Buried-6 (20 page)

‘Besides,’ Lardner added, ‘why would Freestone wait until now to get his own back? Al this “dish best served cold” stuff is crap. I’ve had enough clients down the years with axes to grind to know that much. If you do these things at al , you do them in the heat of the moment. You don’t wait years. It doesn’t make any sense.’

But what Lardner was suggesting certainly did. Roper had said much the same thing, and it wasn’t getting any easier to argue with. Even if someone like Grant Freestone were to decide, years down the line, to settle a score, was it likely he’d go about it in such a roundabout way? That he’d involve other people?

‘Did Freestone ever associate with a Conrad Al en or an Amanda Tickel ?’

Lardner looked blank. ‘I don’t recal the names. He didn’t associate with a great many people, to be honest.’

It hadn’t hurt to ask, but life was never that simple.

‘Something you said before,’ Thorne said, ‘about Freestone not being a kil er. It sounds like you don’t think he kil ed Sarah Hanley. Like you’re someone else who’s going along with the accident theory.’

‘Possibly.’ Lardner suddenly looked a little uncomfortable.

‘What did the others on the MAPPA panel think?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Did you talk about it afterwards? People must have had opinions?’

‘No.’ More than a little uncomfortable now. ‘We didn’t talk about it.’

‘You seem to be hedging your bets, that’s al . Are you saying that Freestone didn’t do it?’

‘Oh, he did it al right. But there’s a difference between pushing someone just to push them and pushing someone to push them through a sheet of glass, isn’t there? I’ve got a client on my list right now who did four years because some drunk he shoved outside a pub one night happened to have an abnormal y thin skul . Do you see what I mean? I’ve had countless similar cases over the years, and I stil find the whole issue of “intent” a horribly grey area.’ He held Thorne’s eye for a few seconds before turning away again and shaking his head. ‘I don’t know . . .’

Thorne saw his old teacher again.
It’s all a waste of time.
He half expected Lardner to open a drawer and take out the John Buchan.

‘What about the sister?’ Porter asked.

‘Wel , that’s something else entirely.’

‘She gave Freestone an alibi . . .’

Thorne looked over to Porter. His eyes wide, asking the question.

‘
Sister
. . .
?
’

‘I think the police were right, on balance, to discredit her statement,’ Lardner said. He raised a hand, swept what little hair there was straight back. ‘If I remember rightly, the pathologist was a little vague about the time of death.’

‘There was a two-hour window,’ Porter said. ‘And Freestone’s sister claimed he was with her the whole time. Walking in a park with her and her kids.’

‘The point is that she had also given him an alibi six years before that. For the afternoon when the children were snatched.’ Lardner smiled a little sadly. ‘She clearly had the same problems facing up to stuff that her brother did.’

There was a knock at the door. Lardner stood and apologised, moved around the desk and explained that he had another appointment.

Porter said that was fine.

Thorne was stil staring at her. Stil asking.

On the way down the stairs, he vocalised the question somewhat more forceful y than he’d intended. ‘What fucking sister?’

‘Just what I said in there. Freestone’s sister—’

‘When did you find out about this?’

Porter couldn’t suppress a smirk. ‘I cal ed up the case notes this morning. It wasn’t a big deal at the time.’ She leaned towards the wal as a ful y kitted-up barrister charged down the stairs past them. ‘You heard what Lardner said. They discredited her statement because she had a history of lying for her brother.’

They turned at the bottom of the final flight, into the busy corridor that ran alongside the two largest courtrooms. Into a scene they both knew wel : anxious witnesses and bored coppers; relatives of those on trial and of those they were accused of defrauding, assaulting, abusing; men in new shoes and tight col ars; women as glassy-eyed as Debenhams dummies, tensed on benches, desperate to puke or piss, high heels like gunshots against the marble.

Al honing the truth or polishing up the turd of a lie. Sweating on the right result.

‘He wasn’t very happy talking about that whole MAPPA business,’ Porter said. ‘Made him very jumpy.’

Thorne agreed. ‘Roper didn’t like it much, either. He talked about it, but there was plenty of stuff he conveniently couldn’t remember too wel , that he was just a bit vague about. Know what I mean?’

‘It’s hardly surprising, is it? None of them were exactly covered in glory.’

