Walking into the Ocean (23 page)

“From what I hear, you want to turn the whole family into detectives. Mum won't stop talking about her little sojourn to Whittlesun. Nick and Nora Charles, I heard her say once.”

Peter laughed aloud, causing his whole ribcage to ache.
Had Joan mentioned the blood-soaked lavatory?

“I need to get going,” he said. He looked at his feet and wiggled his toes.

“Yes,” Sarah said, moving off the bed. “Let's get out of here.”

She reached under the bed and retrieved a pair of shoes. “Now we can make our escape.”

She helped Peter slip on his loafers. “Where did you find these?” he said.

“Just when I arrived, which is about an hour ago, Jerry Plaskow came in at the same time. He brought the shoes and left you this note. Handsome bloke.” She handed him a lumpy, brown envelope. When Peter ripped it open, his car keys fell out, along with a scribbled note from Jerry and several lavender message forms bearing the logo of the Sunset Arms.

Your car is in the hospital lot. Other stuff is from your hotel as of this morning. We should talk. Glad you're
OK
. Call me.

The other squibs included call-back requests from Bartleben and Markman, the Director of Communications in London, and a call from Melissa Hamm, presumably Ron Hamm's wife. One note distressed him: Wendie Merwyn, the reporter from
TV
-20, whom he had seen on the television in the hotel lounge, asked him to call her back by 4:00 p.m., identified as her “deadline,” whatever that meant. He preferred to avoid all reporters for now. Another was from Father Salvez, giving a phone number but no other information.

“Good, I have the car,” Peter said.

“Where are we going?” Sarah said, and helped him to his feet. She slung a well-worn rucksack over her shoulder. Peter halted at the doorway. They both peeked into the hall conspiratorially.

“Sarah, I have a favour to ask you. I have to interview a young boy, one of the kids who found some evidence on the beach where André Lasker disappeared. Apparently he's interested in marine biology.”

“You want me to meet him?”

“If you would. But only after I ask him what he saw. He may believe he's in trouble.”

He could tell that Sarah wasn't making sense of this, for the simple reason that Peter was failing to explain his anxieties about a visit to the Callahans.

They walked to the lift at the far end of the corridor.

“Then it's official,” she stated. “We're all in the detective trade now.”

“They tell me this boy is very special,” Peter said.

Sarah drove while Peter called ahead to the Callahans and simultaneously punched the address into the SatNav. Constable Willet's cousin lived inside the town's formal limits, in a district that Peter hadn't visited before. The neighbourhood offered a view of neither the sea nor the cliffs. The Callahan house was identical to the others in the row and Sarah found a parking space in front. This time the door was painted glossy kelly green, while the others along the row were orange, red, yellow and robin's egg blue. Peter saw no point in drawing comparisons between the Callahan and Lasker houses, even if the former was merely a smaller version of the latter. The Callahans likely were a happy family (from Willet's report), and the Laskers had not been, and that fact made all the difference.

Leaving Sarah in the car, Peter rapped on the lion's head knocker on the green door and waited for a minute. Willet's cousin, Fred Callahan, answered. He was tall, rake thin and wiry, and wore clean overalls. He had kind, deferential eyes and a handsome moustache. He was very much the artisan archetype.

“Good morning,” he said to Peter, gauging him but showing no hostility. He peered out at the car with Sarah in it, but was too polite to do more than look.

“Good morning. I'm Chief Inspector Cammon.” Peter might have appeared a bit rumpled, his face scraped, but he never doubted the impression of authority he conveyed. He tried to smile, though he ached.

“Oh, I didn't expect you so soon. Come in, Inspector. My wife has to be at work, but we're here.”

Peter entered the cleanest front hallway he had ever seen. The wallpaper, a tasteful yellow stripe pattern, was perfectly applied. Peter noted that the runner on the oak floor was in top condition; there was no sign of wear or stain. It wasn't the typical home of a twelve-year-old working-class boy. The small table in the vestibule was a fine Queen Anne piece, and the lamp centred on it, with a lace doily underneath, was a Zolnay design, which he recognized from Joan's antiquing expeditions.

