The Pure in Heart (23 page)

Undrstd
.

He pressed Send.

He guessed it would take
him forty minutes to walk from the Dulcie, cutting across the railway waste ground to Apprentice Road. He had no alarm and even if he had he dared not risk waking Matt, so in the end he went to bed at midnight and just lay awake on his camp bed, hands folded behind his head. He was in no danger of sleeping, he was so pent-up. Beside him, his nephew slept noisily, snuffling, grunting, talking to
himself, heaving over and back again.

It was bright moonlight. It shone in on Andy through the window and silvered the heavy metal and Harley-Davidson posters on the wall opposite. He’d never liked the moon much. Spooky and cold, he thought it, but it would be handy tonight.

He had the mobile in his pocket.

At one, he got up and put his shoes on quietly. Matt stirred and mumbled, but nothing
more. The house was still. His brother-in-law was at work. Michelle had been watching television with a couple of cans of cider until after Andy had gone up. He went quietly down the stairs, making barely a sound, unhooked his jacket and slipped out. The Yale lock dropped with a clunk. He froze. But he reckoned he could have slammed the door and no one would have heard.

He set off to walk through
the empty moonlit streets, and after a while he realised that what he felt was not fear and foreboding, it was excitement. It was something to do with being out alone at this time, with not having had any excitement
whatsoever for so long … and more. Whatever it was he was set up to do was not legit, though how far it was not he couldn’t guess. But it was the fact that he was out on a job again,
in the night and pitted with the others against the sleeping world which was giving him a buzz. He had difficulty admitting it to himself.

Here and there a light shone in a bedroom window. A minicab went past him and instinctively he flattened himself into the bushes. On the waste ground beside the railway line he saw a fox race across ahead of him, brush down, eyes glinting. He liked the smell
of the night.

Apprentice Road was further away than he remembered. It was twenty to three when he reached it. He started to walk more slowly, keeping to the hedge. No one. No lights. No cars.

It was a longish road, with Edwardian houses mostly turned into flats, and one or two 1960s semis crammed into the plots between. Then he saw it, almost at the end. A Jaguar parked away from the street
lamps. Just the car. No person.

Andy approached it cautiously. Paused. Waited. Rubbed his finger over the phone in his pocket.

He stood for perhaps four minutes, barely breathing. Nothing. No one. He went up to the Jaguar. It was empty but on the driver’s seat was a route map. He reached out cautiously and touched the door handle, ready to leap away if an alarm went off but none did. The door
was unlocked.

He bent in and moved the map. The keys were underneath it. As he touched them the buzzer went on his mobile, terrifying him, loud as a siren in the sleeping street. He pulled it out. The display screen was backlit in weird luminous green.

Airfld. 4 mls, edg Dunstn by hangar 5
.

Andy looked behind him. Not a light, not a sound, but someone was out there, someone had known the instant
he had let himself into the Jaguar. He felt sweat round his collar.

He waited. Nothing. There were no more messages.

He knew the airfield. They used to muck about up there as kids. He thought it would have been all built on by now.

He got into the car and adjusted the seat. It smelled wonderful, of cold leather. When he put the key in the ignition the dashboard lit up in a deep soothing blue.
The gear was leather-covered and stubby, fitting perfectly into the palm of his hand. He started the engine. He had not driven a car for five years but it felt like five minutes and the sound of the engine purring up excited him. A Jag was something else. The interior was immaculate. It had only done 3,000 miles. He let off the handbrake and went slowly and quietly, without putting on the lights,
to the end of the road. Beautiful.

The main road was deserted. Andy put the beams on to dipped and fastened himself into the belt. Three miles then on to the bypass, second left and out on the winding country lane towards the
airfield. His heart thumped. He accelerated and the Jaguar powered forward.

There were some lorries on the main road, but the bypass was deserted and after he turned off
that he saw nothing but an owl and a little further on a rabbit picked up in the car headlights. He swung off the lane across the potholed track that led towards the airfield. Nothing much seemed to have changed. He slowed. Nothing. No vehicles, no lights, nobody.

At the far end the old barrel-roofed Nissen huts were still in place. Andy drove slowly past them then turned and headed back across
the open ground; as he did so, the mobile phone buzzed. Bloody thing, like a disembodied watcher.

