Dan didn’t say anything as he let Jayne in.
‘What’s the urgency?’ she said.
‘It’s spinning too fast. There’s Pat going missing, and Sean following you on Facebook, and then there’s the damn case.’
‘Tell me about Pat,’ she said. ‘What did you mean when you said he’s gone missing?’
He leaned back against the wall, his arms folded. ‘Can it have more than one meaning? He went out last night without saying where he was going and never came home. Now his car has turned up outside the station at Greencroft.’
‘Why would it be there?’
‘I’ve no idea, but I feel like I should know, because he was more than my boss. Eileen’s worried to hell, I am too, and then there’s you and Sean Martin. It’s all too much.’
Jayne put her hand on his forearm. ‘You look like shite.’
He almost laughed. Instead, he put his head back against the wall, his voice choked unable to respond.
He felt Jayne’s hand in his and he let her guide him to the sofa. When he sat, Jayne put her arms round him. She was warm, her face buried into his neck.
Her voice was muffled when she said, ‘Stop playing at being the strong man. It’s allowed to get on top of you.’
He pulled away. ‘No, it’s not. If I let it, this job could swamp me. And I don’t mean this case. I mean the whole thing. I deal with the job, the cases and the clients and the late nights by keeping my focus, but this case is different. They don’t always get this personal.’ He stared into her eyes. ‘And whatever you might say, I’m allowed to worry about you.’
She held his gaze before saying, ‘I like that you do.’
Dan stood and began to pace. He could lose himself in Jayne, her warmth, their closeness, but he forced his focus back on the case. ‘How have you got on?’
‘Are you okay to talk about it? I know your attention is on Pat right now, rather than this case.’
‘The two might be related somehow.’
‘Because of Sean Martin?’
‘We start asking questions about someone who Pat thinks is a killer and suddenly he goes missing. Quite a coincidence, don’t you think?’
‘Do you think Bill is in danger? After all, Rosie was one of the victims in his theory. Sean doesn’t know about him yet, but Bill isn’t a man who wants to stay quiet.’
‘He was speaking to the press when I left. Whatever happens with this case, he’s got an audience now. That’s all he wanted.’
Jayne put her jacket on the back of the sofa. ‘What do we do now?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it. I just feel like getting trashed.’
‘You got any wine?’
‘I’ve always got wine.’ He went to the fridge. It clinked as he opened it.
As she took a glass from him, she went to the balcony window and looked out. ‘Did you mention the missing women in court?’
‘Yes. I had to.’
‘And?’
‘Who knows? I got some traction with it, but I might just look desperate to the jury.’ He joined her by the window. ‘I don’t know what to do. This is the most serious case I’ve dealt with on my own and I feel like it’s spinning out of control.’
She rested her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her. It felt natural somehow, and he needed to feel close to someone.
‘What are the theories about Pat?’
‘Just what you’d expect. Pat has a reputation from when he was younger, and Eileen wondered if he’d gone to see a girlfriend. But Pat wouldn’t have caught the train, not the small grotty service that runs through Greencroft.’
‘If it’s bad news, what about an old client who was unhappy with the service he got? You keep on talking about his flamboyance but perhaps he wanted to disappear somewhere rather than have other people see him become diminished. That’s his flourish, the mystery.’
‘No, it’s more than that. I feel it.’
‘Let’s do something about it then.’
Dan looked at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Let’s go after Sean Martin. After all, what did Pat expect you to do when he told you about the link between Peter Box and Sean?’
‘I’ve raised it in court already.’
‘What Sean told Pat?’
‘No. Just that Rosie is another unexplained death because Sean has been cleared.’
‘I thought you said that it would make Peter look guilty, because if not Sean, why not Peter?’
‘I had to use Sean’s case somehow, and I couldn’t use whatever he said to Pat. It’s privileged, client to lawyer.’
‘You told me.’
‘I told Murdoch too, but that doesn’t mean the judge would allow it to be used. Pat would have known that, but all he had burning inside him was that Peter and Sean are connected in some way and wanted this link to come out.’
Jayne thought about that for a few moments. ‘Where does this leave the case then, or Bill’s theory?’
‘We try to link them to Sean Martin. If we can prove he killed Rosie, and leave him as a suspect for the rest, it might help Peter.’
‘Is that the reason?’
His jaw clenched. ‘If he’s connected in any way to Pat’s disappearance, I want to bring him down.’
‘Remember, I’ve found a link. Sean Martin already owned his canal boat at the time when Rosie was killed, and had for years before he went to prison, when he and Trudy were still a young couple.’
‘Yes, you said, and Sean and Peter knew each other.’
‘Peter was going out with Trudy’s sister, Emily.’
‘Why hasn’t Peter told us? Or why didn’t Sean tell Pat back when he confessed? He said Peter was just “some local oddball”.’
‘I realised last night that one of the missing women, Claire Watkins, lived on the next street up from where Sean lived before he married Karen, Rosie’s mum. It was Trudy’s house really, but he stayed there all the time, except when he was out on his boat. He used to moor it nearby when he went to Trudy’s house. I spoke to one of Claire’s friends and she remembered Sean, and Peter.’
‘What did she say?’
‘It was all about Sean, really. Back then, he thought of himself as a big deal, the cool guy in the neighbourhood; he used to speak to Claire if he saw her in the street, but it was Peter who fancied Claire, even though he was with Emily, Trudy’s sister. Peter spent a lot of time with Sean, and Emily said he looked up to Sean, as if he idolised him. I get the idea that Sean Martin prefers an audience to a friendship.’
‘I don’t remember Peter from Sean’s trial. Why wasn’t he there to support him?’
‘Well, claiming responsibility for Rosie’s murder looks like support to me. Perhaps he wanted to be Sean’s saviour?’
Dan took a drink as he thought about that. ‘It’s a lot to expect of someone.’
‘That depends on what type of hold he has.’ She frowned. ‘What if…’
‘Go on.’
‘What if Peter murdered Rosie with Sean?’
‘An accomplice?’
‘Why not? It would explain Peter’s confession, and Sean’s eagerness not to use it.’
‘Does it fit with Rosie’s murder though? Why was Sean left holding her?’
‘Perhaps Peter ran away.’
Dan raised an eyebrow. ‘There’s an even better possibility, that he spoke to Pat about being responsible for Rosie’s murder out of some misguided attempt to help Sean. We’ve got a link now, between Sean Martin and two of the women in Bill’s research. There might be something else if we dig deep enough. Put that drink down. If we’re going after Sean Martin, we need to go where the information is. My office.’
‘Good idea. Let’s go.’