You didn’t need a degree in criminology to work out why anyone involved in the panel assembled to monitor Grant Freestone would be happier staying off the subject; keeping it as far behind them as possible. A project that had culminated in the death of a young woman – a death for which some thought the panel might be partly responsible – was hardly likely to merit pride of place on anyone’s CV.

‘I think the whole Freestone thing is probably a waste of time,’ Thorne said.

‘Can’t say I disagree.’

‘But I’l get Hol and or someone to track down the other two who were on that panel. Might as wel keep it tidy.’

‘I had you down as a messy fucker.’

‘Only when I can’t find anybody else to clean things up.’

‘So which of our white-hot leads do you fancy having a crack at next?’ Porter asked. ‘There are so many, I just can’t make my mind up.’

‘Why don’t we have a look at the sister?’

Porter stopped, began rummaging around in her bag. ‘But you just said—’

‘Freestone’s not a kidnapper, but something won’t let me leave it alone.’

‘And what would that be?’

‘The fact that Tony Mul en never mentioned him.’

She produced a half-eaten tube of mints and dug one out. ‘It couldn’t hurt to go back via Arkley,’ she said.

They stepped out into a square that was thicker with people, as the rush hour started to take hold; and darker, as the day began to dim, running out of breath while those hurrying through the streets at the arse-end of their nine, ten or more hours got a second wind.

Walking past the huge statue of Abraham Lincoln, Porter pointed back to the windows on the third floor of the Guildhal . ‘His office was fucking horrible,’ she said. ‘Did you see the damp? And the mousetrap by the filing cabinet? I’d go mental working somewhere like that al day.’

Thorne said nothing, thinking she
did
work somewhere like that. Al of them did, spending endless hours in other people’s houses and shitty little offices. TV shows were fond of showing coppers, and those they needed to speak to, strol ing slowly through the crowd at noisy dog tracks, arguing in meat markets, or blowing cigarette smoke at each other across empty warehouses in the early hours.

It was al about atmosphere, apparently . . .

But the truth was over-lit and dirty-white. It sounded like the hum of distant traffic and felt sticky against the soles of your shoes. It smel ed of old blood or fresh bul shit, and no amount of gasometer-fil ed skylines was going to make it
gritty
. The atmosphere – in sweltering front rooms and shitty little offices –
could
make your guts jump for sure, and the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention, but truthful y, it was rarely one of menace. Or of danger.

Watching people sob, and rant, and lie. Watching them tremble and gulp down grief.

It was more like embarrassment.

When he stepped off the bus, he looked pretty thril ed with himself; as though his journey home had been a riot of wel -told jokes and stirring tales of sporting success. Yvonne Kitson was pleased to see that one look at who was waiting to meet him seemed to change the young man’s mood in an instant. Pissing on Adrian Farrel ’s chips made her a very happy woman.

‘Good day at school, Adrian?’

Farrel looked straight through her. He ignored the shouts and the waves of friends banging on the windows of the bus as it moved off and passed him.

‘Did you have history today? I remember you said that was your favourite.’ Kitson was talking on the move now, walking quickly to catch up as Farrel marched through spiky blots of shadow, cast by the trees planted every twenty feet or so along the broad pavement. ‘Got anything planned for the weekend? After you’ve got your homework out of the way, obviously . . .’

Farrel slowed a little, but he kept on walking, hitched his grey regulation rucksack a little higher on his shoulder.

‘What sort of thing do you and your mates get up to on a Saturday night? My kids are stil a bit younger than you, so I’ve real y got no idea what goes on, except that I’ve got it al to look forward to. The taxi-service stuff, I mean.’ She was ten, twelve feet behind him. ‘Pub? Clubbing? What?’

Despite their pace, they were moving relatively slowly past a row of detached houses, many of them set back a long way from the road and some with gated drives. Kitson had to quicken her step to get the other side of a Jeep that reversed across the pavement without a great deal of attention.

‘That student who was kicked to death. Remember, I told you about him?’ Kitson said. ‘He was kil ed on a Saturday night. Saturday, October the seventeenth last year. I’m sure you can’t remember
exactly
what you were doing that night, but I bet you were enjoying yourself, whatever you were up to . . .’