He stopped, and picked it up.

Lve car kys undr map
.

He slid up beside the second hangar, number 5, doused the lights, switched off the engine and sat waiting. He waited for quarter of an hour. No one came. The place was dark and silent. He got out and stood holding open the Jaguar door. So, he
was to leave the car here. Then what? Walk back?

Yeah, walk back.

Fucking hell.

He pushed the keys under the road map, then slammed the door and set off through the darkness. He wasn’t bloody doing this again for Lee Carter or anyone else. He’d walk holes in his shoes.

A mile down the lane he heard a car coming towards him. For a second he was blinded in the headlights.

‘Get in.’

It was
an old Land-Rover. He didn’t know the voice, didn’t recognise the man. He hauled himself up into the seat which was covered in sacking and smelled of manure.

‘Dropping you off at the corner of Barton Road.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Ian.’

‘Ian what?’

‘Ian.’

It was like riding in a tank after the Jaguar. Andy felt every stone in the road jar through him. He glanced at the driver. He wore a fishing
hat. Perhaps he was thirty, thirty-five.

‘You work for Lee regular?’ he asked.

‘Barton Road.’

‘OK, Barton Road, Mr Mysterious.’

Ian grunted. ‘Want a toffee? One in front of you.’

‘No thanks.’

‘Suit yourself.’

‘Where’d you come from?’

‘Not far.’

‘Pardon me for asking.’

They rode in silence for the rest of the way, though the silence didn’t seem hostile. As he got out, Andy took one of
the toffees and chomped it.

‘Thanks. Thought I was going to have to leg it all the way.’

Ian laughed. The sound of the diesel engine seemed to echo round the entire estate. Andy watched the Land-Rover’s tail lights disappear
down the road before heading into the Dulcie. It was five to four. The moon had gone in behind a cloud but the streets here were bright orange from the lamps.

He felt drained
and oddly let down. Not enough had happened. He’d driven one car and been driven back in another. Legal or not, the only decent thing about it had been the Jaguar. There’d been no mention of money at any point.

Tomorrow, he’d ring up Lee Carter, say he couldn’t do any more.

Chief Constable Paula Devenish sat on the other side of his desk.

‘Nice to see you again, Simon. Just give me a quick briefing and then I’ll go along and talk to everyone.’

‘Would you like the team in the meeting room in half an hour, ma’am?’

‘No, no. They’ll think I’ve come to get at them. I’ll just say a few words and then talk to people as I go round the room.’

‘They’ll appreciate
it.’

‘How’s morale?’

‘Bit low. They need an energy recharge … that’s why it’s good you’re here.’

‘The only thing that will really give them a boost is some sort of breakthrough and there hasn’t been one. They don’t have anything to get their teeth into.’

‘Let me send out for some coffee. I don’t know if you’ve sampled the delights from our Cypriot deli on the next corner?’

‘Sounds good. I
don’t want to offend the canteen though.’

‘They’re used to it. Cappuccino?’

Simon picked up the phone. ‘Nathan? Could someone go out to the Cypriot and get a cappuccino for the Chief and a double espresso for me? Yes, I thought you might. Thanks.’

‘Nathan Coates?’

‘Nathan Coates.’

‘How is he doing?’

‘I’m delighted with him. He’s keen as a terrier, he knows Lafferton so well, especially the
estates, he’s got good judgement … he’s working round the clock on the Angus case. I’ve had to send him home for some sleep a couple of times.’

‘No worries there then.’

‘He can be a bit volatile … very high when something’s going well, bouncing about like a puppy, but he goes crash down easily. He’s angry about this case.’

‘He’s young. How did the reconstruction go?’

Simon groaned and told
her. Paula Devenish listened sympathetically and with her usual full attention. It was one of the things he admired about her. You never felt her mind was elsewhere, never felt she was trying to rush you. She asked, she listened, she thought, she decided. He remembered Chris Deerbon once saying that the best surgeons were those who made a decision about what they were going to do, did it and never
looked back.

‘How are the parents?’

‘Kate Marshall is the FLO. She says the father is hardly there – burying himself in work. His wife is close to cracking up.’

‘Have forensics finished in the house?’

