Cold Justice (Willis/Carter #4)(70)

‘Huh?’ Willis frowned at him.

‘You know . . . it can sense your fear. If you’re not confident it knows. It can kill you just like that.’ He snapped his fingers in the air.

‘Thanks, very reassuring.’

Carter looked out of his side window. There were a couple of children digging away at the top of the beach.

‘This must be a great place to grow up in many ways.’

‘Yes, but it’s all a bit suffocating here, don’t you think? I spoke to Mawgan – she implies her childhood was anything but nice. She says the village is turning against Kensa. She admitted to travelling back with Kensa in the car.’

‘I saw you put out an alert for Mawgan’s car.’

‘Yes, hopefully it won’t be long till it’s found.’

‘Did Mawgan look like she knew where Samuel is?’

‘She said she didn’t see him in the car; could he have survived in the boot?’

‘Yes, wrapped up, sedated,’ answered Carter. ‘If Kensa did kill Samuel and dump his body in London before she left, she would have known where she was going and how to get there unnoticed. There’s no sign of her at the local stations to the cemetery or Greenwich. Is she really capable of planning this? Are we really thinking she could have organized this?’

‘She’s not really as naive as we think. She manages to get herself dressed now and again. She goes to town by the sounds of it and she drove to the funeral. Maybe somewhere along the line she knows London,’ said Willis. ‘But also, she went there to talk to Toby and she didn’t achieve that at the funeral. She could have followed him back home and to the music shop and then chickened out, or got angry and decided she didn’t want to talk to him, she actually wanted to destroy him. His son is outside, left in the cold, and she snatches him. We know she has the car so she doesn’t have to carry him far.’

‘Robbo still hasn’t found any footage of her in Greenwich itself,’ added Willis.

‘It was a busy day; lots of crowds.’ Carter shrugged.

‘Revenge?’

Carter looked perplexed. ‘Possible, but she’s such a loose cannon. If she took him, God knows what she had in mind.’

‘She wants to see Toby – we should make him come down. She went all the way to London to speak to him.’

‘What about Raymonds? We know he was in Greenwich. He insisted on coming back on his own and he hangs about a service station, waiting for what? Marky and Jago, or someone else? Someone to take the boy off his hands maybe?’

‘He’s one of the prime suspects – he’s up there with about ten others,’ Willis sighed, ‘because then there’s Marky and Jago.’

‘Yeah, they called in at the services but didn’t even get out of the car. Where did they go then?’

‘Robbo’s finding that out.’

‘But if it’s Raymonds, then why?’ asked Carter.

‘It will be some power game that he’s playing,’ answered Willis. ‘It’ll be all about control and him choosing the rules of the game. He must be mad that Jeremy Forbes-Wright died like he did. He must have thought Toby wouldn’t dare alter the arrangement; after all, it’s haunted Toby all his life as well as Kensa’s.’

‘But they have no choice with death duties,’ said Carter. ‘The price offered – five hundred thousand – isn’t enough but it surprises me they have it in the kitty. I suppose the house must have been very lucrative, a lot of them must have been paying guests. What do you think, Eb?’

‘I think Jeremy Forbes-Wright wanted to make a statement in his death. He wanted to leave them all with a heap of problems. This was his idea of fun and maybe, in his own way, he was trying to make amends for the past.’

‘By leaving Toby in all this trouble?’

‘By exposing this place.’ Willis was looking at the sign beside them:

PLEASE DON’T FEED THE GULLS,

IT MAKES THEM AGGRESSIVE –

THEY SEE HUMANS AS FOOD!!





‘Nice!’ she said out loud. ‘Sums this place up – even the birds will rip you apart given half the chance. Kensa paints quite a picture of this community. Raymonds virtually told her that if she wanted to hold her head up ever again then she should forget about making any charges.’

‘Why would he do that when he hates Londoners coming down and spoiling his little world? It would have been a perfect opportunity to stitch up an MP? Now, with JFW gone, he must be trying to think of a way to salvage the situation. He’s maybe thinking about a little bit of blackmail if there were escorts involved and VIPs.’

‘Profit, lies, secrets – something happened in that house,’ answered Willis.

‘Absolutely,’ replied Carter. ‘Raymonds says that the community look after one another and to hell with everyone else. He may be retired from the Force, but he’s still the one dishing out the orders. He’s built himself quite a dictatorship here.’

‘That’s a lot to look after, guv.’

‘It’s a big responsibility, isn’t it? How long before someone tries to overthrow you?’

‘We know from Toby that there were five of them left the beach to come back to the house. Can we open an investigation into the rape?’ asked Willis.