Bone Machine (21 page)

‘Yeah, I’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to worry about me.’

‘Not much, I don’t.’

‘I do want a drink, though.’

‘I’d better keep you company.’

Donovan looked at her. He knew the last thing she wanted to do was watch him drink and not be able to join in.

‘I won’t have one, then,’ he said. Peta began to argue but he cut her off. ‘But I’m hungry. Fancy something to eat?’

She did.

They ate at the hotel restaurant. The food was passable,
the drinks studiedly non-alcoholic, the conversation light and diversionary. Like two ice skaters dancing on an unsafe, cracked
lake, wilfully ignoring the huge elephant sat in the middle.

Donovan and Peta walked along the hall, reached his bedroom. She turned to him, caught his eye with hers, held it.

‘Is it a relief,’ she asked. ‘or not?’

Donovan sighed, grateful for the opportunity to talk, pleased she had waited until he was almost turned in for the night.
He didn’t want to say more than was necessary. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I looked at that body, that swollen, chewed body
… and it wasn’t him. I’d been expecting the worst, bracing myself for whatever. But when I saw it wasn’t him …’ Another sigh.
‘I don’t know. Part of me wanted it to be him. Because then I would know. For definite. I could plan, one way or the other.
But it’s not, so I can’t …’

Peta nodded.

‘I don’t know what’s worse,’ he said. ‘The knowledge he’s dead, or the hope he isn’t.’

He shook his head. Yawned.

‘Go to bed,’ she said. ‘Get some rest.’

‘I want to see, though. Where they found him. I … I want to see.’

‘Get some sleep.’

Donovan nodded. Turned to enter his room. Before he could, Peta hugged him.

‘Thank you,’ he said, voice muffled by her embrace. ‘Thank you.’

He felt her smile as she pushed against him. He nodded.

They separated while the embrace was just one of mutual support.

Donovan entered his room, closed the door behind him,
stripped, climbed into bed. He was more tired than he had felt for ages.

But it still took him hours to get to sleep.

Donovan stood alone on the empty beach, looking out at the sea.

Looking for boats.

For answers.

But neither came.

Donovan sighed. Became aware of someone standing at his side.

‘Hi, Peta.’

She was pulling her clothing around herself, shivering.

‘God, it’s freezing here.’

‘I won’t be long.’

He kept staring out to sea. She kept shivering. Neither spoke. Eventually Peta sighed.

‘Let it go, Joe,’ she said, teeth actually chattering.

He looked at her. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘You know. We don’t know the boy’s identity, but we do know he isn’t David. Just let it go at that.’

Donovan shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

‘You have to.’

He sighed again. ‘I just wanted to see this place for myself. Where the boy was found.’

She stamped her feet, willed the blood to move around her body. ‘What for?’

‘I don’t know.’ Donovan almost smiled. ‘Yes, I do. It sounds stupid when I say it aloud. But I just wanted to see if I could
pick up any … I don’t know … resonances of what had happened to him. Clues to his life.’

‘Why? What would that prove?’

He shook his head, unable or unwilling to articulate the voice that emanated from deep within him, that forlorn and
desperate voice whispering to him, telling him that if he found out what had happened to the boy he could use those clues
to guess what had happened to David.

And perhaps be able to find him.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

Peta sighed. ‘Some things you just can’t solve, Joe. Some things you just have to give up.’

Donovan said nothing, just kept staring out to sea.

‘Like they tell you in AA,’ she said. ‘Sometimes you just have to admit
you can’t do everything, give things up to a higher power.’

‘Then what?’ he said without taking his eyes off the horizon.

She shrugged. ‘Get on with things. Let life go on.’

Donovan thought for a long time, saying nothing, then nodded. He turned to face her. Peta wasn’t sure if the drops of water
on his face were tears or sea mist.

Donovan pretended not to know the difference either.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go home.’

They walked back to the cliff, made their way up the path and back to the road together.

‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit …’

DI Nattrass stood in the women’s toilet in Market Street police station, gripping the wash basin so tight she threatened to
pull it from the wall, her head down and avoiding her own eyes in the mirror.

