It had taken a few hours to get to Newcastle from Abington, and the air had grown paradoxically warmer as the evening progressed. MacAdams opened his driver’s side window, feeling the moist breath of early spring. He’d parked on a narrow street, just in the shadow of a streetlamp, lights out. It didn’t offer a scenic view—three bins, one overfull, and the backside of an allotment—but he had good vantage on the house shared by Lotte and Olivia. It wasn’t the best part of Newcastle, but was a lot cheerier than Elsie’s concrete block. He checked his watch: half past eleven. The lights had gone out downstairs in the house; now the windows above darkened. No movement outside, and no stirring within. MacAdams adjusted himself, trying to make the seat more comfortable; he didn’t relish night watch, but Green needed a break... And Rachel might never forgive him otherwise. Tomorrow, he’d put Tommy on it. He was the new guy after all.
His phone rang.
“Speak of the devil,” he said.
“Should I resent that?” Green asked. “Just turning in for the night and wondered how things were brewing.”
“Pretty damn dull. I have begun counting stray cats.” It was also, however, good brain time. “Didn’t Lotte tell us Olivia sold her car?”
“Lost her license, so yeah.”
“How did they arrive in Abington?”
“By train, I’m guessing.”
“Don’t guess.” MacAdams scratched his chin. “If Lotte was spending ongoing time in the cottage with Sid, even recently, how’d she get there? Was it a regular thing? There might be CCTV of Sid’s trek to and from—” MacAdams didn’t finish the thought. Up at the house, a door was opening. “Green, I have to go.”
The front door had opened and shut. The figure on the step appeared to be locking up behind her; slim, dark-haired. Even at distance he could recognize Lotte; she leaned back and cast a furtive look at the upstairs windows. They remained dark. Lotte pulled her coat a little tighter at her throat, looked both ways, and then disappeared down the street. MacAdams counted five and started the engine. By the time he’d backed out, Lotte was about two blocks ahead and moving quickly.
MacAdams didn’t want to frighten her, or to give himself away—but he did want a closer look. Under the streetlamps, Lotte flashed back to full color: scarlet pants, second-skin fit, and chunky high heels. She couldn’t be planning to go far, surely? The street cut across a back alley, and she took a sudden hard right into the lane. Dammit; MacAdams passed her by—but she was headed in the direction of Arthur’s Hill. He made the next right, turning on his GPS as he did so; the lane would set her out on Dilston.
MacAdams pulled up at the next stop with his lights out and waited; four, three, two... Movement. Lotte exited the alley but clung close to the wall. He could make out the shake of her bobbed hair as she checked the street before and behind. Convinced all was clear, she moved ahead.
And she wasn’t alone.
MacAdams started. From the far side of the street, a shadow moved. He couldn’t make out more than general shape, but their movements were far from casual stroll. Hunched, tight, keeping to the blank, empty spaces between. MacAdams could see Lotte at the end of the street ahead of the figure, silhouetted against the city apartments.
Her strides lengthened. Had she seen her pursuer? No other cross streets offered themselves between there and Crossley Terrace—but the street ended in a pedestrian mall.
Fuck. MacAdams switched on his high beams and hit the gas. The engine growled, and Lotte ran.
He wasn’t prepared for her burst of speed, but she wasn’t his concern. MacAdams banked across the street toward her pursuer as if he planned to ramp up the curb; he had one full glimpse of a black neoprene jacket, dark hair, and the briefest flash of face. A man, clean-shaven, youngish. Then he was gone. MacAdams threw the car into Park and leapt out.
“Stop, police!” he shouted, giving chase. The man had the start of him, however, through the side yard of an end-of-terrace, then up and over a fence. MacAdams managed to haul himself up in time to watch him cross the next street.
“Dammit.” He dropped down; he’d have to turn around, backtracking. By then, there wouldn’t be much point. He returned to the car, expecting to have lost Lotte, too. Instead, he could see her hunched against the shop door of a closed salon. She held a broken shoe in one hand, tears streaking her mascara.
“Why—why?” she demanded, when MacAdams knelt next to her.
“We can get you someplace safe,” he panted. “I know you were being followed.” Lotte’s large, damp eyes stared at him in disbelief.
“Followed?” she asked, lips curling in disgust. “You followed me! I was running from you!”
MacAdams sat back on his heels.
“I saw a man,” he said, trying to offer her a hand. She swatted him away.
“What man? I saw a car chasing me—I didn’t know you were a cop till you yelled.” Lotte frowned, tried to get up, failed, and finally accepted MacAdams’ help. “That’s why I ran down that alley.”
