Killing a Stranger (21 page)

It was unusual to be invited to stay in Patrick's domain. Harry sat, placing the tray beside the computer.

‘These are good,' he was genuinely surprised. ‘How do you grade the tone like that?'

‘That's what the pens are designed for. It's easy to keep the wet edge moving.' He demonstrated. ‘See, you don't get lines and every colour will blend or overlay the others.'

Harry studied the images more closely. The comic book style came naturally to his son. Graphic novel, he corrected himself. He had to confess too that, though he might once have been dismissive of such things, his son had taught him that there was a real art to the storytelling and to the pared down graphic style. It wasn't his thing, but, he admitted, there were skills involved.

‘Is this Rob?' he asked gently.

‘Yeah. Look Dad, I know you might think it's a bit macabre, but …'

‘Does it help you cope? With his death, with the other stuff you're going through?'

Patrick hesitated, and then nodded. ‘It's like, I can make it happen to someone else, not to my friends and me. It's like I can kind of make it into a story. It hurts, but it makes it further away. Does that make any sense?'

Harry nodded. ‘I think so. Yes.'

Patrick made a grab for his chocolate and nearly upset the mug. He had always tended towards the clumsy but his awkwardness magnified when he was upset.

‘These new ones. What are they about?'

Patrick hesitated then pushed the stack of drawings towards his father. His manner warned Harry that he must be careful what he said, that Patrick was expecting a reaction; it had to be the right one. Harry slowly worked his way through the stack. The illustration was swiftly done and the pictures followed one from the other. He cleared a space and laid them out upon the table. Rob again, standing toe to toe with another man. His back was to the viewer and his shoulders hunched. ‘Adam Hensel,' Harry said.

The next picture showed Rob backing off, his gestures spoke of irritation, even desperation and the other man was turning now as though to walk away.

In the third, it was clear that something had gone wrong. Harry spaced it so that a missing picture would fit in the space. He heard his son release held breath and knew he'd guessed right. This was the point at which Patrick was at a loss. He couldn't work it out. The next image showed Adam Hensel with a knife clutched in his hand. Harry knew that the actual weapon had been a folding pocket knife, but in Patrick's pictures, the blade was long, vicious, brutal and it glinted in the light from the street lamp Harry now saw featured in all of the designs. Another gap and the knife was in Rob's hand. Hensel lay at his feet and the look on Rob's face was one of shock, horror, sheer despair. His son had captured the emotion of the moment so vividly, done so with a few strokes of the pen that Harry was at the one time moved by the strength of it and awed at his skill.

‘You really are good,' he said.

‘Thanks, Dad,' Patrick said. ‘But I still don't know why or how it really happened. But we found something. In Rob's computer stuff.'

Harry sensed that he'd passed some test in the last few minutes. That, probably without realizing it himself, his son had been waiting to see if he could be trusted with something else he couldn't work out and didn't understand.

‘What did you find?'

Patrick squeezed his lips together in a long flat line. He looked pinched and tired and in the harsh light of the desk lamp his hair seemed very black, his skin unearthly pale.

‘We think Rob was stalking Adam Hensel,' he said. ‘And he'd been doing it for a while. And, Adam Hensel wasn't the only one.'

A
iden was at work, Beth preparing to leave for her part time job and Jennifer still in bed when Ernst arrived with Alec following close behind. Ernst had printed out the pictures at Alec's suggestion. They felt that confronting Jennifer with the indisputable evidence might be a shock tactic that would jolt more truth from her than the softly softly approach everyone had tried so far.

‘Dad, what's going on?' Beth wanted to know.

‘Call work,' Ernst told her. ‘You'll be late today.'

‘I'll be … don't be silly. Why should I be late?'

‘I have some questions to ask your daughter,' Alec told her quietly. ‘You need to be here.'

Beth was about to argue further but thought better of it. ‘Oh what now,' she muttered. ‘What else is bloody wrong with this family.' She phoned her job, went to get Jennifer out of bed. Ernst made tea in the kitchen and a bleary eyed, dressing gown clad teenager arrived protesting, her mother in tow, a few minutes later.

