The Red Shore, page 15
Instead of going home, Eden drove to the garage Molly had told him about, checking in his rear-view mirror on the way. If the police officer was still following him, he was being more subtle about it today.
The industrial estate was in a valley, warehouses dotted round the steep side. The garage he had been looking for was on a bend in the road that rose up the slope.
Outside the workshop, a squat mechanic was wheeling a tyre across the tarmac towards the workshop. He eyed Eden as he parked.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ Eden guessed from his accent he might be Turkish.
Eden explained he had come to pay for the work on his sister’s car.
‘You’re the brother?’
‘That’s right.’
He disappeared into the garage and returned a minute later. ‘No. We don’t have the car. The police came and took it away last week. I have the bill, though.’ He held a piece of paper.
‘The police?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What day was this?’
‘Let me see. Come this way.’ He led Eden back past the inspection pit to a small office and flicked the pages in a large desk diary. ‘Wednesday,’ he said.
‘They took it away on a truck?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t here. You’d have to ask the boss. He’s back later maybe.’
‘Wednesday. You’re absolutely sure?’
‘Of course I am sure. We made a note.’
‘Do you have the paperwork? The police must have given you something.’
The man shrugged. ‘You have to come back and talk to the boss about it.’
Wednesday. That was odd. As far as Eden knew, on the Wednesday of last week, local police were still not publicly regarding Apple’s disappearance as anything other than an accident. Nobody had mentioned to him that they had impounded her car, but if they had impounded it, someone must have been thinking even back then that there was something about Apple’s disappearance that wasn’t straightforward.
‘You remember the officer’s name?’
‘As I told you, I wasn’t here. Speak to my boss. You going to pay the bill?’
Back in his own car, Eden called Sweet. Sweet’s line was busy. ‘Something strange has come up,’ Eden said, leaving a message. ‘Can you call me back?’
Twenty-Nine
When he returned to school that afternoon to pick up Finn, Eden spotted the unmarked car again, in amongst the family vehicles. Eden parked his own car and he was in the throng at the gate waiting for the children to emerge when Jackie hailed him. ‘You need to come in. Something’s happened.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Eden’s heart was suddenly fast in his chest.
‘Nothing like last time. But I’m afraid the head needs a word with you. There was an incident.’
‘An incident? What?’
‘Finn bit a child today during the lunch break.’
‘God,’ said Eden. ‘He bit someone?’
Jackie looked sympathetic. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll show you where to go.’
Finn was sitting on a soft chair outside the office with the new blue bag on his lap.
‘You bit another child?’
Finn didn’t have time to answer before the head teacher opened the door. ‘Oh, there you are, Mr Driscoll. Come on in. Both of you. Sit down, sit down.’
It was a small office, neat. There were two plastic chairs arranged in front of his desk.
The head spoke briskly. ‘So, Finn. You got annoyed with another pupil today, didn’t you?’
Finn sat stone-faced, his hands on his knees.
‘We understand it was a swap that went a bit wrong.’ He addressed Eden. ‘Another child wanted to exchange something in his lunchbox for something Eden had. We discourage swapping because it can lead to unhappiness, but we have a very firm policy on hurting each other, don’t we?’
Finn stared straight ahead.
‘Obviously, Finn, we know you’ve had a very difficult time, so we do understand if you might find it hard to control your emotions right now. But we have a zero-tolerance policy for things like this.’
Eden nodded.
‘And when we lose our temper,’ continued the head teacher in a gentle voice, ‘it’s good if we can find a way to say sorry.’
‘Did you say sorry, Finn?’ asked Eden.
Finn turned and looked at Eden and shook his head.
‘Are you going to apologise?’
Finn looked down.
‘That’s a really bad thing to do, Finn,’ said Eden. ‘Biting someone.’
‘We’ve asked Finn to fill in a Reflection Sheet so he can think about what he did and decide what he could have done better next time, haven’t we, Finn?’
Finn remained silent.
‘Perhaps you can help him with that, Mr Driscoll?’
Eden looked at the boy. It was as if he wasn’t even listening.
‘Don’t take it too seriously,’ said the head teacher. ‘He’s had a terrible time. But it’s our policy to always meet with parents if this kind of thing happens.’
‘Is the other child all right?’ asked Eden.
‘He’s a bit sore, but,’ the head teacher did his best to sound reassuring, ‘I’m sure he’ll be OK.’
Outside, in the corridor, Finn walked on ahead. ‘Wait.’ Eden reached out and took his shoulder to stop him. ‘What did he do?’
‘He was annoying. He tried to steal my chocolate. The one in my lunchbox.’
‘But biting,’ said Eden. ‘You can’t do that.’
Jackie was out in the corridor, her expression sympathetic. ‘It’ll all blow over,’ she told Eden. ‘It probably didn’t help that it was Cyrus that he bit.’
Finn walked on ahead again, towards the double doors at the end of the corridor.
‘Cyrus?’
Jackie pulled a comical face. ‘Pam’s son.’
‘Pamela’s son? Oh, Christ. That’s not funny.’
She laughed. ‘You’ll have to get used to it. It comes with the territory.’