Water trickled from the tap in front of her, ran unnoticed down the plughole.

She sighed, clenched her eyes tight shut until galaxies imploded on the backs of her eyelids, opened them again.

Two days.

Or, strictly speaking, two nights and a day. Since the disappearance of Jill Tennant. Another female student missing. Another
high-profile, high-grade case.

The inquiry room was in overdrive: bodies drafted in for door to door, to follow up leads, to man the phones. All ranks and
levels. Anyone and everyone doing anything and everything. Whatever it took to find Jill Tennant.

Detective Chief Inspector Bob Fenton was working hard at stillness, at being the quiet eye of the storm. And failing. The
team was working hard around the clock to find the girl, Fenton more so. He hadn’t slept, had only eaten when his body had
threatened to stop functioning. Personal responsibility for the inquiry was his. With regular briefings and talks with his
team, both for information and inspiration, he was leading by the front and the members of his team responded to that. They,
too, gave it their all.

Including Nattrass. The first briefing, called early on
Tuesday morning, had given them the news. Jill Tennant missing. Michael Nell disappeared. Join the dots. Let the clues speak
for themselves. Other avenues, Fenton had explained, were going to be investigated. But the inference was that it was pretty
clear who their main suspect was. Not only that, but the post-mortem results and forensic evidence in the Lisa Hill case have
been re-examined and, due to findings of strange, unexplained bruising on the body, a definite link drawn between her death
and that of Ashley Malcolm. Michael Nell’s whereabouts at the time of Lisa Hill’s disappearance were to be looked into. But
they had to move fast. Or Jill Tennant would be his third victim.

Nattrass had then been called into Fenton’s office after the briefing.

‘Where’s Paul Turnbull?’ Fenton had asked before she could sit down.

‘I don’t know, he’s …’

A shiver ran through her. The Bacchus on Sunday night, Turnbull, drunk, telling her he was going to go after Nell, make him
pay for what he had done.

I’m ganna have him. Have the cunt
… The picture of Ashley held pathetically in his hand …

Then another girl abducted. Then Nell disappeared. And Turnbull also.

‘He’s what?’

‘I … don’t know. Sir.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘Saturday, I think. Didn’t turn up yesterday. Thought he must be sick or something.’ Sweat trickled down her spine. She wanted
to scratch the itch in the hollow of her back but didn’t dare move. ‘Didn’t think anything of it.’

Fenton stared at her, laser beams seemingly searing into the part of her brain responsible for truth and lies. ‘You didn’t
think anything of it?’

The urge to scratch the itch was becoming overwhelming. She wished she had sat down. She shook her head. ‘No. He’d been working
pretty hard. We all had. And I think he had some trouble at home. Just thought … might have been exhaustion.’

Fenton kept up the stare. Now her legs felt hot and prickly. She felt twelve years old again, reporting to the headmaster
to answer for indiscretions.

‘What if I told you,’ he said, his eyes unblinking, unflinchingly locked on hers, ‘that DS Turnbull turned up outside Michael
Nell’s house and relieved the surveillance team of their duty, taking over from them?’

Nattrass swallowed, her throat hot and dry. She opened her mouth. No words emerged.

‘And while doing this he was reported as being drunk?’

Nattrass shook her head. ‘Shit …’

Fenton nodded. ‘Shit is right. And he’s in it. One way or the other.’

Nattrass was curious at his choice of words despite herself. ‘One way or the other?’

Fenton sat back in his leather armchair, relaxing his posture but not his intention. ‘One way or the other,’ he said. ‘Sit
down, Diane.’

Nattrass gratefully took the offered seat.

‘The two surveillance boys have been reprimanded,’ said Fenton in a tone that made Nattrass glad she hadn’t been one of them.
‘But we are left with both a missing main suspect and an investigating officer.’

She nodded, said nothing.

‘Comments? Ideas?’

