Resolutions (28 page)

‘Oh, I don't mind and I can think and eat at the same time.' She speared a mushroom, regarded it thoughtfully as though it might provide the answer to something. ‘No damp in the cellar,' she said. ‘It wasn't warm, but it wasn't freezing cold. I think I was in just one part: when I heard Peel come down the stairs, he walked across another room. I could hear his footsteps. The door opened outwards and I caught a glimpse of shelves and bottles, like a wine cellar.' She ate the mushroom, followed it with scrambled egg, bacon. Mac was relieved; he'd expected Fitch's questions to bring on a loss of appetite, but that seemed not to be the case. Miriam was being remarkably calm now they were away from Pinsent and from Frantham. He wondered if the mood would last or if she would suddenly come crashing down.

‘When he took me upstairs, he had a blindfold over my eyes and my hands were cuffed. I heard wooden stairs and there was a cold draught, as though the cellar door was close to a window and the window was open. I felt the air on my face. Then tiles on the floor, I think. Echoes. Then a garden. He'd taped my mouth, so I remember thinking there must have been other houses nearby. Someone to hear me if I'd shouted out.'

‘A garden?' Bridie asked.

‘I could smell wet earth, leaves. Winter honeysuckle – my mum used to grow it – and something else honey-scented; I know it but I can't think what it is. We went down a path and through a gate. I heard the hinges squeak. Then I heard the car boot open and he pushed me inside, and when I tried to fight back, he just gave me this great shove and I lost my balance, fell in.' She poked at the food on her plate and Mac watched anxiously.

‘More tea, love?' Bridie asked and glared at Fitch, but Miriam continued to eat.

‘Stop watching every mouthful, Mac,' she said at last. ‘I'm going to be OK.'

‘You've been through a lot,' Mac said cautiously.

‘Sure I have and I don't doubt I'm going to have the nightmares to go with it. Right now, the thought of going back to work makes me feel sick. The thought of going back to my sister's place the same. Even talking to her on the phone makes me feel panicky, but I'm OK. I'm going to be sensible and take things slowly, and being here, I feel OK, so thank you, Bridie. I'll get around to the rest a bit at a time if that's all right with everyone, but just now I'm focusing on the relief bit – you know, still being here and the anger bit and all of that . . .' She trailed off lamely, then fetched some more bacon.

Mac opened his mouth to say something, but Bridie frowned him into silence. She leaned over to hand him more tea he didn't really want. ‘Leave it,' she murmured. ‘Everyone does things their own way. Let her be.'

Mac nodded, bowing to Bridie's judgement which, he figured, usually turned out to be as sound as Rina's. He missed Rina, missed Tim, missed Peverill Lodge. Wondered again if he'd have a job to go back to and if he wanted it anyway.

Later that Thursday, Mac and Fitch, together with a couple of Bridie's other security people, met Igor Vaschinsky at
Patrick's
, the nightclub Bridie had renamed for her dead son. The other had, predictably, been renamed
Jimmy's
. Mac thought it an interesting memorial, not sure if it was in the best of taste, but, as Bridie herself had said, people cope with grief and pain in their own way, and he guessed this was hers.

‘Fitch, do you mind if I ask something? Are you and Bridie . . .?'

‘No, but I think we may. Joy keeps encouraging me to, you know, move things to the next level, but Bridie's been widowed less than a year and I know it'd just be a rebound thing. I want to be more than that.'

‘You seem very close.'

‘Always have been, even when Jimmy was still around. Bridie and me, we go back a long way. She fell for Jimmy and I accepted that, but she knows I'm always there for her. Jimmy knew it too.'

‘And that never caused any problems?' Mac was intrigued. Fitch had been Jimmy Duggan's right-hand man.

‘Jimmy knew us better than that,' Fitch said proudly. ‘I don't betray them that trust me, Mac. Never have, never will. Jimmy knew that. Rina knows that. Bridie too.'