‘God – the politics of it. And you’re planning on getting deeper into all this, becoming a schoolteacher?’ he asked her.
‘A teaching assistant.’
‘Why the hell would you do that? Are you mad?’
He meant the question to sound light, but Jackie answered seriously, ‘We need the money, that’s why, and there’s not much else you can do without having to get someone to look after your child. Listen. I’ll keep an eye out for Finn, I promise. All the teachers are looking out for him. He’s a good boy. They understand it’s not easy for him right now.’
Eden caught up with Finn and they walked in silence back to Eden’s Audi.
When they got in, Eden looked in the rear-view mirror at Finn buckling himself up. ‘It’s OK to be angry,’ said Eden. ‘But it’s not OK to hurt people.’
Finn looked sideways, out of the window, pretending not to have heard.
‘You called. What now?’ On the phone, Sweet’s voice was terse.
‘Last week, as far as I could see – before Finn was abducted – you weren’t treating my sister’s disappearance as a serious crime.’
‘Of course we were taking it seriously, Eden. I hope you don’t think for a second that we weren’t.’
‘That’s not what I meant. As far as I could see, you were treating it as a death by misadventure.’
‘That’s true,’ said Sweet.
‘So why did you impound her car?’
There was a pause.
‘What did you say?’
‘I went to pick up Apple’s Toyota from the garage up at the Broadmeadow Industrial Estate. Apparently you beat me to it.’
Another silence. Then: ‘I have no idea at all what you’re talking about, Eden.’
Eden was puzzled too now. ‘The mechanic said…’ Eden heard Sweet tapping at a keyboard.
‘I’ve just checked. The only reason we would have impounded it was if it was part of our investigation. There’s nothing about anyone requesting your sister’s car for any reason. Which garage did you say your sister left her car at?’
Alarm bells ringing loudly now, Eden ended the call. Whoever had picked up the vehicle had shown the garage a document of some kind. Either someone impersonating a police officer had picked up the car – or worse, an actual police officer had.
When the phone rang again later, after Finn was in bed, Eden was relieved to see DI Kadakia’s name on the screen. He was sitting on the small sofa with a can of beer, looking forward to a chat with his boss and a chance to talk about the world he understood.
But Sammy’s voice was brusque. ‘I have bad news. Hasina Hossein is refusing to testify against Ronan Pan,’ he said.
Thirty
‘What happened?’ Eden asked his boss.
‘She changed her mind.’
This was a blow. Without her evidence, there was no case against Pan. ‘How did he get to her? It must have been him, right?’
‘I don’t know how,’ said Sammy. ‘But she’s stopped talking to us. You’re right. She’s frightened of something.’
‘I should have been there.’ Eden had worked so hard to win Hasina’s trust, to keep her whereabouts a secret. If Eden had stayed in London he would have been able to keep his eye on her – and her relations. He should have guessed how Pan would operate, but he had been distracted.
‘You couldn’t be here, Eden. You have other stuff going on. But there’s something else too.’ He could hear the hesitation in Sammy’s voice. ‘He’s made a complaint to the IOPC.’
‘What? Ronan Pan has made a complaint to the Independent Office for Police Conduct?’
‘A complaint about you. Pan claims you assaulted him.’
Eden remembered the look that had been on the young officer’s face when she told him ‘you were hitting him pretty hard.’
‘I have to ask this, Eden. Did you assault him?’ asked Sammy.
Eden blinked. ‘I was worried he was going to assault PC Ali. Why is this being taken seriously?’
‘Because the IOPC say there is an officer who is willing to testify that they saw you hitting Ronan Pan.’
That was another bombshell. DC Ali had said she would not put it in her report, but she had obviously changed her mind.
‘Don’t you have anything to say?’
‘Is this an investigation already, Sammy?’
He could hear Sammy’s unease. ‘I’m asking because I’m worried about you.’
‘Right,’ said Eden. He looked around the room, at the child’s drawings on the wall. ‘I did hit him, yes. And it’s possible that I may have used too much force.’
Sammy took an audible breath. ‘I see.’ And then another. ‘Thank you for being honest. You know what will happen if they find against you.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘It’s a ploy by his lawyer, obviously. But…’
‘We drop the case against him, he drops the case against us?’
‘Something like that,’ said Sammy. ‘Anyway. That’s our problem, not yours right now. I don’t want you to worry about this. You have enough on your plate. How are you doing?’
‘Something’s off here. I can’t figure it out. And the boy hates me.’
Bedtime with Finn had not gone well. Eden had bought a couple of children’s books from the Oxfam shop in the middle of the town and had tried reading them to Finn, but Finn had not been interested. ‘They are rubbish,’ he had said.
‘He’s struggling to control his emotions. And I feel like telling the children’s team that I am struggling to look after him.’
‘Steady,’ said Sammy. ‘Don’t burn your bridges yet, Eden.’
There was a noise behind him. He turned to see Finn standing at the bottom of the stairs. He was glaring at Eden.
‘None of it is ever easy,’ Sammy was saying. ‘I saw on the news that they had found your sister’s body. I’m sorry.’
‘Hold on. I have to go,’ Eden interrupted, wondering how much of that Finn had heard.