Farrel didn’t stop dead, but he slowed to a standstil within a pace or two. He mumbled something as he turned, raised his arms and let them slap back down against his legs. It was a remarkably childish gesture of frustration and annoyance.

‘Good,’ Kitson said, as she drew close to him. ‘Not that I couldn’t have kept up with you al day long. Chasing after three kids keeps you pretty bloody fit.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ Farrel said. ‘I talk to someone about this boy in the year below me who’s gone missing. I answer a couple of questions. Next thing I know I’m getting hassled for no good reason.’

‘Nobody’s hassling you.’

‘Right. So nobody’s fol owing me into the precinct in the lunch-hour? You’re not turning up outside my house after school, tel ing me about your kids?’

‘I’m not here to talk about my kids.’

‘Real y?’

A jogger came past, his face twisted into a grimace, as though the song on the iPod he had strapped to his arm was particularly tuneless.

‘I just wondered if you’d remembered anything else about Amin Latif,’ Kitson said. ‘Perhaps something came back to you.’

Farrel ’s expression was one Kitson knew wel . He looked irritated, inconvenienced perhaps, as though he were being kept from some important TV show he real y needed to watch. ‘In terms of what, exactly? Have I remembered which hymn we sang in assembly?’

‘Anything at al . Me talking to you about it might have helped you recal something that had slipped your mind.’

‘It might have been “To be a Pilgrim”.’

‘How long have you known Damien Herbert and Michael Nelson?’ The two boys Farrel had been with in the shopping precinct the day before.

‘Are we changing the subject?’

‘I didn’t think we were getting very far with the other one.’

‘A few months, I suppose.’

‘
Six
months?’

‘Did I know them on October 17th last year, you mean?’

‘That’s as good a date as any.’

Farrel nodded, understanding, and raised his eyes as though racking his brains. After a few seconds he snapped his fingers, grinned and pointed at Kitson. ‘I think it was “Immortal Invisible, God Only Wise”,’ he said. ‘I knew it would come to me.’

The urge to lay hands on him was getting harder and harder to ignore. Kitson pointed to the school crest, embroidered on the pocket of Farrel ’s blazer. ‘What’s it say on the badge, Adrian? What’s the motto?’

‘I’m real y shit at Latin,’ he said. ‘Sorry . . .’

She reached slowly into her bag, took out a piece of paper. ‘So, without wishing to labour the point, we’ve established that the name Amin Latif doesn’t real y mean very much to you. Yes?’

‘Not a great deal, I’m sorry to say.’

‘What about Nabeel Khan?’

A shrug. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘That’s funny.’ Kitson unfolded the piece of paper, turned it the right way up. ‘Because he seems to know you. See?’

Farrel looked at the picture and the impatience suddenly gave way to panic, then genuine anger. He pul ed the heavy bag from his shoulder, let it drop, and swung it back and forth in front of him. ‘I’m not sure what you think
that
proves.’

‘I’m not sure it proves anything,’ Kitson said. ‘I just thought your parents might like to put one in a frame. Pop it on the piano.’

‘I’m saying nothing more without a solicitor present.’

‘Fine. Come to the station with me and we can organise one.’

‘We already have one.’

For a second or two, Kitson wasn’t certain who ‘we’ were. She wondered if Farrel meant himself and his friends. Then she realised he was talking about his family. ‘Whatever you like,’ she said.

‘Are you arresting me?’

‘Do I need to?’

‘Definitely.’ A twitch at the edge of the mouth; an aborted smile. ‘If you want to talk to me again, I mean. I think that you
aren’t
arresting me because, whatever you’ve convinced yourself I’ve done – and you’ve given me some fairly major clues – you don’t have any evidence whatsoever to back your ideas up. None at al . I think you’re worried, with fairly good reason, that if you
did
arrest me, you’d only end up giving yourself unnecessary paperwork. That al you’d have caused by the end of it was huge inconvenience to other people, and a lot of professional embarrassment personal y. Is that about right?’

Kitson said nothing.

‘
This
is lame.’ He jabbed a finger at the E-fit. ‘It’s borderline mental, if you want to know what I real y think.’ If Farrel had lost his composure, it had been for only a few seconds; it
never
seemed to be any longer than that. ‘Come to mention it, have you ever shown me any identification? How do I know you’re who you say you are? You might be some kind of nutter.’