“Lotte, a man was walking along this street, right behind you. I think he meant you harm.” MacAdams scanned the street behind them; in theory, he might still be planning harm, and they were exposed. Lotte tottered on her single heel; the look of disgust had hardened into something he might have expected from Olivia.
“God, you pigs,” she spat.
“He ran when I tried to apprehend him,” MacAdams tried to explain. Lotte shook her head.
“I ran. And he was probably just some guy. I’m glad you didn’t catch him. Probably try to pin something on him, too.” She shuddered slightly. “Why can’t you just leave me alone? I ain’t done nothin!”
“Then why are you sneaking out in the middle of the night?” MacAdams asked in exasperation. He tried to take her elbow. “Come on. You can’t walk home by yourself.”
“Watch me!” she snapped. But she stayed where she was, anyhow, still cradling the busted heel. MacAdams approached and guided her into the passenger seat.
“Now,” he said, backing away from the curb. “I want to know what you aren’t telling me. You told my sergeant that you and Olivia weren’t out the night Sid died. Will your neighbors say the same thing?”
Lotte had hunched low in the seat and was pouting fiercely. “I can go where I want—when I want. It ain’t a crime.”
“Lying to the police is, however,” MacAdams said. “Listen, Lotte. You might be in danger. Do you understand that? If there’s something you know, you need to tell me.”
They’d come within sight of the house. Lotte sat up straighter.
“Stop here,” she demanded. “Stop right here. I’m getting out. And I have nothing else to tell your lot. It’s harassment.”
She got out of the car and slammed the door behind her. MacAdams watched her stork-walk to the front door and disappear inside, thinking perhaps they should have charged her for assault against Green after all. At least that would give them leverage.
“This is MacAdams,” he said when he reached the station. “I’m in Newcastle. I’m going to need someone here to watch Olivia and Lotte’s place.”
“Think you have a runner?” asked the sergeant on the other line. MacAdams found himself scanning the darkness on impulse.
“Not quite. I think they might need protection.”
MacAdams’ sartorial choices probably left much to be desired, but he could not care any less than at present. He was on his way to York—with Fleet—as promised, to pay a visit to Elsie’s brother Jack. But it was seven in the fucking morning, on three hours of sleep. The previous night had resulted in more paperwork than expected, and Fleet was lucky he’d managed to shower and shave. He had not managed to eat anything, however, so a petrol station breakfast off the A1 would have to do.
“You don’t go to York often, I gather?” Fleet asked at the checkout. Tea for him, as usual; MacAdams with his coffee and a packet of McVitie’s digestives.
“Not really,” he said. Fleet’s expression remained expectant. MacAdams sighed. “My in-laws live there. Ex-in-laws.”
Annie lived there, too, in a nice house near a pleasant pub and in walking distance of the local primary school. Her father owned a florists’ shop, and she’d taken over most of the work-a-day business when her mother got ill. Not that he’d been checking up.
“I don’t know where you live, though,” MacAdams pointed out as they pulled onto the main road. “We can stop on the way.”
“Not in Bootham,” Fleet said. He smiled under his brush mustache, though it lacked any warmth. “There are no wealthy aunts on my side, so city center is rather above my pay grade.”
It wasn’t the first time expenses had ever come up in their scant conversations, and this time MacAdams agreed.
“A bit rich,” he said. “Elsie’s aunt is Canadian by birth, married a Yorkshire man and emigrated in the early nineties. Elsie and Jack are blood relations to him, the now-deceased uncle. He’d been living in Canada, himself, most of their lives.”
Fleet had been watching the windows, and MacAdams had the distinct impression that the wheels were turning in there.
“Do you know Jack Turner?” he asked.
“By reputation,” he said. MacAdams spared a look in his direction.
“And? Were you around for the murder trial?”
Fleet’s thin smile returned.
“I didn’t relocate to York until after his arrest five years ago. But I am familiar. I did not know he has a sister, however.”
MacAdams frowned.
“I’m not sure he knew at first; Gridley had a look at their social service records. Elsie got adopted out when Jack was four years old.” In fact, MacAdams would have considered this a wild chase if not for Lotte. If she knew they were related, perhaps they were better acquainted that he first thought. “Anyway, Jack bounced around the system till eighteen, then joined the military. RAF, like yourself.”
Fleet visibly bristled—one of the only times MacAdams had seen a break from the usual mundane politesse.
“The military should build a sense of service, duty, loyalty,” Fleet said forcefully. “A sense of what you owe.”
“I thought we owed veterans,” MacAdams offered. “That’s the usual line, isn’t it? A debt for your service?”
