Written in Blood (20 page)

In addition, Hollis and Jaeger would have enough friends in the Met to influence the way in which the investigation into the shootings was being conducted. Flynn said that from the outset there had seemed to be a steer away from Ryland and towards the drugs angle. For a horrible moment Mariner thought of the link with Flynn himself. He’d played down any connection with Hollis, but then if he was involved, that’s exactly what he’d do. And the attempts on Mariner’s life, if that was what they were. Someone had known his movements and had his mobile number. Flynn had access to both. Christ, would he—?

He’d spilled his guts to Flynn and if Flynn was embroiled in this . . . He needed to know what Hollis and Jaeger were up to now. ‘You sure there’s nothing you can tell me?’ he asked Jayce.

‘That’s for Mike to decide. I don’t know who you are from Adam.’ The lad stood his ground admirably.

Mariner badly wanted to distinguish himself from Adam but somehow he didn’t have the same confidence in Jayce’s discretion as he’d had in Helena James. And Jayce was unyielding. It was probably the first time he’d been left minding the shop and he was determined to demonstrate his authority. Mariner would have to find out through other means.

Taking a business card out of his wallet he scribbled down the number for the hotel along with his room number, and his number at the cottage. He didn’t want Anna on his back yet. He passed it to Jayce. ‘Perhaps you could ask Mike Baxter to give me a call when he’s feeling up to it. I think I may have something on George Hollis that’s considerably bigger than evidence-fixing.’

‘Like what?’ Now the lad was curious.

Too late, buddy. ‘I’ll wait and talk to Mr Baxter. As you rightly say, it’s his case.’

 

From the agency, Mariner returned to the hotel, hopeful that Jayce might call Baxter sooner rather than later. With luck Baxter might not live too far away and could be persuaded to meet. But climbing the stairs to his room he decided to clear the messages on his mobile, and that’s when he picked up the four from Charlie Glover, all of them asking him to call Granville Lane urgently. Mariner’s first thought was that something had happened to Anna. Panic flooded his veins. His mobile battery was low, so he ran the last few yards along the landing to his room, fumbling the key and wasting valuable time, crossed the tiny room in two strides to get to the phone and punched in Glover’s direct line. It rang and rang before Glover finally picked up.

‘Where the hell are you?’ he said, cheerfully. ‘I’ve left dozens of messages on your answering machine. Some woman from Manor Park keeps ringing you at work. Louise. She’s been trying to get hold of Anna.’

‘So Anna’s all right?’ Mariner breathed out as anxiety gave way to relief.

‘As far as I know. Except that nobody can get her on her mobile.’

‘She’s out in Herefordshire. There’s no signal.’

‘Well, one of you needs to phone this Louise asap.’

‘Okay. Everything else all right?’

‘Sure, you’ve heard about the bomb?’

‘What bomb?’

‘The explosion at St Martin’s, it was a bomb.’

Mariner went cold. ‘I thought they’d said it was inconclusive. ’

‘Not any more. Anyway, call Louise, will you?’

‘I’ll do it now,’ said Mariner, numbly. He couldn’t help but think back to that message:
Next time, don’t be late
, and the lack of information forthcoming from Addison. Since then Mariner had had two further narrow escapes, which added together made it feel as if he was right about someone being out to get him. Just because he was paranoid, didn’t mean . . .

Mariner tried Becky and Mark’s home number but there was no reply. It was early afternoon so chances were Mark was at work and Anna and Becky had taken themselves off somewhere. Mariner just hoped their outing didn’t involve estate agents. The calls from Manor Park, he decided, were probably about the payments. There had been the ongoing problem with the automatic transactions that Louise had mentioned on their last visit. Well, if he couldn’t do anything else about it, he could at least reassure them that Anna would be back soon, so he called the hostel.

‘Actually we wondered if you could come and collect Jamie for a couple of days,’ Louise said.

‘Is there a problem?’

‘Not really. Well yes, there is, but I’m sure we can sort it out.’

‘If it’s the payments, I’m sure—’

‘No, it’s nothing like that.’ She was reluctant to disclose over the phone. ‘Perhaps if you could come over.’