‘Phone me back when you can, OK?’
Eden ended the call. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’ he asked the boy.
Dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of sleeping shorts, Finn shook his head.
‘Do you want me to take you back upstairs?’
Finn looked up at Eden. ‘Do I have to say sorry to Cyrus?’
Eden stood. ‘Do you not want to say sorry to him?’
Again, the shake of the head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to if you’re not sorry. But you should say sorry to the head teacher maybe for what you did. It’s never good to bite people, Finn.’
‘You’re a policeman. Don’t you ever hurt people?’
Stung, Eden wondered how much of the conversation he’d heard. ‘I don’t bite them. I might have to restrain them.’
‘Same thing,’ said Finn, still standing at the bottom of the steep staircase.
‘Well… no. Not really. Restraining someone is holding them back from doing something.’
‘I was restraining Cyrus from stealing my chocolate.’
‘Right.’ Eden suddenly felt exhausted. First someone was muddying the trail of evidence around his sister’s disappearance and now, after all the work he had put in in London, Ronan Pan was going to walk away a free man. ‘I’m sorry. It’s good you stood up for yourself. That’s important. But try and do it with less biting.’
‘OK.’
‘Back up to bed, then.’
‘Not tired.’ Finn sat down on the bottom stair.
Eden felt lost. He did not know how to handle children. He was no good at this.
‘Who’s going to look after me next?’
‘What do you mean, next?’
‘When you’ve gone? Who’s going to look after me then?’
Eden took a sip from his can of beer. ‘Wouldn’t you like to be part of a real family, a proper one, maybe with brothers and sisters?’
Finn thought about that for a while. ‘Would that mean I have to go somewhere different?’
‘Would you like that?’
‘No.’
‘How would you know?’
Finn’s face hardened. Eden didn’t know what to do, except put his drink down, sit on the stair next to the boy, nudging him aside to make space, and put his arm around him. To his surprise, the boy leaned into him, just a fraction. The two of them sat like that, together, for what seemed like a long time.
On Tuesday at the school gate, Eden said to Finn, ‘I’ve put two chocolate bars in your backpack. If you want to you can give one to Cyrus.’
‘Can I have it myself?’
‘If you like. Just don’t bite him again.’
‘I’ll put poison in it and give it to him,’ Finn said, his face perfectly straight.
‘OK.’
Walking back to his car, Eden was surprised to see that there were two police officers in the car that had been surveilling him – and one of them was Sweet.
‘Hello, Mike,’ Eden greeted him, leaning down to the open window.
‘Nice weather, now the rain has finally stopped,’ said Sweet.
‘Is it?’ answered Eden.
‘We’d like to ask you a few questions,’ Sweet continued.
‘What kind of questions?’
‘The sort of questions people ask at a police station,’ answered Sweet with a note of apology in his voice.
A formal on-the-record interview. Eden nodded. ‘I’m happy to do that, obviously.’
‘Good. Good.’ Sweet rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, let’s get this done so we can all get on with our happy little lives. This officer can show you the way.’
The officer Eden didn’t recognise behind the wheel got out. ‘I’ll direct you to the station,’ he explained.
‘I can probably find it myself,’ said Eden.
‘Easier this way,’ replied the officer.
Yesterday had been bad enough with the news about Ronan Pan. Today was already worse.
‘Excuse me,’ said Sweet, opening his car door a little. Eden stood back to let him get out. Sweet walked round the car and took the other officer’s place behind the wheel.
‘What have you got that you’re not telling me?’ asked Eden, but Sweet already had the engine whirring and was indicating to pull out.
‘Sir?’ said the officer. ‘Your car, then. Shall we go?’
Thirty-One
By the station, DS Sweet meant the HQ in Exeter. The police officer sat in Eden’s passenger seat as he drove down dual carriageways and around roundabouts.
It was a shiny new police headquarters, a modern block, big and very square, a bit like an Amazon warehouse, with none of the gravitas of the old red-brick HQ Eden guessed it would have replaced. Eden wondered if its big alternating vertical stripes of black and white were supposed to remind visitors of the black and white pattern on a police hat.
‘In Auxilium Omnium,’ read Eden, looking at the motto on the giant crest printed on the glass next to the front door.
‘Helping everyone,’ explained the copper.
‘I thought it might mean, “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”’
‘Sorry?’ The policeman didn’t crack a smile.
After they’d checked him in at the front desk, the officer led Eden down corridors and into a lift where they stood awkwardly together until he delivered Eden into a bland meeting room with brightly coloured chairs. ‘Sergeant Sweet will be with you shortly,’ he said and disappeared.
Sweet arrived a few minutes later, two other officers by his side, a plastic folder in his hands. He introduced them and they shook hands. It was all very dry and formal.
‘Well?’ Eden asked.
Sweet gave a little smile. ‘During the course of our investigations a couple of things have come up. We need to discuss them.’
‘A couple of things?’
‘Do you mind coming this way?’ one of the other men asked, opening the door wide.
Eden was marched down the corridor, through a security door, towards the custody suite. The interview room was much like any other he had worked in: a table, chairs, microphone on the table and an IP camera mounted on the ceiling.
