‘No!’ Evan cried. He leaned forward across his desk. ‘Don’t you see? It’s their way of revenge. They’re lying to pay me back for Robbie’s death.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Ramsay said. ‘It was revenge of a sort. They encouraged John to get involved. They knew that would hurt you more than anything. But he was there. Hunter saw him. And he was seen by Joe Fenwick in Anchor Street on the night of the Co-op ram raid driving a car similar to that used by the thieves.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Evan said. ‘ He was home all night.’
‘Are you sure?’ Ramsay said. ‘ Couldn’t he have left the house without your knowing?’
Evan said nothing.
‘We’ll have to talk to him,’ Ramsay said. ‘You do realize that? Have you seen him today?’
Evan shook his head. ‘He’d left for school before we got home.’
‘He’s not in school,’ Ramsay said. ‘ We’ve checked.’
The news that John was absent from school seemed to affect Evan more than the possibility of his arrest. He had put all his faith in his son’s academic success. He saw it as a passport to a brilliant future. Now he put his head in his hands and shut his eyes. All the fight had left him.
‘He’ll be at the rehearsal at the Grace Darling tonight,’ he said. ‘If you don’t pick him up during the day you’ll find him there. Whatever happens he’d not miss that.’
‘You don’t know what plans John had for the weekend?’ Ramsay asked. ‘Did he mention a party? Friends he might visit?’
Evan shook his head. ‘He told me he’d be working,’ he said. ‘And fool that I am, I believed him.’
‘Yes,’ Ramsay said. ‘I see.’ He would have liked to offer some comfort to Evan but knew that kind words would only make things worse. ‘I’ll check at your house first,’ he said. ‘Just to make sure John’s not gone back there. You don’t mind?’
‘No,’ Evan said. ‘I’d be pleased. You can talk to Jackie. She might know where he is.’ He paused. ‘I’d rather she heard about all this from you than from the press.’
‘You could come with me,’ Ramsay said. ‘Take some time off to be with her.’
‘No,’ Evan said. ‘I can’t face her. Not yet. I’d lose my temper. Say things I’d regret.’ He looked up at Ramsay. ‘You will go yourself?’ he said. ‘ I’d not trust anyone else.’
Ramsay nodded but when he got to Barton Hill the house was empty and there was no reply when he knocked at the door.
Over the weekend Gus Lynch thought with relief that at last Jackie was getting the message that their affair was over. During the week following Gabby Paston’s death there had been no peace from her. She had phoned him almost continually. At home he had switched the telephone to the answering machine and at work he refused to take her calls. Joe Fenwick was usually on the switchboard and had come to recognize her voice. She never gave her name.
‘It’s that woman again,’ he would say.
‘Tell her I’m busy,’ Gus would shriek. He thought she was mad. She would ruin everything. ‘Tell her I’m in a meeting and I can’t be disturbed.’
‘She won’t believe you’re still in a meeting.’
‘I don’t care what she believes.’
On Wednesday night she had come to his flat. He had seen her car pull up in the street below and had switched off all the lights and bolted the door so even though she had a key she could not get in. She must have known that he was there because she stood on the wooden steps in full view of the street banging on the door and shouting through the letterbox, threatening to tell his secrets to the trustees, the press, the whole bloody world. He had stood in the kitchen, out of her view, shaking, thinking how easy it would be to let her in and keep her quiet for good.
Then, over the weekend everything went quiet. There were no calls from her on his answerphone, no sight of her car parked on the quay. On Sunday morning when he went into Hallowgate to buy the papers he felt that at last the worst was over. For the first time he thought there was no danger he would be followed. In the new year he would leave the area to begin his new job and he could leave the nightmare of the last few months behind. He even allowed himself a little optimism and excitement. There were FOR SALE posters stuck in the windows of his flat and he saw them as a symbol of change. They proved that the episode at the Grace Darling was a temporary aberration, and soon he would take up his life properly again.
The phone calls started once more on Monday. The first one came when Gus Lynch was out of the Centre, having a sandwich and a pint in the Anchor at lunch time, determined to maintain the old routine. Joe Fenwick put it through to Prue, who couldn‘ t persuade the caller to say what she wanted.
‘There was some woman on the phone for you just now,’ she said to Lynch when he returned. ‘She was in a phone box somewhere and wouldn’t leave a message but she was really upset, almost hysterical. I said you’d be in all afternoon.’
‘Oh, thanks!’ he said. He wondered how she could have been so stupid. ‘That’s just what I need!’
Prue ignored the sarcasm. She was still thinking about Anna.
Then the optimism of the weekend re-asserted itself and Gus thought that Jackie could do him no harm. He refused to let her phone calls threaten him or undermine his confidence. If she went public it would be an embarrassment of course, but who would take her seriously? Who would believe a middle-aged neurotic woman who had been jilted by her lover?
He sat in his office and concentrated on preparing a press release to advertise the performance of Abigail Keene. He was determined that the production would be a success. He wanted to go out with a bang. His phone rang.
‘It’s that woman again,’ Joe Fenwick said cautiously. He was expecting Lynch to be angry and was surprised by the director’s reaction.
‘Tell her to piss off, Joe,’ he said cheerfully. ‘ Tell her I want nothing to do with her. It’s one of the problems with being famous, old son, being pestered by women you’ve never met in your life.’
He replaced the phone, feeling pleased with himself, and shouted through to Prue to come into his office. He wanted to talk about costumes. They’d need to find the money from somewhere to hire them. This time he wasn’t going to have it done on the cheap.
‘I’ll not have it looking like a school play,’ he said. ‘There’ll be no jumble-sale cast-offs for us.’ Then, noticing for the first time how tired and tense she looked: ‘ What the hell’s the matter with you today?’
‘I’m worried about Anna,’ she said. ‘She went out with John Powell last night and didn’t come home.’
He laughed unpleasantly.
‘Good for Anna!’ he said. ‘I never knew she had it in her. She’s fancied him for ages, we could all see that. Now that Gabby’s out of the way…’
‘That’s a dreadful thing to say,’ Prue snapped. ‘Anna was Gabby’s friend. She wouldn’t have done her any harm…’
‘Of course not, pet, but it’s not done Anna any harm either, has it? She’s got the leading role and her man. Good luck to her. I only hope they get off the nest long enough to make it to rehearsal.’
And he laughed again.
Chapter Nineteen
The disturbances on the Starling Farm got out of hand because nobody was expecting them. It was a rainy Monday evening and the weekend had been quiet. The possible trigger to trouble-the arrest of the Pastons-no longer seemed to apply. The women were given bail in the late afternoon and delivered home by a kind constable. He accepted Alma’s offer of tea and stayed and chatted to her for half an hour before returning to the station. On his way out of the estate he saw a group of lads gathering in the car park of the Keel Row. They jeered at the panda car and threw a few stones but that was par for the course on the Starling Farm estate. He had a feeling that the gathering was more purposeful than usual, that the kids might be waiting for someone, but when he reported the incident back at the police station no one took any notice. It was five o’clock. Trouble usually started later when the pubs closed.