‘Today?’

‘As soon as possible really.’

It was the last thing Mariner wanted and now part of him wished he hadn’t made the call, but having done so there was no other option. Before checking out of the hotel he called Maggie.

‘Thanks for all your help.’

‘Did you learn anything useful?’

‘I did. Nothing conclusive, but a few things I can follow up.’

‘It would have been good for you to get closure on this.’

Mariner grinned to himself. ‘Very West Coast. But thanks.’

‘Look after yourself, Tom, and keep in touch.’

‘I will.’

On the chest of drawers was the database that Trudy had printed off for him. He wondered about its usefulness now and picked it up to drop it in the bin. But something stopped him. She’d gone to some trouble on his behalf. Folding it, he tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket instead. Mike Baxter wouldn’t be able to reach him at the hotel now, but his mobile and home numbers were on the card.

 

Back in Birmingham Mariner had the taxi drop him off at the cottage to pick up his car. There was evidence from a few additional items, including fresh food in the fridge, that Bill Dyson had fully moved in. But he wasn’t there, probably out on the road somewhere trying to flog his merchandise. Sales was never a job Mariner had envied.

 

At Jamie’s hostel Louise met Mariner at the door. They must have been looking out for him.

‘What’s happened?’ he asked.

She was embarrassed. ‘It’s rather unfortunate. Jamie and some of the other clients were out in the garden. We were tidying up so we left them outside for a while. He must have wanted the toilet but, instead of telling someone, he just did it there and then. Trouble is, the neighbour’s grandchildren were out in the garden and saw him through the fence. They’re trying to say he did it deliberately and have made a complaint. They’re accusing him of indecent exposure. You know how hard we had to work to gain acceptance here so we have to be seen to be acting on the complaint. We wondered if you’d mind taking him home for a few days until the fuss dies down.’

‘Then he can come back?’

A pause. ‘We’ll have to see. We’re trying to persuade the neighbours not to go to the press.’

‘This isn’t great timing, you know,’ said Mariner feeling like a selfish shit. ‘Anna’s away and I have to go back to work.’ Not strictly true but it would be soon enough.

‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I don’t know what else we can do.’

‘Couldn’t Jamie go back to Manor Park?’ The main residential facility was still open.

‘Since we’ve begun moving clients out into community accommodation they’ve cut down on staffing. There would be nowhere for him to go. You can continue to take him to the day centre though.’

Since moving to Manor Park Jamie had moved to a local day centre on the other side of Bromsgrove. From Anna’s house it would mean a round trip of twenty miles each morning and evening. Suddenly they would be restricted all over again. The placement had seemed ideal; a long-term solution that would meet Jamie’s needs and allow Anna her freedom. If it broke down it would put a completely new complexion on everything, including their plans for children. So, every cloud—

Jamie was packed and ready to go, but once they were home he wasn’t impressed, especially as Anna wasn’t there. Anna had moved into her house a couple of years ago, effectively uprooting Jamie from the family home and, although it wasn’t completely new, he was less used to coming here. ‘Ann-ann,’ he kept saying. His way of asking where his sister was. For most of the evening Jamie paced around from room to room, refusing to settle. His edginess rubbed off on Mariner. It didn’t help that the place was chilly, having been uninhabited for three days and they seemed to be in perpetual motion, hovering around one another.

Mariner briefly thought about calling Anna, but it would serve no purpose other than worrying her, and she was due back tomorrow anyway. No point in having her distracted for the entire journey back. Instead he cooked pizza, the only thing he was certain that Jamie would eat, and they sat up watching videos of Jamie’s favourite TV quiz shows, until he was falling asleep and Mariner could take him up to bed, prompting him through the routine. He’d never been entirely comfortable with dressing and undressing a grown man, and tonight it seemed to take for ever. Anna had developed numerous strategies for getting Jamie to do things. Mariner was trying to persuade him into his pyjama top when Jamie, in irritation, swatted away his hand, catching his injured palm. ‘Oh fuck, Jamie! That hurt!’