Fred brought him to the living room, which was as tidy as the hall and decorated with beautiful furniture. His host gestured to the chesterfield, and Peter gratefully took a seat. He tried to put the father at ease by appearing relaxed and informal, although his joints ached severely and there were multiple scrapes on his hands; his splinted finger invited questions, but Callahan was too well mannered to ask. The boy wasn't present, and Peter, from considerable experience with child witnesses, prepared himself for the usual parental preliminaries.

“So, Inspector Cammon, you are a Scotland Yard detective, Willet said on the phone.”

Stan Bracher once said that he delayed as long as possible telling people that he represented the Yard, since they always thought that he was “putting on the high hat.” Peter supposed that it was a Canadian expression, but it sounded New York City to him. Nevertheless, it summed up the risk of interviewing witnesses in their homes. This roundabout chain of musings brought him back to Fred's questioning look.

“And you, Mr. Callahan, are somehow in the furniture business.”

It was a Holmesian moment. Callahan looked at him in surprise. A wave of queasiness washed over Peter and he fought to stay expressionless. Fred seemed not to notice. Peter refocused and fought the rising bile in his throat.

“The table?” Peter continued.

“Oh, yes!”

“It's a beautiful piece. The chairs and sideboard, my wife would love them.”

“She'd pine for them.”

“Pardon?”

“It's a family joke. I work in furniture refinishing. When I tell my wife about a particularly fine table or chair I'm working on, she says I'd better stop or she'll start to pine for it.”

Fred went on to explain that he worked for a local company that brought in old pieces from Europe and refinished them for resale within the British Isles. Fred was a master finisher. The furniture arrived in small freighters at Whittlesun Harbour.

“Would you like some tea?”

Standard practice was to refuse hospitality. Peter was about to decline when he realized that he had eaten one piece of toast and half a hospital coffee that morning. “I'd love tea, be my first cup of the day.”

“Coming up, then.”

Before Fred could leave, Peter creaked to his feet. “Why don't I help you?”

Peter was trying hard to sound amiable and non-threatening. This was a first, Fred was likely thinking, a Scotland Yard copper in his kitchen. Fred immediately said, “First time I'll have had a Scotland Yard police officer in my pantry.”

In the kitchen, Fred went through the ritual of preparing the tea. Peter looked around at the spotless room, so far from the Lasker devastation. He wouldn't have minded spending a couple of hours drinking tea in the Callahan living room, but he had a schedule, he reminded himself. It was also likely that Fred Callahan was expected for a noon shift, or maybe earlier. Peter got to the point.

“Thank you for seeing me.”

“My wife's sorry she couldn't be here to meet you,” Fred said. “Works in the town.”

“Mr. Callahan, I won't take up your morning.” Peter's promise came out insincere and stiff, a copper's euphemism. Percy wasn't in evidence and Fred had yet to mention him directly.

Peter tried again. “Constable Willet speaks highly of young Percy.”

“Do you have children, Inspector Cammon?”

“Two. Could I have a very quick word with Percy?”

“He's a fine lad, sir. The best.”

Peter had heard many fathers defend their sons, even boasting of non-existent virtues, but Fred's assertion was different. It was not a defence; it was an objective conclusion.

“Percy's done nothing wrong,” Peter said. “He and his friend discovered a pile of clothes on Whittlesun Beach.”

“This is the Anna Lasker murder?”

Peter nodded. He wondered how Sarah was doing out in the car; he had failed to indicate how long he would be. “There've been no charges of murder laid. But the case is complicated, and every detail helps.”

Fred took a deep breath. “I'll call Percy.” He went to the hall and gently called out: “Son?”

Peter listened to the steady footfalls on the stairs and in a moment the boy turned into the kitchen. Percy Callahan was angelic. His straight blond hair framed a flawless portrait of innocence. Though the child was on the verge of puberty, Peter understood that the charismatic purity would stay, with any luck, in balance with his heartthrob handsomeness. He was shy, a little fearful as Peter shook his hand — working around the splint on his finger — but he looked Peter in the eye and sized him up. He evidently sensed Peter's benign intent. Peter himself, for reasons he couldn't pin down, was anxious to know if Guinevere Ransell knew the boy. For the tenth time already that day, he felt the gut-level need to call her.