Fleet took the moment to drink rather magisterially from his paper teacup.
“You are quoting the Commodore, I take it?”
“You heard him say it, too, eh?” MacAdams said. The creep of bitterness had got into his voice again, and unfortunately, Fleet was very good at noticing.
“You asked me once why I liked Commodore Clapham. Now I’m curious to know why you didn’t.”
MacAdams sighed. What good was having an expressionless face if he couldn’t keep his own mouth shut?
“Bloody big estate, isn’t it? You think Bootham is pricey? How in hell does a retired airman become a land baron?”
“You disliked him for his money.”
“No,” MacAdams said, a little hotly. “I dislike it when I can’t work out where money comes from.”
“You think it’s ill-gotten gain?” The question hung in the air, because MacAdams couldn’t bring himself to answer. No. Not really. Not even though the Commodore styled himself a Lord and made sure everyone knew it, most especially his daughter, who now proselytized on his behalf. It wasn’t jealousy of luxury, though; not for all the money in the world would MacAdams be that pompous.
“Do you know what I believe, MacAdams?” Fleet asked.
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“You have a curiously antique sense of just desserts,” he said quietly. “It doesn’t trouble you that Ardemore House belonged, unearned, to the gentry—or that a diminutive American has inherited it by blood alone. But you disdain a man who made his own money and spent it on the same sort of estate.”
MacAdams did not like this theory one bit. Mostly especially because it hit a little too near.
“So you think I’m a hypocrite?” he asked. Fleet looked out the window, then folded his hands neatly in his lap.
“I think,” he said, “that you’ve missed our turnoff.”
Part of Her Majesty’s Prison Service, HM Full Sutton operated as a maximum security facility, which meant it housed some of the most hardened and dangerous criminals. And yet, it nestled in the bucolic landscape outside York, separated by farm fields with rows of trees meant to hide the premises.
“Over six hundred prisoners,” MacAdams murmured. “And expansion plans.”
“One of ten thousand proposed by the Prisons Minister,” Fleet added. MacAdams knew about the proposals; plenty of complaints were lodged against it, too. The idea—that large prisons somehow meant fewer reoffenders—sounded a bit American to MacAdams. As far as he could tell, it wasn’t working out so well over there.
“Seems like overkill. Do you have the file Andrews gave us?”
Fleet turned in his peculiarly military way, a ninety-degree that put him face-to-face with MacAdams.
“I left it in the car. Turner is serving life for voluntary manslaughter. Five years into a twelve-year sentence, and unlikely to be released on good behavior.”
“Charming. Let’s see if he can tell us anything about Elsie.”
Fleet led the way, and soon the two of them waited in a long white room bisected with a beige stripe.
“Incarceration decor applies psychological principles to color choice,” Fleet said, as if that were foremost on MacAdams’ mind. “It’s supposed to act as a calming influence.”
“It leaves a lot to be desired, if that’s the case.”
“Because you don’t feel its effects?” Fleet rapped the table softly. “Of course, you aren’t the target audience.”
“I bet no one asks the target audience, though.” MacAdams shrugged off his coat and slumped into the nearest chair. He could use another coffee. And an actual meal. Fleet, thin, razor-sharp, and straight-arrow, seemed above such human needs. He did sit, but always as though he would rather be standing.
Jack Turner entered with a determinedly recalcitrant air. In his midfifties with a complexion pocked here and there from long-ago acne and dark hair with no signs of thinning, he managed to look younger than his years. That offered some family resemblance to Elsie and added to it were the slate gray eyes and turned up nose. Otherwise, Jack had a face like a brick, and presently looked like he’d be happy to put it through MacAdams’ window. The guard walked him to his chair and tugged at the cuffs resting against his jumpsuit.
“Do you want him loose?” she asked. MacAdams nodded.
“I don’t see why not.”
“Don’t expect a thank-you,” Jack said before slumping into his seat. He wasn’t looking at MacAdams, though. “Wot’s this, two of you, now?”
“I am DCI MacAdams, and this is DCI Fleet,” MacAdams said.
“Yeah? You work for him, or he work for you?” Jack clearly had a tendency to spit his words. It wasn’t pleasant. MacAdams opened his mouth to answer, but Fleet got there before him.
“We do not work together at all,” he said in a voice that probably made RAF cadets jump to attention. “I am following the detective’s lead as he pursues inquiries into the death of a man in Abington. That is my only role. And your only role is to answer his questions. Is that understood?”
Jack sucked his teeth in silence, eyes darting and furtive.
“You—wanna ask me—about a murder?” he asked. MacAdams shook his head.