Alec noted that Beth made no move to invite them into the lounge. She was obviously seething, preparing for the next round of battles. Silently, Alec laid the prints out on the table.

The silence thickened as the two women studied them. Then Jennifer tried to get in first. ‘Mum, I can explain. It isn't what you think.'

‘How the hell,' Beth said slowly, ‘can you possibly know what I think?' She jabbed a finger at the offending pictures. ‘What are these? Dad, Inspector, just what the hell are these? And you, you'd better have a bloody good story.'

‘I do,' Jennifer protested, but she was struggling, drowning, eyes darting looking for a means of escape, of relief. ‘I do, honestly I do.'

‘These were on Adam's computer,' Ernst said.

‘On what?' Beth turned on him throwing her hands in the air. ‘Oh, now I've heard it all. What is this, some kind of smear campaign? My brother was murdered. Have you forgotten that? What? Does that make him fair game for every rumour, every accusation, every bloody …'She turned back to Jennifer. ‘So,' she said. ‘And what explanation do you reckon you have that's so damned good?'

Jennifer looked away, her blonde hair fell across her face and Alec could not read her expression.

‘Did Adam take them?' Ernst asked her.

She nodded.

‘Adam? Oh for heaven's sake. Adam would never.'

‘Then,' Alec asked Beth, ‘how come they turned up on his machine?'

‘How should I know? Maybe you lot planted them there. You seem so keen to blame the bloody victim here and that's what he was, don't you forget. That little shit murdered my brother. He stabbed him with his own knife and he ran away and then he killed himself, so I don't even have the satisfaction of seeing him rot in jail.'

‘Rob wasn't like you think.' Jennifer's head was up, her cheeks flaming. ‘Rob was kind and nice and he wanted, wanted …'

Beth hit out. She couldn't help herself. It was all too much. Her fingers raked her daughters face and then she stood, horrified at what she'd done but shaking and staring as though she'd like to do it all over again.

‘Beth!'

‘Mrs Ryan!'

Jennifer leapt to her feet overturning the chair and ran from the room. Beth sank back into her chair and buried her face in her hands.

‘I'd better go,' Ernst headed for the door. ‘Lord, what a mess this is.'

Alec waited until the crying had almost ceased. It seemed to be his week for weeping women. He found a roll of kitchen towel and nudged her hand. She lifted her head slightly and, reluctantly, took the towel. Wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

‘He's right you know,' Alec said. ‘It is a mess. A big mess and we have to sit down like sensible adults and sort it out.'

‘Jennifer isn't a sensible adult.'

‘No, she's not, she's a scared seventeen-year-old. We have to be adult for her as well.'

‘You sound like you think
I'm
behaving like a kid,' she spat at him.

‘No, I don't, but I think you have to wake up to the fact that your brother may not have been purer than the driven snow. He took those pictures, they were taken in his flat and even if that was all that happened, it was … well, at best unwise. You must see that?'

Beth stared miserably at the pictures. ‘What the hell did she think she was doing?'

‘No. What the hell did either of them thing they were doing? Adam was the adult here. Even if it was some kind of semi-innocent prank, he should still have put the brakes on.'

He waited, wondering if he should tell her about Angel, decided now was as good a time. ‘Jennifer was copying poses,' he said. ‘From some pictures Adam already had on his computer. A young woman who calls herself Angel. We believe Adam was seeing her.'

‘Adam had a girlfriend? She posed for pictures. I mean that's not so …'

‘No. Angel wasn't Adam's girlfriend. Adam … paid her. She's an escort, a prostitute.'

‘No! Adam wouldn't.' She stared at Alec. ‘Jesus, how much more sordid can all this get?'

‘I don't know,' Alec told her honestly. ‘I really couldn't say.'

Ernst sat on the top step outside Jennifer's door. He could hear her sobbing. Angry, aching, self-pitying sobs that made him want to slap her and comfort her all at the same time. Beth, he figured, must be feeling the same, though the more violent impulse had momentarily won out over the maternal one.

‘Jen darling, talk to me.'

‘I don't want to talk to anyone. She hit me.'

