DCI Simon Serrailler sat in the farmhouse drawing his sister. Cat was sleeping on the sofa. One arm lay on her swollen stomach, the other was stretched out to touch the cat Mephisto. It was after midnight. He had needed to get away from the station after a seventeen-hour stretch. He had wanted the comfort of the Deerbon farmhouse, with the children sleeping upstairs, his pregnant sister close by, and the warm muddle of family life welcoming him into its centre.
He had eaten. A glass of wine was at his elbow. He changed pencils, taking a soft 4B to shade in the thick ginger halo of fur down Mephisto’s back. Cat stirred slightly but did not wake.
He had spent the afternoon on the phone liaising with other forces; just after nine, a report from the Cumbria police had come in to say that a boy aged thirteen had failed to return home after a school rugby match. He had not caught the usual bus, nor been seen since he had set off to walk to the main road to wait for his father who was to pick him up. When the father arrived, the boy, Tim Fenton, had not been there so he had waited for over half an hour. His son had not turned up, nor had he been at the school, the playing fields, at home, or at the houses of any of his friends. No sightings of him had been reported in the town, or at railway or bus stations. Taxi drivers had not picked him up.
The station was in a heightened state of activity and anxiety. The CID room was alternately packed with officers, and empty as they went out to follow up reports. Uniform were trying to split themselves in two, putting all they could on to the Angus case while keeping everything else ticking over. Fortunately, a big investigation seemed to send most other areas quiet … reports of petty theft and vandalism, stolen vehicles and smashed shop windows were all down, pubs and clubs were peaceful. It was as though Lafferton knew the police had to put everything they had into finding the missing boy and vowed not to cause trouble otherwise.
But with every hour of the long day that had passed, Serrailler had felt more certain that the boy would not be found alive. All day, uniformed officers and members of the public had been searching the Hill, the canal banks, and every waste area, garage block and empty industrial unit, every back garden and field and paddock and strip of woodland. The reminders of the previous year’s killings were everywhere.
Sometimes, turning quickly away from the window, looking up from a phone call, walking down the corridor towards the CID room, Simon saw Freya Graffham’s face, or caught sight of her, swinging through the doors, pulling out a paper cup from the water cooler, smiling at him.
His pencil snapped. Cat did not stir. Mephisto was tucked deep into his own fur.
His telephone rang, waking Cat.
‘Serrailler.’
‘Guv … it just came to me. I knew there was something, it’s been driving me mad all day.’
‘What?’
‘When we was at Parker’s house … I just couldn’t think what. Only Em had a paper and it was when I saw it on the table … last night the Echo ran a whole page with David Angus’s picture …’
‘Yes. It was a repro of the poster.’
‘He had it.’
‘So did a lot of people.’
‘Yeah, only it was when we was leavin’ and he had the kitchen door open behind him, he was wantin’ rid of us … I glanced in there … he’d got another of ‘is tanks, on top of the fridge, lit up. I was just wondering what the ‘ell else he’d got kept in tanks in there. So busy thinking about that, I must have seen the newspaper only not properly taken it in … it was up on the wall. I mean, what was that for?’
‘Hm.’
‘Only you said if there was anything, bring him in. We didn’t have nothing, to be honest, guv.’
‘You said.’
‘Then I remembered this.’
‘It’s not enough to bring him in but it’s enough to pay him another visit.’
‘What, now?’
‘No, no, leave it till first thing. It’s not enough to go hammering on doors in the middle of the night.’
‘OK.’ Nathan sounded disappointed.
Cat was standing by the Aga waiting for the kettle to boil.
‘Sorry.’
‘No, I shouldn’t go to sleep like that, I get cramp. Tea?’
‘No. I’ll take over from you on the sofa. You go up.’
‘The spare bed’s made up. You won’t sleep properly down here. Take a bit of your own advice.’
Simon stood up and stretched.
‘What were you doing?’
‘Drawing you and Mephisto.’
Cat smiled.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Weary. I just want to have a baby.’
‘Chris is a long time out.’
‘We need that locum. He can’t do this, on call most nights, and it’s been hellishly busy.’
‘No one yet?’
‘The person he interviewed didn’t want it after all. He heard about some woman today who might be interested … came back from two years in New Zealand and thinks she might like to be in this area but wants to test the water. Don’t know any more yet. Let’s pray.’
‘I thought everyone wanted to be a GP.’
‘Oh, they used to. Times have changed.’
‘I’ll go up … if I get called in to the station, I’ll try not to make a racket.’
‘You never do. Anyway, I’m used to Chris getting up, Sam coming into our bed with his nightmares. His head’s full of David Angus. I can’t deal with it easily, Si … I lie to him and he knows I’m lying. They talk about it at school, Chris says he hurls himself into the car and locks the door. He wouldn’t go with the Simpkinses yesterday, Chris had to take him there to tea.’
Simon went over and put his arms round her.
‘I can’t stop thinking about that little boy.’
‘I know.’
‘How do you deal with it?’
‘Cat, you have children who die of cancer, and young patients killed in stupid accidents and babies who get meningitis. Deal with this in the same way.’
‘This is worse.’
‘Maybe.’ Simon went towards the door, rubbing his hand over his blond hair in the gesture Cat knew so well and which he had always made when he was exhausted, or over-anxious, troubled by his work or by something within himself about which he would not talk.
She put out the kitchen lights. On the sofa, the cat Mephisto stretched out a paw, kneaded the air with his claws, and burrowed back into sleep.