“No. I want to ask you about your sister, Elsie. We’d like to know where to find her.”
Jack sat back in his chair. He seemed utterly impassive, or would to most people. MacAdams had an eye for subtlety, however, and at the moment, a ripple of emotion seemed to be fighting its way to the surface of Jack’s brick wall face.
“You expect we talk regular, is that it? We don’t. We ain’t family like that.”
“When was the last time?”
Jack shrugged.
“Holidays?” MacAdams pressed, and this time Jack let out a harsh bark of laughter.
“Shite, you think? Got herself adopted, heard she got married, probably lives someplace real cozy. But I wouldn’t know, would I?”
“She did get married. To Sid Randles. Do you know him?”
“Knew his face, like,” Jack said, though he kept darting glances at the now-silent Fleet. “Wot’s this about?”
“Sid Randles has been murdered,” MacAdams said flatly. “And so you can see why we might want to get in touch with Elsie.”
It was a touch misleading, yes, but these were the basic facts. Jack stared a minute, a slow turn of gears. Then, he leaned forward toward MacAdams.
“I need a smoke.”
MacAdams dug into his pocket for the emergency pack.
“I’ve nothing to light with,” he confessed, handing it over. Jack just took the whole pack and tucked it into his jumpsuit pocket.
“Well. I’ll be sure to think of you when I light up later,” he said. “You say Sid’s been murdered. Elsie in trouble or something? Wot you really wanna know?”
MacAdams took a breath. He wanted to know where Elsie was hiding. He wanted to know whether Elsie might be a victim among victims...or the perpetrator of a murder. But he felt in his gut that the answer to both began with the five thousand pounds Sid had been collecting in secret—from and for whom. It was an out-on-a-limb hunch, but he’d paid his last pack of cigarettes and might as well aim high.
“I want to know who Sid was blackmailing.”
Jack froze up, a calcification of shock. MacAdams kept his eyes upon his face, looking for giveaways.
“Sid?” he asked. “I don’t—don’t see it. Sid couldn’t—”
“You seem very sure.” Fleet’s words fell cold on the metal table, and MacAdams mentally throttled him for it because the interruption worked a sudden change on Jack. He looked square at Fleet and announced:
“I don’t know nothing about it. But if Sid was blackmailing somebody, then he got what he deserved, that’s all.” Jack was looking at the guard, now; MacAdams felt the moment slipping away.
“What about Elsie, Jack?” MacAdams asked.
“What about her?”
“Might she also think Sid deserved it?” he asked. “Did she have a reason to want him dead?”
He thought this would get traction. Jack, however, had lost all focus.
“Dunno, do I?” He trailed off. “Look, is that all you want or what?”
Fleet unclasped his hands.
“You are absolutely sure there’s nothing else you’d like to tell us, Mr. Turner?”
“Absolutely sure,” Turner repeated slowly. “I got nothing to say, ’cause I don’t know nothing. Hell, I been in here, ain’t I?” He stood up and held his hands out to the guard, who stepped forward with cuffs. While they were so engaged, Fleet stood up to go, and MacAdams intended to follow. With one detective out of the room and the other’s back turned, however, Jack had a fit of venomous courage.
“Trying to pin something else on me, eh?” Jack spat for real this time, right at MacAdams’ feet. “Bent fuckers, all of you. Bent and dirty.”
MacAdams tipped the hat he wasn’t wearing:
“Cheers, Jack,” he said. “Enjoy the smoke.”
The ride to Fleet’s place in Stamford Bridge was a quiet one. MacAdams, because he was lost in thought, Fleet, because MacAdams kept ignoring him. Blackmail hit a nerve for Jack, or seemed to shock him, maybe? Murder, by contrast, hardly interested him. Then again, he was already serving a sentence for unlawful death. MacAdams shook his head. There were connections. He just didn’t see them. Once again.
“Left here, please,” Fleet said.
MacAdams stopped in front of a brown-brick facade in a row of squat terraced houses.
“A duplex, is it?” MacAdams asked.
“Very spacious, however.” Fleet unbuckled the belt. “I’m sorry the interview was something of a waste, but you may as well enjoy your time in York.”
MacAdams did not, as a rule, enjoy York. But that was mostly the lingering sepia of personal tragedy. Mostly. The city center always looked a bit like a BBC historical production. The Shambles, where the buildings were so old that windows bowed and eaves pitched sideways, leaned into York’s foundations at a tilt. In summer, you could scarcely walk the narrow alleyways for the crush of tourists, half of them flourishing props from the numerous Harry Potter knockoff shops. It just didn’t appeal. At least it was a quiet Friday, the cold damp keeping most everyone indoors. MacAdams had parked up in Bootham Row and satisfied himself with a brisk walk—to the florist on Davygate.