‘And she's sorry.'

‘No, she's not. She's a bitch. She hates me. She's hated me for a long time. Uncle Adam never liked her. She was just jealous of him and me.'

Ernst felt his stomach tighten. He forced himself to stay calm. ‘Jennifer, my love, come and talk to me. You have to talk to me.'

‘No, I don't. I don't have to talk to anyone.'

‘Why did he take the pictures? Was it a game?'

‘Game! Like I'm a kid.'

The door opened and she came out. Her face was red, but Ernst doubted it would bruise too much. She had anticipated the blow and ducked backwards even as her mother lashed out at her. ‘If not a game, then what?'

‘I don't know. He liked me. He said I was pretty.'

‘And you are.'

‘Huh. Not now I'm not. Look at me. Fat and shapeless. I'll probably be like that forever now.'

‘No, you won't. You'll get your figure back after the baby. It won't take long.'

‘But then I'll be saddled with it, won't I? My life's over, Granddad.'

He slid an arm around her shoulders and hugged her tight. ‘No, no it's not. You'll go back to your studies and you'll get a good job, maybe go to university. There are nurseries and crèches for the little one.'

‘Mum thinks I should look after it.'

‘And so you should. But not on your own and not to the exclusion of everything else. There are ways of dealing with this, Jennifer. Besides, when it's born, you'll love it. I told you that. Then it won't seem so hard. Now, talk to me because I need to know. Why did Adam take the pictures? Hey?'

She shrugged. ‘Because I asked him to.'

‘You asked him to?'

‘I was round at his place and he gave me some wine and we cooked a meal and he said I'd suddenly got very grown-up and very pretty and we got giggly and a bit silly, I suppose and he showed me these pictures on his computer of this woman and he said I was prettier than her and he took my pictures. And afterwards I woke up with a hangover and he promised he'd erased them. He broke his promise, Granddad. Why did he do that?'

‘Hush now, darling. I don't know why. Maybe he forgot. Maybe.'

He kissed her hair and hugged her even tighter. ‘Jennifer, I have to ask this. Did anything else happen while you were there?'

‘You mean, did we have sex.' Irritably, she pulled away.

‘Yes, I mean that. Jennifer, it's important. Did you then, or any other time?'

She shrugged, not looking at him, hiding again behind the fall of blonde hair. ‘I don't know,' she said finally. ‘Maybe. I just don't know.'

H
arry had phoned in and asked for a half day's holiday, something he'd never done at the last minute before. It was a measure of his concern for his son that he had done so now. He turned up at Naomi's flat while she was having breakfast.

‘I've got something to read to you,' he said. ‘Can you spare a few minutes?'

‘Sure. What's the trouble?'

‘Rob Beresford, I would say.'

‘Patrick and his friends found something.'

‘Patrick did. The others freaked, as they say, when they started to uncover truths they didn't like.'

‘Understandable. What do you have?'

She made more tea and fresh toast for Harry while he read from the printouts, starting with the one about Jennifer and her lost brother. He moved on to the notes Rob had kept about Adam's movements. Finished with some of Rob's observations on the friends his mother met, her work colleagues, the grocer down the street.

‘And there's more,' he told her.

‘Wow.'

‘Yes, that's pretty much what I thought. Patrick wasn't sure what to do. I told him we had to speak with Alec. We talked about this for a long time last night.'

‘I can imagine. Good that you talked though.'

‘Good that we talked. Do you realize how talented my son is? What an amazing artist? No, how could you? I'm sorry, I forgot there for a moment.'

‘Actually,' Naomi said, ‘I do. Patrick tells me a lot about what he's doing. Harry, I may not be able to see the finished work, but I know what he feels about it. I know how committed he is and I believe you that he's good.'

‘I never looked before. I thought, oh yes, it's all right, let him do it, get his qualifications, then talk to him about life getting serious and the need to get a job and all that ordinary stuff.' He laughed. ‘I'm only glad I didn't get to do it.'

‘Patrick will do just fine,' Naomi said. ‘He's just never going to be an accountant.'

‘Lucky him.'