A Reason to Kill (28 page)

Mac had read most of the reports. Many were, to his mind, tainted with a faintly satisfied inflection. Many of the additional officers had left too. No leads, no forensic, no suspects equalled no process. Their services were required elsewhere.

It was, Mac thought, the week for funerals.

He'd been surprised at how many people turned up to give Mrs Freer a good send off. Saddened by the thought that few of them had visited her in life, though he suspected a sense of collective guilt that just slightly assuaged that. She was cremated and, there being no living relatives, Rina scattered her ashes in the garden of remembrance. Mac found some solace in the knowledge that her husband's remains had been scattered there too.

Mark Dowling's body had been released for burial. Mac attended that too. The gathering was smaller. Family, close friends. Mac kept apart, not wanting to intrude, not welcome or belonging.

He watched as the parents wept over their lost son and recalled the mother, the slash of red lipstick on the tired face when she had answered the door. Her evident dislike of the boy playing too-loud music in the upstairs room and of Mark himself. Threatening and feral and thoroughly unpleasant.

No one had money to pay for Carol's funeral and so it was a sad, simple affair organized by social services, though Rina had provided food for the wake and the Montmorency twins cooked with flair and aplomb.

Carol was cremated. Her children attended, along with Paul and his family and Rina and her entire household. And Mac. Neither George nor Karen wept. They seemed beyond that.

‘What will you do?' Mac asked.

Karen shrugged. ‘I don't know. Work, try to keep on with my studies. Social services say there are benefits I can claim and such. We'll get by.' She was cool with Mac since that day at the flat when George had been abducted. Unforgiving.

Later, Mac sat in Rina's sanctuary and drank some very good scotch.

‘I think she did it,' he said. ‘I can't prove it, of course.'

‘No,' Rina said. ‘You could prove it if you had a mind to. You just don't know if you want to yet.'

‘That isn't true.'

‘Isn't it? Look, Mac, no one's that clever; no one commits murder and leaves nothing behind. The proof is there. You've just got to want to find it.' She paused. ‘Have you shared your thoughts with anyone else? Has she appeared on anyone else's suspect list?'

‘No, to both,' Mac said. ‘Rina, what really happened that day on the cliff? Did he really fall?'

‘He lost his footing and he fell,' she said. ‘Yes, I pushed him, and yes, Tim grabbed his arm and tried to take the gun. He was very brave. But no one could have done anything to help Parker, even if we'd wanted to.'

‘Ah, there's the thing,' Mac said. Rina proffered the whisky and he accepted gratefully. ‘She's all George has.'

‘But is she
good
for George?'

‘She loves him.'

‘Undoubtedly, but such a love! One day George will want a life of his own. He won't want or need his sister's protection. Might come to resist such obsessive love.'

‘Is it obsessive?'

‘Oh, I would say so.'

‘But to lose her too … Rina, I couldn't do that to him. There've been so many lives lost and ruined already.'

‘So, you'll let a murderer go free?'

He swallowed the last of the scotch in his glass. He was drinking far too much, especially after such a long period of abstinence. He really shouldn't be drinking at all, should he? Rina leaned over and refilled his glass.

‘The boys,' she said. ‘What about them? They broke into Mrs Freer's house. What will happen?'

Mac shrugged. ‘The family court will deal with it in time. They've been cautioned. There's mitigation. We'll have to see. I can't see either of them re-offending. Paul's seeing a counsellor. George refused … I should go. Did I tell you I have the flat for another month? Suicide and holiday lets don't go together, I understand. Bad publicity.'

‘And how do you feel about it?'

He shrugged. ‘How should I feel? I still can't believe she did it. It seems so … pointless. She came all this way, she survived so much, and suddenly she just decides to end it all. Just like that.'

‘You don't think Karen might have …' Rina began. ‘No, forget I even uttered the thought.'

‘Yes, I think Karen might just have forgotten to hide the pills,' Mac said.

M
ac had spent a sleepless night at Rina's, sleeping in the little bed in the cramped room. Not that the location had anything to do with his restlessness.

Morning brought clarity, along with a thumping hangover. Rina was on hand with painkillers and coffee. He refused breakfast.

‘I have to be off early,' he said.

‘You've decided, then?'

‘Did I even really have a choice? I'm going to talk all of this through with Eden, get a warrant to search the house. Bring her in for questioning. She still killed a man, Rina, and I'm being a fool if I think I can let that go.'

Rina nodded. ‘You have to follow your conscience,' she told him.

Mac laughed harshly. ‘Duty,' he said. ‘Not conscience. Thankfully, that doesn't even come into it.'

Rina watched him leave, sitting quietly at her table and sipping her morning tea. She wished Tim was here, but he'd made good on his promise and gone home to visit his kin. It was about time, she thought.

Then she too made up her mind. She went through to the hall and collected her coat then walked up on to the still-deserted promenade and used the public phone. Nothing would happen for a few hours, she thought. Enough time.

Mac arrived at the Parker house just a little before noon. He drove. Andy was in the car with him and a patrol car followed, a scientific support van drifting in their wake.

George and Paul were in the street, playing football. They were not yet back at school but both looked much better. Mac's conscience needled that he was about to cause more pain.

George came over, Paul trailing a bit behind. ‘You've come to see Karen,' he said.

‘Yes.'

‘She said you'd want to talk to her. She said she'd see you later. I'm staying the night with Paul while she goes to see her boyfriend. She's not seen him much lately.'

‘When did she decide to go out?'

‘Oh, I think he phoned her this morning. She said she'd like to stay over. I didn't mind.'

Mac nodded, pushed the suspicions away. He didn't even want to acknowledge they were there. ‘George, I have to …'

The boy was feeling in his pocket. He produced a front-door key. ‘Here,' he said. ‘OK if I go back to Paul's?'

Mac nodded and George turned to go, then he swung around and looked Mac in the eye. ‘She did it, didn't she? She isn't coming home.'

He didn't wait for a reply, just turned back to his game, but Mac could see from the set of his shoulders and the stiffness in his limbs that the tears were not far away.

T
he morning post brought a padded envelope addressed to Mac and delivered to the police station. It was postmarked Exeter and contained a brief note and a mobile phone.

‘I don't want to risk any one else getting the blame,' Karen's note said. ‘You'll find the evidence on the phone. Just don't let George down. He's your responsibility now.'

‘So, that's it then,' Eden said as he looked at the pictures lifted from the phone. ‘Case closed.'

Mac nodded.
But not for George
, he thought.
Not for George
.

A young woman with a neat, dark-red bob smiled at the driver when she got on to the Manchester bus.

‘You look cold, love.'

‘Freezing,' she laughed and her blue eyes sparkled.

‘Never mind. Nice and warm in here.' He watched her in his mirror as she took her seat.
Nice-looking
, he thought. Then he closed the doors and made ready for his journey, just another passenger to be noticed and then just as quickly forgotten.

From the window, Karen gazed out into the gathering dusk, finally leaving all of her past behind.