Percy helped his father with the tea, not self-consciously but with the quiet bond that they had, and waited for the adults to speak. They stayed in the kitchen, even though the living room would have been a more natural place to conduct a police interview.

“You're a detective, Mr. Cammon?” the boy said, in a soft voice.

“Chief Inspector,” Fred corrected.

“I've been a detective for a long time, Percy.”

“Do you like being a detective?” The question was open, ingenuous, like everything about Percy.

“It is what I do. It's inseparable from what I am.”

“It is your vocation?”

Peter smiled, almost chuckling. “That's right. I can't do anything else.”

“It's important to do what you like, Dad says. I want to be a marine biologist.” His voice turned up; it was a half-question.

It was Peter's turn to measure his words. “Were you collecting shells on the beach that day?”

“How did you know?”

“The shells. There above the cupboards. There are hundreds of them.”

Fred nodded. The boy nodded in the same way. “Martin and I are allowed to go to Lower Beach.”

“Do you spend all your visits just looking for shells?”

Fred was growing concerned. “Why?”

Peter wasn't threatening the boy, and so he persisted. “Do you look out to sea sometimes? Just look?”

“Martin gets impatient.” Percy was struggling for accuracy but Peter was still unsure what the child wanted to say.

“The man I'm looking for disappeared into the sea.”

“He walked out into the salt water?”

“Percy, it will be difficult to find him. Sometimes I stand on the shore and try to imagine how he did it.”

“You think Lasker is still alive?” Fred interjected. Peter stayed focused on the boy.

“Percy, Mr. Callahan, that is indeed my opinion, but please don't tell anyone. We haven't exactly publicized the theory. And Percy, please don't try to look for him along the beach. He's gone.”

Percy nodded. “You want to know how he thinks so that you can understand where he went.”

“That's exactly right.”

Percy moved away from the counter — none of them had drunk their tea — and glanced at his father. He went out to the hallway. Peter caught Fred's eye and shook his head: let the boy go. They waited in silence. A moment later, Percy returned. He held something in his two cupped hands, as if he had trapped a grasshopper.

“Percy. Before you show me, you need to know that you did nothing wrong,” Peter said.

The boy opened his hand to reveal a royal blue ring box. He opened the cube and showed his father and Peter a man's gold wedding ring.

“I wanted to give it to Mum,” he whispered. “I found the velvet box upstairs and put the ring in it.”

Fred put his arm around his son for comfort. Peter impulsively came over to the boy and patted him on the shoulder, a very unpolicemanlike gesture.

“It's fine, Percy,” Peter said.

The boy handed over the ring without hesitation. “The man, he took off all his clothes. I could tell because the clothes were stacked in order, the way a person undresses. Martin laughed when he saw the man's underthings on top.”

“Just to be clear,” Peter asked, “The ring was on top. Was it in the centre of the clothes?”

“Yes.”

“The very centre?”

“Yes. You see, Inspector, it was the last thing he took off. It made it sad. He put it carefully in the middle of the folded things. That's the sad part.”

Peter had to smile. It had taken him a week to understand André Lasker's mood in his final moment, or at least his final moment on British soil. The boy had understood right away. Peter wanted to ask — another unprofessional thing to do — if the boy believed that André was still alive, but he held back.

It was the same question he wanted to ask Gwen Ransell.

Peter prepared to leave. They moved to the hallway. He turned and thanked father and son, then said: “My daughter is a marine biologist. If you would like to talk to her about her work, she's more than willing.”

Percy smiled broadly, and looked at his father. “That would be super.”

“She's outside in the car, as it happens.”

Fred and Percy offered identical astonished looks.

“You take your daughter along on your investigations?” Percy said, hitting the issue dead on.

Peter stepped onto the pavement. Sarah was leaning against the car, rucksack on the bonnet.