She had heard those two words many times before. Usually at the start of one of Fenton’s brainstorming sessions, the investigating
officers around the table throwing out theories as to what could have happened in whichever crime
they were investigating. She had enjoyed them at first, felt they were a useful part of the process in the apprehension of
dangerous criminals. Exercises in getting inside a deviant mind. But lately she was beginning to feel they resembled nothing
more than a bunch of blokes – and they were usually blokes – sitting in a pub trying to work out what had happened with only
a supply of tabloid facts to base any motives or assumptions on. Plus her ideas were always ignored: the older dinosaurs treated
her as if she was invisible; the younger ones ignored her because she was past the age group they wanted to shag.

But this was different.

‘Well … could Nell have surprised Paul? Injured him? Killed him, even?’

‘And then run? Finding another victim along the way? Possible.’ Fenton nodded. ‘But not very plausible. This feels planned.’

‘Could Paul have followed him? Gone undercover?’

‘Why? Why not call in if he saw something?’

‘Because … because he lost his phone. His battery died.’

Fenton looked at her. Try harder, the look said.

‘He knew he shouldn’t have been there and knew he would be reprimanded?’

Fenton gave a thoughtful nod, as if he was processing the information. ‘Possible. Anything else?’

She knew what he was waiting for her to say. Fenton wasn’t stupid. He had seen how Turnbull had been the last few days, the
state he was in. He must have done.

I’m ganna have him. Have the cunt
… The picture of Ashley held pathetically in his hand …

Could he have done it? Could he have crossed the line …?

‘What about Nell’s father?’ said Nattrass with a deliberate change of thought. ‘Can he shed any light on the subject?’

She felt sure that Fenton had noticed her ploy, but he didn’t mention it.

‘Claims to be just as worried as we are about finding him. Now believes him to be innocent and wants to help him. Protect
him. Still leaves us no further forward in finding Paul Turnbull.’

‘No.’

Fenton leaned forward. ‘I think if we find Paul Turnbull we find Michael Nell. If we find Michael Nell we find Jill Tennant.
That’s my feeling. My gut feeling.’

Nattrass nodded. Her mind fleetingly flashed on an image of blokes in a pub sharing tabloid insights, leaving her excluded.
She quickly banished it.

‘Unfortunately I can’t spare you at the moment to follow that chain of reasoning. I want you to re-interview that university
teacher she was supposed to be on the way to meeting when she disappeared.’

‘Is he a suspect?’

‘As I said, we’re looking at different lines of enquiry. Two students. Both at the same university. Someone with his colourful
past might be worth looking into. Perhaps you might get something different from him than a male officer would.’

‘Colourful past?’

Fenton’s cheek twitched. He almost smiled. ‘Read up on him. You’ll see what I mean.’

Nattrass nodded and stood up. ‘I’ll get on to it right away, sir.’

She made for the door.

‘Diane …’

She stopped, turned.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘This is the time to tell me.’

‘Tell you what?’

‘Anything. Anything to do with Paul Turnbull that could help us find him, Nell and the Tennant girl. Anything. No matter how
delicate. In confidence. This is the time.’

Nattrass looked at him, her hand on the door knob.

Have the cunt
…

‘There’s nothing else I can think of, sir. I’ve told you everything.’

Nattrass left the room, closing the door behind her.

Whatever else, Turnbull was her partner. He deserved the benefit of the doubt.

For now.

She made her way straight to the women’s lavatory.

The Prof was behind his desk in his office, fingers playing nervously, eyes unable to hide the apprehension. Jacket off, dull
light glinting from his wire-framed glasses. Nattrass looked at him, let her eyes wander around the room.

A small, airless, breeze-block cube, he had done his best to personalize it. Shelved psychology textbooks gave way to the
spines of old 1950s pulp paperbacks. Postcard copies of their lurid, thrilling covers dotted the wall behind his desk. Just
the titles were enough, thought Nattrass, to put together a composite of the man before her:
Demented
,
The Flying Saucers Are Real
,
Teen Temptress
,
The Marijuana Mob
,
The Body Snatchers
.

Some were blown up to poster size. She picked out three of them as her immediate favourites:
I Married a Dead Man
– a picture of a bride and groom at the altar, the groom in a state of advanced decomposition –
A Hell of a Woman
– a
femme fatale
tempting a weak man to what was surely certain doom – and the most bizarre of all,
The Gods Hate Kansas
, which showed a picture of a spaceman with a raygun standing on his spaceship battling with a squid-like alien.