Mac nodded. He watched the city pass by from the car window, Fitch not driving for once, but sitting beside him in the very luxurious rear seat. It felt a little surreal.
Patrick's
didn't look much from the outside, but in Mac's experience nightclubs rarely did. This was a converted seed store, Fitch told him, and they had kept the industrial look: red-brick exterior, heavy wooden doors, lots of steel and chrome inside with the old cast-iron pillars taking pride of place in the design. A mezzanine level led to chill-out rooms and another bar, and a private suite that Mac decided to ignore. Fitch took him down into the main area, across the dance floor and into the suite of offices beyond. Bridie's other minders followed and the manager told them that Vaschinsky and his people had already arrived. He had offered drinks but they had all declined.

Fitch opened double doors that would have looked more at home in an operating theatre and revealed a comfortable area beyond. A large polished wooden table, surrounded by matching chairs, took up one half of the room; sofas and easy chairs the rest. Igor Vaschinsky rose to greet them, extending a hand to Mac and then to Fitch.

‘So,' Vaschinsky said, ‘Thomas Peel is dead.' He looked speculatively at Mac.

‘I didn't do it, if that's what interests you,' Mac said.

‘No, I know you didn't. Pity, though. Your DCI Wildman so much wants you to be the one responsible. Don't you feel a duty to make him happy?'

‘Not particularly,' Mac said. He wondered where this was leading and glanced at the men with Vaschinsky. They were assiduous in not meeting his eye. Bridie's two were similarly blank when it came to Vaschinsky.

‘What do you want, Mr Vaschinsky?'

Igor Vaschinsky nodded slowly, as though Mac had just given the response to some profound question. ‘Want?' he said. ‘Nothing. But I am curious. My aunt owns a small gallery, down on the south coast. A lovely little pace in a nice location. She enjoys owning it, but feels the time has now come to sell on to someone with more energy. My aunt is not a young woman and, though she looks after herself well, feels the call of retirement, as, I'm sure, I may do one day. As we all will, I'm sure.'

The gallery Karen Parker talked about
, Mac thought. He waited.

‘A mutual acquaintance of ours showed an interest in buying. She does not, at present, have the capital required, but, in time, would certainly be in the position to make such an investment. I was not unhappy with that option. The young woman in question has been useful, and, well, it is always sensible to invest your wealth, make it grow. It pleased me, I suppose, that this young woman was sensible.'

‘Karen Parker,' Mac said.

‘The same,' Vaschinsky agreed. ‘I knew her father by reputation; not a good reputation, I'm sure you will agree. The daughter, though, she seemed to have more class, more capacity for invention and imagination and discretion.'

‘Seemed?' Mac said.

Vaschinsky inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘Seemed,' he agreed. ‘When she asked for Peel, I was happy to oblige, as were those who had given him protection and were, shall we say, growing tired of his company. And I was curious. Why did she want this man? What plan did she have? So I watched.'

‘She wanted Peel to get at me,' Mac said.

‘So it seems. And it was when I realized what she wanted to do, and how she planned to, shall we say, make life difficult for you, that I began to doubt that Karen Parker was really the woman I thought she was.'

‘I don't understand,' Mac said.

Vaschinsky spread his hands, as though the facts spoke for themselves. ‘It was clumsy, stupid, complicated. If she wanted vengeance, why not just kill you and be done? To play such a childish game. To draw such attention to herself. And to bring the attention of you and your friends upon my family. That, I cannot forgive.'

Mac was genuinely puzzled, but Vaschinsky could really only mean one thing. ‘Rina?' he said.

‘You look surprised? Your Mrs Martin is a woman to be reckoned with, and your Mr Jackson. It seems they paid my aunt a visit, tried to extract information regarding Karen Parker, or Carolyn Johnson as she had preferred to be known. My aunt called me; I looked into the matter. Be advised, Inspector, I have nothing against Mrs Martin. She has the same instinct to protect her loved ones as do I. I have nothing against you; Karen wished you harm, but I have no reason to do so. She had her chance and failed, so the matter should be closed. But I do not like my family involved in someone else's tale of revenge. You understand me, Inspector?'

Mac nodded. ‘I think so, yes. But I think you should know that Karen also acted out of a similar instinct to protect. Most of her life that has been uppermost in her mind.'