‘Yes. Nothing. And now we know for sure that the boy was waiting outside the house at eight ten. We have a definite sighting.’

‘So, where are we, Simon?’

‘Searches have drawn a blank. Every
known paedophile within ten miles of Lafferton has had his file reopened and gone through. Nothing so far … Come in.’

‘Coffee … ma’am … guv.’

Paula Devenish stood up. ‘Good morning, Nathan. That was good of you, to go for it yourself.’

‘Never miss a chance, ma’am. The wife’s barred me from the pastry counter though.’ Nathan put the plastic beakers down on the DCI’s desk, having carefully placed
paper napkins beneath each one first. He winked at Simon and disappeared.

‘What happened about the paedophile who was being harassed?’

‘We had to move him to a safe house. Things got quite nasty up there. Television got wind of it and of course that attracted even more crowds.’

‘This will leave scars that will never heal properly, you know, Simon. Just like Freya Graffham’s murder.’

‘I do
know.’

‘Meanwhile, what about you?’ Paula Devenish looked at him carefully.

‘I’m fine. I take everyone’s advice about getting enough sleep and eating properly.’

‘Good. But that wasn’t all I meant. Have you thought about your next move?’

‘Ma’am?’

‘There are some tempting jobs coming up … special incidents, fast-response units, paedophile squad to be based over at Calverton but operating over
the eastern region –’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Drugs ops coordinator?’

Simon laughed. ‘Have you got it in for me?’

‘OK, but I don’t want to lose someone of your ambition and talent to another force.’

The incident room was packed. Heads were down at computers, telephones glued to ears. There was a hum, as if a great deal was happening, and in a sense it was, but the DCI knew that the air of purposeful
industry was largely an illusion. People were working on long shots, following up thin leads and hopeless hunches. There was a lot of number crunching, and file sifting … and a strangely dead atmosphere in spite of the noise.

It went quiet as the Chief walked in. Phones were set down and hands froze on keyboards. A tension ran through the incident room. Paula sensed it at once. ‘I’ll have a word,’
she said quietly to Simon, and walked to the far end of the room, where the whole wall was given over to the Angus case. In the
centre of it, the poster, blown up to twice life-size. David Angus’s face looked out at them.

Paula Devenish was not tall or physically prepossessing. She had neat brown bobbed hair and mild features and although fit and active was more plump than lean. But there was
a presence about her which gave her authority. She had a quiet, ordinary voice but everyone listened to it, a quiet manner which commanded immediate respect. Now, she stood in front of the white board, slightly to one side of the poster and the room fell silent.

‘Good morning, everyone … I want to say that I understand absolutely what a sense of frustration you must be feeling at the moment,
how demoralised … I don’t blame you for a moment. It’s entirely natural. You must have thought, as we’ve all hoped, that within twenty-four hours, with such a high-profile case and a high-powered team and so much extra put into this inquiry, David would have been found safe and well. You now know that this is very unlikely and you all feel you are plunging about in the dark. That’s understandable
too. But what I don’t want a single one of you to feel is that you are not supported completely, by me, by everyone at HQ, and indeed by the whole force. This is a case that has a very high media profile. That puts extra pressure on you, I know, but you have to try and set those things aside and stay focused. Please know that everyone is behind you. And when you have a long dull day trawling through
stats at a computer or old files looking for
distant details, remember: it may well be some snippet of information gleaned from just such a day that provides the lead we need. It must seem as if the people out there dredging the river and the canal and going through every ditch and hedgerow have a more interesting time, but they don’t. It’s dreary back-breaking work. It’s got to be done, that’s
all, just as all the detailed searches have to be done here. I’m here to encourage you and to say that if anyone feels the need of a break, a day’s leave, whatever, then speak to the DCI and take that day. Get out, do something different, and you’ll come back in here recharged. It’s easy to get stale and you’ll be called in quickly if there’s a development. Don’t sit looking at a screen for hours
on end, go and take a walk and you won’t only feel better, you may suddenly see this case from a different viewpoint – and that again might yield the break we need. OK, thank you all … what you are doing is very, very much appreciated. Now I’ll just wander round and have a closer look if I may – you can brief me about what you’re doing as I go.’