He had a reason, he told himself: ask about the funeral flowers. But walking through the door anointed him with the unmistakable green smell of stems and cuttings, and for a moment he’d fallen backward about five years.
“James! I don’t believe it.” Annie stepped through with an armful of hothouse begonias. She laid them on the counter, which revealed the apron stretching over a heavily pregnant middle. “You should have called ahead—we might have met Ashok for lunch!”
She’d invited him before. And to dinners, too. And Ashok was, in fact, an entirely pleasant human being. But as usual, MacAdams felt a wave of uneasiness around such kindnesses.
“Business and not pleasure, I’m afraid,” he said. Annie brushed pollen out of auburn hair.
“Not just checking up, then?”
“I never check up.”
“You are a perfectly terrible liar, James MacAdams.” Annie leaned upon the counter. “So, what can a humble florist do for you today?”
She was right. He was a terrible liar, at least when not specifically on the job. And he felt foolishly relieved to have the pleasantries over.
“I suppose you heard about Sid Randles’ death?” he asked. A soft crease appeared between her eyebrows.
“The odd-jobs fellow, I remember him. Didn’t he do some gardening for us once?”
MacAdams winced; he had—and kept calling Annie sugar-pet.
“That’s the one,” he said. She gave him a gentle smile.
“You knew him pretty well, didn’t you?”
“Apparently not, as it turns out.” MacAdams sighed. “Right now, I’m trying to track down Sid’s first ex-wife, and she bought lilies for the funeral. A lot of them. She didn’t get them in Abington, and I’m beginning to doubt her Newcastle address.”
“It really is business? I can’t decide if I’m honored or not.” Annie tapped at the computer screen. “I’m sorry to say there have been a lot of orders, and lilies for funerals aren’t unusual. It could take a while.”
“I figured. If you sort out who bought them, can you give Jo a call?” MacAdams said.
“Jo?” Annie asked, and only then did he realize the mistake.
“Not her. Sorry. Green.” He’d not even been thinking about Jo, dammit. Why had that come out? “Call Sheila Green. I have her number if you need it?”
“I don’t need it.” Annie’s lips curled to a lopsided smile she always wore when she had the upper hand. “So, who is this Jo?”
MacAdams’ expressionless face did its best Easter Island.
“Just part of the case, that’s all. Jo Jones owns the cottage where Sid was murdered—she found him, in fact.”
“She. Hmm.” Annie tapped her chin with an index finger. “You don’t normally get your suspects and sergeants confused.”
“Annie...” MacAdams rubbed his forehead. “It isn’t like that.”
Annie came around the counter. Then she reached up and straightened his mussed coat collar.
“Have you considered, James, that maybe it ought to be like that? With somebody? At some point?” She took a step back, as though admiring her handiwork. “It’s time, you know.”
“You’ll give Sheila a call for me,” MacAdams confirmed. Annie just smiled.
“Of course.”
“And you won’t ask her about my private life?”
“This time?” Annie winked at him. Then went back to arranging begonias. MacAdams took leave, noting with some dismay that his body temperature had risen and that he had very possibly been blushing.
Did he still love Annie? Sure. Who wouldn’t? Did he want to still be married to her? He didn’t, and sometimes wondered why not. They stayed friendly. But it tended to be MacAdams that put up the barricades and maintained the distance, so much so that he’d only seen her daughter, Daya, once, and she was nearly two, now. Maybe it was the sense that Annie wanted what was best for him...like solidity and comfort and smart decisions and a plan. Should be desirable qualities in a mate. But somehow it wasn’t, not for MacAdams. If he had to look it squarely in the face, maybe that was why he liked Jo Jones. Unsinkable, half-cocked, wholly impractical. But unfettered, too. And very likely to get him into trouble.
That should not be attractive, he told himself. It was, though. It really was.
He’d managed to think-walk his way into Bootham, and now stood at the end of a stately brick terrace. The last home bore the correct numbers. Stone steps, a hedged front garden, two—maybe three stories. Judging by size, at least three bedrooms. Hannah Walker had done very well for herself, indeed. He approached and prepared to ring the bell—when the door swung open, and he was nearly knocked sideways by a woman hauling two overstuffed bin bags.
“Oh!” Her mouth hung open a moment, a perfect oval of shock in pink lip gloss. MacAdams had a shock, too, but recovered first. He didn’t offer to take her burden, however. He merely displayed his credentials.
“Hello, Elsie. We’ve been looking for you.”