’ said Lily adamantly.

‘You’ll find that’s not so unusual,’ said Charlie. Bannister wished he’d shut up.

‘The following morning,’ Bannister went on. ‘What time did you leave?’

‘Oh, fairly early. I was up at seven, so I reckon it was about eight o’clock. Randle and his wife took us to a transport café for breakfast, then dropped us off in Malton.’

‘I see.’

This put paid to a challenge he had in mind. The auctioneers had arrived at the house at nine o’clock. Charlie interrupted again.

‘A transport café? You mean they couldn’t manage to rustle up some breakfast in their own house?’

Lily tried to cast her mind back. ‘They had no milk for tea or cereal or anything. I remember this because Randle was just coming in the house as I got downstairs. He said he’d been to the village to get some milk but nowhere was open.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Charlie. ‘What sort of village shop opens before seven o’clock to sell milk? I reckon he’d just got in from camp, Sergeant.’

‘I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t interrupt, Mr—’

‘Cleghorn,’ said Charlie. ‘Do you mind if I ask Lily a question of my own?’

Bannister sighed and
said, ‘If you must.’

‘Lily,’ said Charlie. ‘You say that the Randles took you for breakfast to a transport café?’

‘They did, yes. In fact they took us to the same café the previous evening for a meal.’

‘Did they now?’ said Charlie, looking at Bannister. ‘Tell me, all the time you were at the house did they provide any sort food or drink – maybe just a cup of tea and a biscuit?’

Lily thought back and shook her head slowly. ‘No … I don’t think they did.’

‘Of course they didn’t,’ said Charlie. ‘It wasn’t their house. There’d be no food there. Did you not think it odd that they only fed you in that café?’

‘At the time, no. They just went on about how good it was and what good value it was. They said they often dined there.’

‘And was it good?’

‘It was passable, but I wouldn’t make a habit of it.’

‘Mr Bannister,’ said Charlie, ‘might I suggest you ask some questions at the café? See if anyone remembers seeing the Randles with Lily and her son having breakfast on Friday April the sixth. Maybe they’ll also have some duty roster they can refer to.’

‘That’s a very long shot,’ said Bannister. ‘People come in and out of cafés all the time. Who’s going to remember a face from four months ago?’

‘Do no harm to try,’ said Charlie. ‘Lily could go with you. She has a memorable face, you have to admit.’ He turned to Lily. ‘Is there anyone at the café you remember? Maybe someone spoke to Michael – or had a joke with you if you’d been there twice in the space of what, fourteen, fifteen hours?’

‘It was the same person
both times – I remember that,’ said Lily. ‘A man. I think he ran it with his wife and daughter. His wife did the cooking. There was hardly anyone in at breakfast time. The previous evening it had been packed.’

‘What do they call it?’ Bannister asked, taking out his notebook.

Lily shook her head. ‘I don’t remember. Yes I do – it’s the Wharfedale Café. It’s on the main road from Grassington to Skipton, probably halfway to Skipton.’

Bannister scribbled something in his book and got to his feet. Dee followed him with her eyes and spoke for the first time. ‘You thought you’d got Lily bang to rights, didn’t you, Sergeant? I bet there’s a constable sitting in your car outside to assist with her arrest.’

‘The Randles took Michael, Sergeant,’ Charlie said. ‘Didn’t you notice how plausible they both were? A ready answer to every question you could throw at them. Aren’t you trained to take such people with a very large pinch of salt?’

Bannister looked at Charlie and said, ‘We’re trained to collect evidence, Mr Cleghorn, and there’s no evidence against the Randles except Mrs Robinson’s word and, so far, she hasn’t behaved in a manner to encourage me to take her word as gospel. I’m aware she went into hysterics in Randle’s house yesterday – I have the evidence of their next-door neighbour to that effect.’ He walked to the door, then paused with his hand on the handle. ‘We’re also trained,’ he said, ‘to take with a very large pinch of salt the word of unstable people. I’m very sorry about your husband, Mrs Robinson, but I have to play it as I see it. I’ll be back.’

‘Hold on a minute, Sergeant,’ said Dee, going to a drawer and taking out a packet of photographs. She gave Bannister the one of Lily and Michael that Randle had taken. ‘If you’re going to that café you’ll need to show the man this.’