‘Nice designs,’ she said when she became aware of him watching her.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘One of the ways to take the temperature of a society is by its popular culture, I always think.’

Nattrass nodded.

‘However, this is something of a blind alley for me. A passion, I’m afraid.’

‘Makes you imagine what the stories are like inside them,’ she said.

The Prof smiled. ‘Some were excellent. Most of Faulkner’s work appeared like this; Zola, even. And there were indeed works
of genuine brilliance within their genres. Thompson and Willeford, for instance, Day Keene, vastly underrated. Even William
Burroughs. But for the most part the contents were disappointingly prosaic,’ he said. ‘Impossible to live up to that kind
of billing.’

Nattrass, just about lost now, nodded again.

The Prof picked up on it. ‘Too much detail.’

‘Right,’ she said and waited an appropriate amount of time before continuing. ‘Jill Tennant. Her disappearance.’

The Prof’s mood changed. The room seemed to darken. The postcards, books and posters no longer seemed like a quirky affectation;
they took on qualities of creepy compulsion.

Demented
.

Teen Temptress
.

The Body Snatchers
.

Nattrass sat back, her face a blank, studied him. Waited for him to speak.

‘I was due to meet her, you know,’ he said eventually.

‘Yes, we know.’

‘She didn’t turn up. I thought nothing of it. Changed her mind. Something she’d agreed to in the moment, regretted later.’

‘Why would she have regretted it?’

‘Do I mean regretted? I don’t know. I’d bought the tickets for … someone else. They couldn’t go. And I bumped into Jill. One
lunchtime after a seminar. We got talking, I offered one to her. I didn’t know her … personal situation. I just had two tickets
and I liked her company. Nothing more than that.’

‘There was no … relationship between you?’

‘No. Nothing like that.’

‘Did you want there to be?’

The Prof looked uncomfortable. ‘Relationships between lecturers and students are still frowned on. Even in this day and age.’

‘You haven’t answered the question.’

The Prof frowned, thought hard. ‘I don’t think I know the answer.’

Nattrass referred to her notebook. She questioned him on his personal history. His past relationships, his lack of marriages.
She ascertained he was straight but uninterested in any long-term partner.

‘Perhaps my ego takes up too much space to admit anyone else,’ he said, attempting levity.

Nattrass looked at him, studied him. Waited for her instincts to tell her – yes or no. Nothing came.

‘We’ve talked to her friends, her boyfriend—’ the Prof flinched at the word ‘—and we’re looking into everything they’ve told
us.’ Which wasn’t much, she thought. ‘Did anyone see you either before, during or after the Wilco gig?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Lots of people. They’re a very popular band among both students and lecturers. I had a couple of drinks with
students, met another lecturer. In the university bar. Waited for Jill to turn up. When she didn’t, I went to join the others.’

‘I’ll need names, please.’

The Prof sighed, nodded.

‘And have you a list of the other students in Jill’s group? Perhaps I could ask around while I’m here.’

The Prof began to complain, tell her he had already handed one over to someone else on the inquiry, but did as she asked.
She glanced down the list. One name stood out.

‘Peta Knight.’

The Prof swallowed. ‘What about her?’

‘I know someone of that name. What a coincidence. Wouldn’t be the same one, would it?’ Nattrass described her.

The Prof nodded. ‘Mature student. Ex-policewoman, I believe.’

Interesting, thought Nattrass, but she wasn’t sure why. She pocketed the list, gave the Prof her full attention. ‘One last
thing. Graham McAllister. That’s your real name, I take it?’

The Prof nodded warily.

‘Only we’ve got a file back at the station on a Graham McAllister.’ She looked directly at him, unblinking. ‘Wouldn’t happen
to be you, would it?’

The Prof’s eyes darted nervously, as if unsure whether to speak. Mind made up, he opened his mouth.

And her phone rang. It cut the air like an air-raid siren.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. She put it to her ear, ready to answer. The phone went dead. She frowned, looked at the number in the
display.