Twelve

Tim Yates closed the door of his office quietly and sped nimbly down the stairs. It was 5.30 p.m. precisely. Today, he was particularly anxious to reach his house in Edinburgh Drive at a civilised hour and desperate not to get waylaid by Superintendent Thornton. He hoped to make a clean getaway via the back door of Spalding police station and the car park. He knew that Thornton was like a cat on hot bricks over the de Vries case and would probably order Tim to go straight to Sutterton in person if he found out that Ricky MacFadyen, a mere detective constable, and one for whom Thornton had no particular regard, had been assigned to the task. Tim scanned the car park, not without an element of conscious self-parody; he enjoyed pretending to be James Bond on occasion. It was deserted. He made a dash for his aging BMW and leapt into it. Unless Thornton called him back on his mobile, he reckoned he’d succeeded in effecting his escape.

He was therefore a little disappointed when he reached home to discover that Katrin’s Fiat was not standing in the drive. He tried to parry a sudden stab of worry. She’d not been at work that afternoon and had told him she’d be back by 5 p.m. He hoped that she was OK. He let himself into the house and filled the kettle.

He had barely plugged it in when he heard Katrin’s key in the lock. He heard her dump her bag on the hall stand, as she always did.

“Tim?” she called. She sounded excited.

He hurried out of the kitchen. He needed only to take one look at her face. He opened wide his arms and she rushed into them.

“It is definitely positive?” he asked, somewhat superfluously.

“Yes!” she said, her voice muffled from talking into the wool of his jacket. “Let me out, Tim, I can’t breathe.”

He released her, turned her face up towards his and kissed her several times.

“Well done!” he said. “I’m so happy.”

“Me, too,” she said. Less than a year ago she had believed that the news she had received today would never happen, that it was a physiological impossibility.

“What now?” he asked. “Do you want to call your mother?”

“No. It’s early days yet and anything could happen.” She put out her hand to touch the wood of the hall stand as she spoke. “But it’s not just that. At the moment, it’s our secret, something to hug to ourselves and hoard for a little while.”

He smiled at the way she had put it.

“Would you like to go out to dinner somewhere? A quiet celebration?”

She paused to consider.

“No, not even that. I’m happy to stay here and have something simple to eat. An omelette, perhaps.”

Tim’s smile broadened. He was a good cook, although with a limited repertoire. Soufflé omelettes were one of his specialities.

“I’ll make us one each,” he said.

 

Two hours later they were half-lying on the sofa watching a documentary on the TV, their arms entwined, their empty plates relegated to a tray on the floor. The programme was about the future of the welfare state, but Tim was giving it less than half his attention. About ten per cent of his thoughts were engaged in running over the day’s conversations with Kevan de Vries, including the peculiar interventions from Tony Sentance. He wondered which, if any, of several comments that had struck him as odd or out of place would prove significant. Overlaying this was a sort of general, non-specific feeling of euphoria, tinged with a little bit of apprehension. He was well aware that fatherhood would change his life irrevocably. He knew that, for a policeman, meeting the conflicting demands of parenting and career posed a particular challenge. He was determined that he would rise to it, though he knew that to do so with success would require a great deal of good management and self-discipline. Perhaps entail some job sacrifices, too.

Katrin was paying diligent attention to the documentary.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” she exclaimed. Tim looked at the screen. Montagu Philpott, a civil servant employed at the Home Office, was explaining the ‘right to reside’ rule.

“Just listen to him!” said Katrin. “How is anyone supposed to understand that? I don’t mean the basic rule, but all the exceptions he keeps coming out with!”

Tim tried to concentrate. He’d missed too much of the programme to be able to pick up the source of Katrin’s indignation. As a Swiss by birth, she was often sensitive about immigration issues, even though she herself held dual Swiss / British citizenship.

Tim’s mobile rang. He picked it up to see if he could recognise the caller’s number. If it was Thornton’s, he felt inclined to ignore it. But it was Ricky MacFadyen’s number that came flashing up on the screen.

Tim disentangled the fingers of his right hand from Katrin’s.

“Sorry!” he said. “I’m going to have to answer this.”

She shrugged philosophically. It was one of the great joys of Tim’s marriage that his wife did not object to the unsocial demands of his job. As a police researcher herself, she understood them very clearly. He pressed the ‘accept’ button.

“DI Yates? It’s DC MacFadyen here.”

Tim noted the speaker’s formality and deduced that Ricky was not alone. Someone was listening as he made the call: probably somebody less in his confidence than the uniforms who had accompanied him to Laurieston House.

“DC MacFadyen,” he responded, equally formal. “Any news?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry to bother you, but I think that you’re needed here. And the SOCOs, too.”

“That sounds ominous,” said Tim. “What have you found? Let me guess: five illegal immigrants hiding in the cellar, still waiting for their passports!”

He regretted his flippancy as soon as he’d said it. He hoped that whoever was listening to Ricky didn’t hear the comment. He didn’t know why he’d made it: perhaps his subconscious hadn’t moved on from the documentary.

“No, sir,” said Ricky, still deadpan, after a short pause. “But I am in Mr de Vries’ cellar; or was until I came up to get a signal. We found some loose flags and pulled them up. There seems to be something underneath them.”

“What do you mean, ‘something underneath them’? Don’t you know what it is? What makes it such a cause for concern?”

“I think I know what it is, sir. It looks to me like the bones of a human foot.”