‘Fuck Jamie,’ Jamie repeated cheerfully and Mariner hoped that Anna would be back before her brother’s limited vocabulary had been totally corrupted. Despite the late night Jamie woke up well before dawn and it was still dark when Mariner drove him over to the day centre. They were the first to arrive.

Mariner got back to the house to find a message from Anna to say that she was setting off soon and would be back by lunchtime. What to do until then? He booted up Anna’s computer. There were just a few news pieces about the Special Incident Squad, mostly about the arrests that had been made, along with a final piece on the disbandment of the unit in 1995. The implication was that it had been shut down as a matter of policy more than anything else, along with others like the West Midlands Serious Crimes whose reputation had spread and tarnished other similar outfits. Neither Hollis nor Jaeger was named in the article and there was no indication of what any of the squad officers had been up to since.

Mariner had just begun another search, when he heard Anna’s car pull into the drive and was surprised to feel a stab of irritation that she was back so soon, forcing him to curb his activity. He went down to meet her and they hugged on the cold drive as soon as she was out of the car.

‘Missed me?’ she asked.

‘Of course I have.’ Did it only sound insincere to him?

But it was she who pulled away first. ‘What have you done to your hand?’

‘The back door at the cottage is sticking. I forced it and caught it on a nail.’ It came out so glibly that she accepted it without question. He was getting a bit too good at this. They unloaded her things, which seemed to be considerably less than she’d taken with her.

‘It’s freezing in here,’ she said, coming into the hallway. ‘Haven’t you had the heating on?’

‘I haven’t been here much.’ He didn’t add that he’d been down to London, but then she didn’t seem much interested.

‘Get the kettle on,’ she said, disappearing upstairs. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’

Climbing the stairs he found her where he’d been, at the computer in the little office plugging in her digital camera. She downloaded dozens of photographs of Megan playing, Megan smiling, Megan crying, Megan with Mark, Becky, Mark and Becky and very often with Anna.

‘Look at her. Isn’t she gorgeous?’ she enthused as the pictures flashed onto the screen.

‘She’s very pretty,’ Mariner conceded, though he was only saying what was obvious from the huge dark eyes and soft black hair beginning to curl at the ends. In truth she looked like almost every other baby he’d ever seen.

‘She’s fantastic. You’ve no idea what it feels like just to hold her and cuddle her. When we’re out and about Becky says, “She’s my daughter” and I can’t wait to be able to say that. “That’s my daughter” - or son of course. My son. Tom and Anna’s son. Don’t you love the sound of those words?’

To Mariner they were just words, so he made a noncommittal ‘Mm.’ and tried to imagine it. He really tried.

The pictures that were far more interesting to him were the next ones of rolling green hills and woodland. ‘And this is where they live,’ Anna announced proudly as if it was her own private estate. ‘It’s the view from their garden. No pollution or traffic noise or nasty explosions there.’

No, Mariner wanted to say, just an hour’s drive to get anywhere, nosy neighbours and forced sociability with people you may not even like. ‘Very nice,’ he said.

The slideshow ended, Anna decided to have a bath ‘to warm up’. ‘You can come and join me,’ she said, mischievously.

‘It’s the middle of the afternoon.’

‘Call it a special project. We need to get in some practice. ’

‘Aren’t we going to wait and see what the specialist says?’

‘It’s not going to stop us, is it? All we need to know is what we can realistically do to minimise the risks.’

They ended up in bed, as he’d known they would, but suddenly Mariner found that despite Anna’s encouragement his body wouldn’t co-operate. This had happened before but never with Anna. The last time was after Greta got pregnant, interpreted by his GP as his body telling him he didn’t want babies. He’d have liked to think that this time it was a one-off, because he was tired and distracted, but he couldn’t quash a creeping fear that it was starting all over again and for the same reasons.

For Anna it was grist to the mill. ‘It’s stress,’ she said. ‘Moving to the country would make such a difference and if we put both our houses on the market we could easily afford it. The house prices out there are amazing. It would be a much better place to raise a child and you could walk to your heart’s content. It would help you to relax.’

‘I
am
relaxed!’ Mariner snapped, making them both crack a smile at the irony of that response.