‘And I wish her brother a happy life,' Vaschinsky said. He rose to leave and his men gathered around him, as though suddenly awakened from their studied inertia.

‘What do you make of that?' Fitch asked as Vaschinsky's party left through the double doors.

‘I hope Karen has sharp instincts,' Mac said. ‘I think trouble is about to call and, as we don't know where she is, there's not a lot that I or any of us can do.'

Karen Parker was truly on her own.

THIRTY-FOUR

K
aren was cautious. She had, as yet, only spent the odd few hours in the house Peel had used as his refuge. She knew that she had to put space between her old life and the new, and that the new could not truly begin until she had finished amassing the capital she wanted to make that transition and had gained the respectability she so desired.

She already thought of the house as hers, but Karen had spent her entire life on the move; she was not about to shift her habits until she was completely sure it was safe to do so. George had been the pacesetter here. Had George agreed to go and live with her, then she'd calculated it would take about six months to get through all the hoops Social Services might require her to jump through, and that timescale had been factored in to her plans. By that time she'd have had the gallery, furnished the house, bowed out of her life as Carolyn Johnson and the various other aliases she had acquired. George would never have touched that life, the shadow of that other Karen.

As it was, George's resilience to her persuasion had slowed her plans and, on reflection, she had decided that was no bad thing. Peel was dead, but so far Mac had escaped the fallout from that. He had thrown her schedule. He had changed her direction. He had got in her way.

Karen had been angry with Mac before, but that anger had begun to burn itself out before Peel had fallen into her path. Having Peel available rekindled the sense of betrayal she had felt. She had allowed herself to be drawn back into that mindset that told her Mac had let her down and Mac had let George down. Mac would have to pay. That her careful plans had come to nothing now riled her far more than his original offence.

It had also rekindled her sense of caution. If her plans regarding Mac could go so far astray, then what else could?

So it was that when Vaschinsky's men came to the house where they expected Karen to be residing, she simply wasn't there. Attic to basement searched, but there was no sign of where she might be or when she was likely to return.

With some trepidation, Vaschinsky was informed.

She would come back, Vaschinsky thought. He told his people to keep a discreet watch on the place until she did.

Five miles up the coast, Carolyn Johnson slept in yet another hotel bed, dreamed of a life she had never had and woke knowing that she would wait no longer for either vengeance or for George to be given his last chance to join her.

‘I've found the house,' Abe Jackson told Rina. ‘Thing is, I don't think I'm the only one taking an interest.

‘Oh, how's that?'

‘I managed to wangle enough information out of the solicitors to pinpoint what I thought might be it. I texted George, sent him some pictures, and he texted back that it looked right. That was yesterday evening. I did a drive-by this morning, just to take a look, you understand, and there were a couple of big men in big cars not being very discreet. Mac called last night about his meeting with Vaschinsky . . .' He let the question hang.

‘Yes, he called me too. You think they're Vaschinsky's people.'

‘Well, they look the part. Rina, I can still gain access but . . .'

‘No, leave it, Abe. We'll tell Mac you've found the house and then leave the situation to develop, I think. If they're watching, then Karen's not there, which begs the question—'

‘Where is she and what is she planning? Next move would seem to be hers, Rina, but you should try and have a word with young George, just give him the heads-up in case she makes contact.'

‘He'll be at school by now,' Rina said. ‘He's not supposed to leave his phone on. I'll talk to him when he gets back home.'

She hesitated after Abe had rung off. Should she let Cheryl know? Know what? That Karen wasn't at the house she was supposed to own now. Rina shook her head; the feeling that something bad was happening would not go away.

Like most of the kids in the school, George did not actually turn his phone
off
, merely to silent. The essential teenage accessory – in George's case, not a fashion statement, merely a phone – was, in fact, rarely switched off even at night and even more rarely left out of reach.

So it was that George received a text from his sister in the middle of the school afternoon. He felt the phone buzz in his pocket, ignored it while he dealt with the ongoing difficulties associated with quadratic equations, and then sneaked a look while jostling down the corridor to get to the next lesson. It was a message from Karen.